Mrs. Willoughby and Miss Willoughby--the latter had driven over from
her country home to discuss Jane--sat in the library listening to the
shrieks of laughter that floated across the hall from the music room,
laughter interspersed with the sharp yelping of a dog and bars of music.
“They’ve kept that up,” said Mrs. Willoughby, crisply, “since luncheon.”
“What did you say his name was?” asked Miss Willoughby, whose patent
disgust made her look more vinegary than ever.
“She calls him Dick,” said aunt Susan, disdainfully. “His last name is
Thomas. A flighty idiot, who talks with a lisp.”
“Where’s the bishop?” demanded the guest, suddenly.
“He’s packing,” answered her sister-in-law, with an air of repressed
anger. “Jane took him out in a motor car, some man’s motor car that
she came down in, and he came back looking much upset, and said he had
to pack and return to town immediately. And he had promised to stay two
days!”
“Must have been her doings,” commented Miss Willoughby.
“I don’t know,” said Aunt Susan, drearily. “He did say something about
fleeing temptation.”
“The hussy!” Miss Willoughby’s voice expressed virtuous scorn. “Wait
until she comes to me.” She closed her lips, grimly.
“I was going to tell you about that,” said her hostess. “Jane has what
she calls _a job_.”
“A--a job!” echoed Miss Willoughby, faintly.
Susan Willoughby nodded her head, vigorously. “That’s what she calls
it,” she said, indignation revealed in every monosyllable. “She’s hired
out as a model!”
Miss Willoughby shrieked and fumbled feebly for her smelling salts.
“Oh, I don’t mean the--er--_Trilby_ kind, you know,” said Mrs.
Willoughby, hastily. “Some wretched creature whom she picked up with
on her way down here is writing a book, and he’s offered to pay her if
she’ll let him study her in order to get material for his heroine.”
“I never heard of such a thing!” gasped Miss Willoughby. “It isn’t
respectable, and you don’t need to try to convince me that it is. What
does Jacob say?”
“Jacob!” There was indescribable contempt expressed in Mrs.
Willoughby’s voice as she uttered the name. “Jane simply twists him
around her little finger.”
Miss Willoughby rose suddenly, with the air of one having made up her
mind to perform an unpleasant task.
“Where are you going?” demanded her hostess.
“To tell Jane what I think of her conduct and to warn----”
But before the spinster had a chance to finish her sentence, the door
across the hall was flung open suddenly, and Jane, laughter in her
eyes and on her lips, her hair disheveled, emerged. Under her arm
was tucked a yelping skye terrier, and close behind her followed an
immaculately attired and rather good-looking young man, who appeared to
be thoroughly enjoying himself. As usual, Jane was talking.
“You’re not musical, Bijou, and it’s a waste of time trying to make
you musical! Here Mr. Thomas and I have spent the greater part of an
hour trying to impress upon you the difference between Wagner and
ragtime, but it’s been a miserable failure. I want to think you have a
soul, Bijou, though the bishop doesn’t believe you have, but after the
painful lack of discrimination you have just shown--Aunt Mary! When in
the world did you come, and _what_ a delightful surprise!”
Jane, who had suddenly espied her two aunts, unceremoniously dropped
the skye terrier and darted into the library, leaving the young man
hovering uncertainly in the doorway. She seized the spinster’s two
mitt-clad hands and kissed her heartily on each withered cheek. Then
she stood back a pace or two and surveyed her with rapt admiration.
“I’m terribly jealous of you, Aunt Mary,” she exclaimed. “Look at
your complexion! Peaches and cream!”--as a matter of fact, it more
closely resembled sole leather, but Miss Willoughby brightened up,
nevertheless. “And your figure! What in the world have you been doing
to your figure? Such curves!”
The spinster, conscious of the strange young man in the doorway,
blushed painfully.
“My dear----” she began, in a stage whisper, motioning stealthily in
the direction of Mr. Thomas.
“Oh, pardon me,” said Jane, willfully misunderstanding her aunt’s
meaning. “Aunt Mary, this is Mr. Thomas. I shall have to ask you to
entertain him for a while, for I have a business engagement.” She
pulled out a tiny, jeweled watch and gave an exclamation. “Half an hour
late! Dick, what is it they do to working people when they are half
an hour late? Though why, indeed, I should ask you I don’t know, for
I’m sure you never did half an hour’s real work in your life! Oh, yes,
dock them--that’s it, isn’t it? I thought of yacht, for I knew the term
was nautical, and then I instantly thought of ‘docked’”--triumphantly;
Jane was always intensely interested in her mental processes. “Did you
know I had become a working person, Aunt Mary? Earning my living by
the sweat of my brow, and that sort of thing?” Miss Willoughby smiled,
weakly. “Well, ta, ta,” continued Jane. “Remember”--shaking a warning
finger at the spinster--“Mr. Thomas is young and unsophisticated, and
I’ll not have his young affections trifled with.”
