第46章

She looked down on them, as they advanced across the garden, from the serene height of her unassailable happiness.There they were, coming toward her in the mild morning light, her child, her step-son, her promised husband: the three beings who filled her life.She smiled a little at the happy picture they presented, Effie's gambols encircling it in a moving frame within which the two men came slowly forward in the silence of friendly understanding.It seemed part of the deep intimacy of the scene that they should not be talking to each other, and it did not till afterward strike her as odd that neither of them apparently felt it necessary to address a word to Sophy Viner.

Anna herself, at the moment, was floating in the mid-current of felicity, on a tide so bright and buoyant that she seemed to be one with its warm waves.The first rush of bliss had stunned and dazzled her; but now that, each morning, she woke to the calm certainty of its recurrence, she was growing used to the sense of security it gave.

"I feel as if I could trust my happiness to carry me; as if it had grown out of me like wings." So she phrased it to Darrow, as, later in the morning, they paced the garden-paths together.His answering look gave her the same assurance of safety.The evening before he had seemed preoccupied, and the shadow of his mood had faintly encroached on the great golden orb of their blessedness; but now it was uneclipsed again, and hung above them high and bright as the sun at noon.

Upstairs in her sitting-room, that afternoon, she was thinking of these things.The morning mists had turned to rain, compelling the postponement of an excursion in which the whole party were to have joined.Effie, with her governess, had been despatched in the motor to do some shopping at Francheuil; and Anna had promised Darrow to join him, later in the afternoon, for a quick walk in the rain.

He had gone to his room after luncheon to get some belated letters off his conscience; and when he had left her she had continued to sit in the same place, her hands crossed on her knees, her head slightly bent, in an attitude of brooding retrospection.As she looked back at her past life, it seemed to her to have consisted of one ceaseless effort to pack into each hour enough to fill out its slack folds; but now each moment was like a miser's bag stretched to bursting with pure gold.

She was roused by the sound of Owen's step in the gallery outside her room.It paused at her door and in answer to his knock she called out "Come in!"As the door closed behind him she was struck by his look of pale excitement, and an impulse of compunction made her say:

"You've come to ask me why I haven't spoken to your grandmother!"He sent about him a glance vaguely reminding her of the strange look with which Sophy Viner had swept the room the night before; then his brilliant eyes came back to her.

"I've spoken to her myself," he said.

Anna started up, incredulous.

"You've spoken to her? When?"

"Just now.I left her to come here."

Anna's first feeling was one of annoyance.There was really something comically incongruous in this boyish surrender to impulse on the part of a young man so eager to assume the responsibilities of life.She looked at him with a faintly veiled amusement.

"You asked me to help you and I promised you I would.It was hardly worth while to work out such an elaborate plan of action if you intended to take the matter out of my hands without telling me.""Oh, don't take that tone with me!" he broke out, almost angrily.

"That tone? What tone?" She stared at his quivering face.

"I might," she pursued, still half-laughing, "more properly make that request of YOU!"Owen reddened and his vehemence suddenly subsided.

"I meant that I HAD to speak--that's all.You don't give me a chance to explain..."She looked at him gently, wondering a little at her own impatience.

"Owen! Don't I always want to give you every chance? It's because I DO that I wanted to talk to your grandmother first--that I was waiting and watching for the right moment...""The right moment? So was I.That's why I've spoken." His voice rose again and took the sharp edge it had in moments of high pressure.

His step-mother turned away and seated herself in her sofa-corner."Oh, my dear, it's not a privilege to quarrel over!

You've taken a load off my shoulders.Sit down and tell me all about it."He stood before her, irresolute."I can't sit down," he said.

"Walk about, then.Only tell me: I'm impatient."His immediate response was to throw himself into the armchair at her side, where he lounged for a moment without speaking, his legs stretched out, his arms locked behind his thrown-back head.Anna, her eyes on his face, waited quietly for him to speak.

"Well--of course it was just what one expected.""She takes it so badly, you mean?"

"All the heavy batteries were brought up: my father, Givre, Monsieur de Chantelle, the throne and the altar.Even my poor mother was dragged out of oblivion and armed with imaginary protests."Anna sighed out her sympathy."Well--you were prepared for all that?""I thought I was, till I began to hear her say it.Then it sounded so incredibly silly that I told her so.""Oh, Owen--Owen!"

"Yes: I know.I was a fool; but I couldn't help it.""And you've mortally offended her, I suppose? That's exactly what I wanted to prevent." She laid a hand on his shoulder.

"You tiresome boy, not to wait and let me speak for you!"He moved slightly away, so that her hand slipped from its place."You don't understand," he said, frowning.

"I don't see how I can, till you explain.If you thought the time had come to tell your grandmother, why not have asked me to do it? I had my reasons for waiting; but if you'd told me to speak I should have done so, naturally."He evaded her appeal by a sudden turn."What WERE your reasons for waiting?"Anna did not immediately answer.Her step-son's eyes were on her face, and under his gaze she felt a faint disquietude.

"I was feeling my way...I wanted to be absolutely sure...""Absolutely sure of what?"