Jerry
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
Daddy-Long-Legs.
Just Patty.
Patty and Priscilla.
The Four Pools Mystery.
The Wheat Princess.
Dear Enemy.
Much Ado about Peter.
London: HODDER & STOUGHTON.
JERRY
By
JEAN WEBSTER
Author of “Dear Enemy,” etc
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
Copyright, 1907, by
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1906, 1907, by
The Crowell Publishing Company.
CHAPTER I
The courtyard of the Hotel du Lac, furnished with half a dozen tables andchairs, a red and green parrot chained to a perch, and a shady littlearbour covered with vines, is a pleasant enough place for morning coffee,but decidedly too sunny for afternoon tea. It was close upon four of aJuly day, when Gustavo, his inseparable napkin floating from his arm,emerged from the cool dark doorway of the house and scanned the burningvista of tables and chairs. He would never, under ordinary circumstances,have interrupted his siesta for the mere delivery of a letter; but thisparticular letter was addressed to the young American man, and youngAmerican men, as every head waiter knows, are an unreasonably impatientlot. The courtyard was empty, as he might have foreseen, and he wasturning with a patient sigh towards the long arbour that led to the lake,when the sound of a rustling paper in the summer-house deflected hiscourse. He approached the doorway and looked inside.
The young American man, in white flannels with a red guide-bookprotruding from his pocket, was comfortably stretched in a loungingchair engaged with a cigarette and a copy of the Paris Herald. Heglanced up with a yawn—excusable under the circumstances—but as his eyefell upon the letter he sprang to his feet.
‘Hello, Gustavo! Is that for me?’
Gustavo bowed.
‘Ecco! She is at last arrive, ze lettair for which you haf so mochweesh.’ He bowed a second time and presented it. ‘Meestair JayreenAilyar!’
The young man laughed.
‘I don’t wish to hurt your feelings, Gustavo, but I’m not sure I shouldanswer if my eyes were shut.’
He picked up the letter, glanced at the address to make sure—the namewas Jerymn Hilliard, Jr.—and ripped it open with an exaggerated sigh ofrelief. Then he glanced up and caught Gustavo’s expression. Gustavo cameof a romantic race; there was a gleam of sympathetic interest in his eye.
‘Oh, you needn’t look so knowing! I suppose you think this is alove-letter? Well it’s not. It is, since you appear to be interested, aletter from my sister informing me that they will arrive to-night, andthat we will pull out for Riva by the first boat to-morrow morning. Notthat I want to leave you, Gustavo, but—Oh thunder!’
He finished the reading in a frowning silence while the waiter stood atpolite attention, a shade of anxiety in his eye—there was usuallyanxiety in his eye when it rested on Jerymn Hilliard, Jr. One could neverforesee what the young man would call for n