Why Joan? Part 19

Joan had not pursued this line of mental research to her usual lengths.

Certain things, it appeared, such as miracles and the power of prayer and all phenomena embraced under the generic t.i.tle of Love, were better taken entirely on trust.

With ashen cheeks and a heart thumping with terror, Joan put her hands over her ears to shut out the sound of her own thoughts. It was the first time in her life she had come face to face with the meaning of the word "fear." And that the fear was childish, made it none the less real.

Nineteen, not ninety, is the age of tragedy. There are few suicides among the old....

She did not hear a rap twice repeated, nor the opening of the door.

Somebody peeped in, saw the sobbing figure on the bed, the scattered bon-bons, the crumpled note on the floor. Then came a louder knock.

Joan sat up, and cried in a panic, "Don't come in!"

But Mrs. Rossiter chose to misunderstand her. "Did you say come in?" she inquired cheerfully. "I hope so, because n.o.body else seems to be at home, and I'm pining for company."

She paused as Joan sank back in despair, hiding her ravaged face in her handkerchief.

"What's the matter, dear? Headache?" she questioned kindly, adding with a glance at the overturned basket, "Too much candy, perhaps?"

"Yes," gulped Joan, fighting for self-control "Too much candy!"

Mrs. Rossiter selected a _marron_ from the floor with care, wiped it daintily, and began to eat. "This looks," she said, "like one of Ned Desmond's offerings. He's such an artist about everything! Who but he would have thought of selecting a basket to match your eyes?"

Joan lay still, and hated her. She thought of several biting remarks she might make to this woman who had come to gloat over her; but unfortunately she could not yet trust her voice to utter them.

"So you sent him away after all?" continued the voice smilingly, "Led him on, and made a fool out of our poor dear Ned, and then sent him about his business? Naughty Joan!"

Something impelled the girl to utter frankness. She was done with acting. "I didn't, and you know I didn't," she gulped. "I accepted him.

I was engaged to him!"

"Engaged?"

"Yes!--and then the next day he was gone."

"Stole away," murmured Mrs. Rossiter amusedly. "That was rather crude of Eduard. He doesn't usually run to such lengths.... You mean he actually in so many words invited you to _marry_ him?"

Joan covered her eyes again. "I suppose not," she said in a small, miserable voice. "No, he didn't. But he--he kissed me as if we were engaged, and I kissed him back!"

"Oh," murmured the other. "You find engaged kisses so very different, then, from the other kind?"

Joan cried indignantly, "I don't know anything about the other kind!

I've never kissed a man before in my life."

"No? 'More kissed against than kissing,' perhaps?"

The girl lifted her chin as haughtily as it is possible to lift a chin that is quivering with held-in sobs. "I have never been kissed either--except on the hand or the ear or something, which doesn't count."

"No, that hardly counts," agreed her inquisitor, looking at the girl quite curiously. "See here," she asked in another tone, "how old are you, Miss Darcy?"

"Nineteen."

"Hmmn! Younger than I thought. Still, a Southern girl--"

"Can be just as decent as any other kind!" cried angry Joan. "Anyway, I'm only part a Southern girl. But I know! Lots of them are just as nice about such things as Betty, for instance."

"Nice, of course," agreed Mrs. Rossiter. "And tremendously attractive.

But just for that reason a little more--well, experienced, don't you think? We get our experience later, perhaps.... And you seemed particularly well-seasoned, able to take care of yourself, playing them off against each other like a little veteran. I've told Jane Desmond so more than once. She wanted to warn you--but I told her you knew the ropes."

"I didn't," said Joan tremulously, "Warn me of what?"

"Why, of Ned. She was afraid you might really land him. The wariest of fish takes the hook at last!"

Joan winced at the remark, but she was too busy getting to the bottom of things to resent it.

"Why did she object to my marrying him?"

Mrs. Rossiter stared. "Good Lord! Well, because she's got a girl of her own, for one thing. Because she's married to a Desmond herself, for another. She knows the breed, poor Jane!"

Light was breaking on Joan. "You mean--she objected for _my_ sake?"

"Of course!" said Mrs. Rossiter rather impatiently. "Ned's all right as a brother-in-law, useful to have about, to run errands, etc. One has to have a man in the house, and she's really rather fond of him. But to marry him off to a fresh young girl like you!--No, no, Jane's not that sort."

"Oh," said Joan faintly. She began to realize that instead of antagonism, it had been friendliness that watched her, motherly, anxious kindness, which she had been too blind to understand.

"Oh, Mrs. Rossiter," she cried tremulously, "I've been horrid!"

"Bless you, no. It's Ned who was horrid, I suspect--men are. Votes for Women, eh? Be glad you've found it out in time.... But you fooled me, you know; and to do Ned justice, I think you fooled him. He's not altogether a cad. I've never known him try cradle-s.n.a.t.c.hing before. He usually prefers to play the game with people who understand, married women or widdy-ladies of mature years, or--well, the professional charmer."

"Ugh! You speak as if there'd been dozens of us!"

"So there have. Dozens! And there are dozens of him, too. Amorists, you know, dilettantes, non-eligibles--the bane of all good chaperones.

'Gather the rosebuds while ye may' effect. They make quite a business of it, I a.s.sure you; or rather an art. 'The secret of enjoyment is to know the exact moment when one has attained the maximum--and to stop there'!

Haven't you heard him say it?" She laughed rather mirthlessly, and Joan did not join her.

After a moment the older woman left the arm of the chair where she had been perched boyishly, with swinging leg, nibbling her _marron_. She walked about the room, and then came and sat beside Joan on the bed. Her voice had become rather shy.

"Joan," she asked, "did you--care, my dear?"

The girl turned her burning face away. "I don't know," she whispered.

"How does one know?--I thought about him all the time, and sometimes I didn't want him at all, and sometimes--I did.--And now I wish my father would _kill_ him!"

The other shook her head. "That's not it, then. You'd know! Even at the worst," she said quietly, "if my father had killed him, I should have wanted--to kill my father."

Joan forgot herself in sheer astonishment. "You!" she cried. "But I thought it was you who declined to marry him, even after you'd got a divorce to do it?"

Mrs. Rossiter smiled queerly.

"Did Ned tell you that?"

Joan, much embarra.s.sed, explained the Convent impression of Mr. Desmond and his broken heart.

The other laughed. "So that's the idea he has allowed to get abroad?