When the Hon. Wipplinger Towle beheld the inhospitable shores of Staten Island fade into a dim haze of distance, which he accomplished from the depths of a comfortable steamer chair, placed in just the proper position on the deck of the newest Cunarder, it was without any rancor of soul or bitterness of spirit. He loved Jane Blythe as much (or more) than ever; but he was not disposed on that account to humiliate himself to the point of seeking stolen interviews with the object of his affection upon American back stoops. No; Jane must somehow be led to return to her native land, and once more in her proper environment, Mr. Towle could not find it in his heart to despair of finally winning her. He was a man of wide and varied experience, and he was not unaware that a period of discreet neglect upon his part might tend to enhance his apparent value.
It should be explained that during the course of that long and dusty tramp over the highways of Staten Island, whereon he had encountered clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, the evidence of whose fierce attacks was even yet to be discerned upon his patrician countenance, the sagacious Mr. Towle had laid out a course of action from which he had not deviated an iota thus far, and in which his early return to England figured as a necessary step. In brief, he had taken the pains to satisfy himself that Jane Blythe's humiliating position was not in any sense an unsafe one, and that her sojourn under the roof of Mr. and Mrs. James Livingstone Belknap would result in little beyond what Mr. Towle was philosophically inclined to look upon as a needful though unpleasant experience. The only factor in the problem which really perplexed him was the presence of Mr. John Everett in the home of Mrs. Belknap. That arrogantly youthful figure suggested a possible painful finale to his own hopes, which Mr. Towle nevertheless found himself able to contemplate withresignation. He had arrived, in short, at that enviable stage of his experience when he had ceased to avidly desire what did not essentially belong to himself. "A man does not really want that which is another's," he was accustomed to say to the few intimates who were admitted to his confidence. "He only thinks or supposes that he does. The possession of it would make him as wretched as did the fabled black pudding which the unfortunate old woman acquired with the first of her three elfin-bestowed wishes. Made irrevocably fast to the end of her nose by her angry husband by means of the second wish, she was finally forced to rid herself of it by the sacrifice of the last and final wish."
Not that Jane Blythe ever appeared to Mr. Towle in the guise of a potential black pudding. He thought of her continually and sincerely as altogether good, lovely, and desirable; but as quite possibly too good, too lovely, and too desirable a possession for his lonely heart to selfishly appropriate. Something of this really chivalrous and exquisitely altruistic devotion wasapparent even to the obtuse perceptions of Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe, whom Mr. Towle sought out immediately upon reaching London.
"I have found her, Robert," began Mr. Towle, without preamble.
"You have found——?"
"Jane," said Mr. Towle. The honorable gentleman did not appear at all excited, consequently Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, as in duty bound, sprang up from his chair, where he had been absorbed in a matter antipodally remote from the fortunes of his niece.
"Well, well, well!" cried Mr. Aubrey-Blythe excitedly, and "Upon my soul, Towle!" he said. "Iamsurprised!"
He was quite sincere in this statement, for beyond a few perfunctory efforts to trace the missing girl the Aubrey-Blythes had appeared piously resigned to the decree of a discerning Providence which had seen fit to remove so disturbing an element from their midst. Still it was annoying, not to say intolerable, to have one's acquaintances at the club and elsewhere prefacetheir ordinary remarks with the query "Found your niece yet, Blythe?" or "Hear you've a deuced unhappy mystery to unravel at your house," with an occasional dubious reference to the morgue and the workhouse. So it was with genuine relief and pleasure that Mr. Aubrey-Blythe learned of the speedy and successfuldénouementof Mr. Towle's foreign adventures.
"I am shocked and—er—grieved at what you tell me of the girl's present position," he added, with genuine mortification depicted upon his rotund countenance. "AnAubrey-Blythein akitchen—actuallyworkingwith herhands! Preposterous, Towle, preposterous! I shall at once take steps to remove her."
"Hum—ah," murmured Mr. Towle; "better leave her where she is for a while longer."
"What is that you are saying?" inquired the other fussily. "No, no; that would never do, Towle—never in the world! Bless my soul; what will my wife, Lady Agatha Aubrey-Blythe, say to all this! Really, Towle, I dislike to disturb her ladyship with the shocking intelligence."
"I beg that you will not inform her of it," Mr. Towle said, rather sharply. "There is nothing to be gained by doing so, and much to be lost."
"The girl has never been a favorite with Lady Agatha," observed Mr. Aubrey-Blythe. "They seem to be—er—totally uncongenial."
"I can quite believe that," said the other dryly. He stared hard at his friend in silence for some minutes before he spoke again. "I believe you—er—informed me that your niece, Miss Jane Aubrey-Blythe, was— That is to say, you gave me to understand that she was entirely without fortune. Am I correct in this—er—particular?"
"And I," burst out Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, "understood you to say that the fact made no difference in your—ah— But, I beg your pardon, Towle; of course this—er—unfortunate escapade of the girl's ends all that—of course, of course! I shouldn't have spoken as I did."
"You misunderstand me, Robert," said Mr. Towle patiently. "My sentiments toward MissBlythe are entirely unchanged; quite so, in fact. What I wished to say is this: I should like to settle some money on Miss Blythe, and—er—I don't know how to go about it. You must advise me, Robert."
"You would like to settle some money! Yes, I see; but this is no time to talk of marriage settlements, my dear fellow, with the girl in America, and——"
"I am not talking of marriage settlements," said Mr. Towle calmly. "There may never be a marriage between us; in fact I have scarcely any hope of it. I am too old, and"—with a slight bitterness of manner—"unluckily I look even older than I am. No; what I want is to give to Jane a comfortable sum of money outright, and leave her to be happy in her own way. If I can win her later on, I mean to do it fairly and squarely; but, as I have already said, I have very little hope of it."
"Gad, man! if you give the girl a fortune, she's bound to marry you; common gratitude, common decency, would demand it."
"Exactly so," quoth Mr. Towle. "But I'll have no common gratitude and common decency as you call it—and deuced common it is—mixing up in her feelings for me. Neither do I want her driven into a marriage with me as adernier ressort. If she could—er—love me I— But never mind, Robert. We'll cut this short, if you please. And I don't intend, mark you, to give her a fortune; nothing that would attract a crowd of worthless fellows, you understand, but enough so that she may feel free and independent of—er—other people, including yourself, and be able to buy her own frocks and the feathers and frills that women love; a matter of ten or twelve thousand pounds, say."
"Very handsome of you, Towle, to have thought of it, I'm sure; uncommonly generous, by gad! but I doubt if it will be becoming in me to allow it. I fear that Lady Agatha——"
"You'll not tell her," interrupted Mr. Towle eagerly. Then he leaned forward and rested his hand upon the other's broad knee. "I'm not one to refer over often to the past, Robert, asyou know; but I believe you've told me more than once that you—er—that I— No; I can't say it. It sticks in my throat."
"I know what you mean, Towle," growled Mr. Aubrey-Blythe. "There's no need for you to remind me that I'm under a tremendous obligation to you. But do you mean to tell me——"
"I declare to you that if you will help me to do what I wish in this one thing, I shall know the obligation to be on the other side. And, mind, it is to be kept a secret between you and me—forever."
Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe appeared plunged into profound meditation. At last he raised his head. "She wouldn't touch a penny of it, if she knew," he said at last. "Jane is deucedly independent and all that."
"She'd be obliged to take it if it came from a relative," suggested Mr. Towle; "couldn't you——"
The other shook his head. "Bless my soul, Towle," he murmured, with something very like a twinkle of humor in his eyes; "if I shouldattempt to settle a shilling piece on Jane there'd be the deuce and all to pay. I should think you'd know better than to suggest it."
"It's going to be done somehow, Robert," said Mr. Towle firmly, "if I—er—have to hang myself to bring it about. She couldn't refuse a legacy."
"Oh, I say; that would never do, Towle! You mustn't think of such a thing," protested Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, fidgeting in his chair. "But, speaking of a legacy, I wonder, now——"
He left his sentence suspended in midair, while he rummaged in his desk for a paper. "Hum—yes, yes. Now, I wonder— I—er—had a brother once, a younger brother, a sad rascal of a fellow, quite as improvident as poor Oliver—Jane's father, you know—and dissolute to boot. We don't often mention Foxhall Aubrey-Blythe, poor fellow; sad case, very. He's dead, in short. Died in South Africa a couple of months ago, without a sixpence to his name, as might have been expected. Now, I wonder— Of course, it would be very irregular and all that; but Ifancy it could be arranged, with the help of a discreet attorney—eh? That is to say, if you won't think better of it, Towle."
"I should think it might be done," agreed the Hon. Wipplinger Towle seriously. "There can be no possible harm in it, certainly, to the dead man, or to anyone else. And it's got to be arranged, Robert. I'm quite set upon it."
After which the arch conspirators put their heads together over the details of a plot which, for the present at least, does not vitally concern the fortunes of Miss Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe, who at that moment was industriously engaged in brushing the rugs, which she had carried out from Mrs. Belknap's little parlor to the untidy grass plot bristling with spent dandelion stalks, situated at the rear of the Belknap house.
Mary MacGrotty was clattering about the range inside the small kitchen, pausing to cast an occasional malevolent glance through the open window. Master Belknap was engaged in calmly propelling his tricycle up and down the sidewalk under the watchful eye of Mrs. Belknap, seatedon the front porch with her sewing. It was an eminently peaceful domestic scene, which gave no sign of the volcanic possibilities lurking underneath the deceitful calm of its surface.
The seventh individual who was in process of being inextricably bound in the fast-spinning threads of a watchful Fate was Mr. John Everett, who sat in a certain Broadway office, ostensibly occupied with a very dry legal paper, whose intricacies he supposed himself to be diligently mastering. In reality this young gentleman was uncounted leagues away from the Broadway office, wandering in lands of faerie with Jane. Jane's eyes were bright and Jane's lips were red and tempting; Jane's little hands were clasped upon his arm as they two walked slowly (all in the land of faerie) across a velvet lawn, wherein neither plantain nor dandelion had ever encroached, toward a house—a little house, with balconies, perhaps, and dormer windows, certainly—Jack Everett couldn't be altogether sure of its outlines, since houses (in the land of faerie) have a way of changing while one looks,like dissolving lantern views. All of which was very much in the air and exceedingly foolish, as this worthy young man told himself sternly, when he found, at the expiration of half of a delightful hour, where he had really been spending his time.
Mr. Towle gave no sign of a continued interest in Jane's affairs; and because he did not, that imprudent young person felt herself to be lonely and neglected beyond her deserts. At night, in the stuffy seclusion of the trunkroom, she wept large tears into her thin pillow, and prayed with truly feminine inconsistency and fervor for numbers of things which she as resolutely thrust aside by day.
Twice she sought solace and advice from Bertha Forbes, and as often spurned both, when both were urged upon her.
"You remind me," said Miss Forbes at last, "of a horse we used to have out in the country. My brothers were burning the stumps out of a ten-acre wood lot one summer, and that animalwouldjump over the fence and go and roll in the hot coals and ashes whenever he got achance till his hide was burned into holes. The creature must have suffered frightfully, but he persisted in doing it just the same. We had to tie him up after a bit."
"Oh, thanks!" cried Jane angrily, "perhaps you think I need tying up."
"I do, indeed," agreed Bertha Forbes cheerfully. She studied the pretty, wilful face in silence for a few moments. "You are much too fond of having your own way," she added sententiously, "and one's own way is so seldom the path of pleasantness that the Bible tells about. I know, for I've tried it."
She swallowed hard once or twice, then she went on in her gruffest voice. "Look here, Jane, I don't want to see you make the fool of yourself that I did. I somehow got the notion that a woman was just as able as a man to make her way in the world, and that I wasn't going to depend upon 'petticoat push' for my living. I despised the idea of being dependent upon anybody, and so I—I— Well, to cut a long story short, I told the only man who ever caredenough about me to want to take care of me, that I could take care of myself. I told him so three times in all, I remember. The third time he said, 'All right, Bertha; I reckon you'll have to try.' A year later he married one of those soft pink-and-white little things that I had always looked down upon as being too insignificant to despise. Yesterday——"
Bertha Forbes paused to gulp painfully once or twice. "Yesterday that woman passed me in her carriage. There was a child on either side of her, and she was dressed like a flower; which means, you know, a bit more magnificently than Solomon in all his glory. She didn't know me, of course. And I tramped on down to my office. You know what my work is, Jane."
"Yes, I know," and Jane blushed painfully. "I—I don't really like taking care of myself," she murmured, after a little, "but I can't see how I am going to help myself for a while. Anyway, you may be happier in your horrid office than that woman in her carriage, unless she—loves the man who gives it to her." The girlfinished with a soft, far-away look in her brown eyes.
"Right you are!" cried Bertha Forbes, bringing down her capable-looking hand upon her knee with a businesslike whack. "I'm not envying the woman; not I. Fancy me with a ridiculous feather bobbing over one eye, and diamonds and folderols of all sorts disposed upon my person. Wouldn't I be a holy show?"
"You're really very good looking, when one looks at you carefully, Bertha," said the girl seriously, "but you need handsome clothes to bring out your good points."
"Guess my points good or bad will have to remain in innocuous desuetude then," Miss Forbes said gruffly. "'Nough said about B. F., my dear. And if you're set on staying on in your servile position, and allowing that absurdly pretentious little matron and her infant to walk all over you, I've nothing to say, of course. Do the men treat you properly, child?"
