Jane was still speaking when Nina interrupted, as though through all that she had heard, one train of thought had persisted.
“What did you mean, Nellie, about Phil Gallatin being ineligible?” she asked. “And I know you don’t think him stupid. And why shouldn’t Jane Loring like him? I don’t think I understand?”
Nellie Pennington smiled. She had made a mistake. Hide and seek as a game depends for its success upon the elimination of the bystander.
“I am afraid, of course, that Jane would be falling in love with him,” she said lightly. And then, “That would have been a pity. Don’t you think so, Nina?”
“There’s hardly a danger of that,” laughed Jane, “seeing that I’ve just—just been introduced to the man. You needn’t be at all afraid, Nina.”
“I’m not. Besides he’s awfully gone on a wood-nymph. You saw him blush when I spoke of it at dinner here—didn’t you, Jane?”
“Yes, I did,” said Jane, now quite rosy herself.
“Phil wouldn’t have blushed you know,” said Nina confidently, “unless he was terribly rattled. He was rattled. That’s what I can’t understand. Suppose he did find a girl who was lost in the woods. What of it? It’s nobody’s business but his own and the girl’s. I’d be furious if people talked about me the way they’re talking about Phil and that girl. I was lost once in the Adirondacks. You were, too, in Canada only last summer, Jane. You told me so down in Virginia and——”
Jane Loring had struggled hard to control her emotion, and bent her head forward to conceal her discomposure, but Nina’s eyes caught the rising color which had flowed to the very tips of her ears.
“Jane!” cried Nina in sharp accents of amazed discovery. “It was you!”