Miss Page

“ Then abruptly, after a moment, “I wish I could give Madge the life that would suit her!” he exclaimed, jerking out the words awkwardly.
Miss Page waited a moment. “What do you think would suit her?” she asked gently.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “She wants to live in London, you know. She [83] wants a gayer life. But I should be no use in town. I shouldn’t make a living even. I haven’t the manner. It’s as much as I can do to hold my own here.”
“Every one who knows you, ends by being thankful to find a splendid friend as well as an excellent doctor,” returned Anne. ”

“ She was expecting friends to dinner, but unable to resist the temptation of the garden, she had wandered from the drawing-room into the sweet evening air. She wore a dress the colour of which, in its shades of grey-green and purple, might have been suggested by the lavender in the borders. It was a graceful flowing dress; beautiful naturally, inevitably. Anne Page possessed the gift of surrounding herself with everything that was exquisite, as simply as a flower surrounds itself with leaves and dainty buds. ”

“ Mother and father will be very angry, I’m afraid, but I can’t help it. It’s too good to lose, and one can’t sacrifice the whole of one’s future because of one’s parents. Besides later on, they will see how wise I’ve been. Oh dear Miss Page, when are you coming back? I want to see you so much, because by that time everything will be settled, and I can tell you all about it. I’m too excited to write any more. Only I want you very badly. Do, do come home soon.
“Your ever loving
“Sylvia.”
Anne returned the note to its envelope with a slightly worried look. ”

“ François smiled as he looked up from his drawing, and met her blue eyes, candid as a child’s, but a woman’s eyes nevertheless.
“Sweet Anne Page!” he exclaimed. “Why shouldn’t he find the right wife? The chances are a million to one against it. Even if she exists. She would have to be a miracle of self-sacrifice and comprehension, and tact and wisdom, if she were not to stand in his way. René is an artist to his finger tips, and if only out of consideration for women, no great artist should marry. No! René must always love and ride away. ”

“ Even before she kissed her, Anne had time to notice the worried look on the girl’s face, which robbed it of its youthful prettiness.
“Oh!” she gasped. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come in time, and I didn’t know what to do, or how to get out of it. Oh! I’m so thankful to see you, Miss Page. Sit down. [284] Do sit down—if you can find a place,” she added, trying to laugh.
Anne chose the bed as the only available spot.
“My dear child, what’s the matter?” she exclaimed. “You’re packing, I suppose. Where are you going?”
“To—America,” returned Sylvia, with a gulp. ”

“ The wood fire crackled, and the lamp illumined the comfortable room with its fifteenth-century beams overhead, its panelled walls and its red-covered sofa and chairs.
“Anne Page is not a woman to fool with,” [196] said François at last. He was thinking of what she had once said, sitting in the sunshine of the garden. “Then an artist ought to keep out of the way of any woman who cares. ”

“ Julia said sombrely. She gave Barbara one grave, almost resentful, look, straightened her hat and fluffed up her hair, and went away. Barbara looked after her, and thought that Carter was a beast, and that there was something very pitiful about common little ignorant Miss Page, and that she wouldn't tell the girls about this, and give them one more cause to laugh at the little actress. For Barbara Toland was a conscientious girl, and very seriously impressed with the gravity of her own responsibility toward other people. ”

“ Carfax entered a room bright with fire and candle-light, in which her husband sat comfortably ensconced in an arm-chair opposite to Miss Page, who was passing him hot cakes of a delicious crispness.
Anne went quickly across the room.
“It’s quite right. Don’t worry,” she hastened to say, as she kissed her visitor. “I’m just telling your husband all about it.”
“Sylvia must come home!” declared her [309] mother, after Anne’s recital. Her hand was still trembling as she put down her tea-cup. “She’s not fit to be left alone in a great wicked city. ”

“ You girls seem to have a mutual admiration society. Miss Page, according to Dr. Allison, is as enthusiastic about my girls as my girls are about his girl.
I am intensely gratified that the three of you have kept up with the poor scared child we met on the train. Such a wholesome trio would be [143] sure to be good for the timid, miserable little thing. You must ask her to come to see us in Richmond if you have not already done so.
I am sending you a box of goodies for your day-after-Thanksgiving spread. ”

