Had to get cool somewhere. I'm not responsible for losing my breath. Take care of yourself.
Had to get cool somewhere. I'm not responsible for losing my breath. Take care of yourself.
"This seems the last straw!" sobbed Joan, for Raymond had told her that day at the Brier Bush that important business was taking him out of town.
"He has to catch his breath," poor Joan cried, miserably, quite as if her own background was eliminated; "but what of my breath? And to-day is Saturday, and——" The bleak emptiness of a hot Sunday in the stifling studio stretched ahead wretchedly, like a parched desert.
That night Joan pulled her shade down. She hated the stars. They looked complacent and distant. She pushed memories of Doris and Nancy resolutely from her. Her world was not their world—that was sure. If this desperate loneliness couldn't drive her to them, nothing could. She must make her own life! Lying on her hot bed, Joan thought and thought. Of what did she want to make her life?
"I only want a decent amount of fun," she cried, turningher pillow over, "and I will not have strings tied to all my fun, either."
This struck her as funny even in her misery. She sat up in bed and counted her losses—what were they?
Ridge House and that dear, sweet life—sheltered and safe. Yes; she was sure she had lost them, for she could not go back beaten before she had really tried her luck, and if she succeeded she could never have them in a sense of ownership.
"And I will succeed!" Even in that hard hour Joan rose up in arms.
"And I have earned enough to begin real work in the autumn." She counted her gains. "And I can live close to Aunt Dorrie's beautiful life even if I am not of it. And Iamsure of myself as dear Nancy never could be—because I have proved myself in ways that girls like Nancy never can."
Toward morning Joan fell asleep. When she awoke it was nearly noon time and half the desert of Sunday was passed.
Then Joan, refreshed and comforted, planned a wholesome afternoon and evening.
"I'll go out and get a really sensible dinner; take a walk in the Park, and come home and practise. Monday will be here before I know it."
Joan carried out her programme, and it was five o'clock when she returned, at peace with the whole world.
She took off her pretty street gown and slipped into a thin, airy little dress and comfortable sandals. The sandals made her think of her dancing; she always wore them unless she danced shoeless.
"And before I go to bed," she promised her gay little self, "I'll have a dance to prove that nothing can down me—for long!
"I wonder—" here Joan looked serious as if a thought wave had struck her—"I wonder where Pat is?"
This seemed a futile conjecture. Patricia was too elusive to be followed, even mentally.
As a matter of fact, Patricia was, at that hour, confronting the biggest question of her life.
Heretofore she had always left her roads of retreat open, had, in fact, availed herself of them at critical periods; but this time she had, she believed, so cluttered them that they were practically impassable and she said she "didn't care."
The heat and her rudderless life had been too much for her; she had, too, been honestly stirred by beautiful things—although they were not hers nor could ever rightfully be hers. She had slipped into the danger, that seemed now about to engulf her, on a gradual decline.
Her connection with the Burke home life was, apparently, innocent enough at first. No one but Patricia herself sensed what really was threatening, but the conditions were ripe for what occurred.
Mrs. Burke, bent upon her own pleasure, utterly indifferent to the rights of others, was glad enough to leave her house and family to the charm of Patricia while she could, at the same time, as she smilingly declared, give a bit of happiness to that poor, gifted young creature.
The gifted young creature responded with all the hunger of her empty heart—she played with the children, who adored her; there was safety with the eyes of housekeeper and governess upon her—but when the eyes of a tired, disillusioned, and lonely man became fixed upon her, it was time for Patricia to flee. But she did not. Instead she gripped her philosophy of "grab"—and really managed to justify it to a certain extent—while she grew thinner and paler.
On the Sunday when Joan stopped short and wondered where Patricia was, Patricia was up the Hudson awaiting, on a charming hotel piazza, the arrival of the Burke automobile.
It was sunset time and beautiful beyond words. Something in the peaceful loveliness stirred Patricia—she wished that the day were dark and grim. It seemed incongruous to take to the down path—Patricia was not blinded by her lure—while the whole world was flooded with gold and azure.
Then Patricia's angel had a word to say.
"Who would care, anyway?" the girl questioned her upstanding angel—"in all the world, who would care? Why shouldn't I have—what I can get?"
And then, quite forcibly, Patricia thought of Joan! Joan seemed calling, calling. The thought brought a passionate yearning. Joan had the look in her eyes that children and dogs had when they regarded Patricia—a look that cut under the superficial disguise without seeing it, and clung to what they knew was there! The something that they loved and trusted and played with.
In a moment Patricia felt herself growing cold and hard as if almost, but not quite, a power outside herself had threatened the one and only thing in life that she held sacred.
"That Look!" Full well Patricia knew that the Look would no longer be hers to command if she held to her course!
