Part + 

II + 

Stephen + 

I + 

I + 

“You’ll need,” said Jane’s mother reflectively, “at least four new evening dresses. The blue can be made over in the house.” She was standing in the doorway of Jane’s closet, regarding Jane’s depleted wardrobe with an appraising eye. + 

Jane, darning a stocking by the window overlooking the willow tree, was conscious of a certain sense of unwonted importance. Four new evening dresses. Nothing like that, of course, had ever occurred to her before. + 

“The pink,” continued her mother, turning to look at her earnestly, “will be home in time for Flora’s dance. You will need three others.” She gave a little sigh as she spoke. “Things aren’t as simple as they were when Isabel came out.” + 

“Here’s Isabel now,” said Jane. + 

Her mother hurried to the window. There was Isabel, indeed, pushing the baby carriage up the side path. + 

“She’s getting nice and thin again,” said Jane’s mother, “now she’s stopped nursing the baby.” + 

Isabel saw them and waved cheerfully over the hood of the carriage. Jane thought she had never looked so pretty. + 

“I like her fat,” she said. + 

Isabel stooped to lift up the soft armful of afghans that was her son. His head wobbled alarmingly in his big blue bonnet and came safely to rest on Isabel’s shoulder. She picked up a bottle and a bundle of blankets with her free hand and turned toward the side door. + 

“It’s a great deal for Isabel to do,” said Jane’s mother, “to take care of that great child all by herself.” + 

“I think she likes it,” said Jane. “I’d like it if he were mine.” Her nephew always appealed to her as an animated doll. She loved to go over to Isabel’s little apartment in the Kinzie flats and watch her bathe and dress him. + 

Isabel’s voice floated up the stairs. + 

“Aren’t you ready?” she asked. + 

“You’re early,” said Jane’s mother. + 

“I know. I brought the baby over so he could have his nap.” Isabel appeared in the doorway. “Jane ought to be there before it begins.” + 

They were all going over to Muriel’s reception. Jane and Flora were going to pour tea. + 

“She will be,” said Jane’s mother. “Let me have him.” + 

Jane’s mother sat down in the chair by the window with her grandson in her arms. She began unwrapping the afghans. + 

“Isabel,” she said, “you don’t keep this child warm enough.” + 

Isabel exchanged a covert glance with Jane. Jane knew just how she felt. He was Isabel’s baby. + 

“Oh⁠—he’s all right,” Isabel said. “Put him on the bed and let him kick.” + 

“Shut the window, Jane,” said Jane’s mother, “so there won’t be a draught.” + 

Jane obeyed in silence. + 

“You ought to be getting dressed, Mother,” said Isabel. + 

“Give me that bottle,” said Mrs. Ward. “I’ll put it on ice.” She left the room, bottle in hand. + 

“Tell Minnie she has to watch him while we’re out,” called Isabel. Then privately to Jane, “Honestly⁠—Mother gets on my nerves.” + 

“She’s crazy about the baby,” said Jane. + 

“She gets on Robin’s nerves, too, sometimes,” said Isabel, and opened the window. + 

It was curious, thought Jane, to see Robin and the baby insidiously wedging their way in between her mother and Isabel. They had always been so close before. + 

“Do you like my dress?” asked Isabel. + 

It was very pretty. Jane recognized it at once. The blue and yellow stripe made over from the trousseau. + 

“It’s just as good as new,” said Jane. + 

“No, it’s not,” said Isabel. Her pretty face was clouded. “And it’s much too tight. But it has to do.” Then irrelevantly, “Robin got a raise last week.” + 

“That’s good,” said Jane. “Unbutton my waist, will you?” + 

Isabel’s fingers busied themselves with hooks and eyes. + 

“What do you know about Muriel?” she asked. + 

“Muriel?” said Jane, surprised. She wasn’t conscious of anything. + 

“Muriel and Bert,” said Isabel. “Bert Lancaster.” + 

“Bert Lancaster?” echoed Jane. “What about them?” + 

“Rosalie says he’s crazy about her.” + 

“Isabel!” cried Jane. “That old man!” + 

“He’s not forty,” said Isabel. “I don’t believe he’s more than thirty-eight.” + 

Jane slipped out of her skirt and turned toward her closet door. + 

“He sends her flowers,” said Isabel, “three times a week.” + 

“Everyone,” said Jane, “sends Muriel flowers.” + 

“He’s over there,” said Isabel, “all the time.” + 

“Great for Muriel,” said Jane laconically. Then, emerging from the closet, “Here’s my new dress.” + 

“It’s lovely,” said Isabel. Jane thought it was too. Pink taffeta with ecru lace revers over the enormous sleeves. “You’ll look sweet.” + 

Jane walked over to the walnut bureau and began to take down her hair. + 

“Mrs. Lester,” said Isabel, “doesn’t like it a bit.” + 

“Why, she hasn’t seen it!” cried Jane indignantly. No one could help liking that pink taffeta dress. It was ordered for Muriel’s début. + 

“Not the dress, goose!” laughed Isabel. “Bert.” + 

“Oh!” said Jane, immensely relieved. + 

“Rosalie says she can’t do a thing with Muriel,” said Isabel. “Of course she never could.” + 

“Do you think I ought to curl my hair?” asked Jane anxiously. “I suppose I could learn⁠—” + 

Isabel regarded her very seriously, her head on one side. + 

“N-no,” she said slowly. “I like it straight.” + 

“You’ve got a certain style, Jane, all your own.” + 

That was the first time that Jane had ever heard that. She flushed with pleasure. + 

“I shouldn’t think she would like it,” resumed Isabel. “Robin says Bert’s been awfully fast.” + 

“Ready, Jane?” It was her mother’s voice. Mrs. Ward stood in the doorway. She looked very pretty in her violet gown with her little black lace shoulder cape and violet bonnet. “Who opened the window?” Mrs. Ward promptly shut it and walked over to the bed to feel the baby’s feet solicitously, with a reproving glance at Isabel. + 

“Hook me up,” said Jane, backing down on her sister just in time to prevent an outburst of protest. + 

“What were you saying,” asked Mrs. Ward, “that Robin said about Bert?” The baby was forgotten. Isabel faced her mother over Jane’s shoulder with a kindling eye. Jane could see her in the mirror. + 

“Robin says,” she began eagerly, “that Bert has always gone an awful pace. And Rosalie says that Freddy thinks it’s dreadful of her mother to let Muriel have anything to do with him.” + 

“It would certainly be very awkward,” mused Jane’s mother, “if it should come to anything. Considering Muriel’s friendship with Flora.” + 

“I don’t think Flora has ever noticed a thing,” said Isabel. “Do you, Jane?” + 

“Did she ever mention it?” asked Jane’s mother. + 

“No,” said Jane, and took her new hat out of the hatbox. + 

“Lily Furness is a fool,” said Mrs. Ward, “but in a way she’s clever. I dare say she’d be very careful.” + 

“She’s not very careful now,” said Isabel. “She looks like the wrath of heaven.” + 

“I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Ward with dignity, “why she hasn’t more pride.” + 

“You never see him there any more,” said Isabel. “You don’t ever see him, do you, Jane?” + 

Jane was putting on her hat before the mirror. It was a very pretty hat with a big pink taffeta bow standing high in the back. Jane adjusted her white face veil, making little mouths at herself in the glass as she drew it down tightly over her chin. + 

“Why, no,” she said slowly, “I⁠—I haven’t⁠—lately.” + 

“It would be sad,” said Jane’s mother, shaking her head, “if it weren’t so silly.” + 

“It’s certainly silly,” said Isabel, laughing. “Giving yourself away like that over a man who’s running around after your daughter’s best friend⁠—” + 

Jane turned suddenly to face them. Her eyes were snapping with anger. + 

“I don’t think it’s silly at all,” she said abruptly. If it’s true, I think it’s tragic. I like Flora’s mother. She’s always been lovely to me. And she’s always been perfectly beautiful. She is still. If⁠—if Bert Lancaster ever⁠—ever loved her and⁠—and got over it, I think he’s the one that’s silly. Chasing after Muriel Lester who’s young enough to be his own daughter! I think it’s dreadful for people to get over loving⁠—” + 

“Has it ever occurred to you,” said Jane’s mother icily, “that Flora’s mother is a married woman?” + 

Jane felt suddenly deflated. And a little unequal to coping with the complications the situation presented. But she stood by her guns. + 

“I don’t care if she is,” she said stoutly. “She’s no more married now than she was when it began. Anyway, I think it’s her own business,” She caught up her wrap from the bed and stooped to kiss the baby. “Isabel, he is cute. I’m ready, now.” + 

“You look very well,” said her mother. + 

In the hall they met Minnie, coming up all smiles to play nursemaid. Isabel lingered to speak to her for a moment. Mrs. Ward was on the stairs. + 

“You can open the east window,” Jane heard Isabel murmur. Then her mother’s voice rang out from the lower hall. + 

“Come on, girls! The cab’s at the door.” + 

II + 

The November air felt very cool and bracing as they stood on the front steps. It was very luxurious, Jane thought, to be driving over to Muriel’s in a cab when it was only four blocks away. Everything at home seemed luxurious, after Bryn Mawr. It really wasn’t nearly as bad as she had thought it was going to be. It was fun to be with her father again. He had given her a new desk and a bookcase to hold all her Bryn Mawr books. Her mother had had her room repapered. It was very exciting to buy all the new clothes and to feel herself, for once, the central figure on the little family stage. Even Isabel seemed to think that nothing was too good for her. Hats and frocks and shoes and stockings were arriving every day, regardless of expense. Jane was a little appalled at the outlay, but everyone else seemed to take it completely for granted. Jane was a débutante. She had to have things. Her mother had even ordered her some new calling cards, though the old ones were not half used up. “Miss Ward,” they said, with the “Jane” left off. Jane couldn’t quite think of herself as “Miss Ward.” She was, of course, now Isabel was married. + 

The cab turned the corner that always made her remember André’s last smile. She could still see his tall, slender figure, walking, furiously fast, up Pine Street. But she had grown accustomed, now, to missing André. The first fall days, that always made her feel that school should be beginning, had brought him to mind at every turn. She had planned to go to see his mother just as soon as she was sure that she was back from her summer in France. Mrs. Duroy would tell her all about him. + 

She had mentioned that projected visit a little diffidently to her father. She had not seen Mrs. Duroy since the night of the bicycle picnic. Two years ago and more. Her father had looked at her very kindly. + 

“They’ve gone, Jane,” he said gently. + 

“Gone?” she had echoed faintly. + 

“He was called back to Europe. Stationed in Prague, now, I think. They left last winter, soon after Christmas.” + 

So that was that. + 

“Papa,” Jane had said, rather hesitantly, “do⁠—do you know anything about André?” + 

“Not a thing, kid. Haven’t heard of him since he left.” + 

“I⁠—I wish I could have seen his mother,” Jane had said miserably, “before she went away.” Her father patted her hand. There was nothing to say. Prague. Jane wasn’t even quite sure what country it was in. She kept thinking of André in Prague. Or Paris. + 

She kept thinking, too, of Agnes and Marion, and of what they were doing, each hour of the day, on the green October campus. It was very easy to imagine that, for the Bryn Mawr days were marked off meticulously hour by hour, with a fixed, unchanging programme. A quarter to nine⁠—chapel was assembling. Miss Thomas was entering the rostrum. The choir was tuning up. The Quaker prayer was begun. Ten minutes past nine⁠—Agnes was settling down for her Greek lecture. Ten⁠—Marion was entering Major Latin. Twelve⁠—the English professor was ascending the stairs. One⁠—Pembroke dining-room was a babel of tongues. Four⁠—Agnes was getting out the teakettle. Five⁠—they were running down the Gulf Road for a brisk walk before supper. Jane could almost hear Taylor clock striking off the hours. + 

It was nearly four now. Nearly five in Bryn Mawr. Agnes and Marion were washing up the tea-things that very minute. They were laughing about something, of course. Something funny that Agnes would have said. Jane forgot them, however, at the sight of Muriel’s awning. It was her first big party. Next week she would have an awning of her own. + 

The doorman, resplendent in maroon broadcloth and brass buttons, flung open the cab door with a flourish. Jane followed her mother and Isabel up the red velvet carpet. She remembered, just in time, to pick up her pink taffeta train. + 

The Lesters’ big house was in very festive array. There were palms from the florist’s and flowers everywhere. Great gold and russet bunches of chrysanthemums and roses of every kind and colour. The front hall smelled faintly like a greenhouse. A line of caterer’s men bowed them up the stairs. They were very early, which was quite as it should be. Jane’s place was awaiting her behind the great silver teakettle in the dining-room. + 

Jane flung off her wrap in the lacy splendour of the Lesters’ guestroom. A waiting-maid seized it as it fell. She folded it meticulously and laid it on the bed. Jane looked in the long glass. So, she had a style of her own, she thought. Isabel had said so, and Isabel knew. Jane couldn’t see it, however. But her gown was very pretty and her waist was very small and her cheeks were pink with excitement behind her sheer white face veil. She ran down the stairs ahead of her mother. + 

The four Lesters were standing ceremoniously at the parlour door. The room seemed very bare and strangely neat, with all the furniture pushed back against the walls, and all the ornaments removed to make way for the magnificent flowers. Mrs. Lester looked perfectly enormous in purple satin. Muriel, at her side, incredibly angelic, in white lace. Her hair was a black cloud. Her eyes were very bright and blue, dancing with pleasure. She carried a great bunch of white sweet peas. She flung her arms around Jane excitedly. Edith, imported from Cleveland, was next in line. Jane hadn’t seen her for nearly three years. She looked a lot older, Jane thought, and rather tired. Rosalie was chattering to the last guest, a funny old lady in a satin cape. Freddy Waters and the Cleveland brother-in-law were talking together near the front window. With their sleek blond heads and their black frock coats and their dove-coloured neckties they looked as much alike as the two Dromios. + 

Jane passed down the line and stood a moment, uncertainly, in the empty room. She didn’t know the old lady and she never knew what to say to Freddy Waters. She hadn’t seen the Cleveland brother-in-law since his wedding day, four years before. She wandered a bit uneasily toward the dining-room door. There was Flora behind the chocolate pot. Flora, very fair and frail, looking like a little Dresden shepherdess in pale blue silk. Jane took her place at the other end of the table. An obsequious caterer’s man hovered behind her chair. Or perhaps he was the new butler. Jane couldn’t remember. Some people that she didn’t know were standing around the table, plates in hand. She was too far away from Flora to talk. She could hardly see her over the great orchid centrepiece. + 

Somebody asked for some tea. Jane poured it out in silence. More people were coming into the room. Jane didn’t know any of them. Lots of them wanted tea. Jane was kept quite busy. She could hear Flora chattering away at her end of the table. Flora knew ever so many people. Some men came in. Quite old ones. They gravitated around Flora. She seemed to have lots to talk about. One grey-bearded gentleman was a trifle deaf. He was asking Flora a question. + 

“Jane Ward,” she heard Flora say. “Jane Ward. Mrs. John Ward’s daughter.” + 

“John Ward’s daughter?” Jane heard him reply. “Didn’t know there was another.” He was staring at her over the orchids. “Pretty little filly.” + 

Jane felt unaccountably exhilarated. She looked up at an old lady who was asking for tea, with a ravishing smile. + 

“Doesn’t Muriel look lovely?” she said politely. The old lady must at least know Muriel. + 

“Muriel who?” said the old lady. But Jane was not discouraged. She went on smiling and trying to talk. Pretty little filly, he had said. + 

Freddy Waters came in with three young men. He brought them up to Jane. + 

“They want tea,” he said, and introduced them. + 

Jane realized at once that she had been so excited that she hadn’t heard their names. But she smiled very steadfastly. + 

Pretty little filly. Very soon the young men were laughing. One of them pretended that the massive hot-water kettle was too heavy for her to lift. He filled the empty teapot himself. Jane thought he was awfully attractive. She felt her cheeks growing hot in the crowded room. She hoped they were growing pinker. More young men came in. Her unknown swains introduced them. Jane didn’t hear their names, either. One of them brought her some pink punch. + 

“There’s a stick in it,” he said, smiling. + 

Jane felt quite daring, drinking it. She glanced across at Flora. Flora was drinking it too. She was surrounded by young men. The old ones had all gone. Two elderly ladies were waiting for their chocolate, a bit impatiently. They got it, finally, from the caterer’s man. + 

The room was very hot, and very, very noisy. Jane had to scream to be heard. It was easier to talk when you screamed, she discovered, much easier than in a silent room. When you screamed, things seemed funny. + 

Presently there was a little disturbance at the dining-room door. Lots of young men came in, and then Muriel. Muriel looked flushed and terribly excited. Her cheeks were rose pink. She was waving her sweet peas and laughing at everyone. Close behind her was Mr. Bert Lancaster. He looked old, Jane thought, among all those gay young people, but awfully handsome. His moustache was just right. It was waxed, the least little bit, at the ends. There was a white sweet pea in his buttonhole. + 

He cleared the way for Muriel to the tea-table. The crowd was thinning out. Muriel patted Jane’s shoulder. + 

“Tired, darling?” she asked, Mr. Lancaster offered her a cup of tea. She shook her head. “I want something cold.” + 

One of the young men sprang to get some punch. When he came back with it, Mr. Lancaster took the glass cup out of his hand and gave it to Muriel himself. The young man glared resentfully. Muriel smiled up into the eyes of Mr. Lancaster and drank the punch with little gasps of delight. + 

“I was so thirsty,” she said. “I’m awfully hot.” + 

Mr. Lancaster took her arm very gently, just above the elbow. He steered her through what was left of the crowd to the bay window at the end of the room. He opened the sash a little. Muriel stood leaning against the red velvet window curtains, fanning herself with her sweet peas. Mr. Lancaster was bending over her, his eyes upon her face. + 

“May I have a cup of tea, Jane?” said somebody softly. Jane started and looked up. It was Flora’s mother. She had on a tiny black bonnet with one pink rose and a perky little black velvet bow that stood up behind. Her face was framed in the black lace ruff of her little cape. It looked very pale against that background and when she raised her veil, Jane thought her lips were white. In a moment, though, she was laughing with one of the young men. Her laugh was very low and silvery and her eyes were very bright. Her black dotted veil was tucked coquettishly up over her little nose. The young man seemed enslaved at once. Flora’s mother looked up into his eyes and laughed again. The young man was immensely flattered. Jane was staring up at them, just as she had stared, a moment before, at Mr. Bert Lancaster and Muriel. + 

“Do you know this dear child?” said Flora’s mother. She introduced the young man. Jane smiled very dutifully, but she couldn’t compete with Mrs. Furness. The young man returned to his devotion. Flora’s mother put her teacup down. The tea was untasted. Two more young men were talking to her now. She turned to leave the room and all three went with her. + 

Jane’s eyes returned to Muriel. She was still standing with Mr. Lancaster by the window. He was talking to her, very earnestly, but Muriel’s eyes were wandering brightly over the crowd. She was not bothering much to listen to him. Jane returned to her tea-pouring. + 

Suddenly she saw Rosalie enter the room. She walked straight over to Muriel and she looked very much provoked. She said something sharply and Muriel turned away with her toward the door. Mr. Lancaster followed. + 

“You’ve got to stay in line with Mamma,” said Rosalie angrily, as they passed Jane’s elbow. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” + 

They walked toward the door together. Mr. Lancaster was strolling behind them pulling his moustache and smiling. On the threshold they almost ran into Flora’s mother. She spoke at once to Mr. Lancaster and smiled, very prettily, up into his face. He answered rather briefly, and, after a moment. Flora’s mother turned away with her three young men. Mr. Lancaster followed Muriel into the parlour. + 

Jane heard an excited whisper in her ear. + 

“Did you see that?” It was Isabel. Jane thoroughly despised her. She felt terribly sorry for Flora’s mother and she hated Mr. Bert Lancaster. But, most of all, she despised herself for having seen it. She had seen it all, she had stared at it, just like Isabel. It quite spoiled the end of the reception. + 

