Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/250

248 "Oh," said Crayven, and she thought he looked at her strangely, uncertainly. She dried her eyes and added quickly: "My other boy is with nie here. He is nearly two and a half now. … I'm afraid I must go on——I've an appointment for tea with my sister."

Crayven's eyes were so frankly expressive that she added at once:

"Perhaps you would come, too, and meet her."

"I will, with pleasure. Thank you, very much."

She turned for a final glance at the St. Anne.

"I can't get away from that picture," she said musingly. "Her face haunts me. She has lived through all that young joy herself, and she knows what comes after it—all the bitterness, all the sorrow. She knows what is to come. And yet she can smile on youth, too, so sweetly. …"

She moved abruptly away, and said to Crayven as they went out together: "What was it that you came in to see?"

"Well—in this case, you," he answered with the faint embarrassment he had shown before. "I saw you in the cab."

"And recognised me, after all this time? Really? How amazing!"

"No—not so very. You see, in my life people count for more than in most. They take the