Where are his eyes?"
"Please, Anna!"
"It's better as it is, no doubt, for both of you. But it's
superhuman of Peter. I wonder--"
"Yes?"
"I think I'll not tell you what I wonder."
And Harmony, rather afraid of Anna's frank speech, did not
insist.
As she drank her tea and made a pretense at eating, Anna's
thoughts wandered from Peter to Harmony to the letter in her belt
and back again to Peter and Harmony. For some time she had been
suspicious of Peter. From her dozen years of advantage in age and
experience she looked down on Peter's thirty years of youth, and
thought she knew something that Peter himself did not suspect.
Peter being unintrospective, Anna did his heart-searching for
him. She believed he was madly in love with Harmony and did not
himself suspect it. As she watched the girl over her teacup,
revealing herself in a thousand unposed gestures of youth and
grace, a thousand lovelinesses, something of the responsibility
she and Peter had assumed came over her. She sighed and felt for
her letter.
"I've had rather bad news," she said at last.
"From home?"
"Yes. My father--did you know I have a father?"
"You hadn't spoken of him."
"I never do. As a father he hasn't amounted to much. But he's
very ill, and--I 've a conscience."
Harmony turned a startled face to her.
"You are not going back to America?"
"Oh, no, not now, anyhow. If I become hag ridden with remorse and
do go I'll find some one to take my place.
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