III + 

Jane stood in Flora’s bedroom, smoothing her hair before the long mirror, while Flora’s maid sewed up the torn net flounces of her pink dancing-frock. Lots of other girls were there, too, repairing the ravages of the evening. Muriel, at her elbow, was busy changing her flowers. She had carried a big bunch of gardenias all the first part of the party and, now that they were bruised and brown, she was replacing them with a second corsage of white violets. Jane knew that Bert Lancaster sent white violets, sometimes. Muriel looked very pretty. She had on a dress of bright blue satin that exactly matched her eyes and she had a snood of blue velvet ribbon in her hair. + 

It had been a beautiful evening. Flora’s dance had been a great success. They had just come up from supper and the cotillion was going to begin immediately. You could hear the orchestra faintly, from the ballroom upstairs. It was playing a waltz. Muriel began to sing the air, very softly: + 

“Casey would waltz with a strawberry blonde, + 

And the band played on. + 

He’d glide ’cross the floor with the girl he adored, + 

And the band played on⁠—” + 

Jane’s feet were twitching to the rhythm. She could hardly stand still long enough for the maid to take the last hurried stitches. + 

“Ready, Muriel?” she said. + 

Muriel pitched the gardenias into the wastebasket and skewered the violets more securely to her whalebones. + 

Jane paused to pat Flora’s mother’s pug. He was a very old dog, now, and he was lying in his little blue-and-white basket on the sofa where the maid could keep him company. His name was Folly. It didn’t seem very appropriate as he wheezed and snuffled over her caress. He wore a tan blanket for his rheumatism and he looked just like a little pop-eyed old man in a light overcoat. + 

“There!” said Muriel. “Come on.” + 

They ran lightly up the stairs together to the third floor. The arched entrance to the ballroom directly faced the staircase. The ballroom stretched across the front of the house. Its six tall windows pierced the mansard roof. The orchestra was bowered in palms on a little platform at the end of the room. The walls were hung with smilax. The floor was quite empty, for the moment. It was ringed with gold caterer’s chairs and in one corner there was a long table festooned with cotillion favours. Hoops and staffs and wreaths and hats of coloured paper. There was a great crowd of young men around the door and five or six girls. Among them Flora, queen of the ball, shimmering in white taffeta, a great sheaf of pink roses in her arms. Mrs. Furness was standing beside her. She didn’t look like a mother at all, Jane thought, in that violet velvet gown, with its long, slinky train. Her golden hair was just as bright as Flora’s, and her willowy waist as slender. She was smiling and shaking her head at one of the young men over a spangled violet fan. Mr. Furness, looking very plump in his evening dress and just a little choked in his high stiff collar, was opening the windows to cool off the room before the dancing began again. He had quite a little struggle with one of them. His bald head was shining in the light of the crystal chandelier. Several young men ran over to help him. The cold night breeze swept over the floor. + 

Many more girls had come in, now, and the band was slipping into a polka. Flora’s mother caught up her train over her long gloved arm and glided out on the floor in the arms of one of the young men. Her great puffy violet velvet sleeves accentuated the slimness of her figure. She was a beautiful dancer. In a moment two other couples had joined them. Muriel pranced past with an impetuous partner. Jane found an arm around her waist. She picked up her train and began polkaing with ardour. The floor was crowded all too soon. + 

The music stopped at the note of an imperious whistle. Mr. Bert Lancaster was standing in the doorway. Mr. Bert Lancaster always led cotillions. + 

“Take seats!” he shouted. + 

There was a mad rush for partners and a madder rush for the little gold chairs. Jane had promised this cotillion weeks ago. Miraculously, her partner found her in the confusion of the room. They ran for the coveted places near the favour table. Mr. Bert Lancaster advanced slowly to the centre of the floor. It was clearing rapidly. Mr. Lancaster stood waiting, whistle in hand, under the crystal chandelier. He had a lieutenant at his elbow. Jane had met him at supper. He was Stephen Carver, Flora’s cousin from Boston. He knew all about cotillions, Flora had said. He was a very slim young man with frank blue eyes and curly blond hair and a budding moustache that didn’t show for much, just yet. He had just come to Chicago to live, and he didn’t know many people. Jane thought he was very good-looking. Flora said he was nice. Everyone was seated, now. Mr. Lancaster blew his whistle. + 

The band immediately struck up “El Capitan” and Mr. Lancaster began running very swiftly around the circle, counting off couples as he ran. Sixteen of them rose to dance. They led off in a romping gallop. A little group of dowagers had gathered behind the favour table, Jane’s mother among them. The whistle blew imperiously. The dancers raced for favours. The first girl on the floor was Flora. She was holding a great hoop of paper flowers over her head. An eager young man dragged Mrs. Furness, lightly protesting, from the group of dowagers. She caught up her train and whirled off in his arms. Jane caught the gleam of disapproval in her mother’s eye. The floor was crowded now. The whistle blew again. The girls formed in a great circle, with hoops upraised, the men in another around them. Mr. Lancaster was miraculously agile and very active, coattails flying, in the centre. Stephen Carver had joined the line of men. Both circles began revolving rapidly in opposite directions. The whistle blew. The men took partners. The dancing started once more. + 

Jane sat very excitedly on the edge of her gold chair, her eyes bright with pleasure. She didn’t bother to talk to her partner. Cotillions were fun. + 

“Wait for me!” a young man called, waving his white-gloved hand. He returned at once with a crepe-paper boa. Jane flung it around her neck and sprang into his arms. Halfway round the room the whistle parted them. Jane joined the great crowd of girls at one end of the floor. The whistle blew and the men came racing, slipping, sliding down upon them. Jane found herself in the arms of Stephen Carver. She looked up in his face and laughed. + 

“You’re the girl I met at supper,” he said. He was really very handsome. And he danced divinely. + 

“You met lots of girls at supper,” said Jane, laughing. + 

“I remember you,” said Stephen. Jane felt pleasantly elated. He was nice, just as Flora said. The whistle blew. + 

“Refavour!” shouted the commanding voice of Mr. Bert Lancaster. + 

“Don’t let’s,” said Stephen. This seemed strangely anarchistic. Jane was a little doubtful. But Stephen’s arm continued to hold her firmly, steering her steadily away from the favour table to the empty end of the room. Jane was afraid she was being conspicuous. But she loved to waltz. In a moment whirling couples were all around them. The whistle blew and they were inevitably parted. In the serpentine line of girls, however, he incredibly found her again. + 

“You’re a beautiful dancer,” he said. + 

“Our steps go well together,” said Jane simply. + 

“You bet they do,” said Stephen, and his arm tightened slightly. Jane was almost glad when the whistle sounded and he returned her to her chair. Of course he was Flora’s cousin. But she had only just met him. + 

Mr. Bert Lancaster was really outdoing himself. The dancing waxed fast and furious. Soon the girls looked a little dishevelled and the young men very hot indeed. The chairs were heaped with the debris of favours. The crowd around the punch-bowl in the hall grew thicker. In spite of Mr. Furness’s open windows the room was very warm. + 

Flora was on the floor every minute. Her mother was constantly whirling past. Jane caught a glimpse of Mr. Lancaster dancing with Muriel. Muriel had on a red paper sunbonnet. Her hair was loosened around her flushed face and she was leaning back to look up at Mr. Lancaster as they waltzed. Her gloved hand, outstretched in his, held her swirling blue train. Mr. Lancaster seemed to have forgotten all about the whistle. Stephen Carver blew his and the couples all parted, a little hesitantly. Mr. Lancaster remembered, then. He led a grand right and left with abandon and ended it just where he could catch up Muriel at the end of the line. They raced off together in a rollicking two-step. + 

Mrs. Furness began to look just a little tired. Faint shadows showed beneath her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks. She sat with the dowagers, now, smiling over her spangled fan, springing up to offer great armfuls of favours to insistent young men as they bore down on the table. + 

Jane danced and danced until her pink-slippered feet were weary. It must be growing late, she thought. She hated to have the party over. The favour table was nearly depleted. Some of the dowagers were already gone. She kept meeting Stephen Carver in the cotillion figures. He had favoured her four times. Suddenly she found herself hand in hand with him in a circle of six that should have been four. He dropped out at once, taking her with him. + 

“That’s a leading from the Lord,” he said. “Let’s go and get some punch.” + 

They slipped out into the hall together. + 

“What’s your name?” he said. “Do you know, I can’t remember it!” + 

“Jane Ward,” said Jane. + 

“You look like a Jane,” he said. + 

She laughed at that. + 

“It’s a very plain name,” she said. “I was named for my grandmother.” + 

“Not plain,” he answered. “Simple. Like your hair. Like your face, too.” + 

They had reached the punch table. He handed her her glass. + 

“Come and drink it on the sofa,” he said. + 

They walked across the hall and sat down together. + 

“I’m going to like Chicago,” said Stephen. “I didn’t think I would.” + 

Jane thought that was just the way she had felt, when she first came home from Bryn Mawr. + 

“Are you lonely?” she asked. + 

“Not very,” said Stephen. “Just bored. I live in Miss Miller’s boardinghouse.” + 

Everyone knew Miss Miller. Lots of young men boarded with her. + 

“That’s just around the corner from me,” said Jane. + 

“May I come to see you?” asked Stephen. + 

“Of course,” said Jane. + 

“May I come Sunday?” Sunday was day after tomorrow. + 

“Of course,” said Jane again. + 

“Flora told me about you,” said Stephen. “You’re a great friend of hers, aren’t you?” + 

“Yes,” said Jane. She had finished her punch. The music sounded very alluring. Jane began to think of her deserted partner. “We’d better go back,” she said. + 

Stephen rose a little reluctantly. The whole room was up, when they returned, twisting about in an intricate basket. + 

“That’s the next to the last figure,” said Stephen. “There’s just one more for Flora.” + 

They mingled with the dancers as the basket broke into couples. Jane had seen her mother watching her as she came in from the hall. Her eye was very indulgent. The whistle blew. Everyone sat down. Jane’s partner greeted her with enthusiasm. + 

“Look what’s coming,” he said. + 

Mr. Bert Lancaster was dragging a gold chair out into the centre of the ballroom floor. In one hand he held a silver mirror and a red paper rose. + 

“All men up!” he shouted. + 

A regiment of black-garbed figures sprang to the command. The gaily dressed girls, left on the golden chairs, looked like a flower border around the room. “Of course,” said Jane to herself, “wall flowers!” She had never thought of it before. + 

Mr. Lancaster was running down the room toward Flora’s scat. Muriel was sitting beside her. Jane could see her smiling steadily at Mr. Lancaster as he approached. She had taken off the sunbonnet, now, and her curly hair was ruffled all over her head. The blue snood had slipped rakishly askew. Flora was putting down her roses on the empty seat at her side. Mr. Lancaster made a little gesture. Both girls half rose. Flora sank back in her seat at once, but Muriel stood up, still smiling steadily. Mr. Lancaster paused an instant. Muriel laughed, a little wickedly. Everyone could see that she was laughing at Mr. Lancaster. Her blue eyes were dancing straight into his. + 

Suddenly Mr. Lancaster seized her hand and began running with her down the room. Flora looked very much astonished. She picked up her roses again. Muriel was laughing still and her hair was flying. She was trying to tuck it under the snood with one hand as she ran. Mr. Lancaster almost hurled her into the little gold chair and gave her the red rose and the silver mirror. His face looked very queer. He blew his whistle and the band began playing “After the Ball.” + 

The long line of men filed by, one by one, each pausing to peer over Muriel’s shoulder in the silver mirror. Muriel was laughing all the time. She shook her head at every face in the glass. Stephen Carver was the last to go by. His hand was outstretched to help her to her feet. She shook her head at him. He looked very much astonished. Everyone was watching rather breathlessly. The men in front of Muriel were a little nonplussed. + 

Suddenly she threw the rose right over their heads, straight into the hands of Mr. Bert Lancaster. He almost dropped it, he was so surprised. Then he suddenly made a dash for Muriel. The music swirled up in a triumphant wave. Muriel and Mr. Lancaster began dancing. For a moment they were the only couple on the floor. + 

Then the other men began to favour. Four slid at once to Flora’s feet. Stephen Carver catapulted himself at Jane. Everyone was dancing at once, almost immediately. Round and round the room they went, swooping and swirling with the lilting strains of the waltz. Stephen was looking down all the time at Jane’s brown head. She could feel his eyes on her. She could feel them so hard that she didn’t look up. + 

The music rose and fell, in surging waves of sound. Some of the men began to sing, sentimentally. The light voices of girls joined airily in the chorus. The tender words rose mockingly, liltingly, above the strains of the band. + 

“After the ball is over, after the break of morn, + 

After the dancers’ leaving, after the stars are gone⁠—” + 

The verse was a little ridiculous, Jane reflected. Not up to the music. + 

“Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all, + 

Many the hopes that have vanished⁠—after⁠—the⁠—ball!” + 

The words were silly. Unreal, like all poor poetry. Stephen was a marvellous dancer. Dancing was heaven, thought Jane. + 

But the party was over. The waltz changed insensibly into the familiar cadence of “Home, Sweet Home.” Everyone kept on dancing. When the band finally stopped, it was greeted with a burst of applause. A little staccato rattle of clapping hands. + 

Flora was standing at the ballroom door with Mr. and Mrs. Furness. She looked excited and happy as she shook hands with the departing guests. But her mother’s face was very cold and proud. A little bright spot of color burned in either cheek. She held her little blonde head very high. Mr. Furness looked more sleepy than anything else. + 

Mr. Lancaster passed from the room at Muriel’s elbow. Flora’s mother hardly spoke to either of them. Muriel kissed Flora. Jane’s mother turned up at her side as she was talking to Stephen in the hall. + 

“ ’Til Sunday, then,” he said, as he turned away. + 

“Flora’s cousin,” said Mrs. Ward, as they went down the stairs, “is very attractive.” + 

“Isn’t he?” said Jane indifferently. + 

“He comes from a very good Boston family,” said Mrs. Ward, “on his father’s side.” + 

They had reached the entrance to the dressing-room. The dressing-room was very crowded. Mrs. Ward had nothing more to say until the doorman had shut the cab door upon them. + 

“Did you see,” she asked, then, at once, “what Bert Lancaster did?” + 

“I thought Muriel did it,” said Jane. “It was disgraceful of both of them,” said Mrs. Ward. + 

“Muriel’s like that sometimes,” said Jane very wisely. + 

“Lily Furness looked as if she were through with him forever,” said her mother. + 

Jane stifled a yawn. She felt suddenly very sleepy. + 

“But I don’t suppose she is,” said Mrs. Ward. + 

IV + 

The Christmas tree spread its green boughs in the darkest corner of the library. The little pink wax angel at its top almost touched the ceiling. The little pink wax angel had always crowned the Christmas tree. Jane could remember the time when she had thought it was very wonderful of Santa Claus to remember to bring it back every year. + 

Mr. Ward sat comfortably in his leather armchair. He was smoking a new Christmas cigar. Mrs. Ward was watching the Christmas candles a little anxiously. She was always afraid of fire. Isabel was sitting on the floor under the tree trying to keep the baby from snatching the low-hung ornaments. The baby could creep, now, and he was very inquisitive. Robin Bridges was standing beside them, watching his son with a proud proprietary twinkle in his small blue eyes. His gold-bowed spectacles glittered in the candlelight. Around his neck was a welter of Christmas socks and ties. He was really a dear, thought Jane. + 

The room was a chaos of tissue paper and scarlet ribbon. Jane had a new gold bracelet. She was awfully pleased with it. Agnes had sent her a book of poetry. It was called Barrack Room Ballads. It was written by Rudyard Kipling. Jane had never heard of him. She had dipped into them and she thought they were very good. She had never read anything just like them. + 

Christmas morning was fun. This year it was more fun than ever because there was Isabel’s baby. He was called John Ward after his grandfather. Jane’s father had been very pleased about that. + 

Christmas morning was gay. The doorbell kept ringing and Minnie kept bringing in intriguing little packages. Several potted plants had come for Mrs. Ward. They stood on the window seat, underneath the holly wreath. But Mrs. Ward was more interested in her family than in her presents. + 

“Look out, Isabel!” she said. “Don’t let him suck that cornucopia!” + 

Isabel exchanged a silent glance with Robin. Suddenly Minnie appeared once more on the threshold. She held a long florist’s box in her arms. + 

“For Miss Jane,” she said. + 

“Somebody loves you!” cried Isabel. + 

Jane jumped up, flushing with pleasure. People didn’t send her flowers very often. Not as they did Flora and Muriel, who had always a bunch of violets on their coat collars. Jane opened the box. Twelve beautiful dark red roses. Jane buried her nose in their dusky petals. + 

“Who sent them?” cried Isabel. + 

Jane looked at the card. + 

“Stephen Carver,” she said. She was very much surprised. She had only seen Stephen Carver twice since Flora’s dance, two weeks ago. + 

“How nice of him,” remarked her mother. “A young man like that, in a boardinghouse.” + 

“He can afford it,” said Isabel. “Rosalie says his father is the president of the Bay State Trust Company.” + 

No one could ever tell Jane’s mother anything about anyone’s father. + 

“It was said at the time,” she remarked thoughtfully, “that Lily Furness’s sister-in-law married very well.” + 

Jane took the roses out of the box. Their steins were very long and impressive. + 

“Get a vase, Minnie,” said Mrs. Ward. + 

The doorbell rang again. Minnie hurried to answer it. A sound of stifled laughter arose in the hall. + 

“Don’t announce us, Minnie. We want to surprise them,” said a tittering voice. The library door was flung open and Muriel stood on the threshold. She was dressed in a bright red broadcloth suit, trimmed with black astrakhan fur. Her hands were tightly clasped in a little black muff. A great bunch of white violets was pinned to her shoulder. Behind her loomed the tall figure of Mr. Bert Lancaster. + 

“Come in!” cried Isabel, scrambling to her feet. Mrs. Ward began to pick up the tissue paper. + 

Muriel just stood in the doorway and laughed. Her cheeks were bright red from the frosty December air. Her eyes were very starry. + 

“Merry Christmas!” she said. “Do you know why we’ve come?” + 

Mrs. Ward stopped picking up the paper. Everyone stared at Muriel. + 

“We’re engaged!” cried Muriel. She took Mr. Bert Lancaster’s hand and pulled him into the room. + 

Everyone began talking at once. In the midst of the uproar Jane felt Muriel’s arms around her neck and the cold pressure of her cheek against her own. + 

“Isn’t it exciting?” said Muriel. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa now, smiling up at all of them. Mr. Lancaster stood looking down at her. He looked just a little embarrassed, Jane thought, but awfully handsome, with his overcoat thrown open over his red muffler and his tall silk hat in his hand. Jane stared at him incredulously. She couldn’t believe that Muriel was going to⁠—marry him. It made Jane feel very queer to think that anyone just her age was really going to marry anyone. And Mr. Bert Lancaster. He was older than Robin. He was older than Freddy Waters. He was almost old enough to be Muriel’s father. + 

“Look at my ring,” said Muriel, pulling her hand out of the little black muff. It was the largest solitaire that Jane had ever seen. + 

“Oh⁠—Muriel!” said Isabel reverently. + 

“We’ve got to go,” said Muriel, jumping up. “We just came for a minute. We’ve got to go and tell Flora.” + 

Jane saw her mother and Isabel exchange a covert glance. + 

“We’ll be married Easter Week,” said Muriel. “Of course, Jane, darling, I want you for a bridesmaid. Rosalie’s going to be matron of honour,” She was out in the hall already. She was hanging on Mr. Lancaster’s arm. Jane and Isabel and Robin trouped with them to the front door. It was barely closed before Jane heard her mother’s voice upraised in shocked surprise in the library. + 

“Well⁠—it’s happened,” she said. + 

They all went back to the tree. + 

“Mrs. Lester did all she could,” said Isabel. + 

“And she’s going over, now, to tell Flora.” For a moment Jane’s mother’s eyes met Isabel’s. + 

