"And here's Adeline worrying because she thinks Anne isn't going to love
her."

Severn sat down, considering it.

"It takes time," he said.

She looked at him, smiling under lowered brows.

"Time to love me?"

"Time for Anne to love you. She--she's so desperately faithful."

The dressing-bell clanged from the belfry. Robert left them to finish a
discussion that he found embarrassing.

"I said I'd try to be a mother to her. I _have_ tried, John; but the
little thing won't let me."

"Don't try too hard. Robert's right. Don't--don't be a mother to her."

"What am I to be?"

"Oh, anything you like. A presence. A heavenly apparition. An impossible
ideal. Anything but that."

"Do you think she's going to hold out for ever?"

"Only against that. As long as she remembers. It puts her off."