I

“This,” said Mr. Ward, “means war.” He looked very seriously across the dining-room table at his wife and daughter. On the shining damask cloth at his elbow several copies of the evening papers flaunted their thick black headlines. Jane could see them from where she sat. “U.S. Battleship Maine Blown Up in Havana Harbor.” “Three Hundred and Five Men Killed or Injured.” “President McKinley Demands Inquiry.”

Jane looked at her father very solemnly.

“War,” thought Jane. It was somehow unthinkable. War couldn’t be visualized in that quiet candlelit room. No one said anything more. The hoarse, raucous voices of newsboys, crying the last extras on the disaster, punctuated the silence. Jane could hear them blocks away, echoing across the silent city. Newsboys were crying extras like that, thought Jane, in every large city in the world. In New York and London and Berlin and Paris⁠—Paris where André might hear them⁠—newsboys were shouting “U.S. battleship Maine blown up in Havana harbor.” War with Spain. War⁠—after, her father had just said, thirty-three long years of peace.

“I think,” said Mrs. Ward finally, “that someone will do something. There will never be another war between civilized people.”

“The Spaniards aren’t civilized,” said Mr. Ward. “Their Cuban atrocities have proved that.”

“They’re a very powerful nation,” said Mrs. Ward.

“They’re a very tricky one,” said her husband. “But we’ll free Cuba if it takes every young man in America.”

“I hope,” said Mrs. Ward severely, “you won’t talk that way to Robin. I think a married man, with a child, should not be encouraged to think that his duty lies away from his home.”

“Robin,” said Mr. Ward calmly, “is the best judge of his own duty.”

“John,” said Mrs. Ward excitedly, “Isabel isn’t strong. If she were left with that baby⁠—”

“Isabel,” said Mr. Ward, “will have to take her chance with the rest of us.” Then he paused a moment and considered his wife’s worried face. “We’re a long way from enlistments yet, Lizzie.”

“And of course,” said Mrs. Ward hopefully, “the bachelors will all go first.”

“The bachelors,” thought Jane. Would she live to see young men marching out heroically behind the colours to fight the Spaniards⁠—to kill⁠—and be killed⁠—over Cuba⁠—which meant nothing to them⁠—and less to her. Would she live to see⁠—perhaps⁠—Stephen⁠—

“No one will go for months,” said Mr. Ward. “Congress will talk about this inquiry ’til there isn’t an insurrectionist alive in Cuba.”

Jane sincerely hoped that Congress would. She didn’t care at all about the insurrectionists. She was going over to Muriel’s that evening to play egg football, around the dining-room table. Muriel loved egg football. Stephen and Jane thought it was very funny to see her pretty face grow red and distended in her frantic efforts to blow the eggshell over the line. Jane’s mother and Isabel thought that she ought to give it up now. They said it wasn’t quite prudent, with the baby coming. Jane had no opinion on that. It would be an amusing party. Jane rose from her chair.

“Can Minnie walk over with me?” she said. The February night was mild.

Mrs. Ward nodded. The cries of the newsboys had died down in the distance. Mr. Ward had picked up his papers. The game of egg football seemed much nearer than war.

II

“It’s only a question of days, now,” said Mr. Ward. “There can be only one outcome.”

“We’re awfully unready,” said Robin.

“Roosevelt was right,” said Stephen. “He’s been right all along. We ought to have been preparing. We ought to have been preparing for years.”

“He’s done wonders with the Navy Department,” said Mr. Ward. “He’s got Dewey in Hong Kong. He’s had his eye on Manila from the start.”

“He should never have left his desk,” said Mr. Bert Lancaster. “His place is in Washington. This stunt of rushing down to San Antonio to get up a regiment of cowboys is all nonsense. You can’t make a soldier out of a cowpuncher in ten minutes.”

“You can make a campaign out of him,” said Freddy Waters very wisely. “There’s more than one kind of campaign. Teddy Roosevelt keeps his eye on the ball. He never passes up a chance to play to the grandstand.”

“Teddy Roosevelt,” said Mr. Ward slowly, “is all right.”

Jane sat in solemn silence. So did all the other women. That February evening seemed very long ago, when the newsboys were crying extras on the Maine and the game of egg football had seemed nearer than war.

It was mid-April, now. They were all sitting out on the Wards’ front steps, enjoying the early twilight of the first warm evening. The Wards had sat out on their front steps on spring and summer evenings ever since Jane could remember. Minnie always carried out the small hall rug and an armchair for her mother, immediately after dinner. The neighbours drifted in, by twos and threes, dropped down on the rug and talked and laughed and watched the night creep over Pine Street. Sometimes they sang, after darkness fell. The Wards’ front steps were quite an institution.

Pine Street looked just the same, reflected Jane, as it always had, on April evenings. The budding elm boughs met over the cedar block pavement. The arc light on the corner contended in vain with lingering daylight. The empty lawns looked very tranquil and, in the clear grey atmosphere of gathering dusk, poignantly green. Bicycles passed in groups of two and three. Other front steps, further down the block, were adorned with rugs and dotted with chattering people. Nothing was changed.

Nothing was changed on Pine Street. But in Washington, Jane knew, garrulous Congressmen were discussing ultimatums, friendly ambassadors were shaking their heads over declined overtures of intervention, weary statesmen were drawing up documents, and President McKinley was sitting with poised pen. In Chickamauga troops were concentrating. The regular army was in motion. Regiments were entrained for New Orleans and Mobile and Tampa. Twenty thousand men were moving over the rails. Down in San Antonio, Leonard Wood was organizing the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and Roosevelt himself was cutting through the red tape of the Navy Department to join the plainsmen and adventurers and young soldiers of fortune from the Eastern colleges who had answered his first call, across the wide Pacific seas Dewey was lingering, with his tiny fleet, in neutral waters. Off Key West the North Atlantic Squadron was riding at anchor. Jane could fairly see them across the tranquil green lawns of Pine Street, battleships and monitors and cruisers, talking with Captain Sampson’s flagship in flashing points of fire. All waiting for the stroke of the President’s pen.

They were waiting for it on Pine Street, too. Horribly waiting. Jane’s father had been waiting for it for weeks, and Robin had been waiting, and Bert Lancaster and Freddy Waters, too, for all their scoffing. Stephen had been waiting. Jane knew that. Stephen had been waiting in a queer inarticulate suspense that held for Jane a note of tacit doom. Jane had never been able to phrase the question that would terminate it. It had trembled, countless times, on her lips, during the last two months. But it had never been asked. Jane didn’t want to know, beyond the possibility of doubt, just what it would do to her to face the startling realization that Stephen was going to go to war.

Last week he had shown her a clipping, cut from the morning Tribune. A copy of Alger’s letter to the State Governors.

The President desires to raise volunteers in your territory to form part of a regiment of mounted riflemen to be commanded by Leonard Wood, Colonel; Theodore Roosevelt, Lieutenant-Colonel. He desires that the men selected should be young, sound, good shots and good riders, and that you expedite, by all means in your power, the enrollment of these men.

Jane had made no comment. “It would be fun,” said Stephen, “to go.”

“Fun!” thought Jane.

“I’m pretty bored with the bank, you know,” said Stephen. “I’ve nothing else to do here, unless⁠—”

The sentence was left unfinished. Jane had tried to look very noncommittal. In the perplexities surrounding her Jane clung firmly to one assuaging certainty. She wasn’t going to be railroaded into marrying Stephen to keep him from going to war.

But⁠—if he went, thought Jane in the gathering dusk of Pine Street? If the dreadful moment came, when, like a girl in a book, she had to dismiss him to follow the flag to death or glory⁠—

The notes of the first hurdy-gurdy of the season tuned up on the corner. Jane could see the little street organ, dimly, in the light of the arc lamp. A tiny object that must be the monkey was crawling around the musician’s feet. Jane loved hurdy-gurdies. They meant the coming of spring on Pine Street. They meant it much more than the first robin. Jane had loved to dance to them when she was little. To follow the monkey and slip her allowance in pennies into its cold, damp little claw. She always laughed, still, at a monkey, snatching off its little red cap with a spasmodic gesture and blinking its thanks for a coin.

This was a very up-to-date hurdy-gurdy. The tune was a new one, but already familiar. Freddy Waters never missed an opportunity to sing.

“Goodbye, Dollie, I must leave you,
Though it breaks my heart to go.
Something tells me I am wanted
At the front to fight the foe⁠—”

Jane moved a trifle uneasily. She wished that Freddy wouldn’t sing the silly words quite so sarcastically. You couldn’t laugh away war⁠—not even with the most banal of love songs. She was glad when the hurdy-gurdy slipped into the safer strains of “Cavalleria Rusticana.”

“Well⁠—we must go,” said Muriel. Muriel was beginning to take care of herself at last. She rose to her feet a little clumsily. Incredible, thought Jane, to think of Muriel with a baby. It was coming in August. Mr. Bert Lancaster steadied her arm. How awful, thought Jane, to have Mr. Lancaster for your baby’s father. It didn’t seem possible that he could have had anything to do with Muriel’s baby. Jane resented his protective air.

“We’ll walk along with you,” said Rosalie. Her little girl was almost a year old now. And Isabel’s boy would be two in July. All three of them, thought Jane, with babies. Babies mysteriously produced and brought into the world⁠—with fathers. They were all growing old.

Isabel rose to her feet. She was still humming, half unconsciously, the chorus of “Dollie Grey.”

“Come, Robin,” she said.

Jane’s mother rose in her turn.

“It’s growing very chilly,” she remarked, with a little shiver.

Mr. Ward tossed his half-finished cigar over the balustrade. It fell on the black turf in a shower of sparks, then glowed, incandescently, for a moment in the darkness.

“Good night,” said Robin. He slipped his arm through Isabel’s. They wandered off together up Pine Street. Mr. Ward rose from his seat on the steps with a heavy sigh.

“It’s only a question of days,” he repeated.

Stephen was standing up, now, at Jane’s feet.

“Good night,” he said.

The question trembled once more on Jane’s lips and once more remained unspoken.

“Good night,” said Jane.

Stephen turned and went down the steps. Jane watched his slender figure disappearing down the darkened street. Under the arc light she could see it again quite clearly. Beyond it he vanished instantly into the night. Jane turned to her father.

“Are⁠—are you sure, Papa?” she asked. Mr. Ward nodded gravely. He picked up her mother’s chair. Jane stooped to gather up the little rug. Mrs. Ward had already opened the front door. Several blocks away Jane could still hear the hurdy-gurdy.

“Something tells me I am wanted
At the front to fight the foe⁠—”

The mock pathos of the jingling tune held a dreadful irony. Jane had suddenly a desperate sense of a trap, closing in upon her. Life shouldn’t be like this. Life shouldn’t force your hand. In moments of decision you should always be calm, untrammelled by circumstance.

“Come, kid,” said Mr. Ward. He was standing by the open door. Jane followed him slowly into the front hall.

Life wasn’t fair, thought Jane.

III

“Miss Jane,” said Minnie, “Mr. Carver has called.”

“Mr. Carver?” questioned Jane. It was only four o’clock on a weekday afternoon. Why wasn’t Stephen at the bank?

“Tell him that I’ll come down,” said Jane.

Minnie departed in silence. Jane turned slowly toward the bureau, but merely from force of habit. What was Stephen doing on Pine Street at this hour? She rearranged her hair absentmindedly. Stephen never left the bank until five. Jane picked up her mirror and gazed very thoughtfully at the knot at the back of her neck. She didn’t see it at all. What did Stephen want of her? Facing the glass once more she plumped up the sleeves of her plaid silk waist with care. Day before yesterday the United States had declared war.

Jane walked very slowly down the stairs.

“Stephen?” she called questioningly.

“Here, Jane,” he answered. His voice came from the library. Jane entered the room.

Stephen was standing very straight and tall by the smouldering fire. He grinned as she entered. Nevertheless he looked a little solemn.

“What are you doing here in office hours?” smiled Jane. “Come to sell me a bond?”

“No,” said Stephen simply. “I haven’t.”

Jane dropped down on the sofa by the fire. She gazed up at Stephen in silence.

“I’ve come to sell you,” said Stephen, “this idea of going to war.”

Jane’s heart gave a great jump beneath her plaid silk bodice. The unspoken question was answered.

“I’m going to join the Rough Riders,” said Stephen firmly. “I made up my mind this morning. There’s no excuse for my sticking around here a minute longer.”

“When⁠—when are you going?” said Jane faintly.

“Right away,” said Stephen. “I spoke to my boss this afternoon. I’ll write to Father tonight.”

