Joan stood limply in the embrace, but she did not turn and cling to Fanny, or weep as the other girl rather wished she would.
"How ridiculous of me," she answered. "I must look a strange sight this morning."
Fanny became practical on the moment, since sympathy was evidently not desired. "Well, you'll start right away now," she stated, "and get out of your things. It's early yet, only about seven; I will brush your hair for you, and you will slip into bed. You needn't get up until late to-day, you know."
"I haven't the slightest desire to sleep," Joan told her; none the less she was obeying the other's commands. "And I have got to catch an early train."
"You are going away?" gasped Fanny.
"Back home," Joan answered. "They have sent for me; my aunt has been ill. Oh, it's not for good, Fanny"—she almost laughed at the other's amazed face—"I shall be back here before long."
"I hope not;" Fanny spoke, for her, fiercely. "I shall hate to lose you, honey, but after all I don't stand for much, and you aren't meant for this kind of world. You can't get the fun out of it I can, it only hurts you." She was brushing out the soft brown hair. "What happened yesterday?" she asked suddenly, her head on one side.
Joan moved from under the deft hands and stood up. "You want to know why I am looking like a tragedy queen this morning," she said. "It isn't strange you should be curious; I must seem quite mad. Yesterday"—she caught her hands to her throat—"was what might be called a disastrous failure. I tried to be very clever, and I was nothing but a most awful fool. He knew, he had known all the time, the thing which I had been so afraid to tell him. It had not made any difference to his loving me, but yesterday I had that other man here, you remember him, don't you? You might almost recognize his roses." Her eyes wandered round the room, her hands came away slowly from her throat; she had seemed to be near tears, but suddenly the outburst passed. "That's all," she said dryly, "Dick drew his own conclusions from the man being here. I tried to explain, at least I think I tried to explain. I know I wanted to hold him back, but he threw aside my hands and went from the room. I shan't ever see him again, Fanny, and the funny thing is that it doesn't really seem to matter this morning."
"Oh, you poor thing," Fanny whispered again. She did not say much else, because for the present words were useless. Otherwise her own mind was full of consoling reflections. A man, after all, is not so easily turned aside from what must have been a very big purpose in his life. Already Fanny could look into the future and say "Bless you, my children," in her heart. She had been afraid, drawing her conclusions from Dick's face and Joan's silence, that things were very much worse. Joan might, for instance, have told the truth, and Dick, man-like, might have resented it.
She ran downstairs presently and came up again with the breakfast, fussing round Joan till the other made an attempt to eat something, pouring out her tea for her, buttering her toast. "I should very much like to see you have a jolly good cry, honey," she confessed when the pretence at breakfast had finished. "It would do you a world of good. But since you don't seem able to, I shall pull the curtains and you must try and sleep. I'll come and call you again at ten."