"Hello, Jennie," he said familiarly as she opened the door to him in her hotel room, his glance taking in the ravages which death and suffering
had wrought. She was thinner, her face quite drawn and colourless, her
eyes larger by contrast. "I'm awfully sorry about Vesta," he said a little awkwardly. "I never dreamed anything like that could happen."
It was the first word of comfort which had meant anything to her since
Vesta died—since Lester had left her, in fact. It touched her that he had come to sympathise; for the moment she could not speak. Tears welled
over her eyelids and down upon her cheeks.
"Don't cry, Jennie," he said, putting his arm around her and holding her head to his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I've been sorry for a good many things that can't be helped now. I'm intensely sorry for this. Where did you bury her?"
"Beside papa," she said, sobbing.
"Too bad," he murmured, and held her in silence. She finally gained control of herself sufficiently to step away from him; then wiping her
eyes with her handkerchief, she asked him to sit down.
"I'm so sorry," he went on, "that this should have happened while I was away. I would have been with you if I had been here. I suppose you won't
want to live out at Sandwood now?"
"I can't, Lester," she replied. "I couldn't stand it."
"Where are you thinking of going?"
"Oh, I don't know yet. I didn't want to be a bother to those people out there. I thought I'd get a little house somewhere and adopt a baby maybe, or get something to do. I don't like to be alone."
"That isn't a bad idea," he said, "that of adopting a baby. It would be a lot of company for you. You know how to go about getting one?"
"You just ask at one of these asylums, don't you?"
"I think there's something more than that," he replied thoughtfully. "There are some formalities—I don't know what they are. They try to keep
control of the child in some way. You had better consult with Watson and
get him to help you. Pick out your baby, and then let him do the rest. I'll speak to him about it."
Lester saw that she needed companionship badly. "Where is your brother George?" he asked.
"He's in Rochester, but he couldn't come. Bass said he was married," she added.
"There isn't any other member of the family you could persuade to come and live with you?"
"I might get William, but I don't know where he is."
"Why not try that new section west of Jackson Park," he suggested, "if you want a house here in Chicago? I see some nice cottages out that way.
You needn't buy. Just rent until you see how well you're satisfied."
Jennie thought this good advice because it came from Lester. It was good
of him to take this much interest in her affairs. She wasn't entirely
separated from him after all. He cared a little. She asked him how his
wife was, whether he had had a pleasant trip, whether he was going to
stay in Chicago. All the while he was thinking that he had treated her
badly. He went to the window and looked down into Dearborn Street, the
world of traffic below holding his attention. The great mass of trucks and vehicles, the counter streams of hurrying pedestrians, seemed like a
puzzle. So shadows march in a dream. It was growing dusk, and lights
were springing up here and there.
"I want to tell you something, Jennie," said Lester, finally rousing himself from his fit of abstraction. "I may seem peculiar to you, after all that has happened, but I still care for you—in my way. I've thought of you right
along since I left. I thought it good business to leave you—the way things were. I thought I liked Letty well enough to marry her. From one point of view it still seems best, but I'm not so much happier. I was just as happy with you as I ever will be. It isn't myself that's important in this
transaction apparently; the individual doesn't count much in the situation.
I don't know whether you see what I'm driving at, but all of us are more
or less pawns. We're moved about like chessmen by circumstances over
which we have no control."
"I understand, Lester," she answered. "I'm not complaining. I know it's for the best."
"After all, life is more or less of a farce," he went on a little bitterly. "It's a silly show. The best we can do is to hold our personality intact. It doesn't appear that integrity has much to do with it."
Jennie did not quite grasp what he was talking about, but she knew it
meant that he was not entirely satisfied with himself and was sorry for
her.
"Don't worry over me, Lester," she consoled. "I'm all right; I'll get along.
It did seem terrible to me for a while—getting used to being alone. I'll be all right now. I'll get along."
"I want you to feel that my attitude hasn't changed," he continued eagerly.
"I'm interested in what concerns you. Mrs.—Letty understands that. She knows just how I feel. When you get settled I'll come in and see how
you're fixed. I'll come around here again in a few days. You understand
how I feel, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," she said.
He took her hand, turning it sympathetically in his own. "Don't worry," he said. "I don't want you to do that. I'll do the best I can. You're still Jennie to me, if you don't mind. I'm pretty bad, but I'm not all bad."
"It's all right, Lester. I wanted you to do as you did. It's for the best. You probably are happy since—"
"Now, Jennie," he interrupted; then he pressed affectionately her hand, her arm, her shoulder. "Want to kiss me for old times' sake?" he smiled.
She put her hands over his shoulders, looked long into his eyes, then
kissed him. When their lips met she trembled. Lester also felt unsteady.
Jennie saw his agitation, and tried hard to speak.
"You'd better go now," she said firmly. "It's getting dark."
He went away, and yet he knew that he wanted above all things to remain;
she was still the one woman in the world for him. And Jennie felt
comforted even though the separation still existed in all its finality. She did not endeavour to explain or adjust the moral and ethical
entanglements of the situation. She was not, like so many, endeavouring
to put the ocean into a tea-cup, or to tie up the shifting universe in a mess of strings called law. Lester still cared for her a little. He cared for Letty too. That was all right. She had hoped once that he might want her only.
Since he did not, was his affection worth nothing? She could not think,
she could not feel that. And neither could he.
CHAPTER LX
The drift of events for a period of five years carried Lester and Jennie
still farther apart; they settled naturally into their respective spheres, without the renewal of the old time relationship which their several
meetings at the Tremont at first seemed to foreshadow. Lester was in the
thick of social and commercial affairs; he walked in paths to which
Jennie's retiring soul had never aspired. Jennie's own existence was quiet and uneventful. There was a simple cottage in a very respectable but not
showy neighbourhood near Jackson Park, on the South Side, where she
lived in retirement with a little foster-child—a chestnut-haired girl taken from the Western Home for the Friendless—as her sole companion. Here
she was known as Mrs. J. G. Stover, for she had deemed it best to
abandon the name of Kane. Mr. and Mrs. Lester Kane when resident in
Chicago were the occupants of a handsome mansion on the Lake Shore