Jean laughed remembering the Tiger, not so unlike the thin, dark Gerte, and wondered why people who dabbled in the arts needed these meaningless distinctions between themselves and others.
But later, as she lay on the couch drawn close to the open window in the attic, and looked out across the buildings, rising in the outline of a fever chart as far as she could see, Jean was glad that she had met Catherine and that she was going to live here with them. And although she knew that, at any previous period of her life, it would have been impossible to her, now, contrasted with the lonely nights staring out to the river after Martha's death, the paid hominess of Katy's effort, the smoothly running indifference of these women would be pleasant. She was beginning a new life, in a new manner. And as she dropped to sleep, Jean had a hazy notion of owing something to Franklin Herrick.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The next day Jean went back to work. Charlotte Stetson, who had taken her place, tried to evince genuine pleasure but could not quite convey it. Jean felt that she had been suitably mourned for as dead, and that this sudden and unexpected resurrection was an intrusion in questionable taste. So it was with mingled amusement and curiosity that, about eleven o'clock, Jean knocked on Jerome Stuart's door, and, at his short "Come in," entered.
"Well—I'll be——" he had risen, but dropped back into his chair with an amended "Thank God."
Jean laughed, "Now I do feel like a returned corpse. I suppose I ought to have written but it never occurred to me."
"I'm glad you didn't. Nothing exciting has happened for weeks, and I always did like a surprise."
"I'm glad you take it that way. Charlotte Stetson made me feel that I ought to creep back into my tomb. She——"
"Oh, to——" Jerome Stuart broke off, realizing that he was about to say aloud what he had so often said in the last eight months, "To the devil with Miss Stetson," and added clumsily, "To be quite honest, you know, it was only a kind of surface surprise. I've always known you would come back."
There was no conceit of assurance in the tone. This quiet man who did things quietly had learned. Perhaps he, too, had run away from life once and come back.