Thus Félicie, flattening her imperial nose against the window pane, a scowl menacing her untrodden brow, as the few clouds in the skies were menacing the calm of the June day.
Joy had been with Félicie and her aunt throughout the spring, a troubled spring of work and restlessness. The old wild longings that had once shaken her did not return. There was instead a dull, sick emptiness, which engulfed her work rather than allowing itself to be engulfed.
Few events had marked Joy’s calendar. Her father had made his long-anticipated visit, and found himself pleased with her environment as well as charmed by Pa Graham. Under Pa’s guidance Joy had worked herself into a position from which she could map out her progress for the next few years. “Nothing but death can stop me,” she told herself; and the words grew into a sort of refrain that twinkled into her mind at regular intervals, generally putting to rout some unwarranted flight of fancy.
Félicie had taken the spring at a pace that left faint smudges beneath her eyes, and an ever-so-little receding of the tide of colour on the cheeks that she boasted had never known a rouge-puff. It seemed as though she had been wound up and could not stop. Evenings when there was no excuse for going out, no especial festivity to attend, she would go to the movies, eat down a few thrills, leave early and dance late. Sometimes in the mornings, when her yawns were irrepressible, Joy would ask her why she never let down.
“My dear, you can’t stop going—you lose your grip!” she said, wide-eyed that the answer was not obvious.
“Losing your grip” was the one thing the Excitement-Eaters seemed to dread.
Now, Félicie was chafing between a watermelon-coloured organdy and a dark blue taffeta, both laid challengingly upon the bed.
“Why did I say I’d go, anyway?” she complained. “Of course, I want to go. It’s interesting, even if there are millions of relations and absolutely no cut-ins—but it isn’t worth it to have all this trouble about deciding!”
“If everyone usually wears organdy, why not chance it? They’ll all be in the same boat if it rains.”
This from Joy, as she combed her hair preparatory to donning organdy herself. Hal Jennings, the Harvardite who was taking Félicie to Class Day, had given her two tickets for the Stadium exercises and his club spread, and Joy had accepted Félicie’s invitation to share the tickets. She had never seen Harvard Class Day, and her anticipation was not dimmed by Félicie’s grumping. Félicie was always like that if she had to decide anything.