“Give up! Thank you, no! You see, all my life I’ve been giving up things I couldn’t wrest from the Willoughbys or De Mille.
“Not any more in mine, if you please. I should say to that misguided and frightfully sentimental young man: ‘Mend your ways, become rich and famous, and then come back and Jane will consider you.’” She picked up her gloves and walked toward the door of the bungalow.
“Au revoir,” she said; “so good of you to have saved my life.”
“At least,” observed Ormsby, sarcastically, as he hastened to open it for her, “nobody can accuse you of being inconsistent.”
“Billie Scott would shriek if he heard you say so,” observed Jane, as she calmly nodded good-by.
Billie Scott had come down for the week end, and he and Jane were motoring.
“What’s up, Jane?” he remarked, suddenly, breaking a lengthy pause in the conversation. “You don’t seem like your usual self.”
“Whom do I seem like?” she inquired, flippantly. Then she went on, indignantly: “Whenever I keep still for a minute or two, or in some other way act like a rational being, everyone is sure there is something up.”
“I merely thought,” observed Mr. Scott, pacifically, “that there might be something worrying you.”
“Nothing worries me except the careless manner in which you drive this car,” answered Jane, sharply for her. “Please put me down at Mrs. Larson’s, Billie.”
“Shall I wait for you?” he asked, as he steered the machine in the direction of the cottage.
“No, indeed”—determinedly—“and, by the way, I think you had better go back to town——”
“But I came down to stay over Sunday,” he cried, in an injured voice.
“I know,” said Jane, “but the Willoughbys like a quiet Sunday, and so do I.”
Mr. Scott whistled.
“Terribly considerate of the Willoughbys’ feelings,” he commented, sarcastically. “I suppose I may stop at the house for my bag?”
The car had pulled up in front of the Larson cottage, and Jane jumped lightly out. She was instantly surrounded by a troop of dirty, noisy children, but she turned from them and smiled sweetly up at the sulky Mr. Scott. “Dear old Billie,” she said, sweetly; “don’t mind me. It’s true I’m not quite myself these days. I think the Willoughbys must be getting on my nerves. Go home and I’ll write you.”
“Oh, Jane, if you would only let me——”
But Mrs. De Mille ruthlessly interrupted him.
“Don’t be sentimental, Billie,” she said, quickly; “and please remember that I’ll not be proposed to every time we meet. Ta! ta!” She gave him her hand, withdrew it quickly and hastened into the Larson cottage.
“Damn!” said Mr. Scott, under his breath. Then he got out, bribed with a shower of coin the Larson brood to keep out of his path, and drove drearily away.
Mrs. Larson was an angular, sallow-faced, stoop-shouldered woman, who had seen so much of the dark side of life that she had reached the stage where she couldn’t be persuaded there was any other.
“He’s laid off again, miss,” she announced, darkly, to Jane, who found her scrubbing in the disordered kitchen. Mrs. Larson never used anything but the personal pronoun to designate her spouse, so Jane knew instantly whom she meant.
“Why, what’s the matter now?” she asked, in dismay. “I thought he was going to like his new work. Was he discharged?”
“No, miss, he was not!” In spite of her dejection, Mrs. Larson’s voice revealed a note of pride. “But it was inside work, and he ain’t used to inside work, and he says as how he don’t suppose at his age he ever will get used to it.”
“But surely he could endure it for a little while, until something else turned up!” exclaimed Jane, who was finding the Larsons a heavy responsibility. “What in the world will you do now?” A discussion of the problem of existence, however, was beyond the ability of Mrs. Larson, so she scrubbed for a while in apathetic silence, while Jane thought hard and anxiously.
“He’d like to be a shover,” finally volunteered her hostess.
“A shover!” exclaimed Mrs. De Mille, who was absolutely sure that the leisurely Larson’s view of life was incompatible with any form of employment that called for shoving. His wife nodded her head. “He always was a master hand for going swift, and he thought if he could get a place like Mr. Johnson’s——”
“Oh!” said Jane, suddenly comprehending, “I see. Does he know anything about machinery or about driving a car?”
Mrs. Larson shook her head despondently. “Nothin’, miss. It’s just his fondness for goin’ swift that made him think of it.”
