She put her arms akimbo and surveyed Effie and Sam appraisingly. “I dunno,” she said, “that there’s a pin to choose between the three of us for chuckle-headed foolishness. We’re all fancying ourselves as hard as we can for martyrs and arranging Ada’s life for her. It hasn’t struck any of us yet that Ada’s likely to arrange things for herself.” And if Sam’s impulse was to say gloomily: “It isn’t likely at all,” he repressed it when Anne’s eye caught his, and said instead, “That’s so,” without knowing why he said it and without believing it. The flicker of a smile crossed Effie’s face; Sam as conspirator struck her as crudely humorous. Anne saw the smile and understood, but brazened it out. “Of course it’s so,” she said, defying Effie. “Ada’s a poor thing of a woman, but she’s none beyond having a mind and speaking it. I was always one to take the short road out of trouble, so I’ll go along to Peter Struggles’ now.” “Very well,” consented Effie, and Anne understood her to mean that the crisis, if one had impended, was postponed. “But,” said Effie, “of course, I saw.” Which was, in its way, a challenge; it was, at any rate, to tell Anne that Effie knew what had been suspected of her. Anne met it as a challenge. “Well?” she said. “You were quite wrung, Mrs. Branstone,” said Effie quietly. “I’m not a coward.” Anne was tying her bonnet-si rings, and found it convenient to look down. She preferred, just then, not to meet Effie’s eye. “I know I’m overanxious,” she mumbled in apology. “And there’s no need,” said Effie, a little cruel in her victory. To Sam the conversation seemed to have slipped into another dimension. He hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about. CHAPTER XXV--WHOM GOD HATH JOINED |PETER Struggles walked into his tobacconist’s and put his snuff-box on the counter. There was no need to state his requirements; in fact, he had not stated them for many years. Shopman and customer understood each other very well, and business came first; then if there was inclination, as there usually was, talk followed. To-day, however, the shopman gaped at Peter in surprise, and made a half-turn of his head, so that he could see his calendar Wednesday was Peter’s day for buying snuff with a regularity to which time had given the force of a tradition, and the tobacconist had even the habit of using Peter’s visit as a reminder to a fallible memory that he must wind his clock. The calendar continued him in his belief that to-day was Thursday, and he felt sure that Peter had been in as usual on Wednesday.