“Oh⁠—Stephen!” said Jane again still more faintly.

“I want to go,” said Stephen. “It’s not so often that you want to do what you ought.”

That was true enough, thought Jane. But who could want to go to war?

“Lots of Harvard men have joined up,” said Stephen, “because of Roosevelt⁠—some men I know in Boston are going. They wrote me last week. I’m all signed up with them. We’re going to meet in San Antonio.”

“When?” asked Jane.

“As soon as they can make it,” said Stephen. “One of them has to tie up his business. Another one’s married.”

“How⁠—how long do you think?” asked Jane.

“Oh⁠—we ought to be down there in two weeks,” said Stephen.

Jane sat in silence on the sofa. Two weeks.

“It will be fun,” said Stephen. “Roosevelt’s got a great crowd down there.”

Jane still sat in silence.

“Don’t look so solemn, Jane,” said Stephen.

“I feel solemn,” said Jane.

“You wouldn’t want me not to go,” said Stephen.

“Yes, I would,” said Jane promptly.

Stephen looked very much pleased. And a little amused.

“When it comes to the point,” said Jane, “I guess I’m not much of a patriot.”

“Oh, yes,” said Stephen persuasively, “you want to win the war.”

Jane felt a refreshing flash of levity.

“Do you expect to win it?” she asked lightly.

Stephen flushed a bit.

“Don’t mock me, Jane,” he said seriously. Then a little hesitantly. “I’m awfully glad you’re sorry.”

“Of course I’m sorry,” said Jane. “But I don’t know that you ought to be glad about it.”

“Just the same, I am,” said Stephen a little tremulously.

Silence fell on the room once more.

“Jane⁠—” said Stephen presently and paused. He was still standing on the hearth rug. He was looking down at Jane very steadily.

“Yes,” said Jane nervously. Her eyes were on the fire.

“Don’t you think⁠—don’t you think,” said Stephen almost humorously, “that it’s just about time for me to ask you again?”

It was very disarming. Jane couldn’t help twinkling up at him.

“There’s no time like the present,” she said.

“Jane!” In a moment he was beside her on the sofa. “Jane⁠—does that mean⁠—” He had her hands in his.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” said Jane hastily.

“I don’t believe you,” said Stephen. He was very close to her. His eyes were gazing eagerly into hers. His lips were twisted in a funny little excited smile.

“I don’t believe you at all,” said Stephen. “Jane⁠—” And suddenly he kissed her. His moustache felt rough and bristly against her lips.

“Oh!” said Jane, drawing back. Her heart was beating fast. That kiss was strangely exciting.

“Darling!” said Stephen. His arms were around her now. Jane’s hands were pressed against the tweed lapels of his coat.

“Kiss me again!” said Stephen.

“I⁠—I didn’t kiss you!” cried Jane in protest. “I⁠—I didn’t at all!”

“But you will,” said Stephen. His face was flushed and eager. His eyes were gazing ardently into her own. Jane stared into them, fascinated. She could see the little yellow specks that seemed to float on the blue iris. She had never noticed them before.

“You will!” he declared again. And again his lips met hers. This⁠—this was dreadful, thought Jane. She⁠—she shouldn’t allow it. He pressed his cheek to hers. It felt very hard and just a little rough, against her own.

“Stephen,” said Jane weakly. “Really⁠—you mustn’t.”

“Why not?” said Stephen. “I love you.”

Jane felt herself relaxing in his arms.

“You know I love you,” said Stephen.

“Well,” said Jane faintly, her head on his shoulder, “don’t⁠—don’t kiss me again⁠—anyway.”

Stephen laughed aloud at that. A happy, confident laugh.

“You darling!” he said. Then very happily, “I⁠—I’m so glad you told me, Jane, before I went.”

Before he went, thought Jane desperately! Of course⁠—he was going. She had forgotten that. But she hadn’t told him. It was all wrong, somehow. Jane looked despairingly up into his face.

“Stephen,” she said pitifully, “I⁠—I don’t know, yet, if I love you.”

“Of course you do,” said Stephen promptly. Jane wondered, in silence.

“Jane,” said Stephen presently, “it⁠—it’s going to be terribly hard to leave you.”

Jane did not speak. She felt all torn up inside. His tremulous voice was very moving.

“Jane,” said Stephen very quietly, “you⁠—you wouldn’t marry me⁠—before I went?”

Jane gave a great start. She slipped from his embrace.

“Oh⁠—no!” cried Jane.

“I⁠—I was afraid you wouldn’t,” said Stephen humbly.

“Oh⁠—I couldn’t!” said Jane. “I⁠—I couldn’t⁠—marry⁠—anyone.”

Stephen was smiling at her very tenderly.

“I don’t want you to marry anyone but me,” he said cheerfully.

The levity in his tone was very reassuring.

“Stephen,” said Jane, “you are a dear.”

Stephen looked absurdly pleased. It was fun to please Stephen so easily.

“What sort of ring shall I get you?” he asked.

That, again, seemed oddly terrifying.

“Oh⁠—” said Jane evasively. “I⁠—I don’t care. Don’t⁠—don’t get a ring just yet.”

“Of course I will,” said Stephen. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”

Jane heard the doorbell ring⁠—three brief peremptory peals.

“That’s Mamma!” said Jane. Then in a sudden panic. “Oh, Stephen, please⁠—please go. I don’t want to tell her.”

“We needn’t tell her,” said Stephen calmly.

“She’d guess!” cried Jane. “You don’t know Mamma!” She heard Minnie’s step in the hall. “Oh, Stephen! Please go!”

“All right,” said Stephen. He rose a bit uncertainly.

“Come back!” said Jane wildly. “Come back after dinner! But now⁠—I⁠—I can’t talk to Mamma. I⁠—I want to think.” She heard the front door open. She rose to her feet.

“Kiss me,” said Stephen. He took her in his arms. Jane slipped quickly out of them. She fairly pushed him to the door. She heard him meet her mother in the hall.

“Why Stephen!” Her mother’s voice was pleased and, mercifully, unsuspecting. Stephen’s answer was inaudible. Jane turned to poke the fire. Her mother entered the room.

“What was Stephen doing here at this hour?” she asked pleasantly.

“He came to talk about the war,” said Jane, turning over the bits of charred birch very carefully.

“The war?” said Mrs. Ward.

