The Visioning | Page 8

to come down to dinner. Of
course, I might have told you: 'Ann is here.' To the orderly,
West-Pointed mind, the well oiled, gun-constructing mind, I presume
that would present itself as the thing to do. But Ann and I have a sense
of the joy of living, a delight in the festive, in the--the bubbling wine of
youth, you know. So we said, 'How beautiful to surprise dear Wayne.'
In the morning Ann, refreshed by the long night's sleep, was to go out
and gather roses. Wayne--"
"The roses don't bloom until next month," brutally interrupted Wayne.
"Of course, you would think of that! As we had planned it, Wayne,
looking from his window was to see the beautiful girl--she is a
beautiful girl--gathering dew-laden roses in the garden. Perhaps
Captain Prescott, chancing at that very moment to look from his
window, would see her too. It was to be a beautiful, a
never-to-be-forgotten moment for you both."
"We humbly apologize," laughed Prescott.
"Hum!" grunted dear Wayne.

CHAPTER IV
She stepped out on the porch for a moment as Captain Prescott was
saying good-night. The moonlight was falling weirdly through the big
trees, stretching itself over the grass in shapes that seemed to spell
unearthly things. And there were mystical lights on the water down
there, flitting about with the movement of the stream as ghosts might
flit. Because it looked so other-world-like she wondered if it knew what
it had just missed. She had never thought anything about water save as
something to look beautiful and have a good time on. It seemed now
that perhaps it knew a great deal about things of which she knew
nothing at all.
"Oh, I say, jolly night, isn't it?" he exclaimed as they stood at the head
of the steps.
"Yes," said Kate grimly, "pleasant weather, isn't it?" and laughed
oddly.
"It's great about your friend coming; Miss--?"
"Forrest." She spoke it decisively.
"She arrived this afternoon?"
"Yes, unexpectedly. I was never more surprised in my life than when I
looked up and saw Ann standing there." Katie was not too impressed to
resist toying a little with the situation.
"Oh, is that so? I thought--" But he was too well-bred to press it.
"Of course," she hastened to patch together her thread, "of course, as I
told Wayne, I knew that Ann was coming. But I didn't really expect her
until day after to-morrow. You see, there have been complications."
"Oh, I see. Well, at any rate it's great that she's here. She will be with
you for the summer?"

"Ann's plans are a little uncertain," Kate informed him.
"I hope she'll not find it dull. Does she care for golf?"
"U--m, I--Ann has never played much, I believe. You see she has lived
so much in Europe--on the Continent--places where they don't play golf!
And then Ann is not very strong."
"Then this is just the place for her. Great place for loafing, you know. I
hope she is fond of the water?"
Kate was leaning against one of the pillars, still looking down toward
the river. It might have been the moonlight made her look so strange as
she said, with a smile of the same quality as those shadows on the grass:
"Why yes; in fact, Ann's fondness for the water was the first thing I
ever noticed about her. I think I might even say it was the water drew
us together."
"Oh, well then, that is great. We can take the boat and do all sorts of
jolly things. Now I wonder--about a horse for her. She rides?"
"Perhaps you had better make no plans for Ann," she suddenly advised.
"It really would not surprise me at all if she went away to-morrow.
There is a great deal of uncertainty about the whole thing. In fact, Ann
has had a great deal of trouble."
"I'm sorry," he said with a simplicity she liked in him.
"Yes, a great deal of trouble. Last year both her father and mother died,
which was a great blow to her."
"Well, rather!"
"And now there are all sorts of business things to straighten out. It's
really very hard for Ann."
"Perhaps we can help her," he suggested.
"Perhaps we can," agreed Kate. Her eyes left him to wander across the

shadows down to the river again. But she came back to him to say, and
this with the oddest smile of all, "Wouldn't it be a queer sensation for
us? That thing of really 'helping' some one?"
She could not go to sleep that night. For a long time she sat in her room
in the same big chair in which Ann had sat that afternoon. Poor Ann,
who had sat there before she knew she was Ann, who was sleeping