He smiled half grimly.
"Such a thing may happen anywhere, of course," he said to himself; "but I
shouldn't have chosen it to happen right here. No--not exactly."
Bertie and Mrs. Rhodes followed after, to see the gas-stove that cooked
eggs. As they crossed the threshold, Truesdale looked back between them
towards the subject of his speculation. She had grasped her paper firmly
with both fists, and now sat with an intent stare fixed on its pages. She
neither raised nor lowered her head, nor could he observe that she looked
either to the right or to the left. "Ouf!" said Truesdale, as Jane lit up
the stove, "you never know when a thing is at an end."
Jane presently turned off her gas-stove. "You can go back through the
other room. It isn't quite so swell," she expounded, as she moved along;
"but we have several grades of girls, and each one finds her own level
and her own society for herself." She led the way back into the parlor,
and drew a finger along the key-board of the piano as she passed by.
"Anybody who wants to send a few new pieces of lively music may do so."
Two or three late lunchers had come in and were clattering their knives
and forks at the table opposite the girl whom Jane had called Sophie.
Sophie still sat in her place; she held her paper with a firm hand, and
turned the leaves at intervals. She looked up once--as the party was
passing out. Truesdale stepped over the door-mat rapidly, on the far side
of Jane and Bertie and Mrs.
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