CHAPTER XVI
"And they planted their feet on the 'Sun Road'."
If the spring has a direct and concentrated effect upon a young man's fancy, it must have equal effect upon a young woman's, else the man's would perish and come to look upon the spring as the lean part of the year. Joan had meant all she said when, in the strength and virtue of her youth, she had drawn herself away from Kenneth Raymond and proudly remarked:
"Certainly not! And I am not afraid."
Both statements were sincere and should have brought her peace and satisfaction. They did neither.
Raymond had, apparently, taken her at her word, and sought other places in which to appease his hunger, and Joan turned to Patricia, for Sylvia was called out of town.
That dream of a frieze that had long smouldered in Sylvia's soul had broken bounds and a rich man, erecting a summer home on the Massachusetts coast, having seen some of Sylvia's work, had invited her down to "talk over" the frieze idea.
"And he'll let me do it!" Sylvia had confided breathlessly to Joan as she packed her suitcase. "I can always tell when a thing is going to come true. Now if I had shown him sketches he might not have taken me—but when I can talk my pictures all along the walls of his big, sunny room it will be another matter.