"Man's inhumanity to man may be a live topic," reflected Mr. Everett sagely, "but what about woman's inhumanity to woman? And yet sis doesn't mean to be unkind."
The growing conviction of her own folly haunted Jane even in her belated dreams, in which she found herself once more in the pleasant English schoolroom superintending her two small cousins in their youthful efforts to comprehend the fundamental principles of good conduct. "You should always be considerate to those beneath you, Percy," she seemed to be saying, "and help them whenever you can." Then she had quoted the grand old motto of the French aristocracy, "noblesse oblige," explaining how one's superiority in any particular only added to one's obligation to those less fortunate.
It was hard to awaken from this dream to find the rain beating heavily upon the roof of Mrs. Belknap's trunkroom, and to realize, from an inspection of the loud-voiced nickel clockwhich she had been told to take upstairs, that she was very late indeed.
Mrs. Belknap was engaged in preparing breakfast as expeditiously as was possible with her child hanging about her skirts and clamoring for his food. She bestowed an impatient glance upon Jane as she entered the kitchen, which had the effect of dispelling that young person's contrition as effectually as one of Lady Agatha's ill-timed reproaches.
"I am sorry to be late," said Jane stiffly.
Mrs. Belknap did not reply. At the moment she was adding boiling water to the coffee pot, and stirring its contents with a long-handled spoon.
Jane shrugged her shoulders. "She's an ill-bred person," she told herself resentfully. "Shall I lay the table, madam?" she ventured, after an uncomfortable silence, during which she watched her young mistress's deft motions with dismayed interest.
"That is already done," replied Mrs. Belknap, turning her pretty, flushed face uponJane. "I believe I told you last night that Mr. Belknap and Mr. Everett were obliged to leave for the city on the half-past seven car. You should have been down an hour ago. I never call a servant," she added severely.
Jane swallowed hard. Thennoblesse obligerecurred to her mind. "You did tell me," she said, very gently, "and I am sorry I overslept. I will try not to do that again. Shall I give Master Buster his breakfast, ma'am?"
A variety of expressions passed in rapid succession over Mrs. Belknap's mobile face, astonishment, pleasure, and a subdued twinkle of fun shone in her eyes as she again turned to Jane. "Why, yes; you may—if he will go with you."
A fleeting sense of wonder at this unchanging attitude of subserviency toward the infant pervaded Jane's English mind. Then she stooped toward the child. "If you will come with me, Master Buster, I will give you your breakfast."
The child stared at her thoughtfully; then to his mother's manifest astonishment he acceptedthe invitation. "I will do wiv oo," he said, with immense condescension.
Mrs. Belknap heaved a thankful sigh. "Howsweetof the darling!" she murmured. "Here is his breakfast food, Jane. He likes it with cream and sugar. You may give him the juice of half an orange and two slices of this whole wheat bread toasted, with butter. He will breakfast with us this morning."
As Jane, in her frilled cap and white apron, bearing a tray, entered the dining room she encountered Mr. John Everett. He looked at her inquiringly. "Good morning," he said cheerfully.
"Good morning, sir," replied Jane unsmilingly, then blushed angrily to find herself blushing. "He is very rude to notice a servant so particularly," she told herself. Then her curiosity got the better of her, and she stole a second glance at him. Mr. Everett was apparently quite absorbed in his paper at the moment, and Jane had ample opportunity to observe the fine, strong lines of his clean-shaven face. Hewas undeniably handsome, Jane was forced to admit, and he looked kind and sensible.
The small boy known as Buster now appeared, borne high aloft in his tall father's arms, and presently the entire family was seated at the table.
Jane hated herself anew as she waited by her mistress's chair to pass the cups of coffee on her little tray. Try as she would she could not rid herself of the vision of Lady Agatha's scornful eyes, while Reginald and Gwendolen seemed quietly to mock her from across the sea. In an interval of absence from the dining room, in quest of fresh toast, she caught a trill of low laughter; then Mrs. Belknap's carrying voice—"Really quite impressive, isn't she? But I fear she's bound to be more ornamental than useful."
Jane's indignant blushes betrayed her to at least one pair of eyes when she reëntered the dining room, and Mr. John Everett plainly looked his displeasure at his pretty sister, who was still exchanging smiles with her husband.
"How wouldyoulike it, sis?" Jane heard him ask pointedly, as the two men were putting on their coats in the front hall.
"HowdoI like it, you mean, Jack. Well, I only hope you'll find me alive to-night," Mrs. Belknap had replied. Then she came out airily to the kitchen, where Jane was awkwardly gathering the breakfast things preparatory to washing them.
"Now, Jane," said Mrs. Belknap, producing a leather-covered account book, with a pretty air of importance, "I must have a little talk with you. What is your full name, please?"
"Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe," replied Jane distinctly. "My nobleness obliges me to be truthful and polite," she thought.
Mrs. Belknap was surveying her with an incredulous smile. "Notreally?" she said. "You found that name in a novel, didn't you?"
"No, madam," said Jane coldly, "that is my full name."
"Where did you work before you came tome?" went on Mrs. Belknap, with a pause of her busy pencil.
Jane hesitated.
Mrs. Belknap's clear eyes demanded instant answer, somewhat after the manner of a magistrate conducting a legal examination. Master Belknap, who was leaning upon his mother's knee in a complacently postprandial state, also centered his direct gaze upon the girl's face.
"I—worked, that is, I was last employed by a—Mrs. Markle or—Madam Melbrun," faltered Jane, loudly clashing the cups in her confusion.
"Be careful not to break the china, Jane," advised Mrs. Belknap, with housewifely care. "In what capacity were you employed by this Mrs. or Madam—what was the name?"
"I don't know," confessed Jane, with desperate frankness. "She told me her name was Markle; afterwards she said it was Melbrun."
Mrs. Belknap shook her head, as she again glanced seriously at the name with which she had just headed the clear, new page in her bookof accounts. "I cannot understand," she said strongly, "why people should lie about their names, or, indeed, about anything. It is so much moresensibleto tell the truth. That is what I often tell Mary: 'Dotell me the truth, Mary,' I say to her. But I fear she never does."
"What, never?" exclaimed Jane, unconsciously plagiarizing from a comic opera.
"It is a habit, I fear," said Mrs. Belknap in a depressed tone, "telling falsehoods, I mean; some persons tell them when they might just as well tell the truth, even from their own standpoint. Of course," she added hastily, "it is alwaysrightandbestto tell the exact truth. I hope, Jane, thatyouare atruthfulgirl. You will get on much better withmeif you are. Now what did you do for this person for whom you last worked?"
