“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
