XI

Winter hung heavily on that year; February dragged itself to a close,

choked with December snowfall, and Spring looked bleak and far away.

Travelling even from New York to Boston was horrible, and Jerry did not

come for a long time.

Joy was alone in the apartment.

As she had foreseen, Sarah’s querulous voice wavered in the halls. And

in the kitchenette her kimono and curl papers tinted the atmosphere. And

everywhere the tap of the pink mules or the sound of the rough plush of

Jerry’s voice seemed to be trembling in echo’s echo. . . . She asked

Félicie to spend the night with her as often as she cared to; but

Félicie didn’t care to very often. It was not that she was not fond of

Joy, as she explained; but it was so much trouble to move herself and

all her things. Félicie liked everything drawn up around her in waxworks

precision of detail, just as she had arranged it at her home.

And so Joy lived in an enforced solitude while considering what she was

going to do. The heavy snowfalls were deadening to enterprise; the

easiest thing to do was to stay in the apartment, which was hers for the

present, instead of looking around for something else. Sitting alone at

the piano in the room which had so often sung with mirth, she found it

hard to realize that she was the only one left in Sarah’s and Jerry’s

flat. One little, two little, three little Indians! One had gone; and

then there were two. And now one more had gone; and there was only

one. . . .

She had not seen Jim Dalton for a long time. When he had called her up,

she had put him off with the excuse of work. She could not see him,

because she felt that she wanted to see him too much. But she told

herself with an easy surety that she was not in love with him; once back

with Pa Graham she had fallen into the magic of music once more, magic

that left no room for sentimentality, and that, she told herself, was

all that her lapse had been; sheer sentimentality. But since the idea

had occurred to her that she might suspect herself of being in love with

him, she was uneasy about seeing him. And surely preventative methods

were best!

Yet she longed to see him, to tell him every little detail of the

epoch-making trip to New York. Looking back she clung to her part in it,

and wanted Jim—wanted him to exult with her over the great one’s

approval. Who was it who said he travelled faster who travels alone?

There had to be someone to spur on the traveller—sometimes! And Jerry

had gone, and there was no one. Félicie was frankly bored with music.

And Jim of her own exclusion stayed away, although his telephone calls

did not diminish in number. . . .

One afternoon in March as she was walking down Boylston Street, she saw

Grant. He passed driving a car, the Grey’s runabout, and by his side was

a girl whose peachbloom face, even at a distance, was vaguely familiar.

As she stared, the girl waved, smiling, and said something to Grant,

whose eyes were on the traffic. He swerved and brought the car into the

curb, and Joy came to them as Miss Dalrymple, the Bryn Mawr girl, leaned

out expectantly.

“Miss Nelson!” she hailed her. “I didn’t know you were in Boston!” Joy

interrupted as she started to present Grant. “We’ve already met. I

didn’t know _you_ were in Boston, Miss Dalrymple.”

The college girl explained that she was visiting a friend in her

vacation, that it was her first visit in Boston, and that she liked it

_very much_. Her eyes dwelt on Grant in naïve compliment at this last,

and Grant smiled appreciatively in return.

Joy nearly smiled, herself. Six months ago, and one would have thought

she had ruined a life. Now Grant was looking better, and happier, than

she had ever seen him; and he was regarding her with offhand

friendliness. The girl at his side was really an exquisite thing, with

clear, eager eyes like his own. Joy knew that her own radiant eyes had

been dulled, first by the experience of disillusionment, and then by

monotonous routine. She knew that she was thin and pale from a life of

irregular restaurant eating; she knew that the exquisite young thing at

Grant’s side gained colour by comparison; and she was glad. This could

be a last picture that would wipe out all regret, in dreams of what

might have been.

Miss Dalrymple was all exclamations over Jerry’s marriage. “To think

that it happened the very next day, and there we sat never suspecting

what was going on! It’s the most romantic thing I ever knew!”

Mabel had written Joy twice; at first when she had been so upset over

the unconventionality that marked this Lancaster marriage, then later

when she had seen them together and lost her shock, in joy at finding

her brother in the heights she was beginning to fear would never be his.

“Mabel always said he was awfully romantic,” the college girl was

saying; “that explained his cynicism, for they say cynics are always

really romantic—that’s the way they hide it. But did you ever hear of

anything so sudden?”

Joy’s eyes caught Grant’s on that. “Not—that turned out so well,” she

said demurely.

Miss Dalrymple turned to Grant. “You know, Miss Nelson’s cousin had her

brother all picked out for me—when Miss Nelson walked in with the most

fascinating girl you ever saw, who walked right off with him.”