Jane stared at her friend resentfully. "I don't know what you mean," she said. "Mrs.Belknap's husband and brother are both gentlemen, and I—am her servant."
"That's all right, child; but mind you keep that good-looking chap—what's his name? Oh, Everett—yes; mind you keep him at his distance, whatever you do."
"Bertha!" cried Jane.
"You needn't 'Bertha' me," said Miss Forbes severely. "I'm an old maid all right; but I know a thing or two if I am forty, and now that Mr. Towle has gone back to England——"
"Has he gone back?"
"Well; why not? You didn't want him to stay on in America, did you?"
"N-o," faltered Jane, "I-I'm glad he's gone." Nevertheless she felt a more poignant throb of loneliness than usual as she stepped down from the trolley car in the gathering twilight at the close of her "afternoon out." Had it fallen to the lot of the Hon. Wipplinger Towle to present himself at that moment Fortune might have been genuinely kind instead of amusedly scornful in view of his aspirations.
That same evening Mrs. Belknap shut her chamber door safely after a careful reconnaissance of the hall. "Jimmy, dear, I'malmostdistracted," she confided to her husband.
"Why, what's the matter, dear girl?" he asked,"has Buster been up to his tricks again? Or is Mary's cousin's wife's mother's brother 'tuk bad wid cramps'?"
Mrs. Belknap heaved a deep sigh as she shook her head; her pretty white forehead was puckered into unbecoming folds of deep anxiety. "It's Jane," she said in a sepulchral whisper.
"If you don't like the girl, get rid of her," advised Mr. Belknap strongly. "I've thought all along this two-maid business is a mistake for us. It's too—er—complicated, somehow."
"Oh, Jimmy Belknap!" exclaimed his wife reproachfully; "it was you who advised me to get another girl. You simply made me do it; you know you did. Mary is away so often, and——"
"Bounce Mary, too!" cried the perfidious Mr. Belknap cheerfully. "Let's have a newdeal all the way 'round, Margaret. That Mary's a fraud, or I'm a duffer."
"Oh, but, Jimmy, she's such a good cook! And I'm sure I couldn't get another like her. Why, poor Mrs. Bliss hasn't had a girl these last two months, and she tells me she's triedeverywhere! And the people across the street are alone, too, and——"
"Ican cook," put in Mr. Belknap confidently. "You just let me get the breakfast. When I put my mind to it there's nothing I can't do about a house."
"Oh,you!" scoffed his wife, reaching up to pull a lock of wavy hair on Mr. Belknap's tall head. "After you've gotten breakfast, Jimmy, it takes me all the morning to put the kitchen to rights again."
"But my coffee is out of sight," pursued Mr. Belknap complacently, "and my poached eggs can't be beat. I believe,"—boldly,—"I could make a pie!"
"Of course you could," agreed his wife ironically, "but I shouldn't want to be obliged toeat it. But, seriously, Jimmy, I'mlosingthings—almost every day some little thing. Do you suppose it'sJane?"
Mr. Belknap looked grave. "It's more likely to be Mary," he said. "Perhaps," he added hopefully, "it's Buster. He's a regular magpie. Do you remember about my slippers?"
Both parents paused to indulge in reminiscent laughter over the memory of the missing slippers which had been found, after days of fruitless searching, in the spare bedroom under the pillows.
"He was helping me pick up—the blessed lamb!" said Mrs. Belknap fondly. "But I'm sure he hasn't picked up my shell comb, two hat pins, half a dozen handkerchiefs, my best white silk stockings, and your college fraternity badge."
Mr. Belknap whistled sharply. "What?" he exclaimed, "has my frat pin disappeared? I say, Margaret, that looks serious!"
"It was in my jewel box," went on Mrs. Belknap solemnly, "pinned carefully onto thelining of the cover. You know I scarcely ever wear it now; I'm saving it for Buster. But I happened to go to the box for something else the other day; and, Jimmy, it's gone!"
Mr. Belknap fidgeted uneasily in his chair. "Confound it!" he murmured. "Well, Margaret, I'd advise you to get rid of both of 'em; and meanwhile lock up your valuables. We can take our meals out for a while, if worse comes to worst."
"I hate to think it's Jane," sighed Mrs. Belknap; "she seems such a nice girl. But appearances are so often deceptive; I really ought to haveinsistedupon references."
"From the lady smuggler?" Mr. Belknap wanted to know.
His wife dissolved in helpless laughter. "I never believed that story for a minute," she said, "nor the Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe part, either. She simply wanted me to think that she wasn't an ordinary servant, poor thing. It would be dreadful to go drifting around the world, drudging first in one house and then inanother; wouldn't it, Jimmy? I am sure I can't think what sort of a maid I should have been."
Mr. Belknap surveyed his wife smilingly. "You'd have gotmeall right, whatever you were doing," he assured her.
"Notreally?"
"Sure! I never could have resisted those eyes, dear, nor that mouth—never in the world!" And Mr. Belknap illustrated his present susceptibility to the compelling charms of the features in question in a way which caused his pretty wife to laugh and blush, and assure him (fondly) that he was a foolish boy.
"Then you really think I would better give both the girls warning?" Mrs. Belknap asked rather faintly, visions of the empty kitchen with its manifold tasks rising fearfully in her mind.
"That's what I do when there's a bad snarl in the office," Mr. Belknap told her seriously. "A good clean breeze of discipline that sweeps everything before it is a mighty good thing at times. Let 'em go. We got along all right before we ever saw Mary MacGrotty or Janehyphen-what-you-may-call-her, either; and we shall live all the peacefuller after they're gone."
"But the missing articles—don't you think I ought to make her give them back? Isn't it a bad thing for a young girl like Jane to think she can—be so wicked with impunity?"
"It isn't 'impunity,' as you call it, if she loses her place."
"Yes, Jimmy, it is. She could get a dozen other places to-morrow. People are so nearly frantic for help that they'll take anybody. Why, Mrs. De Puyster Jones actually told me that sheexpectedto lose a certain amount every year. She says that it used to worry her terribly when she first began housekeeping; but now she just mentally adds it to the wages, and says nothing about it, if it isn'ttoooutrageous."
Mr. Belknap laughed dubiously. "Why, I say, Margaret, that's what they call compounding felony, or mighty near it," he said slowly. "I don't believe I could stand for that sort of thing."
"Mrs. De Puyster Jones says that, of course,she hasn't a particle of self-respect left when it comes to servants," continued Mrs. Belknap feelingly. "But she's too delicate to do her own work, and Mr. Jones won't board; so whatcanshe do? What canIdo?"
