Her mind thus relieved, my Lady Wren had made a survey of the rooms, wondering what they wanted with so many funny old portraits, and whether the old gentleman or his sister read the dusty books, Garry remarking that there were a lot of “swells” among the young fellows, many of whom he had heard of but had never met before.  This done, the two wedged their way out, without ever troubling Peter or Miss Felicia with their good-bys, Garry telling Corinne that the old lady wouldn’t know they were gone, and Corinne adding under her breath that it didn’t make any difference to her if she did.

CHAPTER IX

But Jack stayed on.

This was the atmosphere he had longed for.  This, too, was where Peter lived.  Here were the chairs he sat in, the books he read, the pictures he enjoyed.  And the well-dressed, well-bred people, the hum of low voices, the clusters of roses, the shaded candles, their soft rosy light falling on the egg-shell cups and saucers and silver service, and the lovely girl dispensing all this hospitality and cheer!  Yes, here he could live, breathe, enjoy life.  Everything was worth while and just as he had expected to find it.

When the throng grew thick about her table he left Ruth’s side, taking the opportunity to speak to Peter or Miss Felicia (he knew few others), but he was back again whenever the chance offered.

“Don’t send me away again,” he pleaded when he came back for the twentieth time, and with so much meaning in his voice that she looked at him with wide-open eyes.  It was not what he said—­she had been brought up on that kind of talk—­it was the way he said it, and the inflection in his voice.

“I have been literally starving for somebody like you to talk to,” he continued, drawing up a stool and settling himself determinedly beside her.

“For me!  Why, Mr. Breen, I’m not a piece of bread—­” she laughed.  “I’m just girl.”  He had begun to interest her—­this brown-eyed young fellow who wore his heart on his sleeve, spoke her dialect and treated her as if she were a duchess.

“You are life-giving bread to me, Miss MacFarlane,” answered Jack with a smile.  “I have only been here six months; I am from the South, too.”  And then the boy poured out his heart, telling her, as he had told Peter, how lonely he got sometimes for some of his own kind; and how the young girl in the lace hat and feathers, who had come in with Garry, was his aunt’s daughter; and how he himself was in the Street, signing checks all day—­at which she laughed, saying in reply that nothing would give her greater pleasure than a big book with plenty of blank checks—­she had never had enough, and her dear father had never had enough, either.  But he omitted all mention of the faro bank and of the gamblers—­such things not being proper for her ears, especially such little pink shells of ears, nestling and half hidden in her beautiful hair.