"But oh," said Sarah, forlornly, "you said you wouldn't be really 'going away' from us, but you have! Millions of miles away—a whole world away, Jane! You've proved your point,—succeeded beyond our wildest dreams——"
"Not beyond my wildest dreams, old dear," said her best friend with happy impudence. "You were more modest for me than I was for myself!"
"—beyond our wildest dreams," Sarah repeated stubbornly, "and you can carry on your work just as well here, now, and wouldn't it be the loveliest, most natural thing in the world for you to stay at home? Jane—poor old Marty!" She ran to Jane and flung her arms emotionally about her.
"Sally, there's no more chance——"
But the other cut in, panic-stricken, "Oh,—don't make up your mind now—to-night! Wait! Just spend the summer in the dear old way, as we've always done, and see if you don't fit right into your old niche again, with—with——"
"With a steadily fattening Marty," said Jane, bright-cheeked, "and a hot, pink nursery with a fat and well-oiled Kewpie?"
"Jane," said Sarah coldly, "there are some things too sacred to——"
"To be anything but decently and sanely frank about," said Jane. "My child, the story isn't going to have that particular happy ending for which you pant. You see all my life in a proscribed pattern. Like a sentimental ballad's second verse ... back to the grassy meadows ... childhood's happy hours again.... Once again he sang—
"'For you are my li—hittel—sw—heet—heart.'"
"Then," said Sarah with conviction, "it's either the man-you-met-on-the-boat, or that Irish missionary person!"