"Yes, but then you married for love."
"Didn"t you, Joany?"
"I? Marry for love?" Joan waved her arm for joy at the idea.
Alice knew the story of the escape from old age. She also knew from the way in which Martin looked at Joan why he had given her his name and house. Here was her chance to get to the bottom of a constant puzzle.
"You may not have married for love," she said, "but of course you"re fond of Martin."
Joan considered the matter. It might be a good thing to go into it now that there was an unexpected lull in the wild rush that she had made to get into life. There had been something rather erratic about Martin"s comings and goings during the last week. She hadn"t spoken to him since the night at the Ritz.
"Yes, I am fond of him," she said. "That"s the word. As fond as I might be of a very nice, sound boy whom I"d known all my life."
"Is that all?"
Joan made a series of smoke rings and watched them curl into the air.
"Yes, that"s all," she said.
Alice became even more interested and curious and puzzled. She held very serious views about marriage. "And are you happy with him?"
"I don"t know that I can be said to be happy with him," said Joan. "I"m perfectly happy as things are."
"Tell me how they are." There was obviously something here that was far from right.
Joan was amused at her friend"s gravity. She had always been a responsible little person with very definite and old-fashioned views.
"Well," she said, "it"s a charming little story, really. I was the maiden who had to be rescued from the ugly castle, and Martin was the knight who performed the deed. And being a knight with a tremendous sense of convention and a castle of his own full of well-trained servants, it didn"t seem to him that he could give me the run of his house in the Paul and Virginia manner, which isn"t being done now; and so, like a little gentleman, he married me, or as I suppose you would put it, went through the form of marriage. It"s all part of the adventure that we started one afternoon on the edge of the woods. I call it the cool and common-sense romance of two very modern and civilized people."
"I don"t think there"s any place in romance for such things as coolness and common sense," said Alice warmly. "And as to there being two very modern and civilized people in your adventure, as you call it, that I doubt."
Joan"s large brown eyes grew a little larger, and she looked at the enthusiastic girl in front of her with more interest. "Do you?" she asked. "Why?"
Alice got up. She was disturbed and worried. She had a great affection for Joan, and that boy was indeed a knight. "I saw Martin walking away from your house the night you dined with Gilbert at the Brevoort--I was told about that!--and there was something in his eyes that wasn"t the least bit cool. Also I rode in the Park with him one morning a week ago, and I thought he looked ill and haggard and--if you must know--starved. No one would say that you aren"t modern and civilized,--and those are tame words,--but if Martin were to come in now and make a clean breast of it, you"d be surprised to find how little he is of either of those things, if I know anything about him."
"Then, my dear," replied Joan, making a very special ring of smoke, "you know more about him than I do."
Alice began to walk about. A form of marriage--that was the phrase that stuck in her mind. And here was a girl who was without a genuine friend in all that heartless town except herself, and a fine boy who needed one, she began to see, very badly. She, at any rate, and she thanked G.o.d for it, was properly married, and she owed it to friendship to make a try to put things right with these two.
"Joan, I believe I do," she said. "I really believe I do, although I"ve only had one real talk with him. You"re terribly and awfully young, I know. You had a bad year with your grandfather and grandmother, and the reaction has made you wild and careless. But you"re not a girl who has been brought up behind a screen in a room lighted with one candle. You know what marriage means. There isn"t a book you haven"t read or a thing you haven"t talked over. And if you imagine that Martin is content to play Paul to your imitation Virginia, you"re wrong. Oh, Joan, you"re dangerously wrong."
Settling into her chair and working her shoulders more comfortably into the cushion, Joan crossed one leg over the other and lighted another cigarette. "Go on," she said with a tantalizing smile. "I love to hear you talk. It"s far more interesting than listening to Howard Cannon"s dark prophecies about the day after to-morrow and his gloomy rumblings about the writing on the wall. You stand for the unemanc.i.p.ated married woman. Don"t you?"
