Several hours later Miss Ogilvy, who was riding slowly along the road after a call at Bath House, suddenly drew rein and stared at an approaching picture. She had a pretty taste in art, had Miss Medora, and had painted all her island friends. Never had she longed more than at this moment for palette and brush. A tall supple figure was coming down the white road between the palms and the cane fields, clad in white, the bonnet hanging on the arm, the sun making a golden web on the chestnut hair. Never had the Caribbean Sea looked as blue as this girl's eyes. Even her cheeks were as pink as the flowers in her belt. She seemed to float rather than walk, and about her head was a cloud of blue butterflies. Miss Ogilvy had seen Anne striding many a morning, and it was the ethereal gait that challenged her attention as much as the beauty of the picture.
They were abreast in a moment, and although Miss Ogilvy prided herself upon the correctness of her deportment, she cried out impulsively, and with no formal greeting: "What, in heaven's name, dear Anne, has happened? I never saw any one look so beautiful--so--happy!"
"I am going to marry Byam Warner," said Anne.
Miss Ogilvy turned pale. She had intended to scheme for this very result, but confronted with the fact, her better nature prevailed, and she faltered out, "Oh--oh--it is too great a risk! No woman should go as far as that. We are all willing to help him, but that you should be sacrificed--you--you of all----"
"I am not sacrificing myself. Do you fancy I am so great a fool as that? No--no--that is not the reason I shall marry him!"
"He certainly is a great poet and has improved vastly in appearance. I never should have believed it to be possible." The inevitable was working in Miss Ogilvy. "But Mrs. Nunn? All her friends? There will be dreadful scenes. Oh Anne, dear, they will rush you off. They will never permit it."
"My aunt controls nothing but my property, and not the interest of that. If she refuses her consent I shall simply walk up to Fig Tree Church and marry Mr. Warner."
Miss Ogilvy recovered herself completely. "You will do nothing of the sort," she cried, warm with friendship and the prospect of figuring in the most sensational episode Nevis had known this many a year. "Come to me. Be my guest until the banns have been properly published, and marry from Ogilvy Grange. Everything must be de rigueur, or I should never forgive myself. And it would give me the greatest happiness, dear Anne. Mama and papa do everything I wish, and papa is one of Mr. Warner's father's oldest friends. Mrs. Nunn will not consent. So promise that you will come to me."