Chapter XXV
Warmth in the Gardens
Several days went by, and Gino wrote that he was better, then suddenly he ceased to write at all. But Anne had received her lesson of little faith, and she held firmly to the belief that he intended to surprise her by appearing without warning.
Jack came almost every day, and she would sometimes find him playing picquet with her father when she returned from her walk, and would sit by them, watching the game and enjoying the faint return of warmth to existence which she had experienced since her friend’s arrival.
Mr. Warren was not always cheerful. His daughter’s wan and pathetic face annoyed him, and haying been but little in Europe he had never suffered from such a long affliction of rain—the element of all others he most disliked.
Jack assured him that even a short experience on the Continent proved weeks of daily rainfall to be no uncommon thing, and Mr. Warren, thinking of the comparative sunshine of his own land and256
