John Everett answered the carping question in Jane's eyes with gay
composure. "I promised Buster yesterday that I would come home early and
join him at the beach," he said coolly. "I want to have a hand in
digging that hole, myself," he added, rescuing the abandoned shovel from
a sandy entombment.
Jane surveyed him gravely. "If you are going to be here all the
afternoon," she said, "perhaps you will not mind if I go home. There are
windows to clean, and I am sure Mrs. Belknap would not mind my leaving
Master Buster in your care, sir."
His crestfallen face afforded the girl a transient amusement as she
walked across the sand in quest of her hat. But Fate, in the small
person of the infant, happily intervened as she was firmly inserting her
hat pins and otherwise preening herself for hasty flight.
"Where 'oo doin', Jane?" he demanded imperiously.
"I am going home," replied Jane, with a conciliatory smile. "Mr. Everett
will stay with you, dear."
"No!" murmured the sagacious infant, laying hold of the girl's gown with
a determined hand. "N-o-o!" The last word ended in a loud wail of
protest.
Jane flushed uncomfortably under John Everett's observant eyes, as she
stooped to gently disengage herself. "I must go, dear," she repeated. "I
have some work to do at home."
The child responded by throwing both chubby arms about her neck and
wailing discordantly in her ear.
"Come, come, Buster!" exclaimed his uncle wrathfully; "you can stop that
howling. Jane won't leave you. I'll take myself off instead, as I see I
am decidedly out of it."
The small boy instantly relaxed his hold upon the girl and flew to his
uncle. "No-o!" he shouted. "I want my Jane, an'--an' I want 'oo, Uncle
Jack!" He clambered up his accommodating relative's trouser leg, and was
assisted to a triumphant perch upon that young gentleman's broad
shoulder, where he beamed upon Jane with innocent delight. "I yuve my
Uncle Jack," he announced conclusively, "and I yuve my Jane!"
"That's all right, young fellow, and a proper sentiment too," murmured
John Everett. Then he cast a pleading look at Jane. "Why persist in
spoiling a good time?" he asked. "I'll play in the sand like a good boy,
and I promise you I won't teach Buster any bad words, nor throw wet sand
on his clean frock."
Jane's pretty face was a study. "Very well, sir," she said coldly. "It
is not for me to say, I suppose." Then she sat down at a safe distance
from the hole in the sand--in which the small diplomat, satisfied with
the result of his _coup_, immediately resumed operations--and fixed her
eyes on the sail-haunted horizon. All the sense of happy freedom which
the wind had brought her from across the sea had suddenly vanished. She
was gallingly conscious of the bonds of her servitude and of the
occasional friendly glances which the big, pleasant-faced young fellow
on the sand bestowed upon her.
"I hate him!" she told herself passionately. "If he knew who I was he
would not dare call me 'Jane,' and smile at me in that insufferably
familiar way. It is only because I am a _servant_. Oh, I _hate_ him!"
Her little hands clenched themselves till the nails almost pierced the
tender palms, whereon divers hardened spots told of unaccustomed toil.
It was not an auspicious moment for John Everett to approach and utter a
commonplace remark about a passing steamer. Nevertheless he did it,
being anxious in his blundering masculine way to cheer this forlorn
little exile, who he felt sure was in dire need of human sympathy.
Jane made no sort of reply, and after a doubtful pause he ventured to
seat himself at her side. "That white tower on the farther side of the
bay is one of the features of 'Dreamland,'" he observed. "At night one
can see it for a long distance sparkling with electric lights."
Still no answer. He studied the girl's delicate profile in silence for a
minute. "Wouldn't you like to see it sometime, Jane?" he asked.
She turned upon him suddenly. "How--how _dare_ you--call me 'Jane,'
and--and-- Oh, I _hate_ you!" Her kindling eyes scorched him for an
instant, then before he could collect his scattered senses she burst
into wild sobbing. "You wouldn't dare treat me so if I was at--at home,"
she went on between her sobs; "but you think because I am all alone here
and--and working for wages that you--can amuse yourself with me. Oh, I
wish you would go away and never speak to me again!"
His face had paled slowly. "I don't even know your name," he said
quietly. "But I assure you, Miss--Jane, it has been very far from my
mind to annoy you, or to----"
He stopped short and looked at her fixedly. "I must put myself right
with you, Jane," he said at last. "You must listen to me."
Her low weeping suddenly ceased, and she lifted her proud little face
all wet with angry tears to his. "I will listen," she said haughtily.
"I am afraid I don't altogether understand what you mean to accuse me
of," he said, choosing his words carefully; "but I will tell you just
why I have tried to make friends with you. I will admit that men in my
station do not as a rule make friends with servant maids." He said this
firmly and watched her wince under the words. "But, Jane, you are not at
all like an ordinary servant. I saw that the first time I met you. I
fancied that you had, somehow, stumbled out of your right place in the
world, and I thought--very foolishly, no doubt--that I might help you to
get back to it."
Jane's eyes kindled. "I can help myself to get back to it," she
murmured, "and I will!"