"I smuggled," said Jane shortly.
"You—what?"
"Smuggled," repeated Jane; "I smuggled lace—five thousand dollars worth, the man said. Mrs. Markle sewed it in my jacket between thelining and the outside. But they found it and took it away."
Mrs. Belknap looked actually frightened for a minute. "I—I don't believe it," she murmured weakly.
"I didn't know Mrs. Markle put the lace there," Jane went on firmly. "She gave me a beautiful fur coat to wear on the ship, and asked me to leave my jacket in her stateroom. She sewed the lace in the jacket during the voyage."
"Youlooklike a truthful girl," mused Mrs. Belknap. "But— Then you have just come to America," she added shrewdly, "and you have no references, of course?"
"No, Mrs. Belknap; I have not," replied Jane, expecting no less than an instant dismissal after this damaging statement.
To her great surprise the lady closed her book with a slight shrug of her shapely shoulders. "The matter of wages we discussed last night," she said tentatively. "Now I am expecting Mrs. Whittaker to wash this morning; you will put the kitchen to rights as quickly as you can. Andremember, Jane, that although you have no references I shall soon be able to find out just what sort of a girl you are. I am not easily deceived."
This improving conversation was interrupted by the arrival at the back door of a tall, thin, dyspeptic-looking person attired in a rusty black gown and a dispirited hat, both of which articles of attire had obviously seen better days.
"Good mornin', Mis' Belknap," began this individual, with a trenchant sniff, as she divested herself of her draggled black skirt, which was thus revealed as a sort of drop curtain concealing a scant gingham wrapper beneath, girt about the waist with a decent checkered apron.
Mrs. Belknap displayed her white teeth in a winning smile as she replied. "And this is my new maid, Jane Blythe," she added, indicating that young person with an affable gesture.
"My! you ain't tellin' me that Mary MacGrotty's left you?" exclaimed Mrs. Whittaker in a sympathizing tone; "as good an' kind as you've be'n to her! I sh'd think she'd be 'shamed to treat you so mean. As I says to m''usband this mornin', 'Mary MacGrotty,' I says, 'don't know when she's well off, a-livin' with that sweet young lady.'"
"I expect Mary back within a few days," Mrs. Belknap said guardedly. "She's away just now."
Mrs. Whittaker bent over the tubs with a deep, discouraged sigh. "M' back's mos' broke this mornin'," she observed, flapping a wet sheet on the board and lathering it freely with soap; "but what with five childern to work fer, an' m' 'usband out o' work since Christmas, it comes pretty hard on a body. Was you expectin' to stay right along?"
"Were you speaking to me?" asked Jane coldly.
Mrs. Whittaker cast a guarded glance about the kitchen. "She's gone; ain't she? She ain't plannin' to keeptwo, is she?"
Jane made no reply. Mrs. Whittaker gazed at her for a moment with her soapy arms akimbo. "You won't like it here," she said at last. "I c'n see that without ha'f lookin'.She's turrible to work fur.Icouldn't stan' her—more'n fur a day now an' then. As I tell m' 'usband, I wasn't made to be bossed by nobody. I'm awful proud an' independent, an'shethinks she's the hull thing. I guess if she knew all 'at I know 'bout the goin's on in this 'ere kitchen she wouldn't be quite so uppity."
A light step at the door announced the hasty return of Mrs. Belknap; Mrs. Whittaker was discovered diligently rubbing, with a sad, but resigned, expression of countenance.
"I brought down this embroidered shirt-waist for you to wash, Mrs. Whittaker, and will you please be careful not to rub the embroidery on the board; it isn't much soiled, you see; a little of this white soap will be best for the flannels and for all these fine white things. By the way, you haven't put any of that washing powder into the water, have you? I buy that for the floors and tables; Mary thinks she can't get along without it. But it is very bad for the clothes."
Mrs. Whittaker received the garment in question with an air of lofty unconcern. "I wuznever known to put that nasty yellow stuff in m' clo'es," she said haughtily. "I sh'd think you'd know me well 'nough by this time to be sure o' that, Mis' Belknap. You don't need to worry about nothin' whenI'min the kitchen."
"I know you're very careful, Mrs. Whittaker," the young mistress of the house made haste to assure her.
"I 'ope she'll keep out the kitchen the rest of the day," Mrs. Whittaker observed acridly, as the door closed on Mrs. Belknap's retreating figure. "The simple idee ofherteachingmehow to wash! No washin' powder, indeed! Well, I guess I ain't a-goin' to rub m' fingers to the bone fur her! That there white soap ain't worth shucks. But I'll take it 'ome with me; it'll do to wash the childern with."
Mrs. Whittaker sighed deeply as she crossed the floor with the cake of white soap. "I'll just leave it in m' pocket," she said. "Is there a drop of tea in that pot? No? Well, I'll make me a cup, I guess. My! I feel s' kind o' weak an' gone at the pit o' my stomick this mornin',as I wuz tellin' m' 'usband: 'I guess I'll have to take it 's easy 's I can to-day,' I says. An' 'e says, 'Do,' 'e says, 'an' come home 's early 's you can, Maria.' No; you won't be in this place long. You won't like it. Me an' Mary gits along pretty fair; but she won't stan' another girl around. Many's the time she's said so to me, right in this kitchen."
Jane hastily hung up the tea towels; her ears were burning under the loose waves of her hair.
"I'll help m'self to what I want to eat," Mrs. Whittaker was saying amiably; "I know where everythin' is, an' you don't need to stay 'round here on my account. If you was wantin' to change yer place when your week's out I know a real nice woman down the street 'at ain't got a girl. I promised her yeste'd'y 'at I'd inquire 'round. I'd like to 'commodateher; her youngest girl's clo'es just fits my Edie May. She's a nice woman to work for, too; she ain't always a-snoopin' 'round like some other folks I know of."
Mrs. Whittaker paused to empty a liberalshower of the tabooed washing compound into the boiler which was beginning to steam upon the range; then she rummaged in the pocket of her gown with an abstracted air. "Gracious! I 'ope I didn't leave that washin' soda to home. No; 'ere it is."
Jane observed Mrs. Whittaker's movements with astonished interest as she proceeded to cast certain large fragments of a whitish substance after the washing powder. "Washin' soda's m' best friend, as I tell my 'usband frequent. I most always carry some with me. Most the women I work for can't abide it; but it takes the dirt out, an' it saves m' back. I don't ask 'em to buy it, an' 's long 's I furnish it m'self I say it's none o' their business. Mind, you don't say nothin' toher'bout my puttin' washin' soda in the boiler! But I guess you ain't that kind nohow, as I was sayin'——"
Jane hurriedly fled, the woman's whining voice sounding in her ears.