“Do you suppose,” said Isabel at last, “that Muriel really knows?” + 

“Everyone knows,” said Mrs. Ward. There was a brief pause. + 

“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Ward, “we must let bygones be bygones.” + 

“Just the same⁠—” said Isabel. Then, “I suppose Flora will be a bridesmaid.” + 

“Lily Furness,” said Mrs. Ward very firmly, “is just reaping what she sowed.” + 

Jane was glad to hear the doorbell ring again. In a moment Minnie appeared on the threshold. + 

“Mr. Carver,” she said, “for Miss Jane.” Stephen Carver’s tall blond head was visible over her shoulder. Mrs. Ward made another dive at the tissue paper. + 

“This room is a sight,” she murmured hurriedly. + 

“Merry Christmas!” said Jane. + 

Stephen Carver advanced into the library a little shyly. He had never met Isabel. In shaking hands he almost stepped on the baby. Robin snatched his son from the path of danger. + 

“Isn’t this nice?” said Stephen. “I didn’t think I was going to see a Christmas tree.” + 

“Your roses were beautiful,” said Jane. Stephen looked very much pleased. + 

“Sit down, Mr. Carver,” said Jane’s mother. + 

“Have a cigarette,” said Robin. + 

“Christmas at Miss Miller’s must be rather dreary,” said Isabel. + 

Jane’s father was looking at Stephen rather steadily behind a cloud of cigar smoke. He looked pleased at what he saw, however, and a little amused. Stephen turned to Jane. + 

“I⁠—I hope you don’t mind my dropping in like this,” he said, “on a family party.” His smile was still a little shy. Jane beamed at him reassuringly. + 

“Why don’t you stay to luncheon?” said Mrs. Ward very cordially. “Since you’re just at that boardinghouse.” + 

Stephen’s face lit up. + 

“I’d love to,” he said. “If⁠—If⁠—” + 

Jane’s eyes began to twinkle. + 

“Don’t hesitate,” she said mockingly. “We have plum pudding on Christmas with brandy sauce.” + 

“I wasn’t hesitating!” said Stephen indignantly. Then added humbly, “I was just thinking⁠—do⁠—do you really want me?” + 

“Of course we do,” said Jane’s mother. + 

Stephen’s eyes questioned Jane’s a little uncertainly. He wasn’t speaking to her mother. Jane felt a pleasing sense of power. Her father looked even more amused. + 

“Why, of course, stay,” said Jane loftily. + 

Stephen looked extremely delighted. Jane’s sense of power increased. She glanced at him rather archly. She felt just like Flora and Muriel. + 

“Run and tell Minnie to put on another place, Jane,” said Mrs. Ward. And Jane felt just like Jane again. She was glad Stephen had come, however. It would keep her mother and Isabel from talking. She felt very badly about Muriel’s engagement. + 

II + 

I + 

“There!” said Isabel, with a last reassuring pat at Jane’s blue muslin train. “You look lovely.” + 

Jane tried to peer through the bevy of bridesmaids into the tall mirror that was hung on the dim brown walls of the vestibule of Saint James’s Church. They all looked lovely, she thought. They were carrying great shower bouquets of pink sweet peas over their muslin flounces and they wore broad-brimmed hats of pale blue straw. Rosalie looked loveliest of all, and as young as anyone. No one would ever have guessed, thought Jane, that Rosalie was twenty-five, or that she was going to have a baby before the summer was over. Jane would never have known about the baby if Isabel hadn’t told her. + 

Isabel had dropped in at the improvised dressing-room for a private view of Muriel’s wedding dress. Muriel hadn’t come yet. When Jane peeked through the curtains she could see the late afternoon sunshine slanting in at the west door of the church and the wedding guests entering by twos and threes, hushing their laughter as they crossed the vestibule, waiting in silence for the frock-coated, boutonniered ushers to take them in charge at the inner door. The organ was playing the Barcarolle from the Tales of Hoffmann. Jane could hear it quite distinctly. + 

Isabel’s eyes were wandering over the bridesmaids. + 

“Where’s Flora?” she asked. + 

“She’s not here yet,” said Jane. + 

“Was her luncheon for Muriel fun today?” asked Isabel. + 

“Yes,” said Jane. + 

“Was Mrs. Furness there?” Isabel lowered her voice. + 

“No,” said Jane. She had been sorry not to see Flora’s mother. Jane had hardly had a glimpse of her all spring. She had carried Flora off to St. Augustine immediately after Christmas and when they returned in February she had left town again at once, to visit her sister-in-law, Stephen Carver’s mother, in Boston. Stephen had said she had been very gay there. She looked tired, Jane had thought, when she came home. + 

“I do wonder⁠—” began Isabel. + 

Her voice was a mere murmur. Jane moved away from her a little impatiently. She knew very well what Isabel wondered. Isabel and her mother had been wondering it all week. So had lots of other people, to judge from the wealth of opinion that they had managed to quote on the question. Would Flora’s mother come to Muriel’s wedding? Would she walk up the aisle at her husband’s side and take her place in the pew reserved for Flora’s family to see Muriel marry Mr. Bert Lancaster? Isabel had been inclined to think that she would never have the nerve to do it. Jane’s mother had declared that you could always do what you had to do, and that she would be very much surprised if Lily Furness didn’t carry it all off beautifully. + 

For Jane this continued speculation had quite spoiled the wedding. Other things had spoiled it, too, of course. The parties before it hadn’t been so very gay. The ushers were all old men, for one thing, not one under thirty-five. And for another, Mrs. Lester, who was usually so jolly and easygoing, had never succeeded in looking really happy about it. She never seemed to achieve with Mr. Bert Lancaster the comfortable maternal approach that she had with Freddy Waters and her son-in-law from Cleveland. Freddy Waters was in the wedding party. All the ushers but one were married. No, the parties hadn’t been so very gay. + 

“Here’s Muriel now!” cried Isabel eagerly. The bridesmaids all turned from the mirror. Here was Muriel indeed, a transfigured, preoccupied Muriel, trailing great lengths of stiff white satin, her cloudy hair hidden beneath the formal folds of her mother’s lace wedding veil. + 

“Look out for my train!” was the first thing that Jane heard her say. She was speaking to the maid who was carrying it very carefully over the red velvet carpet. + 

Mrs. Lester and Edith and Edith’s husband followed her into the dressing-room. Edith’s husband was going to give Muriel away. Old Solomon Lester was too infirm, now, to make the trip from New York to his granddaughter’s wedding. Jane’s mother and Isabel had thought his recent stroke a merciful intervention of Providence. It would be a relief, they said, to have one Lester wedding that was free from the taint of the synagogue. + 

Mrs. Lester stood silently by Muriel’s elbow, adjusting the wreath of orange blossoms that held the veil in place. Mrs. Lester was growing old, thought Jane. She had on a beautiful gown of wine-colored silk, but her face looked very worn and tired. + 

The bridesmaids made an aisle so that Muriel could look in the mirror. She stood quite still and straight, smiling into the glass. Edith and Rosalie and the maid began to arrange the long folds of the satin train. Muriel’s gloved hands were clasped on a white vellum prayer book. The third finger of the left glove was slit, so that Mr. Lancaster could slip on her wedding ring. + 

Jane felt very solemn as she looked at her. She thought of all the years that she had known Muriel. She couldn’t remember the time, really, before she had known her. In a way this was worse than Isabel’s wedding. Isabel had been twenty-three. Her big sister. And Jane had loved Robin. Muriel was⁠—just Muriel. A kid, really, like Jane herself. And yet she was getting married. To Mr. Bert Lancaster. It all seemed very sad and terribly irrevocable. It would be dreadful to be getting married, thought Jane. + 

Muriel turned from the mirror. + 

“See my pearls, girls,” she said brightly. “Aren’t they lovely? Bert sent them this morning.” + 

Jane winked away her tears. The bridesmaids circled about the pearls with little cries of admiration. + 

“I must go,” said Isabel. She kissed Muriel and turned toward the curtain. Flora was just coming in. Jane caught a glimpse of Mr. Furness standing alone in the outer vestibule beyond. Isabel joined him. + 

“How lovely Flora looks!” said Isabel brightly. “What a beautiful day for a wedding!” They turned toward the church door in the slanting sunshine. Jane wasn’t deceived for a moment by Isabel’s airy inconsequence. Jane knew that before Isabel sank decorously on her knees beside her mother in the third left-hand pew, she would whisper that Mrs. Furness hadn’t come. + 

Edith was kissing Muriel, when Jane turned around. + 

“Come, Mother,” she said. + 

Mrs. Lester took Muriel in her arms. Mrs. Lester was frankly crying. + 

“Don’t muss her veil!” cried Rosalie. + 

Mrs. Lester relinquished her daughter. Rosalie rearranged Muriel’s draperies. The Cleveland brother-in-law offered his arm. + 

“How’s your nerve?” he asked cheerfully. + 

“Fine!” said Muriel. Her eyes were dancing behind the folds of white lace. Her cheeks were very pink. + 

“Come, Mother,” said Edith again. They turned toward the church door. + 

Jane fell into line with Flora. They were to be the first pair of bridesmaids. The ushers were lining up in the vestibule. The one in front of Jane was quite bald. He had one absurd long brown lock of hair, combed carefully over the thin place on top of his head. Flora nodded at it and nudged Jane’s arm and giggled. The organ throbbed forth a solemn premonitory strain. The ushers began to move slowly through the inner door. The first notes of the Lohengrin wedding march swelled out over the heads of the congregation. + 

Jane and Flora walked very slowly, keeping their distance carefully from the ushers in front of them. Jane held her head very high and her shower bouquet very stiffly so her hands wouldn’t tremble. The church looked very dark, after the afternoon sunshine, and the aisle very long indeed. Over the heads of the ushers Jane could see the green palms and the white Easter lilies and the twinkling candles of the altar. They seemed very far away. + 

The pews were crowded with people, all rustling and moving and craning their necks to look at the wedding party as it went by. Jane suddenly remembered the Commencement procession in the Bryn Mawr chapel. She turned her head very slightly, half expecting to see Agnes’s funny freckled face under a black mortarboard at her side. But no. There was Flora’s pure pale profile beneath the blue straw hat-brim. Her lips were curved, just the least little bit, in a self-conscious smile. Her step was a trifle unsteady. Jane felt her own smile growing set and strained and her own knees wobbling disconcertingly. It was hard to walk so slowly, with so many people staring. + 

Suddenly she noticed Mr. Bert Lancaster. He was standing with the best man at the left hand of old Dr. Winter, the clergyman, on the chancel steps. He looked very calm and handsome, just as he always did. Just as Jane had seen him look at innumerable other weddings, that were not his own. The ushers were forming in two rows along the chancel steps. Jane and Flora passed them slowly, separated and took their places at the head of the line. Jane could see Muriel now. Her head was bowed under the white lace veil. At the chancel steps she raised it suddenly and smiled at Mr. Bert Lancaster. Mr. Lancaster wheeled to face the clergyman. Jane could see both their faces now, upturned toward the altar. They were so near her that it seemed indecent to look at them, at such a moment. Jane turned away her eyes. + 

The organ sobbed and throbbed and sank into silence. The voice of the clergyman could be distinctly heard. + 

“Dearly beloved brethren, we are met together in the sight of God and this company to join together this man and this woman in the holy estate of matrimony⁠—” + 

“This woman,” thought Jane. Muriel was a woman, of course, not a kid any longer. Muriel was twenty. Jane would be twenty, herself, next month. Flora was twenty-one. They were grown up, all of them. Capable of entering the holy estate of matrimony, if, and when, they chose. Mrs. Lester had hated this marriage. But she hadn’t stopped it. She couldn’t stop Muriel. Nevertheless, Jane knew that if Muriel had been her mother’s child something would have been done. Still⁠—Jane wondered. Muriel was⁠—Muriel. Greek would have met Greek. Jane’s mother, at any rate, Jane knew very well, would always prevent Jane from doing anything that she didn’t think was wise. But who, Jane wondered, was the best judge of wisdom? Didn’t you know yourself, really, better than anyone, what you really wanted, what was the real right thing for you? + 

André⁠—Jane knew, now, of course, that the family couldn’t have let her marry him at seventeen. She couldn’t even imagine, now, what their life would have been together, what her life would have been without all those other experiences that had crowded into it since she had closed the door on that early romance. Bryn Mawr and all the things she had learned there. Agnes and Marion and, yes, Miss Thomas, with her flaming torch of enlightenment, and that gay, carefree life in Pembroke Hall. The beauty of the Bryn Mawr countryside. This last year, too, with its funny frivolities, its social amenities, its growing friendships with people that Jane knew, really, in her heart of hearts, were awfully unlike herself. All those experiences were part of her, now. Inalienable. Not ever to be ignored, or belittled, or set lightly aside. + 

But, nevertheless, there was the memory of that incredible joy of companionship that she had known with André. That identity of interest, that tremulous sense of intimacy, that glorious dawning of emotion. + 

The sound of Muriel’s voice roused her from revery. + 

“I, Muriel, take thee, Albert, for my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward⁠—” + 

“From this day forward”⁠—solemn, irrevocable words. How could Muriel say them? Some marriages lasted for fifty years. How could anyone say them? How could she have been so sure, so very sure, with André? She hadn’t thought about the fifty years at all. Jane felt quite certain it was just because she had been seventeen. She hadn’t reflected. She hadn’t considered. She would never feel like that, thought Jane with a little shiver, about anyone ever again. + 

The ring was being slipped on Muriel’s finger. Mr. Lancaster’s firm voice rang out in those irrelevant words about his worldly goods. Jane had always considered them a blot on the wedding service. The clergyman was uttering his last solemn adjuration. + 

“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” + 

The organ was tuning up with the first shrill pipes of the Mendelssohn wedding march. Muriel, her veil thrown back from her lovely flushed face, had turned, on Mr. Lancaster’s arm, to walk down the aisle. Rosalie and the best man had fallen in behind them. Jane and Flora turned smartly to move in their turn. The organ pealed joyously on. High up above their heads the chimes in the steeple were ringing. The march down the aisle was executed much more quickly. Jane kept recognizing the faces turned up to her, from the aisle seats of pews. She smiled and nodded gaily as she went. The recessional had taken on a very festal air. All sense of solemnity was lost. + 

Jane caught a glimpse of Stephen Carver, staring at her face from his seat beside Mr. Furness. She almost laughed, he looked so very serious. He smiled back, just as he passed from her field of vision. The church doors were open. The vestibule was a confusion of bridesmaids. Great crowds of people were pressing against the awning to see the wedding party come out. Jane jumped into a waiting hansom with Flora. They must hurry over to the reception. Jane wanted, awfully, to give Muriel a great hug for luck. She wanted to stand in line and laugh and be gay and talk to all the people. Weddings were fun, always, if you could just forget the ceremony. Jane felt she had forgotten it. And Flora was chattering gaily about the bridesmaids’ dresses. Flora was so glad they were blue. She was going to take out the yoke and turn hers into an evening gown. The cab drew up at Muriel’s door. There was another crowd around this second awning. Jane and Flora ran quickly, hand in hand, up over the red carpet. + 

Muriel and Mr. Lancaster were standing, side by side, under a great bell of smilax. No one had come, yet, but the ushers and bridesmaids. Jane flung her arms around Muriel in a great rush of feeling. Muriel looked perfectly lovely. Jane almost kissed Mr. Lancaster in the strength of her enthusiasm. But not quite. + 

II + 

Jane woke next morning a little weary from the festivities of the wedding. The reception had ended in a buffet supper for the nearest friends of the family. Later there had been dancing. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Lancaster had left about half-past nine in the evening. It had all been over by ten. + 

Isabel and Robin had strolled down Huron Street with Mr. and Mrs. Ward and Jane. The April night was pleasantly warm. They had parted from Mr. Furness and Flora under the awning. + 

“I really admire Mr. Furness,” Isabel had commented as soon as they were out of hearing, “for the way he stuck it out all evening.” + 

“He had to⁠—for Flora,” Mrs. Ward had said. + 

“Just the same,” said Isabel, “he behaved beautifully with Bert.” + 

“He always has,” said Mrs. Ward; then added meditatively, “and you must remember that Bert Lancaster’s marriage may simplify things in the end.” + 

Jane had thought silently of Flora’s mother. She had thought of her more than once during the party. She couldn’t help wondering what Mrs. Furness was finding to do, all alone at home all evening with Folly, the pug, in that big brownstone house. She wondered again, as she was dressing for breakfast. + 

Jane sauntered downstairs, humming the first piping bars of the Mendelssohn wedding march. Muriel and Bert were well on their way to the Canadian Rockies, by now. As soon as she entered the dining-room, she saw that something dreadful had happened. + 

Her father was standing at the window, his back to the table, gazing out at the bright amber branches of the budding willow tree. Her mother was in her accustomed place behind the coffee urn, but her chair was pushed back, her napkin was on the table, and her eyes were fixed questioningly on her husband’s motionless figure. Her face had a curiously shocked expression. Jane paused a moment, fearfully, on the threshold. + 

“What’s⁠—what’s the matter?” she asked. + 

Her mother turned slowly to look at her. The colour had quite gone out of her face. + 

“Lily Furness has killed herself,” she said. + 

“Wh⁠—what?” said Jane. She couldn’t take it in, just at first. She leaned a little helplessly against the door jamb. + 

“She killed herself last night⁠—after supper,” said Mrs. Ward excitedly. “She turned on the gas in the bathroom. Mr. Furness found her there when he came home.” + 

Jane walked weakly over to the breakfast table and sat down in her chair. + 

“Killed herself?” she asked stupidly. “Flora’s mother is dead?” It was the first death that Jane had ever known. + 

“They couldn’t bring her ’round,” said Mrs. Ward. “They had to break down the door. They worked over her for hours. They didn’t give her up until long after midnight. Stephen Carver telephoned this morning.” + 

“How⁠—perfectly⁠—terrible!” said Jane, through stiff lips. Words seemed dreadfully inadequate. + 

Mr. Ward turned suddenly from his contemplation of the willow tree. + 

“Eat some breakfast, kid,” he said gently. He walked over to Jane and put his hand on her shoulder. + 

“What will Flora do?” cried Jane. Her eyes filled suddenly with tears. + 

“Lily Furness should have thought of that,” said Mrs. Ward. + 

Jane’s father looked at his wife very soberly. + 

“Will you give me a cup of coffee, Lizzie?” he said. He sat down quietly at his end of the table. + 

“I⁠—I want to go over to Flora,” said Jane suddenly. “She’ll be all alone⁠—with Muriel gone.” A sudden memory of whom Muriel had gone with froze the words on her lips. + 

“Eat your breakfast first, kid,” said her father. Her mother handed him his coffee cup. “Ring for Minnie, Lizzie,” he said. + 

Minnie came in very promptly with the steaming cereal. Her face looked shocked, too, but discreetly curious and very subtly, delicately pleased. Jane felt that Minnie was enjoying disaster. She choked down a few spoonfuls of oatmeal and bolted a cup of scalding coffee. + 

“I’m going, now,” she said. She rose as she spoke. + 

“Jane”⁠—her mother’s voice was just a little doubtful⁠—“I don’t quite like your going over there, so soon⁠—all alone⁠—” + 

“I want to go,” said Jane. “I want to be with Flora.” + 

“I think you had better wait,” said Mrs. Ward, “until I can go with you.” + 

Jane stood irresolutely beside her chair. + 

“Let her go, Lizzie,” said Mr. Ward. “She may be able to do something for that poor child.” + 

Jane’s mother’s face was still a little doubtful, but she made no further objection as Jane turned toward the door. + 

“How Lily Furness could do this to Muriel,” Jane heard her say, very solemnly. “It will kill Mrs. Lester.” + 

“I think the honours are still Muriel’s,” said Mr. Ward gravely. “She did a good deal to Lily Furness first.” + 

