Why Joan? Part 23

She smiled. "Not many who would not want their generosity known, Mr.

Blair. Usually in our world, when people do things for one they like to get full credit for it. They even expect a return in kind!"

Lightly as she spoke, her tone troubled him. Glancing at her furtively, he realized that this was not the little girl he had first seen in haughty tears on the train, and yearned over because she seemed too young to know the meaning of trouble. Now she was infinitely more approachable, but also, somehow, infinitely farther away. If he was not mistaken she had learned very thoroughly the meaning of trouble. There was a listless droop of the lids, a slightly weary inflection of the bright voice, that did not "belong." He remembered her as serious and dreamy. She had become gay and wary. It was a change he did not like.

But he liked Joan. He liked her almost too well. Never did a heart more chivalrous beat beneath a $3.99 waistcoat; and if he had not long ere this become a notable squire of dames, it was simply for lack of the opportunity. Most of the dames he knew seemed so amply able to take care of themselves.

The evening under these conditions became almost as glorious an occasion as the ball had been. True, he saw little of Joan, because other men came and went constantly in the box, and frequently took her away with them to stroll around the ring. Despite Mrs. Darcy's seemingly oblivious amiability, he could not talk to her with any comfort. He had no skill to hide the stiffness with which her presence affected him, and after a few kind-hearted attempts to put him at ease, she left him to the Major entirely. But that suited Archibald very well. He admired the Major tremendously, aside from the fact that he was Joan's father.

"A perfect gentleman," he p.r.o.nounced him inwardly, taking envious note of his manners, his well-fitting, soft-bosomed shirt, the mellifluous tones of his really beautiful voice.

Major Darcy, always at his best before an admiring audience, produced some of his neatest anecdotes for this appreciative guest, and they presently entered into a learned and congenial discussion of the Horse, expert knowledge of which was part of their mutual birthright. It was a proud young man who later strolled out to the bar for liquid refreshment with Richard Darcy's arm thrust carelessly through his. Archibald had within him great possibilities for hero-worship.

It may have been the liquid refreshment which finally gave him courage to propose to Joan that she stroll with him around the ring, as she had strolled with others. At any rate, he shortly found himself part of that meandering show of debutantes and others, which rivaled, if it did not eclipse, the exhibit on the tanbark. He, Archie Blair, in a high silk topper, escorting a vision in a picture-hat with a plume, and a long gray velvet coat, and silvery furs around her neck, the price of which would almost have bought him an education!

He felt that at any moment a bouncer might discover him, and walk up to murmur sinisterly in his ear, "Out this way!"

But none did. Now and then Joan stopped and introduced him to other visions, who gushed and babbled, asking whether she was going to So-and-so's luncheon, and who was taking her to such-and-such a cotillion, and what she was going to wear to the next costume ball. He noticed that she neither gushed nor babbled in return, but seemed pleasantly aloof, a little _distrait_, as if she were an older woman listening to children.

"Business of being a society girl," he commented once, half to himself.

She gave him a smiling glance. "Yes," she said, "it has a lingo like any other trade."

"But _you_ don't speak it."

"I think perhaps it's not my trade."

He asked, greatly daring, "What is, then?"

"I don't know," said Joan, "yet."

Just then a rather dissipated-looking boy with his hat on the back of his head pa.s.sed them, and paused.

"Oh, Blair!" he said, lifting his hat to Joan.

"h.e.l.lo, Carmichael!" Archie greeted him.

"My sister told me to tell you you'd better come to our box and apologize. She says you were to take supper with her at some ball or other, and never turned up."

"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Archie, remorsefully, "I forgot it; clean as a whistle!"

"Better come and grovel, then," grinned the other, and pa.s.sed on.

Joan looked at him in amus.e.m.e.nt. "Do you mean to say you never took Emily Carmichael out to supper after she had asked you to? What are you going to say to her?"

"That I forgot," said Archie simply. He certainly could not explain that the cause of his forgetfulness was the _contretemps_ of having requested his hostess under a misapprehension to leave her own entertainment!

