"You see, dear, I have always held certain beliefs--I have always been willing to test them--and pay."

"But dare you let Joan pay?" Martin was calm now.

"Not for mine, but for her own--yes. Aren't you going to let this boy of yours try his own flight, David?"

"That's different."

"It won't be always, David, dear--someone must make the break--our dear young things in the big cities are breasting the waves, David. I glory in them, and even while I tremble, I urge them on. You should have seen Joan when she came to me with her great desire burning and throbbing.

Why, it would have been murder to kill in her what I saw in her eyes then. It was her _Right_ demanding to be free."

"It's the maddest thing I ever heard of!" Martin broke in. "I wonder if you have counted the cost, Doris?"

"Yes, David, through many long days and wakeful nights. I have shuddered and felt that it was different for Joan; that _she_ should have been kept in--in bondage. It would have been bondage for her. But, David, the only thing I dared _not_ do was to keep freedom from the child."

"And suppose"--Martin's face grew grimmer--"suppose she goes under?"

"She will come to me--she promised. I am prepared to go as far as I can with my girls on their way; not mine. That was part of my bargain with G.o.d when I took them."

"You're a very strange and risky woman, Doris."

"And you are going to be fair, David, dear. Now tell me about your boy."

Instantly Martin was taken off guard. He smiled broadly and patted Doris's hand, which lay upon his arm.

"Bud's coming out on top!" he said--Clive Cameron was always Bud to Martin. "I've kept closemouthed about the boy," he went on, forgetting Joan; "he's meant a lot to me, but I've always recognized the possibility of failure with him and felt the least I could do, if things came to the worst, was to leave an exit for him to slip out of, unnoticed. He's always kept us guessing--my sister and I. He never knew his father. From a silent, observing child he ran into a stormy, vivid youth that often threatened disaster if not positive annihilation--but he's of the breed that dashes to the edge, grinds his teeth, plants his feet, and looks over!--then, breathing hard, draws back. After a while I got to banking on that balking trick of his. Once I got used to the fact that the boy meant to know life--not abuse it--I knew a few easy years while he plodded or, at times, plunged, through college.

"He couldn't settle, though, on a job, and that upset us at last. He ran the gamut of professions in his mind--but none of them appealed to him.

When he was nineteen he suddenly took an interest in his father--we'd never told him much about him. Cameron wasn't a bad chap--he simply hadn't character enough to _be_ bad--he was a floater! When Bud got that into his system, it sobered him more than if he'd been told his father was a scamp. A year later the boy came to me and said: 'Uncle David, if you don't think I'd queer your profession--I'm going to make a try at it.'"

Martin's face beamed and then he went on:

"That was a big day for me, Doris, but even when the chap went into it, I kept quiet. I feared he might balk. But he hasn't! He's big stuff--that boy of mine. He confided everything to me this time. Certain phases of the work almost drove him off--dissecting and, well, the grimmer aspects! Often, he told me, he had to put up a stiff fight with himself before he could enter a dissecting room--but that does one of two things, Doris: makes a doctor human or a brute. It has humanized Bud. He'll be through now, in a year or so, and I'm going to throw him neck and crop into my practice. I'll stand by for awhile, but I have great faith in my boy!"

Doris looked up at the grave, happy face above her own.

For a moment a sensation she had never experienced before touched her--it was like jealousy!

"How he would have adored a son of his own," she thought, "and what a father he would have been!"

She faltered before speaking, then she said quietly:

"If--if I have deprived you of much, David, at least I have not killed the soul of you."

"I'm learning as I go along, my dear," Martin replied.

"We're not all developed in the same way."

"And, David," Doris trembled as she spoke, "as you feel for your boy, so I feel for my Joan. You must trust me."

"That is different," Martin stiffened.

"It is the same."

CHAPTER XII

"_In all directions gulfs and yawning abysses._"

That was what David Martin felt was encompa.s.sing Joan. He wanted to take a hand in her affairs, but before he left Ridge House Doris made him promise that unless she changed her mind, he would not even call upon Joan.

"If she knows that you have your eye on her, David, much of what I hope for will be threatened. You have quite a dreadful eye, dear man, and Joan is sensitive. She may look you up--I will write to her about you.

If she doesn't, she does not want you to--well, Davey, meddle! And she has a perfect right to her freedom. She is self-supporting now!"

Doris could but show her pride in Joan's cleverness.

"Very well, Doris. I wash my hands of the matter, but I think it sheer madness!"

With that Martin returned to town and waited, hopefully, for a summons from Joan. It did not come!

He did go so far, one evening, as to walk on the block where the studio was, but he got no satisfaction from that except the proof of its respectability.

"I cannot look back just now!" Joan had thought when considering Martin, "and Uncle David would tell me things about Aunt Dorrie and Nancy that would rumple all my calm, and I dare not risk it."

In this she was wise--for there were times when, the novelty and freedom of self-support worn off, the temptation to return to the waiting flesh-pots was very great. At such moments of weakness Patricia rallied her.

"Don't be one of the women who are ready to sell their birthrights for a meal ticket," Patricia urged, looking her daintiest and saintliest.

"But what _is_ one's birthright?" Joan asked.

"The self-expression of--yourself," Patricia smiled serenely.

This always reinstated Joan in her old resolve.

"To come to town and cut capers at the Brier Bush," she confided to Sylvia, once Patricia was off the scene, "is poor proof of anything.

Syl, I'm going to get to work seriously soon with my music."

"We'll get a piano," practical Sylvia suggested; "there is no need to grow rusty while you're making money."

And so they secured the piano, and the studio had another charm.

The Brier Bush, in the meantime, was waxing great in popularity and financial success. Elspeth Gordon from her position of a.s.surance gave it a unique touch. No one could take liberties with her tea room. Presently delicious luncheons were added to the scheme, and, while Joan's part was regarded with amused complacency, the excellent food and service commanded respect.

At first women came largely to the pretty, attractive rooms; then, occasionally, men, rather timidly, presented themselves, but finding themselves taken for granted and the food above reproach, they appeared in numbers and enjoyed it.

And then one rather gloomy, early spring day Mrs. Tweksbury came upon the scene.