Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/262

 ning was all about, flung herself upon him and cried, "You're a man—save me!"

The burgher was middle-aged, respectable and wise. He shook her off and turned to Edward. "Drunk?" he asked laconically.

Anne's mind turned completely over. She shook her fist in Edward's face and said, "Are you going to stand there and let him say that I am drunk? And you call yourself a man!"

Edward had turned icy cold with shame and disgust. "I am going home," he said, "and you had better come too and behave yourself."

This time it was Anne who followed Edward. At almost every step she spoke injuries. The burgher, smiling under his umbrella, made off in the opposite direction.

Edward felt that his love for Anne was dead. He was wrong. When her anger had passed, she wept and made him believe that all the wicked things she had said and done and threatened were for love of him. In all the world she had only Edward. If he abandoned her, as indeed she thought he ought, she would have nothing, nobody.

She crept onto his knees and snuggled her face against his. She lifted his arm and put it around her. She fought against his coldness and his aloofness as if they had been two devils. She kissed