For the first time in her life, she came near to the innermost meaning of the word happiness. It was not the placid content of her "pasture-time," nor the feverish, half-guilty ecstasy which had come to her for a brief hour through the unworthy medium of Eduard Desmond. It wrapped her round warmly like the consciousness of some beloved presence—which indeed it was, though Joan for once did not quite dare to analyze the sensation. She only knew that here, among strangers speaking a strange tongue, she was for the first time in her experience utterly at home. And she was curiously at the top of her powers. In that atmosphere, nothing seemed impossible of accomplishment. There was a sense of personal possession and being possessed—"By Paris," she told herself; but in her heart another name echoed.
Unaware, the great experience, the thing for which she had blindly groped, had come upon her; not with a sudden leap to which her nature leaped in response, but with a slow, quiet, irresistibly gathering force, like a great stream that bore her upon its breast, without volition, without struggle, toward some bourne of which she had no knowledge. And no fear.
Joan might have said with Browning:
"Let us be unashamed of soul ...
Is it in our control
To love or not to love?"
It is always the body that suggests shame; and the body had ever been a negligible part of Joan's make-up. She felt as independent of it now as if she were already spirit, floating about in space—always with this certainty of meeting there another spirit, however, and mingling with it.
This spiritual mingling was a matter she never discussed with Nikolai—the only thing in the universe, perhaps, which they did not discuss. Theirs was an understanding too close for words, and beyond words.... But sometimes, when Joan remembered that she had once feared love, believing it one of those things that are better done without, she smiled to herself; an inner, brooding smile that gave the final touch of the chisel to her features, and made her much sought by painters.
Paris seemed more than usual that year the rendezvous for people who had won distinction in the arts and sciences, and who came to render their patron city in her hour of need what assistance was in their power. Among these people Nikolai was made welcome with an eagerness, and even a deference, which delighted Joan, and a little surprised her; for his simplicity made it easy to forget that he belonged among famous folk as a matter of right.
On his account, perhaps a little on her own as well, Joan also was welcomed by them. She was not at all abashed by the company of greatness, having inherited from Richard Darcy the naïve conviction that the best was good enough for her; and moreover she found among them the keen power of enjoyment that invariably accompanies high mental development. She had long since suspected, and now proved, that only thinking people know how to play.
It was a great relief to her, just then, to be with strangers who accepted her entirely at face-value, with neither curiosity nor demand. An unquestioning, simple freedom prevailed in these upper reaches which Joan fancied might be dangerous enough (unless it had the effect of putting people, as it were, on honor). Nobody enquired whether she had a husband, for instance, or where he was. It seemed quite sufficient that she was the young friend of Stefan Nikolai; "Spiritosa e simpatica," as a certain great Italian tragedienne pronounced her. Their relations were taken as a matter of course. The two were always included together in whatever plans were afoot, and Joan noticed other such companionships among them which passed equally unquestioned. She was nominally under the care of Lady Arbuthnot; but that widely experienced noblewoman displayed a carelessness of chaperonage that would have caused hair to rise on the head of, say, Mrs. Carmichael.
Joan was at perfect liberty to spend with her friend every hour that either could spare from the day's duties, and did so. "Why not?" appeared to be the attitude of a company which concerns itself more with matters of the spirit than of the flesh....