Jane telephoned home at noon and found that everything was going well. Betty Lou had fed her mother orange juice and soup and she seemed much stronger and more cheerful, she reported. Also, word had just come from the hospital that the examination had shown no serious injuries anywhere and that their father was resting comfortably and seemed much brighter. Tom had gone over to the hospital to get a few messages to take to Father’s office, since he was worrying about his unfinished work, but Tom had promised to come right back, so Jane needn’t worry, Betty Lou said.
Also, Betty Lou told gleefully that a man had come from the cottage at the shore and left a little snapshot of it, and it was just lovely! A nice porch across the front and rocking chairs and mosquito netting at all the windows. There wasn’t any cellar under it, just sand, and the house stood up “on sort of feet,” the child said. You could see the ocean all around. It was like being on an island.
“Hurry home, Jinny dear, and see it! Oh, I’m just crazy to get there! And Mother heard the man talking, sister! I tried to keep the door shut so she wouldn’t, but she heard everything because he talked so loud, and she asked me all about it so I had to explain. And she thinks it is just wonderful! I believe she is better already since she knew about it. She says it will make Father better to get a breath of sea air. Of course she wanted to get right up and begin to get ready to go, but of course I wouldn’t let her. But she has been amusing herself reading the list of things that are in the cottage. It was written on the back of the picture. Mother says we’ll have to take blankets because it might turn cold. It does at the seashore, you know. Doesn’t that seem grand? It doesn’t seem quite possible, does it, sister? And Mother says one blanket to a bed might not be enough. So she had me go up and get down the blankets out of the cedar paper and hang them out in the sunshine, so they’ll be all ready. She told me to get out my clothes and see if anything needed mending and to wash out some of my things, so I’ve got quite a line full. And I made a snow pudding for tonight. Oh, you needn’t worry. It’s easy to work, Jinny, now that you’re home again.”
Jane smiled wistfully as she turned away from the telephone and mopped her heated brow with her handkerchief. Well, it was nice to be loved and wanted, but oh, it was hot in that telephone booth, and her heart did hark back to the wide verandas of the mountain hotel, to the ices and sherbets, cool melons, and the tinkling glasses of cold drinks. Somehow that mountain house and her lost last week would keep cropping out and menacing her peace of mind whenever she had time to think about it. But the thought of the little shanty by the sea was cheering, and she was feverishly anxious to get back to the house to see its picture and begin to make preparations for transferring the family. She realized there was going to be a lot to do in this hot weather, and it would have to be done mostly at night. But then perhaps if she made a game out of it, then it would not be any harder than playing tennis in the sun or walking miles over a mountain golf course chasing a silly little ball. Why was it that work seemed so hard, unless you called it play and then you didn’t mind it at all?
John Sherwood was back at his desk when she returned from lunch. She spent a few minutes explaining some of his puzzlements to him and was rewarded with another of his pleasant smiles. There was nothing fresh about this new boy, she decided. He had the utmost deference for anything she told him and would keep jumping up because she happened to be standing, showing that he had been trained in courtesy. “A nice boy.” she said again as she went back to her desk feeling very ancient and responsible.
The work was not heavy because it was still the summer season and Miss Forsythe had kept everything up to the mark to the last minute. Jane’s own desk work had been distributed between two or three competent workers and was to remain there during the absence of Miss Forsythe, so by half past four she was through. She stepped over to John Sherwood’s desk and helped him a few minutes with some of the afternoon routine, which must be finished before the next morning, and when that was done she was about to turn away, saying, “Well, good night. I must hurry to get the next trolley. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Good night,” he said, lifting those pleasant gray eyes to search her face. “I’m very grateful for your guidance today. I wish I might return your help somehow. Do—you live far—from here? Couldn’t I drive you home? Wouldn’t it be a little cooler than riding in the trolley? But I only drive a little flivver—perhaps you don’t care for riding in a flivver?”
