As John Everett and Jane Blythe walked slowly along the shaded winding
path from the rustic bridge where they landed from the flat-iron shaped
scow, the girl was thoughtfully silent, and the man glancing at her
averted face felt vaguely uncomfortable. But he could hardly have been
expected to know that Jane's thoughts were perversely busying themselves
with the Hon. Wipplinger Towle. She was wondering uneasily as to what
that eminently correct Englishman would think at sight of her walking,
quite alone and unchaperoned, with a man, as appeared to be the strange
American custom. Then for perhaps the fiftieth time she speculated upon
the singular abruptness with which Mr. Towle had abandoned his wooing
after her final dismissal of him on Mrs. Belknap's back stoop.
"He might at least have sent me word that he was going back to
England," she told herself with some indignation, "if he really cared
for me as much as he says."
The thought of that dear, distant island of her birth colored her answer
to John Everett's cursory remark concerning the buffaloes, which lolled
in all their huge unwieldy bulk inside a trampled enclosure. "Awkward
chaps; aren't they?" he observed; "but the Government is doing its best
to preserve them at this late day. They used to be slaughtered by tens
of thousands on the plains, you know, until they bade fair to become
extinct."
Jane shrugged her slender shoulders indifferently. "They are like
everything else I have seen in America," she said, "much too big and
ugly to be interesting."
The tall American cast a laughing glance at the little figure at his
side. "We've more room to grow big in than you have in your 'right
little, tight little isle,'" he said pleasantly. "Now if you're half as
hungry as I am, you're ready to become a generous patron of natural
history to the extent of eating some lunch at this restaurant. The net
proceeds of all these places of entertainment are said to be turned in
to purchase more beasts, birds, and reptiles for the public
delectation."
Jane blushed resentfully as they seated themselves at a small table in
the restaurant which was little more than an exaggerated veranda, open
on all sides to the fresh breeze, the sight of the neat waitresses, in
their caps and aprons, reminding her poignantly of her own anomalous
position. She glanced fearfully about, half expecting to meet the
scornful eyes of some one of Mrs. Belknap's acquaintances to whom she
had opened the door, and whose cards she had conveyed to her mistress
upon the diminutive tray which Mrs. Belknap had lately purchased for
that express purpose. There were other young women at other round
tables, wearing astonishing gowns and preposterous picture hats, and
attended by dapper young men in smart ready-made suits and brilliant
neckties. Amid the pervasive hum of toneless American voices, pieced by
occasional high-pitched giggles, Jane became painfully conscious that
her own gown was old-fashioned and shabby to a degree, and in marked
contrast to the trim elegance of her companion's garb.
His eyes, released from a study of the bill of fare, followed hers with
a half humorous and wholly masculine misapprehension. "These are New
York's working girls out for a holiday," he said, "and they've certainly
got Solomon cinched, as the boys say, on attire; haven't they?"
"If they are working girls, they are very unsuitably dressed," Jane said
primly. Then she glanced down at her own frock made over from one of
Gwendolen's cast-offs by her own unskilled fingers, and sighed deeply.
"I like a--a plain gown best; one made of blue stuff, say, and not
too--too much frilled and furbelowed," he observed, with a fatuous
desire to ingratiate himself, which met with instant and well-deserved
retribution.
"It isn't kind nor--nor even civil of you to say that," murmured Jane,
in a low indignant voice; "I'm only a working girl myself; and as for my
frock, I know it's old-fashioned and--and ugly. I made it myself out of
an old one; but you needn't have looked at it in that--particular way,
and----"
"Jane!" he protested, startled at the fire in her eyes and the
passionate tremor in her voice, "I beg your pardon for speaking as I
did; it wasn't good manners, and I deserve to be squelched for doing it.
I don't know any more about gowns than most men, and yours may be
old-fashioned, but it is certainly the most becoming one I have seen
to-day!"
Jane gazed at him searchingly. Then her mouth relaxed in a shadowy smile
of forgiveness.
"Ah, here's the luncheon at last," he cried, with an air of huge relief,
"and I hope you're as well prepared to overlook probable deficiencies as
I am."
There is something primal and indubitable in the mere act of partaking
of food at the same table which has always served to break down
intangible barriers of reserve. By the time Jane Blythe had eaten of the
broiled mackerel and fried potatoes--the latter vegetables being of the
color and texture of untanned leather--she felt better acquainted with
the man who shared these delectable viands with her than she could have
believed possible. And when the two of them had finally arrived at the
point of attacking twin mounds of pink and white ice cream, vouched for
by the smiling young person who waited on them as "fresh strawb'r'y an'
vaniller," she was ready to laugh with him at the truly national ease
and dispatch with which the loud-voiced, showily-dressed damsels in
their immediate neighborhood were disposing of similar pink and white
mounds.
