His eyes demanded nothing less than facts, and Jane, being characteristically unable to frame a successful fib on the spur of the moment, told the pitiful little truth.
"And so you were going back to stay all day on the outside of a locked house—eh? A cheerful holiday you'd put in!"
"I meant to take a long, pleasant walk, of course," amended Jane, "and——"
"Won't you take pity on me?" he pleaded. "I hadn't an idea how to spend the day, so I'd started with an aimless notion of fetching up at the country club and playing golf or tennis. But I don't care a nickel for either. You've never seen New York, Jane, and now's your chance. You'll be going back to England soon without ever having had a glimpse of this town, and that would be really foolish, since you're here; don't you see it would?"
Jane shook her head. "I—I couldn't," she hesitated; but her youthful eyes shone wistfully bright, as all unknown to herself she turned to cast a fleeting glance at the laughing holiday crowds pouring up to the elevated and down to the subway stations.
"Why, of course you can!" he said positively; and before she knew what had really happened she found herself, her weak objections overborne, seated in a flying train which looked down upon the gay panorama of New York's flag-decked streets.
"Where are—we going?" she asked him, and the little catch in her soft voice raised John Everett to a seventh heaven of unreasoning happiness.
"How would you like," he asked, "to let this train carry us the entire length of Manhattan Island—which is really the live heart of New York, you know—and bring up at Bronx Park? I was there once with Buster, and there are all sorts of queer birds and reptiles and animals to be seen, and a pretty winding river—we'll go up it in a rowboat, if you like the water; and we'll have our lunch in a little restaurant by the rocking stone, and then——"
"But—I'm obliged to be at home by five o'clock," she told him with a transient clouding of her bright eyes, "and—and I am afraid that Mrs. Belknap——"
"Jane," he began, in a low, persuasive voice, "just listen to me for a minute. You must have a reasonably independent character or you wouldn't be here in America. You remember what you told me the other day of how you came to leave your home in England; now that being the case, suppose you make up your mind to forget all about my excellent sister and her claims on you for just this one day and be yourself. Will you, Jane? It will be a lot more fun for both of us, and it won't hurt anybody in the world."