Happiness! Jane threw a tearful glance at André. He looked very proud and stern, standing there before her father. He gave her a tremulous smile.
“Papa,” said Jane, “I know I’d be happy with André—”
“Don’t talk like that!” cried her mother sharply. But her father silenced her.
“You think so now, kid,” he said kindly. “But you can’t tell. You don’t know anything about it, either of you. André’s nineteen years old. He’s got five or six years of education ahead of him, on his own say-so, before he can be any kind of a sculptor. You were seventeen last month. You’ve known André for four years and you’ve never said three words to any other boy. You can’t know your own mind and he can’t know his, either. Five or six years from now, you might both understand what you were talking about. André’s going to France next week, to live. He’s a Frenchman and that’s where he belongs. You’ve got to stay here with your mother and me and grow up into a woman before you talk about marrying anyone.”
“I—I don’t have to—marry him,” said Jane faintly. “I just want to—to promise that I will when we’re old enough. I just want—”
“Jane,” said her mother very reasonably, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We don’t have to think of that now.”
“I just—want to—wait for him,” faltered Jane. Then, with a flash of spirit, “You can’t help my waiting!”
“Of course not,” said her father pacifically. “But no promises, André, on either side.”
“And no letters,” put in her mother. Jane’s father shook his head at her, but she insisted. “No, John. No letters until Jane’s twenty-one. You must promise that, André. I won’t have her tied down to any understanding.”
“I guess that’s right, André,” said Jane’s father soberly. “You’d better promise.”
Jane and André exchanged a glance of despair. There was a brief pause.
“How about it, my boy?” said Jane’s father.
“I—I promise,” said André huskily.
Jane’s mother gave a sigh of relief. She had the situation in hand now.
“I think you had better go, André,” she said very kindly.
“Can I see Jane again?” André asked.
“I think you’d better not,” said Jane’s mother. “It would only be painful.”
“Then I’d like—I’d like—” said André steadily, “to say goodbye to her now.”
“Of course,” said Jane’s father, very promptly rising. “Come, Lizzie.”
Jane’s mother looked very reluctant to leave the room.
“I don’t like this,” she said.
“Mrs. Ward,” said André, “you can trust me.”
Jane’s father threw him an admiring glance. He fairly pushed her mother from the room. He closed the door behind them. Jane turned to gaze at André.
“André,” she said breathlessly, “what—what can we do?”
“We can wait,” said André. “And we can think of each other.”
“André,” said Jane earnestly, “did—did your father and mother talk like that, too?”
“They didn’t talk like that—but they thought the same things. I—I could see them thinking.”
“They didn’t—like it?”
“They like you,” said André. “Father said you were a girl in a thousand.”
“Well, then?” said Jane.
“Mother thought I was much too young and she thought I ought to be able to support a wife before I asked a girl to marry me. She thought it was pretty rotten—my asking you. And Father—well, Father had always expected me to marry in France, of course. And we’re—we’re all Catholics. That doesn’t mean much to me, but it does to him. But when I told them how—how I felt about you—well, they said—all right I could try my luck with your father. I—didn’t have much. Though he was awfully decent. I haven’t a leg to stand on, of course. I can’t support you and I—I’ve got to go to France—you—you—understand that, Jane—I’ve got to go—to study, you know, if I’m ever going to amount to anything. Father and Mother both said that. I couldn’t do anything here. I—I guess I don’t sound like much of a son-in-law—”
“But, André,” said Jane, “do you mean—do you mean that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that we can do?”
“Well,” said André, “what is there?” What was there, indeed?
“I—I shouldn’t have asked you,” said André.
“Oh, André!” cried Jane. “You must never think that!”
“Why not?” said André.
“You made me so happy,” said Jane simply.
André took a quick step toward her. Then he stopped. He remembered.
“Oh, Jane!” he said, and dropped down on the sofa. “Jane—my love!” He buried his face in his hands.
Jane sank down on her knees beside him. She pulled his hands away from his face. André was crying. She took him in her arms.
“André!” she said breathlessly, “André!” She looked eagerly up at him.
“I—I promised your mother,” he said huskily.
“I didn’t promise anyone!” cried Jane desperately. “André—you must kiss me goodbye!”
He took her in his arms. His lips met hers. The world was lost again. But this time Jane knew that it was really there, pressing close about them, menacing them, parting them, saying they were—young. She slipped from his embrace. She rose to her feet. André stood up, too, and held out his hands. She seized them in her own. He stooped to kiss her fingers.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“André,” she said, “I’ll always—”
He managed a wavering smile.
“No promises,” he said. “Just thoughts.”
“All my thoughts!” said Jane. He stumbled toward the door. On the threshold he turned again.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“André!” cried Jane. “I—I can’t bear it!” She heard her father’s voice in the hall.
“I’m sorry, André. You—you’ve behaved so well, both of you.” Their steps died down the passage. Jane heard the front door open and close. She rushed to the window. André was walking, furiously fast, up Pine Street. At the corner he turned to look back. She waved wildly. She kissed her hand. He smiled again, very bravely. Then turned and vanished. Jane flung herself face downward on the sofa. The mark of André’s elbow was still on the pillow. She buried her face in it passionately. She heard her father enter the room. He walked slowly over to the sofa.
“Little Jane,” he said, “don’t cry like that.”
Jane only buried her face
