CHAPTER IV.

Mrs. Willoughby and Miss Willoughby--the latter had driven over from her country home to discuss Jane--sat in the library listening to the shrieks of laughter that floated across the hall from the music room, laughter interspersed with the sharp yelping of a dog and bars of music.

“They’ve kept that up,” said Mrs. Willoughby, crisply, “since luncheon.”

“What did you say his name was?” asked Miss Willoughby, whose patent disgust made her look more vinegary than ever.

“She calls him Dick,” said aunt Susan, disdainfully. “His last name is Thomas. A flighty idiot, who talks with a lisp.”

“Where’s the bishop?” demanded the guest, suddenly.

“He’s packing,” answered her sister-in-law, with an air of repressed anger. “Jane took him out in a motor car, some man’s motor car that she came down in, and he came back looking much upset, and said he had to pack and return to town immediately. And he had promised to stay two days!”

“Must have been her doings,” commented Miss Willoughby.

“I don’t know,” said Aunt Susan, drearily. “He did say something about fleeing temptation.”

“The hussy!” Miss Willoughby’s voice expressed virtuous scorn. “Wait until she comes to me.” She closed her lips, grimly.

“I was going to tell you about that,” said her hostess. “Jane has what she calls _a job_.”

“A--a job!” echoed Miss Willoughby, faintly.

Susan Willoughby nodded her head, vigorously. “That’s what she calls it,” she said, indignation revealed in every monosyllable. “She’s hired out as a model!”

Miss Willoughby shrieked and fumbled feebly for her smelling salts.

“Oh, I don’t mean the--er--_Trilby_ kind, you know,” said Mrs. Willoughby, hastily. “Some wretched creature whom she picked up with on her way down here is writing a book, and he’s offered to pay her if she’ll let him study her in order to get material for his heroine.”

“I never heard of such a thing!” gasped Miss Willoughby. “It isn’t respectable, and you don’t need to try to convince me that it is. What does Jacob say?”

“Jacob!” There was indescribable contempt expressed in Mrs. Willoughby’s voice as she uttered the name. “Jane simply twists him around her little finger.”

Miss Willoughby rose suddenly, with the air of one having made up her mind to perform an unpleasant task.

“Where are you going?” demanded her hostess.

“To tell Jane what I think of her conduct and to warn----”

But before the spinster had a chance to finish her sentence, the door across the hall was flung open suddenly, and Jane, laughter in her eyes and on her lips, her hair disheveled, emerged. Under her arm was tucked a yelping skye terrier, and close behind her followed an immaculately attired and rather good-looking young man, who appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself. As usual, Jane was talking.

“You’re not musical, Bijou, and it’s a waste of time trying to make you musical! Here Mr. Thomas and I have spent the greater part of an hour trying to impress upon you the difference between Wagner and ragtime, but it’s been a miserable failure. I want to think you have a soul, Bijou, though the bishop doesn’t believe you have, but after the painful lack of discrimination you have just shown--Aunt Mary! When in the world did you come, and _what_ a delightful surprise!”

Jane, who had suddenly espied her two aunts, unceremoniously dropped the skye terrier and darted into the library, leaving the young man hovering uncertainly in the doorway. She seized the spinster’s two mitt-clad hands and kissed her heartily on each withered cheek. Then she stood back a pace or two and surveyed her with rapt admiration.

“I’m terribly jealous of you, Aunt Mary,” she exclaimed. “Look at your complexion! Peaches and cream!”--as a matter of fact, it more closely resembled sole leather, but Miss Willoughby brightened up, nevertheless. “And your figure! What in the world have you been doing to your figure? Such curves!”

The spinster, conscious of the strange young man in the doorway, blushed painfully.

“My dear----” she began, in a stage whisper, motioning stealthily in the direction of Mr. Thomas.

“Oh, pardon me,” said Jane, willfully misunderstanding her aunt’s meaning. “Aunt Mary, this is Mr. Thomas. I shall have to ask you to entertain him for a while, for I have a business engagement.” She pulled out a tiny, jeweled watch and gave an exclamation. “Half an hour late! Dick, what is it they do to working people when they are half an hour late? Though why, indeed, I should ask you I don’t know, for I’m sure you never did half an hour’s real work in your life! Oh, yes, dock them--that’s it, isn’t it? I thought of yacht, for I knew the term was nautical, and then I instantly thought of ‘docked’”--triumphantly; Jane was always intensely interested in her mental processes. “Did you know I had become a working person, Aunt Mary? Earning my living by the sweat of my brow, and that sort of thing?” Miss Willoughby smiled, weakly. “Well, ta, ta,” continued Jane. “Remember”--shaking a warning finger at the spinster--“Mr. Thomas is young and unsophisticated, and I’ll not have his young affections trifled with.”

