Jane Journeys On

lle which yielded plump little weekly royalties and gave her a reputation quite out of proportion to her output and experience. They began to advertise her sketches as "dif

ne, "that I must call yo

ave his attention to a hovering head waiter. He was distinctly what her village called "

lad, "shall we say Fairy God-cousin? That's a gay and pleasi

had been in his early attitude, as she had divined, just a trifle of the King and the Beggar Maid, the Town Mouse and the City Mouse, but that was gone now. She knew his New York very nearly as well as he did himself and with her increased activities had come decreased dependence on him. She was either so gayly busy or so busily gay that she was able to accept only one

to call on her; she wanted a little time and a little perspective, and she knew that the hour had struck for her to go back and put a firm if mournful period to the affair of Marty Wetherby. There had been constantly recurring scoldi

Daragh and at the station to Rodney Harrison; and went back in smart triumph with a

amazingly enlarged and humanized Teddy-bear, in their new roadster; Sarah Farraday, a little thinner after her hard-driven winter o

aged maid who did not know that there was a servant problem, and ate the reliable stock supper-the three slices of pink boiled ham on the ancient and honorable platter of blue wil

ain which she got from her bedroom window, but she had wanted the dear girl to be happy, and she clearly was happy, brimming

visited cozily until the little spinster's head began to jerk forward in the pauses, and Sarah Farraday, who had waited conscientiously until nine o'clock, appeared. Then Miss Lydia went

after she's sound asleep," said Sarah. "It's a mercy she doesn'

ng plumply up the stairs, "she 'just rests her eyes for a moment.' S

ch other and took off their dresses and slipped into kimonos and le

edly broke the spell, "what'

dy tears. "It's-you've been away so long, and we've dr

ou, do you dare to feel that you don't know as much about my life as I do? Viper-that-bites-the-hand-that

letters," Sarah admitted wi

inter you're coming down to me for a month of giddy ga

dear, you're a lamb to think of it, but of course I couldn't. It's wo

y n

, doggedly, "it's muc

and immoral remark! There is nothing too goo

, palm upward and stared at Jane. Her dark hair was shimmering and floating about her and her dark eyes were poo

th long and sweeping strokes. "Still doing this a hundred and twenty

apience. "I mean, are you really as h

I've had a bright and shining time, work and play, with my feet ver

g away' from us, but you have! Millions of miles away-a whole world awa

d her best friend with happy impudence. "You

as well here, now, and wouldn't it be the loveliest, most natural thing in the world for you t

re's no mor

night! Wait! Just spend the summer in the dear old way, as we've always do

Jane, bright-cheeked, "and a hot, pink n

dly, "there are some t

t particular happy ending for which you pant. You see all my life in a proscribed pattern. Like a sentimental

my li-hittel-s

it's either the man-you-met-on-the-bo

reless toil in urging others on? "Sally, Michael Daragh, as I've tried to make clear, is an over-soul. His large feet lug his large frame about on this terrestrial sphere, but in reality he isn't here at all. He is quite literally absent from the bo

about-the

g, and Rodney is beneath-which would, of course, make him much the pleasanter person to live with! Rodney is thoroughly and comfortably this-worldly; Michael is-other-worldly! This is th

ome chocolate! I've come to crave nocturnal nourishment, and much as I adore talking about myself I've r

ed, of course, but seemed very much interested in everything and everybody, and many were the placid hours in the pink nursery, the drives with the Edward R. Hunters in the new roadster, the teas in the burlapped

ose case came up for decision at once, in spite

and at once he had plunged to his doom. There was no serene confidence about him this time, no snatching her into a

You're so nice and young, and you're doing famously at the bank! Oh, I know it's just because you've held to the idea f

spite of the assistant cashiership, a look of shaken confidence. His mother, that former arranger of little gatherings for the y

ng him to a sketch. It brought her fresh laurels and a larger audience and a better royalty, and she told herself stoutly (as Rodney Harrison had first told her) that it didn't matter in the least that he wanted a good deal of broad and rather edgy comedy and, failing to get it from her, had put it in himself, and, therefore, had his name on th

ss like a shop girl and her gentleman friend and looked off across the river, shining in the moonlight, and after a silence Jane said pleasantly, with her new admixture of aloofness and indulgence, "Well, Michael Daragh, I know you haven't marched m

cheeks, faced her squarely. "The poor thing I'm concerne

rst dazed moment. She sat stari

nly, "the way you've wandered from the

dered to be angry. "I haven't the va

g you've just written and sold, now,

with resentment. "It isn't a classic, of course, but it's a th

in the bog you are, and s

g at them from the wrong angle." She talked on, angrily, defensively, but inwardly she was feeling attacked and abused and crushed. There had been nothing but praise and congratulation and rejoicing now for ten months, and this shabby settlement worker dared-"I'm sure you mean to be very

ou," he said mournfully, "and tha

th cool disdain. "You see life always through a stained-glass window a

wo! 'Getting on' you are surely, the way your name screams from the billboards and your bank balance fattens like a stalled ox, but are you 'going on,' Jane Vail? Are you 'going on'? Woman, dear," the purl

him curtly not to follow, and walked alone to the Drive and hailed a bus, and sat stari

il, dressed for a journey, had roused Mrs. Hills at six in the morning to say that she was going out of town for sever