“He thinks he’ll enlist,” said Jane.

“Oh⁠—I think that’s a mistake,” said Mrs. Ward earnestly.

“Well⁠—maybe he won’t,” said Jane casually, still busy with the fire.

Mrs. Ward walked over to the desk. She laid some letters down before her husband’s chair.

“You’re a funny girl, Jane,” she said. “Don’t you care at all if he does?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jane, “I care⁠—of course. But it’s for him to decide.” She turned to face her mother. “Is that the mail?” she asked.

“Yes,” said her mother. She was watching Jane very closely. Jane went over to the desk.

“Anything for me?” she asked.

“I didn’t notice,” said Mrs. Ward. There was a faint suggestion of irritation in her tone. Jane picked up the letters. She felt her air of indifference was just a little elaborate. Her mother left the room, however, without further parley.

Jane stood quietly, leaning against her father’s desk, absently holding the letters in her hand. What had she done, thought Jane? How had it happened? Was she glad or sorry? She could hardly believe it, now Stephen had left the room. A moment ago she had been in his arms, on that sofa. He had⁠—kissed her. Three times. She had let him do it. She had sat with him, on that sofa that always, always, made her think of André, of that dreadful moment when André had left her⁠—she had sat there and let him kiss her⁠—But Stephen was going to war. She would have time. She wouldn’t tell a soul. Not a soul⁠—except her father. She would think it all over. She would tell Stephen tonight, that, at best, it must be just an understanding⁠—Suddenly Jane’s eye fell on the French stamp of the topmost letter in her hand. A⁠—French⁠—stamp! Jane gazed at it, in horror. Yes⁠—“Miss Jane Ward”⁠—in handwriting that, though changed, was unmistakably André’s. She would be twenty-one next week. He had written! Of course he had written. She had always known he would write! And she⁠—faithless⁠—within the hour had let Stephen Carver kiss her. Had let Stephen think that⁠—Jane dropped the other letters on the desk. Holding André’s close above her heart she rushed frantically out of the room and up the stairs and gained the sanctuary of her own bedroom. Softly she locked the door. Then sank into the chair by the window overlooking the amber willow tree. André had written. He had not forgotten. André was going to come.

Jane slowly drew the letter from the thin-papered envelope. It looked strangely foreign. The very writing, faintly blotted on that sheer French paper, had a subtly alien air. But it was undeniably André’s own. Yes⁠—at the end of the twelfth closely written sheet, there was his name, “Your André.” Her André! Jane turned to the first page and began to read.

“Dear Jane, I hardly know what to say to you, or how to say it. But of course I want to write. I want to write, even though I have no idea, now, what sort of a person you may have grown up to be, how you may have changed from the child that I loved.”

Loved, thought Jane with a faint chill of foreboding? And child?

“We were both children, of course. We see that now. And in the four years that have passed you have grown up into a woman. I have a strange sense of embarrassment in writing to you. For I have grown up, too, Jane, and I am not at all sure that you will welcome my letter. Perhaps you do not even remember that I was to have written it.”

Remember, thought Jane! What had she ever forgotten?

“When I left you that day on Pine Street⁠—that day which, now, perhaps, you may not even care to recall⁠—I thought my heart was breaking. I thought your heart was breaking too. But I was nineteen, Jane, and of course, I have learned that hearts are of tougher fibre than I thought.

“I was miserable all summer long. Miserable all winter, too, though I was working very hard over my modelling. I thought of nothing but you and counted the days until I could see you. Actually counted them, Jane, on a calendar I made, crossing one off every evening.”

Darling André, thought Jane!

“But I was nineteen, Jane. And life is life. I began, almost against my will, to be interested in all sorts of things. The Sorbonne and the studio and lots of other pure frivolities, though I was dreadfully ashamed of that, at first. Then I began to see, of course, that we would both have to go on living and growing up and changing into the kind of people that we were meant to be, and when the four years were over, we would meet and see each other again and know, instantly, if we still cared. I couldn’t imagine not caring about you. But what the four years would do to you, I couldn’t imagine either. I was awfully afraid of them.

“Mother wrote me about you, of course, as long as Father was in Chicago. I knew that you went to Bryn Mawr with Agnes and I was terribly glad. I knew you wanted to go and, besides that, it seemed, somehow, to put off life for you, to keep you safe in an environment that I could imagine, to shut out the world. I never heard anything about you, after that. I thought of writing Agnes, but I never did. Mother didn’t think it was quite on the level, after my promise to your father, to write Agnes letters that were really for you.

“And then, Jane, I entered the Beaux Arts and my work began to get me. I began to care terribly about it. I always had, of course, but this was very different. I was thrilled over what I was doing. I was thrilled all the time, day and night. I am still. I can’t think of any time, during the last three years, when I haven’t been terribly excited and happy to be working with my clay. I hope I can make you understand that⁠—how much it has come to mean to me.

“For, Jane, I have just been told that I am to be awarded the Prix de Rome. It means three years’ work in Italy. It means a chance for accomplishment that I have never known before. It means living for three years with the other students in bachelor quarters in the Villa Medici. I’ll live like a monk, there, in a little white cell, working night and day to get all I can out of the opportunity the three years give me.

“Jane⁠—I did mean to try to get to the States this summer. To work my way over on some boat just as soon as my courses were over and I’d finished a fountain I’m doing. I meant to spend next winter in Chicago. I thought I’d take a studio there and try to get a job at the Art Institute. I did mean to, I mean, if you, by any chance, still wanted me to come. I meant to write you a letter at this time, saying I would come like a shot if you would tell me to. But, Jane, surely you see that this is a chance that I can’t let slip. I’ve got to take advantage of it. Next spring, if you want me, I’ll come without fail. I’ll leave Rome for a month or two⁠—I’ll manage it somehow⁠—I’ll come and we can see each other. Just as I write the words, Jane, I feel all the old emotion. Do you, I wonder, feel it, too? I feel so very strange with you. What have the four years done to you? Are you the same Jane? You can’t be, of course. But are you a little like the girl that⁠—”

The sentence was not finished. Jane sat with burning cheeks, gazing at the closely written paper. How could he write like that⁠—as if he still cared when he was taking this Prix de Rome? The Prix de Rome? What was the Prix de Rome? Jane didn’t know and felt she didn’t care. What was any prize, any reward, any opportunity compared with love? Love, such as she and André had known? He had forgotten. She must face that fact. He must have forgotten. If he had remembered, nothing would have counted, counted for one moment, against the joy of reunion. “Next spring, if you want me, I’ll come without fail!” Pallid words! Insulting words. Really insulting, from André to her. What had the four years done to her? What had they done to him? Jane turned again to the letter.

