It lacked half an hour of dinner time, and Jacob Willoughby sat alone in the stuffy library. The owner of Willoughby Hall was not what could be called sentimental, but in the twilight hour, and especially when the weather necessitated an open fire, he was apt, if Susan Willoughby was in a remote part of the house, to let his thoughts stray back to a time when she was not, so far as Jacob Willoughby was concerned, and when a slim young creature, addicted to pink and blue muslins, but with neither family nor prospects, was the sun of his days, the moon and stars of his nights. He had been sensible and never regretted it—that is, hardly ever. To-night, however, the dancing flames that glorified the dull room reminded him of the grace of his boyhood’s love, and the dreary splash, splash, of the rain outside, of the gray monotony of the years that lay behind him and of those other dull and purposeless years that stretched out before him.
And when presently a pale Jane broke in upon this reverie, Jacob was forced to brush his hands across his eyes twice to make sure it was Jane and not the slim young creature to whom he had brought the early crocuses in the springtime of his youth. Neither knew exactly how it happened, but Jane found herself sobbing out her story on Uncle Jacob’s broad bosom, and feeling strangely comforted by the tender pressure of his pudgy hand upon her shoulder. When she cried out that she could not stand it to have that hateful book come out, and to listen to the comments upon it, it was Uncle Jacob who suggested that a trip abroad might accomplish wonders in the way of making her forget both the man and the book. Not that he believed it—he lied gallantly there—but he had his reward in seeing the face he loved brighten somewhat.
And when Jane stole away with a check in her hand, leaving him to explain to Aunt Susan her absence from dinner and her early departure in the morning, in spite of the ordeal that lay before him, there was a warm glow underneath the white vest, a glow which even the approaching grenadier-like tread of Aunt Susan could not dispel.
CHAPTER X.
It was the last Tuesday in November, and Mrs. Hardenburgh was giving the first of her usual series of at-homes. An inveterate lion hunter was this clever woman of sixty-odd summers, whose hair was as thick and golden as a débutante’s, and whose complexion as pink and white. This afternoon she was in a particularly complacent mood, for she had arranged a piquant double attraction for her guests. When, however, by six o’clock, both attractions had failed to materialize, the faintest suggestion of a frown appeared on her remarkably smooth brow. Five minutes later the appearance of a newcomer had dispelled it, and the hostess was her humorous, smiling self.
The newcomer was Jane—Jane in a gown every line of which spoke Paris, in a dream of a hat that sat on her proud little head like a coronet; Jane, in short, in a perfect get-up and in radiant health and spirits. Personally, we’d prefer to set it down that she looked pale, distrait; that “concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,” etc.; but it would not be true. Whatever the suffering within—and there was a rather deep, intent look about the eyes—Mrs. De Mille presented an unconquered, nay, a self-satisfied, front to this little New York world, and was looking her very best.
As she made her way slowly down the long room to where her hostess stood, it occurred to her that she was causing something of a sensation. At first she modestly ascribed it to the fact that she had been away for six months, and that this was her first public appearance since her return. It dawned upon her presently, however, that the rooms were filled with strangers, principally, and as the interest deepened rather than lessened with her slow advance, she was forced to acknowledge to herself that something beside her lengthened absence was responsible for the attention she was receiving. The more puzzled she grew, the more confidently she carried herself, and when a very young bud in a very high treble agitatedly remarked to a blasé youth: “She’s not a bit disappointing, is she?” it expressed in words the verdict of the rooms.
After greeting Mrs. Hardenburgh, the first familiar face Jane encountered was Mr. Scott’s.
“So you’ve gone and gotten yourself engaged, faithless one?” she observed, reproachfully, after they had shaken hands.
“Oh, I say, Jane——” he began, in exactly the same tone with which he was wont, in the past, to preface one of his numerous proposals.