“It’s just like him to wish to ‘go swift’ at somebody else’s expense,” thought Jane, scornfully, but she felt a delicacy about expressing her opinion of Larson to his wife, so another sorrowful pause ensued. It was broken by a lusty yell from the new Larson baby in the next room.
“Let me go to her,” said Jane, rising quickly, and Mrs. Larson indifferently acquiesced. Babies were no novelty to her and she could not understand her guest’s enthusiasm. Mrs. De Mille returned to the kitchen with the baby in her arms and seated herself near the open window. The youngest scion of the house of Larson was dressed in an expensive but dirty robe, and Jane looked at its mother reproachfully.
“You should not let her wear her christening robe every day, Mrs. Larson,” she protested.
“I know, miss,” answered Mrs. Larson, apologetically, “but she don’t appear to sleep comfortable in nothin’ else.” Jane sighed, but, she reasoned humbly, it was not for her to preach economy to the improvident Larsons. The fact of the matter is that Mrs. De Mille was feeling in an exceedingly chastened mood these days, and even Aunt Susan found little cause for complaint. To-day as she sat “clucking” softly to the Larson baby, which crowed happily in response, she felt that even her bedraggled and weary-looking hostess had obtained from life something more worth while than it had vouchsafed her, and a wave of self-pity swept over her.
“Goo-goo!” shrieked the baby, in an ecstasy of delight, and, flinging up a dimpled fist, it clutched determinedly at the lace at Jane’s throat. The magnetic touch of the tiny fingers proved Mrs. De Mille’s undoing, and, to the astonishment and disgust of the youngest Larson, she burst into tears.
“Land sakes!” exclaimed Mrs. Larson, dropping her scrubbing brush and hastening to the side of her guest. “Did it jab you in the eye?” She made aneffort to take her offspring from Jane, but the latter resisted.
“It—it isn’t the baby’s fault,” she sobbed, feeling that she was acting in a very ridiculous way, but unable to control herself. “I was just wishing I had a baby of my own.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Larson, understandingly, and then her red and ugly arms, which her sleeveless waist revealed, were slipped about Jane, and the two women mingled their tears exactly as though no gulf of opportunity and education yawned between them.
Larson had been pointed out to John Ormsby as the only man in Rosemount who was not above doing an errand, provided he was well paid for it, and Ormsby had started out in search of him. He took a short cut to the Larson cabin, approaching that humble domicile by way of the rear, and while he was still within half a block of the premises he recognized the graceful curve of Mrs. De Mille’s back through the open window. With no consciousness of eavesdropping, he strained his ears to catch her words as he came nearer, for invariably he found her gay stream of nonsense stimulating. But the look of anticipation changed to one of profound surprise as the dwindling distance between him and the cottage made him spectator of the little scene enacted in the Larsons’ untidy kitchen.
“By Jove!” he murmured, in his bewilderment. The disgusted and temporarily neglected Larson infant, who was hanging over Jane’s shoulder while that lady and its mother wept, caught a glimpse of the man outside, and, perhaps, recognized in his look of astonishment a reflex of its own feelings.
“Ah, goo,” it called out, tearfully, waving one hand feebly but sympathetically.
“By Jove!” muttered Mr. Ormsby again, and then turned suddenly, and made his way with surprising but quiet dispatch down the path up which he had come. The Larson baby, choosing to regard his retreat in the light of a desertion, raised a lusty howl, which instantly brought Jane and his mother to their senses.
Ormsby meanwhile had repaired to the bungalow. From the drawer of the table which he used for a desk he took a bundle of closely written sheets and began to thumb them over, pausing here and there to read a passage. The more he read, the more dissatisfied he looked, and finally he rolled the papers up again and thrust them contemptuously on the table. Then he took out his pipe, filled it and lighted it, and puffed away in silence for a while. Presently he removed it and looked once more at the manuscript lying on the table.
“By Jove!” he ejaculated once more, and then replaced his pipe and went on smoking.
Half an hour later Mrs. Moore, the venerable dame with whom he boarded, found him still sitting before the table, staring thoughtfully at the manuscript, his pipe out. She gave him a telegram and watched him inquisitively while he read it. “I have to run up to New York to-morrow,” he said, without looking up. “Have an early breakfast, please.”
