Useful she still found them as dancing partners, to be sure, as providers of candy and flowers and theaters, even to a certain extent as companions, since one cannot very well sit about after nightfall conversing with women, if only for appearance' sake. One or two she might admit to her friendship, provided they remain sufficiently "in their place," like Archie Blair. But as lovers, husbands! Never again. Fortunately, sufficient phagocytes had been released to take care of that.
Hers was an attitude of mind which if generally entertained would, she realized, mitigate against the welfare of the race; but judging from the people about her, it would never be generally entertained—particularly in Kentucky, and in Springtime.
It is a season when matters of pairing off that may have hung fire throughout the winter are apt to come rapidly to a climax. Each Sunday paper brings forth its batch of Spring engagements; and Joan herself was under the pleasing necessity of chilling off two of her admirers in quick succession. One was a youth of the fireside-companion type, who innocently fancied that there might be room for one more under the hospitable Darcy roof. The other was the blond young man who had been Joan's first partner, and who, having danced her successfully through the season, saw no reason why he should not dance her successfully through life.
They met with small mercy at her hands. "Off with his head!" murmured Joan cheerily to herself on each occasion, thinking of a certain evening under a beech-tree by the light of the gibbous moon....
These two unfortunates were not the only ones in her life who were to suffer vicarious atonement for the sins of Eduard Desmond (and obscurely of Richard Darcy as well).
CHAPTER XXXI
It was in April that Archie Blair conceived the happy idea of purchasing an automobile, thus combining business with pleasure most practically; a modest secondhand affair of three good cylinders and one that missed, but it shone (Archibald being in the paint and varnish business) with a glossiness that advertised its owner afar off. And like the bicycle in the song, it was "built for two."
Archibald had no wish to intrude; still, an automobile is an automobile, and it seemed to him that on a fine Spring evening almost any young lady might like to ride in one, even if accustomed to limousines.
Joan first became aware of this acquisition one fine day when it appeared and reappeared and once again appeared passing the window where she sat reading. Three times, like Hector about the walls of Troy, it circled the block, smelling of its new paint and complaining loudly of its missing cylinder; and at last Joan, puzzled by this persistence, thought to glance at its driver. Clutching the wheel in a death grapple, taking his eye from the traffic only long enough for a hopeful glance at the house front as he passed, she recognized her friend in all the proud modesty of ownership.