She would have overslept again had it not been for the faithful maid with her coffee. She sprang out of bed at once, a trifle disburdened by the thought of a long ramble alone in the early morning, and, postponing her swim in the tanks below until her return, dressed so hurriedly that had hats been in vogue hers no doubt would have gone on back foremost. She was feverishly afraid of being intercepted, although such a thing had never occurred, the other women being far too elegant to rise so early, and a proper sense of decorum forbidding the young men to offer their escort.

The sea had never been a stiller, hotter blue, the mountain more golden, the sky more like an opening rose. But she strode on seeing nothing. Sleep had given her no rest and she was in a torment of spirit that was a new experience in her uneventful life. She recalled the angry astonished eyes of Warner as she danced with all the abandon of a girl at her first ball. No doubt he had thought her vain and frivolous, the average young lady at whose approach he fled when he could. No doubt he thought her in love with Abergenny, whose habit of turning female heads was well known to him, and upon whom she had certainly beamed good will. No doubt he had expected her to manage to pass him, knowing his diffidence, and offer her congratulations; whereas she had taken no notice of him whatever. No doubt--oh, no doubt--he had rushed off in a fury of disappointment and disgust, and all the good work of the past weeks had been undone, all her plans of meeting him a year hence as handsome and fine a man as he had every right to be, were frustrated.

She had for some time past detected signs that apathy was gradually relieving a naturally fine spirit of its heavy burden, that his weary indifference was giving place to a watchful alertness, which in spite of the old mask he continued to wear, occasionally manifested itself in a flash of the eye or a quiver of the nostril. Anne could not doubt that he loved her, inexperienced in such matters as she might be. However she may have kept him at a distance her thoughts had seldom left him, and he had betrayed himself in a hundred ways.

Had she been half interested in Hunsdon or Abergenny and they had been so unreasonable as to rush off and disappear merely because she had enjoyed her first ball-room triumphs as any girl must, she would have been both derisive and angry at the liberty; but Warner inspired no such feminine ebullition. He was a great and sacred responsibility, one, moreover, that she had assumed voluntarily. That he had unexpectedly fallen in love with her but deepened this responsibility, and she had betrayed her trust, she had betrayed her trust!




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024