All of the foregoing took place on the same day that Mrs. Belknap wanted
to know if Jane had seen her second-best gold hat pin. The day after
that, three fine embroidered handkerchiefs were said to be missing from
the little inlaid box on her bureau.
Mary MacGrotty displayed her big teeth in a malevolent smile when Jane
rather fearfully mentioned this last circumstance in the kitchen. "You
don't suppose the wind could have blown them away last Monday, do you,
Mary? It was blowing hard, I remember," Jane said, nervously twisting
her apron strings.
"It 'ud be a strong wind to lift 'em out the missus's box, I'm
thinkin'," said Miss MacGrotty dryly. "But they wuz lifted, all right;
an' no one knows ut better 'an you, Miss Innocence, wid yer purty face
an' yer big saucer eyes."
Jane stared at the grinning Irish face, her own paling. "You are a bad,
cruel woman!" she cried; "and you are not honest; I saw you take sugar
out of the jar, and tea out of the caddy!"
Miss MacGrotty burst into a furious fit of coughing. "Aw, you impident
little spalpeen, you!" she hissed, her face purple with rage. "Git out
o' me kitchen this minute! We'll attind to your case prisintly. Yis,
indade; I'll not have my character blackened by a light-fingered gurl
from nobody knows where. Yis; you may stare, miss. You niver come honest
by the foine rings in yer box, I'm thinkin', an' the little goold watch
wid a di'mon' in the back, an' the locket wid pearls."
"You have been in my room!--looking at my things!" gasped Jane. "How
dare you!"
"Git out o' me kitchen, or I'll tak' the procker to yez!" shouted Mary.
"How dare I! Indade! Ye'll find it ain't best to gain the ill will o'
Mary MacGrotty afore you're t'rough."
Jane went slowly up the stairs revolving many things in her mind. She
was even considering the advisability of confiding her whole story to
Mrs. Belknap, when that young matron's cold, even tones fell upon her
ear.
"I wish to speak with you, Jane, for a moment," she said, with an air of
severity, which stiffened Jane's pretty upper lip into haughty
indifference.
"Yes, Mrs. Belknap," said the girl with a perfect propriety of manner,
which aroused a wholly irrelevant resentment in the breast of the other
woman.
"I wish to tell you, Jane, that last evening after you had retired a
strange _man_ came here--to the front door--inquiring for you. Mr.
Belknap, who answered the bell, referred the matter to me, and I told
him to say to the man that he could not see you."
Jane stared at her mistress in silence, indignation tempered with a
certain speculative curiosity looking out of her bright eyes.
"He appeared"--Mrs. Belknap went on, with rising irritation--"quite like
a gentleman. But _why_ should a man--any man--come to my front door to
inquire for _you_? I am sorry, Jane, but this circumstance, in
connection with others, looks very suspicious to me. I do not _approve_
of a girl in your situation attracting the attention of a man--more
particularly of a man in a higher station of life. It is not at all
proper; you ought to know that."
"Proper?" echoed Jane inquiringly.
"Perhaps I should have said _suitable_," amended Mrs. Belknap. "But I
insist that you shall be quite truthful with me. Who was this man?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Mrs. Belknap," said Jane. "I don't know any
men." Then she blushed guiltily.
Mrs. Belknap bristled with matronly dignity as she observed the girl's
conscious face. "You may go now, Jane," she said, with an air of stern
virtue. "But I wish to remind you once more that it is _always_ best to
tell the truth no matter how unpleasant the consequences may appear to
you. If young girls in your situation in life could _only_ learn that!"
Jane's eyes flickered and a shadowy dimple appeared at the corner of
her mouth. "Suppose one does tell the truth, ma'am, and it sounds so
queer that other people will not believe it?" she asked.
"That," said Mrs. Belknap, magnificently, "is not apt to occur. A
sincere person can hardly be mistaken by another sincere person. And the
_truth_, Jane, _never_ sounds _queer_!" Which aphorism may be accepted
for what it is worth.
The Hon. Wipplinger Towle, for the time being, had taken up his abode
upon Staten Island, in a certain pretentious hotel which overlooks the
bay, and quite undaunted by his reception of the previous evening he
again presented himself at the street and number furnished him by Bertha
Forbes. On this occasion the door was opened by Jane herself in cap and
apron.
The mutual start of amazement which followed shook both man and maid out
of the chill precincts of the conventionalities.
"My God--_Jane_!" exclaimed Mr. Towle. "What are you doing in this
house?"
This pertinent inquiry brought Jane to herself with all the speed and
thoroughness of a dash of cold water. "I am working for my living," she
replied haughtily.
