talked to her pleasantly and courteously, as to any newly-made acquaintance.
The old camaraderie was gone entirely. Anne felt it keenly; but she told herself
she was very glad and thankful that Gilbert had got so completely over his
disappointment in regard to her. She had really been afraid, that April evening in
the orchard, that she had hurt him terribly and that the wound would be long in
healing. Now she saw that she need not have worried. Men have died and the
worms have eaten them but not for love. Gilbert evidently was in no danger of
immediate dissolution. He was enjoying life, and he was full of ambition and
zest. For him there was to be no wasting in despair because a woman was fair
and cold. Anne, as she listened to the ceaseless badinage that went on between
him and Phil, wondered if she had only imagined that look in his eyes when she
had told him she could never care for him.
There were not lacking those who would gladly have stepped into Gilbert’s
vacant place. But Anne snubbed them without fear and without reproach. If the
real Prince Charming was never to come she would have none of a substitute. So
she sternly told herself that gray day in the windy park.
Suddenly the rain of Aunt Jamesina’s prophecy came with a swish and rush.
Anne put up her umbrella and hurried down the slope. As she turned out on the
harbor road a savage gust of wind tore along it. Instantly her umbrella turned
wrong side out. Anne clutched at it in despair. And then—there came a voice
close to her.
“Pardon me—may I offer you the shelter of my umbrella?”
Anne looked up. Tall and handsome and distinguished-looking—dark,
melancholy, inscrutable eyes—melting, musical, sympathetic voice—yes, the
very hero of her dreams stood before her in the flesh. He could not have more
closely resembled her ideal if he had been made to order.
“Thank you,” she said confusedly.
“We’d better hurry over to that little pavillion on the point,” suggested the
unknown. “We can wait there until this shower is over. It is not likely to rain so
heavily very long.”
The words were very commonplace, but oh, the tone! And the smile which
accompanied them! Anne felt her heart beating strangely.
Together they scurried to the pavilion and sat breathlessly down under its
friendly roof. Anne laughingly held up her false umbrella.
“It is when my umbrella turns inside out that I am convinced of the total
depravity of inanimate things,” she said gaily.