They all rounded on her. "Why, but dear child, it wouldn't be suitable! It would give the poor ideas beyond their station. Fancy presenting a spangled net evening-gown to—Susy, say! It would never do!"
"I suppose not, because she would certainly burst with joy. But think," mused Joan, "what an enviable death!"
The Darcy ladies looked at her uncertainly. They were never quite sure whether their young cousin was jesting or not. They preferred people to laugh when they joked. It made things clearer.
"Never mind," the girl added hastily. "Susie's not going to get these magnificent costumes, anyway!—and I am so glad you are coming to my ball, dears. We'll be a whole family of débutantes!"
Afterwards she realized soberly how near her pride had come to depriving these innocent ladies of a real pleasure. Pride, she reflected, may be very close kin to selfishness. She postponed her own plans a while longer.
CHAPTER XXIII
These were at their best vague plans. Only one thing was definite about them. They were to include no more make-believe. Whatever came hereafter, Joan intended to be herself. The world must accept her on her own terms; in the phrase of her childhood "like her or lump her!"
The difficulty was to decide just what that self might be. Hitherto it had altered obligingly to suit different situations; blowing now hot, now cold, according to the wind of circumstance. But surely underneath there was a definite entity, which did not chop and change and adapt itself, but remained Joan?
At school she had shown no particular aptitude that would help her now—or rather had shown an aptitude in so many directions as to give rise to a widespread impression that "Joan Darcy would get somewhere some day," but which had caused more than one of her teachers to shake her head and murmur something about Jack of all trades being master of none. She herself had found this facility convenient, not in the pursuit of study but in the avoidance of it. She had managed to slip through the brief period allotted by Richard Darcy for the necessities of a young gentlewoman's education, with the minimum of work combined with the maximum of pleasure. It seemed to her then, and afterwards, the wisest possible use to make of a superior brain. Possibly the mental diet offered for her consideration was not altogether suited to Joan's peculiar requirements.