I + 

The April sunshine was slanting in Jane’s open bedroom window. The pale, profuse sunshine of early April, flickering through the bare boughs of the oak trees. The crocuses were blooming in the garden. The daffodils nodded their yellow heads in the bed beneath the evergreens. The apple tree was an emerald mist of tiny budding leaves. + 

Jane sat at the window, sewing a fresh lace collar in the neck of a new rose-coloured gown and talking to Miss Parrot. From her chair she could see Jenny, swooping luxuriously up and down in the swing beneath the apple tree, and hear Steve, concealed in the upper branches, clamouring vociferously for his turn. + 

“I really hate to leave him,” said Miss Parrot. “But he’ll be all right now, Mrs. Carver, if you just watch him a little. Don’t let him race around too much this summer. And of course no competitive sports.” + 

Jane nodded, over her sewing. She was awfully glad, of course, that little Steve’s heart was really so much better, but almost gladder, she thought with a smile, that she would no longer have to talk to Miss Parrot at table, three times a day, or listen to her unasked advice on little Steve’s care. Of course, she had been wonderful. She was a very good heart nurse. Still, it had been irritating, having her around under foot all winter, a tacit critic of Jane’s every action, an alien observer of her every thought. But it was over now. Little Steve had completely recovered. Dr. Bancroft had dismissed Miss Parrot. She was going in three days. + 

“You’ll see that he takes his tonic,” said Miss Parrot. + 

“Of course,” said Jane, with a hint of irritation in her voice. + 

“Well, I hope Sarah remembers it when you’re out,” said Miss Parrot, with a sigh of resignation. + 

Jane looked up from her sewing at Miss Parrot’s starched, immaculate figure. She met her pleasant, impersonal eye. She wished dispassionately that she could push Miss Parrot out of her bedroom by main force. Suddenly Sarah appeared in the doorway. + 

“Mr. Trent to see you, madam,” she said impassively. + 

Jane jumped to her feet. + 

“Mr. Trent? Downstairs?” Jane glanced at the little French clock on the mantelpiece. It pointed exactly to three. Jimmy had said he was taking the three-nineteen. He was an hour ahead of time. She thrust her sewing into Miss Parrot’s hand. “Miss Parrot,” she said hastily, “just baste this collar in for me, will you? As quickly as you can, please. I’m wearing it this afternoon. And, Sarah⁠—I want tea in the living-room at four. We won’t wait for Mr. Carver. Toast, please, and anchovy sandwiches, and some of that sponge cake we had at luncheon.” She was already slipping out of her morning gown. “Tell Mr. Trent I will be down immediately.” + 

Sarah turned from the door. Jane sat down hastily at her dressing-table and began to take down her hair. Miss Parrot had seated herself at the window and was picking up Jane’s thimble. Jane could catch her reflection in the slanting plane of the cheval glass, near the dressing-table. She was looking at Jane with a faint smile of cynical amusement. Her eye was no longer impersonal. Jane hated Miss Parrot, at the moment. She hated herself for that question she had never been able to answer⁠—had that been Miss Parrot’s white sleeve in the playroom bay window, that Thanksgiving afternoon when Jimmy. She pushed in the last hairpin and rose to her feet. + 

“Ready, Miss Parrot?” she said evenly. + 

“Yes,” said Miss Parrot, handing her the gown. She lingered a moment, to put away the thimble and close the sewing box. Again she looked Jane over with that not impersonal eye. “You look very pretty, Mrs. Carver,” she said. + 

Jane dabbed a little perfume on her cheeks and hurried from the room without answering. In the hall she stumbled over the children’s cocker spaniel. It yelped sharply, then wagged its tail and started after her down the stairs. At the foot of them Jane saw Belle, just starting up for Cicily’s room. She and Jack were coming out for the weekend. They must have been on the train with Jimmy. The child looked up at her with wide, round eyes of admiration. The eyes were so round and the admiration so apparent that Jane stopped and laughed down at her. Belle was really charming. She looked like an apple blossom. + 

“Hello, little Belle,” said Jane. + 

At the sound of her voice, Jimmy Trent came out of the living-room. He looked taller than he really was, beside the staring child. His eyes were very bright and blue and his necktie exactly matched them. He stood smiling up at her from the foot of the staircase. As Jane ran down the last steps, he took her hand and held it for a minute. Jane laughed up at him. + 

“You know little Belle Bridges,” she said, withdrawing her hand. + 

“Of course I do,” said Jimmy. “Hello, little Belle Bridges!” He too smiled down at the child. Jane stooped over and kissed little Belle’s cheek. It felt very smooth and cool, like the petal of an apple blossom. The little spaniel was jumping forgivingly about her feet. Jane picked it up and held it tenderly in her arms and kissed the top of its little black head and looked up at Jimmy over its long, floppy ears. Then they turned away from Belle toward the living-room door. + 

“I didn’t expect you till four,” said Jane, smiling up at Jimmy over the spaniel. + 

He paused to let her precede him through the living-room door. + 

“I couldn’t wait to play you my last cadenza,” said Jimmy. “Jane, that concerto is finished. I couldn’t wait an hour⁠—” + 

“Silly!” said Jane, looking over her shoulder at Jimmy, as they passed into the living-room. In a moment she heard little Belle, scrambling upstairs to Cicily’s bedroom. “But I can’t wait myself to hear it. Oh, Jimmy, I can’t believe⁠—truly I can’t believe⁠—that you’ve really done it.” + 

“You know who made me,” said Jimmy. His eyes searched hers for a moment, before he turned to pick up his fiddle-case from the table. “It’s really your concerto.” He tucked his violin under his chin and tuned it airily as he strolled across the room, just as he had done on that first Lakewood evening. He took his stand on the hearthrug, bow in hand, and looked down at her. “Your concerto, Jane,” he repeated. It seemed to Jane, at the moment, a very solemn dedication. She looked up at Jimmy very seriously as he raised his bow. She never took her eyes off his slender, swaying figure, until the last note had sounded. + 

“It’s beautiful, Jimmy,” she said then, solemnly, “it’s very beautiful.” + 

“You know why, don’t you?” said Jimmy, looking down at her from the hearthrug. + 

Just then Sarah came in with the tea. + 