Part + 

I + 

André + 

I + 

I + 

Little Jane Ward sat at her father’s left hand at the family breakfast table, her sleek, brown pigtailed head bent discreetly over her plate. She was washing down great mouthfuls of bacon and eggs with gulps of too hot cocoa. She did not have to look at the great black clock, surmounted by the bronze bird, that had stood on the dining-room mantelpiece ever since she could remember, to know that it was twenty minutes after eight. If she hurried with her breakfast she could get off for school before Flora and Muriel called to walk up with her. If she could escape them she could meet André, loitering nonchalantly near the Water Works Tower, and walk up with him. She could walk up with him anyway, of course, but, with Flora and Muriel fluttering and giggling at her elbow, it would not be quite the same. + 

Her father was buried behind the far-flung pages of the Chicago Tribune. Her mother sat behind the coffee tray, immaculately clad in a crisp white dressing-sack, her pretty, proud little head held high above the silver urn, her eyes wandering competently over the breakfast table. Her sister, Isabel, was not yet down. Her sister Isabel was nineteen. Grown up. Her school days behind her. A young lady. About to become a débutante. Old enough to loiter, unrebuked, in bed, after a late party, until her father had left for the office and Jane was well on her way to school. + 

“Jane,” said her mother tranquilly, “don’t take such large mouthfuls.” Jane was not grown up. Jane was still fourteen. Young enough to be rebuked for almost anything, including table manners. + 

“What’s the hurry, kid?” said her father cheerfully, lowering the margins of the paper. He was nearly always cheerful. His brown eyes twinkled as they rested on Jane. They usually did. + 

“I want to get off to school early,” said Jane plausibly. “I want to meet Agnes.” + 

“Agnes!” exclaimed her mother with a little fretful shrug. “Always, Agnes!” + 

That was all, but it was quite enough. Jane knew very well that her mother did not approve of Agnes Johnson. And Jane knew why. With the crystal clarity of fourteen-year-old perception, Jane knew why all too well. It was because Agnes lived west of Lincoln Park and her father was a newspaper reporter and her mother worked in an office. Her mother was somebody’s secretary. There was something unforgivable in that. + 

Her mother did approve, now, of Flora Furness and Muriel Lester. She approved of them wholeheartedly. They lived just around the corner. Flora on Rush Street, in a big brown stone house with lilac bushes in the yard, and Muriel on Huron, in a grey stone fortress, built by Richardson, the great Eastern architect. Muriel gave a party every Christmas vacation. A dancing party, with white crash laid down over the parlor carpet and an orchestra, hidden in palms, beneath the stairs. Flora’s house was very large and lovely. It had belonged to her grandfather. It had a big ballroom, tucked away under its mansard roof and there was a tiger-skin rug in the front hall and gold furniture in the drawing-room and a conservatory, opening off the library, with hanging Boston ferns and a real orange tree and two grey parrots in a gilded cage. + 

Her mother liked Jane to walk to school with Flora and Muriel. She liked her to have them over to play. She had always liked it, from the days of their first paper dolls. There were things that were wrong with Flora and Muriel, too. But they were subtle things that didn’t seem to make much difference. Nevertheless they caused comment. Comment, at least, from her mother and Isabel. Jane had sensed them always, without exactly understanding. + 

There was something wrong with Flora’s mother, who was perhaps the prettiest, and certainly the most fashionable lady that Jane had ever seen. She was always going out to parties, sweeping out of her front door in rustling draperies, slipping through the crowd of staring children on the sidewalk, wafting a kiss to Flora, and vanishing into the depths of her little blue brougham that waited at the curb. She had a pug for a lap dog and drove out every spring and summer afternoon in a dark blue victoria, with two men up, behind a pair of spanking bays, with a little tip-tilted sunshade of black lace held over her tiny flowered toque of violets. She had always the pug with her, and never Flora, and sometimes a gentleman called Mr. Bert Lancaster, who led cotillions and danced with Isabel occasionally at parties and skated with her sometimes on the Superior Street rink, and made her very happy when he did. + 

There was something wrong with all Muriel’s family, though her eldest sister, Edith, had been the belle of last winter and her second sister, Rosalie, was going to be the belle of this and had been with Isabel at Farmington and was one of Isabel’s dearest friends. This wrong was easier to fathom. It was because their name was Lester, though everyone knew that it had once been Leischer, and their grandfather, old Solomon Lester, made no bones about it at all, but was just frankly Hebraic, so everyone said who had met him in New York. + 

Jane knew all this and had always known it. She could not have said how. She was acutely conscious of everything that her mother approved or disapproved. And now that Isabel had come home from Farmington and was frankly recognized as someone to be listened to, Jane was acutely conscious of her opinions, too. It never occurred to her to agree or disagree with them, consciously. There they were. Opinions. Jane bumped into them, tangible obstacles in her path, things to be recognized, and accepted or evaded, as the exigencies of the situation demanded. Just now she didn’t bother at all about Agnes. Jane was very fond of Agnes, but Agnes was, for the moment, a pretext. + 

“May I be excused?” she asked meekly. + 

“Use your finger bowl,” said her mother abstractedly. + 

“What’s the rush, kid?” asked her father again. “Done your algebra?” + 

Her algebra was Jane’s bête noire. She never told her teacher how much her father helped her. She nodded, rising. + 

“Understand that last quadratic equation?” + 

Jane nodded again and kissed her mother goodbye. + 

“Keep that frock clean,” said her mother, “Don’t climb on fences.” + 

Jane kissed her father. His face was lean and hard and smelled of shaving-soap. His cheeks were always very smooth in the morning. + 

“Goodbye, kid. I see in the paper that the Gilbert and Sullivan operas are coming. We’ll have to see The Mikado.” + 

Jane flushed with pleasure. Even André was forgotten. Jane had only been to the theatre four times before in all her life. Once when she was very young to see Elsie Leslie in Little Lord Fauntleroy and twice to see Joseph Jefferson in Rip van Winkle and once last year to hear Calvé in Carmen, with all the family, because there was an extra seat, on Thanksgiving afternoon. + 

“Really, Papa? Honestly?” Her face was shining. Then she heard the doorbell ring. Her heart sank, in spite of her glowing prospects. That was Flora and Muriel at the front door, of course. Minnie, the waitress, went to open it. There was a shuffle, a whispered joke, and a giggle in the hall. It was certainly Flora and Muriel. Jane walked slowly out of the room. + 

“I wish that child would drop Agnes Johnson,” she heard her mother say and caught the irritated rustle of her father’s paper in reply. + 

“Just a jiffy!” she called, and raced upstairs, two steps at a time, for her homework. + 

“Don’t wake Isabel!” called her mother. + 

When Jane came downstairs again her father was struggling into his coat in the front hall. Flora and Muriel sat mutely on the bench beneath the hat-rack, school books in hand. Minnie handed her her lunch for recess. A little wicker basket with a leather strap, containing two jelly sandwiches, Jane knew, and a piece of cake and her favorite banana. + 

Flora and Muriel rose to meet her. Her father was humming, gaily, regarding the children before him with a benevolent smile. As they reached the front door he broke into jocular song. + 

“Three little maids from school are we, + 

Pert as a school girl well can be, + 

Filled to the brim with girlish glee, + 

Three little maids from school!” + 

Flora and Muriel were regarding him dispassionately. Jane was just a little bit ashamed of him. In the presence of her contemporaries, Jane felt almost grown up. Her father opened the door for them with mock ceremony. + 

“Everything is a source of fun. + 

Nobody’s safe for we care for none.” + 

He tweaked her pigtails affectionately. + 

“Life is a joke that’s just begun! + 

Three little maids from school!” + 

They were out and had run down the steps before he could go any further. Jane’s sense of embarrassment had deepened. Flora was fifteen and was already talking of putting up her golden curls. Muriel had a real suit, with a skirt and Eton jacket, and her dresses reached almost to her boot tops. It was too bad of her father. The song wasn’t so very funny, after all. Nor so very true. + 

Life didn’t seem at all a joke to Jane as she skipped down Pine Street, that crisp October morning, arm in arm with her friends. She was wondering whether André would be waiting under the Water Works Tower. And whether Flora and Muriel would try to tease them if he were. And what he would think, if they did. And what her mother would say if she knew that André was waiting almost every morning, when she reached Chicago Avenue, waiting to walk up the Drive with her carrying her school books. Funny French André, whom Flora and Muriel always laughed at, a little, and of whom her mother and Isabel didn’t at all approve, because he was French and a Roman Catholic and went to church in the Holy Name Cathedral and lived in a little flat in the Saint James Apartments and had an English mother who wore a funny-looking feather boa and a French father who was a consul, whatever that was, and spoke broken English and didn’t know many people. + 

Muriel was talking of Rosalie’s coming-out party. There was to be a reception and a dinner and a dance and Muriel was going to sit up for it and have a new pink muslin dress, ordered from Hollander’s in New York. + 

Isabel was going to have a reception, too, but no dinner, as far as Jane knew, and certainly no dance. Jane’s clothes were all made on the third floor by Miss McKelvey, who came twice every year, spring and fall, for two weeks, taking possession of the sewing machine in the playroom and turning out an incredible number of frocks and reefers and white percale petticoats with eyelet embroidery. She made lots of Isabel’s dresses, too, and some of Jane’s mother’s. And doll clothes, on the side, for Jane, though Jane was too old for that, now. She hadn’t looked at her doll for nearly two years. That wonderful French doll with real hair and eyes that opened and shut, that her mother had brought her from Paris on the memorable occasion, five years before, of her trip abroad. + 

Jane had always loved Miss McKelvey from the days that she used to ride on her knees when she wound the bobbins. And she always liked her new clothes. It was only when Flora and Muriel talked of theirs that it occurred to her to disparage them. Flora and Muriel had lovely things. Dresses from New York and coats made at real tailors’. But Jane didn’t want them, really. At least she wouldn’t have wanted them if Flora and Muriel had only let her alone. She hadn’t wanted them, at all, until she had met André. Now she couldn’t help wondering what André would think if he could see her at a real dance, some evening, in a pink muslin dress from Hollander’s. Of course she and André didn’t go to dances. But there would be the Christmas parties and if she had a pink muslin, just hanging idle in the closet, perhaps she could wear it to dancing school or even to supper, some Saturday night at André’s, if he ever asked her again and her mother would let her go. + 

Not that a mere pink muslin could ever make Jane look like Muriel. Jane knew that all too well. Or like Flora. She hadn’t any curls, to begin with, and she simply couldn’t look stylish. The way Isabel did, for instance, in any old rag. Isabel was just as pretty as Muriel’s sisters, no matter what she wore. + 

There was André, school books in hand, loitering under the Water Works Tower. He grinned a little sheepishly as the trio approached him. Flora and Muriel were pinching her elbows. + 

“Don’t be silly!” she implored. + 

“He’s silly!” tittered Flora. + 

“No, he’s not!” she declared hotly. + 

They only giggled. + 

“Well, anyway, he’s sissy,” said Muriel accusingly. “Why doesn’t he play with the other boys?” + 

By this time they had reached him. + 

“Hello,” said André. + 

“Hello,” said Jane. + 

He took her school books. Flora shook her curls at him. They shone like burnished gold against the rough chinchilla cloth of her navy blue reefer. Muriel rolled her great blue eyes under her wide hat brim. Her eyelashes were very long and curly and her cheeks were rose red in the sharp lake breeze. André grinned. He dropped into step at Jane’s elbow. They walked half a block in silence. Almost in silence. Jane could hear Muriel’s stifled giggles. Then Flora leaned mockingly forward. She looked across Muriel’s mirthful countenance to Jane’s disdainful one and then on, to André’s cold young profile. + 

“I’ll race you to the corner, Muriel,” she said wickedly. Muriel dropped Jane’s elbow. + 

“Two’s company!” she heard Muriel cry as they set off in a rush. Jane felt a little foolish. Then André glanced shyly down at her. He met her eyes and smiled. She looked hurriedly away, but she knew, instantly, that everything was all right. Let them be silly. It didn’t matter. And she did want to talk to André. André talked of things she liked. André had seen lots of plays, here and in New York and in Paris. And André had lived abroad. He had been born in Fontainebleau and he had visited in London and he had crossed the ocean three times since his father had come to America. André had read everything and he had a little puppet theatre and an awfully good stamp collection and a work shop in his bedroom where he modelled in clay and made some very clever things, bookends and paperweights and statues, that his father had cast, sometimes, for his mother to keep. André went to a class every Saturday morning at the Art Institute. A life class, so Flora and Muriel had said with a telling titter. Jane devoutly hoped her mother wouldn’t hear of that. + 

André was sixteen and he wasn’t going to college. Not to Harvard or Yale or Princeton, at least, where the other boys were going. He wasn’t even going to boarding school. He was just going to go on studying in Chicago and taking courses at the Art Institute until he went back to Paris. He was going back, when he was nineteen, to study at the Sorbonne, whatever that was, and try to get in the Beaux Arts. He was putting on a play called Camille, now, in his puppet theatre. He wanted Jane to help him. That was what he was talking about. + 

He talked so long and so interestingly that they were actually in front of the school before Jane realized it. There was Agnes, sitting on the front steps. She waved cheerfully at André, her funny freckled face wreathed in smiles. Agnes liked André and Agnes was never silly. She knew just how Jane felt about him and still she didn’t think that there was anything to laugh at. Out of the corner of her eye Jane could see Flora and Muriel up at the front window, pointing André out to some other girls. He saw them, too, of course, but he didn’t seem to care. André never did care if people thought things. Jane always did. She wished he’d leave her at the corner every morning, half a block from the school, but she didn’t want to tell him so. For most of all she cared what André thought. She knew André awfully well, of course, but not well enough to tell him a thing like that. + 

The first bell rang while he was talking with Agnes. Jane slipped her arm through hers and turned toward the door. + 

“See you after lunch,” said André, cap in hand. “If you could manage to come over about half-past two we could paint the first set. Mother told me to ask you to tea.” + 

Jane only smiled and nodded, but she walked into the study hall in a thrill of anticipation. Tea with André. His mother had asked her. She wouldn’t tell her mother. She would just go. Jane’s eyes were dancing behind her lowered eyelids as ancient Miss Milgrim read the Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer over the bowed heads of the assembled school. She was almost laughing aloud as she rose for the morning hymn. Her thin little voice shrilled up to Heaven’s gates in purely secular ecstasy. + 

“Rejoice, ye pure in heart! + 

Rejoice, give thanks and sing! + 

Your glorious banner raise on high + 

The cross of Christ, your King!” + 

She was going to tea with André. + 

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice, give thanks and sing!” + 

André was waiting for her on the steps of the Saint James Apartments at half-past two. He wore a funny navy-blue beret on his sleek black hair and he was spinning a top. No other Chicago boy of sixteen ever spun a top and Jane had never seen any other beret. That was the kind of thing that André did that made Flora and Muriel think that he was sissy. Jane wished he wouldn’t. She liked to spin tops herself and the beret was most becoming. Still, there was no sense in willfully laying yourself open to mockery. Flora and Muriel had no idea how nice André really was. + 

They went upstairs in the elevator and André’s mother opened the front door. André’s mother had only one servant and that one was often out. The children entered the little crowded living-room. There were lots of books in it, filling the walls from floor to ceiling. Not nice volumes in neat, uniform sets of sombre leather, as in Jane’s own father’s library or in Flora’s grandfather’s, but all sorts and sizes of books in all kinds of variegated bindings, some quite dilapidated, set haphazard on the shelves. There were some sets, of course. A long line of bound Punch, for instance, and many more Arabian Nights than Jane had ever known there were, and a red row of nearly thirty volumes by Guy de Maupassant. Jane had never heard of him. + 

André’s mother had been reading in the big green Morris chair in the bay window that looked down Rush Street, all the way to the river. The book still lay in the chair seat. It was a French book, called Madame Bovary. André’s mother saw Jane looking at it. + 

“You’ll like that book, Jane,” she said, “when you’re older.” + 

That was the way André’s family always spoke of books. Just as if they were people living in the world with you, nice friendly people, whom you were bound to meet some day and get on famously with when you finally knew them. + 

Jane followed André into his little bedroom. His paints were all set out on a table with some sheets of Bristol board. + 

“I saw Bernhardt do Camille in Paris, last summer,” said André eagerly, “And I remember all her sets. We can make ours just the same.” + 

Jane sat down beside André at the little table, feeling a little flushed and excited to think that this was really André’s very own room. She had been in it several times before, of course, but it made her feel that funny way inside every time. André was very near her, just across the paint water. He went on talking about Sarah Bernhardt most enthusiastically, but there was something about his very enthusiasm that made Jane think that perhaps he was feeling funny too. Terribly happy and excited and just a little nervous, as she was herself. But then they fell to discussing colours and later to painting and André grew lost in his work, as he always did, and Jane applauded him and was very much interested and greatly surprised when André’s mother stood in the doorway and said it was half-past four and time for tea. + 

Jane had never known anyone who had tea, regularly, every day, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, except André’s family. Jane’s mother had it on Wednesdays, when lots of ladies came to call, and now that Isabel was home from school, she had it on Sundays, too, for hordes of young men in frock coats, who came early and lingered late. The last of them usually stayed to supper and hymn-singing around the Steinway upright in the parlor. + 

But those teas were parties, with candy and three kinds of cake and funny fishy little sandwiches that Minnie made meticulously in the pantry. The tea-table was always set with the silver tray and the silver tea-set and lots of little Dresden plates and embroidered napkins and Jane’s mother and Isabel were always all dressed up in their best bib and tucker, sitting primly behind the teakettle, never dreaming of eating anything until the doorbell rang. + 

André’s tea was very different. His mother presided nonchalantly from the depths of the Morris armchair over a gold and white china tea-set and there was nothing to eat except very thin slices of bread and butter and a plate of sponge cake, untidily torn to pieces. That sponge cake, André’s mother explained as Jane’s eyes widened at the sight of it, was a spécialité de la maison. It seemed you couldn’t cut it without spoiling it. A funny kind of cake, Jane thought, to serve for tea. But very good. + 

André’s father came in just before the bread and butter was finished. Mr. Duroy was a little grey-haired Frenchman, with wise brown eyes that glittered behind his pince-nez eyeglasses. The glasses balanced precariously on his aquiline nose and he was continually taking them off and waving them about as he talked. They were fastened to his coat lapel with a narrow black ribbon, which made him look very unlike other men. A shred of scarlet silk was always run through his buttonhole. Jane never knew why. + 

He talked a great deal and so did André’s mother. But not at all as Jane’s family did. Never about people. People you knew, at least. This afternoon he was talking very excitedly about something called the Dual Alliance and a Frenchman named Alexandre Ribot who was President du Conseil, whatever that might be, and seemed to be doing something important about France and Russia. Mr. Duroy had a great deal to say about Mr. Ribot, though he didn’t seem to know him. The only people that Jane could ever remember hearing her family talk about whom they did not know were Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. And these gentlemen never provoked her mother and Isabel to utterance. Her father occasionally made statements about them that always passed unchallenged, André’s mother, now, had views of her own on Mr. Ribot. Jane and André didn’t talk at all, but before she knew it the clock struck six and Jane realized that she should have gone home long ago. She rose a little shyly. Jane never knew just how to leave a party. + 

“I must lend you Camille,” said André and plucked the book, in a yellow paper cover, from off the bookshelves. “La Dame aux Camellias” was printed on the outside. “Mother is going to help me do a good translation. See if you don’t like it.” + 

Jane privately hoped that she knew enough French to read it, with a dictionary. + 

“André will walk home with you,” said André’s mother. + 

And indeed it was very dark. Jane didn’t know what her mother would say, if she were home. Of course she might be out with Isabel. They were very busy these days with parties and dressmakers. + 

The street lamps were flickering on their tall standards as they stepped out on Chicago Avenue. The drugstore windows across the street in the Kinzie flats glittered with yellow light. Great green and red and blue urns of coloured water glowed behind the glass. + 

“Pure colour,” said André. “Pure as light.” + 

He took her arm as they crossed the car tracks. Jane held her elbow very stiff and straight but she felt a little thrill run right up her arm from where his fingers rested on her coat sleeve. He was looking at her face and he was very near her, but Jane didn’t turn her head. When they reached the further curbstone he dropped her arm, at once. Jane felt awfully happy. + 

“I’ll try to find those pictures of Bernhardt for you,” said André. “They’re around somewhere in an old copy of Le Théâtre. If you could copy them for the puppet⁠—” + 

“I’d love to,” said Jane. “I can make her hair of ravelled yarn.” + 

“Golden brown,” said André, “and very fuzzy. She has beautiful hair.” + 

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Pine Street was very empty and very quiet. A hansom cab went by, the horse’s feet clapping sharply on the cedar block pavement. A belated errand boy whizzed past on a bicycle. He trilled his bell shrilly for the Superior Street corner. Jane was thinking how dark and straight her pigtails were. Her hair was so fine that it didn’t show for much, except just after a shampoo. She wished, terribly, that she had Flora’s red-gold tresses. Or Muriel’s seven black finger curls. Or this Bernhardt’s golden-brown fuzz, that she had never seen and André so admired. + 

He took her arm again for the next crossing. + 

“I know you’ll copy her beautifully,” he said. And Jane felt happy once more. Warm and glowing, deep down inside. + 

