But those teas were parties, with candy and three kinds of cake and funny fishy little sandwiches that Minnie made meticulously in the pantry. The tea-table was always set with the silver tray and the silver tea-set and lots of little Dresden plates and embroidered napkins and Jane’s mother and Isabel were always all dressed up in their best bib and tucker, sitting primly behind the teakettle, never dreaming of eating anything until the doorbell rang.
André’s tea was very different. His mother presided nonchalantly from the depths of the Morris armchair over a gold and white china tea-set and there was nothing to eat except very thin slices of bread and butter and a plate of sponge cake, untidily torn to pieces. That sponge cake, André’s mother explained as Jane’s eyes widened at the sight of it, was a spécialité de la maison. It seemed you couldn’t cut it without spoiling it. A funny kind of cake, Jane thought, to serve for tea. But very good.
André’s father came in just before the bread and butter was finished. Mr. Duroy was a little grey-haired Frenchman, with wise brown eyes that glittered behind his pince-nez eyeglasses. The glasses balanced precariously on his aquiline nose and he was continually taking them off and waving them about as he talked. They were fastened to his coat lapel with a narrow black ribbon, which made him look very unlike other men. A shred of scarlet silk was always run through his buttonhole. Jane never knew why.
He talked a great deal and so did André’s mother. But not at all as Jane’s family did. Never about people. People you knew, at least. This afternoon he was talking very excitedly about something called the Dual Alliance and a Frenchman named Alexandre Ribot who was President du Conseil, whatever that might be, and seemed to be doing something important about France and Russia. Mr. Duroy had a great deal to say about Mr. Ribot, though he didn’t seem to know him. The only people that Jane could ever remember hearing her family talk about whom they did not know were Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. And these gentlemen never provoked her mother and Isabel to utterance. Her father occasionally made statements about them that always passed unchallenged, André’s mother, now, had views of her own on Mr. Ribot. Jane and André didn’t talk at all, but before she knew it the clock struck six and Jane realized that she should have gone home long ago. She rose a little shyly. Jane never knew just how to leave a party.
“I must lend you Camille,” said André and plucked the book, in a yellow paper cover, from off the bookshelves. “La Dame aux Camellias” was printed on the outside. “Mother is going to help me do a good translation. See if you don’t like it.”
Jane privately hoped that she knew enough French to read it, with a dictionary.
“André will walk home with you,” said André’s mother.
And indeed it was very dark. Jane didn’t know what her mother would say, if she were home. Of course she might be out with Isabel. They were very busy these days with parties and dressmakers.
The street lamps were flickering on their tall standards as they stepped out on Chicago Avenue. The drugstore windows across the street in the Kinzie flats glittered with yellow light. Great green and red and blue urns of coloured water glowed behind the glass.
“Pure colour,” said André. “Pure as light.”
He took her arm as they crossed the car tracks. Jane held her elbow very stiff and straight but she felt a little thrill run right up her arm from where his fingers rested on her coat sleeve. He was looking at her face and he was very near her, but Jane didn’t turn her head. When they reached the further curbstone he dropped her arm, at once. Jane felt awfully happy.
“I’ll try to find those pictures of Bernhardt for you,” said André. “They’re around somewhere in an old copy of Le Théâtre. If you could copy them for the puppet—”
“I’d love to,” said Jane. “I can make her hair of ravelled yarn.”
“Golden brown,” said André, “and very fuzzy. She has beautiful hair.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Pine Street was very empty and very quiet. A hansom cab went by, the horse’s feet clapping sharply on the cedar block pavement. A belated errand boy whizzed past on a bicycle. He trilled his bell shrilly for the Superior Street corner. Jane was thinking how dark and straight her pigtails were. Her hair was so fine that it didn’t show for much, except just after a shampoo. She wished, terribly, that she had Flora’s red-gold tresses. Or Muriel’s seven black finger curls. Or this Bernhardt’s golden-brown fuzz, that she had never seen and André so admired.
He took her arm again for the next crossing.
“I know you’ll copy her beautifully,” he said. And Jane felt happy once more. Warm and glowing, deep down inside.
When they reached her house, André lingered a moment on the pavement, under the big bare elm tree.
“I—I had a lovely time,” said Jane.
“You’ll read the play?” said André. “And come again tomorrow?”
Jane nodded. There was a little pause. André moved about a bit. The street was very dark. The street lights were on the corners.
“Will you—will you dance the Halloween cotillion with me at dancing-school?” said André.
Jane’s heart leaped up in ecstasy.
“Oh,” she said softly, “I—I’d love to.”
“All right,” said André. “That’s fine.” He lingered a moment longer. “Well—good night,” he said, taking off the beret.
Jane ran up the front steps and rang a peal of triumph on the doorbell. She skipped up and down in the vestibule waiting for the door to open. Unconsciously she hummed
