"Maybe; but if she did, she wouldn't acknowledge it. She said 't was because the Chicago Beach Hotel was closed for the season, and there couldn't be any dances there!"
Clover smiled. "That sounds as if her spirits had not all departed," she remarked.
But she had been quick to observe the alteration in Mildred. Sometimes she hoped that Jack's absence had wrought the fulfillment of his desire, but she did not seek to probe her sister's feeling. If unseen influences were expanding the entrance to the holy of holies in the young girl's heart, what right had she to interfere? Sometimes she feared Mildred was depressed by the prospect of a marriage which would break up this home. Whatever the cause, the fact remained that her sister's interest in society had waned, and the part she kept up in it was perfunctory, and did not extend beyond those efforts which courtesy demanded. She had never been more companionable with Clover, however, and the latter had never enjoyed her so much.
Thus matters stood when the New Year was ushered in. The day was clear and bright, and many thousands took advantage of the fact that Jackson Park passed back to-day into the public jurisdiction. Curiosity seekers and vandals poured down the strangely mute Midway Plaisance and through the avenues of the Park. Clover and Mildred did not swell the number who gayly parodied "After the Ball."
And now was to come the long pull and the strong pull of winter. Mildred wondered in her own mind why the prospect should look so very dreary. No other season had ever seemed like it. Doubtless it was her new and close acquaintance with the griefs of others that had changed the world, and made life a novel sort of struggle.
The new year was less than a week old when Clover received a letter from Jack, announcing his intention to make them a call.
"I won't give any excuses," he wrote; "I admit that I am coming simply because I want so much to see Mildred and you that I believe I shall do better work after indulging in that pleasure."
"Loyal as ever," said Clover, looking up, and Mildred did not raise her eyes from her work, but she was smiling.
Jack had said he could not set a precise time for his arrival, but that in a few days they might expect him to drop down.
When his determination had been taken, Van Tassel pushed forward his preparations with all haste, and his restlessness did not quiet until he found himself, in the early evening of the 8th of January, walking down the old familiar home street once more. As he reached the corner, he suddenly observed that clouds of smoke mingled with large red cinders were rolling up from the south.