Joan glided away like a shadow.
Don Quixote! And so he had done that strange, fantastic thing for her—and she had given the money away to Don! Joan stopped at the foot of the stairway, her face colorless and unbelieving, her mind casting up a vivid picture of the night of search in the sitting room. It—could—not—be!
Ah, but it could! For Kenny, reckless and on his mettle, was a finished actor. And the morning at the telephone! His silence and constraint had bothered her then not a little. Later, whirling through the blizzard in a taxi, he had begged her not to do it. And he had surrendered in the end with a sigh and smiled and kissed her. His eyes, warmly blue, irresistibly Irish in their tenderness, seemed now to stare at her with sad reproach. Ah, the kindness of him! Hot stinging tears rolled slowly down the girl's white cheeks.
"Joan!" It was Brian's voice behind her.
Joan turned, trembling, blinked and smiled.
Something in her face drove his memory back to the moonlit wood. Niobe on the verge of a passion of tears!
"You look like a sad little brown thrush," he said gently.
His voice, his eyes chilled her with foreboding. They stood in utter silence.
Joan touched the throbbing veins in her throat and moistened her lips.
"You have heard from Mr. Whitaker—"