There was something almost shy and wistful about the way he proffered his attention that warmed Jane’s heart. She was not apt to accept attentions from strange young business associates, but this boy was so nice and unspoiled, why shouldn’t she? And it would be cooler than the trolley. She dreaded walking the hot sidewalks to the subway station.
“Why, thank you.” She smiled. “I’d love to ride if it isn’t too much out of your way. I think flivvers are fine. My brother has an old secondhand one that does a lot of service.”
“I’ll be out at the front entrance in five minutes,” said the young man, looking at his watch.
She watched his brisk movements as he locked his desk and went to the closet for his hat, a plain cheap straw. He must be lonesome—or maybe he was just grateful. Well, anyway, she would probably save a few minutes of her precious time by letting him take her home, even though traffic would be bad at this hour. So she locked her own desk, put on her hat, and took her leisurely way down to the front entrance. It occurred to her to wonder what her mountain friends would think of her if they could see her now in her plain dark blue office garb about to ride home with a fellow workman in a flivver that was probably third-or fourth-or even fifth-hand.
But she had little time to muse, for John Sherwood was driving up to the curb as she came out the door, and she was surprised to see that the flivver was utterly new, in bright shining paint.
He sprang out to help her in, and as he took his place beside her, she sensed again how courteous he was, not like an ordinary green clerk in an office. Any one of the office boys would have been as kind to her, but there would have been a more informal camaraderie. They might know their manners when they went out to a party, but they were not overburdened with them for everyday use in the office. This young man was a gentleman, to the manor born.
“Now, which way?” he asked pleasantly.
“Oh,” said Jane, “I have been thinking. I really can’t let you take me all the way home. It is a long ride. I should have told you. It’s a way out in the west part of the city. If you will just take me to the Sixty-Ninth Street Station where I usually have to change trolleys, I shall be quite all right and deeply grateful.”
“I like a long ride,” asserted John Sherwood stubbornly, “and now that I have you in the car, I’m not letting you out till I get you to your own door. I noticed you didn’t let me out at any halfway station during the day. You stayed by and made it dead easy for me to fit into my new job, and I’m everlastingly grateful to you.”
Jane smiled, his tone was so genuine.
“That’s different!” she said. “I’m paid for that, you know. You don’t have to be grateful to me.”
“Well, I am!” he declared doggedly. “You can’t pay anyone for the kind of service you’ve given me today. You’ve been a friend, and I’m going to be grateful no matter what you say. Now, again, which way do we go? Remember, I’m an utter stranger in this city, only don’t go to pulling any tricks about getting off anywhere to another trolley. I’m taking you home!”
Laughingly she guided him through the maze of traffic, to the right, to the left, straight ahead, and then settled back to enjoy her ride.
“This flivver reminds me of Tom’s” she said, as she rested her weight back on the new upholstery, “because as my brother would say, ‘It’s so different.’”
He turned and smiled into her eyes, a twinkle in his gray ones that reminded her again, vaguely, of someone.
“It is a nice little buggy, isn’t it?” he said appreciatively. “They tell me it has just as good shock absorbers this year as some of the better makes. I hope you’ll like it enough to let me take you home in it often. That is, if I make good and hold down my job.”
“You’ll make good!” said Jane quickly. “You have it in you. I could see that right at once.”
“Thanks for the kind words!” said the young man gravely and again flashed that merry twinkle at her. “But you didn’t say whether you would accept my invitation.”
“I am afraid I shall be tempted to impose upon you,” said Jane, warming more and more to his pleasant companionship and feeling quite at home with him.
“Try it and see,” said the young man with a merry twinkle. “By the way, there’s something I’d like to ask you. Who is this man Minnick who has the desk next to mine?”
“He’s a crab!” said Jane quickly. “Nobody likes him. Has he begun on you already?”
“Well, he pretty well tried to tell me where to get off this morning,” said Sherwood thoughtfully. “I was wondering just what position he occupies here. Is he a sort of a mentor or anything? He doesn’t seem to have any indication about his desk of that sort, just his name like every other desk, and nobody told me that I was answerable to him. I thought I’d better ask before I did anything rash.”