His landlady, who never spoke unless it was absolutely necessary, nodded solemnly and withdrew, and Ormsby took out some paper and began to write a note. When he had finished he read it over and then deliberately tore it up. Five other notes which he wrote shared the same fate. Finally he indited a brief one and addressed it to Mrs. De Mille. It informed her tersely that he had been called to town and would not return for three days. Sealing it, he went to the door of the bungalow, and, after whistling vigorously for five minutes, succeeded in attracting the attention of a tow-headed youngster, who was walking leisurely up the dust road.
“Take this up to Willoughby Hall at once,” ordered Ormsby, sternly, slipping a coin into the grimy paw.
“Yep,” answered the boy, cheerfully, and obediently trotted off in the direction of the architectural monstrosity on the hill, Ormsby relentlessly following him with his eyes until he was out of sight. Alas! A grove of firs intervened between the bungalow and the house on the hill, and it was in this grove that the tow-headed urchindropped responsibility, thrust the note and coin in his pocket and “skinned” a tree for a nest. The coin was spent that very night, but it was not until a week later that, looking for a grasshopper he had carefully stowed away in his pocket, the recreant one came across Ormsby’s note. The discovery was timely, for he was in need just then of a bit of paper to polish his agate bottle, a new treasure.
It was raining; not spasmodically, with a suggestion of lifting skies between frenzied outbursts, but steadily, drearily, insistently. Jane, sitting up in bed, drew the down coverlet cozily about her bare neck and half-clad arms, while she despondently looked out through the window at the dripping landscape.
“Rain is bad enough in the city,” she mused, “but it’s simply impossible in the country. There, at least, you can get away from it, but here it seems to be all over.” There was a tap on the door.
“Come,” she called, and a maid entered with an appetizing breakfast on a tray. “Good-morning, Blanche,” said Jane. “Tell me what you do on a rainy day. You and Johnson won’t be able to walk out this evening.”
“We sits in the kitchen, miss,” said the little maid, primly, blushing to the roots of her mouse-colored hair. “Cook goes to bed early.”
“Very obliging of cook,” commented Jane, as she sipped her coffee. “And that reminds me, Blanche, I want to ask you a question, and I want you to answer me truthfully. Are you trifling with Johnson?”
“Me, miss?” The maid’s face grew redder than ever, but she tossed her head. “I’m not triflin’. Mr. Johnson keeps a-sayin’ as how he’s very fond o’ me, but I tells ’im he’s a city chap and says the same to all th’ gurls.”
“You’re right, Blanche, all the Johnsons are a bad lot,” said Jane, pessimistically. “However”—for the little maid’s face looked suddenly downcast—“I believe Johnson is one of the best of them, and that his intentions are serious.” The maid beamed. “And I would feel sorry to have you trifle with him, because I feel responsible for him while he’s down here. Avoid the reputation of being a flirt, Blanche.” Jane looked pensive. “It’s the hardest in the world to live down.”
“Yes’m,” said the maid, politely. “Is there anythink I can do for you?” She adored Jane, and spent hours trying to do her hair the way Mrs. De Mille did hers.
“No, I think not. Have the Willoughbys had breakfast?”
“Hours ago, miss,” answered Blanche. Jane smiled. This breakfast in bed represented one of her most memorable victories over Aunt Susan, and imparted a particularly delicious flavor to her coffee and rolls.
“Well, take the tray; I’ll get up in an hour or so,” said Jane, deliberately composing herself for another nap.
She dreamed of the bungalow and of Ormsby, and, when she finally dressed, it was with the defeated feeling of one who has striven hard to put certain thoughts out of her head, but who finds that they have taken possession even of her dreams.
She saw Uncle Jacob and Aunt Susan for the first time at the luncheon table. The rain was still falling with what Jane called disgusting pertinacity.
“Of course you’re not going out a day like this,” said Mrs. Willoughby, in the disapproving voice she seemed to reserve for Jane and her husband. By “out” she meant the bungalow. Until Aunt Susan had spoken, Mrs. De Mille had made up her mind that a visit to the bungalow on such a day was out of the question, and that Ormsby would not expect her. Now, however, she found herself saying, perversely: “Out! Of course I’m going out. A woman who works for a living cannot afford to mind a little rain. I have an appointment at the bungalow with Mr. Ormsby, and I have to keep it.”