“Then I owe Miss Nelson—a very great debt!” said Grant, with a smile

that broke in the middle as he looked at Joy and saw her amusement

shrieking from beneath the sheltered surface of polite friendliness. The

air was tingling with omissions, as Joy said her good-byes and left

them. Their status was plain—an affair well along in interest and

momentum.

The girl with the skin of peachdown and the wide, untroubled eyes was

the logical mate for Grant Grey. Each could give the other as nearly all

that the other desired as was possible in an earthly union. It would be

one of those unions that seemed eminently _right_—and it would even

seem so to Mrs. Grey! Joy laughed aloud at that last thought. The

heart-caught-on-the-rebound sneer, on which so many girls inwardly feed

while apparently they are smilingly urbane to their former suitors’

flames, never even occurred to her. It was a perfect union, while the

union of her nature and Grant’s would always have been imperfect at

best.

Inexplicably it made her feel the more lonely.

It was soon after that that a bulky letter arrived from her father, the

contents of which threw her into the laughter of misgiving. It seemed

that the Lamkins had returned from an extensive trip South and West, and

had spread throughout the length and breadth of Foxhollow Corners the

glorified account of Joy Nelson’s gallivanting around Noo York with

perfectly impossible people, to one of which she seemed to be engaged

“in a light way.” The rumour had swollen until it was reported that Joy

had been secretly married over in New York and had taken up her abode

there permanently. Of course her father had heard the last rumour first,

and with businesslike precision had sifted it through to the Lamkins and

heard their representations of the “facts.”

“I am disturbed,” he wrote, “and ask you for verification before I take

any steps in this matter. The town seems to be rolling tales of your New

York escapades as a sweet morsel under its tongue. You told me nothing

of any side of your New York visit that could be interpreted this way.

It is not possible for the child of your mother to have done anything

really wrong, but in New York you may have forgotten the obligations

that the name of Nelson puts upon you. After all, home people are the

ones that will mean your life, when you finish your studying and come

back to normal existence once more; and it does not do to antagonize

them as you so evidently have the Lamkins. It is a difficult thing for a

father to be sole guardian of a daughter; there are so many questions a

father alone cannot decide. I wish you would come home, and take up your

music here, perhaps in the church choir.”

He ended the letter with the thought that he might come to Boston soon,

as he had never yet seen her environment there.

Joy read the letter with mixed emotions which had culminated in the

rather shaky laughter. How could she explain to her father that what the

Lamkins had heard had been a mere prank played for the benefit of the

waiters and surrounding interested ones even as the Lamkins? It was the

sort of thing that he could never understand. And he spoke as though all

her fiercely eager study were to end in nothing—“a normal life once

more.” The church choir! She jumped up and poured forth a long cadenza,

which enveloped the room in an exultation of sound. At the close she

balanced two notes evenly, one against the other, tracing them up and

down—when all at once her throat began to flutter, effort ceased, and

she stood in rapt wonder, listening. Her first real trill was born.

The church choir!

It was that afternoon, while she was hesitating over a reply to her

father, that Jim called her on the phone.

“Do you realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen you, Joy?” he asked.

She did. “I’ve been so busy——” she faltered. “And now that Jerry is

gone, I can’t very well entertain in the apartment alone——”

“Then we can meet somewhere and go to dinner. Meet me at the Touraine,

at half-past six. I must see you, Joy.”

She went back to her letter in a more peaceful frame of mind. By now her

sentimental lapse was well over, and she would be glad to see Jim again.

After all, he was the only real friend she had. She finally pushed the

letter paper away from her. Jim would advise her as to how she would

reply. Somehow he always knew what to do.

When she drifted into the Touraine exactly five minutes late—Jerry and

Sarah had taught her that system—men hate to wait and yet one must

never be on time—Jim came forward to meet her, and she found herself

clinging to his hand for a longer space of time than is allotted to the

usual formal clasp. All her past loneliness rose about her and seemed to

choke her utterance, with something else that left her without speech.

“Let’s not eat here,” said Jim; “there’s something so public about this

place. Everyone just seems to come here to look everyone else over.”

Out in the evening air, speech returned to her, and they bridged the

time they had not seen each other by a few sentences while walking

through those strange cross-alleys that only Boston can boast until they

came to a cobble-stoned street that comprises part of the city’s modest

Chinatown, and “counted out” on the different restaurants facing them. A

façade of ornate gilt with curtained windows won the count, and they

were soon in a little stall away from the bright lights of the central

room.

The order given, Joy told the complete story of the New York trip, with

the loneliness Jerry’s leaving her had brought. “What shall I do?” she

concluded. “If father comes down here, he’ll find me living alone in the

apartment—which he certainly would not like.”

“Joy, you know that you can’t stay in that place alone,” said Jim.