Jane laughed. “Don’t worry about him. He’s only a self- constituted mentor so far as I know, but he exercises his powers on everybody in the place. The only person I know who has anything to do with him is the young Dulaney, Harold, the one who is in Europe now. He chums with him a lot. Everybody thinks Minnick is trying to get in with Harold Dulaney in order to have pull for a higher position.”
“Dulaney!” said Sherwood, looking at her with eyes that seemed almost startled. “You don’t say! Well, thank you for tipping me off. I shouldn’t like to lose my job by telling this Minnick what I thought of him. It wouldn’t be worth it.”
“Oh, it’s not as serious as that,” laughed Jane. “Harold Dulaney isn’t the other partner, you know. He’s only a sort of nephew, the son of a distant cousin, I believe. The other partner is Richard Dulaney, an old man, quite an invalid, and really retired, a sort of a silent partner. Harold is acting in his place perhaps. I don’t know, but I don’t think he has any actual power yet, so you needn’t worry about Minnick. Personally, I don’t believe Harold Dulaney will ever get to be a partner, there isn’t enough to him, and Mr. Jefferson Dulaney is pretty keen. He won’t take in a stick just because he bears the same name.”
As they turned into Flora Street, at last it suddenly came to Jane what a nice, free, and easy chat they had been having, just like old friends, and she wondered with a qualm whether she would have been able to enjoy a ride like that with Lew Lauderdale. Suddenly the sordidness of Flora Street struck her, as it often did on coming home, and she realized that she would have been mortified to bring a man like Lauderdale here, but she did not mind this nice boy. He was probably poor like herself, and boarded downtown in one of those stuffy little boardinghouses that have a VACANCIES sign in the window and smell of fried potatoes and onions. Flora Street wouldn’t be a letdown for him, even though he was well-mannered.
She thanked him warmly as they drew up at the door.
“But the pleasure is all mine,” he said earnestly. “You know I haven’t any friends in the city, and I am going to get frightfully lonely. It’s all right during the day when I can be busy, but the evenings are interminably long. Last night was the longest one I ever spent.”
“You’ll soon get acquainted,” said Jane as he helped her out. “There’ll be plenty of people who will love to ride with you.”
“Oh, but I’m particular about my companions,” said the boy unexpectedly. “Is that your little sister? What a charming child! What gorgeous hair. She has eyes like yours.”
“That’s Betty Lou,” said Jane in a pleased tone. “She’s a darling. She always rushes out to meet me.”
“Betty Lou! That’s a pretty name. Well, sometime can’t we take Betty Lou riding? This seat is supposed to hold three.”
“Why that would be lovely! Betty Lou would adore it. Sometime perhaps.”
“Well, good night,” said the young man wistfully, as Jane turned toward the house, “I’ve enjoyed knowing you today.”
Jane stood a moment watching as he drove away, haunted again by the twinkle in the gray eyes. Where had she seen a man with eyes like those?
“Who was that nice man?” asked Betty Lou, slipping down to meet her sister and looking after the flivver, which was turning around at the end of the street. “He smiled at me!”
“He is a new man in the office, Bettikins,” said her sister, stopping to kiss the soft cheek and thinking that Betty Lou needed the seashore as much as anybody in the family. Betty Lou’s cheeks were thin and white, and there were blue veins showing in her temples where the gold of her curls tossed back and deep blue shadows under the sweet eyes. A little girl ought to be round and rosy, and Betty Lou was getting very thin and frail looking. A pang shot through Jane again to think how much money she had spent on herself this summer and none on dear little Betty Lou. Why had she thought she could? She remembered the cold words of Lew Lauderdale about families being a drag on a girl, and she drew her arm a little closer around precious Betty Lou. Please, God, she had her eyes open now. It should never happen again that she spent money all on Jane and none on Betty Lou.
The flivver was coming back again.
“What’s his name, Jinny?” whispered Betty Lou, cuddling closer to her sister and smiling shyly. “He’s smiling again. I like him.”
