Isabel took Jacky.
“I’ll walk along with you, Isabel,” said Muriel. “Goodbye, Jane. Don’t come down.”
Mrs. Ward turned to Jane as soon as the other two girls were out of hearing. She still looked pleased, and a little excited.
“What’s this, Jane,” she said, “about Stephen Carver?”
“Just Muriel’s nonsense,” said Jane.
“Is he really in love with you?” said Mrs. Ward.
“Oh, Mamma!” protested Jane very lightly. “You know Muriel.”
Mrs. Ward was looking at her very attentively.
“Has he asked you to marry him?” she said.
Jane hesitated for an almost imperceptible instant.
“Not—not this fall,” she said.
“Last winter?” said Mrs. Ward very quickly.
Jane hesitated no longer.
“Of course not, Mamma. I hardly knew him last winter.”
Mrs. Ward looked rather puzzled. Jane felt very triumphant and only a little untruthful. May was not winter.
“He’s a very dear boy,” said Mrs. Ward impressively. “I like Stephen Carver.”
Jane made no comment. She began to fold up the baby pen.
“Your father admires him, too,” said Mrs. Ward.
“How about Isabel?” asked Jane sweetly. “And Robin? And the baby?”
Mrs. Ward laughed in spite of herself.
“They do all like him,” she said.
Families were terrible, thought Jane. But her eyes were twinkling.
“So if I did, too,” she said brightly, “it would make it unanimous.”
“Do you?” said Mrs. Ward.
“Mamma,” said Jane, “you are really shameless.”
She walked out of the room with the baby pen. She was going to put it away in the back hall.
III
“Marion,” said Agnes confidently, “is surely going to get the European fellowship.”
“Why not you, Agnes?” asked Jane.
They were sitting side by side on the brown velvet sofa in Mr. Ward’s little library. Agnes was having tea with Jane. She was spending the Christmas holidays in Chicago.
“I haven’t a chance,” said Agnes. “Marion’s had wonderful marks these last two years.”
Jane thought of the little dark-eyed Freshman she had met that first night in Pembroke Hall and of her father’s sapient comment, “I bet she’ll amount to something some day.” Marion amounted to a great deal already.
“And I don’t want it,” said Agnes. “I don’t want to study any more. I only want to write. I’m going to live in New York next winter. I’m going to look for a job on a newspaper.”
Agnes seemed terribly capable and confident and self-sufficient. Jane couldn’t imagine how she would set about finding that job, but she knew that she would get it. Jane tried to think of herself, turning up alone in New York, looking for a living wage and a good boardinghouse. It wasn’t thinkable.
“What have you been doing, Jane?” said Agnes. “What are you going to do?”
Jane couldn’t think of any adequate answer to those incisive questions. She wasn’t going to do anything. She hadn’t done anything, in the Bryn Mawr idiom, since she had left Bryn Mawr.
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I—I’ve just been home.” Then she added honestly, “I’ve liked it a lot.”
Agnes’s friendly, freckled face was just a little incredulous.
“You can’t like it, Jane,” she said. “Not really.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” said Jane. She felt terribly unworthy.
“You’re too good for a life like this,” said Agnes. “And much too clever.”
Jane didn’t deny the soft impeachment.
“You can be clever anywhere,” she said.
Agnes looked a little uncomprehending.
“You can think about people,” said Jane. “You can learn about life.”
“If you don’t look out, Jane,” said Agnes very seriously, “you’ll marry one of these days—marry a cotillion partner—and never do anything again as long as you live.”
“I’d like to marry,” said Jane honestly.
“So would I,” said Agnes with equal candour. “I expect to, some day. But not a cotillion partner.”
“There are all kinds of cotillion partners,” said Jane, defensively. The Bryn Mawr point of view seemed just a little restricted.
Agnes drank her tea for a moment in silence. Then silently stirred the sugar in the cup.
“Jane,” she said presently, her eyes on the teaspoon, “Jane—have you ever heard from André?” Jane felt a sudden shock at the name.
“No, Agnes,” she said very gently. “I never have.”
There was a little pause.
“Agnes,” said Jane, a trifle tremulously, “have—have you?”
“No,” said Agnes.
Silence fell on the room, once more.
“You’ll be twenty-one in May,” said Agnes. “I bet he writes.”
“He—he’s probably forgotten all about me,” said Jane. “You know, Agnes, we were just children.”
“It was very clever of your mother,” said Agnes, “not to allow any letters.”
Jane felt a little stir of loyalty in her perplexed heart.
“It was probably very wise of her,” she said.
“Possibly,” said Agnes.
“I—I’ll never see him again, I suppose,” said Jane. “He’ll always live in Paris.”
Agnes continued to stir her tea.
“It would be dreadful,” said Jane, “if I were still in love with him.”
“I suppose it might be,” said Agnes at last. “Four years is a long time.”
“He must be very different,” said Jane. “I’m very different myself.”
“Of course,” said Agnes meditatively, “you’ve both met a lot of people.”
Jane heard the doorbell ring. She almost hoped that this conversation would be interrupted. It was too disturbing.
“And done a lot of things,” she said cheerfully. “Think what André’s life must have been, Agnes. I can’t even imagine it.”
Minnie stood at the library door. Before she could speak, however, Jane heard Stephen’s cheerful tones in the hall.
“Hi! Jane! Where are you?”
“Here in the library,” called Jane. “Come in, Stephen.”
Stephen stood in the doorway, overcoat thrown open, hat in hand.
“I just stopped in,” he said, “to see if you’d go skating this evening.” Then he saw Agnes.
“Miss Johnson, Mr. Carver,” said Jane promptly. “Sit down and have some tea, Stephen. Agnes Johnson was my Bryn Mawr roommate.”
Stephen seated himself in a leather armchair. He looked very young and charming and debonair, with his blond hair just a little ruffled from his soft felt hat and his cheeks bright red from the December wind. Jane really felt quite proud of him. She looked over at Agnes with a mischievous