When they reached her house, André lingered a moment on the pavement, under the big bare elm tree. + 

“I⁠—I had a lovely time,” said Jane. + 

“You’ll read the play?” said André. “And come again tomorrow?” + 

Jane nodded. There was a little pause. André moved about a bit. The street was very dark. The street lights were on the corners. + 

“Will you⁠—will you dance the Halloween cotillion with me at dancing-school?” said André. + 

Jane’s heart leaped up in ecstasy. + 

“Oh,” she said softly, “I⁠—I’d love to.” + 

“All right,” said André. “That’s fine.” He lingered a moment longer. “Well⁠—good night,” he said, taking off the beret. + 

Jane ran up the front steps and rang a peal of triumph on the doorbell. She skipped up and down in the vestibule waiting for the door to open. Unconsciously she hummed a fragment of her father’s morning song. + 

“Life is a joke that’s just begun!” she carolled, as Minnie stood on the threshold. The words, at the moment, had for her no meaning. She was just singing. + 

II + 

Jane had no time to read La Dame aux Camellias that night. Her homework was very long. She looked it over, translating a line here and there, hoping in vain for pictures, before she went to bed. She left it on her table next morning when she started out for school. + 

André had the copy of Le Théâtre under his arm when she met him under the Water Works Tower. They sat down on a green bench in the little public park to inspect it. Flora and Muriel went on ahead. There were four pictures of Bernhardt. Three of her as Camille and one in a play called Phèdre. In Phèdre, she wore a Greek costume and a chiffon veil was over her frizzy hair. But in Camille Jane could see clearly just how lovely it was. There was one of her dying, on a kind of sofa, with her curls straying out all over the pillows. No wonder that André thought it was beautiful. Jane thought she could copy the costumes. André remembered all the colours. + 

She told Agnes about the play at recess and Agnes was very much thrilled. She took special pains with her French that morning and learned one extra irregular verb. She hoped it would appear in Camille, in one of its most unusual tenses. She decided, quite firmly, to work hard on the grammar that winter and really learn to speak the language. Perhaps when she and André had done Camille he might ask her to do Phèdre, too. She talked about that possibility very seriously with Agnes after school. So long and so seriously that she was just a little late in getting home for luncheon. + 

Her mother and Isabel were already seated at the dining-room table. The homely odour of fried ham greeted her nostrils as soon as she entered the room. She flung her books on a chair. She was pleasantly hungry. + 

“Gosh, I had fun in school today,” she said. + 

Then she noticed that something was wrong. She would have noticed it sooner if she hadn’t been thinking so intently of the joys in store for her. + 

“You’re very late,” said Isabel. + 

Jane sat down and unfolded her napkin. Minnie passed the ham. No one said anything more for a moment. The silence was very forbidding. + 

“Jane,” said her mother presently, “where did you get the book that I found on your table this morning?” + 

Jane dropped her knife and fork. She was extremely surprised. + 

“Wha⁠—what book?” she asked, instinctively playing for time. + 

“That French book,” said her mother, and her tone spoke volumes. + 

Jane stared at her in silence. + 

“Where on earth did you find it?” asked Isabel. + 

Jane’s great brown eyes turned on her sister. + 

“Answer Mother, Jane.” The tone brooked no delay. Jane’s eyes returned to the head of the table. + 

“From⁠—from André,” she said. Her voice, in her own ears, sounded strangely husky. + 

“André!” said her mother, staring at Isabel. “That explains it.” + 

“You don’t mean to say,” said Isabel, “that André gave you that book?” + 

“Yes,” said Jane with difficulty. + 

“What for?” said her mother. The last word was really almost a shriek. + 

“To⁠—to read,” said Jane. + 

Isabel and her mother exchanged a glance of horror. + 

“Well⁠—honestly⁠—” said Isabel. + 

“Have you read it?” asked her mother. + 

“No,” said Jane. Her ear caught their little gasps of relief. She didn’t understand at all. She only knew that she and André and their perfect plan were in some dreadful danger. She must try to explain. + 

“He’s going to give it in his theatre. Mamma,” she went on hurriedly. “He wants me to help him. He wants me to make the costumes. We’re going⁠—” + 

Her mother and Isabel exchanged another glance of horror. + 

“What’s the matter?” cried Jane, her nerves breaking under the strain. “What’s happened?” + 

Her mother smiled at her very kindly. + 

“Nothing has happened, Jane. I’m very glad you haven’t read the book. It’s not at all a nice book for a child to read. But we’ll just return it to André today. You needn’t think anything more about it.” + 

“But Mamma!” cried Jane. “You⁠—you can’t do that! Why⁠—why we’ve made all our plans⁠—I was going over there this afternoon⁠—we’ve almost finished the first set⁠—he⁠—” + 

“It doesn’t make any difference what you’ve done, Jane,” said her mother firmly, “or what you’ve planned. It’s not a nice book for a little girl to read and⁠—” + 

“Have you read it?” asked Jane rudely. And she meant to be rude. She knew her mother couldn’t read French. Isabel herself couldn’t read it, half as well as Jane could. + 

“You don’t have to read books, Jane,” said her mother with dignity, “to know that they shouldn’t be read. This book is very unpleasant.” + 

“Why, it’s notorious!” said Isabel. + 

“Isabel!” said her mother. + 

Jane felt very confused. + 

“If you haven’t read it, Mamma,” she said reasonably, “don’t you think that perhaps you’ve made a mistake? André’s mother saw him give it to me. She’s going to help us with the play.” + 

She saw at once that she hadn’t helped her cause at all. + 

“Honestly!” said Isabel again. “Those frogs!” + 

“French people,” said her mother, once more with dignity, “don’t feel about these things the way we do. They have very different ideas of right and wrong.” + 

“André’s mother is English,” said Jane sullenly. + 

“She married a Frenchman,” said Isabel, as if that settled it. + 

“We won’t discuss it further,” said Jane’s mother. “Eat your lunch.” + 

“Mamma!” cried Jane in desperation. “You don’t understand. I⁠—I can’t go back on André! I can’t⁠—” + 

“Jane,” said her mother. “You will eat your lunch. And then you will call up André and tell him that you can’t have anything to do with the play and that you can’t go over there this afternoon. I’ll send Minnie over with the book. I don’t want you to go over to André’s any more at all. You’ve been seeing far too much of him lately. Any boy that would give a little girl a book like that⁠—” + 

But Jane had sprung to her feet. + 

“I won’t eat my lunch!” she cried. “And I won’t call up André! I think you’re too mean! You don’t understand! You don’t understand anything!” Her voice was breaking. She wouldn’t cry before them! She rushed from the room. + 

“It’s a long time,” she heard her mother say, as she reached the door, “since Jane has had a tantrum.” + 

She stumbled up the stairs. She gained the refuge of her bedroom and banged the door. The book was gone. She couldn’t go to André’s. She couldn’t help him with that play. She flung herself on her bed in stormy tears. + 

It wasn’t very long before the door opened and Isabel entered, without a knock. Jane lay very still and tried to hush her sobs. + 

“Don’t be silly, kid,” said Isabel. She sat down on the bed. + 

“Don’t talk to me,” said Jane. + 

“Stop crying,” said Isabel reasonably, “and be sensible.” + 

There was a little pause. + 

“That’s a dreadful play, Jane,” said Isabel. + 

Jane didn’t reply. + 

“Sarah Bernhardt does it,” said Isabel. “She’s an awful woman.” + 

Jane lay very still. + 

“When she was here,” said Isabel, “none of us girls were allowed to see her. She’s not nice.” + 

Jane sat up. André’s reverent accents still rang in her ears. + 

“She has beautiful hair,” thought Jane. “Golden brown⁠—and frizzy.” + 

“What do you mean by ‘not nice’?” she inquired indignantly. + 

Isabel’s face looked a little queer. She was watching her younger sister rather curiously. + 

“Immoral,” said Isabel finally. + 

“I don’t believe it,” said Jane, after a moment. + 

“Oh, yes, she is,” said Isabel easily. “Everyone knows that.” + 

Jane stared, unconvinced. Isabel was still looking at her in that funny way. + 

“Don’t you know what I mean?” said Isabel. + 

There was an awful pause. Jane wasn’t sure that she did. But it sounded dreadful. + 

“I⁠—don’t⁠—believe⁠—it,” said Jane slowly. “André said⁠—” + 

“French people are different,” said Isabel. “They don’t mind things like that.” + 

“They’re not different!” said Jane. But of course she knew that they were. Not different like that, though. Whatever it was, if it were true, André couldn’t know it. + 

“Now, don’t be silly, Jane,” said Isabel once more. “Minnie’s keeping your lunch. Go down and eat it and then telephone André and tell him.” + 

“I can’t tell him!” wailed Jane. + 

“Well⁠—you can tell him something,” said Isabel plausibly. “You can tell him that Mamma doesn’t want you to stay indoors on such a bright afternoon.” + 

“Do you want me to lie to him?” said Jane. + 

“Well, Jane!” Isabel was actually laughing. “You wouldn’t tell him the truth, would you?” + 

“I won’t lie to André,” said Jane. “Besides, Mamma⁠—” + 

“Oh, Mamma’ll get over it. She won’t care what you say as long as you don’t go.” + 

The door opened again. Jane’s mother stood on the threshold. + 

“Don’t be silly, Jane,” she said. + 

Jane wiped her eyes. + 

“Go down and eat your lunch!” She patted Jane very nicely on the shoulder. They all turned toward the door. + 

“Isabel,” said her mother, halfway down the hall, “I can’t find that book anywhere. I left it on my desk.” + 

“Oh!” said Isabel, and her voice sounded a bit confused. “It’s in my room. I started to bring it downstairs for you.” + 

Jane looked through Isabel’s door. There was the little yellow volume on the sofa, with Jane’s own French dictionary beside it. Jane despised Isabel, for a moment. Her mother picked up the volume gingerly as if it burned her fingers. + 

“I never expected to see,” she said, “a paper-covered French book in this house.” + 

“All French books have paper covers,” Jane began. André had told her that. But of course it was no use. She didn’t go on with it. Instead she went downstairs and tried to eat her lunch at the pantry table beneath the telephone, thinking of what she had better say to André. + 

The telephone was very new. It had only been put in that autumn and Jane usually thought it was lots of fun to use it. But she didn’t think so now. When she had eaten her ham and one preserved peach she stood before it quite a little time in silence before she gave André’s number. + 

He answered the call himself. She knew his voice immediately. His funny telephone voice, trickling so miraculously into her ear, when he was four long city blocks away. + 

“Hello, Jane,” he said. + 

She didn’t waste any time on preliminaries. + 

“I can’t come over,” she said miserably. + 

“Why not?” said André. + 

Jane gulped a little before she could reply. + 

“Mamma⁠—Mamma⁠—” she began weakly. How could she tell him? + 

“I don’t hear you,” said André. + 

“Mamma,” said Jane desperately. She couldn’t tell him. “Mamma wants me to play out of doors⁠—it’s such a nice day.” + 

“Oh,” said André. He sounded very sorry. “Well⁠—perhaps we could take a walk by the lake.” + 

Jane fell a prey to panic. This was what always happened when you lied. + 

“I⁠—I can’t,” she said very quickly. “I⁠—I’m going over to Flora’s.” + 

“Oh,” said André. And his voice sounded just a little queer. + 

“We⁠—are going to play in her yard,” said Jane. + 

“I see,” said André. + 

“I⁠—I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Jane. + 

He didn’t answer. + 

“Won’t I?” asked Jane pitifully. + 

“Oh, yes,” said André. “Yes. I⁠—I’ll be waiting.” + 

“Well, goodbye,” said Jane. + 

“Goodbye,” said André. “I’m awfully sorry.” + 

Jane hung up the receiver. She felt perfectly miserable. She had lied to André. She despised Isabel, yet she’d taken her advice. And he hadn’t believed her. He hadn’t believed her at all. He had known she was lying. Jane was plunged in despair. Well⁠—at least she could go over to Flora’s. She could make that lie come true. + 

Flora’s front door was opened by Flora’s butler. Jane always felt a little uneasy with butlers but she knew this one very well. He had been with the Furnesses for years. Not like Muriel’s butlers who changed every month or so. He smiled reassuringly down at Jane. + 

“Miss Flora is upstairs,” he said. All Flora’s servants called her “Miss Flora.” It was very impressive. At home everyone said just “Jane.” + 

Jane walked very softly down Flora’s hall, skirting the black walnut furniture with care. The floor was very slippery and the tiger skin rug before the fireplace snarled with its papier-mâché jaws and glared with its yellow glass eyes in a very realistic manner. + 

At the foot of the stairs she met Flora’s mother. She was beautifully dressed in a dark green velvet gown, with leg-of-mutton sleeves of lighter green taffeta, and her little blond head was held very high and topped with a tortoiseshell comb, tipped sideways in her hair. She was running down the stairs very quickly, with her little tan pug behind her, and her cheeks were very pink and her eyes were very bright, and when she saw Jane she stopped and laughed as if she were just so happy she had to laugh at everyone. + 

“Hello, little Jane!” she said. + 

At the sound of her voice someone came out of the drawing-room. It was Mr. Bert Lancaster. He looked very tall and handsome, Jane thought. She didn’t wonder that Isabel liked to dance with him. His moustache was beautiful and he had a black pearl in his necktie. He walked at once up to Flora’s mother. He took her hand as if he liked to hold it. Flora’s mother looked happier than ever. + 

“This is little Jane Ward,” she said. + 

“Hello, little Jane Ward,” laughed Mr. Bert Lancaster. He, too, looked as if he were so happy that he had to laugh at everyone. + 

Flora’s mother stooped over and kissed Jane’s cheek. Her face felt very smooth and soft and it smelled of flowers. Mr. Bert Lancaster was watching her. Then she picked up the pug and held it tenderly in her arms and kissed the top of its little tan head and looked up at Mr. Lancaster over its black muzzle. They turned away from Jane toward the drawing-room door. + 

“I told you not to come ’til four,” said Flora’s mother, still smiling up at Mr. Lancaster over the pug. Jane couldn’t hear his reply. + 

“Silly!” said Flora’s mother, as he held the brocade portieres aside for her at the drawing-room door. She passed through them, looking over her shoulder at Mr. Lancaster. He followed her rustling train. Jane ran upstairs to Flora’s bedroom. + 

Flora’s bedroom was beautiful. All blue and white, with white-painted furniture and a little brass bed and real silver brushes and mirrors on her little dressing-table. Jane had no dressing-table. She kept a wooden brush and a celluloid comb and a steel nail file in her upper bureau drawer. Flora had two heart-shaped silver picture frames, too. In one was her mother, smiling over a feather fan in a lovely light evening gown, with pearls on her throat and long white gloves running up her arms to her great puffy sleeves. In the other frame was Flora’s father. He looked a little silly in that silver heart. Fat-faced and bald-headed and solemn. It was a very good picture, though. That was just the way he always looked, on the rare occasions when Jane ran into him in Flora’s hall. + 

Flora wasn’t doing much of anything. Jane explained that she had come to play in the yard. Flora said that was fine. Muriel was coming over and they could go out to the playhouse. + 

The playhouse was a tiny structure, out near the stable, the scene of all their childish frolics. They didn’t use it to play in now, of course, but Flora sometimes made candy on the little cooking-stove and she and Jane and Muriel always liked to talk there undisturbed. + 

“We’ll make fudge,” said Flora. + 

“Mamma wants me to be out-of-doors,” said Jane, still trying to make that lie come true. + 

“We’ll leave the windows open,” said Flora. + 

Jane decided that would be true enough. They ran down the back stairs and got some things from the cook and went out the side door by the lilac bushes. Muriel was just coming around the corner. + 

Jane began to feel much better as soon as she measured out the chocolate and sugar. She thought she could explain to André tomorrow morning. She thought he would understand. Mothers were mothers. You weren’t responsible for what they thought or what they made you do. + 

Flora’s fire began to burn almost immediately. The scent of cooking chocolate permeated the air. Muriel’s pink muslin had come from Hollander’s. It had real lace on the bertha. She was going to have some high-heeled slippers. + 

“Hello!” said Flora suddenly. “There’s André.” + 

There was André, indeed, loitering a little aimlessly by the iron fence. Muriel immediately began to giggle. Jane rushed to the playhouse door. + 

“Yoo-hoo, André!” she called ecstatically. “Come on over!” + 

He vaulted the fence at a bound. Jane ran out to meet him. + 

“Oh, André,” she said, “I’m terribly glad you came!” + 

He looked pleased, but he didn’t say anything. + 

“We’re making candy,” said Jane. + 

“André! Do you like fudge?” shrieked Flora from the doorway. + 

“You bet,” said André. Muriel went right on giggling. Jane walked with André into the playhouse. How good the chocolate smelled! Jane felt she liked fudge, as never before. + 

She told him all about it, an hour later. He was walking home with her down Erie Street, in the last red rays of the October sun. It was awfully hard to lead up to it. Suddenly she took the plunge. + 

“I⁠—I’m afraid I can’t do Camille with you, André,” she said. + 

He stopped quite still on the pavement. + 

“Why not?” he asked. + 

Jane felt her cheeks growing very hot and red. + 

“Mamma⁠—Mamma doesn’t want me to,” she said. + 

“Why not?” asked André again. + 

Jane looked miserably away from him. + 

“She⁠—she doesn’t like the play.” + 

André looked extremely astonished. + 

“Why,” he said finally, “she⁠—she must like it. Everyone likes Camille.” + 

“Mamma doesn’t,” said Jane. There it was. That was all there was to say. + 

“Do you mean to tell me,” said André hotly, “that she won’t let you do it?” + 

Jane nodded unhappily. André looked extremely puzzled. + 

“Well, then,” he said finally, “I guess you can’t.” + 

Jane’s heart leaped up with gratitude. He did understand. Mothers were mothers. But there was still the lie. + 

“André⁠—” said Jane, and stopped. + 

“Yes?” said André. It was terribly difficult. + 

“André,” said Jane again and her voice was very low. She couldn’t look at him. “I⁠—I didn’t tell you the truth, over the telephone.” + 

André didn’t say anything. + 

“Mamma didn’t say I had to play out-of-doors this afternoon. I⁠—I was scared to tell you what she really said.” + 

“Why?” said André very seriously. + 

Jane felt her eyes fill with tears. + 

“Because,” said Jane, and her lips were trembling, “I didn’t know what you’d think of me.” + 

André saw the tears. He looked awfully embarrassed and terribly kind. + 

“That’s all right, Jane,” said André. She was smiling straight up at him through the tears. “I guess you know I’ll always think one thing of you.” + 

Jane was consumed in a flame of grateful happiness. + 

“Oh, André!” she breathed. + 

“Never mind Camille,” said André, as they began walking again. “We can do something else.” + 

Jane became suddenly conscious of the windows of her house. They stared down on Pine Street. + 

“Perhaps⁠—perhaps,” she said guiltily, “you hadn’t better come any further.” + 

André flushed right up to the edge of his beret. But he never stopped smiling. + 

“Oh⁠—all right,” he said. + 

“See you tomorrow!” said Jane. + 

He waved his cap at her. Jane ran across the street and up the block. At her front steps she paused to look after him. He waved again. She felt terribly happy. She didn’t mind about Camille, now. No one could help mothers. And they would do something else. + 

II + 

I + 

“I don’t see why you want to go to college,” said Muriel, “at all.” + 

Jane was taking lunch with Muriel. And Jane was very different. Her sleek brown pigtails had vanished, turned up in a knot on her neck beneath a big black hair ribbon. Her skirts were down to her boot tops and her dresses, though they were still made by Miss McKelvey, had a subtly young-ladyfied air. Jane was sixteen. It was September. Jane would be seventeen in May. + 

Muriel was sixteen, too, of course, and the seven black finger curls had been twisted into two, that hung down her back under a black hair ribbon, just like Jane’s, and she wore a thick, cloudy bang on her white forehead and her eyes were bigger and bluer than ever and her eyelashes longer and even more curly. She looked just like a postcard that André had sent Jane from the Tate Gallery in London last summer. “A typical Pre-Raphaelite,” he had written across it. Muriel looked almost as old as her second sister, Rosalie, thought Jane admiringly. It was the being pretty that did it. Being pretty made Muriel look old and Rosalie look young. Rosalie was twenty-one and about to become engaged, so Isabel said, to Freddy Waters. + 

Edith, the eldest, had married and was living in Cleveland, but had come back to her mother’s house to have her first baby. Jane privately sympathized with Muriel about it. It was awfully embarrassing to have Edith around, looking so large and queer, with great dark shadows under her big black eyes and grey hollows in her waxen cheeks, when only last Christmas she was the prettiest bride Chicago had ever seen, floating up Saint James’s aisle on old Solomon Lester’s arm, in a cloud of tulle and yards and yards of stiff gored satin, with a waist so tiny that she looked as if she’d break in two in the middle. Flora and Jane had been very much thrilled by the wedding. They had sat together in the sixth pew on the bride’s side, because Muriel was a flower girl. + 

Jane’s mother and Isabel had thought it was awfully funny to import old Solomon Lester to stand by his granddaughter’s side in that Episcopal chancel, when everyone knew that back in New York he was a pillar of the synagogue. Of course Edith had been on the altar guild for years, and she had no brother and her father was dead. Nevertheless, Jane’s mother and Isabel had thought it would have been better taste to have had a house wedding. + 

