Muriel moved quickly to meet him and Jane slipped quietly away from Mrs. Lester’s side before he came up to present his compliments. She began talking to Freddy Waters in a great burst of gaiety. In a moment the butler appeared at the dining-room door. He announced dinner and moved to push Mrs. Lester’s chair in to the table. Almost immediately Jane heard Jimmy’s voice at her elbow.
“I found your name in my envelope in the dressing-room, Jane,” he said, “and you can bet your life I was glad to see it there.” He offered his arm with a smile. His eyes, however, looked very serious. Freddy Waters had gone off in quest of Isabel. The dinner-party was passing into the dining-room, two by two.
Jane rested her fingertips on Jimmy’s black broadcloth sleeve. She felt there was nothing whatever to say to him. Jimmy looked anxiously down at her as they joined the little procession. Jane saw her father watching them as he offered his arm to Edith. Mr. Furness had gone in with Mrs. Lester.
“Can’t you forgive me, Jane?” asked Jimmy earnestly, as they entered the dining-room.
“I don’t know,” said Jane. “I still don’t understand at all how you could have done such a thing.”
“Don’t you, Jane?” said Jimmy wistfully. “Don’t you, really?”
“I don’t understand how you could have done it to me,” said Jane.
“I didn’t know,” said Jimmy, pulling out her chair for her as they reached the table—“I didn’t know that you would take it quite so seriously.”
Jane seated herself in silence.
“I’ve taken it seriously myself,” said Jimmy, “since I did it.”
He sat down at her side.
“I’m very glad to hear it,” said Jane severely.
“And you’ll forgive me?” said Jimmy.
“I don’t know,” said Jane again. She turned to look into his contrite eyes. There was something irresistibly funny about a penitent faun. Jane could not help smiling. Jimmy drew a long breath at the sight of her smile.
“You have forgiven me!” he said triumphantly.
Jane saw her father looking at him from across the table. She wished that Jimmy had not spoken quite so loudly. Then despised herself for the wish.
“Don’t let’s talk about it any longer,” she said evenly. “It happened, and I wish it hadn’t. But it doesn’t do any good to go on harping on it.”
“I don’t want to harp on it!” cried Jimmy jubilantly. “I don’t want to harp on anything you don’t want to hear.” He was looking at her now, with just the same old look of friendly admiration. “Let’s talk about the weather.”
They did, with mock solemnity. Then they talked of other things. Of Jimmy’s reviews, which were making quite a sensation in the Daily News; of Agnes’s play, which-was already half-written; of Cicily, shaking her dandelion head at Jack at the foot of the children’s table; of Mrs. Lester, nodding her white one at Mr. Furness at the head of theirs; of the charms of fourteen and of the charms of seventy-five. Jane was quite sorry when Mrs. Lester turned the conversation at the beginning of the salad course and she had to begin to talk to Edith’s husband of the charms of living in Cleveland—if there were any, which Jane very much doubted.
Later, when the men joined the women in the living-room, Jane was rather surprised to find herself talking to her father. He sat down beside her on the green brocade sofa with a sigh of satisfaction.
“I don’t see enough of you, kid,” he said cheerfully. “Nor enough of Stephen. What with all the grandchildren, I hardly spoke to either of you on Christmas Day. I’m going to put in the evening catching up on what you’ve been doing.”
“I haven’t been doing much,” said Jane. “Just Christmas shopping.”
“Many town parties?” asked Mr. Ward.
“None in the holidays,” said Jane. “I’m too busy with the children.”
“Much company in the country?”
“No one but the children’s friends.”
“Jimmy been out often?”
Jane looked straight into her father’s eyes.
“He hasn’t been out since that luncheon on Thanksgiving Day,” she said.
Mr. Ward settled back against the sofa cushions.
“What do you hear from Agnes, kid?” he asked.
V
Motoring out to Lakewood when the party was over, tucked in beside Stephen in the front seat of their little Overland, with the children asleep in the tonneau behind them, Jane felt very happy over the events of the evening. She would not have believed it possible that she could have arrived so easily at an understanding with Jimmy. He was obviously very sorry and she had made her attitude quite clear. Jimmy knew now that she was not to be kissed like a chambermaid, caught in an upper corridor. Jimmy knew now that she was not entertained by philandering. Jimmy knew now that she was not that sort of wife to Stephen and that the idea of flirting with Agnes’s husband was, to her, unthinkable. Jimmy knew all those things, though they had not referred to his mistake again after they left the table. Jane had hardly spoken to Jimmy all the latter part of the evening. Jane had talked to her father and Jimmy had hung devotedly over Muriel. He had entered into open competition with Cyril Fortune for her favour and by the end of the party the blond young landscape-gardener was quite sunk in depression. Stephen had talked with his cousin Flora about her new hat shop. He had given her some splendid ideas about cost
