"But what will they do to you?"

Joan shrugged her shoulders. "Anything they like. I'm completely at
their mercy. For Mother's sake I try to be patient and put up with
it all. It's the only home I've got, and when you're dependent and
haven't a cent to bless yourself with, you can't pack up and
telephone for a cab and get out, can you? But it can't go on
forever. Some day I shall answer back, and sparks will fly, and I
shall borrow money from the coachman, who's my only friend, and go
to Alice Palgrave and ask her to put me up until Mother comes back.
I'm a queer case, Martin--that's the truth of it. In a book the
other day I came across an exact description of myself. I could have
laughed if it hadn't hit me so hard. It said: 'She was a super-
modern in an early-Victorian frame, a pint of champagne in a little
old cut-glass bottle, a gnome engine attached to a coach and pair.'"
She picked up a stone and flung it down the hill.

One eager wild thought rushed through Martin's brain. It had made
his blood race several times before, but he had thrown it aside
because, during all their talks and walks, Joan had never once
looked at him with anything but the eyes of a sister. As his wife he
could free her, lift her out of her anomalous atmosphere and take
her to the city to which her face was always turned. But he lacked
the courage to speak and continued to hope that some day, by some
miracle, she might become less superlatively neutral, less almost
boyish in her way of treating him. He threw it aside again, tempted
as he was to take advantage of a chance to bribe her into becoming
his wife with an offer of life. Then too, she was only eighteen, and
although he was twenty-four and in the habit of thinking of himself