and
delighted.

It had no shadows for her wondering eyes; the shadows lay behind her.
New York with its shops where with Ann she had gasped and laughed and
colored and stared into mirrors, its lights, its crowds, its theaters,
its opera where Max Kreiling sang and left her with a sob in her heart,
its amazing Bohemia of success of which Kenny was a part, seemed to her
but a never-ending sparkle of romance and kindness. She spent
unwearied hours in Ann's studio, masquerading in a sculptor's smock and
staring at clay and marble with eyes of unbelief. And she tarried for
amazed intervals in the studio upstairs where Margot Gilberte plied
Cellini's art, embedding pennyweights of metal in hot pitch that,
cooling, held it like a dark and shapeless hand while Margot sculptured
elfin leaves and scrolls upon it. Curious things came to the jeweler's
desk where Margot worked; jewels cut and uncut, soft-colored
sea-pebbles, natural lumps of greenish copper, silver and gold and
brass (to Margot's eye there were no baser metals) malachite and coral
and New Zealand jade. Joan handled them all with gasps of reverence.

"And this, Margot? How green it is!"

"A peridot for a dewdrop in a leaf of gold. And there, Question-mark,
are the pink tourmalines I propose to use for rosebuds in this necklace
of silver leaves."

"And blue sapphires!"

"They are for pools of sea-water in some golden seaweed and the pearls
are for buds in some cherry leaves."

"What an odd frail little tool, Margot!"

"I made it myself," said Margot. "And now, cherie, if you don't run
along to Madame Morny, Kenny will scold me."

She delighted Madame Morny with her willingness to work. She delighted
Kenny with her willingness to play. Nothing tired her. Together they
roamed to the quaint little restaurants of Bohemia; the Italian table
d'hotes where Kenny was inclined to twinkle at the youthful art
students who affected pretentious ties, the quiet old German restaurant
that once had been a church, Chinatown where you ate unskillfully with
chopsticks upon a table of onyx, and the Turkish restaurant where
everything, Sid said, was lamb.

"Garry found it," he insisted. "I didn't. I'm glad I didn't, though a
lot of the Salmagundi men go over there and like it. The art students
too. Forty cents. Proprietor's the real thing--he wears a fizz."

"Fuzz, darlin'," corrected Kenny gently.

"Fez!" sputtered Sid in disgust. "Fez, of course. Everythi