"I won't" said Jane, stoutly. (Good to be back with him, good to hear his purling brogue and his lyrical construction. He talked like an old song.) The door of the boarding-house opened at their ring and Jane hurried in. "Here's Mrs. Hills! Hello, Mrs. Hills! Here I am!" She embraced the ex-villager warmly and espied Emma Ellis in the shadows of the hall, over her shoulder. "And Miss Ellis! How-do-you-do?"
Miss Ellis did very well, according to her own statement, but it was pathetically clear to one pair of sharp eyes at least that she would have done better if Michael Daragh had not been bringing in Jane's suitcase and handbag and umbrella while a taxi got under way in the street.
"It's so nice to be back with you all," said the returned exile, heartily. The Settlement worker came out into the light and it was to be observed that she was still more pinched and sallow than of yore and Jane's heart melted within her to swift mercy. "I found Michael Daragh on the sidewalk and pressed him into service as porter. Thanks, Michael Daragh. Am I to give you the quarter for your Poor and Needy?"
"You are, indeed," said the Irishman, firmly, taking the stairs two at a bound. "More than that, you'll be giving me for a case I know, with the proud and prosperous look you have on you this day!"
"I hope," said Emma Ellis, conscientiously, the taut lines of her face loosening a little, "you had a pleasant outing?"
"Yes," said Jane, flippantly, "but my outing was an inning—and I've delved like a riverful of beavers, and I'll be at work at nine to-morrow morning."
"That Mr. Harrison has been 'phoning and 'phoning," Mrs. Hills announced, complacently. "And he wants you should ring him up the minute you got in—something about this evening, I guess, he was so set on having you get the message."
"That listens alluringly! I'll call him now,—may I?" She shook herself out of her topcoat and fur and sat down at the hall telephone. Mrs. Hills and Miss Ellis discreetly withdrew to the living room, but the low tones of her voice were carrying and it was presently made clear to them that gayety was afoot for the evening, a sort of gayety they two had never known, would never know ... little tables with shaded candles, lights, music, subtle, wheedling music, hovering head-waiters ... the newest play ... then more little tables, more wheedling, coaxing music, more hovering head-waiters, dancing.... The boarding-house keeper told herself, comfortably, that it would never do for her, and pushed a tolerant curiosity back into the ragbag of her mind, and the Settlement worker tucked in her lips and reminded herself that there would be undernourished children, hungry children, not a mile from where Miss Vail would be eating out-of-season delicacies, and thanked her God that she was not as other women.
Michael Daragh came into the room an instant before Jane did. She was flushed and bright-eyed and smiling. "Well! I'll have to fly! I won't be here for dinner, Mrs. Hills,—I'm sorry, but it seems this is a rather special party to-night."
"It's your kind of clam chowder, too," said Mrs. Hills, shaking her head.