Jane Journeys On | Page 4

as
they were to herself, for little Miss Lydia was regarding her much as
the aunt of the wretched girl in the fairy tale might have done,--the girl
out of whose mouth a frog jumped every time she opened it. Indeed,
the sentence seemed actually visible between them, like a squat and
ugly small beast on the shining white cloth. "Sorry, Aunt Lyddy," said
Jane, penitently. "I'm a crosspatch to-night, and I ought to sit by the fire
and spin, instead of gamboling."
Miss Vail's face cleared. "No, indeed, dearie, it'll be much better for
you to go and have a merry time with your young companions. That
paper was a nervous strain, that's all! Now you just eat a good supper
and then run upstairs and make yourself as pretty as you can!" Her
plump face broke up into sly lines and she nodded happily. "Marty'll
come for you at quarter before eight; he telephoned before you got
home."
Martin Wetherby was even better than his word, which was one of his
most sterling traits. He arrived at twenty-five minutes before eight and
waited contentedly in converse with her aunt until Jane came down. "I
didn't bring the car," he said. "I thought we'd like to walk." When they
reached the sidewalk he lifted her right forearm in a warm, moist grasp
and held it firmly close against him. "The car's too quick, Janey," he
said, huskily. "Gets us there too soon!"
"Well," said Jane, brightly, "we mustn't be late, your mother likes
people to be prompt, you know!" She managed to tug her arm away the
fraction of an inch.
"She likes you, any old time," he said, blissfully. He always got husky
and thick sounding in emotion, Jane reflected, and breathed heavily.
"Aren't we going to stop by for Sally?"
"No; I asked Edward R. and Nannie to pick her up in their little old
boat. No, we aren't going to have anybody--but just--us!" He squeezed
her arm against him again. "Janey, I guess you know all right how I----"

"Oh!" cried Jane,--"here they are, now! Hello, people!"
"Hello yourselves!" said Edward R. Hunter, bringing his machine to a
stop beside them. "Want to hop in? Plenty room."
"No, of course they don't want to hop in, goose!" said his wife,
reprovingly. "Edward R. Hunter, I wonder at you! Were you never
young yourself?"
"Oh, but we do!" Jane was capably opening the front door of the little
car. "We're late! I kept Marty waiting! I'm going to ride with the
chauffeur, and Marty can sit with the girls. When Mrs. Wetherby says
'eight o'clock' she means it, not quarter past." She was chatty and
intensely friendly with them all during the brief drive. She even
produced the proper degree of articulate mirth for the young father's
painstaking jest about his son's nickname being Teddy b-a-r-e, bear,
most of the time.
When they stopped before the Wetherby house Martin was out of the
automobile with heavy swiftness and lifted Jane bodily to the sidewalk
and hurried her up the walk. "All right for you, girlie," he chuckled, "all
right for you! But you just wait! Wait till going home to-night!"
Jane drew Sarah Farraday aside when they were in Mrs. Wetherby's
phrase, "taking off their things in the north chamber,"--a solid and
dependable-looking room. "Sally, I want you to come home with me
and stay over night."
"Oh, Jane, I don't believe I could,--not to-night! If I'd known sooner--I
haven't anything with me."
"I'll loan you everything you need. Please, Sally! You can telephone
your mother now."
"But Edward and Nannie brought me, and it seems sort of----"
"Sally, don't be a nuisance! I want you. I--need you!"

Sarah Farraday peered closely at her through her nearsighted eyes.
"Jane! You haven't quarreled with Marty, have you? Oh, Jane!"
"No, but I shall if you don't come home with me!"
Her best friend looked long and anxiously at her and then went with a
sigh to telephone her mother, and the evening, which Mrs. Wetherby
described as "a little gathering of the young folks," got under way. Jane
played cards sedately for the earlier part of it and joined with
conscientious liveliness in the games which came later, just before Mrs.
Wetherby's conception of "light refreshments" was served,--pineapple
and banana salad with whipped cream and maraschino cherries on it,
three kinds of exceptionally sweet and sticky cake, thick chocolate with
melted marshmallows floating on its surface, and large quantities of
home-made fudge in crystal bonbon dishes.
To Martin Wetherby, watching her contentedly out of his small, bright
eyes, Jane Vail was what he and his mother termed the life of the party,
but although she played an unfaltering part in the comedy of, "Well,
partner! Didn't you get my signal?