“You only have to do it once,” said Jane, who could aford to be calm, as it was costing her nothing.

However, I sent the violets and paid with a check.  I felt better by subtracting the amount from one thousand.  I had still $945.00, less the facials and so on, which had been ten.

This is not a finantial story, although turning on Money.  I do not wish to be considered as thinking only of Wealth.  Indeed, I have always considered that where my heart was in question I would always decide for Love and penury rather than a Castle and greed.  In this I differ from my sister Leila, who says that under no circumstanses would she ever inspect a refrigerater to see if the cook was wasting anything.

I was not worried about the violets, as I consider Money spent as but water over a damn, and no use worrying about.  But I was no longer hungry, and I observed this to Jane.

“Oh, come on,” she said, in an impatient maner.  “I’ll pay for it.”

I can read Jane’s inmost thoughts, and I read them then.  She considered that I had cold feet financially, although with almost $945.00 in the bank.  Therefore I said at once: 

“Don’t be silly.  It is my party.  And we’ll take some candy home.”

However, I need not have worried, for we met Tommy Gray in the tea shop, and he paid for everything.

I pause here to reflect.  How strange to look back, and think of all that has since hapened, and that I then considered that Tommy Gray was interested in Jane and never gave me a thought.  Also that I considered that the look he gave me now and then was but a friendly glanse!  Is it not strange that Romanse comes thus into our lives, through the medium of a tea-cup, or an eclair, unheralded and unsung, yet leaving us never the same again?

Even when Tommy bought us candy and carried mine under his arm while leaving Jane to get her own from the counter, I suspected nothing.  But when he said to me, “Gee, Bab, you’re geting to be a regular Person,” and made no such remark to Jane, I felt that it was rather pointed.

Also, on walking up the Avenue, he certainly walked nearer me than Jane.  I beleive she felt it, to, for she made a sharp speach or to about his Youth, and what he meant to do when he got big.  And he replied by saying that she was big enough allready, which hurt because Jane is plump and will eat starches anyhow.

Tommy Gray had improved a great deal since Xmas.  He had at that time apeared to long for his head.  I said this to Jane, Soto Voce, while he was looking at some neckties in a window.

“Well, his head is big enough now,” she said in a snapish maner.  “It isn’t very long, Bab, since you considered him a mere Child.”

“He is twenty,” I asserted, being one to stand up for my friends under any and all circumstanses.

Jane snifed.

“Twenty!” she exclaimed.  “He’s not eighteen yet.  His very noze is imature.”