CHAPTER VII.

There were three things in the culinary line that the sum of Jane’s accomplishments included--nut salad, rarebit and tea. After her first visit to the bungalow she had taken upon herself the task of brewing the cup that cheers, an arrangement that suited Ormsby perfectly, for she looked very pretty fussing with the tea things, and he was not above taking what he called an “academic interest” in her attractiveness.

“If one can only do a few things, naturally, all one’s vanity is centered in them,” she was observing to him now, by way of explaining her fondness for tea making. “I fancy I regard my talent as a mother regards her only child. If she has a number of children, she’s uncertain, of course, whether Ann’s blue eyes are the most beautiful in the world or Jimmie’s brown ones, and she can’t decide whether to thrust Susie upon the attention of visitors, that they may admire her golden curls, or whether to give raven-locked Lucy the center of the stage. With one child or one accomplishment it’s different; you simply _have_ to concentrate your admiration on that. You won’t take two lumps?”

Ormsby shook his head firmly, and Jane handed him his tea. “It’s just tea with one lump; it’s nectar with two,” she observed, regretfully. “Speaking of children,” she continued, as she poured herself out a cup, “have you seen the new Larson baby?”

“I’m sorry to say I have not,” said Ormsby, gravely.

“It’s a dear,” observed Jane, enthusiastically. “I think it will be the beauty of the Larson family.”

“If the Larson family occupy that cottage near the grove, and if all the children who play about there are Larson children, I fancy the baby wouldn’t require much in the way of looks to be the beauty of the Larson family,” he commented, dryly.

“What a nasty remark!” exclaimed Jane, indignantly. “They all have their good points when you come to study them. And you can’t imagine how amusing they are. I’ve been helping them along a bit lately, and between their extravagant gratitude and the Willoughbys’ indignation at the size of the bills, I’ve been having no end of a good time.” Jane leaned back and smiled. Ormsby frowned. A good time! That apparently was the aim and end of her existence. Aloud he said:

“Are you never serious, Mrs. De Mille?”

“Not very often; what’s the use?” responded Jane, promptly.

“I should imagine that a woman who has had the”--he hesitated for an instant--“the sad experience you have had would show the effect of it.” Ormsby was really ashamed of this remark, but Jane’s flippancy frequently goaded him on to say things he regretted. But she did not look offended.

“Sad experience?” she repeated, puzzled. “Oh, you mean the Willoughbys?”

Her employer smiled in spite of himself. He quickly regained his air of grave composure, however. “No, I don’t mean the Willoughbys; I mean the death of your husband,” he said, rebukingly.

“Oh, that!” exclaimed Jane, smiling sweetly. “Why, you see, that’s really the reason why I’m so gay now. When De Mille was alive, I was always so solemn. He had no sense of humor--it really takes two to see a joke, you know--and consequently I was depressed most of the time. Since his passing away”--Jane thought this sounded well--“I laugh most of the time--the reaction, I suppose.”

Ormsby handed his cup for some more tea. “No sugar this time,” he said, coldly. Jane looked at him wistfully.

“I suppose I’m a disappointment to you--as a heroine, I mean,” she remarked, almost humbly. “Perhaps”--regarding him tentatively--“if you had known I was not serious you would not have engaged me.”

Ormsby shrugged his shoulders. “You answer my purpose very well,” he answered, indifferently, blissfully unaware that Jane’s fingers were itching just then to box his ears. “But you know,” he went on, determinedly, “woman should take some things seriously.”

“I do,” responded Jane. “I take you seriously.”

Ormsby ignored her and continued: “Life is not a huge joke, you know. It----”

“You remind me of my first husband,” interrupted Jane, frowning. “He talked like that.”

“First?” he queried. Jane blushed. Then she said, defiantly: “Is it so improbable that I shall marry again?”

“Oh, that reminds me,” he said, with that air of impersonal interest which, in the beginning, had secretly infuriated Mrs. De Mille, and which now unaccountably depressed her. “Will you allow me to ask you a question?”

“Certainly,” she answered; “ask me anything you like.”

“I want to know,” he said, with great deliberation, “whether you have ever been in love?”

Jane stared at him with wide-open eyes. “Don’t think,” he continued, hastily, “that I have any desire to pry into your personal affairs, but for the sake of my book----”

“Oh, the book, by all means,” she answered, rather hardly. “No, I’ve never been in love. However”--flippantly--“I trust I will fall in love some day. It will be a new experience, at least. You see, ever since I was a very little girl I have been jobbed out----”

“Jobbed out!” exclaimed the puzzled Ormsby.