Then, her strength rising with her determination, she glanced back over her cluttered trail. She had written a letter to Joan—it would be delivered to-morrow. A black, scorching statement that would leave not a trace of beauty for the old friendship to rest upon. She had also written a letter to the firm in Chicago definitely refusing to accept its offer—but that letter was not yet mailed!
The Burke automobile, like a devastating flood, might at any moment tear down the hill to the left. With this fear growing in her a strange perverted sense of justice rose and combated it. She had deliberately put herself in the way of the flood; she knew all about the risks of floods, and it seemed knavish to promise and then—leave the field.
"Better an hour of raging against the absence of me," she said, pitifully, "than years of regretting my presence. He'll hate me a little sooner, that's all. So—good-bye!" Patricia almost ran inside; left a hasty, badly written note, and, metaphorically, scrambled over the disordered path of retreat; she seemed to be racing against that letter on its way to Joan. She would write later to the man who was drawing near. Only one thing did Patricia pause to do: It was like driving the last nail in the old life. She telegraphed to Chicago, accepting the position of designer!
CHAPTER XVIII"Ours, if we be strong."
"Ours, if we be strong."
Joan had sung herself into an exalted mood. She had floated along on the wings of music, touching happy memories and tender, nameless yearnings. Her loved ones seemed crowding about her—Doris, dear, sweet Nancy, and pretty Pat. They were pressing against her heart and calling to her.
She began to feel a dull ache for them, a growing impulse stirred deep in her unawakened nature such as always drives the Prodigal unto his Father! The superficial life of the past year seemed husks indeed. It was the beautiful music that mattered and that she could have had with her blessed, safe, loved ones. She need not have left them lonely; she had been shamelessly selfish. Freedom! What was her freedom? Just a tugging against the sweetest thing in life—the false against the true!
Joan felt the tears falling down her cheeks while she sang on—and suddenly it was Patricia who seemed closest to her.
"I will not desert Pat," she actually sang the words into her song fiercely, resolutely. "Patricia must come into safety with me."
With this vowed to her soul, Joan dried her tears and sprang to her feet. She had never felt so lonely, so happy, so free as she did that moment when her spirit turned homeward again.
She kicked off her sandals and began to dance about the studio, lightly, joyfully.
The late afternoon was fading into a sudden darkness—a storm was coming; black, copper-dashed clouds were rolling on rapidly, full of noise and electricity; in a short time they would break over the city—but Joan danced on and on!
In that hour not one thought of Kenneth Raymond disturbed her. He belonged to the time of mistaken freedom; he was one who had helped her to think she could make unreal things true. He had no place here and now. She somehow felt that he had passed from her life.
Joan was abnormally young and only superficially old; her experiences had but developed her spiritually—aroused her better self; and in that self lay her womanhood, her knowledge of sex relations; there it rested unharmed, unheeding.
And then came a knock on the door!
The whirling figure paused on the tips of its toes; the brooding face broke into smiles.
"It's Pat! Come!"
The word "come" was all that reached the waiting man outside—and when he entered he gathered to himself the glad, joyous welcome meant for Patricia, and smiled at the poised figure.
"Why!" gasped Joan, and in her excitement almost spoke Raymond's name.
"How—did you find your way here? How did you know?"
"Forgive me; I had to come. I telephoned to the Brier Bush—they gave me your number."
Raymond closed the door behind him and came to the centre of the big room, and there he stood smiling at Joan.
"So your name is Sylvia?" he said.
Then Joan understood—Elspeth had respected her wish to be unknown outside her business, she had given Sylvia's name, had made Sylvia responsible.
"I tried to get you earlier by telephone."
"I was not home." Joan was thinking hard and fast. Something was very wrong, but she could not make out what it was.
"Forgive me for breaking rules: I wanted to see you so that rules did not seem to count. Go on with your dance. You look like the spirit of twilight. Dance. Dance."
Joan grew more and more perplexed. The anger she feltwas less than the sense of unreality about it all. Raymond was a stranger; he repelled her; in a way, shocked her.
"I'm through dancing," she said. "Since you are here, sit down. I will turn on the lights."
"Please don't. And you are angry. I'm awfully sorry, but it was this way: I was having dinner with some friends and suddenly I seemed to hear you calling to me. It gave me quite a shock. I thought you might be in danger, might be needing me."
Joan kept her eyes on Raymond's face. She was trying to overcome the growing aversion which alarmed her.
"No, I was not calling to you," she said. "I was bidding you good-bye—really, though I did not know it myself."
"Oh! come now!" Raymond bent forward over his clasped hands; "you are peeved! Not a bit like the little sport with that line in her hand."
"I—I wish you wouldn't talk like that." Joan frowned. "And I know it will sound rude—but I—wish you would go."
"You are—surly!" Raymond laughed again, and just then a deep, rumbling note of thunder followed a vivid flash.
