Raymond knew her at once by her walk.  He had always noted that swing of hers under her white robe.  He did not believe another girl in the world moved in just that way—­it was like the laugh that belonged with it.  Indifferent, pleading, sweet, and brave—­a bit daring, too.  Joan was all in white now.  A trim linen suit; white stockings and shoes; a white silk hat with a wide bow of white—­Patricia kept her touch on Joan’s wardrobe.

Raymond waited until the girl before him had pulled on her long gloves and reached the corner of Fifth Avenue, then he walked rapidly and overtook her.  He feared that he was leaping; he felt crude and rough; but he had never been simpler and more sincere in his life.  The elemental was overpowering him, that was all.

“Good afternoon!” he blurted into Joan’s astonished ears; “where are you going?”

Joan turned and confronted him, not in alarm, but utter rout.  Naturally there was but one course for a girl to take at such a juncture—­but Joan did not take it.  Her elementals were alert, too, and she, too, had reached the stage when sounds know shades, and above any cautious appeal was the fear of sending this man adrift again.

“I wonder”—­Raymond spoke hurriedly; he wanted to drive that startled look out of the golden eyes—­“I wonder if you’re the sort that knows truth when she sees it—­even if it has to cover itself with the rags of things that aren’t truth?”

At this Joan laughed.

“I am afraid the heat has affected you,” was what she said, gently.

“Well, anyway, you’re not afraid of me!” Raymond saw that her eyes had grown steady.

“Oh! no.  I’m not afraid of you.  I’m not often afraid of anything.”

“I thought that.  You wouldn’t be doing that stunt at the Brier Bush if you were the scary kind.”  Raymond accompanied his step to Joan’s as naturally as if she had permitted him to do so.

“I don’t see why you speak as you do of my business,” Joan interjected.  “It’s how one interprets what one does that matters.  I make a very good income of what you term my stunt.  Perhaps you’re accustomed to girls who use such means—­wrongfully.”

Joan felt quite proud of her small sting, but Raymond broke in joyously: 

“You’re mighty clever; you’ve struck on just what I mean.  See here, you don’t know me and I don’t know you——­” At this Joan turned her face away.  “And I’m jolly glad we don’t.  It makes it all easier.  I know very little about girls—­I dance with them and things like that when I have to, but as a class I never cottoned to them much, nor they to me.  I know the ugly names tacked to things that might be innocent and happy enough.  Now your business—­it could be a cover for something rather different——?”

“But it isn’t!” Joan broke in, hotly.