“Do you think so?” Joan looked wistfully at him.  “You see this isn’t real; it’s play, and I’m afraid Miss Jones and Mr. Black would be awfully suspicious of each other—­just on account of the play.”

“And so—­we’ll make sure that shields are always in commission,” Raymond reassured her.  “In this small world of ours we cannot run any risks with Miss Jones and Mr. Black.  They have no part here.”

“No, they haven’t!” Joan leaned back.  That subtle weakness was touching her; the aftermath of strained imagination.  She was often homesick for Doris and Nancy—­she was getting afraid that she might not be able to find her way back to them when the time came to go.

“Poor little girl!” Raymond was saying over the table, and his words fitted into the tune the fountain sang—­it was the same tune the fountain sang in the sunken room of long ago; all fountains, Joan had grown to think, sang the same lovely, drippy song.

“I wonder just how brave and free a little girl it is?”

Joan screwed up her lips.

“Limitless,” she whispered, daringly.

“You’re played out, child!” Raymond went on; “there are blue shadows under your eyes.  I wish you’d let me do something for you.”

“You are doing something,” the words came slowly, caressingly; “you’re making a hard time very beautiful; you’re making me believe—­in—­in fairies, or what stands for fairies, nowadays; you’re making me trust myself and for ever after when—­when I slip back where I belong—­I’m going to remember, and be—­so glad!  You see, I know, now, that in the world of grown-ups you can make things come true.”

“Where you belong?” Raymond gripped his hands close.  “Just where do you belong? Are you Miss Jones or are you the sweet nameless thing that I am looking at?”

“Oh!  I’m Miss Jones!” Joan sat up promptly, “and I’m going to make sure that Miss Jones doesn’t get hurt while I play with her.”

And as she spoke Joan was thinking of the ugly interpretation of this beautiful play which Patricia would give.  Patricia couldn’t make things come true because she never tried hard enough.

“I wonder”—­and the fountain made Joan dizzy as she listened to Raymond—­“I wonder, now since I’m to stay in town, if you’d let me bring my car in?  We’d have some great old rides.  We’d cool off and have picnics by roadsides and—­and get the best of this blasted heat.”

“I think it would be heavenly!” Joan saw, already, cool woods and felt the refreshing air on her face.

Raymond was taken aback.  He had expected protest.

But the car materialized and so did the picnics and the cool breezes on young, unafraid faces.

At each new venture reassurance waxed stronger—­things could be made true in the world; it was only children who failed, in spite of tradition.

Just at this time Sylvia came to town radiating success and happiness.