CHAPTER IX

A WORD FROM JOAN

Wint found himself unable to put Hetty out of his mind, next day. He had overslept, was late for breakfast, and ate it alone with Hetty serving him. When she came into the dining room, he said:

“Good morning.”

Hetty nodded, without answering. And he asked cheerfully: “Well, how’s the world this morning?”

She said the world was all right; and she went out into the kitchen again before he could ask her anything more. Wint, over his toast and coffee, wondered. He was beginning to have some suspicion as to what was wrong with Hetty. But--he could not believe it. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be.

A certain burden of work shut down on him that day and the next, so that he forgot her in his affairs. He saw her every day, of course; but they were never alone together. His mother was always about. And there were other matters on Wint’s mind. He was glad to be able to forget her. Wint, like most men, was willing to forget a perplexity if forgetting were possible. And Hetty kept out of his way, and seemed to resent his interest.

He met Agnes on the street one morning, and she stopped him and talked with him. She was very gay and vivacious about it, touching his arm in a friendly way now and then to emphasize some meaningless word. Her hand was on his arm thus when he saw Joan coming, a little way off. He did not know that Agnes had seen her some time before, without seeming to do so. Agnes discovered Joan now with a start of surprise, and she took her hand off Wint’s arm in a quick, furtive way, as though she did not want Joan to see. Yet Joan must have seen. Wint was uncomfortably conscious that he had been put in an awkward light; but he supposed the whole thing was chance. Nothing more.

Agnes exclaimed: “Why, Joan, we didn’t see you coming.” Her words conveyed, subtly enough, the impression that if they had seen Joan coming, matters would have been different; and Wint scowled, and looked at Joan, and wondered if she was going to be so foolish as to mind. Then Agnes turned to him and said:

“Run along, Wint, I’ve something to say to Joan.” And he looked at Joan, and thought there was pique in her eyes; and he went away in such a mood of sullen resentment as had not possessed him for months. It stayed with him all that day: he reverted into the prototype of the old, sulky, stubborn Wint who had made all the trouble.

Agnes and Joan walked uptown together, and Agnes chattered gayly enough. Agnes had always a ready tongue, while Joan was of a more silent habit. Agnes said Wint had come down to see her, a few days before.

“That is, of course,” she explained, “he pretended he came to see dad. But he telephoned, and I told him dad wasn’t at home, but he came anyway. We sat on the porch and drank lemonade. That night the moon was full. Wasn’t it the most beautiful night, Joan? I think Wint’s a peach. I always did. I never could see why you and he quarreled. Seems to me you were awfully foolish. I’ll never have a fuss with him, I can tell you.”

There was too much sincerity in Joan for this sort of thing; she was almost helpless in Agnes’s hands. That is, she did not know how to counter the other girl’s shafts. She did say: “Wint and I haven’t really quarreled. We’re very good friends.”

Agnes nodded wisely, and said: “Oh, I know.” She looked up at Joan. “Was it about that Hetty Morfee, Joan? I know it’s none of my business, but I can’t help wondering. I shouldn’t think you’d mind that. Men are that way. I know it doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. Not if--Well, I sha’n’t quarrel with Wint over Hetty, I can tell you.”

Joan had turned white. She could not help it; and Agnes saw, and added cheerfully:

“Of course, you can’t believe half you hear, anyway. But they do say that she.... No, I’m not going to.... I never was one to tell nasty stories about people, Joan.”

Joan could not say anything to save her life. She had to get away from Agnes, and she managed it as quickly as she could. She was profoundly troubled, profoundly unhappy. She had not realized how much Wint meant to her. The things which Agnes intimated made her physically sick with unhappiness at their very possibility. She finished her errands as quickly as she could, and hurried home. On the way, she passed Agnes and Jack Routt together, and they spoke to her, and she responded, holding her voice steady. She was miserably hurt and unhappy.

At home, she shut herself in her room to think. There was a picture of Wint on her bureau, a snapshot she had taken two or three years before. Wint had changed since then. The pictured face was boyish and round and good-natured; Wint’s face now had a strength which this boy in the picture lacked. Wint was a man now, for good or ill.

