"I shall like to see him," Anna answered. "I really owe him something of an apology."
"I will tell him," Lady Lescelles said. "And now let us leave the men alone and talk about ourselves."
"I am delighted to see you all here," Anna said smiling upon them from behind the tea-tray, "but I shall have to ask you to excuse me for a few minutes. My agent is here, and he has brought his contract for me to sign. I will give you all some tea, and then I must leave you for a few minutes."
The three men, who had arrived within a minute or two of one another, received her little speech in dead silence. Ennison, who had been standing with his back to the window, came suddenly a little further into the room.
"Miss Pellissier," he said, "I came here this afternoon hoping particularly to see you for a few moments before you signed that contract."
She shook her head.
"We may just as well have our talk afterwards," she said, "and I need not keep poor Mr. Earles waiting."
Courtlaw suddenly interposed.
"May I be allowed to say," he declared, "that I came here with the same intention."
"And I also," Brendon echoed.
Anna was suddenly very quiet.
She was perhaps as near tears as ever before in her life.
"If I had three hands," she said, with a faint smile, "I would give one to each of you. I know that you are all my friends, and I know that you all have very good advice to give me. But I am afraid I am a shockingly obstinate and a very ungrateful person. No, don"t let me call myself that. I am grateful, indeed I am. But on this matter my mind is quite made up."
Ennison hesitated for a moment.
"Miss Pellissier," he said, "these gentlemen are your friends, and therefore they are my friends. If I am to have no other opportunity I will speak before them. I came here to beg you not to sign that contract. I came to beg you instead to do me the honour of becoming my wife."
"And I," Courtlaw said, "although I have asked before in vain, have come to ask you once more the same thing."
"And I," Brendon said, humbly, "although I am afraid there is no chance for me, my errand was the same."
Anna looked at them for a moment with a pitiful attempt at a smile.
Then her head disappeared suddenly in her hands, and her shoulders shook violently.
"Please forgive me--for one moment," she sobbed. "I--I shall be all right directly."
Brendon rushed to the piano and strummed out a tune.
The others hurried to the window. And Anna was conscious of a few moments of exquisite emotion. After all, life had still its pulsations. The joy of being loved thrilled her as nothing before had ever done, a curious abstract joy which had nothing in it at that moment of regret or even pity.
She called them back very soon.
The signs of tears had all gone, but some subtle change seemed to have stolen into her face. She spoke readily enough, but there was a new timidity in her manner.
"My friends," she said, "my dear friends, I am going to make the same answer to all of you--and that is perhaps you will say no answer at all. At present I cannot marry, I will not become bound even to any one. It would be very hard perhaps to make you understand just how I feel about it. I won"t try. Only I feel that you all want to make life too easy for me, and I am determined to fight my own battles a little longer. If any of you--or all of you feel the same in six months" time from to-day, will you come, if you care to, and see me then?"
There was a brief silence. Ennison spoke at last.
"You will sign the contract?"
"I shall sign the contract. I think that I am very fortunate to have it to sign."
"Do you mean," Courtlaw asked, "that from now to the end of the six months you do not wish to see us--any of us?"
Her eyes were a little dim again.
"I do mean that," she declared. "I want to have no distractions. My work will be all sufficient. I have an aunt who is coming to live with me, and I do not intend to receive any visitors at all. It will be a little lonely sometimes," she said, looking around at them, "and I shall miss you all, but it is the fairest for myself--and I think for you. Do not avoid me if we meet by accident, but I trust to you all not to let the accident happen if you can help it."
Brendon rose and came towards her with outstretched hand.
"Good-bye, Miss Pellissier, and success to you," he said. "May you have as much good fortune as you deserve, but not enough to make you forget us."
Courtlaw rose too.
"You are of the genus obstinate," he said. "I do not know whether to wish you success or not. I will wish you success or failure, whichever is the better for you."
"And I," Ennison said, holding her fingers tightly, and forcing her to look into his eyes, "I will tell you what I have wished for you when we meet six months from to-day."
_Chapter x.x.xII_
SIX MONTHS AFTER
Up the moss-grown path, where the rose bushes run wild, almost met, came Anna in a spotless white gown, with the flush of her early morning walk in her cheeks, and something of the brightness of it in her eyes. In one hand she carried a long-stalked red rose, dripping with dew, in the other the post-bag.
She reached a tiny yellow-fronted cottage covered with flowering creepers, and entered the front room by the wide-open window.
Breakfast was laid for one, a dish of fruit and a shining coffee equipage. By the side of her plate was a small key. With trembling fingers she opened the post-bag. There was one letter. One only.
She opened and read it at once. It was dated from the House of Commons on the previous day.
"MY DEAR MISS PELLISSIER,--
"To-morrow the six months will be up. For days I have been undecided as to whether I would come to you or no. I would like you to believe that the decision I have arrived at--to stay away--is wholly and entirely to save you pain. It should be the happiest day of your life, and I would not detract from its happiness by letting you remember for a moment that there are others to whom your inevitable decision must bring some pain.
"For I know that you love Ennison. You tried bravely enough to hide your preference, to look at us all with the same eyes, to speak to us in the same tone. It was not your fault you failed.
If by any chance I have made a mistake a word will bring me to you. But I know very well that that word will never be spoken.
"Your great success has been my joy, our joy as well as yours.
You have made for yourself a unique place upon the stage. We have so many actresses who aspire to great things in the drama, not one who can interpret as you have interpreted it, the delicate finesse, the finer lights and shades of true comedy. Ennison will make a thousand enemies if he takes you from the stage. Yet I think that he will do it.
"For my own part I have come fully now into my inheritance. I am bound to admit that I greatly enjoy my altered life. Every minute I spend here is an education to me. Before very long I hope to have definite work. Some of my schemes are already in hand.
People shrug their shoulders and call me a crazy socialist. Yet I fancy that we who have been poor ourselves must be the best judges of the needs of the people.