Why Joan? Part 54

"Dear me, yes!--life is indelicate enough anyway, without our encouragement, isn't it?" murmured Joan.

She felt, perhaps justly, that she had come out of this encounter with the honors of war. But Joan could ill afford to make enemies....

The finish of Nikolai's book postponed itself from week to week. Spring came, and early summer, that most witching of seasons in the middle South, languid with the scent of magnolia-blossoms, gay with the bright parasols and fragile muslins that flutter forth like b.u.t.terflies at the first touch of sun. With Nikolai to share it, the gray old town regained something of its former glamour for Joan. She had many favorite spots to show him--a quiet tree-arched street of patriarchal mansions in the midst of warehouses, with all the charm and old-world dignity of a London square; a certain secluded nook low on the bank of the slow, yellow river, undiscovered save by an occasional working-girl and her shirt-sleeved "gentleman-friend," with whom Nikolai conversed as pleasantly as with old acquaintances. He had not the Major's elegant distaste for the _canaille_.

Through his trained eyes, Joan began to note again certain picturesque touches which had charmed her when first she came to Louisville; a primitive, two-wheeled cart bobbing along a crowded street, drawn by mules. .h.i.tched tandem-fashion, on one of which a dusky muleteer perched sidewise, singing. "That might be Spain," said Nikolai. Or perhaps two mulatto women, dressed in the extreme of fashion even to rouge and face-veils, greeting each other with lifted, outflung hand--a gesture as savage and typically African as if they were only a few weeks out of the jungle, instead of a few generations--Joan found that with Nikolai it was possible to do a good deal of traveling right at home.

Meanwhile the scandal of their a.s.sociation grew and spread; and at last Emily, distressed at the magnitude of the storm of which her friend was the center, decided to interfere. Not with words, however. Long social experience had given her tact, if not wisdom.

Thereafter it began to be noticed that Mrs. Blair and her distinguished friend were not to be seen so often alone together. There was usually a third on their expeditions, and frequently a fourth, whenever Archie could be pressed into service.

"Now that I've got some one to talk to myself, I don't feel so in the way," he confessed navely.

Emily formed a habit of dropping in at the Blairs' in the early afternoon (just at the finish of writing hours), so that she had naturally to be included in any plans that were afoot.

"I don't know what's come over you, dear," remarked Joan once, half laughing. "You're positively rushing me nowadays!--or is it Nikolai? I begin to suspect you of designs upon Stefan."

"And why not? He's perfectly eligible. We old maids have to keep a weather eye out, you know--But how do you know it isn't Archie I'm pursuing?" asked Emily calmly. "I appreciated him long before you did, you know."

"Emmy, Emmy, such indelicacy!" sighed Joan. "And him a married party, too! What would your mother say?"

"I'm feeding her Shaw lately in broken doses. She's prepared for almost anything--You don't really mind my trailing you about this way, do you, Joan?" she asked, sobering. "I love hearing you two talk. Am I in the way, if I just keep quiet as a mouse?"

"Mind? Of course not!" Joan kissed her. "You and Stefan are my two dearest friends, and I _love_ to have you friends with each other.

Besides, he says you have an 'interesting mind,' my dear. Welcome to our city!"

So Emily continued to make a courageous third in their walks and talks and studies; accepted by Nikolai with his usual courteous friendliness, and by the gossips with feelings which were not unmixed.

"It's the husband's doings--he's awake at last!" declared one faction.

"Men are so fickle. He's had a good deal of her--and Emily Carmichael is looking particularly well this year. Poor Joan!" murmured the other faction, composed of her more intimate acquaintances.

Joan's feelings on the matter were also not unmixed. She loved Emily; her presence was always a pleasure; she had a.s.suredly nothing to discuss with Nikolai that could not be discussed before so devoted an audience.

And yet--

Stefan came to take the other girl's company so much for granted that one evening, when Joan suggested a row up the river for their next day's outing, it was natural enough for him to say, "That sounds charming! and I think Miss Carmichael will enjoy it, too."

This innocent remark produced surprising results; as surprising to Joan as to himself. She jumped to her feet. "Look here, Stefan! If you want Emily so much, why don't you take her by yourself?" she cried, and bursting into tears she fled from the room.

Nikolai stared blankly at Archie.

"Will you tell me _what_ I have said?"

For once the other was the first to understand.

"Don't you see?" he replied with his patient smile (and there is nothing sadder to see in life than patience on the face of a young man). "It's come about just as I thought it would, Mr. Nikolai. She's--she's jealous of you. That's all."

That night Stefan Nikolai, usually very regular in habit, sat so late by his open window that the servant Sacha emerged at intervals to investigate.

"Is Excellency ill, that he neither sleeps nor reads?"

"Not ill, Sacha. Go to bed."

There was a lilac-tree blooming below the window, and the scent of the young summer came in to him, flooding his heart, his senses--

The servant appeared again.

"Has Excellency sadness?"

"Not sadness, Sacha. I think--it is happiness."

"And yet he sighs?"

Nikolai stirred, and got to his feet.

"That is because our wandering begins again. The book is done. In a few days we go."

The servant took an eager step toward him. "Not alone?"

Nikolai started. He had forgotten, as so many forget, the watching eyes of those who serve us. "Certainly, alone!" he said sharply. "Am I not always alone?"

Sacha's eyes dropped. "In my country," he suggested gently, "when we see a woman which we need, we take her."

The other smiled. The two had been through much together. "And if she chances to belong to some one else?"

"Then"--with an eloquent thrust of the hand--"we kill!" But seeing that the hint was unlikely to bear fruit, he added dispiritedly, "Excellency is not, however, a peasant. Sometimes to be a peasant is good."

CHAPTER LI

The storm which burst in August, 1914, had the effect of blotting out smaller storms into nothingness. It brought in its wake different things to different natures: to some apprehension, sheer personal terror, to others the quickening sense of high adventure, to others yet sick disillusionment with a world that was still capable of such gigantic folly.

To Joan, in the dead blankness that followed the departure of her friend, the great war seemed strangely like a G.o.dsend. It was as if she had cried in desperation to Providence. "What next?" and Providence had answered, "This!"

Perhaps she was not the only woman to whom the sudden extraneous demand for all that was in her came as a G.o.dsend.

She flung herself head, hand, and heart, into the organization of relief work. As the Germans pursued their incredible way through Belgium, it seemed to her that every frantic mother, every maimed child, every desperate father, the very roofless houses and ruined orchards, cried aloud upon her, Joan Blair, for help. She could not understand why others did not seem to hear the cry, how those about her could pursue the usual course of life unheeding--Joan was one of the first Americans to declare war upon Germany.

But those about her heard better than she realized. Gradually as the change came, it came. Hers was not the only blood in the old border State to thrill to the call of drums. And as in the earlier days, while the men got down their firearms to clean them, the women rolled up their sleeves and settled down to work.

Under the impetus of Joan and others like her, Bridge quickly gave way to bandage-making, the click of unaccustomed needles drowned the chatter of clubrooms and tea-table, and the Jabberwocks in a body abandoned the pursuit of culture for a course in hospital a.s.sistance. "So that we shall be ready by the time our own boys need us," explained Joan.

"But, Mrs. Blair, you ought to curb those firebrand sentiments of yours!" protested Judge Carmichael to her after one of her public utterances. "It is enjoined upon us Americans to be strictly neutral."