292i
 
 Unconventional 
 Joan 
 
 Old acquaintances, whom you will recognize 
 when you meet them, herein provide the 
 themes, atmosphere and action of a can- 
 didly daring effort to please and help you 
 
 BUNGALOW BOOK COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO ILLINOIS
 
 "UNCONVENTIONAL JOAN" 
 Copyrighted 1922 
 
 All Rights Reserved, including that of translation 
 into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 BUNGALOW BOOK COMPANY
 
 To Her 
 
 2138674 '
 
 Unconventional Joan 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 i 
 
 A T the corner. 
 
 ** "Extra! Evening News. 'War Miseries Mul- 
 tiply!'" 
 
 The crier and courier for that influential publication 
 dashed towards two men meeting at the corner of News- 
 paper Row, at six o'clock on the evening of November 
 6th, 1918. 
 
 "Extra ! Evening Record. 'War Failures Increase !' ' 
 
 Raggedy herald number two trumpeted a shrill chal- 
 lenge for the competing newspaper dynasty. 
 
 Collision and conflict between the two enterprising 
 contestants were wasted. Both barefooted envoys tri- 
 umphed. Two papers apiece were thrust into the hands 
 of their unknown chiefs, the editors respectively of the 
 Morning News and Morning Record, who were on their 
 way to their night's work. 
 
 As these two modern Caesars lingered at the corner 
 to exchange jibes about the amusingly imitative headlines 
 of their rival papers atrociously depressing headlines 
 their citizen-subjects crowded by to their homes away 
 from their floundering struggles with the "Press-pro- 
 moted proceedings of the day." 
 
 7
 
 8 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Press-promoted and polluted proceedings of the 
 day," Professor Lawrence Trueby, at the college, had 
 cynically put it, in his pungent passion for alliteration. 
 
 Disconnected fragments of the conversations of their 
 dependants reached the ears of the two newspaper poten- 
 tates, always on the alert. 
 
 "... and that preacher calls this civilization . . . 
 "... further coal and sugar restrictions . . . ' 
 "... tired and want to get out of this . . . ' 
 "... couldn't believe a thing his wife said . . . ' 
 "... shot him in the stomach . . . ' 
 "... divorced her second husband and . . . ' 
 "... cheapest silk stockings . . . ' 
 "... kissed her at the movies . . . ' 
 "... drafted ..." 
 
 "... phone keeps tinkling and nobody answers ..." 
 "... wireless propaganda from the enemy . . . ' 
 "... electricity making wars shorter maybe . . . ' 
 Depressing headline chit-chat, most of it, superficially 
 gleaned from quickly snatched newspapers, or, as in the 
 last instance, casually inspired by things as commonplace 
 as the grotesquely vulgar electric signs, which eccentric 
 Professor Trueby elaborately described in his curious 
 sociological thesis, as "vividly radiating their lurid en- 
 ticements to the impoverished brains of a purblind peo- 
 ple, harnessed and blinkered by conventional capitula- 
 tion to the driving domination of propaganda." 
 
 Seen through the Professor's spectacles, whistling 
 boys cut zigzag through the traffic, "brazenly battering" 
 everybody as they went, and their elders gave them room. 
 Vacant-faced girls "prattled pathetically" about their 
 "evening expectations." Faded women artfully con-
 
 Unconventional Joan 9 
 
 cealed unbearable fatigue beneath "perfect pose." Nerv- 
 ous business men, set free after their day's work, "dil- 
 igently dirtied" the much used air with "cloudy mixtures 
 of carbon monoxide" and tobacco fumes, while they 
 "contentedly crammed" their newspaper wads of en- 
 lightenment into their pockets, and strenuously fought 
 their way forward to seats in the cars. 
 
 Civilization ! 
 
 For a fraction of a minute the stampede halted and 
 swerved in its course to make a small space on the pave- 
 ment for a man to have a fit. Those who had never seen 
 a fit paused briefly to satisfy their morbid curiosity, and 
 then hurried along, taking their sympathy with them for 
 personal use. 
 
 Mr. Glitter flashed past in a nobby suit, dead broke, 
 looking for a life-saver. Miss Coy flitted demurely by 
 in pursuit of an extra dash of talcum on the tip of her 
 nose. Alderman Blunt trundled his oppressive impor- 
 tance through the throng with the airs of an owner of the 
 earth. Miss Nondescript, fully aware of the young strip- 
 ling slinking behind her, kept just far enough ahead of 
 him to lead him on. Johnny Pepp punctuated his alter- 
 nate steps with expectorations of contempt for the boss 
 who had just discharged him for kissing a stenographer. 
 Widow Cross, of the wrinkled stockings, not relishing 
 being spat at, poked Johnny into the gutter. Another per- 
 fect lady poked the poker off the pavement after Johnny. 
 A skidding motor car snorted angrily at being slowed up 
 by such plebeian obstructions, and, a moment later, the 
 rushing torrent of gurgling humanity sucked Johnny and 
 the widow back to the pavement, and then down, as in a 
 whirlpool, through a hole in the ground to a glorified
 
 IO Unconventional Joan 
 
 sewer, where everybody took copious inhalations of the 
 aromatic subterranean atmosphere, and eventually set- 
 tled upon one another's feet in the trains. 
 Civilization ! 
 
 ii 
 
 For a quarter of a century there had been this daily 
 rush scene at this hour. Newspaper Row, one square 
 long, boasted, among other things, that it was the centre 
 of the city's congestion. But the famous square was also 
 the centre of the city's influence, as had been ordained 
 from the very beginning. That was when, as a dusty 
 roadway, it had been christened "Church Street," after 
 Trinity Church, which presided over the short length of 
 the thoroughfare from its position on intersecting North 
 Street. 
 
 Eventually the city government erected a City Hall 
 adjoining the Church, and for that period during which 
 government may be said to have been anchored on re- 
 ligion, Church Street maintained its given name; but 
 when the centre of the city's influence moved out of the 
 Church into the City Hall next door, the politicians op- 
 portunely expended a liberal bond issue for a park in the 
 middle of the thoroughfare, and Church Street there- 
 upon assumed its first alias of "Government Place." 
 
 Thereafter, merchants who had previously made hon- 
 est livings on the dusty street vouched for by the name 
 of the Church, boldly broadened their policies and cor- 
 respondingly enhanced their profits by dispensing a more 
 dignified brand of service commensurate with the ex- 
 clusiveness of the parkway newly known as "Government 
 Place/'
 
 Unconventional Joan II 
 
 The latest change in the name of the street was an in- 
 novation simultaneous with the prodigious prosperity of 
 the city's two newspapers, the News, and the Record. 
 
 The home of the Morning and Evening News had 
 rapidly grown to be a palatial building on the east side of 
 Government Place, in the middle of the square. The 
 home of the Morning and Evening Record had become 
 an almost equally pretentious establishment on the west 
 side of Government Place, likewise in the middle of the 
 square, and directly facing its competitor, the News. 
 
 "From the two facing sets of windows," wrote the in- 
 dignant Professor in his famous thesis, "the gigantic 
 printing presses of these two autocracies, like bristling 
 teeth in the jaws of leviathans, snapped savagely across 
 at each other, morning and evening, and bit off big 
 mouthfuls of paper, desecrated and slimy, which they 
 spat forth into receptacles of a type aptly called, after its 
 contents, 'news truck,' dozens of which tore madly 
 through the streets to numerous dumping places, whence 
 individual helpings of the filthy stuff could be most ad- 
 vantageously dished up to the citizens with their morn- 
 ing saucer of porridge or their evening bowl of soup." 
 
 In remarkably short time, the two principalities de- 
 cided and decreed that the beautiful park in the middle of 
 the street was in the way of their regal dump-carts, and 
 it figured ludicrously in cartoons which lampooned the 
 impracticability of planting flowers on a railroad track. 
 Finally it slipped quietly and completely out of the pic- 
 ture, the centrepiece of which became a double row of 
 rubber-shod locomotives manned by blustering bullies. 
 That was when the centre of the city's influence, pri- 
 marily located in the Church, and afterwards in the City
 
 12 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Hall, had been moved half-way down the square to the 
 newspaper offices, and the name of "Government Place" 
 automatically became "Newspaper Row." 
 
 Bearing upon this periodic shifting of the heart of the 
 metropolis, a certain sudden consequence of the war- 
 strain that nightly drove so many stay-at-homes to the 
 cinema-shows for distraction, was the overnight growth 
 of 'Togo's Picture Palace" at the southern extremity of 
 Newspaper Row, on South Street, facing up the square 
 towards the Church, as if bidding defiance, with its 
 shockingly indecent advertisements, to the Reverend 
 Matthew Holden's dwindling powers of persuasion, and 
 ambitiously competing with the two newspapers for the 
 record in quality as well as quantity of influence exerted 
 upon the local savages. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Although none of those who surged past the two edi- 
 tors, not even their own newsboys, knew them, there 
 were many in the moving throng known more intimately 
 than they perhaps realized by the newspaper men, whose 
 prerogative it was both to know and to make known. 
 The citizens' secrets always yielded easily to their en- 
 quiries. Only their own competitive secrets and plans 
 tantalizingly taxed the upper reaches of their inquisitive- 
 ness, and it was really more because they were shrewd 
 rivals than because they were friends, that the two editors 
 met nightly for a few minutes on their way to their privi- 
 leged function of preparing for the sleeping city its morn- 
 ing assortment of influences. 
 
 Thomas Manly, the younger of the two men, likable 
 in manner as well as in appearance, had spectacularly
 
 Unconventional Joan 13 
 
 graduated into high newspaper circles direct from col- 
 lege, as the son of one of the proprietors and a former 
 editor of the News, but his specialized education, inti- 
 mate relations with his father, and a half-year's gruelling 
 experience, had seemingly equipped him for the editorial 
 duties to which he was enthusiastically devoted with all 
 the fervour of his young manhood. His friends called 
 him a "prodigy." His competitor enviously called him 
 an "effigy." 
 
 Wilfrid Keating, the competitor, older than Manly 
 by fifteen years, owner of striking blue eyes that pierced 
 you pleasantly but probingly, once sarcastically confided 
 to his assistant that he, too, "like Manly, of the Neivs, 
 had passed from one educational institution to another 
 when he became editor of the Record, meaning the 
 "School of Hard Knocks." To him all college products 
 were prodigies of impudent pretence whom he persist- 
 ently discounted by exaggerating their escapades in his 
 columns, as if they were competitors. Thus he abetted 
 the students' tendency to synonymize "college" with 
 "comedy." 
 
 Manly's stylish hat, chamois gloves, smart walking 
 stick, and well-cut suit evidenced his punctilious approval 
 of the conventional proprieties as promoted by his paper. 
 Keating was similarly groomed to an exquisite finish, 
 along somewhat more mature lines. Observers of the 
 two men, as they purchased their papers, might have 
 noted that both of them correctly mirrored the styles 
 which their newspapers were paid to advertise as sanc- 
 tioned by the arbiters of fashion. 
 
 As they stood there, their papers were accommodat- 
 ingly illuminated by Pogo's powerful electric sign above
 
 14 Unconventional Joan 
 
 his Picture Palace, which suddenly lit up the square, 
 tempting the retreating army of workers to tarry. 
 
 'Togo just lives on that electric juice of his, eh 
 Manly?" ventured Keating, by way of a greeting, and 
 with the characteristic interrogation of the journalist. 
 
 "We depend on it, too, don't you think?" responded 
 Manly, similarly questioning and fencing. 
 
 "How's that?" enquired the directing brain of the 
 Record, wondering how a newspaper could possibly be 
 accused of depending upon anything outside itself. 
 
 "Well, I suppose electricity is the nearest thing to day- 
 light that you and I enjoy," defensively parried Manly, 
 thinking of the crowds going home, and pitying himself 
 on the way to a night of arduous work. 
 
 "That's a fact, Manly. And, come to think of it, the 
 current is more than merely daylight to us. Why, it's 
 actually our breath. We really live on it more than old 
 Pogodoes! Do you realize that?" 
 
 Keating could not have been the well trained news- 
 gatherer that he was had he not sprinkled his conversa- 
 tion generously with question marks. 
 
 "How so?" Manly put the question mechanically, ab- 
 stractedly following with his eyes an interesting couple 
 emerging from the doorway of the loft adjoining the 
 Record building. 
 
 "Why, if you take away -the telegraph you kill the 
 Press." 
 
 "Good evening, Joan, Hello Jerry!" interrupted 
 Manly, bowing to the solemn young man with somewhat 
 unfashionable clothes, and his trim little girl companion, 
 who had crossed over from the loft building and passed 
 the two editors.
 
 Unconventional Joan 15 
 
 "Ah! the two J's," facetiously observed Keating, sur- 
 veying the couple with his penetrating blue eyes, and 
 assuming that Manly recognized the obvious disparity 
 manifested between the serious smile of the man and the 
 vivacious twinkle in the eyes of the girl. 
 
 "Jays chatter, Keating, but those birds hum," icily 
 retorted Manly, in sarcastically selected vernacular, ver- 
 bally identifying the odd pair with their buzzing electrical 
 experiments in the loft building, and purposely substi- 
 tuting an insinuating synonym for Keating's disparaging 
 epithet. His tone, as well as his eyes that followed the 
 couple, disclosed that either one or both commanded 
 something deeper than his mere respect. 
 
 The man, Jerry Englin, who had passed with the girl, 
 was tall by contrast with her. Nearly everyone in the city 
 knew of him, and admiringly called him "Electrical 
 Englin," as he had been alliteratively christened by the 
 eccentric Professor on account of the wonderful electrical 
 work which had been his effort towards winning the war. 
 
 The girl, Joan Avery, was just what Tom Manly had 
 aptly described her to be when he and Englin and Joan 
 were at college together "a dear little figure, and so 
 extraordinarily beautiful that the sweetness reflected in 
 her face actually awes men before it captivates them." 
 To which Jerry had feelingly replied at the time, "That's 
 right, Tom." 
 
 Keating accepted Manly's retort like a man who has 
 received a dipperful of cold water in the face, but, with 
 his usual self-control, he replied: 
 
 "No offence intended, Manly, but isn't it rather odd 
 and interesting, you know this affinity business of theirs 
 up there in the attic next door to our building?"
 
 16 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Nothing of the sort, Keating," quickly answered 
 Manly, reacting spiritedly to the older man's spur-like 
 jab and apparently being forced to yield to the studied 
 inquisition of his competitor. "I am glad to be able to 
 correct your wrong impression. She is merely a very 
 good friend of Englin's, a sort of business associate, 
 'silent partner' so to speak 'part of his brain,' he calls 
 her used to work with him on electrical stuff when the 
 three of us were at college together works with him in 
 the same old way up there in their laboratory next door 
 to your building. Englin never sees her outside of busi- 
 ness hours. But he gives her credit for a lot of detail 
 work in connection with his electrical inventions. Says 
 she can jump at conclusions instinctively quicker than he 
 can reason them out. Compares her intuition with wire- 
 less transmissions, and all that " 
 
 "Yes, but 'all that,' and particularly sticking to a genius 
 isn't ordinary, you know ? Now is it ? Normal women, 
 and the pretty ones especially, don't do that sort of thing. 
 They usually pick out someone who feels instead of mere- 
 ly thinks, and someone who feels for them, instead of 
 thinking all the time about helping other people. It's 
 unconventional, Manly, and you know it." 
 
 Mentally Manly did not deny that Keating was right, 
 but he replied: 
 
 "It isn't unconventional in the sense that you suggest, 
 Keating, not in the sense that there is any newspaper 
 story in it. It is novel, but it is not news. I can see your 
 drift. Leave them alone. The girl is all right, and the 
 man is a worker, particularly valuable to the country 
 under present war conditions, and actually engaged, to 
 my certain knowledge, in perfecting an invention which
 
 Unconventional Joan 17 
 
 ought to help you and me, seeing that, as Englin says, it 
 will 'multiply the power of the Press.' ' 
 
 " 'Multiply the power of the Press !' Indeed ? Well, 
 now then, that's something Englin ought to be willing to 
 tell us newspaper men all about," suggested the editor of 
 the Record, as he headed for his office. 
 
 "He has never explained it to me, an old friend, Keat- 
 ing, so I fancy he isn't going to gush it all out to you." 
 
 The rivals separated, individually satisfied with their 
 fencing bout; the older one thinking he had cutely dis- 
 covered, the younger one believing he had artfully pro- 
 voked the making of a newspaper story for the Record. 
 After the fashion of their highly sophisticated type, the 
 words uttered by their lips had served but to conceal their 
 thoughts and the motives in their hearts. Succeeding 
 events were to disclose both. 
 
 "Two weeks!" ejaculated Tom Manly, fifteen days 
 later. "Two weeks! I have heard of 'Three Weeks/ 
 but two weeks two such weeks have never been heard 
 of before! And to think that the inciting impulse of it 
 all should have been so casually set in motion by an 
 ordinary conversation between two unimportant men at 
 a common street corner !" 
 
 IV 
 
 But the foundation of it all extended farther back than 
 Tom Manly's conversation at the corner back to the 
 pretty English tea-shop adjoining the campus of an 
 American college back to the interesting college char- 
 acters who frequented the shop and made it famous 
 back to the tea-shop's happy scenes and to Joan, its 
 dainty little queen.
 
 jg Unconventional Joan 
 
 On a day in May, 1918, at the end of the college year 
 which witnessed the graduation of Jerry and Tom, the 
 tidy tea-shop took down its sign, after a touching im- 
 promptu farewell tribute of devotion to the fairy cus- 
 todian who had presided over it for a year after the death 
 of her charming English mother. 
 
 "The little mother of the tea-shop," Professor Trueby 
 had christened her, "taking the place of her mother." 
 
 War, and the departure of so many of the students 
 for the front, abruptly terminated the tea-shop's unique 
 career, and suspended Joan's programme of financing her 
 way through college at the end of her first year. 
 
 "Never mind, Joan," sympathetically remarked ag- 
 gressive Tom Manly, as he entered the shop on the last 
 day. "It's going to be all right." 
 
 The future owner of one of the city's great newspapers 
 briskly crossed the room, admired and greeted by every- 
 one, and took his seat at one of the tables beside his chum, 
 Jerry Englin, whence he kept watching Joan as she flitted 
 around from one group of her friends to another, de- 
 lightedly reviewing in his mind his plan of "making it 
 all right" for Joan, as well as for himself, as quickly as 
 she would permit during the coming year of his entrance 
 upon the editorial career for which he had been studious- 
 ly preparing. 
 
 It was then that he remarked to Jerry: 
 "Such a dear little figure, and so extraordinarily beau- 
 tiful that the sweetness reflected in her face actually awes 
 men before it captivates them." 
 
 "That's right, Tom," soberly agreed Jerry. 
 Quiet, deliberate, meditative Jerry Englin. 
 Aggressive, enterprising, dominating Tom Manly.
 
 Unconventional Joan 19 
 
 They both sat quietly happy for a moment under the 
 influence of their observation of her. 
 
 She was very finely and delicately made, and the 
 simple blue linen frock with its snowy apron and frilled 
 cap seemed to enhance the extraordinary grace of her 
 slim little figure. Her freshness and daintiness were al- 
 most mystic, and her clear blue trustful eyes influenced 
 people in a very singular manner because they seemed to 
 offer a sweet and frank confidence. 
 
 "Dream-child," murmured Manly. 
 
 "Prude," protested Girda Wickley, overhearing Tom 
 and reading his eyes, as she straddled into a chair beside 
 him and Jerry and lit her cigarette. "English prude." 
 
 Joan, passing by, heard her. 
 
 Jerry looked embarrassed. 
 
 Resourceful Tom cleverly replied: "You are amusing, 
 Girda." 
 
 It was a cutting commentary upon the limitations of 
 Girda's type, but she failed to discern it. 
 
 "I can't make her out," expatiated Girda. "She is so 
 abnormally different from the average girl." 
 
 "Average girl," mused Jerry to himself disparagingly. 
 "Once upon a time merely to be a girl was to be 
 admirable.' 
 
 "There's another good thing about you, Girda," con- 
 tinued Tom, amplifying his caustic commentary. "I can 
 say what I think about you without putting my foot in 
 it." Which, candidly interpreted, might have meant, 
 "You are the kind with whom a fellow can take liberties." 
 
 With elaborate unconcern, Girda cooed her affected 
 appreciation of what she took to be a compliment, and 
 turned her chair around to an adjoining table in time to
 
 20 Unconventional Joan 
 
 hear Joan deprecate a political newspaper cartoon lam- 
 pooning "The Slow English," which had been playfully 
 presented to her by stylish Conrad Wefers: 
 
 "No, I don't care about that." She tactfully brushed 
 the paper aside. "What I like in newspapers are helpful 
 
 things." 
 
 "What's wrong with a harmless newspaper?" chal- 
 lenged Girda. 
 
 "Nothing, Girda, absolutely nothing is wrong with a 
 harmless newspaper. It's vicious newspapers, like this 
 one, that are hurtful." She pointed to the copy of the 
 Record. "Something or other in me, that I can't help, 
 resents it. It isn't just the kind of influence that I like 
 to have in my shop." 
 
 "She's right," championed the bespectacled professor 
 of sociology at the same table, when Joan moved away 
 to bring an extra pot of tea. "College text-books stand 
 a poor enough chance against the bad influence of the 
 best of our newspapers. The newspapers that are brought 
 into this college are studied more carefully than any of 
 the college text-books. They actually cancel the influ- 
 ence of the text-books. The lives of most of the students 
 are smartly modelled upon them, but smartness isn't bril- 
 liance, you know." 
 
 "Looney Larry !" snickered Girda to a neighbour, giv- 
 ing Lawrence Trueby the popular nickname by which he 
 was known to those of the students to whom he had con- 
 fided the importance of his coming thesis on "Conven- 
 tionalism and its Perpetrators." "Don't mind him. He 
 can't help having his growl." 
 
 Girda's alluring independence found a patronizing 
 echo in the co-operative taunt of dapper Conrad Wefers,
 
 Unconventional Joan 21 
 
 directed, with typical schoolboy discernment and derision, 
 against the obsession of the learned doctor. 
 
 " 'Smartness isn't brilliance,' of course not ; but who 
 wants to be brilliant?" 
 
 Girda tittered. 
 
 Professor Trueby glared. 
 
 "Precisely," he retorted, "precisely. 'Who wants to 
 be brilliant ?' Those who have the opportunity to become 
 educated" he squinted at grinning "Conny" "prefer 
 newspaper instruction, and those who want the oppor- 
 tunity to become educated" he peered over his spec- 
 tacles at Joan in the distance "can't get it. Conse- 
 quently, lack of education is the most common and em- 
 barrassing thing in the world. Poverty prevents it and 
 newspapers neutralize it," he alliteratively declaimed. 
 "Millions are spent by colleges to rationalize human 
 beings, but billions are used by newspapers to make 
 mimicking nincompoops out of them." 
 
 In the absent-minded manner of the fanatic, he picked 
 up his folding-chair "Civilization's dexterous contri- 
 bution to the delightful art of loafing," he contemptu- 
 ously called it folded it up, carried it across the room, 
 unfolded it and sat on it close up to Conny, facing him, 
 and eloquently launched forth into a confidential disser- 
 tation, whose wearisomeness Conny, looking over his 
 shoulder, began sardonically to telegraph by frowns and 
 scowls to giggling Girda, who was hugely enjoying his 
 discomfiture. 
 
 "It's this way, Mr. Conrad, life is like an ocean," ex- 
 patiated Professor Trueby, "and it ought to be quiet and 
 calm, and it would be but for winds empty puffs of 
 gossip and propaganda in newspapers. They stir up the
 
 22 Unconventional Joan 
 
 surface of things make troublesome waves that have 
 to be buffeted by us, passengers on the sea of life, who 
 can't get where we ought to go if we go with the winds, 
 who get off our course and drive on the rocks if we do 
 go with the winds." 
 
 "How can you tell if you're going with the winds?" 
 taunted Conny. 
 
 "You look at the day's log," rebukingly retaliated the 
 Professor. "Here's what it reveals about you: You 
 leave port in the morning, Mr. Conny Conny being 
 short for 'Convention' I suppose out you go, like a 
 million of the -same conventional type same rigging, 
 same shape hat, same color, same kind of cane, same kind 
 of gloves you don't use them, but you carry them 
 along anyhow same kind of eye-harness, same kind of 
 smoke-funnel, same rolling lurch, meeting several hun- 
 dred of the million others lurching along just like you, 
 same newspaper chart under the arms of all of you, ta"ke 
 same old route, same old way, and do the day all alike, 
 as much like yesterday and all the other yesterdays as 
 you possibly can " He stopped abruptly, scornfully 
 scribbled a pair of quotation marks on the edge of the 
 newspaper, tore off the edge and tossed it at Conny with 
 the crushing denouncement 
 
 "That's your label k means you're 'copied' like 
 everyone who uses a newspaper for a chart." 
 
 Conny had been risking breaking :his neck with ar- 
 tificial nods in mock imitation of going to sleep in the 
 professor's face to no advantage and suddenly, in 
 desperation, emitted a stentorian snore so elaborately at- 
 tempted that it woke him up in the form of a gurgling 
 burst of laughter, which contagiously communicated it-
 
 Unconventional Joan 23 
 
 self to others in the shop. And the lecture was suspended. 
 
 Joan returned with the pot of tea. 
 
 "Have some tea, Girda?" she proffered, by way of 
 conciliation. 
 
 Girda answered by lifting her eyebrows. She had be- 
 gun to relieve her feelings with pencil and paper, in char- 
 acteristic school-girl fashion. A few minutes later she 
 turned back to Tom's table and shoved her poetic views 
 of Joan under his nose: 
 
 When everybody else but you 
 
 begins to do 
 A thing or two which very few 
 
 Would reckon new, 
 You never will such things condone 
 
 By look or tone, 
 And that is why, forever, Joan, 
 
 You'll live alone. 
 
 Tom smiled. He knew better ! 
 
 He also knew Joan's sense of humour sufficiently well 
 to realize that she would enjoy this, and got up to show it 
 to her. And besides, it provided him with an opportun- 
 ity for suggestive denial. While she was laughing over 
 it with him, a hastily written reply to Girda's effusion 
 began to follow a copy of the first stanza circulating 
 around the room: 
 
 When everybody else but me 
 
 Has had his tea, 
 And left the shop exceedingly 
 
 Inept to see 
 That never need a Queen bemoan 
 
 Her envied throne, 
 Adoring, I salute you, Joan 
 
 Live on alone!
 
 24 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Whose was it ?" 
 
 Everyone knew who had written the attack, but who 
 had penned the reply? There was an inescapable ring of 
 sincerity in it that aroused serious curiosity. Margaret 
 Holden, delicate daughter of one of the professors, who 
 had valued the refining influence of the tea-shop and was 
 honouring it on its closing day by his presence, left her 
 father's side and hastily took the poem to Joan, still 
 standing with Tom. 
 
 She read it, blushed crimson, and hurried behind her 
 counter. Joan had the fair pink-and-white English com- 
 plexion which flushes so easily to a deeper carmine, and, 
 like all shy girls who blush to find themselves conspicu- 
 ous, she resented bitterly the becoming little trick that 
 some of her envious sisters would have given much to 
 possess. 
 
 Tom read the poem, paled perceptibly, and anxiously 
 scanned all the male faces in the room. 
 
 "Who is the author ?" asked dandy Conny Wef ers. 
 
 "Who is he, Joan?" coaxed Margaret. 
 
 "Tell us, Joan," pleaded a chorus of voices. 
 
 Joan came smiling from behind the counter. 
 
 "There isn't anybody " she began. 
 
 "Of course not!" chirruped the chorus. 
 
 Tom Manly wondered if her statement included him. 
 He scrutinized her laughing face, bewildered. 
 
 "I love all of you," she protested, grateful for their 
 patronage and their friendship, "and I am sure you all 
 love me because you have proved it so magnificently." 
 
 It sounded like the beginning of her valedictory her 
 valedictory and her apology. 
 
 The chorus was hushed. The way she said it made
 
 Unconventional Joan 25 
 
 silence its only answer. Her face had become very sober. 
 
 She sat down in the midst of her friends, realizing 
 that it was for the last time, and began to talk to them 
 like a mild little mother so little that she seemed to 
 have wandered in from the nursery. 
 
 So little and so motherly. 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop no more. 
 
 "I don't know how I am going to get along without 
 you," she said and quickly corrected herself. "I didn't 
 mean that, not exactly. I meant that it is going to be hard 
 not to see you any more but of course, this is no time to 
 be jealous of one's friends, is it? or to be disagreeing 
 with any of them," she looked penitently at Girda "much 
 less fretting and feeling badly over losing an old tea-shop. 
 There's such a bigger feeling " She hesitated. 
 
 She had pinned a little British flag alongside of an 
 American flag in the white frill that encircled her beau- 
 tiful hair, and she took them out now and held them in 
 her hands hands so tiny and yet so capable. 
 
 The two little flags, held together, talked for her and 
 said what she meant. 
 
 For a moment she regarded them silently, then added, 
 again looking apologetically towards Girda: 
 
 "I put it to you I could never tear some things that 
 are English out of my heart now, could I? English 
 ways are so much a part of me they meant so much to 
 my mother and anyhow, you wouldn't expect me to, 
 would you? It isn't done, you know. But I have come 
 to love all of you so dearly that I don't know now which 
 I love more, my old friends at home or my new friends 
 here and anyhow, we are all one now." 
 
 They made no comments nor interruptions.
 
 26 Unconventional Joan 
 
 The spell of listening seemed too pleasing to lose. 
 
 But their thoughts were interesting comments upon her 
 mild manner of moving them. 
 
 "Dream-girl," thought Tom, again. 
 
 "Bewilderingly fine," thought Jerry. 
 
 "Gentility," thought Matthew Holden, "the art of gen- 
 tle words and manners." 
 
 "Breeding," thought Professor Trueby. 
 
 "Angel," reverently thought Margaret, watching her 
 father's eyes, as they in turn watched the little speaker. 
 
 "It is so wonderful for us to be just one one big 
 people instead of two!" 
 
 Joan was radiant. 
 
 "Some newspapers seem to be always trying to make 
 us quarrel provoking us to fuss, as though we were 
 little boys and girls and could be made to do it always 
 reminding us about our littlenesses never trying to be 
 polite and politeness is something, or ought to be even 
 in a newspaper, don't you think? But you don't find it in 
 them 'Those English/ they keep saying over here and 
 over there, 'Those Americans' contemptuously, taunt- 
 ingly, temptingly, it's childish behaviour it deserves a 
 spanking it's mischievous politics it's not the kind of 
 influence I like in my shop. That's all I meant, Girda." 
 She looked pleadingly at her attacker. "Politicians and 
 papers play with people maliciously they provoke people 
 to think things about one another which they would never 
 think about one another if not tempted to do so people 
 submit too tolerantly to their politicians " 
 
 "Plunderbund politicians," sympathetically and allit- 
 eratively interrupted Professor Trueby. "Profiteering 
 patrioteers."
 
 Unconventional Joan 27 
 
 "People need one another more than they need their 
 politicians," continued Joan, "especially our two big 
 English people we need each other not only now but 
 after the war always! America can do so much for 
 England for English people and England can do so 
 much yes, English people can do so much for Ameri- 
 cans, too. Anglo-American friendship between indi- 
 viduals is natural and common, and enmity between our 
 politicians and papers should not be permitted to break it 
 down. That's the only way to look at it, isn't it?" 
 
 The trusting blue eyes asked approval for her aspira- 
 tion. Other eyes, some of them moist, others blazing, 
 unmistakably gave it. 
 
 "Anyhow," she added, by way of justifying her ideal, 
 "that's the way my father used to look at it. My mother 
 told me so." 
 
 That settled it. That made it all right. That gave her 
 the courage to say it all over again, with explanations. 
 
 "You know, he died before I knew him, but he meant 
 to come over here to get some of your wonderful spirit 
 'aggressiveness/ Tom calls it, don't you Tom?" 
 
 "Pep," said Tom, encouragingly. 
 
 "Yes, and give something English in exchange for it. 
 So mother came, with me and we opened this little shop, 
 and offered some English atmosphere and manners to 
 take the place of some of your conventionalities and 
 we got in exchange a lot of your splendid methods and 
 my chance to get a year in college and the opportunity 
 to know you all Oh, it has just been too wonderful to 
 last" 
 
 She broke down. 
 
 Her little valedictory was over.
 
 28 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Her brief apology: an unwitting eulogy. 
 
 One by one, and in pairs and in groups, her friends 
 took sorrowful leave of her. 
 
 Tom stood on guard by her side, as they passed out 
 of the shop. 
 
 "We'll all be back together again, Joan, and I'll study 
 my text-books instead of the newspapers," comforted 
 jaunty Conny Wefers, as he passed out in his new suit 
 cut after the latest styles advertised by the Sunday News. 
 
 "I want to talk to you some time about my thesis " 
 Professor Trueby began, but was interrupted and jostled 
 along by Girda Wickley, who softened up and spluttered: 
 
 "Joan, will you come and live with me will you?" 
 
 "Joan is going to live with us," insisted Matthew 
 Holden. "I was just on the point of asking her. I am 
 giving up my professorship to become Rector of Trinity 
 Church and there is so much room in the Rectory " 
 
 "Pardon me," interrupted Tom, "but will you good 
 people mind holding your generous offers in abeyance 
 until I have had a little chat with Joan?" 
 
 Aggressive Tom ! 
 
 "Tom always gets what he wants like the indomit- 
 able American that he is," commented the new Rector of 
 Trinity, in a knowing way, as he diplomatically led Girda 
 and Margaret out, and left the shop to Joan and Tom 
 and still sitting at his table meditative Jerry. 
 
 "More tea, Jerry?" playfully enquired Joan. 
 
 "Yes, tea for three," he answered, inviting Tom and 
 Joan to join him. 
 
 Toying with his telltale pencil, recently used, he me- 
 chanically and appropriately scribbled on the menu card, 
 as if it were one of his scientific formulae:
 
 Unconventional Joan 29 
 
 T 4 3 
 
 Tom looked at the telltale pencil, then at the poem in 
 Joan's hand, then at Jerry's downcast eyes, then at Joan's 
 downcast, too. 
 
 "Joan " Tom hurriedly began, and stopped, embar- 
 rassed by Jerry's presence. 
 
 "Joan " slowly very slowly began Jerry, and then 
 nervously continued: "I'm through school now you 
 know just like Tom and going back to my old labora- 
 tory in the loft where I worked before going to col- 
 lege. The War Department thinks I can help with some 
 electrical work I think you can help, too it might give 
 you a way of doing a bit to 'win the war' you have been 
 working with me on electrical stuff already, you know 
 do you think you could keep it up with me do you 
 think you could do that, Joan ?" 
 
 It had taken him minutes to say it. He hung on her 
 reply. 
 
 "Why the only help I could give, Jerry, would be to 
 prepare your tea," laughingly replied Joan, conscious, 
 for the first time, of something deep and sweetly resonant 
 within her as if it might be the very veins of her gen- 
 tle English blood that seemed to vibrate in sympathy 
 with Jerry's deliberate tones, and harmonize enchant- 
 ingly with his quiet temperament. 
 