"Come," he went on; "dance for me. There's going to be a devil of a storm—keep time to it. I'm here—I ask pardon for being here—but you can't turn me out in the storm. Come, let us have another big memory for our adventure."
Still Joan sat contemplating the man near her, her hands lightly clasped on her lap, her slim feet crossed and at ease—little stocking-shod feet to which Raymond's eyes turned. She had never looked, to Raymond, so provoking and tempting.
"What's up, really?" he asked, "you're not going to spoil everything by a silly tantrum, are you?"
Joan hadn't the slightest appearance of temper—she was quite at ease, apparently, though her heart almost choked her by its beating.
"You have spoiled everything," she said, "not I. You somehow have made our play end abruptly by coming here. I don't think I ever can play again. It's like knowingthere isn't—any—any Santa Claus; I can't explain. But something has happened. Something so awful that I cannot put it into words."
Raymond got up and stood before Joan. He looked down and smiled, and at that moment she knew that he was not his old self and she knew what had changed him! And yet with the understanding a deeper emotion swept over her, one of familiarity. It was like finding someone she had known long ago in Raymond's place; as if she had lived through this scene before.
She summoned a latent power to deal with the new conditions.
"You pretty little thing!" Raymond whispered, and touched Joan's shoulder. She got up quickly and moved across the room.
"I always want light when there is a storm," she said, and touched the switch.
Raymond, in the glare, looked flushed and impatient. A crash of thunder shook the old house.
"Will you dance for me?" he said.
Joan stiffened—she was dealing with the strange personality, not the man who was part of the happy past.
"No," she said, evenly. "And you have no right to be here. I wish you would go at once."
"Out in this storm, you little pagan?"
"You could go downstairs and wait in the hall."
"You are afraid of me?"
"Not in the least."
"Afraid of yourself, then?"
"Certainly not. Why should I be afraid of myself?"
"Afraidforyourself, then?"
Raymond was enjoying himself hugely.
"No, but I'm a bit afraid—for you!" Joan was watching the stranger across the room, and she shivered as peal after peal of thunder tore the brief lulls in the storm.
"Oh! that's all right—about me!" Raymond said, mistaking the trembling that he saw; "you know, while I was at dinner to-day I got to thinking what fools we were—not to—totake what fun there is in life—and not count the costs like mean-spirited misers. You've got more dash and courage than I have—you must have thought me, many a time, a—— What did you think me, little girl?"
With the overpowering new knowledge that was possessing her Joan spoke hesitatingly. It seemed pitifully futile and untruthful; but her own thought was to get this stranger from her presence.
"I thought you—well, I thought about you just as I thought about myself. Someone who was strong enough and splendid enough to make something we both wanted come true! It was believing that we two grown-up, lonely people could—play—without hurting—anything—or each other. I see, now, just as I used to see when I was a little girl—that one can never, never do that."
Tears dimmed Joan's eyes and she tried to smile.
The whole weird and unbelievable experience was making her distrust herself, and the storm was more and more unnerving her. She feared she could not hold out much longer.
"You're a—damned good little actress!" Raymond gave a hard, loud laugh so unlike his own wholesome laugh that Joan started back.
"I want you to go away at once!" her eyes flashed. "I think you must be mad."
"But—the storm." Raymond walked across the room.
"I do not care—about the storm. I want you to go!" and now Joan retreated and unconsciously took her stand behind a chair.
A sudden, blinding flash, a deafening crash and—the lights went out!
In the terrifying blackness Joan felt Raymond's arms about her.
So frightened was she now that for an instant the human touch was a blessing. She relaxed, panting and trembling. In that moment she felt kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her throat!
She sprang away, dashing against the furniture and then,as suddenly as they had failed, the lights were blazing and in the revealment Joan faced the man across the room.
Her face was flaming, but his was as white as if death had marked it.
"You—coward!" she flung out.
The words stung and hurt.
Raymond did not move bodily, but his eyes seemed to be coming nearer the girl.
"If you do not go at once," Joan said, slowly, "I will call for help."
"Oh! no, you won't, and I am not going to-night."
The beast in Raymond had never risen before, had never been suspected, never been trained: it was the more dangerous because of that.
"What?" Joan stared at him aghast.
"I said that I am not going to-night."
The awful feeling of familiarity again swept over Joan. She felt that she must have lived through the scene: had made a mistake that must not be made a second time.
"You have been drinking," she said, and her voice shook. She had hoped that she might save him the degradation of knowing that she understood.
"Well! Suppose I have? It has made me live. Set me free. I wonder if you have ever lived?"
"I am afraid not." Joan could not repress the sob that rose in her throat.
"We can live, I bet." Raymond gave his ugly laugh. "That line in our hands gives us the right."
For a moment Joan contemplated escape. Any escape open to her. The telephone, the door, even a call from the window in the heart of the storm. Then the desire was gone and with it all personal fear. She wanted again, in a vague way, to save this man who had once been her friend. She felt that she must save him.
