Tom Reed sat down on the sofa. Annie sat in a rocking-chair near by. At
her side was a Chinese teapoy, a nest of lacquer tables, and on it stood
a small, squat idol. Annie's grandmother had been taken to task by her
son-in-law, the Reverend Silas, for harboring a heathen idol, but she
had only laughed,

"Guess as long as I don't keep heathen to bow down before him, he can't
do much harm," she had said.

Now the grotesque face of the thing seemed to stare at the two
Occidental lovers with the strange, calm sarcasm of the Orient, but they
had no eyes or thought for it.

"Why didn't you come to the door if you heard the bell ring?" asked Tom
Reed, gazing at Annie, slender as a blade of grass in her clinging green
gown.

"Because I was not able to break my will then. I had to break it to go
out in the yard and ask you to come in, but when the bell rang I hadn't
got to the point where I could break it."

"What on earth do you mean, Annie?"

Annie laughed. "I don't wonder you ask," she said, "and the worst of
it is I can't half answer you. I wonder how much, or rather how little
explanation will content you?"

Tom Reed gazed at her with the eyes of a man who might love a woman and
have infinite patience with her, relegating his lack of understanding of
her woman's nature to the background, as a thing of no consequence.

"Mighty little will do for me," he said, "mighty little, Annie dear, if
you will only tell a fellow you love him."

Annie looked at him, and her thin, sweet face seemed to have a luminous
quality, like a crescent moon. Her look was enough.

"Then you do?" said Tom Reed.

"You have never needed to ask," said Annie. "You knew."

"I haven't been so sure as you think," said Tom. "Suppose you come over
here and sit beside me. You look miles away."

Annie laughed and blushed, but she obeyed. She sat beside Tom and
let him put his arm around her. She sat up straight, by force of her
instinctive maidenliness, but she kissed him back when he kissed her.

"I haven't been so sure," repeated Tom. "Annie darling, why have I been
unable to see more of you? I have fairly haunted your house, and seen
the whole lot of your sisters, especially Imogen, but somehow or other
you have been as slippery as an eel. I have always asked for you, but
you were always out or busy."

"I have been very busy," said Annie, evasively. She loved this young man
with all her heart, but she had an enduring loyalty to her own flesh