There she sat, at any rate, in a cerise silk tea-gown, at her mother’s right hand, languidly sipping her tea with lemon and looking quite as uncomfortable as she made everyone else feel. It was awfully hard on Rosalie, Isabel told Jane, to have her always in evidence when Freddy Waters came to call. And Isabel thought it was perfectly disgusting of her to go about to parties. She had a long story that Jane had never thought so terribly funny about her almost pulling the horse off his feet when she stepped into a hansom, right in front of Bert Lancaster, on her way home from one of Flora’s mother’s receptions. + 

Mrs. Lester, however, sitting comfortably behind her silver tea-tray, seemed sublimely unconscious that there was anything embarrassing in her presence. Isabel said that she positively encouraged Edith to go about everywhere and was continually seen in public, brazenly knitting on the most unmistakable garments, and talking of the baby in the most extraordinary way, as if it could be talked about⁠—as if it were really there. She didn’t do this in front of Jane and Flora and Muriel of course. Jane’s mother said it was the Jew coming out. They were very queer about family life. + 

Jane didn’t exactly see why you couldn’t talk about a baby before it was born, but obviously you didn’t, and it certainly made her feel very uncomfortable to look at Edith. There was something in the expression of Mrs. Lester’s big brown eyes, however, as they rested on her firstborn, that brought a lump into Jane’s throat. Something anxious and worried and somehow proud and tender, all mixed up. Fat, funny Mrs. Lester, who was almost as large as Edith this minute! Her napkin was always slipping off her lap and she had three double chins that cascaded down from her tiny mouth to her broad lace collar. It would seem awfully funny, Jane thought, if you were having a baby yourself, to know you must never mention it, when it would be all you would think about, all those long months. + 

“I don’t know why you don’t want to go to Farmington next year, Jane,” continued Muriel, “with Flora and me.” + 

Jane knew very well. She was very fond of Flora and Muriel⁠—why, she had known them in her perambulator! But she wanted to go to Bryn Mawr, just the same, with Agnes, and live for four years with her in Pembroke Hall in one of those double suites that looked so enchanting in the catalogue and study more French and English and, yes, get away from her family and postpone the awful day when she would have to stop being shy and make a début and go to dances with a lot of young men whom she didn’t know and compete with Flora and Muriel on their own field, which could never be hers, in a dreadful artificial race, over hurdles of cotillion partners, with an altar at the end of it and bridegrooms given away in order of excellence, like first, second, and third prizes in a public competition. Jane always thought of bridegrooms like that. That was just the way her mother and Isabel talked about them. Like something the panting bride took home and unwrapped and appraised at her leisure. Her mother and Isabel always weighed all bridegrooms’ qualities minutely in the balance and usually found them wanting. Jane knew all about bridegrooms. + 

Edith’s, now, had been rich and of very good family⁠—for there were very good families in Cleveland, who had moved there, years ago, from the East. But he looked very frail⁠—Jane’s mother thought almost consumptive⁠—and Edith didn’t need the money and would certainly miss living in a large city and find it hard to get on without her mother, who had always been so indulgent. Even Freddy Waters, who was not a bridegroom yet, but, according to Isabel, soon would be, had been scrupulously balanced on jeweller’s scales. Jane, facing Rosalie’s unconscious face across the luncheon table, knew perfectly well that Freddy was awfully clever and a divine dancer, but hadn’t a cent to bless himself with and had thrown himself at the feet of every rich girl in Chicago for the last seven years. Jane’s indifferent mind was crowded with snapshot biographies like that of every actual and potential bridegroom in town. And she did want to go to Bryn Mawr and get away from the family and live with Agnes and study some more French and English. It seemed a great deal simpler. + 

She had taken her preliminaries last spring and passed them well enough and Agnes had reserved a double suite in Pembroke Hall and her father had said explosively on one memorable occasion, “Oh, hell! Let the kid go!” But her mother and Isabel had never consented. + 

It was partly because of Agnes, of course, whom her mother and Isabel had never grown to like, though she was turning out to be awfully clever and had passed her preliminaries with an amazing number of high credits and might be the Middle-Western Scholar and could write essays that Miss Milgrim thought were very unusual. Agnes had actually taken a job last summer, on her father’s paper, though she was only seventeen. Jane thought it was very wonderful of her, but it seemed to be the last nail in her coffin as far as her mother and Isabel were concerned. + 

“A young girl in a newspaper office!” Mrs. Ward had said. Considering the tone in which it was uttered, the comment had sufficed. + 

“I don’t know what I’ll do without Muriel for a year,” Mrs. Lester was saying, “now Edith is gone.” Her eyes lingered pensively on Rosalie as if she sensed an approaching farewell. Her three dark-haired daughters were very dear to Mrs. Lester. + 

“And Flora’s mother has only Flora,” said Jane sympathetically. + 

A little gleam of cynicism shone in Edith’s melancholy eye. + 

“I dare say she’ll be glad to have her out of the way.” + 

“Flora’s getting old enough to notice,” sighed Mrs. Lester. + 

“Freddy saw her lunching alone with him at the Richelieu last Wednesday,” said Rosalie. And added with perverse pleasure, “They were having champagne.” + 

Mrs. Lester clucked her dismay. But it was no news to Jane. She had heard Isabel telling all about it at the dinner table on Thursday night. + 

“Bert Lancaster ought to be ashamed of himself,” said Mrs. Lester. + 

“She’s old enough to know better,” said Rosalie pertly. “How old is she, Mother?” + 

“She was married,” said Mrs. Lester dreamily, “the year that Edith had scarlet fever. I couldn’t go to the wedding. That makes her about thirty-eight.” + 

“She doesn’t look it,” said Edith. “She’s an amazing woman.” + 

“Bert’s thirty-five,” said Rosalie meditatively. “He told me so himself.” + 

“I admire her husband,” said Mrs. Lester, “for the way he takes it.” + 

“Mother!” said Rosalie and Edith at once. And Rosalie continued, “How can you admire him? He’s a perfect dodo!” + 

“He has been very much tried,” said Mrs. Lester, “these last three years.” + 

“He might die,” commented Edith hopefully. “He’s awfully old.” + 

“He’s not sixty,” said Mrs. Lester. “He’ll have to die soon to do any good.” + 

“Mother!” said Rosalie again. “Bert’s simply mad about her.” + 

“Now,” said Mrs. Lester, with meaning. “Men are all alike,” she sighed irrelevantly, as she rose from the table. “Except yours, Edie.” She put her arm around Edith as they passed through the door. + 

The Lesters’ living-room was awfully like the Lesters. Mrs. Lester liked comfort and the girls liked gaiety. The entire house was both comfortable and gay. It was also untidy, for Mrs. Lester was a terrible housekeeper. Her servants never stayed a minute and never seemed to pick up anything while they were there. Jane’s mother said she didn’t wonder, with the demands that were made upon them. The Lesters had lots of company and meals at all hours, and the girls, so Jane’s mother said, had never been taught to do for themselves. Jane had often seen Muriel step out of a lovely new dress and leave it lying on her bedroom floor, and her upper bureau drawer was a sight. There was hair in her comb and soiled handkerchief everywhere. Jane had been taught to be very careful about combs and soiled handkerchiefs. + 

Jane liked their living-room, however. The walls were covered with emerald-green silk and hung with oil paintings in great gold frames. The paintings were mostly landscapes, but there was a copy of a Murillo Madonna over the fireplace. Jane’s mother and Isabel thought it was awfully funny that the Lesters’ hearth should be dominated by the Christ-child. The furniture was rosewood, upholstered in bright green brocade and there was a grand piano in the corner. Muriel’s music was always scattered all over it, gay popular tunes that Jane loved to hear her rattle off when she had Flora and Jane and some boys in for a chafing-dish supper after their evening dancing-class. This afternoon Rosalie’s embroidery was strewn all over the rosewood sofa, and the morning paper, with the social column turned out and a copy of Town Topics and one of the Club Fellow lay on the floor by Edith’s easy chair, and Mrs. Lester’s compromising knitting was on the marble-topped table. All but two balls of blue and white worsted that had rolled under the sofa. A little fire was smouldering on the hearth and Jane thought that all the untidy litter made the large, luxurious room look very homelike and comfortable as if people lived in it and loved it. But Jane picked up the two balls of worsted and wound up the yarn. + 

Muriel sat down at the piano and began to play “Ta-ra-ra-ra Boom-de-ay,” singing, as her hands rattled over the keys, + 

“A sweet Tuxedo girl you see, + 

Queen of swell so‑ci‑e‑ty, + 

Fond of fun as fond can be, + 

When it’s on the strict Q.T.!” + 

Edith and Rosalie and Jane all joined uproariously in the chorus. + 

“Ta-ra-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! + 

Ta-ra-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! + 

Ta-ra-ra-ra Boom-de-ay! + 

Ta-ra-ra-ra Boom-de-ay!” + 

“That song,” said Mrs. Lester comfortably, as she picked up her knitting, “will always make me think of the World’s Fair.” The celebrated Columbian Exposition had been running all summer down in Jackson Park. Muriel slipped easily into “After the Ball,” the great band hit of the season. She sang the popular parody with pathos, as she played, + 

“After the Fair is over, what will Chicago do + 

With all those empty houses, run up with sticks and glue? + 

I’d rather live in Brooklyn (somebody’d know me there) + 

Than to live in Chicago, after⁠—the⁠—Fair.” + 

“We ought to go out there again some night for dinner,” said Rosalie, “before it gets too cold.” + 

Muriel stopped playing. + 

“Let’s go this week,” she said. “Let’s go tomorrow night.” + 

“Let’s have a party,” said Rosalie. + 

“Whom do you want to ask?” asked Mrs. Lester. “Besides Freddy.” + 

This was just like the Lesters. No sooner said than done. + 

“I don’t care,” said Rosalie. “Let Muriel have some kids. It’s her last fling. School begins next week.” + 

“Flora,” said Muriel promptly, “and Jane, of course, and Teddy Stanley⁠—he’s just crazy about Flora⁠—and Bob Withers for me and⁠—when does André get home, Jane?” + 

“I don’t know,” said Jane. And she really didn’t. He hadn’t said in his last letter from Paris. Jane hadn’t seen André for three months. + 

“He’s got to be back for school,” said Muriel. “I’ll give him a ring.” + 

“You’re not going, are you, Edith?” said Rosalie hopefully. Edith looked a little undecided. “It’s a tiring trip.” + 

Edith was still looking undecided when the Lesters’ new butler appeared in the door. + 

“Miss Jane Ward?” he asked hesitatingly. He hadn’t been there long enough to know Jane’s name. “You’re wanted on the telephone, miss.” + 

Jane got up in astonishment. She was very seldom wanted on the telephone anywhere. A call in someone else’s house was very exciting. Muriel went with her out into the back hall. + 

“Hello,” said Jane. + 

It was André’s voice. She knew it immediately. It wasn’t quite the same, though. A little huskier and deeper. It made Jane feel very queer to hear it. André really sounded like a man. + 

“Yes. It’s me,” she said ungrammatically. + 

“Who is it?” asked Muriel. + 

“I called up your house,” said André. “They said you were over at Muriel’s.” + 

“Yes. I am,” said Jane rather unnecessarily. + 

“I⁠—I want to see you,” said André. + 

“Who is it?” asked Muriel, again. + 

“When did you get back?” said Jane politely. + 

“This noon,” said André. + 

“Well,” said Jane, “why don’t you come over?” + 

“Over to Muriel’s?” inquired André. His voice seemed a little doubtful. + 

“Oh, no,” said Jane quickly. “Over to my house. I’ll go home.” + 

“All right,” said André. “How⁠—how are you?” + 

“Oh, I’m fine,” said Jane. + 

“Well,” said André, “I’ll be right over.” + 

“All right,” said Jane. She hung up the receiver. + 

“Who was it?” asked Muriel. + 

Jane turned to face her. She was laughing a little. She didn’t know why. + 

“It was André,” she said. + 

Muriel began to giggle. + 

“I thought you didn’t know when he was coming home.” + 

“I didn’t,” said Jane, and started for the door into the front hall. + 

“Where are you going?” asked Muriel. + 

“Home,” said Jane. “He’s coming over.” + 

Muriel seemed to think that was natural enough. + 

“Ask him to come tomorrow,” she said. + 

Jane was putting on her hat. + 

“All right,” she said. She was at the front door before she remembered her manners. She went straight back into the living-room, and shook hands with Mrs. Lester. + 

“I had a lovely time, Mrs. Lester,” said Jane. Mrs. Lester looked a little bewildered, but Jane didn’t stop to explain. It certainly wasn’t necessary. As soon as she reached the hall she heard Muriel giggling about it in the living-room. + 

“Is Isabel in?” asked Jane, as soon as Minnie opened the front door. + 

“No,” said Minnie. + 

“Is Mamma?” asked Jane. + 

“No,” said Minnie again. + 

“Minnie,” said Jane confidentially, “I’m going to have a caller.” + 

Minnie looked very much surprised. + 

“It’s André,” said Jane. “When he comes just take him into the library and say you will tell me. And, Minnie,” said Jane almost pleadingly, “don’t call up the stairs.” + 

This display of formality Jane felt she owed to André’s changed voice. She had been thinking of it ever since she had heard it. André must be very different. André had been away three months. André must have met lots of other girls, English ones and French ones, too, over in Europe. Still⁠—he had telephoned her just as soon as he had arrived. Jane still laughed a little, excitedly all to herself, when she thought of that. + 

She ran up the stairs and hurried into her bedroom. She took off her little sailor hat and went up to her bureau and began to do over her hair. She parted it very neatly and pulled it down over her forehead in front and pinned up the braid under the black hair ribbon and wished, terribly, that she had a curly bang like Muriel’s. Then she pulled her belt two holes tighter over her white shirt waist and looked critically at her figure in the mirror. Her waist was all right. It was really just as small as Muriel’s. It was smaller than Flora’s. The doorbell rang just as she arrived at that comforting decision. She took a clean handkerchief out of her upper bureau-drawer and put three drops of German cologne on it and tucked it in her belt. + 

Minnie appeared at the door. She was smiling all over. + 

“He’s come,” she said. “He looks awful big.” + 

Jane ran down the stairs feeling very much excited. She glanced at herself once more in the mirror under the hat-rack and then passed on to the library door. André was standing on the hearth rug. He did look awfully big, and somehow broader about the shoulders. His coat sleeves were just a little short for his arms. As soon as he saw Jane he broke into a beaming smile. + 

“Hello, Jane,” he said. + 

Jane was smiling, too, all over. She walked quickly over to him and held out her hand. His closed completely over it. He didn’t let it go immediately. + 

“I’m awfully glad to see you,” he said. + 

His voice was certainly very different. And his cheeks, though just as red, looked just a little darker and harder. Jane realized, with a sudden blush, that André had begun to shave. She almost felt as if she oughtn’t to have noticed a thing like that. + 

“Won’t you sit down?” said Jane politely. + 

“Won’t you?” said André with a smile. + 

Jane suddenly realized that she hadn’t. They both laughed, then, and sat down side by side on the sofa near the hearth. + 

“I think we might have the fire,” said Jane a little doubtfully. Isabel had it, always, when she had callers. “It’s not very cold, but it makes the room look nicer.” + 

André jumped up again and struck a match and lit the paper under the birch logs. + 

“I love this room, anyway,” said André. “It looks just like you.” + 

Jane flushed with pleasure. She loved the room, too, but she thought it looked just like her father. It was very different from the yellow drawing-room across the hall. It was quite small and the walls were covered with black-walnut bookcases with glass doors, behind which the leather-covered volumes of her father’s library glowed in subdued splendour. Over the bookcases were four steel engravings, one of George Washington and one of Thomas Jefferson and one of Daniel Webster and one of Abraham Lincoln⁠—the four greatest Americans, her father always said. On the mantelpiece was a mahogany bust of William Shakespeare. “The Bard of Avon” was carved in a ribbon scroll on its little pedestal. The sofa by the fire was covered in dark brown velvet and there were two big leather chairs and a revolving one, that Jane used to like to swing on when she was little, behind the big green baize-topped desk of black walnut. Near the desk was a globe on a black-walnut standard, with a barometer hanging over it. That was all there was in the room except a big branching rubber tree in the one west window. Just now the September sun was slanting obliquely in across Pine Street, striking the glass bookcase doors, making them look just a little dusty, and the firelight was dancing on the shiny surfaces of polished walnut, here and there, in the darker corners, and shining on the big brass humidor on the desk that held her father’s cigars. + 

André sat down again beside her on the sofa. + 

“What happened to you this summer?” asked André. “You look awfully grown-up.” + 

“It’s my hair,” said Jane, referring to the knot on her neck. “Nothing happened to any of us except the World’s Fair.” + 

“I must go right down there,” said André. “I never really saw it before we sailed in June.” + 

“Muriel wants you to go tomorrow night,” said Jane, and unfolded the plan. André was delighted. He could go, of course. + 

“And what have you been doing all summer?” asked Jane, when they had exhausted the subject of Muriel’s party. She had a most delightful sensation of being a real young lady. Leading the conversation, like a hostess, with ease and distinction from one subject to another. But it seemed a little strange to be talking to André like this, quite seriously on the library sofa instead of up on the playroom window seat or out in the side yard beneath the willow tree. + 

His face lit up at the question. + 

“Oh, Jane!” he said. “It’s been great. You would have just loved it. I couldn’t tell you in my letters. I⁠—I hated to come back, really, except⁠—except⁠—” His voice broke a little and sounded young and trembly. He didn’t look at her. “Except for you.” + 

That made him seem like the same old André. Jane felt that happy feeling again, deep down inside. But she didn’t know just what to say to him. + 

“Tell me what it was like,” she ventured, after a little pause. + 

He began then, in a great rush, just as he always did when he wanted to share things with her. Jane’s eyes grew big and round as she listened, and they never left his face. It sounded just like books. Different books, and all of them nice ones. June in London lodgings. That was like Punch and Dickens and Thackeray. And July in his grandfather’s house in Bath. That was like Jane Austen. And August and September in Paris, working with his clay in an artist’s studio, living with his father in a garret bedroom on the Rue de l’Université, eating at little iron tables on the sidewalks of cafés, and drinking at them too, red wine in carafes, as everyone did in France, why⁠—that was just like Trilby. The book that Rosalie had lent to Isabel and Jane had read, knowing perfectly well that she shouldn’t, that it wasn’t at all the kind of book her mother would wish her to read. + 

“A real artist, André?” she asked. “In a real studio?” + 

“You bet he was. A friend of Rodin’s. He wouldn’t have let me mess around except that he had always known my father. I learned a lot from him. More than in any regular class. I⁠—I did a study of your hands, Jane. I brought it back to show you.” + 

Jane stared entranced. Why, this was just like Trilby. Trilby’s beautiful bare foot⁠—and Little Billee. + 

“André! I’ll love to see it.” + 

“It’s pretty good,” he said. His eyes were on her hands, clasped tight in ecstasy. “I remembered just how they were.” He looked up laughing. “But you can’t have it.” + 

“Oh!” she said fervently, “I⁠—I don’t want it! I want you to keep it. I just want to see it⁠—” + 

“Who lit the fire, Minnie?” said her mother’s voice. Jane hadn’t heard the doorbell. Her mother stood in the doorway. André sprang to his feet. + 

“It’s André, Mamma.” + 

Her little look of annoyance over the fire faded instantly into one of surprise. She held out her hand and smiled up at André exactly as if he were one of Isabel’s callers. + 

“Why, you’ve grown up,” she said. + 

André smiled and blushed and Jane suddenly realized that he towered over both of them. + 

“You’re quite a young gentleman,” said her mother, still smiling. “Have you had a nice summer?” + 

“He’s been working in a studio in Paris,” said Jane. And realized instantly that it was the wrong thing to say. It didn’t please her mother. + 

“Oh,” she said, “in a Paris studio?” + 

“Yes,” said André confidingly. “It was lots of fun.” That was the one stupid thing about André. He never seemed to sense what people were thinking. Was it because he never, never cared? + 

“Was it, indeed?” said her mother and her tone seemed somehow to terminate André’s call. + 

Jane walked to the door with him. + 

“I’ll call up Muriel,” said André, “and see you tomorrow night.” + 

“Yes,” said Jane. + 

“I am glad to be back,” said André. + 

“Are you?” said Jane a little wistfully. “I’m glad you’re glad.” + 

Muriel telephoned to her after dinner. André was coming and so were Bob and Teddy. Flora was delighted with the plan. She was all alone in the big brown stone house. Her father had gone to New York for a board meeting and her mother had gone away rather suddenly to spend three days with her sister in Galena, who wasn’t very well. Rosalie wanted Isabel to come, too. She’d get another man. + 

“She said to tell Isabel,” said Muriel, giggling over the wire, “that she knew who.” + 

Jane knew who, too. She must mean Robin Bridges, Isabel’s latest beau. She ran back to the parlor to tell the family all about it. Isabel looked very pleased. + 

“That’s nice of Lily Furness to go up to stay with that unattractive sister,” said Jane’s mother. + 

“And in Galena, too,” said Isabel. + 

“Lily Furness has her nice side,” said Jane’s mother. + 

Jane went upstairs to see if her foulard frock needed pressing. It seemed to bring the party nearer to be doing something about it. + 