"Now, Jane," Mrs. Belknap observed pleasantly, "you may put the chambers and bathroom in nice order; and then you may sweep the stairs, the hall, and the front piazza. As a rule I should like to have all that attended to before breakfast. When Mary returns I will prepare a schedule of your work carefully arranged for the different days, so that there can be no possible misunderstanding with regard to it. Aren't you feeling well?" she added, with severe kindness, as she eyed Jane's proud little face which too plainly betrayed the wakeful hours of the previous night and the heavy, unrefreshing slumber of the early morning. "I hope you are not delicate."
Jane straightened her slim figure. "Thank you, Mrs. Belknap, I am feeling quite well," she replied coldly.
"Very well, then; you will find the brushes and dusters in this closet, and I should like you to be careful to keep them in their place.—Dear me! I wonder what that child can be doing?"
The sound of running water and the tinkle of broken glass reached their ears from an adjoining room. "Oh, younaughtyboy! Whatwillmother do with you!"
"I was dest cweanin' my teef, muzzer, an' I dwopped 'e' gwass, an' itb-w-owke!" explained the small boy earnestly. "An' all 'e' toof-powder 'pilled on 'e' floor! It's nice an's-w-e-et, muzzer! I like toof-powder."
"Oh, Buster Belknap, you haven't beeneatingtooth-powder?"
"I cweaned my teef, an I dwopped 'e' gwass, an' I——"
Further explanations were rendered impossible by Mrs. Belknap's prompt and heroic measures. The naughty pink mouth was forced open and rapidly explored by maternal eyes and fingers, while Jane was required to fetch in rapidsuccession a glass of water, a clean towel, and a fresh pinafore.
During the process the small boy screamed and struggled manfully if ineffectually; but once washed, dried, and freshly arrayed he pranced gayly away, his countenance composed and cheerful.
Jane was by this time busily engaged in sweeping the front stairs, while she wondered miserably if any girl in the whole world could be so unhappy and friendless as herself. She wished gloomily that she had not run away from Portland Square. She condemned herself bitterly for the pride and vainglory of her hasty actions, and with it all wave after wave of desperate homesickness surged over her young soul. It was scarcely to be wondered at that dust accumulated in dark nooks and corners should escape the notice of the tear-blurred hazel eyes, nor that the unswept rugs should be thoughtlessly pushed to one side.
She was suddenly recalled to a sense of these shortcomings by Mrs. Belknap's crisp, Americanvoice. "Why,Jane! You are not doing this work at all properly. One would think it was your first experience in sweeping!"
"It is, ma'am," said Jane hopelessly.
"Dear me! I'm afraid this will never do," went on Mrs. Belknap, with a discouraged sigh. "Can't youseethe dirt? Here, let me show you!"
Jane stared at the faultless demonstration of housewifely skill with sullen resentment. In her own eyes she seemed to have sunken to a plane infinitely beneath that occupied by Susan, the housemaid in the Portland Square mansion. Susan, at least, knew how to do her work thoroughly and well.
"Now, Jane, will you try again?" asked Mrs. Belknap, pleasantly conscious of a most praiseworthy patience and self-control. "I am sure you can sweep down these stairs properly,if you try, and if you will put your mind upon what you are doing. Then these rugs—IthinkI told you to take them out of doors to brush. They are quite filled with dust and germs, I dare say."
Mrs. Belknap appeared to expect some sort of reply to this serious arraignment, for she eyed Jane searchingly.
"You didn't mention the rugs, ma'am," said poor Jane, with an uncontrollable quiver of her mutinous mouth; "but I will take them out, if you would like me to."
As she bore her burden through the kitchen Mrs. Whittaker suspended her monotonous labors to remark: "My!Iwouldn't stir a foot to clean them rugs, if I was you. That's man's work. Mis' Radford—her 'at I was tellin' you wanted a girl—hires a man to clean the rugs every Thursday. 'Tain't no more'n right, neither!"
The sun was shining cheerfully out of doors, and a brisk wind was hurrying the big, white clouds across the April sky. In spite of herself the clean, wholesome air and active exercise restored Jane's spirits. "I'll soon earn enough money to pay my passage back to England," she told herself, "and then—I can easily get a place as governess somewhere."
The capricious breeze whipped her brown hair in clouds across her eyes, quite blinding her to the approach of the stout, rubicund, showily dressed person who paused to stare curiously at Jane before entering the kitchen door.
This individual was discovered in close consultation with Mrs. Whittaker as Jane passed through the kitchen.
"That's what I tol' 'er," the laundress was remarking plaintively, as she passed a succession of dripping articles through the wringer, "Mary won't never stan' another girl in 'er kitchen, I says, an' it'll likely lose me a day a week besides. It ain't right to take the bread out o' my pore childern's mouths to put into hern; that it ain't!"
Mrs. Belknap was investing her child in coat and cap, with a somewhat worried expression on her pretty face, as Jane reëntered the hall. "Please don't talk to Mrs. Whittaker any more than you can help, Jane," she said seriously. "I think it hinders her in her work."
"I haven't spoken to the woman, ma'am,"replied Jane, justly indignant. "I can't help it if she talks to me; but I'm sure I'm not interested in what she says."
"You shouldn't answer me in that tone, Jane," advised Mrs. Belknap warmly. "Oh, I do believe Mary has come back!"
"Yis, mum; I've come back; but I ain't sure as I'll stay," announced a rich Irish voice from the door.
"OMary! where have you been? I didn't know what to think when I found you were gone again."
"Well, mum, you hadn't no more'n turned the corner before the telephone bell rang. It was me cousin in Tompkinsville. 'O Mary MacGrotty,' she says, whin she heard my voice, 'Aunt Bridget's tuk awful bad,' she says; 'you must come to wanst!' 'I'll come,' I says, 'an' stay wid yez justwan hour! I've me dinner to get,' I says, 'an' me leddy's out.' But whin I got to me cousin's house I found me aunt in strong convulsions. 'Sure, an' you won't have the heart to lave 'er like this,' they all says tome; an' so I stayed the night. She's some better this mornin', the saints be praised; but I guess I'll be goin' back, as I see you've help a-plinty."