 "That will do, Joan," Jerry hurriedly accepted, as he 
 symbolically wrote beneath the other formula: 
 
 T 4 2 
 
 "It won't do at all," disconsolately thought Tom to 
 himself; but smilingly he said aloud: 
 
 "May I come up to the loft, too for tea?" 
 
 "You certainly may, Tom," warmly replied Jerry,
 
 30 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "and the oftener the better," but he did not erase the 
 "X 4 2." Instead, he drew a circle around it, and 
 on the circle put two dots, together, as if to infer: 
 
 "That one is you, Tom; this one is me contestants 
 at the post." 
 
 Like the start of a race ! 
 
 Joan picked up, to keep, the precious penciled symbol 
 of new-born aspirations so intimately related to her, and 
 unwittingly baptized it with two big tears that happiness 
 squeezed from her eyes. 
 
 "Good old Jerry," she tenderly murmured. "Like a 
 father to me. Dear Tom, like a brother to me." 
 
 Wistful, studious Jerry. 
 
 Dashing, dominant Tom.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ' I V HE tea-shop had closed in May. It was six months 
 later when Tom Manly stood in the evening with 
 Keating at the corner and watched Joan come with Jerry 
 from the loft-building. 
 
 Next morning the thousands who had crowded out 
 of Newspaper Row the night before packed back into 
 its confines, as usual, until there were nearly as many 
 people in the buildings as there were cubic yards of space. 
 
 As early as seven-thirty Joan stopped at the corner 
 to purchase the two morning papers from a cherry- 
 cheeked newsboy, and then cut diagonally across the 
 street towards the old loft-building beside the Record 
 office, followed by a black pup, a collie, a cat and a 
 'sooner," which had picked her out of the crowd a block 
 away. 
 
 When the newsboy had asked Joan on a previous 
 morning why she called her fourth companion a "sooner," 
 she had replied that it was "because he would sooner 
 bark than bite." 
 
 As the five chums reached the doorway to the loft 
 on this particular morning and met there half a dozen 
 other pals of varying sizes and breeds, the "sooner" 
 verified Joan's appraisal of him by attempting a subdued 
 sort of yelp, until her reproachful eye and a collie's growl 
 sent him scampering up the three flights of stairs, leader 
 of the race to the fourth floor. 
 
 These were some of Joan's odd friends. She had 
 more of them than was practical. In the beginning a 
 neglected cat had come alone and taken up with her, 
 
 31
 
 32 Unconventional Joan 
 
 but as he could not keep her kindness to himself, a lot 
 of uncared for animals of all kinds heard about it, and 
 these spread the good word around the neighbouring 
 block, until it got to be usual for animals to pick up an 
 acquaintance with her, in hopes of being invited to the 
 loft for breakfast. 
 
 Philosophical Jerry, studying Joan in the laboratory, 
 in his natural way of placing everything analytically 
 under a mental microscope, set down among his first 
 observations of her in a little diary of deductions that 
 charted the growth and conscientious control of his love 
 for her the impression that the understanding betw r een 
 her and her animals evidenced an unusual intensity of 
 mother-instinct that should be allowed to have its course, 
 and he accordingly hospitably accepted her unconven- 
 tional friends whenever he arrived at the loft before they 
 had been comfortably fed and dismissed. 
 
 So every morning there were cats and dogs in the 
 outer office of Jerry Englin's laboratory, and birds on its 
 window-sills, and a happy little lady in attendance on 
 all of them, until their empty tummies had been nicely 
 warmed up for the start of the day's work. Then the 
 feathered pets flew away, and the four-legged visitors 
 filed past her as she stood at the doorway saying good- 
 bye to them, christening the new ones and calling the old 
 ones by name, "Paregoric," "Pickles," "Carbureter," 
 "Caruso," "Crepe de Chine," "Hookworm," "Ice Cream 
 Soda," "Sour Stomach," "Small Change," "Tonsilitis," 
 and so on. 
 
 ii 
 Joan's nicknames at college had been almost as numer-
 
 Unconventional Joan 33 
 
 ous as the titles of her pets. Outstanding characters in 
 any community usually earn several baptisms, and Joan 
 surpassed most of her companions in this respect. 
 
 Her soft contralto voice mellow as a boy's, and a 
 certain resemblance in her curls and her slight figure, had 
 prompted her earliest class-mates to call her "Little Lord 
 Fauntleroy." 
 
 Chivalrous Tom Manly had dubbed her "Sir Galahad." 
 
 The college smart set called her "Lady Odd," because 
 she preferred to mope on scientific stuff with solemn 
 Jerry Englin, and probably also because, in the begin- 
 ning, being a retiring little foreign girl in the midst of 
 strangers, she was naturally on the defensive in respect 
 to her somewhat odd manners, until, in an unprejudiced 
 way, she decided that her customs were not so odd, nor 
 so hurtful, as some native conventionalities which grad- 
 ually she frankly discouraged, after her defensive 
 demeanour developed into that spirit of aggressiveness 
 which characterized the new atmosphere in which she 
 found herself, and which aggressiveness she was even- 
 tually led into using, in a very militant manner, as 
 earnestly in behalf of those who had taught it to her 
 as they themselves had habitually practiced it to their 
 own disadvantage. 
 
 This phase of her development as the irresistibly- 
 likable but scrupulous supervisor of the influences in her 
 tea-shop had been aptly epitomized in one of the numer- 
 ous poetic effusions that circulated in the shop, unsigned, 
 and unsuspected by everybody as attributable to Jerry 
 Englin a literary effort which hymned her diminutive- 
 ness, her gaiety, and her faithfulness to instinct, by 
 prettily picturing her as belonging to "a joyful band of
 
 34 Unconventional Joan 
 
 fantastic little creatures dropped down on earth from 
 Heaven to kick up their legs as much as three inches 
 from the ground in the witchingest kind of a way while 
 laughingly shrilling their plaudits of the good deeds of 
 mortals with voices so soft that they seemed to humans 
 to be none other than their own inward whispers." 
 
 Tom Manly had enthused over this bit of verse when 
 it reached the table where he was sitting with Joan's 
 unknown champion, Jerry Englin, and called it, "A 
 beautiful pen painting of some lucky lad's destined 
 guardian angel." 
 
 "That's right, Tom," Jerry soberly acquiesced. 
 
 "Slush," added Girda. 
 
 in 
 
 Methodical Jerry's serious diary contained the follow- 
 ing as his first comprehensive survey and digest of Joan's 
 character, after they left college and had worked together 
 for a while in the loft: 
 
 "While others around her grow up old in wisdom of 
 the customs characteristic of our ultra-sophisticated age, 
 Joan, although the most light-hearted of creatures, and 
 the very merriest, retained at school and still retains that 
 kind of simplicity which makes blase ladies refer to her 
 disparagingly as 'young.' 
 
 "She perplexingly declines to grow bigger or older." 
 
 Jerry felt pretty well satisfied with that particular line 
 in his diary. It seemed to him to be a fairly good 
 synopsis of the subject of his study; but he amplified it 
 on a succeeding page at considerable length: 
 
 "When one candidly admits that this epoch of the 
 Great War is the wickedest, the most abandoned, the rot-
 
 Unconventional Joan 35 
 
 tenest in all history, it seems preternatural that genuine 
 integrity such as Joan's can survive in the midst of such 
 uncontrolled corruption. 
 
 "The difference between her and her contemporaries 
 is the difference between day and night. She is modest 
 when vulgarity seems to be the common robe of women. 
 She has the bloom and beauty of youth when average 
 complexions are of the detachable kind. She is plainly 
 unaffected while others strain outlandishly to ape the garb 
 and pose of fashion-models and people pictured in ad- 
 vertisements. She is loyal to her sex when the practice 
 of character assassination has become second nature to 
 women. She lends her faculties to substantial things 
 when other minds exhaust themselves upon frippery 
 frivolities. She is full of pity when selfish cruelty is 
 the rule. She is pure of heart in an age which has for- 
 gotten what purity is. She preserves her individuality 
 undiluted in an era of easy and general surrender. She 
 is sound to the core when moral canker affects everyone. 
 She is a conspicuous exception frankly 'unconventional' 
 in thought, word and deed." 
 
 On the day after that on which Jerry had laboriously 
 delivered himself of this conception of the "exceptional 
 woman" and cradled it between the folds of his diary, his 
 mind was still warmly reminiscent of it, and the shadow 
 of it fell full across some similar observations which he 
 set before a group of his old college-chums who visited 
 the campus with him at the commencement of the au- 
 tumn term. 
 
 Girda patiently heard him through, and then sarcasti- 
 cally remarked: 
 
 "Jerry, you know such a lot about women!"
 
 36 Unconventional Joan 
 
 IV 
 
 "It is quaint, if ever a workshop was/' remarked 
 Margaret Holden to one of the few customers in her 
 book shop across the street from Englin's place, pointing 
 up to the fourth floor of the loft building. "It is four 
 floors up but four miles away from this hurlyburly of 
 congestion and materialism down here. And yet it is 
 in touch, more so than the rest of us, with all that is going 
 on down here and everywhere, because Englin's wireless 
 equipment keeps his rooms buzzing with the news of 
 the world. Go up some time and have a look at the place. 
 You'll see a lot, and you'll hear a lot more than you see, 
 I promise you. No, you can't get past Joan in the outer 
 office ordinarily, but we're chums, you know yes, Joan 
 has lived at home with father and me since she left col- 
 lege, so I'll speak to her and get you a royal reception. 
 You'll love Joan, and you'll want to go back again to look 
 at the motors and sparks and twinkling lights and de- 
 tectors and tuning coils, and listen to people talking to 
 you over the air from hundreds of miles away, and hear 
 music coming from nooks and corners of the rooms 
 where there are no musical instruments at all, but only 
 wires and magnets and batteries. Jerry Englin is the 
 man, you know no, you don't know, do you? It's 
 something of a secret a government secret don't tell 
 anybody he's the man who perfected the instruments 
 for talking to aeroplanes while they are still up in the air. 
 Yes, obscure Jerry right up there in that loft and he 
 believes that wireless 'phones are destined soon to deliver 
 to us operatic tunes direct from Vienna, and plaintive 
 strains straight from Aloha land, and the Gregorian 
 Chant, if you like it, all the way from the Vatican at
 
 Unconventional Joan 37 
 
 Rome. Yes, I know you can't believe it ; but you go up 
 and hear for yourself. And just think of a girl living in 
 an atmosphere like that, as Joan does. It is so extraor- 
 dinary, so novel no, I wouldn't call it bizarre but 
 tremendously fascinating, just like an entirely different 
 world from ours above it, better than it, freer, absolute- 
 ly independent of us, detached from everything that we 
 depend upon, such as these unwanted books that I am 
 trying to sell for father, and his preachings at church and 
 the movies, and even the newspapers. Oh, you want to 
 go up right away, do you ? Yes, and you'll want to stay, 
 let me tell you; but better not go now. Let me arrange 
 it with Joan to-night, and then I'll ring you up in the 
 morning. Oh, no, I won't forget. Good-bye. Watch 
 out! That fellow almost bumped you over, didn't he? 
 Wonder if he will work as quickly when he gets there 
 as he does while he is on his way? Good-bye." 
 
 Up in the loft, beneath a beam of sunshine that flooded 
 the rooms with brightness, the wireless was bringing in 
 the sad deep voice of an operator in a distant broadcast- 
 ing station, singing the most sorrowful of all songs: 
 
 "The heart bowed down by weight of woe 
 To weakest hope will cling " 
 
 The throbbing tones were overpowering in their appeal 
 for sympathy. 
 
 "Poor man," thought Joan, as she opened the door 
 into the inner room after dismissing her pets. "I wonder 
 if he really feels like that, or whether it is just a test-tune 
 that fits in with his experiments? He sings it so often
 
 38 Unconventional Joan 
 
 every clay, and sings it so pathetically, that I almost sus- 
 pect it is a part of him." She paused to listen to the 
 closing strains, her heart filled with the eternal tenderness 
 of women towards a strong man, broken by despair: 
 
 "For Memory is the only friend 
 That Grief can call its own." 
 
 The lament of a lost soul! Joan stood motionless. 
 Her head was bent a little towards the ground; she was 
 lost in thought, not conscious of herself nor of the world. 
 The glorious colour had faded from her cheeks, leaving 
 her deathly w r hite. In her eyes was the look of a dumb 
 creature that has had a mortal hurt. Uncomplaining, 
 unquestioning in its pain, so was she suffering doubly in 
 her helplessness to help. . . . Thus Jerry Englin found 
 her, standing there with her heart showing in her eyes, 
 her face infinitely sad and sweet. Instantly when she 
 saw him, the droop vanished from her form, but the sad 
 melody still reached her ears: 
 
 "The mind will, in its worst despair, 
 
 Still ponder o'er the past, 
 On moments of delight that were 
 
 Too beautiful to last ; 
 To late departed scenes extend 
 
 Its visions with them flown, 
 For Memory is the only friend 
 
 That Grief can call its own." 
 
 Jerry Englin had crossed the room and stood beside 
 Joan, listening with her, and peering down through the 
 depths of her soul. 
 
 As the wonderful little glass valves of his wireless 
 detectors on the table before him, mysteriously reaching 
 out through miles of space to the mournful singer, accur-
 
 Unconventional Joan 39 
 
 ately recorded the singer's words, so Jerry's mind and 
 heart reflected Joan's thoughts and feelings at the 
 moment, as perfectly as if an electric circuit were con- 
 veying her emotions to him. His whole being was 
 attuned to hers. Their faculties vibrated sensitively in 
 exquisite harmony ; speechless and yet speaking as clearly 
 as if words conveyed their thoughts; intimately joined, 
 and yet apart. 
 
 Jerry felt that he was being drawn to her ; must touch 
 her, must take her in his arms. She was very close to 
 him, closer perhaps than she had ever been before. With 
 all his heart he wanted to comfort her; to stroke her 
 hair, if he might do nothing more. He knew how she 
 was feeling, and how heart-hurt she was. She was 
 calling upon him to take her, to soothe her. He could 
 hear her call as clearly as he heard the words over the 
 wireless coils perhaps even more clearly. Every beat 
 of his heart was bringing it to him; and he answered 
 as well as he could caressing her, if only with his wor- 
 shipful eyes that spoke his sympathy with her. Nor did 
 Joan, fail to grasp how utterly he was feeling with her, 
 and her face coloured with gratitude for his response to 
 her mood. Blushing, she dropped her head and tried 
 to hide her face, and the analyst in Jerry straightway 
 wondered why girls always did so when they found them- 
 selves blushing, and why the oftener it happened the more 
 they failed to get reconciled to it. Deducing that Joan 
 could not bear to have him see her blush, and observing 
 that she had moved away toward their little table in the 
 outer room, Jerry made things worse by calling attention 
 to her blushes, and so found out that it was the unkindest 
 thing a man could do in the circumstances. But still
 
 40 Unconventional Joan 
 
 his scientific nature urged him to test the phenomenon, 
 and to see his test work out just as he had calculated, for 
 now her face was flaming with colour. Sorry for what 
 he had done, but still greatly interested analytically, 
 according to his mental habits, he tried for a reaction by 
 saying the blush was very becoming to her and she must 
 not mind it. Instantly it spread with still deeper intensity 
 from the roots of her hair down over her throat, and the 
 tears overflowed a little and ran down her hot cheeks. 
 
 Any other man than poor analytical Jerry Englin 
 would have realized that she was calling calling now 
 as never before to him, to take her in his arms, and on 
 her lips to crush to fragments the barriers of convention- 
 ality that they were maintaining between them. But 
 blundering Jerry, absorbed with theories when the 
 moment called for action, and in great distress over 
 what he had done, hurriedly concluded that the best 
 thing now would be to take himself off for a while; so 
 according to his habit when he wanted to get away from 
 things, he turned on one of his buzzing motors and 
 became absorbed in its whirring. 
 
 He loved his motors without restraint. He could take 
 liberties with them. They were the sole recipients of 
 his affectionate ministrations, and by way of return, they 
 completely enveloped him. Their soothing hum deli- 
 ciously detached him from everything but his own 
 thoughts, and irresistibly moulded in him a mind becom- 
 ing daily more and more prone to develop speculative 
 moods. 
 
 But he turned the motors off after a moment, because 
 starting his work ahead of other set formalities was a 
 violation of the methodical routine regularly adhered to
 
 Unconventional Joan 41 
 
 up in the loft. First of all he must carefully file away 
 the two newspapers of the previous night, because they 
 were intimately connected with his work. So were all 
 newspapers. The "Press" was his preoccupation, liter- 
 ally his obsession. He alone knew the exact extent of 
 his planned enhancement of war-propaganda facilities. 
 He alone dreamed of the possibilities attainable if his 
 numerous daily tests eventually enabled him to perfect 
 his partly completed invention. Perhaps it was the 
 nearness of his workshop to the two great newspapers, 
 perhaps it was something else, which had set him trying 
 to find a means of "multiplying the power of the Press." 
 
 He liked that phrase "multiplying the power of the 
 Press." 
 
 He was accustomed to repeat it to himself for the sake 
 of stimulus in his work. 
 
 As a further incentive at the start of the day, his 
 second act was invariably a short pause at the front 
 window, where he could peer across over the fire-escape 
 at the office of the News, while actually standing along- 
 side of the editorial rooms of the Record, and only 
 separated from them by a wall. It was distinctly a 
 newspaper atmosphere in which he worked, with these 
 big news bureaus hemming him in and the news of the 
 world pouring into his laboratory over the wireless. So 
 he dreamed that the power of propaganda, proving 
 already so valuable in warfare, and already so exten- 
 sively adopted by the Press, could be multiplied and 
 intensified by his invention no small task for one puny 
 human to set himself in the winning of the war. 
 
 "What else better could I do ?" he used to ask himself. 
 "What more could I do if I went to the Front?"
 
 42 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Reason, as he interpreted it, would tell him, "Nothing 
 more; not so much." 
 
 Between repeated acceptances of this verdict and as 
 frequent recurrences of his scruples, he goaded himself 
 into working harder and faster, and kept reminding 
 himself that nothing must be permitted to interfere with 
 the duty delegated to him, not even his struggle with his 
 attitude towards Joan. 
 
 VI 
 
 "Tea is ready," he heard Joan call to him in her soft 
 voice, and there she was the little mother of the tea- 
 shop sitting at the tiny table, waiting for him, with tea 
 and rolls, and the two morning papers, as usual. 
 
 That was the regular morning programme ; first, filing 
 yesterday's papers; second, looking out of the window; 
 third, tea and rolls ; fourth, digesting the morning papers ; 
 and then to work for the full day. 
 
 He turned and walked towards the table, thinking, as 
 he always did at this point in the morning, how admirably 
 she had always handled his affairs, and himself too, 
 how unselfishly she looked after him, how he depended 
 upon her, and how unjust to her it all was. Tenderness 
 invariably almost mastered him then it would have done 
 so had he allowed it. But he thought too much of her, 
 and honestly appraised his own peculiarities too well, to 
 want her to have to put up with him all his life, to throw 
 herself away on one who grew hourly more and more 
 secluded, absorbed in his experiments, solitary, wooden, 
 actually callous from concentration upon analytical work 
 that over-developed his brain and dulled his heart. Scien- 
 tifically scrupulous by training, he could not but admit
 
 Unconventional Joan 43 
 
 to himself that this was obviously a tremendously 
 hazardous adventure upon which they had embarked, 
 not hazardous indeed for himself selfish rather for 
 himself, nearly eight years older than Joan and yet so 
 willingly dependent upon her but hazardous for her, 
 so worthy of the finest man in the city. And then would 
 come the stabbing recollection of Tom Manly, so much 
 nearer Joan's age and so certainly destined for success. 
 
 He glanced at her while she was not looking. How 
 calm her face was! How fresh! Not a trace of the 
 effects of mental anguish, such as he might bring her 
 undoubtedly would bring her. No. He knew for cer- 
 tain, reasoning scientifically, that he could never be one 
 with her the thought of it he had philosophically termed 
 an absurdity. She, a creature of instincts, tenderly 
 emotional, he, coldly calculating, an eternal reasoner; 
 how could two such natures share one life? It was 
 impossible, unthinkable; it was wrong even to invite it; 
 and he must tell her so, as plainly as he could, just as 
 he had often tried to do before. 
 
 "Tom Manly looked splendid last evening," he said. 
 "There's one man who certainly has worn well since we 
 were at school together, Joan." 
 
 "Jerry, I was just going to say that very same thing 
 to you," she replied. 
 
 "There it is again, Joan; that intuition of yours, mar- 
 vellous attribute of women ! How often you have taken 
 the words out of my mouth in that way, the very thought 
 out of my mind! But I wonder if you can see in my 
 heart the feeling that is there this very minute, the solici- 
 tude about you. Can you?" 
 
 Joan coloured, and her heart beat faster, expectantly
 
 44 Unconventional Joan 
 
 and hopefully belying the dependability of her instinct 
 for the moment, for then that instinct was reading his 
 heart not as he would have read it. 
 
 "Can't you discern what I am feeling about you?" he 
 repeated. It was not an easy subject of conversation 
 for him, and he wanted her help. 
 
 She noticed that he did not say "how" but "what" he 
 was feeling about her. She wanted to hear him speak 
 for himself. Once only in her lifetime come such words 
 to a woman's ears from her loved one, and she wanted 
 to hear them. Could she help him to say the words ? 
 
 "Maybe I do know what's in your heart, Jerry, but 
 you tell me." 
 
 "Well, Joan, I have been feeling it so acutely that it 
 pains me, and I have been feeling it for a long time, and 
 in my poor way I have often been trying to make you 
 see, that " 
 
 He hesitated. It hurt him to hurt her. He believed 
 he knew exactly how deeply and unselfishly she cared for 
 him. And perhaps he was wrong anyhow in opposing 
 her inclinations. He realized that he could never be 
 happy away from her. He was confident that he could 
 never be happy with anyone else. In fact, he did not 
 think that he could even carry on his work without her. 
 
 That was a serious thought! 
 
 No! It was a selfish thought. He dismissed it. 
 
 But then, on the other hand, so was it selfish and 
 inconsiderate towards Joan to deny himself to her if that 
 was what she wanted. But was it? Was he not pre- 
 suming? Would it not even be presumptuous to have 
 said what he was going to say? If he said it he could 
 not take it back. No, he would say nothing that is,
 
 Unconventional Joan 45 
 
 nothing definitely planned in advance He would simply 
 start to speak and let his words follow the impulse of 
 the moment. Possibly he would say what she expected 
 him to say, whatever that was. 
 
 "Yes, Jerry," she quietly broke in on his soliloquy, 
 trying to help him. 
 
 Always serious, he had never before looked so solemn 
 as he did now. 
 
 "Joan" he lingered a moment on her name, not trust- 
 ing himself at first to look at her. Then he went on, 
 haltingly : 
 
 "Joan, I have lately been feeling clearly what I have 
 always thought, and the feeling of it hurts me unbear- 
 ably that it is all wrong, it is not right, my depending 
 on you. It is not right to you, I mean it is unfair. 
 You see it's this way." He placed his knife in front of 
 her, and reaching over for her spoon laid it alongside 
 of the knife. "I am the knife, Joan, and this pretty little 
 spoon that's you. I am painfully straight, and sharp 
 and narrow, you see, but you, by your nature, bend in 
 naturally on this side, and all around, and broaden out 
 down here, and you are made to help that's your pur- 
 pose, to help, but I, this dangerous old stick of a knife 
 can do nothing but cut, cut, cut, and I could even cut you, 
 see?" and he made the knife slip and jab the spoon. 
 "That was an accident that time, but it could easily 
 become a habit. It frequently does. It usually does. 
 Men doing work like mine get intensely self-centred, 
 abstracted, aloof, crabbed, odd, inconsiderate by nature, 
 and take lots of things for granted really not appreciat- 
 ing them hardly even noticing them just as I have so 
 wrongly, but not exactly intentionally, been taking you
 
 46 Unconventional Joan 
 
 for granted, Joan; and I know myself so well, and I 
 know so well what you deserve, and what I want to see 
 you have, that I am going to try to get along without you. 
 I don't know how I am going to do it, but I really mean 
 it. I am going to try to get along without you; and I 
 want you to know that that is just exactly how I feel 
 about it." 
 
 Her pleading eyes, deeply glowing with her pathetically 
 hurt feelings, spoke her mute reproach as touchingly as 
 the few words with which she answered him : 
 
 "Are you quite sure, Jerry, that that is just exactly 
 how you feel about it?" 
 
 He did not immediately answer her question. Was 
 it a challenge ? Was her instinct telling her that he was 
 hiding the real feelings in his heart? Or was she want- 
 ing him to say it again and conclusively assure her that 
 he wanted her to feel released and free? He must 
 think. 
 
 Inquisitorial, analytical Jerry he must think not 
 feel. 
 
 And Joan, unreasoning Joan she must feel not 
 think; understandingly feel for Jerry fretting over the 
 unsolved problems of his invention; understandingly 
 sympathize with his dissatisfaction over doing hidden 
 war-work in the loft; discerningly pity his solicitude 
 about his standing in the eyes of those who had gone 
 to the Front ; knowingly want to ease his worry over the 
 rectitude of*his attitude towards her. "There's such a 
 simple solution of it all oh, Jerry," her heart called to 
 him "can't you see?" 
 
 Jerry inadvertently reached for the morning News. 
 That was always the next step in the day's routine.
 
 Unconventional Joan 47 
 
 After the News came the Record. For a moment he was 
 looking at the paper without seeing anything printed on 
 it, distractedly thinking. Then he deliberately let himself 
 read, promising himself that he would answer her ques- 
 tion in a few minutes, after he had decided just what it 
 meant. 
 
 In Tom Manly's paper he came across an article about 
 which he remarked to Joan, "Tom must have inserted this 
 for my especial encouragement," because it dealt so 
 directly with his experimental activities. He read it to 
 her while she watched him intently, admiring his glowing 
 interest in things connected with his work and mentally 
 reversing his own self-condemnation by observing to 
 herself that he was so far above the average of men, and 
 so necessary to the advancement of their comforts, that 
 not only Tom Manly and his paper, but all the others, 
 owed him encouragement and co-operation and loving 
 care. 
 
 "RADIO-PHONES 
 
 "Nothing promises to be of greater value 
 than the development of the Radio-Phone, 
 already engaged in the transmission of musical 
 concerts, speeches, weather reports, commercial 
 messages and news. The number of instru- 
 ments being installed is increasing, but as each 
 set has been independent there has been con- 
 siderable crossing of currents and jamming of 
 wave lengths. Regulations will have to be 
 made to clear the air for the broadcasting of 
 the proper amount of news and entertainment, 
 by curbing amateurs and controlling individual 
 receiving sets. This will be accomplished not 
 only by restricted broadcasting but also by the
 
 48 Unconventional Joan 
 
 restricted installation in homes of standardized 
 receiving equipment capable only of receiving 
 messages from properly regulated stations.'' 
 
 "Do you see, Joan, what that means? That's what we 
 call an 'inspired' article. That's propaganda. That 
 paragraph actually indicates and tries to offset the solici- 
 tude of the Press over the encroachment of wireless upon 
 their business. The newspapers don't want news, which 
 they sell, broadcasted gratuitously or differently from 
 the way in which they want to put it out. Notice the 
 wording of the article, 'proper amount of news' and 
 'properly regulated' receiving sets. That means farewell 
 to the 'Freedom' of the air. 'Freedom' of the air is 
 going to be like 'Freedom' of the Press. 'Freedom' is 
 going to mean 'Privilege.' You see the Press is going 
 to try to keep control of the air by controlling the kind 
 of receiving instruments installed in homes. So you 
 can't get any kind of news, to begin with, proper or im- 
 proper, unless you have one of their standardized 
 instruments; and even when you do have one of their 
 instruments, you can't get anything but what they con- 
 sider proper, because the instruments won't be able 
 mechanically to receive anything else, see? And they'll 
 do it. They'll pass their own legislation to do it. And 
 nobody will stop them, for if anybody stopped them, or 
 tried to stop them, or was even suspected of trying to 
 stop them, he'd be stopped himself and put out of the 
 way maybe." 
 
 Then his eyes fell upon a second article which made 
 him think more intently than ever of Joan and remember 
 her question which he had not yet answered:
 
 Unconventional Joan 49 
 
 "EMOTION AND WIRELESS 
 
 "Every human being is both a sending and 
 a receiving radio-telephonic instrument, and 
 this quality explains many instances of instinc- 
 tive knowledge and telepathy. Physiologists 
 agree that nervous energy is electrical, and as 
 all other electrical impulses set up wireless 
 waves it is reasonable to suppose that nervous 
 energy must do the same when exerted in pain, 
 affection, passion and all brain activities. 
 There is no physical improbability that the 
 nerves of the brain contain some arrangement 
 of tissues competent to act as a wireless de- 
 tector or receiver for nerve-impulses sent out 
 from elsewhere. Thus we have minds in tune, 
 telepathy, intuition, the magical influence one 
 upon another, manifested in the activities of 
 great leaders of armies, orators, teachers, and 
 the marvellous instinct of women." 
 
 "Joan, how do you feel about that?" 
 
 He frequently asked her not what she "thought," but 
 how she "felt" about the many subjects which they were 
 accustomed analytically to examine together. He was 
 thinking of what he confessed to Tom Manly about her 
 being almost a "part of his brain." 
 
 "It is a naive explanation," she replied. "A woman 
 can't satisfactorily explain her instinct to a man. A 
 woman's intuitive knowledge of some things is knowledge 
 that differs profoundly from all other in its source. It 
 hardly comes from her sensations, and certainly not from 
 her reason " 
 
 "Aren't you presupposing its origin must be from 
 within?" he speculatively interrupted. "Couldn't it be 
 from outside, as the article intimates?"
 
 50 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Yes, Jerry, from without and from above. A woman 
 reveres her intuitions. They seem to proceed from an 
 unknown mysterious source, distinct from her ordinary 
 self, and frequently they assume a mystical brilliance 
 inspiring in her a feeling akin to awe. They suggest in 
 explanation of themselves, that by the side of ourselves 
 there is present another being; some voice addresses us 
 and speaks to us. This voice seems to proceed from a 
 nature higher than our own, instinct, conscience, soul, 
 call it what you will, possessing a higher authority and 
 transcending our individual will, and suddenly impulses 
 appear in our consciousness." 
 
 Englin, accustomed though he was to dissecting many 
 things with her, listened in amazement to her revelation 
 of the innermost processes of her soul, and amplified 
 her observations in his own mind. He said slowly: 
 
 "You are right, Joan. There is no impassable gulf 
 between God and the human soul. There are moments 
 of perfect union between the human and the Divine, 
 moments when a human being feels and experiences God 
 no less immediately than his own self." 
 
 But to himself he thought, and determined to write in 
 his diary: "It is plain that a good woman following her 
 instinct can't be wrong, can't be influenced by degrading 
 conventions, must of necessity be above what is common- 
 place, practically inspired almost Divine. And that is 
 why men worship good women, not merely covet them, 
 in the way that they covet the conventional among them 
 who never can know what it means to be loved, poor 
 creatures, being merely coveted. And so for a man to 
 have a good and devoted woman near him is to possess 
 a guardian angel, and to dismiss one is like spurning
 
 Unconventional Joan 51 
 
 Divine inspiration and rejecting priceless protection." 
 
 He now felt even less able to answer that question of 
 hers. He philosophically asked her one instead: 
 
 "Joan, don't a woman's sensations sometimes fight 
 against her instincts? Aren't women liable to confuse 
 what they fancy to be instinct with what is merely sen- 
 sation; I mean sense-impulse, to use plainer language, 
 heart-impulses, such as all of us by nature necessarily 
 experience?" 
 
 He was gropingly trying to find out, if he could, 
 whether or not their odd relations had the sanction of her 
 instinct. He was thinking that he could trust her instinct 
 to approve or disapprove of them. He did not think he 
 dared go against it. 
 
 "Yes, my struggle is frequently between my heart 
 desires and my instinct. That's when the heart-desires 
 are wrong. With a man with you as for instance at 
 this minute, the struggle is sometimes between heart- 
 impulse and your reason. Either your reason is right in 
 this instance or my instinct is right. You have very 
 candidly told me what you think your reason dictates, 
 and you want to know what my instinct is saying to me. 
 I won't tell you that, but I will tell you this, Jerry, that 
 a woman's instinct has frequently held out successfully 
 against a seemingly logically proven absurdity and shown 
 it to be sophistry." 
 
 She pushed Mr. Knife and Miss Spoon together with 
 a quick little shove, as if she were saying, "Of course 
 they're different, but they go together," and, having 
 delivered to Jerry this merciless knockout, gathered up 
 the knives and spoons and cups and saucers and left him 
 sitting there.
 
 52 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Mentally staggered, for a moment he did nothing, and 
 stared with eyes that saw nothing. Then he reached 
 mechanically for the other paper, the Record, simply 
 because that was the next routine thing to do. 
 
 She had not quite crossed the room before she heard 
 him exclaim: 
 
 "Joan!" It was a voice of agony. "Joan!" Her 
 heart was breaking within her. "Joan, my God, Joan " 
 
 Pleading avowal of his dependence upon her! 
 
 Piteous to hear ! 
 
 Painful transfusion of happiness into her soul ec- 
 static happiness into her tortured soul! 
 
 She stopped, without turning, transported, waiting for 
 him. 
 
 He had arisen. She heard him coming to her. He 
 seemed to stagger. She turned. His face was livid. 
 In his trembling hand was Keating's paper, and beneath 
 his pointing finger the headline: 
 
 "Electrical Englin Denies Departing for the Front." 
 
 Malevolent sequel to Keating's corner conversation 
 with Tom Manly. 
 
 Accusing, sarcastic, venomous the withering headline 
 scoffed at Jerry, snarled at him, bit him, hurt him, almost 
 killed him. 
 
 "Slacker, coward, yellow-streak," it hissed at him 
 before the world, with its concocted story about "being 
 at work on a war-invention which he considered more 
 important than fighting at the Front." 
 
 Unanswerable, it damned him and yet let him live ! 
 
 Incoherently muttering "What more could I do?" he 
 sank into a chair staring fixedly at nothing.
 
 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Joan, stooping over him, took his cold and tretr.biing 
 hands in her own and sobbed "Jerry, Jerry!" The rush 
 of tears would not let her say more, but presently she 
 fought them back and asked him why he had given the 
 interview to the Record. 
 
 "Interview?" he gasped. "Interview? There was 
 no interview merely a 'phone call Keating just 'phoned 
 claimed he had heard that I was going to the Front 
 and was it true ? and I said 'no' and on that, alone, like 
 newspaper men do, he fashioned his story Keating 
 infamous, lying blackguard!" 
 
 His passion and his resentment were getting the better 
 of him. His face worked with emotion. He jumped 
 up and went striding over to the wall that separated him 
 from the Record office as if to plunge straight through 
 it at his attacker, and stood there facing it, gritting his 
 teeth and muttering: 
 
 "I'll take him by the throat I'll no I won't I'll let 
 him live and make him suffer I'll take away his power 
 to do to others what he has done to me I'll " then he 
 staggered back exhausted into his chair. 
 