"That is why I wished to help you," he went on, without paying heed to
her interruption, "and I will confess to you that I came down here this
afternoon on purpose to have a talk with you. I meant--" he paused to
search her face gravely. "I meant to ask you to allow me to send you
home to England."
"Oh, no--_no_!" she protested.
"Do you mean to remain in America, then?" he asked. "Are you satisfied
with being a domestic servant?"
"No," she said doggedly. "I am going back when--when I have earned the
money for my passage. I ought never to have come," she added bitterly.
"I ought to have endured the ills I knew."
"Will you tell me what ills you were enduring in England?" he asked.
"I--I was living with relatives," she faltered, "and----"
"Were they unkind to you?"
"They didn't mean to be," acknowledged Jane. "I can see that now. But I
fancied--I thought I should be happier if I were independent. So I----"
"You fell into trouble as soon as you stepped out of the safe shelter of
your home," he finished for her. "You are right in thinking that you
should never have come, and yet-- Now won't you allow me to--advance the
money for your passage? I assure you I shall be very businesslike about
it. I shall expect you to return every penny of it. For I"--he paused to
smile half humorously to himself--"I am a poor young man, Jane, and I
have to work for my living."
She looked up into the strong, kind face he bent toward her. "I--thank
you," she said slowly, "and I beg your pardon, too. I see now that you
are--that you meant to be my friend."
"And you will accept my friendship?" he asked eagerly. "You will allow
me to help you to return to England?"
She shook her head. "I could have borrowed the money from Bertha Forbes,
if I had chosen to do it," she said. "She wanted to send me back at
once. But"--with an obstinate tightening of her pretty lips--"I thought
since I had gotten myself into this absurd plight by my own foolishness
I ought to get myself out of it. And that is why I am working for wages
in your sister's house. I shall soon have earned money enough to go home
by second cabin; but I don't mind how I go, if only I go!"
Her eyes wandered away to the dim blue horizon which lay beyond "The
Hook," and he saw her sensitive mouth quiver.
"Do you know you're showing a whole lot of splendid grit," he murmured
appreciatively. "I know just how you feel."
"Now that I have told you all this," she went on hurriedly, her eyes
returning from their wistful excursion seaward, "you will understand why
I do not--why I cannot--" she blushed and faltered into silence.
"You really haven't told me very much after all," he said gravely.
"Don't you think between friends, now, that----"
"But we are not friends," she interrupted him hastily. "That is just
what I wished to say. I have explained to you that I have friends in
England, and I have Miss Forbes besides. So there is no reason at all
why you should give me or my affairs another thought, and I
beg"--haughtily--"that you will not."
"O Jane! why?" he urged anxiously.
She cast an impatient glance at him. "You are so--stupid," she murmured
resentfully. "But then you are an American, and I suppose you cannot
help it."
He grimaced ruefully at this British taunt. "I fear I shall have to
allow the damaging fact of my nationality," he said; "but I fail to
understand how it is going to stand in the way of my thinking of you at
intervals. If you knew more about Americans, Jane, you would see that it
is mainly on that account I am bound to do it."
"You'll be obliged to keep your thoughts to yourself then," she told
him, "for as long as I am in Mrs. Belknap's employ I am, undeniably, her
servant and, hence, nothing to you. Do you understand? Because if you do
not, I shall be obliged to find another situation at once."
"Oh, no; don't do that!" he protested. "Look here, Jane, I'm not quite
such a duffer as you seem to think. I see your point, and I'll agree not
to bother you after this. But I won't promise never to think of you
again. On the contrary, I mean to think of you a great deal; may I,
Jane?"
Jane arose. "It is quite time to be going home," she said coldly. "I
must ask you not to speak to me again, Mr. Everett, and please come home
on another car."
"But sometime, Jane, after this farce is played to its finis, don't you
think----"
She turned her back upon him deliberately and walked away toward the
trolley station, leading Master Belknap by the hand, meek and
unresisting. During all this time the little boy had been contentedly
laboring in the removal of sand from a hole of wide dimensions; his eyes
were heavy with fatigue when the girl set him gently in his place on the
homeward bound car. "I yuve 'oo, Jane," he murmured sweetly, laying his
curly head in her lap. "I'm doin' to build 'oo a--dreat, big house!"
Five minutes later he was soundly asleep, and Jane, who had tried in
vain to awaken him, was forced to lift his limp weight in her slender
arms when the car finally stopped at her destination.
"Give the boy to me, Jane," said an authoritative voice at her side.
She looked up in real vexation. "I thought," she said reproachfully,
"that you promised----"
"I promised not to bother you, Jane; but I didn't say I would never
offer to help you again. Did you suppose for an instant that I would
allow you to carry that boy up this hill?"
Jane crossed the street without a word, and speeding across lots, by way
of a daisied meadow, reached the house first.
She was met at the door by her mistress. "Why, Jane, where is Buster?"
inquired Mrs. Belknap anxiously.
"Master Buster went to sleep on the way home, ma'am," explained Jane,
blushing guiltily, "and Mr. Everett, who chanced to be on the same car,
kindly offered to bring him up the hill."
"Oh!" said Mr. Everett's sister, rather blankly.