"O Mary!" Mrs. Belknap said earnestly, "Iwantyou tostay. I've hired Jane to help me with Buster, and she'll wait at table besides and do the upstairs sweeping. You'll find itmucheasier."
Miss MacGrotty folded her fat arms and surveyed Jane with coldly critical eyes. "If I'd a known you was wantin' a sicond gurl, I cud 'a' got you my niece—me brother's youngest daughter, Annie. She's alovelyworker an' used to childern. Where did you git the loikes o'her," she added, with a scornful toss of her plumed head.
"From an agency in New York," replied Mrs. Belknap, with a conciliatory mildness of demeanor which astonished Jane. "I think you'll find Jane a pleasant help and companion, and Jane, I hope you'll get along nicely with Mary. And now that you've finished laying down the rugs, Jane, won't you put on your hat and goout with Buster. He's in the side yard; but I fear he'll run away if he's left to himself too long."
When Jane came down from her attic room attired for the street Mrs. Belknap stopped her to say pointedly: "You've forgotten your apron, Jane; you'll find a clean one in the top drawer of the dining-room closet."
Poor Jane was quite unaware of the subtle psychological processes which contributed to her feeling of loathing for that innocent and spotless article of attire. But the apron appeared to be the last straw added to the already intolerable burden of her acute discomfort. Her pretty face was clouded and gloomy as she walked slowly across the muddy road in pursuit of the brilliant red tam perched on Master Belknap's curly head.
Mrs. Belknap, watching from an upper window, frowned and shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know whether it will pay to bother with that girl," she murmured. "I'm sure I haven't experienced a peaceful moment since she came,so far; but perhaps I can train her if I am patient."
The training process presently called for a fresh rebuke, with copious explanatory notes and commentaries, when Jane returned to the house half an hour later bearing Master Belknap, who was screaming and kicking with all the pent-up energy of a young cyclone.
"Whatisthe matter with Buster, Jane?" demanded his mother excitedly, as she ran hastily down the front stairs to receive the two.
"He wanted to play in the muddy water with another little boy named Buster Bliss," replied Jane, quite breathless with her exertions; "and when I asked him not to get wet, he threw mud at me and at the other child; then I thought best to bring him home."
"Oh, I don't like him to play with that Bliss child at all; he's a very rude boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap. "I meant to have told you about that, Jane. Stop crying, darling, and let mother wipe your tears—poor little sweetheart; his hands are as cold as ice, and—why, Jane, hissleeves are wringing wet, and covered with mud; and his feet, too! dear,dear!"
"Yes, ma'am," said Jane, "hewouldplay in the water; that is why I carried him home. He sat right down in the mud, ma'am."
"But why did youallowit? Really, Jane, I can see that you are not at all used to children. Have you ever had the care of one before? One has tomanage, you know."
Jane made no reply. And Mrs. Belknap did not seem to notice the omission in the strenuous process of rehabilitation which immediately ensued.
Jane stood meekly by, supplying the needful articles one by one. When all was over and the child released from his mother's fond arms, with a rapturous kiss, she ventured upon a single question.
"When Master Buster says he 'won't' what am I to do, ma'am?"
Mrs. Belknap leaned back in her chair with a far-away look in her bright eyes. Finally she replied: "You mustcontrivenot to have him say'won't' to you, Jane. It requires infinite tact and patience to care for a high-spirited child like Buster. Of course, I could not allow you topunishhim in any way. I do not believe in corporal punishment; and even if I approved of it, I should never relegate it to other hands."
"And about the other children, ma'am; I noticed several in the neighborhood while I was out. There was another very rude child named Buster Yates—at least the little girl who was with him said so—I couldn't help wondering——"
"About what, Jane?" asked Mrs. Belknap indulgently. "I suppose everything in America is quite new and strange to you," she added rather proudly; "I shall always be glad to explain what you do not understand."
"Would you mind telling me why so many little boys in America are called—Buster? It's a very curious name. I never heard it in England."
Mrs. Belknap laughed heartily. "That's very easily explained," she said. "It is really a nickname taken from a series of humorouspictures in one of the newspapers. Quite possibly people are overdoing it," she added meditatively.
Jane looked mystified.
"Our Buster's name is really Everett Livingstone, and the Bliss child is Ralph, I believe; and Mrs. Yates's little boy is named Frederick. The Caldwells call their Arthur 'Buster,' and in town the Elwells and the Farleys and—yes, ever so many others have 'Busters.' It must have struck you as being very singular."
"Yes, Mrs. Belknap," said Jane pointedly. "It did."
As John Everett was returning from the city that night, and many nights thereafter, he found himself dwelling with singular intentness on the piquant face of his sister's English maid; it seemed to look out at him wistfully from the damp folds of his evening paper, and to haunt the twilight seclusion of the ferryboat deck upon which he was accustomed to tramp many a breezy mile in his daily trips across New York's spacious harbor.
John Everett was a graduate of Yale and abudding lawyer, employed in a down-town law office. He had unhesitatingly expended every cent of a slender patrimony in obtaining his education, and at present was in the hopeful position of a strong swimmer striking out unhampered for a distant shore. He fully expected to reach that shore—some time; but a man swimming for his life in the deep and perilous current of an untried profession has no business to dwell upon the alluring vision of any woman's face. That the woman of his shy boyhood dreams was waiting for him on that far-off shore, he felt reasonably sure; but even this conviction could not prevent him from feeling sorry for Jane. She was struggling in deep water, too, and would she—could she reach the shore in safety, unless some one——
"I am a fool!" John Everett told himself vigorously, and squared his broad shoulders to the bracing ocean wind, which blew damp and salt from the vasty deeps outside the Hook.
Half an hour later he came upon Jane at the corner, whither she had been sent to post a letter.There were half-dried tears sparkling upon her long lashes, and her mouth drooped pathetically at the corners.
"What is the trouble, Jane?" he couldn't help asking; his blue eyes said more.
Jane ignored both. "There is nothing the matter, sir," she said icily, and drew back to let him pass.
More than a fortnight had passed and Jane was still engaged in "doing second work" in the modest detached villa, otherwise known as the residence of Mr. and Mrs. James Livingstone Belknap. Toward the end of her first week of service she had received a letter from her good friend, Bertha Forbes, urging her to return to England at once in the company of an acquaintance who was to be sent across on customhouse business. "I will arrange for the transportation," added Miss Forbes generously; "I want to feel that you are safe at home with your family once more."
