Joan and Co.
one still living. And all through the rest of this her last year the
strongest vital friendship she had, remained still that of Mildred
Devons. When finally she graduated, it was as though Mildred graduated
with her.
It was Mildred, with her fine ideals of the future, her eagerness to
make herself worth while, who whispered to her when on those long June
evenings Joan walked by herself at twilight with a sense of new things
stirring within. It was Mildred who whispered that a graduation was not
an ending but a beginning. Of what, she did not say; of what, Joan
herself did not know. But when one came to full womanhood surely it
must mean the beginning of something more than anything she then saw
ahead of her.
With this idea she had come back home, and for a little while had
tried to make her mother understand and her father understand—looking
hopefully first to one and then to the other for a solution. The former
merely patted her upon the back and said:
“You’re a Fairburne, my dear.”
The latter had only smiled.
“You’ll find plenty to do soon,” he assured her.
She had passed that summer, as usual, in Newport; and no one there
helped to explain her to herself. When she came back in the fall, one
thing had followed another so inevitably that she had found little time
to think at all. But now she was beginning to steady herself a little
and so to think once more.
The high wall was now like a prison wall. Wherever she went, whatever
she did, she could always reach out and touch the four sides of it.
That was true of her home; it was true of the limousine which took her
from place to place; it was true of each destination. Always the doors
were guarded and always some one with credentials stood ready to meet
her. She was shot from one to another like a cash box in a pneumatic
tube. Sometimes she peered through the plate glass of her car, as she
sat by her mother’s side or by Dicky’s side, at the crowds in the
street with an hysterical desire to open the door, jump out, and lose
herself among them.
Yes, it was equally true when she was by Dicky’s side. She had thought
at first she was going to find a friend in Dicky. She had liked him as
a clean young boy while he was at college, and she had liked him last
summer as she had sailed the open sea with him now and then. At the
beginning of the teas and dances and bridge parties this fall she had
been glad to have him with her. But of late he had become a little bit
tiresome. There was no variety to Dicky. As she saw him one day, so
he was the next. That was inevitable, because he himself had nothing
from outside of interest to bring to her. His eyes saw only what her
eyes saw. They met the same people at the same places and did the
same things. It was worse for him than for her. Once or twice she had
searched for something deeper in him, but she was quite sure now there
_was_ nothing deeper. He was a little more wholesome than the others
and that was all. She did not particularly blame him for being so
negative, because to do that would have been to blame herself equally.
And he was very nice. Too nice. He treated her as though she were some
fragile thing to be kept in cotton wool. It was this which made her
smile even at the moment she was bored. If Dicky Burnett could have had
the privilege of reading her thoughts as she thought sometimes in her
white bed while staring at the ceiling, he would have been surprised.
In the dark, with all the details of her room obliterated; in the dark,
with all the costumes for her silly part out of sight; in the dark,
with Henriette and even her mother and father in the background; in the
dark, with the world very quiet all about her—it was another Joan who
lived in the big stone house. Her room had always been a cloistered
place to her, and at night it seemed even more cloistered. With her
hair down and her body free, she felt like one released—like one
allowed to be for a little while just herself. It was then she broke
her bounds and wandered at large. Dicky might have found it significant
that never at these times was he in her thoughts.
Henriette finished her hair and stepped back with an approving look.
Mademoiselle was very beautiful, but never as beautiful as she might be
were she gayer. It is a light heart that makes eyes bright and brings
color to the cheeks. Mon Dieu! if she herself had the opportunities
Mademoiselle Fairburne enjoyed—
There was a gown to be donned next—a wonderful gown designed by an
artist. Yet Mademoiselle stood like a doll and showed as little
interest. It was so, too, of the hat—a dashing bit of daintiness.
At three o’clock Dicky Burnett called for her, looking very spruce in
his English cut-away and top hat. It may have been her fancy, but he
appeared even a little more solicitous than usual about her comfort. It
was a blustering, stormy day, with the snow coming slantwise in gusts.
He suggested that perhaps it was too raw for her to venture out—when
venturing out meant only venturing from the door of the house to the
door of the limousine and then to the covered approach to Delmonico’s.
She recalled some of those descriptions Mildred had given her of
Western winters.
“Dicky,” she said, “I wish we were going to walk.”
“Walk!” exclaimed Dicky, with an unconscious glance at her short silk
skirt.
“Don’t worry,” she smiled. “We won’t.”
He had tried to hold an umbrella above her as she came down the steps;
but, in a spirit of rebellion, she strode ahead of him. And all the
rest of the afternoon some demon of perverseness possessed her. For a
wonder, she chose to dance, and danced not only with Dicky, who was a
good dancer, but with Hollister, whom she did not particularly like,
and with Diblee, whom Dicky did not particularly like. While the mood
to dance was upon her she danced with every one who offered himself
as a partner, and there were few who were not glad of the opportunity.