“ Indefinitely she felt that it was on a higher level than usual; the sort of conversation to which Dymfield was unaccustomed.
The Frenchman talked with the vivacity, the wealth of phrase and imagery common to his race, and Miss Page talked too, eagerly, fluently, leaning a little forward, as though enjoying a much-loved rarely indulged delight.
Dr. Dakin, roused at last from his dreaming, also sat upright, glancing from one to the other, throwing in now and again a question or a comment which was often seized upon appreciatively to form fresh material for conversation. Mrs. ”

“ Yes, Zura, grape juice is what I said. Page can drink every gallon I have if he wants it, and I'll toast cheese and crackers for him all night."
[Pg 216] The twist in Jane Gray's tongue might lead to laughter, but her heart never missed the road to thoughtful kindness.
Very soon Page said he felt much better and would get home and to bed. When he took his coat and hat from the hall he looked so weak, so near to illness, I begged him to stay and let us care for him. He gently refused, saying he would be all right in the morning. I followed him to the gate. He turned to say good-night. ”

“ Page says if she would let herself go she would be the most popular teacher in school, but as it is, while she is not unpopular, she is not regarded at all. She is awfully interesting but the girls don't know it. They know she has a good voice and teaches with good method but she might as well be a phonograph for all the human interest they have in her. She is coach for the backward and wayward in Math. I believe Page Allison will have to have her, and I bet on Page for drawing her out.
I tell you that girl has done wonders with Annie Pore. ”

“ I don’t like religion.
“Miss Atkins says she loves God, and I asked her whether father did. She was shocked, and said of course he did, because he was a curate. I wish he loved me, but I don’t think he does. He is nearly always cross, and I’m always being punished.”
Miss Page let the book fall on to her lap. Mechanically she turned her face towards the meadows with their islands of motionless trees emerging from the mists. ”

“ Blessing on your heart for ’t!
FALSTAFF.
But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford’s wife and Page’s wife acquainted each other how they love me?
MISTRESS QUICKLY.
That were a jest indeed! They have not so little grace, I hope. That were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves. Her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page; and, truly, Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does. ”

“ Every little girl, every old woman that he passed in the street, made him think of Julia, and when he passed a young man and woman full of concern for, and of shy pride in, their lumpy baby in its embroidered coat, a wave of divine envy swept Mark from head to foot. ”

“ You, also, are a student of psychology, doctor, and it has always seemed to me that Anne Page is a singularly interesting study.
“Nowadays in this age of modern thought, perhaps I should rather say in this age of fads and cranks, through which men and women are groping towards a different conception of life, her conduct would not have been so amazing. ”

“ Anne Page was always young, in the sense that the brooks and the hawthorn-trees and the roses are always young.”
The smile was still on his lips, and Mrs. Dakin blushed.
“Oh yes, I know,” she began hurriedly. “One never thinks of age with regard to her. I didn’t mean that exactly.”
“He must have been in love with her!” The idea ran into the undercurrent of her thoughts. “Perhaps he is still. It would be awfully romantic. And not absurd at all,” she added, as a sudden mental supplement. “Sweet Anne Page is quite pretty.” ”

“ They are most attractive young women—welcome everywhere—and indefatigable. Mrs. Page has them spend one afternoon a week with her, rolling bandages; and that regular meeting always yields something else. ”

“ They are dear people. I can’t tell you half their kindness to me.”
“It’s not difficult to be kind to sweet Anne Page.”
She gave him a quick glance. “It’s nice to hear the old name again.”
“No name ever suited a woman better. So you can live with the inhabitants of Dymfield without boring yourself to extinction? But of course you can. I never saw you bored.”
“Boredom is a modern disease, isn’t it? And you know I am not a modern woman.” ”