Jane read this letter at the close of a peculiarly trying day, in which she had encountered divers rapids and cross currents in both kitchen and parlor. Mary MacGrotty was downright cross, Master Belknap peculiarly and aggravatinglymischievous, and Mrs. Belknap, grievously disappointed in her enlargedménage, inclined to concentrate her irritation upon Jane's defenseless head.
"Sure, an' that gurl's more trouble than she's worth to ye," Mary MacGrotty had declared; "an' I towld yez when I come as how I c'u'dn't stan' fer no second gurl under me feet."
"If you weren't away so often, Mary," began Mrs. Belknap weakly, "I should——"
"Sure, an' I can't helpthat," interjected Miss MacGrotty strongly. "Blood is thicker 'an water, I'm thinkin', an' me fambly is that delicut an' ailin'. Me cousin's wife's mother was tuk bad of a Sunday," she added darkly. "I'm expectin' to hear of her death most any minute, an' the fun'ral 'll be to Brooklyn."
Mrs. Belknap sighed apprehensively. "By the way, Mary," she observed in a carefully modulated voice, which asked for information only, "have you chanced to see my carved shell comb anywhere about the house? I must havedropped it from my hair, I think, and I haven't been able to find it."
Mary MacGrotty faced about. "I havenot!" she said emphatically. Then she pursed up her lips. "Hev you askedher, mum?" she demanded in a sepulchral whisper.
"You mean Jane? Oh, yes, I told her of my loss yesterday. Never mind; I dare say I shall find it soon. I hope so, anyway. It was rather a valuable comb, given me by Mr. Belknap soon after we were married, so I think a good deal of it."
Miss MacGrotty's red elbows vibrated slightly as her mistress left the kitchen; and Jane, who entered a moment later in quest of a glass of water for her young charge, found her smiling evilly into the depths of an iron pot.
"If you've got her comb hid away anywheres," muttered Mary, "you'd better watch out; she's onto yez!"
"But I haven't hidden her comb," retorted Jane, shaken out of her usual attitude of calm disdain toward the presiding genius of thekitchen. "You know I wouldn't do such a thing."
"Aw; do I, thin'!" jeered Miss MacGrotty. "Well, you moind what I say; that's all!Iain't a-goin' to be blamed fer your doin's, miss."
"I shall have to go back to England," Jane told herself, as she left the kitchen hot with rage and shame.
Master Belknap was for the moment playing peacefully in his sand pile, and Jane, who had been bidden to keep close watch upon his movements, stood looking down at him, winking fast to keep the angry tears from clouding her eyes. One, two, three great sparkling drops got the better of her and fell flashing into the sand; then Jane glanced up to find John Everett looking at her with an expression of poignant anxiety on his honest face.
"You are crying," he said in a low voice. "Why? Doesn't my sister——"
"Oh, it is nothing! I——" To her immense dismay Jane choked over an unmistakable sobwhich wrenched her slender throat. "I wish you would—not——"
"But I can't help it, when I see you so unhappy. Haven't you any friends in America?"
"No-o—that is—I have one," said Jane, remembering Bertha Forbes's unanswered letter.
"A man?" he asked, with sudden sharp anxiety.
Jane looked at him indignantly. "I don't know any man," she said.
"You know me," he murmured. "I should like to be your friend, Jane; may I?"
The girl made no reply. Instead she turned and walked steadily toward the house. "I will go back to England," she assured herself a second time. But when at last she had leisure to answer Miss Forbes's letter she found herself refusing her kind offer point blank. "I could not put myself under so great an obligation to you," she wrote. "Besides, I am quite safe and not too unhappy here; and I shall soon have earned the money for my passage."
Miss Forbes read this ingenuous epistle witha suspicious lifting of her sagacious brows. "I think I'll try and run over to Staten Island and see what sort of a place she's in," she said aloud.
But she forgot this friendly resolution in the rush of the next day's business, and was only recalled to the memory of it by an interview with one of the passengers on the incoming liner. The interview was not of an official nature, and its finish found Miss Forbes nervously chewing her pencil in a state of singular agitation.
To search for a person who has ostensibly started upon an indefinite tour of the United States is not unlike the traditional hunt for a needle in a haymow; nevertheless the Hon. Wipplinger Towle had gallantly embarked upon the quest, panoplied with infinite leisure, unlimited money, and the well-disciplined patience of middle age.
He had not seen fit to acquaint the house of Aubrey-Blythe with his intentions; being disposed, quite irrationally, to lay the fact of Jane'sflight at its door. Mr. Towle was an exceedingly calm not to say mild-tempered man, a fact which very few persons intimidated by his stern eyes and boldly modeled chin ever found out; but upon occasions he could be severely implacable in his slowly acquired opinions. With a sagacity more than masculine he suspected that the failure of his matrimonial plans and the subsequent disappearance of Jane might be traced to Lady Agatha Aubrey-Blythe, and he actually had the temerity to tax that noble lady with both in her own drawing-room.
Lady Agatha's righteous indignation was kept in leash for some moments by her knowledge of Mr. Towle's wealth and the hope that his elderly fancy on matrimony bent might yet be guided toward the unattractive Gwendolen; but it burst its bonds when the full import of his deliberate utterances finally penetrated her intrenched understanding. She turned white with fury as she focused her light-blue stare upon the audacious Mr. Towle.
"Do you mean tointimatethat you think itmyfault that my husband's niece hasdisgracedherself and the family by running away like a governess in a cheap romance?" she demanded, in unequivocal English.
"Hum—ah," said Mr. Towle, quite unabashed. "I—er—beg your pardon, Lady Agatha, if I appear rude, but did you not say some rather nasty things to Jane the day before she left? I—er—fancy, don't you know, that it might make me run away to be told that I was absolutely unattractive, not at all clever, and—ah—dependent upon others for the bread that I ate."
"Did the shameless girl tell you that?" cried Lady Agatha, more enraged by the Honorable Wipplinger's uncompromising manner than by his words. "And afterallthat we have done for her, too!"
"Just—er—whathave you done for her, if I may inquire?"
"What have we done for Jane Blythe? How can you ask such a question! The girl was left on our hands with scarcely a penny to her namewhen she was a mere infant. We have done everything—everything, and this is the way she rewards our kindness—our Christian charity! I trust I may never see the ungrateful creature again."
"If there is anything," said the Hon. Wipplinger Towle, with exceeding deliberation, "which I despise on earth, it is the—er—damnable sentiment miscalled Christian charity. It has ruined more persons than gin, in my humble opinion."
After which he took his leave with scant ceremony, Lady Agatha remaining stock still in her chair in a state of semipetrifaction.
