It was as
catching as fire, as exhilarating as the chime of sleigh-bells on a
frosty Thanksgiving morning, as clear and true as a redbird's
whistle; and it had tucked away in it a funny, throaty chuckle so
irresistibly infectious that suspicious old St. Anthony himself,
would have joined in accord with it, had he heard its silver echo
in his wilderness. Berkeley Hayden's immortal soul stood on the
tiptoe of ecstasy when Anne Champneys laughed.
She no longer thought of herself as Nancy Simms; she knew herself
now as Anne Champneys, a newer and better personality dominating
that old, unhappy, ignorant self. If at times the man glimpsed that
other shadowy self of hers, it was part of her mysterious appeal,
her enthralling, baffling charm. It invested her with a shade of
inscrutable, prescient sorrow, as of old unhappy far-off things. He
hadn't the faintest idea of Nancy Simms, a creature utterly foreign
to his experience. And because she did not love him, Anne Champneys
never spoke of that old self, never confided in him.
Pages:
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399