 And as he brokenly crouched there, his head buried in 
 his hands, Joan, kneeling beside him, and gazing at 
 him imploringly, tenderly whispered: 
 
 "Oh, Jerry, you do need me now." 
 
 And prophetically, from afar, as if echoing her words, 
 the mournful voice of the wireless singer began again 
 its throbbing song of grief: 
 
 "The heart bowed down with weight of woe '*
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OX the morning following Keating's cunningly de- 
 signed assault upon him, disgraced Jerry shunned 
 everyone, including Joan. Like the lepers who cry out, 
 "Unclean, unclean," his slinking attitude, as he crept 
 to the loft, unusually early, warned the few who saw 
 him, "Keep away from me." His rounded shoulders 
 suggested grief. His glaring eyes and twitching lips 
 intimated delirium, as he kept mumbling to himself that 
 the only answer to Keating's insinuation would be his 
 quick completion of an invention that must be unques- 
 tionably more valuable to the nation than his services at 
 the Front. 
 
 "To stop my work, in answer to this challenge, and 
 fight, would be to confess that I do not expect to succeed 
 with my work," he argued. "Unless I do succeed I am 
 a proved and branded shirker. As such I am fit to asso- 
 ciate with nobody, least of all with Joan my only escape 
 lies in greater application to my work, greater intensity, 
 more concentration, complete isolation, especially from 
 Joan." 
 
 He had arrived at the loft ahead of her, for the first 
 time that he could remember. He prepared his own tea 
 and had it with his roll, all alone. Then the two morning 
 papers, brought in by himself, instead of being carefully 
 digested as usual, were slipped under his arm to be taken 
 into the inner room, where he alone could see the antici- 
 pated continuation of Keating's attack upon him. 
 
 But before he buried himself in the inner workroom, 
 away from her, he took his customary stand beside the 
 
 54
 
 Unconventional Joan 5^ 
 
 window, this time watching and waiting for Joan to turn 
 the corner. As soon as he saw her come into view, fol- 
 lowed by her faithful army, he hurriedly poured some 
 boiling water into her teapot lingered a torturous moment 
 while arranging her knife and spoon on the table, and 
 then went into his workshop and closed the door, intend- 
 ing that when she and the little army, with its reinforce- 
 ments, reached the top of the stairs, she should find her 
 tea ready to pour out. 
 
 Joan discreetly took no exception to Jerry's absence 
 from their customary morning meal. Instead of sum- 
 moning him from the inner room where he had buried 
 himself, she understood, and let it be that way. 
 
 "It is a natural thing for him to do," she thought, "but 
 won't it only intensify his strain by emphasizing his sense 
 of shame?" 
 
 A moment later, as she passed their little table on her 
 way to ration the army, she discovered a message which 
 he had contritely left for her when he lingered over the 
 knife and spoon. The knife and spoon were lying along- 
 side of each other, very close together. 
 
 That discovery was responsible for such an over- 
 whelming and weakening pitter-patter of her heart that 
 she had to sit down a moment, while her regulars, who 
 had hitherto been her first care always, waited, sitting in a 
 row around the table, some of them begging with their 
 front paws, and some of them protesting a little with 
 subdued whines. 
 
 Jerry heard her chiding them, in her softly modulated 
 voice: 
 
 "Paregoric, are you sick? Hookworm, who's your 
 noisy friend? Be quiet, Caruso !"
 
 56 Unconventional Joan 
 
 And as he waited, close to the shut door, to listen to 
 her voice, he felt sure that some of her conversation with 
 her forces was meant to be heard by him. He suspected 
 that it was her tactful way of encouraging him. He 
 heard her say to her brigade: 
 
 "You fellows are a lot of loafers I should like you 
 better if you did something." 
 
 That meant he must not give up until he had succeeded, 
 he felt sure. Later on he heard her dismiss her troops 
 with a sharp little command: 
 
 "Leave your fleas outside next time." 
 
 This he suspected referred to worries. 
 
 Thus Joan brought the sunshine of her bright little 
 spirit into the loft on the morning of this never to be for- 
 gotten Friday, that marked, among other momentous 
 events, the rapid approach of Jerry's hour of crisis. 
 
 ii 
 
 He could never have borne to go through the morning 
 newspapers with her. He could hardly stand it alone. 
 Their increasing personal attacks excited him ; their war- 
 propaganda mockingly humiliated him. 
 
 The assaults in the Record were ruthless and cunning. 
 They took the form of supposed letters to the editor con- 
 cerning what "Electrical Englin" might have scientifically 
 suggested in this, that and the other contingency at the 
 Front. One especially insinuating letter referred to 
 Englin's possible improvement of gas-masks after having 
 worn them. An inside page published his photograph 
 over an article that emphasized the "rare" wisdom he had 
 manifested in choosing between fighting and inventing. 
 It was diabolically sarcastic. Jerry soliloquized:
 
 Unconventional Joan 57 
 
 "Now I am loathed." 
 
 Keating had conspicuously spared no pain c to present 
 him in a ridiculous and unfavourable light. The on- 
 slaught was obviously deeply purposeful. It was plainly 
 not made with the mere object of selling newspapers. 
 It was much more far-reaching than that. Joan feared 
 so, too, when she read her own copy of the Record. 
 
 She knew Keating flattered himself that he was shrewd 
 and far-seeing. Noting that Tom Manly's paper took 
 no part in the attack, she telephoned Tom and asked him 
 to publish in his paper a refutation of the Record articles. 
 
 "There is nothing to refute," Tom replied, "and if 
 our paper contradicted or attacked the Record we would 
 simply advertise and intensify the insinuations." 
 
 "The hopelessness of opposition to the Press," Joan 
 realized. 
 
 In addition to the humiliation of the Record's attack 
 upon him, the war-propaganda in both papers mortified 
 Jerry. The dispatches from the firing line read like mes- 
 sages directed personally to himself. His own privileged 
 wireless detectors, gathering news from everywhere, 
 shamed him every few minutes with their stories of sac- 
 rifice and bravery. Before him, as he listened, men and 
 boys struggled and died in thousands fathers, husbands, 
 his friends, the sons of his friends those who were his 
 friends, but what could they think of him now? He 
 watched them suffer, suffered with them, and kept con- 
 stantly telling himself that he "must do more," and at 
 the same time, enquiring, "What more can I do?" 
 
 "I could work harder," he answered himself. "I could 
 double my tests. I could lengthen my hours." 
 
 So he intensely determined to do all of these things,
 
 58 Unconventional Joan 
 
 and, as quickly as if he had been doing forced marches, 
 the physical part of him instantly began to break down 
 under his nervous and exaggerated effort to finish in this 
 one day what he might not normally accomplish in many. 
 
 With the foundation thus shaking beneath him, his 
 mental stability weakened just as quickly. Within an 
 hour after beginning to work he found it difficult to con- 
 centrate upon his experiments. Distractions crept into 
 his efforts. Poison-thoughts began to pollute his mind. 
 
 "I wonder why Tom Manly doesn't go to the Front?" 
 he asked himself in one particularly bitter moment. 
 
 And his hate of Keating became vicious. "Skunk! 
 Fetid himself so he believes everybody else foul ; always 
 spitting his putrid venom at those he hates." 
 
 With body and mind fatally harassed and weakened, 
 his moral fibre showed similar signs of sudden- collapse. 
 He sensed it. That strong will of his was tottering 
 no longer could it hold him firmly in the way of rectitude 
 and exceptional achievement. He knew he was not suc- 
 ceeding. He was hardly even working. And there 
 grew in him an unconquerable longing to have someone 
 to lean upon. 
 
 "Honest towards Joan in my strength, am I going to 
 be unfair -to her in my weakness?" he asked himself, and 
 answered with an emphatic "No! I may be going to 
 fail, but I am not going to thrust a failure on her. By 
 Heaven, no, I am- not going to do that!" 
 
 He fumbled nervously with his tuning-coils as he 
 despairingly realized how miraculous would be the as- 
 sistance necessary to support him in his task, and weakly 
 wondered if Joan had noticed the knife and spoon. 
 Under the glow of his thoughts of her, beckoning to
 
 Unconventional Joan 59 
 
 him, guiding him, helping him, feebly he stretched forth 
 his hands to her as a sinking man in the darkness battling 
 against the battering waves reaches out piteously towards 
 the fading light of the receding ship. 
 
 "O God, help me in my struggles," he prayed. "Help 
 me in my struggle against the Press, that I may make 
 it better before it gets the best of me. Help me in my 
 struggle with the worst part of myself, that I may be 
 true to myself without being unacceptable to my fellow- 
 men. Help me in my struggle to complete my invention, 
 that .through it I may aid my country, and be worthy of 
 Joan. Help me in my struggle to be honourable toward 
 Joan, that I may not take her if I cannot be worthy of 
 her. O God, help me." 
 
 In the evening, after he had been closeted for more 
 than ten unsuccessful hours, he raised his throbbing head, 
 expecting Joan to open the door at any moment to bid 
 him "Good night." She must not find him with his head 
 bowed in despair upon his arm. He would hide every- 
 thing from her, he had determined the pain in his head, 
 the pain in his heart. 
 
 "They'll print a story of how I have been misusing 
 her here in the loft, next," he said to himself, "and it 
 will be the truth. Maybe they'll come and shoot me 
 then. And I'll deserve it." 
 
 She must find him at work, in harness. He fastened 
 the headgear of his most sensitive long distance wireless 
 detectors around his head. He had not "listened in" on 
 the air with them that day. With them he could often 
 hear the big German wireless tower at Nauen sending 
 out German propaganda to intimidate the world. It was 
 talking now, in the same deceptive and tricky way.
 
 60 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Dreadful news momentarily expected from General 
 Headquarters," it said. 
 
 "Why didn't it use the word 'lies' instead of 'news'?" 
 he wondered. "Wasn't everybody aware that it never 
 gave news, but only lies? And didn't it realize that 
 people knew that? Yes, maybe it did, but it certainly 
 also understood that a lie can get believed. And that 
 was the prodigious function of propaganda, to get those 
 lies believed. Repeating the lie again and again was one 
 method. Elaborating it was another. The Germans had 
 innumerable ways. With them insinuation was now a 
 fine art." He noted that they were using one of their 
 methods at that very instant. 
 
 "Please keep out, please wait, news expected instantly," 
 the German wireless tower kept repeating, seemingly to 
 prevent other wireless towers from breaking in and jam- 
 ming the wireless waves, but actually to evoke suspense. 
 Yes, it had played its tricks so often that you would think 
 that everybody would break in on it and tell it to go to 
 the devil, he mentally commented. But nobody did. On 
 the contrary, the whole world listened, as it always eager- 
 ly listens to lies and scandals, and Jerry knew that thous- 
 ands of printing presses stood ready, and that the moment 
 the suspense was broken those iron voices would magnify 
 the lie and shout it forth to hundreds of millions of will- 
 ing ears, and get it believed by nearly as many brains. 
 
 That, he calculated, was the frightful power of propa- 
 ganda, the tremendous force which he was actually strug- 
 gling by his invention to "multiply" yes, multiply ; but 
 also purify. 
 
 Every time he heard that crafty German operator 
 compel the world to believe him by his simple pressure of
 
 Unconventional Joan 61 
 
 an electric key, he wanted to close a little electric switch 
 on his table and unrestrainedly outstrip the German in his 
 lightning-like dash not to a few, but to all the brains of 
 the world, with truth instead of lies. Some day he 
 would do it, he had firmly believed, and he still despair- 
 ingly believed, if his tests would only provide the one 
 needed link, if his experiments would only reveal the 
 needed material he had been seeking, if his strength of 
 body could hold out, and his mind keep clear, and if his 
 will-power would bind him steadfastly to his task. 
 
 Thus critically he summed up his situation, as he had 
 nervously done from hour to hour all day, and, in an 
 overwhelming attack of self-dissatisfaction, tore the wire- 
 less equipment from his head and threw it on the table, 
 where it lay, mocking him and challenging him to conquer 
 it or surpass it, if he could. 
 
 in 
 
 Joan found him idly staring, instead of working as he 
 had wanted her to find him. That unnerved him still 
 more, and he almost repulsed her as she sat down beside 
 him at his work-table. She was thinking of the spoon 
 beside the knife. He was thinking of his day's failure 
 to blot out his stigma and become worthy of her. The 
 way in which, as if disturbed, but really fearing to trust 
 himself, he drew back from her urged her to explain: 
 
 "I just wanted to sit here with you a moment, before 
 going, Jerry." 
 
 He did not like to let her see his tense and bloodless 
 face. He kept it turned away. He would not have her 
 pity him. Joan placed before him a memorandum of 
 his experiments for the preceding day, with suggestions
 
 62 Unconventional Joan 
 
 for further analyses. Her daily hope and prayer was 
 that some day her memorandum would bring him the 
 suggestion that would lead to his quick solution of their 
 tremendously important problem. 
 
 She always called it their problem. 
 
 Any day might bring success. Every day she said to 
 herself, as she placed it before him: "Maybe to-day is the 
 day." She said it on this occasion, as usual, and eagerly 
 waited for him to turn and examine it. But he hid his 
 face with his hand as he turned toward her. She saw 
 it, however, and discerned that he was hiding it. A 
 little gasp of mingled horror and sympathy escaped her. 
 He purposely took no notice of her tender commiser- 
 ation. He would not have her pity. 
 
 "I'll brave it out until she goes. I'll not let her see 
 I'll" 
 
 Joan, watching his face behind his hand, and suspect- 
 ing the immense effort that he was making to appear 
 interested in her memorandum, saw him stiffen, begin to 
 tremble, drop his hand to her memorandum, start to 
 smile, then laugh spasmodically, almost hysterically, con- 
 trol himself with a mighty effort, and finally turn to her 
 the pathetically grateful eyes of a condemned man un- 
 expectedly saved in the very agonies of death. Hoarsely 
 he muttered: 
 
 "Joan, you've done it! I'm sure you've done it! I 
 was never surer of anything in my life! It's what I 
 couldn't think of I tried and tried, but I guess I just 
 couldn't. And now I can see how to do it as clearly 
 as if I were doing it this minute." 
 
 In his relief his pent-up and almost abandoned hopes 
 expressed themselves in a spirit of exultation such as he
 
 Unconventional Joan 63 
 
 had never before experienced. His sunken eyes glowed 
 again with the fires of enthusiasm. Close beside him, 
 her own eyes filled with tears, Joan sat quietly weeping. 
 
 "I'll just make that simple test that you have suggested 
 down there, Joan," pointing to it on her memorandum, 
 "and immediately I'll have what I want. I'll have my 
 needed link. I'll be compelled to refine it, and improve 
 it, but I'll work at that night and day and and Joan 
 it is you who have done it you not I. You did it " 
 
 Impulsively he took her face between his hands and 
 kissed her on the forehead, in a way that surprised him, 
 once he had done it, and Joan, knowing it was an ex- 
 pression of his gratitude, paled instead of blushing 
 beneath it, from a misgiving that she might never 'expe- 
 rience the expression of his love. 
 
 "You will walk home with me to-night, Jerry, won't 
 you? There are people coming to dinner, and it will be 
 a nice break for you and take all these old electrical 
 cobwebs out of your poor head," she said, to calm him. 
 
 "Cobwebs?" he meekly protested. "There have been 
 serpents, spiteful and venomous. I have been pretty 
 low. There's no use trying to hide it. I ought to con- 
 fess it humbly. Why, it isn't an hour since I included 
 our good old friend Tom Manly in my evil thoughts 
 suspected him think of it! Think how weak a man 
 must be when he will wrong a lifelong friend, even in 
 thought. Wonderful Tom! And I was weak enough 
 to have wronged others, too," he added, thinking of the 
 spoon which he had laid beside the knife. 
 
 "What was it about Tom that bothered you, Jerry?" 
 she asked, suspecting the possible need of confession or 
 explanation on her part, too.
 
 64 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "I was contemptible enough to sneer, to say why does 
 he not go to the Front." 
 
 "I think I ought to tell you why, Jerry." 
 
 "He has told you why?" he questioned, puzzled, 
 frankly anxious. 
 
 "No, not exactly, but I think I know, and I think you, 
 too, ought to I mean do you think you would like to 
 know, Jerry?" 
 
 "Really, Joan, it does not matter. I love Tom, you 
 know that, just as I love you, just as the three of us love 
 one another." 
 
 "But I think he loves one of us a little differently from 
 that no, I don't mean that he actually does, but that he 
 thinks he does, he says he does " she hesitated, wanting 
 to go on but finding it hard. 
 
 "Yes, Joan?" he encouraged her, looking out of the 
 window, far away over the roof-tops and back into the 
 distance to the Damascus of nineteen hundred years ago, 
 when a dazzling light from Heaven struck a presumptu- 
 ous egotist, Saul, from his horse and made the egotist 
 a man. 
 
 "He said lie couldn't go until I he said he'd go to the 
 Front the moment he knew he could come back to he's 
 been having a battle between duty and love, Jerry. You 
 know what that no, you don't know what that means, 
 do you?" 
 
 He thought he did. He was sure that he did. He 
 had presumed that she knew all along that he did. He 
 did not comprehend that she had put it so precisely to 
 coax him to contradict her. Mentally the contradiction 
 formed itself, but he forced back the words. 
 
 "I sympathize with Tom," he said, adding to himself,
 
 Unconventional Joan 65 
 
 "Chivalrous Tom, waiting for me, deferring to me like 
 that ; I'll tell him so, and I must tell her, too, right away, 
 just how she can settle not one but two battles between 
 love and duty." 
 
 "Joan," he continued, "I'll tell you, as one of your 
 best friends what I think you " 
 
 "Never! Jerry, never, never " She knew what he 
 was going to say and could not let him say it. "Never 
 have I encouraged nor could I encourage Tom to to 
 to avoid doing his duty. You surely must know that I 
 could not do that." 
 
 She feared she had made a mistake in telling him. 
 She was sure she had not done it to prompt him. She 
 had simply felt that he had the right to know. But it 
 was not prompting him. On the contrary it was losing 
 him to her at the very instant when they were closer to- 
 gether than they had ever been before. She could not 
 possibly suffer that. 
 
 They just sat there, silent. 
 
 The bands were tightening again around Jerry's head. 
 For a delicious minute of exultation over Joan's saving 
 discovery, he had relaxed, only to find himself plunged 
 back into the unsolvable ethical question of his right to 
 ask her. 
 
 "It might be right, provided the test comes out satis- 
 factorily," he argued with himself, "and I know it will. 
 I could take a long vacation then, and try to learn to be 
 less wooden and more companionable," he persuaded 
 himself, as his emotions leapt to his devoted companion 
 with unrestrained violence. The blood was beating 
 against his temples faster and faster. His heart was 
 bursting within him. It weakened him. He took her
 
 66 Unconventional Joan 
 
 warm hand awkwardly in both of his trembling own. 
 
 "I'm not worthy of you, Joan. I mean it. There's 
 no humbug in saying that " 
 
 She pressed her fingers against his lips to stop him, but 
 he gently took her hand away and would not be stopped. 
 
 "I want you, Joan, so much, so much that that 
 it's almost making me try to take you in spite of having 
 no right. But taking isn't loving, Joan. Cave-men 
 take, and barbarians take, and some civilized men take, 
 too; but proof of love, and right to be loved, is based 
 on sacrifice alone. Some men may think they love with- 
 out making any sacrifice to prove their love, but that 
 isn't love. It is what is called by the basest of names. 
 Other men may think they will make the sacrifice when 
 the time comes, but until they do they may have wanted 
 wanted as terribly as I want you, Joan, but they have 
 not loved, they have merely been selfish, just as I am 
 now, and they have no more right to say they love those 
 whom they take than I have to say that I love you, Joan, 
 when my reason frankly shows me that I have no grounds 
 on which to prove it, because I have never done a single 
 thing for you. As it stands at present I am a disgrace 
 in the eyes of the world to you, and to all my friends. 
 And that's how it would have continued to stand if you 
 had not brought me this blessed suggestion to solve my 
 problem, and that's how it is liable to remain if by some 
 mishap the test is unsuccessful. But, on the other hand, 
 if it is successful, as I confidently expect it will be, then 
 well, that will be a starting point for me, Joan it will 
 be like being born again and and " 
 
 He called most fiercely upon that strong will of his, so 
 weakly tottering, to stand by him in his struggle to be
 
 Unconventional Joan 67 
 
 honourable, and, in grievous doubt of its strength, hur- 
 ried to outline the programme to which he knew he must 
 adhere. 
 
 "I'll do this test, at once, Joan, and just as soon as it 
 is done I I would like to talk to you again may I ? 
 in the morning, after you have sent your little army on 
 its way and to-night I'll just stick to it until I finish." 
 
 Joan sat very quiet and very happy. He had been 
 holding her hands, and as he slowly dropped them it 
 seemed to him like parting from her. 
 
 "I've half a mind to walk as far as the corner with 
 you," he said. "I'll get a breath of fresh air and then 
 come back." 
 
 "Yes, come along, Jerry." 
 
 Not the real reason, he very well knew, and so did 
 Joan, but she abetted his intention by opening the door. 
 
 Side by side they went very slowly down the three 
 long, dark flights of stairs, Jerry holding her arm. Com- 
 ing out into the crisp autumn air, the bright lights il- 
 luminating the street, he thought that it had never looked 
 so wonderful before. The smile on his haggard counte- 
 nance showed how closely the happiness of relief can 
 simulate the happiness of attainment how the released 
 prisoner, in the mere restoration of his lost freedom, ex- 
 periences something of the bliss of the man who has 
 actually achieved the aim of his life. 
 
 But suddenly an advertising poster of a soldier in 
 khaki, pointing his finger at him and saying "You are 
 wanted," tauntingly struck him full between the eyes 
 and made him wince, as he winced night after night on 
 sight of it. But his smile came back with doubled in- 
 tensity, as he pulled himself up, squared his shoulders
 
 68 Unconventional Joan 
 
 and almost said aloud to it: "Old chap, I am going to be 
 able to look you squarely in the face before this time 
 tomorrow night!" 
 
 It seemed to him an incredibly short time before he 
 halted at the corner in the glare of Pogo's great electric 
 sign beckoning him, beckoning everybody, into the Mov- 
 ing Picture Palace. 
 
 They had not spoken a word. 
 
 When Jerry purchased the six o'clock issue of the 
 News he silently gave the newsboy an extra coin, and he 
 was conscious of an inclination to call every newsboy in 
 sight and dole out largesse to them all. 
 
 Joan was thinking how supremely happy people can 
 sometimes be without saying a single word to each other. 
 But she broke the silence first. 
 
 "Mr. Pogo is coming to dinner, Jerry. It is going to 
 be a really nice dinner. Hadn't you better change your 
 mind and come along, too? Such a little walk as you 
 have just taken is not enough distraction." 
 
 He turned and looked at her, saying nothing. Some- 
 thing was glistening on her lower lids, and he knew her 
 mouth was trembling. He was conscious of wanting to 
 do just what she wanted him to do, right there at the 
 corner. 
 
 At the corner ! 
 
 Meeting place of life's currents. Tarrying place for 
 many. Parting place for others. Turning point for some. 
 
 What was it to be to them the corner in their lives ? 
 
 Their corner. 
 
 There is one in every life. 
 
 "Joan," he murmured, "I've known you nearly two 
 years, now, haven't I?"
 
 Unconventional Joan 69 
 
 "Yes, Jerry." 
 
 Silence again. He was worshipping her with eyes that 
 bared his soul to all the world passing them by at the 
 corner their corner the corner never to be forgotten 
 the corner destined to become so famous in her uncon- 
 ventional career. 
 
 Her instinct hinted to her that he was hesitating. 
 
 "Say it, Jerry." 
 
 "Having known you so long, Joan, I was thinking 
 how terrible it would have been if you had not given me 
 this chance to to keep knowing you how unbearable 
 it would have been for me to have to have had to stop 
 knowing you " 
 
 He frightened her. Was her instinct telling her that 
 he was going to fail with the test ? Had she been build- 
 ing a castle in the air? What was this dark cloud that 
 his words were dragging between her and her happiness? 
 Abruptly she stopped him. 
 
 "Jerry take me please to-night," she pleaded. 
 
 The flame shifted from his heart to his face and eyes. 
 
 Irresistible merciless overwhelming impulse ! 
 
 "Play fair, you failure play fair" he kept repeating 
 to himself. 
 
 Right there in the brilliant rays of Pogo's electric sign 
 he could hardly restrain himself from taking her beauti- 
 ful little form into his arms. 
 
 It would not be long, he promised himself on oath 
 not longer than this blessed night's work that was to 
 bring to them the morning of their lives. His arm slipped 
 tightly round her own, and clasping her fingers in a grip 
 that almost bruised them, he whispered, breaking the 
 tenseness that was holding and hurting them both:
 
 jo Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Tomorrow, Joan; tomorrow we're going to muster 
 out your little army of pals for an extended furlough." 
 
 Very tenderly he started her on her way. 
 
 She left him standing there, watching her, after making 
 him promise to take half-an-hour's diversion in Pogo's 
 Picture Palace before returning to the loft. 
 
 Half-way down South Street she turned to look back 
 at him, and found that he had started to cross, but had 
 stopped in the middle of the street, on his way over to 
 the theatre, and stood staring at his copy of the News. 
 
 Taxicabs and cars dashed by, narrowly missing him. 
 
 Would he never move? 
 
 Was he going to be killed in one of his moments of 
 abstraction right before her eyes? 
 
 And then just as she could restrain herself no longer, 
 and was about to shriek, he dodged a motor, stepped upon 
 the pavement and passed into the theatre, safe. 
 
 It was morning before she knew what it was in Tom 
 Manly's paper that had halted Jerry in the centre of con- 
 gestion. 
 
 IV 
 
 Inside the theatre Jerry sank into the only vacant seat, 
 quite close to the screen on which was being flashed a 
 series of war pictures, which he watched with unseeing 
 eyes. Mentally he was absorbed in his recollection of the 
 article in the News modestly stating that "the editor, 
 Thomas Manly, was about to leave direct for the Front." 
 
 So Joan had made Tom do his duty he realized. 
 
 And Tom was doubtless going because she wanted him 
 to do so. And he was certainly hoping to come back to 
 her and find her pleased with what he would do.
 
 Unconventional Joan 71 
 
 "That's the spirit! That's the spirit of sacrifice! 
 That's got the right ring in it. Wonderful Tom !" 
 
 He emphatically shook his head in approval. 
 
 "More than I have done!" he repeated to himself. 
 "Would it be more, too, even if I should be successful 
 with my test to-night?" 
 
 He stiffened in his seat. 
 
 Tom and he in the grip of their contest! 
 
 He reached for his hat. 
 
 "Friendly rivals!" 
 
 His impulse was to rush over to the Neius office and 
 shake hands with his lifelong chum, and tell him in words 
 that might not be explicit, but which Tom would under- 
 stand, that nothing, absolutely nothing must ever change 
 their friendship. Possibly he should frankly tell Tom how 
 things stood between Joan and himself, contingent upon 
 his success with his test to-night. That would be to give 
 Tom an even break. It would avoid all misunderstand- 
 ings. Tom would then be the first to congratulate him 
 in the morning if he succeeded, and he was certain to suc- 
 ceed. Yes, he would do that, he decided. He would 
 stay here a few minutes to satisfy Joan's wishes, and then 
 he would go straight to Tom. 
 
 Disinterestedly he watched the dreadful film of war's 
 horrors the horrors into which Tom was about to 
 plunge; dimly and yet distinctly enough he observed the 
 depressing influence upon the rows of drooping figures, 
 whose silence poorly masked the misery of their hearts. 
 How much longer could these poor people bear up under 
 their daily increasing strain ? They were on the verge of 
 madness, all of them. He was sure of it. He recognized 
 the symptoms in their exclamations of horror. If any
 
 72 Unconventional Joan 
 
 man could understand, was it not he, who had been so 
 nearly mad himself? It had taken a miracle of help to 
 save him. His body, mind and heart were aching still. 
 This was but a temporary abandonment to his sense of 
 relief this respite that he was enjoying at the moment. 
 
 "God help them ! God make them stronger than I have 
 been!" he silently ejaculated. 
 
 As the film flickered on to its heartrending conclusion, 
 a distinct nervousness came over the audience. Some- 
 thing akin to a flutter of emotion passed quickly through 
 the house. It was like the ominous bubbling of over- 
 heated lava at the volcano's brim before it boils over and 
 finds release. People hurriedly rose in various parts of 
 the theatre. Subdued voices became louder, louder. To- 
 wards the rear there was a distinct commotion. In front 
 of him two little girls began to cry. He leaned over to 
 shield them from a burly fellow crushing past them. 
 
 "Lights turn on the lights," a woman shrieked hys- 
 terically. 
 
 Where were the men whose job it was to turn on those 
 lights? 
 
 The people were beating their way out of the place, 
 each for himself. 
 
 The crowd had suddenly gone stark mad. It was iri 
 an uncontrollable panic. 
 
 Stampeded off his feet, Jerry was caught up and cata- 
 pulted through a set of broken doors into a vestibule 
 jammed with shouting and fighting men and women, who 
 quickly squeezed him out into a street packed with mani- 
 acs, shouting and bellowing at the utmost pitch of their 
 voices, and jostling one another in unrestrained con- 
 fusion, as they swayed round newsboys who were rapidly
 
 Unconventional Joan 73 
 
 selling extra editions of the newspapers to purchasers 
 who, in their excitement, left their coins with the vendors 
 without waiting for change. 
 
 Jerry grabbed a copy of the News and consternation 
 propped his eyelids wide apart as he read his sentence to 
 eternal obloquy in the enormous black head-line: 
 
 "WAR ENDS." 
 
 "It's a lie!" he screamed, suffocating, grasping at any 
 hope, as he remembered the German operator holding the 
 wireless circuits open for news from General Head- 
 quarters an hour ago. Oh, if he had only continued to 
 "listen-in" instead of despairingly tearing the wireless 
 receivers from his ears! 
 
 "It's a German lie," he screeched above the babel, hold- 
 ing a man by the shoulders and shouting in his face. 
 
 "Can't you see it's a German lie?" he repeated, build- 
 ing on that his only hope of acquittal of the stigma of 
 having failed to produce his invention before the end of 
 the war. 
 
 "What's all your anxiety to make it untrue, Englin?" 
 the fellow roared back at him. "Are you sorry it's over?" 
 
 The hilarious crowd had no patience with the dis- 
 tracted figure furiously beating the air with his hysterical 
 protests as he was pushed along by one angry shove after 
 another in his breathless haste to reach the loft and learn 
 the truth from his faithful wireless. 
 
 At the vestibule to the staircase his over-wrought body 
 faltered, tormented by his maddened mind, as he came 
 face to face again with the khaki-clad soldier on the bill- 
 poster mockingly pointing at him his finger of scorn.
 
 74 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Stumbling up the stairway, he kicked in the door that 
 he could not wait to open, and as it swung back clear of 
 him on its hinges it seemed to strike him squarely on the 
 head, so terrible was the beating pain that leapt back into 
 his temples and threatened to burst his skull. 
 
 Wildly strapping his head-gear close to his ears he 
 crouched there, shaking, appalled. 
 
 It was not a lie ! The Germans had actually asked for 
 an armistice! The news of their surrender was true! 
 The armistice announcement was possibly premature; it 
 might require a day or two to be confirmed in detail, but 
 it was obviously true, or about to be true. The war was 
 over ! And he was damned ! 
 
 Another day, another hour and he would have proved 
 to the people, what the Government already believed 
 that his struggles in the loft were more valuable to the 
 nation than would have been his small service, even the 
 sacrifice of his life, at the Front. But now he was sud- 
 denly stripped of all chance of public rehabilitation, and 
 that in the very hour of his success. 
 
 He was a proven coward, and a failure in his country- 
 men's eyes. 
 
 He writhed in agony. The door seemed to fall upon 
 his aching head again. 
 
 Forever, if he let himself live, he must be a stranger 
 to his own, to Joan, to Tom to Tom who would not 
 have to go to the Front now and who deserved her. 
 
 Crash went the door upon his throbbing head again 
 and again! 
 
 From a drawer he weakly took the War Department's 
 letter commissioning him to continue quietly with his 
 work encouraging him, persuading him that it was to
 
 Unconventional Joan 75 
 
 the best interests of the nation that he should do so. Irony 
 of fate! Unmerited credential! Unjustified tribute! 
 Useless alibi ! How it mocked him ! 
 
 He wildly ripped the evidence of his loyalty into 
 tatters, strewed the bits about him on the floor, and 
 stamped upon them. 
 
 In its place he would leave a message to Joan and Tom. 
 
 "Joan," he wrote, trying with trembling ringers to 
 steady the hand that held the pen, "Joan and Tom, my 
 dear pals, it has worked out for the best, and nobody 
 wishes you greater happiness than your old chum, Jerry." 
 
 And with that final duty done, the workshop of his 
 labours, hopes and dreams, silent as the tomb, empty now 
 of all that had been precious to him in life, palled upon 
 him. He would leave it, for ever. 
 
 Would that door never stop banging? 
 
 He looked at it, but it was motionless. Suddenly, as 
 he looked, it began to slap back and forth at a terrific 
 rate, beating him mercilessly on the head each time it 
 moved. 
 
 He stumbled, tottering, to his feet, in an effort to go 
 over and stop it body exhausted, will weakening, mind 
 crumbling to ruins! 
 
 Throwing out his arms, as he rose, he saw the door 
 come forward to meet him, felt it crash against his throb- 
 bing temples again and slam him headlong down the 
 stairs, hurtling along from step to step until he reached 
 the bottom, where Keating waited for him and kicked 
 him in the face.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ON her way home Joan encountered Conny and Girda 
 within a few minutes after watching Jerry enter 
 Pogo's Picture Palace. She had not seen either since 
 the opening of college. 
 
 "Why Girda Conny!" exclaimed Joan. 
 
 "Turn right around the other way and come down 
 town with us," greeted Girda. 
 
 "Yes, do," added Conny, "we're going for some eats 
 and then to Pogo's." 
 
 "No, you two do the turning and come home to dinner 
 with me," insisted Joan, so happy about Jerry that she 
 felt like entertaining the whole world. 
 
 "Nix on Church stuff and minister's homes," protested 
 Conny with erudite flippancy. "You're all right, but 
 nobody can get any fun out of eating with saints." 
 
 "Margaret's halo might not be on straight and it would 
 worry me," mourned Girda. 
 
 "Pogo is having dinner with us," coaxed Joan. 
 
 "Pogo at your home at a minister's home!" shrilled 
 Girda. 
 
 "Yes, and Peggy Pogo, too. You'll like Peggy, 
 Conny," urged Joan, "Girda won't mind " 
 
 "Peggy and Girda at a minister's table," incredulously 
 ejaculated Conny. "It's worth seeing. I'm game. Sure 
 we'll go, won't we, Girda?" 
 
 "I'll stick it for a round with old Pogo," agreed Girda, 
 visualizing her subjugation of the theatre-magnate and 
 her features pictured upon one of his programmes. 
 
