"Oh, she's lovely," said Jane, with sudden fervor.
"I thought that we might make up little picnics and walks and things?" hesitated the young man.
"Of course," said Jane, heartily. "And you can come here all you like. Auntie likes you both so much."
Lorenzo Rath stood by the door. "Were you ever in love?" he asked bluntly.
"No," said Jane. "I've never had the least little touch of it."
"No, I've never had time. I've never seen any man that I could or would marry."
"That's too bad," said Lorenzo Rath slowly. "Seems to me you'd make such a splendid wife."
She laughed a little. Then she had to wink quickly to drive back tears which leapt suddenly.
"I won't say any more," said Lorenzo. She thought that he did not care to speak of Madeleine to her.
Then she went. And later she found herself sitting in her own room again, sitting by the same window, thinking. "Poor Emily Mead and her illusory millionaire! I'm about as silly as she is," thought Jane. "And yet I know it's higher and more beautiful to make life lovely for others than to make it lovely for one's self." She sighed because the reflection--all altruistic as it was--was not quite the truth, and she was true enough herself to feel jarred by the slightest cross-shadow of falsehood. Truth plays as widely and freely as the sunbeams themselves and goes as straight to the heart of each and all.
Finally she opened a little book and read aloud a few pages to herself in a low tone. "I know I'm on the right path," she said, when she had closed the book; "the thing is to stick resolutely to keeping on straight ahead. And I must be absolutely content with all that comes. You have to be content if you're going to grow in goodness, for you have to know that you've been trying and been successful." She sat still a while longer and then rose with a deep, long breath. "Well, to-day's been something, and to-morrow I'll be something better, I know."
The truth did shine then, and she went to bed calmed, but was hardly stretched down between the cool sheets when Susan rapped at the door.
"Oh, Jane, I can't sleep. I've got to thinking of when Matilda comes back, and I'm scared blue."
THE next morning Susan looked half-sheepish and half-anxious. "I just couldn't help it, Jane. I laid in bed so long, thinking, and then it come over me what life was going to be when she was back and you gone and--well--I just couldn't help coming. I felt awful."