“Dear, dear Miss Lucas! Oh, I’m sorry!” cried Cis, beginning to tremble.
“No! Be glad! I’m glad; indeed I am glad and grateful that you saved me from worse! My father never trusted Herbert Dale. Mother liked him, but father was afraid. He blesses you for what you did. It was fine for one girl to stand by another, unknown girl like that! I sent for you to tell you this. I hear the company found out, and dismissed you. There was a fearful scene when I gave back my ring and told Herbert that I knew him at last. He guessed—not at first, but after a while; I’m too dull to keep a secret against his experienced questioning—he guessed how I found out. He swore he’d have the girl dismissed who had put me on his wire. I know that he succeeded. I am profoundly sorry. I owe you what cannot be repaid, but—will you let my father help you in some way? He told me to say to you, when I told him that I meant to find you and thank you, that you would be still more generous and unselfish than you’ve already been, if you would let him help you to your feet again. He said he would be honored in recommending you to any position, a girl with such fine kindness and loyalty and true standards as yours are! Will you be frank with me, please, dear? I’ve spoken to you without the thinnest veil over my face!”
“Bless your dear, sweet soul!” cried Cis. “I’m all right. I’m leaving town to-morrow, going to seek my fortune, if you can imagine it!”
“Oh, no! Are you? It’s worse than I thought,” cried Jeanette aghast. “What a pity, what a shame! And all for me, to save me from being a wretched wife! How could you be so kind to me? Indeed, indeed you must let us do something about it!”
“Dear girl,” said Cis, leaning forward, taking one of Jeanette’s burning hands in her firm, cool, shapely ones, “you mustn’t take that hard. I’m a restless fish; I’ve been wanting a change. I could find a job here, but I’ve been wanting to go away. I’m taking the chance the company’s given me to pull up stakes; that’s all. I’m going Monday, to Beaconhite, just for sport, so don’t you worry over it, you dear!”
“Beaconhite? Oh, father could help you there! His brother is the president of the biggest bank in the city, and if you had a letter to him he’d give you something splendid, I know he would! Will you let father give you a letter to Uncle Wilmer? Please, please say yes!” Jeanette pleaded with hands and eyes, leaning forward eagerly.
“Sure I’ll say yes!” laughed Cis. “And then I’ll say thank you! It’ll be great not to be without a plank on a new ocean. But all I ask is that you and your father will quit feeling that you owe me anything. I knew the company would drop me, but that’s nothing! I tell you I’ve been fidgeting lately. Anyway, what’s that beside marrying the wrong sort? I’ve been fond of you this good while, Miss Jeanette Lucas; I’ve taken comfort in making believe I knew you, and that we were friends. Funny, maybe, but all girls have sort of far-off crushes, I guess! Then, when I’d a chance to be a friend to you in good earnest, you’d better believe I liked it! So that’s all there is to that, my dear!”
Jeanette looked at Cis hard and long, then she leaned over to her and kissed her. “Strange,” she said slowly. “You have come into my life deeply with one stride. No other girl is bound up into my life as you are. As long as I live I shall remember you, the girl who saved me. I shall keep your face, your wonderful red hair, in my mind when I am old and feeble—if I live to be so! It doesn’t seem as though I could go on living, but I know people can’t die because they no longer really live. We are friends, dear, and your sweet, queer dream of me came true.”
“I’m so sorry about you, I ache,” said Cis simply. “What are you going to do, what will become of you? Don’t talk of dying!”
“Father is going to take me to Europe for six months. That’s all I know of a future,” said Jeanette. “I’m stunned; it doesn’t seem true most of the time. Then it is the only truth in all the world, and I reel under the feeling that all else, all I trusted and believed, is false. I never knew wicked people, and if the one who seemed noblest, best, is treacherous, wicked, how do I know, how do I know? I’m not easy to transplant, Cicely; my roots won’t take hold again. But your clear, changing, warm, pitying face looks true. My father and my mother are good, good and dear! I must find my way. Don’t you think I shall?”