Aunt Susan sniffed. “The neighbors are commenting——”
Jane held up a reproachful finger.“No gossip, aunt!” she said, rebukingly. “Don’t you think that living in the country has a tendency—just a slight tendency—to make people too deeply interested in their neighbors’ affairs?” Jane looked excessively virtuous. “I’d hate, Aunt Susan, to have you degenerate. But one has to besocareful!”
Mrs. Willoughby deigned no response, and finished the meal in stony silence. Uncle Jacob, who found himself unable to carry on a peaceful conversation with Jane and his wife both present, stealthily perused the columns of a belated city paper he held on his knee.
Immediately after her luncheon, Jane went to her room and got together her rainy-day things. When she sallied forth presently, she wore a coquettish-looking cap, a short, mannish coat and a skirt that was short enough to reveal not only a pair of the thinnest and most absurdly small Louis Quinze shoes, but a good bit of thin silk stocking as well. Jane, as she tripped along, surveyed her feet ruefully. “I know he’ll say something sarcastic about my shoes,” she mused, “and they are ridiculous for a day like this, and I’ve no doubt they do show I haven’t a scrap of common sense—though I know women who never wear anything but common-sense shoes who haven’t any common sense to boast of. It’s simply a question of whether you’re athletic or not. Besides, I can explain to him that I really did try to wear a pair of Blanche’s, but they slipped off when they were buttoned up, and he’ll have to admit that it’s much better for me to arrive at the bungalow in my own shoes, even though they’re more ridiculous, than in my stocking feet—which would have been the case had I worn Blanche’s. I’ll tell——” Jane pulled herself up sharp with a sudden, angry flush. “I don’t know,” she said out loud, sharply, “why you’re always trying to placate him, Jane De Mille! Where’s your independence gone to?” Then she fixed her eyes firmly on the distant horizon and her thoughts on a new summer gown and marched independently on.
To find the bungalow locked was like a blow to her, and when she faced about to return home she felt suddenly very cold, very wet, very miserable and very forlorn. Then she recollected that he had told her once that there was always a key under the mat in case she should come to the bungalow when he wasn’t there, and, reluctant to return to the dreariness of the Willoughby house, she searched for this, and, finding it, thrust it in the keyhole and opened the door. There was no fire in the fireplace, but there was material for one beside it, and, kneeling down in front of the cavernous opening, Jane laboriously constructed one and held out her hands gratefully to the warmth when the flames darted forth. She surveyed the room over her shoulder and was chilled afresh by its deserted air. “Can he have gone away without a word?” she wondered, and paled at the thought.
“It’s no use denying you’re in a very bad way about this Ormsby, Jane De Mille,” she reflected, pensively surveying the dancing flames. “You’re rapidly losing all your independence, and, what’s worse, your self-respect. And you haven’t the remotest reason for believing that he cares a scrap for you.”
She rose presently, and, moving his chair over to the fireplace, sat down in it and held out first one and then the other little high-heeled boot to dry. “If he loved me,” she observed to herself, “I really wouldn’t mind wearing thick soles and low heels.”
Her shoes dry, she began to move restlessly about the room. Now, it is a curious fact that Jane had never expressed and never felt any curiosity about the book Ormsby was writing, though she knew that she was furnishing the material for the heroine. In spite of herself, almost unconsciously, indeed, at first, she had become so absorbed in the writer that the book became of secondary importance. Today, however, his absence made everything that was intimately associated with him of interest to her, since they served, in a way, as a substitute for him. She picked up his pipe and held it caressingly against her cheek, andthen, with a guilty start, set it down again. She dropped her head on an open book he had evidently been reading, and her eyes were dewy when she raised it. She came upon, finally, the bundle of papers he had tossed contemptuously on the table the night before, and recognized it as the manuscript upon which he had been working. She regarded it thoughtfully for a while and then her face brightened.
“Why, how stupid of me!” she exclaimed, aloud, and, going back to his chair, she seated herself in it once more and smoothed out the sheets.
