er 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 encompassing 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 p