“Write me, dear Jane, that you understand. And tell me that you will want to see me, next spring, only half as much as I want to see you.

“ ‘Her⁠—André’!” Jane’s cheeks flushed again at the irony of the phrase. But there was still a postscript.

“I think you’d like my fountain. It’s the best thing I’ve done. I wish I could show it to you. It’s a study of Narcissus, gazing at his own reflection in the water. There’s a nymph behind him, a deserted nymph, standing with arms outstretched, ignored, forgotten, as he stares, infatuated, in the crystal pool. There’s something of you in the nymph, Jane. There’s something of you in all my nymphs and Eves and saints and Madonnas. Something you brought into my life. Romance, I guess it is. Nothing more tangible.

Something of her in the deserted nymph! Something of him, thought Jane, with unwonted irony, in the fatuous Narcissus! And for this André she had been keeping herself for the last four years! This André who would rather go to Italy and take his Prix de Rome than cross the ocean to see the girl that⁠—For this André she had been steeling her heart against Stephen. Stephen who loved her and wanted her and was going to war, still wanting her more than life itself. Stephen who had been her very slave for the last eighteen months, who had loved her from the moment that he set eyes on her in Flora’s little ballroom.

Jane rose and went to her desk. She pulled out her best notepaper and seated herself squarely before her little blotter. When you killed things, thought Jane grimly, you killed them quickly.

“Dear André,” she wrote, “I loved your letter. And of course I remember everything. Quite as much, I am sure, as you do yourself. I understand perfectly about the Prix de Rome and I hope very much you will come to Chicago next spring. I should love to see you and I should love to have you meet the man I am going to marry. His name is Stephen Carver and he is going to war, immediately, to fight the Spaniards. I shall marry him before he goes.

“As you say, we were both children, four years ago.” Jane paused a moment, trying vainly to blink away her tears. It had been just a dream, she knew, but the end of even a dream was very dreadful. “Like you I was awfully upset, at first, but as you say, life is life. I loved my years at Bryn Mawr with Agnes. Soon after I came home I met Stephen. He has just persuaded me to marry him. Of course I am terribly happy.”

Jane paused to wipe her eyes, then added, as an afterthought. “Except for the war.” That seemed to dispose of everything she thought. Just one more word was needed. She wrote it⁠—“Jane.”

She mailed the note before dressing for dinner. When she came up to her room again André’s letter was still lying on her desk. She made a sudden movement as if to tear it into a hundred pieces. Then checked herself and slowly put it back in its envelope. André might be incredibly different. André might have forgotten. She would pluck him from her heart. But the André that he used to be was still the lover of her childhood. Jane felt an odd sense of outrage at the thought of denying the past. She slipped the letter into a desk drawer. Jane turned slowly toward her closet door. She would wear her prettiest dress for Stephen. She would tell him at once that she would marry him. She would try to make up to him for the way she had treated him. What if Stephen, discouraged, had forsaken her? Jane felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for Stephen’s faithfulness. She had never appreciated it before. Of course she loved him. She loved him and she would marry him. It was perfectly terrible that he was going to war.

IV

Jane stood before her mirror, gazing incredulously through her snowy veil at the slim white reflection that was herself. Fancy dress, it seemed to her, this paraphernalia of bridal finery. Isabel stood at her side, holding her shower bouquet of lilies of the valley. Her mother was leaning against the bureau, looking her up and down and softly crying. Isabel’s eyes were full of tears. Minnie, standing admiringly at the bedroom door, was pressing a mussy handkerchief to trembling lips.

After the past two weeks, however, Jane was quite accustomed to being cried over. She was a hero’s bride, dedicated to a romantic destiny that had not left a dry eye in her little circle. Even Muriel had cried, and Mrs. Lester, of course, and Rosalie. Jane wondered if Agnes and Marion had wept a little in Bryn Mawr and Flora and Mr. Furness in London. Flora had cabled and Agnes and Marion had written her lovely letters. Jane had glimpsed in Agnes’s a tacit attempt to retract that unfortunate, unspoken verdict of “cotillion partner,” that Jane had read, last December, in her candid eyes. It was quite all right with Jane, “Cotillion partners” didn’t go to war. Agnes must understand, now.

Her mother had cried almost continuously ever since Jane had told her of the engagement. She had cried most terribly during that one awful interview with Stephen when she tried to persuade him that if he married Jane he shouldn’t enlist. Mr. Ward had cried, too, but only once and very furtively, making no capital out of his tears. And yesterday, when Stephen’s family arrived from Boston, Stephen’s mother, in the railroad station, had cried most of all.

Jane had been terribly afraid to meet Stephen’s family. They had been very much surprised at the news of the engagement. But when they came, they proved to be very nice. They really didn’t seem to bother about Jane at all. They were mainly preoccupied with Stephen’s enlistment. The wedding was, in their eyes, a mere preliminary, a curtain raiser, to the great drama of the war. Jane was the leading lady, to be sure, but she played a conventional role. The hero’s bride again, dedicated, this time, to the romantic destiny of making Stephen happy for a week before he went away to fight the Spaniards. Jane, facing the disquieting group of future relatives-in-law, was profoundly relieved that nothing more complicated was required of her.

There were six of them and all very friendly, indeed. Except for their short, clipped accent and a certain funny something that they did, or rather did not do, to their r’s, they might have been born and bred on Pine Street. Stephen’s mother, whom Jane had, of course, dreaded the most of all, proved to have a very reassuring resemblance to her brother, Mr. Furness. She was short and plump, with the same pale, protruding eyes and iron grey hair. Like Mr. Furness she had very little to say. This deficiency was more than made up for by the fact that Stephen’s father had a great deal. Mr. Alden Carver was a very impressive gentleman. He was grey-haired, too, and he had a close-clipped grey Vandyke beard and moustache, and shrewd light-blue eyes that peered out from under his grey eyebrows with an uncanny resemblance to Stephen’s. His cheeks looked very soft and pink above the close-clipped grey beard. His collar and cuffs were very white and glossy and his grey sack suit was in perfect press. Jane thought him a very dapper old gentleman.