II + 

Jane woke next morning in a state of great excitement. For a minute she couldn’t quite recollect, as she lay in her big walnut bed with the early sunshine streaming in her east window, just what was going to happen that was so very nice. She felt strangely entangled by dreams that she couldn’t remember. Happy dreams, though, and vivid, but lost even as she tried to clutch after them. Then she knew. André was back. André still⁠—liked her. She was going to see André that evening at Muriel’s party. + 

Jane sprang from her bed and ran to the window. It was a lovely day. The sky was bright and blue above the willow tree. The tree itself was waving, silvery green, in the soft September breeze. There would be a moon that evening. She had looked it up in the weather report in the paper, the night before. + 

André would like the World’s Fair. He would like those vast white buildings standing stark in the moonbeams. And the twinkling lights on restless, moving water. And the terrace at the restaurant. And the music. And the crowds. It would be fun to see him see it. + 

Soon after breakfast she was called to the telephone. At the sound of Muriel’s voice Jane was awfully afraid that something dreadful had happened. But no, the party was getting better and better. Flora had called up Muriel to say that her father had come home from New York unexpectedly that morning. As his wife was in Galena he wanted to join the party. He had asked if Mr. Lester would let him take them all down to the fair grounds in the tally-ho. + 

The tally-ho! Even Muriel had thought that that would be magnificent. The Furnesses’ coach and four was quite the most splendid vehicle that Jane and Muriel had ever seen. They weren’t asked to ride on it very often. Mr. Furness had bought it only that summer and Flora herself seldom went on the elegant parties that he drove up the lake to the end of the pavement, or down to Washington Park, with the clatter of prancing hoofs and the jingle of chain harness and the toot of the triumphant horn. Mr. Furness was quite a judge of horseflesh. He always sat on the box seat, very plump and straight, his short arms stiffly outstretched to hold the four yellow reins, his whip cocked at the proper horse show angle, and his high hat cocked too, just a little bit, over his fat puffy face and great pale eyes. It was always fun to stand in the yard with Flora to watch his parties start out from under the porte-cochère. Tall, frock-coated, high-hatted gentlemen helping beautiful billowing ladies to climb up the little steps to the top of the coach in their voluminous silken flounces. Beautiful billowing ladies, blushing at the display of slender ankles. Flora’s mother was always the most beautiful and billowing and blushing of all. + 

And this afternoon he was coming to pick them all up at five o’clock and Jane and Isabel must be ready at the window, for Flora’s father never liked to be kept waiting, holding his pawing horses, at anyone’s door. Jane assured Muriel earnestly that she would be on the front steps. Of course she would. She didn’t even want to miss seeing the coach swing around the corner, clattering and jingling and tooting⁠—the Furnesses’ new coach⁠—to pick her up to drive all the way down to Jackson Park with André, to show him the World’s Fair. + 

At four o’clock Jane began very seriously dressing for the party. She solemnly considered the possibility of borrowing Isabel’s curling tongs, but the sight of her sister, standing nervously in petticoat and combing jacket, heating the tongs in question for her own use at the gas jet beside her rosewood bureau, dissuaded her from the thought. Isabel didn’t like to be bothered when she was dressing. + 

“I wish you wouldn’t talk to me,” she said irritably, when her mother came in, conversationally minded, and sat sociably down on the sofa. Mrs. Ward rose obediently and almost ran into Jane at the door. They walked together down the hall. All the family had learned it was better never to disturb Isabel. But her voice floated out to them, down the passage. + 

“Shall I wear the blue or the green?” she called abstractedly. Jane’s mother turned back, with interest. + 

“The green, I think, dear.” + 

Jane went into her own bedroom. She wouldn’t borrow the curling tongs. She would rough up her hair by running her comb through it the wrong way. That, after all, would be safer. Jane had never used curling tongs. It would be better not to experiment for such an important party. + 

At a quarter to five Jane came out of her front door and looked anxiously up the street. It was perfectly empty, save for one yellow ice-wagon that was waiting, halfway down the block. The big white horses stood patiently, their noses in feedbags. Their flanks were just a little yellow, as if the paint from the wagon had run into them. The iceman was a long time delivering the ice. Jane knew him well. He was a friend of Minnie’s. + 

Jane sat down on the top step, carefully turning up the skirt of her blue foulard frock so that she wouldn’t soil it. The mellow afternoon sunlight slanted down the quiet street. The grass plots looked yellow-green behind their iron palings. The elm trees were just a little brown and rusty with the decline of summer, but they still hung plume-like and ponderous, almost meeting over the cedar block pavement. The big red brick and brown stone houses stood tranquilly in their wide yards. Down at the corner was a grey brick block of five high-stooped residences. Jane’s mother had thought it was dreadful when they were built, five years before. + 

“Eyesores!” she had said. She declared they spoiled the street. She thought it would be horrible to live in them and share a party wall with a neighbor. “Dark as a pocket,” was her phrase. Jane’s father had advanced the theory that, with the rise of real estate values, they’d live to see the yards built up all around them. + 

“You might as well say,” Jane’s mother had said incredulously, “that we’ll all be living in flats before we die⁠—one on top of the other like sardines in a box.” + 

They had all laughed at that. Jane didn’t know anyone who lived in a flat except André. + 

The iceman came out of the house down the street, suggestively wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He hung up the ice tongs at the back of the wagon, then stepped around to take off the horses’ nosebags and climbed up over the wheel to the driver’s seat. + 

“Gittap!” he said. His voice echoed down the quiet block. The horses lumbered awkwardly into motion. Jane waved at him as he went by. + 

Suddenly the coach swung around the corner, a warning fanfare sounding on the horn. + 

“Isabel!” screamed Jane. It seemed terribly important not to keep Mr. Furness waiting a single second. Isabel appeared at the door. She looked very blond and pretty in her bright green dress. She had borrowed their mother’s black silk cape. She shaded her eyes against the western sun and waved cheerfully to Rosalie as the coach drew up at the door. + 

The groom sprang down with incredible alacrity and took up his position at the bridle of the prancing roan leaders. The horses arched their pretty necks and pawed the cedar pavement. The chain harness jingled and the smart red rosettes on their bridles fluttered with their restless motion. Jane and Isabel ran down the steps. + 

The coach was a chaos of festive colour and movement. Mrs. Lester had her purple parasol and Muriel her bright red frock and Flora her pale blue one. Rosalie looked lovely in rose-coloured taffeta, sitting with Mr. Furness on the box seat, but leaning back to talk to Freddy Waters, on the row behind her. Jane realized with relief that Edith had not come. But Bob and Teddy were there, and Robin Bridges for Isabel. André was on the back seat, close by the little platform where the groom stood up to blow the horn. Jane scrambled up over the back wheel to sit beside him, while Robin was helping Isabel up the little steps. + 

“Where’s Jane?” said Mrs. Lester, bewildered. + 

“I’m here!” piped Jane, brushing the dust off her flounces. + 

Mr. Furness waved his whip and flicked it over the shoulders of the leaders. The little groom sprang back, under peril of instant dissolution. The horses plunged and started. The groom climbed up behind Jane and André. In a minute they were trotting smartly down Pine Street and the wind was blowing freshly in Jane’s face, blowing her hair across her pink cheeks as she laughed up at André, terribly happy to be driving like this, right under the boughs of the elm trees, high up in the air, almost on a level with the second stories of the houses, laughing at André, with a whole evening before her that was going to be such fun. + 

The sun had long been set when they reached the fair grounds. They all climbed down from the coach and strolled in the gathering twilight past the glimmering, glamorous buildings, through the jostling, pleasure-bent crowd until they reached the restaurant. + 

“Let’s eat on the terrace,” said Rosalie. The September night was very mild. Mr. Furness found a waiter who made one long table out of five so all twelve of them could sit together. Jane sat between André and Freddy Waters. Freddy didn’t speak to her once, all through the meal, he was so busy talking to Rosalie on his other side and answering the sallies of Isabel from across the table. André didn’t say much, either. + 

“Is this like Paris?” Jane asked him. She meant the terrace and the candlelit tables and the sky overhead, with just the largest stars gleaming faintly through the yellow glow of the fair grounds. + 

“Something,” said André. “Paris is really just like itself.” Jane felt a little disappointed. She had hoped so much that it was. + 

The moon came up before the meal was over, a little lopsided, just past the full, enormous and very clear, out of the waters of the lake. It made a silver path from the horizon to the very foot of the terrace. + 

“There’s nothing like that in Paris,” said André solemnly. Jane felt a little better about Chicago. When dinner was over they started for the Midway. The crowds were dreadful there, but Jane loved the side shows. Rosalie had her fortune told and so did Isabel and so did Muriel. But Mr. Furness didn’t want Flora to touch the dirty gypsy and Jane didn’t want to hear her fortune with André there and Muriel at hand to giggle, Muriel had even giggled at Freddy Waters when the gypsy found a blond young man in Rosalie’s pink palm. + 

Then they went to the Streets of Cairo and rode riotously on camels. Mrs. Lester sat on a green bench beside Mr. Furness and laughed herself into hysteria as the girls climbed timorously up on the leather saddles, clutching at petticoats in a vain attempt to cover protruding ankles, when the dreadful animals lurched clumsily to their feet and rocked away. It was like nothing else than an earthquake, Jane decided, as she clung desperately to the awkward humps. + 

Later Mrs. Lester shepherded them safely past the hoochee-coochee dances and the perils of the Dahomey Village to the more adequately clothed Esquimos, who tactfully volunteered upon question, as a tribute to the Chicago climate, that they felt the cold more on the Midway than in Labrador. The Ferris wheel loomed up before them in the night. They must all go up in that, Rosalie decided. + 

Jane stepped into one of the swinging cars in front of André. She had never been up in the Ferris wheel before. The compartments looked as small as bird cages when dangling in midair. Jane was surprised to see that they were really almost as big as street cars. She sat down with André in a corner seat. The car swayed slightly as the wheel started. They moved up and out, then stopped again while other cars were loading. They swung slowly around the huge circumference, starting and stopping at regular intervals. The ground fell away beneath them and Jane lost all sense of movement. The car seemed suspended motionless in midair, with the ground sliding sideways beneath it and the great steel trusses of the wheel revolving slowly past the window. It paused a moment as they reached the top of the circle. The lights of the fair grounds glittered brightly below them. Long lines of yellow street lamps radiated out in the darkness. + 

The illuminated cable-cars on Cottage Grove Avenue crawled like mechanical toys. The glow of the city was visible at the north but the stars overhead were lost in the radiance of the myriad gas-lamps of the Midway. The silver moon looked incredibly remote, hung halfway up the eastern sky. + 

Jane drew in her breath with a little gasp of delight. Why⁠—flying must be like this! They started slowly down again around the great wheel. The car swung out over the circle’s edge. It seemed horribly unsupported, hanging dizzily over an abyss. Jane shut her eyes quickly and groped for André’s hand. She felt a distinct shock of surprise when his fingers closed on hers. + 

“I⁠—I’m giddy,” she said faintly. + 

André took her hand in both his own. + 

“Keep your eyes shut,” he said practically. He moved a little nearer on the seat and his arm rested against her shoulder. “All right, now?” he asked. + 

“Yes,” said Jane faintly, still not daring to look. André continued to hold her hand in his. The starting and stopping went on disquietingly. + 

“Aren’t we nearly there?” asked Jane. + 

“We go around twice,” said André. “The second time without stopping.” + 

“Can’t I get out?” asked Jane. + 

“No,” said André, “but it’s all right now. You can look.” + 

She did, and removed her hand from his as they moved slowly by the crowded landing platform and out and up once more into the heavenly vault. + 

“Shut your eyes again,” said André very capably as they began the descent. He took her hand as if a precedent had been established. Jane felt his fingers close reassuringly about her own. She was roused a moment later by a giggle from Muriel. She pulled her hand away and forgot to be dizzy in the heat of her indignation. Muriel was outrageous. The car stopped at the landing stage. Everyone crowded out. + 

They strolled back, now, for a look at the Court of Honour before picking up the coach at the gates. Mrs. Lester was tired and walked very slowly at Mr. Furness’s side. No one said much of anything. Even Rosalie and Isabel were silent. The lights from the Japanese teahouse on the Wooded Island glimmered across the pond. A few scattered gondolas were drifting softly in the moonlight. Jane watched their graceful motion. + 

“Have you ever been in Venice?” she asked. + 

“No,” said André. + 

“I went there on my wedding trip,” said Mrs. Lester. + 

“That’s what I mean to do,” said André. + 

Jane walked along in silence, looking very straight before her. She was a little startled by her own thoughts. + 

The Court of Honour was ablaze with light and crowded with people. The strains of a Strauss waltz, rising and falling with the light September breeze, fell faintly on their ears. John Philip Sousa was conducting his orchestra in the open air band stand. + 

“I’d like to see the MacMonnies fountain,” said André. + 

“Well⁠—there it is,” said Mrs. Lester wearily. She didn’t look as if she wanted so see much of anything any more. The party strolled over to the Grand Basin and leaned against the parapet of stucco. Mrs. Lester sank on a green bench. MacMonnies’s medieval barge, propelled by Arts and Sciences, with the figure of Time at the helm, rose sharply up before them in the moonlight, amid its misty jets of water. André stood silent at Jane’s side, looking at it intently. + 

“I like it,” he said. + 

Flora was leaning a little wearily against the parapet beside her father. Isabel and Robin and Rosalie and Freddy and Muriel and the two other boys were laughing together, facing the band stand, a few feet away. The Strauss waltz was over, but Sousa was still leading his band. Suddenly he raised his arm. The high, shrill notes of a comet solo rose above the orchestral accompaniment. The sweet, sentimental strains soared over the heads of the restless, moving crowd. Freddy Waters began very softly to sing. His eyes were fixed a little mockingly on Rosalie’s pretty, laughing face. It was De Koven’s love song. + 

“Oh, promise me that some day you and I + 

Will take our love together to some sky⁠—” + 

Jane was looking at André’s stern young profile. He was still quite intent on the fountain. Freddy Waters continued to sing: + 

“Where we can be alone and faith renew⁠—” + 

Suddenly Flora gave a little startled cry. + 

“Why, there’s Mamma!” She pointed in the direction from which they had come. Jane turned quickly, in surprise, to look. + 

There, gliding from the darkness into light, beneath the little bridge across the lagoon, was a single gondola. The romantic figure of the gondolier stood stark in the moonlight. The light from a lamp on the parapet fell clearly on the faces of his passengers. Jane recognized them in an instant. They were Mr. Bert Lancaster and Flora’s mother. Flora’s mother, looking more beautiful than Jane had ever seen her, with a long black lace veil about her head, hiding her golden hair, framing the oval of her lovely face. A veil of mystery and romance. + 

It was over in a moment. The gondola turned, on a deft stroke of the oar, and the hood hid its passengers. Mrs. Lester had risen to her feet at Flora’s cry. She stood there, now, at Mr. Furness’s side, still staring at the unconscious back of the gondolier. Suddenly she threw a quick glance at Mr. Furness. Jane’s eyes followed hers. Flora’s father was looking after the gondola, too, and his great pale eyes were almost starting out of his head. His lips were trembling under his grey moustache and his face looked queer and wooden, as if all expression had been wiped out of it. Mrs. Lester looked quickly at Flora, Jane, and André. André’s eyes had never left the fountain. Mrs. Lester put her arm around Flora. + 

“It did look like your mother, didn’t it, dear?” said Mrs. Lester kindly. “But of course it couldn’t have been, as she’s in Galena.” + 

Mr. Furness stirred at that. + 

“We⁠—we’d best be going home,” he muttered thickly. + 

Mrs. Lester threw him a strangely admiring glance. + 

“Yes. That’s best,” she said simply. None of the others had seen it. They moved slowly off toward the entrance gates. + 

Jane thought it was all very funny. Mrs. Lester and Mr. Furness looked so very queer. And of course that was Flora’s mother. She had seen her quite distinctly. Suddenly she realized that Mrs. Lester was beside her. + 

“Wait a minute, Jane,” she said kindly. “Your frock’s unbuttoned.” + 

Jane paused, blushing, and Mrs. Lester’s fat friendly fingers fumbled up and down her back. + 

“That wasn’t Flora’s mother, Jane,” she said, as she stood behind her. “It did look very like her. But it wasn’t. Flora was mistaken.” + 

Jane didn’t reply. This was funnier and funnier. Why did Mrs. Lester care so much? People often saw Flora’s mother out with Mr. Bert Lancaster. Freddy Waters had seen them last week, lunching at the Richelieu. + 

“Jane⁠—” said Mrs. Lester, and stopped. + 

“Yes,” said Jane, twisting about to look at her. + 

“I don’t like to tell a little girl not to⁠—to tell her mother anything,” said Mrs. Lester hesitatingly, “but I wouldn’t⁠—I wouldn’t mention Flora’s mistake at home. Not even to Isabel.” + 

Jane looked at her wonderingly. + 

“It⁠—it might make trouble,” said Mrs. Lester falteringly. + 

Jane understood that, though she didn’t understand why. Jane knew all about things that made trouble. Things that were never forgotten and always discussed. Funny little things. Like André’s Paris studio. + 

“I won’t mention it, Mrs. Lester,” she said firmly. + 

Mrs. Lester looked incredibly grateful. + 

“Good little Jane,” she said; “I don’t like to give you a secret.” + 

Jane privately thought that it wasn’t her first. She couldn’t remember a time when there weren’t things she knew it was wiser not to say to her mother and Isabel. She smiled brightly at Mrs. Lester. + 

“I don’t mind,” she said. + 

The drive home was just a little cold and very strange and silent. Jane found herself, rather unexpectedly, on the box seat with Mr. Furness. Mrs. Lester had André in the row behind. The others sat back of them, singing a little just at first, reminiscent strains of “Oh, Promise Me,” then lapsing into silence. Mr. Furness never spoke once, all the way home. He drove very fast, flicking his horses with his whip, until they broke their trot and cantered for a step or two, then pulling them in again, with a great tug of the reins. The leaders reared once, near the Rush Street Bridge, and Jane very nearly screamed. + 

“I had a lovely time, Mr. Furness,” she said, as they drew up in front of the house on Pine Street. He didn’t seem to hear her. + 

“Good night, Mrs. Lester,” said Jane politely. “I had a lovely time.” + 

Mrs. Lester held her hand a moment and patted it. + 

“You’re a good little girl, Jane. I’m sure you can be trusted.” + 

“Oh, yes, Mrs. Lester,” said Jane. And then, “Good night, André.” + 

“Good night,” said André. “I’ll call you up in the morning.” + 

“Why does Mrs. Lester think you can be trusted?” said Isabel curiously, as she was fishing in her bag for the door-key. + 

“I don’t know,” said Jane. “I can’t imagine.” + 

Isabel opened the door. As they walked down the hall their mother called over the bannisters. + 

“Was it fun, girls?” She was sitting up for them in her lavender wrapper. She followed Isabel into her bedroom to talk it all over. Isabel seemed to have lots to say. + 

“I never saw Freddy so gone on anyone as he is on Rosalie. I think he’s really in love with her. Of course, I don’t say he would be if she didn’t have money, but⁠—” Jane’s mother closed Isabel’s door. + 

Jane went into her own room alone. She could hear their whispering voices, broken by low laughter, long after her light was out. It was funny, Jane thought, but it was perfectly true. Telling lies made you trustworthy. + 

III + 

I + 

“I don’t know why you want to go,” said Jane’s mother, “anyway.” + 

“Just to the Thomas concert,” said Isabel. + 

“And down in the street cars,” said Jane’s mother, “in your pretty frock.” + 

“Well⁠—I do,” said Jane. + 

It was a party of Agnes’s that was under discussion. Agnes had asked her, yesterday in school, to come up to dinner that evening and go down to the Auditorium later to the Thomas concert. Agnes’s mother was going to work that night. She couldn’t use her seat. Agnes’s father would take them. Jane’s mother and Isabel had argued about it all last evening and now they were beginning all over again at the breakfast table. + 

“Oh, let her go,” said Jane’s father. “It can’t hurt her.” + 

Jane smiled at him gratefully. Mrs. Ward sighed and poured herself a second cup of coffee. + 

“You don’t make it any easier, John,” she said, “to control the children.” + 

“Papa, can I go?” asked Jane, appealing directly to the higher court, a little impertinently. + 

“Of course she can go, can’t she, Lizzie?” said her father, smiling disarmingly o’er the morning Tribune. + 

“Oh⁠—I suppose so,” said Mrs. Ward, with a resigned shrug. “We won’t have much more of it. Agnes goes to Bryn Mawr in the fall.” + 

Jane’s eyes met her father’s with a little gleam of understanding. But there was no use in opening the college issue, just then. It was late April, and Jane was almost ready for her final examinations. She was going to take them, anyway. Miss Milgrim insisted on that. She rose from the table to telephone to Agnes. + 

“I’m coming up early,” she said, “and I’m going to bring my Virgil. We can read over that passage.” Jane loved Latin, but she wasn’t nearly as good at it as Agnes. She wasn’t nearly as good as Agnes at anything. Agnes was terribly bright. Agnes was going abroad that summer, to tutor a little girl. She was going to England and Germany and Switzerland. Both she and Jane were awfully excited about it. Agnes was eighteen. + 