Mr. Towle stared helplessly at the girl. "I have come," he said at last,
"to fetch you home."
"If you wish to talk to me," said Jane defiantly, "you will be obliged
to come around to the back door. I will ask my mistress if I may speak
with you in the kitchen for a few minutes. But there isn't any use of
talking," she added. "I will not go home--at least not yet." Then she
shut the door in his face.
Mr. Towle said something fierce under his breath; after which, without
any hesitation whatever, he looked about for the kitchen entrance. "I'll
talk with her," he said, "if I have to go to Hades to do it."
In the meanwhile Jane was interviewing her mistress. "Mr. Towle has come
to see me, ma'am; may I speak with him in the kitchen for a few
minutes?" she asked with haughty subservience. "Mary is out; and Master
Belknap is playing in his sand pile."
Mrs. Belknap was in the act of putting the finishing touches to a dainty
costume. She stopped short and faced about. "_Who_ is Mr. Towle?" she
demanded.
"He is a friend of--of Uncle Robert's, from England," replied Jane,
rather sullenly to her mistress's thinking.
"Dear, _dear_!" murmured Mrs. Belknap, eying her pleasing reflection in
the glass with a frown. "This is _too_ much! And I was just on the point
of going out to a reception; now, of course, I shall be obliged to----"
Jane looked up suddenly. "I don't wish to talk with him," she said.
"Then why not send him away? Wait! I will go down myself and speak with
the man. I _hope_ you haven't left him _alone_ below stairs. There have
been so many burglaries lately. He is in the kitchen, I suppose."
Jane smothered a hysterical laugh, as Mrs. Belknap's rustling skirts
swept down the rear staircase. She heard her young mistress's distinct
American voice in a tone of displeased surprise. Then a door closed
sharply, and the girl heard a man's retreating steps passing beneath the
open window.
"He must be horribly vexed," she murmured; "but I'll _not_ go back to
England." She did not choose to question herself too sharply as to her
reasons for this dogged resolution. But she reflected that Mr. Towle
appeared much older since she had last seen him.
Mrs. Belknap called her presently from below stairs. "I am going now,
Jane; for I really must stop at Mrs. Brown's tea if only for a few
minutes. But I shall not be away long. Keep your eye on Buster _every
moment_; I am told there are gypsies about. And, Jane, if Mary isn't
back by five you must open the draughts of the range and prepare the
vegetables."
Left alone with her small charge, Jane sat down on the little green
bench under the vines with a kitchen towel to hem. It was very quiet
and peaceful, and the occasional distant roar of a passing trolley and
the loud singing of a very fat red-breasted robin, which had its nest in
one of the maples which were planted at stated intervals along the
street, merely served to make the country stillness the more evident.
Master Belknap was pleasantly absorbed in his endeavors to construct a
two-foot mountain in the midst of the sand box, and apparently much
entertained by the ceaseless action of the law of gravitation evidenced
by the conduct of the unstable material at its apex. He did not look up
at sound of the hasty steps which approached the house; but Jane did.
Then she put down the brown towel with a displeased pucker of her white
forehead.
"I thought that you had gone," she said coldly.
"I beg your pardon, but I wish to speak with that--er--young woman who
dismissed me a half hour ago," said Mr. Towle, with exceeding politeness
of manner. "I must see her. I wish to--er--explain. She was," he added
thoughtfully, "an exceedingly rude person."
"If you are referring to Mrs. Belknap," Jane said, "I beg to inform you
that she is my mistress; she sent you away with as little ceremony as
possible for several reasons which it is not necessary for me to
explain."
"Hum--ah!" murmured Mr. Towle. "Do you--er--mind telling me one of
them?"
"Oh, if you insist!" said Jane, "I told Mrs. Belknap that I did not care
to talk with you, and since she very particularly wished me to be at
liberty to attend to my work, which is to look after her child, and
to----"
Mr. Towle made a large gesture expressive of his extreme indifference to
Mrs. Belknap's child and also her brown towel. "I came from England to
find you, Jane," he said earnestly. "Why did you go away?"
"Why shouldn't I go away--if I chose?" Jane wanted to know, with a
provoking drawl. She set two stitches in her brown towel with exceeding
care, then put her pretty head on one side to survey the effect.
"There are at least two reasons why you should have stopped at home for
every one you can give for running away," he said deliberately.
"But I didn't _run away_!" denied Jane crossly. "I--I just _went_. Aunt
Agatha meant to send me somewhere because she hates me, I verily
believe. I preferred to go."
