Part 4 (1/2)

'If you were in the fas.h.i.+on, Jane,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, 'you would know not only with which portion of grey matter you say your prayers, but you would also be able to show, scientifically, with which ventricle of your heart you love and hate, or whether indeed love and hate are things not of the heart at all but merely a microbial disease.

Will you have some tea?'

'Yes, please,' said Jane, 'and several lumps of sugar.'

'I like people,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, 'who still go to church and take sugar in their tea. They are very refres.h.i.+ng.'

'I must go back now,' said Jane presently, 'for I promised not to be long. By the by, we want to keep Peter to dinner. May we? Or will you mind being alone?'

'I am alone say three hundred and thirty nights in the year,' said Mrs.

Ogilvie dryly.

'I wish we hadn't asked Peter to stay and amuse Toffy!' said Jane, with compunction. There was a tired white look on Mrs. Ogilvie's face, and an appearance of fatigue in her movements which neither her supreme art of dressing nor the careful manipulation of light in the room wholly concealed.

'Ah, now you are beginning to repent!' said Mrs. Ogilvie. Only her good manners prevented her remark having a sneer in it. 'That will spoil your evening, you foolish child, and it will not make mine more amusing.'

'But I am thinking of you,' said Jane.

'Do not think of me,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, laying her hand for a moment lightly upon the girl's shoulder.

Jane walked down the hillside and stopped at the edge of the wood to see the young pheasants, and then went on again, swinging a crooked walking-stick and singing in a voice clear and sweet, but somewhat out of tune, s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs which she had picked up from Peter, humming the ridiculous words in a sort of unconscious happiness. She walked with a raking grace which became her as wings become a bird or a long swinging stride a racer. The twilit woods held no fears for her: imagination never peopled Jane's world with bogies. The perfect poise of her figure showed a latent energy and physical strength in spite of her slender build, and her clear complexion and abundant brown hair and white, even teeth lent an appearance of something essentially wholesome to a face that at all times looked handsome and well-bred.

She called good night to the lodge-keeper as she pa.s.sed through the gates and found her way back to the high road, until, by a short-cut down the hill, she reached her aunt's charming gardens, and the wide, low house with its air of repose and comfort, and the long French windows opening on to the quiet, smooth-shaven lawns.

Peter was waiting for her on the doorstep and was endeavouring not to fuss; if only he had known by which path Jane would return he would have liked to go and meet her, and the fact of having missed a walk with her made him impatient. 'I thought you must be lost,' he said; 'what kept you, Jane? Why did you stay so long?'

When Jane Erskine was away people were apt to ask on her return why she had stayed so long. Miss Abingdon and General Erskine, who divided her time between them, were jealous if even a day of their fair share of Jane was deducted by one or the other. There had been times when Miss Abingdon had unscrupulously pleaded illness as a means of keeping the girl a little longer with her, and she would doubtless have continued her deceptions had not General Erskine adopted the plan of faithfully paying himself back all the days that were owed to him by his niece.

'My mother says she is going to give a ball,' announced Peter at dinner.

'When?' said Jane, breathless with interest. 'Peter, we 'll have both houses as full as they can be, and I 'll ask Aunt Mary to stay here, and you shall ask your mother to stay at Bowshott for it.'

'Jane,' said Miss Abingdon, 'you are very absurd, and just at present you are making the most extraordinary grimaces.'

'I got caught in the rain to-day,' said Jane, 'and had to walk with it in my face. I 'm quite sure rain must be a skin-tightener like those things you see in advertis.e.m.e.nts.'

'It's given you an awfully jolly colour,' said Peter.

'Has it?' said Jane.

Perhaps a compliment had been given and received, Miss Abingdon did not know. Beauty itself was almost at a discount nowadays. Even feminine vanity, so long accepted as the mainspring of feminine action, had lost its force. Pale cheeks were not in vogue, and frankness had superseded sentiment.

'What souvenir would they give each other if they had to part?' thought Miss Abingdon--'a terrier dog, or a gun, or a walking-stick, most likely!' Faded flowers were quite out of the fas.h.i.+on, and old letters no longer had the scent of dried rose leaves about them. Was perfect healthiness ever very interesting, and must sentiment always be connected with an embroidery frame, a narrow chest, and round shoulders?

Jane obliterated the _menu_ from the porcelain tablet in front of her by rubbing it with a damask table-napkin, and, having moistened a pencil, she began to write a list of names of those people who were to be asked to stay for the dance. 'Kitty Sherard certainly,' she said, and put the name down on the tablet.

'She 's some one's niece, isn't she?' said Peter.

'She 's every one's niece, I think,' replied Jane.