And when after luncheon they followed the crowd to the lion house,
Jane's brown eyes grew delightfully big at sight of the great beasts
ramping up and down in their cages and roaring for their prey, which a
blue-frocked man shoved in to them in the convenient shape of huge
chunks of butcher's beef. From the spectacle of the great cats at food,
the current of sightseers swept them along to the abode of the simians,
where they found monkeys of all sizes, colors, and shapes, gathered from
every tropical forest in the world, and bound always to arouse strange
questionings in the minds of their nobler captors. Jane lingered before
the tiny white-faced apes with the bright, plaintive eyes and withered
skins of old, old women. "They seem so anxious," she said, "and so
worried over their bits of food, which is sure to be given them by a
power which they do not understand."
John Everett looked down at her with quick understanding of her unspoken
thought. "They might better be jolly, and--so might we," he murmured. "I
suppose, in a way, we're in a cage--being looked after."
"And yet we seem to be having our own way," Jane said.
After that she was ready to enjoy the ourangs, dressed in pinafores, and
sitting up at a table devouring buns and milk with an astonishing
display of simian good manners under the watchful eye and ready switch
of their trainer. When one of these sad-eyed apes suddenly hurled the
contents of his mug at his companion's head, then disappeared under the
table, she laughed aloud, an irrepressible, rolicking, girlish peal.
"They make me think of Percy and Cecil at tea in the nursery at home,"
she explained; "they were always trying experiments with their bread and
milk, and when they were particularly bad Aunt Agatha was sure to find
it out, and scold me because I allowed it."
"I can't imagine you a very severe disciplinarian," he said, "though you
do manage Buster with wonderful success."
He regretted the stupid allusion at sight of her quick blush, and made
haste to draw her attention to the Canadian lynxes snarling and showing
their tasseled ears amid the fastnesses of their rocky den.
Neither paid any heed to the shrill exclamation of surprise to which a
stout person in a plaided costume surmounted by a lofty plumed hat gave
vent as she recognized the slight figure in the blue serge gown. The
stout lady was industriously engaged in consuming sweets out of a brown
paper bag; but she suspended the half of a magenta-tinted confection in
midair while she called her companion's attention to her discovery.
"I'll cross the two feet av me this minute if it ain't _hur_!" she
cried.
Her escort, who was distinguished by a mottled complexion, a soiled
white waistcoat, and a billy-cock hat tipped knowingly over one red eye,
helped himself to a block of dubious taffy, as he inquired with
trenchant brevity: "Who's hur?"
"An' bad 'cess to hur English imperance, if she ain't wid _him_!" went
on the lady excitedly; "sure an' it's Mary MacGrotty as'll tell the
missus what I seen wid me own two eyes come to-morry mornin'. An' whin
I'm t'rough wid hur ye'll not be able to find the lavin's an' lashin's
av _hur_ on Staten Island! Aw, the young divil!"
Happily, the unconscious object of these ambiguous remarks moved on
without turning her head, and was presently lost to view amid the
shifting crowd.
There was much to be seen at every turn of the winding paths, and Jane's
girlish laugh rang out more than once at the solemn antics of the brown
bears, obviously greedy and expectant despite the official warnings
against feeding the animals, which were posted everywhere; at the
bellowings and contortions of the mild-eyed seals, as they dashed from
side to side of their tank, or "galumphed" about on the rocks. It was
Jane who supplied the missing word out of "Alice in Wonderland," and
John declared that it was the only word to describe the actions of a
seal on dry ground, and hence deserved an honorable place in the
dictionary.
Neither of them noticed the lengthening shadows, nor the gradually
thinning crowd, till Jane observed a pair of huge eagles settling
themselves deliberately upon a branch in their cage. "They look," she
said innocently, "as if they were going to roost."
Not till then did the infatuated John Everett bethink himself to glance
at his watch.
"They _are_ going to roost, Jane," he said soberly, "and we've a long
trip before us."
Jane could never afterwards recall the memory of that homeward journey
without a poignant throb of the dismay which overwhelmed her when she
spied Mary MacGrotty's leering face in the crowd that waited in the
ferryhouse. Miss MacGrotty's countenance was suggestively empurpled, and
her gait was swaying and uncertain as she approached Jane.
"I seen yez wid _him_ to th' Paark," she whispered, "ye desaitful young
baggage!" Then she stepped back into the crowd and disappeared before
the girl could collect her wits to reply.
Jane's pretty color had faded quite away, and her eyes looked big and
frightened when John Everett joined her with the tickets. "Oh, if you
please!" she whispered, "won't you let me go alone from here. I--I
mustn't be seen--with you, sir."
The last piteous little word almost shook him from his self-control.
"You have a perfect right to be seen with me, Jane," he said firmly;
"and I will not leave you alone in this rough crowd; but if it will make
you any more comfortable I will sit a little distance away--but where I
can watch you, mind--once we are aboard."
Mrs. Belknap had reached home before them, and Master Buster, cross and
tired, was handed over to Jane immediately upon her arrival. "I am very
sorry to be so late," the girl said, with a shamed drooping of her head.
And Mrs. Belknap replied kindly: "You've not had many holidays since
you've been with me, Jane; I hope you enjoyed this one."
"I--I did indeed," choked Jane; "but I ought--I must explain----"
"Not to-night, please; it really makes no difference for this once!" her
mistress said crisply.