“Oh, I thay----” began Mr. Thomas, protestingly, and making a motion as though he were bent on accompanying Mrs. De Mille.

“No, Dickie,” she said, firmly, “bosses don’t like to have young men a-followin’ of their gells.” This was said with an inimitable cockney accent that caused Mr. Thomas to grin appreciatively. Jane made a wicked _moue_ at him, nodded to her aunts and hurried away, leaving the two ladies speechless, and the guest she had thrust upon them looking decidedly uncomfortable.

As she sauntered down the road that led past the bungalow which had been erected in the rear of the Moore cottage, and which her new acquaintance had pointed out as his workshop, Jane looked as though she hadn’t a care in the world. As a matter of fact, however, she was not without her misgivings in regard to the outcome of the engagement she had entered into. She had done it chiefly to torment the Willoughbys, but she was honest enough to admit to herself, as she walked leisurely on, that the man himself had aroused her curiosity, and that this had something to do with her obeying that reckless impulse to offer herself as a model.

“He’s doubtless a counterfeiter or a gentleman burglar who’s planning to steal the Willoughby spoons,” she communed with herself, cheerfully, “and it’s very likely that he’ll insist on my becoming his accomplice, and then Aunt Mary will have a chance to say: ‘Didn’t I tell you Jane would come to a bad end.’ I really believe they’d----”

But the quaint-looking bungalow had suddenly loomed up in Mrs. De Mille’s path, and put an end to her reflections. Half hesitatingly she knocked on the door, and it was instantly thrown open by the man whom she chose to call her employer.

“Please don’t tell me I’m late,” she said, as she gave him her hand and stepped across the threshold. “Being late, you know, is a weakness one is born with, I think, like not being able to spell, or having a thirst for strong drink. In town they call me ‘the late Mrs. De Mille.’ The only occasion I was ever known to be on time was at poor De Mille’s funeral. Billie Scott said---- But how delightfully cozy it is here!”

Jane paused and surveyed the room with interest. It was simply furnished with some good rugs, several well-filled bookcases, two or three comfortable-looking chairs, and a long table that apparently served for a desk, for it was covered with papers; but there was a cheerful fire in the great fireplace--a comfort that Mrs. De Mille appreciated, for the day, though bright, was chilly--and in front of this was a tea table, on which a copper kettle was singing merrily over a blue, alcohol flame.

“I’m glad you like it,” said the man, gravely. “Can I take your hat and jacket?”

“Oh, I’ll just toss them over this chair,” said Jane, carelessly, suiting the action to her words. “I hope you’re not one of those people who must have everything just so. De Mille was like that. He found me a terrible trial. His idea of a well-ordered existence was a place for everything and everything in its place. I don’t mind having a place for everything, you know, but I think having everything in its place robs life of a great deal of uncertainty, and it’s the uncertainty that makes it fascinating, don’t you think?”

“When I was a little chap,” said the man, pulling forward a chair for Jane and taking one himself near the table, “I had to look out not only for myself, but also for my mother, who sewed when she could, to support herself and me, but who was crippled with rheumatism most of the time. Our next meal was always a matter of uncertainty. My idea of heaven then was a place where the future was absolutely certain. No”--reflectively, as he leaned over to poke the fire--“I don’t believe I want any more uncertainties in mine.”

Mrs. De Mille stared at him with lively curiosity in her eyes, and noted approvingly the strong, clean contour of his jaw, and his long, lean, brown hands. “He may have been born poor, but he was also born a gentleman,” she reflected, shrewdly. Aloud she said:

“Do you know that I haven’t the remotest idea what your name is?”

“How very remiss of me!” he exclaimed, looking up from the fire. “It’s John Ormsby.”

“Oh,” said Jane, “you’re the man who writes men’s books. Why,” she continued, severely, “have you ignored my sex?”

He smiled. “I have already told you,” he said, “that I don’t know enough about you to put you in a book.”

“You’ve chosen a bad specimen to study,” she retorted. “I give you fair warning.”

“As to that,” he answered, with an indifference that nettled Jane, “I’m not at all particular about the type. My publishers demand a real flesh-and-blood creation, but they didn’t specify the type.”

“He’s downright brutal,” said Jane, to herself, but rather enjoying the novelty of seeing an opportunity for a pretty speech to her ignored. “You’ll have to instruct me in my duties,” she said, smilingly. “Now, if there was only such a thing as a Handy Manual for authors’ models that I could get and read up in, my course would be plain sailing. As it is, I’m all at sea.”

“Oh, all you have to do is to talk,” said the man, encouragingly. “I’m going to make you a cup of tea.” He began to handle the tea things deftly.

“Talk and tea,” commented Jane, thoughtfully. “It sounds easy. I believe I’ve got what Billie Scott would call a ‘snap.’”