Joan put out quick hands as though to ward him off, suddenly afraid of the glow she had kindled in his face. "Wait, Archie! I don't love you--you know that. Not as you love me, I mean. I don't believe I ever will love anybody that way. I--perhaps I'm not fine enough--But I do like you and trust you more than anybody else in the world. And so--if that's enough--If you want me--" "_Do I want you?_" Archie gripped the edge of his chair to keep himself anchored to _terra firma_. "Say, Miss Darcy, I--I--" "Don't you think," she suggested with a quivering smile, "that as we are about to become engaged, you might begin to call me 'Joan'?" At that, with a great cry of "JOAN!" he gave up hold on the chair and _terra firma_ together. * * * * * The sound of the overturned chair brought Effie May on a reconnoitering expedition to the upper landing of the stairs, which commanded an unsuspected view of the library. What she saw caused her to tiptoe away, smiling to herself a little sadly. "_His_ mouth's stopped all right--" she thought (with perfect truth)--"now that it doesn't matter!" CHAPTER XXXVII There were those, notably among the Jabberwocks, who felt that in availing herself of the age-old solution of handing her burdens over to a man to bear, Joan had rather hauled down her colors. Perhaps she felt so herself, after the first glow of relief was over. But if she needed solace, she got it in the radiant, incredulous, blissful attitude of Archibald. He could not believe the marvelous thing that had happened to him. A dozen times a day he was obliged to glance at the ring he had given her (a solitaire inevitably, small but of good water) to make sure that he was not dreaming. He began at once, following the example of the birds about him, to prepare for the coming event; "twigging" as Joan called it to herself, amusedly. He was as mysterious about it, and quite as obvious, as any robin darting about with a straw in its beak. He called her to the telephone frequently to ask such questions as how many drawers a "chiffoneer" ought to have; and when she asked him why he wanted to know, the reply was a joyous, "Never you mind!" He listened with the stealth of a Sherlock Holmes for any expressions of preference on her part, putting them secretly down in a note-book; and Joan grew afraid to mention any object, no matter how unlikely, for fear it would become part of the procession of packages which Ellen reported as filing daily past her door to the room upstairs. "A rocking-chair come this morning," Ellen would report. "Golden oak, all carved! Yesterday it was one them new-fangled electric-lamps with brass chain hanging down like fringe. Real tasty. The day before it was a statute." "Heavens, Nellen--Not a statue!" "Sure! A nigger woman brandishin' a spear. I poked a hole in the wrappin's to get a good look at it." (Joan had once unguardedly envied the Carmichaels their rare old bronzes.)