Years of Grace · Part I · I · Chapter 1 1 2 (2/2)

There was André, indeed, loitering a little aimlessly by the iron fence. Muriel immediately began to giggle. Jane rushed to the playhouse door.

“Yoo-hoo, André!” she called ecstatically. “Come on over!”

He vaulted the fence at a bound. Jane ran out to meet him.

“Oh, André,” she said, “I’m terribly glad you came!”

He looked pleased, but he didn’t say anything.

“We’re making candy,” said Jane.

“André! Do you like fudge?” shrieked Flora from the doorway.

“You bet,” said André. Muriel went right on giggling. Jane walked with André into the playhouse. How good the chocolate smelled! Jane felt she liked fudge, as never before.

She told him all about it, an hour later. He was walking home with her down Erie Street, in the last red rays of the October sun. It was awfully hard to lead up to it. Suddenly she took the plunge.

“I⁠—I’m afraid I can’t do Camille with you, André,” she said.

He stopped quite still on the pavement.

“Why not?” he asked.

Jane felt her cheeks growing very hot and red.

“Mamma⁠—Mamma doesn’t want me to,” she said.

“Why not?” asked André again.

Jane looked miserably away from him.

“She⁠—she doesn’t like the play.”

André looked extremely astonished.

“Why,” he said finally, “she⁠—she must like it. Everyone likes Camille.”

“Mamma doesn’t,” said Jane. There it was. That was all there was to say.

“Do you mean to tell me,” said André hotly, “that she won’t let you do it?”

Jane nodded unhappily. André looked extremely puzzled.

“Well, then,” he said finally, “I guess you can’t.”

Jane’s heart leaped up with gratitude. He did understand. Mothers were mothers. But there was still the lie.

“André⁠—” said Jane, and stopped.

“Yes?” said André. It was terribly difficult.

“André,” said Jane again and her voice was very low. She couldn’t look at him. “I⁠—I didn’t tell you the truth, over the telephone.”

André didn’t say anything.

“Mamma didn’t say I had to play out-of-doors this afternoon. I⁠—I was scared to tell you what she really said.”

“Why?” said André very seriously.

Jane felt her eyes fill with tears.

“Because,” said Jane, and her lips were trembling, “I didn’t know what you’d think of me.”

André saw the tears. He looked awfully embarrassed and terribly kind.

“That’s all right, Jane,” said André. She was smiling straight up at him through the tears. “I guess you know I’ll always think one thing of you.”

Jane was consumed in a flame of grateful happiness.

“Oh, André!” she breathed.

“Never mind Camille,” said André, as they began walking again. “We can do something else.”

Jane became suddenly conscious of the windows of her house. They stared down on Pine Street.

“Perhaps⁠—perhaps,” she said guiltily, “you hadn’t better come any further.”

André flushed right up to the edge of his beret. But he never stopped smiling.

“Oh⁠—all right,” he said.

“See you tomorrow!” said Jane.

He waved his cap at her. Jane ran across the street and up the block. At her front steps she paused to look after him. He waved again. She felt terribly happy. She didn’t mind about Camille, now. No one could help mothers. And they would do something else.