“Joan has been sent home from Bishop Bethune. She is, according to the headmistress’ report, completely intractable. That lady made no definite accusations, but she made it clear that she considers Joan responsible for certain petty thefts that have occurred in the senior dormitory. Rather than be humiliated in this fashion I would increase her pocket money (already twice as much as Susan’s) but this would appear to be superficial treatment at best. Susan is uncommonly pleased at Joan’s return. The air bristles with righteous reproach.”
“Milksop,” Joan said absently, and flicked over the pages.
“Joan has just brought me the news of her engagement to Ralph Bonner. Although she has an emerald ring to substantiate her statement, I shall shelve it temporarily. Miss Bonner’s opinion of Joan is so low — and I have heard it so often — that I am forced to believe Joan’s fabrications are becoming more ambitious. Faced with the choice of Joan or death, Emily would, I fancy, choose the more innocuous.”
“What the hell does he mean by that?” Joan said.
“Susan managed to convey to me, with extreme reluctance, of course, the information that Joan is casting a predatory eye on that most unattractive fellow, Tom Little. She seemed disappointed that I did not immediately challenge the fellow to a duel. But I have two reasons for my isolationist policy in this affair: my efforts would be ineffectual, and I feel that to Mary Little forgiveness is the breath of life.”
“Is it?” Joan said softly. “Is it really?”
She closed the book and hid it beneath a pile of dresses in her suitcase. Then she went over to the mirror and examined her face intently, as if it were the face of a stranger. She was still at the mirror when Ralph came.
He knocked timidly at her door. Ralph was always a little frightened of Joan, and he knew from the sound of her voice over the telephone that she was going to be unpleasant.
She unlocked the door and he went in, a tall, handsome young man with a slightly vacant expression as if he were bewildered by everything that happened to him. All his efforts to help himself had been thwarted: Wang chose his clothes and dressed him, and Emily did his thinking and provided pocket money. Joan Frost was his first close contact with the world, and in her hands he was a baby in a blizzard.
He had a strong sense of chivalry gleaned from books, and when his aunt expended her vocabulary over Joan’s faults Ralph attributed it to jealousy and stood up for his fiancée. The tales connecting Joan and Tom Little he dismissed as malicious gossip.
“Hello, Joan,” he said, standing just inside the door. “I— Well, here I am.”
“You’re a simpleton, Ralph. I know you’re here. Sit down.”
He sat down nervously on the edge of a chair.
“Do you suppose your father—? I mean, after all, it’s your bedroom, and—” He looked down and saw the suitcase lying open on the floor. “Oh. Going away?”
“I am.”
“Oh.”
Joan laughed again. “Is that all you have to say, you spineless little fish?”
He glanced around the room, flushing. “The windows are open, Joan. I mean, I don’t want anyone to hear you talk like that. It might give them the wrong impression.”
“I don’t care who hears what I’m going to say to you, Ralph.”
The conversation lasted half an hour. At two, Dr. Prye saw Ralph walking along the lane.
“Young Bonner looks drunk,” he said to Nora.
Nora went to the window. “You’d get drunk, too, if you were engaged to Joan. Peace through alcohol.”
Prye turned to her with a puzzled frown. “Maybe he’s not drunk. He looks ill. Perhaps I should—”
“No, you shouldn’t.” Prye raised his eyebrows and Nora blushed. “Don’t get mixed up with this business,” she said quickly.
“You’re being a mysterious girl again, Nora. What business?”
Nora waved her hand vaguely. “All this. There’s going to be trouble and you’d be in the middle of the circle. Now you may dissolve in hilarity if you wish.”
Prye did not laugh. “How you prophesy, Nora. The Irish must be fey.”
“Sometimes,” she said seriously.
“I don't mind trouble. If there is any I’d rather be in the center than describing futile arcs on the edge.”
“If Joan were removed,” Nora said quietly, “the cause would be removed. That’s what psychologists try to do, isn’t it?”
“In a sense. But your view of the situation is too simple, too narrow. Joan is a catalyst, she merely aids the chemical reaction.”
“Is she insane?”
Prye drew a long breath. “That’s practically the only question a psychiatrist hesitates to answer. I occasionally can make a snap judgment that a person is
“All that means you don’t know?” Nora said primly.
“I don’t.”
“What do you