Mr. Belknap softly whistled a popular coon song as he walked about the room. Then of a sudden and with entire irrelevance he broke into loud and cheerful singing:
"Oh, I may be cra-a-zy!But I ain't no—fool!"
"Oh, I may be cra-a-zy!But I ain't no—fool!"
"Oh, I may be cra-a-zy!But I ain't no—fool!"
"Oh, I may be cra-a-zy!
But I ain't no—fool!"
John Everett sat before the fire in his sister's cheerful little parlor for a full half hour without uttering a word. He was thinking particularly and persistently of Jane, of her proud, sensitive little face beneath its cloud of curling dark hair, of her shy, haughty eyes which refused to meet his own, of her curving mouth which so often quivered like a child's on the brink of heart-breaking sobs. He wished that he knew more of the girl's history.
"Strange that Margaret takes so little interest in her," this altruistic young person said to himself impatiently, as he glanced across at his sister, who sat cuddling her sleepy baby in her lap in the warm glow of the fireside. Mrs. Belknap was talking and laughing gayly with her husband, who stretched his slippered feet to the cheerful blaze with an air of huge content.
This charming picture of domesticity, which he had so frequently admired and even envied in a vague, impersonal fashion, suddenly impressed Jack Everett as being little else than an exhibition of monstrous selfishness. What right had Margaret to sit there so radiantly happy and unconcerned while another woman, as fair and lovable as herself, shed lonely tears in her kitchen. It wasn't right, by Jove, it was not, he told himself hotly.
Just what provision did Margaret make for the amusement and recreation of her maids he wondered. His praiseworthy curiosity on this point presently got the better of his prudence. He arose deliberately and walked out into the kitchen.
Jane stood at the window gazing drearily into the darkness. She glanced about at the sound of his step, and he saw that her face was pale and that her eyes were brimming with large tears.
John Everett laid two magazines on the table. "I have brought you something to read, Jane,"he said kindly. "This kitchen is a dull place of an evening; isn't it?"
Jane's homesick eyes wandered hopelessly about the clean, bare little place, with its straight-backed wooden chairs set primly against the painted wall, its polished range and well-scoured table, still damp and odorous with soap and water. A flamboyant advertisement of laundry soap and the loud-voiced nickel clock were the sole ornaments of the scene, which was illumined faintly by a small kerosene lamp.
"Thank you, sir," she said coldly; "but I have no time to read."
Her manner was inexorable, but John Everett saw that her little fingers were trembling. "Jane," he said softly, "I asked you once if I might be your friend. You did not answer me at that time. Have you thought about it since?"
"I did not need to think about it, sir. It is impossible."
"But why, Jane? Do you hate me?"
John Everett was doubtless quite unaware ofthe fervor and earnestness which he infused into these two short questions. There was much of the chevaliersans peur et sans reprocheabout this particular young American, and all the knightly enthusiasm and tender indignation of a singularly pure and impulsive nature had been deeply stirred at sight of the lonely and friendless English girl. He was, in short, compounded from the identical stuff out of which the Geraints and Sir Galahads and King Cophetuas of past ages were made, and so, quite naturally, he couldn't help saying and looking a great deal more than a modern young man ought to say and look under like circumstances.
Jane stared at him in resentful silence for a moment before she replied. "I know nothing of American ways," she said—which was not entirely true, by the way, since for years she had devoured everything she could lay her hands on concerning America—"but in England no gentleman would speak to a servant as you have spoken to me, unless——"
"Unless—what, Jane?" he urged.
"Unless he meant to—insult her," she said haughtily.
John Everett's handsome face flushed scarlet.
"Jane," he said sternly. "Look at me."
She raised her eyes to his reluctantly.
"Did you really think I was trying to insult you?"
"N—o," she faltered. "But——"
"In America," he went on eagerly, "there is nothing to prevent our being friends. Everyone works for a living here. There is no high and no low. In America a man who would wantonly insult a woman who works is not called a gentleman. He is called a scoundrel! And, Jane, whatever else I may be I am not a scoundrel."
A shadowy smile glimmered for an instant in Jane's clear eyes, and dimpled the corners of her serious mouth. Then she pierced his pretty sophistry with a question. "Does Mrs. Belknap know that you brought these magazines to me, and that you—wish to be my friend?"
"I shall tell her," he said firmly. "She will understand."
The girl shook her head. "Mrs. Belknap would be very much displeased," she said. "She would not like it if she knew I was talking to you now. She would think me very bold and unmannerly, I am sure. Indeed, as far as I can find out, being a servant in America is very like being a servant in England."
"Jane," he entreated, "tell me: were you ever a servant in England?"
She looked at him thoughtfully, as if half minded to take him into her confidence; then her eyes danced. "I was a nursery governess in my last place in England," she said. "And I left without a reference. Good night, sir, and thank you kindly for the books, but I don't care about reading them."
She dropped him an old-fashioned courtesy, with indescribable grace and spirit, and before he could gather his wits for another word had vanished up the dark stairway. He stoodlistening blankly to her little feet on the stair, and so Mrs. Belknap found him.
"Why, Jack!" she exclaimed; "what in the world are you doing in the kitchen? I heard voices and I thought perhaps Jane had a beau." Her eyes fell upon the gay-colored magazines which lay upon the table. "How did these come here?" she asked, a note of displeasure in her pleasant voice.
"I brought them to Jane," he said bluntly.
"ToJane? Why, Jack Everett! What did you do that for?"
"Why shouldn't I do it? The poor girl has nothing to amuse her in this beastly little kitchen. And I am sure she is quite as capable of enjoying good reading as anyone in the house."
"I gave the girls several of the old magazines only last week," Mrs. Belknap said with an offended lifting of her eyebrows, "and the very next morning I found Mary kindling the fire with them. I never knew a servant to appreciate really good reading. Andthese—well, all I have to say is that I hope you'll consultmethenext time you wish to make a present to either of the maids. I fancy an occasional dollar would be in rather better taste, and quite in a line with what they would expect from you."
"Great heavens, Margaret! do you suppose I would offer money toJane?"
"It certainly isn't necessary, Jack, for you to offer her anything; I pay her good wages," retorted Mrs. Belknap crisply. "I merely said that if you felt it yourdutyto give either of them anything, a dollar——"
Mr. Everett turned on his heel, very pointedly terminating the interview, and Mrs. Belknap went back to her fireside with a slightly worried expression clouding her pretty face.
"I wish Jack wouldn't be so perfectly absurd about poor people," she said discontentedly, as she curled up in a deep chair at her husband's side. "I don't mind his hobnobbing with the butcher and discussing socialism with the plumber, but when it comes to acting as purveyor of good literature for the kitchen, why it strikes me as being a little tiresome."
"What has our philanthropic young friend been doing now?" Mr. Belknap wanted to know.