Jane walked very slowly and soberly down Pine Street in the brilliant April sunshine. The grass plots were already green and there was an emerald mist on the plume-like boughs of the elm trees. The streets were quite deserted, save for a milk wagon or two and an occasional bicycle. Jane saw the first robin, prospecting for worms, under Flora’s budding lilac bushes. + 

The shades were all drawn down in the big brownstone house. Halfway up the front steps, Jane stopped in dismay. She hadn’t expected to see the great bow of purple silk and the huge bunch of violets on the doorbell. She didn’t quite know whether to ring it or not. As she stood hesitantly in the vestibule, the door was opened silently. The Furnesses’ elderly butler stood gravely on the threshold. His face looked very old and grey and tired and his eyes were sunken. Jane suddenly realized that he had been crying. As she stepped into the silent hall she felt her own eyes fill quickly with tears. + 

The house was very dark, because of the drawn window shades. A great vase of Easter lilies stood on the hall table. Their pure, penetrating perfume suddenly recalled the church chancel of yesterday. + 

“May⁠—may I see Miss Flora?” asked Jane. + 

Suddenly she heard a masculine step behind the drawing-room portieres. The tall, slim figure of Stephen Carver was framed in their green folds. His eager young face looked strangely serious. His manner was curiously hushed and formal. Nevertheless, his eyes lit up when he saw Jane. + 

“Jane!” he said softly. “How like you to come!” He walked quickly over to her side. + 

“How is Flora?” asked Jane. “Can I see her?” + 

“She’s in her room,” said Stephen. “I haven’t seen her, myself, since⁠—last night.” + 

“Is⁠—is she⁠—terribly broken up?” asked Jane. + 

Stephen nodded gravely. + 

“And Mr. Furness?” questioned Jane. She hoped very much that she would not have to meet Mr. Furness. + 

“He’s with⁠—Aunt Lily,” said Stephen. “He’s been there right along. I don’t think he’s slept at all.” There was a little pause. “I just came over to answer the telephone,” said Stephen. + 

“Do you think,” said Jane hesitantly, “that I could go upstairs?” + 

“I’ll take you up,” said Stephen. + 

Side by side they mounted the staircase in silence. In the upper hall Jane was vaguely conscious of a faint, penetrating odour. It was almost imperceptible, but Jane recognized it at once. The great round red gas tanks on Division Street smelled that way, sometimes, when you bicycled past them. + 

The door to Flora’s mother’s room was closed. As they went by, Jane stumbled over something in the darkness⁠—something small and soft and living. Jane knew, instantly, before she looked, that it was Folly, the pug, lying on the hall carpet, his little wrinkled muzzle pressed tightly against the crack of the door. + 

“Oh⁠—Stephen!” she said faintly. Folly seemed terribly pathetic. It was incredible to think that little, old, rheumatic Folly was living, when Flora’s mother⁠—Flora’s brilliant, young, gay mother⁠—was dead. Irrevocably dead. + 

Stephen pressed Jane’s hand in the darkness. Then she saw the bathroom door. There was a Chinese screen drawn around it, but Jane could see the splintered panels over the top. In the hushed order of that silent corridor, those broken, battered bits of wood assaulted the eye with the brutality of a blow. + 

Stephen paused before Flora’s door. Jane tapped lightly. + 

“Flora,” she said, “it’s Jane.” + 

“Come in, Jane,” said Flora’s tearful voice. Jane opened the door and closed it again upon Stephen Carver. + 

Flora was sitting up in her little brass bed, surrounded with pillows. She looked incredibly childlike and appealing, with her long yellow hair falling around her little tear-blanched face and the great tear-stained circles under her wide blue eyes. She held out her arms to Jane. Jane hugged her passionately. + 

“Flora,” she said, “do you know how I loved your mother?” Jane was a little shocked to observe how easily she had slipped into the past tense. Flora’s mother seemed dreadfully dead, already. + 

“Everyone loved her,” said Flora brokenly. + 

“Everyone,” thought Jane, “but one. And that one⁠—” + 

Jane found herself wondering, with the horrible curiosity of Isabel, if Flora knew. + 

“She never came to, at all,” said Flora presently. “Her⁠—her heart had stopped. I⁠—I don’t see how it could have happened. She was locked in the bathroom. She⁠—she must have fainted.” + 

Jane’s horrible curiosity was satisfied. + 

She sat quite still on the bed, holding Flora’s hand in hers. There did not seem to be much to say. The old heart-shaped picture frame had been moved from the dressing-table to the bed stand. Within its silver circumference Flora’s mother smiled radiantly over her feather fan. Alone on the dressing-table Mr. Furness stared solemnly from his silver heart. He looked as out of place there as ever. Jane’s mind wandered, uncontrollably, to Flora’s mother’s problem. She felt she understood perfectly. Flora’s mother’s heart was just another silver frame. Fat, puffy Mr. Furness, with his pale, popping eyes, and grey moustache, had never really belonged there. Life was dreadful, thought Jane. + 

There was a gentle tap on the door. The discreet voice of a maid was heard. + 

“Miss Flora⁠—Mrs. Lester has called.” + 

Flora looked doubtfully at Jane. + 

“Shall I tell her to come up?” she asked. + 

Jane nodded. Mrs. Lester could always be counted on. + 

The maid departed with the message. Presently there was a second tap at the door. Jane rose as Mrs. Lester entered the room. Mrs. Lester’s enormous bulk was shimmering in dull black taffeta. Under her little black bonnet, her face looked terribly old and yellow and shocked and sad. Her kind dark eyes were weary and bloodshot. Their whites were ivory yellow. Jane realized, suddenly, how grey Mrs. Lester’s black hair had grown during this last year. In her arms she held a bunch of white roses and a big cardboard dress box. + 

“Flora, dear,” she said very gently, “I’ve come to do anything I can for you.” She laid the roses down on the bed. Flora picked them up and buried her face in them and suddenly began to cry. + 

“Flora, dear,” said Mrs. Lester again, “you’ll need help. You and your dear father are very much alone.” She sat down in an armchair that Jane had drawn forward and began to open the dress box. “I’ve brought you the little black frock, dear,” she said, her hands busy with the wrappings, “that Rosalie wore last year for Freddy’s father. I think it will just about fit you. You can wear it until your new things come home. You must let Rosalie shop for you, Flora. You must let everyone help you.” + 

Flora continued to cry, silently, into the roses. She didn’t look at the black frock at all. Jane had forgotten all about mourning. + 

“You’d better get up, dear,” continued Mrs. Lester steadily; “you’ll feel better if you’re doing something.” + 

“There’s⁠—nothing⁠—to do,” sobbed Flora. + 

“There’s lots to do for your poor father,” said Mrs. Lester sadly. + 

“Papa doesn’t⁠—want me!” faltered Flora. “He⁠—he’s with Mamma. He’s locked the door. He doesn’t want me at all.” + 

A sudden spasm of pain seemed to pass over Mrs. Lester’s face. The absurd little mouth above its double chins quivered, uncontrollably. Mrs. Lester took her handkerchief out of her little silver chatelaine. She wiped her eyes, quite frankly. + 

“He will want you, Flora,” she said. “Come, dear, get up now. The thing to do is always to keep busy.” + 

Flora obediently slipped from beneath the bedclothes. She looked very slim and frail in her long white nightgown. + 

“We’ll stay with you, dear,” said Mrs. Lester kindly, “while you dress.” + 

Flora moved silently about the room, collecting her underclothes. The blue muslin bridesmaid’s dress still lay in a heap on a chair. Jane rose to pick it up. She smoothed its crumpled folds and hung it up, very carefully, in Flora’s closet. Flora sat down before her mirror to comb her yellow hair. She was looking much better already. Mrs. Lester was right. The thing to do was to keep busy. + 

“I⁠—I somehow forgot about Muriel,” said Flora presently, with a wan little smile. “Of course you haven’t heard from them yet, Mrs. Lester?” + 

Mrs. Lester had risen and was shaking out Rosalie’s black gown. She looked a little startled. + 

“No, dear,” she said. “No⁠—I haven’t.” + 

“Of course,” said Flora, “they’re still on the train.” + 

A forgotten fragment of something rose up in Jane’s mind. Something very far away and almost forgotten. What was it? Oh⁠—of course! “In the meantime Aeneas unwaveringly pursued his way across the waters.” Faithless Aeneas! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? It was just like Dido. Dido, who had loved and lost and died a gallant lady. Why did books seem so different from life? + 

When Flora’s curls were coiled in place she rose and took the black dress from Mrs. Lester’s hands. Mrs. Lester hooked it up the back for her. + 

“It fits you beautifully,” she said. + 

Flora looked very white and thin in the sepulchral folds. And strangely older. She moved to the bed to pick up the white roses. As she did so another discreet tap sounded at the door. + 

“Mrs. Ward, Miss Flora,” said the voice of the maid. + 

“I⁠—I’ll come down,” said Flora. They moved silently together out of the room. Jane didn’t look at the bathroom door again. Folly was still keeping his vigil. They stepped around him and went down the staircase. + 

Mrs. Ward was waiting in the green-and-gold drawing-room. She was standing up in the centre of the room, under the crystal chandelier. Stephen Carver was nowhere to be seen. Mrs. Ward took Flora in her arms and kissed her very kindly. She smiled then, gravely, at Mrs. Lester. Jane caught the faint glint of appraisal in her eye. Mrs. Lester looked terribly sad and broken and somehow unprotected. Jane was sorry she did. + 

“Flora, dear,” began Mrs. Ward, taking a little package from under her arm, “I’ve brought you the crepe veil I wore for my own dear mother. A young girl like you will only need crepe for the funeral⁠—” Mrs. Ward drew the veil from its wrappings. It was very long and black and crinkly and it smelled faintly of dye. Mrs. Ward sat down on a little gold sofa. The veil trailed over the skirt of her light grey street dress. Flora looked at it in silence. Mrs. Lester sank wearily down in a gilt bergère. Mrs. Ward looked up at Flora as if she didn’t know just what to say to her. Then she patted the sofa seat beside her. + 

“Come and sit down, dear,” said Mrs. Ward. “I want to talk to you about your dear mother.” + 

Flora sank obediently on the green brocade cushions. She turned her big blue eyes silently on Mrs. Ward. + 

“Flora,” said Mrs. Ward very solemnly, “this is a very terrible thing. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking, but I just want to tell you that I have always felt that we should never judge others. We must keep our charity. You must remember always only the best in your mother. You must try to forget everything else. You may be very sure that everyone else will forget it too⁠—” + 

A sudden noise in the hall made Jane turn suddenly to stare at the door. Mr. Furness stood there, between the green brocade portieres. His puffy face was livid and swollen and his pale blue eyes looked very, very angry. His mouth was trembling under his grey moustache. He was positively glaring at Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Lester and Jane. + 

“Stop talking about my wife!” he said suddenly. His angry voice rang out in the silent room. “Stop talking about her at least until you are out of this house!” + 

Mrs. Ward rose slowly to her feet, staring at Mr. Furness’s distorted face. + 

“I want to speak to my daughter,” said Mr. Furness. “I want to speak to her alone.” He advanced belligerently into the room. Mrs. Ward began to move with dignity toward the door. The black crepe veil fell at her feet. Mr. Furness pointed to it contemptuously. + 

“Take those trappings with you,” he said. + 

Mrs. Ward stooped, without a word, and picked up the veil. Two little spots of colour were flaming in her cheeks. She walked with composure from the room, however, her head held high. She never even glanced at Mr. Furness or at Flora. Flora, who was standing in terrified silence by the sofa, a little black streak in the gold-and-green splendour of the room. + 

Mrs. Lester rose hesitatingly, and moved unsteadily to Mr. Furness’s elbow. He glared at her in silence. He might never have seen her before. Mrs. Lester put out her hand and gently touched his arm. Her face was working strangely. Jane saw her try to speak, then shake her head, and stand staring at Mr. Furness while great tears gathered in her dark eyes and rolled, unheeded, down her fat, sagging cheeks. Mr. Furness just kept on glaring, like a crazy man. Mrs. Lester dropped his arm, after a minute, and followed Jane’s mother out into the hall. She hadn’t uttered a word. Jane scurried after them. She suddenly realized that she was crying. Jane’s mother was standing beside Mrs. Lester and Stephen Carver near the front door. Stephen looked awfully concerned. Mrs. Ward was talking very excitedly. + 

“I don’t blame him,” she was saying, “I don’t blame him a particle. He was like one distraught. And I don’t wonder⁠—with all the disgrace!” + 

Jane suddenly realized that Stephen Carver had seen her tears. He was looking down at her very tenderly. Mrs. Lester was getting her mother to the door. + 

“Jane⁠—don’t!” said Stephen. His arm was half around her. He looked very understanding. + 

“It’s just that Mamma⁠—” faltered Jane, “Mamma shouldn’t talk so.” + 

“It is a disgrace,” said Stephen solemnly. + 

Jane felt terribly shocked. He didn’t understand at all, after all. + 

“Oh⁠—no!” she said faintly. “It’s just⁠—tragedy.” Stephen still stared at her, quite uncomprehending. “Never⁠—disgrace,” said Jane. “She loved him.” + 

Stephen was looking at her as if he found her words quite unintelligible. Jane slipped through the front door. Her mother, on the steps, was still talking volubly to Mrs. Lester. + 

“I don’t think he knew what he was saying or to whom he was speaking,” she said eagerly. “But how he’ll explain it to Flora⁠—” + 

Jane silently followed them down to the sidewalk. She felt strangely calmed and exalted. A finished life was a very solemn, very splendid thing. She didn’t care what her mother said, now. Death had an unassailable dignity. + 

“And it’s not only the disgrace,” her mother was murmuring earnestly. “The whole thing seems so terribly sordid⁠—turning on the gas like that⁠—in a bathroom⁠—like any woman of the streets. Lily Furness had always so much pride.” + 

“I have lived and accomplished the task that Destiny gave me,” thought Jane very solemnly, “and now I shall pass beneath the earth no common shade.” + 

III + 

I + 

Jane sat beside Flora on the little rosewood sofa in Mrs. Furness’s bedroom. They were listing the contents of the bureau drawers. That morning they had gone through the closets. Mrs. Furness’s wardrobe was heaped in four great piles on the big rosewood bed. Dresses that Flora wished to keep for herself. Dresses that her aunt Mrs. Carver might care to wear in Boston. A few darker, soberer dresses that Flora thought might be suitable for her mother’s sister in Galena. And a very few much older, shabbier ones that Flora was planning to send to the Salvation Army. It had been a very hard morning for Flora. It had been a very hard one for Jane. Jane could remember just how Mrs. Furness had looked in nearly every gown that they had examined. She could see her dancing at Flora’s début in the violet velvet. She knew just how the black lace ruff of the little silk shoulder cape had framed her white face, while Mr. Bert Lancaster was talking to Muriel in the dining-room at the coming-out tea. + 

Muriel and Mr. Bert Lancaster were still in the Canadian Rockies. Muriel had written at once to Flora. Jane had seen the letter. Muriel wasn’t much of a letter writer, but you could read between the inarticulate, straggling lines that she was really awfully sorry. Muriel wrote just the way she did when she was a little girl at Miss Milgrim’s. It made both Jane and Flora think of their school compositions to read her round childlike hand. + 

The western sun was slanting in the bedroom windows. Their task was nearly finished. Flora was keeping all the underclothes. And the jewellery, of course. She had given Jane a little gold pin, set with turquoises in the form of forget-me-nots. Jane had often seen Mrs. Furness wear it, nestling in a tulle bow on her bare shoulder. + 

The room was quite dismantled. The window curtains were down and the carpet was up and all the little ornaments were put away. Mr. Furness was going to close the house next week. He was going to take Flora around the world. They were going to be gone for a year. Mr. Furness said he might never open the brownstone house again. + 

“I’m awfully tired,” said Flora suddenly. She looked tired, and very white in the sable folds of her crisp new mourning. + 

“Go and lie down,” said Jane brightly. “We’ve almost finished. There’s just the desk.” + 

“Papa is going to do the desk, himself,” said Flora. “He told me not to touch it.” + 

“Then we’re through,” said Jane. + 

The sound of the doorbell rang through the silent house. + 

“That’s Stephen,” said Flora. “I forgot all about him. He said he would drop in on his way home from the bank for a cup of tea.” + 

“Never mind Stephen,” said Jane. “You go and rest.” + 

“Stephen’s been awfully good to us,” said Flora. + 

“He’d want you to rest,” said Jane. “I’ll go down and explain to him. I’ll give him tea.” + 

“I wish you would,” said Flora. She looked unspeakably weary. Jane kissed her pale cheek and turned toward the door. “Don’t stay in here alone,” she said, pausing on the threshold. + 

“I won’t,” said Flora. She followed Jane into the hall. + 

Jane ran lightly down the staircase. She looked a fright, she thought, after a day spent poking into shelves and boxes. Her hair was very mussy and, when she closed one eye, she could see a streak of soot on one side of her nose. She paused by the walnut hat-rack to remove it with her handkerchief. Then passed in through the drawing-room door. + 

Stephen Carver was standing at the open front window, looking out at the flowering lilacs. Their sweet, passionless perfume pervaded the room. The gold-and-green furniture was all in linen covers. The rugs were up and the crystal chandelier was swathed in a great canvas bag. It all looked very cool and clean and unlived-in. Stephen turned at the sound of her step. + 

“Hello, Jane,” he said. He looked awfully pleased. + 

“Flora’s too tired to come down,” said Jane. “We⁠—we’ve been working all day long.” + 

Stephen nodded gravely. He knew what they had been doing. + 

“Ring for tea,” said Jane. “Flora said I was to give it to you.” + 

Stephen pulled the beaded bell-rope by the white marble fireplace. Jane sat down on the linen-covered bergère. + 

“You look tired, too,” said Stephen sympathetically. + 

Stephen was nice, thought Jane. She had come to feel very near to Stephen in the last sad weeks. He had been very sweet with Flora. + 

“I am tired,” said Jane. + 

The butler brought in the tea. The big silver tea-set was down at the bank. The little china service on the old tin tray looked very strange in the Furnesses’ drawing-room. + 

“I’ll never see a china tea-set,” thought Jane suddenly, “without thinking of André’s mother.” + 

She made Stephen’s tea in silence. She was much too tired to talk. She didn’t have to talk to Stephen. She knew him awfully well. + 

Stephen didn’t seem to have much to say, himself. He sat across the swept and garnished hearth and drank his tea without uttering a word. + 

“I’m glad Flora’s going away,” said Jane presently. “It will be good for her.” + 

“You’ll be going away, yourself, soon,” said Stephen. + 

Jane’s face lit up at the thought. Her father was taking a three months’ holiday that summer. Such a thing hadn’t occurred since he had gone abroad with Jane’s mother eleven years before. They were going to make the grand tour of the West. They were going first to Yellowstone Park. Jane was thrilled over the plan. + 

“Yes,” she said simply. “It will be good for me. I’m awfully glad to go.” + 

“Are you, really?” said Stephen. He put his teacup down as he spoke. + 

“Of course,” said Jane. “I’ve never seen a mountain.” + 

There was a little pause. + 

“I hate to have you go,” said Stephen, breaking it. + 

Jane was a little surprised at just the way he said it. She looked over at him rather questioningly. Stephen was sitting, elbows on knees, his head bent to look at his clasped hands. + 

“Oh, you won’t be lonely,” said Jane lightly. “You know lots of people now. Chicago is fun in summer.” + 

“Lots of people won’t do,” said Stephen. He was still looking at his hands. Jane knew just how he felt. Very few people “did,” of course, when you came down to it. Stephen must miss his friends in Boston. Suddenly he looked up at her. + 

“No one will do⁠—but you⁠—Jane,” he said hesitatingly. “Surely, you know that.” + 

The note in his voice was suddenly very alarming. Jane felt a little frightened. Stephen stood up. He walked quickly over to the bergère and stood looking down at her. + 

“Jane,” he said, “you know how I feel about you.” + 

Jane was shrinking back into one corner of the great armchair, staring up into his suddenly ardent face. + 

