"The thing about Jane"—Henry was very seriously trying to say the thing as he saw it—"the thing about Jane is that she sees things straight. And she makes other people see."
IX
Well, Tillotson was beaten, and the men who supported O-liver came out of the fight feeling as if they had killed something unclean.
And the morning after the election O-liver had a little note from Jane.
"I've got to go away. I didn't want to worry you with it before this. I have saved enough money to start in at some college where I can work for a part of my tuition. I have had experience in my little lunch room that ought to be a help somewhere.
"When I finish college I'm going into some sort of occupation that will provide a pleasant home for mother and me. I want books, and lovely things, and a garden; and I'd like to speak a language or two and have cultured friends. Then some day when you are made President you can say to yourself: 'I am proud of my friend, Jane.' And I'll come to your inauguration and watch you ride to the White House, and I'll say to myself as I see you ride, 'I've loved him all these years.'
"But I shan't let myself say it now. And that's why I'm going away. And I'm going without saying good-bye because I think it will be easier for both of us. You and I can't be friends. What we feel is too big. I found that out about myself that night when you sat there on the platform, and I wanted to save you from Tillotson. If I'm going to work and be happy in my work I've got to get away. And you will work better because I am gone. I mustn't be here—O-liver."
Jane had indeed seen straight. O-liver laid the note down on his desk and looked up at the mountain. He needed to look up. If he had looked down for a moment he would have followed Jane.
X
And now there was no sandwich stand in Tinkersfield. But there was a good hotel. O-liver saw to that. He got Henry Bittinger to put up the money, with Tommy and his mother in charge. O-liver lived in the hotel in a suite of small rooms, and when Atwood Jones passed that way the four men dined together as O-liver's guests.