But perhaps it was not entirely the power of suggestion that made her success. Joan was enough of an artist to do whatever she did with a certain finish.
Her difficulty, however, in the heady game she played, was to concentrate on the purpose in hand. At the end of two weeks, she began to fancy a slight diminution of cordiality on the part of both Betty and her mother, and she realized that her visit was growing longer than seemed usual. Other guests came and went, remaining only a few days before going on to the next engagement. Accustomed to the indeterminate visits of the South, she had not thought to set any definite time for her departure; but now she felt uncomfortably that the hour had come to bring things to a climax. She gave herself one more week at Longmeadow. Surely three weeks is a short enough time in which to provide oneself with a future and a husband!
She was by no means counting without her host. From the day of her arrival Eduard had taken no pains to hide the fact that he considered her his especial property. While his manner was still that of one who would not willingly brush the bloom from off the peach, there had always been in it a disturbing hint, a slight flattering suggestion, that peaches are tempting even to the jaded appetite. Lately his air of possession had become, to Joan's amusement, decidedly tinged with jealousy. He viewed his more youthful rivals with no attempt at equanimity.
Joan was aware that people were beginning to discuss the affair, and to watch her curiously. It put her on her mettle. She intended to satisfy their curiosity very shortly; but—she wished the thing might be managed without the necessity for so many tête-à-têtes.
It was not that she did not like her future husband. On the contrary she liked him so well as to find herself a little shy with him. She preferred his attentions to take place against a background of society; as for instance, at a dance, when his eye could be as significant as it chose without alarming her; or at table, where under cover of the general conversation, they managed some moments of real intimacy.
There was much to be said, thought Joan, for the French method of vigorously chaperoning young love up to the very threshold of matrimony.
As it was, his foot seemed uncomfortably prone to rest on hers beneath the table; and once when he stooped to recover a dropped fan, his lips had brushed like a touch of delicate flame along the bare length of her forearm—But these indications of what was to come the startled girl was able to ignore as accidental. (She had decided, it will be recalled, to be if necessary a trifle Fast.)
At last she steeled herself firmly to the necessity for tête-à-têtes, realizing that even so finished a performer as Mr. Desmond could not well manage a genuine proposal during the intricacies of the tango, or at dinner between the soup and the entrée. There were certain accompaniments, she fancied, that made the idea of a proposal in public impracticable—Joan's imagination was frequently as useful to her as experience.
She had managed to escape the perils of horseback riding by an inspired expedient. Duplicity, she found, came easily with practice.
"Straddle a horse? Oh, honey, I couldn't!" she had murmured at her most Southern, when informed that there were no side-saddles in the Longmeadow stables.