"Presenting an offering of magazines to Jane in the kitchen. I declare, Jimmy, this is the last straw! I shall certainly dismiss the girl at the end of her month. I shan't do it before, though, because I have some shopping to do, and I must finish my sewing before I undertake the care of Buster again.Heis devoted to Jane; poor little lamb!"
"Buster is a young person of excellent taste," murmured Mr. Belknap. "And so"—meditatively—"is Jack."
"Jimmy Belknap, whatdoyou mean?" demanded his wife, with a nervous little clutch at his sleeve. "You don'tsuppose——"
Mr. Belknap chuckled. "Don't tempt a man so, Madge," he entreated; "it's so delightfully easy to get a rise out of you that I really can't resist it once in a while."
"Then you don'tthink——"
"My mind is an innocuous blank, dear," heassured her gravely. "I don't 'think,' 'mean' or 'suppose' anything which would give you a minute's uneasiness. I'll tell you what, Margaret, suppose we cut out both the girls, get our own breakfasts, take our dinners at Miss Pitman's, and then we can afford one of those dinky little runabouts. How would that strike you?"
"We'll do it!" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap rapturously.
Then these two happy people settled down to one of those periods of castle building in the air which young married lovers delight in, and upon whose airy foundations many a solid superstructure of after life is reared. And, being thus pleasantly engaged, neither of them gave another thought to the two young persons under their roof, both of whom, being alone and lonely, were thinking of each other with varying emotional intensity.
"I must find out more about her," John Everett was resolving. "Margaret appears incapable of appreciating her."
"I must be careful and not allow him totalk to me any more," Jane was deciding with equal firmness. "I can't help liking him a little, for he is the only person who has been kind to me in years." Which statement was, of course, eminently unfair to Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe, as well as to his noble consort, Lady Agatha, both of whom had repeatedly assured each other, within the past few weeks, that Jane had proved herselfmost ungratefulafter all their kindness to her.
It is a singular fact that ingratitude thus persistently dwelt upon proves a most effectual palliative to one's natural anxieties concerning another. Lady Agatha, in particular, had found the practice of the greatest use of late. She had been able by means of it to dismiss all unpleasant reflections regarding her husband's niece, which might otherwise have arisen to disquiet her.
As for Jane, she seldom thought bitterly of Lady Agatha in the far country into which her rash pride and folly had brought her. Each day of her hated servitude brought the time of herdeliverance and her return to England so much the nearer. Just what she meant to do when she got there she did not for the present choose to consider. From the little window of her attic chamber she could catch wide glimpses of the sea, which stretched vast and lonely between this strange new country and the land of her birth, for which she longed with the passionate regret of a homesick child. The shore itself was not far distant, and one of Jane's most agreeable duties thus far had been to convoy Master Belknap to the beach, where he delighted to dig in the warm sand.
The very next day after Jane's prudent rejection of John Everett's proffered friendship her mistress announced her intention of spending the day in town. "In the afternoon, Jane, you may take Buster to the beach," said Mrs. Belknap. "It will do the darling good. Be careful to watch him every minute, Jane, and do not allow him to play with other children," had been her parting injunction.
There were few persons to be seen when Janeand her little charge alighted from the trolley car. The yellow sand lay warm and glistening under the direct rays of the sun, and along the blue horizon drifted myriads of white sails and the vanishing smoke of steamers coming and going in this busiest of all waterways. Jane sat down in the sand with a sigh of happy relief, while Master Belknap fell industriously to work with a diminutive shovel.
"Jane!" he said earnestly, "Jane!"
"Yes, dear," said Jane absent-mindedly.
"I yuve 'oo, Jane! 'n'—'n' I'm doin' to dig a dreat big hole, an' 'nen—an' 'nen I'm doin' to build a dreat big house for 'oo, Jane!"
"Yes, dear," repeated Jane sweetly. The wind sweeping in across leagues of softly rolling waves brought a lovely color to the girl's face. She threw aside her hat and let the wild air blow the little curls about her forehead. It pleased her to imagine that the fresh, salty savor carried with it a hint of blossoming hedgerows and the faint bitter fragrance of primroses abloom in distant English woods.
The little boy trotted away with his tiny red pail in quest of clam shells; Jane followed him lazily, with her dreaming eyes. Then she sprang to her feet, the color deepening in her cheeks at sight of the tall, broad-shouldered figure which was approaching them at a leisurely pace. Master Belknap had dropped his shovel and pail, and was running across the sand as fast as his short legs could carry him.
"Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!" he shouted gleefully. "Here we are, Uncle Jack! I digged a—dreat—big hole, an'—an', Uncle Jack, I'm doin' to build a dreat big house—all for my Jane!"
John Everett answered the carping question in Jane's eyes with gay composure. "I promised Buster yesterday that I would come home early and join him at the beach," he said coolly. "I want to have a hand in digging that hole, myself," he added, rescuing the abandoned shovel from a sandy entombment.
Jane surveyed him gravely. "If you are going to be here all the afternoon," she said, "perhaps you will not mind if I go home. There are windows to clean, and I am sure Mrs. Belknap would not mind my leaving Master Buster in your care, sir."
His crestfallen face afforded the girl a transient amusement as she walked across the sand in quest of her hat. But Fate, in the small person of the infant, happily intervened as she was firmly inserting her hat pins and otherwise preening herself for hasty flight.
"Where 'oo doin', Jane?" he demanded imperiously.
"I am going home," replied Jane, with a conciliatory smile. "Mr. Everett will stay with you, dear."
"No!" murmured the sagacious infant, laying hold of the girl's gown with a determined hand. "N-o-o!" The last word ended in a loud wail of protest.
Jane flushed uncomfortably under John Everett's observant eyes, as she stooped to gently disengage herself. "I must go, dear," she repeated. "I have some work to do at home."
The child responded by throwing both chubby arms about her neck and wailing discordantly in her ear.
"Come, come, Buster!" exclaimed his uncle wrathfully; "you can stop that howling. Jane won't leave you. I'll take myself off instead, as I see I am decidedly out of it."
The small boy instantly relaxed his hold upon the girl and flew to his uncle. "No-o!" he shouted. "I want my Jane, an'—an' I want 'oo,Uncle Jack!" He clambered up his accommodating relative's trouser leg, and was assisted to a triumphant perch upon that young gentleman's broad shoulder, where he beamed upon Jane with innocent delight. "I yuve my Uncle Jack," he announced conclusively, "and I yuve my Jane!"
"That's all right, young fellow, and a proper sentiment too," murmured John Everett. Then he cast a pleading look at Jane. "Why persist in spoiling a good time?" he asked. "I'll play in the sand like a good boy, and I promise you I won't teach Buster any bad words, nor throw wet sand on his clean frock."
Jane's pretty face was a study. "Very well, sir," she said coldly. "It is not for me to say, I suppose." Then she sat down at a safe distance from the hole in the sand—in which the small diplomat, satisfied with the result of hiscoup, immediately resumed operations—and fixed her eyes on the sail-haunted horizon. All the sense of happy freedom which the wind had brought her from across the sea had suddenlyvanished. She was gallingly conscious of the bonds of her servitude and of the occasional friendly glances which the big, pleasant-faced young fellow on the sand bestowed upon her.
"I hate him!" she told herself passionately. "If he knew who I was he would not dare call me 'Jane,' and smile at me in that insufferably familiar way. It is only because I am aservant. Oh, Ihatehim!" Her little hands clenched themselves till the nails almost pierced the tender palms, whereon divers hardened spots told of unaccustomed toil.
It was not an auspicious moment for John Everett to approach and utter a commonplace remark about a passing steamer. Nevertheless he did it, being anxious in his blundering masculine way to cheer this forlorn little exile, who he felt sure was in dire need of human sympathy.
Jane made no sort of reply, and after a doubtful pause he ventured to seat himself at her side. "That white tower on the farther side of the bay is one of the features of 'Dreamland,'" he observed. "At night one can seeit for a long distance sparkling with electric lights."
Still no answer. He studied the girl's delicate profile in silence for a minute. "Wouldn't you like to see it sometime, Jane?" he asked.
She turned upon him suddenly. "How—howdareyou—call me 'Jane,' and—and— Oh, Ihateyou!" Her kindling eyes scorched him for an instant, then before he could collect his scattered senses she burst into wild sobbing. "You wouldn't dare treat me so if I was at—at home," she went on between her sobs; "but you think because I am all alone here and—and working for wages that you—can amuse yourself with me. Oh, I wish you would go away and never speak to me again!"
His face had paled slowly. "I don't even know your name," he said quietly. "But I assure you, Miss—Jane, it has been very far from my mind to annoy you, or to——"
He stopped short and looked at her fixedly. "I must put myself right with you, Jane," he said at last. "You must listen to me."
Her low weeping suddenly ceased, and she lifted her proud little face all wet with angry tears to his. "I will listen," she said haughtily.
"I am afraid I don't altogether understand what you mean to accuse me of," he said, choosing his words carefully; "but I will tell you just why I have tried to make friends with you. I will admit that men in my station do not as a rule make friends with servant maids." He said this firmly and watched her wince under the words. "But, Jane, you are not at all like an ordinary servant. I saw that the first time I met you. I fancied that you had, somehow, stumbled out of your right place in the world, and I thought—very foolishly, no doubt—that I might help you to get back to it."
Jane's eyes kindled. "I can help myself to get back to it," she murmured, "and I will!"
"That is why I wished to help you," he went on, without paying heed to her interruption, "and I will confess to you that I came down here this afternoon on purpose to have a talk with you. I meant—" he paused to search herface gravely. "I meant to ask you to allow me to send you home to England."
"Oh, no—no!" she protested.
"Do you mean to remain in America, then?" he asked. "Are you satisfied with being a domestic servant?"
"No," she said doggedly. "I am going back when—when I have earned the money for my passage. I ought never to have come," she added bitterly. "I ought to have endured the ills I knew."
"Will you tell me what ills you were enduring in England?" he asked.
"I—I was living with relatives," she faltered, "and——"
"Were they unkind to you?"
"They didn't mean to be," acknowledged Jane. "I can see that now. But I fancied—I thought I should be happier if I were independent. So I——"
"You fell into trouble as soon as you stepped out of the safe shelter of your home," he finished for her. "You are right in thinking thatyou should never have come, and yet— Now won't you allow me to—advance the money for your passage? I assure you I shall be very businesslike about it. I shall expect you to return every penny of it. For I"—he paused to smile half humorously to himself—"I am a poor young man, Jane, and I have to work for my living."
She looked up into the strong, kind face he bent toward her. "I—thank you," she said slowly, "and I beg your pardon, too. I see now that you are—that you meant to be my friend."
"And you will accept my friendship?" he asked eagerly. "You will allow me to help you to return to England?"
She shook her head. "I could have borrowed the money from Bertha Forbes, if I had chosen to do it," she said. "She wanted to send me back at once. But"—with an obstinate tightening of her pretty lips—"I thought since I had gotten myself into this absurd plight by my own foolishness I ought to get myself out of it. Andthat is why I am working for wages in your sister's house. I shall soon have earned money enough to go home by second cabin; but I don't mind how I go, if only I go!"
Her eyes wandered away to the dim blue horizon which lay beyond "The Hook," and he saw her sensitive mouth quiver.
"Do you know you're showing a whole lot of splendid grit," he murmured appreciatively. "I know just how you feel."
"Now that I have told you all this," she went on hurriedly, her eyes returning from their wistful excursion seaward, "you will understand why I do not—why I cannot—" she blushed and faltered into silence.
"You really haven't told me very much after all," he said gravely. "Don't you think between friends, now, that——"
"But we are not friends," she interrupted him hastily. "That is just what I wished to say. I have explained to you that I have friends in England, and I have Miss Forbes besides. So there is no reason at all why you should giveme or my affairs another thought, and I beg"—haughtily—"that you will not."
"O Jane! why?" he urged anxiously.
She cast an impatient glance at him. "You are so—stupid," she murmured resentfully. "But then you are an American, and I suppose you cannot help it."
He grimaced ruefully at this British taunt. "I fear I shall have to allow the damaging fact of my nationality," he said; "but I fail to understand how it is going to stand in the way of my thinking of you at intervals. If you knew more about Americans, Jane, you would see that it is mainly on that account I am bound to do it."
"You'll be obliged to keep your thoughts to yourself then," she told him, "for as long as I am in Mrs. Belknap's employ I am, undeniably, her servant and, hence, nothing to you. Do you understand? Because if you do not, I shall be obliged to find another situation at once."
"Oh, no; don't do that!" he protested."Look here, Jane, I'm not quite such a duffer as you seem to think. I see your point, and I'll agree not to bother you after this. But I won't promise never to think of you again. On the contrary, I mean to think of you a great deal; may I, Jane?"
Jane arose. "It is quite time to be going home," she said coldly. "I must ask you not to speak to me again, Mr. Everett, and please come home on another car."
"But sometime, Jane, after this farce is played to its finis, don't you think——"
She turned her back upon him deliberately and walked away toward the trolley station, leading Master Belknap by the hand, meek and unresisting. During all this time the little boy had been contentedly laboring in the removal of sand from a hole of wide dimensions; his eyes were heavy with fatigue when the girl set him gently in his place on the homeward bound car. "I yuve 'oo, Jane," he murmured sweetly, laying his curly head in her lap. "I'm doin' to build 'oo a—dreat, big house!"