“Oh, I thay----” began Mr. Thomas, protestingly, and making a motion as
though he were bent on accompanying Mrs. De Mille.
“No, Dickie,” she said, firmly, “bosses don’t like to have young men
a-followin’ of their gells.” This was said with an inimitable cockney
accent that caused Mr. Thomas to grin appreciatively. Jane made a
wicked _moue_ at him, nodded to her aunts and hurried away, leaving the
two ladies speechless, and the guest she had thrust upon them looking
decidedly uncomfortable.
As she sauntered down the road that led past the bungalow which had
been erected in the rear of the Moore cottage, and which her new
acquaintance had pointed out as his workshop, Jane looked as though she
hadn’t a care in the world. As a matter of fact, however, she was not
without her misgivings in regard to the outcome of the engagement she
had entered into. She had done it chiefly to torment the Willoughbys,
but she was honest enough to admit to herself, as she walked leisurely
on, that the man himself had aroused her curiosity, and that this had
something to do with her obeying that reckless impulse to offer herself
as a model.
“He’s doubtless a counterfeiter or a gentleman burglar who’s planning
to steal the Willoughby spoons,” she communed with herself, cheerfully,
“and it’s very likely that he’ll insist on my becoming his accomplice,
and then Aunt Mary will have a chance to say: ‘Didn’t I tell you Jane
would come to a bad end.’ I really believe they’d----”
But the quaint-looking bungalow had suddenly loomed up in Mrs. De
Mille’s path, and put an end to her reflections. Half hesitatingly she
knocked on the door, and it was instantly thrown open by the man whom
she chose to call her employer.
“Please don’t tell me I’m late,” she said, as she gave him her hand and
stepped across the threshold. “Being late, you know, is a weakness one
is born with, I think, like not being able to spell, or having a thirst
for strong drink. In town they call me ‘the late Mrs. De Mille.’ The
only occasion I was ever known to be on time was at poor De Mille’s
funeral. Billie Scott said---- But how delightfully cozy it is here!”
Jane paused and surveyed the room with interest. It was simply
furnished with some good rugs, several well-filled bookcases, two or
three comfortable-looking chairs, and a long table that apparently
served for a desk, for it was covered with papers; but there was a
cheerful fire in the great fireplace--a comfort that Mrs. De Mille
appreciated, for the day, though bright, was chilly--and in front of
this was a tea table, on which a copper kettle was singing merrily over
a blue, alcohol flame.
“I’m glad you like it,” said the man, gravely. “Can I take your hat and
jacket?”
“Oh, I’ll just toss them over this chair,” said Jane, carelessly,
suiting the action to her words. “I hope you’re not one of those people
who must have everything just so. De Mille was like that. He found me
a terrible trial. His idea of a well-ordered existence was a place for
everything and everything in its place. I don’t mind having a place
for everything, you know, but I think having everything in its place
robs life of a great deal of uncertainty, and it’s the uncertainty that
makes it fascinating, don’t you think?”
“When I was a little chap,” said the man, pulling forward a chair for
Jane and taking one himself near the table, “I had to look out not
only for myself, but also for my mother, who sewed when she could, to
support herself and me, but who was crippled with rheumatism most of
the time. Our next meal was always a matter of uncertainty. My idea
of heaven then was a place where the future was absolutely certain.
No”--reflectively, as he leaned over to poke the fire--“I don’t believe
I want any more uncertainties in mine.”
Mrs. De Mille stared at him with lively curiosity in her eyes, and
noted approvingly the strong, clean contour of his jaw, and his long,
lean, brown hands. “He may have been born poor, but he was also born a
gentleman,” she reflected, shrewdly. Aloud she said:
“Do you know that I haven’t the remotest idea what your name is?”
“How very remiss of me!” he exclaimed, looking up from the fire. “It’s
John Ormsby.”
“Oh,” said Jane, “you’re the man who writes men’s books. Why,” she
continued, severely, “have you ignored my sex?”
He smiled. “I have already told you,” he said, “that I don’t know
enough about you to put you in a book.”
“You’ve chosen a bad specimen to study,” she retorted. “I give you fair
warning.”
“As to that,” he answered, with an indifference that nettled Jane,
“I’m not at all particular about the type. My publishers demand a real
flesh-and-blood creation, but they didn’t specify the type.”
“He’s downright brutal,” said Jane, to herself, but rather enjoying the
novelty of seeing an opportunity for a pretty speech to her ignored.
“You’ll have to instruct me in my duties,” she said, smilingly. “Now,
if there was only such a thing as a Handy Manual for authors’ models
that I could get and read up in, my course would be plain sailing. As
it is, I’m all at sea.”
“Oh, all you have to do is to talk,” said the man, encouragingly. “I’m
going to make you a cup of tea.” He began to handle the tea things
deftly.
“Talk and tea,” commented Jane, thoughtfully. “It sounds easy. I
believe I’ve got what Billie Scott would call a ‘snap.’”