“ A cynic might have smiled at the simplicity of her reasoning. Not one thought of her changed circumstances entered into her reflections. She did not consider that Anne Page the penniless companion was a very different being [207] from Anne Page the lady of great means. To her mind it only affected the situation in so far that it gave her freedom; made it possible for her to follow her own course without burdening man, woman, or child. It was only courage that was necessary. Courage to stake high, and not to shrink when sooner or later the odds should turn against her. ”

“ He was thinking she looked as well in her tam-o’-shanter, short skirt, and blouse, with linen collar and cuffs, as anything he had ever seen her in. Compared with some of the resplendent beauties he had admired, she was as the cosy fireside is to the marble palace, or the fragrant violet is to the dazzling poppies. And then for a moment on the mountain side, with the fresh blowing winds, and the fragrance, and the loveliness of the lake and mountains, an unusually soft mood seemed to take possession of him, and something apart from her beauty to stir his pulses and rest his senses. ”

“ There was an atmosphere of inconsequent mirth in the group, which dissolved his mood immediately. The women, smartly dressed, bubbling with spirit, quick with repartee—Keith and Fernigan, their sparkling dialogue interrupted, waiting for another auditor—even Sully, prosperous, good-natured, hospitably making him welcome—the group attracted him, rejuvenated him, enveloped him with their frivolity. The party was in the first effervescence of its enthusiasm. Mrs. Page was at her sprightly best, impellent, a gorgeous animal. ”

“ Anne’s was not the usual case; he could imagine no one further from the type of woman who with sang-froid watches the departing cavalier.
The idea was preposterous, ludicrous to entertain side by side with the idea of Anne [181] Page. If Anne fell in love—heavens! if Anne fell in love!
His brain almost ceased working at the bare notion.
“René would be done for,” he reflected incoherently. “I know his idiocy where women are concerned. And if a woman like Anne Page falls in love, there’ll be the devil to pay! He’d have to marry her. A woman years older than himself. ”

“ Miss Mary having the greater intuition, was the first to offer a solution. “Can it be Eileen?” she asked with dread—“Eileen and Lawrence Blake?”
They looked into each other’s eyes with a sudden sense of awakening.
“Surely not—” murmured Miss Jane, but her face belied her words.
“Oh, sister,” breathed little tender-hearted Miss Mary, “if it is true he will suffer so. I can’t bear to think of our boy suffering,” and two big tears gathered in her eyes. ”

“ Jim went home to tell his own people that night, and the very next morning Julia, surprised and smiling, took in at the door a trim little package that proved to be a blue-and-white Copenhagen teacup, with a card that bore only the words "Miss Barbara Lowe Toland." Julia twisted it in her fingers with a curious little thrill at the heart. The "nicest" people sent cups to engaged girls, the "nicest" people sent their cards innocent of scribbled messages. She, Julia Page, was one of the "nicest" people now, and these were the first tentacles of her new estate reaching out to meet her. ”

“ Except physically. She’s a mortal woman if ever there was one. She’s just what she always was, sweet Anne Page.”
Twilight was creeping into the studio. The polished floor with its costly rugs, the pictures on the walls, the outlines of cabinets [133] and tables, all were growing dim and indistinct. The last light from the window above the men’s heads fell across the face of the portrait on the easel. It looked down upon them gently with the wavering uncertain smile in the eyes, and on the lips, red and soft as the petals of a rose. ”

“ She had already fixed in her mind the picture of the quiet haven, where she would live restfully with Alymer’s child—far away from the turmoil that had marked her life almost from its earliest beginning, and safe from slander.
She did not mind for herself. The things that most women valued, no longer held much meaning for her. ”

“ They talk about a sympathetic strike. I hear that a fellow has come on to bring it about. Poor fools!"
The girl gave him a smile of affection as he pushed back his chair. And leaning over her as he walked toward the door, he gave her a kiss of mingled pride and affection. But when he had left the room she sat still for some moments, looking straight ahead of her, her brow slightly puckered with thought which evidently was not wholly pleasant, and then with a sweeping motion of her hand she pushed her chair back, and, as she arose from the table, said: "I wish I knew what is right!" ”