Somehow, she had wronged him. She must find out just how, and then he might once more be as she had known him.
Presently it came to her. She should have known that he could not understand the past. He had pretended to, while they had played their foolish game, but when restraint was set aside he showed the deadly truth. She had cheapened herself, cheapened all women—she could not fly now, not until she had made him see the mistake.
Raymond was crossing the room. He laughed, and insanity flashed in his eyes.
"What shall I call you from now on?" he said: "Sylvia?—or shall we make up another name?"
"My name is not Sylvia. And there is to be no time ahead for us."
"You are mistaken. A girl has no right to lead a man on as you have led me, and then run. It isn't the game, my dear. You must not be afraid to play the game."
Raymond reached his hand toward her and said pleadingly:
"Don't be afraid. I hate to see you flinch."
"You must not touch me." Joan's eyes flashed.
"I see. You've raised the devil in me—and you do not want to pay?" The brute was rearing dangerously.
"I do not want to pay more than I owe."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that as true as God hears me I meant no wrong. I've done things that girls should not do. I see that now. But I believed that you understood. I thought that, in a way, you were like me—you were so fine and happy. I still have faith that when you are yourself again you will realize this. Oh! it is horrible that drink can do such an awful thing to you."
"Whatever ideals I may have had," Raymond broke in, "you have destroyed. Perhaps you think men have no ideals? Some women do."
"Oh! I believe with all my soul that they have. It was because I did think that, that I dared to trust you." Joan was pleading; she could not own defeat; she was appealing to him for himself.
But Raymond gave a sneering laugh.
"You trusted so much," he said, "that you hid behind a veil and would not tell your name."
Raymond was hearing himself speak as if he were an eavesdropper. He trembled and breathed hard as a runner does who is near the goal.
"What's one night in a life?" he asked, as if it were being dragged from him.
Again his voice startled him. He looked around, hoping he might discover who it was that spoke.
It was Joan now who was speaking:
"I think that in me as well as in you there is something that neither of us knew. I cannot explain it—but it was something that we should have known before——"
"Before what?" Raymond asked.
"Before I—anyway—was left to go free! It is theknowingthat makes it safe, safe for such as you and me! I do not believe you ever knew what you could be—and neither did I."
Raymond gripped his hands together and his face was ghastly.
"My God!" he breathed, and sank on the couch covering his eyes from Joan's pitiful look. He was coming to himself, trying to realize what had occurred as one does who becomes conscious of having spoken in delirium.
Outside, the storm was dying down—it sounded tired and defeated.
Joan looked at the bent form near her and then went to a chair and leaned her head back. She knew the feeling of desperate exhaustion. She had never fainted, was not going to faint now, but she had come to the end of a dangerous stretch of road and there was no strength left in her. Surprise, shock, the storm—all had combined to bring her to where she was now. The tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks; all her hope and faith were gone—she had left them in the struggle and could not even estimate her loss.
The clock ticked away the minutes—who was there to notice or care? Joan was thankful to have nothing happen! She closed her eyes and waited.
Presently Raymond spoke. His hands dropped from his haggard face and his eyes were filled with shame and remorse.
"Will you listen to me?" he said.
"Yes." Joan looked at him—her eyes widened; she tried to smile. She longed to cry out at what she saw, wanted to say: "You have come back. Come back." Instead she said slowly:
"Yes."
"I can never expect to have your forgiveness. I thank God that it is possible for us to part and, alone, seek to forget this horror. I will never intrude. I promise you that. Back in my college days I found out that I could not drink. It did something to me that it does not do to others. I never quite knew what until to-day. When I saw you standing there—the devil got loose. I know now. My God! To think that all one's life does not count when the devil takes hold."
"Oh! Yes, it does, and it is the knowing that will help." Joan was crying softly. "You will have the right to trust yourself hereafter because you know."
"I will always think of women as I see you now." Raymond spoke reverently.
"You must not. Some women do not have to learn—I did. I think the best women know."
"You must not say that."
"Yes, I feel it. Had I shown you a better self while we played all would have been different. You would not have misunderstood. Women must not expect what they are not willing to give. I had done things that no girl can safely do and be understood and then—when you lost control—you thought of me as you really believed me. I can see it all now, see how I hurt you; hurt myself and hurt other girls; but it was because—not because I am a bad girl—but because I did not know myself any more than you knew yourself. How could we hope to know each other? I seem so old, now—so old! And I understand—at last."
Raymond looked at her and pity filled his eyes, for she looked so touchingly young.
"I think," he said, "that I shall see all girls for ever as I see you at this minute."
"Oh, you must not." Joan gave a sob. "They are not like me, really."
There was an awkward silence. Then:
"Will you tell me your name? Will you try to trust me—just a little? It would prove it, if you only would."
