"Wouldn't look well!" "Why, no, Joan. You've got a pretty good case of abandonment--I left the house first, you know--but if we were to be seen together the minute you get home, sort of friendly-like, it might get to the ears of the Judge and prejudice him. When the whole thing's settled, of course, then--" Joan gasped. "What do you mean," she interrupted, "by a case of abandonment?" "You wouldn't care to bring suit on any other grounds, would you!" he asked anxiously. "The fact is I'm afraid you couldn't, Joan. There _aren't_ any other grounds." "Oh," she said blankly. "I understand.... Well, my dear, I'm sorry you feel that you can't come and say at least hello to me--'sort of friendly-like.'" "So am I," he answered, gently.... * * * * * Joan wandered back to her step-mother's room, feeling queer and dazed. She had never before realized that anything other than death might be irremediable. During all her months in Paris she had not even contemplated the possibility of divorcing Archie. She was blindly content with things as they stood, and it had not occurred to her that Archie might be otherwise, that he had seriously meant, for his own sake, perhaps, the suggestion he had once made to her. She was so used to doing his thinking for him. Divorce!--that refuge of the foolish, the frail, those so lacking in pride as to be willing to confide their failures to the world! "It is so--so unnecessary," she protested aloud, wondering vaguely why the phrase was familiar to her. Then with a start she recognized it as one of Eduard Desmond's. The hot blood rushed into her face. Did they--Emily, Effie May, even Archie himself--believe her capable of the sort of thing Eduard Desmond meant? Dropping one husband to take on another--or perhaps taking on another without dropping the first? Was this the interpretation that had been put upon her life abroad, her precious companionship with Nikolai?--She shivered. No wonder Archie had not cared to come to see her! For once the thought of Nikolai was of no comfort to her. She put it from her almost with horror. It seemed to her that their relationship was irreparably smirched, degraded, by the touch of profane hands.... * * * * * She hoped that Effie May had awakened from her doze, so great was her need just then of the shrewd, tolerant, entirely human counsel of her step-mother. But Effie May had not awakened; nor did she wake again. CHAPTER LVII The funeral did great credit to the Misses Darcys' experience in such affairs. A crowded, beflowered church bore witness to the fact that Darcy was still a name to be reckoned with in the community. Not only the best people were there in quite sufficient numbers, but many of those lesser folk whose duties bring them happily into touch with the best people; milliners, modistes, clerks in the better shops, and so forth.