Years of Grace

must be just an understanding Suddenly Jane’s eye fell on the French stamp of the topmost letter in her hand. A⁠—French⁠—stamp! Jane gazed at it, in horror. Yes⁠—“Miss Jane Ward”⁠—in handwriting that, though changed, was unmistakably André’s. She would be twenty-one next week. He had written! Of course he had written. She had always known he would write! And she⁠—faithless⁠—within the hour had let Stephen Carver kiss her. Had let Stephen think that Jane dropped the other letters on the desk. Holding André’s close above her heart she rushed frantically out of the room and up the stairs and gained the sanctuary of her own bedroom. Softly she locked the door. Then sank into the chair by the window overlooking the amber willow tree. André had written. He had not forgotten. André was going to come.

Jane slowly drew the letter from the thin-papered envelope. It looked strangely foreign. The very writing, faintly blotted on that sheer French paper, had a subtly alien air. But it was undeniably André’s own. Yes⁠—at the end of the twelfth closely written sheet, there was his name, “Your André.” Her André! Jane turned to the first page and began to read.

“Dear Jane, I hardly know what to say to you, or how to say it. But of course I want to write. I want to write, even though I have no idea, now, what sort of a person you may have grown up to be, how you may have changed from the child that I loved.”

Loved, thought Jane with a faint chill of foreboding? And child?

“We were both children, of course. We see that now. And in the four years that have passed you have grown up into a woman. I have a strange sense of embarrassment in writing to you. For I have grown up, too, Jane, and I am not at all sure that you will welcome my letter. Perhaps you do not even remember that I was to have written it.”

Remember, thought Jane! What had she ever forgotten?

“When I left you that day on Pine Street⁠—that day which, now, perhaps, you may not even care to recall⁠—I thought my heart was breaking. I thought your heart was breaking too. But I was nineteen, Jane, and of course, I have learned that hearts are of tougher fibre than I thought.

“I was miserable all summer long. Miserable all winter, too, though I was working very hard over my modelling. I thought of nothing but you and counted the days until I could see you. Actually counted them, Jane, on a calendar I made, crossing one off every evening.”

Darling André, thought Jane!

“But I was nineteen, Jane. And life is life. I began, almost against my will, to be interested in all sorts of things. The Sorbonne and the studio and lots of other pure frivolities, though I was dreadfully ashamed of that, at first. Then I began to see, of course, that we would both have to go on living and growing up and changing into the kind of people that we were meant to be, and when the four years were over, we would meet and see each other again and know, instantly, if we still cared. I couldn’t imagine not caring about you. But what the four years would do to you, I couldn’t imagine either. I was awfully afraid of them.

“Mother wrote me about you, of course, as long as Father was in Chicago. I knew that you went to Bryn Mawr with Agnes and I was terribly glad. I knew you wanted to go and, besides that, it seemed, somehow, to put off life for you, to keep you safe in an environment that I could imagine, to shut out the world. I never heard anything about you, after that. I thought of writing Agnes, but I never did. Mother didn’t think it was quite on the level, after my promise to your father, to write Agnes letters that were really for you.

“And then, Jane, I entered the Beaux Arts and my work began to get me. I began to care terribly about it. I always had, of course, but this was very different. I was thrilled over what I was doing. I was thrilled all the time, day and night. I am still. I can’t think of any time, during the last three years, when I haven’t been terribly excited and happy to be working with my clay. I hope I can make you understand that⁠—how much it has come to mean to me.

“For, Jane, I have just been told that I am to be awarded the Prix de Rome. It means three years’ work in Italy. It means a chance for accomplishment that I have never known before. It means living for three years with the other students in bachelor quarters in the Villa Medici. I’ll live like a monk, there, in a little white cell, working night and day to get all I can out of the opportunity the three years give me.

“Jane⁠—I did mean to try to get to the States this summer. To work my way over on some boat just as soon as my courses were over and I’d finished a fountain I’m doing. I meant to spend next winter in Chicago. I thought I’d take a studio there and try to get a job at the Art Institute. I did mean to, I mean, if you, by any chance, still wanted me to come. I meant to write you a letter at this time, saying I would come like a shot if you would tell me to. But, Jane, surely you see that this is a chance that I can’t let slip. I’ve got to take advantage of it. Next spring, if you want me, I’ll come without fail. I’ll leave Rome for a month or two⁠—I’ll manage it somehow⁠—I’ll come and we can see each other. Just as I write the words, Jane, I feel all the old