 "Wait a moment, Joan," muttered Conny. "Professor 
 
 76,
 
 Unconventional Joan 77 
 
 Trueby Looney Larry is living with you now, since 
 his breakdown, isn't he?" 
 
 "Yes, but he is harmless." 
 
 Conny hesitated. Harmless! Sure, he was always 
 harmless, but a nuisance. Memories of Larry's lecture 
 to him in the tea-shop were still fresh in his mind. 
 
 "Say, Joan, I can't go that old nut," Conny demurred. 
 
 "I'll seat you next to Peggy, Conny." 
 
 "I'll go," promptly responded Conny, with a quizzical 
 look at Girda. 
 
 ii 
 
 "This is the house of God," appropriately greeted the 
 Rector's parrot, as the trio entered the hall the only bit 
 of wisdom that this plumed graduate from a monastery 
 knew how to utter purposely remindful to the progres- 
 sive Rector of the "blighting limitations" of some other 
 products of the seminary. 
 
 "There's Joan, now, Larry. Hello, Joan !" 
 
 Margaret's voice welcomed Joan as, with her extra 
 measure of happiness brimming her little heart, she en- 
 tered the dining-room of the Reverend Matthew Holden's 
 home ; her home, too. 
 
 "Hello everybody! Good evening, Daddy Holden." 
 A relation almost filial and paternal had sprung up 
 between her and the Rector. 'Lo Margaret, 'lo Larry " 
 
 The Rector intervened and introduced her to his guests. 
 
 "Mr. Pogo, Miss Pogo, this is Joan, our Joan; Mr. 
 Victor Pogo and Miss Peggy Pogo, Joan " 
 
 "My compliments to the star of the house," belched 
 pudgy Pogo, noiselessly clapping his hands like one of 
 his audience, "and quite a nice little dramatic entrance "
 
 78 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Timely, wasn't it?" suggested Larry. 
 
 "Pleased to meet you," said perky Peggy, gulping 
 down an unusually copious measure of envy. 
 
 "The pleasure is mine, Miss Pogo," politely responded 
 Joan, and added, "I have some guests to present, too." 
 
 "Yes, look what the cat brought in," burlesqued irre- 
 pressible Girda in the back-ground, as she pulled Conny 
 forward by the ear. 
 
 Mortifying memories of roisterous college days and 
 impudent college ways! 
 
 "Pert product of modern education," alliteratively 
 reflected Larry. 
 
 The Rector greeted Joan's guests in a kindly, ironical 
 manner. 
 
 Pogo and Peggy snubbed them. 
 
 Margaret smiled, and Larry grinned at them. 
 
 "We have been missing you, little lady," tactfully in- 
 terposed the Rector, diverting attention from Conny and 
 Girda in order to subdue them at the commencement 
 of their raillery. He beamed on Joan in his relief at her 
 arrival. 
 
 "Joan you never looked more wonderful," added Mar- 
 garet, who loved and admired Joan almost to the point 
 of worship, and who had divined her father's strategy. 
 
 "Miss Joan asking your pardon," put in Larry, of 
 late the Rector's faithful sexton, butler and all-round 
 handy man at home, since his mental collapse; "it was 
 a little late our esteemed guests, Mr. and Miss Pogo, 
 have early evening engagements so we started dinner 
 without you wishing to be timely " 
 
 "It's quite all right, Larry. Margaret, I'll get even 
 with you for that compliment. Never worry about me,
 
 Unconventional Joan 79 
 
 Daddy Holden, it's a longer walk, you know, since the 
 rectory was moved away from the Church." 
 
 She went about getting Conny and Girda satisfactorily 
 seated at table. 
 
 This involved altering the seating arrangements as 
 made by Larry, who looked on, somewhat solicitous 
 about the possibility of losing his right-hand neigh- 
 bour, Peggy, in whom he was sociologically very much 
 interested, and whom he had advantageously placed next 
 to himself in the same designing way that he had sat in 
 front of Conny when he lectured him in the tea-shop. 
 
 At the head of the table sat the elderly Rector, clean- 
 shaven, ascetic, dressed, as he himself put it, "like a living 
 human being instead of like an embalmed corpse." He 
 broadmindedly disliked and criticized what he called 
 "clerical livery." It "dulled his point of contact" with 
 his fellow men. He wanted no such "conventionalities" 
 in his life, and apropos of this policy, he remarked at the 
 beginning of the meal: 
 
 "This is a purely informal dinner. I don't believe in 
 formalities. Please disregard my calling and be perfectly 
 natural." It was refreshingly hospitable, and evidenced 
 his diplomatic tendency to compromise with irresistible 
 influences. 
 
 Churlish Pogo bulged out on the Rector's right. Frail 
 Margaret drooped at her father's left. Larry, in the 
 intervals of his serving duties, had been sitting at the 
 other end of the table, ramblingly contributing pathetic 
 platitudes to the conversation. Joan indulgently let him 
 remain there, where he commented during the meal on 
 the "timeliness" of this, that and the other thing, confided 
 various explanations of his malady to Peggy, and took 

 
 8o Unconventional Joan 
 
 reminding little kicks under the table from Joan when- 
 ever he threatened to transgress the proprieties. 
 
 Joan placed Girda on Pogo's right, and next to herself. 
 That was just where she wanted to be in the shadow 
 of the moving-picture magnate, so to speak. 
 
 Directly across the table opposite Girda Joan seated 
 Conny, on Peggy's right, between her and Margaret. 
 That pleased Conny, too. He began forthwith to give 
 his undivided attention to impish Peggy, watching the 
 effect of his behaviour on Girda out of the corner of his 
 eye. 
 
 Girda simultaneously commenced to vamp old Pogo. 
 
 Larry enviously and successfully engaged Peggy's in- 
 terest to the complete exclusion of Conny. Luxuriating 
 in the seeming adulation extended to her from either 
 side, Peggy pretended, mischievously, to prefer her older 
 admirer and ignore the younger. Conny took it to heart 
 and turned crestfallen to Margaret. For him the even- 
 ing was over before it started. 
 
 Pogo irritatingly rejected Girda's advances. For her, 
 too, the curtain was quickly rung down. "It's a rotten 
 show," she decided and turned to Joan. 
 
 Margaret and Joan were now compulsorily popular, 
 while the Rector attempted to evangelize disinterested 
 Pogo and Larry lectured to unimpressionable Peggy. 
 
 The humour of the situation forced Joan to laugh. 
 Girda and Conny readily took their fun by joining in the 
 laughter, but Conny deliberately laughed direct at Girda, 
 to tantalize her in her discomfiture, and succeeded beyond 
 his expectations. 
 
 "Ain't we got fun?" he tauntingly giggled at her. 
 
 Girda answered with a well directed kick under the
 
 Unconventional Joan Si 
 
 table, which connected unexpectedly with Conny's knee. 
 
 "Wowzo!" howled Conny, as loud as he dared, and 
 let go an answering kick in Girda's direction. 
 
 It was Pogo's knee, and not Girda's, that stopped 
 Conny's ill-aimed effort. 
 
 "Good Gawd !" bawled Pogo, "what in hell is that ?" 
 
 "This is the house of God," echoed the parrot from the 
 hall. 
 
 Girda and Conny shrieked laughter. 
 
 Joan had to laugh, too. 
 
 Peggy's set features never altered. 
 
 The Rector's features registered tolerant surrender to 
 his pupils. 
 
 "This 'purely informal' dinner is becoming 'purely in- 
 famous/ " whispered Larry to Joan. 
 
 "There's a bull under the table," protested Pogo. He 
 looked across at delicate Margaret, doubting her ability 
 to prod him with such force. 
 
 "The show is brightening up," Girda consoled herself, 
 determined to have her fun in some sort of way. 
 
 To Conny, the incident naturally suggested making a 
 mark out of Pogo for merriment's sake, as he had so 
 often impertinently done with professors at college. His 
 conduct prompted Larry to whisper to Joan that "coarse- 
 ness is the conventional course at college." 
 
 Conny began abstractedly, as it were, to deposit his 
 ashes in Pogo's butter-plate. Time after time he reached 
 over, as if absentmindedly, for the ash-tray, and sprinkled 
 his ashes on Pogo's butter-plate. 
 
 Girda's distended cheeks threatened an explosion. 
 
 Pogo paid no attention, but failing in this way to check 
 Conny's contributions, he calmly lit a cigar, deposited
 
 82 Unconventional Joan 
 
 some of his own ashes in the well-filled butter-plate, 
 and accommodatingly pushed it in Conny's direction, 
 towards the middle of the table, icily remarking: 
 
 "We can share this together." 
 
 Girda's swoollen cheeks collapsed. 
 
 "Thank you," stolidly acknowledged checkmated 
 Conny, considerably cooled by Pogo's chilling move. But 
 a moment later he half-turned towards Margaret, and, 
 as if preoccupied with his conversation with her, inad- 
 vertently reached over toward Pogo, and dropped not 
 only his ashes, but his cigarette as well, into Pogo's 
 coffee. 
 
 Down came Pogo's cigar towards the cup, as if 
 mechanically to follow suit, with Pogo similarly feign- 
 ing distraction and deliberately burned the top of 
 Conny's hand. 
 
 Girda blew up and burst ! 
 
 "Bulls and bees," blurted Conny. "I'd rather be poked 
 than stung." 
 
 "It will be a good show before we are through with 
 it," spluttered Girda, convulsed with laughter. 
 
 And so, the "purely informal" dinner went tolerantly 
 on, while the Rector fretfully pondered, Margaret ner- 
 vously trembled, Peggy furtively yawned, Conny teas- 
 ingly joked, Girda provokingly jeered, Pogo magnilo- 
 quently boasted, Joan regretfully smiled, Larry cynically 
 censured, and the parrot occasionally ejaculated: 
 
 "This is the house of God." 
 
 in 
 
 When the Reverend Matthew Holden entered upon 
 his duties as Rector and found that the parishioners had
 
 Unconventional Joan 83 
 
 moved their homes from the vicinity of Trinity Church, 
 at the end of Newspaper Row, to make way for business, 
 he moved on after them and into their midst. That was 
 characteristic of him,, and of the times. 
 
 ''Under modern conditions, a devoted pastor," he used 
 to say, "must, to a considerable extent, follow rather 
 than lead his flock." 
 
 This spirit of tactful conformity to progress pervaded 
 his earnestly prepared sermons. On one occasion, he 
 had summed up his policy from the pulpit thus: 
 
 "If I cannot bring you to Religion I must carry Re- 
 ligion to you. If I cannot hold you within the shadow 
 of the Church, I must move myself, and eventually the 
 Church, into your midst. The 'ifs' and conventions of 
 material advancement I cannot control, but I can, and 
 God protecting me, I will, defer to them sufficiently to 
 enable me to keep Him and His Commandments near 
 to your hearts." 
 
 This principle of progression had been first accepted 
 and put into execution by the Rector when he resigned 
 his professorship at the college, where Joan, and Jerry 
 and Tom had studied under him, in order to reach, follow 
 and influence through the ministry, a greater number of 
 souls than college limitations provided. He applied the 
 same principle of adaptability to the removal of influence 
 from the Church at the end of Newspaper Row, by 
 aggressively pursuing the removers with his efforts to 
 influence them in the way of God. This practical pro- 
 cedure was the result of his most deliberate consideration 
 of the duties of his calling, and he relied for his conso- 
 lation upon his efforts to keep close to his flock, to bring 
 back the wanderers, to restrain the wilful.
 
 84 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Pogo fell into the last category. The Rector recog- 
 nized and admitted the theatre-owner's moral competition 
 with him. Instead of making faces at Pogo he deter- 
 mined to make Pogo think so highly of him and of his 
 efforts, as to render the theatre-owner incapable of the 
 wish to offend him by making the building at the lower 
 end of Newspaper Row more influential for the Devil 
 than the building at the upper end of Newspaper Row 
 was struggling to be influential for God. So Pogo and 
 Peggy had been invited into the bosom of his family, and 
 had condescended to come and stay for an hour. 
 
 Next to his devotion to the duties of his calling, the 
 Rector's extraordinary attachment to his talented but 
 delicate daughter Margaret, was an inspiration to those 
 who knew him intimately. Margaret was now nineteen, 
 and her father, in spite of his weak heart and the strain 
 of his long fight for his principles, had, so far, been 
 blessed with eighteen additional years of delightful com- 
 radeship with her since the death of his wife when he 
 was forty. 
 
 Margaret was one year older than Joan, taller, with 
 noticeably regular and refined features, pale of com- 
 plexion, sometimes excessively so when the pain in her 
 left side betrayed her inheritance of her parent's weak 
 heart. Her slight hold on life was perilously jeopar- 
 dized by her selfless devotion to him. Most of her con- 
 versation included some reference to her father, such as, 
 "My father read this book," or "My father was say- 
 ing " This characteristic of her conversation was pity- 
 ingly noticed by Peggy, who swayed her parent by the 
 mesmeric pseudonym of "Pop." 
 
 Margaret never showed to better advantage than when
 
 Unconventional Joan 85 
 
 seated beside her father, as at dinner. No guest in his 
 house had ever deprived her of her seat at his left. To 
 watch the lights in her eyes, as they followed his conver- 
 sation, anticipated his wants, applauded his efforts, sym- 
 pathized with his hurts, was to witness the not unusual 
 phenomenon of a devoted daughter assuming many of 
 the functions of her lost parent in her surviving parent's 
 life a relation usually characterized by such reciprocity 
 of ideal love as only the intensest mutual sympathy and 
 admiration promotes. When her father was preaching, 
 Margaret sat facing him, revealing to him in her eyes the 
 influence of his words. She was, in everything, his guide. 
 He depended upon her. They were inseparable so com- 
 pletely so, that the parishioners used to wonder if one 
 would be able to survive the other. 
 
 IV 
 
 Larry's usually laughable or pathetic inanities brought 
 him very close to the hearts of his listeners. People 
 loved him through pity for his mental sufferings. When- 
 ever Larry was presented to strangers it was the Rector's 
 custom to explain to the guests, as soon as an occasion 
 arose through Larry's leaving the room, that in former 
 days, as Lawrence Trueby, M.A., LL.D., he had been 
 a Professor of Sociology at Trinity College, but suffered 
 a nervous breakdown, with mental consequences, as a 
 result of overwork on a fanatical thesis oddly entitled, 
 "Conventionalism and its Perpetrators" "since which 
 time," the Rector always added, "he has been our guest, 
 acting as sexton of the Church, butler at home and gen- 
 eral helping hand, without ever giving any more aggra- 
 vated evidences of his malady than a harmless tendency
 
 86 Unconventional Joan 
 
 to diagnose events in terms of their propriety or impro- 
 priety, and to pass judgment upon them as to whether 
 they were 'timely' or 'untimely.' ' 
 
 Invariably following these explanations of his eccen- 
 tricity by the Rector, Larry, having cannily remained 
 outside the room long enough to let his history be re- 
 vealed, would return to his seat at the foot of the table 
 and test the effect of the publication of his peculiarities 
 by a confidential conversation with the guest at his right, 
 who on this occasion happened to be Peggy. 
 
 "Did he tell you?" he enquired cautiously, leaning 
 down stealthily towards Peggy, and receiving a swift 
 kick under the table from Joan that made him straighten 
 up soberly and remain so, until she had been drawn into 
 the conversation at the head of the table, when he leaned 
 over again towards Peggy, holding his open right hand 
 over his mouth to direct his hushed voice solely in her 
 direction. 
 
 "You know, I'm a bit silly," he confided pathetically. 
 "Yes, I've read a great deal about my malady. You see, 
 it's a sickness. I have a certain vacancy of mind, a sort 
 of poverty of intellect, you might call it, a closed percep- 
 tion, but folks just call me 'poor head,' 'feeble minded,' 
 a 'bit touched,' and the boys say I have 'apartments to 
 let.' " 
 
 Then he removed his hand and made a business of 
 eating unconcernedly, while stealing furtive glances out 
 of the corner of his eye at Peggy to see how his confi- 
 dences had impressed her. And when the conversation 
 at the head of the table became sufficiently animated 
 again to warrant it, up went his hand to his mouth, and 
 he continued:
 
 Unconventional Joan 87 
 
 "Did that surprise you? You wouldn't believe it, 
 would you? But it's a fact. I'm not right. I'm un- 
 hinged, flighty, daft; a bit of a ninny," touching his fore- 
 head, "upper story missing; sort of a bungalow affair. 
 But it's more or less common, you know. Lots of people 
 are narrow-minded, and that's much worse. I'm only 
 weak-minded. What's your trouble? Have you read 
 up on it? We're both a bit foolish, of course, like every- 
 body else, but maybe you're a bigger fool than I am. 
 You're abnormal, you know. You have 'convention- 
 alitis.' Oh yes, you have! Do you want me to tell you 
 how I found it out? Well, you know, I'm pretty sharp, 
 and when I first came into the room where you were sit- 
 ting, before I had even been introduced to you, and the 
 moment I first looked at you, do you know what you did, 
 as a matter of habit ? No ; but you'll remember, when I 
 tell you. The instant you saw me glance at you you 
 tried to pull your skirt down lower, even though it 
 wouldn't go any lower. You see what that indicated? 
 That gave your mind away. That showed your low 
 habit of mind. You took it for granted that my first 
 thought about you would be your legs. You do that as 
 a matter of habit every time a fellow looks at you. It 
 shows him what you think of his state of mind. It shows 
 what you abnormally suspect about every man's state of 
 mind. It's stock stuff. It's the vogue. It's 'conven- 
 tionalitis-.' You all do it alike." He contemptuously 
 puckered up his lips and blew through them, adding, 
 "You go with the wind you're just a ripple." 
 
 Joan could not have heard Larry's whispered denunci- 
 ation, but Peggy's convulsed countenance must have 
 spoken volumes of resentment because the kick that sud-
 
 88 Unconventional Joan 
 
 denly landed on Larry's shin-bone was savage enough to 
 halt him in the midst of his condemnations and make him 
 expostulate: 
 
 "Untimely, I say most untimely." 
 
 As Peggy preceded her ponderous parent into the 
 library, head rigidly erect, eyes coldly uncommunicative, 
 lips tightly set, Larry, looking after her from behind the 
 portieres in the dining-room, mentally amplified his tart 
 diagnosis of her. 
 
 Observing her to greater advantage away from the 
 table, he decided that she fitted accurately the simile in 
 his fatal thesis that depicted "a world full of ultra-im- 
 pressionable damsels resembling in their susceptibilities 
 the wind-tossed ripples of the sea, superficially fascinat- 
 ing, momentarily captivating, matched by lacily fringed 
 thousands on every side, frothy, foamy, effervescent, 
 bubbling and gushing with nothingness, now here, now 
 there, shortly nowhere." 
 
 Yes, Peggy was a "ripple," he decided. 
 
 Casual inspection of her immobile and vacuous fea- 
 tures suggested to Larry dumbness. Closer scrutiny and 
 observation indicated to him that the dumbness was a 
 studied mask of one who had already seen enough, and 
 heard enough, and experienced enough, to be able to 
 make a callous countenance pass for innocence undefiled. 
 Watching her attitude towards the relative whom she 
 dubbed "Pop," revealed to him the hard and solitary will 
 of a child, and a child's petulance and vanity, spoiled, 
 contemptuous, wilful. 
 
 "Brought to her present nineteenth or twentieth year
 
 Unconventional Joan 89 
 
 of diabolical wisdom in surroundings of inescapable vul- 
 garity like those maintained by her sordid parent and his 
 profession," he pedantically quoted, "she is hypersensi- 
 tive to sensuous impressions induced through the medium 
 of her tawdry prettiness, which finds its most effective 
 setting curled up in a corner of a couch, as she is at 
 present. 
 
 "A twilight nymph, by dint of many sounding kisses 
 with lips carmined and sweetly profane," he mentally 
 penned her, "overworking her hellish power to drive 
 young men wild, discarding old loves and dead beliefs as 
 a brisk young snake sloughs off his dry skin for a new 
 one, possessed of a past probably already monotonous 
 in its promiscuity, and sopping what conscience remains 
 to her with a philosophy culled from newspapers, whose 
 sordidness has so deadened her womanly instinct as to 
 make her willing to believe it to be true that the 'beautiful 
 must be damned/ ' 
 
 VI 
 
 Victor Pogo and his offspring were uncomfortably out 
 of place when led into the Rector's library. Pogo's 
 "penchant," as he elegantly put it, was "moving pictures, 
 not books." He "had never had much to do with 
 books," he disinterestedly replied, when invited to ex- 
 amine his host's bookcases, filled with the collected trea- 
 sures of a lifetime, and taking a book presented to him 
 for examination, he let its pages rush like so many cogs 
 beneath his fat thumb, as if testing its revolutions per 
 minute. He then mechanically shoved it back into its 
 place on the shelf, upside down, without even knowing 
 its title.
 
 90 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Depositing his huge bulk in the most comfortable chair 
 in the room, with his back to the books, he lit a cigar, 
 stuck it in his flabby mouth, and blew out his condem- 
 nation of literature, with his clouds of smoke, in a com- 
 manding and decisive way. 
 
 "Books are passe," he challengingly growled, not a 
 little satisfied with his epithet, and thinking of the popu- 
 larity of his end of Newspaper Row, as compared with 
 churches and book shops. 
 
 "But they shouldn't be," protested the Rector sooth- 
 ingly, intent upon accomplishing the purpose for which 
 he had invited the theatre-owner and his daughter to his 
 home. 
 
 "That doesn't matter," retorted Pogo, rather sulkily. 
 "The fact is, people nowadays don't want books, won't 
 read them, can't be coaxed or forced to go and get them 
 and read them. They want pictures, and they can't be 
 stopped wanting pictures. I am not interested in what 
 should be. I am interested in what is." 
 
 It was a very businesslike summing up of the situation. 
 It was a paraphrased censure and conviction of the 
 Rector and his resultless efforts. It was as if he had 
 said: 
 
 "Nobody goes to your old Church. Nobody, to speak 
 of, buys any books from your old book store. And you 
 can't make them do it either, because they prefer to come 
 down to my moving pictures." 
 
 That was how it sounded to the Rector, and the truth 
 of it hurt. But whenever the discouraging facts of 
 material advancement raised their barrier to his advance- 
 ment of ethical enlightenment, the Rector's principle of 
 adaptation came to his aid and prompted the particular
 
 Unconventional Joan 91 
 
 strategy he was to use to circumvent the enemy rather 
 than waste time and energy in hopeless direct attack. 
 It came abundantly to his rescue at this crisis in the con- 
 versation, as he thankfully realized, in the form of an 
 inspiration that promised him a greatly needed victory 
 over Victor Pogo, with that gentleman's own weapons! 
 
 The possibilities opened up by his revelation suddenly 
 engrossed him so completely as to make him long to 
 tackle them at once, and he was as willing to let Pogo 
 take his leave as that much-bored magnate was to go. 
 So, with a meaningless exchange of good wishes, they 
 parted, the Rector believing he had profited tremendously 
 through his wonderful inspiration occasioned by Pogo's 
 visit, and Pogo absolutely certain that he had profited, 
 because busy men of his type never voluntarily give away 
 two hours of their time, except for a liberal cash equiv- 
 alent; and the promptness with which the theatre-owner 
 had accepted the Rector's invitation would have indi- 
 cated to anyone other than the Reverend Matthew Holden 
 that Victor Pogo had a very definite financial object in 
 view in visiting him, which would eventually materialize. 
 No man in business can afford to have acquaintances 
 other than those of monetary value to him. Such is the 
 scope of modern friendship. 
 
 "Give that to your servant," Peggy rasped contemptu- 
 ously to Margaret, as she stamped out. 
 
 Pogo planned to use Larry, so he had brought a gift 
 suitable to his needs as sexton. But the overwhelming 
 intensity of Larry's embarrassment of Peggy had pre- 
 vented her from offering it before. She would have 
 taken it back with her now, instead of giving it to him, 
 but it suddenly suggested itself as a means of expressing
 
 92 Unconventional Joan 
 
 rather emphatically her complete contempt for him. 
 
 "Tell him it is even more appropriate for him than I 
 expected it to be," she added. "Tell him to lie down and 
 die in it!" 
 
 Larry listened with a leer on his face, as he peeped out 
 from behind the curtains. Pogo caught sight of him, 
 and attempted to tone down Peggy's insult by a diplo- 
 matic explanation: 
 
 "We thought our little remembrance might be service- 
 able to you for resting purposes, in between times, at your 
 quarters in the Church." 
 
 Larry grinningly examined the remembrance when 
 Pogo, Peggy, Conny and Girda had gone. In its way it 
 certainly represented the best that mechanical ingenuity 
 could contrive. Outwardly, when shut up, it resembled 
 a small travelling case. He could pick it up in the even- 
 ing and carry it down to the Church sacristy without 
 anybody suspecting what it was. Opened up, it revealed 
 a comfortable little folding bed. 
 
 "Another of Civilization's dexterous contributions to 
 the delightful art of loafing," contemptuously commented 
 Larry. 
 
 ' Take up thy bed, and walk/ " humorously quoted 
 the Rector from the Scriptures, laughing goodnaturedly. 
 
 ' 'Lie down and die in it/ are my orders," quoted 
 Larry in derision. 
 
 VII 
 
 The Rector was radiant, as he faced Margaret and 
 Joan, after the departure of their guests, and outlined 
 his plan. 
 
 "The old way of carrying religion to the people was
 
 Unconventional Joan 93 
 
 effective in the olden days, suitable to the people, and the 
 disciples naturally followed the way with which people 
 were familiar," he explained, "but the new world, grow- 
 ing newer every day, is not the old world, and will have 
 none of the old world's methods. People who today fly 
 through the air, play chess with the ether, make clouds 
 in Europe speak to clouds in America with tongues of 
 fire always performing some new impossibility refuse 
 to be interested in chariots, camels or ox-carts. They 
 are done with that sort of thing. They are out to get 
 what at present they lack to use what hitherto they 
 have never had; and the first-class prophet of today is 
 the servant of God, broadminded enough to be able to 
 pick out seeming innovations for transmitting Religion, 
 and bold enough to predict that it will come to pass that 
 these innovations will succeed where archaic methods 
 fail." 
 
 He continued with intense and sincere enthusiasm: 
 "Because a thing has been, therefore it must always 
 be, represents the mentality of most clergymen. The 
 clerical veneration for uniformity, the passion of the 
 clergy for the stereotyped, their tragic inelasticity of 
 mind, have eaten out the heart of Religion and accom- 
 plished the bankruptcy of our churches. 
 
 "And so I have come, in this age of changes, to be 
 sympathetic towards the minister of God's Word who 
 struggles, in a modern way, to have his parishioners un- 
 derstand that Religion is no killjoy affair, no spoil-sport 
 business, and decorously, even if somewhat radically, 
 seeks to have God enter their hearts by their own en- 
 trances, through dignified conviviality, even through 
 moving pictures, if necessary, or through dances "
 
 94 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "But can't the people get all that sort of thing outside 
 the Church and get it better?" Joan interrupted. "Must 
 a minister be a movie-maniac, and a jazz-artist, and a 
 nicotine-fiend, and even a drinker, just because other 
 people have these crazes? Is it necessary for him to 
 submit and surrender to every influence he meets to 
 p O go to Conny to Girda to " 
 
 "We must make Religion attractive to such people," 
 solicitously replied the Rector, "especially to types like 
 Conny and Girda. They are the coming fathers and 
 mothers of our nation." 
 
 "I like Conny and Girda," Joan started to reply. 
 
 "I don't," interrupted Margaret. 
 
 " And I can easily appreciate their possibilities," con- 
 tinued Joan, "but I am thinking of what I once heard 
 Jerry say." 
 
 What Jerry said was gospel to her. Absorbed as she 
 was with her thoughts of him, her mind naturally re- 
 verted to him. 
 
 "Jerry said that 'a woman functions normally and best 
 by influence, rather than by direct action.' He said 
 that as a sort of friendly warning against women usurp- 
 ing the aggressive prerogative of men. It meant a great 
 deal to me. It meant that women can dominate men 
 actually do the deeds of men without being mannish. 
 I think ministers can also dominate the actions of vulgar 
 people without dropping down to their vulgar level. They 
 can inspire them. For a woman or a minister to become 
 over-aggressive is to be a failure." 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop! Dominant! 
 
 "How do you account for such satisfied authoritative- 
 ness in her?" Tom had one day asked over his tea.
 
 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Instinct," explained Jerry, inviting a repetition o r 
 Girda's caustic commentary upon his extensive (?) 
 knowledge of women. "Mysterious, dependable instinct, 
 so highly developed in some women." 
 
 "The education of experience," alliteratively suggested 
 Larry. "Travel, death, sorrow, solitude, introspection 
 it may be fatal." 
 
 The Rector made no reply to Joan. 
 
 "Do you really think a minister must submit to con- 
 vention, to the accepted channels of progression, to the 
 so-called 'social controls'?" Joan feelingly pressed him. 
 
 "Unfortunately, or rather surprisingly, yes, to a certain 
 extent; but not exaggeratedly, in the way I fear you 
 indicate, and of course not wrongly," replied the Rector, 
 with conviction. "Exaggerated opposition to convention 
 is sometimes more fatal than unconditional surrender 
 to it," he continued, looking in the direction of Larry, 
 who had just left the room. "The penalty for oddness 
 is dementia." 
 
 It was just about this moment, while the Rector was 
 uttering these words, that Jerry Englin crashed beneath 
 the ruins of his isolated efforts to conquer and control 
 the arch propagators of precedent, with Keating's leering 
 face mocking him in his delirium. 
 
 "I don't want to be eccentric in anything," retorted 
 Joan, unconvinced, "and I certainly am not inviting any 
 catastrophe like that which has come to poor Larry, but 
 I can't capitulate to followers and worshippers of what's 
 usually done or what's usually not done I mean this 
 manufactured uniformity that so continuously clashes 
 with a person's best instincts you can call it convention, 
 or custom, or fashion, or vogue, or the social code, or
 
 96 Unconventional Joan 
 
 just plain mimicry, it doesn't matter if that's sanity 
 then I am an embryo lunatic, like Larry." 
 
 Margaret, watching her father's eyes during Joan's 
 hot little challenge, observed him react sympathetically 
 to her ultimatum. She could see that there was a conflict 
 going on in his mind. He had never been impulsive. 
 He might be expected to consider every move before 
 making it. Finally he said: 
 
 "You are both right and wrong, Joan, and I also am 
 both right and wrong. It's a terrible problem my 
 seemingly unsolvable problem God help me. But I 
 have been thinking that I am going to try to beat an 
 enemy of the Church's influences with his own weapons, 
 and, as an experiment at least, I am going through with 
 it. Mr. Pogo draws my flock to his theatre by moving- 
 pictures; I am going to draw them back to the Church 
 by the same means. It will be an illuminating study. 
 It may be a success. I pray that it will be. Let me see. 
 This is Friday. On Sunday I will announce from the 
 pulpit that on the following evening there will be free 
 moving-pictures in the Church. We will exhibit the 
 most uplifting film that we can procure, and, in God's 
 interest, we will analyze the good and the evil in it, in 
 an effort to appeal to the heart through the eye, as well 
 as through the ear. On second thoughts, I will give the 
 announcement to the Press by telephone immediately, so 
 that the morning papers will prepare my people to come 
 back to me instead of going to Mr. Pogo." 
 
 There was a decisive finality in his diction which he 
 promptly reinforced and emphasized by going to the 
 telephone and trying to call up the editorial rooms of the 
 News. Failing to get an answer, he tried the Record.
 
 Unconventional Joan 97 
 
 Failing with the Record, he again tried the Ncii's. Back 
 and forth several times for several minutes, he un- 
 successfully tried each newspaper, wondering if their 
 employees had all suddenly gone on a vacation. Even- 
 tually he got both of them, and in a dignified way com- 
 municated to them his announcement. A minute later 
 he knew why he had failed to get them promptly. 
 
 The deafening shrieks of Pogo's vulgar motor-siren 
 split the air. 
 
 "Mr. Pogo has forgotten something," exclaimed Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 The theatre-magnate's rakish and extravagantly long 
 automobile was drawing up to the kerb. Pogo had 
 driven direct from the parsonage to both newspapers, 
 down town, where he left certain important announce- 
 ments, learned about the impending Armistice, and was 
 now driving madly around to the homes of prominent 
 friends, doing his part to fill their hearts with some of 
 the down-town frenzy, and calculating, in an advertising 
 way, on an increase of their good will in return for 
 his thoughtfulness. Incidentally he was having a riot- 
 ously good night of it, violating the speed laws and wak- 
 ing the dead with his obscene horn. 
 
 "Read that, Holden," he roared, as Peggy tossed two 
 newspapers at the trio who had started down from the 
 doorstep to the car at the kerb. A moment later he was 
 on his noisy way again. 
 
 Larry led the group back into the light with the news- 
 papers, and opened up the front pages with their gigan- 
 tic headlines: 
 
 "WAR ENDS." 
 
 "Thanks be to God," the Rector murmured reverently.
 
 98 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Oh oh oh oh," ejaculated Margaret, clutching 
 nervously at her weak heart. 
 
 "Most untimely, overshadowing our morning an- 
 nouncement," commented Larry. 
 
 And Joan, speechless, turned deathly white. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The morning papers, overcrowded though they were 
 with the world's greatest sensation, found ample room 
 for the local sensation, which they created out of the 
 two announcements given to them by Pogo and the 
 Rector, unknown to each other. 
 
 The morning Record and News published identical 
 notices, obviously penned by the same hand, to the effect 
 that "The Reverend Matthew Holden, Rector of Trinity 
 Church, at the north end of Newspaper Row, had as his 
 dinner guest last evening Mr. Victor Pogo, proprietor 
 of 'Pogo's Picture Palace' at the south end of Newspaper 
 Row. The Rector and the popular theatre-owner spent 
 a very pleasant hour together going over Mr. Pogo's 
 splendid educational work, in which the Rector is keenly 
 interested." 
 
 Pogo's secret intention in accepting the invitation to 
 dinner was out! 
 
 In consternation and astonishment, the Rector heatedly 
 denounced as the work of the devil this misuse of his 
 hospitality for the purpose of advertising the competitive 
 influence at the other end of the street, by claiming his 
 sanction of it, and he promised Mr. Pogo a shot in the 
 afternoon papers which would open his eyes to the fact 
 that the Lord is no mean competitor. God helping him, 
 he would make the Church's competitive use of moving-
 
 Unconventional Joan 99 
 
 pictures drive the devil out of business at Pogo's end of 
 Newspaper Row. 
 
 Simultaneously with Pogo's announcement, the morn- 
 ing Record and News published similar, but not identical 
 notices, telling the public that Trinity Church would ex- 
 hibit Free Moving-Pictures. The Record emphasized 
 the impending "competition" of the Church with Pogo's 
 Picture Palace. 
 