“John Sherwood. He has a nice smile, doesn’t he? And Betty Lou, he said he was coming to take you and me for a ride someday. Will you like that?”
Betty Lou’s face wreathed in smiles, and she waved a little white hand as John Sherwood waved his hand at her and then lifted his hat toward Jane.
The sisters watched the flivver till it turned the corner, and then they went into the house, Betty Lou rushing to get the picture of the cottage.
“The man says you can get a whole lot of clams for twenty cents!” she announced. “And fresh fish every morning right out of the ocean! Isn’t it going to be wonderful?”
Jane’s eyes sparkled. The cottage of course wasn’t much more than a little shanty, but what could one expect for twenty-five dollars? There was the sea in the background with great waves pounding over a broad lonely beach. No crowds of people and festivities, just beach and water and a white sail flitting in the distance, with a tall lighthouse off to the right.
“Now,” said Jane after she had kissed her mother and taken off her hat, “what do we do for supper?”
“Nothing,” said Betty Lou proudly. “It’s all ready. I just finished setting the table. I fixed a tomato surprise and it’s in the refrigerator. There are potatoes roasting in the oven, and Tom brought home a lovely little beefsteak out of his own money. He said we’d have to have something nice for you the first night or you would be missing that mountain hotel.”
Jane’s eyes softened. “Where is Tom?” she asked, looking around. “Has he left you alone much today?”
“No, only while he went to the hospital, and he brought Mother a pink rosebud. See, it’s in the crystal vase on the table beside her. Isn’t it lovely? Mother loved it. He got the steak partly for Mother. The doctor said she might have a little teeny bit of it, that it would strengthen her. He said to bake the potatoes, too, so she could have one. Tom has gone to get a loaf of bread. He got the trunk down out of the attic and packed it full of things Mother told him to. Blankets and sheets and tablecloths and some knives and forks and a few kitchen things. You’d be surprised how many things we got in.”
“You dear child!” said Jane. “You’ve had to work so hard!”
“Oh no, I haven’t. I’ve had fun doing it. Tom is taking the trunk down to the freight station in the morning, when he takes you to the office. He said it was too hot for you to go on the trolley, and he’s going to send the trunk ahead of us, so it will be there when we arrive. He’s got it roped on the back of his car now.”
“What a fine idea! Well, I don’t believe you’ve left much for me to do.” Jane laughed.
“Oh yes, there is. Mother told me a lot of things she wanted you to see to. Father’s shirts, and buying him a new dressing gown, a warm one, and his overcoat has to have a patch on the lining. Mother wanted to do it, but I hid the coat so she couldn’t. And then Mother said you had to get all our clothes together and be sure we had enough of everything for everybody. And—oh yes, something for bathing suits!”
“Surely, surely,” said Jane, her own eyes catching the sparkle of enthusiasm that shone in the little girl’s eyes.
Tom came noisily in with the bread. “The doc at the hospital says if Dad has a good night tonight he thinks he’ll be okay to take the trip by Saturday,” he announced importantly. “I been thinking. I wonder if I couldn’t borrow a better car. It’s going to be crowded in the old carriage for two invalids and all the junk we have to cart along.”
“Oh no, don’t borrow a car, Tom,” said Jane anxiously. “Something might happen to it. I’m sure we can get along somehow. If worse comes to worst, some of us can go on the train.”
“Who, I’d like to ask you? I couldn’t for I’d have to drive. I wouldn’t trust you driving all that distance, you’re only just an amateur.”
“Well, I could go in the train,” said Jane thoughtfully.
“Oh, that would spoil all the fun, Jinny, not to have you along!” protested Betty Lou dejectedly.
“Well now, don’t worry about that,” said Jane. “We’ll fix it somehow. We’re not going to worry about a trifle like that. Come, let’s have supper. I’m hungry as a bear. Then afterward we’ll get to packing.”
