André was grown up, thought Jane, as she listened to him bantering Agnes. He really looked just like a young man, as he sat smoking in that rocking chair. An experienced young man. Not a boy at all. André was nineteen. He was going back to Paris in June to stay—Jane couldn’t bear to think of it—really forever. To go to the Sorbonne and work at the Beaux Arts and learn how to be a sculptor. It would take him years and years.
And Agnes was going, too. Going to Europe to tutor a little girl and then to Bryn Mawr for four long winters. Things would never be the same again. It made Jane feel very sad to think of that.
And she, Jane, would just have to stay in Chicago and go to Farmington for a year with Flora and Muriel, and come home and live with the family and go out like Isabel and never get away at all. Never get out in the world to see all the beautiful things that she’d read of in books and André had told her about. Just stay in Chicago—and grow up—and grow old—like her mother or even Mrs. Lester. Flora’s mother hadn’t grown old, like that, of course. But Jane knew very well that she could never grow up to be like Flora’s mother. Flora herself might. Or maybe Muriel. But never Jane. There were tears in her eyes as she hung up the last damp dishcloth.
“What’s the matter, Jane?” asked André, in the hall. Agnes had run upstairs to get her hat and coat. “You’re awfully serious tonight.”
“I was just thinking how old we all were,” said Jane, mustering up a smile. “And how soon it would be all over—good times like this I mean—with Agnes in college and you—”
She broke off abruptly. She was terribly afraid that she was going to cry.
André caught up her hand, suddenly, in the darkness. Jane gave a little gasp of astonishment. Almost of fright.
“I’ll never be very far away from you, Jane,” said André solemnly, “wherever I am.”
Jane knew what he meant. It was dear of him to say it. She loved to think that he would take her with him, to all those lovely places that she might never see.
“And I’ll come back, Jane,” said André, still more solemnly. That was even more comforting.
“Will you, really?” she breathed. His face was very near her.
“Of course I will,” he said, almost roughly. “Don’t you know I will?”
He dropped her hand again, as Agnes ran down the stairs.
Agnes went out in the kitchen to lock the back door. André turned out the lights. Agnes locked the front door as they stood on the porch together. It all seemed very simple—not to have anything more to bother about than just what was in this little brown house. Jane thought of the fuss there always was at home when anyone left for a party, with Minnie racing up and down stairs on forgotten errands, and someone at the front window, watching for the cab, and her mother in the hall giving last counsel and directions.
“Have you got your key, dear? I’ll be sitting up for you. Try not to muss that nice frock. If you have anything good to eat, remember what it was. Haven’t you got your party shoes? Minnie! Run upstairs and bring down Jane’s party shoes. Nod to the cabman, Isabel. She’ll be out in a minute!”
Jane thought it would be very restful to go out like this, just locking the door and leaving, with no questions asked. She walked soberly down the street between André and Agnes. Agnes’s arm was linked in hers. The lamps were lighted, now, in all the little houses. You could see them on tables, with families grouped around them. No one pulled down window shades, much, on Agnes’s street. At home it was a solemn ritual of the twilight. Here you could see fathers with newspapers and mothers with mending and children bothering them, in almost every house. It was fun to peek in at them and think of all those different lives.
At the Clark Street corner they waited for the cable-car. Jane began to feel very conscience-stricken again. The car rumbled up and stopped and they all climbed up in the grip car in front. It was such a lovely evening; it was fun to ride in the open air. Jane still liked to look down the crack where the levers were and watch the grip pick up the cable. She had loved to do it as a little girl.
The car went on down Clark Street. It looked awfully dark and not very respectable. The light from the cable car flashed in the spring puddles along the road. The stores were all dark except the saloons and drug stores on the corners, and an occasional café in the centre of a block. Down near the river they passed a cheap burlesque house. “Ten, Twenty, Thirty,” it said, over the door. Jane could read the sign quite clearly in the flaring gas lights. And underneath there was a poster of eight kicking ladies in tights and ballet skirts. “The Original Black Crook Chorus,” was the legend above them. And below in great red letters with exclamation points, “Girls!!! Girls!!! Girls!!!” A dismal-looking crowd was gathering about the entrance. Jane felt more conscience-stricken than ever. The cable car plunged into the La Salle Street tunnel under the river.
The crowds on the other side were much less dismal and the lights were brighter and there were many more of them. The theatregoers were gathering around the scattered playhouses. They looked very cheerful and gay. There was something sinister about it all, however. The city seemed very dark and dangerous to Jane, though André and Agnes were chattering gaily on, as if nothing out of