Jane left the house quite early with her Virgil. She walked up the Drive and west through the Park to Center Street. It was a beautiful, breezy day, with a wind off the lake. The elm trees were in tiny feathery leaf. The yellow forsythia was in bloom. The heart-shaped leaves of the lilacs were very soft and small. They hadn’t begun to bud yet. Jane left the Park and crossed the Clark Street car-tracks and wondered, as she did so, why they formed such a social Rubicon. Her mother and Isabel never had any opinion of anyone who lived west of Clark Street. It was the worst thing they had to say of Agnes. + 

Agnes lived in a little brown wooden house in a street of other little brown and grey wooden houses. Some of them had quite large yards and here and there was a newly planted garden. The street was lined with cottonwood trees. Their flickering leaves looked very bright and sticky in the April sunshine. The wooden sidewalk was covered, here and there, with a dust of cottonwood seed. Agnes’s street was very like the country. + 

Agnes’s house had a little front porch and Agnes was sitting on it in an old maple rocking chair. Agnes was reading a French book. Jane knew what it was, Extracts Selected and Edited from Voltaire’s Prose, by Cohn and Woodward. + 

Agnes was reading it quite easily, without a dictionary. Agnes was going to take some advanced standing examinations in French in the fall. She closed the book with a bang as Jane came up the front steps. Jane sat down on the top one. + 

“This is lovely,” said Jane. “Like summer.” It really was. The sun fell hot and bright on the wooden steps. Agnes’s father had put out some crocuses along the little path that led to the gate. Some little boys were playing baseball in the empty lot across the street. Agnes’s next-door neighbor was hanging out the wash⁠—great wet flapping sheets that waved like banners in the spring breeze. Behind her a row of children’s dresses, pink and green and yellow and blue and four pair of men’s white underdrawers danced a fantastic ballet on a second clothesline. + 

“I like your street, Agnes,” said Jane. + 

Then they buckled down to the Aeneid. They were reading the end of Book IV. The part about Dido’s funeral pyre. Agnes could read it so well that it almost made Jane cry, at the end. + 

“Vixi et quem dederat cursum fortuna peregi, + 

Et nunc magna mei sub terras ibit imago.” + 

Agnes crooned the sonorous lines, then translated slowly. + 

“I have lived and accomplished the task that destiny gave me and now I shall pass beneath the earth no common shade.” + 

“That’s beautiful,” said Jane. “Nice and proud. That’s the way you ought to feel if you were dying. Not snivelling, you know, or frightened, or crying over spilled milk.” + 

“It didn’t do her much good,” said Agnes, turning over a page or two. “The next book begins ‘In the meantime, Aeneas unwaveringly pursued his way across the waters.’ He didn’t turn back, you know, though he saw the light from the flames.” + 

“I don’t care,” said Jane stoutly, “what Aeneas did. He was a poor thing anyway. But Dido died like a lady. A gallant lady. I hope I’ll never cry over spilled milk, Agnes.” + 

“I don’t believe you will,” said Agnes. Her funny freckled face was bent very admiringly on Jane. “You’re as gallant as anyone I know. Always running uphill. I bet I see you in Bryn Mawr in October. I bet you get there.” + 

Jane was suddenly electrified to see André turn the corner and come walking up the street. He waved his cap to the two girls. + 

“Agnes!” said Jane. “Did you ask André?” + 

“This afternoon,” said Agnes. “Dad telephoned that he couldn’t go with us. He was kept at the newspaper.” + 

“But who is going with us?” asked Jane. + 

“André,” said Agnes. + 

“Just you⁠—and me⁠—and André?” asked Jane again. + 

“Yes,” said Agnes. “And we have to cook our own dinner first. Mother’s down at the office.” + 

André turned in at the gate. Agnes sprang up to meet him. Jane sat very soberly on the top step, pricking a brown paint blister with her finger nail, her eyes on the worn porch floor. Her mother wouldn’t like this, thought Jane. Her going with André and Agnes, alone, to the Thomas concert. Jane didn’t like it, herself. Jane knew perfectly well she ought to have some older person with her when she went out in the evening. She felt very much troubled. + 

“Hello, Jane,” said André. “Can’t you smile?” + 

Jane tried to. + 

“Can you scramble eggs, André?” asked Agnes. + 

“Just watch me!” said André. “If you’ve got some ham I can make eggs Benedictine.” + 

“If we haven’t,” said Agnes, “we can get it at the grocery.” + 

They all went into the house. Agnes’s house always looked just a little mussy. Not mussy like the Lesters’, because people lived all over it, but mussy in quite another way, as if nobody lived in it quite enough. The living-room was often dusty and the chairs and sofas weren’t pushed around quite right. They looked as if the people they belonged to never had time to sit down on them. The dining-room had a funny unused look. The fernery needed water and the dishes were piled a little askew in the golden-oak built-in sideboard. André and Agnes and Jane were going to eat in the kitchen. The kitchen was the nicest room in the house. + 

It was quite large and the stove was always beautifully polished. There were two rocking-chairs in it, near the window that looked over the yard. The curtains were made of blue and white gingham and a blue-and-white tablecloth covered the kitchen table. Mrs. Johnson’s mending basket stood on one corner. Agnes pitched it off onto one of the rocking chairs. + 

“Set the table, Jane,” said Agnes. She was peering into the icebox. “André,” she said solemnly, “there is ham.” + 

André tied a dishcloth around his waist and began to call for eggs and butter and lemon. He was going to make Hollandaise sauce. He picked up an eggbeater and poured his ingredients into a big yellow bowl. Jane was devoutly thankful that Flora and Muriel couldn’t see him. Agnes was taking the vegetable salad out of the icebox. André had views on salad dressing. Jane set the table very neatly and arranged the snow pudding on a plate. She went out on the back porch and picked six tiny leaves of Virginia creeper to trim the eggs Benedictine. There wasn’t any parsley. André was mixing the salad dressing when she came in again. Agnes had put the coffee on the stove. Jane couldn’t cook, at all. Agnes could do everything and André was certainly displaying latent talents that she had never suspected. + 

“This is like Paris,” he said to her with a grin. She had so often asked him if things were. But she would never have thought of putting that question in regard to the Johnsons’ kitchen. “This is just like the studio, except that there’s running water and a better stove.” + 

They all sat down together. The blue-and-white tablecloth looked very gay. The vegetable salad was used as a centre piece, a heaping pyramid of red beets and green beans and ecru cauliflower, piled on crisp lettuce leaves. The eggs Benedictine were perfectly delicious. Agnes’s coffee was awfully good. + 

Jane felt her spirits rising in spite of her conscience. She knew that her mother wouldn’t even approve of this meal alone in the house with just André and Agnes. She wouldn’t like their eating in the kitchen and she’d think it was terribly funny that André could cook. But Jane really couldn’t feel that there was anything to disapprove of in all that. Going downtown alone, at night, with just another girl and boy⁠—that was different. Still, Jane’s spirits were rising. It was certainly lots of fun. + 

Jane washed the dishes, later, and Agnes wiped them. They wouldn’t let André help them, so he sat in one of the rockers and made funny suggestions, and, after asking Agnes’s permission, smoked two cigarettes. André had begun to smoke with his father last summer in Paris. He didn’t do it very often and it always made Jane feel very queer to see him. It brought home to her, terribly vividly, that they were all growing up. + 

André was grown up, thought Jane, as she listened to him bantering Agnes. He really looked just like a young man, as he sat smoking in that rocking chair. An experienced young man. Not a boy at all. André was nineteen. He was going back to Paris in June to stay⁠—Jane couldn’t bear to think of it⁠—really forever. To go to the Sorbonne and work at the Beaux Arts and learn how to be a sculptor. It would take him years and years. + 

And Agnes was going, too. Going to Europe to tutor a little girl and then to Bryn Mawr for four long winters. Things would never be the same again. It made Jane feel very sad to think of that. + 

And she, Jane, would just have to stay in Chicago and go to Farmington for a year with Flora and Muriel, and come home and live with the family and go out like Isabel and never get away at all. Never get out in the world to see all the beautiful things that she’d read of in books and André had told her about. Just stay in Chicago⁠—and grow up⁠—and grow old⁠—like her mother or even Mrs. Lester. Flora’s mother hadn’t grown old, like that, of course. But Jane knew very well that she could never grow up to be like Flora’s mother. Flora herself might. Or maybe Muriel. But never Jane. There were tears in her eyes as she hung up the last damp dishcloth. + 

“What’s the matter, Jane?” asked André, in the hall. Agnes had run upstairs to get her hat and coat. “You’re awfully serious tonight.” + 

“I was just thinking how old we all were,” said Jane, mustering up a smile. “And how soon it would be all over⁠—good times like this I mean⁠—with Agnes in college and you⁠—” + 

She broke off abruptly. She was terribly afraid that she was going to cry. + 

André caught up her hand, suddenly, in the darkness. Jane gave a little gasp of astonishment. Almost of fright. + 

“I’ll never be very far away from you, Jane,” said André solemnly, “wherever I am.” + 

Jane knew what he meant. It was dear of him to say it. She loved to think that he would take her with him, to all those lovely places that she might never see. + 

“And I’ll come back, Jane,” said André, still more solemnly. That was even more comforting. + 

“Will you, really?” she breathed. His face was very near her. + 

“Of course I will,” he said, almost roughly. “Don’t you know I will?” + 

He dropped her hand again, as Agnes ran down the stairs. + 

Agnes went out in the kitchen to lock the back door. André turned out the lights. Agnes locked the front door as they stood on the porch together. It all seemed very simple⁠—not to have anything more to bother about than just what was in this little brown house. Jane thought of the fuss there always was at home when anyone left for a party, with Minnie racing up and down stairs on forgotten errands, and someone at the front window, watching for the cab, and her mother in the hall giving last counsel and directions. + 

“Have you got your key, dear? I’ll be sitting up for you. Try not to muss that nice frock. If you have anything good to eat, remember what it was. Haven’t you got your party shoes? Minnie! Run upstairs and bring down Jane’s party shoes. Nod to the cabman, Isabel. She’ll be out in a minute!” + 

Jane thought it would be very restful to go out like this, just locking the door and leaving, with no questions asked. She walked soberly down the street between André and Agnes. Agnes’s arm was linked in hers. The lamps were lighted, now, in all the little houses. You could see them on tables, with families grouped around them. No one pulled down window shades, much, on Agnes’s street. At home it was a solemn ritual of the twilight. Here you could see fathers with newspapers and mothers with mending and children bothering them, in almost every house. It was fun to peek in at them and think of all those different lives. + 

At the Clark Street corner they waited for the cable-car. Jane began to feel very conscience-stricken again. The car rumbled up and stopped and they all climbed up in the grip car in front. It was such a lovely evening; it was fun to ride in the open air. Jane still liked to look down the crack where the levers were and watch the grip pick up the cable. She had loved to do it as a little girl. + 

The car went on down Clark Street. It looked awfully dark and not very respectable. The light from the cable car flashed in the spring puddles along the road. The stores were all dark except the saloons and drug stores on the corners, and an occasional café in the centre of a block. Down near the river they passed a cheap burlesque house. “Ten, Twenty, Thirty,” it said, over the door. Jane could read the sign quite clearly in the flaring gas lights. And underneath there was a poster of eight kicking ladies in tights and ballet skirts. “The Original Black Crook Chorus,” was the legend above them. And below in great red letters with exclamation points, “Girls!!! Girls!!! Girls!!!” A dismal-looking crowd was gathering about the entrance. Jane felt more conscience-stricken than ever. The cable car plunged into the La Salle Street tunnel under the river. + 

The crowds on the other side were much less dismal and the lights were brighter and there were many more of them. The theatregoers were gathering around the scattered playhouses. They looked very cheerful and gay. There was something sinister about it all, however. The city seemed very dark and dangerous to Jane, though André and Agnes were chattering gaily on, as if nothing out of the usual were transpiring. + 

They got off the car where it turned at the corner of Monroe Street and started to walk south on Dearborn. Jane slipped her arm through André’s. She really had to. She felt too queer and unprotected in that dim, nocturnal thoroughfare. After a few blocks they turned east again and very soon the familiar entrance of the Auditorium loomed up in the dark like an old friend. + 

André and Agnes pushed casually through the concert crowd and ran up the great staircase. Agnes had good seats, in the front row of the balcony. Jane always thought the music sounded better there than downstairs. She wondered, though, if any of her mother’s friends would see her, perched up alone with André and Agnes. They would think it was very queer. + 

The orchestra was already assembled on the enormous stage. Theodore Thomas made his entrance as they took their seats. The first bars of the Third Symphony diverted Jane’s mind from all temporal troubles. They wafted her away from the world of her mother and Isabel, and even from that of André and Agnes, on waves of purest sound to an ethereal region where the problem of chaperonage didn’t matter. Jane leaned forward in her seat, intent on the music, watching the little waving arms of Theodore Thomas pulling that mysterious magic out of strings and keys. The Eroica Symphony⁠—how beautifully named! + 

The second movement made her think of Dido⁠—the throbbing Marcia Funebre for all gallant souls. She whispered as much to Agnes and fell to listening with closed eyes, dreaming of the deserted queen and the flames of the funeral pyre and Aeneas’s white sailed ships turned toward the promised land across the tossing seas. “I shall pass beneath the earth no common shade,” she whispered softly. A proud thought. A self-respecting thought. Something to live and die for. Something much better than just keeping a restive Aeneas, tied to your apron-strings. + 

She came out of her trance at the applause of the intermission. André was wild with enthusiasm. Agnes was talking of the German music she hoped to hear that summer. + 

“While you drink beer, Agnes!” cried André cheerfully. “And eat sausage. Beer and sausage do a lot for a symphony!” + 

The last half of the program was all Wagner. It was over all too soon. André and Agnes and Jane descended the stairs very slowly. Jane was beginning to think once more of the Clark Street cable car. + 

“I’ll take you home in a four-wheeler,” said André magnificently, as they stood at the entrance. “Jane looks tired.” + 

Jane smiled at him gratefully. André always understood. He hailed a disreputable vehicle. They all climbed in. It smelled dreadfully of the stable. André lowered the windows. They rattled quickly north up Wabash Avenue and over the Rush Street bridge and down Ohio Street, then turned into Pine. Nice familiar streets, safe ones, that Jane had known from her babyhood. Jane slipped quickly out of the cab at her door. + 

“Don’t come up the steps with me, André,” she said. “I’m all right.” + 

She opened the door with her latchkey. It was not late, barely half-past ten. Her mother came out of the library. She looked quite pleased. + 

“I didn’t think,” she said, “that Mr. Johnson would have the sense to bring you home in a cab.” + 

Jane made no comment. It was really a backhanded compliment for André, if her mother only knew it. And this time her mother was right, though there was no use in saying so. Jane knew perfectly well that a girl of almost seventeen shouldn’t go downtown alone with a couple of contemporaries to a Thomas concert in a Clark Street car. + 

II + 

“Don’t get oil on that coat!” called Jane’s mother from the dining-room window. Jane was oiling her bicycle under the willow tree. + 

“Don’t worry!” retorted Jane with a grin. The coat was made of tan covert cloth with large leg-of-mutton sleeves. It had just come home from the tailor’s and Jane thought quite as well of it as her mother did. It looked very pretty with her blue serge skirt and white shirtwaist and small blue sailor. She had laid it very carefully on the grass before getting out her oil can. + 

It was late June and school was over. Jane had just been thinking, under the willow tree, how strange it was that school, incredibly, was over forever. The Commencement Exercises had been very impressive. Jane and Agnes and Flora and Muriel had sat in a row on a temporary platform at the end of the study hall with seven other classmates, all dressed in white muslin and carrying beautiful bouquets of roses. A clergyman had prayed over them and a professor from Northwestern University had delivered an address on “Success in Life,” and Miss Milgrim had made a little speech about the Class of ’94 and all it had done for the school and had handed each of them a little parchment diploma tied with blue and yellow ribbon. Blue and yellow were the school colors. + 

Ten days before that Jane had taken her Bryn Mawr examinations. Only last week she had heard that she had passed them. Her mother had received that information with a tolerant smile. But her father had been very much pleased. He had given her a little green enamel pin shaped like a four-leaved clover, for luck, with a real pearl, like a dew drop, in the centre. She was wearing it now, at the collar of her shirtwaist. + 

Jane felt a little sad when she thought of that important entity, the Class of ’94, already irrevocably scattered. Agnes had sailed for England and the day after school closed Flora and her mother had left for Bar Harbor. The Lesters were packing up for the White Mountains. Edith was going to join them there later with her beautiful little boy. + 

Jane would see Flora and Muriel, of course, in September, but Agnes was gone for a year and, what was much worse, André was leaving for France next week. + 

Jane was waiting for him now, in the afternoon sunshine, under the willow tree. She was going on a supper picnic with his father and mother up the lake shore beyond the City Limits. Jane was oiling her Columbia Safety in preparation for the fête. Suddenly she saw him, pedaling down Pine Street, a big picnic box strapped to his handlebars. + 

“Yoo-hoo,” she called. + 

He waved his cap and turned to bump up over the curb stone, then dismounted at the gate. + 

“Ready?” he asked. + 

Jane picked up her coat and wheeled her bicycle down the path. + 

“Just,” she said. + 

André held her coat for her. + 

“Isn’t this new?” he inquired. + 

She nodded, smiling under her tiny hat brim. + 

“It’s awfully good-looking.” + 

Jane mounted her wheel. + 

“Where are your father and mother?” + 

André pointed. + 

“Here they come,” he said. “Aren’t they sweet?” + 

Jane’s glance followed his finger. Half a block away Mr. and Mrs. Duroy were approaching down Pine Street. They were mounted on a tandem bicycle. Mrs. Duroy’s tall figure rose above the handlebars with a certain angular ease. Her long brown skirts flapped gaily against her mudguard and her sailor hat was rakishly askew. Mr. Duroy, behind her, was riding the bumps of the cedar-block pavement with Gallic grace. He wore a grey tweed suit with knickerbockers and he looked very plump and elderly and debonair. When he saw Jane he waved his tweed cap and tried to kiss his hand and his eyeglasses fell off promptly. The wheel wobbled perilously as he recaptured them. + 

“Don’t be so gallant!” said Mrs. Duroy. “Hello, Jane.” + 

Jane and André bumped down over the curb and swung into line with them. Jane’s mother was waving from the parlor window. She was laughing, a little, at Mr. and Mrs. Duroy, but she looked very good-natured. As if she weren’t thinking anything worse about Mr. Duroy than that he was French. + 

Jane and André sailed easily ahead of the tandem. + 

“They are sweet,” said Jane. “They have so much fun together.” + 

“They always do,” said André. And added simply, “They’re so much in love.” + 

That was a strange comment, thought Jane, to make on a pair of parents. She would never have thought of saying it about her father and mother. Nor about Flora’s mother and Mr. Furness. To be sure Mrs. Lester often spoke very tenderly to Edith and Rosalie and Muriel of their father. But that was different. He was dead. Now that she came to think of it, it was obviously quite true of Mr. and Mrs. Duroy. He never looked at her, queer as she sometimes looked, without a little beam of admiration in his wise brown eyes. Even when they argued, as they often did, and he disagreed with her utterly, he greeted the sallies that routed him with a whimsical air of flattering applause. Very different from her father’s “Oh, all right, Lizzie!” that terminated so many domestic discussions. Funny, when she thought of it, she could hardly remember Flora’s mother ever speaking to Mr. Furness at all, really speaking to him, even to argue. Marriage was a strange thing. It began, she supposed, as André said, by being so much in love and it ended? + 

André’s thoughts must have followed hers. + 

“They’re lucky, I suppose,” he said. “All marriages aren’t like that.” + 

Jane didn’t reply. + 

“But they could be,” said André, “if people cared enough.” + 

Jane went on pedaling in silence. + 

“I don’t see how it comes,” said André, “that change⁠—in the way you feel⁠—toward the girl you want to⁠—marry.” + 

Jane still felt that really she had nothing to say. André had never talked just like this before. Of how people felt. Real people⁠—not people in books. It was part of growing up, she supposed. + 

The lake was very bright and blue as they bowled along up the Drive. The Park was lovely in fresh June leaf. North of the Park the city stopped abruptly. The yards grew larger and the big brick and frame houses further apart and the pavement very much more bumpy. For some time they had to follow the car-tracks, jolting off the cobblestones at intervals, to let the horsecars jingle by. Soon they turned off toward the east again. + 

The road here was so sandy that they had to push the bicycles and there were no more houses. Just clumps of willow trees and groves of scrub-oak and stone pine, with wild flowers underfoot. They heard the lake before they saw it. The sound of little waves, breaking and pausing and breaking again, on the long hard beaches. They found an oak wood, crowning a tiny sand dune. The ground was blue with wild geranium and a few late violets, purple and yellow dogtooth, stunted by the cool lake breeze, still lingered in the damper places. Beyond the trees was the great stretch of yellow sand and the stainless wash of blue that was the lake. + 

Mr. Duroy stretched himself beneath an oak and took out a long black cigar. Mrs. Duroy began unpacking the picnic basket at once. She had brought a little brass kettle, with an alcohol lamp, in which to boil water for tea. + 

