“My child—” she began, with emotion. Jane stopped her with a kiss.
“Goodbye, Minnie,” she said lightly. At the door her father slipped his arm around her. She stood looking up at him. Her—father. Jane was suddenly overcome with a sense of what she was doing. She was leaving home—forever.
“Papa,” she said brokenly, “Papa, you’ve always—” She couldn’t say it.
Mr. Ward patted her back.
“Good luck, kid,” he said huskily. She gave him a tremendous hug.
“Don’t forget to throw your bouquet,” said Mrs. Ward solemnly, through her tears. Jane snatched it up from the bed.
Stephen was waiting in the upper hall. Jane took his arm. There was no time to speak to him. Everyone was pressing around the foot of the staircase. Alden was leading the band. As Stephen appeared it struck up “Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes.”
“Oh, good Lord!” muttered Stephen disgustedly. “That’s just like Alden!” They started down the stairs. From the first landing Jane pitched her bouquet straight into the virgin arms of Silly, the only maiden present. Stephen gripped her elbow. A shower of rice and confetti rose from the little crowd below. They dashed madly down and through the press of people. The front door was open, Robin standing guard. The mild May air was very refreshing, after the crowded rooms. Jane took a great breath of it as they rushed down the steps, past the crowd by the awning. The wedding guests came running after them. Rice still flew. Jane gained the shelter of the waiting brougham. Stephen flung himself after her and banged the door. The brougham started smartly into motion. Jane was looking out of the little back window at Isabel and Robin and Rosalie and Freddy, on the curb. Silly suddenly appeared to wave the lilies of the valley with one long, thin arm, above their heads. The brougham turned into Erie Street.
“Jane!” said Stephen, and suddenly his arms were around her. “Jane,” he said again, very solemnly, “we’re—married.” Jane felt again that frightful fear of sentiment. Couldn’t—couldn’t people take weddings—calmly? She smiled, a little shakily, into Stephen’s eyes. Suddenly his arms grew strong and strangely urgent. He pulled her to him roughly, abruptly.
“Stephen!” cried Jane, in consternation. His eyes were smiling, excitedly, straight into her own. Jane fell a sudden prey to panic. “Stephen,” she said quickly—“don’t—please—don’t!”
His face changed then, perplexedly. It grew strangely wistful.
“I—I won’t, Jane,” he said very gently. His arms relaxed their hold.
Jane felt suddenly contrite. And somehow—inadequate. She felt she was failing Stephen. Stephen, whom she had married, who would have only a week with her, who was going to war. Deliberately she put her arms around him.
“Stephen, truly I love you,” she said. Stephen’s lips met hers. Dear Stephen! She did love him. She would love him. She had married him. That point was settled. The brougham rolled on up Erie Street.
V
The midsummer willow stood motionless in the late August sunshine, not a grey-green leaf stirring, and Jane was sitting at her window looking out at it and thinking of Stephen, when André’s second letter arrived.
Minnie brought it up to her, immediately after the postman’s ring. No one could do too much for Jane now. Jane saw the Italian stamp, the strange transparent paper, before she took it from Minnie’s considerate hand. She had a queer revulsion of feeling the moment she recognized it. An impulse to cast it from her, unread. Jane didn’t want to hear from André. She didn’t want to hear anything he might have to say.
When Minnie had left the room, however, she opened it, very thoughtfully. After all—it couldn’t make any difference. She was glad to see that it was very brief.
“Dear Jane,
“I was terribly surprised and terribly shocked at the news your letter contained. Why, I don’t know. I was always afraid, all these past four years, that I would hear that you were going to marry. I hadn’t counted, though, on just what the sight of my name on an envelope, in your handwriting, would do to me. I haven’t felt ready to answer until just now.
“I hope, awfully, that you will be very happy. That you’re happy now. But I won’t plan to come to the States. I know I don’t want to meet your husband next spring and I think I don’t want to meet you, Jane, ever again. You mean a very special thing to me. No one will ever take your place. But I won’t come to Chicago. Feeling as I do, I should really have nothing to say to you. ‘Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée.’
Well, thought Jane, that was that. But why did he have to write just as he did? Jane frowned over her instant recognition of the pluck the brief note had given to her heart strings. It was unforgettable, like everything else about André.
Jane put it away with his other letter in her desk drawer. She was terribly glad that she would not have to see him. She didn’t want to see André, ever again. He—he shouldn’t have mentioned it, of course, but he was quite right about doors.
A great deal of water had run under the bridge since the April afternoon when his first letter had arrived. Stephen, an authentic hero, had charged up San Juan Hill, following the waving sombrero of Theodore Roosevelt. He was recovering from malarial fever, now, down at Montauk Point. The war was over. Cuba was free. The United States owned the Philippine Islands. Boston had not been bombarded. And Jane had known, for more than three months, that she was going to have a baby in February.
Part III
Jimmy
I
I
Jane Carver opened the screened door that led from the living-room of her father-in-law’s house at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, to the verandah that commanded a view of the
