 you had decided, you thought there
was no more to it—but you see, Grant, all that time I was going through
experiences and thoughts—that have made me see that as far as I’m
concerned—_there’s no more to it_.” She rose, her gesture spelling
dismissal. “So you wouldn’t wait—three years and a half, or whatever it
might be. I think that shows, Grant, that your love was about the same
as mine.”

Mesmerized by the finality of her tone, he started to the door, but
stopped halfway. “Am I to believe—that you are always going to take
this stand—be this way?”

“Please do believe it. I am not drunk with music—I shall always take
this stand with you—because, you see, I don’t really love you, and I
suppose that—makes all the difference!”

He gained the door, and stood looking back. She was regarding him with
parted lips, cheeks darkly flushed, a little pulse beating in her
temple, her hair blanketing her shoulders in folds of gold. “And
please,” she articulated in a thin thread of sound—“please forget
me—very quickly!”

“Forget you——” The words escaped him in a sort of wonder. They stood
motionless, eyes fixed upon one another, and into the faces of each
there stole an impatient bewilderment. They had leaped to the peaks of
poetry and youth’s dreams for a few lambent hours, and now the peaks
were far away again. Veiled in the clouds of awakened scepticism and
analysis, the peaks were higher than before, and their aspect had
forever changed.

A tremor passed in the air between them. Knifing across it came the stab
of the doorbell—anticlimax of everyday routine cutting the wheels of
drama from under. Few can stand the swift descent. Joy hesitated, then
came forward. Grant hastily captured his hat, which had rolled to the
hall floor some time ago, and stood brushing off the dust of which there
was a disgraceful amount.

As the door swung open both fell back in different reactions. Jim Dalton
stood on the threshold.

“Good evening, Miss Nelson,” he smiled. “I——” His glance travelled
past her to Grant.

“This seems to be Miss Nelson’s evening at home,” Grant said evenly.
“Good-bye, Joy.”

She watched him signal for the elevator, still brushing the dust from
his hat. Grant would probably be a masculine replica of his mother when
he was her age——

Jim did not speak until the elevator had sunk from sight. “I
was—passing by—and saw the sixth story light on—so I took the chance
of interrupting a party.”

“There was no party, as you see,” Joy answered. Her resentment against
this man had long since died—had died with her regard for Grant—and
instead she felt something she told herself was not quite positive
enough to be pleasure. “Do come in; I think it was very nice of you to
take this chance. You see,” she continued as she led the way to the
living room for the second time in that half hour, “you see. I have had
no chance—to thank you for anything.”

“I hate to be thanked,” he said quickly. “There’s no more futile feeling
than teetering on one’s toes through anything like that—it makes one
feel like such a fool—and then simpering, ‘Oh, please don’t mention
it!’ Oh, please, Miss Nelson, don’t make me say that!”

He was talking away from the subject, and she made no further attempt to
express her gratitude; words on anything touching that night came with
difficulty. He was not looking at her with such persistency that she
remembered that her hair was still flowing down her back, scattering
hairpins hither and yon. She anchored her arms to her sides against the
involuntary hands-flying-to-hair-motion. That would spell a
self-conscious guilt. No, she would leave it that way, and he would
think she was wearing it unconfined because she had just washed it, or
thought it was good for it, or _something_.

“I am going to say something very frank now,” he began, transferring his
gaze to her. This time her hands almost did fly to her hair. _Was he
going to speak of it?_ He continued: “I want to tell you that I know you
don’t like me, and never have, and this dropping-in to-night is going to
be my positively last appearance. To tell the truth—I wasn’t just
passing here at all; I came out on purpose. I had to see you again—to
see if you were really all right now—I haven’t seen you since your
convalescence, you know. But now that I have—and you’re looking better
than I’ve ever seen you—I’m not going to bother you any more by popping
around.”

Joy laughed, which rather spoilt the effect of his speech. “You talk as
though you were in the habit of shadowing me!”

“Well—once or twice I did take that upon myself—and I know what you
must have thought of my officiousness. I didn’t have the right, which I
have now assumed really does belong to someone.”

“You mean—Grant? Oh, no.” She brushed the subject aside. “I never
disliked you, Jim; I just hadn’t made room for you in my mind.”

She did not realize that the change in his face was partly due to the
fact that she had called him by his first name; she was so accustomed to
slipping into colloquial terms on short acquaintance, since she had been
with Jerry.

“You mean—that you have ‘made room for me in your mind’—now?”

“Why—yes. I didn’t know it, but I have. The reason I didn’t know
it—was probably because I never think of you as a man. I think of you
as a friend—who once was a friend indeed to me.”

He did not speak for a short space.

“There are very few girls whom I should care to have as friends. Most
girls simply can’t achieve the atmosphere, the uncoloured give-and-take
of friendship,—but I have always felt that you would be different.”

“Don’t put it all on the girl!” Joy laughed. “There are men with whom it
is just as impossible to establish an—an uncoloured atmosphere.”

“Maybe they have been led to think that’s the only atmosphere that can
exist between a man and a girl, by their experience with girls.”

“I wonder why it is,” she mused, “that sooner or later the blame always
comes back to us.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you defend your sex; girls so often think it’s a
good line to be witty about girls. When ever I hear a girl say she
doesn’t like other girls, I look for something wrong with her.”

“You’re _always_ lecturing!” she cried. “Ever since I first met you,
you’ve lectured about something!”

He laughed. “I certainly take a long way around saying that I would like
you as a friend!”

“I said the same thing myself, a long while ago; so let’s stop arguing
about friendship between man and woman, and be it!”

Their minds were not on their argument. Joy was thinking how rushed, or
distracted, “or something,” she must have always been, not to notice
before how good looking he was. But of course he wasn’t tall, and tall
men were “her type.” “He’s a blond, and I’m a blonde,” she told herself.
“We’re not the ‘opposites that attract,’ but we can be good friends,
just the same.”

If he could have read her thoughts, he would have used them as further
proof for his argument; but since one of Joy’s greatest assets was the
power of preserving a sweet, listening attitude no matter what went on
beneath, he was kept busy, thinking up general subjects to discuss with
this anomaly among the girls, one who did not take the initiative in
conversation.

When he rose to go, they felt as if they were very old friends already,
having matched opinions, likes and dislikes for nearly an hour.

“Remember, this isn’t your last appearance,” said Joy.

“Remember!——You’re musical, aren’t you? You told me at that dance that
you were studying music here in town. Well—what do you say we take in
some concerts together? And the Symphony—that’ll be fun if only to
watch the audience. Would you care?”

“I’m awfully afraid I shan’t know enough to appreciate the Symphony,”
she hesitated. “But I know it would be a good thing for me, and I’ll