Baldy threw himself in a chair. “Mr. Towne got back from Chicago this afternoon. Called me up and said he wanted me to come over at once to his office. I went, and he gave me a letter from Jane. Said he thought it was better for him to bring it, and then he could explain.”
He threw the note across the table to Mrs. Follette. “Will you read it? I’m all in. Drove like the dickens coming out. Towne wanted me to go home with him to dinner. Wanted to begin the brother-in-law business right away before I got my breath. But I left. Oh, the darned peacock!” Jane would have known Baldy’s mood. The tempest-gray eyes, the chalk-white face.
“But don’t you like it, Baldy?”
“Like it? Oh, read that note. Does it sound like Jane? I ask you, does it sound like Jane?”
It did not sound in the least like Jane. Not the Jane that Evans and Baldy knew.
“Baldy, dear. Mr. Towne will tell you all about it. I am going to marry him as soon as Judy is better. I know you will be surprised, but Mr. Towne is just wonderful, and it will be such a good thing for all of us. Mr. Towne will tell you how dreadfully ill Judy is. He wants to do everything for her, and that will be such a help to Bob.
“And so we will live happy ever after. Oh, you blessed boy, you know how I love you. Send a wire, and say that it is all right. Tell Evans and Mrs. Follette. They are my dearest friends and will always be.”
She signed herself:
“Loving you more than ever,
“Jane.”
Mrs. Follette looked up from the letter, took off her reading glasses, and said complacently, “I think it is very nice for her.” The dear lady quite basked in the thought of her intimate friendship with the fiancée of Frederick Towne.
But the two men did not bask.