"I do not want you to know my name. You must promise to keep from knowing. It is all I ask."
"Will you let me tell you—mine?"
"No! no!" Joan put up her hands as if to ward off something tangible.
"I only meant"—Raymond dropped his eyes—"that there isn't anything under heaven I wouldn't do to prove to you my sense of remorse. I thought if you knew you might call upon me some day to prove myself. I'm bungling, I know, but I wish I could make you understand how I feel."
"I do." And now Joan got up rather unsteadily. "And some day—I—I may call upon you—for—for I have known your name—always!"
"What!"
"Please—forgive me. I was taking an advantage—but it did not seem to matter then, and I must keep the advantage now—for your sake as well as mine. And now, before we say good-bye, I want to tell you that I know you are going to have your ideals again. You will try to get them back, won't you?"
"I will get them back, yes! I only lost them when the devil in me drove me mad."
"And bye and bye, try to believe that although one cannot make the unreal real, still there are some foolish people that think they can—and be kind to such people. Help them, do not hurt them."
"Will you—take my hand?" Raymond stretched his own forth.
"Why—of course—and tell you that I am glad, oh, so glad because—you have come back! Glad because it was I not another who saw that other you—for I can forget it!"
"And—and we are—to see each other some day?" This came hopefully. "Some day—as we left ourselves—back before this?"
"Some day—some day? Perhaps. If we do—we will understand better than we did then."
"Yes. We'll understand some things."
Raymond bent and touched Joan's hand with his lips and went quickly from the room.
He was conscious of passing, on the stairs, a wet and draggled young woman, but he did not pause to see the frightened look she cast upon him.
A moment later Joan raised her head from the pillow on which she was weeping the weakest—and the strongest—tears of her life.
"Oh! Pat," she sobbed. "Oh! Pat."
Patricia came to the couch and sat down. She was thinking fast and hard. Life had not been make-believe to Patricia; she had builded whatever towers had been hers with hard facts.
She drew wrong and bitter conclusions now—but she dealt with them divinely.
"You poor kid," she whispered, "and I left you—to this. I! Joan, I told you not to trust men. It's when you trust them that you get hurt.
"Listen, you poor little lamb, I felt you calling me, tugging at me. The storm delayed me, or I would have been here sooner. Joan, I had nearly run off the track myself—it was the thought of you that got me. I kept remembering that night you made the little dinner for me—no one had ever taken care of me like that—and, child, I've accepted that job in Chicago. If I go alone, remembering that dinner you got for me, I don't know what I'll do. Come with me, Joan, will you? No man in the world is worth such tears as these. You don't have to tellmeanything. We'll beginanew. You'll have your music—I'll have my work—and we'll have a dinner every night."
Patricia was shivering in her wet clothing.
Joan put her arms about her. At that moment nothing so much appealed to her as to get away—get away to think and make sure of herself. Get away from the place where her idols lay shattered.
"Yes, Pat. I will go. But"—and here she took Patricia's face in her hot palms—"don't you believe that any man can be trusted?"
"No, I don't. It isn't their fault. They are not made for trust—they're made to do things."
"Pat, you're all wrong. It's girls like you and me that cannot be trusted. I—I didn't know myself that was the trouble. Pat—you mustn't—think what you are thinking—you are mistaken."
"I saw him—on the stairs," gasped Patricia.
"Suppose you did?"
"Joan, do you know what time it is?"
"No. I do not care. It takes time to have the world tumble about your ears."
"You—you—do not—love him, do you?"
Joan paused and considered this as if it were a startlingly new idea.
"Love him?—why, no. I'm sure I don't. But, Pat, what is it that seems like love, but isn't—you're sure it isn't—but it hurts and almost kills you?"
The two young faces confronted each other blankly.
"I don't know," Patricia said.
"Nor I, Pat. But we've got to know. All women have unless they want to mess their own lives and the lives of men. They cannot be free until they do."
Then Joan took hold of Patricia and exclaimed:
"Pat, you are dripping wet. Come to bed." While helping Patricia to undress she talked excitedly of going away.
"It's the only thing to do. This silly life is a waste of time. Why, Pat, we have been making all kinds of locks to keep ourselves shut away from freedom and the things we want.Some day we would want to get out and we could not. I am going to be free, Pat—not smudgy."
Patricia paused in the act of getting into bed and remarked demurely:
"My God! Out of the mouths of babes and pet lambs—— Come, child, shut your eyes. You make me crawl."
CHAPTER XIX"Queer—to think no day is like to a day that is past."
"Queer—to think no day is like to a day that is past."
When Joan and Patricia arose the following day they confronted life as two criminals might who realized that their only safety lay in flight, and that they must escape without running risks.
Patricia shuddered when the first mail was delivered. She rescued her own letter—addressed to Joan—and raised her heart in gratitude that no letter of angered remonstrance came from Burke.