An hour later, having recovered the power of speech, she requested her husband to formally forbid Mr. Towle the house; which Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe, on his part, flatly refused to do. Whereupon ensued one of an inconsiderable number of battles between the pair, during the course of which Lady Agatha, having taunted her husband with his inferior lineage, was reduced to tears by being reminded of her own dowerlesscondition when she condescended from her high estate to wed the rich commoner.
Perceiving his decisive victory, Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe waxed magnanimous to the point of begging the lady's pardon. "It's deucedly bad form to quarrel, Agatha; and what's more it's ruinous to the nerves and digestion," he had concluded sagely. "You've gone off ten years at least in your looks, my dear, from falling into such a rage over nothing at all."
"Nothing at all!" echoed Lady Agatha. "Why, Robert, the man used the mostfrightfullanguage in my presence. Fancy being told that Christian charity has ruined more persons than gin! And as for the profane adjective he used in connection with that speech, I refuse to soil my tongue with it!"
Mr. Aubrey-Blythe cleared his throat with some violence. "Oh—er—as to that, I've always said that Towle was a clever fellow—a deucedly clever fellow," he observed meditatively. "He's nobody's fool, is Towle; and mind you forget all about this the next time Iask him to dine; for ask him I shall, Lady Agatha, whenever I please; and you'll be careful to be civil to him, madam."
But the Hon. Wipplinger Towle was not available as a dinner guest for several weeks thereafter; the fact being that having duly reflected upon the information conveyed to him by the grateful Susan, he had found that the shoe fitted, had instantly put it on, and had started for America on the trail of Jane.
Fate, as is her occasional custom, was scornfully kind to this elderly Sir Galahad, and he struck a warm scent before ever he had landed from the steamer in the shape of a romantic newspaper story in which figured an elderly French female smuggler, said to be an old hand at the game, and a beautiful and innocent young English girl (name not given). Scornful Fate glued the Honorable Wipplinger's eyes to this spirited account penned by an enthusiastic young reporter, who chanced to be nosing about the customhouse after material, and Mr. Towle, although as devoid ofimagination as the average male Briton usually is, nevertheless pictured Jane as the unlucky heroine of the moving tale.
The reporter's richly adjectived phrase—"The slender little maiden, with her true English complexion of cream and roses, lit up by sparkling hazel eyes"—appeared to fit Jane with disconcerting completeness.
When he landed, immediately after perusing it, Mr. Towle took the pains at once to look into the matter; and this explains the unofficial interview before alluded to, in the course of which Miss Bertha Forbes reduced the top of her lead pencil to a splintery pulp, more after the fashion of an embarrassed schoolgirl than a stern-faced customs official.
"No, sir, we do not as a rule make it a practice to give out information regarding what takes place in our department," Miss Forbes informed the tall Englishman.
"Hum—ah; can you inform me whether there is any truth in this account?" Mr. Towle persisted. "The description of the—er—smugglers tallies with that of the two persons I am in search of."
Miss Forbes cast her eyes coldly over the newspaper item. "There have been several similar cases of late," she admitted. "But this states, you notice, that both parties were immediately dismissed upon confiscation of the goods. It is not a part of my work to keep track of detected smugglers, and so of course——"
"You—er—saw the young girl described in the story; did you not?"
"I—I couldn't be sure of it," prevaricated Miss Forbes, actually blushing.
The Hon. Wipplinger Towle fixed his glass more firmly in his eye and proceeded to stare the intrepid Bertha out of countenance "I beg your pardon," he observed masterfully, "but I—er—fancy you're mistaken."
"In what?" snapped the female inspector.
"In saying you're not sure you saw Miss Blythe. You—er—recall the whole incident perfectly, I am confident."
"Of all the—impudence!" murmured MissForbes, somewhat excitedly. "Well, suppose I do; what then?"
"If you know where she is, it will be greatly to her advantage if you will tell me," said Mr. Towle mildly.
"I don't know about that," mused Bertha Forbes. "Who, for example, are you? You're not her uncle."
"Thank you," said Mr. Towle astutely. "No; I am not a relative of Miss Blythe's. I am—er—merely a friend. But I beg to assure you that I have her best interests warmly at heart."
"Humph!—Well, I guess you have," admitted Miss Forbes, after a prolonged semi-official scrutiny of Mr. Towle's countenance, an ordeal which that honorable gentleman bore with the calm of conscious integrity. "But for all that I don't think I shall tell you where she is."
"Why not?" urged Mr. Towle, with an agitation which caused him to appear almost youthful.
"Because I'm sure she wouldn't thank me for it," said Bertha Forbes coolly. "Good day, sir."
"By heavens, madam, I'll not be put off like this!" declared Mr. Towle, very much in earnest. "I came to America on purpose to find her."
"Find her then," advised Miss Forbes, with tantalizing brevity. "I can't talk to you any longer to-day."
"To-morrow then?" Mr. Towle caught eagerly at the straw of suggestion in her last word.
But Miss Forbes was denied to unofficial visitors on the following day, and for three days thereafter, a period which Mr. Towle endured with such resignation as he could muster.
On the fourth day he intercepted that stony-hearted official on her way home to her lodgings. "Look here, Miss Forbes," he said doggedly, "I didn't offer you money the other day to tell me of Miss Blythe's whereabouts. But——"
"Don't do it to-day either," snapped the lady, with an ominous flash of her really fine eyes. "You're not in England, remember."
"Yet I find the cabbies and hotel people more rapacious than in London," Mr. Towle observed thoughtfully. "Nevertheless I beg your pardon, Miss—er—Forbes, and I entreat you to tell me where Jane is. I—I believe I shall be ill if I can't find her."
"Youarelooking pretty well done up," acquiesced Miss Forbes; "but,"—seriously,—"how am I to be sure you are not the last person on earth she wants to see?"
"I wish to heavens I could be sure I'm not!" exclaimed Mr. Towle fervently. "But somebody ought to take her home."
"Granted," agreed Miss Forbes. "I've offered to send her back to England; but she won't go—for me. She might for you; but I doubt it."
"I have at least earned the right to try," he said, with something so convincing in his tone and manner that Bertha Forbes, who was atheart neither more nor less than a woman, surrendered at discretion.
"Very well; I'll give you her address, and you can go and see her, if you like," she said gruffly. "But I warn you she's an obstinate young person, quite bent upon having her own silly way."
All of the foregoing took place on the same day that Mrs. Belknap wanted to know if Jane had seen her second-best gold hat pin. The day after that, three fine embroidered handkerchiefs were said to be missing from the little inlaid box on her bureau.
