Raymond Challoner lost no time in acting upon Queenie’s advice. The very next afternoon he presented himself at her home, and Queenie herself went to fetch Jess at once.
“How shall I ever go down to the drawing-room to see him!” cried Jess, distractedly, as she clung to her false friend with death-cold hands; “if he speaks to me of love, or marriage, I am sure I shall fall in a swoon at his feet.”
“That is not being brave,” retorted Queenie, impatiently, “you promised me faithfully that you would put the past from you, and try to believe that it was but a dream; this is not carrying out your word.”
Jess straightened herself up with apparent difficulty, the awful pallor still upon her face. How she made her way down the stairway, she never afterward quite remembered, so strong was the feeling within her that she would swoon with each step.
Raymond Challoner advanced to greet her in his jaunty, inimitable, graceful manner.
“Little Jess!” he cried, holding out both hands in greeting, “words fail to express to you how glad I am to see you.”
Her white lips parted, and her large, dark, startled eyes looked away from the eager blue ones in much trepidation. She murmured some faint words which he could not quite catch.
“Why, how changed you are, little Jess!” he cried, holding her off at arm’s length and looking in puzzled wonder down at her fair, marvelously beautiful face. “New York and the society of our mutual friend Queenie seem to have metamorphosed you completely. You left me a romp of a girl, I find you a woman; there is something in your eyes, in your face, that I have never seen there before, and I am puzzled to know what it is.”
He saw her flush and then turn deadly pale under his keen, searching scrutiny.
“You are a thousand times more beautiful, and therefore more lovable than when we last met,” he cried, enthusiastically. “I regretted from the bottom of my heart that they had let you slip off to New York without my knowledge, or approval, but I am obliged to confess that it has done wonders for you, my Jess—wonders.”