Jane Journeys On | Page 5

Now who's asleep?" and the
sprightly games which followed, and exclaimed prettily over the
decked supper table, deep under the high-piled masses of her dark hair,
dark thoughts were stirring. She seemed to herself to be marching
inexorably to the crossroads, which was silly, because she had spent
exactly that sort of day and evening hundreds of times before and
would again, she told herself impatiently, but the feeling was not to be
eluded. She held herself up to her own high scorn. Why this
dramatizing of the pleasant and placid course of Wetherby Ridge
events? Why shouldn't she do as the other girls of the set had done?
Was she, then, so much finer clay? If she didn't want to be another
Nannie--hot pink nursery in a shining little new house--expensive olive
oil--home-coming husband in punning mood--pink celluloid
Kewpie--half a dozen of everything in flat silver and two really good
rugs to start with--then why couldn't she cast herself serenely for the
Sarah Farraday sort of thing, substituting a typewriter for a piano?
There was nothing so bleak and dreadful about that; old Sally was
busily happy, toiling hopefully for her baby-grand. She was

enormously lucky, as a matter of fact, lucky beyond her deserts. She
could be, it appeared, a Nannie or a Sarah, as she chose, and the time
for choosing had arrived. And presently the girls were exclaiming that
it was twenty minutes past eleven and they really must go, but it was
Mrs. Wetherby's fault for always giving them such a perfectly
wonderful time that they forgot to watch the clock, and Mrs. Wetherby
was beaming back at them and insisting that she had enjoyed it all just
as much as they had, and that she hoped she could always keep young
at heart.
Sally lagged behind as they went down the steps. "Come along!" Jane
called back to her. "I know you'll talk half of what's left of the night,
and I want to get you started as soon as possible."
"She going to stay all night with you?" There was sulky surprise in
Martin's voice.
"Yes," said Jane. "But isn't 'stay all night' a silly expression? As if she
might rise and stalk home in the middle of it! I wonder why we don't
say, 'stay over night'?" She ran on, ripplingly, but her escort at one side
and Sarah Farraday at the other were maintaining, respectively, a sullen
and an uncomfortable silence. When they were passing her own house
Sarah broke away from them with a little gasp.
"Oh,--do you mind waiting just a minute? I believe I'll just run up and
get my things, Jane. You know what a fussbudget I am about my own
things. And I'll just slip into another dress so I won't have to put this on
for breakfast. It won't take me two minutes--" She flew up the front
steps and let herself softly in with her latch key, and instantly ill humor
fell from Martin Wetherby.
"Sally's all right," he chuckled. "I'm for Sally!" He swept Jane out of
the circle of light from the street lamp, into the black shadow of the
Farraday shrubbery, and into a breathless embrace.
"You--little--rascal--" he said, huskily, gasping a trifle as he always did
in moments of high emotion. "You--little--witch! Now I've got
you--and I'm going to keep you! Now I guess you'll listen to what I've
got to say and--and answer me!" His broad, warm face was coming

inexorably nearer; life--the pleasant and placid pattern of Wetherby
Ridge--was coming inexorably nearer; life with melted marshmallows
floating on its surface!
"Oh, Marty, please!" She was fatally calm and earnest about it. "I'm so
sorry--sorrier than I can tell you,--but you mustn't say it! You mustn't
make me answer you."
He was busily getting both her cool hands into the hot grasp of one of
his own, and the fingers of his other hand, a little moist, were forcing
themselves beneath her chin, but there was something in the honest
sorriness of her tone which made him pause even in that triumphant
and satisfying moment. "Why? You little----"
"Because," said Jane, steadily, "I do like you such a lot, Marty dear,
and I wish you wouldn't ask me, and make me tell you that I don't--I
can't----"
Then with a swift and amazing sense of rescue, of sanctuary, she heard
herself saying, "Besides, you see, I'm going away!"
CHAPTER II
While Jane's astounding utterance seemed to float and echo on the
November night air, Sarah Farraday let herself as stealthily out of her
front door as she had let herself in, and came softly down the steps. "I
didn't wake mother," she said in a whisper. She was in sober, every-day
serge now, and pulling on her second-best cloak. She carried