“He can’t possibly object to my reading it,” she reasoned, “since I’m in it, and it’s soon to be public property.” She stared at the title. “‘A Woman,’” she read aloud—“that’s me, I suppose. Why”—with an odd, breathless little laugh—“it will be exactly like seeing for the first time a portrait done of yourself by some great painter—one of those artists who pay more attention to the soul than to the hair or the mouth or the eyes. I’ll see myself as somebody else sees me. It’s—it’s going to be terribly exciting.”
Yet, in spite of the curiosity she professed, Jane did not begin at once to read. Instead, she dropped the manuscript in her lap and stared for a while into the fire, her chin propped on her hand. Her thoughts ran on something like this: “You’ve never had such an awfully good time, Jane De Mille, though you’ve put up what Billie would call a pretty stiff bluff. You’ve never had anybody to really and truly care for you, unless it be Uncle Jacob, though plenty of people have admired you for what good looks you have or because you didn’t bore them. But if you shoulddiscoverthat somebody loved you for yourself alone, thought you a little better, perhaps, than you really are, you know—why, it’s just possible——” A catch in her breath put a stop to her reflections, and she unrolled the manuscript and began to read.
The fire was dying down, but, tenacious of life as some very old man who has prolonged his years through will power alone, it shot forth unexpected flames at infrequent intervals. These lighted up Jane’s face, and such changes did they reveal with each succeeding appearance that they might have been the withering years. The patter of the rain on the roof, the rustle of the sheets as they fell from her hand and fluttered to the floor, the occasional sputter of the fire—these for the next two hours were the only sounds heard in the bungalow. When the last page joined the others that lay scattered about in disorder on the floor, Mrs. De Mille stared for a few seconds straight ahead of her, and then, with a quivering sigh, buried her head on the arm of the chair and began to cry.
*****
It lacked half an hour of dinner time, and Jacob Willoughby sat alone in the stuffy library. The owner of Willoughby Hall was not what could be called sentimental, but in the twilight hour, and especially when the weather necessitated an open fire, he was apt, if Susan Willoughby was in a remote part of the house, to let his thoughts stray back to a time when she was not, so far as Jacob Willoughby was concerned, and when a slim young creature, addicted to pink and blue muslins, but with neither family nor prospects, was the sun of his days, the moon and stars of his nights. He had been sensible and never regretted it—that is, hardly ever. To-night, however, the dancing flames that glorified the dull room reminded him of the grace of his boyhood’s love, and the dreary splash, splash, of the rain outside, of the gray monotony of the years that lay behind him and of those other dull and purposeless years that stretched out before him.
And when presently a pale Jane broke in upon this reverie, Jacob was forced to brush his hands across his eyes twice to make sure it was Jane and not the slim young creature to whom he had brought the early crocuses in the springtime of his youth. Neither knew exactly how it happened, but Jane found herself sobbing out her story on Uncle Jacob’s broad bosom, and feeling strangely comforted by the tender pressure of his pudgy hand upon her shoulder.When she cried out that she could not stand it to have that hateful book come out, and to listen to the comments upon it, it was Uncle Jacob who suggested that a trip abroad might accomplish wonders in the way of making her forget both the man and the book. Not that he believed it—he lied gallantly there—but he had his reward in seeing the face he loved brighten somewhat.
And when Jane stole away with a check in her hand, leaving him to explain to Aunt Susan her absence from dinner and her early departure in the morning, in spite of the ordeal that lay before him, there was a warm glow underneath the white vest, a glow which even the approaching grenadier-like tread of Aunt Susan could not dispel.
It was the last Tuesday in November, and Mrs. Hardenburgh was giving the first of her usual series of at-homes. An inveterate lion hunter was this clever woman of sixty-odd summers, whose hair was as thick and golden as a débutante’s, and whose complexion as pink and white. This afternoon she was in a particularly complacent mood, for she had arranged a piquant double attraction for her guests. When, however, by six o’clock, both attractions had failed to materialize, the faintest suggestion of a frown appeared on her remarkably smooth brow. Five minutes later the appearance of a newcomer had dispelled it, and the hostess was her humorous, smiling self.