"Nevertheless you should have stayed," he said gently. "Your position in
life demanded patience and--er--pardon me--self-control. You exercised
neither, it seems, and now--" His expressive look pointed the moral.
Jane winced under the prick of it. "How did you ever find me?" she
asked, after a long pause filled with industrious stitching on the brown
towel.
"I saw an account of the smuggling episode in an American newspaper," he
said coolly. "Then, quite naturally, I looked up Miss Forbes at the
customs department, and she gave me your address. It was surprisingly
simple, you see, though it might easily have been far otherwise."
Jane bent her crimson face over her work. Her needle snapped in her
trembling fingers. "I--I didn't know about that dreadful woman," she
said in a low, shamed voice. "I supposed she was going to travel in
America. How _could_ I have known!"
Mr. Towle bent forward, his melancholy gray eyes filled with the warm
light of pity and that deeper feeling to which it is said to be akin.
"Poor little girl," he said in a deep voice, which fell upon Jane's ears
like a caress. "You couldn't have known, of course. And I say it's all a
beastly shame--the way they have treated you and all. Won't you let me
take care of you after this, Jane? You shall never suffer so again."
Jane tried to answer; but somehow the words refused to come.
"Let me take you away from all this," he pleaded. "Won't you, dear?"
At this moment Master Belknap slowly climbed up the steps. "My neck is
hot," he said seriously, "an' I want a dwink of water."
Jane arose with a sigh of relief. "Yes, Buster," she said eagerly.
"I'll go and fetch it for you."
The little boy turned his clear eyes upon the man and studied him in
silence for a minute. "Why did _you_ come?" he said at length.
Mr. Towle looked down at the child with resignation. "If I should ask
you the same question, my young man," he observed, "you wouldn't
understand, I suppose. As a matter of fact, if you had--er--stayed away
ten minutes longer, perhaps----"
"My Uncle Jack has a knife named after him," proceeded the child
confidentially. "It is a Jack-knife. I yuve my Uncle Jack, an'--an' I
yuve my Jane."
"Hum--ah," observed Mr. Towle. Then he removed his hat--for it was a
warm day--and passed his handkerchief thoughtfully over the top of his
bald head. Jane caught a fleeting glimpse of its dull, pale glisten as
she paused with her hand on the latch of the screen door.
Her face, as she held the glass for the child to drink, was so severely
grave and sweet that the Honorable Wipplinger's heart gave a sudden
painful throb. "You haven't answered my question, Jane," he murmured,
bending toward her.
She looked up at him with the merciless eyes of youth. "I really cannot
do as you wish, Mr. Towle," she said slowly. "And--I must ask you to go
away directly; I ought not to have talked with you here without Mrs.
Belknap's permission."
"I can't leave you here in this false position," he said hoarsely. "For
God's sake, Jane, listen to me! If you'll not marry me, let me take you
home--back to England. This is no place for you."
Jane's pretty lips set in stubborn lines. "I shall stop here," she said,
"until I have earned money enough to go back to England; then I shall
find a--a position--somewhere."
She was leaning forward, her gaze riveted on the far end of the street.
"And--and please go at once," she added breathlessly. "You must indeed."
The small boy had scampered across the weedy little lawn and climbed
upon the fence. Now he hastily scrambled down and swung open the gate.
"Uncle Jack!" he shouted; "I see my Uncle Jack. I'm doin' to meet my
Uncle Jack; may I, Jane?"
Jane nodded.
"You really want me to go and leave you here?" the man said heavily. "Is
it because----"
"If you care for me at all," she answered cruelly, "you would not wish
to annoy me by stopping after I have asked you to go."
Halfway down the street he encountered a tall, athletic young man
swinging easily along, the child perched upon his shoulder, his small
hands buried in the man's thick waving brown hair. "Det up, Uncle Jack,"
shouted the boy gleefully, and drummed his small heels upon his bearer's
broad chest.
Mr. Towle caught a fleeting glance of inquiry and half-humorous apology
from a pair of honest blue eyes as the two passed on the narrow wooden
sidewalk.
"You are a bally fool," groaned the Hon. Wipplinger Towle in his own
ear, "and a cad to boot." And having thus frankly labeled his
intentions, he deliberately turned to watch the tall young American,
with his insolently handsome head, as he passed up the street and in at
the gate of number 24 Vanderbilt Avenue.
"She must have seen him," muttered Mr. Towle, "before the boy did." Then
he allowed the infrequent trolley car to slide past him into the
sparsely settled country, while he tramped, his hat pulled low over his
eyes, for many a dusty mile--how many he neither knew nor cared.