 The Rector's announcement was "great stuff" for the 
 reporters, and they waited upon him willing to give him 
 all the free space that he wanted. He had "started some- 
 thing," and nobody understood that more intimately than 
 Pogo. When that potentate billiously read his morn- 
 ing papers, and perceived how effectively his antagonist's 
 publicity-move checkmated his own, and calculated a 
 probable shrinkage in his shekel-bag, he hit the breakfast 
 table a rap that made the sugar jump out of the bowl. 
 
 "I'll show these papers that their free publicity belongs 
 to me," he howled. "Who pays their enormous advertis- 
 ing bills, I should like to know? Not a minister, who 
 would put them out of business if he could. I'll show 
 this preacher chap that he has taken on a heavyweight 
 when he goes up against an insider with the influential 
 business connections of Victor Pogo." 
 
 The war was on ! 
 
 The Rector's afternoon return volley appeared only in 
 the News, and inconspicuously enough to suggest that 
 this paper had been more or less successfully approached 
 on Pogo's behalf. The notice stated that "the Rector 
 of Trinity Church had determined to make Monday 
 night's first production of moving-pictures so successful 
 that succeeding presentations would become the most
 
 ioo Unconventional Joan 
 
 popular in the city, and in order to rally the young folks 
 around the Church's effort it had been decided to hold 
 a dance in the Church basement on Monday night, fol- 
 lowing the pictures." 
 
 "That means letting 'em in free, and giving 'em a 
 premium for coming," angrily commented Pogo when 
 he read it. "I'll stop Holden and I'll stop the Nnvs." 
 
 The Record's omission of the Rector's afternoon notice, 
 coupled with a brief editorial on the "Impropriety of 
 Church Movies," showed that this paper had been quite 
 satisfactorily "approached" on: Pogo'si behalf, and a 
 spread-eagle advertisement of the Picture Palace, on 
 an inside page, confirmed this impression. In between 
 the lines of the advertisement and the editorial was a 
 poorly concealed intimation that the Record was spoiling 
 for a fight with the News on the merits of movies in the 
 Church, not because the Record suffered any scruples 
 about encouraging an impropriety, but candidly because 
 it was good newspaper policy to decry anything that in- 
 terfered with the money-making activities of the interests 
 which paid them tribute. 
 
 To Tom Manly, Keating's editorial, professionally in- 
 terpreted, said this: 
 
 "I have the jump on you ! I am an older and there- 
 fore a wiser newspaper man than you are. I have just 
 shown you that by siding in with our financial supporters 
 against this Church business before you are even awake. 
 You are out of step with the interests. I am standing 
 by them. Quit your support of this Church business 
 and you admit I am right. Keep it up and I'll fight you 
 to a finish on it. I'll ruin you with your supporters. I 
 dare you to fight."
 
 Unconventional Joan 101 
 
 Was this little additional mention which Tom Manly 
 had given to the Rector's project not because he 
 favoured it but from fear of offending Joan if he re- 
 fused it was this bit of free publicity going to preci- 
 pitate one of the usual cat-and-dog fights between rival 
 newspapers ? 
 
 Would the News and Record straightway start to 
 call each other nasty names, scold each other like children, 
 thrust their spites upon their readers without giving them 
 an inkling of the real reason for their quarrel, and by 
 hideous repetition intensify public interest in the Rector's 
 venture, already more important locally than the signing 
 of the Armistice? 
 
 The decision lay with Tom Manly. 
 
 Early on Saturday afternoon he went to Englin's 
 laboratory to beg Joan to persuade the Rector to abandon 
 his project.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 JOAN left the house on Saturday morning to go to 
 the loft, striving piteously to stifle her misgivings, 
 in her most optimistic manner, by forced little ejacula- 
 tions expressing her determination to be patient in the 
 face of whatever might have been Jerry's failure with 
 his test. She refused to let the chilling autumn rain dull 
 her usual brightness. She sharply rebuked her grave 
 dread of how the Armistice might have affected Jerry, 
 by repeating: 
 
 "How could anybody be anything but happy on a 
 morning blessed with such wonderful news !" 
 
 The lightened faces of pedestrians helped her in 
 her battle. At "the corner" a greeting yelp from the 
 "sooner" brought the wet and bedraggled first corps of 
 her army into line. As always, it warmed her heart 
 to reflect how easy it is to make happiness for oneself 
 by making it for others. 
 
 "Paregoric, don't you know enough to keep out of the 
 wet ? You fellows have messed this stairway shamefully 
 this morning," she protested to her full battalion dashing 
 up the steps of the loft with muddy feet. Reaching the 
 top, the forces swept through the broken and open door 
 into the outer office. 
 
 "So Jerry has opened the door and is waiting to help 
 me 'ration the garrison' as he promised," she realized, as 
 she hurried in after her hungry companions. 
 
 "Where's your superior officer?" she demanded, as she 
 reached the entrance, knowing very well that he was hid- 
 ing behind the open door of the inner room. 
 
 102
 
 Unconventional Joan 103 
 
 "Jerry," she called, and a hound answered with his 
 dismal howl, supposing she meant him. 
 
 "Jerry!" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "He has gone out for rolls or cream," she decided. 
 "He will be back soon." 
 
 She crossed to the window and looked out over 
 the fire-escape at the countless figures, many of them 
 drenched through, scurrying along in the rain. 
 
 "Jerry will get wet," she worried. 
 
 Then she set about heating the water for tea, making 
 the army protestingly wait for Jerry's return, and when 
 she prepared the table she placed the spoon beside the 
 knife, both his and hers. 
 
 This was her happy betrothal morn. 
 
 "I just knew he had been here before me, and gone 
 out," she suddenly exclaimed, as she saw his last even- 
 ing's copy of the News still unfiled. There were two 
 copies, the six o'clock edition, and the later extra edition, 
 published half an hour afterwards with the Armistice 
 headlines. Filing them away for him, she noticed in 
 the six o'clock edition the account of Tom Manly's pro- 
 jected departure for the Front. 
 
 "Tom!" she exclaimed, in admiration. 
 
 It sent a thrill of great happiness through her. It 
 made her feel very proud of him. 
 
 "He might not have done it if I had not been firm 
 with him. Tom did it for me. . . . Strange, that I did 
 not see that notice in the later edition last night !" 
 
 She looked at the later edition. No, it was not there. 
 
 But, of course, there was no need to print it after the 
 war was over. Tom would not have to go, now.
 
 104 Unconventional Joan 
 
 She was quite sure, she thought, that this was purely 
 a matter-of-fact reflection and that there was no feeling 
 in it whatsoever. 
 
 All her happiness was coming to her on one morning, 
 she discovered. 
 
 Happy, happy day ! 
 
 A moment later she found Jerry's note 
 
 Unutterably brutal blow! 
 
 Felling her with a fatal scar ! 
 
 From the height of joy to the depths of misery and 
 dread ! 
 
 Down aghast breathlessly down in a heap! 
 
 The violence of the descent dropped her, helpless, in 
 a faint. 
 
 Oblivion, nature's temporary solace to tormented 
 womanhood, mercifully embraced her. 
 
 And her befriended animals, with mute reverence, 
 waited quietly watching, for not even an animal can look 
 unmoved upon a woman's suffering. It is what has many 
 a time moved beasts to submission, men to fury, and 
 nations to war. 
 
 When the cool air of the unheated room finally brought 
 her back to her senses, and her bruised mind rose again to 
 grapple with this monstrous invasion of her happiness, 
 the blear-eyed, shaggy mongrel whom she called "Pare- 
 goric" was soothingly licking the hand that had so regu- 
 larly provided food, and for this sympathy her first act 
 was to pat the dumb but devoted creature upon the head. 
 
 For a long time she could not control herself. Press- 
 ing her temples with both hands, she repeated like a child: 
 
 "He will come back soon. He will come back soon."
 
 Unconventional Joan 105 
 
 With measureless yearning, she repeated his name 
 again and again, nervously stretching out her arms to his 
 chair, to his motors, to his coils, as if to find him there, 
 whence she had never known him to be missing. To lose 
 him, never to see him again, was unthinkable! 
 
 "He will come back soon." 
 
 She knew that she could not go on as she should with- 
 out him. For the first time in her life she sensed the 
 limitations of mortal independence. Something vitally 
 identified with the normal trend of her existence had been 
 sundered, like a rudder torn from a tossing ship. 
 
 The intense anguish of her loss of what he had meant 
 to her measured the depths of her love of him. Her 
 long and close association with him flashed through her 
 memory. She saw him beside her at school, on their 
 walks, at their work in the laboratory. She heard his 
 slow and deliberating voice, watched his skilful hands 
 manipulating his switches and coils, felt the influence of 
 his serious personality. He seemed to her a hundred 
 times more earnest and lovable, and when she realized 
 that all of this, that had been a part of her, and so fixed 
 in her heart, was gone a pain pierced her breast so 
 sharply that she wanted to beat her fists against it until 
 it too had gone and taken her breath with it. 
 
 Strive as she would, she failed in her efforts to think 
 calmly about searching for him. Gradually she decided 
 that he would not want her to do so. But neither had he 
 wanted her to ask him to take her before he made his test, 
 and perhaps she should have forced her will upon him. 
 Yet it did not seem natural to her to do what her instinct 
 told her he did not want her to do. 
 
 For an hour or more she kept telephoning the land-
 
 106 Unconventional Joan 
 
 lady at his lodgings, to which he had never returned. 
 
 Thinking of his experimental test made her wonder if 
 he had failed at it and gone because he failed, or if he had 
 gone because the war ended before he succeeded with it, 
 or if he had gone for both reasons because of the sudden 
 ending of the war and because he had failed. She would 
 see. Investigation revealed that he had not even started 
 his test. Her memorandum lay untouched upon his table. 
 
 He had been overtaken by the end of the war before 
 even making the test, she decided. 
 
 That gave her her cue. She would try to make the 
 tests herself, and he would come back. 
 
 But the thought of attempting to carry on his work 
 brought her up sharply face to face with the stern reali- 
 ties of her situation. 
 
 There could be no income for her in the meantime, she 
 disinterestedly calculated, with Jerry gone and his inven- 
 tion unfinished. Of course there were his other inven- 
 tions which he had turned over to the Government, for 
 which, however, recompense would necessarily be delayed 
 by war's exactions. She could not subsist indefinitely, 
 she recognized, particularly if she had to pay the labora- 
 tory rent. She would have to close it up, eventually, if he 
 did not return ; but she was sure he would return, and she 
 would keep the workshop going as long as she was able 
 financially to do so, though that could not be for very 
 long. 
 
 "I know he must return, because he needs me," she 
 comforted herself, instinct rather than conceit prompting 
 her to say so. It was as much a confession of her 
 dependence upon him as it was a declaration of his de- 
 pendence upon her.
 
 Unconventional Joan 107 
 
 On his desk lay his diary, open at his last entry. 
 
 The diary of his fanciful analyses of women. Women ! 
 whose characteristics and reactions to fixed conditions 
 apparently interested him analytically like his scientific 
 examinations of chemical and physical and electrical 
 phenomena. 
 
 The diary of his thoughts of Joan that he had never 
 felt justified in revealing to her. 
 
 Like a legacy to her like a parting message: 
 
 "Abnormal women paradoxically profess their self- 
 sufficiency. Notoriety is their reward. They glitter on 
 our bill-boards and in our newspaper columns. Normal 
 women instinctively express themselves through their be- 
 loved, by inspiration and encouragement. His success 
 and prominence are their aim. They cloister themselves 
 in the homes of our illustrious statesmen and captains of 
 industry. The nation knows them only by reflection, 
 through the accomplishments of their loved ones. It re- 
 quires a catastrophe to the instrument of their influence 
 to bring them to the front and force them to assume his 
 place, although there have been occasions when, in so do- 
 ing, they have not only re-established him but won to him 
 and to his efforts more followers than he could have won 
 himself. 
 
 "Such a woman I have known Joan! 
 
 "God helping me, I will merit her. 
 
 "Meriting her, I could face the whole world and con- 
 quer it with the inspiration which she would give me. 
 
 "Failing, God give me strength to go from her, never 
 to return. 
 
 "And if she should care and miss me, God give her 
 strength to be and remain true to that wonderful instinct
 
 io8 Unconventional Joan 
 
 of hers true to that alone which it is a good woman's 
 stupendous privilege to be a woman." 
 
 Man's adoration of the mother and guardian of men! 
 
 His legacy to her. 
 
 Like an admonition and a warning and a prophecy ! 
 
 So like her own brave little exhortation to the Rector 
 to be and remain a minister. 
 
 Seeming to counsel her not to try to carry on his work. 
 
 Shattering her hope of his return by its reminder of 
 the strength of his will. 
 
 "Never to return," she repeated in despair, and feebly 
 tried to make it untrue by sobbing, "he must return." 
 
 "Yelp yelp," whiningly supplicated one of the unfed 
 dogs. 
 
 "Paregoric, suppose there isn't enough to eat around 
 here, will you and your gang find somebody else to take 
 care of you?" she enquired, with mock seriousness, mak- 
 ing a heroic attempt to be happy, as she started to feed her 
 hungry cohort. 
 
 Paregoric, Pickles, Carbureter, Powder Puff, Crepe de 
 Chine, Hookworm, Ice Cream Soda, Sour Stomach, Small 
 Change, Tonsolitis and Caruso barked a very vociferous 
 protest which plainly demanded: 
 
 "When do we eat ?" 
 
 When fed her friends left her left her alone with all 
 that remained to her memory and the sad voice of 
 the lone singer intensifying her anguish: 
 
 "The mind will, in its worst despair, 
 Still ponder o'er the past, 
 On Moments of delight that were 
 Too beautiful to last ; 
 To late departed scenes extend
 
 Unconventional Joan 109 
 
 Its vision with them flown, 
 For Memory is the only friend 
 That Grief can call its own." 
 
 II 
 
 Shortly before noon the telephone in the loft gave a 
 violent ring followed by a succession of rings. 
 
 Joan's heart stood still. 
 
 "Jerry!" 
 
 She seemed to be paralyzed and unable to move towards 
 the instrument. 
 
 "Ting-a-ling, ling, ling, ling " 
 
 "He's in a hurry," she realized, as she clutched the tele- 
 phone and almost shouted: 
 
 "Yes, Jerry " 
 
 "Hello, hello, Joan! is that you?" 
 
 It was a woman's voice ! Yes, she knew now, it was 
 Margaret. Margaret was going to break the news to her 
 about what had happened to Jerry. She was sorry she 
 had answered the telephone, and afraid to receive the 
 news. 
 
 "Hello, hello, why don't you answer? Is that you, 
 Joan?" 
 
 "Yes, Margaret." 
 
 "I should scarcely recognize your voice. Is anything 
 wrong?" 
 
 "No yes no, nothing. What is it, Margaret?" 
 
 "Joan, Maud Edgar has been in and wants to come up 
 and see the laboratory; may she? I forgot to ask you 
 about it last night." 
 
 So that was all! Somehow she felt both disappointed 
 and relieved.
 
 no Unconventional Joan 
 
 "If it would be convenient, Margaret, I would prefer 
 her to come some other day. I'll arrange it with you, 
 
 to-night." 
 
 That disposed of Margaret for the time being, without 
 disclosing to her what had happened. In ten minutes the 
 telephone rang again. 
 
 'That's Margaret wanting Maud to come up to-day, 
 after all," she thought, as she quickly picked up the instru- 
 ment without even thinking about Jerry. 
 
 "Yes, Margaret," she spoke into the receiver. 
 
 "Guess again, Joan," replied a man's laughing voice. 
 "I would certainly like to be as prominent in your thoughts 
 as Margaret seems to be ; but instead of being your Mar- 
 garet, I am merely Tom Manly." 
 
 "Why, Tom" 
 
 "How are you, Joan?" 
 
 "Why I I am all right, Tom, and how are you? 
 It was simply splendid of you to decide like that to go. I 
 read it in " 
 
 "Aren't you glad I don't have to aren't you glad the 
 war is over, Joan?" 
 
 "No I mean yes, of course I am glad it is over, only" 
 she hesitated. Should she tell him about Jerry? 
 
 "May I come up for a moment ?" he enquired. 
 
 She had never prevented him from coming before. 
 Jerry and Tom and she had enjoyed many pleasant chats 
 together in the loft. She could not decently ask him not 
 to come. Her delay in answering prompted him to add : 
 
 "I know you are busy, Joan, but I have something very 
 important to speak to you about." 
 
 Was he intending to tell her about Jerry? Did he al- 
 ready know? Had Jerry been to see him? Had Jerry
 
 Unconventional Joan in 
 
 sent him a note? Did he know the contents of the note 
 that Jerry had left for her for her and for him? Yes, 
 there was every reason to have him come up as quickly as 
 he could. 
 
 "Certainly, Tom, come up at once," she told him. 
 
 "I'll be there in a minute, Joan." 
 
 Masterful Tom Manly radiated prosperity as he entered 
 the loft. Well-groomed to the tips of his evenly mani- 
 cured nails, tanned by many an afternoon of golf, tall, 
 straight, smiling, well-mannered, keen of mind, sharp of 
 eye, direct of speech, he was as much a man's man as a 
 woman's man. Joan never realized his superiority over 
 the average man more keenly than she did at the moment 
 he entered the workshop that had been deserted by poor 
 beaten Jerry. 
 
 "I suppose Jerry is in there breaking his head over one 
 of his puzzles," he commenced, nodding to the door that 
 Joan had purposely closed and as much as telling her that 
 he did not know where Jerry was. 
 
 She made no answer, and he continued, going direct to 
 the object of his visit: 
 
 "Joan, I think you know I am a friend of all of your 
 friends, and I am supposed to be a newspaper man. It is 
 both as a friend and as a newspaper man that I have come 
 to advise you to ask the Rector to cancel this moving- 
 picture show and dance at the Church on Monday night. 
 He can do it from his pulpit tomorrow morning." 
 
 Tom Manly 's method was to get what he wanted, to 
 take in spite of every obstacle, and he had come expecting 
 to be opposed but determined to do what he had set out to 
 do, for Joan's sake, for the Rector's sake, and for his own 
 sake in beating Keating, who had him at a disadvantage.
 
 112 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "But why, Tom?" Joan enquired. 
 
 Manly spread out on the table the fresh afternoon edi- 
 tions of the News and Record. He showed her Keating's 
 editorial attack on the Rector and his own notice about 
 the dance. 
 
 "For several reasons, Joan, and first of all because the 
 Rector is going to bring odium on you by bringing it on 
 himself, through a failure followed by harmful newspaper 
 notoriety." 
 
 "Tom, I certainly appreciate your consideration for me, 
 as well as for the Rector, but I think he is naturally a 
 better judge of what is best for the promotion of his work 
 than you are. I myself may not be in accord with his 
 plan, but I defer to his judgment." 
 
 "Well, Joan, suppose I should be able to prove to you 
 that his plan is bound to come to grief ?" 
 
 "But your paper will support it, so it cannot come to 
 grief, no matter what Keating does." 
 
 "That's just the point. Our paper may not only not 
 support it but will probably be compelled to condemn it." 
 
 "Tom, you would never do that." 
 
 The way in which she said it made him understand that 
 it would require very great outside pressure upon him to 
 make him hurt her. But he outlined the possibilities, and 
 spoke his mind clearly, without reservation: 
 
 "Pogo is angry and influential. He could stop adver- 
 tising with us. We could stand that. But his business 
 interests are interlocked with ours. He might be able to 
 induce banks to call in our loans or to call in the loans of 
 concerns that support us. Before I start to edit the morn- 
 ing's paper to-night I expect to be ordered to oppose the 
 Church's entrance into the moving-picture business. And,
 
 Unconventional Joan 113 
 
 apart from hurting you, it would not make us feel badly 
 to attack this radical departure, because it is unpractical 
 and ill conceived. You know that as well as I do. This 
 is the only world we can live in, and to get along in it we 
 must get in tune with its vast and complicated scheme of 
 business organization and influence. We may not like it, 
 but in order to live, we are compelled to get along with it. 
 No practical man will invite the ill-will of banks. No 
 sensible man will choke off his existence by making it im- 
 possible for himself to obtain needed money. He may say 
 that 'money isn't life', but it actually is. It is the price of 
 existence, and the money-makers control life. Why, even 
 the Churches admit and get along on that principle. Play 
 the game according to the set rules, stand in with the 
 crowd. Break the rules or 'get in wrong' with the crowd 
 and we are through " 
 
 "That sounds very interesting, Tom, and the most in- 
 teresting part of it is your intimation that 'this getting 
 along with things as they are' may be all wrong. Why 
 don't you develop that idea and publish it?" 
 
 "There is no well, what an editor would call 'copy' in 
 that. It is not the sort of stuff that will sell an editor's 
 paper to the ordinary man in the streets." 
 
 "Surely you are big enough to make it sell your 
 papers?" 
 
 "Joan, the penalty of unsuccessful innovation is anni- 
 hilation!" 
 
 "I think that even I could do it." She stuck to her point. 
 
 "Joan, do you think you could break the newspapers to 
 your will?" 
 
 "Tom Manly," she shot back at him, thinking of what 
 the Record had done to Jerry, "the high-and-mighty way
 
 114 Unconventional Joan 
 
 in 
 
 which you say that shows that a newspaper tyrannically 
 arrogates to itself dominion over all of us. You have us 
 at your mercy. You do with us whatever you please and 
 we are helpless. If for any reason, good or bad, we make 
 you angry, you trample us as a vicious stallion would. If 
 we seem funny to you then you amuse yourselves with us, 
 just like a wanton child who picks a butterfly to pieces." 
 He felt that the argument had gone far enough. He 
 had been unsuccessful, but he was not one to give up in a 
 single attempt. Jerry might be able to help him influence 
 her, he decided, and enquired: 
 
 "When will Jerry get through for the day, Joan? I 
 should like to see him." 
 
 "He usually stops shortly before six," she said evasive- 
 ly, unable to tell him that Jerry was not there. "He will 
 come back soon," her instinct repeated to her, and it had 
 never deceived her yet. "Maybe he will be here when Tom 
 returns," she uselessly comforted herself, with nothing 
 but hope in which to justify her optimism. 
 
 "May I come back, then, at six o'clock, Joan ?" 
 She could not refuse him, and yet, as she agreed and 
 watched him go persevering, likable Tom Manly she 
 wondered if her sensations had actually ever given real 
 battle to that instinct of hers upon which she relied so 
 much. Tom Manly was always a fighter, always took 
 what he wanted, she remembered. And that attitude had 
 always challenged her opposition. It had never previously 
 dominated her. It had never heretofore seriously entered 
 her mind to suspect that he might master her in anything. 
 His aggressiveness seldom failed to win her secret ad- 
 miration and yet invariably provoked her open defiance. 
 She had never examined the reason for this before. It
 
 Unconventional Joan 115 
 
 occurred to her now that there might be a racial or 
 national reason for it. She might have it in her conserva- 
 tive blood to resent being rushed. She must conquer that 
 impulsive tendency, she decided, or at least control it, 
 rather than let it arbitrarily master her. Actuated by 
 this decision, almost involuntarily she rose and went to 
 the window to watch Tom cross the street to the offices of 
 the News but as she saw him dash briskly through the 
 rain her thoughts flew to the other man, who, like Tom, 
 but in a different way retiringly had always been so 
 much a part of her life, probably at that moment plodding 
 aimlessly, dejected and drenched to the skin perhaps 
 dying ! 
 
 in 
 
 The burly form of a big policeman appeared in the 
 doorway of the outer office. 
 
 Joan quivered like something crumbling knees giv- 
 ing way beneath her again. 
 
 Jerry was dead ! 
 
 Now she was to hear the particulars. 
 
 All the sorrows of a lifetime were crowding in upon 
 her in a single morning, she discovered. 
 
 What had she ever done to merit such cruel punish- 
 ment? 
 
 She sank into a chair and protestingly raised her hands 
 in front of her eyes, as if to ward off the impending blow. 
 
 She could not endure it. She did not deserve it. It 
 seemed brutally unjust. 
 
 "Madam," blustered the towering policeman. 
 
 She could make no answer. 
 
 "Madam," he repeated, with commanding emphasis,
 
 n6 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "are you the keeper of this canine menagerie up here?" 
 
 "This what?" she faltered. 
 
 'This dog-army," he sneered, "this four-legged pro- 
 cession that follows you up here from the corner, every 
 morning. You'll have to cut 'em out. The Record next 
 door objects to it." 
 
 Unlimited courage suddenly returned to her. 
 
 Jerry's enemy was inviting his own annihilation at 
 her hands ! 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Keating objects, does he?" she snapped back 
 at him with all the vindictiveness of which her little heart 
 was capable. 
 
 "It's against the law," explained the law's custodian. 
 
 "Against the law to have a dog?" sarcastically pro- 
 tested Joan. 
 
 "Dogs, not dog," growled the officer, "You can't have 
 a million of 'em " 
 
 "I'll keep one, then/' she retorted. But which one? 
 Every one of them was dear to her How was she going 
 to choose? 
 
 "I'll keep Paregoric," she finally decided. 
 
 "Keep what?" he questioned. 
 
 "Paregoric Paregoric my dog Paregoric can't I 
 keep something anything," she defiantly pleaded, as the 
 tears came in a torrent and convulsions of grief began 
 again to shake her little body. 
 
 "Keep 'em all, Madam, keep 'em all," Her distress had 
 instantly tamed her persecutor, and he made haste to com- 
 fort her, with the whole of his big heart throbbing in his 
 words. "It's nothing to me, you know. I wouldn't hurt 
 you on account of a few extra dogs not me. It's that 
 guy next door what put me on to you," he apologetically
 
 Unconventional Joan 117 
 
 explained. "Keep 'em all, keep 'em all, keep 'em all." 
 
 IV 
 
 At six o'clock persistent Tom returned to enlist Jerry's 
 aid. 
 
 Joan, robed in her solicitude for Jerry, that trans- 
 figured her as no gown could do, showed Tom, what 
 every man eventually comes to learn that the woman 
 whom he loves is irresistibly most lovable in her hour of 
 patient agony. 
 
 Torn Manly, looking upon her, knew that he wanted her 
 more intensely than he wanted anything in life, and in 
 the circumstances which rapidly developed within the 
 next few minutes, he quickly decided that because he 
 wanted her he was justified in taking her, and deter- 
 mined to do so. 
 
 "Joan, you are in trouble. I offended you by what I 
 said," he contritely pleaded, in tones so sincerely sym- 
 pathetic that they would have been enough to start her 
 tears even had she not been on the verge. 
 
 The sorrow in her eyes, as she shook her head, touched 
 him deeply. For a moment he stood nervously fingering 
 his hat before her. He wanted to go quickly closer to her. 
 She must have sensed this, for she turned from him, 
 weeping bitterly. He dared not follow her and have Jerry 
 come out and find him doing so. He hurried over to the 
 shut door and opened it, to ask Jerry's help about Joan's 
 trouble. Jerry was not there ! Then he literally rushed 
 toward Joan, and grasping her two arms turned her little 
 form round to face him. 
 
 "He is so different from Jerry," she thought, "so 
 exactly opposite to him. My tears embarrass Jerry
 
 ii8 Unconventional Joan 
 
 almost make him keep away but they draw Tom to me." 
 
 Pressing her gently down into a chair he knelt beside 
 her, holding her hands, and drawing from her the story 
 of Jerry's fight against his feelings outraged by the 
 Record, his struggle to complete, before the end of the 
 war, his invention that was to have "multiplied the power 
 of the Press," the contest between his inclinations toward 
 her and his reason, that would not countenance his emo- 
 tions ; the preparation for the final test, the plans for what 
 was to have been the happiest day of their lives, her arrival 
 at the loft, his absence, and finally the note which Jerry 
 had left for him and her: 
 
 "Joan and Tom, my dear pals, it has worked out for the 
 best, and nobody wishes you greater happiness than your 
 old chum, Jerry." 
 
 While she pitifully sobbed her heartbreaking revela- 
 tion, his own heart beat faster and faster with the realiza- 
 tion that with Jerry's voluntary removal he was honour- 
 ably free to take what he wanted what he wanted now 
 more intensely than he could ever want anything, even 
 existence, without her. 
 
 "Joan, you told Jerry that I had asked you ?" 
 
 "Yes, Tom." 
 
 His hand closed more tightly upon her own, and he 
 could feel her pulse beating rapidly. 
 
 "And you read in last night's paper that I would have 
 gone, as you wished?" 
 
 "Yes, Tom, it was magnificent." 
 
 Into her empty, aching heart stealthily stole the ardour 
 of his desire for her, and in the guise of sympathy warmed 
 it with gratitude to him and admiration for the persis- 
 tency of his wooing.
 
 Unconventional Joan 119 
 
 "Joan, are you sure Jerry really loved you?" 
 
 "We were just everything to each other." How could 
 he ask such a question, she wondered. 
 
 "But would he have left you, if " 
 
 "That proved his love, Tom. He did it for what he 
 thought to be my good. He might have stayed, he might 
 have taken me; but " she found herself repeating Jerry's 
 own words, " 'proof of love is based on sacrifice alone ; 
 some men may think they love without making a sacrifice 
 to prove their love, but that isn't love. It is simply selfish- 
 ness. It is called ' " she hesitated, "and besides, Tom, 
 Jerry will come back soon." 
 
 "Joan, I think I know Jerry pretty well, and I tell you 
 he will never come back," he pleadingly remonstrated. 
 
 "Don't say that," she rebuked him. "My instinct tells 
 me he will come back soon. It is just as if the wireless 
 there was speaking into my ears at this instant that he is 
 coming. I can feel it in my heart that he will come back 
 soon." 
 
 Re-echoing her words, came the sound of Jerry's foot- 
 steps as he reached the top of the stairs. 
 
 Bedraggled, tottering, with the heavy hand of death 
 upon his shoulder, he had staggered aimlessly around all 
 day and eventually wandered back to her waiting and 
 aching arms. 
 
 The weakness of love ? 
 
 Might he not have called it that? 
 
 In his proper senses would he have admitted that it was 
 love, not selfishness, that effected his return? 
 
 Reaching the top of the stairs, and looking through the 
 broken open door, he saw Joan with Tom kneeling beside 
 her, and drew quickly back into the shadow.
 
 120 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Jerry Jerry Jerry!" he heard her call out, as she 
 started for the open door. 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 A few steps farther and she would reach out and take 
 him in his weakness into her arms. 
 
 Feebly he fought his last battle between his reason 
 and his heart. 
 
 He was a failure. Tom was a success. 
 
 That gave the solution. 
 
 "Jerry is not there, Joan. It is only your imagination," 
 Tom said to her. He led her gently back to her chair. 
 
 "It is cruel, Joan, that you should be so unhappy. I 
 know that I can make you happy, and I do so want to 
 make you happy, Joan, Joan " 
 
 To Jerry, listening in the shadow, Tom's words spoke 
 his doom. Tom was right. Tom could make her happy. 
 He himself had failed. It was right that Tom should 
 have his chance. It was plainly his duty to leave Joan 
 to Tom. 
 
 As the swaying figure crept noiselessly down the stairs, 
 away from all that was dear to him in the world away 
 from the scene of his associations with Joan away for- 
 ever from Joan herself out into the darkness, into the 
 chilling and killing rain, there followed him from his 
 beloved wireless the sad strains of the plaintive singer's 
 sobbing voice, chanting the elegy of his buried career: 
 
 "For Memory is the only friend 
 That Grief can call its own." 
 
 "No Tom, Jerry will come back to me," Joan replied, 
 not knowing that he had come, and gone, "never to re- 
 turn."
 
 Unconventional Joan 121 
 
 "And if Jerry does not come back, Joan " 
 
 She was silent for a while, quietly weeping. 
 
 "Dear Tom, like a brother to me," she had candidly 
 and proudly admitted in the tea-shop. Now she could 
 but admit it to herself again, but even more feelingly, 
 under the influence of her sympathy for the suffering in 
 his heart, of which she was the occasion. It was not in 
 her to intensify that suffering. She would have preferred 
 to ease it, if she could. But it was impossible to answer 
 him as he desired to be answered. She could not bear to 
 think that she might lose any of his regard for her that 
 he should be any least bit different to her as a result of 
 any answer that she might give. 
 
 She said aloud at last: 
 
 "Tom, what are you going to do to-night about sup- 
 porting the Rector in your paper ?" 
 
 Determined Tom, clutching at straws, wondered if this 
 was meant as encouragement. 
 
 "I honestly do not know, Joan," he frankly replied. 
 
 And Joan added: 
 
 "Tom, that's my answer, too."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 TOM MANLY entered the editorial rooms of the 
 Nat's with no solution of his many-sided problem. 
 
 Joan had been forced to confess to herself, that, under 
 the conditions which bound him, Tom would be com- 
 pelled either to sacrifice his newspaper interests to stand 
 by the Rector, or else attack the Church and satisfy his 
 masters. She hoped he would not do the latter, and she 
 was sure that he would not do the former. 
 
 To Tom, analyzing the problem at his desk, in his care- 
 ful way, its intricacies were alarming. 
 
 He must not offend Joan, which meant that he could 
 not oppose the Church. 
 
 He was compelled to safeguard the Nezus and satisfy 
 Pogo. 
 
 He must beat the Record at its own game. 
 
 He must prove to Joan that the Church project was 
 unpractical. 
 
 And finally he must actually have Joan. 
 
 The last phase of the problem was the most important 
 and difficult of all. 
 
 Conferring with his associates he said: 
 
 "To follow the Record now, would be to compliment 
 it." His private version was, "To follow the Record 
 now would be to lose Joan." 
 
 "Better go with the Record than lose our patronage," 
 they retorted. 
 
 "We could wait," he replied. "Silence won't hurt any- 
 one involved " 
 
 "Silence won't help," interrupted the advertising mana- 
 
 122
 
 Unconventional Joan 123 
 
 ger. "Silence won't do. Pogo demands an attack on the 
 Church innovation that threatents to ruin his business. 
 Stop the parson's project, or we lose his advertising and 
 the advertising of his friends. They are united against 
 the Church project. It is all wrong, anyhow. The 
 Record has beaten us. We must admit it and get in line. 
 Let's take our medicine and get the paper on the press 
 instead of sitting here all night pitying ourselves." 
 
 Money was talking, and wise men never contradict 
 what it says. 
 
 "Stop the Rector's project!" rang in Tom's ears. 
 
 Those were his orders. He had anticipated them be- 
 fore he got them. He had done his best, through Joan 
 to "stop the Rector's project," and if she could not or 
 would not, nobody could. Perhaps Jerry might have 
 done it, but Jerry was out of all consideration now. 
 
 "Stop the Rector's project," rang the command, and 
 with all his persevering determination, which never ca- 
 pitulated to any obstacle he answered: 
 
 "There must be a way out of this dilemma, and I am 
 either going to find it or make one of my own." 
 
 Several hours remained before the paper would go to 
 press at one o'clock in the morning, when the city would 
 be asleep, but when the newspaper office would be most 
 widely awake. Hours after that, the city would awaken, 
 pick up its morning paper, think it was reading unbiased 
 news, and, unless unusually wide awake would, in the 
 language of Larry, "never suspect that it was reading 
 mostly propaganda, hate-stories, advertising sops, pub- 
 licity puffs, exaggerated reports and distorted facts, skil- 
 fully selected by well-tutored reporters and artfully as- 
 sembled by editors subjected to a variety of influences
 
 124 Unconventional Joan 
 
 ranging from petty vanity to the most prodigious 
 bribery." 
 
