He was living with his aunt until he could open an office. Fortunately, he had saved up his pay and his aunt had used very little of his allotment. As soon as possible he would get out his shingle. His first impulse on receiving his congé from Maggie had been to come back and have at least a talk with Joanna. But after seeing her on the stage he rejected that idea completely.
“But I’ll work like fury. I’ll really get ahead. And then I’ll go to her and tell her I owe it all to her. And I’ll explain to her, as Meriwether Bye said, that all my training and instincts have been against me. And then,” he finished to himself lamely, “we’ll always be friends.”
He passed the state-board examinations with a flourish. Then to get an office. He thought it best to consult Harry Portor about this. The latter in his own office greeted him, he thought, none too cordially, ignored his hand.
“Thought I’d look you up, Portor. Gee, what enthusiasm! Nice greeting to give a fellow who’s just been making your home safe for democracy.”
“Oh, can that stuff, Bye. What I want to know is this. It’s none of my business but I happen to be interested. What are you going to do about Maggie Ellersley?”
“Wha‑at! Well I’ll be—” Had he been in her train, too? Was this why she had given him his freedom? His face clouded.
“You’re right, Harry, it is none of your business. May I ask how you horn in on this?”
“Well, if you’ve got to know. I’m, I’m deeply interested in Miss Joanna Marshall and—and—”
“Hold on, I thought you were speaking of Miss Ellersley.” Their politeness was wonderful.
“Now see here, Bye, tell me, are you going to marry Miss Ellersley?”
“I am not.”
“Well, by God! you dirty cad, what do you mean by getting engaged to one woman after another and not having any intention of marrying either?”
Peter controlled his rising anger. “I don’t want to quarrel with you, Portor. Miss Ellersley told me in Chambéry that she didn’t want to marry me, she’d made a mistake.”
“And Miss Marshall,” said Harry, his face clearing, “have you told her yet?”
“No, I haven’t. Miss Marshall found out she’d made a mistake three years ago. I don’t make good with the ladies, Portor. And I’d like to know how the devil it concerns you?”
“It concerns me,” said Harry miserably, “because I’m pretty sure Joanna loves you, and I want you to make her happy, or else get out of the way and let me try to do it.” And he told Peter how Joanna, thinking him guilty, had yet declared herself Maggie’s assailant.
Peter’s natural surprise at Neal’s attack on Maggie vanished into stupefied amazement at the news of Joanna’s generosity. “She did that for me? Joanna?”
“Yes,” Portor told him. “Where’re you going, man?”
Peter had snatched up his cap. “You get into that little Ford I saw standing out there and drive me up to her house. I can’t drive a Ford. Does she still live home?”
“Still with her father and mother. But they’ve moved on One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street. Joanna, I believe, wanted a whole floor for a studio, and as Sylvia’s children are growing up, she and her parents got out. The kids are always over at Joanna’s, though.”
They were silent after that. Harry let him off at Joanna’s corner. “Well, good luck, old man,” he said insincerely.
Sylvia’s boy, Roger, let Peter in. “I know who you are,” said the tall lieutenant. “You are Brian Spencer’s son.”
“Yes, I am, but I don’t know you. And you’ll have to tell me your name if you want to see my Aunt Joanna. She might not be at home.”
“Yes, that’s what I was afraid of. See here, son, I knew your Aunt Joanna before you were born, and I’d like to surprise her. I’ve just got back from France. Understand, Buddy? I’ve got a German helmet around to my house—”
“Well,” said Roger, shamelessly, “you go right up those stairs; ’s that helmet got a plume on it?”
Joanna had been singing Tchaikovsky’s “Longing.” Now she was sitting still reading the words over and over:
Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,
Weiss was ich leide,
⋮
Ach! der mich liebt und kennt—
She mused over the last line: “Peter, I’m afraid you never really knew me or loved me.”
He called to her softly from the door of the studio, “Joanna.” She turned swiftly on the stool and saw him.
“Peter!”
What could they say? Does anyone believe that two people who have loved dearly and have been parted can say anything adequate at such moments? Certainly all the explanations, the pleas for forgiveness that Joanna had meant to utter if they should ever meet again, left her. She only sat and held his hand and called his name again and again. But he was silent.
Both became terribly self-conscious, indeed, were very near weeping. Peter told Joanna long afterwards that he did not dare speak for fear of bursting into tears. Peter, who had been in two terrible engagements, and had brought back Meriwether Bye from No Man’s Land!
He told Joanna about Meriwether during those first incredibly beatific days after they had met again. But Joanna was too astounded at the happiness which flooded the very atmosphere about them. Almost as though she were taking a deep sea bath in bliss.
“I used to think,” she told him, “even if Peter does come back, we never can
‘recapture
that first fine