Five minutes later he was soundly asleep, and Jane, who had tried in vain to awaken him, was forced to lift his limp weight in her slender arms when the car finally stopped at her destination.
"Give the boy to me, Jane," said an authoritative voice at her side.
She looked up in real vexation. "I thought," she said reproachfully, "that you promised——"
"I promised not to bother you, Jane; but I didn't say I would never offer to help you again. Did you suppose for an instant that I would allow you to carry that boy up this hill?"
Jane crossed the street without a word, and speeding across lots, by way of a daisied meadow, reached the house first.
She was met at the door by her mistress. "Why, Jane, where is Buster?" inquired Mrs. Belknap anxiously.
"Master Buster went to sleep on the way home, ma'am," explained Jane, blushing guiltily,"and Mr. Everett, who chanced to be on the same car, kindly offered to bring him up the hill."
"Oh!" said Mr. Everett's sister, rather blankly.
Opportunity has been depicted as a sturdy youth, girded for swift flight, tapping lightly at one's door at uncertain intervals; then, when one opens as quickly as may be, more often than not showing but a pair of mischievous heels retreating into the mists of yesterdays—"Gone," we are told solemnly, "never to return!" A truer philosophy recognizes opportunity as the child of desire, and wholly dependent for continued existence upon its parent. So when opportunity comes a-knocking (as happens every day and wellnigh every hour of the day) let desire make haste to run and open to its child, knowing well that opportunity is but a weakling, and must be sheltered and nourished lest it perish with cold and hunger on the very threshold that gave it birth.
A lover, whether or no he be an acknowledgedlover in his own eyes and in the eyes of his world, needs no teaching as to the relationship his eager desires bear to his fleeting opportunities. In his case, at least, opportunity obeys desire, as a child should ever obey its parent; and this, if the mad world would only pause to examine, is the chief reason why lovers are of all men happy.
All of which is submitted as a simple preamble to a simpler statement;videlicet: because John Everett wished to see and converse with the unconfessed object of his affections, he found ample opportunity to do so, and this despite the fact that Jane Blythe herself did not wish it. And here it should be observed that there is a wide disparity in the quality and character of desire. John Everett's desire to know Jane was natural, strong, vigorous, true. Jane's desire to keep the young man at a distance was—to put it in the form of a vulgar colloquialism—something of a fake. Therefore being a mere creature of straw it stood no sort of a chance against the bold, aggressive, opportunity-seeking wishes of John—as, indeed, it did not deserve. Fraud,even though it be a nice, modest, girlish, innocent little fraud like the one Jane was cherishing in her heart of hearts, should never be tolerated.
And so, although Jane frowned upon John on every suitable occasion, John the more determinedly smiled upon Jane, and she, being young and lovely and, after all, a mere woman, grew (quite stealthily) prettier and sweeter and more worthy to be smiled upon with every passing hour. And this despite the vinegar and gall which she was forced to mingle with her daily food partaken of in the Belknap kitchen under the glowering eyes of Mary MacGrotty.
But opportunity when worthily fathered and properly nourished, as has been noted, frequently grows into surprising stature and, moreover, develops aspects which astonish even its fondest well-wisher. It is at this point that Providence, luck, fate—what you will—is apt to take a hand, and then—things happen.
The thirtieth day of May dawned clear and beautiful after a week of rain and cloudy weather, and Mrs. Belknap looking anxiouslyfrom her window in the early morning gave a girlish shout of joy. "What a glorious day for our ride with the Sloans in their new motor car!" she cried. "You haven't seen it, Jimmy; but it is the darlingest thing, all shiny and cushiony, with big lunch baskets on the side and a lovely, deep, horn arrangement that trails out behind on the breeze like an organ chord."
"The lunch baskets appeal to my most esthetic sensibilities," observed Jimmy blandly. "I suppose the organ chord arrangement is designed to distract the mind of the stationary public from the beastly smell of the thing. Did you say the kid was asked too?"
"Certainly Buster is going," said his wife. "Do you think for a moment I'd go off pleasuring and leave that blessed lamb at home all day? But"—lowering her voice—"Mrs. Sloan didn't invite Jack, and I'mawfully worried!"
"About what, dear? Jack won't mind; he can put in the day in any one of a dozen ways."
"Of course hecan; but there's one way I don't want him to put it in."
"What do you mean, dear girl? Don't look so doleful! One would suppose you'd planned to spend the day in the cemetery."
"That's really the way one ought to spend it, I suppose," said Mrs. Belknap patriotically. She was still drawing her pretty brows together in a worried little frown; then she turned suddenly upon her husband. "You know what I said to you about Jack? I've been watching him, and I'm awfully afraid——"
Mr. Belknap was shaving, and at this unlucky instant he cut himself slightly. "Nonsense, Margaret!" he exclaimed in an appropriate tone of voice, "Jack doesn't need watching any more than I do; and if he did, it isn't your place to do it."
"Why, Jimmy Belknap, how can you say such an unkind thing! Am I not Jack's only sister? Of course I ought to care whether he is happy or not, and I——"
"He seems to be happy enough lately," hazarded Mr. Belknap, pausing to strop his razor with a slight access of irritation.
"That's exactly what I mean," put in his wife triumphantly; "don't you see, dear? Jackdoesseem happy, and that is why I am so uneasy."
"Do I understand you to say that as his only sister you wish to file a demurrer in the case? If so, I'll——"
"Jimmy!"
Mr. Belknap leaned forward and eyed his lathered countenance intently as he applied the glittering edge of his blade to his outstretched throat.
"It always makes me shiver to see you do that," breathed Mrs. Belknap; "if that horrid thing should slip! But as I was saying, Jimmy, I can't think how to manage about the girls to-day. It seems a pity to ask them to stay at home; though, of course, we shall be awfully hungry for dinner when we get home, and if Mary goes out, more than likely she'll not be back in time to get dinner at all. And as for Jane——"
"By all means let them both go out for the day, my dear; you've really no right to keepthem in on a legal holiday. But I confess I don't follow your 'as I was saying'; you weren't saying a word about the servants. You were talking about Jack, and about Jack's being happy."
Mrs. Belknap looked justly offended. "If you would pay a little more attention to what I say to you, Jimmy, you wouldn't appear so stupid on occasions. No; I'll not explain further; you'd merely make it an excuse to tease, and very likely you'd report the whole conversation to Tom Sloan as a huge joke, and the two of you would roar over it; then I should be obliged to explain to Mrs. Sloan, and she's a perfect sieve. The whole affair would be all over town in no time, and that I simply could not endure."
"I'm safe this time, Margaret," he assured her solemnly; "for, honest Injin, I haven't a ghost of an idea as to what you're trying to get at!"