But he mightcome; he might telegraph!
"My God!" Patricia exclaimed at noon time, "I cannot stand this, Joan, we must vacate."
Joan was quivering with excitement, too—she was wild-eyed and shook with terror at every step on the stairs.
Her ordeal of the day before had not merely devastated her beautiful dreams, but it had, in a marvellous fashion, created an entirely new outlook on life. She felt that once she was safe from any possible chance of meeting Raymond, he might, spiritually, rise from the ashes and eventually overcome the impression that would cling in spite of all she could do. Intellectually she understood—but her hurt and shocked sensibilities shrank from bodily contact with one who had forced the fruit of knowledge so crudely upon her. The youth in her seemed to have died, and it held all the charm and delight. Thewomanof Joan made a plea for the man, but as yet he was a stranger. More strange, even, than the unnamable creature who had, for an hour, while the storm raged, stood in her imagination like some evil thing between the woman who had not fully understood and the woman who was never again to misunderstand.
While she feared and trembled Joan could, already, recall the moment when Raymond began to gain the victory over his fallen self. She knew that he was always to be the master in the future. How she knew this she could not have explained, but she knew! In all the years to come Raymond would be the better for that hour that proved to him his weakness. And with this knowledge, poor Joan found comfort in her own part. He and she had learned together the strength of their hidden foes. She realized with a sense of hot remorse that she had wanted freedom not so much for the opportunity of expressing that which was fine and worth while, but that which she, herself, had not been conscious of.
But she had been awakened in time. She, like Raymond, had faced her worst self, and now the most desirable thing to do was to get away. Anywhere, separated from all that had led to the shock, she would look back and forward and know herself well enough to make the next step a safer one.
To go with Patricia for a few months would not interfere with her winter plans; so she decided not to write fully to Doris, but to state merely that she was going to see Patricia settled in her new venture—or, should the business not appeal, bring Patricia back with her.
"But," she said to Patricia while they restlessly moved about the studio, "what can we do about—this," Joan spread her arms wide, "the furniture and all Syl's beloved things?"
Patricia sighed.
"Has it ever struck you, my lamb," she said, "that our dear Syl is a selfish pig?"
Joan started in surprise.
"Oh, I know," Patricia went on, "her respectability and genius protect her, but she is selfish. How long did she stop to consider us when her own plans loomed high? She dumped everything on us and went! It was business,pleasure, art, and John. For the rest—'poof!'" Patricia spoke the last sound like a knife cutting through something crisp and hard.
Joan continued to stare. Unformed impressions were taking shape—she felt disloyal, but she was not deceived.
"Syl brought you here," Patricia was going on, "because she was lonely and you fitted in; she never changed her own course. She has engaged herself to her John becausehefits in and will never interfere. I've seen him—and I grieve over him. He'll think, bye and bye, that he's gone into partnership with God in giving Syl and her art to the world! But he'll never have any nice little fire to warm the empty corners of his life by. I hope he'll never discover them—poor chap! He's as good as gold and Syl has pulled it all over him without knowing it. She's made him believe that he was specially designed to further a good cause—she is the good cause.
"And the best, or the worst, of it is that Syl will make good. That kind does. It is such fools as you and I who fail because we have imagination and find ourselves at the crucial moment in the other fellow's shoes."
"Oh, Pat!" It was all that Joan could think of saying.
Patricia was rushing on.
"Very well, then! Now, listen, lamb, you and I are going to skip and skip at once. I'm done up. A change is all that will save me—and you've got to go with me!"
"Yes, yes, Pat!"
"Why, child, a step on the stairs is giving us electric shocks. This lease is up in October. I'll telegraph Syl to-day. She can make her own arrangements after that—we'll leave things safe here and get out to-morrow!"
Suddenly Joan got up and threw her hands over her head.
"Thank heaven!" was what she cried aloud.
There was much rush and flurry after that, and in the excitement the nervous tension relaxed.
A note, a most bewildering one, was posted to Elspeth Gordon. It came at a moment when Miss Gordon greatly needed Joan and was most annoyed at her non-appearance. It simply stated:
Something has happened—I'm going at once to Chicago with Pat.
Something has happened—I'm going at once to Chicago with Pat.
Now as Patricia had been an unknown quantity to Miss Gordon—her relations with Joan being purely those of business—she raised her brows with all the inherited conservatism of her churchly ancestors and steeled her heart—as they often had.
"Temperamental!" sniffed Miss Gordon, "utterly lacking in honour. Just as I might have expected. A poor prospect for—Pat! I do not envy the gentleman."
Miss Gordon had contempt instead of passion, but her resentment was none the less.
And it was at high tide when Raymond came in at four-thirty for a cup of tea and what comfort he could obtain by seeing how Joan had survived the storm. He was met by blank absence and a secret and unchristian desire on Miss Gordon's part to hurt Joan.
