The engines were stopped now and Armitage and Johnson and a group of men were working at the helm. Sara raised her head.
"Anne," she said solemnly. "I never wanted to kiss a man until this minute." Mischievously she made a move as though to arise. The girl's hand clenched upon her arm.
"Don't be an idiot," she said. "Can't you see how busy they are? Besides, Sara, no man likes to be kissed by two girls--at the same time."
As Jack, once more a chauffeur, drove under the _porte cochère_ at The Crags, shortly before one o'clock, Anne sat for a moment in her seat after her friend had alighted. Sara looked back with a little smile and then walked toward the door, which a footman had opened.
"Mr. Armitage," said Anne in a low voice, "I want to thank you for many things to-night--for one thing above all. I cannot tell you what it is, for I hardly know myself." She paused, and Jack, who was toying with the switch lever, looked at her curiously. "It's a new viewpoint, I fancy. Somehow--I have a feeling that there is more to this country, my country, than Fifth Avenue, Central Park, Tuxedo, Long Island, and Newport--something bigger and finer than railroads. I am glad to feel that, and I thank you."
Sara was waiting for Anne in the hall. She had taken off her hat and stood idly swinging it. A single globe was lighted in the chandelier overhead and the extremities of the great apartment were lost in gloom.
"Well, dear," Sara yawned broadly, "I fancy we shall sleep to-night."
Anne had thrown her arm over Sara's shoulders and they were walking toward the stairs when Koltsoff appeared from the shadow, confronting them.
"Oh! Prince Koltsoff! How you frightened me," said Anne in a low voice, drawing back.
"A thousand pardons. It would have grieved me had I thought of doing that."
Sara observed him with irritation. There was, however, so much of the exotic about the man, as to render him attractive, even to her. Tall, well--if slimly--built; in manner graceful--"silken" was the designation that occurred to her--there could be no question as to the potency of his personality: a potency, by the way, from whose spell, she had learned in various ways throughout the evening, Anne was not entirely aloof. It was perfectly clear to Sara, that with Armitage, strong and clever in a wholesome masculine way, Anne was the light-hearted, mischievous, pure-minded girl--his ideal of American young womanhood. But now she caught the other note of her character--an untrue note, but none the less positive--and the other look in her eyes. Her voice was deeper, more womanly, more surcharged with underlying things, as she spoke to the Russian, and Sara could see she was breathing more rapidly.