“No⁠—no, I don’t,” she said defensively. + 

“I love you,” said Stephen. He said the three words very quickly, with a funny little gasp at the end. His face was flushed. + 

Jane’s hands flew up as if she could tangibly put the three words away from her. + 

“No, you don’t, Stephen!” she cried quickly. “No, you don’t!” + 

“Oh, yes, I do,” said Stephen. + 

Jane looked up at him very solemnly. Her hands dropped limply in her lap. + 

“I love you⁠—terribly,” said Stephen. “I’ve loved you from the night we first met, here in this house.” + 

“Oh, no!” said Jane again, piteously. “That⁠—that isn’t possible.” + 

“I’ve never loved anyone else,” said Stephen, “like this.” + 

“But you will!” cried Jane hopefully. “Oh, Stephen, you will!” + 

Stephen continued to look down at her, very queerly. + 

“Do you mean,” he said stiffly, at last⁠—“do you mean⁠—there’s no hope for me?” + 

Jane felt terribly overcome with a sense of helpless guilt. She⁠—she ought to have known this was coming. Clever girls did. Flora and Muriel always had. + 

“Do you mean,” said Stephen, a little hoarsely, “that you⁠—that you can’t care for me⁠—at all?” + 

Jane shook her head, very slowly. She felt dreadfully sorry for him. + 

“No⁠—I can’t,” she said simply. “Not that way.” + 

Stephen looked very much discouraged. + 

“I thought,” he said sadly, “I thought⁠—these last weeks⁠—” + 

Jane rose suddenly to her feet. She stepped right up to Stephen and took his hands in hers. + 

“Stephen,” she said, “you’ve been darling to Flora. And darling to me. I⁠—I’m terribly fond of you. But I don’t love you. I don’t love you at all.” + 

“How do you know?” asked Stephen, eagerly. He was holding her hands now, close against his breast. “How do you know⁠—if you’re terribly fond of me?” + 

“I know,” said Jane. She dropped her eyes as she felt them fill with tears. She could see the moonlit beach that minute. She could feel the shattering sense of André’s nearness. + 

“Jane⁠—” pleaded Stephen. “You can’t be sure.” + 

“I’m very sure,” said Jane. She withdrew her hands from his. + 

“I’ll never give you up,” said Stephen. Jane shuddered, faintly, at his ill-chosen words. She could feel André’s lips on hers in the dim-lit side vestibule. “You’re mine,” he’d said; “I’ll never give you up.” + 

“Don’t⁠—don’t talk like that,” said Jane sharply. She turned toward the door. “I’m going home now. You must let me go, Stephen. I⁠—I don’t want to hear you.” + 

He looked terribly sorry and just a little hurt, but Jane didn’t care. She couldn’t care for anyone now, in the sudden surge of memories that had overwhelmed her. André. André Duroy. She would never care like that for anyone again. She wasn’t even sure that she would care like that for André, now, if she could see him. But Jane knew. Jane knew all too well. + 

“I don’t love you, Stephen,” she said, with dignity, on the threshold. He just stared dumbly, despairingly, at her from the empty hearthstone. Jane turned and left the room. + 

II + 

“He’s crazy about you,” said Muriel lightly. “It’s ridiculous for you to say you haven’t noticed it. Isn’t he crazy about her, Isabel?” + 

Muriel was sitting on Jane’s window-seat, looking out into the lemon-coloured leaves of the October willow. Isabel was perched on Jane’s bed. Little John Ward was standing in a baby pen in the centre of the room. Jane was sitting on the floor beside him. She had only been back three weeks from the West and a walking John Ward was still a provocative novelty. + 

“You never can tell with men,” said Isabel warily. + 

“I can tell,” said Muriel, shaking her black curls very sagely. “Last night at the Saddle and Cycle he never took his eyes off her.” + 

“Eyes aren’t everything,” said Isabel. “How about it, Jane?” + 

Jane looked up from the baby. She met their eager glances very coolly. + 

“Muriel’s a bride,” she said calmly. “She’s not responsible for her views on sentiment.” + 

“Stephen’s a lover!” retorted Muriel. “He’s not responsible for his. He looked at you across the table, Jane, as if he’d like to eat you.” + 

“How cannibalistic of him!” smiled Jane, cheerfully. “Somehow that picture doesn’t lead me on.” + 

“You’re a perfect idiot,” said Muriel, “if you don’t accept him.” Again she glanced at the bedstead for support. “Isn’t she, Isabel?” + 

Isabel became suddenly practical. + 

“What’s wrong with him, Jane?” she asked earnestly. “He’s young”⁠—her voice faltered a moment, with a glance at Muriel, over that qualification. She went hurriedly on, “And good-looking and he has plenty of money and a very good family and he’s your best friend’s cousin. I’d say he was made to order, if you asked me.” + 

“Why don’t you fancy him, Jane? You know he’s in love with you,” said Muriel accusingly. “You ought to have seen her last night, Isabel. You wouldn’t have known our Jane. She just wiped her feet on him.” + 

“Who does Jane wipe her feet on?” questioned Mrs. Ward’s voice. Jane’s mother stood, smiling, on the threshold. + 

“Stephen Carver,” said Muriel promptly, ignoring Jane’s warning eyebrow. + 

Mrs. Ward looked very much pleased. + 

“She’s a very foolish girl if she does,” she said advancing into the room. She cast an apprehensive glance at the baby. “Isabel, are you sure that there isn’t a draught on that floor?” Isabel moved a trifle restlessly on the bedstead. She didn’t stoop to reply. “Stephen Carver,” went on Mrs. Ward, “is a very charming young fellow. If Jane is wiping her feet on him she may find out when it’s too late that he’s not the stuff of which doormats are made.” + 

“Oh⁠—I think he likes it,” said Muriel. “He does like it, doesn’t he, Jane?” + 

Jane couldn’t help smiling a trifle self-consciously. Stephen did like to have her notice him anyway at all. He had been terribly glad to see her when she came back from the West. And she had been⁠—not terribly, but really very glad to see him. He had given her a whirl at all the early autumn parties. Last night at the Saddle and Cycle Club⁠—well⁠—Jane knew very well that she shouldn’t have acted just the way she did, since she didn’t love Stephen at all and wanted, so terribly, to make it perfectly clear to him that she never could. + 

“You’d like it, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Ward?” asked Muriel impishly. + 

Mrs. Ward looked a trifle disconcerted. She exchanged with Isabel a slightly embarrassed glance. Jane was more amused than anything, to see Muriel beating her mother and Isabel at their own game. Muriel would like nothing better than to go out onto Pine Street that very afternoon and say with conviction, “Mrs. Ward is setting her cap for Stephen Carver.” + 

“Every mother,” said Mrs. Ward a trifle sententiously, “would like her daughter’s happiness.” + 

Isabel rose from the bed. + 

“I’ve got to go, Jane,” she said. “Hand me Jacky.” + 

Jane picked up her nephew over the railing of the pen. His little arms twined confidently around her neck. His fat little diapered figure felt very firm and solid in her arms. It would be fun to have a baby, all your own, thought Jane. It would be fun to have a home of your own like Isabel and Muriel. However, there was more to marriage, Jane reflected very sagely, than a home and a baby. And she didn’t love Stephen. She didn’t love him at all. + 

Isabel took Jacky. + 

“I’ll walk along with you, Isabel,” said Muriel. “Goodbye, Jane. Don’t come down.” + 

Mrs. Ward turned to Jane as soon as the other two girls were out of hearing. She still looked pleased, and a little excited. + 

“What’s this, Jane,” she said, “about Stephen Carver?” + 

“Just Muriel’s nonsense,” said Jane. + 

“Is he really in love with you?” said Mrs. Ward. + 

“Oh, Mamma!” protested Jane very lightly. “You know Muriel.” + 

Mrs. Ward was looking at her very attentively. + 

“Has he asked you to marry him?” she said. + 

Jane hesitated for an almost imperceptible instant. + 

“Not⁠—not this fall,” she said. + 

“Last winter?” said Mrs. Ward very quickly. + 

Jane hesitated no longer. + 

“Of course not, Mamma. I hardly knew him last winter.” + 

Mrs. Ward looked rather puzzled. Jane felt very triumphant and only a little untruthful. May was not winter. + 

“He’s a very dear boy,” said Mrs. Ward impressively. “I like Stephen Carver.” + 

Jane made no comment. She began to fold up the baby pen. + 

“Your father admires him, too,” said Mrs. Ward. + 

“How about Isabel?” asked Jane sweetly. “And Robin? And the baby?” + 

Mrs. Ward laughed in spite of herself. + 

“They do all like him,” she said. + 

Families were terrible, thought Jane. But her eyes were twinkling. + 

“So if I did, too,” she said brightly, “it would make it unanimous.” + 

“Do you?” said Mrs. Ward. + 

“Mamma,” said Jane, “you are really shameless.” + 

She walked out of the room with the baby pen. She was going to put it away in the back hall. + 

III + 

“Marion,” said Agnes confidently, “is surely going to get the European fellowship.” + 

“Why not you, Agnes?” asked Jane. + 

They were sitting side by side on the brown velvet sofa in Mr. Ward’s little library. Agnes was having tea with Jane. She was spending the Christmas holidays in Chicago. + 

“I haven’t a chance,” said Agnes. “Marion’s had wonderful marks these last two years.” + 

Jane thought of the little dark-eyed Freshman she had met that first night in Pembroke Hall and of her father’s sapient comment, “I bet she’ll amount to something some day.” Marion amounted to a great deal already. + 

“And I don’t want it,” said Agnes. “I don’t want to study any more. I only want to write. I’m going to live in New York next winter. I’m going to look for a job on a newspaper.” + 

Agnes seemed terribly capable and confident and self-sufficient. Jane couldn’t imagine how she would set about finding that job, but she knew that she would get it. Jane tried to think of herself, turning up alone in New York, looking for a living wage and a good boardinghouse. It wasn’t thinkable. + 

“What have you been doing, Jane?” said Agnes. “What are you going to do?” + 

Jane couldn’t think of any adequate answer to those incisive questions. She wasn’t going to do anything. She hadn’t done anything, in the Bryn Mawr idiom, since she had left Bryn Mawr. + 

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I⁠—I’ve just been home.” Then she added honestly, “I’ve liked it a lot.” + 

Agnes’s friendly, freckled face was just a little incredulous. + 

“You can’t like it, Jane,” she said. “Not really.” + 

“Oh, yes, I do,” said Jane. She felt terribly unworthy. + 

“You’re too good for a life like this,” said Agnes. “And much too clever.” + 

Jane didn’t deny the soft impeachment. + 

“You can be clever anywhere,” she said. + 

Agnes looked a little uncomprehending. + 

“You can think about people,” said Jane. “You can learn about life.” + 

“If you don’t look out, Jane,” said Agnes very seriously, “you’ll marry one of these days⁠—marry a cotillion partner⁠—and never do anything again as long as you live.” + 

“I’d like to marry,” said Jane honestly. + 

“So would I,” said Agnes with equal candour. “I expect to, some day. But not a cotillion partner.” + 

“There are all kinds of cotillion partners,” said Jane, defensively. The Bryn Mawr point of view seemed just a little restricted. + 

Agnes drank her tea for a moment in silence. Then silently stirred the sugar in the cup. + 

“Jane,” she said presently, her eyes on the teaspoon, “Jane⁠—have you ever heard from André?” Jane felt a sudden shock at the name. + 

“No, Agnes,” she said very gently. “I never have.” + 

There was a little pause. + 

“Agnes,” said Jane, a trifle tremulously, “have⁠—have you?” + 

“No,” said Agnes. + 

Silence fell on the room, once more. + 

“You’ll be twenty-one in May,” said Agnes. “I bet he writes.” + 

“He⁠—he’s probably forgotten all about me,” said Jane. “You know, Agnes, we were just children.” + 

“It was very clever of your mother,” said Agnes, “not to allow any letters.” + 

Jane felt a little stir of loyalty in her perplexed heart. + 

“It was probably very wise of her,” she said. + 

“Possibly,” said Agnes. + 

“I⁠—I’ll never see him again, I suppose,” said Jane. “He’ll always live in Paris.” + 

Agnes continued to stir her tea. + 

“It would be dreadful,” said Jane, “if I were still in love with him.” + 

“I suppose it might be,” said Agnes at last. “Four years is a long time.” + 

“He must be very different,” said Jane. “I’m very different myself.” + 

“Of course,” said Agnes meditatively, “you’ve both met a lot of people.” + 

Jane heard the doorbell ring. She almost hoped that this conversation would be interrupted. It was too disturbing. + 

“And done a lot of things,” she said cheerfully. “Think what André’s life must have been, Agnes. I can’t even imagine it.” + 

Minnie stood at the library door. Before she could speak, however, Jane heard Stephen’s cheerful tones in the hall. + 

“Hi! Jane! Where are you?” + 

“Here in the library,” called Jane. “Come in, Stephen.” + 

Stephen stood in the doorway, overcoat thrown open, hat in hand. + 

“I just stopped in,” he said, “to see if you’d go skating this evening.” Then he saw Agnes. + 

“Miss Johnson, Mr. Carver,” said Jane promptly. “Sit down and have some tea, Stephen. Agnes Johnson was my Bryn Mawr roommate.” + 

Stephen seated himself in a leather armchair. He looked very young and charming and debonair, with his blond hair just a little ruffled from his soft felt hat and his cheeks bright red from the December wind. Jane really felt quite proud of him. She looked over at Agnes with a mischievous smile. She was a little dismayed at the expression of Agnes’s funny, freckled face. “Cotillion partner!” was written all over it. + 

“I’ve just been telling Jane,” said Agnes, a trifle severely, “that she ought to be doing something with her life.” + 

Stephen looked extremely astonished. + 

“Why⁠—isn’t she?” he asked. + 

“Nothing important,” said Agnes. + 

“Must Jane do something important?” asked Stephen. Jane handed him his tea. + 

“She could,” said Agnes firmly, “if she would.” + 

“I never have liked,” said Stephen dreamily, “important women.” + 

Jane began to feel a trifle amused. She didn’t know that Stephen had it in him. Agnes didn’t reply. Jane knew that Agnes always felt above a cheap retort. Stephen was left a little up in the air with his last remark. It began to sound ruder than it was, in the silence. + 

“Agnes,” said Jane lightly, “is a serious-minded woman.” + 

“I can see that,” said Stephen. He tried to muster an admiring smile, but, under Agnes’s dispassionate eye, it didn’t quite come off. + 

“Life is real and life is earnest,” explained Jane sweetly, “and the grave is not its goal.” + 

Stephen grinned at her very appreciatively. He was grateful for her levity. But Agnes was quite disgusted. She rose abruptly. + 

“I must go,” she said. + 

The front door opened and closed. + 

“Don’t go, Agnes,” said Jane. “Here’s Papa. He’ll want to see you.” + 

Mr. Ward appeared in the library door. His hands were full of newspapers and illustrated weeklies. + 

“Why, Agnes!” he said. He shook hands warmly. He was very glad to see her. “How’s the busy little brain working?” + 

“One hundred percent,” grinned Agnes. “But we miss Jane.” + 

“I missed her myself,” said Mr. Ward heartily, “for two long years.” He walked across the room and put his papers down on the desk. + 

“What does Bryn Mawr think about Spain, Agnes?” he asked. “Are we going to have war?” Mr. Ward was very much interested in Cuba. He was always talking of intervention. + 

“War?” said Agnes vaguely. “What war?” + 

“Ever hear of ‘Cuba libre’?” questioned Mr. Ward with a smile. + 

“Oh, yes,” said Agnes. “But I can’t say I’ve thought much about it.” + 

“Did you read the President’s message to Congress?” Mr. Ward had read it, himself, to Jane. + 

Agnes shook her head. + 

“What’s the matter with Miss Thomas?” said Mr. Ward. “I thought you women’s rights girls would be getting up a battery!” + 

Agnes laughed. + 

“In the cloister,” she said, “our wars are of the spirit. But I must go.” Mr. Ward walked with her to the door. He came back into the library, chuckling. + 

“Agnes is a great kid,” he said. “Bright girl, Stephen. You ought to know her. Keep you jumping to get ahead of her.” + 

Stephen looked as if he wouldn’t care very much for that form of exercise. + 

“Will you come skating?” he said. + 

“Yes,” said Jane, “I’d love to.” + 

“Eight o’clock?” said Stephen. + 

“Yes,” said Jane. + 

“Good evening, sir,” said Stephen meticulously to Jane’s father. + 

“Good night,” said Mr. Ward. He was looking at Stephen with that air of faint amusement, with which he always looked at him. Stephen went out into the hall. + 

“That’s a nice boy, Jane,” said Mr. Ward. Jane nodded. Her father walked around the desk and put his arms around her. He twisted her about, so that he could look into her face. + 

“But don’t get too fond of him,” said Mr. Ward. + 

“I won’t,” said Jane, promptly. + 

Mr. Ward was looking down at her very tenderly. + 

“Don’t get too fond of anyone, kid,” he said, “just yet.” + 

IV + 

Jane was waiting with her skates in the hall, when Stephen rang the doorbell. She opened the door herself. He smiled down at her. + 

“Prompt lady!” he said. He tucked her skates under his arm. + 

Jane ran down the front steps. The December night felt very fresh and cold. Pine Street was buried in snow. The tall arc lamp on the corner threw a flickering light, pale lavender in colour, and strange gigantic shadows of the elm boughs on the immaculate scene. They walked along briskly, single file, in the path shovelled out of the drifts. The December stars were glittering overhead. The noises of the city were muffled by the snow fall. Jane could hear sleigh bells, dimly, in the distance. When they reached the corner the sound of the band at the Superior Street rink fell gaily on her ears. It was playing “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” The path was wider, now. Stephen fell into step beside her. Jane began softly to sing: + 

“When you hear dem bells go ding, ling, ling, + 

All join ’round and sweetly you must sing, + 

And when the verse am through, in the chorus all join in, + 

There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight⁠—my baby⁠—” + 

Jane was skipping in time to the tune. + 

“Oh, Stephen,” she said, “it’s a marvellous night! I’m so glad you asked me!” + 

“I’m glad you’re glad,” said Stephen cheerfully. “I love to see you love things.” + 

“I do love them,” said Jane seriously. “Ever so many.” + 

“I know you do,” said Stephen. “That’s one of the nicest things about you.” Jane skipped a moment in silence. “What did Agnes Johnson mean,” said Stephen a little irrelevantly, “about your doing something with your life?” + 

“She thinks I should,” said Jane. + 

“Well,” said Stephen, “aren’t you?” + 

“Why, no,” said Jane. “Not really. I’m just letting it happen.” + 

“Isn’t it all right?” said Stephen. “Your life?” + 

“Oh, yes,” said Jane. “But of course I don’t feel really settled.” + 

“Why not?” asked Stephen a little uneasily. + 

“Well⁠—a girl doesn’t, you know, until⁠—” Jane didn’t quite want to finish that sentence. “I mean I can’t go on this way forever⁠—just living with Mamma and Papa⁠—I mean⁠—I probably won’t⁠—” Jane abandoned that sentence also. + 

“No,” said Stephen very gravely, “I suppose not.” + 

They walked a few minutes in silence. + 

“Do you know,” said Stephen confidentially, “I really hate college women?” + 

Jane twinkled up at him. + 

“I’m a college woman,” she said. + 

“You?” Stephen burst out laughing. + 

“I’m a fighting feminist,” said Jane. + 

“Yes, you are!” said Stephen. + 

“Really I am,” said Jane. “I just haven’t the courage of my convictions.” + 

“I like you cowardly,” said Stephen. + 

“It has its advantages,” said Jane. “She who thinks and runs away, lives to think another day. I shall probably do a great deal more thinking than Agnes, before our lives are over. Agnes acts.” + 

“She doesn’t act like you,” said Stephen. They had reached the rink now. It was circled by a high hedge of cut evergreens, bound closely together, their trunks thrust down in the snowdrifts. + 