She had, suddenly, a surge of loyal certainly that it was for good, and not for ill, that Wint was become a man. There was an infinite fund of natural loyalty in Joan; she had been prodded by Agnes into a panic of doubt, but when she was alone, this panic passed. A slow fire of anger at Agnes began to burn in her; anger because Agnes had meant to injure Wint, not because Agnes had hurt her. In Wint’s behalf she took up arms; she considered Agnes; she questioned the girl’s motives, she went over and over the incident, trying to read a meaning into it.

There is an instinctive wisdom in woman which passes anything in man. In that long day alone, thinking and wondering and questioning, Joan came very near hitting upon the whole truth of the matter. Nearer than she knew. She came so near that before Wint appeared that evening--he had arranged, a day or two before, to come and see her--she had begun to hate Jack Routt.

She did not know why this was so. She had never particularly liked Jack Routt; yet he had always been cheerful, an amiable companion, a good fellow. Also, he was Wint’s friend, and Joan was loyal to Wint’s friends as she was to Wint. But--All that day, she had thought, again and again, of Jack’s eyes when she saw him with Agnes. She told herself there had been something hidden in them, something she could not define, something meanly triumphant. She mistrusted him; and before Wint came to her, she hated Routt. And feared him.

Nevertheless, she and Wint talked of matters perfectly commonplace for most of that evening together. They were apt to talk of commonplace things in these days; because safety lay in the commonplace. There was a strange balance of emotions between Wint and Joan. A little thing might have tipped it either way. At times, Wint wished to bring matters to an issue; he wished to cry out to Joan that he loved her. But he was restrained by a desperate fear that she was not ready to hear him say this. He was afraid she would cast him out once more. And--he could not bear the thought of that. It was something to be able to see her, talk with her, be near her. He dared not risk losing this much.

Thus they talked of ordinary matters, till Wint got up to go at last. Joan went out on the porch with him; he stopped, on one of the steps, a little below her. He had said good-by before Joan found courage. She asked, then:

“Wint! Will you let me?... There’s something I want to ask you.”

He was surprised; his heart began to pound in his throat. “To ask me?” he repeated. “Why--all right, Joan. What is it?”

“Are you and Routt pretty good friends, Wint?”

“Yes,” he said, at once. “Jack’s the best friend I’ve got.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. What’s the idea, Joan?”

She said reluctantly: “I don’t know. Only--I don’t seem to trust him. I don’t like him. I’m afraid of him.”

He laughed. “Good Lord! Jack’s harmless; he’s a prince.”

“I don’t think he’s as loyal to you as you are to him,” she said.

Wint exclaimed impatiently: “The way you girls get down on a fellow! Jack’s all right.”

Wint’s impatience made Joan quieter and more sure of herself. “I’m not sure,” she repeated, and smiled a little wistfully. “Just--don’t trust him too far, Wint.”

“I’d trust him with all I’ve got,” Wint said flatly. “I think you’re--I’m surprised at you, Joan.” The stubborn anger roused in the morning when Joan came upon him with Agnes reawoke in Wint. His jaw set, and his eyes were hard.

Joan was troubled; she wanted to say more, but she did not know how. And--she could not forget Hetty. She had not meant to speak to Wint of Hetty; but Joan was woman enough to be unable to hold her tongue. Also, Wint’s loyalty to Routt had angered her; she was willing to hurt him--as men and women are always willing to hurt the thing they love. She said slowly:

“Did you know people are beginning to talk about Hetty Morfee, Wint? You and Hetty!”

Wint’s anger flamed; he flung up his hand disgustedly. “You women. You’re always ready to jump on each other. Why can’t this town let Hetty alone?”

“I only meant--” Joan began.

“I don’t care what you meant,” Wint told her. “You ought not to pass gossip on, Joan. I hate it.”

“I don’t see why you have to defend her,” she protested; and he said hotly:

“I’m not defending her. She doesn’t need defending. If she did, I would, though. Hetty’s all right.”

Joan drew back a little into the shadow of the porch. After a moment, she said:

“Good night, Wint.”

He said harshly: “Good night. And for Heaven’s sake, forget this foolishness. Routt and Hetty.... They’re all right.”

She did not answer. He said again: “Good night,” and he turned and went down to the gate, and away.

Joan watched him go. She thought she ought to be angry with him, and hurt. She was surprised to discover that she was rather proud of Wint, instead; proud of him for being angry, even at her, for the sake of his friend, and for the sake of Hetty.

She was troubled, because she thought he was wrong; but she was infinitely proud, too, because he had stuck by his guns.