It was the sort of challenge to which Fate is apt to give attentive ear. Presently, out of facts and recollections she slipped, as was her wont, into a game of Pretend, which had been a sort of accompaniment to Joan from her cradle; growing as she grew, changing as life changed its aspect to her eyes. She was no longer plain little Joan Darcy, returning from school in a shabby suit which she had outgrown, to a shabby home which she had also somewhat outgrown. She was a glorified young person of the singer or actress variety, returning from a career of conquest in foreign parts, with her maid Fifine traveling second class in the coach behind, as they do in all the better novels. Her father, not much altered from real life except that there were no spots on his clothes (the Major's manner being grand enough for any circumstances), would be at the station with the victoria and pair--or perhaps the limousine--and would murmur to the second footman, "Home, James"; and at the door of the family mansion, a pillared, fan-lighted door (Joan's mind lingered lovingly over architectural details even in her haste to reach the people in the doorway) would be Ellen Neal first, dropping respectful curtsies--quite a stretch, this, even for Joan's imagination!--and beyond her, in a lovely tea-gown, all silk and lace and newness, would stand her mother with outstretched arms, waiting.... Here Joan became suddenly aware that she was dropping large, hot tears upon her precious chocolates--she who had sworn never, never to cry any more in all her life, because tears are only useless things that make the nose red! "But _why_ am I crying?" she demanded of herself, puzzled, still mazed with her game of Pretend. It was because her mother would not be in that doorway, waiting; nor anywhere ever again--unless there really is a Heaven. Joan sat there, too proud to bury her face in her hands or to search for a handkerchief, intensely conscious that people were glancing her way, praying wildly to all her gods to keep her from blubbering aloud; and she looked so like a haughty infant in distress that the young man opposite, he whom she had characterized as a necktie drummer, could not long restrain active sympathy. "Pardon _me_," he said awkwardly, leaning toward her. "Are you in some sort of trouble? Anything I can do?" Joan summoned all her scattered forces to meet this emergency in a manner that would do credit to the precepts of Sister Mary Joseph. She elevated her small red nose, and lifting her eyes to about the level of his scarf-pin (a rather cheap scarf-pin) remarked: "You can go away. I am telling myself sad stories of the death of kings." The necktie drummer retired, permanently, to the smoking-car. This victory cheered Joan into momentarily forgetting her mother. Already an adventure to write to the girls! She wished that she had looked a little farther up than the scarf-pin.