 With extraordinary celerity, Tom reached the point in 
 his deliberations when he felt fully satisfied with the re- 
 sults of his concentration upon his problem. 
 
 Indomitable Tom! 
 
 "Hold two half -columns open on page two for the 
 'Church Movies'," he instructed his assistant, as he 
 reached for the telephone, certain that he had devised a 
 solution which would please Joan, satisfy his associates 
 on the News, beat the Record by a scoop, show Joan that 
 the Rector's project was unpractical, and incidentally pre- 
 vent her being lost to him, thus reconciling all the con- 
 tradictory elements of his problem. 
 
 "Operator, call Mr. Pogo's residence." 
 
 "Hello, is that Mr. Pogo's home? May I speak to 
 Miss Peggy Pogo?" 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 "The editor of the News." 
 
 "Oh, then you want to speak to Mr. Victor Pogo?" 
 
 "No, Miss Peggy." 
 
 At the Pogo home the offspring of the theatre-mag- 
 nate suddenly and completely lost her studied apathy as 
 she fluttered from the dining table to the telephone, highly 
 excited and flattered by being asked if she would talk to 
 the editor of the News. Would she? She certainly would. 
 
 "Hello, this is Peggy Pogo. Did you want to speak 
 to my Pop?" 
 
 "No Miss; to Miss Peggy. You are Miss Peggy?" 
 
 "Yes," Such a delightful new thrill! So different 
 from all the others! 
 
 "The News begs to suggest that it would be a very nice
 
 Unconventional Joan 125 
 
 thing if Miss Peggy Pogo, daughter of the popular pro- 
 prietor of Pogo's Picture Palace, would volunteer to act 
 as directress and patroness of the Church Dance on Mon- 
 day evening, after the movies, and allow the News to 
 publish a two-column photo of her in the morning edition, 
 which would carry a story of her intention to make the 
 dance a success?" 
 
 Angels of Paradise support Peggy from collapsing! 
 A two-column picture of her in the paper ! 
 
 "My picture in the Sunday News, did you say? but 
 my Pop is opposed to those movies at the Church " 
 
 "But think of the business and advertising value to be 
 gained from helping the Church project rather than in- 
 viting ill-will." 
 
 "But we don't want to help." 
 
 Tom knew that, without Peggy telling him. That im- 
 movable fact was the very basis of his plan. What he 
 replied was: 
 
 "Well, you can't stop it, so you might as well get some 
 personal and business advertising out of it. I myself am 
 against the affair, and would like to see it stopped. How- 
 ever, since it is going to be held, you can't do yourself 
 any harm by handling the dance for them. I know you 
 would make good, and our paper thinks there is a good 
 human interest story in the idea of the Church being 
 helped out by a moving-picture man too big to feel en- 
 vious." 
 
 Sophisticated Peggy, accustomed to fathoming the 
 meaning behind men's words, began to glimpse a reason 
 additional to the satisfaction of her vanity for her ac- 
 ceptance of the proposal. 
 
 "Wait a moment, and I'll ask Pop," she replied.
 
 126 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "All right. Call me up immediately, so that we can 
 send up for your latest photo, because we must hurry if 
 we are to get you into tomorrow morning's paper." 
 
 In a minute Tom's telephone rang, and Peggy in- 
 formed him: 
 
 "Pop says all right, and you can take it from me that 
 I'll not disappoint you I'll make good." 
 
 ii 
 
 Later in the evening, a voice over Keating's telephone 
 informed the editor of the Record that a catastrophe had 
 happened to Jerry Englin. 
 
 "Hello, who are you?" Keating enquired: "Hello! 
 Hello! is that the morgue? Hello! is that the hospital? 
 Hello! who is speaking?" The current failed, or the 
 speaker hung up. There was no answer. 
 
 Keating, in a fever of excitement, called up the loft, 
 got no answer, sent up a reporter, who found the broken 
 door, rang up Joan at her home, was told by Larry that 
 Joan was asleep and advised to call up Tom Manly, did 
 so and was good naturedly and evasively informed by the 
 editor of the News that if he ever happened to have any 
 story about Jerry or about anybody else he could be 
 trusted to keep it to himself, and away from the Record 
 until it had first been printed in the News. 
 
 Having made this "careful" investigation, and with 
 these "abundant facts" and "accurate sources" of infor- 
 mation at his disposal, the editor of what Joan termed a 
 "vicious newspaper," deliberately took a whole tenth of a 
 second to decide that he would publish in the morning a 
 "full account" of the "Mysterious Disappearance of 
 Jerry Englin."
 
 Unconventional Joan 127 
 
 in 
 
 Larry had his suspicions about that Mr. Keating's 
 telephone call, so in the morning he took in the Record 
 and the News from the vestibule, read their extraordinary 
 contents, and then sagaciously hid them until he could 
 prepare Joan and the Rector for the shock, after which 
 he would produce the papers with their horrible offensive- 
 ness diminished. 
 
 Larry and the Rector sat facing each other at the 
 breakfast table waiting for the girls. Larry's face be- 
 trayed poorly-controlled anger. In his bitterest tones 
 he blurted out at the Rector: 
 
 "If I were an advertiser I would just as soon print my 
 advertisement on a piece of garbage and send it in here 
 alongside of the breakfast plates as print it in one of our 
 vile newspapers. It wouldn't be in any filthier com- 
 pany" 
 
 "Larry !" remonstrated the Rector. "Your language " 
 
 "Is not as offensive as the sewers of newspapers that 
 pour their dirty contents over my porridge every morn- 
 ing," Larry hotly continued. 
 
 "I am not questioning your arguments, Larry," more 
 mildly protested the Rector, "but your choice of lan- 
 guage" 
 
 "Is the only language applicable to the foulest thing 
 that is let live, a newspaper," flung back Larry, whose 
 wrath now was ungovernable. "Fie upon hypocrisy that 
 complacently contemplates filth and then dishonestly dis- 
 dains to stigmatize it by its proper name." 
 
 Joan and Margaret entered, red-eyed from crying dur- 
 ing the night over the Rector's fight with Pogo and the 
 Record, and Joan's revelations about Jerry.
 
 128 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Larry, looking at the two girls and at the Rector, and 
 more than ever incensed that three such people should be, 
 as he mellifluously put it "cruelly victimized instead of 
 idolized," swept resentfully onward in his tirade, after 
 carefully lifting his legs out of the danger zone of an- 
 ticipated kicks from Joan. 
 
 "I was remarking to the Rector, before you young 
 ladies came in that no tale is too grotesque to be spread 
 broadcast by our newspapers. And readers accept those 
 tales as they do doctor's pills or clergyman's sermons. 
 They swallow the moral, political, mental and financial 
 poison fed to them, like the gluttons for misery that they 
 morbidly are." 
 
 "But Larry, there are good and vicious newspapers, 
 just as there is good and bad in everything else," re- 
 monstrated Joan, thinking of Tom's struggle to avoid 
 harming the Rector and offending her. 
 
 Larry indulgently grinned at Joan, and raised his legs 
 as high as he could get them, as he replied: 
 
 "To me there is nothing more overwhelming than the 
 pathetic tragedy of a common person championing the 
 Press, that has not a genuine spark of human feeling for 
 any individual nor any ideal whatsoever of public wel- 
 fare. To expect justice and truth from a newsaper is to 
 demand perfume from a " he was intending to say 
 "skunk" if the Rector's warning cough and vigorous 
 efforts by Joan to reach him with her foot had not stopped 
 him. 
 
 Larry's seeming dread of Joan's kicks grew with his 
 malady, and to Joan, who controlled him, and who in- 
 stinctively regarded all human phenomena through the 
 eyes of the little mother of the tea-shop, his increasing
 
 Unconventional Joan 129 
 
 awe of being kicked by her intimated childishness as the 
 impending phase of his mental decline. 
 
 "Larry, what can you be so upset about this morning?" 
 asked Margaret. 
 
 "My remarks are most timely," replied Larry, using 
 his pet phrase, "as you shall see when you have read the 
 morning Record's scare headlines of outraged indignation 
 over the Rector's moving picture entertainment to-mor- 
 row night, and observed its jackal editor tearing to pieces 
 the carcass of his latest victim, Jerry Englin." He spread 
 the paper out before them. 
 
 Weeping and comforting one another, the three un- 
 offending victims read and re-read the two articles in the 
 Record until each line had seared deeply into their already 
 agonized hearts. 
 
 "And the News, Larry, what does it publish?" tremu- 
 lously asked Joan. 
 
 "Nothing, not a line about Jerry Englin, and this most 
 astounding announcement that the theatre-magnate's 
 daughter is actually going to help the Rector with his 
 project," replied Larry, handing the News to Margaret, 
 who hysterically read the welcome article to her amazed 
 father. 
 
 Their astonishment knew no bounds ! 
 
 Joan smiled proudly through her tears. 
 
 "Tom accomplished this for me," she realized, just as 
 she had been compelled to admit when she read about his 
 planned departure for the Front. 
 
 The comprehensiveness of what he had done amazed 
 her. Twelve hours ago his problem had been unsolvable, 
 and he had been unable to face either herself, the Rector, 
 his own associates on the News, or Pogo, and now, this
 
 130 Unconventional Joan 
 
 morning, he could proudly face everyone of them, to re- 
 ceive not their disapproval, but their appreciation of what 
 he had achieved. 
 
 What a beating his scoop administered to the Record! 
 
 Aloud she said: 
 
 "Larry, didn't I tell you that there were both good and 
 vicious newspapers?" 
 
 Larry grinned. 
 
 IV 
 
 The remainder of the meal was, for Joan, a half 
 happy, half sad reverie, about Jerry, and Tom and the 
 contents of the newspapers. 
 
 "Tom is wonderful," she remembered that Jerry had 
 said of him; and "why?" she had asked. 
 
 "Because he does things wonderful things does 
 them at the right time," Jerry had enthusiastically ex- 
 plained, and added, "Tom is unbeatable ! Tom gets what 
 he wants!" 
 
 "Jerry is splendid," Tom had remarked to her about 
 his pal, "so careful so scrupulously considerate so de- 
 liberately thoughtful and calculating and reserved." 
 
 Confiding their admiration of each other to her the 
 little mother of the tea-shop. 
 
 As though they might have been her two own boys. 
 As such indeed she had almost regarded them, until 
 until Jerry had come to mean so much more. 
 
 So different, she mused, and yet so companionable 
 loving each other. 
 
 Different and yet loving each other "going together." 
 
 Overwhelming memories of the knife and spoon! 
 
 Natural enough, though, she soliloquized. People get
 
 Unconventional Joan 131 
 
 along with one another's differences. People rather like 
 one another's differences they help out complement- 
 improve. That is why people naturally want to get along 
 with one another. That is why it takes a lot of provoking 
 to prevent their getting along with one another. It is only 
 busybodies that provoke people to exaggerate and dis- 
 like one another's differences. She glanced at the news- 
 papers, as she thought about this, particularly at the 
 vicious one, and remembered the cartoon. How childish, 
 she observed. Childish grown-ups making faces at one 
 another. Childish grown-ups crying for their own way. 
 Childish newspapers mischievously prodding them on, 
 trying to make them fuss and quarrel, instead of teach- 
 ing them to control their dislike of other people's ways 
 and have the spirit to understand and get along with one 
 another to like one another just as Jerry and Tom 
 felt the need of each other liked each other undoubt- 
 edly helped each other though as different as night and 
 day. 
 
 Dashing, venturesome, aggressive Tom. Retiring, 
 conservative, considerate Jerry. 
 
 Which would the average woman prefer? she won- 
 dered. Which would a young woman prefer? 
 
 She caressingly brooded over them her own one 
 lost to her, one loving her still and compared them. 
 
 Tom could acquire some of Jerry's qualities and be 
 the better for it, she speculated still hopelessly loving 
 Jerry. 
 
 Jerry could have acquired some of Tom's qualities and 
 been even more lovable, too, perhaps. 
 
 So with all people who mix and are different, she spec- 
 ulated. That is the tremendous advantage of mixing
 
 132 Unconventional Joan 
 
 to blend to assimilate to improve not to fuss and 
 fight nor keep on childishly crying for their own ways. 
 
 Too much of one's own way is not good for any one, 
 her mother's instinct reminded her. Overmuch of any- 
 thing is a blight. 
 
 Tom, with all his resourcefulness and enterprise and 
 determination plus a measure of Jerry's conscientious 
 reserve! What an irresistible character that would be! 
 
 Jerry, with all his scrupulous consideration for others, 
 and his gentle and retiring ways with an added dash of 
 Tom's magnetic aggressiveness slow, sure, considerate, 
 but decisively quick on occasion ! Oh if Jerry had but 
 only been that way once at the corner! 
 
 Could Tom ever become retiring and reserved could 
 he? she wondered. It did not seem probable. 
 
 Could Jerry ever have been aggressive? Impossible! 
 Audacious Jerry! Unthinkable! 
 
 The telephone-bell in the hall interrupted Joan's 
 reverie. 
 
 "Miss Peggy Pogo would like to speak to the Rector," 
 announced Larry. 
 
 The Rector answered the telephone and returned to 
 the breakfast table with sparkling eyes. 
 
 "It is true," he joyfully confided. "Miss Pogo is 
 actually going to help us. And there is no question 
 about her meaning it. She has put her whole heart into 
 it. She personally guarantees a success. She keeps as- 
 suring me that she 'will make good.' "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ' I ^HE bells of Trinity Church pealed forth on Monday 
 * evening at six o'clock, when Newspaper Row was 
 emptying itself of its weary throng, and vied successfully 
 with Pogo's electric sign in drawing patronage. 
 
 "Ding dong dong; ding dong dong!" 
 
 Larry tugged at the ropes with childish glee. 
 
 "Ding dong dong; ding dong dong!" 
 
 Peal upon peal, chiming, booming their rumbling, 
 drumming, clattering, clanking voices crashed through 
 the air. Hundreds of doves frightened from the belfry 
 flew circling around the heads of the crowds in the 
 streets who halted in their rush and stood looking up- 
 ward in amazement. Most of them had never heard 
 Trinity Church bells before. The bells had not been 
 rung for years. 
 
 "Ting a ling, ting a ling," sounded the telephone bell 
 in the sacristy of the Church. 
 
 Larry could not both haul away at the ropes and 
 answer the telephone. 
 
 "Ding dong dong; ding dong dong," clamoured the 
 belfry bells. 
 
 "Ting a ling, ting a ling," tinkled the telephone. 
 
 "Maybe that's the Rector," thought Larry, "I had 
 better answer." 
 
 "Hello?" he enquiringly spoke into the mouthpiece. 
 
 "Larry !" answered the Rector's excited voice. "Don't 
 you know it is against the law to ring the Church bells? 
 Don't you remember that the City Council decided they 
 disturbed people and should not be rung?" 
 
 133
 
 134 Unconventional Joan 
 
 'Togo's vulgar sign disturbs me, too," Larry shouted 
 back at the Rector. 
 
 "That's not the point, Larry. The law is the law and 
 must be obeyed. Stop ringing the bells at once," com- 
 manded the Rector. 
 
 "But we are beyond the law, now. We have the back- 
 ing of the News. We stand in with the bosses. Nobody 
 dares interfere with us now " 
 
 "Larry, it is you who are doing the interfering. You 
 are interfering with my efforts, and I want you to obey 
 me," insisted the Rector. 
 
 "Very well, sir. The persecutions of the last few days 
 have been making me worse, sir. I'll not ring the bells," 
 replied poor Larry, as he hung up the receiver, yielding 
 as usual to the Rector's command. 
 
 "Ting a ling, ting a ling," demanded the telephone 
 again. 
 
 "Hello?" enquired Larry. 
 
 "Can I reserve box seats for the show?" piped a 
 woman's shrill voice. 
 
 "No Ma'am, they're all free yes Ma'am, you come 
 along and I'll take care of you," he answered, as he left 
 the receiver off the hook, remembering that to be the prac- 
 tice of popular show-houses wishing to make callers 
 believe they were not interested in telephone calls, having 
 so many people already trying to get seats. 
 
 "It will make them most anxious to come," Larry said 
 to himself, but, as he looked out of the window at the 
 crowd around the Church, he realized that he was not 
 going to be able to "take care" of the lady who tele- 
 phoned, and that there was no further need of ringing 
 the bells.
 
 Unconventional Joan 135 
 
 The publicity supplied to the Church's free cinema- 
 show by the fight between the Record and the Neu's 
 jammed Newspaper Row with an army of curious mov- 
 ing-picture patrons who had been reinforced by a multi- 
 tude that had gathered for the second celebration of the 
 Armistice, just confirmed. Obviously a free-for-all fight 
 for admission was coming. 
 
 The childlike eyes of light-headed Larry beamed with 
 happiness. 
 
 It was six-thirty. The moving-pictures were scheduled 
 to commence at seven and end at nine. After that, at 
 nine, was to come the dance in the basement of the 
 Church. 
 
 "I could open the doors and take care of about a hun- 
 dredth part of that crowd," thought Larry, "but then the 
 others would go home. It's better advertising to keep 
 them all waiting out there as long as I can. Then more 
 people will tack on to the edge of that mob and try to 
 jimmy their way through it. That's the way the theatres 
 do it," he remembered. "Keep them waiting outside, 
 with the house empty, until the last minute. Use them 
 as advertisements to make passers-by believe that there 
 is a tremendously successful show inside. I'll just do 
 that, and hope they don't shove the Church out of News- 
 paper Row in the meantime, or try to break in by way 
 of the steeple." 
 
 ii 
 
 For fifteen minutes the Rector had been trying to dig 
 a way through the throng for himself and for Margaret 
 and Joan. Finally he was recognized. 
 
 "Make way for the Rector," bawled a burly champion
 
 136 Unconventional Joan 
 
 of the privilege of the pastor to be given a clear right of 
 way into his own Church. In the uproar nobody heard 
 the fellow, except his nearest neighbour. For the twen- 
 tieth time the Rector with Margaret and Joan clinging 
 to him, found themselves shunted back up North Street. 
 The Church, a block away, might just as well have been 
 in Palestine so far as his hope of getting into it was 
 concerned. He stood, with the girls, speculating on a 
 plan of attack. 
 
 "Honk-screech-shriek-honk-honk!" bellowed the pow- 
 erful horn of Peggy Pogo's automobile, rounding the 
 corner on its way with her and her party of friends to 
 the Church. 
 
 "Hello there," shouted Peggy to the Rector and the 
 girls, "aren't you going to the movies at the Church?" 
 She stopped her car beside the disconsolate trio. 
 
 "They won't let us through," mournfully vouchsafed 
 the Rector. 
 
 "They won't let you," scornfully echoed Peggy. 
 "Well, we'll show 'em. Hop in here, you three. Make 
 room for 'em, girls. Trixie, you just let the Rector 
 sit in your lap for a minute. Say, believe me, don't wait 
 for people to give you what you want. Take it away 
 from 'em, like this." 
 
 She backed her car for a block to get a good speeding 
 start. Scorching on the return she reached the edge of 
 the crowd going at forty miles an hour. 
 
 "Honk, whine, honk, yell, honk, bellow, honk, howl," 
 warned the horn. 
 
 "Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack," threatened 
 the "cut-out." 
 
 Stampeding sidewise like terrorized cattle, crushing
 
 Unconventional Joan 137 
 
 each other recklessly the Rector's prodigiously swollen 
 congregation opened up a groove for Peggy's bullet, 
 which tore through it and stopped abruptly in front of 
 the Church. 
 
 "There's a pastor fcr you," commented the young man 
 who opened the door of the car, "delivered direct to the 
 door of his Church by a bodyguard of queens as beautiful 
 as any on the screen," he added, as he helped the Rector 
 out of Trixie's lap. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Standing in the vestibule of his Church to greet his 
 parishioners, the Rector gave Larry the order to open 
 the doors. In an instant the human battering-ram had 
 hammered him and the sexton up against the chancel 
 rail, and in thirty-four seconds the pews, gallery, aisles 
 and window sills were jammed. 
 
 Never before had people gone to Church in such a 
 hurry. 
 
 The only two features of their entrance on this occa- 
 sion that resembled their entrance on normal occasions 
 were the preference for rear seats, and their silence. 
 Movies methodically muffle and muzzle the multitudes 
 that are to be mesmerized by them, by curt curtain com- 
 ments on the strict necessity of keeping quiet, so that 
 if you do not like a picture, or resent its insinuations, you 
 hardly dare say so to yourself, much less mention it to 
 your neighbour. Whether the majority of these people 
 had ever been to Church before or not, their moving- 
 picture experience taught them to be so quiet that every 
 word of the earnest Rector's devout prayer was heard by 
 each one present.
 
 138 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Omniscient Father, through whose Divine Son we 
 ignorant ones of earth have been taught by parables, we 
 remember that the Master was wont to appeal to our 
 ignorant hearts both through our blinded eyes and 
 through our deafened ears. We remember that He 
 not only spoke to our ears about the mustard seed, but 
 that He pointed it out by the roadside to our eyes. 
 
 "Your incompetent servant, responsible to you for the 
 morals of this parish, having tried, with lessening results, 
 to carry Your commandments to the hearts of his parish- 
 ioners solely through their ears, by word of mouth, at- 
 tempts to-night most humbly to imitate Your Divine Son's 
 method of teaching by appealing to the hearts of those 
 gathered here, through their eyes as well as through their 
 ears, and earnestly begs Your blessing upon this en- 
 deavour. 
 
 "A picture of life, as it is unfortunately lived, con- 
 taining much that is good and much that is bad, will be 
 reflected above Your altar, to make its ocular appeal for 
 the good, and against the bad, to the hearts of this con- 
 gregation. When the moving-picture has been com- 
 pleted, the members of the parish will be requested to 
 comment upon both the good and the bad. In this way, 
 Your weak servant hopes to-night to reach the hearts of 
 his flock with Your Divine message, after the manner 
 used by Your Divine Son in His parables, which were 
 pictures of actual life like that to be exhibited here to- 
 night. 
 
 "Kind Father, we recognize that our effort has the 
 semblance of a radical innovation; but so too was it a 
 radical innovation when Your Divine Son flogged the 
 money-changers who encroached upon the Temple, and
 
 Unconventional Joan 139 
 
 with Your Divine assistance we hope to make our effort 
 redound to Your greater honour and glory. Amen." 
 
 The Rector's earnestness, and the scope of his project, 
 thrilled and frightened those of the moving-picture 
 theatre-owners who had managed to get in. They found 
 themselves confronted by a man and a movement deter- 
 mined to dimmish, if not ruin, their business. 
 
 One of the ushers of the Church had cleared a way 
 to the organ for the lady organist. The Rector nodded 
 to her that he was ready for the music for the picture. 
 She was his talented ally in all his endeavours. In this 
 particular instance the rugged strength of the usher was 
 invaluable in handling the crowd ; a less sturdy man could 
 not possibly have controlled the people. He was one of 
 the Church's Sunday School class of swarthy South Sea 
 Island proselytes. 
 
 Before the Rector's touching prayer, a man who had 
 got in with a basket, one of the well-known vendors in 
 Newspaper Row, was intending to ask Larry's permis- 
 sion "to sell chocolates to the audience." Before the 
 minister's prayer ended he had sensed the sacred serious- 
 ness of the occasion, and was selling his product to the 
 crowd outside that waited patiently in the hope of a 
 second showing of the picture at nine o'clock. 
 
 Never had the Church looked so attractive to its occu- 
 pants. It was going to be a popular place after this. 
 Everyone present agreed upon that. The Record could 
 fight the project as much as it pleased, but so much the 
 worse for the Record. 
 
 IV 
 
 Larry turned out the lights, the organist began to
 
 140 Unconventional Joan 
 
 play her hymn, and a flood of light illumined the screen. 
 
 The introductory section of film repeated in bulletin 
 form the substance of the Rector's plan to analyze the 
 "Feature-picture," after it had been shown. Following 
 the "Feature-picture" would be exhibited a "Comedy" 
 to emphasize the sunshine of life. And at nine o'clock, 
 after the picture, in the Church basement, "Miss Peggy 
 Pogo would entertain with a dance." Peggy's "Pop" 
 had graciously supplied this last section of film, with 
 Peggy's face on it. 
 
 Larry, watching the picture with increasing disgust, 
 called it "a typical specimen of the screen-garbage dished 
 up under the conviction that human beings have the 
 appetites of vultures." Talking about it afterwards, he 
 said: 
 
 "To make a moving-picture, take a tiny heroine, who 
 is a wayward daughter, introduce her to a millionaire, 
 who souses her with cocktails in a beautiful den, bring 
 in Convict Bill to the rescue, and be sure to work it out 
 to a happy ending." 
 
 As the various scenes in the picture shifted about on 
 the screen, the organist skilfully displayed her versatility 
 by harmonizing the action of the drama with popular 
 melodies sufficiently well known to the congregation to 
 produce in their hearts the particular emotion invited by 
 the picture. 
 
 This medley of airs, starting from the hymn, included 
 strains from "Naughty, naughty Nellie," "Kiss me kid 
 and kill me," "Tell it to Bill," "We should worry," 
 "Where do we go from here?" and other inspired 
 stanzas not found in the hymn book, although well 
 known to the beautiful organist, as the Rector realized
 
 Unconventional Joan 141 
 
 in great surprise, while peering through the darkness 
 for Larry, meaning to send him with a message that a 
 "more dignified selection of music might be more in 
 keeping with the atmosphere of the Church." But Larry 
 did not appear. 
 
 "Before the lighter phase of life is reflected upo*n the 
 screen, we will first analyze this serious picture which we 
 have just seen," announced the Rector. 
 
 "We will try to study it together. We will pick out 
 the good and also the bad. Let us begin with the bad 
 and end with the good, so that our last thoughts may be 
 pleasant ones. Will someone in the congregation please 
 stand up and fearlessly pick out what to him or her 
 seemed bad in the picture?" 
 
 Nobody rose. Nobody spoke. It is possible that no- 
 body even did any thinking. But everybody was intently 
 listening. And all stared vacantly, like sheep. 
 
 "You must not be afraid," said the Rector encourag- 
 ingly. "You must not be afraid to think for yourselves 
 and stand up for your convictions. Modesty is not in- 
 consistent with a manly utterance of your opinions. To 
 be always passive is to be weak. Now then let us have 
 several of you bid for the opportunity -to speak first. 
 Don't mind me. This is a family discussion. Just talk 
 and act naturally, as if I were not even present, and as 
 if you were chatting among yourselves." 
 
 He was trying very hard to elicit their views, and his 
 efforts were generously rewarded. 
 
 A dozen people stood up in different parts of the 
 Church.
 
 142 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "There weren't enough 'close-ups/ " ventured one. 
 
 "There were too many 'fade-outs'," quickly added a 
 young blond. 
 
 "The leading man's make-up was too thin," piped 
 another woman. 
 
 "The leading lady doesn't know how to use a lip- 
 stick," retorted a man. 
 
 "l*he scenario sequence is loose," insisted a literary 
 spinster. 
 
 "The hero and heroine didn't iris out in a kiss," pouted 
 a twelve year old miss. 
 
 "Who's Iris ?" enquired a fellow in a window. 
 
 "Too short for a five-reeler. Ought 'a been a two- 
 reeler," sang out a chap whose clothes suggested stage 
 experience. 
 
 "If the muts who made that picture, or thought they 
 made it, had had a wiser film-cutter, and an experienced 
 camera man, and up-to-date sets, and better lighting, 
 they could have got by, but " 
 
 This aggressive film agent was promptly interrupted 
 by a competing film agent, who bawled: 
 
 "It was absolutely rotten. Now I have a picture that 
 I'd like to have you " 
 
 "The operator in the balcony ran it too fast," broke in 
 the fellow in the window who wanted to meet "Iris." 
 
 The operator leaned over the balcony, leered in the 
 direction of the window and roared: 
 
 "You ain't got experience enough to know that a film 
 runs itself. It was under-cranked by the amateur who 
 took it, that's what's wrong with it." 
 
 Historically, this was probably the first time that movie 
 patrons had enjoyed the opportunity of talking back at a
 
 Unconventional Joan 143 
 
 picture. They took full advantage of the opportunity. 
 In genuine "family" style they literally tore it to pieces. 
 With it went the entire moving-picture industry. Pic- 
 tures were condemned to eternal obloquy. Everything 
 and everybody connected with the screen was hacked and 
 smashed and flattened contemptuously. 
 
 "And yet," commented Larry, "the barbarians want 
 more of the same kind of films." 
 
 "Shoot on the comedy," drawled a weary voice. 
 
 Larry thought that was a "timely" suggestion and did 
 so. 
 
 VI 
 
 The Rector was hopelessly realizing, more keenly than 
 ever, what a gulf separated him from his flock. To 
 bridge it meant undoing the work of years of demoraliz- 
 ing propaganda, which had skilfully and expensively sub- 
 stituted conventions for morals, imitation for individ- 
 uality. His parishioners were puppets pulled by strings, 
 in the hands of masters powerful enough to make them 
 all move alike, talk alike and even think alike. Their 
 behaviour was as farcical as a Punch and Judy show. 
 And he had been presumptuously crediting them with 
 intelligence. He began to wonder how to cure their 
 depraved minds. His thoughts wandered away from the 
 Comedy picture flickering over the screen. He pondered 
 over such concepts as mental aberration, hallucination, 
 fanaticism, delusion, infatuation, hysteria. In place of 
 the picture on the screen, he began dimly to see a picture 
 of an immense asylum, built just like his Church, with 
 its chattering inmates, and Larry bossing them around. 
 Suddenly a man laughed loudly. It was a hoarse guffaw.
 
 144 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Somebody in one of the wards," thought the Rector, 
 in his abstraction. 
 
 The laughter began again. 
 
 "What's so funny?" enquired a voice. 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha," replied the laugher, unre- 
 strainedly. "I'm laughin' at 'em tryin' to be funny, ha, 
 ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" 
 
 Cackling bursts of laughter from everybody shook the 
 building, and the film ended. 
 
 "They're mad!" exclaimed the Rector. "My people 
 are mad!" 
 
 "Dance in the basement," flashed a slide on the screen, 
 with Peggy Pogo's face adorning it. . 
 
 The childlike eyes of crack-brained Larry darkened 
 with disgust
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 i 
 
 PEGGY "made good" with the dance. 
 * Promptly at nine o'clock automobiles began to 
 arrive at the basement door of the Church, driven by 
 selected male members of Peggy's set, to each of whom 
 had been issued special tickets of admission. To these 
 gentlemen had been left the privilege of bringing their 
 own lady guests. 
 
 These were recruited in various ways. Local stages 
 contributed some, manicure-shops were represented, 
 Pogo's usherettes gladly accepted, cloak-room brigan- 
 desses condescended, some were steady-regulars of their 
 escorts, and others were the kind that stand at street-car 
 stations at nine in the evening, but never take a car until 
 one with rubber tyres picks them up. 
 
 These favoured participants were permitted to enter 
 ahead of the less experienced, and were depended upon 
 to show the others just how a successful up-to-date dance 
 is conducted. 
 
 II 
 
 Larry leered at the females of all ages and sizes, as 
 they seethed and surged in through the entrance, strug- 
 gling and pushing and shoving to reach a room off the 
 main floor labelled "Ladies' Cloakroom." Whenever the 
 door of that room opened, he observed a white mist, like 
 a cloud, escape from it, and a very delightful aroma, 
 sweet-smelling and heavy, began to pervade the atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 Peggy joined the throng crowding inside this room, 
 
 145
 
 146 Unconventional Joan 
 
 and pushed and shoved with the best. They trod on her 
 toes and she trod on theirs. She seemed to care nothing 
 for their angry glances and sarcastic tongues. 
 
 As she struggled to penetrate the jostling mass of 
 femininity, the air was suddenly torn by a violent sound, 
 loud and vibrating. Near her a girl who was checking 
 her corsets exclaimed: 
 
 "There goes the orchestra." 
 
 Another who had successfully pigeon-holed what 
 Larry termed her "hug-hindering" stays, remarked: 
 
 "I am all ready for that one-step," and disappeared. 
 
 "There won't be any one-step until I get out there and 
 lead the opening march," decisively explained Peggy to 
 the others, as she made a final dive through the group, 
 opened her vanity-bag, and attacked her nose. 
 
 She had succeeded in reaching the mirror. 
 
 Larry, looking inward past the opening door, re- 
 marked : 
 
 "The charge of the Powder Brigade." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Outside the Church, looking through the basement win- 
 dows, those who could not get inside fought to satisfy 
 their dazzled eyes with a splendour that was fascinating. 
 
 The hall had been decorated lavishly. The pillars were 
 wreathed with ribbons. Streamers hung from the ceil- 
 ing. The light of hundreds of bulbs was softly-subdued 
 by vari-coloured silken shades fashioned to represent 
 birds, animals and flowers. The rays were red and blue, 
 orange and violet. On the walls hung pictures of the 
 reigning screen-beauties, and the dance cards bore, in 
 gilded letters the motto:
 
 Unconventional Joan 147 
 
 "It is sweet to be desired." 
 
 On the dance programme the first one-step was set 
 down to the tune of "Give Me Thy Lips," the first waltz 
 was "There is Nothing in the World but Love," and so 
 on for the rest. 
 
 In an instant after Peggy had given the signal for the 
 opening dance the hall was seething, with the faces of 
 the dancers for the most part sickly pale, but here and 
 there among the Caucasians spectators was the dark face 
 of one of the Church's South Sea Island savages in the 
 process of being "civilized." 
 
 The city's future captains of industry, exclusively oc- 
 cupied for the present with their petting parties, outside 
 of which they enjoyed quite effortless lives, afforded 
 Larry glimpses of the important contents of their valu- 
 able minds, through the snatches of conversation that 
 were audible as they whirled their mentally stimulating 
 partners past him. 
 
 " .... so Dot and Bert had broken off . ..." 
 " . . . . her Dad cut her allowance . . . . ' 
 " . . . . likes her cigarettes better . . . . ' 
 " . . . . swellest place for a . . . . ' 
 " . . . . too darned slow to suit me . . . . ' 
 "Too darned bad you're celebrating the Armistice to- 
 night before getting acquainted with some swifter things 
 'at the Front,' " thought Larry. 
 
 He didn't know which he despised most, those young 
 "sharks" in quest of their human prey, or the "ripples" 
 among which they splashed around. Being male, he was 
 greatly engrossed by the latter. 
 
 They were, all of them, more or less perfect duplicates 
 of Peggy. What they wore seemed to Larry to be meant
 
 148 Unconventional Joan 
 
 to attract attention rather than to cover their bodies. 
 They stepped along in a thrilling state of semi-nudity. 
 
 For months Larry had been measuring the upward 
 retreat of the sleeves worn by them, as well as the down- 
 ward retreat of their blouses. When it was the style to 
 wear dresses eight inches from the ground he noted the 
 "ripples" put theirs at twelve. When styles followed 
 the "ripples" to sixteen they put theirs to the knee, re- 
 gardless of how far the knees were from the ground. 
 When normal women wore long hair they bobbed theirs. 
 It looked as if they would now have to shave in order to 
 get a real effect. 
 
