“Do you mean,” said Stephen, a little hoarsely, “that you—that you can’t care for me—at all?”
Jane shook her head, very slowly. She felt dreadfully sorry for him.
“No—I can’t,” she said simply. “Not that way.”
Stephen looked very much discouraged.
“I thought,” he said sadly, “I thought—these last weeks—”
Jane rose suddenly to her feet. She stepped right up to Stephen and took his hands in hers.
“Stephen,” she said, “you’ve been darling to Flora. And darling to me. I—I’m terribly fond of you. But I don’t love you. I don’t love you at all.”
“How do you know?” asked Stephen, eagerly. He was holding her hands now, close against his breast. “How do you know—if you’re terribly fond of me?”
“I know,” said Jane. She dropped her eyes as she felt them fill with tears. She could see the moonlit beach that minute. She could feel the shattering sense of André’s nearness.
“Jane—” pleaded Stephen. “You can’t be sure.”
“I’m very sure,” said Jane. She withdrew her hands from his.
“I’ll never give you up,” said Stephen. Jane shuddered, faintly, at his ill-chosen words. She could feel André’s lips on hers in the dim-lit side vestibule. “You’re mine,” he’d said; “I’ll never give you up.”
“Don’t—don’t talk like that,” said Jane sharply. She turned toward the door. “I’m going home now. You must let me go, Stephen. I—I don’t want to hear you.”
He looked terribly sorry and just a little hurt, but Jane didn’t care. She couldn’t care for anyone now, in the sudden surge of memories that had overwhelmed her. André. André Duroy. She would never care like that for anyone again. She wasn’t even sure that she would care like that for André, now, if she could see him. But Jane knew. Jane knew all too well.
“I don’t love you, Stephen,” she said, with dignity, on the threshold. He just stared dumbly, despairingly, at her from the empty hearthstone. Jane turned and left the room.
II
“He’s crazy about you,” said Muriel lightly. “It’s ridiculous for you to say you haven’t noticed it. Isn’t he crazy about her, Isabel?”
Muriel was sitting on Jane’s window-seat, looking out into the lemon-coloured leaves of the October willow. Isabel was perched on Jane’s bed. Little John Ward was standing in a baby pen in the centre of the room. Jane was sitting on the floor beside him. She had only been back three weeks from the West and a walking John Ward was still a provocative novelty.
“You never can tell with men,” said Isabel warily.
“I can tell,” said Muriel, shaking her black curls very sagely. “Last night at the Saddle and Cycle he never took his eyes off her.”
“Eyes aren’t everything,” said Isabel. “How about it, Jane?”
Jane looked up from the baby. She met their eager glances very coolly.
“Muriel’s a bride,” she said calmly. “She’s not responsible for her views on sentiment.”
“Stephen’s a lover!” retorted Muriel. “He’s not responsible for his. He looked at you across the table, Jane, as if he’d like to eat you.”
“How cannibalistic of him!” smiled Jane, cheerfully. “Somehow that picture doesn’t lead me on.”
“You’re a perfect idiot,” said Muriel, “if you don’t accept him.” Again she glanced at the bedstead for support. “Isn’t she, Isabel?”
Isabel became suddenly practical.
“What’s wrong with him, Jane?” she asked earnestly. “He’s young”—her voice faltered a moment, with a glance at Muriel, over that qualification. She went hurriedly on, “And good-looking and he has plenty of money and a very good family and he’s your best friend’s cousin. I’d say he was made to order, if you asked me.”
“Why don’t you fancy him, Jane? You know he’s in love with you,” said Muriel accusingly. “You ought to have seen her last night, Isabel. You wouldn’t have known our Jane. She just wiped her feet on him.”
“Who does Jane wipe her feet on?” questioned Mrs. Ward’s voice. Jane’s mother stood, smiling, on the threshold.
“Stephen Carver,” said Muriel promptly, ignoring Jane’s warning eyebrow.
Mrs. Ward looked very much pleased.
“She’s a very foolish girl if she does,” she said advancing into the room. She cast an apprehensive glance at the baby. “Isabel, are you sure that there isn’t a draught on that floor?” Isabel moved a trifle restlessly on the bedstead. She didn’t stoop to reply. “Stephen Carver,” went on Mrs. Ward, “is a very charming young fellow. If Jane is wiping her feet on him she may find out when it’s too late that he’s not the stuff of which doormats are made.”
“Oh—I think he likes it,” said Muriel. “He does like it, doesn’t he, Jane?”
Jane couldn’t help smiling a trifle self-consciously. Stephen did like to have her notice him anyway at all. He had been terribly glad to see her when she came back from the West. And she had been—not terribly, but really very glad to see him. He had given her a whirl at all the early autumn parties. Last night at the Saddle and Cycle Club—well—Jane knew very well that she shouldn’t have acted just the way she did, since she didn’t love Stephen at all and wanted, so terribly, to make it perfectly clear to him that she never could.
“You’d like it, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Ward?” asked Muriel impishly.
Mrs. Ward looked a trifle disconcerted. She exchanged with Isabel a slightly embarrassed glance. Jane was more amused than anything, to see Muriel beating her mother and Isabel at their own game. Muriel would like nothing better than to go out onto Pine Street that very afternoon and say with conviction, “Mrs. Ward is setting her cap for Stephen Carver.”
“Every mother,” said Mrs. Ward a trifle sententiously, “would like her daughter’s happiness.”
Isabel rose from the bed.
“I’ve got to go, Jane,” she said. “Hand me Jacky.”
Jane picked up her nephew over the railing of the pen. His little arms twined confidently around her neck. His fat little diapered figure felt very firm and solid in her arms. It would be fun to have a baby, all your own, thought Jane. It would be fun to