Miss Gordon had not been entirely unobservant of all that had been going on. She had had her qualms, but business must be business, and so long as Joan did not interfere with that she had not felt called upon to remonstrate with her on her growing friendliness with the protégé of Mrs. Tweksbury.
But now things were changed and by Joan's own bad behaviour.
Raymond looked sadly in need of tea and every other comfort available—he was positively haggard.
While he sipped his tea he was watching, watching. So was Miss Gordon. Finally, he could stand it no longer and he spoke to her as she was passing.
"Your little sibyl—she is not here? On a vacation, I suppose?"
This was futile and cheap and Raymond felt that he flushed.
Miss Gordon poised for action. Her face grew grave and hard—she believed she was quite within her just rights when she sought to protect this very handsome and worth-while young man. She really should have done it before! She was convinced of that now.
"My assistant," she said, "has left without giving the usual notice. She has left me in a most embarrassing positionbut I suppose she felt her own personal affairs were paramount.
"I—I think she has made a hasty marriage." On the whole, this seemed more kind than Joan deserved.
"A—what?" Raymond almost forgot himself. "A—what—did you say?"
"Well, I presume it was marriage. She simply stated that something had occurred that was taking her to Chicago at once with a young man."
Elspeth Gordon watched the face of Mrs. Tweksbury's adopted son. She felt she was serving a righteous cause. If any worthy young man came to harm from the folly she had permitted she could never forgive herself! Miss Gordon had an elastic conscience.
Raymond's countenance grew suddenly blank. He had recovered his self-control. He laughed presently—it was a light, well-modulated laugh, not the laugh of a shocked or very much interested man.
Miss Gordon was relieved—but disappointed.
And then Raymond went out to do his thinking alone. He walked the streets as people often do who are lonely and can find relief in action.
He had never been so confused in his life, but then, he reflected, what did he really know about the girl with whom he had spent so many happy, sweet, unforgettable hours? The one black hour through which she had, somehow, stood as the only tangible safe thing he could recall, had shattered his faith in himself, in everything.
What was she? Who was she? And now she had gone—with some man! It sounded cruel and harsh—but it could not, it never could, blot out certain memories which lay deep in Raymond's mind. He was miserable beyond words. He deplored his own part in the unhappy affair; he could not adjust himself to the inevitable—the end of the amazing and romantic episode.
Of course he had always known that it must end some time, but while he drifted damnably he had not given much thought to that. But now he had finished it by his own beastialitywhen, had he kept his head, it might have passed as it came—a thing undefiled; a beautiful, tender memory.
Perhaps—and at this Raymond shuddered—perhaps he had driven the girl upon a reef. He had heard of such things. In despair she had violently taken herself out of his reach. He could not believe she had been seriously involved while she played with him. Whatever she was, he could but believe that she was innocent in her regard for him—else why this mad flight? And he could not believe that her regard for him was serious. He was humble enough.
After leaving Joan the night before Raymond had met his Other Self squarely in the shrouded house. Toward morning he had come to a conclusion: he was prepared to pay to the uttermost for his folly, whatever the demand might be. She must be the judge.
He would go to the tea room—not to the house that he had so brutally invaded. He would again talk to the girl and watch her—he would make her understand that he was not as weak as he might seem. If he had misunderstood, that should not exempt him from responsibility. But if she should spurn any attempt of his to remedy the evil he could regard himself with a comparatively clean conscience.
Raymond could not get away from the idea that the girl was of his world—the world where he was supposed, by Mrs. Tweksbury and her kind, to constantly be.
But then the empty tea room—and how empty it was!—stared him blankly in the face. Miss Gordon's manner angered him beyond expression. Almost he felt he must tell her of his own low part in the tragedy in order to place her beside the girl he had insulted, instead of beside him, as he felt she was.
Raymond was hurt, disappointed, and disgusted; but as the day wore on a grave and common-sense wave of relief flooded his consciousness. Bad as things had been, they might, God knows, have been worse. As it was, with the best of intentions, he was set aside by the girl's own conduct of her affairs.
To seek her further would be the greatest of folly and then,toward night, lonely, half ill, Raymond undertook that time-honoured custom of turning over a new leaf only to find that it stuck to the old persistently!
Then he resorted to a sensible alternative—he read and re-read the old page. He tried to understand it line by line. He was humbled; filled with shame at his meaningless attitude of the past, and acknowledged that the grit in him, that he had hoped was sand, was, after all, the dirt that could easily defile. He must begin anew and rebuild. He must take nothing for granted in himself. Having arrived at that conclusion, the leaf turned!
