Joan regarded, as she never had before, the freedom and safety of such girls as Nancy. She could realize the pressure, the favouring environment that surrounded so desirable a thing as this coming together of Raymond and Nancy!
She knew how the same force could blot such as she was supposed to be from the inner circle! How little they counted!
Oh! the bitterness of the knowledge that it was such girls as Patricia—as Raymond believed her—who were not free; who must snatch what they can from life and not resent what goes with it. They must—not care! Outside the code there was no real freedom—because there was no choice! It was a place of chains and bars compared to the other.
The waves of humiliation and shame swept over Joan, but each time she emerged she held her head higher.
"And he left me—to go my way and he went—to Nancy! He did not care!" It was anger now; proud, life-saving anger. "If he had only cared!"
"And why—should he?" The thought was like a dash of cold water in her face.
After all, why should he? It was only play until that awful night! That was the revealing hour of real danger.
Clutching her hands, Joan went over every step of the way upon which Raymond had gone with her.
It had all been a mad escapade in that time of mistaken freedom. He and she had both been brought to the realization of the folly by a blow that had awakened them, not stunned them. They had been forced to acknowledge the danger hidden in themselves. It was in such whirlpools many were lost, but they——
And at this point Joan recalled, as if he were before her now, the look in Raymond's face when he gained control of himself!