All hands helped to put the dinner on the table, and Jane brought her mother’s tray with her own hands, fixing things so Mother could eat while they were eating. She and Tom pulled the couch out till Mother could get a glimpse of the dining table, so they were all together—all but Father. Jane’s heart felt a warm glow at the thought that things were straightening out again, a thrill of thanksgiving as she sat down to her own supper, that the horror and fear that had clutched her heart twenty-four hours before had been averted.
Even while they were eating, there came a message from the hospital that Mr. Arleth wanted his family to know that he felt very decidedly better tonight and would be coming home soon. That was good news and made everybody happy.
“How good this beefsteak is!” said Betty Lou. “I haven’t wanted to eat anything all this week, it was so hot.”
“It’s just as hot tonight kid,” said her brother, grinning at her. “You’ll have to get a better reason for your hunger than that.”
“It’s the beefsteak!” said Jane. “She hasn’t been half getting her meals, the last two days especially, she has had so much to do.”
“It’s Mother being better and Father being better and Jane’s being home again!” said Betty Lou between bites. “It’s everything! Everything is lovely. To think we are really going to a seashore!”
“Dear little girl!” said Jane with compunction. “If I had only found this place before and taken you all to it instead of going to that old mountain hotel! I shall never forgive myself!”
“Now, Jinny dear!” said the little girl, dropping her fork and looking as though she were going to cry, “Jinny, don’t say that! That just spoils it all. I wouldn’t have missed hearing all about that grand place, not for anything. No, not for all the heat and everything. It was just wonderful! I’m only sorry you couldn’t have done the last week and told us about the trip up the mountain and who won the tennis match and everything!”
“You dear child! Getting so much pleasure out of other people’s fun! Well, I hope you’ll have some of your very own next week. Oh, we’re going to have grand times together, think—all of us! Father and Mother and Tom and you and I. We’ll all be children together! And that reminds me! I brought you home a bathing suit, scarlet and white! It’s the prettiest little thing, and I’m sure it will fit you. Carol’s mother bought it for Carol’s little sister, but it was much too large, and so Carol asked me if I thought it would fit you. I’ve been so full of other things I forgot to tell you about it. It has a darling little cap to go with it, and sandals. You’ll love it!”
“Oh, Jinny! How wonderful!” said Betty Lou, her cheeks pink with delight.
“Say, Jin, do you remember where I put my fishing rod last fall?” asked Tom, taking big mouthfuls of the snow pudding. “Gee! Kid, this is good! Did you make it all by your lonesome! You’re some cook!”
There was something so homely and happy about the little group talking in there around the supper table, planning for the cheap little vacation as if it had been a trip to Europe, that the mother found tears of joy slipping down her face and had to mop them up with her napkin lest the family should suddenly surprise her and discover that she had been crying. She thought of the dreadful girl who had telephoned Tom yesterday and sent up a thanksgiving that he was not off trailing her now. Tom didn’t seem to have a thought for anything today but getting ready for the trip. Dear Tom! After all, he was just a boy yet. Perhaps the girl did not have a very firm hold on him yet. Perhaps they could do something to get Tom interested in some other direction. If he only could go to school a little longer and get a wider vision on life!
The mother sighed and then rejoiced again that her elder daughter was at home. Oh, there was much for which to be thankful!
Then, just as they were finishing the last of the pudding, there came a knock at the door. Betty Lou hurried to answer it, thinking it might be Mrs. Smith wanting her to take care of the baby again, and she was thinking as she hurried through the sitting room that she would tell Mrs. Smith that she was too busy.
But it was a boy about her own age, a barefoot boy with ragged khaki trousers and an old shirt with the sleeves cut out. He looked dirty, too, and his hair needed cutting. Betty Lou didn’t like his looks.
“Tom Arleth live here?” he asked in a bold, insolent voice.
Tom scowled and hurried to the door precipitately, and his sudden furtive manner made his sister Jane thoughtful.
“Hello, Ted, what’s wrong with you?”