Joan chuckled. "Well! I'm certainly glad I didn't ask you to have supper with me!"

"I wouldn't have forgotten that," said Archibald.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. It was said neither shyly not gallantly nor boldly, simply as a statement of fact.

Joan was very tired of flirtation just then. She shied away from any hint of the personal like a burnt child in the vicinity of fire. She had no desire for further victims of her bow and spear; but she did want friends. It occurred to her that this frank, tactless, simple young man might do very well in that capacity.

"Take me right back to our box," she commanded, "and go and make your peace with Miss Carmichael! Don't you know you can't afford to antagonize such a power at court?"

He obeyed meekly. With quite a proprietary interest, she watched his awkward entry into the enemy's country, his introduction to Carmichael _pere_ and Carmichael _mere_, a lady who looked on life (the Darcys included) through a rather invidious lorgnon. This lorgnon trained itself on Archibald at close range.

"Poor Mr. Blair!" thought Joan.

But a little while later she was surprised to see that her protege and Mrs. Carmichael had joined the ranks of the strollers and were chatting and laughing together with quite an air of old friendship. He looked up at her as they pa.s.sed, shyly, and Joan clapped her hands softly to indicate approval.

The last ring of horses was showing when he finally returned.

"Well," Joan rallied him. "I thought you'd gone over to the enemy for good!"

"Judge Carmichael and I were talking over old times when I used to sell him papers," explained Archibald. "I reminded him of a day when he treated me to a pair of shoes because he said my toes sticking out made him feel chilly.... But are they your enemies?"

Joan bit her lip. She did not like her self-consciousness about the Carmichaels. "Really, I don't know," she said indifferently. "They certainly are not my friends."

"I think they'd like to be, though!" remarked the unexpected Archie.

"Miss Carmichael said you were the only one of the debutantes who looked worth while, and she asked a lot of questions about you and your father, and said she would have been to see you long ago, except for--" He stopped abruptly. He had almost finished the quotation _verbatim_.

Joan flushed. "I trust you were able to give her a good account of us!"

she remarked haughtily.

Archie answered in all innocence. "I told her Mrs. Darcy was your step-mother."

Despite her annoyance, Joan had to laugh at that. After all it was too absurd, this protege of hers, this discovery out of the slums, standing sponsor for the Darcy family with the Carmichaels!...

It did not occur to her to invite him to call. She had not as yet plumbed the depths of his social ignorance. He stood down-cast throughout the leave-takings, the remarks of "See you to-morrow," and "One o'clock lunch, did you say?" realizing that this wonderful evening was over, and not daring to hope that such luck would come his way a third time. He looked rather like a big, humble puppy that is about to be shut out of the house at night.

It was Effie May who noticed the resemblance. "Be sure you pay your two party-calls promptly, Mr. Blair," was her parting suggestion. "And if you happen to be at the Horse Show any other night this week, drop in at our box, you know."

"Yes 'm! yes 'm, I certainly will," he replied to both these hints--stiffly, because it was the only way he could manage to speak to this lady. But his ears were quite pink with pleasure.

CHAPTER XXI

On Joan's return from Longmeadow she had found her family already beginning to prepare for what was by far the most ambitious effort undertaken by Effie May as yet: her formal debut into society. Joan, rather alarmed, protested. She wished nothing so much at the moment as to be allowed to slip into some inconspicuous corner and recover her lost confidence. She was in no mood for a continuation of an empty social career, particularly under the aegis of her father's wife. Other plans were beginning to formulate vaguely in her head, and she wanted leisure to perfect them.

But here for the first time she came into direct contact with the amiable, easy-going, unescapable persistence she had before suspected in her step-mother, and which made her feel as helpless as a caged rabbit; a much indulged and petted rabbit, to be sure, in which it was sheer ingrat.i.tude not to love its cage. Effie May used neither argument nor explanation. She simply went her chosen way, and the rest of the household perforce accompanied her.

Joan, herself not unaccustomed to pursuing her own path, did not submit without a struggle. The difficulty was to bring the matter out into the open. Effie May had a habit of taking things for granted that made discussion gratuitous.