Mrs. Ogden winced. "Well, after all," she said, "there are worse things
for a girl than marriage, but fortunately Joan need not think of that
unless she wants to; she's got her----" she paused--" her home."
Lady Loo thought. "You mean she's got you, you selfish woman." Aloud she
said: "Well, times are changing and mothers will have to change too, I
suppose. I hear Joan's clever; isn't she going to _do_ something?"
Joan flushed. "I want to," she broke in eagerly.
Mrs. Ogden drew her away and Lady Loo laughed to herself complacently.
"Oh! the new generation," she murmured. "They're as unlike us as chalk
from cheese. That girl don't look capable of doing a quiet little job
like keeping a house or having a baby; she's not built for it mentally
or physically."
At that moment a young man came across the lawn. "Joan!" he called. It
was Richard Benson.
Joan turned with outstretched hands in her pleasure. "I didn't know you
were in England," she said.
"I got back from Germany last week. It's ripping your being here
to-day."
He shook hands politely with Mrs. Ogden and then, as if she did not
exist, turned and drew Joan after him.
"Now then," he began, "I want to hear all about it."
"All about what? There's nothing to tell."
"Then there ought to be. Joan, what have you been doing with yourself?"
"Nothing," she answered dully, and then, quite suddenly, she proceeded
to tell him everything. She was surprised at herself, but still she went
on talking; she talked as though floodgates had been loosed, as though
she had been on a desert island for the past two years and he were the
man who had come to rescue her. He did not interrupt until she fell
silent, and then: "It's all wrong," he said.
She stood still and faced him. "I don't know why I told you; it can't be
helped, so there's no use in talking."
His keen grey eyes searched her face. "My dear, it's got to be helped;
you can't be a kind of burnt sacrifice!"
She said: "I sometimes think we're all sacrifices one to the other;
that's what Elizabeth says when she's unhappy."
"Then Elizabeth's growing morbid," he remarked decidedly. "It's the
result of being bottled."
At the old familiar phrase she laughed, but her eyes filled with tears.
"Richard," she said, "it's utterly, utterly hopeless; they don't mean
it, poor dears, but they can't help being there, and I can't help
belonging to them or they to me. If I worry Mother, she gets a batch of
nervous headaches that would move a stone to compassion. And her cough
takes several turns for the worse. But if I worry _Father_, and make him
really angry, the doctor says he'll die of heart disease, and I know
perfectly well that he would, he's just that kind of man. What do you
suggest, that I should be a parricide?" She smiled ruefully. "I ought to
go up to Cambridge next year, if I'm to be any good, and then to the
hospitals in London, but can you see what would happen if I were to
suggest it, especially the latter part of the programme? I don't think
I'd have to carry it out to kill my father, I think he'd die of fury at
the mere idea."
"He'll die anyhow quite soon," said Richard quietly. "No man can go on
indefinitely with a heart like his."
"That may be," she agreed, "but I can't be a contributory cause. There's
one side of me that rages at the injustice of it all and just wants to
grab at everything for itself; but there's another side, Richard, that
simply can't inflict pain, that can't bear to hurt anything, not even a
fly, because it hurts itself so much in doing it. I'm made like that; I
can't bear to hurt things, especially things that seem to lean on me."
"I understand," he said. "Most of us have that side somewhere; maybe
it's the better side and maybe it's only the weaker."
"Tell me about yourself," said Joan, changing the subject.
"Well, this is my last year at Cambridge, you know, and then the real
work begins--Joan, life's perfectly glorious!"
She looked at him with interest; he had not changed much; he was taller
and broader and blunter than ever, but the keenness in his grey eyes
reminded her still of the bright inquiring look of a young animal.
"Look here," he said impetuously, "I'll send you some medical books;
study as well as you can until you come of age, and then--cut loose! Ask
Elizabeth to help you, she's clever enough for anything; and anyhow I
won't send things that are too difficult at first, I'll just send
something simple."