"Yes, Joan—and now go on, in just your own way. For a little while I have you to myself. Nancy will take lunch at Uncle David's new bungalow."
There was a good deal of explanation necessary in dealing with Sylvia's part in the past—Doris had banked on Sylvia. The tea room was easier, but Joan slipped over that experience so glibly that Doris made a mental reservation concerning it.
Patricia was the critical test. At the mention of her name Cuff whined pathetically, and Joan bent and gathered him in her arms.
"I—I can't talk much about Pat, dearie, not now"; Joan bent her head; "she was so wonderful. Just a beautiful, lost spirit in the world—trying to find its way home. There was only one way for Pat—I shall always be glad that I could go part of it with her."
"Yes, yes—I am glad, too!" Doris whispered, for she had caught up with Joan now. She did not know all that lay in the valleys—but she felt the chill and darkness through which her child had come up to the light. Strange as it might seem, she was thinking of that time, long ago, when she had escaped from the Park and had touched life in the open.
The hospital experience Joan could describe with a touch of humour that eventually brought a smile to Doris's face. She took for granted that it had been in Chicago, and when Joan told of flitting away from the young doctor who had saved her, Doris laughingly said:
"Joan, that was cruel. You should have explained."
"No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise. Of course I'm going to explain to him and send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose. When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the least idea what was happening—he saw only the bag of bones that he had rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've learned more than some girls."
And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past. With that power she had for holding to the thing she desired, the thing she wanted to make true, she laughed her merry, carefree laugh—she recalled only the joyous, amusing incidents and she watched with hungry, loving eyes the effect she was creating.
It was while this was going on that Mary came upon the piazza to announce luncheon. There were days when no one saw Mary, when her cabin was closed and locked; but after such absences she came to Ridge House and worked with a fervour that flavoured of apology.