The child responded by throwing both chubby arms about her neck and wailing discordantly in her ear.
"Come, come, Buster!" exclaimed his uncle wrathfully; "you can stop that howling. Jane won't leave you. I'll take myself off instead, as I see I am decidedly out of it."
The small boy instantly relaxed his hold upon the girl and flew to his uncle. "No-o!" he shouted. "I want my Jane, an'—an' I want 'oo, Uncle Jack!" He clambered up his accommodating relative's trouser leg, and was assisted to a triumphant perch upon that young gentleman's broad shoulder, where he beamed upon Jane with innocent delight. "I yuve my Uncle Jack," he announced conclusively, "and I yuve my Jane!"
"That's all right, young fellow, and a proper sentiment too," murmured John Everett. Then he cast a pleading look at Jane. "Why persist in spoiling a good time?" he asked. "I'll play in the sand like a good boy, and I promise you I won't teach Buster any bad words, nor throw wet sand on his clean frock."
Jane's pretty face was a study. "Very well, sir," she said coldly. "It is not for me to say, I suppose." Then she sat down at a safe distance from the hole in the sand—in which the small diplomat, satisfied with the result of his coup, immediately resumed operations—and fixed her eyes on the sail-haunted horizon. All the sense of happy freedom which the wind had brought her from across the sea had suddenly vanished. She was gallingly conscious of the bonds of her servitude and of the occasional friendly glances which the big, pleasant-faced young fellow on the sand bestowed upon her.
"I hate him!" she told herself passionately. "If he knew who I was he would not dare call me 'Jane,' and smile at me in that insufferably familiar way. It is only because I am a servant. Oh, I hate him!" Her little hands clenched themselves till the nails almost pierced the tender palms, whereon divers hardened spots told of unaccustomed toil.
It was not an auspicious moment for John Everett to approach and utter a commonplace remark about a passing steamer. Nevertheless he did it, being anxious in his blundering masculine way to cheer this forlorn little exile, who he felt sure was in dire need of human sympathy.
Jane made no sort of reply, and after a doubtful pause he ventured to seat himself at her side. "That white tower on the farther side of the bay is one of the features of 'Dreamland,'" he observed. "At night one can see it for a long distance sparkling with electric lights."
Still no answer. He studied the girl's delicate profile in silence for a minute. "Wouldn't you like to see it sometime, Jane?" he asked.
She turned upon him suddenly. "How—how dare you—call me 'Jane,' and—and— Oh, I hate you!" Her kindling eyes scorched him for an instant, then before he could collect his scattered senses she burst into wild sobbing. "You wouldn't dare treat me so if I was at—at home," she went on between her sobs; "but you think because I am all alone here and—and working for wages that you—can amuse yourself with me. Oh, I wish you would go away and never speak to me again!"