“Don’t be so restless, m’amie,” said Mr. Duroy lazily. “The sun is still high.” + 

“It’s six o’clock,” said Mrs. Duroy capably, as she laid the tablecloth. Jane was getting out the sandwiches. André was walking over the sand to fill the kettle in the little breakers. + 

“She must be practical,” said Mr. Duroy to Jane. “It’s her British blood. Thank God I’m a Celt. What is time on a night like this?” His brown eyes twinkled as he watched Jane arranging the sandwiches in neat little piles on the paper plates. “But you, too, little Jane, are practical.” + 

“Oh, no!” said Jane earnestly. “Really, I’m not.” + 

“Why, then,” continued Mr. Duroy lazily, “do you arrange the sandwiches?” + 

Jane could easily answer that. + 

“Oh,” she said again, “I just do what’s expected of me.” + 

“That’s a bad habit,” said Mr. Duroy seriously. “Especially for youth. You must stop that in time, or you’ll never get anywhere.” + 

Jane looked at him, a little perplexed. André came back with the kettle. + 

“What must Jane stop?” he asked. + 

“Doing what’s expected of her,” said Mr. Duroy promptly. + 

“You’re right,” said André. “The unexpected is what’s fun.” + 

Mr. Duroy nodded at him approvingly. + 

It was all very well, thought Jane, for them to talk like that. Their lives were full of funny surprises. In three weeks they’d all be in Paris, where anything might happen. But the unexpected was never allowed to happen to her. If it ever did, thought Jane, she’d embrace it with joy. She’d fight for it, against the world, and hug it to her heart. + 

When the water was boiling they all began to eat their supper. The sun sank down behind the oak trees in a saffron sky and a silver glow hung over the eastern horizon. Almost immediately the great golden disk of the moon came up out of the lake. It rose, incredibly quickly, balanced a moment on the water’s edge, then floated, free, in the clear evening air. The sky was still quite blue. Jane could see Venus, through the tree trunks, low in the west, paled to a yellow candle in the afterglow. The colour faded quickly out of the world. The lake grew grey and the path of the moon more silvery. When Venus vanished in the sunset mists Jane could count seven stars, high overhead, piercing the pale sky. + 

Mr. Duroy lit his second cigar. André produced his cigarette. Mrs. Duroy lay flat on her back, her hands under her head, gazing spellbound at the moon. + 

“It is a night for a serenade,” said Mr. Duroy. And no one contradicted him. + 

“Sing, André,” said his mother after a brief pause. “Sing, or your father will!” + 

André smiled a little self-consciously at Jane. + 

“Do, André,” she said. + 

He was sitting cross-legged on the grass beside her. His strong, capable hands, sculptor’s hands, she’d heard his mother say, were crossed between his knees. His cigarette trailed negligently from his slender fingers. Without moving, his eyes upon her face, he suddenly began to sing. His light, young tenor soared softly up in the words of the old nursery rhyme. + 

“Au clair de la lune, + 

Mon ami, Pierrot, + 

Prête moi ta plume, + 

Pour ecrire un mot, + 

Ma chandelle est morte, + 

Je n’ai plus de feu, + 

Ouvre moi ta porte + 

Pour l’amour de Dieu!” + 

It was a serenade. Why, it was⁠—it was a love song. Jane had never heard that note of tender entreaty in André’s voice before. Her eyes fell quickly before his own. His mother was looking at him a little anxiously. + 

“Magnifique!” said Mr. Duroy. “It is a splendid old song. And it always makes me think of rocking you to sleep.” He cast away his cigar. “You inspire me to emulation!” + 

“Georges!” said André’s mother warningly. + 

“Mine,” said Mr. Duroy imperturbably, “is a more modern ballad. In tune with the age. And very appropriate to the lady of my dreams.” In his booming bass, humming as he started like a great bumble bee, trilling his r’s as he continued, he slipped into the familiar cadence of “Daisy Bell”: + 

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do! + 

I’m half crazy, all for the love of you! + 

It won’t be a stylish marriage. + 

I can’t afford a carriage. + 

But you’ll look sweet + 

Upon the seat + 

Of a bicycle built for two!” + 

His voice was shaken with mock emotion. André’s mother and Jane were both laughing uproariously. André, however, sat very still, just smiling a little, his eyes on Jane’s face. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. + 

“Come walk on the beach,” he said. + 

Jane looked up at him questioningly. Then quickly at Mrs. Duroy. Her eyes were fastened on André and they had again that faintly worried look. André’s glance followed her own. + 

“It’s all right, isn’t it, Mother?” he said. + 

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Quite all right, of course. But don’t stay long. We must be starting home.” + 

Jane rose to her feet and set off with André across the beach. They plodded silently down to the water where the sand was dark and firm and the little waves broke softly on the shingle. + 

“Jane,” said André almost immediately, “do you realize that I’m⁠—leaving you⁠—next week?” + 

“Yes,” said Jane softly. + 

There was a little pause. + 

“Jane,” said André again, “I can’t go without⁠—without talking to you.” + 

“Talking to me?” repeated Jane stupidly. + 

“Telling you,” said André. He was walking quickly along the beach, not looking at her. Jane was hurrying a little to keep up with him. + 

“Telling me?” she said. + 

Suddenly he stopped. He stood looking down at her in the moonlight. + 

“Telling you,” he said. “Though of course you know. Telling you that I⁠—love you.” + 

Jane felt her heart jump, as if it skipped a beat. She felt terribly excited. And terribly happy. + 

“Oh, André!” she said. + 

“I⁠—love you,” said André again. + 

She was staring up at him. His face looked very stern. + 

“Oh, do you?” she cried. “Do you, really?” + 

“Don’t you know?” said André. + 

Jane suddenly began to tremble, tremble uncontrollably, all over. She put out her hands to him, quickly. He clasped them in his own. Suddenly he seemed to realize how she was shaking. + 

“Jane!” he said, and his voice was suddenly tremulous. For a moment they stood staring into each other’s eyes. Then⁠— + 

“Jane!” he said again, and took her in his arms. + 

“My love,” said André. + 

Jane clung to him desperately. Why, this⁠—this was terrible. She was utterly shattered. + 

“Jane,” said André again, “look at me.” + 

Obediently she raised her eyes to his. + 

“You’re crying!” said André. Jane hadn’t known it. + 

“Jane⁠—you do love me,” said André. + 

Jane only wept the more. + 

“Kiss me,” said André. + 

She raised her lips to his. The ground fell away from under her feet. The world was no more. Nothing existed but just⁠—herself and⁠—André. + 

“My love,” he said again. + 

She opened her eyes, then, upon his face. And there was the moon and the lake and the beach. The world hadn’t vanished, after all. + 

“André!” she said desperately, “What will we do?” + 

“You’ll marry me,” said André. + 

She pushed away his arms. + 

“André⁠—I can’t. We’re too young.” + 

“You’re seventeen,” said André. + 

“Last month,” said Jane. + 

“I don’t care,” said André. “You’ll marry me.” + 

“André⁠—I can’t.” The world was back indeed. Jane was thinking desperately of her mother⁠—and Isabel⁠—and, yes, even of her father. “They’ll never let me.” + 

“I’ll talk to them tomorrow. I’ll tell Father tonight.” + 

“And your mother, André. They’ll never let you!” + 

“Oh, yes, they will,” said André. “When I tell them.” + 

“Marry you,” said Jane wonderingly. “Marry you⁠—now?” + 

“If you will,” said André. + 

“I⁠—I couldn’t⁠—now.” The thought of temporizing brought a little hope. “I am too young.” + 

“Well⁠—later, then,” said André confidently. “In the fall. When your family are used to it. I’ll come back and get you⁠—” + 

Suddenly just his saying it seemed to make it true. + 

“Oh, André,” breathed Jane. “I⁠—I can’t believe it.” + 

“What?” said André. + 

“That we’re⁠—engaged.” + 

“You bet we are,” said André. + 

“André!” It was his mother’s voice. “You must bring Jane back. We’re leaving, now.” + 

“Kiss me, again,” said André. He took her once more in his arms. This second kiss was not quite so wildly unexpected. And his mother was calling. + 

“André!” + 

“Yes, Mother! We’re coming.” They turned back across the beach. + 

“I have you, now,” said André. “I have you.” + 

Jane didn’t deny it. She clung to his arm until they were very near the oak grove. + 

The supper was all packed away. Mr. Duroy still sat beneath his tree but Mrs. Duroy was erect by the tandem. She looked at André still a little anxiously, Jane thought. + 

They pushed their wheels in silence back to the car tracks. + 

“Stay with us, children,” said André’s mother. “It’s very late.” They pedaled slowly home. The park was filled with bicycles. Their myriad lamps glittered like fireflies in its bosky alleys. Jane kept glancing at André’s face in the moonlight. It was very stern again. But beautiful, Jane thought. He threw her a smile, now and then. A happy, confident smile. Mr. and Mrs. Duroy went with them to her house. André, however, walked into the yard. She went to the side door because she had her bicycle. Mr. and Mrs. Duroy were waiting at the curb. As Jane was getting out her key, he pulled her quickly into the vestibule. + 

“Good night,” said André, taking her in his arms. + 

“Good night,” she breathed, against his lips. + 

“I’ll come⁠—tomorrow afternoon⁠—to see your father.” + 

“Oh, André,” she whispered fearfully. + 

“You’re mine,” said André, “and I’ll never give you up.” + 

Jane unlocked the door. + 

“Good night,” she said again, and smiled up at him. He blew her a little kiss. She slipped into the hall. He vanished, down the path. Jane closed the door and stood a moment, quite still, leaning against the panels. “I’m his,” she thought. “He’ll never give me up.” It was very late. The family were all in bed. Jane turned out the back hall light. “He loves me,” she thought, as she crept up the stairs. “André loves me.” She paused a moment by her mother’s door. She tapped gently on the wooden panels. + 

“I’m in,” said Jane. A sleepy murmur was the only reply. Then, “Did you turn out the light?” + 

“Yes,” said Jane and went on down the hall. “He loves me,” she thought, as she opened her bedroom door. “André loves me.” + 

III + 

Jane came downstairs, next morning, a little late to breakfast. The family were all at the table. Isabel was talking of Robin Bridges. He had invited her to go to the theatre with Rosalie and Freddy Waters. As Rosalie and Freddy were engaged, Isabel thought it would be quite proper for the four of them to go alone. But her mother was standing firm. + 

“No,” she said. “Not without a married couple.” + 

Jane slipped silently into her seat and unfolded her napkin. It seemed very strange to hear her mother and Isabel, arguing just as usual, and to see her father buried, as always, in the morning Tribune, and to realize that for them this golden morning was just like any other. For her it opened a new era. Jane felt a little guilty as she hugged her happy secret to her heart. And very much frightened. And terribly excited. + 

Just after breakfast the telephone rang. Jane rushed to the pantry to answer it. Yes, it was André. His voice sounded just a little confused, but cheerful, too. + 

“Hello,” he said. “How⁠—how are you?” + 

“Oh⁠—I’m fine,” said Jane. Her heart was beating fast. + 

“Happy?” said André. + 

“Oh⁠—yes,” breathed Jane. That was all. It seemed to satisfy André. + 

“When does your father come home?” asked André. + 

“Half-past five,” said Jane. + 

“Mother thinks,” said André, “that I⁠—I oughtn’t to see you again, until I speak to him.” + 

“What else does she think?” asked Jane anxiously. + 

“Well,” said André, and his voice sounded just a little rueful. “She⁠—she thinks it’s all right⁠—now.” + 

“What did your father say?” asked Jane. + 

André’s voice seemed to hesitate. + 

“He⁠—he was awfully surprised,” he said. “Much more surprised than Mother. But they⁠—they understood⁠—after I talked to them.” + 

“André,” said Jane miserably, “they don’t like it.” + 

“Oh, yes⁠—they do,” said André uncertainly. “At least⁠—” + 

Then with increasing confidence, “They like you, Jane. It’s⁠—it’s just what they think⁠—” He stopped. + 

“We’re young,” said Jane. + 

“Yes,” said André. + 

“Well⁠—we are,” said Jane. + 

“Anyway,” said André cheerfully, “Father said of course I must tell your father.” + 

There was a little pause. + 

“It’s really all right,” said André. + 

Jane wished she could be sure of that. + 

“Well⁠—goodbye,” said Jane. “I’ll see you this afternoon.” + 

A funny little sound clicked in Jane’s ear. + 

“That was a kiss,” said André. “Goodbye⁠—dear.” + 

Jane hung up the receiver and pressed her forehead weakly against the mouthpiece. Dear André⁠—darling André. She was terribly frightened. Yet radiantly happy, through and through. She could hear his voice still, with that funny little break at the end. “Goodbye⁠—dear.” He did love her. She had said she would marry him. Marry⁠—André. But they were much too young. Her mother⁠— + 

Jane walked slowly up the stairs to her own bedroom and closed the door. She sat down at the window and looked out at the willow tree. It seemed only yesterday that she and André had climbed it. The remnants of their tree house⁠—a few weather-beaten planks⁠—were still visible in its middle branches. She was going to marry André. She was going to be his wife. + 

At five o’clock Jane took up her stand in the parlor window to wait for her father. Isabel was out playing tennis, thank goodness, on the Superior Street courts. Her mother was in the kitchen superintending the solemn rites of the June jelly-making. You could smell the cooking currants all over the house. Presently Jane saw her father come around the corner. In a moment he passed the parlor window. Jane leaned against the screen and watched him up the steps. He was whistling “The Bowery” and looked a little warm but very nice and carefree. Jane felt guilty again. She heard his key in the door. + 

Jane heard the door open and close and her father’s quick step in the hall. She heard the click of his sailor hat as he dropped it on the bench beneath the hat-rack. Then his footsteps receded toward his library and were lost. Silence and the smell of cooking currants dominated the house once more. + 

She ought to go in, thought Jane, and⁠—and talk to him. She ought to break the ice for André. It would be terrible for André. She walked slowly toward the parlor door. At the entrance to the library she paused. Her father was seated at his desk, running through the afternoon mail. + 

“Come in, kid,” he said. + 

Jane entered slowly. Her father went on opening letters. Jane stood beside the globe and looked down at him. + 

“What’s the matter, kid?” asked her father. “You look as sober as a judge.” + 

“Nothing,” said Jane. + 

Her father threw some mail in the waste basket. Then he looked up again with a smile. + 

“Anyone dead?” he inquired cheerfully. + 

“No,” said Jane. + 

“What’s the trouble?” he asked. “Been worrying about Bryn Mawr?” + 

“No,” said Jane. Bryn Mawr, indeed! + 

“Well⁠—don’t,” said her father. “I’ll see you get there.” + 

“Papa⁠—” began Jane desperately, and stopped. + 

“Yes,” said her father. + 

“Papa,” said Jane again, “I⁠—I want you to help me.” + 

“All right,” said her father. “I will.” + 

“I⁠—I hope you will,” said Jane a little desperately, then went on in a rush. “I⁠—I want you to understand. I want you to remember that I⁠—I’m not a⁠—a child, any more. I want you to be good to André. I want⁠—” + 

“Good to André?” repeated her father. He looked very much astonished. + 

“Yes⁠—good to André,” said Jane. And then the doorbell rang. She rushed incontinently from the room and halfway up the stair. Minnie was coming out of the pantry. Jane sat down, just above the first landing. Minnie opened the front door. Jane could see André quite distinctly, from the dark of the staircase. He couldn’t see her. + 

“Is Mr. Ward in?” he asked. His voice sounded very brave and steady to Jane. + 

“Yes,” said Minnie and led him to the library door. + 

“Mr. Ward?” Jane heard him say, on the threshold. And then her father’s voice. “Come in, André.” She heard her father’s footsteps. André vanished into the library. An unknown hand closed the door. + 

Jane sat quite still, crouched down beside the bannisters. She couldn’t hear a thing. Not even the sound of muffled voices. It was dark on the staircase. The afternoon sunshine came slanting in, below, through the ground-glass panels of the front door. Little motes were dancing in it, up and down the hall. Jane clasped her hands and really prayed for André. She was praying to her father, she thought, though, not to God. Praying to her father, through that closed library door, to understand, to realize, to be good to André. The minutes slowly passed. It was so quiet she could hear the clock tick in the dining room. + 

Presently her mother came out through the pantry door. She had on a long white apron, stained with currant juice, and her hair was ruffled. She looked very flushed and pretty after an afternoon in the hot kitchen. But not very neat. She noticed André’s hat on the hat-rack, immediately. + 

“Who is here, Minnie?” she called over her shoulder. + 

“Mr. André,” said Minnie from the pantry. + 

“Where is he?” asked her mother. + 

“He asked for Mr. Ward,” said Minnie. + 

“For Mr. Ward?” said Jane’s mother incredulously. Then after a pregnant pause, “Where is he, now?” + 

“They’re both in the library,” said Minnie. + 

Then Jane’s mother perceived Jane. She looked her up and down as she sat crouched on the staircase. + 

“What does André want of your father?” she said. + 

Jane didn’t reply. + 

“Jane!” said Jane’s mother. + 

Jane stared at her in silence. + 

“What does this mean?” said Jane’s mother. + 

“Oh, Mamma!” pleaded Jane, suddenly finding her voice. “Please⁠—please don’t⁠—spoil it. Let him talk to Papa! Oh, Mamma⁠—” + 

Without another word, regardless alike of Jane’s imploring entreaties and her own currant-stained apron, Mrs. Ward opened the library door. She closed it after her. Jane sat quite still, for several minutes, in horror. Then she heard her mother’s voice raised in incredulous indignation behind the closed door. + 

“I never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life! John, you haven’t been listening to them? André⁠—it⁠—it’s perfectly absurd⁠—” + 

Jane waited to hear no more. She flung herself hotly down the stairs and burst in at the library door. + 

Her father was sitting very quietly in a leather armchair and André was erect at his side. Her mother stood in the centre of the room, her flushed, indignant face turned toward the men before her. She looked quickly at Jane. + 

“Jane, leave the room,” she said. + 

“I won’t,” said Jane. And closed the door behind her. Her father held out his hand. + 

“Come here, kid,” he said. Jane rushed to his side. She looked quickly up at André. She hoped her heart was in her eyes. André smiled steadily down at her. He looked shaken, however. + 

“Jane⁠—” began her mother again. + 

“Lizzie,” said her father, and there was a note in his voice Jane had never heard before. “Leave this to me.” + 

Her mother, with compressed lips, sank down in the other armchair. Her father pressed Jane’s hand very kindly. + 

“Kid,” he said gently. “You know this won’t do.” + 

“What won’t do?” cried Jane in desperation. + 

Her father still held her hand. + 

“You⁠—you and André can’t⁠—get married.” + 

“Why not?” flashed Jane. + 

“Because you’re children,” said her father. It was terribly true. + 

“I don’t care!” said Jane. + 

“Well, I do,” said her father. “And so does your mother. And so do André’s parents. He very honestly told me that. And so does André, really. André doesn’t want to persuade you to do anything that isn’t right⁠—that won’t bring you happiness⁠—” + 

Happiness! Jane threw a tearful glance at André. He looked very proud and stern, standing there before her father. He gave her a tremulous smile. + 

“Papa,” said Jane, “I know I’d be happy with André⁠—” + 

“Don’t talk like that!” cried her mother sharply. But her father silenced her. + 

“You think so now, kid,” he said kindly. “But you can’t tell. You don’t know anything about it, either of you. André’s nineteen years old. He’s got five or six years of education ahead of him, on his own say-so, before he can be any kind of a sculptor. You were seventeen last month. You’ve known André for four years and you’ve never said three words to any other boy. You can’t know your own mind and he can’t know his, either. Five or six years from now, you might both understand what you were talking about. André’s going to France next week, to live. He’s a Frenchman and that’s where he belongs. You’ve got to stay here with your mother and me and grow up into a woman before you talk about marrying anyone.” + 

“I⁠—I don’t have to⁠—marry him,” said Jane faintly. “I just want to⁠—to promise that I will when we’re old enough. I just want⁠—” + 

“Jane,” said her mother very reasonably, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We don’t have to think of that now.” + 

“I just⁠—want to⁠—wait for him,” faltered Jane. Then, with a flash of spirit, “You can’t help my waiting!” + 

“Of course not,” said her father pacifically. “But no promises, André, on either side.” + 

“And no letters,” put in her mother. Jane’s father shook his head at her, but she insisted. “No, John. No letters until Jane’s twenty-one. You must promise that, André. I won’t have her tied down to any understanding.” + 

“I guess that’s right, André,” said Jane’s father soberly. “You’d better promise.” + 

Jane and André exchanged a glance of despair. There was a brief pause. + 

“How about it, my boy?” said Jane’s father. + 

“I⁠—I promise,” said André huskily. + 

Jane’s mother gave a sigh of relief. She had the situation in hand now. + 

“I think you had better go, André,” she said very kindly. + 

“Can I see Jane again?” André asked. + 

“I think you’d better not,” said Jane’s mother. “It would only be painful.” + 

“Then I’d like⁠—I’d like⁠—” said André steadily, “to say goodbye to her now.” + 

“Of course,” said Jane’s father, very promptly rising. “Come, Lizzie.” + 

Jane’s mother looked very reluctant to leave the room. + 

“I don’t like this,” she said. + 

“Mrs. Ward,” said André, “you can trust me.” + 

Jane’s father threw him an admiring glance. He fairly pushed her mother from the room. He closed the door behind them. Jane turned to gaze at André. + 

