"You've got a peculiarly sensitive nervous organism to deal with here,"

the doctor said. "It takes very little to throw such natures off the balance. You say she never speaks of her babies at all? I don't like that! I'd rather have her crying about all over the place."

"So would I," said poor Archie. "Then she'd cry on me, and I could comfort her. Now I don't dare!"

"I wouldn't," advised the doctor, frankly. "Better let her alone."

So Archie, out of the wisdom of his love, wrote secretly to the nuns and asked them to invite her to the Convent for awhile; and because of the tragedy involved, the good ladies waived their rule of never permitting married women to live in the community. They welcomed her casually, as if her coming were no strange thing, gave her work to do, made her useful running errands and taking the smaller girls about; for in a religious community no one is ever idle. And Joan proved Archie's wisdom by gradually losing her tenseness, her frantic clutching at amus.e.m.e.nt, and growing daily in strength and poise until at last she was able to enjoy again solitude and thought, two things of which she had for some time been afraid.

Indeed, Archie's experiment was almost too successful; for the simple, orderly routine of the Convent was so soothing to her that she dreaded the idea of leaving it. Days slipped into weeks; and still she postponed the thought of going back to her empty house, to Effie May's uncontrolled mourning, to that nursery which had been so happily prepared for the little occupants who never occupied it.

She was frightened sometimes to realize how utterly she seemed able to forget her husband when he was not with her. If Archie was rather frightened, too, he never admitted it, even to himself. After all, Joan was his wife; and in his simple creed wives were bound to love their husbands, else how could they remain wives?

"She's had an awful shock," he reminded Ellen, who was growing restive.

"We've got to give her plenty of time to get over it."

"Humph! and what about you? I suppose you ain't had a good deal of a shock yourself?" muttered the old woman, savage with sympathy. "Wasn't you bringing home toys and truck every day of the world, trains and dolls and I don't know what all--and them not a week old yet? Your top chiffoneer drawer's full of toys this minute."

"Better give them away to the children in the neighborhood before she sees them."

"No such thing! I'll be savin' 'em for the next," said Ellen, stoutly....

Oddly enough, Joan was presently restored to her husband and her duty through the medium of no less a person than Eduard Desmond.

She was chaperoning some of the younger girls in town one day, when she met him on the street. She was surprised by the encounter, for she had not known he was in Washington; and she bowed uncertainly, expecting him to be a little embarra.s.sed.

But he stopped, and held out his hand with evident pleasure. "Mrs.

Blair! you?" he exclaimed. "What wonderful luck brings you to Washington? and where are you stopping?"

Joan briefly explained.

"Then," he said with a notable accession of eagerness, "Mr. Blair is not with you?"

Some long-slumbering imp of malice awoke and stirred in Joan. His expression as he looked her up and down was unmistakable. Evidently matrimony had detracted nothing from her in his eyes. On the contrary.

"No, Mr. Blair is not with me," she replied demurely. "I am on a vacation. Why should one carry a husband about on a vacation?"

This was Longmeadow language, the native tongue of Mr. Desmond.

"Why, indeed?" he murmured. "And when am I to come to see you?"

"I'm not sure you are to come at all. We're not allowed masculine callers at the Convent, I think; are we, dear?" she asked the young girl nearest to her.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Blair!--on Wednesday afternoons, if they're brothers or cousins or anything like that," replied the child shyly.

Eduard smiled. "I am not a cousin or a brother--fortunately--but perhaps I may be called 'something like that!'--Next Wednesday afternoon, then?"

"I'm not really sure that I shall be able to see you," she demurred.

"I am!" replied Eduard calmly; and, lifting his hat, he pa.s.sed on.

He proved himself a true prophet. Joan could not deny herself the bitter satisfaction of seeing at what a small fire she had managed so to scorch her young wings.

He had been waiting half an hour in the convent parlor when she came to him, however; and half an hour in a convent parlor is an ordeal few forget. It was a large, bleak room divided midway by a grille, on the inner side of which sat a lay-sister, knitting. The other side was left for the reception of male relatives and connections; and a tongue-tied, uneasy lot they were, slipping about on the horsehair sofas, staring furtively at the undecorative saints who adorned the walls, conducting their conversation obviously with a view to the other side of the grille.

"For heaven's sake, get me out of this!" murmured Desmond as Joan approached. "I feel as if the eye of G.o.d were on me constantly!"

"It's only the eye of Sister Veronica," rea.s.sured Joan, "and more her ear than her eye, I fancy."

"You don't mean that she can hear what we are saying, in there?"

"I've been told there's a sounding-board concealed about this room somewhere. It may not be true, of course; but it's wonderful how much does get back to the Convent from the parlor."

Eduard shuddered. "There's goose-flesh up and down my spine! Do come out for a walk somewhere."

She shook her head, smiling. "Can't be done! But of course you haven't anything to say to me that Sister Veronica shouldn't hear."

"Haven't I, just?" he muttered.

The imp of malice stirred in her again. She asked softly, "What, for instance?"

He gave her a quick look, glanced toward the grille, and plunged, albeit in a very low voice.

"For one thing I want to tell you how lovely you've grown!"

"Louder, please?" said Joan, "I missed that."

He repeated it, with additions. "And you need not pretend you did not hear me, either, you witch. What's happened to you, Joan? I always knew you'd be a wonderful creature some day, but already!--Those exquisite shadows under the eyes, the hollow of your cheek, your lips--What I'd give to paint you now, my dear! Only that it would waste our time together. How much time have you, by the way? For me, I mean?"

"You find me improved, then?" she enquired, demurely.

"Improved! I find you--never mind what I find you! There's a subtlety, a fascination--But I can't express it."

"There must be a subtlety indeed if _you_ can't express it," she commented; and added, "How is Mrs. Rossiter?"

If she expected to disconcert him, she was disappointed. He informed her at length as to the health, appearance, and conjugal felicity of Mrs.

Rossiter.

"They're actually pulling it off," he said interestedly. "They're making a go of it. I've always had the theory that once a divorcee always a divorcee--the old-fashioned gentlewoman is more to my taste. Divorce always seems to me so--so unnecessary--But in this case it appears I am mistaken, and n.o.body is happier to admit it. They positively fancy each other, Philemon and Baucis, all that sort of thing!--By the way, I had no idea you had made such friends with May. You gave her my bracelet, it seems. Cruel of you, Joan!"

"Did it hurt your feelings?" she murmured, dimpling.

"Oh, frightfully. How did you have the heart? She positively gloated over me."

"Father would never have allowed me to accept anything so handsome from a pa.s.sing acquaintance. One had to do something with it, you see, so--"

"Pa.s.sing acquaintance!" he interrupted, reproachfully. "Surely I was more to you than that? Our evening under the beech-tree--shall I ever forget it?"

Joan, paling a little, remarked, "Sister Veronica appears interested."