"Why," protested Betty, "there's not a side-saddle to be had this side of Kentucky, Jo—they're as extinct as the Dodo! And even if there were, papa would never allow one on any of our horses. You haven't your habit here, anyway. Do be sensible, dear. I'll let you ride the Rabbit!"
Joan shook her head, regretfully but firmly. "If my father were to see a lady of his family straddling a horse, in trousers," she said, "I think he'd have a stroke!"—which was doubtless true.
It was necessary, therefore, for Eduard's increasing desire for solitude to take the form of canoeing, or driving in the dog-cart without a groom; or preferably, strolling through a certain bit of near-by woodland.
Here he liked to fling himself at his handsome length on the moss at Joan's feet, and read to her chosen bits out of the "Rubaiyat": a work much in favor at the moment, which would appear to have been translated by Mr. Fitzgerald for the express purpose of uttering Mr. Desmond's sentiments.
Joan murmured "Um-m-m!" and "How true!" and "Exquisite!" in the right places; but she was not often listening to him. She was watching the play of light and shade on his fine, waving hair; she was studying more keenly than she knew the chiseled features, bearing those slight marks of manly dissipation which are for some reason never wholly displeasing to the young feminine eye; she was noticing the smallness of his hands, the really beautiful cut and quality of his clothes.
What sort of person was he under the agreeable surface, this chosen husband of hers?
An artist, people had called him: but Art in his case seemed not the exacting mistress she had fancied it. Or perhaps the artistic temperament required long periods of recuperative leisure.... She had decided that it was wiser not to fall in love, at least till after marriage: but she did choose that her husband should be the sort of person it was possible to fall in love with; well-bred, fastidious, cultivated, thoroughly a man of the world. All these Eduard Desmond was, and more. He had a real and unaffected taste for music, books, nature—for what Joan called to herself "the real things." It argued well for future companionship.
There was, to be sure, the disability of what she thought of vaguely as his "habits." But there had been no sign of them in the two weeks she had lived in the same house with him; and even if he had not as yet completely overcome them, there was no reason why he should not do so later, with a watchful wife to help him. On the whole their chances for happiness together seemed quite as good as those of most people she knew, thought Joan, with unconscious cynicism.
The material side of the arrangement did not occur to her. For all her calm calculations, Joan was not mercenary. All she asked was a place of her own in the world, a sense of permanence; she longed quite wistfully for a background that "stayed put." Romance was a thing she felt she could do without forever, in return for independence from her step-mother, and perhaps a little home of her own with a garden to it. She believed that to any man who would provide these few essentials she could be a faithful and a loyal wife.
What would he expect of her in return? Would she have to go on all her life being Southern and winsome and alluring? Would he prefer her, after the honeymoon, say, to go in heavily for sports, like the women of his set? Or might she presently venture to be just herself again—just Joan, whatever that might be! The gayest of rôles becomes a trifle wearing for everyday use.