“André,” she said breathlessly, “what⁠—what can we do?” + 

“We can wait,” said André. “And we can think of each other.” + 

“André,” said Jane earnestly, “did⁠—did your father and mother talk like that, too?” + 

“They didn’t talk like that⁠—but they thought the same things. I⁠—I could see them thinking.” + 

“They didn’t⁠—like it?” + 

“They like you,” said André. “Father said you were a girl in a thousand.” + 

“Well, then?” said Jane. + 

“Mother thought I was much too young and she thought I ought to be able to support a wife before I asked a girl to marry me. She thought it was pretty rotten⁠—my asking you. And Father⁠—well, Father had always expected me to marry in France, of course. And we’re⁠—we’re all Catholics. That doesn’t mean much to me, but it does to him. But when I told them how⁠—how I felt about you⁠—well, they said⁠—all right I could try my luck with your father. I⁠—didn’t have much. Though he was awfully decent. I haven’t a leg to stand on, of course. I can’t support you and I⁠—I’ve got to go to France⁠—you⁠—you⁠—understand that, Jane⁠—I’ve got to go⁠—to study, you know, if I’m ever going to amount to anything. Father and Mother both said that. I couldn’t do anything here. I⁠—I guess I don’t sound like much of a son-in-law⁠—” + 

“But, André,” said Jane, “do you mean⁠—do you mean that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that we can do?” + 

“Well,” said André, “what is there?” What was there, indeed? + 

“I⁠—I shouldn’t have asked you,” said André. + 

“Oh, André!” cried Jane. “You must never think that!” + 

“Why not?” said André. + 

“You made me so happy,” said Jane simply. + 

André took a quick step toward her. Then he stopped. He remembered. + 

“Oh, Jane!” he said, and dropped down on the sofa. “Jane⁠—my love!” He buried his face in his hands. + 

Jane sank down on her knees beside him. She pulled his hands away from his face. André was crying. She took him in her arms. + 

“André!” she said breathlessly, “André!” She looked eagerly up at him. + 

“I⁠—I promised your mother,” he said huskily. + 

“I didn’t promise anyone!” cried Jane desperately. “André⁠—you must kiss me goodbye!” + 

He took her in his arms. His lips met hers. The world was lost again. But this time Jane knew that it was really there, pressing close about them, menacing them, parting them, saying they were⁠—young. She slipped from his embrace. She rose to her feet. André stood up, too, and held out his hands. She seized them in her own. He stooped to kiss her fingers. + 

“Goodbye,” he said. + 

“André,” she said, “I’ll always⁠—” + 

He managed a wavering smile. + 

“No promises,” he said. “Just thoughts.” + 

“All my thoughts!” said Jane. He stumbled toward the door. On the threshold he turned again. + 

“Goodbye,” he said. + 

“André!” cried Jane. “I⁠—I can’t bear it!” She heard her father’s voice in the hall. + 

“I’m sorry, André. You⁠—you’ve behaved so well, both of you.” Their steps died down the passage. Jane heard the front door open and close. She rushed to the window. André was walking, furiously fast, up Pine Street. At the corner he turned to look back. She waved wildly. She kissed her hand. He smiled again, very bravely. Then turned and vanished. Jane flung herself face downward on the sofa. The mark of André’s elbow was still on the pillow. She buried her face in it passionately. She heard her father enter the room. He walked slowly over to the sofa. + 

“Little Jane,” he said, “don’t cry like that.” + 

Jane only buried her face the deeper. There was a little pause. + 

“Kid,” said her father, “you’re so young that you don’t know that you’ll get over it. You get over everything.” + 

Jane thought that was a horrible philosophy. She heard her father moving about a little helplessly. Then he bent over and touched her shoulder. + 

“I’ll see you go to Bryn Mawr,” he said, “with Agnes.” + 

“Oh, let me alone!” cried Jane. “Just⁠—let⁠—me⁠—alone!” She heard her father turn and walk quietly out of the room. Jane put both her arms tightly around André’s pillow. She was sobbing as if her heart would break. She thought it was breaking. + 

IV + 

I + 

The October sun was shining brightly down on the Bryn Mawr maples when Jane and her father first walked under the arch of Pembroke Hall, where Agnes was awaiting them. Jane thought Bryn Mawr was very beautiful. Much more beautiful than the pictures. The most beautiful place, indeed, that she had ever seen. + 

“Let’s look it over, Jane,” said Mr. Ward, “before we go in.” They strolled on, arm in arm, down the gravel walk beyond. + 

The campus stretched fresh and green before them. On one hand it terminated in a group of grey stone buildings, hung with English ivy. On the other it extended past a row of breeze blown maples to an abrupt decline, where the ground dropped off down a grassy hillside. In that direction you could see the rolling Pennsylvania country for miles and miles. Jane had never lived among hills. She thought the view was very lovely. + 

They passed some groups of girls, walking in twos and threes on the gravel path. They were laughing and chattering together and they paid no attention whatever to Jane and her father. Other girls were sitting, here and there, under the maples. Four or five ran out of a building, that Jane knew from the pictures must be Merion, and almost bumped into them. They were dressed in bright red gym suits, with red corduroy skirts, and they carried hockey sticks. They cantered across the campus toward the hillside, making a bright patch of colour against the green as they ran. + 

Pembroke Hall, as they returned to it, looked very big and important. Jane drew a little nearer to her father as they entered the front door. It seemed quite deserted for a moment. Then a coloured maid, in a neat black dress and apron, came out from a little room under the stairs. She said she would tell the warden. “The warden” sounded a bit forbidding, Jane thought. Rather like a prison. But when she appeared she proved to be a nice-looking girl with dark brown hair, not much older than Isabel. She shook hands with Jane’s father and told them how to find Jane’s room. It was on the second story, in the middle of the corridor. + 

Jane and Jane’s father walked alone up the wooden stairs. In the upper hall they met some more girls, laughing and shouting, hanging about the open doors of bedrooms. Inside the rooms was confusion twice confounded. Open trunks and scattered books and dishes and clothing flung on chairs. An odour of cooking chocolate permeated the air. + 

Agnes was waiting for them in the three-room suite. It looked very small to Jane, but otherwise just as it had in the catalogue. There was a little study with an open fireplace and a window-seat that commanded the campus, and two tiny bedrooms, opening off it. Agnes’s trunk was already unpacked. Agnes had come yesterday, straight from the steamer. She had already been out, exploring the country. A great vase of Michaelmas daisies was on the study table. + 

“Well, girls,” said Jane’s father, “this is great.” + 

It was great, thought Jane. It was much nicer than she had ever imagined. She didn’t feel shy any longer, now she had seen Agnes. + 

Agnes had taken her advanced standing examination in French that morning. It was easy, she said. Much easier than entrance. + 

Jane sat down on the window seat and gazed out over the campus. It looked very tranquil and pleasant. Yet exciting, too, with all those different girls, that seemed so much at home, walking about as if they owned the place. No one seemed to be watching them, as in school. No one was telling them what to do. As Jane looked six girls came out from under the arch. They were carrying a picnic basket and a steamer rug and several cushions and they wore green gym suits and corduroy skirts, just like the red ones Jane had seen before. They hung about under a big cherry tree under the window for a minute and they were all singing. Jane could catch the words by leaning out, around the ivy. + 

“Once there dwelt captiously a stern papa. + 

Likewise with him sojourned, daughter and ma. + 

Daughter’s minority tritely was spent, + 

To a prep boarding school, glumly she went. + 

One day the crisis came, outcome of years, + 

Father and mother firm, daughter in tears, + 

With stern progenitors, hotly she pled, + 

Lined up her arguments, this is what she said: + 

‘I don’t want to go to Vassar, I can’t bear to think of Smith.’ ” + 

They were strolling off across the campus, now, but Jane could still hear the words of the song. + 

“ ‘I’ve no earthly use for Radcliffe, Wellesley’s charms are merest myth, + 

Only spooks go to Ann Arbor, Leland Stanford’s much too far.’ ” + 

Their fresh young voices rose in a final wail in the middle distance. + 

“ ‘I don’t want to go to col⁠—lege, if⁠—I can’t⁠—go⁠—to⁠—Bryn⁠—Mawr!’ ” + 

“That’s a nice song,” said Jane excitedly. + 

“They sing all the time,” said Agnes. “The Seniors sing on the steps of Taylor Hall after dinner.” + 

“I’m going to love this,” said Jane. + 

Her father looked very much pleased. + 

“I hope you do, kid,” he said heartily. “And I’m sure you will. Jane’s had a pretty poor summer, Agnes.” + 

Agnes knew all about Jane’s summer. Jane had written her about André, just as soon as she could bear to put it down on paper. Agnes had sent her an awfully nice letter. She looked very sympathetic now. + 

“You must look out for her, Agnes,” said Jane’s father. + 

“I don’t think she’ll need much looking out for,” said Agnes. “This is Jane’s kind of place.” + 

Jane was sure it was, even at the long Freshman supper table in Pembroke, which was very terrifying. Jane sat between her father and Agnes. On Agnes’s other side was the warden and beyond her father sat a little dark-eyed Freshman from Gloversville, New York. Her name was Marion Park. She talked very politely to Jane’s father throughout the meal. + 

“That’s a bright kid,” Jane’s father said, as they left the table. “I bet she’ll amount to something some day.” Jane felt that she and Agnes would like Marion Park. + 

The Seniors were singing on Taylor steps just as Agnes had prophesied. Jane and her father and Agnes strolled up and down in the gathering twilight and listened to them. There were lots of girls about, more than a hundred, Jane thought, all in light summer dresses, walking up and down under the maple trees, occasionally lining up in a great semicircle before the steps, joining the Seniors in a song. Some of the songs were awfully funny. + 

“If your cranium⁠—is a vacuum⁠—and you’d like to learn + 

How an intellect⁠—you can cultivate⁠—from the smallest germ, + 

On the management⁠—of the universe⁠—if your hopes you stake, + 

Or a treatise⁠—on the ineffable⁠—you propose to make, + 

If you contemplate⁠—making politics⁠—your exclusive aim, + 

And are looking for⁠—some coadjutor⁠—in your little game, + 

And in short if there⁠—should be anything⁠—that you fail to know, + 

To the Sophomore⁠—to the Sophomore⁠—go⁠—go⁠—go!” + 

Jane’s father thought the songs were awfully funny, too. + 

He laughed quite as much over them as Jane and Agnes did. + 

“Bright girls,” he said. “Nice bright girls.” + 

That was just what they were, thought Jane. And her kind. Like Agnes. Not at all like Flora and Muriel, whom she loved of course and who had written to her only last week from Farmington, but who she didn’t feel would fit into Bryn Mawr very well. They were just⁠—different. + 

Agnes came into her bedroom that night in her cotton crepe kimono, just before she turned out the light. Jane was sitting up in her little wooden bed. + 

“Open the window, Agnes,” said Jane. “I like this place. I’m going to like it a lot.” + 

Agnes opened the window in silence. Dear old Agnes⁠—it was fun to be rooming with her! But Jane hadn’t forgotten. She hadn’t forgotten one bit. She sat there in her high-necked, long-sleeved nightgown, with her hair braided tightly in two straight pigtails, looking very like the little Jane that used to run up Pine Street to meet André under the Water Works Tower. She hadn’t forgotten, but she wasn’t the same little Jane, in spite of appearances. She was beginning to learn that the world was wide. + 

“Since I can’t marry André,” she said solemnly, “I’d rather be here than anywhere else.” + 

II + 

“It’s funny,” said Jane to Agnes. “All the years you’re trying to get into college you think it’s the work that counts. When you get there you see it’s the people.” + 

Jane and Agnes were sitting on their window-seat, looking out over the gnarled branches of the cherry tree. It was an afternoon in late January. The sun was sinking behind the stripped boughs of the maples and the campus was covered with snow. Jane and Agnes had just finished their midyear examinations. They had taken Minor Latin that morning. And English two days ago. And Biology the day before that. They were pretty sure that they had passed them all. Now they had five days of vacation before the second semester began. + 

“The work counts a lot,” said Agnes. + 

Jane wondered if the work counted more for Agnes than it did for her. Agnes was continuing to be terribly bright. She expected to take a job, when she graduated, and she was hoping to write, on the side. Agnes was writing now, all the time. Stories that she sometimes sent to magazines. Jane thought they were awfully good, though the editors always sent them back with rejection slips, Agnes was never discouraged. She just went on writing. + 

Jane never did much of anything, except just enough work to keep up in her courses. She loved the General English and she liked Horace and she found the Biology awfully interesting. She didn’t think, though, that she was going to enjoy cutting up rabbits, much, next semester. Angleworms were different. They seemed born to suffer. On fish hooks and in robins’ beaks if not in laboratories. Little soft furry rabbits⁠—that was different. + 

Jane liked all her work and she liked her professors, much better than any of the teachers that she had ever had at Miss Milgrim’s. Still⁠—she never applied herself like Agnes. It was too much fun to take long rambling walks over the wooded countryside with friendly classmates, and make tea in the dormitory, and get up hall plays, and sit up half the night on somebody’s window-seat, talking about⁠—well, almost anything. Beowulf or the Freshman show, or whether there really was an omniscient God that heard your prayers, or the funny thing that had happened in the Livy lecture when⁠—Sometimes Jane thought, very solemnly, that she would never really be serious. Serious as a young woman ought to be who had the advantage of a college education and lived in a world where there was so much to be done. + 

President M. Carey Thomas always had a great deal to say to the students about the advantage of a college education and she was always calling their attention to the opportunities for women’s work that were opening up in the world. Jane felt a little guilty when she listened to her. + 

President M. Carey Thomas spoke to the students every day in chapel, after the morning hymn and the reading from the Bible and the Quaker prayer. Jane always went to chapel for she simply loved to hear her. She loved to look at her, too. President Thomas was very beautiful. She stood up behind the reading desk in her black silk gown with the blue velvet Ph. D. stripes on its floating sleeves and her little black mortar board on her dark auburn hair. Her face was very tranquil and serene. The auburn hair was curly and rippled smoothly back from her forehead. Her mouth was firm and her chin was proud and her dark brown eyes could look very wise and persuasive. When she laughed, as she often did, there were funny friendly little lines about them in the corners. + 

“How lovely she looks!” Jane always thought. It was strange that Miss Thomas’s beauty always made Jane think, for a passing moment, of Flora’s mother. Flora’s mother⁠—who was so beautiful too, in such a different way. Beautiful with hair of burnished gold tightly coiffed on her distinguished little head, and gowns of rippling silk and wraps of clinging velvet, and pink cheeks with dimples, and eyes that danced and smiled, but could look very wistful, too, and romantic and sometimes very sad, like windows through which you could see down into her very soul. Miss Thomas’s eyes were like windows, too, but the soul inside was very different. + 

Flora’s mother’s soul was like a rose-lit room, a little intimate interior where gay and charming and tender things were bound to happen. Miss Thomas’s soul was like a vast arena, a battleground, Jane sometimes thought, where strangely impersonal wars were waged with a curiously personal ardour. Moreover, Miss Thomas could shut her windows. Flora’s mother’s were always wide open. Inviting, unprotected. You could see exactly what went on inside. But Miss Thomas could draw down the blinds, and sometimes did, when things displeased her. Then her face grew very cold and austere, but no less beautiful. A wise, wilful face, that made you understand just how she had accomplished so much, and feel that it was terribly important to do just what she wished you to do and help her make the world the place she thought it ought to be. + 

Jane came to know Miss Thomas’s face very well and she never tired of looking at it. She came to know her views very well, too, and it always made her feel a little unworthy to hear them. Miss Thomas spoke to the students of women’s rights and women’s suffrage and women’s work for temperance. She spoke to them of education and economic independence and their duty, as educated women, to make their contribution to the world of knowledge. She spoke with eloquence and conviction and a curiously childlike and disarming enthusiasm. Jane always felt very conscience-stricken because she knew, in her heart, that she would never do anything about all of this, that the seed was falling, as far as she was concerned, on barren ground. + 

Miss Thomas read from the Bible, too. Always very beautiful passages that she read very beautifully. Sometimes the echo of them lingered in Jane’s mind, long after Miss Thomas had closed the book and the Quaker prayer had been said, and Miss Thomas was talking on quite mundane topics. + 

“She speaks with the tongue of men and angels,” Jane often thought, as she listened and looked at the upturned faces of the students all around her. “Doth it profit her nothing?” The adolescent audience seemed dreadfully unworthy of the eloquence. Jane couldn’t believe that her generation would ever grow up to be great and forceful and wise, like the generation that had preceded them. But Miss Thomas’s confidence in the power of youth seemed to remain unshaken. She was never tired of directing it. Agnes said that was why she was a great college president. + 

“She works,” said Agnes, “to make what she believes in come true. You can’t do more than that.” + 

That was what Agnes did, in her small way, and Marion Park, too, who had turned out to be quite as nice as she looked. But did Jane? Jane often wondered. She couldn’t see her life as a crusade⁠—grievous as the wrongs might be in a world that needed them righted. Listening to Agnes and Marion Park, Jane often felt just as frivolous as Flora and Muriel. + 

At home, in the Christmas holidays, however, listening once more to her mother and Isabel, going out to parties where she tried not to be shy, missing André so dreadfully at every turn that nothing else seemed really to count at all, Jane had realized, of course, that she was all on Miss Thomas’s side. Life must be more important than this, she thought. There must be things for even a woman to do that would be interesting and significant. She had only to look at Flora and Muriel, comparing their dance programs in a dressing-room door, to feel just a little smug and condescending. But back at Bryn Mawr, among the people who had definite plans for concrete accomplishment, she felt again very trivial and purposeless. She didn’t really worry a bit as to whether or no she ever voted and she didn’t want to work for her living and really, she only cared about pleasing André and growing up into the kind of a girl he’d like to be with and talk to and love and marry. It was very confusing. At home she felt like an infant Susan B. Anthony. She had aired her views on women’s rights with unaccustomed vigor, at the breakfast table Isabel had derided her. + 

“I hope you’re satisfied, John,” her mother had said. “She’s a dreadful little bluestocking already.” + 

But her father had only laughed. + 

“The blue will come out in the wash,” he had prophesied cheerfully. “I doubt if it’s a fast colour.” + 

Jane doubted it, too, as she sat on the window-seat with Agnes. Agnes had the Latin examination paper in her hand. + 

“We might go over it with the trot,” she said, “and see what we got wrong.” + 

“Oh, Agnes!” said Jane. “It’s a lovely day. Let’s go for a sleigh ride. We’ll have time before supper. You go and get Marion and I’ll call up the livery stable and order a cutter.” + 

III + 

“Next year,” said Agnes lazily, stretching her long limbs beneath the budding cherry tree, “I’m going to begin Greek.” + 

Jane thought she would like to begin Greek, too. It made her feel awfully illiterate to have to skip the quotations she bumped into in English and French books. But she knew she would never have the stamina to do it. The alphabet was too discouraging. + 

“Agnes,” she said, “it makes me tired to listen to you. I’m going to take French and Philosophy and English.” + 

“I’m going to take an elective in Narrative Writing,” said Agnes. “I’m going to learn to write if it kills me.” + 

Jane contemplated the white froth of the cherry blossoms against the stainless sky. + 

“This place is heaven,” she said. + 

The captain of the Freshman basketball team sauntered up to them across the green lawn. + 

“I wish you two would get out and practise with the team,” she said. + 

“Well⁠—we won’t,” said Agnes obligingly. + 

“We’re intellectuals,” explained Jane sweetly. “Sit down, Mugsy, and look at the cherry blossoms.” + 

Mugsy dropped down cross-legged on the grass. + 

“You’d be good, if you’d try,” she said persuasively. + 

Agnes shook her head. + 

“Our arms and legs don’t work,” she said cheerfully. + 

“Only our brains,” said Jane. + 

“Oh⁠—honestly!” said Mugsy. + 

“But they work very well,” said Agnes. + 

“Agnes’s do,” said Jane. “You know she’s got two scholarships. They’ll be announced tomorrow.” + 

Mugsy looked pleasantly impressed. + 

“Just the same,” she said, “it wouldn’t hurt you to get out and hustle for the class.” + 

“We never hustle,” said Jane. “We achieve our ends with quiet dignity⁠—” + 

Mugsy arose in wrath. + 

“You make me sick,” she said, with perfect amity, and strolled off across the campus. + 

“This place is so nice,” said Jane, returning to the contemplation of the cherry blossoms. “You can insult your dearest friends with perfect impunity.” + 

“There’s Marion,” said Agnes. + 

Marion approached, Livy in hand. She waved two letters at Jane. + 

“Mail for me?” said Jane. Marion tossed the envelopes into Jane’s lap and passed on, toward Taylor Hall. The letters were from her mother and Isabel. Jane opened Isabel’s with a faint frown. Letters from home were not very inspiriting. Except her father’s. Her eyes ran down the closely written pages. + 

“Good gracious!” she said. + 

“What’s the matter?” asked Agnes. + 

“Great heavens!” said Jane. + 

“What’s happened?” asked Agnes. + 

“Isabel’s engaged!” said Jane, and turned the page. “Oh, mercy! It’s a secret! Don’t you write home about it, Aggie!” + 

