The dispute, having begun about whether Jane should or should not marry a certain person, Jane representing the affirmative and her father the negative, had taken on new aspects, had grown and altered, and had, to be brief, become a contest between the masculine Johnson and the feminine Johnson as to which would take the count.  Not that this appeared on the surface.  The masculine Johnson, having closed the summer home on Jane’s defection and gone back to the city, sent daily telegrams, novels and hothouse grapes, all three of which Jane devoured indiscriminately.  Once, indeed, Father Johnson had motored the forty miles from town, to be told that Jane was too ill and unhappy to see him, and to have a glimpse, as he drove furiously away, of Jane sitting pensive at her window in the pink kimono, gazing over his head at the distant hills and clearly entirely indifferent to him and his wrath.

So we find Jane, on a frosty morning in late October, in triumphant possession of the field—­aunts and cousins routed, her father sulking in town, and the victor herself—­or is victor feminine?—­and if it isn’t, shouldn’t it be?—­sitting up in bed staring blankly at her watch.

Jane had just wakened—­an hour later than usual; she had rung the bell three times and no one had responded.  Jane’s famous temper began to stretch and yawn.  At this hour Jane was accustomed to be washed with tepid water, scented daintily with violet, alcohol-rubbed, talcum-powdered, and finally fresh-linened, coifed and manicured, to be supported with a heap of fresh pillows and fed creamed sweet-bread and golden-brown coffee and toast.

Jane rang again, with a line between her eyebrows.  The bell was not broken.  She could hear it distinctly.  This was an outrage!  She would report it to the superintendent.  She had been ringing for ten minutes.  That little minx of a nurse was flirting somewhere with one of the internes.

Jane angrily flung the covers back and got out on her small bare feet.  Then she stretched her slim young arms above her head, her spoiled red mouth forming a scarlet O as she yawned.  In her sleeveless and neckless nightgown, with her hair over her shoulders, minus the more elaborate coiffure which later in the day helped her to poise and firmness, she looked a pretty young girl, almost—­although Jane herself never suspected this—­almost an amiable young person.

Jane saw herself in the glass and assumed immediately the two lines between her eyebrows which were the outward and visible token of what she had suffered.  Then she found her slippers, a pair of stockings to match and two round bits of pink silk elastic of private and feminine use, and sat down on the floor to put them on.

The floor was cold.  To Jane’s wrath was added indignation.  She hitched herself along the boards to the radiator and put her hand on it.  It was even colder than Jane.

The family temper was fully awake by this time and ready for business.  Jane, sitting on the icy floor, jerked on her stockings, snapped the pink bands into place, thrust her feet into her slippers and rose, shivering.  She went to the bed, and by dint of careful manoeuvring so placed the bell between the head of the bed and the wall that during the remainder of her toilet it rang steadily.