Alden Carver, Junior, looked just like his mother. He was four years older than Stephen and he had never married. He had told Jane, immediately, on the platform of the train shed, with the air of placing himself for her, once for all, that he was in the Class of ’88, at Harvard. Jane had received that biographical item with a very polite little smile. It didn’t help her much, however, in her estimate of her new brother-in-law.

Stephen’s sister, Silly, was easier to talk to. She talked a great deal herself and always amusingly, about horses and dogs and sailboats. Silly’s real name was Cicily, after Stephen’s mother. She was older than Stephen, but younger than Alden. Silly was thirty-one and Jane had never met any other girl just like her. Silly, it seemed, kept a cocker-spaniel kennel and hunted with the Myopia hounds and sailed a catboat at the Seaconsit races. Jane had thought she was perfectly stunning when she saw her get off the train in her blue serge suit and crisp white shirt waist and small black sailor. A perfect Gibson girl. Slim and distinguished. But that night at dinner on Pine Street she had not looked nearly as well in evening dress. Somehow lank and mannish, in spite of blue taffeta, long-limbed and angular, and, yes, distinctly, old.

She didn’t seem like a sister at all to Stephen. More like an aunt.

Stephen had an aunt, who had come too, with his uncle who was his father’s brother. The Stephen Carver for whom Stephen had been named. He was nice, Jane thought. He was a college professor in Cambridge. He lived on Brattle Street, Alden said, and his field was Restoration Drama. Jane knew all about Restoration Drama and she knew all about college professors. It made her remember Bryn Mawr very vividly, just to see his wrinkled brown tweed suit and gold-bowed spectacles. His dinner coat was just a little shiny. Jane knew she would like her Uncle Stephen. He got on famously with her father. It seemed that they had been at Harvard together. That fact seemed to help the bridal dinner a great deal.

Uncle Stephen’s wife was Aunt Marie. She looked like the wives of all college professors, thought Jane. Nice and bright and friendly and not too careful about how she did her hair. She was “Nielson’s daughter,” Alden had said, adding as Jane stared up at him uncomprehendingly, “the great Nielson.” Considering the tone in which those three words were uttered, Jane didn’t dare to inquire further. She smiled, very politely. Then she met her father’s quizzical gaze from across the room. He saw her difficulty immediately.

“Geology,” he had breathed, over the heads of their guests. And then Jane remembered. Six fat volumes, bound in brown cloth, in her father’s library. Nielsen’s Ice Age. She had never read them but she “placed” Aunt Marie, at once.

The bridal dinner, Jane had thought, had proved just a trifle disappointing. It was to be a very small house wedding, so only the two families were there. You couldn’t, somehow, be awfully gay with just two families that had never seen each other until that afternoon. Mr. Alden Carver, however, talked very steadily and informingly, to Jane’s mother and Mr. Ward chatted very pleasantly with Mrs. Carver about how much everyone in the West had come to think of Stephen. Jane, herself, had sat in frozen silence between Stephen and his father, watching Isabel trying to talk to Alden about the last Yale-Harvard football game, which she hadn’t seen, and Robin’s cheerful attempts to interest Aunt Marie in anecdotes of his career in Cambridge. Jane couldn’t think of a single thing to say, even to Stephen, in such a solemn setting. Not on the very last night before they were to be married. Stephen was silent, too. He had held her hand very tightly, under the tablecloth, and had smiled, encouragingly, every time she glanced at him. It wasn’t until the guests were all leaving to walk over to their rooms in the Virginia Hotel, three blocks away, that Jane had a moment alone with him.

They were standing in the hall together, at the foot of the staircase. Stephen’s mother and sister and aunt were upstairs in the guestroom, putting on their party coats. Jane’s mother had gone up with them. The other men were all talking to Isabel at the front door.

“Don’t let them worry you,” said Stephen very tenderly, “You won’t have to live with them.”

“They don’t worry me,” said Jane promptly. “I like them. I like your uncle a lot.”

Stephen looked very much pleased.

“Uncle Stephen’s all right,” he said warmly. “They’re all all right, really, but I thought they seemed a little fishy this evening. A little of Alden will go a long way, of course.”

“Your mother,” said Jane hesitantly, “was very sweet to me.”

“Mother’s a dear,” said Stephen, “when you get to know her. She’s awfully domestic and rather shy.”

Jane would never have thought of that for herself. Shyness, she reflected, was a very endearing trait in a mother-in-law.

“I know I’ll love her,” said Jane. As she spoke Mrs. Carver and her mother appeared at the top of the stairs. They all trooped together to the front door. Stephen lingered a moment to say goodbye to her in the vestibule. Jane smiled up at him, very calmly.

“Jane,” said Stephen a little wistfully, “do you really love me?”

“Of course I do,” said Jane simply. That point, she felt, was settled at last. She was never going to worry about it any more. Stephen took her in his arms.

“Are you happy, Jane?” he asked.

“Except for the war,” said Jane. He kissed her very gently, very unalarmingly. It was peaceful, thought Jane, to have all her dreadful indecision over forever.

But now, as Jane stood facing her slim white reflection in her mirror, she really couldn’t realize that she was getting married. Where were the thoughts, she wondered, that she had always imagined such a portentous occasion would engender? Where were the thoughts, for instance, that she had had at Muriel’s wedding? Jane felt she should have reserved them for her own. She stretched out her hand for her shower bouquet.

“Well, I’m ready,” she said.

Isabel kissed her tenderly and turned to run downstairs to say that Jane was coming. Mrs. Ward, still crying, took her in her arms.

“Mamma,” said Jane smiling, “it isn’t a funeral.”

Mrs. Ward tried to dry her tears.

“I want Minnie to see the ceremony,” said Jane.

They all left; the room together. At the head of the stairs Mr. Ward was waiting. He watched Jane’s approach down the darkened corridor with a very tender smile. She slipped her hand through his arm. Jane’s mother went down the stairs, followed by Minnie.

“Kid,” said Mr. Ward, “you look perfectly lovely.”

Jane smiled up at him through the tulle.

“Kid,” said Mr. Ward again, “it will be a naval war. I doubt if the land forces ever reach Cuba. Cervera will blockade the ports.”

Jane smiled again, this time a little tremulously. She was trying to forget the war.

