“I—some way I’ll find him and give them to him. And if—if he’s dead I’ll find her.” She pointed to the beautiful lady in the gold frame. “I—I’ll find her and them.” She nodded toward the other portraits.
Kay was not one who measured out charity in a glass and served it with a spoon. “Then,” he said huskily, “you may have them for exactly what I paid—fifteen dollars.”
Without another word, he snapped the bags shut one by one.
A long silence followed. Merry stood this as long as she could; then, seizing a long strand of narrow golden ribbon that had fallen from the trunk, she dashed round and round the group, encircling them all in this fragile band. Then, with a deft twitch, she thrust herself within the band.
“This,” she cried, “is our Circle of Gold.”
“And such a circle as it is!” Dan Baker’s voice wavered. “You could break it with a touch, yet it is stronger than bands of steel, for such a band is but the emblem of a bond of human hearts that must not be broken.”
It was a subdued but curiously happy Petite Jeanne who rode back to the studio that night on a rattling street car. She felt as though she had been at church and had joined in the holiest of communions.
“And this is Sunday, too,” she whispered to Florence.
“Yes,” Florence agreed, not a little surprised at her words, not divining their meaning. “This is Sunday.”
Later in the day, when the shadows had fallen across the rooftops and night had come, Dan Baker sat dozing by Angelo’s fireplace. Jeanne sat at the opposite side, but she was not sleeping. She was deep in thought. The others had gone for a stroll on the boulevard.