As far as concerned her attitude toward herself, she considered Joan Thursday above reproach, seeing that she had withdrawn from her marriage long before even as much as contemplating any man other than her husband. She held that she was now free, at liberty to do as she liked, untrammelled by opinion whether public or private: that she had outgrown criticism.
True, Quard might divorce her. But what of that? If he did, Joan Thursday wouldn't suffer. If he didn't, he himself would be the last to pretend he was leading a life of celibacy because of her defection.
Marbridge she really liked; his appeal to her nature was stronger than that of any man she had as yet encountered. He attracted her in every way, and he excited her curiosity as well. He was a new type—but in what respect different from other men? He was famously successful with women: why? He had wealth, cultivation of a certain sort (real or spurious, Joan couldn't discriminate) and social position; and this flattered, that such an one should reject the women of his own sphere for Joan Thursday—late of the stocking counter.
And if she could turn this infatuation of his to material profit, while at the same time satisfying the several appetites Marbridge excited in her: why not? Other women by the score did as much without censure or obvious cause for regret. Why not she?
How many women of her acquaintance—women whose interests, running in grooves parallel to hers, were intelligible to Joan—would have refused the chance that was now hers through Marbridge? Not one; none, at least, who was free as Joan was free; not even Hattie Morrison, whose views upon the subject of such arrangements were strong, whom Joan considered straitlaced to the verge of absurdity. Hattie, Joan believed, would have jumped at the opportunity.
But of course, denied, Hattie would be sure to decry it, and with the more bitterness since Joan had won it in the wreck of Hattie's hopes.
And here was the only shadow upon the fair prospect of Joan's contentment. She who had questioned Hattie's right to become a party to the conspiracy against Mrs. Cardrow—how could she ever go home and face the girl, with this treachery on her conscience?
True: Hattie didn't know, wouldn't know before morning, might never learn the truth during the term of their association.
None the less, to be with Hattie that night would be to sit with a skeleton at the feast of her felicity....
On impulse Joan turned to the left on leaving the New York Theatre building, and moved slowly, purposelessly, down Broadway.