CHAPTER XII
"In all directions gulfs and yawning abysses."
That was what David Martin felt was encompassing Joan. He wanted to take a hand in her affairs, but before he left Ridge House Doris made him promise that unless she changed her mind, he would not even call upon Joan.
"If she knows that you have your eye on her, David, much of what I hope for will be threatened. You have quite a dreadful eye, dear man, and Joan is sensitive. She may look you up—I will write to her about you. If she doesn't, she does not want you to—well, Davey, meddle! And she has a perfect right to her freedom. She is self-supporting now!"
Doris could but show her pride in Joan's cleverness.
"Very well, Doris. I wash my hands of the matter, but I think it sheer madness!"
With that Martin returned to town and waited, hopefully, for a summons from Joan. It did not come!
He did go so far, one evening, as to walk on the block where the studio was, but he got no satisfaction from that except the proof of its respectability.
"I cannot look back just now!" Joan had thought when considering Martin, "and Uncle David would tell me things about Aunt Dorrie and Nancy that would rumple all my calm, and I dare not risk it."