"It is almost as good as Amelia's."
The new Jean was still no candidate for sainthood. White to the lips with anger, she caught the emblem of her regeneration from Mrs. Fanshaw's profaning hand and tore it to little strips.
VIII
Thenceforward Jean dreaded nothing so much as any return to Shawnee Springs whatsoever. Here, for once, she found herself in perfect accord with her mother, for, as the time of her release drew near, young Mr. Fargo's sauntering courtship took a sudden spurt, not clearly explicable to himself, whose prime and bewildering result was the fixing of his wedding day.
Dear Amelia naturally longed for her sister's presence at the culmination of her happiness (so Mrs. Fanshaw put it), but there were the Fargos to consider—they were not cordial, by the way—and if the refuge authorities made no objection, would it not perhaps be better if she met the official having Jean in charge at some intermediate point, from which she could proceed at once to her new calling? Jean, she was convinced, would understand.
Jean understood very well, but was thankful. She would rather serve another month in the refuge than be an unwelcome guest at Amelia's marriage. In truth, had she been put to a choice, she would have elected further confinement to her mother's roof in any case. She thought of the reformatory, not Shawnee Springs, as home, and this in a sense which embraced more than Miss Archer and the transformed Cottage No. 6. She loathed the life no less than in the beginning, but time had knit her to its every phase. The cowed, drab ranks had long since ceased to seem alien. Their deprivations, their meager privileges, their rights, their wrongs, their sorrows, their spectral gayeties, all were hers. She had thought to dart from the gatehouse like a wild thing from a trap. In reality she paused to look back with a lump in her throat.
Yet it was a blithe world outside, the fog and gloom of a November rain notwithstanding. Even the wet glisten of the mire seemed cheery. A hundred trivialities, unheeded by her companion, absorbed her unjaded eyes. The red and green liquids of a druggist's window lured her as in childhood; then the glitter of a toy-shop enticed, or the ruddy invitation of a forge. Station and train were each a mine of entertainment. The ticket-buying was an event of the first magnitude; the slot-machines, the time-tables, the news-stands, the advertisements, all the prosaic human spectacle had the freshness of novelty. She noted that women's sleeves had a fullness of which the little tailor-shop in the refuge was but dimly aware; that men's hats curled closer at the brim; that the trainmen wore a different uniform; that one rural depot or another had received a coat of paint.
Mrs. Fanshaw was in waiting.
"There's a train back to the Springs in twenty minutes," she announced briskly, after a preoccupied dab at Jean's cheek, "and under the circumstances"—she was always under circumstances—"I know you won't mind if I take it instead of waiting till your own goes out. What with presents arriving, the dressmaker, and the snobbish behavior of Harry's family, I expect as it is to find Amelia on the edge of nervous prostration. Every minute is precious, we're so rushed. In fact, I could not find time to pack a single stitch for you to take to New York. Anyhow, I understood from your last letter that the refuge would fit you out with the necessaries, which is certainly a help at this time when I'm paying out right and left for Amelia. Why," she wound up suddenly, "your suit is actually tailor-made!"