"I know what I'll do," cogitated his wife, waving him aside. "I'll manage it so that thegirls shall leave the house a full hour before we do; they'll go to the city, of course. And I'll keep Jack here till we're off; by that time Jane will be well out of the way, and——"
"OJane!"
"I see you are beginning to understandnow!" said Mrs. Belknap; then she added plaintively, "IwishI'dneverhired that girl, Jimmy!"
"I suppose there's very little use in asking why you persist in hanging on to her?" said Mr. Belknap.
"Don't yousee, dear, it wouldn't do a bit of good to send her away now; indeed, I feel as if it were almost mydutyto keep her." Mrs. Belknap said this with the resigned air of a martyr; and Mr. Belknap wisely forebore to make any comment upon the surprising statement.
* * * * * *
It was delightfully fresh and breezy on the trolley car; and Jane on the front seat keenly enjoyed the noisy rush through the green, daisiedfields and woods cool with shade and fragrant with wild flowers and young ferns. In the streets of the villages through which the car passed on its way to the ferry there was a brilliant flutter of flags, the unfamiliar stars and stripes looking strange and foreign in Jane's English eyes. Everywhere there were holiday crowds, little girls in white frocks and shoes, bearing wreaths and bunches of flowers; little boys in their best clothes with tiny flags in their buttonholes; women carrying babies, and men carrying lunch baskets, and other and bigger babies; showily dressed young girls with their beaux; besides a multitude of the unattached eagerly going somewhere. Jane felt herself to be very small and lonely and far from home in the midst of it all.
She had planned to spend her unexpected holiday with Bertha Forbes, and when at the end of her journey she was informed by Miss Forbes's landlady that Miss Forbes had departed to New Jersey for the day, she turned away with a feeling of disappointment whichalmost amounted to physical pain. What should she do? Where should she go, alone in the great unfamiliar city of New York?
There were numberless excursions by boat and train and flag-decked barges, and the throng of sightseers of every nationality jostled one another good-humoredly, as they surged to and fro under the hot sun in the narrow space at the terminals of the elevated and subway roads. Jane's sad, bewildered little face under the brim of her unfashionable hat attracted the attention of more than one passer-by, as she slowly made her way to the ferry ticket office. She was going directly back to Staten Island, with no better prospect in view then to pass the day alone on the back porch of Mrs. Belknap's house, when the might-have-been-expected unexpected happened; she came face to face with John Everett, cool and handsome in his light summer suit and Panama hat. The young man had evidently just landed from a Staten Island boat, and his grim face brightened as his eyes lit upon Jane, hastily attempting to conceal her small person behind aburly German woman bearing a bundle, a basket, and a brace of babies in her capacious arms.
"Jane!" exclaimed Mr. Everett; "how glad I am to have met you. Where were you going?"
"I am going back to Staten Island directly, sir."
"To do what?"
His eyes demanded nothing less than facts, and Jane, being characteristically unable to frame a successful fib on the spur of the moment, told the pitiful little truth.
"And so you were going back to stay all day on the outside of a locked house—eh? A cheerful holiday you'd put in!"
"I meant to take a long, pleasant walk, of course," amended Jane, "and——"
"Won't you take pity on me?" he pleaded. "I hadn't an idea how to spend the day, so I'd started with an aimless notion of fetching up at the country club and playing golf or tennis. But I don't care a nickel for either. You've never seen New York, Jane, and now's yourchance. You'll be going back to England soon without ever having had a glimpse of this town, and that would be really foolish, since you're here; don't you see it would?"
Jane shook her head. "I—I couldn't," she hesitated; but her youthful eyes shone wistfully bright, as all unknown to herself she turned to cast a fleeting glance at the laughing holiday crowds pouring up to the elevated and down to the subway stations.
"Why, of course you can!" he said positively; and before she knew what had really happened she found herself, her weak objections overborne, seated in a flying train which looked down upon the gay panorama of New York's flag-decked streets.
"Where are—we going?" she asked him, and the little catch in her soft voice raised John Everett to a seventh heaven of unreasoning happiness.
"How would you like," he asked, "to let this train carry us the entire length of Manhattan Island—which is really the live heart of NewYork, you know—and bring up at Bronx Park? I was there once with Buster, and there are all sorts of queer birds and reptiles and animals to be seen, and a pretty winding river—we'll go up it in a rowboat, if you like the water; and we'll have our lunch in a little restaurant by the rocking stone, and then——"
"But—I'm obliged to be at home by five o'clock," she told him with a transient clouding of her bright eyes, "and—and I am afraid that Mrs. Belknap——"
"Jane," he began, in a low, persuasive voice, "just listen to me for a minute. You must have a reasonably independent character or you wouldn't be here in America. You remember what you told me the other day of how you came to leave your home in England; now that being the case, suppose you make up your mind to forget all about my excellent sister and her claims on you for just this one day and be yourself. Will you, Jane? It will be a lot more fun for both of us, and it won't hurt anybody in the world."
Jane drew a quick breath. "I'd like to," she said honestly.
At that very moment Mrs. Belknap, becomingly veiled and gowned and leaning back complacently against the luxurious cushions of Mrs. Sloan's new automobile, was saying to her hostess: "Oh, thank you so much for thinking to inquire after my brother! Yes, John is spending the day at the country club; he used to be a champion golf player—did you know it? and he enjoys a day on the links beyond anything." Then this sapient young matron permitted the carking cares of everyday life to trail away into the dust-laden distance with the mellow honking of the great horn—an experiment which Jane and John Everett were also trying to their mutual satisfaction on the sun-lit reaches of the Bronx River.
The boat which they hired at a rickety little landing stage was an unwieldy flat-iron shaped scow, designed with an eye to the safety of the inexperienced public as well as the profit of the owner; but Jane, bright-eyed and pink cheeked,seated in the big square stern, was not too far away from John on the rower's seat, and the unwieldy craft presently carried the two of them around a wooded bend, out of sight of a group of roystering picnickers on the bank, into a quiet nook where the tall trees looked down at their reflection in the lazily flowing water.
"It reminds me," said Jane with a sigh, "of England; there is a river like this near Uncle Robert's place in Kent, only it isn't muddy like this."
"One has to be far from home to really appreciate its strong points," he observed meditatively; "I never shall forget how I felt after nearly a year abroad when I came suddenly upon the American flag waving over a consulate building somewhere in Italy. I hadn't an idea up to that moment that I was particularly patriotic, and I'd been enjoying my trip immensely, but I could have fallen on the neck of the wizened little chap inside just because he was born in Schenectady, New York. But as a matter of fact, Jane, our rivers are not all muddy; youought to travel about and see more of America before you allow yourself to form cast-iron opinions about it. You've seen nothing but our seamy side yet, and quite naturally you can't help setting America down as a very disagreeable place, and bunching all Americans as cads."