Eleanor Mercein Kelly.
CONTENTS
[FOREWORD]
[CHAPTER I]
[CHAPTER II]
[CHAPTER III]
[CHAPTER IV]
[CHAPTER V]
[CHAPTER VI]
[CHAPTER VII]
[CHAPTER VIII]
[CHAPTER IX]
[CHAPTER X]
[CHAPTER XI]
[CHAPTER XII]
[CHAPTER XIII]
[CHAPTER XIV]
[CHAPTER XV]
[CHAPTER XVI]
[CHAPTER XVII]
[CHAPTER XVIII]
[CHAPTER XIX]
[CHAPTER XX]
[CHAPTER XXI]
[CHAPTER XXII]
[CHAPTER XXIII]
[CHAPTER XXIV]
[CHAPTER XXV]
[CHAPTER XXVI]
[CHAPTER XXVII]
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
[CHAPTER XXIX]
[CHAPTER XXX]
[CHAPTER XXXI]
[CHAPTER XXXII]
[CHAPTER XXXIII]
[CHAPTER XXXIV]
[CHAPTER XXXV]
[CHAPTER XXXVI]
[CHAPTER XXXVII]
[CHAPTER XXXVIII]
[CHAPTER XXXIX]
[CHAPTER XL]
[CHAPTER XLI]
[CHAPTER XLII]
[CHAPTER XLIII]
[CHAPTER XLIV]
[CHAPTER XLV]
[CHAPTER XLVI]
[CHAPTER XLVII]
[CHAPTER XLVIII]
[CHAPTER XLIX]
[CHAPTER L]
[CHAPTER LI]
[CHAPTER LII]
[CHAPTER LIII]
[CHAPTER LIV]
[CHAPTER LV]
[CHAPTER LVI]
[CHAPTER LVII]
[TWO YEARS LATER]
WHY JOAN?
CHAPTER I
Young Joan Darcy leaned back luxuriously upon a cushion offered by the obsequious porter (servants were usually obsequious with Joan, though she was not at all beautiful and rather too shabby to promise much in the way of largesse), watching the world go by with a dreamy, detached, yet oddly observant gaze that missed no detail of the landscape through which she passed and registered it in her subconscious mind for future reference. It was a convenient receptacle, her subconscious mind—a sort of strongbox into which went many things valuable and valueless, to be brought forth when occasion required, quite intact. She tucked away in it now not only the rushing landscape but the various people about her in the Pullman: a dapper person, probably a necktie drummer, who had for some time been discreetly taking notice and whom it was her pleasure to occasionally regard as if he were so much thin air; an elderly lady who beamed wistfully whenever their eyes met, and who, Joan decided, would presently summon up courage to inform her that a little daughter, had she lived, would have been about Joan's age; also another girl, dressed as Joan would have liked to be dressed herself, who cast occasional glances of indifference in her direction, noting, it was to be hoped, the affluent litter of magazines and papers that surrounded our heroine, the fading bouquet tucked into her belt, and the expensive box of chocolates which lay open upon her knee, exposing to the world at large a masculine card on top.
Joan discovered within herself a certain impersonal, appreciative antagonism toward strange young women, such as knights may have felt who met for combat upon the jousting field. Envy was the one tribute which most assuaged her vanity.