She seemed to believe in his good intentions and came to him gravely. She did not remember any mother, and for her own name it had apparently been “chicken” when her father had wanted her, and “scat” when he did not. Mr. Barria envied a mind so untrammelled with memories, and named her Jhana, which means a state of mystical meditation, of fruitful tranquillity, out of which are said to come six kinds of supernatural wisdom and ten powers. The name sometimes appeared to him written Dhyana, when his meditations ran in Sanskrit instead of Pali. Cripple Street called her Janey, and avoided the question with a wisdom of its own. It had grown used to Mr. Barria. Scholars came from near-by universities to consult him, and letters from distant countries to Herr, Monsieur, or Signor Doctor Julian Barria, but Cripple Street, if it knew of the matter, had no stated theory to explain it and was little curious. His hair and beard grew white and prophetic, his skin more transparent. A second decade and half a third glided by, and Janey and Tommy Durdo sat hand in hand among the Annuals.
“You must ask him, Tommy,” Janey insisted, “because lovers always ask parents.”
“An' the parents is horty and they runs away hossback. Say, Janey, if his whiskers gets horty, I 'll faint. Say, Janey, you got to go 'n ask my ma if you can have me.”
Janey always bubbled with pleasure, like a meadow spring, when Tommy “got on a string,” as he called it, fell to jesting circumstantially. “You bet. She'd trun you down. An' yet she's married second time, she has,” he went on, thoughtfully, “an' she didn't ask my consent, not either time. I would n't a given it the first, if she had, 'cause dad was no good. I'd a been horty. I'd a told her he wa'n't worthy to come into any family where I was comin', which he wa'n't.”
“Yep. Dad was more nuisance'n mosquitoes.”
Mr. Barria came out of the distant retreat of his meditation slowly, and looked up. It did not need all the subtle instinct of a pundit to read the meaning of the two standing hand in hand before him.
Tommy looked and felt as one asking favors of a spectre, and Mr. Barria had fallen into a silent habit of understanding people.
“Little Jhana iss a woman so soon?” he said softly. “She asks of her birthright.”