Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/381

 food for the price of that bed. But she would have starved rather than sell it.

Anne under the pink canopy was like a rose—a white rose with a faint flush. The color in Amy's cheeks was fixed and hard. Yet even with her oldness and tiredness and metal curlers she had the look of race which attracted Murray.

"Anne," she said, "Murray and I had a long talk about you the other day."

"Murray always talks—long." Anne was yawning.

"Please be serious, Anne. He wants to marry you."

"Marry me!" incredulously. "I thought it was you; or Ethel."

"Well, it isn't," wearily. "And it's a great opportunity—for you, Anne."

"Opportunity for what?"

Amy had a sense of the futility of trying to explain.

"There aren't many men like him."

"Fortunately."

"Anne, how can you? He's really paying you a great compliment."

"Why didn't he ask me himself?"

"He didn't want to startle you. You're so young. Murray has extreme fineness of feeling." 375