"Mr. Blake isn't of the Alec-and-Alonzo type, Phil," said Stella severely.
"He takes things seriously. You may break his heart.""Do you really think I could?" asked Phil. "I'd love to think so.""Philippa Gordon! I never thought you were utterly unfeeling.
The idea of you saying you'd love to break a man's heart!""I didn't say so, honey. Quote me correctly. I said I'd like to think I COULD break it. I would like to know I had the POWER to do it.""I don't understand you, Phil. You are leading that man on deliberately -- and you know you don't mean anything by it.""I mean to make him ask me to marry him if I can," said Phil calmly.
"I give you up," said Stella hopelessly.
Gilbert came occasionally on Friday evenings. He seemed always in good spirits, and held his own in the jests and repartee that flew about. He neither sought nor avoided Anne.
When circumstances brought them in contact he 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.
