His impulse was to laugh, to reject her friendliness. The old Wint, stiff with pride, would have done this. But the old Wint was gone; or at least, he was going. This Wint who stood before Joan tried to find something to say, but all he found to say to her was: “Oh!” Joan smiled at him. “There was a time when I wouldn’t have dared say this, Wint,” she said. “But I do dare now. Stick to the fight, Wint. This is what I want to say.” He said, sullen in his embarrassment: “I’m going to.” “There was a time when you were not going to--just because I--your friends--told you to stick.” Wint looked away from her. “Well, that’s all right,” he told her uncomfortably. “There’s never any harm in having friends, Wint, and taking their advice,” she said. The old impatience burst out for a moment. “Don’t preach,” he said harshly. “I’m not going to preach.” She was afraid she had spoiled it all. But he reassured her, hot with shame at his own decency. “It’s all right, Joan,” he said. “I know you mean to help. I’ll try.” “Do try,” she echoed softly. He nodded, and she watched him, and at last added: “I’d like to have you come to see me some time.” He hesitated, then he said swiftly: “All right. Some time. Good-by!” He jerked his head in farewell and hurried away as though he were afraid of her. Joan watched him go, and she pressed her hand to her lips as though to still them. CHAPTER III ROUTT TO KITE When Wint left Joan, after their encounter on the street, he was walking in a daze. He stumbled, his head was down, his eyes were blank. He was stunned and humbled; and after he had left her, he began to feel defiant. He thought of words with which he could have crushed her and silenced her. Presuming to forgive him, to praise him. What right had she to do that anyway? He ought to have laughed at her. Not that Wint did not love Joan. He did; but he was still, at this time, a boy and nothing more. And he had rather more than a boy’s usual measure of stubborn contrariness in him. When his father, and his mother, and Joan, and every one else he cared for had bade him mend his ways, he had refused to mend them, and the thing had been a scandal on every tongue in Hardiston. When, in like fashion, father and mother and Joan bade him go to the dogs, whither he seemed surely bound, he had braced himself, fought a good fight, begun to make good. Now Joan was telling him he had made good, that he was all right. He had a reckless desire to go to the devil, forthwith, to prove her wrong.