Her challenging eyes, big and wistful, fanned his chivalry into
reckless flame. The need of the hour was peculiar. There was little
room for fact. In a moment of wayward impulse he had slipped up a
stairway and blundered on a shrine. He must not make another mistake.
The girl beside him was as timorous and defensive as a doe scenting an
alien breath in the wood of wild things. A wrong step and in spirit
she would bound away from him forever.

"Odd!" said Kenny gently. "So was mine." And he thought for a
tormented minute of Brian and Garry and John Whitaker. Not one of them
would understand. He wanted only to be kind and in tune.

Joan caught her breath. The softness and faith in her eyes hurt.

"You're not ashamed of it!"

"No," said Kenny, looking away, "Certainly not. Are you?"

"No," said Joan steadily. "But Uncle is."

In this second interval of readjustment, yesterday seemed aeons back.
They had traveled far. The peace and peril of the moment were
ineffably sweet.

"You can be yourself anywhere," said Joan clearly, taking from the
chest an exquisite old lavender gown for which she seemed to have come.
"And if your self is bad, the--the where doesn't matter."

Her insight rather startled him. Often afterward he was to find in her
that curious ability to detach herself from custom and tradition, skiff