The newcomer was Jane—Jane in a gown every line of which spoke Paris, in a dream of a hat that sat on her proud little head like a coronet; Jane, in short, in a perfect get-up and in radiant health and spirits. Personally, we’d prefer to set it down that she looked pale, distrait; that “concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,” etc.; but it would not be true. Whatever the suffering within—and there was a rather deep, intent look about the eyes—Mrs. De Mille presented an unconquered, nay, a self-satisfied, front to this little New York world, and was looking her very best.
As she made her way slowly down the long room to where her hostess stood, it occurred to her that she was causing something of a sensation. At first she modestly ascribed it to the fact that she had been away for six months, and that this was her first public appearance since her return. It dawned upon her presently, however, that the rooms were filled with strangers, principally, and as the interest deepened rather than lessened with her slow advance, she was forced to acknowledge to herself that something beside her lengthened absence was responsible for the attention she was receiving. The more puzzled she grew, the more confidently she carried herself, and when a very young bud in a very high treble agitatedly remarked to ablaséyouth: “She’s not a bit disappointing, is she?” it expressed in words the verdict of the rooms.
After greeting Mrs. Hardenburgh, the first familiar face Jane encountered was Mr. Scott’s.
“So you’ve gone and gotten yourself engaged, faithless one?” she observed, reproachfully, after they had shaken hands.
“Oh, I say, Jane——” he began, in exactly the same tone with which he was wont, in the past, to preface one of his numerous proposals.
Jane regarded him with mock horror. “Billie, Billie, don’t tell me you are going to propose!” she exclaimed, disapprovingly. “One rather expects proposals from the married men nowadays, but from newly engaged ones, fie! fie!”
Mr. Scott colored high. “You can’t think how the sight of you makes my heart beat,” he said, agitatedly.
“Nonsense!” retorted Jane, snubbingly. “Point out your girl instantly.”
Pulling himself together with a palpable effort, Mr. Scott indicated a sparkling brunette, one of a group of débutantes who were watching Jane with intense interest.
“Why, she’s adorable!” exclaimed Mrs. De Mille. “Present me.” And Mr. Scott, looking suddenly very proud, offered his arm.
“I’ve read the book,” murmured the little brunette, ecstatically, after Jane had offered her felicitations. “It must be beautiful to be written about like that.”
Mrs. De Mille stared and then grew pale. “The book!” she echoed. “I—I don’t know what you mean!”
“Why, I thought——” began Mr. Scott’s pretty fiancée, looking as though she regretted her own impulsiveness. But before she had a chance to explain, a tall and extremely well-dressed young matron bore down upon Jane and triumphantly carried her off.
“How well you’re looking, Betty,” observed Jane, surveying her friend rather wistfully, when they were seated in a quiet corner.
“That’s because I’m so happy,” answered that lady, promptly. “Maurice is such a dear! And now, Jane, tell me, when is the engagement to be announced?”
Mrs. De Mille opened her eyes very wide. “Engagement!” she cried. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whose engagement?”
“Why, yours and Mr. Ormsby’s,” retorted her friend. “Every line of the book shows he’s desperately in love with you. Did you refuse him?”
Jane clutched Mrs. McClurg’s hand. “Is that awful book out, and does everybody think it’s me?” she demanded, in a voice that trembled in spite of her effort to control it.
Mrs. McClurg looked at her in astonishment. “Awful book!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mr. Ormsby’s novel is the success of the year, and the heroine is anextremely flatteringpicture of you. All your friends have recognized it, and they all agree with me.”
Jane rose. “If my friends think I’m the heartless and idiotic creature that book pictures, then I have no friends,” she said, coldly. “Good-by, Betty.” She turned to go, but Mrs. McClurg caught her hand.
“I don’t believe you’ve read the book, Jane de Mille,” she said. “The heroine is not heartless. She’s a perfectly adorable creature, and everybody—all the women envy you.”
“I haven’t seen the book,” admitted Jane, “but I read the manuscript, and my recollection is that the author placed me a good deal lower than the angels, to state it mildly. I never want to see it.”
