“Your color,” Towne told her. “You see I remembered your knitting——”
“I’m crazy about brilliant wools,” said Jane; “some day I am going to open a shop and sell them.”
But he knew that she would not open a shop. “You were like some lovely bird,—an oriole, perhaps, with your orange and black.”
“I dye things,” said Jane, frankly; “you should see some of my clothes when they come out. Joseph’s coat isn’t in it.”
Frederick liked her frankness. He knew people who would have been ashamed to admit their poverty before Waldron and the maids. To Jane, servants had neither eyes nor ears—in that she showed her accustomedness. People who had never been served were self-conscious.
“The next time you see this dress,” Jane was saying, “it will be as blue as my coat. And I’ll have a girdle of copper ribbon, and Baldy will paint my shoes with copper paint.”
She smiled at him with her chin tilted in her bird-like way. She was really having the time of her life. She was thrilled and fascinated by the beauty of her surroundings, and gradually Frederick began to take on something of the fascination.
Against his own background, he showed at his best. Without one word of fulsome flattery, he made little Jane feel that she was an honored guest. He talked extremely well, and though she was alone with him put her absolutely at her ease.
The food was delicious. There had been a celestial canape, a heavenly soup, fish that were pale pink and smothered in tartare sauce.
“He is awfully nice,” Jane told herself out of her supreme content, as Waldron passed squabs on a silver platter. She referred of course to Towne and not to Waldron but, remembering her own old Sophy’s shortcomings, she found time, also, to commend to herself the butler’s expertness.