And Joan, in like manner, thrashed about. It was not so much her actions that caused her alarm—she had played most sincerely—but it was the power behind the play that caused her to tremble and grow hot and cold. What was it within her that had driven her where wiser girls would fear to stray? What was it that was not love in the least and yet had caused her heart to beat at Raymond's touch or glance? Whatever it was, Joan concluded, it could not be depended upon. It could lay waste every holy spot unless it were understood and controlled, and Joan set herself to the task.
The first step was to get away. That was inevitable.
After a few months—and Joan was sure Patricia could not run in harness longer than that—they could both come back, saner and better women. Then Doris would be called into action; no more butting against the pricks and calling it freedom!
In the meantime, Patricia and Joan worked madly to get away and still secure Sylvia's interests.
Telegrams passed to and fro. Sylvia was fair enough to see both sides, and while she was irritated at being disturbed she did not resent it and even bade Patricia and Joan success with honest enthusiasm.
"I'll run back and see to things," she wrote; "I'm making a lot of money."
And then Patricia tucked Joan, so to speak, under her frail wing and took to flight.
Chicago was new territory to both the girls but Patricia,from the necessity, as she told Joan, of grubbing, had become an adept at finding shelter.
After a week at a hotel, while she settled herself in business, Patricia had free hours for home-hunting, and she and Joan made a lark of it.
Patricia had the enviable power of shutting business from her own time, and she quickly discerned that Joan needed prompt and definite interests to hold her to what they had undertaken.
And the venture had suddenly assumed gigantic proportions to Patricia. She feverishly desired it to be a success.
She realized that Joan was being torn by conflicting emotions while she was idle and alone. She asked no questions; appeared not to notice Joan's teary eyes and pensive mouth. Wisely she made Joan feel her own need of her—to that Joan responded at once.
"Joan, I never had a home in my life before," she confided while they flitted from one apartment to another. "I used to walk around in strange cities and peep in people's windows, just to see homes!
"After my father died, I rustled about on the little money he left, and I got to sneaking into other women's homes. I didn't mean harm at first, but after awhile it seemed so easy to sneak and so hard to—make good! But down in my heart, as truly as God hears me, I've been homesick for—what I never had."
"Pat! Of all things—you are crying!" Joan looked frightened.
"Well, let me cry!" sniveled Patricia. "I've never given myself that luxury, either."
For a moment there was silence broken only by Patricia's sniffs. Then:
"What do your folks say about it, Joan?"
"I haven't sent the big letter yet—it's written. I don't want them to say anything until I'm fixed. I only told them of our leaving New York."
"Whew!" ejaculated Patricia. "You certainly run your career free-handed."
"Aunt Dorrie will take it like the darling she is," Joan mused on, "and she'll make Nan and Doctor Martin see it. When she gave me my chance she did not tie a string to me—not even the string of her love. We understand each other perfectly."
"I suppose you know," Patricia gave a sigh, "but I don't think an explanation would hurt any and I don't want her to blame me more than I deserve, Joan."
"Blame you, Pat? Why, how could she?"
"Oh, I don't know. She might get to thinking on her own hook if you don't give her the facts. Joan, send the letter at once!"
So Joan dispatched the letter, and it had the effect of depressing Nancy to an alarming degree and, in consequence, of spurring Doris to renewed effort.
She was perturbed by the lack of what she knew. She had her doubts of Patricia; the sudden flight had an aspect of rout—what did it mean?
Her reply to Joan, however, was much what Martin's would have been to his nephew.
She accepted and took on faith what Joan had explained—or failed to explain.
She laid emphasis on plans for the coming winter and referred to Joan's promise to give herself seriously to her music.
"Either in New York or there, my dear, begin your real work. It is all well enough to look about before you decide, but there is a time for decision."
This letter put Joan on her mettle.
"Pat, I'm going to begin as soon as we've settled," she declared, and her wet eyes shone. "Aunt Dorrie is quite right."
The girls finally secured four pretty, sunny rooms overlooking the lake, and reverently selected the furniture for them.
"Let's get things artistic," Patricia wisely explained, "we'll make the place unique and then"—for Patricia always left, if possible, a way open for retreat—"if we should ever want to dispose of it, we'd have a good market."
But as the days passed it looked as if the venture were turning out better than one could have hoped. Joan hadnever felt so important in her life, and, to her surprise, developed possibilities never suspected before. She prepared for Patricia's homecomings with the keenest delight. The cozy, charming little dinners, the evenings by the open fire—for they had selected the rooms largely on account of the fireplace—or the occasional theatre or concert grew in delight. Patricia was the merriest of comrades, the most appreciative of partners. She also, to her own surprise, became deeply interested in her work and, while the hours and confinement sometimes irritated her, her field of invention was wide enough to employ her real talent, and her success was assured from the first.
And when things were running smoothly and there were hours too empty for comfort in the lonely day, Joan discovered a professor of music who gave her much encouragement and some good advice.
After this interview she wrote to Doris more frankly than she had done for a long time. She explained her financial situation and quite simply asked for help: