Page:The Redemption of Anthony (1911).djvu/60

 most envied Priscilla her thrills; but there—she wanted her girl to drink the pleasure of it to the full. How she was stealing into her heart and interest, with her honest eyes and her unrepressed adoration!

"Oh, no, he won't—at least, I hope he won't. It would ruin his chances of greatness if he married Louise," came Mrs. Crompton's clear voice from the other side of the divan. "He ought to marry the daughter—he needs just such a spontaneous young thing to stir him up. He's twisted Louise's mind dry of all ideas; and, then, she's too old for him. He doesn't care for society, of course"—the voice dwindled off as the couple disappeared again.

Mrs. Martin sat there as if carved in stone. "He ought to marry the daughter—he's twisted Louise's mind dry of all ideas—she's too old for him"—she went over it and over it. How often she had said that Nan Crompton's tongue went to the heart of things, like a surgeon's knife to the seat of a disease. Was she right now? Had she