The nuns bade her a delighted farewell; and all the way home she made amends for her long neglect of him by thinking of her husband constantly. By contrast with Eduard's smooth hair, his slim hands, and well-modulated, expressive voice, Archie appeared to her the very epitome of manliness. She idealized his defects into beauties, big ears, clumsiness, and all. She remembered with a thrill how easily he carried her upstairs when she was tired, how he went tiptoeing squeakily about the house in the morning for fear of waking her, whispering in tones that would have roused the dead--Blessed, funny old Archie! She could hardly wait for the sight of him. Yet when she did see him, through the car-window, watching the platform for her appearance as tensely as a terrier watches a rathole, Joan shrank back with a faint gasp. He was looking quite appallingly dapper, with shiny new shoes and a Derby hat--an article of wear not designed for people with badly adjusted ears; and his mouth hung slightly open in his eagerness, showing the infantile front teeth, through which issued (she could almost hear it) a sort of a tuneful hissing, as was his way in moments of emotion, just to show that he was not nervous or excited in the least. Joan shrank back, the last person to leave the train. And as she passed a mirror, catching a glimpse of her pale face within it she whispered piteously, "Oh, Joan Darcy, what have you done?" CHAPTER XLV For the modern woman there lies, fortunately, a life between the two extremes of domesticity and frivolity, both of which Joan had tried and found wanting. Or rather she had not found domesticity wanting so much as temporary--a period of tranquil suspense, as it were, leading up to an inevitable climax which had somehow failed to come off. Even had her babies lived, it is to be doubted whether Joan could have long satisfied herself with domesticity pure and simple; and she could no more resume it now than a cocoon may be resumed by a former occupant which has sprouted wings. As for frivolity, plenty of that offered itself to a young matron with a charming house and a husband who was generally spoken of as a rising young business man. ("Rising," Archie certainly was; he had to be, to keep up with his rising expenditures.) But Joan asked perhaps too much of frivolity. She had been heard to remark that "nothing made the social game possible except flirtation and real talk; neither of which were to be had in Louisville by people who valued their reputations"; a rather sweeping comment, of the sort which soon made Joan's tongue a trifle over-famous. Simple, unexacting folk who liked a good dinner with a game of cards afterwards for modest stakes, and now and then a little dancing with each other's spouses, just to keep in touch with the new steps, began to be rather afraid of young Mrs. Blair. And Joan was equally afraid of them. She had a morbid suspicion that dullness might be catching.