“Indeed you’re not! You can’t! I wouldn’t mind, I’d like to have you, but you simply can’t,” declared Jane. “Don’t be a nuisance and a baby, Mel; I can’t let you go, or I would,” she added out of her experiences in Florimel’s possibilities.
“I simply will go, unless you tell me where it is you’re going, and I see for myself I can’t go or I don’t want to,” declared Florimel. “Of course that’s plain silly, Jane. I can go wherever you go. If you tell me where it is and I do happen to stay at home I won’t tell Mary or any one. But if you don’t tell me I’ll tell what you just said and get them all stirred up—Mary, Win, Anne, everybody. And you know what I say I’ll do, I’ll do.”
Jane knew precisely this truth. “I can’t take you, Florimel, because you’re too young,” she said unwisely.
“Two years and three months younger than you are!” interposed Florimel scornfully. “What’s that!”
“A lot when I’m only fifteen,” said Jane. “I’m going before breakfast; I’ve had all I want out of the pantry. Well, then, Mel, I’ll tell you, but it’s on your word of honour not to say anything till I do—you promised!”
“Don’t I know I promised?” retorted Florimel. “And don’t you know wild horses and hot pokers couldn’t get me to tell, if I said I wouldn’t? Then hurry up!”
“I’ve always thought I had talent to act,” Jane announced. She continued, disregarding Florimel’s hastily stifled laughter: “I thought, maybe, I ought to go on the stage—of course not yet, but after I was, say three years older, and had studied for it. There’s a company in town now—acted in the Crystal Theatre last night. They are going away this morning on the 10.10. The leading lady’s name is Alyssa Aldine—I think Aldine always sounds like nice people; I suppose because the Aldine editions of books are so famous. Then I read such nice-sounding things about her in the Vineclad Post that I knew she wasn’t one of the ordinary actresses; she must be beautiful and clever. And it came to me like a flash that I would slip off early this morning, and get to the hotel before they leave, and ask to see Miss Aldine and get her to tell me frankly whether she thinks I ought to go on the stage. A girl ought to try to find out just as early as she can what is her work in the world. I suppose I could recite and sing to Miss Aldine, if I had to, though I’d dread it. You see there aren’t many chances to get good advice about the stage, here; it isn’t often that talented, refined ladies come to Vineclad to act, they say.”
Florimel had heard this speech of Jane’s with utter amazement and disgust on her handsome face, which, childish though it was, was quite capable of expressing disgust with its black eyes and curling red lips.
“Well, Jane! Well, Jane Garden!” Florimel cried scornfully the instant Jane paused. “Talk about my being younger than you are! Why, you’re a baby! Haven’t you heard Win talk about the companies that come to the Crystal? One-night-stand companies, he says, that travel about in the country towns, are never any good! We never go. The idea of your going to call on this actress and asking her—well——” Florimel broke off, unable to express herself more satisfyingly.
“I told you, Florimel, that I read about Miss Aldine in the Post and she is not one of that ordinary kind,” said Jane severely. “I am going. It can’t do any harm, and it may do good. Don’t you tell Mary till I get back; don’t tell her at all; I will. But you can’t go with me.”