“Who’s the man?” asked Agnes. + 

“I haven’t come to him yet, but I gather he’s a god.” Jane turned another page. “She’s awfully happy. He sounds perfectly wonderful.” + 

“Who is it?” asked Agnes. + 

Jane turned another page. + 

“Oh⁠—for heaven’s sake!” she said. “It’s Robin Bridges.” + 

“Robin Bridges?” questioned Agnes. Agnes didn’t know many people. + 

“Oh, yes. You know. The fat boy. He’s been underfoot for years. Small eyes and spectacles. Too many teeth. Nice and jolly, though. He plays a good tennis game.” + 

“When are they going to be married?” asked Agnes. + 

“She doesn’t say, but she wants me to be maid of honour.” Jane’s eyes continued to peruse the letter. “Rosalie’s going to be bride’s matron. Just us two. A yellow wedding. Oh⁠—here she says⁠—this autumn. September. She does sound happy.” Jane’s voice was just a little wistful. + 

“How old is Isabel?” asked Agnes. Perhaps her thoughts were following Jane’s. + 

“Oh⁠—awfully old,” said Jane. “Twenty-three, last January.” She opened her mother’s letter. “Let’s see how Mamma takes it.” She continued to read in silence. + 

“Well⁠—how does she?” asked Agnes. + 

“She thinks it’s grand,” said Jane. “She says he’s a dear boy. Boy! Why, Agnes, he’s all of thirty! As if I didn’t know Robin! She says it’s very suitable. She says Papa went to Harvard with his father. She says Isabel has a beautiful sapphire. She says the engagement’s going to be announced May first. She says they’ve begun on the trousseau already and she’s going to take Isabel to New York to get her underclothes.” + 

“How romantic,” commented Agnes. “There’s a postscript on your lap.” + 

Jane picked up the second sheet. She read it very slowly. + 

“She says it’s going to be very hard to give up her dear daughter and she says⁠—Oh, Agnes, she says⁠—she says⁠—that⁠—that they want me home next winter because they’ll be all alone.” + 

“Don’t you listen to them!” cried Agnes excitedly. + 

Jane looked very much disturbed. + 

“It’s awfully hard not to listen to Mamma,” she said. + 

“Don’t you do it!” said Agnes. “You got here, now you just stay!” + 

“Papa got me here,” said Jane. + 

“Well, he’ll keep you here, if you put it up to him,” said Agnes. + 

Jane thought perhaps he would. + 

“Don’t you let them put it over on you!” said Agnes. + 

“It must be awfully hard,” said Jane, “to give up your children.” + 

“Don’t talk like that!” said Agnes. “Why do people have children?” + 

“I suppose,” said Jane soberly, “because they love each other.” + 

“Well⁠—we don’t ask to be born, do we?” said Agnes. “Just you stand firm, Jane.” + 

Jane looked a little doubtful. + 

“You gave up André,” said Agnes. “I should hope that was enough.” + 

A little spasm of pain passed over Jane’s sober face. + 

“This⁠—this isn’t like giving up André,” she said quietly. + 

“No,” said Agnes, “but it’s one more thing. You’ve got to do what you want to some of the time.” + 

Jane wondered if you ever really did. Life seemed terribly complicated. She rose to her feet. + 

“Come walk with me to the Pike,” she said. “I want to wire Isabel.” + 

Agnes rose in her turn. + 

“Jane,” she said, “don’t tell me you’ve given up already!” + 

“No,” said Jane very seriously. “No. I haven’t. But families are difficult. I never know⁠—what to do.” + 

She didn’t know any better that night, as she lay wide awake in her little wooden bed. Miss Thomas would say⁠—take your education. Her mother would say⁠—honour your parents. Jane thought she honoured her parents and she knew she didn’t want an education, really. Not enough to fight for it. What she wanted was liberty. But was even liberty worth the fighting for? Jane hated to fight. But perhaps, her father? He was something to tie to. Jane honoured him. She honoured him more than anyone, really. Except André. Her father would see her through. He liked people to be free. Her father⁠—Anyway there were two more months to this semester. Jane fell asleep at last with a final thought for Isabel. Isabel⁠—who had a beautiful sapphire⁠—and was happy with Robin⁠—fat funny Robin⁠—with spectacles⁠—who was suitable⁠—and thirty⁠—so he could marry Isabel⁠—when he wanted to⁠—without anyone making a fuss⁠— + 

IV + 

“It’s grand,” said Agnes, “to think you’re really here. I can’t get used to it.” + 

“I felt like a dog to leave them,” said Jane. + 

They were sitting out under the maple row in the bright October sunshine. The leaves overhead were incredibly golden. The October sky looked very high and hard and blue. A stiff west wind was blowing and the leaves were fluttering down all around them in the gale. Golden maple leaves twisting and twirling and drifting in every direction. The tops of the trees were already bare. + 

“That’s nonsense,” said Agnes. “You have to live your own life.” + 

You did, of course, but just the same Jane had felt it was almost impossible to take the train to Bryn Mawr the week after Isabel’s wedding. Her mother had been very sweet about that wedding and very sorry to lose Isabel. Her father had been very sorry, too. He had come out of Isabel’s bedroom, when he went up to say goodbye to her after the reception, choking and blowing his nose. He had squeezed Jane’s hand very hard on the staircase, where she stood watching Isabel throw her bouquet. Under the awning, a few minutes later, in the midst of the laughing, jostling crowd, waiting for Isabel and Robin to rush madly in a shower of rice from the front door to the shelter of the expectant brougham, Jane knew just how he had felt. Her own eyes were full of tears as she saw the brougham, absurdly festooned with bows of satin ribbon, disappear down Pine Street. Incredible to think that Isabel was married. That she had left home forever. + 

That very evening, over the haphazard supper, mainly compounded of leftover sandwiches and remnants of caterer’s cake, Mrs. Ward had begun on Bryn Mawr. + 

“How you can think of leaving your father and me at a moment like this⁠—” she said. + 

“I thought it was decided, Lizzie,” Jane’s father interrupted. + 

Jane bit into an anchovy sandwich in silence, then discarded it in favour of a macaroon. + 

“How you can want to waste any more time in that ridiculous college,” said Mrs. Ward, “instead of coming home and making a début with the girls your own age, friends you’ve had all your life⁠—” + 

“Minnie,” said Mr. Ward, “do you think you could get me a cup of coffee? Lizzie⁠—do we have to go over all this again?” + 

“Flora and Muriel will be grown up and married before you come home,” prophesied Mrs. Ward gloomily. “You’ll come out with a lot of girls you don’t know⁠—years younger than yourself⁠—” + 

“Flora and Muriel,” said Jane indifferently, “aren’t coming out this year, after all. They’re going back to Farmington.” Muriel had told her yesterday. She hadn’t thought to mention it at home. + 

“Flora and Muriel,” said her mother incredulously, “are going back to Farmington?” + 

Jane nodded and passed her father the cream. + 

“Why?” asked her mother. + 

“Muriel wants to be with Flora,” said Jane, “and Flora’s mother doesn’t feel up to a début this winter. You know she⁠—she hasn’t been very well.” + 

Jane didn’t want to say quite all that Muriel had told her about Flora’s mother. In a moment, however, she observed that discretion was not necessary. + 

“I shouldn’t think she would be,” said her mother tartly. “I always knew how it would end. Lily Furness is a little fool and always has been.” She looked eagerly over at Jane’s father. “I don’t blame Bert Lancaster for getting tired of it.” + 

“He’s been dancing attendance, now, for four years and more, and what does he get out of it? I shouldn’t think she would feel very well, and I’m not at all surprised that she doesn’t want Flora on her hands. She’s got all she can do to hold Bert enough to keep up appearances. Why her husband didn’t put a stop to it long ago, before it got to this pass⁠—” + 

“Lizzie!” said Jane’s father with a glance at Jane. “Minnie, I’d like another cup of coffee.” + 

Jane felt she had unconsciously dragged a very effective herring across the scent. Her mother had forgotten Bryn Mawr. Her thoughts were busily employed on more congenial topics. + 

“So Lily Furness doesn’t want Flora home this winter,” she said dreamily. “Well⁠—I don’t wonder. A great girl of nineteen in the drawing-room doesn’t make it any easier to keep up the illusion.” + 

“Pass me a ladyfinger,” said Jane’s father. + 

There was a moment’s pause. + 

“Well,” said Jane’s mother at last, “if Flora and Muriel aren’t going to come out I suppose you might just as well be in Bryn Mawr as anywhere else for one more year.” + 

Jane could hardly believe her ears. She threw a startled glance at her father. He was draining his coffee cup with a slightly sardonic smile. + 

“But⁠—leaving you and father,” began Jane conscientiously. + 

“You don’t think very much of your father and me,” said Mrs. Ward, with a sigh. She rose from the table. “This house is a sight,” she said. “Minnie, get the dead flowers out of the way tonight. The men will come to pack the wedding presents in the morning.” She moved toward the door. “If there’s any punch left, keep it on ice.” She paused on the threshold to look back at Jane’s father. Her face suddenly softened and looked a little wistful. “Didn’t Isabel look lovely?” she said. + 

“She did, indeed,” said Jane’s father, rising in his turn. + 

“Robin’s a sweet boy,” said Jane’s mother. “I hope⁠—” + 

She paused inarticulately and looked up a little helplessly in her husband’s face. + 

“I hope it, too, Lizzie,” he said very tenderly. Incredibly, he kissed her. Jane, staring at them in amazement, felt her eyes fill suddenly with tears. That was when she had felt like a dog to leave them. + 

V + 

“My Gawd!” said Agnes. And Agnes never swore. She was staring at the letter held open in her hand. Jane had just brought it upstairs, as she came in for tea. Marion was kneeling on the window-seat, looking out at the afternoon sunshine slanting palely over the March campus. + 

“What is it?” cried Jane. She paused, teakettle in hand, at the door. + 

“Scribner’s⁠—has⁠—taken⁠—my⁠—story!” said Agnes solemnly. + 

Jane dropped the teakettle. + 

“Agnes!” she cried. + 

“They’ve sent me a check for one⁠—hundred⁠—and⁠—fifty⁠—dollars!” said Agnes. “Jane! It can’t be true! I must have died and gone to heaven.” + 

“Let me see it!” cried Jane. + 

There it was⁠—the little green slip. One hundred and fifty dollars. + 

Jane and Marion could hardly believe their eyes. They all had tea together. They had tea together almost every afternoon, but this was a festival. They made a laurel wreath out of a strand of potted ivy and crowned Agnes’s triumphant head. Jane began to quote Byron. They had just reached the Romantic Poets in General English. + 

“ ‘Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story, + 

The days of our youth are the days of our glory, + 

And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty + 

Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty!’ + 

There’s your ivy, darling, we haven’t any myrtle, but⁠—” + 

“Don’t you believe it,” said Agnes. “Byron was wrong. He was a funny man, anyway. I’d give up anything⁠—anything in the world⁠—just to write.” + 

“Maybe you won’t have to give up anything,” said Jane. “You write awfully well, now. Maybe you’ll have your cake and eat it, too. Byron did,” she added very wisely. “All the cake there was.” + 

“I’m not a bit like Byron,” said Agnes very seriously. “I’m not at all romantic. I just want to accomplish.” + 

Marion nodded her head soberly as if she understood. There it was, again. Accomplishment. That thing for which Jane could never muster up any enthusiasm. Jane just wanted to live along and be happy. Live along with nice funny people who were doing interesting things and told you about them. Like Agnes and Marion. And André, who had always told her so much. Nice funny people who thought you were nice and funny, too. + 

Jane liked her work, though. Jane liked it awfully. She could really read French, now, almost as well as English, and she had loved the lectures on Shakespeare and she was thrilled by the Romantic Poets. She always did a lot of outside reading and she had learned pages of poetry by heart. Nevertheless she never got very good marks. Not marks like Agnes and Marion. It was because she couldn’t be bothered with learning grammar and dates and irrelevant facts that didn’t interest her. She had missed that entire question in the English midyears paper on the clauses of Shakespeare’s will. Why should anyone remember the clauses of Shakespeare’s will? Jane couldn’t be bothered with them. Not when she could curl up on the Pembroke window-seat and learn Romeo and Juliet by heart. Jane thought Romeo and Juliet was the most beautiful thing that she had ever read. She loved to repeat it aloud when she was alone in her bed at night or striding over the Bryn Mawr countryside with Agnes and Marion. + 

“ ‘What lady’s that, which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?’ + 

‘I know not, sir.’ + 

‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! + 

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night + 

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.’ ” + 

Lovely sounds⁠—lovely phrases! + 

“ ‘He jests at scars that never felt a wound! + 

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? + 

It is the east and Juliet is the sun!’ ” + 

What fun to know lines like that! To have them always with you, like toys in your pocket, to play with when you were lonely. + 

“ ‘It was the lark, the herald of the morn, + 

No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks + 

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. + 

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day + 

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. + 

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.’ ” + 

Who would learn the clauses of Shakespeare’s will? Agnes and Marion had, however. + 

Philosophy was simpler. Philosophy was very easy to learn. It was all about just what you’d thought yourself, one time or another, after you’d begun to grow up. It was strange to think that everyone had always thought about the same things, down the ages. God and man and the world. Herself and Sophocles. Agnes and Plato. And felt the same things, too. Romeo and Juliet. “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.” That was what Isabel had done, when André went to France. Maybe, now she had Robin, she understood. + 

“Let’s go for a walk,” said Agnes. + 

Jane jumped to her feet. There would be mud underfoot but all the brooks would be running fast and the stripped tree branches would be tossing in the mad March wind, and the sun would be bright, and the sky would be blue, and perhaps they would find the first hepatica. + 

They would go for a walk. + 

VI + 

The Commencement procession was forming in front of the gymnasium. The day was hot and sultry, with the promise of rain in the air. Jane and Agnes and Marion were all Sophomore marshals. They were dressed in crisp white shirtwaists and long duck skirts and they had on their caps and gowns. They each held a little white baton, with a white and yellow bow on it, sacred insignia of office. The Seniors were in cap and gown, too, and all of the faculty. The staid professors looked strangely picturesque, standing about on the thick green turf, with their brilliant hoods of red and blue and purple silk. One scarlet gown from the University of London made a splash of vivid colour against the emerald lawn. The Seniors’ hoods were all white and yellow, trimmed with rabbit fur. President Thomas was talking to the commencement speaker. Some college trustees were clustered in a little group around her. Funny old men, thought Jane! They looked very flushed and hot in their black frock coats under academic dress. Some of them were fanning themselves with their mortar boards. + 

Jane was busy getting the Seniors into line. She knew nearly all of them well. She couldn’t imagine how the college was going to get along next year without the Class of ’96. She couldn’t imagine, either, how she was going to get along without the college. It was settled, now. She was not coming back. + 

Her father had done his best for her. They had talked about nothing else all Easter vacation. Except Isabel’s baby, which was coming in July. Her mother was determined that she should “come out” with Flora and Muriel. Nothing else mattered. Her father had championed her cause wholeheartedly. But Jane had detected in his final surrender a certain note of relief. + 

“Two years,” he said, “has been a long time to live without you, kid. In this big house.” + 

The procession was taking form and substance at last. The trustees had lined up at its head. Miss Thomas had fallen in behind them with the speaker. Jane slipped into her place with Agnes just behind the wardens and in front of the Seniors. The procession began to move slowly along the gravel walk. + 

The day was really terribly hot and the air was lifeless. The maple trees in the distance looked very round and symmetrical, almost like toy trees. Their boughs were thick with leaves. The shadows beneath them were round and symmetrical, too, and very dark. The air was sweet with the odour of newly cut grass. + 

The procession wound deliberately across the lawn. The black-gowned figures looked very dignified and austere in the summer sun. The bits of silken colour flashed and shimmered, here and there, with the movement of their wearers. The campus seemed strangely empty, with all its inhabitants gathered into this little procession. Jane suddenly remembered her Keats. + 

“What little town by river or seashore, + 

Or mountain built with peaceful citadel. + 

Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?” + 

The morn was pious and the great, grey, ivied buildings quite deserted. The sky overhead was softly blue. Beyond the maple row, however, great puffy white and silver thunderheads were rolling up in the west. It would surely rain before nightfall. + 

The procession turned into Taylor Hall. It shuffled down the tiled corridor, past the great bust of Juno at the head of the passage, and slowly ascended the stairs. The chapel was decorated with the Commencement daisy chain. It was very hot and very full of people. Fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers, all fanning themselves and craning their necks to look at the Seniors as they passed by. The faculty took their places on the platform. The Seniors filled the first six rows of chairs. Jane stood in line with the other marshals, facing the audience. The Head Marshal raised her baton. Everyone sat down at once. The visiting clergyman rose to make his prayer. + 

Jane didn’t listen much. She felt very hot and very, very sleepy. She had been up at dawn and out in the fields at six picking the daisies for the chain. It had been hard to get up but it was lots of fun to pick the daisies. The day had been cool, then, and the meadows were wet with dew. Jane had loved wading about in the long damp grass with Agnes and Marion, plucking great armfuls of the white and yellow flowers. They had gathered thousands in less than two hours. Whole fields were white with them. Great green fields, sloping up against the morning sky, with big white patches of dazzling daisies, shining in the morning sun. They picked until their fingers were red and sore. + 

“ ‘The meanest flower that grows,’ ” said Agnes, struggling with a fibrous stem, “in the words of the worthy Wordsworth.” + 

“Worthy, but wordy,” said Jane. She had found the “Prelude” rather long. “You could make an epigram out of that.” + 

Agnes had done so at once. + 

“Wordsworth was a worthy man. + 

He wrote as much as poet can. + 

But if you try to read him through + 

You’ll find him rather wordy, too.” + 

Jane and Marion had both laughed uproariously. It made Jane laugh, now, sleepy as she was and right in the middle of the prayer, just to think of it. Agnes was terribly funny. It made Jane feel very sad to think that she would never laugh again like that, over nothing at all, with Agnes and Marion. She was going out into a world where, she was quite certain, nothing would ever seem as irresistibly funny as everything did at Bryn Mawr. She was going out to grow up and live at home and come out with Flora and Muriel and be a good daughter to her father and mother and a sister to Isabel and a sister-in-law to Robin and an aunt, grotesquely enough, to Isabel’s baby. She thought she would much rather stay on in Pembroke and just be a Bryn Mawr Junior with no entangling alliances, whatever. + 

The prayer was over and the Commencement speaker was rising to his feet. Jane stifled a yawn. The heat was really terrific. Every window was open and Jane could see far out over the campus and the maple row to the rolling Pennsylvania hills beneath the thunder heads. What a lovely place to have to leave for Pine Street. She would carry it with her, though, back to the flat, sandy shores of Lake Michigan. She would remember, always, this paradise of flowering shrub and tree, of sweet green spaces and grey ivied walls. The memory would be a sanctuary. She was momentarily grateful to the wordy Wordsworth for an unforgettable fragment. + 

“They flash upon that inward eye + 

Which is the bliss of solitude. + 

And then my heart with pleasure fills, + 

And dances with the daffodils.” + 

Jane knew all about the inward eye. But she thanked the poet for the phrase. If her education had done nothing else for her, Jane reflected, it had provided her with an apt quotation for every romantic emotion. + 

The Commencement exercises dragged wearily on. Jane couldn’t remember, when she tried to concentrate, just what the speaker had said his subject was. He seemed to be talking about Opportunity. Jane didn’t hear him define it. He had a lot to say, somewhere toward the end, about Preparation for Wifehood and Motherhood. That wouldn’t please Miss Thomas. She took those states of grace decidedly for granted. He sat down at last and Miss Thomas arose in his place. Jane listened dreamily. Not to the words but to the familiar cadence of that admired voice. She might never hear it again, like this from a rostrum. Miss Thomas was very brief. The dreary routine of giving out degrees began. The Seniors advanced to the platform, six at a time, received their parchments and descended. Miss Thomas’s voice went steadily on. “By the authority vested in the trustees of Bryn Mawr College by the State of Pennsylvania and by them vested in me,” and so forth and so on, for each little group, ending up with the presentation of the parchment and the final impressive phrase “I admit you to the degree of Bachelor of Arts of Bryn Mawr College and to all rights, dignities, and privileges thereto appertaining.” Rights, dignities, and privileges that would never be Jane’s. It was over at last. + 

The procession reformed and moved slowly out of the chapel. On the stairs of Taylor Jane became suddenly conscious of the change in the weather. The wind was up and great drops of rain were pattering down on Taylor steps. The air felt clean and cold. The caterer’s men were hurriedly dragging the tables set for the Commencement luncheon into the shelter of Pembroke. It couldn’t be out on the campus, after all. And Jane couldn’t take that last walk she had planned with Agnes and Marion, under the maple trees and down into the hollow. The procession had broken and scattered. Students and faculty, alike, were scurrying, with gowns upturned over silken hoods, to the protection of Pembroke Arch. Jane and Agnes ran there, hand in hand. There was nothing to do, now, but snatch a hurried luncheon and run back to her room to change for the train. Agnes was going to New York at three o’clock. She had taken a job with Scribner’s Magazine for the summer. Jane was leaving for the West a little later. Her last glimpse of the campus would be in the rain. + 