“My plans aren’t fully worked out,” Jane answered. “I have enough training to go as nurse’s assistant, under the Red Cross.”
“Oh, have you? How wonderful! Could I get that, do you suppose? I’m really a terribly quick study—I used to cram any amount of stuff in the forty-eight hours before an exam, and get away with it. If I could—oh, Miss Ray—would it be possible—would you be willing—could you consider letting me go with you?”
Jane looked into the sea-blue eyes which were looking so appealingly into her own. “Yes,” she said to herself again, “I can see exactly how you do it. That look is absolutely irresistible—just angel-sweet and full of sincerity. I wish I could trust you—I really wish I could. But somehow—I can’t. Something inside me says that you don’t mean it—you don’t—you’re not genuine. You’ve some stake you’re playing for—you don’t care a copper cent about helping over there. How am I going to deal with you?”
It’s odd, isn’t it? How do we do it—how do we keep up this double discussion, one with our lips, the other with our thoughts? Jane and Fanny went into the matter rather thoroughly, talking with entire friendliness of manner about possible courses to be followed, sources of information to be consulted; and all the time the things they both were thinking ran so far ahead in volume and in direction of the things they were saying that there could be no comparison between the two. Both were much too well trained in worldly wisdom to allow the smallest particle of personal antagonism to show in word or manner, and yet as the talk proceeded each became more and more aware that there was and could be no sympathy or openness between them.
And then Cary came dashing into the shop, and seeing Fanny pounced upon her and bore her away with him for a walk, vowing he should so soon be gone he must make the most of every opportunity. Jane looked after them as they went, wishing heartily that the day would come quickly when Cary would be off and away. His plans were rapidly taking shape; his old newspaper, after a searching interview with him and a series of inquiries directed toward establishing the thoroughness of his reformation, had made him a sort of probational offer which he had accepted with mingled glee and resentment.
“They’ll send me, only with all kinds of conditions attached which I’d never accept if I weren’t so wild to go. But they’ll see—I’ll show them. Just let me send back one rattling article from the real front, and they’ll be wiring to tie me up to the thing for the duration of the war.” Thus he had exultantly prophesied to his sister, and to Robert Black, and to Red, and they had agreed that it was certainly up to him. He had his chance—the chance to retrieve himself completely; they were all three concernedly eager to see him safely off upon his big adventure.
He was so excited about it, so restless, so impatient for the call which had been virtually promised him for an early date, that they felt constrained to watch him carefully. Without knowing exactly why, none of these three friends quite liked to see him often with Fanny Fitch. Jane herself was unwilling to appeal to Fanny, or to give her even a vague idea of his past weakness; she now saw them go away together with an uneasy feeling that she wished it hadn’t happened.
An hour later Cary telephoned that he wouldn’t be back for dinner; he would take it in town, he said—he had some equipment to look up. He might be back late—Jane was not to sit up for him. He said nothing about Miss Fitch, but Jane’s instant conviction was that the two were dining together. Probably they would go to the theatre afterward and come out on a late local. Well, what of it? Fanny was no schoolgirl to need chaperonage; there was nothing in this program to disturb anybody. But Jane was disturbed. Suppose—well, suppose Fanny were the sort of girl who didn’t object to having a cocktail—or a glass of champagne—or both—at a hotel dinner alone with a man? What would companionship on that basis do for Cary, just now? She had no reason to suppose that Miss Fitch was that sort of girl, and yet—somehow—she felt that the chances were in favour of her being precisely that sort of girl. Nan Lockhart’s friend—wasn’t that voucher enough? Still, friends didn’t always know each other as well as they supposed they did. And Fanny, ever since she had dressed the part of the French actress with such fidelity to fact, had seemed to Jane an over-sophisticated young woman who wouldn’t much mind what she did, so that she drew men’s eyes and thoughts to herself. Excitement—that was what Fanny wanted, Jane was sure. An excellent chance for it, too, dining with a brilliant young war-correspondent, himself keyed to high pitch over his near future. And if the play chanced to be——
A certain recollection leaped into Jane’s brain. She went hurriedly to the back of the shop for the city daily, and scanned a column of play offerings. Yes, there it was—she remembered seeing it, and Cary’s laughing reference to it at the breakfast table that morning, coupled with the statement that he meant to see it. The play was one of the most noted dramatic successes of the season, its star one famous for her beauty and sorcery, and not less than infamous for the even artistically unjustifiable note she never failed to strike, its lines and scenes the last word in modern daring. A great play for a man and woman to see together, with wine before and after! And Cary could not safely so much as touch his lips to a glass of the most innocent of the stimulants without danger to that appetite of his which was as yet only scotched, not slain. If anything happened now to wreck his plans—what confidence in him, what hope of him, could be again revived?
After all, perhaps Jane was borrowing trouble. The pair might have had only the walk they went for, Cary afterward taking the train for town alone. On the impulse—what did it matter whom she offended if she saved her brother from his great temptation?—she went to the telephone and called up the Lockhart residence. Was Miss Fitch in? The answer came back promptly: Miss Fitch was not in. She had not left word when she would be in, but it was likely that she had gone into town, as she had spoken of the possibility.