The Shield of Silence Part 24

But if Sylvia refrained from nudging Joan on her course, even to the extent of opening her eyes to sign-posts, others were not so obliging.

Into Sylvia's studio youth, in its various forms of expression, floated naturally. Sylvia attracted women more than men, but her girl friends brought their male comrades with them and everybody was welcome to anything that Sylvia had. Fortunately most of the young people were honestly striving to earn their living; they were sweetly, proudly unafraid, but when they relaxed and played they made Joan's eyes widen, until she discovered that they often dressed their ideas, as they did themselves, rather startlingly while adhering, privately, to a respectability that they refused to make public.

They were, on the whole, a joyous lot belonging to that new cla.s.s which causes older and more conservative folk to hold their breath as people do who watch children walking near a precipice and dare not call out for fear of worse danger.

The women attracted and interested Joan immensely. The men amazed her.

"You see," she confided to Sylvia, "the men seem like a new s.e.x--neither men nor women."

Sylvia stood off regarding her work--she smiled happily and replied:

"They are, dear lamb. The girls will all, eventually, put on; fill up"--Sylvia added a dab of clay to a doubtful curve--"but men, when they chip off from the approved design, look like nothing on earth but daubs!"

"Yes," Joan added, "that's what I mean." Then, with a thoughtful puckering of the brows, "the girls will be women, somehow, but what will become of these--this new s.e.x, Syl?"

Sylvia was tense as she eyed her work. She answered vaguely:

"Some of them will crawl up, and _do_ things and justify themselves, the others will----"

"Will what, Syl?"--for Sylvia was moving like a panther upon her prey--her prey being the small figure on the pedestal.

"Do this--or have it done for them!" and at this the offending clay was dashed to atoms.

"Failure!" breathed Sylvia--"mess!"

Then with characteristic quickness she began a new design. Joan watched her and caught a sudden insight. She realized what it was that marked Sylvia for success. Presently she asked musingly:

"Does any one ever marry these--these men, Syl?"

"Heavens, no! They only play with them; don't get confused on that line, lamb."

"Don't worry about me, Syl. I don't even want to play with them. Syl, I do not think I shall ever marry. I'm like Aunt Dorrie, but if I ever should marry it would be something to help one grip life, not something to--to--well, haul along!"

Sylvia turned and eyed Joan.

"My pet lamb," she remarked, "you are all right! Make sure that no one side-tracks you--give them half, but no more. And, Joan, run along now, child, and get dinner."

A few days later Sylvia broke into Joan's revery by the smouldering fire. It was a gray, cold day and Joan's spirits were at low tide.

She had not been successful in any venture as yet, and so vivid was her imagination, so sincere her determination to play fair, that starvation and early death seemed the most likely objects on her mental horizon.

She had eliminated Doris and Nancy as life-preservers--they figured only as blessed memories in a past that was not yet regretted but which was fast fading into a black present.

"Joan, my darling, suppose you come to the rescue. My model has gone back on me--let me see you dance! My model had sand bags on her feet yesterday, anyhow, and my beautiful figure looks as if it had the beginnings of paralysis."

Joan sprang up. Instantly she was aglow and trembling with delight.

"Here, take this balloon," ordered Sylvia, "it is still ga.s.sy enough to float--it's a bubble, you know."

Through the room Joan floated after the elusive ball. Sylvia watched her with a light breaking over her own face.

"Great, great!" she cried from her corner, "go it, Joan, you're the real thing!"

Joan was not listening. What her eyes saw were the figures in the fountain of the sunken room. She was one of them again--the story was coming true! It was no longer a golden balloon she was touching, fondling, reaching for, tossing--it was sparkling water, and birds seemed singing in the big north studio.

At last it was over. On Sylvia's canvas the figure appeared to have undergone a marvellous change by a few rapid and bewitched strokes. The sand-bag impression had been removed--the figure was alive!

"Syl, dear, you are wonderful!"

Joan came and stood close. "What have you done to it?"

"Put you in it. Or," here Sylvia tossed her palette aside and caught Joan by the shoulders, "you've put yourself in me. I've a line on your opportunity, Joan, it came to me like a flash of inspiration. I hope you are game."

"I'm game, all right," Joan returned, quietly. She was thinking of her next visit to the bank.

"Dress your prettiest, my lamb. Look success from head to foot and then go to the address I'll give you. I have a friend, Elspeth Gordon, who is opening a tea room. She may not think you necessary to her scheme of things, she's Scotch and terribly thrifty, with a dash of nearness, but you tell her that _I_ say you'll be the making of her."

Joan laughed and darted away to array herself in her best.

"What am I supposed to do there?" she asked. Her brightness and gaiety had returned.

"Oh! any one of your accomplishments. Of course it was merely a matter of making things jibe. Elspeth only telephoned about the tea room this morning."

"You mean I am to wait on tables or cook?" asked Joan, somewhat daunted.

"Lord, child, no! Here, wait. On second thought, I'll go with you. I might have known you couldn't put it over. Watch me!"

Sylvia was worth watching as she pulled her tam o' shanter over her head, her face all aglow.

"I've undervalued your 'samples,' as you call them, my lamb," she chatted on. "Of course you must take lessons and be a legitimate something some day--a singer, I fancy, but in the meantime we must utilize what we have."

On the way through the frosty streets Sylvia grew more mystifying.

"It's putting the _punch_ in these days that counts, Joan. You are to be--the punch. Eats are all right in their way, but folks do not live by bread alone; they flourish--or tea rooms do--on punch."

Joan, running along beside Sylvia, accepted the rambling talk without question. Her acquaintance with tea rooms was limited, but she had caught Sylvia's mood.

"Just imagine," Sylvia was a bit breathless; "a cold, dreary afternoon outside--a warm, bright tea room with enchanting tables drawn close to an open fire, and someone--you, my lamb--singing a ballad, when there is a lull--in the offings! Why, Elspeth is as good as _made_ if she has the wit to grab you--and Elspeth is no fool."

Joan began to see the opening ahead.

"Oh!" she drawled--the word lasted a half block and ended in a mocking laugh.

"Could I dance in costume?" she asked, tossing her head, "or tell fortunes as I used to at school? Do you remember, Syl, how I went to the kitchen door, once, and took the maids all in, and then Miss Tibbetts came down to see what was going on, and I read her palm--and----" but here Joan stopped short physically. "What's the matter, Syl?" she said.

"Why, of course!" Sylvia was regarding Joan impartially. "They might object to having you break in on their silly tea-talk, the police might raid the place if you danced--but palm reading! Oh! my dear, you've struck it in the dark. Hurry!"

And hurry they did, arriving at the Bonny Brier Bush a few minutes later in rather a breathless but radiant state.

The proprietress, Elspeth Gordon, was a tall, slender woman, no longer young, but carrying herself with a dignity that amounted almost to majesty. She was gowned in crisp lavender linen with immaculate white collars and cuffs and was standing in the middle of her Big Experiment, as she termed it, when Joan and Sylvia burst in.