Part 41 (1/2)
”Well, does it make any difference?” Joan asked.
”You bet it does! It makes me free to stay in town.”
”I'm afraid you'll wilt,” Joan twinkled.
”We must take precautions against that.” Raymond looked deadly in earnest.
The meetings of these two were now set, like clear jewels in the round of common days. They were not too frequent and they were always managed like chance happenings. Always there was a sense of surprise, a thrill of unbelievable good luck attending them; but there was, also, a growing sense of a.s.surance and understanding.
”I wonder,” Joan said once, pressing hard against the s.h.i.+eld that protected them, ”I wonder if you and I would have played so delightfully had we been--well--introduced! Miss Jones and Mr. Black.”
”No!” Raymond burst in positively. ”Miss Jones would have been enveloped in the things expected of Miss Jones, and Mr. Black would have been kept busy--keeping off the gra.s.s!”
”Aren't you ever afraid,” Joan mused on, ”that some day we'll suddenly come across each other when our s.h.i.+elds are left behind in--in the secret tower?”
”I try not to think of it,” Raymond leaned toward the girl; ”but if we did we'd know each other a lot better than most girls and fellows are ever allowed to know each other,” he said.
”Do you think so?” Joan looked wistfully at him. ”You see this isn't real; it's play, and I'm afraid Miss Jones and Mr. Black would be awfully suspicious of each other--just on account of the play.”
”And so--we'll make sure that s.h.i.+elds are always in commission,” Raymond rea.s.sured her. ”In this small world of ours we cannot run any risks with Miss Jones and Mr. Black. They have no part here.”
”No, they haven't!” Joan leaned back. That subtle weakness was touching her; the aftermath of strained imagination. She was often homesick for Doris and Nancy--she was getting afraid that she might not be able to find her way back to them when the time came to go.
”Poor little girl!” Raymond was saying over the table, and his words fitted into the tune the fountain sang--it was the same tune the fountain sang in the sunken room of long ago; all fountains, Joan had grown to think, sang the same lovely, drippy song.
”I wonder just how brave and free a little girl it is?”
Joan screwed up her lips.
”Limitless,” she whispered, daringly.
”You're played out, child!” Raymond went on; ”there are blue shadows under your eyes. I wish you'd let me do something for you.”
”You are doing something,” the words came slowly, caressingly; ”you're making a hard time very beautiful; you're making me believe--in--in fairies, or what stands for fairies, nowadays; you're making me trust myself and for ever after when--when I slip back where I belong--I'm going to remember, and be--so glad! You see, I know, now, that in the world of grown-ups you _can_ make things come true.”
”Where you belong?” Raymond gripped his hands close. ”Just where do you belong? _Are_ you Miss Jones or are you the sweet nameless thing that I am looking at?”
”Oh! I'm Miss Jones!” Joan sat up promptly, ”and I'm going to make sure that Miss Jones doesn't get hurt while I play with her.”
And as she spoke Joan was thinking of the ugly interpretation of this beautiful play which Patricia would give. Patricia couldn't make things come true because she never tried hard enough.
”I wonder”--and the fountain made Joan dizzy as she listened to Raymond--”I wonder, now since I'm to stay in town, if you'd let me bring my car in? We'd have some great old rides. We'd cool off and have picnics by roadsides and--and get the best of this blasted heat.”
”I think it would be heavenly!” Joan saw, already, cool woods and felt the refres.h.i.+ng air on her face.
Raymond was taken aback. He had expected protest.
But the car materialized and so did the picnics and the cool breezes on young, unafraid faces.
At each new venture rea.s.surance waxed stronger--things could be made true in the world; it was only children who failed, in spite of tradition.