Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/208

190 persistently that she brought his reluctant gaze back to her, and then laughed softly in his race. "Have you?" she asked.

He smiled indulgently, and returned to the other Anna. "What a fool the fellow must be," he said, jestingly, "to give up a woman like that when she's good enough to fall in love with him."

"Oh, I don't think so," said Anna. "He doesn't know; men never do. And she can't tell him; women never can. It's such hard lines; her life is being quite spoilt because she mustn't say anything. She wouldn't mind so much if she were quite sure the man didn't like her; she'd pull herself together again, and go on. But how is she to find out?"

"Why doesn't she send you to ask him?" suggested Askett.

"Do you know," she said with a queer little smile, "you've made that same old joke again?"

But he noticed that, this time, it did not move her to one of her irresistible peals of laughter.

"After all," she added, casually, "I am not sure that it is a joke at all."

Askett got up and went to look after the kettle; tea would make a diversion, he thought, and they seemed to be in need of a diversion that afternoon. "It strikes me," he said, with his back to her, "that you let yourself worry too much about the love affairs of the other Anna."

"Perhaps I do," replied Anna with the same enigmatical smile. "But it's chiefly your fault; you always want to hear about her, and you never let me talk about anything else. It isn't very flattering to me, I must say!" She ended with a pout. Askett stood up and smiled thoughtfully.

"How absurd!" he said with a half-laugh. "Go and tell your Anna that some one is in love with her, because he has Rh