“Passed around from one Willoughby to the other,” explained Jane, impatiently. “My father was the improvident one of the Willoughby connection, and he married an equally improvident but awfully pretty girl, my mother. They died within a short time of each other”--Jane caught her breath, but continued without a trace of feeling in her voice--“when I was just two years old. The Willoughbys married me to De Mille when I was nineteen. There you have the story of my career in a nutshell.” She rose abruptly. “I must be going,” she said, picking up her hat.

“Just a minute,” interposed Ormsby, almost pleadingly, motioning her to resume her seat. Jane sat down again and looked at him expectantly. His manner seemed to have changed suddenly. His cold gray eyes had taken on a softer, a more human, expression, and they fastened themselves on hers with such an intent gaze that, though she tried to meet it boldly, she found her own glance wavering, and the hot color surged up in her face.

“Supposing, Mrs. De Mille,” he began, apparently unmindful of her confusion, “that a chap different from the sort you’d been accustomed to, one with less polish and with his own way--perhaps a most uncertain one--to make, should come to you and tell you that he loved you--no, wait!” Jane’s lips had parted, as though she were about to speak. “And supposing you felt,” he continued, “that in spite of the man’s uncouthness he was capable of making you love him, if only you consented to give him a chance, do you think----” He paused and studied her for a second with even a more intent gaze, but her eyes were downcast, and her trembling fingers were rapidly tying and untying knots in her lace handkerchief.

“Look at me, please,” he said, authoritatively. Reluctantly, Mrs. De Mille raised her eyes. Her soul shone in them.

“Do you think that if that man told you that your life with him might be a hard one, that the _wanderlust_ was in his bones, and that when it took possession of him he had to fare forth, come what might, you would have the courage to put your hand in his--_don’t stir_.”

She had turned down, but had not extinguished, the alcohol flame, and an impulsive gesture had brought the lace which hung from the sleeve of her gown in contact with it. Before she had the remotest inkling of what had happened, Ormsby was at her side, smothering the flame with his hands. It was all over in an instant. His quickness had saved her from even the slightest burn, and also from a realization of her danger until that danger was past. She leaned back in her chair feeling rather faint, while Ormsby walked over to a small cabinet, took from it a bottle and rubbed some of its contents on his hands, afterward knotting his handkerchief carelessly around the right one.

“You are burnt!” exclaimed Jane, jumping up as though to go to his assistance.

“A mere trifle,” he answered, indifferently. “It doesn’t even sting.”

She looked at him tremulously. “Your presence of mind saved my life,” she said, in a voice that was not quite steady.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he replied, rather awkwardly.

“Perhaps not,” said Jane, smiling at him with a suggestion of her old flippancy, “but it’s a great deal to me, you know. It’s the only one I have. Cats can afford to be indifferent in the face of peril until they have exhausted eight of their lives, at any rate, but the rest of us, having only one poor little life, naturally treasure it.”

Ormsby frowned. Wouldn’t she be serious in the face of death, even? Then he remembered the interrupted conversation.

“The alcohol spoiled the pretty little situation I had arranged for my book,” he said, smiling.

“Your book!” echoed Jane, staring at him.

“Yes, you know the question I was about to ask you. Your answer was rather important to me, but you can give it some other time. I advise you now to go straight home and lie down. There must have been some nervous shock.”

“You’re mistaken,” said Jane, who was in truth looking very pale. “I never felt less nervous in my life, and we mustn’t let the book suffer. Now, if you’ll repeat the question--I’m afraid”--penitently--“I wasn’t paying much attention to what you were saying.”

“Oh, well, I fancy you caught the idea of the sort of man I sketched. Would you give up everything for his sake, if you loved him?”

Jane rose and deliberately pinned on her hat, leisurely consulting a tiny chatelaine mirror after she had done so. Then she looked at Ormsby maliciously.

“Give up! Thank you, no! You see, all my life I’ve been giving up things I couldn’t wrest from the Willoughbys or De Mille.

“Not any more in mine, if you please. I should say to that misguided and frightfully sentimental young man: ‘Mend your ways, become rich and famous, and then come back and Jane will consider you.’” She picked up her gloves and walked toward the door of the bungalow.

“_Au revoir_,” she said; “so good of you to have saved my life.”

“At least,” observed Ormsby, sarcastically, as he hastened to open it for her, “nobody can accuse you of being inconsistent.”

“Billie Scott would shriek if he heard you say so,” observed Jane, as she calmly nodded good-by.