Then, when she had had enough, she refused to dance with any one, but
sat, with flushed cheeks, like a petulant princess, not deigning even
to talk with Dicky.
Once again her mood changed, and she astonished him with her gayety;
but on the instant he tried to join her in it, she sat back in silence.
He had never seen her like this. It was as though he were trying to
follow two or three Joans. And yet he had a feeling that always the
steady dark eyes of the real Joan dominated the others. Then, too, if
she stung him, she also roused him.
Dicky’s mouth became firmer than usual before that afternoon was over.
If he were given half a chance—
CHAPTER III
CHANCE
The wonder is not that Chance should seem to be the exception to the
orderly rule of life, but that except by Chance lives should ever
move in an orderly way. If it were possible to make, upon a piece of
white paper, a diagram of the goings and comings, the crossing and
criss-crossing of all those who move about New York in a single day,
the result would prove it to be little short of marvelous that the
paths do not cut across each other a thousand times an hour.
In a corner of the city removed in space many blocks from Delmonico’s,
and separated in other ways by what might be considered an impassable
gulf from the lives of either Joan Fairburne or Dicky Burnett, Mark
Devons paced the floor of his attic room, stopping now and then to
frown at the whirling snowflakes, and then at the letter which he had
received in the noon mail. The letter was typewritten and read as
follows:
_Offices of Carlow, Reed & Co.
New York, N.Y. Wall Street_
DEAR MR. DEVONS:
We have delayed giving you a final answer on the proposition you
submitted to us to finance your patent No. 4782937 covering a new
process for the manufacture of an improved patent-leather dressing
at a reduced cost over the present type upon the market, because, to
speak frankly, the report of our chemists was so enthusiastic that
we felt you had something that really deserved success. We went over
the matter several times, but have, however reluctantly, come to the
conclusion that other considerations enter to such an extent into
the problem of establishing such an enterprise that, with our many
other interests, we do not feel justified at present in continuing
negotiations. The Burnett product is so firmly intrenched with the
trade, and is backed by such a perfect organization, that any attempt
to break through, even with a superior article, would involve more
capital and time than we are just now prepared to risk. There is a
possibility that at some later date, if you care to re-submit the
proposition, we might be willing to undertake it.
Thanking you for your favor and wishing you all success, we beg to
remain,
Sincerely yours,
CARLOW, REED & CO.
MR. MARK DEVONS,
_Mullen Court, New York, N.Y._
In another envelope from the same office came a note from Ben Sawyer:
DEAR MARK:
I’ve just had a talk with Mr. Reed, and he tells me he has turned you
down. It’s a darned shame, because you have a good thing there. The
trouble seems to be that several years ago he had one set-to with the
Burnett crowd and got the worst of it. They say Burnett is a bear and
would fight to his last cent, and from all I hear there’re a good
many cents in between. I wish I had the money myself to back you!
Why the deuce don’t you drop round and see a fellow? I’m at
Wellington Chambers still.
Yours,
BEN.
Confidential; Reed says that offer Forsythe of Burnett’s made of two
thousand cash is robbery. Keep away.
B.
It was difficult, on the whole, to find very much humor in either
letter; and yet there was one line that brought a smile to Devons’s
lips every time he read it. “There is a possibility that at some later
date—”
At some later date! To appreciate the humor of that jaunty phrase one
had to realize that he had already been waiting several months on a
capital of seventy-five dollars. This had been reduced on Monday to
ten cents. To-day was Wednesday and he was hungry—hungry as the devil.
Under the circumstances the airiness of that suggestion of waiting six
months or a year longer might, if one were temperamentally so inclined,
be considered in the nature of a jest.
For two months he had subsisted chiefly on a diet of bread, black
coffee, and tobacco. That was well enough as long as he had his dreams
also. As long as he was able to go to bed at night with visions of a
fortune awaiting him on the morrow, bread, black coffee, and a smoke
were plenty for dinner. He had enough books with him so that he was
enabled to pass not only a pleasant but profitable evening with his
studies. If the after-breakfast mail did not bring him his letter,
there was another at eleven to look forward to, and more studying with
a little dreaming thrown in. So until lunch-time and the three o’clock
mail. So until dinner-time, and so through another evening.
Dreams! Dreams! Dreams! A man does not put on weight with them. A man
may even lose color through them. And of course plug tobacco in a
corn-cob is not altogether wholesome, although it helps the dreaming.
But it is surprising how happy a man may keep as long as his plug
tobacco lasts.
Devons had stumbled upon his discovery while doing research work on