“I can’t understand; there must be some mistake!” exclaimed Mrs. McClurg. “Just wait here a minute.” She glided out from behind the screen of palms, and, after a brief absence, came back to the nook with a small, quietly bound little book in her hand. “Read that!” she commanded, triumphantly, opening it and pointing to the title-page.
Reluctantly Jane raised her eyes and took in the brief contents. “The Woman, by John Ormsby,” she read, and then, underneath, a single line, “To her who inspired it,” and underneath that again this fragment of verse:
Lean penury within that pen doth dwellThat to his subject lends not some small glory;But he that writes of you, if he can tellThat you are you, so dignifies his story;Let him but copy what in you is writ,Not making worse what nature made so clear,And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,Making his style admired everywhere.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwellThat to his subject lends not some small glory;But he that writes of you, if he can tellThat you are you, so dignifies his story;Let him but copy what in you is writ,Not making worse what nature made so clear,And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,Making his style admired everywhere.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwellThat to his subject lends not some small glory;But he that writes of you, if he can tellThat you are you, so dignifies his story;Let him but copy what in you is writ,Not making worse what nature made so clear,And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,Making his style admired everywhere.
“Betty.” Jane lifted her head and looked at her friend with sudden inspiration.
“Well,” retorted Mrs. McClurg, not too enthusiastically, for it had just occurred to her that Mrs. De Mille had concealed a great deal.
“I want to sneak, and I want to take this book with me,” explained the latter, shamelessly. “I don’t believe I have read it. Can you—will you cover my retreat?”
Mrs. McClurg looked only half appeased and dubious. “Mr. Ormsby is coming here this afternoon,” she said, severely. “I happen to know that Mrs. Hardenburgh has been rejoicing at the thought that you were to meet here in her drawing room.”
“Neat little arrangement,” observedJane, ironically. Then she became suddenly frightened. “I must go at once,” she said. “Oh, Betty, don’t you see that I can’t see him here? Help me, there’s a good girl, and come to me to-morrow—I have the same apartment, you know—and I’ll tell youeverything.”
And Mrs. McClurg, who was by no means hard-hearted, relented. When the big doors finally closed upon Jane, she gave a sigh of relief, but it ended with a gasp, for she found herself face to face with John Ormsby, who, immaculately attired, was ascending the brownstone steps.
“How d’ye do?” said Mrs. De Mille, airily, extending her hand and hoping fervently at the same time that the book which she had tucked away underneath her arm was invisible.
He took her hand, but did not respond to her salutation, only gazed hungrily into her face.
“Where in the world have you been hiding yourself?” he demanded, finally, when Jane, with an effort, had removed her hand.
“Sounds as though I were a criminal,” commented Jane. “Did you miss any spoons at the bungalow?”
He did not answer, only continued to stare at her, and so she went on, nervously: “I’ve been in Paris chiefly. Some people don’t like Paris in the summer time, but I adore it. But you’re Mrs. Hardenburgh’s lion. I mustn’t detain you.Au revoir!” She started down the steps, but he followed her determinedly. “If you think I’m going to lose sight of you after my long search, you’re mistaken,” he said, quietly.
“Mrs. Hardenburgh will be furious, and you will be very impolite, if you don’t go in at once,” said Jane, tucking the little book further out of sight.
“I loathe those things,” he answered, disrespectfully. “I only consented to come because I was told you might be there. But if Paradise was just inside, and——”
“Hades,” interrupted Jane, demurely.
“And you were outside, nothing would induce me to go in.”
“The inference is so odious I refuse to be flattered,” she said, “but you never were good at making pretty speeches. If you’re coming with me”—briskly—“you’ll have to walk. I’m economizing. Uncle Jacob is giving me an allowance, and I’m living on it.”
“But you’re rich, or almost rich, in your own right,” said Mr. Ormsby, as they walked along. “The book promises to be preposterously successful, and half the royalties are yours, you know.”
Jane grew suddenly frigid. “I beg that you will not refer to that wretched affair,” she said, haughtily. “I have not read your book, and I am not interested in it.”
Mr. Ormsby’s face became very downcast. “I was in hopes that you had read it, and that it would explain——”
“There is really nothing to explain,” interrupted Jane. “I acted on a reckless impulse, and was bored for my pains. I have no wish to read your book, though”—civilly—“I’m glad for your sake it promises to be a success.”
