“Only forty——? Rich men don’t grow old. And he could give you everything—everything, Janey.” Judy’s voice rose a little. “Jane, you don’t know what it means to want things for those you love and not be able to have them. Bob did very well until the slump in business. But since the babies came—I have worked until—well, until it seemed as if I couldn’t stand it. Bob’s such a darling. I wouldn’t change anything. I’d marry him over again to-morrow. But I do know this, that Frederick Towne could make life lovely for you, and perhaps you won’t get another chance to marry a man like that.”
“Oh, don’t—don’t.” It seemed dreadful to Jane to have Judy talk that way, as if life had in some way failed her. Life mustn’t fail, and it wouldn’t if one had courage. Judy was sick, and things didn’t look straight.
“See here, old dear,” Jane said, “go to sleep and stop thinking about how to make ends meet. That’s my job, and I’ll do it.”
And Judy slipping away into refreshing slumber had that vision before her of Jane’s young strength—of Jane’s gay young voice like the sound of silver trumpets....
CHAPTER XV
EVANS PLAYS THE GAME
Life for Evans Follette after Jane went away became a sort of game in which he played, as he told himself grimly, a Jekyll and Hyde part. Two men warred constantly within him. There was that scarecrow self which nursed mysterious fears, a gaunt gray-haired self, The Man Who Had Come Back From the War. And there was that other, shadowy, elusive, The Boy Who Once Had Been. And it was the Boy who took on gradually shape and substance fighting for place with the dark giant who held desperately to his own.
Yet the Boy had weapons, faith and hope. The little diary became in a sense a sacred book. Within its pages was imprisoned something that beat with frantic wings to be free. Evans, shrinking from the program which he compelled himself to follow, was faced with things like this. “Gee, I wish the days were longer. I’d like to dance through forty-eight hours at a stretch. Jane is getting to be some little dancer. I taught her the new steps to-night. She’s as graceful as a willow wand.”
Well, a man with a limp couldn’t dance. Or could he?