 Their individual characters were X-rayed by Larry as 
 they revealed them through their faces. He saw the thin 
 lips of curiosity, weakness and ill-temper ; the pale cheeks 
 of the conspirator; the small nose of the back-biter; the 
 vacillating eyes of the coquette. 
 
 The pouting lips and dimples and slightly celestial nose 
 of Mildred, tapering somewhat at the tip, told him she 
 was a sorceress, but he had to admit that her pout was ir- 
 resistible, and that there was charm in her dimples. 
 
 The hazel eyes of Beatrice, and her profusion of chest- 
 nut hair, convinced him that she was nine-tenths emo- 
 tional imagination and one-tenth intelligence, but as she 
 passed him and scorchingly remarked to her partner, 
 "You are dense!" he became painfully aware of his own 
 inferior mental equipment. 
 
 Adelia, with fair hair and forget-me-not eyes, com- 
 pliant and clinging, fluffy and frilly, exhibited a small 
 mouth, with dimples at the corners, and evidenced to him 
 a doll-like vapid mind. But he overheard a fellow re- 
 mark of her:
 
 Unconventional Joan 149 
 
 "She is 101 per cent feminity and a first-class chum." 
 
 One particular snatch of psychological chit-chat espe- 
 cially interested Larry. 
 
 "It's nature," excusingly observed a scarlet lady. 
 
 "Better to be natural than hypocritical," comforted 
 her companion. 
 
 "Prudes who criticize betray thereby their secret lik- 
 ing," added Amoretta, with elaborate finality. 
 
 Larry could scarcely believe his eyes as he scrutinized 
 the woman and recognized a notoriety of Newspaper 
 Row, golden haired, sweetly pretty, and, though divorced 
 from two husbands, possessing the face and look of a 
 virgin, one of the vilest women on earth, celebrated for 
 her fabulous debaucheries. But closer observation of the 
 crowd revealed that still other well-known ladies of un- 
 satisfied emotions had similarly contributed their beauti- 
 ful forms as an ornament to the occasion. 
 
 Amoretta's partner was one of those tall, distinguished, 
 good-looking old egg-heads, so called because of the "high 
 forehead running through from the face to the back of 
 the neck, with hair on both sides of it." Larry saw him 
 desert her for one of the youngest ripples, whose best 
 boast at the end of the season, he calculated, would be 
 that she could hang up a bigger row of baldheads than 
 anyone in her set. 
 
 Larry's amazement suddenly turned into partial par- 
 alysis, as the Rector's dusky South Sea Island usher and 
 the organist fox-trotted into view. Annette's form, at 
 once slender and full, was crushed against Woolooloo's 
 body, her arms and limbs entwined by his own. Larry 
 watched him looking downward at her as if he wished 
 to gorge himself with the sight of her, burning her eyes
 
 150 Unconventional Joan 
 
 with his as she looked up at him with desire. And as 
 Larry stared, the dance momentarily stopped, and Woo- 
 looloo's glance slipped from Annette's face to her neck 
 and bare arms, fondling her shapely outlines openly 
 devouring her with his answering desire. 
 
 Joan and Margaret hurried away, instinctively fearful 
 of defiling their eyes with the sight of one of the popular 
 shameful orgies of the times. 
 
 IV 
 
 Tom Manly wedged his way into the hall, with the help 
 of a press-badge, took one look, remarked to himself, 
 "Peggy has made good," and went away. 
 
 Wilfrid Keating entered a few minutes later, with 
 Victor Pogo accompanying him, and after they had both 
 watched for a few minutes, Pogo observed: 
 
 "Peggy made good, all right, maybe I didn't fully un- 
 derstand her. Deep girl! Wise girl! For her 'Pop'!" 
 
 Keating made no reply. 
 
 The Rector approached the editor of the Record, re- 
 straining himself with difficulty, and remonstrated: 
 
 "Your paper could stop this sort of thing. Why don't 
 you? Why don't you ever stop anything immoral? We 
 couldn't have such an exhibition here as this unless it 
 were conventional the usual sort of thing promoted by 
 you and your advertisers. You are killing our nation's 
 faith by countenancing the moral destruction of our 
 youth. Youth no longer has faith in anything. You are 
 killing the nation itself !" He was furious. 
 
 Keating made no reply. 
 
 The Rector, fearful that he might lose control and 
 strike the editor, hurried upstairs into the Church, to
 
 Unconventional Joan 151 
 
 pray and prepare a "never to be forgotten" sermon to 
 the revellers on the spot, in the very midst of their car- 
 ousal. 
 
 "Forgiving Father," he prayed, "I confess a miserable 
 failure of my efforts this evening to make Your Church 
 more acceptable and helpful to the souls entrusted to me, 
 and I humbly ask for help. 
 
 "The moving-pictures have shown- my people to be 
 mentally depraved. The social gathering downstairs has 
 hown me, as I never comprehended it before, the depths 
 of their moral degradation. I fear that their reason has 
 been undermined. Your helping gift to them of their 
 conscience has been so inoculated with poison that their 
 instinct has become confounded with sensation. The 
 soul within them has been killed. It is a terrifying ad- 
 mission to make, O God, but our people are headed for. 
 the pit of impotent and inferior races. They do not 
 realize that the nation is perishing. 
 
 "Good God, help me to save my people." 
 
 He buried his face in his hands and tried to think what 
 he should say to them. 
 
 Downstairs Peggy had announced a prize to be pre- 
 sented to the couple who danced best. 
 
 The winning couple would be selected from the entire 
 gathering, and be allowed the opportunity of giving an 
 exhibition dance, after which a suitable prize would be 
 awarded to them. 
 
 Peggy encouragingly added that the prize was a par- 
 ticularly suitable one, because she had "picked it out 
 herself," and urged all to "do their best," which Larry,
 
 152 Unconventional Joan 
 
 listening- to her, interpreted to mean "do their dirtiest." 
 The lights were dimmed, and atomizers sprayed an in- 
 toxicating perfume over the dancers to exhilirate them, 
 and excite their blood, already on fire. Cheek to cheek, 
 with mist covered eyes, Woolooloo and Annette danced, 
 and won. 
 
 The savage spirit in Woolooloo, to which physical 
 beauty spoke with more eloquence than anything else on 
 earth, lit up his dark eyes with such a splendour of satis- 
 faction as only the passionate enjoyment of his heart's 
 desire could provoke, and the feelings of the women 
 present reacted warmly to his barbaric influence upon 
 them, as they applauded him loudly and looked at him 
 longingly, which provoked Larry into angrily remarking: 
 "The race is retrograding to the level of the missing 
 link." 
 
 VI 
 
 As Woolooloo and Annette began their exhibition 
 dance, before receiving Peggy's prize, intense delight 
 was reflected upon several hundred faces, not only near- 
 ing stupidity, Larry thought, but reaching it utterly. 
 
 The music for the dance began with a disordered and 
 wild outburst of dissolute plaints. Woolooloo passion- 
 ately drew Annette nearer to him in a series of caresses 
 increasingly accentuated and provoked by the pulsating 
 strains of the orchestra, and began to astound her with 
 endearing words flung from the depths of his soul, 
 crudely resonant as the music and as thrilling as wine. 
 Annette's pulse beat oppressively in her hands and 
 temples. Then the music alluringly changed. Dulcet, 
 deeptoned melodies, bewitchingly refreshing, softened
 
 Unconventional Joan 153 
 
 the effect upon her of his words. But again the feeling 
 seized her that she was flying into some abyss. Down, 
 down, she was sinking, perishing! Pleadingly, entic- 
 ingly, the soft and mellow call of the flute quieted her 
 fears. Woolooloo's breath began to blow around her 
 nearer and nearer, as he lifted her along. She began to 
 resist him. She felt her blood boiling and a remnant of 
 indignation flared up in her soul. But the fascinating 
 harmonies of a sweet voiced violin captivated her senses 
 and subdued her. Her power of resistance deserted her 
 more and more. Something cajolingly told her it was too 
 late ; that one who had been so embraced, whose heart had 
 beaten as hers was beating, through whose frame such 
 tremors had passed, was lost beyond recovery. Wooloo- 
 loo and the music were awakening something within her 
 *rom a sleep. It wanted to be awakened. She hesitated 
 to have it aroused. Some new kind of rapture was en- 
 folding her, in which acute enjoyment and delight were 
 mingled with intense anxiety and fear. The straight and 
 strange gaze which she leveled at Woolooloo revealed 
 alike her trepidation and delight. The heart-beats in her 
 pulse and temples and breast raced with her breathing, 
 and her mouth opened partly in wonder and partly for 
 relief. Gradually the dominating roll of the drum, with 
 its exciting vibrations and the insinuating suspensions of 
 its teasingly slow and measured beats, accomplished her 
 submission to the movements and fondling to which 
 Woolooloo skilfully subjected her. The luxuriously in- 
 toxicating intonations of the cello and the entrancing 
 modulations of the bass viol so harmoniously accom- 
 panied the strange words she was hearing from his lips 
 for the first time, that she eventually ceased to wish, from
 
 154 Unconventional Joan 
 
 any motive, moral or otherwise, to miss one sound of his 
 voice or one movement of his dance. Popularized selec- 
 tions of savage discord riotously disorganized her facul- 
 ties. Fiery and furious trumpet-calls, and clarionets and 
 bugles, producing creeps and perturbation, thrills and 
 exultation, deafened her ears to the voice of conscience. 
 Quivering guitars, tingling mandolins, tantalizing tom- 
 toms, bells and gongs and cymbals, mercilessly torment- 
 ing, torturing and subjugating, drove her wildly on to her 
 complete capitulation, smothering her scruples with her 
 consciousness that the onlookers of her sex gave facial 
 evidence of vicariously feeling the same thrilling sensa- 
 tions that she experienced "hypocrites," Larry appraised 
 them, "who complacently contemplate but dishonestly 
 disdain to stigmatize filth by its right name." At mo- 
 ments Annette disconcertedly dropped her eyes; then 
 again she raised them bravely to Woolooloo, as if she 
 wanted to say, "let us go on, and on." She felt the 
 heat that issued from him. A kind of sweet weakness, 
 faintness and f orgetf ulness seized her. 
 
 And her submission to him began to act on Woolooloo 
 also. Her beauty was intoxicating his senses and he was 
 devouring her. His nostrils dilated. The throbbing of 
 his heart grew wilder. His breathing became shorter. 
 His mind became dazed. He felt a fire in his veins which 
 he did not try to extinguish. Desire cut restraint out of 
 his will. The motions of his limbs began to express what 
 the popular dancer of the day endeavours to depict in 
 his dancing as vividly as he can. It was less a dance than 
 a carnal love scene, all but complete, voluptuously indi- 
 cating with wildest license the paroxysms of connubial 
 association, bewitching, bacchic!
 
 Unconventional Joan 155 
 
 In vain Annette turned away her face to escape his im- 
 pending kisses. Her breast heaving in full sight of his 
 eyes tempted him beyond all remnants of self-control. 
 Bending her fiercely backward and downward beneath 
 him, he began, panting, to press his dark mouth upon hers 
 deathly pale his lewd lips reddened her neck she 
 struggled in his arms he covered her with furious kisses. 
 
 The child-like eyes of lunatic Larry flashed his quick 
 conception of a "timely" idea. He would award a prize 
 of his own. 
 
 "Nothing could be more 'suitable' as a prize for them," 
 he hurriedly decided, as he darted away and instantly re- 
 appeared to present it to them himself. 
 
 Yes, he was sure, it was "timely" and fitting, and some- 
 thing they needed right away, and might just as well have 
 at once for comfort's sake. It was rather small, he re- 
 alized, being intended only for himself, but, under the 
 circumstances, it would accommodate the two of them. 
 
 So, to the feigned and extravagantly exaggerated em- 
 barrassment of the enraptured onlookers, who were 
 ecstatically applauding Woolooloo and Annette, he opened 
 up and placed before them on the floor the bed that Peggy 
 Pogo had "personally selected" and given him. 
 
 Keating led the stampede out of the hall, and flew to 
 the office of the Record.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 T ARRY lied to the Rector and Margaret and Joan 
 *-*' next morning at their silent breakfast, when he gave 
 them the Morning News containing nothing about the 
 previous night's happenings at the Church, and told them 
 the Record had not been delivered. The fact was that 
 he was hiding it until after Joan and Margaret should 
 have departed, and would then put it in the Rector's study 
 for him to read alone. 
 
 The first thing that both Margaret and Joan did, sep- 
 arately, after parting at the corner, was to buy a copy of 
 the Record. Margaret took her copy to the book shop 
 where she was hopelessly carrying on her losing fight for 
 the business, and Joan took her copy to the loft where she 
 used to read the morning papers and have breakfast with 
 Jerry. 
 
 The Record's conspicuous article on the Rector's 
 "Shapely Limb Contest" shocked and challenged her to 
 an extent that editor Keating had not calculated upon. 
 
 "This very morning, at the very start of their day, 
 thousands of young girls are being affected, whether they 
 know it or not, by the tone of this article," she reminded 
 herself. "Subconsciously, their moral plane must sink 
 towards the level of what their minds are fed on. It is 
 wicked ! and somehow I am going to get it stopped !" 
 
 She put her foot down on it the little mother of the 
 tea-shop it must stop! 
 
 She did not know how but it must stop! 
 
 The initial emotion of her life reasserting itself the 
 propensity to do what her mother would have done to 
 
 156
 
 Unconventional Joan 157 
 
 do what all mothers would do stop it protect their 
 own. 
 
 The only and absorbing ambition she ever experienced 
 "to be like her mother" until Jerry came. Likely to 
 be her absorbing aspiration once again, now that Jerry 
 had gone. Something had to take his place. Something 
 must at once be an outlet for all the hurting, pent-up 
 emotion of her heart. Not Tom she felt sure except 
 to mother him to help him. Not anybody any more, 
 she feared except just to mother them and help them. 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop on guard again. 
 
 II 
 
 The first important event at the loft, on this Tuesday 
 morning following the dance, was the disbanding of 
 Joan's army to appease the police. 
 
 All her forces were refused admission, with the ex- 
 ception of Paregoric, who was permitted to come in and 
 stay in all the morning. The homely fatness and towzled 
 shagginess of the mongrel influenced Joan in her de- 
 cision that the other, better-looking dogs stood more 
 chance of finding someone to love them. 
 
 But the others must have sensitively resented the selec- 
 tion of one of their species so obviously inferior to them- 
 selves, for they set up a protest of howls outside the 
 door; Paregoric vindictively answering from within, se- 
 cure in the protection of the dividing door; but when 
 Joan opened it to stamp her foot at the noisy gang the 
 favourite judiciously took refuge behind her, until the 
 army was in full flight down the stairs, when it was quite 
 safe to take a bold stand at the top of the staircase, and 
 bark derision into the ears of the retreating company.
 
 158 Unconventional Joan 
 
 The second important event was the decision made by 
 Joan towards the end of the first day's attempt to carry 
 out Jerry's unstarted test, to call on Keating, and speak 
 her mind to him administer his needed spanking! 
 
 There were times during the day when she could have 
 shouted at him in anger through the wall that separated 
 his editorial rooms from the loft, had he been there, but 
 she knew he would not arrive before six o'clock. The 
 long wait cooled her indignation and disposed her to use 
 with the editor of the Record the best weapon in a 
 woman's armoury petition. Remembering her appeal 
 to Tom Manly, and recalling that his paper had been sub- 
 sequently withheld from attacking the Rector, she felt 
 confident of being able to plead with Keating with equal 
 success. 
 
 Passing for a moment into the crowd of weary girls, 
 buying their evening portion of moral-poison from the 
 news-boys, her heart went out to them with all the 
 mother-love of which it was capable. With her solicitude 
 about their subjection to their conventional bondage over- 
 mastering her she entered the Record building determined 
 to protect them from what they were palpably unable or 
 unwilling to avoid themselves. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Wilfrid Keating could have told Joan what was on her 
 mind before she revealed it, so he began to listen to her 
 while dividing his attention between her and numerous 
 directions to assistants, telephone calls, and pencilled 
 memoranda, rising occasionally to leave the room, appar- 
 ently giving his interest to a hundred things more im- 
 portant than herself, and altogether treating her with
 
 Unconventional Joan 159 
 
 about as much consideration as he might have given to a 
 fly that bothered him, suggesting that, like the fly, she 
 would eventually go away. 
 
 "I have never been in an editor's room before," Joan 
 began, discreetly. 
 
 "Send the head proof-reader up here," she heard him 
 speak into a telephone. 
 
 He was busy, she decided. He was too busy to ask 
 her to sit down. 
 
 She would wait. 
 
 He was making notes on sheets of paper. Outside the 
 open door of his office another man was making similar 
 notes on similar sheets of paper, seated at the centre of 
 a half-circle table. On either side of him, at the same 
 table, sat other men, making the same kind of notes on 
 the same kind of paper. All the men at this odd-shaped 
 table seemed to be passing their little sheets of paper to 
 the man in the centre. Sometimes he would hand them 
 back : occasionally a boy would go back and forth between 
 him and Keating carrying the little squares of paper. 
 Frequently the man at the centre of the circular table 
 would put some of the sheets into a pneumatic tube in 
 front of him and they would disappear. All round the 
 room were unpretentious desks which Joan presumed 
 were for the use of the reporters, because young men 
 were coming, as she waited, with similar sheets of paper 
 which they took from their pockets and worked on at 
 these desks. Some of the young men kept their hats on 
 as they wrote, all of them smoked incessantly, and there 
 was no audible conversation in the room. The muffled 
 "tick-tick" of telegraph instruments in an adjoining room 
 was the only sound that could be heard. Green shades
 
 160 Unconventional Joan 
 
 softened the glare of the electric lights. Joan's thoughts 
 went back to study days at college. She fancied that she 
 might be watching a studious group of her schoolmates 
 in a study-hall, preparing tomorrow's tasks, instead of 
 observing one of the city's powerful thought-machines 
 creating for the citizens their morning's supply of ideas. 
 
 The proof-reader sent for by Keating came and went. 
 Still Joan stood, unnoticed. Finally she sat down at her 
 own instigation. Keating got up and left the room. 
 Before she could wonder where he had gone he returned. 
 She abruptly accosted him. He was getting on her 
 nerves. She forgot her plan to plead instead of to con- 
 demn. 
 
 "Your paper printed nothing this morning but inven- 
 tions about the Church Dance last night," she feebly 
 ventured. 
 
 "How do you know? You were not there," Keating 
 replied, without looking at her. 
 
 "But you have no right to attack the Rector," she re- 
 torted. 
 
 "There's a shot for you," she comforted herself. "I 
 dare dispute your rights." 
 
 Keating took no notice of her. 
 
 "Your phrasing was calculated to make him odious," 
 she added. 
 
 Ye gods ! she was criticizing a big newspaper editor's 
 English ! 
 
 Keating kept on writing. 
 
 "You annihilated him overnight," she asserted, gather- 
 ing force with every blow. 
 
 Verily the gods are merciful. She had not yet been 
 thrown out.
 
 Unconventional Joan 161 
 
 Keating kept on writing. 
 
 "You suppressed the truth and distorted the facts." 
 Crack ! Crack ! Crack ! came her charges like machine- 
 gun bullets. 
 
 "You were flippant and you were mocking." 
 "Is it impossible to insult the man," she wondered? 
 "And you pretend to all the virtues." 
 That ought to rile him. 
 But Keating kept on writing. 
 
 "And you presume to pick out who's who and who 
 isn't." 
 
 Somewhere outside a street organ began to play, "It's 
 coming to you." 
 
 "Your paper blasts the best hopes of mankind, and 
 perpetuates torment instead of happiness for thousands." 
 Still no response from Keating. 
 "You are responsible for the only ideas that your 
 readers possess." 
 
 Keating answered the telephone. 
 "Will you apologize to the Rector?" 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, step this way for Death Valley ! 
 "Of course not. You never apologize." 
 She answered it for him, with fine scorn. 
 "Do you call that 'serving the public' ?" she continued. 
 Lead, Kindly Light ! 
 "I call it hoodwinking the public." 
 Keating stared at her. 
 The little mother militant! 
 
 In her eyes he saw that veiled deep glow, that pathet- 
 ic hurt dignity, that unsubdued and unsubduable spirit 
 that burns and smoulders in the eye of a caged eagle, 
 rousing in humans self-scorn by its mute reproach.
 
 1 62 Unconventional Joan 
 
 She thought his manner softened as he looked at her. 
 "Nobody denies your paper its profits, Mr. Keating," 
 she continued. 
 
 She hoped he would say something to that, but he re- 
 turned to his writing. 
 
 "Anybody can write up a lot of sensationalism," she 
 went on. "It doesn't require any extraordinary brain- 
 power to do that. For proof that it is easy to do, just 
 see how many newspaper editors in the country are doing 
 it daily. To write the truth can't be easy, otherwise it 
 would be more common. Isn't it therefore worth try- 
 ing?" 
 
 He surprised her by answering her. What he said 
 seemed to echo what another editor, Tom Manly, had 
 said to her. 
 
 "What you have in mind is no copy for a news editor. 
 His public does not expect that sort of stuff." 
 
 "That is because you have not taught the public to 
 want that sort of stuff. But you could do it." 
 
 Did he think he was being drawn into an argument 
 with her ? Did he think he was on unsafe ground ? Joan 
 wondered, because he returned to his writing. 
 
 She pressed her point. 
 
 "Don't you think that outside the vicious radius of 
 Newspaper Row, there might be room in the public's ap- 
 proval for a newspaper that made it its policy to reflect 
 the happy circumstances of life? 
 
 Keating was writing again, and took no notice, 
 
 Joan persevered. 
 
 "There are men and women in the city who don't want 
 to know the world they live in as anything but beautiful. 
 Those men and women would be glad to find it beauti-
 
 Unconventional Joan 163 
 
 fully reflected in the newspapers, if they could. But a 
 murder or a suicide is usually served up to them by the 
 newspaper at their breakfast tables, as mental food on 
 which to begin the trying day's struggle. And surely the 
 corridors of the police court are not the brightest ap- 
 proaches to happiness for them?" 
 
 Keating kept on writing. 
 
 "I don't think the world is all sinister, and if it is you 
 can change it. Have you power only to make it evil?" 
 
 Keating kept on writing. 
 
 "There is a sweetness in life which you do not depict, 
 Mr. Keating. Far from being a world filled with men. 
 and women fighting to get out of it, life holds happy 
 circumstances where many would linger if they could." 
 
 The little mother pleading. 
 
 Keating answered her, using again, she noticed, almost 
 identically, Tom Manly's words. 
 
 "It is not the sort of news an editor wants, and that 
 will sell his papers to the man in the street. You do not 
 understand. You are not a newspaper writer." 
 
 That reply gave Joan her cue. True, she was not a 
 newspaper writer, but she could be. Or she could at least 
 try to be one, a good one, and on Keating's paper. 
 
 It was an inspiration ! 
 
 Her heart leapt to it. 
 
 "Mr. Keating, could you give me a job on your paper?" 
 she nervously enquired. 
 
 Keating kept on writing for a moment, called a boy 
 and gave him some of his little sheets of paper, and turn- 
 ing round to Joan, petrified her with his answer: 
 
 "Yes, how soon can you go to work ?" 
 
 Rapture ! And the vision of young girls joyfully read-
 
 164 Unconventional Joan 
 
 ing the helpful articles which she would contribute to the 
 Record. 
 
 But could she carry on Jerry's work and at the same 
 time be a reporter ? Impossible ! That was obvious. There- 
 fore she could not be a reporter. 
 
 Desolation ! And the vision of young girls continuing 
 to be poisoned by the Record's slush for women. 
 
 But although she could not work in the laboratory and 
 at the same time be a news-writer, she could at least take 
 the newspaper work, (and from her salary keep up the 
 rent of the laboratory) until Jerry returned. Jerry would 
 approve of that, she decided, little suspecting Jerry's fate. 
 
 "I can begin tomorrow," she answered. 
 
 Keating introduced her to the staff, and she departed, 
 certain that her hour at the Record office had been one 
 of the wisest investments of time that she had ever made. 
 
 IV 
 
 Joan walked briskly and contentedly home, where she 
 joyfully told the stricken Rector and Margaret what she 
 had undertaken. She wanted to tell Tom Manly, too, so 
 she rang him up on the telephone. 
 
 "I have some news for you, Tom, but not for publica- 
 tion," she said, wondering what he would think and say 
 when he learned that she had joined the staff of the rival 
 newspaper. 
 
 "What is it, Joan ?" he enquired. 
 
 "I am going to work tomorrow on the Record," she 
 replied, with not a little satisfaction over the thrill she 
 was giving him. 
 
 "Oh, yes/' replied Tom, "I just read about it in the 
 Record."
 
 Unconventional Joan 165 
 
 "You read about it in the Record? Why Tom, the 
 Record is not out yet. This is eight thirty p. m., not 
 a. m.," she laughingly replied. 
 
 "But the 'bull-dog' edition of the Record is just out, 
 Joan. That's the edition which has to be printed early so 
 as to get on the early evening trains for shipment to out- 
 of-town points. The later edition, of course, will not be 
 printed until two a. m., for local distribution. 
 
 Joan was receiving her first practical lesson in the 
 business of newspaper making. 
 
 "What does it say in the Record, Tom?" 
 
 "There is a column giving an interview with you, under 
 the head-line 'It's our Press that Ails us.' The sub- 
 stance of the interview is like the material of some of 
 your conversations with me on the same subject. The 
 article is used as a follow-up to the articles which the 
 Record printed about Jerry. It refers to you as 'part of 
 the brain' of 'Electrical Englin' and facetiously concludes 
 with the statement that you are now going to contribute 
 the whole of your own brain to the Record, as one of its 
 writers who will specialize on uplift work. 
 
 Joan did not even hear Tom telling her to cancel the 
 agreement, nor did she hear him asking her if the out- 
 come of the pictures and the dance had not shown her 
 what she would not believe when he tried to assure her it 
 was so. She could think only of the sensational way in 
 which she had been dragged into the newspaper columns 
 like Jerry and the Rector. 
 
 It was painfully clear to her now. Keating had skil- 
 fully wheedled her into talking as she did, had drawn her 
 on by his silence, had actually written the interview in her 
 presence. She had done the talking and he had kept
 
 166 Unconventional Joan 
 
 on writing. Then he had handed what he wrote to the 
 boy to be printed as soon as she had asked him if 
 she could be a news-writer after having been actually 
 prompted by him to ask that question in fact, after hav- 
 ing been given by him the cue to make the request. 
 
 It was diabolically clever. 
 
 Vainly she tried to fathom his motive. 
 
 "Paregoric, you have been putting something over on 
 me, and on the police," accusingly exclaimed Joan, as 
 .she beamed with amazement at what her shaggy friend 
 with the medicinal name had brought to the loft ahead of 
 her on Wednesday morning. 
 
 "Where have you been keeping them, and when did 
 you" 
 
 "Yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp!" 
 
 "Why Paregoric, nobody suspected you were that kind 
 of a dog to begin with, and " 
 
 Three brown little wriggling bodies, toddling along be- 
 hind their mother wagged frantic tails and emitted baby 
 tiarks, until Joan stooped down and took all three of them 
 into her arms. At once Madam Paregoric reared proudly 
 upon her hind legs, and caressed her babies and Joan's 
 wrists alternately, with her tickling pink tongue. 
 
 Joan tenderly fed her, petted her, and lingeringly bade 
 her good-bye: 
 
 "I never expect to see you and your babies again, Pare- 
 goric," she confided, with a catch in her voice that was 
 perilously near a sob. "Stick close to them, Paregoric." 
 She fondled one of the babies. "Be a good mother to 
 them. Don't let them run about loose."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 i 
 
 OIX million minutes left," calculated Larry. 
 
 ^ Joan had set off for her first day's experience at the 
 
 Record office. 
 
 Her departure to take up her writing work gave Larry 
 the idea of continuing his famous thesis, "Conventional- 
 ism and Its Perpetrators." He was accustomed to add 
 to it from time to time, closeting himself in his book- 
 filled room on the top floor. 
 
 "Six million minutes left out of thirty-one million, to 
 finish my book," he crazily figured with his pencil on a 
 pad of paper. 
 
 "Yes, that's right. I am forty years old now. I will 
 live to be sixty. Sixty years of life means thirty-one 
 million minutes. Ten million minutes for sleep. Two 
 million minutes for meals. Seven and a half millions 
 wasted in my childhood on make-believe study and play. 
 Three million minutes for my daily three hours' loaf be- 
 fore and after meals. Half a million to my annual vaca- 
 tions, and two million for Sundays and holidays. That 
 gives me six million minutes left. It isn't very much. 
 I'll have to work faster on this book." 
 
 He began to write in his most euphonious and alliter- 
 atively elegant style: 
 
 "The world that has just been so dearly 'made safe 
 for democracy* is more quickly than ever degenerating 
 into the depths of depravity. The moral going is down- 
 wards, and those who do not go willingly are dragged 
 along by their business associates, by their fellow church- 
 members and by their relatives. There is no escape. To- 
 
 167
 
 168 Unconventional Joan 
 
 day is the crisis of civilization. This is the hour of con- 
 centrated agony and peril. 
 
 "To most people the moral descent is so deliriously en- 
 ticing and thrilling from the very start, that the fascina- 
 tion of the downfall discounts all sense of danger. They 
 admit their lapse, invite it and justify it in terms of the 
 accommodating law of compensation. 'They have suf- 
 fered to the uttermost and so they are entitled to be su- 
 feited/ they argue. 
 
 "The end of the strain that has suddenly come to 
 wasted men of sapped energy, is lowering them by quick 
 descents from lassitude to looseness. Their women's or- 
 deal of sacrifice has suddenly ceased. Together, men and 
 women, they are yielding to the sweet relief of every 
 available comfort at any required price of pocket-book or 
 soul. 
 
 "It is easy, but appalling, to predict what will ensue. 
 
 "The rake, Reaction, has met with easy Affluence, and 
 will beget first Prodigality, then Profiteering, after that 
 Penury and eventually Panic. These, in turn, by rapid 
 assimilation, will bring forth Disillusionment, Despair, 
 Cynicism and Crime. 
 
 "Prodigality will scatter waste, demand profusion, 
 boast extravagance, spill the world's surplus, throw good 
 money after bad, lavish fortunes upon courtesans, inflate 
 the stock-market, produce a multitudinous crop of up- 
 starts, and immortalize the vampire. 
 
 "To harmonize with and propagate, rather than obliter- 
 ate this phase of convention, the Press will be found 
 printing a hundred inches of advertisements for every 
 inch of news, and diverting billions of excess profits to its 
 coffers, by forcing profit-makers to believe that it will be
 
 Unconventional Joan 169 
 
 better for them to spend their excess in publicity than to 
 give it away for nothing to the Government. 
 
 "Profiteering will hide its brigand's face beneath a 
 mask of mock philanthropy, pillage the people, exact one 
 thousand per cent, and teach them to raid one another. 
 
 "The Press will propagate this particular phase of con- 
 vention by flippantly poking fun at it, cajoling its victims, 
 and taking substantial toll of the despoilers. 
 
 "Penury will uninvited come to live with hordes of 
 unemployed, treat millionaires like beggars, and grotes- 
 quely make the dearly-bought democracy prove to be 
 distress and destitution. 
 
 "This development in the evolution of convention will 
 be concealed as long as possible, by successful efforts of 
 the Press to prevent reduction of prices, by ridiculing 
 those who earnestly attempt it, accusing them of hysteria 
 and otherwise annihilating them with epithets. 
 
 "Panic will be heralded before it comes. First, mis- 
 trust will demand recognition, and loss of confidence 
 will be rumoured, provoking despondency, heart palpita- 
 tion and the cold sweat of fear, before the monster's 
 arrival in an earthquake that will burst the stock-market 
 bubble, shake the faith of children, harrow the souls of 
 women, and petrify the valour of men. 
 
 "The Press will wildly strive to deny this descent of 
 convention by quoting the mighty captains of industry 
 against its existence. 
 
 "Disillusionment will stalk naked through the streets, 
 shouting the bitter truth of self-reproach for the humilia- 
 tion and conviction of all alike. 
 
 "At this stage in the evolution of convention the Press 
 will help the downward development by circulating the
 
 I jo Unconventional Joan 
 
 new term 'normalcy', recommending a narcotic in place 
 of a genuine remedy for what is wrong. 
 
 "Despair will not delay in turning pessimism into in- 
 consolable dejection. 
 
 "The Press will conspire to conceal this suicide of con- 
 vention by diverting attention from it by emphasis of the 
 greater wretchedness of other countries. 
 
 "Cynicism will convert critics into carpers, defamers 
 into slanderers, and lampooners into blackmailers. 
 
 "At this phase the Press will be able to say with truth: 
 'the people are copying our methods.' 
 
 "But to Crime will be left the function of completing 
 the disintegration of conventional civilization. Citizens 
 will become charlatans. Every man will rob. Every man 
 will expect to be robbed. None will trust his neighbour. 
 Infamous imposition, vicious immorality, base brutality, 
 foul corruption, scandalous profligacy and hellish atroci- 
 ties of unspeakable kinds these our citizens will expect 
 to encounter. Success will be measured by villainy. 
 Scoundrels will become a law unto themselves. Money 
 will be God. Money will control men's thoughts their 
 very souls ! 
 
 "And the Press will capitalize this downfall of conven- 
 tion by making newspapers the catalogues of the world's 
 sins. 
 
 "Then, adequately anticipated, will each descent from 
 one moral platform to another be hourly recorded with 
 flippancy in the Press. The spirit of abandonment will 
 prevail. Commensurate with the moral catastrophes will 
 be the candour with which they will be expected, tolerated 
 and discussed. Readers will know in advance, before 
 picking up their paper, that it will intensify their des-
 
 Unconventional Joan 171 
 
 pendency. They can be certain that its vivid pictures of 
 human depravity will exceed in number and intensity 
 those of the day before. They can eventually expect it to 
 deaden their dependence upon convention as the guardian 
 or promoter of moral integrity. Too late they will recog- 
 nize the vicious Press to be responsible for not merely the 
 moral but likewise the intellectual disintegration of the 
 world the one accompanies the other and already the 
 menace of madness confronts the human race. We are 
 rapidly approaching a near proximity to a \vorld of mad- 
 men. The human stock is declining in quality and run- 
 ning low. The decadence of youth is irretrievable. 
 Civilization is cracking, crashing into chaos. Conven- 
 tionalism, promoted by the vicious Press, makes world in- 
 sanity inevitable. It is maddening to go either with it or 
 against it." 
 
 Mad Larry's mania grew rapidly worse as he wrote. 
 
 ii 
 
 Joan went to work as a reporter for the Record on 
 Wednesday afternoon. By Thursday evening she had 
 learned that the average law-abiding citizen had not the 
 remotest idea of the magnitude and efficiency of the 
 machinery of this vicious newspaper for influencing his 
 mind. 
 