Mary MacGrotty displayed her big teeth in a malevolent smile when Jane rather fearfully mentioned this last circumstance in the kitchen. "You don't suppose the wind could have blown them away last Monday, do you, Mary? It was blowing hard, I remember," Jane said, nervously twisting her apron strings.
"It 'ud be a strong wind to lift 'em out the missus's box, I'm thinkin'," said Miss MacGrotty dryly. "But they wuz lifted, all right; an' no one knows ut better 'an you, Miss Innocence, wid yer purty face an' yer big saucer eyes."
Jane stared at the grinning Irish face, her own paling. "You are a bad, cruel woman!" she cried; "and you are not honest; I saw you take sugar out of the jar, and tea out of the caddy!"
Miss MacGrotty burst into a furious fit of coughing. "Aw, you impident little spalpeen, you!" she hissed, her face purple with rage. "Git out o' me kitchen this minute! We'll attind to your case prisintly. Yis, indade; I'll not have my character blackened by a light-fingered gurl from nobody knows where. Yis; you may stare, miss. You niver come honest by the foine rings in yer box, I'm thinkin', an' the little goold watch wid a di'mon' in the back, an' the locket wid pearls."
"You have been in my room!—looking at my things!" gasped Jane. "How dare you!"
"Git out o' me kitchen, or I'll tak' the procker to yez!" shouted Mary. "How dare I! Indade! Ye'll find it ain't best to gain the ill will o' Mary MacGrotty afore you're t'rough."
Jane went slowly up the stairs revolving many things in her mind. She was even consideringthe advisability of confiding her whole story to Mrs. Belknap, when that young matron's cold, even tones fell upon her ear.
"I wish to speak with you, Jane, for a moment," she said, with an air of severity, which stiffened Jane's pretty upper lip into haughty indifference.
"Yes, Mrs. Belknap," said the girl with a perfect propriety of manner, which aroused a wholly irrelevant resentment in the breast of the other woman.
"I wish to tell you, Jane, that last evening after you had retired a strangemancame here—to the front door—inquiring for you. Mr. Belknap, who answered the bell, referred the matter to me, and I told him to say to the man that he could not see you."
Jane stared at her mistress in silence, indignation tempered with a certain speculative curiosity looking out of her bright eyes.
"He appeared"—Mrs. Belknap went on, with rising irritation—"quite like a gentleman. Butwhyshould a man—any man—come to myfront door to inquire foryou? I am sorry, Jane, but this circumstance, in connection with others, looks very suspicious to me. I do notapproveof a girl in your situation attracting the attention of a man—more particularly of a man in a higher station of life. It is not at all proper; you ought to know that."
"Proper?" echoed Jane inquiringly.
"Perhaps I should have saidsuitable," amended Mrs. Belknap. "But I insist that you shall be quite truthful with me. Who was this man?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Mrs. Belknap," said Jane. "I don't know any men." Then she blushed guiltily.
Mrs. Belknap bristled with matronly dignity as she observed the girl's conscious face. "You may go now, Jane," she said, with an air of stern virtue. "But I wish to remind you once more that it isalwaysbest to tell the truth no matter how unpleasant the consequences may appear to you. If young girls in your situation in life couldonlylearn that!"
Jane's eyes flickered and a shadowy dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth. "Suppose one does tell the truth, ma'am, and it sounds so queer that other people will not believe it?" she asked.
"That," said Mrs. Belknap, magnificently, "is not apt to occur. A sincere person can hardly be mistaken by another sincere person. And thetruth, Jane,neversoundsqueer!" Which aphorism may be accepted for what it is worth.
The Hon. Wipplinger Towle, for the time being, had taken up his abode upon Staten Island, in a certain pretentious hotel which overlooks the bay, and quite undaunted by his reception of the previous evening he again presented himself at the street and number furnished him by Bertha Forbes. On this occasion the door was opened by Jane herself in cap and apron.
The mutual start of amazement which followed shook both man and maid out of the chill precincts of the conventionalities.
"My God—Jane!" exclaimed Mr. Towle. "What are you doing in this house?"
This pertinent inquiry brought Jane to herself with all the speed and thoroughness of a dash of cold water. "I am working for my living," she replied haughtily.
Mr. Towle stared helplessly at the girl. "I have come," he said at last, "to fetch you home."
"If you wish to talk to me," said Jane defiantly, "you will be obliged to come around to the back door. I will ask my mistress if I may speak with you in the kitchen for a few minutes. But there isn't any use of talking," she added. "I will not go home—at least not yet." Then she shut the door in his face.
Mr. Towle said something fierce under his breath; after which, without any hesitation whatever, he looked about for the kitchen entrance. "I'll talk with her," he said, "if I have to go to Hades to do it."
In the meanwhile Jane was interviewing her mistress. "Mr. Towle has come to see me, ma'am; may I speak with him in the kitchen fora few minutes?" she asked with haughty subservience. "Mary is out; and Master Belknap is playing in his sand pile."
Mrs. Belknap was in the act of putting the finishing touches to a dainty costume. She stopped short and faced about. "Whois Mr. Towle?" she demanded.
"He is a friend of—of Uncle Robert's, from England," replied Jane, rather sullenly to her mistress's thinking.
"Dear,dear!" murmured Mrs. Belknap, eying her pleasing reflection in the glass with a frown. "This istoomuch! And I was just on the point of going out to a reception; now, of course, I shall be obliged to——"
Jane looked up suddenly. "I don't wish to talk with him," she said.
"Then why not send him away? Wait! I will go down myself and speak with the man. Ihopeyou haven't left himalonebelow stairs. There have been so many burglaries lately. He is in the kitchen, I suppose."
Jane smothered a hysterical laugh, as Mrs.Belknap's rustling skirts swept down the rear staircase. She heard her young mistress's distinct American voice in a tone of displeased surprise. Then a door closed sharply, and the girl heard a man's retreating steps passing beneath the open window.
"He must be horribly vexed," she murmured; "but I'llnotgo back to England." She did not choose to question herself too sharply as to her reasons for this dogged resolution. But she reflected that Mr. Towle appeared much older since she had last seen him.
Mrs. Belknap called her presently from below stairs. "I am going now, Jane; for I really must stop at Mrs. Brown's tea if only for a few minutes. But I shall not be away long. Keep your eye on Busterevery moment; I am told there are gypsies about. And, Jane, if Mary isn't back by five you must open the draughts of the range and prepare the vegetables."
