Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/42

 terically, at the sight of Anson, so tall and thin, prancing up and down.

Opposite her he halted abruptly and said, "And I can see no good in inviting Mrs. Soames here so often."

She saw now that the tension, the excitement between them, was greater even than she had imagined, for Anson had spoken of Mrs. Soames and his father, a thing which in the family no one ever mentioned. He had done it quite openly, of his own free will.

"What harm can it do now? What difference can it make?" she asked. "It is the only pleasure left to the poor battered old thing, and one of the few left to your father."

Anson began to mutter in disgust. "It is a silly affair . . . two old . . . old. . . ." He did not finish the sentence, for there was only one word that could have finished it and that was a word which no gentleman and certainly no Pentland ever used in referring to his own father.

"Perhaps," said Olivia, "it is a silly affair now. . . . I'm not so sure that it always was."

"What do you mean by that? Do you mean. . . ." Again he fumbled for words, groping to avoid using the words that clearly came into his mind. It was strange to see him brought face to face with realities, to see him grow so helpless and muddled. "Do you mean," he stammered, "that my father has ever behaved . . ." he choked and then added, "dishonorably."

"Anson . . . I feel strangely like being honest to-night . . . just for once . . . just for once."

"You are succeeding only in being perverse."

"No . . ." and she found herself smiling sadly, "unless you mean that in this house . . . in this room. . . ." She made a gesture which swept within the circle of her white arm all that collection of Victorian souvenirs, all the memen-