dear. I think so, although, perhaps, to-morrow--"

"To-day is a much better word," said Joan. She was sick of to-morrow
and to-morrow. "Packing won't take any time. I'll go home directly
after lunch and set things moving and be here in the car at three
thirty. We can see the trees and smell the ferns and watch the sun set
before we have to change for dinner. I'm dying to do that."

No arguments or objections were put forward.

This impetuous young thing must have her way.

And when the car drove away from the Plaza a few minutes after the
appointed time Joan was as excited as a child, Mrs. Harley quite
certain that she had forgotten her sponge bag and her bedroom slippers,
and George Harley betting on a time that would put more lines on his
face.

There was certainly more than a touch of irony in Joan's gladness to go
back so soon to the cage from which she had escaped with such eagerness.

There had been no word and no sign of Martin.

But as Joan had run upstairs Gilbert Palgrave had come out from the
drawing-room and put himself deliberately in her way.

"I can't stay now, Gilbert," she had said. "I'm going into the country,
and I haven't half a second to spare. I'm so sorry."

He had held his place. "You've got to give me five minutes. You've got
to," and something in his eyes had made her take hold of her impatience.

"You don't know what you're doing to me," he had said, with no sign of
his usual style and self-consciousness, but simply, like a man who had
sat in the dark and suffered. "Or if you do know your cruelty is
inhuman. I've tried to see you every day--not to talk about myself or
bore you with my love, but just to look at you. You've had me turned
away as if I were a poor relation. You've sent your maid to lie to me
over the telephone as if I were a West Point cadet in a primitive state
of sloppy sentiment. Don't do it. It isn't fair. I hauled down my
fourth wall to you, and however much you may scorn what you saw there
you must respect it. Love must always be respected. It's the rarest
thing on earth. I'm here to tell you that you must let me see you, just
see you. I've waited for many years for this. I'm all upheaved. You've
exploded me. I'm different. I'm remade. I'm beginning again. I shall
ask for nothing but kindness until I've made you love me, and then I
shall not have to ask. You will come to me. I can wait. That's all I
want you to know. When you come back ring me up. I'll be patient.