Joan Thursday: A Novel

by Louis Joseph Vance

Furthermore, such dissipation as she indulged in was never permitted to carry her beyond the border-line which, in her understanding, limited discretion in her relations with men. She enjoyed leading them on, but marriage had made her too completely cognizant of herself to permit of any affair going beyond a certain clearly defined point: she couldn't afford to throw herself away. And more than once she checked sharply and left an undrained glass, warned by her throbbing pulses that she was responding a trace too ardently to the admiration in the eyes of some male companion of the evening.

But there were only two whom she held dangerous to her peace of mind, one because she was afraid of him, the other because she admired him against her will.

The first was an eccentric dancer and comedian calling himself Billy Salute. A man of middle-age and old beyond his years in viciousness, the gymnastic violence of his calling in great measure counteracted the effects of his excesses and kept him young in body. He was a constant and heavy but what was known to Joan's circle as a safe drinker; drunkenness never obliterated his consciousness or disturbed his physical equilibrium; in spite of its web of wrinkles, his skin remained fair and clear as a boy's, and retained much of the fresh colouring of youth. But his eyes were cold and hard and profoundly informed with knowledge of womankind. His regard affected Joan as had Marbridge's, that day at Tanglewood; under its analysis she felt herself denuded; pretence were futile to combat it: the man knew her.

He made no advances; but he watched her closely whenever they were together; and she knew that he was only waiting, patient in the conviction that he had only to wait.

And thus he affected her with such fear and fascination that she avoided him as much as possible; but he was never far out of her thoughts; he lingered always on the horizon of her consciousness like the seemingly immobile yet portentous bank of cloud that masks the fury of a summer storm....

The other man pursued her without ceasing. He was young, not over twenty-five or six—an age to which Joan felt herself immeasurably superior in the knowledge and practice of life—and happened to be the one man of her acquaintance who was neither an actor nor connected with the business side of the stage. By some accident he had blundered from newspaper reporting to writing for cheaply sensational magazines, and from this to writing for the stage. It is true that his achievements in this last quarter had thus far been confined to collaboration with a successful playwright on the dramatization of one of his stories; but that didn't lessen his self-esteem and assertiveness. He claimed extraordinary ability for himself in a quite matter-of-fact tone, and on his own word was on terms of intimacy with every leading manager and star in the country. Nobody Joan knew troubled to contradict his pretensions, and despite that wide and seasoned view of life she believed herself to possess she was still inexperienced enough to credit more than half that he told her, never appreciating that, had the man been what he claimed, he would have had no time to waste toadying to actors.

He might, if not discouraged, prove very useful to her.

In fact, he promised to—repeatedly.

More than this, his attentions flattered her more than she would have cared to confess even to herself. He didn't lack wit, wasn't without intelligence, and the power of his imagination couldn't be denied; thus he figured to her as the only man of mental attainments she had known since Matthias. It was something to be desired by such as this one, even though his abnormally developed egotism sometimes seemed appalling.

It manifested itself in more ways than one: in his strut, in the foppishness of his dress, in his elaborate affectation of an English accent. He was a small person by the average standard, and slender, but well-formed, and wore clothing admirably tailored if always of an extreme cut. His cheeks were too fleshy, almost plump: something which had the effect of making his rather delicate features seem pinched. Near-sighted, he wore customarily a horn-rimmed pince-nez from which a wide black ribbon dangled like a mourning-band.