Page:Anne of the Island (1920).djvu/240

 don’t want to begin such work until I’m really engaged. It would be tempting Fate.”

“Mr. Blake is afraid to ask you to marry him, Phil. He is poor and can’t offer you a home such as you’ve always had. You know that is the only reason he hasn’t spoken long ago.”

“I suppose so,” agreed Phil dolefully. “Well”—brightening up—“if he won’t ask me to marry him I’ll ask him, that’s all. So it’s bound to come right. I won’t worry. By the way, Gilbert Blythe is going about constantly with Christine Stuart. Did you know?”

Anne was trying to fasten a little gold chain about her throat. She suddenly found the clasp difficult to manage. What was the matter with it—or with her fingers?

“No,” she said carelessly. “Who is Christine Stuart?”

“Ronald Stuart’s sister. She’s in Kingsport this winter studying music. I haven’t seen her, but they say she’s very pretty and that Gilbert is quite crazy over her. How angry I was when you refused Gilbert, Anne. But Roy Gardner was foreordained for you. I can see that now. You were right, after all.”

Anne did not blush, as she usually did when the girls assumed that her eventual marriage to Roy Gardner was a settled thing. All at once she felt rather dull. Phil’s chatter seemed trivial and the reception a bore. She boxed poor Rusty’s ears.