“I don’t act at all,” said Jane. “I just drift.” + 

They turned in at the gate. The music of the band was loud in their ears. The rink was not crowded yet. Just a few isolated couples were swerving about in the lamplight. Jane dropped on the wooden bench. Stephen knelt to put on her skates. Jane leaned her head back against the evergreens. They smelled faintly of snow and very strongly of pine needles, like a Christmas tree. Winter was lovely, thought Jane. + 

She sprang up, as soon as her skates were on. She glided out on the rink, and began to skate slowly, with long rhythmic strides, in tune with the band. She was halfway round before Stephen caught up with her. He held out his hands. Jane crossed her wrists and took them. She could feel his strong, warm grasp through their woollen gloves. Stephen was a beautiful skater. They glided on in perfect unison. Skating was even more fun than dancing, thought Jane, because you did it out-of-doors. You did it under the stars, with Orion and Sirius and the Dipper shining over your head, and the frosty winter wind in your nostrils. + 

“I never knew a girl,” said Stephen, “that skated as well as you. You’d love the river skating, near Boston.” + 

Jane knew she would. + 

“I’d like to take you out,” said Stephen, “for a day of it, with just a picnic lunch by a bonfire.” + 

Jane knew she would like a picnic lunch by a bonfire. + 

“There are lots of things,” said Stephen, “that I’d like to do with you.” + 

“Aren’t some of them in Chicago?” laughed Jane. + 

“I can’t think of a place,” said Stephen, “where some of them wouldn’t be.” + 

“Let’s try a figure eight,” said Jane. “Let’s try one backward.” + 

They swerved and swooped for some minutes in silence. Stephen ended up facing her, still skating easily, her hands held in his. He looked happily down at her, never missing a stride, never losing a beat of the band. + 

“Why, look who’s here!” cried a laughing voice. It was Muriel, standing at the bench side with Mr. Bert Lancaster. Stephen had almost run into them. He didn’t look too pleased. + 

“Let’s go four abreast,” said Muriel. The glint in her eye made Jane remember the days when Muriel used to giggle. She extended a hand obediently to Mr. Bert Lancaster. + 

Mr. Bert Lancaster was a good skater too, but the party of four was not a great success. Muriel couldn’t quite keep up. Every now and then she lost a step and stumbled. Twice round the rink they halted. Stephen edged, perceptibly, away from Muriel. Mr. Lancaster extended his hands once more to Jane. But Jane really felt that she hadn’t come out that perfect December night to skate with Mr. Bert Lancaster. She glided easily away from him. + 

“Stephen?” she said. His hands met hers in a moment. Muriel’s eyes held again that giggling glint. But Jane didn’t care. She didn’t care at all. She struck out, easily, with Stephen. She felt very much cheered and very confidential. + 

“I don’t like Bert Lancaster,” she said. “I don’t like him at all. Don’t let him get me!” + 

“You bet I won’t,” said Stephen. Stephen was terribly nice. And always to be counted on. They skated on in silence. The rink was crowded, now. Muriel and Mr. Lancaster were soon lost. The band was playing “Just One Girl.” Jane thought really she could skate all night with Stephen. + 

“Are you cold?” he asked presently. Jane suddenly realized that she was. Her feet were like cakes of ice. + 

“What time is it?” she inquired. Stephen released one hand and looked at his watch. + 

“Not ten,” he said. + 

“We’d better go back,” said Jane. “The band stops at ten. I am a little chilly.” + 

They glided slowly up to the wooden bench. Stephen knelt at her feet once more. Side by side they mounted the wooden steps and turned into Pine Street. + 

“Are you hungry?” said Jane. “Would you like some crackers and cheese? Mamma said she’d leave some beer on ice.” + 

“I’m ravenous,” said Stephen, smiling. + 

They walked along in silence. + 

“Jane,” said Stephen presently, “did you really mean that about your life? That you didn’t feel settled?” + 

“Why, yes,” said Jane. “In a way I meant it.” + 

“You⁠—you’re not thinking of doing anything else are you?” asked Stephen anxiously. “Going away, I mean, or⁠—or anything?” + 

“What else could I do?” said Jane simply. + 

Stephen looked down at her in silence. His face was very eloquent. + 

“I couldn’t do anything,” said Jane promptly, answering her own question. + 

Stephen didn’t speak again until she handed him her door-key. + 

“Sooner or later you’ll do it, Jane,” he said, then, very soberly. + 

Mrs. Ward was waiting up in the library. The beer was on ice, she said. Did Stephen like Edam cheese? There was cake in the cakebox. + 

“You know where everything is, Jane,” she remarked tactfully. “I’m going upstairs, now. I have letters to write.” + 

Jane led the way to the pantry. There was the beer, two beaded bottles, and the crackers, and the cake, and a round, red, Edam cheese. + 

“Let’s take them in by the dining-room fire,” said Jane. + 

Stephen carried the tray, Jane lit two candles on the dining-room table. The fire had sunk to a rose-red glow. But the room was very warm. The candle flames were reflected in the polished walnut and in the two tall tumblers. The Edam cheese looked very bright and gay. + 

Jane sat down in her father’s chair and leaned her elbows on the table. She felt her cheeks burning, after the winter cold. Stephen’s were very red and his blue eyes were bright. He drew up a chair very near her. + 

“Not much beer,” said Jane. “I don’t like it.” + 

He poured her half a glass, then filled his own. Jane dug out a spoonful of cheese. Stephen drained his beer in silence. Jane crunched a cracker. + 

“You’re not so very ravenous,” said Jane at length, “after all.” + 

“No,” said Stephen, “I’m not. I came in under false pretences.” + 

Jane looked up at him quickly. + 

“I came, Jane,” said Stephen, “to⁠—to talk to you again.” + 

“To⁠—talk to me?” said Jane faintly. + 

“To talk to you about⁠—us,” said Stephen. + 

“I don’t think you’d better,” said Jane. + 

“Jane,” said Stephen, “I’m not getting over you⁠—I’m not getting over you at all. I⁠—I care more than ever.” + 

“Oh, Stephen,” said Jane pitifully, “don’t say that.” + 

“Do you want me to get over you?” asked Stephen. + 

Jane pondered a moment, in silence. Life would seem strangely empty without Stephen. + 

“N⁠—no,” she said honestly. “I⁠—I don’t think I do.” + 

“Well, then,” said Stephen eagerly, “don’t you think that you⁠—you’re beginning to care?” + 

“I don’t know,” said Jane. + 

“Jane,” said Stephen very persuasively, “you can’t go on like this forever. You said yourself you didn’t feel settled. You⁠—you’ll have to marry some time. Wouldn’t you⁠—couldn’t you⁠—?” He paused, his eyes on hers. + 

“Stephen,” said Jane very miserably, “I don’t know.” + 

“You would know,” cried Stephen earnestly, “if you’d just let me teach you.” + 

“Teach me what?” said Jane. + 

“Teach you what it’s like⁠—to love,” said Stephen simply. + 

“Teach me,” thought Jane. There was a moment of silence. + 

“Love isn’t taught,” said Jane finally. + 

Stephen’s eyes had never left hers. + 

“Jane,” he said solemnly, “you don’t know.” + 

Jane shook her head. She couldn’t explain. But she knew. Love was no hothouse flower, forced to reluctant bud. Love was a weed that flashed unexpectedly into bloom on the roadside. Love was not fanned to flame. Love was a leaping fire, sprung from a casual spark, a fire that wouldn’t be smothered, a fire that⁠— + 

“Stephen,” said Jane, “I’m sure I don’t love you. I’ll never marry you unless I do.” + 

“But you think,” said Stephen still eagerly, “you think perhaps you might⁠—” + 

“I don’t know,” said Jane. + 

Stephen stood up abruptly. + 

“I’ll ask you and ask you,” said Stephen, “until some day⁠—” + 

Jane rose and put out her hand. + 

“I wish I could love you,” said Jane. “I’d like to.” + 

“Just keep on feeling that way,” said Stephen hopefully. “You didn’t talk like this last May.” + 

“Good night,” said Jane. + 

“Good night,” said Stephen. + 

Jane stood quite quietly by the candlelit table until she heard the front door open and close. Then she blew out the candles. She turned out the hall light and tiptoed very silently upstairs in the darkness. Nevertheless, she heard her mother’s door open expectantly. Mrs. Ward’s eyes wandered critically over her. + 

“We had a grand time,” said Jane very firmly. “The ice was quite cut up, but Muriel and Bert were there.” She walked on to her bedroom. At the door she turned. She abandoned herself to fiction. “Stephen taught Muriel the figure eight. I’m quite getting to like Bert Lancaster.” She heard her mother’s door close softly. Jane turned up her light. She laughed a little excitedly, to herself. It was nice to be loved. It was nice to be loved by Stephen. + 

IV + 

I + 

“This,” said Mr. Ward, “means war.” He looked very seriously across the dining-room table at his wife and daughter. On the shining damask cloth at his elbow several copies of the evening papers flaunted their thick black headlines. Jane could see them from where she sat. “U.S. Battleship Maine Blown Up in Havana Harbor.” “Three Hundred and Five Men Killed or Injured.” “President McKinley Demands Inquiry.” + 

Jane looked at her father very solemnly. + 

“War,” thought Jane. It was somehow unthinkable. War couldn’t be visualized in that quiet candlelit room. No one said anything more. The hoarse, raucous voices of newsboys, crying the last extras on the disaster, punctuated the silence. Jane could hear them blocks away, echoing across the silent city. Newsboys were crying extras like that, thought Jane, in every large city in the world. In New York and London and Berlin and Paris⁠—Paris where André might hear them⁠—newsboys were shouting “U.S. battleship Maine blown up in Havana harbor.” War with Spain. War⁠—after, her father had just said, thirty-three long years of peace. + 

“I think,” said Mrs. Ward finally, “that someone will do something. There will never be another war between civilized people.” + 

“The Spaniards aren’t civilized,” said Mr. Ward. “Their Cuban atrocities have proved that.” + 

“They’re a very powerful nation,” said Mrs. Ward. + 

“They’re a very tricky one,” said her husband. “But we’ll free Cuba if it takes every young man in America.” + 

“I hope,” said Mrs. Ward severely, “you won’t talk that way to Robin. I think a married man, with a child, should not be encouraged to think that his duty lies away from his home.” + 

“Robin,” said Mr. Ward calmly, “is the best judge of his own duty.” + 

“John,” said Mrs. Ward excitedly, “Isabel isn’t strong. If she were left with that baby⁠—” + 

“Isabel,” said Mr. Ward, “will have to take her chance with the rest of us.” Then he paused a moment and considered his wife’s worried face. “We’re a long way from enlistments yet, Lizzie.” + 

“And of course,” said Mrs. Ward hopefully, “the bachelors will all go first.” + 

“The bachelors,” thought Jane. Would she live to see young men marching out heroically behind the colours to fight the Spaniards⁠—to kill⁠—and be killed⁠—over Cuba⁠—which meant nothing to them⁠—and less to her. Would she live to see⁠—perhaps⁠—Stephen⁠— + 

“No one will go for months,” said Mr. Ward. “Congress will talk about this inquiry ’til there isn’t an insurrectionist alive in Cuba.” + 

Jane sincerely hoped that Congress would. She didn’t care at all about the insurrectionists. She was going over to Muriel’s that evening to play egg football, around the dining-room table. Muriel loved egg football. Stephen and Jane thought it was very funny to see her pretty face grow red and distended in her frantic efforts to blow the eggshell over the line. Jane’s mother and Isabel thought that she ought to give it up now. They said it wasn’t quite prudent, with the baby coming. Jane had no opinion on that. It would be an amusing party. Jane rose from her chair. + 

“Can Minnie walk over with me?” she said. The February night was mild. + 

Mrs. Ward nodded. The cries of the newsboys had died down in the distance. Mr. Ward had picked up his papers. The game of egg football seemed much nearer than war. + 

II + 

“It’s only a question of days, now,” said Mr. Ward. “There can be only one outcome.” + 

“We’re awfully unready,” said Robin. + 

“Roosevelt was right,” said Stephen. “He’s been right all along. We ought to have been preparing. We ought to have been preparing for years.” + 

“He’s done wonders with the Navy Department,” said Mr. Ward. “He’s got Dewey in Hong Kong. He’s had his eye on Manila from the start.” + 

“He should never have left his desk,” said Mr. Bert Lancaster. “His place is in Washington. This stunt of rushing down to San Antonio to get up a regiment of cowboys is all nonsense. You can’t make a soldier out of a cowpuncher in ten minutes.” + 

“You can make a campaign out of him,” said Freddy Waters very wisely. “There’s more than one kind of campaign. Teddy Roosevelt keeps his eye on the ball. He never passes up a chance to play to the grandstand.” + 

“Teddy Roosevelt,” said Mr. Ward slowly, “is all right.” + 

Jane sat in solemn silence. So did all the other women. That February evening seemed very long ago, when the newsboys were crying extras on the Maine and the game of egg football had seemed nearer than war. + 

It was mid-April, now. They were all sitting out on the Wards’ front steps, enjoying the early twilight of the first warm evening. The Wards had sat out on their front steps on spring and summer evenings ever since Jane could remember. Minnie always carried out the small hall rug and an armchair for her mother, immediately after dinner. The neighbours drifted in, by twos and threes, dropped down on the rug and talked and laughed and watched the night creep over Pine Street. Sometimes they sang, after darkness fell. The Wards’ front steps were quite an institution. + 

Pine Street looked just the same, reflected Jane, as it always had, on April evenings. The budding elm boughs met over the cedar block pavement. The arc light on the corner contended in vain with lingering daylight. The empty lawns looked very tranquil and, in the clear grey atmosphere of gathering dusk, poignantly green. Bicycles passed in groups of two and three. Other front steps, further down the block, were adorned with rugs and dotted with chattering people. Nothing was changed. + 

Nothing was changed on Pine Street. But in Washington, Jane knew, garrulous Congressmen were discussing ultimatums, friendly ambassadors were shaking their heads over declined overtures of intervention, weary statesmen were drawing up documents, and President McKinley was sitting with poised pen. In Chickamauga troops were concentrating. The regular army was in motion. Regiments were entrained for New Orleans and Mobile and Tampa. Twenty thousand men were moving over the rails. Down in San Antonio, Leonard Wood was organizing the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and Roosevelt himself was cutting through the red tape of the Navy Department to join the plainsmen and adventurers and young soldiers of fortune from the Eastern colleges who had answered his first call, across the wide Pacific seas Dewey was lingering, with his tiny fleet, in neutral waters. Off Key West the North Atlantic Squadron was riding at anchor. Jane could fairly see them across the tranquil green lawns of Pine Street, battleships and monitors and cruisers, talking with Captain Sampson’s flagship in flashing points of fire. All waiting for the stroke of the President’s pen. + 

They were waiting for it on Pine Street, too. Horribly waiting. Jane’s father had been waiting for it for weeks, and Robin had been waiting, and Bert Lancaster and Freddy Waters, too, for all their scoffing. Stephen had been waiting. Jane knew that. Stephen had been waiting in a queer inarticulate suspense that held for Jane a note of tacit doom. Jane had never been able to phrase the question that would terminate it. It had trembled, countless times, on her lips, during the last two months. But it had never been asked. Jane didn’t want to know, beyond the possibility of doubt, just what it would do to her to face the startling realization that Stephen was going to go to war. + 

Last week he had shown her a clipping, cut from the morning Tribune. A copy of Alger’s letter to the State Governors. + 

The President desires to raise volunteers in your territory to form part of a regiment of mounted riflemen to be commanded by Leonard Wood, Colonel; Theodore Roosevelt, Lieutenant-Colonel. He desires that the men selected should be young, sound, good shots and good riders, and that you expedite, by all means in your power, the enrollment of these men. + 

Jane had made no comment. “It would be fun,” said Stephen, “to go.” + 

“Fun!” thought Jane. + 

“I’m pretty bored with the bank, you know,” said Stephen. “I’ve nothing else to do here, unless⁠—” + 

The sentence was left unfinished. Jane had tried to look very noncommittal. In the perplexities surrounding her Jane clung firmly to one assuaging certainty. She wasn’t going to be railroaded into marrying Stephen to keep him from going to war. + 

But⁠—if he went, thought Jane in the gathering dusk of Pine Street? If the dreadful moment came, when, like a girl in a book, she had to dismiss him to follow the flag to death or glory⁠— + 

The notes of the first hurdy-gurdy of the season tuned up on the corner. Jane could see the little street organ, dimly, in the light of the arc lamp. A tiny object that must be the monkey was crawling around the musician’s feet. Jane loved hurdy-gurdies. They meant the coming of spring on Pine Street. They meant it much more than the first robin. Jane had loved to dance to them when she was little. To follow the monkey and slip her allowance in pennies into its cold, damp little claw. She always laughed, still, at a monkey, snatching off its little red cap with a spasmodic gesture and blinking its thanks for a coin. + 

This was a very up-to-date hurdy-gurdy. The tune was a new one, but already familiar. Freddy Waters never missed an opportunity to sing. + 

“Goodbye, Dollie, I must leave you, + 

Though it breaks my heart to go. + 

Something tells me I am wanted + 

At the front to fight the foe⁠—” + 

Jane moved a trifle uneasily. She wished that Freddy wouldn’t sing the silly words quite so sarcastically. You couldn’t laugh away war⁠—not even with the most banal of love songs. She was glad when the hurdy-gurdy slipped into the safer strains of “Cavalleria Rusticana.” + 

“Well⁠—we must go,” said Muriel. Muriel was beginning to take care of herself at last. She rose to her feet a little clumsily. Incredible, thought Jane, to think of Muriel with a baby. It was coming in August. Mr. Bert Lancaster steadied her arm. How awful, thought Jane, to have Mr. Lancaster for your baby’s father. It didn’t seem possible that he could have had anything to do with Muriel’s baby. Jane resented his protective air. + 

“We’ll walk along with you,” said Rosalie. Her little girl was almost a year old now. And Isabel’s boy would be two in July. All three of them, thought Jane, with babies. Babies mysteriously produced and brought into the world⁠—with fathers. They were all growing old. + 

Isabel rose to her feet. She was still humming, half unconsciously, the chorus of “Dollie Grey.” + 

“Come, Robin,” she said. + 

Jane’s mother rose in her turn. + 

“It’s growing very chilly,” she remarked, with a little shiver. + 

Mr. Ward tossed his half-finished cigar over the balustrade. It fell on the black turf in a shower of sparks, then glowed, incandescently, for a moment in the darkness. + 

“Good night,” said Robin. He slipped his arm through Isabel’s. They wandered off together up Pine Street. Mr. Ward rose from his seat on the steps with a heavy sigh. + 

“It’s only a question of days,” he repeated. + 

Stephen was standing up, now, at Jane’s feet. + 

“Good night,” he said. + 

The question trembled once more on Jane’s lips and once more remained unspoken. + 

“Good night,” said Jane. + 

Stephen turned and went down the steps. Jane watched his slender figure disappearing down the darkened street. Under the arc light she could see it again quite clearly. Beyond it he vanished instantly into the night. Jane turned to her father. + 

“Are⁠—are you sure, Papa?” she asked. Mr. Ward nodded gravely. He picked up her mother’s chair. Jane stooped to gather up the little rug. Mrs. Ward had already opened the front door. Several blocks away Jane could still hear the hurdy-gurdy. + 

“Something tells me I am wanted + 

At the front to fight the foe⁠—” + 

The mock pathos of the jingling tune held a dreadful irony. Jane had suddenly a desperate sense of a trap, closing in upon her. Life shouldn’t be like this. Life shouldn’t force your hand. In moments of decision you should always be calm, untrammelled by circumstance. + 

“Come, kid,” said Mr. Ward. He was standing by the open door. Jane followed him slowly into the front hall. + 

Life wasn’t fair, thought Jane. + 

III + 

“Miss Jane,” said Minnie, “Mr. Carver has called.” + 

“Mr. Carver?” questioned Jane. It was only four o’clock on a weekday afternoon. Why wasn’t Stephen at the bank? + 

