“Listen, you poor little lamb, I felt you calling me, tugging at me.  The storm delayed me, or I would have been here sooner.  Joan, I had nearly run off the track myself—­it was the thought of you that got me.  I kept remembering that night you made the little dinner for me—­no one had ever taken care of me like that—­and, child, I’ve accepted that job in Chicago.  If I go alone, remembering that dinner you got for me, I don’t know what I’ll do.  Come with me, Joan, will you?  No man in the world is worth such tears as these.  You don’t have to tell me anything.  We’ll begin anew.  You’ll have your music—­I’ll have my work—­and we’ll have a dinner every night.”

Patricia was shivering in her wet clothing.

Joan put her arms about her.  At that moment nothing so much appealed to her as to get away—­get away to think and make sure of herself.  Get away from the place where her idols lay shattered.

“Yes, Pat.  I will go.  But”—­and here she took Patricia’s face in her hot palms—­“don’t you believe that any man can be trusted?”

“No, I don’t.  It isn’t their fault.  They are not made for trust—­they’re made to do things.”

“Pat, you’re all wrong.  It’s girls like you and me that cannot be trusted.  I—­I didn’t know myself that was the trouble.  Pat—­you mustn’t—­think what you are thinking—­you are mistaken.”

“I saw him—­on the stairs,” gasped Patricia.

“Suppose you did?”

“Joan, do you know what time it is?”

“No.  I do not care.  It takes time to have the world tumble about your ears.”

“You—­you—­do not—­love him, do you?”

Joan paused and considered this as if it were a startlingly new idea.

“Love him?—­why, no.  I’m sure I don’t.  But, Pat, what is it that seems like love, but isn’t—­you’re sure it isn’t—­but it hurts and almost kills you?”

The two young faces confronted each other blankly.

“I don’t know,” Patricia said.

“Nor I, Pat.  But we’ve got to know.  All women have unless they want to mess their own lives and the lives of men.  They cannot be free until they do.”

Then Joan took hold of Patricia and exclaimed: 

“Pat, you are dripping wet.  Come to bed.”  While helping Patricia to undress she talked excitedly of going away.

“It’s the only thing to do.  This silly life is a waste of time.  Why, Pat, we have been making all kinds of locks to keep ourselves shut away from freedom and the things we want.  Some day we would want to get out and we could not.  I am going to be free, Pat—­not smudgy.”

Patricia paused in the act of getting into bed and remarked demurely: 

“My God!  Out of the mouths of babes and pet lambs——­ Come, child, shut your eyes.  You make me crawl.”

CHAPTER XIX

“Queer—­to think no day is like to a day that is past.”