"Yes, I do," said Alice quickly, her eyes gleaming. "I consider that a girl who lets a man marry her under false pretenses is a cheat."
"A strong word, my dear!"
"But not too strong."
"Wait a minute. Suppose she doesn"t love him. What then?"
"Then she oughtn"t to have married him."
"Yes, but it may have suited her to marry him."
"Then she should fulfill the bargain honestly and play the game according to the rules. However modern and civilized people are, they do that."
Joan shrugged her round white shoulders and flicked her cigarette ash expertly into the china tray on the spindle-legged table at her elbow.
She was quite unmoved. Alice had always taken it upon herself to lecture her about individualism--the enthusiastic little thing. "Dear old girl," she said, "don"t you remember that I always make my own rules?"
"I know you do, but you can"t tell me that Martin wants to go by them--or that he"ll be able to remain a knight long, while you"re going by one set and he"s keen to go by another? Where will it end?"
"End? But why drag in the end when Martin and I are only at the beginning?"
Alice sat down again and bent forward and caught up Joan"s unoccupied hand. "Listen, dear," she said with more than characteristic earnestness. "Last night I went with the Merrills to the Ziegfeld Follies, and I saw Martin there with a little white-faced girl with red lips and the golden hair that comes out of a bottle."
"Good old Martin!" said Joan. "The devil you did!"
"Doesn"t that give you a jar?"
"Good heavens, no! If you"d peeked into the One-o"clock Club this morning at half past two, you would have seen me with a white-faced man with a red mustache and a kink in his hair that comes from a hot iron.
Martin and I are young and giddy, and we"re on the round-about, and we"re hitting it up. Who cares?"
There was a little silence--and then Alice drew back, shaking her pretty neat head. "It won"t do, Joany," she said, "it won"t do. I"ve heard you say "Who cares?" loads of times and never seen anybody take you by the shoulders and shake you into caring. That"s why you go on saying it. But somebody always cares, Joany dear, and there"s not one thing that any of us can say or do that doesn"t react on some one else, either to hurt or bless. Martin Gray"s your knight. You said so. Don"t you be the one to turn his gleaming armor into common broadcloth--please, please don"t."
Joan gave a little laugh and a little yawn and stretched herself like a boy and got up. "Who"d have thought it? It"s half-past twelve, and we"re both losing our much needed beauty sleep. I must really tear myself away." She put her arm around Alice and kissed her. "The same dear little wise, responsible Alice who would like to put the earth into woolens with a mustard plaster on its chest. But it takes all sorts to make up a world, you know, and it would be rather drab without a few b.u.t.terflies. Don"t throw bricks at me until I"ve fluttered a bit more, Ally. My colors won"t last long, and I know what old age means, better than most. If I were in love as you are, my man"s rules would be the ones I"d go by all the time; but I"m not in love, and I don"t want to be--yet; and I"m only a kid, and I think I have the right to my fling. This marriage of mine is just a part of the adventure that Martin and I plunged into as a great joke, and he knows it and he"s one of the best, and I"m grateful to him, believe me. Good night. G.o.d bless you!"
She stood for a moment on the top step to taste the air that was filled with the essence of youth. Across a sky as clear as crystal a series of young clouds were chasing each other, putting out the stars for a moment as they scurried playfully along. It was a joy to be alive and fit and careless. Summer was lying in wait for spring, and autumn would lay a withering hand upon summer, and winter with its crooked limbs and lack-l.u.s.ter eyes was waiting its inevitable turn.
"A short life and a merry one!" whispered Joan to the moon, throwing it a kiss.
A footman, sullen for want of sleep, opened the door of the limousine.
Some one was sitting in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Marty! Is that you?"
"It"s all right," said Gilbert Palgrave. "I"ve been playing patience for half an hour. I"m going to see you home."
V
"You are going home?"
"Yes," said Joan, "without the shadow of a doubt."
"Which means that I"d better tell the chauffeur to drive round to the One-o"clock, eh?"
"I"ll drop you there if you like. I"m really truly going home."