“Tell him that I’ll come down,” said Jane. + 

Minnie departed in silence. Jane turned slowly toward the bureau, but merely from force of habit. What was Stephen doing on Pine Street at this hour? She rearranged her hair absentmindedly. Stephen never left the bank until five. Jane picked up her mirror and gazed very thoughtfully at the knot at the back of her neck. She didn’t see it at all. What did Stephen want of her? Facing the glass once more she plumped up the sleeves of her plaid silk waist with care. Day before yesterday the United States had declared war. + 

Jane walked very slowly down the stairs. + 

“Stephen?” she called questioningly. + 

“Here, Jane,” he answered. His voice came from the library. Jane entered the room. + 

Stephen was standing very straight and tall by the smouldering fire. He grinned as she entered. Nevertheless he looked a little solemn. + 

“What are you doing here in office hours?” smiled Jane. “Come to sell me a bond?” + 

“No,” said Stephen simply. “I haven’t.” + 

Jane dropped down on the sofa by the fire. She gazed up at Stephen in silence. + 

“I’ve come to sell you,” said Stephen, “this idea of going to war.” + 

Jane’s heart gave a great jump beneath her plaid silk bodice. The unspoken question was answered. + 

“I’m going to join the Rough Riders,” said Stephen firmly. “I made up my mind this morning. There’s no excuse for my sticking around here a minute longer.” + 

“When⁠—when are you going?” said Jane faintly. + 

“Right away,” said Stephen. “I spoke to my boss this afternoon. I’ll write to Father tonight.” + 

“Oh⁠—Stephen!” said Jane again still more faintly. + 

“I want to go,” said Stephen. “It’s not so often that you want to do what you ought.” + 

That was true enough, thought Jane. But who could want to go to war? + 

“Lots of Harvard men have joined up,” said Stephen, “because of Roosevelt⁠—some men I know in Boston are going. They wrote me last week. I’m all signed up with them. We’re going to meet in San Antonio.” + 

“When?” asked Jane. + 

“As soon as they can make it,” said Stephen. “One of them has to tie up his business. Another one’s married.” + 

“How⁠—how long do you think?” asked Jane. + 

“Oh⁠—we ought to be down there in two weeks,” said Stephen. + 

Jane sat in silence on the sofa. Two weeks. + 

“It will be fun,” said Stephen. “Roosevelt’s got a great crowd down there.” + 

Jane still sat in silence. + 

“Don’t look so solemn, Jane,” said Stephen. + 

“I feel solemn,” said Jane. + 

“You wouldn’t want me not to go,” said Stephen. + 

“Yes, I would,” said Jane promptly. + 

Stephen looked very much pleased. And a little amused. + 

“When it comes to the point,” said Jane, “I guess I’m not much of a patriot.” + 

“Oh, yes,” said Stephen persuasively, “you want to win the war.” + 

Jane felt a refreshing flash of levity. + 

“Do you expect to win it?” she asked lightly. + 

Stephen flushed a bit. + 

“Don’t mock me, Jane,” he said seriously. Then a little hesitantly. “I’m awfully glad you’re sorry.” + 

“Of course I’m sorry,” said Jane. “But I don’t know that you ought to be glad about it.” + 

“Just the same, I am,” said Stephen a little tremulously. + 

Silence fell on the room once more. + 

“Jane⁠—” said Stephen presently and paused. He was still standing on the hearth rug. He was looking down at Jane very steadily. + 

“Yes,” said Jane nervously. Her eyes were on the fire. + 

“Don’t you think⁠—don’t you think,” said Stephen almost humorously, “that it’s just about time for me to ask you again?” + 

It was very disarming. Jane couldn’t help twinkling up at him. + 

“There’s no time like the present,” she said. + 

“Jane!” In a moment he was beside her on the sofa. “Jane⁠—does that mean⁠—” He had her hands in his. + 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” said Jane hastily. + 

“I don’t believe you,” said Stephen. He was very close to her. His eyes were gazing eagerly into hers. His lips were twisted in a funny little excited smile. + 

“I don’t believe you at all,” said Stephen. “Jane⁠—” And suddenly he kissed her. His moustache felt rough and bristly against her lips. + 

“Oh!” said Jane, drawing back. Her heart was beating fast. That kiss was strangely exciting. + 

“Darling!” said Stephen. His arms were around her now. Jane’s hands were pressed against the tweed lapels of his coat. + 

“Kiss me again!” said Stephen. + 

“I⁠—I didn’t kiss you!” cried Jane in protest. “I⁠—I didn’t at all!” + 

“But you will,” said Stephen. His face was flushed and eager. His eyes were gazing ardently into her own. Jane stared into them, fascinated. She could see the little yellow specks that seemed to float on the blue iris. She had never noticed them before. + 

“You will!” he declared again. And again his lips met hers. This⁠—this was dreadful, thought Jane. She⁠—she shouldn’t allow it. He pressed his cheek to hers. It felt very hard and just a little rough, against her own. + 

“Stephen,” said Jane weakly. “Really⁠—you mustn’t.” + 

“Why not?” said Stephen. “I love you.” + 

Jane felt herself relaxing in his arms. + 

“You know I love you,” said Stephen. + 

“Well,” said Jane faintly, her head on his shoulder, “don’t⁠—don’t kiss me again⁠—anyway.” + 

Stephen laughed aloud at that. A happy, confident laugh. + 

“You darling!” he said. Then very happily, “I⁠—I’m so glad you told me, Jane, before I went.” + 

Before he went, thought Jane desperately! Of course⁠—he was going. She had forgotten that. But she hadn’t told him. It was all wrong, somehow. Jane looked despairingly up into his face. + 

“Stephen,” she said pitifully, “I⁠—I don’t know, yet, if I love you.” + 

“Of course you do,” said Stephen promptly. Jane wondered, in silence. + 

“Jane,” said Stephen presently, “it⁠—it’s going to be terribly hard to leave you.” + 

Jane did not speak. She felt all torn up inside. His tremulous voice was very moving. + 

“Jane,” said Stephen very quietly, “you⁠—you wouldn’t marry me⁠—before I went?” + 

Jane gave a great start. She slipped from his embrace. + 

“Oh⁠—no!” cried Jane. + 

“I⁠—I was afraid you wouldn’t,” said Stephen humbly. + 

“Oh⁠—I couldn’t!” said Jane. “I⁠—I couldn’t⁠—marry⁠—anyone.” + 

Stephen was smiling at her very tenderly. + 

“I don’t want you to marry anyone but me,” he said cheerfully. + 

The levity in his tone was very reassuring. + 

“Stephen,” said Jane, “you are a dear.” + 

Stephen looked absurdly pleased. It was fun to please Stephen so easily. + 

“What sort of ring shall I get you?” he asked. + 

That, again, seemed oddly terrifying. + 

“Oh⁠—” said Jane evasively. “I⁠—I don’t care. Don’t⁠—don’t get a ring just yet.” + 

“Of course I will,” said Stephen. “I’ll get it tomorrow.” + 

Jane heard the doorbell ring⁠—three brief peremptory peals. + 

“That’s Mamma!” said Jane. Then in a sudden panic. “Oh, Stephen, please⁠—please go. I don’t want to tell her.” + 

“We needn’t tell her,” said Stephen calmly. + 

“She’d guess!” cried Jane. “You don’t know Mamma!” She heard Minnie’s step in the hall. “Oh, Stephen! Please go!” + 

“All right,” said Stephen. He rose a bit uncertainly. + 

“Come back!” said Jane wildly. “Come back after dinner! But now⁠—I⁠—I can’t talk to Mamma. I⁠—I want to think.” She heard the front door open. She rose to her feet. + 

“Kiss me,” said Stephen. He took her in his arms. Jane slipped quickly out of them. She fairly pushed him to the door. She heard him meet her mother in the hall. + 

“Why Stephen!” Her mother’s voice was pleased and, mercifully, unsuspecting. Stephen’s answer was inaudible. Jane turned to poke the fire. Her mother entered the room. + 

“What was Stephen doing here at this hour?” she asked pleasantly. + 

“He came to talk about the war,” said Jane, turning over the bits of charred birch very carefully. + 

“The war?” said Mrs. Ward. + 

“He thinks he’ll enlist,” said Jane. + 

“Oh⁠—I think that’s a mistake,” said Mrs. Ward earnestly. + 

“Well⁠—maybe he won’t,” said Jane casually, still busy with the fire. + 

Mrs. Ward walked over to the desk. She laid some letters down before her husband’s chair. + 

“You’re a funny girl, Jane,” she said. “Don’t you care at all if he does?” + 

“Oh, yes,” said Jane, “I care⁠—of course. But it’s for him to decide.” She turned to face her mother. “Is that the mail?” she asked. + 

“Yes,” said her mother. She was watching Jane very closely. Jane went over to the desk. + 

“Anything for me?” she asked. + 

“I didn’t notice,” said Mrs. Ward. There was a faint suggestion of irritation in her tone. Jane picked up the letters. She felt her air of indifference was just a little elaborate. Her mother left the room, however, without further parley. + 

Jane stood quietly, leaning against her father’s desk, absently holding the letters in her hand. What had she done, thought Jane? How had it happened? Was she glad or sorry? She could hardly believe it, now Stephen had left the room. A moment ago she had been in his arms, on that sofa. He had⁠—kissed her. Three times. She had let him do it. She had sat with him, on that sofa that always, always, made her think of André, of that dreadful moment when André had left her⁠—she had sat there and let him kiss her⁠—But Stephen was going to war. She would have time. She wouldn’t tell a soul. Not a soul⁠—except her father. She would think it all over. She would tell Stephen tonight, that, at best, it must be just an understanding⁠—Suddenly Jane’s eye fell on the French stamp of the topmost letter in her hand. A⁠—French⁠—stamp! Jane gazed at it, in horror. Yes⁠—“Miss Jane Ward”⁠—in handwriting that, though changed, was unmistakably André’s. She would be twenty-one next week. He had written! Of course he had written. She had always known he would write! And she⁠—faithless⁠—within the hour had let Stephen Carver kiss her. Had let Stephen think that⁠—Jane dropped the other letters on the desk. Holding André’s close above her heart she rushed frantically out of the room and up the stairs and gained the sanctuary of her own bedroom. Softly she locked the door. Then sank into the chair by the window overlooking the amber willow tree. André had written. He had not forgotten. André was going to come. + 

Jane slowly drew the letter from the thin-papered envelope. It looked strangely foreign. The very writing, faintly blotted on that sheer French paper, had a subtly alien air. But it was undeniably André’s own. Yes⁠—at the end of the twelfth closely written sheet, there was his name, “Your André.” Her André! Jane turned to the first page and began to read. + 

“Dear Jane, I hardly know what to say to you, or how to say it. But of course I want to write. I want to write, even though I have no idea, now, what sort of a person you may have grown up to be, how you may have changed from the child that I loved.” + 

Loved, thought Jane with a faint chill of foreboding? And child? + 

“We were both children, of course. We see that now. And in the four years that have passed you have grown up into a woman. I have a strange sense of embarrassment in writing to you. For I have grown up, too, Jane, and I am not at all sure that you will welcome my letter. Perhaps you do not even remember that I was to have written it.” + 

Remember, thought Jane! What had she ever forgotten? + 

“When I left you that day on Pine Street⁠—that day which, now, perhaps, you may not even care to recall⁠—I thought my heart was breaking. I thought your heart was breaking too. But I was nineteen, Jane, and of course, I have learned that hearts are of tougher fibre than I thought. + 

“I was miserable all summer long. Miserable all winter, too, though I was working very hard over my modelling. I thought of nothing but you and counted the days until I could see you. Actually counted them, Jane, on a calendar I made, crossing one off every evening.” + 

Darling André, thought Jane! + 

“But I was nineteen, Jane. And life is life. I began, almost against my will, to be interested in all sorts of things. The Sorbonne and the studio and lots of other pure frivolities, though I was dreadfully ashamed of that, at first. Then I began to see, of course, that we would both have to go on living and growing up and changing into the kind of people that we were meant to be, and when the four years were over, we would meet and see each other again and know, instantly, if we still cared. I couldn’t imagine not caring about you. But what the four years would do to you, I couldn’t imagine either. I was awfully afraid of them. + 

“Mother wrote me about you, of course, as long as Father was in Chicago. I knew that you went to Bryn Mawr with Agnes and I was terribly glad. I knew you wanted to go and, besides that, it seemed, somehow, to put off life for you, to keep you safe in an environment that I could imagine, to shut out the world. I never heard anything about you, after that. I thought of writing Agnes, but I never did. Mother didn’t think it was quite on the level, after my promise to your father, to write Agnes letters that were really for you. + 

“And then, Jane, I entered the Beaux Arts and my work began to get me. I began to care terribly about it. I always had, of course, but this was very different. I was thrilled over what I was doing. I was thrilled all the time, day and night. I am still. I can’t think of any time, during the last three years, when I haven’t been terribly excited and happy to be working with my clay. I hope I can make you understand that⁠—how much it has come to mean to me. + 

“For, Jane, I have just been told that I am to be awarded the Prix de Rome. It means three years’ work in Italy. It means a chance for accomplishment that I have never known before. It means living for three years with the other students in bachelor quarters in the Villa Medici. I’ll live like a monk, there, in a little white cell, working night and day to get all I can out of the opportunity the three years give me. + 

“Jane⁠—I did mean to try to get to the States this summer. To work my way over on some boat just as soon as my courses were over and I’d finished a fountain I’m doing. I meant to spend next winter in Chicago. I thought I’d take a studio there and try to get a job at the Art Institute. I did mean to, I mean, if you, by any chance, still wanted me to come. I meant to write you a letter at this time, saying I would come like a shot if you would tell me to. But, Jane, surely you see that this is a chance that I can’t let slip. I’ve got to take advantage of it. Next spring, if you want me, I’ll come without fail. I’ll leave Rome for a month or two⁠—I’ll manage it somehow⁠—I’ll come and we can see each other. Just as I write the words, Jane, I feel all the old emotion. Do you, I wonder, feel it, too? I feel so very strange with you. What have the four years done to you? Are you the same Jane? You can’t be, of course. But are you a little like the girl that⁠—” + 

The sentence was not finished. Jane sat with burning cheeks, gazing at the closely written paper. How could he write like that⁠—as if he still cared when he was taking this Prix de Rome? The Prix de Rome? What was the Prix de Rome? Jane didn’t know and felt she didn’t care. What was any prize, any reward, any opportunity compared with love? Love, such as she and André had known? He had forgotten. She must face that fact. He must have forgotten. If he had remembered, nothing would have counted, counted for one moment, against the joy of reunion. “Next spring, if you want me, I’ll come without fail!” Pallid words! Insulting words. Really insulting, from André to her. What had the four years done to her? What had they done to him? Jane turned again to the letter. + 

“Write me, dear Jane, that you understand. And tell me that you will want to see me, next spring, only half as much as I want to see you. + 

“ ‘Her⁠—André’!” Jane’s cheeks flushed again at the irony of the phrase. But there was still a postscript. + 

“I think you’d like my fountain. It’s the best thing I’ve done. I wish I could show it to you. It’s a study of Narcissus, gazing at his own reflection in the water. There’s a nymph behind him, a deserted nymph, standing with arms outstretched, ignored, forgotten, as he stares, infatuated, in the crystal pool. There’s something of you in the nymph, Jane. There’s something of you in all my nymphs and Eves and saints and Madonnas. Something you brought into my life. Romance, I guess it is. Nothing more tangible. + 

Something of her in the deserted nymph! Something of him, thought Jane, with unwonted irony, in the fatuous Narcissus! And for this André she had been keeping herself for the last four years! This André who would rather go to Italy and take his Prix de Rome than cross the ocean to see the girl that⁠—For this André she had been steeling her heart against Stephen. Stephen who loved her and wanted her and was going to war, still wanting her more than life itself. Stephen who had been her very slave for the last eighteen months, who had loved her from the moment that he set eyes on her in Flora’s little ballroom. + 

Jane rose and went to her desk. She pulled out her best notepaper and seated herself squarely before her little blotter. When you killed things, thought Jane grimly, you killed them quickly. + 

“Dear André,” she wrote, “I loved your letter. And of course I remember everything. Quite as much, I am sure, as you do yourself. I understand perfectly about the Prix de Rome and I hope very much you will come to Chicago next spring. I should love to see you and I should love to have you meet the man I am going to marry. His name is Stephen Carver and he is going to war, immediately, to fight the Spaniards. I shall marry him before he goes. + 

“As you say, we were both children, four years ago.” Jane paused a moment, trying vainly to blink away her tears. It had been just a dream, she knew, but the end of even a dream was very dreadful. “Like you I was awfully upset, at first, but as you say, life is life. I loved my years at Bryn Mawr with Agnes. Soon after I came home I met Stephen. He has just persuaded me to marry him. Of course I am terribly happy.” + 

Jane paused to wipe her eyes, then added, as an afterthought. “Except for the war.” That seemed to dispose of everything she thought. Just one more word was needed. She wrote it⁠—“Jane.” + 

She mailed the note before dressing for dinner. When she came up to her room again André’s letter was still lying on her desk. She made a sudden movement as if to tear it into a hundred pieces. Then checked herself and slowly put it back in its envelope. André might be incredibly different. André might have forgotten. She would pluck him from her heart. But the André that he used to be was still the lover of her childhood. Jane felt an odd sense of outrage at the thought of denying the past. She slipped the letter into a desk drawer. Jane turned slowly toward her closet door. She would wear her prettiest dress for Stephen. She would tell him at once that she would marry him. She would try to make up to him for the way she had treated him. What if Stephen, discouraged, had forsaken her? Jane felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for Stephen’s faithfulness. She had never appreciated it before. Of course she loved him. She loved him and she would marry him. It was perfectly terrible that he was going to war. + 

IV + 

Jane stood before her mirror, gazing incredulously through her snowy veil at the slim white reflection that was herself. Fancy dress, it seemed to her, this paraphernalia of bridal finery. Isabel stood at her side, holding her shower bouquet of lilies of the valley. Her mother was leaning against the bureau, looking her up and down and softly crying. Isabel’s eyes were full of tears. Minnie, standing admiringly at the bedroom door, was pressing a mussy handkerchief to trembling lips. + 

After the past two weeks, however, Jane was quite accustomed to being cried over. She was a hero’s bride, dedicated to a romantic destiny that had not left a dry eye in her little circle. Even Muriel had cried, and Mrs. Lester, of course, and Rosalie. Jane wondered if Agnes and Marion had wept a little in Bryn Mawr and Flora and Mr. Furness in London. Flora had cabled and Agnes and Marion had written her lovely letters. Jane had glimpsed in Agnes’s a tacit attempt to retract that unfortunate, unspoken verdict of “cotillion partner,” that Jane had read, last December, in her candid eyes. It was quite all right with Jane, “Cotillion partners” didn’t go to war. Agnes must understand, now. + 

Her mother had cried almost continuously ever since Jane had told her of the engagement. She had cried most terribly during that one awful interview with Stephen when she tried to persuade him that if he married Jane he shouldn’t enlist. Mr. Ward had cried, too, but only once and very furtively, making no capital out of his tears. And yesterday, when Stephen’s family arrived from Boston, Stephen’s mother, in the railroad station, had cried most of all. + 

Jane had been terribly afraid to meet Stephen’s family. They had been very much surprised at the news of the engagement. But when they came, they proved to be very nice. They really didn’t seem to bother about Jane at all. They were mainly preoccupied with Stephen’s enlistment. The wedding was, in their eyes, a mere preliminary, a curtain raiser, to the great drama of the war. Jane was the leading lady, to be sure, but she played a conventional role. The hero’s bride again, dedicated, this time, to the romantic destiny of making Stephen happy for a week before he went away to fight the Spaniards. Jane, facing the disquieting group of future relatives-in-law, was profoundly relieved that nothing more complicated was required of her. + 

