But when Joan met Quard in the morning her anxious eyes detected in his
assured bearing none of the nervous unrest, in his clear eyes and the
even tone of his coarse, pasty-pale skin none of the feverish stains,
that are symptomatic of alcoholic excesses.
Surprised and grateful, she treated the man with a tenderness and
sweetness she had otherwise been too wary to betray....
By Thursday it was settled that they were to open on Monday at Poli's
Theatre in Springfield, for an engagement of a week. If the audiences
there endorsed the verdict of the first, Boskerk promised Quard a full
season's booking.
From the Springfield house he was to receive three hundred and fifty
dollars. He permitted Joan to understand, however, that his fee would be
no more than the sum he had first mentioned--three hundred dollars.
It was decided to leave New York by a Sunday train which would put them
down in Springfield in the middle of the afternoon, enabling the company
to find suitable lodgings before meeting to run through their lines in
the evening. They would have an opportunity for a sketchy, scrambly
rehearsal on the stage Monday morning, but dared not depend on that; for
the greater part of their allotted period would necessarily be consumed
in the selection of a practicable "set" from the stock of the theatre,
in making arrangements for suitable furniture properties, and in
drilling the house electrician in the uncommonly heavy schedule of light
cues--any one of which, if bungled, was calculated seriously to impair
the illusion of the sketch.
Joan thoughtfully stipulated for twenty-five dollars advance, against
expenses. Quard protested, alleging financial straits due to his already
heavy outlay, but the girl was firm. True, she still had (unknown to
him) one hundred and twenty-five dollars; but not until near the end of
their week at Springfield would they know whether or not they were to
get further booking.
In the end the actor ungraciously surrendered.
She made her preparations for leaving her hall-bedroom with a craft and
stealth worthy of a burglar preparing to break prison.
If her break with Matthias was to become absolute, she was determined
not to leave any clue whereby she might be traced.
An enquiry as to the best place to take a dress to be dry-cleaned
furnished sufficient excuse for lugging away one well-filled suit-case,
which Joan left at a cheap theatrical hotel a few blocks farther uptown
and east of Broadway, where she simultaneously engaged a room for
Saturday night. And on Saturday afternoon she carried away a second
suit-case containing the remainder of her wardrobe, informing Madame
Duprat that she was going to visit her folks for a day or two.
But first she had to undergo a bad quarter-hour in the back-parlour.
The sense of her treachery would not lift from her mood. Perhaps she
felt its oppression the more heavily because of her uncertainty: she
couldn't yet be sure she wasn't committing herself to a step of
irrevocable error; she was only sure that she was doing what she wanted
to do with all her heart, whatever evil might come of it. And there
would be more ease in companionship with Quard; with him she could have
her own way in everything, could always be her natural self and still
retain his respect--and her own. On the other hand, she could not look
up to him, and was by no means as fond of him as of Matthias. Her
fiancée was without reproach: he loved her; but his respect she could
never own. Dimly she recognized this fact; though he thought he
respected her, and did truly honour her as his promised wife, he was his
own dupe, passion-blinded. Actually, they were people of different
races, their emotional natures differently organized, their mental
processes working from widely divergent views of life.
Even in this instance, Joan's perception of the gulf between them was
more emotional than thoughtful....
She moved slowly about the room, resentfully distressed, touching with
reluctant fingers objects indelibly associated in her memory with the
man of her first love.
Sitting at his desk, she enclosed in a large envelope his letters. Two
had arrived since Thursday; but these she had not opened. She hardly
understood why she desired not to open them; she still took a real and
deep interest in his fortunes; but she was desperately loath to read the
mute reproach legible, if to her eyes alone, between his lines.
She meant to leave him a note of her own, tenderly contrite and at the
same time firmly final; but in spite of a mood saturate with an
appropriately gentle and generous melancholy, she could not, apparently,
fix it down with ink on paper. Eventually she gave it up: destroyed what
she had attempted, and sealed the packet, leaving Matthias no written
word of hers save his name on the face of the envelope.
There remained the most difficult duty of all.
With painful reluctance, Joan removed the ring from her finger (where it
had been ever since she had last parted with Quard) and replacing it in
its leather-covered case, sat for a long time looking her farewell upon
that brilliant and more than intrinsically precious jewel.
At length, closing the case, she placed it on top of the envelope, rose
and moved to the door. There she hesitated, looking back in pain and
longing.
There was no telling what might happen to it before Matthias returned. A
prying chambermaid....
And then it was quite possible that "The Lie" would not last out the
week in Springfield.
Quard had more than once pointed out: "There's nothing sure in this game
but the fact that you're bound to close sooner 'n you looked for."
"Maybe I'll be back inside a week," Joan doubted.
There was always that chance; and she had already left one door open
against her return.
"Anyway, it isn't safe, there. And I can mail it to him, registered,
when I'm sure he's home."
Turning back, she snatched up the leather case and darted guiltily from
the study and out of the house.