n his bedroom in
St. James's Palace cursed himself and life because Joan was still as
difficult to win as sunshine was to bottle.

And up in the sky that hung above them all the angels were lighting the
stars.

VIII

Martin was not given to suspicion. He accepted people at their face
value and believed in human nature. It never occurred to him, then,
that the apparently ingenuous and disarming Irene, with her straight
glance and wide smile, had brought Tootles to Devon except by accident
or for anything but health and peace. He was awfully glad to see them.
They added to the excellent effect upon his spirits which had been
worked by the constant companionship of the irrepressible Howard,
before whose habitual breeziness depression could stand little chance.

Also he had youth and health and plenty to do in gorgeous weather, and
so his case, which he had been examining rather morbidly, assumed a
less painful aspect. His love and need of Joan remained just as strong,
but the sense of martyrdom brought about by loneliness and
self-analysis left him. Once more he assured himself that Joan was a
kid and must have her head until she became a woman and faced facts.
Over and over again he repeated to himself the creed that she had flung
into the teeth of fate, and in this he found more excuse than she
deserved for the way in which she had used him to suit her purpose and
put him into the position of a big elder brother whose duty it was to
support her, in loco parentis, and not interfere with her pastimes.
However much she fooled and flirted, he had an unshakable faith in her
cleanness and sweetness, and if he continued to let her alone, to get
fed up with what she called the Merry-go-round, she would one day come
home and begin all over again. She was a kid, just a kid as she had
said, and why, after all, should she be bullied and bully-ragged before
she had had time to work it off? That's how he argued.

Meanwhile, he was, thankfully enough, no longer alone. Here were Howard
and the two girls and the yawl and the sun, and he would keep merry and
bright until Joan came back. He was too proud and sensitive to go to
Joan and have it all out with her and thus dispel what had developed
into a double misunderstanding, and too loyal to go to Joan's mother
and tell his story and beg for help. Like Joan and Howard, and who
knows how many other young things in the world, he was paying the
inevitable penalty for believing