Thus she had sent him off, for even as she spoke the whistle of the approaching local was heard down the line, and Black had only time to take a hasty leave of her and run to the platform, with no chance to buy his ticket.
Standing on the rear platform, as the train went on—the inside of the car had been unbearably hot—he looked back down the long street and caught a glimpse of Jane’s lavender linen disappearing in the distance. He strained his eyes to see it, visualizing clearly the face into which he had just been looking. It was a face which had a way of coming before that vision of his many times when he was attempting to occupy himself with necessary work, and of interfering seriously, now and then, with his powers of concentration. There was something about the level lines of Jane’s eyebrows, the curve of her cheek, the shape of her mouth, which peculiarly haunted the memory, he had found. It was astonishingly easy, also, to recall the tones of her somewhat unusual voice, a voice with a ’cello-like low resonance in it; easy to recall it and easier yet to wish to hear it again. He found himself suffering from this wish just now, and rather poignantly.
Whose fault was it that he had not seen Jane for two weeks? Since she must have known by his two calls that he wanted to see her, why hadn’t she let him know he might come again? The time was getting so horribly short—the call for one or other of them might come so soon. And then what? He was realizing keenly that when the chance of turning a corner and meeting her, of going to her shop and seeing her, of calling her upon the wire and hearing her—was gone, perhaps forever—well—suddenly the thought became insufferable. He must do something about it, and that at once! He must do it to-day. What could it be, since he was on his way out of town?
His thoughts went on rapidly. He made a plan, a daring one—rejected it as too daring—decided that it wasn’t half daring enough! What was the use of never doing anything because there might be some possible and remote reason why it wasn’t best? This infinite and everlasting caution suddenly irked him—as it had many times before in his experience—irked him till it became unbearable. He would carry out his plan—his end of it. If Jane wouldn’t carry out her end—— Well, anyhow he would put it up to her. Thank heaven, he had that hour to spare; it made possible the thing he had in mind.
The minute his train arrived in the city station he made haste to the telephone, and shortly had Jane’s shop on the wire, with Sue promising to call her mistress quickly. Then, he was talking fast, and he feared less convincingly than he could have wished, for Jane was objecting:
“Why, Mr. Black—how can I? How could I, in any case? And now, with so little time! Besides—are you sure you——And your friend—how can you know she——”
Yes, this usually poised young business woman was certainly being a trifle incoherent. No doubt it was an extraordinary invitation she had received. It was small wonder she was hesitating, as each phase of it presented itself to her mind. Go with him, unbidden by his hostess, to spend the day with him at her seaside home? What a wild idea! But his eager voice broke in on her objections:
“I’m going to call up Mrs. Devoe right now, and I know as well as when I get her answer that she will welcome you as heartily as you could ask. Why, she’s Southern, you know, so any friend of mine—— And we’ll be back in the early evening. Why shouldn’t you go? I can’t see a possible reason why not. You wouldn’t hesitate, would you—if it were any other——” And here he, too, became a victim of unfinished sentences, his anxiety to put the plan through increasing, after the fashion of men, with her seeming reluctance to allow him to do it. “Listen please, Miss Ray. If you’ll be making ready, I’ll call you again when I’ve had Mrs. Devoe—if I can get her quickly—and assure you of her personal invitation. If she is in the least reluctant—I’ll be honest and tell you so. You’ve forty minutes to make your train, if you don’t lose any time. Please!”
But all he could get was a doubtful: “I can’t promise, Mr. Black—I can’t decide, all in an instant.”
“Then—will you let me call you again, with Mrs. Devoe’s invitation, if I get it in time? And will you call a taxi, so that if you decide——”