Chapter XXXIX
Deals with Weddings
Anne felt that life partook of the nature of an anticlimax during the first few
weeks after her return to Green Gables. She missed the merry comradeship of
Patty’s Place. She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and
now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she
could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while
solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms.
She had not seen Roy again after their painful parting in the park pavilion; but
Dorothy came to see her before she left Kingsport.
“I’m awfully sorry you won’t marry Roy,” she said. “I did want you for a
sister. But you are quite right. He would bore you to death. I love him, and he is
a dear sweet boy, but really he isn’t a bit interesting. He looks as if he ought to
be, but he isn’t.”
“This won’t spoil OUR friendship, will it, Dorothy?” Anne had asked
wistfully.
“No, indeed. You’re too good to lose. If I can’t have you for a sister I mean to
keep you as a chum anyway. And don’t fret over Roy. He is feeling terribly just
now—I have to listen to his outpourings every day—but he’ll get over it. He
always does.”
“Oh—ALWAYS?” said Anne with a slight change of voice. “So he has ‘got
over it’ before?”
“Dear me, yes,” said Dorothy frankly. “Twice before. And he raved to me just
the same both times. Not that the others actually refused him—they simply
announced their engagements to some one else. Of course, when he met you he
vowed to me that he had never really loved before—that the previous affairs had
been merely boyish fancies. But I don’t think you need worry.”
Anne decided not to worry. Her feelings were a mixture of relief and
resentment. Roy had certainly told her she was the only one he had ever loved.
No doubt he believed it. But it was a comfort to feel that she had not, in all
likelihood, ruined his life. There were other goddesses, and Roy, according to