She was reminded sharply that, since returning to Town, she had made hardly a single attempt to find work, beyond having her professional cards printed.

And this was the edge of Summer....

Where would the Autumn find her?

Slipping quickly out of bed, she collected her store of money, and counted it for the first time in several weeks.

The sum total showed a shocking discrepancy between cold fact and the small fortune she had all along been permitting herself to believe she possessed. Even allowing for these heavy initial purchases on returning to New York, her capital had shrunk alarmingly.

She began anew, that day, the rounds of managers' offices.

Also, she laid down for her guidance a rigid schedule of economies. Only by strict observance thereof would she be able to sc.r.a.pe through the Summer without work or financial a.s.sistance from some quarter.

Characteristically, she mourned now, but transiently, that she had so long deferred going to see her mother and Edna--something now obviously out of the question; they would want money, to a certainty, and Joan had none to spare them.

A few days later she moved to share, half-and-half, the expenses of a three-room apartment on Fiftieth Street, near Eighth Avenue, with a minor actress whom she had recently met and taken a fancy to. Life was rather less expensive under this regime; the young women got their own breakfasts and, as a rule, lunches that were quite as meagre: repasts chiefly composed of crackers, cold meats from a convenient delicatessen shop, with sometimes a bottle of beer shared between two. If no one offered a dinner in exchange for their society, they would dine frugally at the cheaper restaurants of the neighbourhood. But their admirers they shared loyally: if one were invited to dine, the other accompanied her as a matter of course.

An arrangement apparently conducive to the most complete intimacy; neither party thereto doubted that she was in the full confidence of the other. There were, none the less, reservations on both sides.

Harriet Morrison, Joan's latest companion, was a girl whose very considerable personal attractions and innate love of pleasure were balanced by greenish eyes, a firm jaw, and the sincere conviction that straight-going and hard work would lead her to success upon the legitimate stage. She knew Joan for an incurable opportunist with few convictions of any sort other than that she could act if given a chance, and that men, if properly managed, would give her that chance. For one so temperamentally her opposite, Hattie couldn't help entertaining some unspoken contempt. On the other hand, she believed Joan to be decent, as yet; and halving the cost of living permitted her to indulge in the luxury of a week-end at the seaside once or twice a month.

One day near the first of July the two, happening to meet on Broadway after a morning of fruitless search for engagements, turned for luncheon into Shanley's new restaurant--by way of an unusual treat.

They had barely given their order when Matthias came in accompanied by a manager who had offices in the Bryant Building, and sat down at a table not altogether out of speaking-distance.

To cover her discomfiture, which betrayed itself in flushed cheeks, Joan complained of the heat: an explanation accepted by Hattie without question, since Matthias had not yet looked their way.

Joan prayed that he might not; but the thing was inevitable, and it was no less inevitable that he should look at the precise instant when Joan, unable longer to curb her curiosity, raised her eyes to his.

For a moment she fancied that he didn't recognize her. But then his face brightened, and he nodded and smiled, coolly, perhaps, but civilly, without the least evidence of confusion. They might have been the most casual acquaintances.

And, indeed, the incident would probably have pa.s.sed unremarked but for the promptings of Joan's conscience. She was sure the glance of Matthias had shifted from her face to the hand on which his diamond shone, and had rested there for a significant moment.

As a matter of fact, nothing of the sort had happened. Matthias was absorbed in negotiations concerning an old play which had caught the fancy of the manager. Joan, though he knew her at sight, was now too inconsiderable a figure in his world for him to recall, off-hand, that he had ever made her a present.

Nevertheless the girl coloured furiously, and blushed again under the inquisitive stare of her companion.

"Who's that?"

"Who?" Joan muttered sullenly.

"The fellow who bowed to you just now."

"Oh, that?" Joan made an unconvincing effort at speaking casually: "A man named Matthias--a playwright, I believe."

"Oh," said the other girl quietly. "Never done anything much, has he?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know him very well?"

There was a touch of irony in the question that struck sparks from Joan's temper.

"That's my business!"

"I'm sure I _beg_ your pardon," Hattie drawled exasperatingly.

And the incident was considered closed, though it didn't pa.s.s without leaving its indelible effect upon their a.s.sociation.

With Joan it had another result: it made her think. Retrospectively examining the contretemps, after she had gone to bed that night, she arrived at the comforting conclusion that she had been a little fool to think that Matthias "held that old ring against her." He hadn't been her lover for several weeks without furnishing the girl with a fairly clear revelation of his character. He was simple-hearted and sincere; she could not remember his uttering one ungenerous word or being guilty of one ungenerous action, and she didn't believe he could make room in his mind for an ungenerous thought.

Now if she were to return it, he would think that fine of her....

Of course, she must take it back in person. If she returned it by registered mail, he would have reason to believe her afraid to meet him--that she had been frightened by his mere glance into sending it back.

Not that she hadn't every right in the world to keep it, if she liked: there was no law compelling a girl to return her engagement ring when she broke with a man.

But Matthias would admire her for it.

Moreover, it was just possible that he hadn't as yet arrived at the stage of complete indifference toward her. And he had "the ear of the managers."

Nerving herself to the ordeal, two days later, she dressed with elaborate care in the suit she had worn on her flight from Quard. Newly sponged and pressed, it was quite presentable, if a little heavy for the season; moreover, it lacked the l.u.s.tre and style of her later acquisitions. It wouldn't do to seem too prosperous....

It was a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and Hattie had taken herself off to a nearby ocean beach for the week-end; something for which Joan was grateful, inasmuch as it enabled her to dress her part without exciting comment.

To her relief, a servant new to the house since her time, answered her ring at the bell of Number 289, and with an indifferent nod indicated the door to the back-parlour.

Behind that portal Matthias was working furiously against time, carpentering against the grain that play to discuss which he had lunched at Shanley's; the managerial personage having offered to consider it seriously if certain changes were made. And the playwright was in haste to be quit of the job, not only because he disapproved heartily of the stipulated alterations, but further because he was booked for some weeks in Maine as soon as the revision was finished.

Humanly, then, he was little pleased to be warned, through the medium of a knock, that his work was to suffer interruption.

He swore mildly beneath his breath, glanced suspiciously at the non-committal door, growled brusque permission to enter, and bent again over the ma.n.u.script, refusing to look up until he had pursued a thread of thought to its conclusion, and knotted that same all ship-shape.

And when at length he consented to be aware of the young woman on his threshold, waiting in a pose of patience, her eyes wide with doubt and apprehensions, his mind was so completely detached from any thought of Joan that he failed, at first, to recognize her.

But the alien presence brought him to his feet quickly enough.

"I beg your pardon," he said with an uncertain nod. "You wished to see me about something?"

Closing the door, Joan came slowly forward into stronger light.

"You don't remember me?" she asked, half perplexed, half wistful of aspect. "But I thought--the other day--at Shanley's--"

"But of course I remember you," Matthias interrupted with a constrained smile. "But I wasn't--ah--expecting you--not exactly--you understand."

"Oh, yes," Joan replied in subdued and dubious accents--"I understand."

She waited a moment, watching narrowly under cover of a.s.sumed embarra.s.sment, the signs of genuine astonishment which Matthias felt too keenly to think of concealing. Then she added an uneasy: