Anger Read Online Free Page A

know.
    â€œWell,” Ned, fumbling for something to say, uttered, “it’s autumn, a fine autumn day, isn’t it?”
    Anna burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it. It was a crazy day, so brilliant.
    â€œWhat’s funny?”
    â€œYou are,” she said, still laughing.
    â€œLet’s talk,” he said, “come and sit down on a bench and observe the ducks and the swan boats … there must be a ride any minute.”
    â€œTake me on a ride!”
    So they climbed the stairs and crossed the bridge, talking as they went, and down the other side to where the flat swan-boat barge waited, only a third full. They chose the back row and settled there.
    â€œMy mother used to take me on a swan-boat ride as a reward for going to the dentist,” she said, “and then for an ice cream soda at Schrafft’s, but I haven’t been on one for twenty years! What fun!”
    â€œIt’s the slowest form of locomotion ever invented and therefore the best, isn’t it?” Ned asked. Inside the enormous artificial swan behind their bench a man sat and cycled them out in slow motion. It was amazingly comfortable, Anna thought, sitting there beside Ned Fraser and talking about little things, memories and pleasures. Here and there a gold leaf zigzagged down from a tree to the water. A flock of pigeons flew over and settled on the bank, waddling about on their pink feet.
    â€œThey are such ridiculous birds,” Ned said, following her glance and the way she looked at them, wholly absorbed.
    Seized as he had been by the lucky chance, Ned had forgotten his luncheon appointment at the Ritz. Now he took out his watch and frowned.
    â€œDamn it, I have a luncheon appointment! Oh, how stupid!”
    Anna began to giggle, aware that once on a swan boat there was no way to get off until the long journey up to one end of the pond, past the tiny magic island, and round to the other end, past the Victorian swan house on its wooden legs, had been completed.
    â€œIt’s not funny,” Ned said. “I’m going to be late.”
    â€œSo you are,” and Anna couldn’t stop laughing at him, so prim suddenly and bankerish, caught on a swan boat. “Of course, you could jump off,” she suggested.
    â€œI could at that. But then I might fall in!”
    â€œThat would never do, would it?” she said solemnly. And then Ned laughed, too. He couldn’t help it.
    â€œLook,” he said, “have dinner with me tonight … you must.” And as he felt her hesitation, he reached over and took her hand in his and held it tightly. It seemed the most natural thing in the world.
    Anna felt the warmth, the strength of that hand in hers like an injection of life into her veins. It all came over her there in the swan boat with great clarity that here was protection, an end to anxieties about money, a wonderfully warm and loving shelter. How could she refuse its gift?
    â€œAll right,” she said.
    And then they were silent, sitting a little stiffly, hand in hand on the last bench in the swan boat as it slowly, slowly reached the mooring and was made fast.
    But when he had gone and she was hurrying, not to be late herself at the hairdresser, she was startled to realize what she had been thinking. What in the world made her imagine that Ned Fraser wanted to marry her? That he could have had any such thing in mind when he fastened his hand in hers with such strength? Besides, what made her think that she would ever want to marry him? “But I do,” she answered herself. “The strange thing is that I do.”
    Why did she? How could she fall in love with a man she had never even talked to for more than a few minutes? And besides, did she want to marry? Why not a love affair? Why marry? She was stopped in these musings by the odd look an old woman gave her as she passed. Of course she had been talking to herself aloud! You’re in a bad way, Anna, she