Part 17 (1/2)

”Does one? Now I can't conceive jumping into a tank of water to escape you, if you had been after me!”

”Please stop laughing at me and help me to get home.”

”I'm not laughing at you. I'm--I may pretend to be laughing, but inside, I a.s.sure you, I 'm tremendously worried lest this running away indicates a state of mind--”

”Please take me home!”

”Come, then.” He led the way, by back staircases, to a quiet side entrance, and so quickly across the street, and into her own house.

Then he went back to the others, to evade their questioning so cleverly that n.o.body but Jane's mother suspected that anything out of the ordinary had happened. In a very short time indeed Jane drifted inconspicuously in upon the company again, and when inquiries from the younger members of the party as to the change in her costume fell thick and fast upon her, Murray protected her with the nonchalant explanation:

”Don't bother her. She's very kindly trying to s.h.i.+eld me for being the cause of a little accident that happened to the other dress. It was confoundedly awkward of me, but she cheers me by declaring that she can easily repair damages!”

It was Murray who took Jane home again by and by, and who lingered on the porch, after the others had gone in, to tell her how his father had received the good news.

”I 'm so glad!” Jane's hands were clasped tight together. ”I knew it would be just as you tell me. Are n't you wonderfully happy?”

”Wonderfully. Happier than ever in my life--except for just one thing.”

”Nothing serious?”

”Well--I certainly hope not. What bothers me is that--you seem, somehow--not exactly afraid of me, but--different. I don't know how to express it--but I----” He stopped, his tone growing anxious. ”You know, I could n't bear that,” he added. ”Unless I thought it meant---- See here, Jane--are we just as good friends as ever?”

”Why, of course we are!” She said it shyly. She was very glad it was so dark on the little porch.

”Friends for always?”

”I don't change, I think,” she answered, with a proud little lift of the head.

”Don't you? Well, as I don't either, that ought to satisfy me. Yet it does n't quite, after all. It's odd, but I believe just being good friends who don't change is n't enough. Oh, don't go! You're not angry? Yes, I know it's late, but I 've hardly seen you yet. You will go?--But you 'll let me come over early to-morrow--after more than a year away? Well, then, to-morrow I 'll have to teach you not to be afraid of me. On my honour I 'm not carrying a 'gun!' Wait a minute--just a minute! ... _How did I ever stay away from you so long?_ ... --Good night, little Jane--good night!”

CHAPTER XI

IN THE GARDEN

Winter--long and cold; spring--late and slow; then, all at once, in June, radiant summer and the little garden round the corner in Gay Street was a place of richly bursting bloom--a riot of colours against the leafy green background of its vine-hung walls.

Toward the end of June a week of almost tropical heat had made the evenings outdoors, on the little porch, and in the garden itself, events to be looked forward to throughout the day, Joseph Bell, Peter, Ross, and Rufus, thought of them many times during the hottest day of all--midsummer, the twenty-first of the month--and came home at night to find the table laid for a cool-looking supper out under the shadow of the maple, and Mrs. Bell, Jane, and Nancy, in thin summer frocks, putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the attractive meal about to be served there.

Up in a window of the house next door, behind closed blinds, an elderly neighbour had watched Jane wreathing a big gla.s.s bowl full of strawberries with a crisp little green vine spray.

”The Bells certainly are the queerest people anybody ever lived neighbour to,” she said over her shoulder to her sister, a withered little spinster, who, in this hot, small upstairs room, was sewing at another window, which did not look out upon the garden, and therefore could have its blinds open. ”Anybody 'd think life was just one picnic to them. Think of lugging all those dishes outdoors this hot night, and then lugging 'em all in again--and they all dressed out in flowered muslins!”

The sister came to the window and peered somewhat wistfully out through the closed blinds. ”It does look sort of pleasant out there,” she said.

”And we certainly can't say they 're not good neighbours. Mrs. Bell sent over a whole tin of those light rolls of hers this morning. They 'll come in handy for supper.”