The days of convalescence that followed were long, with somber colouring. She missed her music; Grant did not call up again; the days had dreadful emptinesses that called out for Grant . . . or for her music. Sarah was almost unbearable to live with. Before, the incompatibility of the two had not been so noticeable, when Joy had been out or busy with her music most of the day; in the evenings, if they were together, there were always men around to distract their attention. But now Joy’s enforced stay in the house, threw them together a little more often; just that little more that is too much. Sarah made no bones of the fact that she nourished deep rancour against Joy for her accident, which she considered “all Joy’s fault, anyway.” As a result of the accident, Packy presumably would not put in an appearance at the apartment again; thus ran Sarah’s grievance, which she poured upon Joy instead of sympathy. It did not seem as if Sarah cherished a genuine affection for any human being, man or woman; and the more one knew of her, the more horrified one became at the hard, glassy surface which appeared to be impenetrable. But there was Jerry who, an untiring nurse and a companion who never failed in interest, stayed constantly with Joy, turning down all invitations with an iron hand. The uneasiness that had always been there, moulded into form by Packy and Grant, was glazed over for a time. All Joy’s knowledge of and regard for Jerry spoke more coherently than unsubstantiated inference. The two weeks set by the doctor had not quite passed when, one afternoon, Joy tired of lying in bed. She felt perfectly well; there was no reason why she shouldn’t get up and walk as far as the living-room. She did not admit to herself that the cellarette was her real objective; but it had been a long time since she had taken a prescription. Sarah was out on one of her eternal tea dates; Jerry had vanished somewhere. She slipped into her little blue crepe kimono and pattered down the hallway, exultant in the power to walk so much and so healthily. She swung around the door of the living-room and in before she saw that someone was already there—Jerry, talking to Jim Dalton. They were both standing at the door, so that she almost rushed into them, then stood still in surprise. Girls in fiction or plays who are surprised in negligée are always “distractingly lovely” in silks or satins, with hair becomingly flowing. But real girls in negligée, unless they know they are going to be inspected, are quite a different matter. Joy’s hair was strained back in tight braids from a face which, without rouge, was as thinly white as skim-milk. The ribbons of her night gown had had their colour laundered out of them; her kimono was—well, it was a kimono, not a negligée, nor lingerie, nor a tea gown. All this, and more, her thoughts touched upon in the first still moment.