“We went down in the elevator together, the boy winking all the way down at me—­and—­that’s all, Joan, except that you’ve got to go careful with Mr. Kenneth Raymond.  You don’t want to hurt that fairy godmother of his; she hasn’t had many things of her own in life, and I do insist that while one is grabbing it’s better to grab where there is a flock than pick a ewe-lamb.  Besides, this Kenneth Raymond hasn’t begun to understand himself—­he’s been too busy understanding life.  Have a heart, Joan!”

Joan looked up sedately.

“Isn’t it queer, Pat, but now that I know him he doesn’t seem interesting in the least.  He’s priggish and conceited; he’s a poser, too.  It is too bad, Pat, for you to tire yourself out and get such a—­a dry stick for your pains.”

Patricia regarded Joan for a full minute and then she remarked: 

“You had better go home and get to bed, child.  And look here—­I give you this advice free:  a fire lighted by an idiot can do as much damage as any other kind of a fire.”

“Thanks, Pat.  I’ll remember that when I—­play around dry sticks.  Good-night, you old, funny Pat, and thank you.”

Joan bent and kissed the top of Patricia’s head.

After that evening with Patricia Joan clung to Sylvia with unusual tenacity.  She also went to see a well-known teacher of music and got his opinion of her voice.

“Your voice needs nearly everything to be done for it that can be done to a voice,” the professor frankly told her, “but you have a voice, beyond doubt.  You have feeling, too, almost too much of it; it is feeling uncontrolled, perhaps not understood.

“If you are willing to give years to it you will be a singer.”

The man thought that he was killing hope in the girl before him, but to his surprise she raised her eyes seriously to him and said: 

“I am a working girl, but I am saving for the chance of doing what you suggest.  I will begin next winter.  I think I know that I shall never be great, but I believe I will sing some day.”

The man bowed her out with deep respect.

When Joan told of her interview Sylvia was delighted, and Patricia, who had happened in for a cup of tea, looked relieved.

“Of course you’ll sing, Joan,” she said, enthusiastically, “and if you don’t turn your talent to account you’ll bring the wrath of God down upon you.  That Brier Bush is well enough to start you—­but you’re pretty well through with it, I fancy.”

Patricia was arraigning herself with Sylvia for reasons best known to herself.  She had the air of a very discreet young woman.

Long did Joan lie awake that night on her narrow bed.  She had raised the shade, and the stars were splendid in the blue-black sky.

She was happier, sadder, than she had ever been in her life before—­more confused.

She wanted Doris and Nancy and the shelter and care; she wanted her own broad path and the thrill that her own sense of power gave her.  She wanted to cling close to Sylvia; she was afraid of Patricia but felt the girl’s influence in her deepest depths.