Brought up against a black wall Joan left the Roundabout, desisted from joy-riding, and, spending most of her time with her mother, tried secretly and without any outward sign, to regain her equilibrium. She saw nothing of Alice and the set, now beginning to scatter, in which Alice had placed her. She was consistently out to Gilbert Palgrave and the other men who had been gathering hotly at her heels. Her policy of "who cares?" had received a shock and left her reluctantly and impatiently serious. She had withdrawn temporarily into a backwater in order to think things over and wait for Martin to reappear. It seemed to her that her future way of life was in his hands. If Martin came back soon and caught her in her present mood she would play the game according to the rules. If he stayed away or, coming back, persisted in considering her as a kid and treating her as such, away would go seriousness, life being short, and youth but a small part of it, and back she would go to the Merry-go-round, and once more, at twice the pace, with twice the carelessness, the joy-ride would continue. It was all up to Martin, little as he knew it. And where was Martin? There was no letter, no message, no sign as day followed day. Without allowing herself to send out an S. O. S. to him, which she well knew that she had the power to do, she waited, as one waits at crossroads, to go either one way or the other. Although tempted many times to tap the invisible wire which stretched between them, and to put an end to a state of uncertainty which was indescribably irksome to her impulsive and imperative nature, she held her hand. Pride steeled her, and vanity gave her temporary patience. She even went so far as to think of him under another name so that no influence of hers might bring him back. She wanted him to return naturally, on his own account, because he was unable to keep away. She wanted him, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, to want her, not to come in cold blood from a sense of duty, in the spirit of martyrdom. She wanted him, for her pride's sake, to be again the old eager Marty, the burning-eyed, inarticulate Marty, who had brought her to his house and laid it at her feet with all that was his. In no other way was she prepared to cross what she thought of as the bridge. And so, seeing only her mother and George Harley, she waited, saying to herself confidently "If he doesn't come to-day, he will come to-morrow. I told him that I was a kid, and he understood. I've hurt him awfully, but he loves me. He will come to-morrow." But to-morrow came and where was Martin?