In Jane’s next letter to Judy she told her how the evening with the Townes had ended. “Edith insisted that I should stay all night. She’s a perfect darling, so absolutely and utterly exquisite, and yet so human. She and her uncle simply can’t look at things from the same angle. And they are both to blame. Anything sets them off,—you should have seen them—like people in a play.
“I slept in the spare room—and well, I lay awake half the night looking at it, and admiring myself in one of Edith’s nighties! I never saw such underthings, Judy! For a princess! Her room is all rose and silver and ivory, and the room I slept in is in pale yellow—with a canopy to my bed of gold brocade.
“Edith and I had breakfast together. Everything brought up on a tray and set in her little sitting-room, and we wore lace caps and breakfast coats, and looked—superlative! Edith is the most beautiful person—like one of the Viking women—with her hair in thick fair braids. I told her that, and she laughed. ‘What a pair of poets you are,’ she said, ‘you and your brother.’
“It was good to hear her laugh. She cried dreadfully the night before. Coming back was[171] hard for her—and then Mr. Towne got on her nerves. They both wanted me to stay, and Baldy stayed, too, and I know his head bumped the clouds. And this morning on his way to the office, he bought a bunch of heliotrope for Edith and sent it up to her.
“The trouble with Edith is that her life hasn’t been real, Judy. Not in the way that your life and mine and Baldy’s is real. She has never had any work to do, and nothing has ever depended upon her. Think of it. There’s no reason why she can’t stay in bed all day if she wants to. And she can gratify any mood of the moment. The consequence is that half the time she is bored stiff. She says that was the reason she became engaged to Delafield Simms. Anything for a change.
“It looks as if she and I were going to be frightfully friendly. She told me that she wants me for a friend. That Eloise Harper and her kind are horrible to her after the things that have happened.
“To-morrow afternoon she and her uncle are coming out here to tea, and I’m going to have the Follettes over. Mrs. Follette will love it. But Evans won’t. He doesn’t like Mr. Towne.
“And now, my dearest-dear, I am worried about that hint in your last letter that you are not well. Take care of yourself, and remember I have only one precious sister, and the kiddies have only one mother. We need you in our young lives, and you mustn’t work too hard.”
When she had written the last line, Jane sat very still at her desk. She was thinking of Evans. She hadn’t seen him for three days. Not since the Sunday night she had gone to the Townes. That[172] night in the fog had impressed her strangely. She had felt for Evans something that had nothing to do with admiration for him nor respect nor charm. His weakness had drawn her to him, as a mother might be drawn to a child. His struggle was, she felt, something which she must share. Not as his wife! No.... That kind of love was different. If only he would let her be his little sister, Jane.
He had not even called her up. When she had invited him and his mother to tea with the Townes, Mrs. Follette had answered, and had accepted for both of them. Evans, she said, was in Washington, and would be out on the late train.
When he arrived ahead of the others on the afternoon of her tea, Jane said, “Where have you been? Do you know it has been four days since we’ve seen each other?”
“Weren’t you glad to get rid of me? I’ve thought of you every minute.” He dropped into a seat beside her.
She was gazing at him with lively curiosity. “How nice you look.”
“New suit. Like it?”
“Yes. And you act as if somebody had left you a million dollars.”
“Wish he had. I bought this outfit with a first edition ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” he laughed and explained. “I’ve been getting rid of some of our rare books. I feel plutocratic in consequence.[173] Five hundred dollars, if you please, for that old Hogarth, with the scathing Ruskin inscription. And I’m going to open an office, Jane.”
“In Washington?”
“On Connecticut Avenue. Same building, same room, where I started.”
“Evans, how splendid!”
“Yes. You did it, Jane.”
“I? How?”
“The night of the fog. I never realized before what a walking-stick I’ve been—leaning on you. Henceforth you’re the Lady of the Lantern. It won’t be so fatiguing.”
He was smiling at her, and she smiled back. Yet quite strangely and inconsistently, she felt as if in changing his attitude towards her, he had robbed her of some privilege. “I didn’t mind being a walking-stick.”
“Well, I minded. After this I’ll walk alone. And I’m going to work hard, and play around a bit. Will you have tea with me to-morrow, Jane? At the Willard? To celebrate my first tottering steps.”
She agreed, eagerly. “It will be like old times.”
“Minus a lot, old lady.”
That was the way he had talked to her years ago. The plaintive note was gone.
“Take the three-thirty train and I’ll meet you. I’ll pay for the taxi with what’s left of ‘Alice.’”
“Don’t be too extravagant.”
[174]“Nothing is too good for you, Jane. I can’t say it as I want to say it, but you’ll never know what you seemed to me on Sunday as you came through the mist.”
His voice shook a little, but he recovered himself in a moment. “Here come the Townes.” He rose as Edith entered with young Baldwin.
After that Evans followed Baldy’s lead as a dispenser of hospitality. The two of them passed cups, passed thin bread and butter, passed little cakes, passed lemon and cream and sugar, flung conversational balls as light as feathers into the air, were, as Baldy would have expressed it, “the life of the party.”
“Something must have gone to Casabianca’s head,” Frederick Towne remarked to Jane. “Have you ever seen him like this?”
“Years ago. He was tremendously attractive.”
“Do you find him attractive now?” with a touch of annoyance.
“I find him—wonderful”—her tone was defiant—“and I’ve known him all my life.”
“If you had known me all your life would you call me wonderful?”
She looked at him from behind her battlements of silver. “How do I know? People have to prove themselves.”
Dr. Hallam had driven Mrs. Follette over. He rarely did social stunts, but he liked Jane. And[175] he had been interested enough in Evans to want to glimpse him in his new r?le.
Strolling up to the tea-table, he was aware at once of a situation which might make for comedy, or indeed for tragedy. It was evident that Towne was much attracted to little Jane Barnes. If Jane reciprocated, what of young Follette?
Hallam knew Towne, and himself a bachelor of quite another type, without vanity where women were concerned, he had a feeling of contempt for a man whose reputation was linked with a long line of much-talked about ladies. And now little Jane was the reigning queen. He didn’t like the idea of her youth, and Towne’s late forties.
“I saw Mrs. Laramore yesterday,” he said, abruptly, “lovely as ever——”
“Yes, of course.” Towne wished that Hallam wouldn’t talk about Adelaide. He wished that all of the others would go away and leave him alone with Jane.
“Mrs. Laramore,” said Jane unexpectedly, “makes me think of the lady of Shallott. I don’t know why. But I do. I have really never seen such a beautiful woman. But she doesn’t seem real. I have a feeling that if anything hit her, she’d break like china.”
They laughed at her, and Edith said, “Adelaide will never break. She’ll melt. She’s as soft as wax.” Then pigeonholing Mrs. Laramore for[176] more vital matters. “Uncle Fred, I am going out to Baldy’s studio; he’s painting Jane.”
Frederick was at once interested. “Her portrait?”
“No. A sketch for a magazine competition,&r............