Surprisingly enough, considering the sporting nature of the community in which she found herself, Joan heard a good deal of poetry during this visit. The moon happened to be full, and Longmeadow edged upon a river; one of those pleasant, cosy little streams that are designed by an all-wise Providence for canoes to float upon in summer evenings. By day other girls had their innings on golf-links and tennis-court (though even by day our heroine was not idle). But at night with the moon she came into her own. She made her canoe engagements days ahead, not too frequently with Eduard; and she came to the conclusion that just as infants at a certain stage must go through the teething period, so somewhat later they must go with equal painfulness through the poetry period. It gave her quite a motherly feeling toward her admirers; which fortunately she was able to dissemble. By contrast with the sportsmanlike young women of the community, Joan, in her frills and wide hats and small, beaded, high-heeled slippers, seemed to fill a long-felt want. Her rôle was by no means an uninteresting one. Occasionally in the course of events she got almost, if not quite, kissed; and she became expert in deflecting the course of inconvenient emotion. "It's suggestion does it," she wrote to her friend Mr. Nikolai. "Given a moon, fluffy ruffles, and the Kentucky-belle tradition--and they seem helpless, poor dears!" But perhaps it was not entirely the power of suggestion that made her success. Joan was enough of an artist to do whatever she did with a certain finish. Her difficulty, however, in the heady game she played, was to concentrate on the purpose in hand. At the end of two weeks, she began to fancy a slight diminution of cordiality on the part of both Betty and her mother, and she realized that her visit was growing longer than seemed usual. Other guests came and went, remaining only a few days before going on to the next engagement. Accustomed to the indeterminate visits of the South, she had not thought to set any definite time for her departure; but now she felt uncomfortably that the hour had come to bring things to a climax. She gave herself one more week at Longmeadow. Surely three weeks is a short enough time in which to provide oneself with a future and a husband! She was by no means counting without her host. From the day of her arrival Eduard had taken no pains to hide the fact that he considered her his especial property. While his manner was still that of one who would not willingly brush the bloom from off the peach, there had always been in it a disturbing hint, a slight flattering suggestion, that peaches are tempting even to the jaded appetite. Lately his air of possession had become, to Joan's amusement, decidedly tinged with jealousy. He viewed his more youthful rivals with no attempt at equanimity.