Mrs. Allison and the three old ladies with whom Jane was to drink tea, were neighbors. Mrs. Allison lived alone, and the other three lived in the homes of their several sons and daughters. They played cards every Friday afternoon, and Jane always came over when Mrs. Allison entertained and helped her with the refreshments. They were very simple and pleasant old ladies with a nice sense of their own dignity. They resented deeply the fact of Mrs. Follette’s social condescensions. The lady of the manor spoke to them when she met them on the street or in church, but she never invited them to her house. She was, in effect, the chatelaine, while they were merely Smith and Brown and Robinson! Well, at any rate, they had Jane. Some of the other young people scorned these elderly tea-parties, and if they came, were apt to show it in their manner. But Jane was never scornful. She always had the time of her life, and the old ladies felt particularly joyous and juvenile when she was one of them.
But this afternoon Jane was late. Tea was always[106] served promptly at four. And it happened that there were popovers. So, of course, they couldn’t wait.
“I telephoned to Sophy,” said Mrs. Allison, “and Jane has gone to town. I suppose something has kept her. Anyhow we’ll start in.”
So the old ladies ate the popovers and drank hot sweet chocolate, and found them not as delectable as when Jane was there to share them.
Things were, indeed, a bit dull. They discussed Mrs. Follette, whose faults furnished a perpetual topic. Mrs. Allison told them that the young Baldwins had dined at Castle Manor on Thanksgiving. And that there had been other guests.
“How can she afford it,” was the unanimous opinion, “with that poor boy on her hands?”
“He’s hanging around now, waiting for Jane’s train,” said Mrs. Allison, bringing in hot supplies from the kitchen. “He met the noon train, too.”
The old ladies knew that Evans was in love with Jane. He showed it, unmistakably. But they hoped that Jane wouldn’t look at him. He was dear and good, and had been wonderful once upon a time. But that time had passed, and it was impossible to consider Mrs. Follette as Jane’s mother-in-law!
“He’s sitting up there on the terrace,” Mrs. Allison further informed them. “Do you think I’d better ask him to come over?”
They thought she might, but her hospitable purpose[107] was never fulfilled, for as she stepped out on the porch, a long, low limousine stopped in front of the house, and out of it came Jane in all the glory of a great bunch of orchids, and with a man by her side, whose elegance measured up to the limousine and the lovely flowers.
They came up the path and Jane said, “Mrs. Allison, may I present Mr. Towne, and will you give him a cup of tea?”
“Indeed, I will,” Mrs. Allison seemed to rise on wings of gratification, “only it is chocolate and not tea.”
And Frederick said that he adored chocolate, and presently Mrs. Allison’s little living-room was all in a pleasant flutter; and over on Jane’s terrace, Evans Follette sat, a lonely sentinel, and pondered on the limousine, and the elegance of Jane’s escort.
Once old Sophy called to him, “You’ll ketch your death, Mr. Evans.”
He shook his head and smiled at her. A man who had lived through a winter in the trenches thought nothing of this. Physical cold was easy to endure. The cold that clutched at his heart was the thing that frightened him.
The early night came on. There were lights now in Mrs. Allison’s house, and within was warmth and laughter. The old ladies, excited and eager, told each other in flashing asides that Mr. Towne was the great Frederick Towne. The one whose name was so often in the papers, and his niece,[108] Edith, had been deserted at the altar. “You know, my dear, the one who ran away.”
When Jane said that she must be getting home, they pressed around her, sniffing her flowers, saying pleasant things of her prettiness—hinting of Towne’s absorption in her.
She laughed and sparkled. It was a joyous experience. Mr. Towne had a way of making her feel important. And the adulation of the old ladies added to her elation.
As Frederick and Jane walked across the street towards the little house on the terrace, a gaunt figure rose from the top step and greeted them.
“Evans,” Jane scolded, “you need a guardian. Don’t you know that you shouldn’t sit out in such weather as this?”
“I’m not cold.”
She presented him to Frederick. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Towne?”
But he would not. He would call her up. Jane stood on the porch and watched him go down the steps. He waved to her when he reached his car.
“Oh, Evans,” she said, “I’ve had such a day.”
They went into the house together. Jane lighted the lamp. “Can’t you dine with us?”
“I hoped you might ask me. Mother is staying with a sick friend. If I go home, I shall sup on bread and milk.”
[109]“Sophy’s chops will be much better.” She held her flowers up to him. “Isn’t the fragrance heavenly?”
“Towne gave them to you?”
She nodded. “Oh, I’ve been very grand and gorgeous—lunch at the Chevy Chase club—a long drive afterward——” she broke off. “Evans, you look half-frozen. Sit here by the fire and get warm.”
“I met both trains.”
“Evans—why will you do such things?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“But you can see me any time——”
“I cannot. Not when you are lunching with fashionable gentlemen with gold-lined pocket-books.” He held out his hands to the blaze. “Do you like him?”
“Mr. Towne? Yes, and I like the things he does for me. I had to pinch myself to be sure it was true.”
“If what was true?”
“That I was really playing around with the great Frederick Towne.”
“You talk as if he were conferring a favor.”
She had her coat off now and her hat. She came and sat down in the chair opposite him. “Evans,” she said, “you’re jealous.” She was still vivid with the excitement of the afternoon, lighted up by it, her skin warmed into color by the swift flowing blood beneath.
[110]“Well, I am jealous,” he tried to smile at her, then went on with a touch of bitterness, “Do you know what I thought about as I sat watching the lights at Mrs. Allison’s? Well, as I came over to-day I passed a snowy field—and there was a scarecrow in the midst of it, fluttering his rags, a lonely thing, an ugly thing. Well, we’re two of a kind, Jane, that scarecrow and I.”
Her shocked glance stopped him. “Evans, you don’t know what you are saying.”
He went on recklessly. “Well, after all, Jane, the thing is this. It’s a man’s looks and his money that count. I’m the same man inside of me that I was when I went away. You know that. You might have loved me. The thing that is left you don’t love. Yet I am the same man——”
As he flung the words at her, her eyes met his steadily. “No,” she said, “you are not the same man.”
“Why not?”
“The man of yesterday did not think—dark thoughts——”
The light had gone out of her as if he had blown it with a breath. “Jane,” he said, unsteadily, “I am sorry——”
She melted at once and began to scold him, almost with tenderness. “What made you look at the scarecrow? Why didn’t you turn your back on him, or if you had to look, why didn’t you wave and say, ‘Cheer up, old chap, summer’s coming, and[111] you’ll be on the job again’? To me there’s something debonair in a scarecrow in summer—he dances in the breeze and seems to fling defiance to the crows.”
He fell in with her mood. “But his defiance is all bluff.”
“How do you know? If he keeps away a crow, and adds an ear of corn to a farmer’s store—hasn’t he fulfilled his destiny?”
“Oh, if you want to put it that way. I suppose you are hinting that I can keep away a crow or two——”
“I’m not hinting, I am telling it straight out.”
They heard Baldy’s step in the hall. Jane, rising, gave Evans’ head a pat as she passed him. “You are thinking about yourself too much, old dear; stop it.”
Baldy............