Jane Lends A Hand Part 18

"Yes. Now, Paul, don't be stubborn. It'll only be for a minute. I'll ask mother to get Daddy to go and rescue you-or Mr. Webster, or Mr.

Buchanan."

"Can't. Thank heaven, I don't know how to dance anything but a highland fling."

"Well, teach Amelia how to do that. Come on, now, Paul-like a good, delicious angel." And with that she began to tug at his arm.

"Jane, you're going to be a horrible, horrible old woman. You're going to be a matchmaker. You're going to make all your friends hide in ambush when they see you coming, and you'll probably be a.s.sa.s.sinated."

"I don't care. Come along, now-ni-ice little Paul, and teach Amelia how to do the pretty highland fling!" And actually, so irresistible was her determination, she coaxed the enraged Paul down the ladder, and standing disinterestedly at a certain distance away, heard him say meekly, according to her instructions,

"Miss Hartshorn, may I have the pleasure of this waltz?" his voice fading away to an anguished whisper. Mr. Sheridan, beaming with satisfaction, professed abysmal regrets at being forced to lose his charming partner; and then Paul, with the sweetly wan expression of an early martyr, placed one arm around Amelia's waist, and began the peculiar, grave capering which in his dazed condition, he believed to be a waltz.

CHAPTER IX-"THE BEST LAID PLANS-"

Mr. Sheridan, turning about, suppressing a vast sigh, beheld Jane, standing and smiling at him with her most benevolent expression.

"Why-so there you are again! How glad I am to see you! Why haven't you ever come to call on me? I've missed you," he said, taking her hand. His pleasure was too sincere not to be extremely flattering.

"I _would_ have come, only I've been pretty busy," she explained; then her eyes twinkled. "That was Paul," she said. "You remember I told you that he was coming. Isn't he a nice boy?"

It was only the mischievous sparkle in her eyes that told Mr. Sheridan that she had a double meaning.

"A _charming_ boy!" he declared with fervor; and then he laughed guiltily.

"That was mean of Dolly," said Jane.

"What was mean?"

"To tie you up with Amelia Hartshorn."

"Why, on the contrary, I-I thought Miss Hartshorn very agreeable,"

replied Mr. Sheridan, fibbing like a gentleman.

Jane shrugged her shoulders.

"I was afraid that Dolly might have forgotten that you were a stranger, and leave you with one partner for the rest of the dance. And then you'd have been bored, and-and would have wanted solitude worse than ever."

This remark brought first a puzzled expression and then a burst of half-shamefaced amus.e.m.e.nt from Mr. Sheridan.

"You evidently remember our conversation very clearly," he remarked.

"Oh, yes, I do. I've thought about it quite often-that is, about some of the things you said."

"And I must add that you seem to take great interest in your friends."

"I suppose," replied Jane with a sigh, "that _you_ think I'm an awful busybody, too. Well, if I am I can't help it. I mean well."

Mr. Sheridan chuckled again. He had never before met any youngster who amused him quite as much as Jane did.

"Was it because you brought some pressure to bear on-er-Paul that he interrupted my dance with Miss Hartshorn?"

"Yes," answered Jane absently.

"You seem to find it easy to make people do what you want."

"No, not really-not at all. I had an awful time with Paul." Then after a short pause, she added, "I'm awfully glad you came to-night. It seems to have cheered you up."

"Why do you think I needed cheering up?"

"Because you were so gloomy."

With a smile Mr. Sheridan changed the topic by suggesting that he get some refreshments, and to this proposition Jane a.s.sented enthusiastically.

"Do you remember that Miss Lily I told you about?" she inquired casually, when she had finished her ice. "There she is."

"The very pretty young lady in the Spanish costume?"

"Yes. She's horribly pretty, isn't she? Would you like to dance with her?"

"Very much. Only I haven't had the pleasure--"

"Oh, _I'll_ introduce you to her, if you like," interrupted Jane, putting her plate on the window sill.

Mr. Sheridan raised his head, and looked at Jane with a touch of wariness. But her face was innocence itself, utterly disarming in its childlike simplicity.

Enormously amused, he gravely followed her across the room, to where Lily was sitting, chatting gaily to the two Webster boys; and Jane sedately performed the ceremony of introduction. Then, well-satisfied with her accomplishment, and feeling that she could do no more at present for these two, she retired to her eyrie in the hayloft, entirely forgetful of the unhappy Paul.

It is just possible that, as, out of the corner of her eyes she saw Mr.

Sheridan approaching, Lily pretended to be enjoying the conversation of the Webster boys a little more than she really was. She felt the color burning in her cheeks, and was angry with herself.

"He'll think I'm just a-a silly village girl," she thought. Her natural shyness was greatly increased by the presence of this young man with his indescribable air of self-confidence; he was not at all like the two simple hearty, countrified Webster boys. There was something about him that marked him unmistakably as a product of city life, of ease, and rather varied worldly experience, and for some reason this made her a little bit afraid of him; or, perhaps afraid of herself. Usually the least self-conscious person in the world, she now found herself filled with misgivings about herself. She was afraid that there were numberless shortcomings about her of which she was unaware, but which he would not fail to notice; and this thought stung her pride. Furthermore, she was a trifle piqued at his attentiveness to Amelia, though not for worlds would she have admitted that any such silly vanity existed in her. Added to all this, was the sting that Amelia had left in her sensitive mind.

Perhaps he had thought it undignified of her to have chatted with him so informally that day in the field-and then he had seen her peeping at him from the window.

All these doubts excited in her a desire to snub him a little. He was _not_ to think her just a "silly village girl." Perhaps her gay, das.h.i.+ng costume made her feel unlike herself, and gave her some of the self-confidence that she lacked by nature. Indeed, the pretty senorita was altogether quite a different person, from the simple, artless girl that Timothy Sheridan remembered so vividly. He was himself a thoroughly simple young man, and he was puzzled by the change in her.

Fluttering her fan nervously, she chatted with him, asked him questions, laughed,-all with a little air of frivolity, and carelessness. She felt a sort of resentment toward him, and this lead her once or twice to make a remark designed "to take him down off the high horse" that she imagined (on no grounds whatever) that he had mounted. His expression of bewilderment and polite surprise gave her a satisfaction that was not unmixed with regret and displeasure at herself. At length, when the music started up again, he asked her to dance. By this time, his manner had grown a little cold and formal, and Lily was piqued. So, with a little shake of her head, she told him that she had promised this one to Mr. Webster. There was something in her slight hesitation before she answered that made him feel that this was not quite true; and, hurt and puzzled, he bowed, expressed his regret, and the hope that he might have the pleasure later, and withdrew. On the whole, Jane's diplomacy had been anything but successful.

Mr. Sheridan slipped out to smoke a cigar in the fresh, cold air, and to meditate on the irritating vagaries of the feminine gender. Lily's reception had hurt him more than he liked to admit even to himself.

"What was the matter with her? She wasn't a bit like that before-she seemed so gentle and unspoiled and kind. Hang it, there's no way of understanding what a girl really is like, anyhow. I've just been an idiot."

After a moment or two, he told himself fiercely,

"Well, if she doesn't want to dance with me, I certainly shan't bother her."