第44章

Day after day went by with not a word from Martin.April was slipping off the calendar.A consistent blue sky hung over a teeming city that grew warm and dry beneath a radiant sun.Winter forgotten, spring an overgrown boy, the whole town underwent a subtle change.

Its rather sullen winter expression melted into a smile, and all its foreign characteristics and color broke out once more under the influence of sun and blue sky.Alone among the great cities of the world stands New York for contrariety and contrast.Its architecture is as various as its citizenship, its manners are as dissimilar as its accents, its moods as diverse as its climate.Awnings appeared, straw hats peppered the streets like daisies in long fields, shadows moved, days lengthened, and the call of the country fell on city ears like the thin wistful notes of the pipes of Pan.

Brought up against a black wall Joan left the Roundabout, desisted from joy-riding, and, spending most of her time with her mother, tried secretly and without any outward sign, to regain her equilibrium.She saw nothing of Alice and the set, now beginning to scatter, in which Alice had placed her.She was consistently out to Gilbert Palgrave and the other men who had been gathering hotly at her heels.Her policy of "who cares?" had received a shock and left her reluctantly and impatiently serious.She had withdrawn temporarily into a backwater in order to think things over and wait for Martin to reappear.It seemed to her that her future way of life was in his hands.If Martin came back soon and caught her in her present mood she would play the game according to the rules.If he stayed away or, coming back, persisted in considering her as a kid and treating her as such, away would go seriousness, life being short, and youth but a small part of it, and back she would go to the Merry-go-round, and once more, at twice the pace, with twice the carelessness, the joy-ride would continue.It was all up to Martin, little as he knew it.

And where was Martin?

There was no letter, no message, no sign as day followed day.

Without allowing herself to send out an S.O.S.to him, which she well knew that she had the power to do, she waited, as one waits at crossroads, to go either one way or the other.Although tempted many times to tap the invisible wire which stretched between them, and to put an end to a state of uncertainty which was indescribably irksome to her impulsive and imperative nature, she held her hand.Pride steeled her, and vanity gave her temporary patience.She even went so far as to think of him under another name so that no influence of hers might bring him back.She wanted him to return naturally, on his own account, because he was unable to keep away.She wanted him, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, to want her, not to come in cold blood from a sense of duty, in the spirit of martyrdom.She wanted him, for her pride's sake, to be again the old eager Marty, the burning-eyed, inarticulate Marty, who had brought her to his house and laid it at her feet with all that was his.In no other way was she prepared to cross what she thought of as the bridge.

And so, seeing only her mother and George Harley, she waited, saying to herself confidently "If he doesn't come to-day, he will come to-morrow.I told him that I was a kid, and he understood.I've hurt him awfully, but he loves me.He will come to-morrow."But to-morrow came and where was Martin?

It was a curious time for this girl-woman to go through alone, hiding her crisis from her mother behind smiling eyes, disguising her anxiety under a cloak of high spirits, herself hurt but realizing that she had committed a hurt.It made her feel like an aeroplane voluntarily landed in perfect condition at the start of a race, waiting for the pilot to get aboard.That he would return at any moment and take her up again she never doubted.Why should she?

She knew Martin.His eyes won confidence, and there was a heart of gold behind his smile.She didn't believe that she could have lost him so soon.He would come back because he loved her.Hadn't he agreed that she was a kid? And when he did come back she would take her courage in both hands and tell him that she wanted to play the game.And then, having been honest, she would hitch on to life again with a light heart, and neither Alice nor Gilbert could stand up and flick her conscience.Martin would be happy.

To-morrow and to-morrow, and no Martin.

At the end of a week a letter was received by her mother from Grandmother Ludlow, in which, with a tinge of sarcasm, she asked that she might be honored by a visit of a few days, always supposing that trains still ran between New York and Peapack and gasolene could still be procured for privately owned cars.And there was a postscript in these words."Perhaps you have the necessary eloquence to induce the athletic Mrs.Martin Gray to join you."The letter was handed to Joan across the luncheon table at the Plaza.She read the characteristic effusion with keen amusement.She could hear the old lady's incisive voice in every word and the tap of her stick across the hall as she laid the letter in the box.How good to see the country again and go through the woods to the old high place where she had turned and found Martin.How good to go back to that old prison house as an independent person, with the right to respect and even consideration.It would serve Martin right to find her away when he came back.She would leave a little note on his dressing table.

"No wonder the old lady asks if the trains have broken down," said Mrs.Harley."Of course, we ought to have gone out to see her, Geordie.""Of course," said George, "of course"--but he darted a glance at Joan which very plainly conveyed the hope that she would find some reason why the visit should not be made.Would he ever forget standing in that stiff drawing-room before that contemptuous old dame, feeling exactly like a very small worm?