Anger Read Online Free Page B

admonished herself. But this time she did not speak aloud.
    For once she, who told her mother everything, did not tell her about the swan boat ride, though she did mention quite casually that Ned Fraser was taking her out to dinner.
    â€œI didn’t know how to say no this time,” she explained with a troubled look her mother caught instantly. “How does one say no on the telephone? It’s an insidious instrument … and he interrupted me as I was going over the score. I got rattled.”
    Later when Anna came out, she remarked that her daughter was looking lovely.
    Hours later Ned lay in bed wide awake. It had been an evening of precipitous, intimate exchanges. What was it about Anna that made it possible to talk about everything, no holds barred? God knows he was quite accustomed to the usual banter and teasing that takes place when a man and a woman are attracted to each other but have only recently met. But Anna would have none of that. So when he tried it by accusing her of putting him off for months, she answered with a straight look, those amazing blue eyes, suddenly black, “I was frightened.”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œI don’t know. You tell me,” she said, as though she really meant him to do so.
    â€œFrightened of me? I was the one who had every reason to be frightened … after all, you are Anna Lindstrom, my dear. And you have made that quite clear.”
    â€œNot because I am a little famous, but not very, but because your world and mine have so little in common, I suppose. Why begin a fugue you cannot sustain? Or play a part that is not in your range? “Yes,” she said again, “I was not about to make a fool of myself.”
    â€œBut you’re not afraid now?”
    Anna laughed, a loud laugh of real amusement, “I’m terrified!”
    â€œThat man at the next table is looking at you,” Ned whispered.
    â€œI can’t help it if strangers recognize me. Do you mind?”
    And Ned had the wit not to insist, for what he had minded was the indiscretion of her unself-conscious laughter in the solemn candlelit, velvet-curtained room of the Somerset Club. “Besides, everyone in this room, I imagine, recognizes you , and no doubt wonders where on earth you met that handsome woman and who in hell she is!” Then with a complete change of mood, she took a sip of the Chateau Neuf du Pape , swallowed it thoughtfully, and said, “That is a poem of a wine, Ned.”
    â€œYou really live, don’t you?” he had answered, “You appear to be aware of everything, the taste of the wine … I did order something rather special but it is quite rare to have a good wine appreciated.”
    â€œDo I live? I sometimes think I don’t … or no more than a bird who lives to sing. But that’s not it, either,” she amended, again giving him that intent look he was beginning to hunger for like some food he had needed all his life and never eaten before and at the same time made him extremely afraid of being found out, so he lowered his eyes. “It is that everything matters too much.”
    And for the first time, they dared to be silent for a few moments.
    â€œTell me about your childhood,” she said then.
    â€œMost of the time I was bored, bored or in revolt …” It was strange, Ned thought, rehearsing the extraordinary evening, how much he told Anna, partly because she listened so intently, and asked him such probing questions, so it all poured out: the early childhood of summers in Maine, of sailing wih his father, of reading aloud around the fire, Dickens and Scott, Nils Holgersson. He told her about his father’s haunting voice, about his capacity for fun … and then how all that was closed down by the tragic death. He told of the years of imposed mourning, “Dreadful,” she kept murmuring, “dreadful for you.” More than once he saw the tears in her eyes.
    â€œI took