The little stringed orchestra under the stairs struck up the Lohengrin wedding march. Jane was glad she wasn’t going to be married to those doomful premonitory notes of an organ. The violins made even Lohengrin sound gay. She walked slowly down the stairs on her father’s arm.

The little library seemed very full of people. Mrs. Ward had thought the ceremony should be in the yellow parlour. But Jane had never liked the parlour. She had declared in favour of her father’s room. Old Dr. Winter from Saint James’s was standing in snowy vestments in front of the mantelpiece. A little aisle led straight from the door to the hearth. The empty fireplace was filled with smilax. Two great vases of white roses were placed on the mantelpiece. The flowers met over the bald wooden head of the bust of Shakespeare. Jane’s mother had wanted to take it down for the ceremony. But Jane had thought that Shakespeare was a very appropriate genius to preside over a wedding. Shakespeare had known all about weddings, Romeo and Juliet. Jane remembered the friar’s solemn words as she stepped over the threshold and met the Bard of Avon’s wise mahogany eye.

“So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after hours with sorrow chide us not.”

The library, filled with softly smiling, softly stirring people, was very little like a friar’s cell. Still Jane had an almost irresistible impulse to jar the solemnity of the occasion by greeting old Dr. Winter with Juliet’s sprightly opening line, “Good even to my ghostly confessor!”

What would he do, thought Jane, if she did? What would Stephen? Stephen would think she was mad. Stephen had never even read Romeo and Juliet. He had told her so, months ago, and she had marvelled, at the time, that a Harvard degree could crown an education so singularly deficient!

Stephen was standing with Alden, embowered in smilax, at the left hand of the clergyman, both fearfully correct in new frock coats and boutonnieres of lilies of the valley. Stephen looked very charming and serious and distinctly nervous. Jane smiled reassuringly up at him, as she relinquished her father’s arm. The music died away into silence.

“Dearly beloved brethren,” began Dr. Winter.

Jane looked up, very calmly, at Stephen’s set young profile. How young he was, she thought! How terribly young to be going to war! Her fingers tightened slightly on his broadcloth sleeve. He looked down at her and smiled reassuringly in his turn. She stared up into his eyes. She was marrying Stephen. Her father’s voice aroused her. It was very clear and firm.

“I do,” he said. Jane could hear him behind her, stepping back beside her mother. Then Dr. Winter took up his part, again, sonorously. Presently there was a barely perceptible pause in the familiar cadence of the ritual.

“I, Stephen, take thee, Jane,” said Stephen hastily.

Jane felt herself smiling. She was sorry for Stephen. When her turn came she was quite collected.

“I, Jane, take thee, Stephen, for my wedded husband,” the words were devoid of meaning. She could have said them all, unprompted by the clergyman. She had an odd sensation of playing a role. Dr. Winter was blessing the ring. They were putting it on her finger. Stephen was speaking again.

“With this ring I thee wed⁠—” It stuck a bit, over the last knuckle. Stephen was still nervous. Dr. Winter had resumed. Suddenly the stringed orchestra swelled out into Mendelssohn. Jane’s main feeling was that it had all been over in a moment⁠—this ceremony that everyone had been talking about for two weeks. Why⁠—it was nothing. Stephen stooped to kiss her⁠—a self-conscious little kiss⁠—barely brushing her cheek. He became entangled in the tulle veil. Jane laughed up at him. She felt her mother’s arms about her. Then she was looking up into her father’s eyes.

“Kid, be happy,” he said, as he kissed her.

Everyone was around her then. Stephen’s mother was crying. Mr. Carver’s beard felt very bristly. Muriel’s cheek smelled of French toilet water. Freddy Waters’s hair of bay rum. Rosalie was saying “What a lovely dress!” Alden surprisingly kissed her. Silly was laughing at Stephen.

“Your form’s not up to par in the ring,” she was crying. “All right in the paddock, old boy, but you fell down in the show! Jane’s the prize entry. She gets the blue ribbon!”

“Come cut the cake!” cried Isabel. Everyone was kissed by now.

“Carry my train!” cried Jane to Stephen. She felt very lighthearted. He picked it up, laughing. He looked awfully happy. They led the crowd to the dining-room. Minnie handed Jane the knife, festooned with white satin. Jane dug into the bride’s cake, just under the sugar cupid. Everyone was applauding. The orchestra in the hall was playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” The groom’s cake was decorated with a little silken flag.

Jane sank down in her mother’s armchair at one end of the room. Stephen was standing beside her. People began to bring them food. Dr. Winter, with vestments removed, showed up to wish them happiness. She must go upstairs, soon, and change her dress. They were taking a six o’clock train. They were going up to The Dells, in northern Wisconsin. They had only a week before Stephen left for San Antonio. People were singing now. Alden had started “Fair Harvard.” All the men, old and young, knew the words. The male chorus swelled out very bravely, the orchestra accompanying softly:

“Fair Harvard, thy sons to thy jubilee throng,
And with blessings surrender thee o’er,
By these festival rites from the age that is past
To the age that is waiting before⁠—”

Uncle Stephen, red-faced and white-headed, arm in arm with her father, was singing loudest of all and a little off key. It made Jane feel just a little chokey to look at them. All Harvard men, she thought, everyone except Freddy. Even Mr. Bert Lancaster. Freddy went to Yale. He was singing, though, very generously. The words were lovely, thought Jane, just as lovely as the air.

The song over, Stephen’s father raised his champagne glass.

“A toast to the bride!” he cried. Everyone drank it, cheering. When it was over Stephen crashed his goblet to the floor. Applause greeted the gallant gesture. Jane saw her mother, however, noting with gratitude that it was only a caterer’s class.

“I must go up,” said Jane. Stephen squeezed her hand.

“I’ll go with you,” said Isabel. Hand in hand they ran up the stairs. Minnie was waiting in Jane’s bedroom. The packed suitcase was lying on the bed.

“Stephen’s magnificent,” laughed Isabel, as she unhooked the wedding dress. Jane was removing the veil.

“I don’t believe the Rough Riders will ever see action,” said Isabel. “Robin says it will be a short war.”

“Alden thinks,” said Jane doubtfully, “that it will last forever. He says the Spanish fleet may bombard Boston.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Isabel promptly.

Jane stepped out of her wedding dress.

“Sit down,” said Minnie gruffly. “I’ll take off your slippers and stockings.” Jane sank down on the chair overlooking the willow tree. She had never been waited on like that before.