Left alone with her small charge, Jane sat down on the little green bench under the vines with a kitchen towel to hem. It was very quietand peaceful, and the occasional distant roar of a passing trolley and the loud singing of a very fat red-breasted robin, which had its nest in one of the maples which were planted at stated intervals along the street, merely served to make the country stillness the more evident. Master Belknap was pleasantly absorbed in his endeavors to construct a two-foot mountain in the midst of the sand box, and apparently much entertained by the ceaseless action of the law of gravitation evidenced by the conduct of the unstable material at its apex. He did not look up at sound of the hasty steps which approached the house; but Jane did. Then she put down the brown towel with a displeased pucker of her white forehead.
"I thought that you had gone," she said coldly.
"I beg your pardon, but I wish to speak with that—er—young woman who dismissed me a half hour ago," said Mr. Towle, with exceeding politeness of manner. "I must see her. I wish to—er—explain. She was," he added thoughtfully, "an exceedingly rude person."
"If you are referring to Mrs. Belknap," Jane said, "I beg to inform you that she is my mistress; she sent you away with as little ceremony as possible for several reasons which it is not necessary for me to explain."
"Hum—ah!" murmured Mr. Towle. "Do you—er—mind telling me one of them?"
"Oh, if you insist!" said Jane, "I told Mrs. Belknap that I did not care to talk with you, and since she very particularly wished me to be at liberty to attend to my work, which is to look after her child, and to——"
Mr. Towle made a large gesture expressive of his extreme indifference to Mrs. Belknap's child and also her brown towel. "I came from England to find you, Jane," he said earnestly. "Why did you go away?"
"Why shouldn't I go away—if I chose?" Jane wanted to know, with a provoking drawl. She set two stitches in her brown towel with exceeding care, then put her pretty head on one side to survey the effect.
"There are at least two reasons why youshould have stopped at home for every one you can give for running away," he said deliberately.
"But I didn'trun away!" denied Jane crossly. "I—I justwent. Aunt Agatha meant to send me somewhere because she hates me, I verily believe. I preferred to go."
"Nevertheless you should have stayed," he said gently. "Your position in life demanded patience and—er—pardon me—self-control. You exercised neither, it seems, and now—" His expressive look pointed the moral.
Jane winced under the prick of it. "How did you ever find me?" she asked, after a long pause filled with industrious stitching on the brown towel.
"I saw an account of the smuggling episode in an American newspaper," he said coolly. "Then, quite naturally, I looked up Miss Forbes at the customs department, and she gave me your address. It was surprisingly simple, you see, though it might easily have been far otherwise."
Jane bent her crimson face over her work.Her needle snapped in her trembling fingers. "I—I didn't know about that dreadful woman," she said in a low, shamed voice. "I supposed she was going to travel in America. HowcouldI have known!"
Mr. Towle bent forward, his melancholy gray eyes filled with the warm light of pity and that deeper feeling to which it is said to be akin. "Poor little girl," he said in a deep voice, which fell upon Jane's ears like a caress. "You couldn't have known, of course. And I say it's all a beastly shame—the way they have treated you and all. Won't you let me take care of you after this, Jane? You shall never suffer so again."
Jane tried to answer; but somehow the words refused to come.
"Let me take you away from all this," he pleaded. "Won't you, dear?"
At this moment Master Belknap slowly climbed up the steps. "My neck is hot," he said seriously, "an' I want a dwink of water."
Jane arose with a sigh of relief. "Yes,Buster," she said eagerly. "I'll go and fetch it for you."
The little boy turned his clear eyes upon the man and studied him in silence for a minute. "Why didyoucome?" he said at length.
Mr. Towle looked down at the child with resignation. "If I should ask you the same question, my young man," he observed, "you wouldn't understand, I suppose. As a matter of fact, if you had—er—stayed away ten minutes longer, perhaps——"
"My Uncle Jack has a knife named after him," proceeded the child confidentially. "It is a Jack-knife. I yuve my Uncle Jack, an'—an' I yuve my Jane."
"Hum—ah," observed Mr. Towle. Then he removed his hat—for it was a warm day—and passed his handkerchief thoughtfully over the top of his bald head. Jane caught a fleeting glimpse of its dull, pale glisten as she paused with her hand on the latch of the screen door.
Her face, as she held the glass for the child to drink, was so severely grave and sweet thatthe Honorable Wipplinger's heart gave a sudden painful throb. "You haven't answered my question, Jane," he murmured, bending toward her.
She looked up at him with the merciless eyes of youth. "I really cannot do as you wish, Mr. Towle," she said slowly. "And—I must ask you to go away directly; I ought not to have talked with you here without Mrs. Belknap's permission."
"I can't leave you here in this false position," he said hoarsely. "For God's sake, Jane, listen to me! If you'll not marry me, let me take you home—back to England. This is no place for you."
Jane's pretty lips set in stubborn lines. "I shall stop here," she said, "until I have earned money enough to go back to England; then I shall find a—a position—somewhere."
She was leaning forward, her gaze riveted on the far end of the street. "And—and please go at once," she added breathlessly. "You must indeed."
The small boy had scampered across theweedy little lawn and climbed upon the fence. Now he hastily scrambled down and swung open the gate. "Uncle Jack!" he shouted; "I see my Uncle Jack. I'm doin' to meet my Uncle Jack; may I, Jane?"
Jane nodded.
"You really want me to go and leave you here?" the man said heavily. "Is it because——"
"If you care for me at all," she answered cruelly, "you would not wish to annoy me by stopping after I have asked you to go."
Halfway down the street he encountered a tall, athletic young man swinging easily along, the child perched upon his shoulder, his small hands buried in the man's thick waving brown hair. "Det up, Uncle Jack," shouted the boy gleefully, and drummed his small heels upon his bearer's broad chest.
Mr. Towle caught a fleeting glance of inquiry and half-humorous apology from a pair of honest blue eyes as the two passed on the narrow wooden sidewalk.
"You are a bally fool," groaned the Hon. Wipplinger Towle in his own ear, "and a cad to boot." And having thus frankly labeled his intentions, he deliberately turned to watch the tall young American, with his insolently handsome head, as he passed up the street and in at the gate of number 24 Vanderbilt Avenue.
"She must have seen him," muttered Mr. Towle, "before the boy did." Then he allowed the infrequent trolley car to slide past him into the sparsely settled country, while he tramped, his hat pulled low over his eyes, for many a dusty mile—how many he neither knew nor cared.