"Why do you do it?"

"I am earning my bread and b.u.t.ter and--dessert."

"Especially--the dessert?"

"No. Especially bread and b.u.t.ter. It is only a bit of fun, you know--this reading of the palms. Miss Gordon thinks it--it aids digestion," Joan was speaking hardly above a whisper.

"She does, eh?" Raymond had an insane desire to s.n.a.t.c.h the shielding veil from the face across the table. He wondered what would happen if he did?

"I wish," he said instead, "I wish you'd cut it out, you know."

"What--my bread and b.u.t.ter?"

"No--this tomfoolery. I don't believe you have to earn your living. I'd lay a wager that you are doing it as a stunt to vary the monotony of a dull existence, but there are other and better ways of doing that, you know."

Raymond was deadly earnest and did not stop to consider the absurdity of his words and tones.

"What ways?" asked Joan, and Raymond detected the suggestion of a smile behind the vapoury veil.

"I don't think I need to tell you that," he said.

"Perhaps not--but after consideration I've chosen this way. I like it."

Joan was getting control of herself, and in proportion to her gain Raymond lost.

"I suppose you think me an impudent a.s.s," he ventured.

"I'm--thinking of something else," Joan answered.

"What, for instance?"

"That line--in your hand."

"I thought you said this was only fun; that you did not believe in it?"

Raymond frowned as he saw his next course advancing toward him.

"There are exceptions," and Joan helped him arrange his dishes.

"Some day, if you are interested, come and I'll tell you more about that line in your hand." She rose with quiet grace and moved away.

"Oh! I say--" Raymond followed her with his eyes--"why not to-day?"

"There are others," Joan tossed back and was gone.

That night she went to Patricia Leigh's. Patricia had had a busy and prosperous day. She had written some verses that she felt were good--they had a tang that always gave Patricia the belief in their quality; she had sold two other small things. She was, therefore, at her flightiest, and greeted Joan with delight.

"I'm so glad Syl is not tagging on, Joan," she said. "Syl is the best they make, but she does somehow get under the skin and make people feel themselves 'seconds'."

Joan sank into a chair.

"Syl is writing reams to her John," she explained. "I doubt if she noticed my leaving. She probably thinks I'm still singing."

And then Joan told Patricia about the man who, for some unknown reason, had made himself permanent in her interest.

"I wish I knew about him," she murmured; "I cannot recall any one in the least like him in Mrs. Tweksbury's life. I don't want to ask Aunt Doris--besides, he may just be a chance acquaintance of Mrs.

Tweksbury's. I hardly think that, though--for she looks volumes at him and he sort of appropriates her."

Patricia was frankly interested--she was flying, and at such moments her bird's-eye view was a wide and sympathetic one.

Joan, too, in this mood was bewitching.

"All Joan needs," thought Patricia, "is to discover her s.e.x appeal; get it on a leash and take it out walking. She's like a marionette now--hopping about, doing stunts, but not conscious of her performance."

"Lamb!" Patricia lighted a fresh cigarette, "a week from to-night you breeze in here and what I do not know about your young man, by that time, will not count for or against him."

"But, Pat, do be careful!" Joan was frightened by what she had set in motion.

"Careful, lamb? Why, if carefulness wasn't my keynote, I'd be--well! I wouldn't be here."

CHAPTER XIII

"_Joyous we launch out on trackless seas carolling free, singing our songs._"

A week from that night Joan again eluded Sylvia. She did it by not going to the studio for dinner. She felt deceitful and mean, but there were heights--or were they depths?--that Sylvia could not reach, and intuitively Joan felt that Sylvia would disapprove of what she was now doing.

Patricia was not in when Joan reached her rooms--they were small, dim rooms and rather cluttered.

Sitting alone, waiting, Joan thought of Patricia more intimately than she often did. She recalled what Sylvia had told of her; remembered the warnings, and her eyes dimmed.

"Poor old Pat!" she mused, "she's like a pretty bird--just lighting on things, or"--and here Joan thought she had struck on something rather expressive--"or like a lovely, bright cloud casting a shadow. No matter what colour the cloud is, the shadow's dark. Dear old Pat! Well--I see the colour."

This was satisfying and brought up her feeling about Patricia, which had been depressed.

And just then Patricia tripped in, humming and rippling and stumbling over a rug as she felt her way in the gloom--Joan had not turned on the lights. Presently she stopped short and asked sharply:

"Who is here?"

Joan bubbled over and Patricia gave a relieved laugh.

"Lordy!" she gasped, "you gave me a bad minute. I thought----"

"What, Pat?" Joan touched the switch.

"I--I thought--it might be someone else. I haven't had a thing to eat since breakfast," Patricia announced, dropping on a couch and pulling the cushions into all the crevices surrounding her thin, weary little body.