第33章

She wanted Martin.Everything that had happened that night made her want Martin.He knew that she was a kid, and treated her as such.He didn't stand up and try and force her forward into being a woman--although, of all men, he had the right.He was big and generous and had given her his name and house and the run of the world, but not from his lips ever came the hard words that she had heard that night.How extraordinary that they should have come from Alice as well as from Gilbert.

She wanted Martin.Where was Martin? She felt more like a bird, at that moment, than a butterfly--like a bird that had flown too far from its nest and couldn't find its way back.She had been honest with Martin, all along.Why, the night before they had started on the street of adventure, she had told him her creed, in that dark, quiet room with the moonlight on the floor in a little pool, and had frankly cried out, "Who cares?" for the first time.And later, upstairs in her room, in his house, she had asked him to leave her;and he had gone, because he understood that she wanted to remain irresponsible for a time and must not be taken by the shoulders and shaken into caring until she had had her fling.He understood everything--especially as to what she meant by saying that she would go joy-riding, that she would make life spin whichever way she wanted it to go.It was the right of youth, and what was she but just a kid? He had never stood over her and demanded payment, and yet he had given her everything.He understood that she was new to the careless and carefree, and had never flung the word honest at her head, because, being so young, she considered that she could be let off from making payments for a time.

She wanted Martin.She wanted the comforting sight of his clean eyes and deep chest and square shoulders.She wanted to sit down knee to knee with him as they had done so often on the edge of the woods, and talk and talk.She wanted to hear his man's voice and see the laughter-lines come and go round his eyes.He was her pal and was as reliable as the calendar.He would wipe out the effect of the reproaches that she had been made to listen to by Alice and Gilbert.

They might be justified; they were justified; but they showed a lack of understanding of her present mood that was to her inconceivable.

She was a kid.Couldn't they see that she was a kid? Why should they both throw bricks at her as though she were a hawk and not a mere butterfly?

Where was Martin? Why hadn't she seen him for several days? Why had he stayed away from home without saying where he was and what he was doing? And what was all this about a girl with a white face and red lips? Martin must have friends, of course.She had hers--Gilbert and Hosack and the others, if they could be called friends.But why a girl with a white face and red lips and hair that came out of a bottle? That didn't sound much like Martin.

All these thoughts ran through Joan's mind as she walked about the drawing-room with its open windows, in the first hour of the morning, sending out an S.O.S.to Martin.She ought to be in bed and asleep--not thinking and going over everything as if she were a woman.She wasn't a woman yet, and could only be a kid once.It was too bad of Alice to try and force her to take things seriously so soon.Seriousness was for older people, and even then something to avoid if possible.And as for Gilbert--well, she didn't for one instant deny the fact that it was rather exciting and exhilarating for him to be in love with her, although she was awfully sorry for Alice.She had done nothing to encourage him, and it was really a matter of absolute indifference to her whether he loved her or not, so long as he was at hand to take her about.And she didn't intend to encourage him, either.Love meant ties and responsibility--Alice proved that clearly enough.There was plenty of time for love.Let her flit first.Let her remain young as long as she could, careless and care-free.The fact that she was married was just an accident, an item in her adventure.It didn't make her less young to be married, and she didn't see why it should.Martin understood, and that was why it was so far-fetched of Alice to suggest that her attitude could turn Martin's armor into broadcloth, and hint at his having ceased to be a knight because he had been seen with a girl--never mind whether her face was white and her lips red, and her hair too golden.

"I'm a kid, I tell you," she said aloud, throwing out her justification to the whole world."I am and I will be, I will be.