“Hello yerself,” said the young upstart, handing out a crumpled envelope. “Beth sent you this, and she said tell you that you better get a hustle on and—”
But the rest of the message was lost to the family for Tom slid out the screen door, drawing the house door shut behind him with a decided slam. It was only a moment until he returned, crushing something into his trousers’ pocket and murmuring something in an angry growl about “that fool kid.”
But he hadn’t gone with the boy. That was something to be thankful for—as long as it lasted—reflected the three women who loved Tom.
It lasted for almost two hours. Tom helped to clear off the table, even drying and putting away some of the dishes, and all the time kept up a merry banter with his sisters, occasionally coming into the front room to have a pleasant word with his mother.
He went up to the attic and hunted for fishing rods, unearthed old cushions and a net hammock, and brought down another trunk.
“No reason why we can’t ship as much stuff as we want down there,” he said. “Send both trunks by freight. It won’t cost much. Take some books and a few magazines down, Jinny. It’s great to lie in the sand and read. Get your things together and I’ll pack ’em tonight and take both trunks down there at once.”
So the girls hurried upstairs and produced various articles that would add to the family comfort, and they had a merry time packing.
When the trunk was corded, Tom took it outside and put it in the old car ready for morning. But Tom didn’t return in a few minutes as they had expected, and presently Jane remembered that he had said something about going down to see if the electric shop was open yet. He wanted a new tube for his little homemade radio. No reason they shouldn’t take that along for rainy days and evenings.
So the three women’s hearts quaked and wondered, though none of the three spoke out her fears to either of the others.
Betty Lou’s little sensitive face took on the troubled look of fragility that it had worn earlier in the evening, and Jane sent her straight to bed.
“You’ve got to get your sleep, kittykins, or you will get sick, too, and then we couldn’t go, you know,” said Jane with a loving pat as she smoothed the child’s pillow and stooped to kiss her. Then she looped the cheesecloth curtain back a little farther to give the young sleeper all the air there was.
Betty Lou caught at her sister’s sleeve as she turned to leave her and drew her down for another kiss.
“It’s so good to have you home again, Jinny!” she said for the hundredth time, giving her sister a big hug. Then, quite irrelevantly, she asked, “Has Tom come home yet?”
“Not yet, but I imagine he’ll come soon,” encouraged Jane cheerfully. “I think he’ll take time to select his tubes and things. He probably had to go to the other shop. The nearby one usually closes early, you know.”
“I know,” said Betty Lou forlornly with a little grown-up sigh.
“Now you go to sleep quick, Betty Lou!” admonished the elder sister. “I’ve got to get my clothes together and see what wants washing. Good night!”
But Tom did not return until Jane had been in bed for some time. She could hear the clock on the church striking two as he rattled his latchkey softly in the lock. Jane was filled with indignation that Tom should worry his mother that way. She held her breath and listened, hoping against hope that her mother would not waken, but it was hours afterward before the mother slept! She knew when her boy went through the room. She sensed with her woman’s keen nose the mingled odors he brought with him, a rank tang of smoke and liquor on his breath, clinging to his garments, exuding from his hair, mingled with a faint suggestion of the great unwashed anointed with cheap perfume. There was something so common and fetid about that odor that Tom brought with him. It lingered in the stifling air of the room where Mother lay with bated breath and tears on her cheeks, and she grieved all night about it. Her son, her baby boy, whom she had held in her arms and kept so sweet and clean and pure, to take his pleasure like this. How amazingly pitiful it was!
When morning came the mother slept at last, but with dark rings under her eyes and a drawn gray look about her mouth that made Jane’s heart quail as she tiptoed to the couch and looked at her.
Jane went straight up to her brother’s room and gave Tom a few plain words.
“Tom, you’ve given Mother a big setback with your staying out so late. She’s been worrying all night long about you. I should think you might have had a little consideration for her when she is sick!”
“Aw, gee!” said Tom, blinking at her from a tumbled pillow. “I couldn’t help it, Jin! Met a lot a fellows down at the shop and we got ta talking radio. They wanted me to come and hear a new one that one of the fellows had. They got England and the coast and it was great!”
“That doesn’t make it any easier for Mother, Tom,” said Jane bluntly, eyeing her brother suspiciously. Tom didn’t look in his best form himself after being up so late, and Jane had sensed the alien odors, too, as her brother came up the stairs. She wasn’t at all sure that Tom was telling the whole truth. She had it on the tip of her tongue to say something sharp about that girl who had telephoned the day before but thought better of it just in time. No good would come from finding fault, she knew only too well.
“Aw, gee! Haven’t I been working hard? Can’t a fella stir a step from home without a lot of women weeping over him, I’d like ta know? I wish you’d get outta here, I wantta get up! I’ve got work ta-day, I’d have you know!”
Tom had reared up on one elbow and was blinking angrily at her, his hair standing every which way and a furious look on his cross young face. Jane sensed that in about a minute more he would fire his pillow at her, so she went downstairs while the going was good. She had the wisdom to be smiling and pleasant as usual when her brother came stumping crossly down a few minutes later to his excellent breakfast, finding fault with them all because he couldn’t find his hat and the keys of his car. But she was glad to notice that he went in to their mother and kissed her, and she heard him making an elaborate explanation about how he had been kept out so late against his will, and how he hoped he had not wakened her. Jane hoped Mother might be reassured, but she doubted it. Mother was generally pretty keen where her children were concerned.
Jane rode all the way to town with her feet twisted sideways around the end of the trunk and never said another word about Tom’s being out so late. Only when he left her at the office entrance, she warned him to be sure and keep a good watch on Mother all day or she might not be able to go to the shore on Saturday. Then with a wistful smile she left him and hurried up to her work, wondering why a boy with a mother like theirs wanted to go with people who were utterly all wrong. And how was it that Tom’s coat could possibly get such an odor of stuffy rooms and unclean people from such a short contact? Even yet in the out of doors, she thought, she could get that unpleasant odor. Ugh! How could Tom?
She was carrying her anxiety in her eyes as she entered the big outer office and met Sherwood just coming to his desk with a sheaf of papers.
His gray eyes met hers and suddenly looked grave. “You’ve been worrying about something. Is there anything I can do to help?” was his greeting in a low voice; and Jane was so astonished that instead of being annoyed at his presumption she answered in a surprised voice, as she might have done to a friend of long standing, “How did you know?”
“Saw it in your eyes,” said the quiet voice. “Can you tell me about it, or am I too new an acquaintance?”
“I don’t know,” said Jane thoughtfully. “Not now, anyway. I must get to work.”
“All right. Anytime. How about getting lunch together? Or if you don’t like that, just remember I’m ready to help in any way I can. I’d like to be counted that kind of a friend.”
“Thank you,” she said, seeing the sincerity in the gray eyes. “I’ll be glad to count you that. And—yes, I’ll take lunch with you. But I’m not sure I’ll have anything to tell you. I’m not really sure I’m worrying, you know.”
“All right, but you are,” said the steady pleasant lips that had somehow taken on more mature lines this morning.
She passed into the inner office for the mail, marveling at the kind of intimacy that seemed to be spreading up between herself and this new young man. It was not like any friendship she had ever had with a man before, and its uniqueness pleased her. There did not seem to be anything in it that she had to be on her guard about, and it rested her to know she had acquired a real friend.
But presently when Jane came out with a message from Mr. Dulaney for Sherwood, she noticed Minnick’s baleful eyes upon her, and every time that morning when she had occasion to speak to Sherwood about his work, Minnick would look up with a strange smile upon his face.
Just at noon when she stepped over to give Sherwood some papers that had been forgotten earlier in the day, Minnick spoke to her as she passed by his desk going back to her own.
“Seems to me you have a lot of time to spare talking to a new clerk, Miss Arleth!” he said with his acrid sneer. “You find him attractive, don’t you?”
Jane looked at him haughtily.
“If it troubles you, Mr. Minnick, perhaps you had better speak to Mr. Dulaney about it,” she said and passed on with her head up, angry at herself that her cheeks would grow hot.