"Oh, you dear foolish people!" cried Ann in despair. "Why don't you announce your engagement in the Times and discourage the line once and for all?"
"Of course!" said Kenny and looked at Joan.
"I shouldn't mind at all," said Joan, coloring.
Whereat Kenny called up the Times office, and the Holbein Club went mad with delight. Jan, without meaning to, got very drunk and shocked himself, and Margot made the ring. She did not know why Kenny wanted the golden circlet barred crosswise like a frail ladder. Nor why he insisted upon a cluster of wistaria set in amethysts.
Even then misgivings sent him to Ann in a panic of conscience.
"Am I ungenerous?" he demanded. "Perhaps Joan should have had a year of utter freedom. You know what I mean, Ann. To come and go as she pleases and with whom she pleases. She's so young." He flushed.
"Joan wouldn't have it different," said Ann, touched by the boyish wistfulness of his eyes. "She clings to you. And she's as shy and unspoiled as the day you brought her here. This flurry of admiration to her means nothing at all. She's unhappy with strangers."
Kenny knew it was true and marveled.
"I would like to be generous," he admitted with an effort. "But I can't. It's the simple truth, Ann, I can't. Even the thought of her liking other men—bothers me."
December was fated to hold for him another startling anticlimax. It came one snowy morning when he had slept even later than usual, dreaming of an iridescent balloon that climbed higher and higher with Joan peeping radiantly over the edge until at the peal of the telephone bell it disappeared entirely.