She squared her shoulders and folded her arms in a half-defiant way. "I shall open the door of every known Blue Room—hurrying out again if there are ugly things inside, staying to enjoy them if they're good to look at. I shall taste a little of every known bottle, feel everything there is to feel except the thing that hurts, laugh with any one whose laugh is catching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth in the big Bazaar; and when I'm tired out and there's nothing left, I shall slip out of the endless procession with a thousand things stored away in my memory. Isn't that the way to live?"
From the superior height of twenty-four, Martin looked down on Joan indulgently. He didn't take her frank and unblushing individualism seriously. She was just a kid, he told himself. She was a girl who had been caged up and held in. It was natural for her to say all those wild things. She would alter her point of view as soon as the first surprise of being free had worn off—and then he would speak; then he would ask her to throw in her lot with his and walk in step with him along the street of adventure.
"I sha'n't see the sun rise on this great day," she said, letting a yawn have full play. "I'm sleepy, Marty. I must lie down this very instant, even if the floor's the only place you can offer me. Quick! What else is there?" Before he could answer, she had caught sight of a low, long, enticing divan, and onto this, with a gurgle of pleasure, she made a dive, placed two cushions for her head, put one little hand under her face, snuggled into an attitude of perfect comfort and deliberately went to sleep. It was masterly.
Martin, not believing that she could turn off so suddenly at a complete tangent, spoke to her once or twice but got no other answer than a long, contented sigh. He stood for a little while trying to make out her outline in the dim corner of the room. Then he tiptoed out to the hall, possessed himself of a warm motor-rug, returned with it and laid it gently and tenderly over the unconscious girl.
He didn't intend to let sleep rob him of the first sight of a day that was to mean so much to him, and he went over to the open window, caught the scent of lilac and listened, with all his imagination and sense of beauty stirred, to the deep breathing of the night.... Yes, he had cut through the bars which had kept this girl from taking her place among the crowd. He was responsible for the fact that she was about to play her part in the comedy of life. He was glad to be responsible. He had passionately desired a cause to which to attach himself; and was there, in all the world, a better than Joan?
Spring had come again, and all things were young, and the call to mate rang in his ears and set his heart beating and his thoughts racing ahead. He loved her, this girl that he had come upon standing out in all her freshness against a blue sky. He would serve her as the great lovers had served, and please God, she would some day return his love. They would build up a home and bring up a family and go together up the inevitable hill.
And as he stood sentinel, in a waking dream, waiting for the finger of dawn to rub the night away, sleep tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned and went to the divan and sat down with his back to it, touched one of Joan's placid hands with his lips and drifted into further dreams with a smile around his mouth.
V
It was ten o'clock in the morning when Martin brought his car to a stop and looked up at the heavy Gothic decorations of a pompous house in East Fifty-fifth Street. "Is this it?"
"Yes," said Joan, getting out of the leather-lined coat that he had wrapped her in. "It really is a house, isn't it; and luckily, all the gargoyles are on the outside." She held out her hand and gave Martin the sort of smile for which any genuine man would sell his soul. "Marty," she added, "you've been far more than a brother to me. You've been a cousin. I shall never be able to thank you. And I adored the drive with our noses turned to the city. I shan't be able to be seen on the streets until I've got some frocks, so please come and see me every day. As soon as Alice has got over her shock at the sight of me, I'm going to compose an historical letter to Grandmother."