These were at their best vague plans. Only one thing was definite about them. They were to include no more make-believe. Whatever came hereafter, Joan intended to be herself. The world must accept her on her own terms; in the phrase of her childhood "like her or lump her!"

The difficulty was to decide just what that self might be. Hitherto it had altered obligingly to suit different situations; blowing now hot, now cold, according to the wind of circumstance. But surely underneath there was a definite entity, which did not chop and change and adapt itself, but remained Joan?

At school she had shown no particular aptitude that would help her now—or rather had shown an aptitude in so many directions as to give rise to a widespread impression that "Joan Darcy would get somewhere some day," but which had caused more than one of her teachers to shake her head and murmur something about Jack of all trades being master of none. She herself had found this facility convenient, not in the pursuit of study but in the avoidance of it. She had managed to slip through the brief period allotted by Richard Darcy for the necessities of a young gentlewoman's education, with the minimum of work combined with the maximum of pleasure. It seemed to her then, and afterwards, the wisest possible use to make of a superior brain. Possibly the mental diet offered for her consideration was not altogether suited to Joan's peculiar requirements.

Certainly she came away from school with little more knowledge than she had taken into it, even with regard to herself. Vague yearnings she was aware of, vague inhibitions and promptings; together with tastes and distastes that were not vague at all. She put the latter down on a bit of paper, in an effort to come to a clearer understanding of the girl who was Joan Darcy.

She liked:

1. Books. On any subject whatever, provided they did not try to teach anything and came up to her rather exacting standards of style.

2. Dancing—if people kept in step with the music and did not hold her too close.

3. Out-of-doors, especially when the wind was blowing.

4. Music, if there was no one around to discuss it or analyse it.

5. Children, without their families.

6. Almost any sort of a dog, particularly if it did not seem to belong to anybody. Strays regarded her as their own.

She disliked (and here there were no qualifications. It was never hard for Joan to say what she disliked!):

1. Debt.

2. Effusiveness.

3. Humility.

4. Vulgarity—under which heading she included everything her step-mother did, or said, or thought, or wore, or was. Yet she did not quite dislike her step-mother.

This exhaustive survey left her with the impression of a hypercritical, overconfident, extremely unpleasant young ego, which intended to get as much out of life as possible with as little given in return, and which so far had got about what it deserved. She was glad that no one of her acquaintance was clever enough to see her quite as clearly as she saw herself.

Except, of course, Mr. Nikolai: and he did not count.

There was something odd about Stefan Nikolai's attitude toward his fellow-men. He seemed to regard humanity as if it were a vast picture puzzle which it was his privilege to take apart and put together again for his amusement. He asked nothing of any piece of the puzzle except that it fit eventually into the spot where it belonged. Joan had a comfortable feeling that he would presently find her spot for her in case she failed to find it for herself. But she preferred to find it for herself, if possible.

His letter in response to the one in which she informed him of her impending engagement to Eduard Desmond had confirmed her faith in his uncanny insight. She did not realize how vividly her untrammeled descriptions made people and conditions about her known to a student of human kind. If she always saw things more clearly herself after she had set them down in black and white, the clarity doubtless extended to other vision.

He wrote from Russia, where he had been living for a while among the mouzhiks in order to understand how mouzhiks live. His curiosity about such things was insatiable.

"I also have a wish to see how Tzars live, since it is an order that is passing," he added casually. "But I fear for one of my race that will be difficult. Mouzhiks have less reason to fear us Jews than have Tsars."

Then he went off at one of his usual tangents, and described to Joan briefly the theory of vaccination. "It is a question of phagocytes, you understand. Metchnikoff's idea is that when a disease manifests itself a certain number of phagocytes detach themselves from the blood to fight it. The stronger the virus injected of that disease, the greater the number of phagocytes formed; and it is the presence of these detached phagocytes after the virus has run its course that render the patient immune from further attack."

("What," wondered bewildered Joan, "is the man talking about? It sounds like a medical almanac!")

But as there was usually some method in Mr. Nikolai's tangents, she read on. At the end of the last page he enlightened her, and disposed of the affair with Eduard Desmond in two sentences.

"By this time you will be recuperating from your first love-attack. Severe, doubtless, but so much the better. More phagocytes!"

It was his only reference to her revelations with regard to Eduard Desmond. Evidently to the scientific mind love in its various manifestations was merely a form of mal-ease to which humanity is subject.

Joan sincerely hoped that enough of the phagocytes had been released by the innoculation to render her immune from further attack forever.