Nancy flushed, but made no reply.

"There's where the secret lies--I feel it in my blood!" Joan shuddered and Nancy laughed. "It didn't seem to matter until _now_, but, Nan, we're women at last!"

"Of course," Nancy spoke, "I have thought of that. The best families have such things in them--but they don't talk about them. Now that we are women we must act like women--such women as Aunt Dorrie."

"Nan, you're a sn.o.b. A pitiful, beautiful little sn.o.b!" Joan wafted a kiss. "Your prettiness saves you. If you had a turned-up nose you'd be an abomination."

"You have no right to call me a sn.o.b, Joan!" Nancy's fair face flushed.

"Did I call you a sn.o.b, Nan, dear?"

"Yes, you did. It's not being a sn.o.b to be true to oneself." Nancy put up her defences.

"I should say not," Joan agreed, but she laughed.

"Just think of all that Aunt Dorrie represents!" Nancy went on. "She's all that her father and her grandfather----"

"And her grandmothers," Joan broke in, "made her! Just think of it! And you and I must carry on the tradition--at least _you_ must--I'm afraid I'll have to be a quitter. It makes me too hot."

"You'll never be a quitter, you splendid Joan!" Nancy turned her face to Joan---- the old love had grown with the years, "You _are_ splendid, Joan--everyone adores you."

But Joan did not seem to hear. Suddenly she said:

"Now do you know, Nan, I hate to go across the ocean this summer. It seems such a waste of time. I am eager to begin."

"Begin what, Joan?"

"Begin to live."

"You funny Joan, what have you been doing since you were born?"

"Waking up, Nan, and stretching and learning to stand alone. I'm ready now to--to walk. I dare say I'll wobble, but--I don't care--I want to begin."

A sense of danger filled Nancy--she often felt afraid of Joan, or _for_ Joan, she was not sure which it was.

"I think you'll do nothing that will trouble and disappoint Aunt Dorrie," she said, using the weapon of the weak.

"I think Aunt Dorrie would want me to--to live my life," Joan returned.

"Oh! of course, she'd let you--go. That's Aunt Dorrie's idea of justice.

But we have no right to impose on it. People may be willing to suffer, but that's no excuse for making them suffer." Nancy did battle with the fear that was in her--her fear that Joan might escape her, and now, as in the old days, Nancy felt that play lost its keen zest when Joan withdrew.

Joan made no reply. She looked very young with the sunlight flooding over her. Her eyes wide apart, her short upper lip and firm, little round chin were almost childlike when in repose, and her heavy hair rose and fell in charming curves as the breeze stirred it.

"Joan, what do you want to do, really?" Nancy dropped from her perch beside Joan and came close, leaning against the swinging feet as if to stay their restlessness.

"Oh! I don't know--but something real; something like a beginning, not just a carrying on. I want to dig out of me what is in me and--and--offer it for sale!" Joan leaned back perilously and laughed at her own folly and Nancy's shocked face.

"Of course, I may not have anything anybody wants," she went on, "but I'll never be able to settle down and be comfy until I _know_. Having a rich somebody behind you is--is--the limit!" she flung out, defiantly.

"I don't know what you mean, Joan." Nancy was aghast. The fear within her was taking shape; it was like a shrouded figure looming up ready to cast off its disguise.

"Of course you don't, you blessed little snow-child!"--the laugh struck rudely on Nancy's discomfort--"why should you; why should any one in this--this factory where we've all been cut in the same shape? We're all going to be let out of here to--to be married! They've never taken me in."

"Oh, Joan!" Nancy looked about nervously. Of course every girl had this ideal in her brain, but she was not supposed to express it--except vicariously in the charm-lure.

"It's all right, this marrying," Joan went calmly on. "I want to myself, some day, it's splendid and all that--but something in me wants to fly about alone first."

"You're silly, Joan."

"I suppose I am, snow-child. I suppose I'll get frightfully snubbed some day and come back glad enough to trot along with the rest--but oh! it must be sublime to have the chance a boy has. He can have everything--even the try if he _is_ rich--and then he knows what he's worth. Why, Nancy, I am going to say something awful now--so hold close.

I want to know what my dancing is worth, and my singing, and my making believe. I feel so powerful sometimes and then again--I am weak as--as a shadow!"

"Oh! Joan do be careful--you'll fall over the wall."

Nancy flung her arms about Joan, who had tilted backward as she portrayed her state of weakness.

"You frighten me, Joan, and besides you have no right to disappoint Aunt Dorrie, and if she should hear you talk she'd be shocked!"

"I wonder," mused Joan, "she is so understanding. I wonder. But come, Nan, dear, I must go practise the thing I'm to sing at Commencement, and I have a perfectly new idea for a dance on Cla.s.s Day."

David Martin and Doris were never to forget the impression Joan made on the two occasions when she stood forth alone, during the Commencement week, like a startling and unique figure, with the background of lovely young girlhood. No one resented her conspicuousness. All gloried in it.

They clapped and cheered her on--she was their Joan, the idol of the years which she had made vital and electric by her personality.

She danced on Cla.s.s Day a wonderful dance that she had originated herself.

Nancy played her accompaniment, keeping her fascinated gaze upon Joan while her fingers touched the keys in accord with every movement.

Lightly, bewilderingly, the gauzy, green-robed figure was wafted here, there, everywhere, under the broad elms, apparently on Nancy's tune. She was a leaf, a petal of a flower, a creature born of light and air.

People forgot they were performing a stilted duty at a school function--they were frankly delighted and appreciative. Joan rose to the homage and, at such moments, she was beautiful with a beauty that did not depend upon feature or colouring.

But it was when she sang on Commencement Day that she achieved her triumph.

Martin was watching Doris closely. She had had no return of her March illness; she never spoke of it, nor did he, but for that very reason Martin kept a more rigid guard upon any excitement. There was that in Doris's face which, to his trained eye, was significant. It was as if she had been touched by a pa.s.sing frost. She had not withered, but she was changed. The time of blight might be soon or distant, but the frost had fallen on the woman's life.

It was when Joan had finished her song that Martin took Doris from the hall.

It happened this way:

The flower-banked platform was empty until the accompanist--it was a young professor, this time, not Nancy--came on.

The audience waited politely; the rows of girlish faces were turned expectantly, and then Joan entered!

Without a trace of self-consciousness she looked at her friends--they were all her friends--with that sweet confidence and understanding of the true artist. The dainty loose gown covered any angle that might have proved unlovely, and Joan was at one of her rarely beautiful moments.

She stood at ease while the first notes were played--she appeared suddenly detached, and then she sang.

It was an old English ballad, quaint and rollicking: