“You should be more respectful toward your father,” Susan unwisely interrupted.
Without turning Joan said, “You milksop. Don’t peddle your virtue around me.”
“Susan, perhaps you had better leave. I assure you I won’t require your protection. Joan’s periodic tantrums are more interesting than dangerous.”
“What’s that you’ve been writing, dear Papa?” Joan said. She snatched his diary from the desk and read aloud to Susan: “ ‘Virtue is a clammy thing, rather oppressive in these quantities.’ That’s you, Susan. Now shall I read something about me?”
“If you must humiliate yourself, Joan,” Professor Frost said.
“Listen to this. ‘June first. Am rather out of pocket this month, Joan’s penchant for the possessions of others having extended to Miss Bonner’s pearl ring. Total outlay: two hundred dollars.’ ”
“Joan!” Susan cried, horrified.
“This diary is worth a lot to me. I think I’ll keep it. If you don’t mind.”
Professor Frost held out his hand for the diary. “Certainly I mind. Don’t be childish, Joan. It has no value to you. It’s purely a personal record.”
She jumped off the desk and swung round to face him. “Personal record, hell! I know what you’re going to do with it, you bastard.”
He caught her hand, hard. “Put it back on my desk, Joan. Instantly. Put it back.”
Her fist caught him on the cheek. He lurched back, grasped at the desk helplessly, and fell to the floor. Joan watched impassively as Susan helped him to his feet.
“I’m packing,” she said calmly. “I’ll be gone tonight. And may the devil protect me from ever meeting either of you again.”
“Tom dear, you’re not eating,” Mary Little said at lunch. “What is the matter? You know you can tell me everything, dear, and I always understand.”
Tom choked and reached out hastily for a glass of water.
“It’s not about that young Frost girl, surely?”
“Of course not,” Tom said in an injured tone.
Mary sighed. She would have liked to believe the best, but it was so often wrong that she was compelled to believe the worst.
“Has she been forcing her attentions on you, Tom, dear?”
“No,” he said, with some truth.
“Oh dear! Tom, you’re not feeling — weak again, are you?”
“Why don’t you eat your lunch and not bother about me?” Tom speared a lettuce leaf viciously. “I’ve got a stomachache.”
Mary sighed again. How much better it would be for everyone if he really had a stomachache. But no, the trouble was spiritual.
“Tom, dear, you mustn’t try to deceive me. No matter how black the truth is—”
“It isn’t black,” Tom said loudly. “I haven’t done anything. There’s nothing to tell. I have a stomachache.”
Jennie saved the situation, as she often did, by bringing in the tea. She was apparently in the throes of some tremendous excitement, for her plump cheeks were pink and shining and her glasses had slid down almost to the end of her nose. She was very fond of Mrs. Little, and the relations between them were informal.
“They just had an awful row up at the Frosts’,” she announced with pride.
“It isn’t kind to gossip, Jennie,” Mary said, hoping that Jennie would not take this reprimand too seriously. Jennie didn’t.
“Miss Joan is running away. And she knocked her father down flat on the floor and pulled out handfuls of Susan’s hair. Oh, it must have been wonder —
Tom turned pea-green. “That’s enough, Jennie.”
“Is Professor Frost seriously injured?” Mary asked in a shocked voice.
“Good gracious, I forgot to ask, Mrs. Little.”
“And Joan is really going away? Has she left yet?”
“She’s going tonight.”
“Thank you, Jennie. You may go now.”
Jennie hurried out, and Mary turned to her husband.
“Is that what is worrying you, Tom?”
“I’m not worried.
“Poor Tom,” Mary said, shaking her head. “You are feeling weak again, aren’t you?”
“Oh hell,” Tom said.
She got up and came around the table to him, and put her hand fondly on his head.
“We’ll fight it together, Tom, as we always do.”
Tom’s face was ghastly. From the kitchen came Jennie’s voice raised in ecstatic song: “In the good old summertime, tra la.”
In her room on the ground floor Joan Frost finished her lunch. She set her tray on the floor outside the door and locked the door. Then she lit a cigarette and once again picked up her father’s diary. Now that she was leaving and had nothing to fear she could read his diary with considerable enjoyment. Later she would burn it, of course, but it was amusing to see how she had made him squirm.