“That’s one reason why I insisted on seeing you to-night—I wanted to

find out your plans.”

“Jerry wants me to stay in it till July—and it’s so much easier for me

in every way—especially practicing—than if I boarded anywhere——”

Jim shook his head. “This Félicie Durant you speak of, who lives in

Brighton with her great-aunt—perhaps she could persuade her aunt to

rent Jerry’s apartment, and then keep you as a boarder. If you suggest

that scheme to her, she might think of offering to take you in with them

even if they didn’t care to move.”

“That is—a good suggestion,” she said uncertainly. She was in that

state of mind where she hated to take any steps, make any plans.

“If that fails, you’ll have to apply to the Students’ Union for lists of

recommendable places,” he added with quiet finality.

“Oh, is that what one does?” She felt foolishly incompetent. “How did

you know?”

“I’ve been making inquiries myself. I knew you were alone there, and

that you couldn’t stay that way.”

Joy felt an embracing peace, the peace of decision in which Jim always

enveloped her. “Jim,” she said suddenly, “what have I ever done—or

been, except a foolish girl—that you should be so good to me? At the

very first, you did—more than I can ever repay—and then you went

on—always helping me, in ways that really were help—and understanding

so well—sometimes better than I understand myself!”

Jim looked at her across the table, and the keen friendliness dropped

from his eyes, all at once; leaving them naked. Involuntarily Joy turned

away her face. When his voice came, it was quiet, with a new current

bearing it along.

“It is because I have understood so well—that I’ve never told you what

I must tell you now. The brakes won’t hold—I think I have loved you,

Joy, from the time your lip quivered when you told me to take you back

to Tom.”

A pause while the Chinese waiter took away their dishes. Of all moments

to bring in his tardy self!

Joy started to speak, to falter her way with lips suddenly tender, but

he was looking away from her now and beyond.

“I think you ought to know, Joy—that I love you more than anyone else

in this world. You—you mean life to me.”

There was no wild heart-beat trembling in her being as she heard his

words, nothing but peace and a great content. “Oh, Jim!” she said in a

little voice, then waited for his eyes to meet hers. . . . It had not

come within the halo of dreams nor in the area of the disturbing thrills

of youth—it came in a golden calm. Jim was the Perfect Knight, of whom

she had dreamed in the days when she supposed one had but to wait and

the knight would come a-riding; the Perfect Knight, with spotless shield

and shining armour. The shield was his spotless life, making him more

than worthy of her; the armour was the white strength of his soul and

his body with which he had defended her at all times, since the very

first.

Then weirdly, unaccountably, across the even rhapsody of her meditation

came a voice from the chapels of memory; a voice full, perfectly poised,

with each word as flawless as if it had been engraved on a cameo.

“Love comes down to a hearth-fire, after marriage; and we who sing are

not content with hearth-fires. Remember that always, little one; _we who

sing are not content with hearth-fires_.”

Only that second of recollection before Jim’s eyes met hers, and Joy

chose her fate. She urged her eyes away from him, with a sick little

shiver; and keeping them fixed on some distant point, she said in a

voice so slight it almost slipped away before it struck the hearing:

“Jim—please—don’t!”

“I—won’t,” he said, in a voice that did not alter. “I—I knew it

was—hopeless, Joy, before I spoke; and I shall not bother you about it

again; but I wanted you to know, while I was able to see you—you have

not let me see you for so long.”

“Jim—I’m so sorry——” she cried, against the destruction that was

descending upon her soul so lately filled with peace.

“Sorry! Sorry is—an awful little word. I didn’t want to make

you—sorry. I just wanted you to know—I would have been a conceited ass

indeed if I had thought you could—care for me.”

“It’s not that.”

The words were clipped out in an even, glassy tone, as hard as a

window-pane and as easy to break or see through. But the shutters were

down behind, for the one who most wanted to see. . . .

Jim did not bring the subject up again until they were at the door of

the apartment.

“Please don’t let anything I’ve said worry you, Joy. And—we still are

friends—aren’t we?”

“Oh, yes, Jim!” she cried, and then fell silent, ashamed.

“This world would indeed be an empty place for me—if anything should

happen to that friendship.”

He took her hand, and she knew in a bitter little rush how much she

wanted to have his arms around her—to feel again encompassing her the

peace that she had destroyed. Pale as the novice who goes to her vows,

she took her hand away and left him.

She sat at the piano, striving to drown the turbulence within her by a

glory of sound. With shaking, silver lips, she tried to form the words

of the Jewel Song—she should be able really to sing it now—for to-day

had come her first trill! “All passes; Art alone endures.” She was so

wise not to have allowed the sentiment of the moment to overpower her.

It was just such moments that were responsible for the “mute, inglorious

Pattis” of the world.