Joy considered, and into her cheeks crept a startled flush. “Why—why—I don’t think I know.”
“Well, then you never felt the way I do. When you’ve lived with a thing like that for years—oh, it’s so blame all wrong! If I had been a man I could have gone out and hunted for the person I cared for—made her give me at least a chance! But what can a girl do but wait and hope and wonder—and wait!” She caught herself up. “H’m—almost turned on the faucet then, all right. Well, Joy, I’ve spread the story for you. The present status Sal and I hold is shifty to locate—but we notice we never meet any fond relatives of our little friends. And so I see now that it was a raw deal on you in a way, coming to live with us. It puts you in our light. We’re not ashamed of it, for that’s the way we’re going to live while we last—but this morning I’ve been thinking things over, and for the first time I’ve got your side of the matter and so I think it’s the best thing, for you to go.”
“I was at Pa’s this morning——” Joy began.
“There, he’s one can tell you I’m not much good. I went to him to get back into shape after my work in the Y, and when I had been there only a couple of times he told me it wasn’t worth it for me to go on. He said I drank much too much, and smoked more than that, and he’d been watching me long enough to see I’d never shake off either. So that ended.”
“I was at Pa’s this morning,” Joy continued as if there had been no interruption, “and what he said made me decide to stay here—that is, if you still want me.”
There was a little, breathing pause. Then Jerry spoke in a detached tone. “Nothing I’ve said has made you change your mind?”
“Why, Jerry—what you’ve told—has made everything right! Oh, I was horrified at first—it all seemed so awful—but to have come out of it all as you did! Jerry—you’re—you’re valiant. I’ve always thought of that word in connection with you—valiant.” Joy’s voice was clothed in radiant relief. She looked at Jerry with a tenderness she dared not express—one could not imagine being tender to Jerry.
“I’m not valiant.” Jerry rose, and the pink mules sounded their way to the door. She stood with one finger on the knob, and with her hair roughed up about her face, her kimono sliding from the slim angles of her shoulders, she looked like a great butterfly, undecided whether to hover or dart away. “I tell you, Joy, I’m not good for you; I can see that now. I’m not fourteen-karat bad—but I’m an Excitement-Eater. That’s a new style girl, and the style is getting popular. I live on excitement—I feed on it. I can’t live without it. I scatter it around me—all Excitement-Eaters do. And for you, a little goes a long way—it’s taken me longer than it should have to discover that. I’m not good for you. And that’s that.”
“Pa decided me this morning,” Joy repeated; “and that’s that. You can eat your old excitement all you want—I’m going to eat music—and languages—and music——Your story just clinches my resolve to stay. Oh, Jerry, you are valiant. I can see you standing up there with your chin out telling that man you weren’t Mazie-off-the-street——”
“Valiant! Knock off that word, will you? It gives me the willies. Valiant! When there’ve been times I’ve wished I had been Mazie—then I’d have had something—and might have kept him a little longer!”