There were six of them and all very friendly, indeed. Except for their short, clipped accent and a certain funny something that they did, or rather did not do, to their r’s, they might have been born and bred on Pine Street. Stephen’s mother, whom Jane had, of course, dreaded the most of all, proved to have a very reassuring resemblance to her brother, Mr. Furness. She was short and plump, with the same pale, protruding eyes and iron grey hair. Like Mr. Furness she had very little to say. This deficiency was more than made up for by the fact that Stephen’s father had a great deal. Mr. Alden Carver was a very impressive gentleman. He was grey-haired, too, and he had a close-clipped grey Vandyke beard and moustache, and shrewd light-blue eyes that peered out from under his grey eyebrows with an uncanny resemblance to Stephen’s. His cheeks looked very soft and pink above the close-clipped grey beard. His collar and cuffs were very white and glossy and his grey sack suit was in perfect press. Jane thought him a very dapper old gentleman. + 

Alden Carver, Junior, looked just like his mother. He was four years older than Stephen and he had never married. He had told Jane, immediately, on the platform of the train shed, with the air of placing himself for her, once for all, that he was in the Class of ’88, at Harvard. Jane had received that biographical item with a very polite little smile. It didn’t help her much, however, in her estimate of her new brother-in-law. + 

Stephen’s sister, Silly, was easier to talk to. She talked a great deal herself and always amusingly, about horses and dogs and sailboats. Silly’s real name was Cicily, after Stephen’s mother. She was older than Stephen, but younger than Alden. Silly was thirty-one and Jane had never met any other girl just like her. Silly, it seemed, kept a cocker-spaniel kennel and hunted with the Myopia hounds and sailed a catboat at the Seaconsit races. Jane had thought she was perfectly stunning when she saw her get off the train in her blue serge suit and crisp white shirt waist and small black sailor. A perfect Gibson girl. Slim and distinguished. But that night at dinner on Pine Street she had not looked nearly as well in evening dress. Somehow lank and mannish, in spite of blue taffeta, long-limbed and angular, and, yes, distinctly, old. + 

She didn’t seem like a sister at all to Stephen. More like an aunt. + 

Stephen had an aunt, who had come too, with his uncle who was his father’s brother. The Stephen Carver for whom Stephen had been named. He was nice, Jane thought. He was a college professor in Cambridge. He lived on Brattle Street, Alden said, and his field was Restoration Drama. Jane knew all about Restoration Drama and she knew all about college professors. It made her remember Bryn Mawr very vividly, just to see his wrinkled brown tweed suit and gold-bowed spectacles. His dinner coat was just a little shiny. Jane knew she would like her Uncle Stephen. He got on famously with her father. It seemed that they had been at Harvard together. That fact seemed to help the bridal dinner a great deal. + 

Uncle Stephen’s wife was Aunt Marie. She looked like the wives of all college professors, thought Jane. Nice and bright and friendly and not too careful about how she did her hair. She was “Nielson’s daughter,” Alden had said, adding as Jane stared up at him uncomprehendingly, “the great Nielson.” Considering the tone in which those three words were uttered, Jane didn’t dare to inquire further. She smiled, very politely. Then she met her father’s quizzical gaze from across the room. He saw her difficulty immediately. + 

“Geology,” he had breathed, over the heads of their guests. And then Jane remembered. Six fat volumes, bound in brown cloth, in her father’s library. Nielsen’s Ice Age. She had never read them but she “placed” Aunt Marie, at once. + 

The bridal dinner, Jane had thought, had proved just a trifle disappointing. It was to be a very small house wedding, so only the two families were there. You couldn’t, somehow, be awfully gay with just two families that had never seen each other until that afternoon. Mr. Alden Carver, however, talked very steadily and informingly, to Jane’s mother and Mr. Ward chatted very pleasantly with Mrs. Carver about how much everyone in the West had come to think of Stephen. Jane, herself, had sat in frozen silence between Stephen and his father, watching Isabel trying to talk to Alden about the last Yale-Harvard football game, which she hadn’t seen, and Robin’s cheerful attempts to interest Aunt Marie in anecdotes of his career in Cambridge. Jane couldn’t think of a single thing to say, even to Stephen, in such a solemn setting. Not on the very last night before they were to be married. Stephen was silent, too. He had held her hand very tightly, under the tablecloth, and had smiled, encouragingly, every time she glanced at him. It wasn’t until the guests were all leaving to walk over to their rooms in the Virginia Hotel, three blocks away, that Jane had a moment alone with him. + 

They were standing in the hall together, at the foot of the staircase. Stephen’s mother and sister and aunt were upstairs in the guestroom, putting on their party coats. Jane’s mother had gone up with them. The other men were all talking to Isabel at the front door. + 

“Don’t let them worry you,” said Stephen very tenderly, “You won’t have to live with them.” + 

“They don’t worry me,” said Jane promptly. “I like them. I like your uncle a lot.” + 

Stephen looked very much pleased. + 

“Uncle Stephen’s all right,” he said warmly. “They’re all all right, really, but I thought they seemed a little fishy this evening. A little of Alden will go a long way, of course.” + 

“Your mother,” said Jane hesitantly, “was very sweet to me.” + 

“Mother’s a dear,” said Stephen, “when you get to know her. She’s awfully domestic and rather shy.” + 

Jane would never have thought of that for herself. Shyness, she reflected, was a very endearing trait in a mother-in-law. + 

“I know I’ll love her,” said Jane. As she spoke Mrs. Carver and her mother appeared at the top of the stairs. They all trooped together to the front door. Stephen lingered a moment to say goodbye to her in the vestibule. Jane smiled up at him, very calmly. + 

“Jane,” said Stephen a little wistfully, “do you really love me?” + 

“Of course I do,” said Jane simply. That point, she felt, was settled at last. She was never going to worry about it any more. Stephen took her in his arms. + 

“Are you happy, Jane?” he asked. + 

“Except for the war,” said Jane. He kissed her very gently, very unalarmingly. It was peaceful, thought Jane, to have all her dreadful indecision over forever. + 

But now, as Jane stood facing her slim white reflection in her mirror, she really couldn’t realize that she was getting married. Where were the thoughts, she wondered, that she had always imagined such a portentous occasion would engender? Where were the thoughts, for instance, that she had had at Muriel’s wedding? Jane felt she should have reserved them for her own. She stretched out her hand for her shower bouquet. + 

“Well, I’m ready,” she said. + 

Isabel kissed her tenderly and turned to run downstairs to say that Jane was coming. Mrs. Ward, still crying, took her in her arms. + 

“Mamma,” said Jane smiling, “it isn’t a funeral.” + 

Mrs. Ward tried to dry her tears. + 

“I want Minnie to see the ceremony,” said Jane. + 

They all left; the room together. At the head of the stairs Mr. Ward was waiting. He watched Jane’s approach down the darkened corridor with a very tender smile. She slipped her hand through his arm. Jane’s mother went down the stairs, followed by Minnie. + 

“Kid,” said Mr. Ward, “you look perfectly lovely.” + 

Jane smiled up at him through the tulle. + 

“Kid,” said Mr. Ward again, “it will be a naval war. I doubt if the land forces ever reach Cuba. Cervera will blockade the ports.” + 

Jane smiled again, this time a little tremulously. She was trying to forget the war. + 

The little stringed orchestra under the stairs struck up the Lohengrin wedding march. Jane was glad she wasn’t going to be married to those doomful premonitory notes of an organ. The violins made even Lohengrin sound gay. She walked slowly down the stairs on her father’s arm. + 

The little library seemed very full of people. Mrs. Ward had thought the ceremony should be in the yellow parlour. But Jane had never liked the parlour. She had declared in favour of her father’s room. Old Dr. Winter from Saint James’s was standing in snowy vestments in front of the mantelpiece. A little aisle led straight from the door to the hearth. The empty fireplace was filled with smilax. Two great vases of white roses were placed on the mantelpiece. The flowers met over the bald wooden head of the bust of Shakespeare. Jane’s mother had wanted to take it down for the ceremony. But Jane had thought that Shakespeare was a very appropriate genius to preside over a wedding. Shakespeare had known all about weddings, Romeo and Juliet. Jane remembered the friar’s solemn words as she stepped over the threshold and met the Bard of Avon’s wise mahogany eye. + 

“So smile the heavens upon this holy act + 

That after hours with sorrow chide us not.” + 

The library, filled with softly smiling, softly stirring people, was very little like a friar’s cell. Still Jane had an almost irresistible impulse to jar the solemnity of the occasion by greeting old Dr. Winter with Juliet’s sprightly opening line, “Good even to my ghostly confessor!” + 

What would he do, thought Jane, if she did? What would Stephen? Stephen would think she was mad. Stephen had never even read Romeo and Juliet. He had told her so, months ago, and she had marvelled, at the time, that a Harvard degree could crown an education so singularly deficient! + 

Stephen was standing with Alden, embowered in smilax, at the left hand of the clergyman, both fearfully correct in new frock coats and boutonnieres of lilies of the valley. Stephen looked very charming and serious and distinctly nervous. Jane smiled reassuringly up at him, as she relinquished her father’s arm. The music died away into silence. + 

“Dearly beloved brethren,” began Dr. Winter. + 

Jane looked up, very calmly, at Stephen’s set young profile. How young he was, she thought! How terribly young to be going to war! Her fingers tightened slightly on his broadcloth sleeve. He looked down at her and smiled reassuringly in his turn. She stared up into his eyes. She was marrying Stephen. Her father’s voice aroused her. It was very clear and firm. + 

“I do,” he said. Jane could hear him behind her, stepping back beside her mother. Then Dr. Winter took up his part, again, sonorously. Presently there was a barely perceptible pause in the familiar cadence of the ritual. + 

“I, Stephen, take thee, Jane,” said Stephen hastily. + 

Jane felt herself smiling. She was sorry for Stephen. When her turn came she was quite collected. + 

“I, Jane, take thee, Stephen, for my wedded husband,” the words were devoid of meaning. She could have said them all, unprompted by the clergyman. She had an odd sensation of playing a role. Dr. Winter was blessing the ring. They were putting it on her finger. Stephen was speaking again. + 

“With this ring I thee wed⁠—” It stuck a bit, over the last knuckle. Stephen was still nervous. Dr. Winter had resumed. Suddenly the stringed orchestra swelled out into Mendelssohn. Jane’s main feeling was that it had all been over in a moment⁠—this ceremony that everyone had been talking about for two weeks. Why⁠—it was nothing. Stephen stooped to kiss her⁠—a self-conscious little kiss⁠—barely brushing her cheek. He became entangled in the tulle veil. Jane laughed up at him. She felt her mother’s arms about her. Then she was looking up into her father’s eyes. + 

“Kid, be happy,” he said, as he kissed her. + 

Everyone was around her then. Stephen’s mother was crying. Mr. Carver’s beard felt very bristly. Muriel’s cheek smelled of French toilet water. Freddy Waters’s hair of bay rum. Rosalie was saying “What a lovely dress!” Alden surprisingly kissed her. Silly was laughing at Stephen. + 

“Your form’s not up to par in the ring,” she was crying. “All right in the paddock, old boy, but you fell down in the show! Jane’s the prize entry. She gets the blue ribbon!” + 

“Come cut the cake!” cried Isabel. Everyone was kissed by now. + 

“Carry my train!” cried Jane to Stephen. She felt very lighthearted. He picked it up, laughing. He looked awfully happy. They led the crowd to the dining-room. Minnie handed Jane the knife, festooned with white satin. Jane dug into the bride’s cake, just under the sugar cupid. Everyone was applauding. The orchestra in the hall was playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” The groom’s cake was decorated with a little silken flag. + 

Jane sank down in her mother’s armchair at one end of the room. Stephen was standing beside her. People began to bring them food. Dr. Winter, with vestments removed, showed up to wish them happiness. She must go upstairs, soon, and change her dress. They were taking a six o’clock train. They were going up to The Dells, in northern Wisconsin. They had only a week before Stephen left for San Antonio. People were singing now. Alden had started “Fair Harvard.” All the men, old and young, knew the words. The male chorus swelled out very bravely, the orchestra accompanying softly: + 

“Fair Harvard, thy sons to thy jubilee throng, + 

And with blessings surrender thee o’er, + 

By these festival rites from the age that is past + 

To the age that is waiting before⁠—” + 

Uncle Stephen, red-faced and white-headed, arm in arm with her father, was singing loudest of all and a little off key. It made Jane feel just a little chokey to look at them. All Harvard men, she thought, everyone except Freddy. Even Mr. Bert Lancaster. Freddy went to Yale. He was singing, though, very generously. The words were lovely, thought Jane, just as lovely as the air. + 

The song over, Stephen’s father raised his champagne glass. + 

“A toast to the bride!” he cried. Everyone drank it, cheering. When it was over Stephen crashed his goblet to the floor. Applause greeted the gallant gesture. Jane saw her mother, however, noting with gratitude that it was only a caterer’s class. + 

“I must go up,” said Jane. Stephen squeezed her hand. + 

“I’ll go with you,” said Isabel. Hand in hand they ran up the stairs. Minnie was waiting in Jane’s bedroom. The packed suitcase was lying on the bed. + 

“Stephen’s magnificent,” laughed Isabel, as she unhooked the wedding dress. Jane was removing the veil. + 

“I don’t believe the Rough Riders will ever see action,” said Isabel. “Robin says it will be a short war.” + 

“Alden thinks,” said Jane doubtfully, “that it will last forever. He says the Spanish fleet may bombard Boston.” + 

“That’s nonsense,” said Isabel promptly. + 

Jane stepped out of her wedding dress. + 

“Sit down,” said Minnie gruffly. “I’ll take off your slippers and stockings.” Jane sank down on the chair overlooking the willow tree. She had never been waited on like that before. + 

“Mr. Carver says,” said Jane, “that lots of Bostonians have taken their securities out of the Bay State Trust Company and put them in banks in Worcester.” + 

“They’re crazy,” said Isabel. Someone downstairs had ineptly started the orchestra on “Dollie Grey.” Everyone was singing it. + 

“Papa thinks they are,” said Jane. Minnie handed her her waist and skirt. Isabel busied herself with hooks once more. Mrs. Ward appeared in the doorway. + 

“Nearly ready, Jane?” she asked. + 

Jane picked up her hat from the bed. It was a pretty hat, with a wreath of bachelor’s buttons around it. + 

“In a minute,” said Jane, facing the mirror again. “It was a lovely wedding, Mamma.” + 

“I thought so,” said Mrs. Ward a little tremulously. Jane heard tears in her voice. Jane was determined to fight off sentiment. + 

“Mamma,” she said quickly, “I’ll be back in a week.” + 

That simple statement didn’t seem to make things any better. + 

“Jane dear,” said Mrs. Ward, “I can’t bear it⁠—” + 

Mr. Ward appeared in the doorway. + 

“Mrs. Carver, your husband is waiting for you,” he said. Jane was very grateful for his twinkle. + 

“It won’t be the last time he’ll wait for me!” she laughed. She caught up her coat and kissed Isabel. + 

“I’ll take down the suitcase,” said Isabel. She left the room. Mrs. Ward took Jane in her arms. + 

“My child⁠—” she began, with emotion. Jane stopped her with a kiss. + 

“Goodbye, Minnie,” she said lightly. At the door her father slipped his arm around her. She stood looking up at him. Her⁠—father. Jane was suddenly overcome with a sense of what she was doing. She was leaving home⁠—forever. + 

“Papa,” she said brokenly, “Papa, you’ve always⁠—” She couldn’t say it. + 

Mr. Ward patted her back. + 

“Good luck, kid,” he said huskily. She gave him a tremendous hug. + 

“Don’t forget to throw your bouquet,” said Mrs. Ward solemnly, through her tears. Jane snatched it up from the bed. + 

Stephen was waiting in the upper hall. Jane took his arm. There was no time to speak to him. Everyone was pressing around the foot of the staircase. Alden was leading the band. As Stephen appeared it struck up “Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes.” + 

“Oh, good Lord!” muttered Stephen disgustedly. “That’s just like Alden!” They started down the stairs. From the first landing Jane pitched her bouquet straight into the virgin arms of Silly, the only maiden present. Stephen gripped her elbow. A shower of rice and confetti rose from the little crowd below. They dashed madly down and through the press of people. The front door was open, Robin standing guard. The mild May air was very refreshing, after the crowded rooms. Jane took a great breath of it as they rushed down the steps, past the crowd by the awning. The wedding guests came running after them. Rice still flew. Jane gained the shelter of the waiting brougham. Stephen flung himself after her and banged the door. The brougham started smartly into motion. Jane was looking out of the little back window at Isabel and Robin and Rosalie and Freddy, on the curb. Silly suddenly appeared to wave the lilies of the valley with one long, thin arm, above their heads. The brougham turned into Erie Street. + 

“Jane!” said Stephen, and suddenly his arms were around her. “Jane,” he said again, very solemnly, “we’re⁠—married.” Jane felt again that frightful fear of sentiment. Couldn’t⁠—couldn’t people take weddings⁠—calmly? She smiled, a little shakily, into Stephen’s eyes. Suddenly his arms grew strong and strangely urgent. He pulled her to him roughly, abruptly. + 

“Stephen!” cried Jane, in consternation. His eyes were smiling, excitedly, straight into her own. Jane fell a sudden prey to panic. “Stephen,” she said quickly⁠—“don’t⁠—please⁠—don’t!” + 

His face changed then, perplexedly. It grew strangely wistful. + 

“I⁠—I won’t, Jane,” he said very gently. His arms relaxed their hold. + 

Jane felt suddenly contrite. And somehow⁠—inadequate. She felt she was failing Stephen. Stephen, whom she had married, who would have only a week with her, who was going to war. Deliberately she put her arms around him. + 

“Stephen, truly I love you,” she said. Stephen’s lips met hers. Dear Stephen! She did love him. She would love him. She had married him. That point was settled. The brougham rolled on up Erie Street. + 

V + 

The midsummer willow stood motionless in the late August sunshine, not a grey-green leaf stirring, and Jane was sitting at her window looking out at it and thinking of Stephen, when André’s second letter arrived. + 

Minnie brought it up to her, immediately after the postman’s ring. No one could do too much for Jane now. Jane saw the Italian stamp, the strange transparent paper, before she took it from Minnie’s considerate hand. She had a queer revulsion of feeling the moment she recognized it. An impulse to cast it from her, unread. Jane didn’t want to hear from André. She didn’t want to hear anything he might have to say. + 

When Minnie had left the room, however, she opened it, very thoughtfully. After all⁠—it couldn’t make any difference. She was glad to see that it was very brief. + 

“Dear Jane, + 

“I was terribly surprised and terribly shocked at the news your letter contained. Why, I don’t know. I was always afraid, all these past four years, that I would hear that you were going to marry. I hadn’t counted, though, on just what the sight of my name on an envelope, in your handwriting, would do to me. I haven’t felt ready to answer until just now. + 

“I hope, awfully, that you will be very happy. That you’re happy now. But I won’t plan to come to the States. I know I don’t want to meet your husband next spring and I think I don’t want to meet you, Jane, ever again. You mean a very special thing to me. No one will ever take your place. But I won’t come to Chicago. Feeling as I do, I should really have nothing to say to you. ‘Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée.’ + 

Well, thought Jane, that was that. But why did he have to write just as he did? Jane frowned over her instant recognition of the pluck the brief note had given to her heart strings. It was unforgettable, like everything else about André. + 

Jane put it away with his other letter in her desk drawer. She was terribly glad that she would not have to see him. She didn’t want to see André, ever again. He⁠—he shouldn’t have mentioned it, of course, but he was quite right about doors. + 

A great deal of water had run under the bridge since the April afternoon when his first letter had arrived. Stephen, an authentic hero, had charged up San Juan Hill, following the waving sombrero of Theodore Roosevelt. He was recovering from malarial fever, now, down at Montauk Point. The war was over. Cuba was free. The United States owned the Philippine Islands. Boston had not been bombarded. And Jane had known, for more than three months, that she was going to have a baby in February. + 