BOOK II
WORTHINGTON SQUARE
CHAPTER I
JANE WEARS PEARLS
A tap upon her door sent Mrs. Murray Townsend flying across the room to answer it. She expected to find her husband there, awaiting her permission to come in and see her in the cloud-like white gown which she had worn but once before--two months ago. He had vowed since that he had never seen that wedding-gown, being occupied wholly upon the occasion on which it was worn in keeping his head, in order to play his own part with dignity and self-command.
But to Jane's disappointment, she opened the door only to a maid with a florist's box. The box, upon being examined, yielded up among a mass of roses Murray's card, which bore this message:
Sorry to be delayed, dear, but father wanted to go over everything that has happened at the office during my absence. Will be up in time for the pow-wow. Wear one of these for
MURRAY.
Jane smiled regretfully. It had seemed a long day. Only that morning she and Murray had returned, belated, from their wedding journey across the continent, to find cards out for a reception in their honour to take place that very evening.
"You knew the date," Mrs. Harrison Townsend had said to her elder son, when, upon being told that his delay had caused much anxiety to the givers of the affair, he turned to his bride with a soft whistle of recollection and chagrin.
"I certainly did," he had owned. "I forgot, I 'm afraid, that there were such things as after-wedding festivities due to society, and that this was the date for the first of the series. I don't think Jane even knew."