with a sense of obligation--horrid thing, isn't it?--just put it down
with, 'But she likes it. It's fun for her.' For really now, Ann, I hope
this is not going to hurt you, but I simply can't help getting fun out of
things. I get fun out of everything. It's my great failing. Not a
particularly unkind sort of fun, though. I don't believe you'll mind it
as you get used to it. My friends all seem to accept the fact that
I--enjoy them. And then my curiosity. Well, like the eggs. It's not
entirely to make you stronger. It's to see whether the things I've always
heard about milk and eggs are really so. See how it works--not altogether
for the good of the works, you see? Oh, I don't know. Motives are
slippery things, don't you think so? Mine seem particularly athletic.
They hop from their pigeon holes and turn hand-springs and do all sorts
of stunts the minute I turn my back. So I never know for sure why I want
to do a thing. For that matter, I don't know why I named you Ann. I had
to give you a name--I thought you might prefer my not using yours--so all
in a flash I had to make one up--and Ann was what came. I love that name.
It never would have come if something in you hadn't called it. The Ann in
you has had a hard time." She was speaking uncertainly, timidly, as if on
ground where words had broken no paths. "Oh, I'm not so much the outsider
I can't see that. But the Ann in you has never died. That I see, too.
Maybe it was to save Ann you were going to--give up Verna. And because I
see Ann--like her--because I called her back, won't you let her stay
here and--" Katie's voice broke, so to offset that she cocked her head
and made a wry little face as she concluded, not succeeding in concealing
the deep tenderness in her eyes, "just try--the eggs?"




CHAPTER VIII