Mrs. De Mille’s fall followed fast on the heels of her little exhibition of pride. A boy hurrying by with a bundle jostled her arm, and the book she had been endeavoring to conceal fell to the pavement. In stooping to recover it, Mr. Ormsby recognized it, but he returned it to her without comment, and Jane perversely chose to feel affronted at his silence.
“I met a friend at Mrs. Hardenburgh’s who was quite enthusiastic about the book, and to please her I consented to take it home to read,” she exclaimed, coldly.
“I would not bother myself about it, if I were you; it’s a poor thing,” he returned, just as coldly. They walked for a square in silence, a silence that, strange to relate, was not broken first by Jane but by her companion.
“I have an explanation to make, and, in spite of the risk I run of further offending you, I must make it,” he said, distantly. “When I wrote that first absurd sketch I did not understand you. I thought that you were as frivolous and as heartless as you appeared on the surface.”
“Indeed!” commented Jane, tilting her chin scornfully.
“And then something happened——” he paused.
“What was it?” she asked, eagerly, and bit her lip in vexation at herself for displaying curiosity.
“I’m not going to tell you that,” he responded, coolly, “but it helped me to an understanding of you. And then I was called to New York, and I found when I got back that you had been at the bungalow—you left your handkerchief there, you know—and that you had read the sketch, for the papers were scattered about the floor, and I realized that——” he hesitated.
“You realized what?” said Jane, defiantly.
“That I loved you,” he concluded, quietly.
The acknowledgment was so unexpected that it disconcerted Mrs. De Mille, and she had nothing to say.
“I supposethatbores you, too?” he said, half ironically.
“This is where I live,” was her only response. They had reached the entrance to a smart uptown apartment house, and Jane paused. Her tone was not exactly a dismissal one, and, as she faced him, Ormsby stared at her anxiously.
“Is there—can there be any hope for me——” he began.
“While there’s life there’s hope, you know,” retorted Jane, frivolously. “But I was just about to suggest that if you’re quite certain you don’t want to go back to Mrs. Hardenburgh’s, I’ll give you a cup of tea.”
Her tone was noncommittal, but as she led the way to the elevator, she looked back at him over her shoulder and laughed softly, and a great joy transfigured John Ormsby’s face.
’TIS not for thee in ancient walks to throwThy pointed shadows o’er the sculptured stone,Where marble fixes some immortal moanOf art; nor, gathering gloom where waters flowPast groves Lethean, crypts of human woe,To lift thy cheering spires. Thy lot is strownIn newer, happier climes and lands unknownTo classic realms of storied pomps and show.For thou, dear gnomon of the passing hour,Green sentinel of sunny lanes and fields,Whose sturdy watch defies harsh winter’s knell,Art guardian of the humblest homes, where dwellThe simple folk, the yeomanry that wieldsIn peopled might all that men crave of power!Harvey Maitland Watts.
’TIS not for thee in ancient walks to throwThy pointed shadows o’er the sculptured stone,Where marble fixes some immortal moanOf art; nor, gathering gloom where waters flowPast groves Lethean, crypts of human woe,To lift thy cheering spires. Thy lot is strownIn newer, happier climes and lands unknownTo classic realms of storied pomps and show.For thou, dear gnomon of the passing hour,Green sentinel of sunny lanes and fields,Whose sturdy watch defies harsh winter’s knell,Art guardian of the humblest homes, where dwellThe simple folk, the yeomanry that wieldsIn peopled might all that men crave of power!Harvey Maitland Watts.
’TIS not for thee in ancient walks to throwThy pointed shadows o’er the sculptured stone,Where marble fixes some immortal moanOf art; nor, gathering gloom where waters flowPast groves Lethean, crypts of human woe,To lift thy cheering spires. Thy lot is strownIn newer, happier climes and lands unknownTo classic realms of storied pomps and show.
For thou, dear gnomon of the passing hour,Green sentinel of sunny lanes and fields,Whose sturdy watch defies harsh winter’s knell,Art guardian of the humblest homes, where dwellThe simple folk, the yeomanry that wieldsIn peopled might all that men crave of power!
Harvey Maitland Watts.