The Gay Cockade Part 55

He laughed, but knew it true. Anne's imagination met his in a rather remarkable fas.h.i.+on. When they walked through Statuary Hall they saw not Fulton and Pere Marquette and Carroll of Carrollton; they saw, rather, a thousand s.h.i.+ps issuing forth on the steam of a teakettle; they saw civilization following a black-frocked prophet; they saw aristocracy raising its voice in the interest of democracy.

As for the mysterious whispering echo, they repudiated all talk of acoustics. It was for them an eerie thing, like the laughter of elves or the shriek of a banshee.

"Don't say every-day things to me," Anne had instructed Maxwell when he had first placed her behind a mottled marble pillar before leaving for the spot where he could speak to her by this unique wireless.

There came to her, therefore, a part of a famous speech; the murmured words flung back by that strange sounding board rang like a bell:

"Give me liberty or give me death!"

She emerged from her corner, starry-eyed. "It was as if I heard him say it."

"Perhaps it was he, and I was only a mouthpiece."

"I should think they'd like to come back. Will you come?"

He laughed. "Who knows? I'll come if you are here."

To have brought a third into these adventures would have robbed them of charm. Knowing this he argued that the child was safe with him. Why worry?

They always lunched together before he took her up to the Members'

Gallery, and went himself to the floor of the House. He let her order what she pleased and liked The definite way in which she did it. They had usually, chops and peas, or steak, and ice-cream at the end.

III

Then suddenly; things stopped. The reason that they stopped was Murray.

He saw Anne one day in the House Gallery and asked Amy about it.

"How did she happen to be up there alone?"

Amy asked Anne. Anne told the truth.

"I've had lunch three times with Mr. Sears, and I've listened to his speeches. It's something about the League of Nations. He believes in it, but thinks we've got to be careful about tying ourselves up."

Amy did not care in the least what Maxwell Sears believed. The thing that worried her was Murray. She wanted him to approve of Anne. If Amy had thought in a less limited circle she might have worked the thing out that if Maxwell married Anne it would narrow Murray's choice down to herself and Ethel. But there was always that vague fear of some outside siren who would capture Murray. If he had Anne, he would then be safely in the family.

She realized, in the days following the revelation of the clandestine meetings with Maxwell, that Murray was depending upon her to see that Anne's affections did not stray into forbidden paths. He said as much one afternoon when he found Amy alone in an atmosphere of old portraits, old books, old bronzes. She sat in a Jacobean chair and poured tea for him. The ma.s.sive lines of the chair made her proportions seem wraithlike. Her white face with its fixed spots of red was a high light among the shadows.

"Where's Anne?"

"She and Ethel have gone to the matinee with Molly Winch.e.l.l."

"Why didn't you go?"

"Molly never takes but two of us and, of course, this is Anne's first winter out. I have to step back--and let her have her chance."

He chose to be gallant. "You are always lovely, Amy."

His compliment fell cold. Amy felt old and tired. She had a pain in her side. It had been getting very bad of late, and she coughed at night.

She had been to her doctor, and again he had emphasized the need of a change of climate and of nouris.h.i.+ng food. Amy had come away unconvinced.

She would have a chance in July when she and her sisters would go to the Eastern Sh.o.r.e for their annual visit to their Aunt Elizabeth. As for different food, she ate enough--all the doctors in the world couldn't make her spend any more money on the table.

Murray stood up very straight by the mantelpiece, under the portrait of one of the Merryman great-grandfathers in a bag wig, and talked of Anne:

"I believe I am falling in love with her, Amy."

Amy's heart said, "It has come at last." Her brain said, "He has discovered it because of Maxwell Sears." Her lips said, "I don't wonder.

She's a dear child, Murray."

"She's beautiful."

Murray swayed up a little on his toes. It made him seem thinner and taller. He could see himself reflected in the long mirror on the opposite wall. He liked the reflection of the thin tall man.

"She's beautiful, Amy. I am going to ask her to marry me. I can't have some other fellow running off with her. She belongs to Georgetown."

He seemed to think that settled it. The pain in Amy's side was sharper.

She felt that she couldn't quite stand seeing Murray happy with Anne.

"She's--she's such a child." Her voice shook.

"Well," said Murray, glancing at the tall thin man in the mirror, "of course she is young. But Maxwell Sears is coming here a lot. Is he in love with her?"

"I'm not sure. She amuses him. She isn't in love with him or with anybody."

"Not even with me?" Murray laughed a little. "But we can remedy that, can't we, Amy? But you might hint at what I'm expecting of her. I don't want to startle her." He came and sat down beside her. "You are always a great dear about doing things for me."

The pain stabbed her like a knife. "I'll do my best."

She had a nervous feeling that she must keep Murray from talking to her like that. She rang for hot water, and their one maid, Charlotte, brought it in a Sheffield jug. Then Ethel and Anne and Molly Winch.e.l.l arrived, and once more Murray stood up, tall and self-conscious as he stole side glances at himself in the mirror.

Maxwell Sears had brought the three women home. He had a fas.h.i.+on of following up Anne's engagements and putting his car at her disposal.

When Amy had vetoed any more adventures at the Capitol he had conceded good-naturedly that she was right. After that he had always included Amy or Ethel in his invitations.

"They are very pretty dragons," he had written to Winifred, "and little Anne is like a princess shut in a tower."

Winifred, reading the letter, had brooded upon it. "He's falling in love. A child like that--she'll spoil his future."

Congress was having night sessions. "If I could only have you up there,"

Maxwell had said to Anne as he had driven her home from the matinee, with old Molly and Ethel on the back seat. "I should steal you if I dared."

"Please dare."

"Do you mean it?"

"Yes. To-night. Ethel and Amy are going to a Colonial Dames meeting with Molly Winch.e.l.l. I never go. I hate ancestors."