“Mr. Carver says,” said Jane, “that lots of Bostonians have taken their securities out of the Bay State Trust Company and put them in banks in Worcester.”

“They’re crazy,” said Isabel. Someone downstairs had ineptly started the orchestra on “Dollie Grey.” Everyone was singing it.

“Papa thinks they are,” said Jane. Minnie handed her her waist and skirt. Isabel busied herself with hooks once more. Mrs. Ward appeared in the doorway.

“Nearly ready, Jane?” she asked.

Jane picked up her hat from the bed. It was a pretty hat, with a wreath of bachelor’s buttons around it.

“In a minute,” said Jane, facing the mirror again. “It was a lovely wedding, Mamma.”

“I thought so,” said Mrs. Ward a little tremulously. Jane heard tears in her voice. Jane was determined to fight off sentiment.

“Mamma,” she said quickly, “I’ll be back in a week.”

That simple statement didn’t seem to make things any better.

“Jane dear,” said Mrs. Ward, “I can’t bear it⁠—”

Mr. Ward appeared in the doorway.

“Mrs. Carver, your husband is waiting for you,” he said. Jane was very grateful for his twinkle.

“It won’t be the last time he’ll wait for me!” she laughed. She caught up her coat and kissed Isabel.

“I’ll take down the suitcase,” said Isabel. She left the room. Mrs. Ward took Jane in her arms.

“My child⁠—” she began, with emotion. Jane stopped her with a kiss.

“Goodbye, Minnie,” she said lightly. At the door her father slipped his arm around her. She stood looking up at him. Her⁠—father. Jane was suddenly overcome with a sense of what she was doing. She was leaving home⁠—forever.

“Papa,” she said brokenly, “Papa, you’ve always⁠—” She couldn’t say it.

Mr. Ward patted her back.

“Good luck, kid,” he said huskily. She gave him a tremendous hug.

“Don’t forget to throw your bouquet,” said Mrs. Ward solemnly, through her tears. Jane snatched it up from the bed.

Stephen was waiting in the upper hall. Jane took his arm. There was no time to speak to him. Everyone was pressing around the foot of the staircase. Alden was leading the band. As Stephen appeared it struck up “Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes.”

“Oh, good Lord!” muttered Stephen disgustedly. “That’s just like Alden!” They started down the stairs. From the first landing Jane pitched her bouquet straight into the virgin arms of Silly, the only maiden present. Stephen gripped her elbow. A shower of rice and confetti rose from the little crowd below. They dashed madly down and through the press of people. The front door was open, Robin standing guard. The mild May air was very refreshing, after the crowded rooms. Jane took a great breath of it as they rushed down the steps, past the crowd by the awning. The wedding guests came running after them. Rice still flew. Jane gained the shelter of the waiting brougham. Stephen flung himself after her and banged the door. The brougham started smartly into motion. Jane was looking out of the little back window at Isabel and Robin and Rosalie and Freddy, on the curb. Silly suddenly appeared to wave the lilies of the valley with one long, thin arm, above their heads. The brougham turned into Erie Street.

“Jane!” said Stephen, and suddenly his arms were around her. “Jane,” he said again, very solemnly, “we’re⁠—married.” Jane felt again that frightful fear of sentiment. Couldn’t⁠—couldn’t people take weddings⁠—calmly? She smiled, a little shakily, into Stephen’s eyes. Suddenly his arms grew strong and strangely urgent. He pulled her to him roughly, abruptly.

“Stephen!” cried Jane, in consternation. His eyes were smiling, excitedly, straight into her own. Jane fell a sudden prey to panic. “Stephen,” she said quickly⁠—“don’t⁠—please⁠—don’t!”

His face changed then, perplexedly. It grew strangely wistful.

“I⁠—I won’t, Jane,” he said very gently. His arms relaxed their hold.

Jane felt suddenly contrite. And somehow⁠—inadequate. She felt she was failing Stephen. Stephen, whom she had married, who would have only a week with her, who was going to war. Deliberately she put her arms around him.

“Stephen, truly I love you,” she said. Stephen’s lips met hers. Dear Stephen! She did love him. She would love him. She had married him. That point was settled. The brougham rolled on up Erie Street.

V

The midsummer willow stood motionless in the late August sunshine, not a grey-green leaf stirring, and Jane was sitting at her window looking out at it and thinking of Stephen, when André’s second letter arrived.

Minnie brought it up to her, immediately after the postman’s ring. No one could do too much for Jane now. Jane saw the Italian stamp, the strange transparent paper, before she took it from Minnie’s considerate hand. She had a queer revulsion of feeling the moment she recognized it. An impulse to cast it from her, unread. Jane didn’t want to hear from André. She didn’t want to hear anything he might have to say.

When Minnie had left the room, however, she opened it, very thoughtfully. After all⁠—it couldn’t make any difference. She was glad to see that it was very brief.

“Dear Jane,

“I was terribly surprised and terribly shocked at the news your letter contained. Why, I don’t know. I was always afraid, all these past four years, that I would hear that you were going to marry. I hadn’t counted, though, on just what the sight of my name on an envelope, in your handwriting, would do to me. I haven’t felt ready to answer until just now.

“I hope, awfully, that you will be very happy. That you’re happy now. But I won’t plan to come to the States. I know I don’t want to meet your husband next spring and I think I don’t want to meet you, Jane, ever again. You mean a very special thing to me. No one will ever take your place. But I won’t come to Chicago. Feeling as I do, I should really have nothing to say to you. ‘Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée.’

Well, thought Jane, that was that. But why did he have to write just as he did? Jane frowned over her instant recognition of the pluck the brief note had given to her heart strings. It was unforgettable, like everything else about André.

Jane put it away with his other letter in her desk drawer. She was terribly glad that she would not have to see him. She didn’t want to see André, ever again. He⁠—he shouldn’t have mentioned it, of course, but he was quite right about doors.

A great deal of water had run under the bridge since the April afternoon when his first letter had arrived. Stephen, an authentic hero, had charged up San Juan Hill, following the waving sombrero of Theodore Roosevelt. He was recovering from malarial fever, now, down at Montauk Point. The war was over. Cuba was free. The United States owned the Philippine Islands. Boston had not been bombarded. And Jane had known, for more than three months, that she was going to have a baby in February.