 She discovered that the equipment of the Record com- 
 prehended much more than its offices, editors, reporters, 
 telegraphers, printing presses, printer?, newsboys, news- 
 agents, advertising salesmen and clerks. She found out 
 that the composite brain of this powerful institution in- 
 cluded bankers, judges, policemen, firemen, heads of cor- 
 porations, detectives, jailers, keepers of dens of iniquity,
 
 172 Unconventional Joan 
 
 men and women, from all stations in life, used as occa- 
 sion demanded, for various kinds of purposes, and con- 
 trolled by different influences ranging from salaries 
 through the complicated ramifications of graft, to all sorts 
 of blackmail and threatened exposure. 
 
 Joan was astounded at the quality and quantity of de- 
 pendability secured to the company from individuals 
 bound to it by such inferior motives. From top to bottom 
 of the stupendously active organization, every individual 
 seemed to be straining with all his might to do the un- 
 disputed bidding of the master, intent upon getting the 
 greatest possible number of citizens to pay tribute to his 
 treasury, day after day, by unscrupulously providing the 
 material for irresistible headlines and sensational articles. 
 Ethics played small part in the selection and presentation 
 of so-called news. She found everyone on the staff will- 
 ing not only to destroy reputations, and drive perfectly 
 harmless men and women to suicide and murder, for the 
 sake of headlines, but willing also to stab the nation's best 
 servants in the back, stir up religious and race-hatreds, 
 and provoke war. 
 
 The first instructions given to her had been very blunt 
 and very emphatic. 
 
 She had been plainly informed, at the start, that she 
 was expected to "catch policy" at once. 
 
 Just what this meant became clear within a few hours. 
 Pasted up on her little desk was a printed list of the 
 citizens whose names were never allowed to appear in the 
 paper. Among these were the names of merchants who 
 had refused to advertise in the paper, and other people 
 whom the proprietors envied or hated for personal rea- 
 sons. The proprietors, themselves, on the other hand,
 
 Unconventional Joan 173 
 
 were to be fulsomely eulogized as frequently as possible. 
 
 She observed that her associates privately loathed and 
 condemned the proprietors, and yet obeyed their wishes as 
 conveyed to them through Keating. Keating knew the 
 prejudices and weaknesses of the proprietors by long as- 
 sociation. His word was law as to what might be called 
 "news" from the point of view of this particular paper, 
 and as to what might be dangerous for the public to know. 
 To succeed under him meant to cultivate a "nose for 
 news" of the kind that would sell Record newspapers 
 without displeasing the paper's friends or advertisers, or 
 interfering with the fame and fortune of its owners. 
 
 Joan was also advised that it would help her if she 
 would learn by heart the names of all of the officers of 
 thirty-seven corporations which, while not advertisers, 
 were either controlled by, or paid tribute to, the paper's 
 proprietors. They were some of her masters, as she 
 understood it, and she was their slave. 
 
 To make a living as an employee of the Record ob- 
 viously appeared to her to imply that she would have to 
 sacrifice every ideal of truth, humanity and progress ; to 
 become the hireling of privilege, playing the dirty game 
 of the paper's unscrupulous owners and controllers. 
 
 She could see that the whole psychology of life of her 
 associates, who had succumbed to the servitude exacted 
 by this newspaper, had been changed. Everything that 
 once they must have normally felt concerning truth and 
 justice and charity had been subtly eliminated from their 
 philosophy, which was a hard, cynical set of opinions af- 
 fected for financial reasons. 
 
 She found that these reporters worked under very high 
 pressure. Competition between them and the staff of the
 
 174 Unconventional Joan 
 
 News was furious. The bosses kept the competition alive. 
 
 "How are we going to get circulation," Keating asked 
 her, when she at the start protested against being assigned 
 to fabricate an interview with the alleged mistress of an 
 unfrocked clergyman, "if we are going to let the News 
 across the street get this scoop?" 
 
 Arguments like that usually kept the reporters lined 
 up to their obligations. 
 
 Under hot, yellow lights, late at night, the writers 
 squeezed out their vitality as spiders give of their sub- 
 stance to fabricate an ensnaring web, and invariably left 
 their work exhausted. As a consequence they easily be- 
 came immoderates. At the desk beside her own worked 
 a young woman whose writing-fingers were yellow with 
 nicotine from the cigarettes which alternated with her 
 bluntly pointed pencil. Her habits made Joan despise the 
 conditions which had so tyrannically converted the charm 
 of girlhood into such offensive dross. Early on Thurs- 
 day evening, after she had told Keating that she would 
 not concoct his requested interview, Joan spoke to her 
 companion: 
 
 "I am practicing silence. That's one brand of this 
 newspaper's activity, isn't it? What are you doing, dis- 
 torting or faking news?" 
 
 The preachment was typical of a cub reporter's inno- 
 cence, and received a derisive answer from her sophisti- 
 cated neighbour. 
 
 "Quit or catch on, girlie!" 
 
 "Catch on to what?" 
 
 "The code." 
 
 "Honour among thieves !" sneeringly retorted Joan. 
 
 Her neighbour's scoffing mood disappeared. Her nerv-
 
 Unconventional Joan 175 
 
 cms pencil tapped out a tom-tom to her associates. Her 
 telegraphic message equivalently said: 
 
 "Come, help me initiate this novice." 
 
 A group of reporters gathered around to lend a hand 
 in grilling the newcomer. It was a typical assortment of 
 the Record's species of newspaper people, profoundly 
 proficient in chicanery and astute in playing upon human 
 weaknesses. 
 
 Joan sat modestly self-possessed and tranquil before 
 her leering persecutors, with their pipes and green eye- 
 shades, as if she were a spectator instead of an intended 
 victim. Although they concealed it, she disconcerted 
 them with her simplicity and straightforwardness. Their 
 sarcastic jibes rebounded from her to their own discom- 
 fort. 
 
 "Oh! I don't have to do this," challenged the lady 
 with the golden fingers. "I could starve." 
 
 Joan answered this pathetic sarcasm with her eyes. 
 
 When Joan's eyes spoke she had no need of words. 
 
 With them she told her mocker that she sincerely pitied 
 her rather than condemned her, and in the way that 
 women understand each other's moods her tormenter 
 understood, and paid her the tribute of silence. 
 
 With one of her glances she convicted a lying accuser 
 on the edge of the group and made him inwardly confess 
 it. 
 
 With another glance she took the conceit out of the 
 man who sat on the opposite side of Miss Nicotine, and 
 made him feel humble. 
 
 With still another glance she put courage into a cow- 
 ardly hanger-on and made him want to walk away. 
 
 With still other glances she appeased the resentments
 
 176 Unconventional Joan 
 
 of most of them, revived idealism in some of them, and 
 made all of them say to themselves: 
 
 "We were once like that." 
 
 Only one had not capitulated. An artist. He was 
 cartooning her features. Joan suspected him. She re- 
 membered the cartoon in the tea-shop. Presently he 
 passed his sketch around. She saw it. 
 
 "English" was its title. 
 
 Her cheeks reddened. 
 
 "English and American," she indignantly corrected. 
 
 "Prove it," suggested the artist. 
 
 "I don't have to prove it I feel it." 
 
 "Perhaps other English people don't feel quite the 
 same way towards us as you do you don't feel their 
 feelings " 
 
 "Yes, I do, and I understand them and understand 
 how to correct their feelings better than you do. If you 
 had any understanding at all you would see that you can't 
 change their wrong feelings by insulting them." 
 
 He had no answer for that. She let it sink in for a 
 moment. Then she explained : 
 
 "I want to change some of their dislike for our ways 
 over here. I want them to know us just as we are over 
 here, at our best not as vicious newspapers represent us 
 to be, at our worst and I want ourselves to know them 
 over there in the same way isn't that sensible?" 
 
 "Who taught you that?" Her inquisitor was doubtless 
 thinking of what the newspapers taught. 
 
 "I haven't been taught much of anything," she spirited- 
 ly replied. "My education has been 'to be like my 
 mother'." 
 
 He had no answer for that, either.
 
 Unconventional Joan 177 
 
 "Did you draw that cartoon last May ?" she demanded. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Why did you do it?" 
 
 "Orders." 
 
 "Exactly. That's why people over here see people over 
 there in an unlikable way, because the vicious newspapers 
 are 'ordered' to depict them as unlikable, and vice versa, 
 for all sorts of reasons, spiteful, commercial and political. 
 That's what is the matter ! The vicious Press is for sale 
 to these spiteful, commercial, political buyers, and you 
 men and women who make the vicious Press are the 
 cheapest part of it you get the least of what it gets for 
 'the use of you'." 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop belligerent ! 
 
 Gentle, considerate, usually so like Jerry but decisive- 
 ly quick on occasion. 
 
 The fire was leaping from her eyes, as she deliberately 
 looked at them one by one. 
 
 The whole of her heart's emotions went into her 
 thrust her instinct of what was right her love of her 
 mother her love of fair play her aspiration for mutual 
 understanding between Englishmen and Americans her 
 love for Jerry, ruined by the vicious Press her love for 
 the Rector, persecuted by the vicious Press. 
 
 She had struck them in a vital spot. She read their 
 surrender in their eyes. Yet they dared not speak and 
 admit it. Economic necessity made them dumb. 
 
 It always happened that people who began in jest with 
 Joan ended by being in earnest. Her present persecutors 
 had seen reflections in her of their former selves at their 
 best. The united look of approval in their eyes was more 
 thrilling to her than a great burst of acclamations. For
 
 178 Unconventional Joan 
 
 an instant she dropped her head, blushing, for it had 
 never yet entered into her delicate nature to like being 
 conspicuous. Then suddenly, as if inspired, she lifted it 
 up again firmly, her beautiful bright eyes pleading with 
 them to be true to their better selves, as she asked: 
 "Will you quit this vicious newspaper with me?" 
 Keating's grating voice sounded in her ear: 
 "Get your hat and get out of here." 
 The reporters slunk back to their fetters. 
 When Larry opened the door for Joan at nine o'clock, 
 he looked at her face solicitously, and said to himself : 
 "She is going razy, like me." 
 
 in 
 
 This was a never to be forgotten Thursday evening at 
 the Rector's home. Always on Thursdays, it was his 
 custom to sit with Margaret and Joan and Larry and go 
 over the material for his Sunday sermon. Together they 
 would suggest, discuss, and outline various points which 
 the Rector would incorporate into his Sunday talk. 
 
 It was three days since Larry had spectacularly emptied 
 the Church Hall (in a way of which the Rector, Margaret 
 and Joan had no knowledge) while the Rector knelt in 
 prayer upstairs gathering strength to assail the roysterers 
 with a withering denunciation. During these three days, 
 he had sat at home, alone, with his head in his hands, a 
 broken man. 
 
 All Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday he had pored 
 over what was to be, on the following Sunday, the su- 
 preme effort of his life, and when Joan entered she found 
 him, with Margaret by his side, seated at the table where 
 they had together prepared so many sermons, and where
 
 Unconventional Joan 179 
 
 to-night they fell naturally into discussing the theme for 
 the coming Sunday: "The Tyranny of the Press." 
 
 "Should we not substitute for Tress' the word 'Propa- 
 ganda/ 'the Tyranny of Propaganda'," suggested Joan. 
 "I might have held the job if it had depended on learning 
 how to write facts, but I found the Record to be not a 
 'news'-paper but a vicious propaganda producer. Its 
 news columns, as well as its editorial columns are paid 
 propaganda funnels." 
 
 "I like 'Tyranny of Convention as Perpetrated by the 
 Press'," recommended Larry. "I am writing a chapter 
 on that topic, which I think will be timely " 
 
 "It is the vicious Press that we must have the courage 
 to attack," interjected the Rector. "Our relentless foe, 
 that pursues us into the sacred confines of our homes." 
 
 "I found the Record to be a highly organized machine 
 for distorting facts," explained Joan. "Its masters are 
 the local advertisers, publicity or propaganda-buyers, and 
 the banks which lend it money. It distorts facts for politi- 
 cal, or financial, or private reasons. Its speciality seems 
 to be to drag out old skeletons and rattle their dry bones 
 before the world." 
 
 "It is more tyrannical than our vested interests, because 
 in serving them it controls them," suggested Larry. 
 
 "It lies on its front page, and retracts obscurely on its 
 last page," added Margaret. "It establishes a market for 
 pretence by creating fictitious fame for men who pay it 
 for notoriety." 
 
 "I found it put together by cynical worldlings doing a 
 work they despise because they believe that life is a 
 matter of dog eat dog," Joan continued. "It is, as Larry 
 says, 'the organ of plutocracy.' It refrains from injuring
 
 180 Unconventional Joan 
 
 a man not because he is great or good or wise or useful, 
 but because he is wealthy or of service to united wealth. 
 And the latest mean thing that I discovered about the 
 Record was that it has actually just hired thugs to break 
 up a threatened strike of its newsboys." 
 
 "And to think that this poison-worm conies crawling 
 upon our breakfast plates every morning," expostulated 
 Larry. 
 
 "Its function is the betrayal of public opinion. It is 
 an utterly ruthless and utterly corrupt despotism," con- 
 tinued Joan. "It is as independent as a highwayman." 
 
 "Ravening beast, venomous serpent," added Larry. 
 "We live with it, unarmed and unprotected, and yet we 
 let it live." 
 
 "The vicious Press has actually usurped the place of the 
 Gospel," moaned the Rector, betraying his suffering in 
 his face. 
 
 "As well as the function of our nation's chief execu- 
 tive," emphasized Larry. "Think of the stigma ever- 
 lastingly stamped upon the vicious section of our Press 
 by the head of our nation, who was compelled to tell that 
 class of newspapers that if they did not cease their in- 
 decent personal attacks upon his family, he would step 
 down out of his high place and thrash them." 
 
 "And just think of the foreign hatred it has brought 
 us," quietly remarked Margaret, whose eyes were swollen 
 from secret weeping. "When father and I took our trip 
 abroad we were constantly being humiliated to learn that 
 our people had provoked an atmosphere of disgust around 
 the world by the flippancy of manners and speech that our 
 Press had taught them to believe was smartness. And as 
 to foreign opinion of many of our papers themselves,
 
 Unconventional Joan 181 
 
 there is nobody who reads them abroad who does not de- 
 spise them." 
 
 "Our own people despise and hate our vicious news- 
 papers just as thoroughly as foreigners, even more so; 
 yet they seem to have no idea what to do about them," 
 remarked Joan. "They indifferently take it for granted 
 that they must go on reading falsehoods for the balance 
 of their days." 
 
 "Our Freedom of the Press," vociferated Larry, "has 
 become our Tyranny of the Press." 
 
 Margaret interruptingly placed her finger over her lips, 
 and nodded to where her father had surprisingly fallen 
 asleep, exhausted in his chair. 
 
 Caustic Larry cunningly grinned and muttered to him- 
 self: 
 
 "Going to sleep over his sermon that's for others to 
 do." 
 
 Larry peered knowingly at the broken pastor, then at 
 Margaret's swollen eyes, finally at the pale, worn face of 
 Joan, then rose, crossed quietly over to the window, lifted 
 the blind, looked towards the flashing electric signs that 
 showed where the city's happy frolickers were joyously 
 gathered together, and remarked aloud: 
 
 "This is a booby-hatch. We're all smitten."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 JOAN sat in the moonlight, sleepless. 
 Abandoned, dismissed, thwarted, ostracized, and yet 
 queerly void of self-pity. 
 
 The persecution of her friends and the spoliation of 
 her sex obsessed her. 
 
 Our vicious Press ! Monopolizing her thoughts ! Em- 
 bittering her heart ! 
 
 "It is our vicious Press that ails us." 
 
 The words were constantly upon her lips. She kept 
 ejaculating them. With each repetition their invasion 
 of her mind advanced another step. 
 
 "And nobody seems to care," she reflected. "It is 
 pathetic." 
 
 She looked out into the moonlight, and over the roofs 
 of the city's slumbering multitudes. 
 
 "Asleep!" she thought. "I must awaken them." 
 
 She looked farther, as far as the Record office. 
 
 "Wide awake," she realized. "Could I put this vicious 
 despot forever to sleep !" 
 
 She looked longer, and dejectedly soliloquized: 
 
 "Our people are all right. It is our vicious Press that 
 ails us." 
 
 She was fearfully depressed and becoming intensely de- 
 termined. 
 
 Jerry loomed up before her, like an image on the pic- 
 ture screen, worshipped her with his sad eyes for a mo- 
 ment, seemed to caution her, and faded away. 
 
 "Jerry," she cried, and tried to stretch towards him her 
 arms trembling with love and rapture. 
 
 182
 
 Unconventional Joan 183 
 
 His eyes fastened upon her inundated her with ten- 
 derness and pity. 
 
 She poured out her passionate love to him, told him of 
 the intolerable aching in her heart, strained towards him 
 with all her might and he was gone. 
 
 Hopelessly gone! 
 
 The larger emotion slowly returned, absorbed her, 
 crowded all things else out of her heart. 
 
 "I have the courage to begin the attack upon this 
 plunderer of our people," she reflected, "but have I the 
 strength to continue it? It is a man's job. Can't the 
 Rector do it?" 
 
 She began to cross-examine herself mercilessly. 
 
 "Why do I think such unfeminine thoughts? 
 
 "Am I turning into a man instead of developing as a 
 woman ? 
 
 "Would any man approve of such a tendency? Would 
 Tom? 
 
 "Why not be like other women, natural ? 
 
 "Why sacrifice youth and face empty old age ? 
 
 "Why not let Tom take me ? 
 
 "I am compelled to live with other people, why not get 
 in tune with them? 
 
 "Isn't my oddness costing me youth, love, happiness, 
 health, children? 
 
 "Was it hopeless for me to be so attached to Jerry? 
 Was it mockery? 
 
 "Isn't it peculiar for a young woman of my age to 
 refuse a man like Tom Manly? 
 
 "Isn't it strange that I don't associate with other young 
 men? 
 
 "Wasn't it ultra-original to try to become a reporter ?
 
 184 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Isn't it irregular to try to fight the Press? 
 
 "Isn't it eccentric to oppose custom ? 
 
 "Isn't it unnatural to be brooding here like this at this 
 moment ? 
 
 "Is 'everybody out of step but me'?" 
 
 Recollection of the Rector's warning intimidated her: 
 "The penalty for oddness is dementia." She thought of 
 Larry. 
 
 "Am I going out of my mind ? 
 
 "Isn't my attitude illogical, irrational, arbitrary? 
 
 "Isn't it so unconventional as to be actually funny ? 
 
 "Nobody likes a girl to be like this at least nobody 
 nowadays. 
 
 "Maybe God made me too much like a boy?" 
 
 Suddenly she checked her self-denunciations, as she re- 
 membered one of Jerry's questions: 
 
 "Joan, don't a woman's sensations sometimes fight 
 against her instinct?" 
 
 She remembered how she answered him: 
 
 " A woman's instinct has frequently held out success- 
 fully against a seemingly logically proven absurdity " 
 She was startled. "Am I holding out now, or am I slip- 
 ping giving in to convention under the pressure of cir- 
 cumstances going down with the rest?" 
 
 She got up and brought Jerry's diary that she had 
 taken away from the loft. 
 
 His legacy. 
 
 Under her shaded reading-light she wept over what he 
 had written after his conscientious struggle to conquer 
 his love for her: 
 
 "Joan has shown me that a good woman following her 
 instinct can't be wrong, can't be influenced by degrading
 
 Unconventional Joan 185 
 
 conventions, must of necessity be above what is common- 
 place, practically inspired, almost Divine. And that is 
 why men worship good women, not merely covet them, 
 in the way they covet the conventional among them, who 
 never can know what it means to be loved, poor creatures, 
 being merely coveted. And so, for a man to have a good 
 and devoted woman near him is to possess a Guardian 
 Angel, and to dismiss one is like spurning Divine inspira- 
 tion and protection." 
 
 "Poor creatures !" Joan repeated Jerry's words. "How 
 can they help being dragged under by such influences as 
 the tyrant propagates," she added, shuddering over her 
 own nearness to the tempting rapids. "It's pulling them 
 in. They must jump in. It isn't they themselves that 
 are so foolish. It's our vicious Press that ails us." 
 
 She read on: 
 
 "A woman functions normally and best by influence 
 
 rather than by direct action God give Joan 
 
 strength to be and to remain true to that alone which it is 
 a good woman's stupendous privilege to be a woman." 
 
 His legacy to her. 
 
 So like her own little exhortation to the Rector to be 
 and remain a minister which he had not heeded fail- 
 ing disastrously. 
 
 Like an admonition and a warning and a prophecy to 
 her speculating about mannishly and aggressively taking 
 up the Rector's fight. 
 
 She read on: 
 
 "Normal women instinctively express themselves 
 through their beloved, by inspiration and encouragement 
 .... It requires a catastrophe to the instrument of 
 their influence to bring them to the front and force
 
 1 86 Unconventional Joan 
 
 them to assume his place, although there have been occas- 
 ions when, in so doing, they have not only re-established 
 him, but won to him and to his efforts more followers 
 than he could have won himself." 
 
 "If I do it would Jerry say I am becoming abnormal?" 
 she asked herself. 
 
 She snapped off the electric light for the more peaceful 
 light of the moon. Her hands clasped the legacy of 
 Jerry's diary, and lay extended upon the table before her. 
 Her head was bent a little downward, and her air was 
 that of one who is lost in thought, steeped in dreams, in- 
 spired, not conscious of herself or her surroundings. 
 
 The incentive grew stronger within her and began to 
 assume the definite form of an obligation. 
 
 "No, it isn't a man's job," she reflected. "It may look 
 like a man's job, but a woman will have to do it. No 
 man can do it. The Rector can't do it. They won't even 
 come to hear him. No other man could ordinarily be ex- 
 pected to do it and thereby undo his life's work, which is 
 dependent upon leaving things as they are." 
 
 Eventually there swept upon her an overpowering surge 
 of desire to crush the vicious Press to fragments, and 
 with it came the tempestuous suggestion of an undertak- 
 ing whose magnitude both awed and allured her. 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop tumultuous ! 
 
 ii 
 
 Margaret saw Joan in the moonlight, through her open 
 doorway, and pitied her. 
 
 Under the chill whiteness, beside her window, Joan's 
 face was colourless, pure and infinitely sad and sweet. 
 
 Margaret quietly entered Joan's room to gomfort her,
 
 Unconventional Joan 187 
 
 but when Joan turned towards her, her eyes alight with 
 the ardour of her inspiration, Margaret realized, and 
 said to herself : 
 
 "They could dismiss her, but they have not broken her. 
 She was meant to be a man." 
 
 And instead of taking Joan's little form into her 
 arms, Margaret suffered Joan to huddle up close beside 
 her on the couch in front of the window and mother 
 her, and consolingly say: 
 
 "Margaret is going to tell Joan why she has been cry- 
 ing so much." 
 
 But they both cried quietly together then, while the 
 city of less worried women peacefully slept. 
 
 Finally Margaret confided what was troubling her. 
 
 "The book shop, Joan I am afraid to tell him it 
 must be kept from him it is going into bankruptcy un- 
 less unless could you come down in the morning I 
 
 Joan hushed Margaret's heart-breaking sobs, and took 
 her to her room and tucked her into bed with sympa- 
 thetic little commendations of her splendid struggle. 
 
 "You couldn't beat Pogo and the Press, too, Margie. 
 But it's going to be done. You'll see ! And there are go- 
 ing to be more people read books than read papers or go 
 to the movies. You'll see ! And I'll certainly come over 
 in the morning, and we'll go through things, and I'll tell 
 you a big secret that has just come to me. So go to sleep 
 now and see if you can't dream about what I shall tell 
 you." 
 
 Joan returned to her room, and dropping upon her 
 knees beside her bed, began to pray, at the dawn. 
 
 Larry, hearing the creaking noise caused by the stealthy
 
 1 88 Unconventional Joan 
 
 footsteps of Margaret and Joan, and wondering who 
 could be prowling about the house at that hour of the 
 morning, crept downstairs from his attic room and caught 
 sight of Joan through her open door, as she knelt beside 
 her bed. 
 
 Her face turned heavenward, still pale in the moon- 
 light, but looking towards the dawn, seemed touched with 
 rapture, and Larry paused. 
 
 Gazing fixedly, and touching his finger to his forehead, 
 he hoarsely whispered: 
 
 "Mad!" 
 
 in 
 
 Joan's consciousness drifted away into the enchanted 
 realms of sleep, and saw oppressive pictures of a world 
 of driven men and women cringing beneath the lash of a 
 monstrous tyrant, whose scowling face was the face of 
 Keating, contorted in cruel thought behind his spectacles. 
 
 And as she watched, there came a white robed form, 
 with wings, leading her away from the throng of men and 
 women into a peaceful woodland, where the birds that had 
 been quiet burst forth into song, as if worshipping the 
 one who led her. And Joan fell upon her knees, and 
 bowed her head and crossed her hands upon her breast, 
 until the Angel, divinely beautiful, lifted her up and re- 
 assuringly said to her: 
 
 "I am thy voice that guideth thee. Thou callest me 
 'instinct/ I was given to thee, to guide thee, at the time 
 my name was given to thee by thy mother. Little Joan, 
 my beloved, I am the spirit of Joan of Arc." 
 
 Trembling from head to foot, Joan raised her tear- 
 filled eyes, and clasped her little hands on high, implor-
 
 Unconventional Joan 189 
 
 ingly. Speechless she stood, while the glory of her guard- 
 ian angel flowed over her, clothing her with splendour. 
 
 "Ere I became thy voice, little Joan, a voice was given 
 to me, too, and it led me apart and away from the ways 
 of men and women around me, as I have led thee away, 
 and it gave me a mission to perform, as I now give thee 
 thy mission. Behold !" 
 
 Joan looked, and saw far back into the past, the first 
 war-march of Joan of Arc against the tyrant. Before 
 her eyes moved a great company of horsemen riding two 
 and two, with Joan of Arc in silver armour, astride a 
 white stallion, surrounded by the applauding mob and 
 bowing her plumed head to left and right. Bravely glinted 
 the sun upon her shining panoply, and the strains of 
 wind-blown music heralded the God-given fighting 
 strength of the Maid! 
 
 Thus Joan saw, marvelling, her God-given instinct 
 the power from above and beyond her that had borne her 
 puny self unassailed against the might of Convention. 
 
 "Now look once more." The noble figure pointed, and, 
 as Joan gazed, the pageant faded and appeared again 
 transformed. There in the place of Joan of Arc she saw 
 her own slight figure, clad not in the armour of war but 
 in the tatters of a little newsboy, with hair close-cropped 
 to her childish head. Behind her and around surged a 
 vast army of workers, newsboys and reporters, in the 
 poor garb of toil, teachers and ministers, fathers stum- 
 bling beneath intolerable burdens, mothers with girl in- 
 fants in their arms, downtrodden sales-women, and all the 
 battered subjects of the despot. And as they charged, she 
 led them, against the Citadel of the vicious Press. 
 
 "But how can I dare ?" the little Joan protested humbly.
 
 190 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Thy tyrant is more evil than was mine," said Joan of 
 Arc. 
 
 "But they will call me eccentric " 
 
 "They called me eccentric, too." 
 
 "If it is commanded " 
 
 "It is thy crusade for a holy cause," responded her 
 "voice." "Look!" 
 
 Her army of the oppressed was mustered there in 
 Newspaper Row, full and surging ever fuller. A deep 
 murmur arose from the great multitude an instant's 
 silence and then a stupendous roar, tremendous, shatter- 
 ing 
 
 "Joan!" 
 
 The figure of Keating appeared at an upper window of 
 the Record building, the flag of liberty unfurling in his 
 hand. 
 
 "Freedom of the Press," he shrieked against them. 
 
 "Liberty is not Tyranny," came the new-found voice 
 of the mob. 
 
 Like the rise and fall of the tide, now loud, now louder, 
 Joan's name beat upon her consciousness. 
 
 "Joan! Joan!" 
 
 "I am coming," she called aloud her proud response. 
 
 And in the light of the new day, Joan awoke and 
 prayed. 
 
 IV 
 
 It seemed to her that she had hardly slept an hour; but 
 she found that Margaret had gone, and her father was 
 sitting alone at the breakfast table, before his untouched 
 plate, with his head in his hands, his unread papers beside 
 him.
 
 Unconventional Joan 191 
 
 They had not awakened Joan, because there was no 
 longer anywhere for her to go. 
 
 She stood beside the Rector's chair, and gently en- 
 circled his throbbing head with her little arm and drew 
 it to her breast, where she held him for a moment, think- 
 ing to comfort him ; then pressed her lips to his burning 
 forehead and hurriedly turned to go, not wanting to eat 
 and powerless to speak. 
 
 The telephone bell rang faintly as she passed it in the 
 hall, on her way out. 
 
 "I'll answer it Larry," she said, her voice choked 
 with sobs, as Larry cautiously stepped aside, out of her 
 way, and quickly guarded his legs as if fearing to be 
 kicked. 
 
 "Hello, hello," she answered. 
 
 "It's nobody, Larry," she told him. "The operator 
 says the 'phones keep ringing because the circuits are out 
 of order." 
 
 Larry still stood out of reach of her feet, apparently in 
 dreadful awe of them. 
 
 "Poor Larry," thought Joan, "poor Larry is a child 
 again." 
 
 The telephone prompted her to call up Tom Manly's 
 bachelor apartments. She wanted to talk to someone, to 
 him, anyone, about her new plans. She realized that Tom 
 would not be at the News office at this hour of the morn- 
 ing he could have left there only a few hours before. 
 But she could hardly wait until he should return at six 
 o'clock in the evening. Still, she had never before tele- 
 phoned to his apartments, and she did not like to do so 
 now. She decided she would go to the loft first, and take 
 care of the Paregorics once again. Perhaps she might
 
 192 Unconventional Joan 
 
 telephone him from there. On the way she encountered 
 him hurrying over to the loft to visit her, and stood with 
 him at the corner that was so intimately identified with 
 her life where she had last seen Jerry. 
 
 Tom's face was very sober. He lost no time with for- 
 malities. His darkened eyes suggested that he had slept 
 as little as Joan. In his right hand he carried a rolled up 
 copy of the Morning Record, which he emphatically 
 slapped against his trouser-leg to punctuate the merciless- 
 ly practical lashes which he administered to her. 
 
 She needed sympathy and craved co-operation, and he 
 gave her instead vigorous opposition and condemnation. 
 
 "Joan, you need a guardian," he began, to remind her 
 vividly of her loneliness. 
 
 Joan thought of her "voice," and felt she had a very 
 good guardian already. She replied to him: 
 
 "It isn't what I need that matters. It is what others 
 need. The world needs a mother mothers aggressive 
 moral influences." 
 
 "Feminine aggressiveness " Tom started to say, dep- 
 recatingly. 
 
 "Yes, some of your American 'pep' for moral profit. 
 You're full of it over here. You want everybody to 
 have some of it. You saturate the air with it. It's in- 
 escapable, and I've caught it now and caught it badly. 
 You are going to see how it works in a woman in a 
 woman who is disgusted with the lack of it for moral pur- 
 poses in some men." 
 
 "Joan, Joan please, Joan " He tried to quiet her. 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop defiant. 
 
 Gentle, tranquil, placid by temperament decisively 
 indomitable upon occasion.
 
 Unconventional Joan 193 
 
 "Joan, I have never seen you act like this before 
 you're going mad. You've tried to revolutionize the 
 Press, you wouldn't listen to my advice, and you have 
 failed, been kicked out and disgraced ' 
 
 "I am going to try again," she retorted hotly. 
 
 "And you'll get hated for life if you do. You are 
 courting annihilation." 
 
 Joan made no reply. She dared not tell him her plan, 
 now. She wanted help, not interference. 
 
 He continued: 
 
 "You have learned what a bad newspaper is, you have 
 had experience " 
 
 "I am going to get some more," she shot back at him, 
 getting hotter. 
 
 "They'll work up a case against you, they'll hound you 
 until you come to realize what side your bread is buttered 
 on," he replied. 
 
 Joan thought, "What a humiliating confession for a 
 newspaper editor to make !" 
 
 "Tom, why don't you attack the Record and its policy 
 and save me from disgrace?" It was a leading question. 
 
 "Nobody believes the Record. Everyone discounts its 
 articles. Therefore, what's the use? And besides, if the 
 Neivs attacked the Record we would stir up the Record 
 and make what's bad enough still worse." 
 
 Joan noted the inconsistency with which he belittled the 
 Record's influence and yet feared to intensify it. She 
 pressed him: 
 
 "The Record's policy of sensational exposure is no 
 worse than a conspiracy of silence concerning things as 
 they really are." 
 
 He parried with a warning:
 
 194 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Keating didn't take you on his staff on merit, you 
 know. He had some kind of other motive." 
 
 He had not been able to lead her. He had decided to 
 master her. But he hesitated. Joan had never seemed 
 more alluringly indomitable than she did at this moment. 
 Standing so much apart from every one, there at the 
 corner, with hundreds of other women passing back and 
 forth beside her, her lonesome little form stood out con- 
 spicuously against the larger figures of the others as a 
 background. 
 
 "So much smaller, and yet so much stronger-willed," 
 he reflected. 
 
 "Joan," he went on, pleadingly, "I don't believe you 
 really care for what you are attempting. You are doing 
 it as a sort of duty, but you don't like it, do you?" 
 
 She took some time to answer him. She knew he was 
 telling her what he thought would be best for her. It was 
 his practical way of seeing things. She pitied him for his 
 limitations, but she was not inappreciative, nor ungrate- 
 ful for his interest in her. 
 
 "If I say 'Yes, I like it,' I might seem to be merely 
 selfish. If I say 'No, I do not like it,' I shall not be tell- 
 ing the truth. There have been things about it that were 
 not likable. I know there are going to be others just as 
 unpleasant. But I will tell you, that my mission my 
 work, I mean what I intend to do, means more than 
 anything in the world " 
 
 She hesitated a moment, remembering how much Jerry 
 had meant to her, and wondering if anything could pos- 
 sibly come to mean as much. 
 
 "It absorbs me, if that is what you mean by liking it. 
 I will allow nothing to compete with it."
 
 Unconventional Joan 195 
 
 She began to flush deeply. A firmer tone came into her 
 voice. Her beautiful eyes were aglow with enthusiasm. 
 
 "You may think me 'grotesque' a sort of female oddi- 
 ty, but my whole heart is in it. What I have seen has 
 made me decide that someone simply must take up and at 
 least start the struggle against the tyranny of the vicious 
 Press. It must be overturned, and only fighting will do 
 it. And I am going to enjoy the fight I tell you that 
 candidly. The obstructions, the condemnations, the plots, 
 the villainous tactics to be used against me, are going to 
 stimulate instead of intimidating me. I would not give it 
 up for any man or woman " she added the last two 
 words rather hurriedly, for fear he might fancy that she 
 had betrayed a feeling for him. 
 
 Her hurry to cover up or conceal the apparent slip of 
 her tongue did not escape him. A dying hope breathed 
 again within him. 
 
 "One never knows, Joan, what one will give up for a 
 friend a real friend," he ventured. 
 
 "Perhaps not," she replied as she moved on her way 
 to see Margaret, "but maybe a friend a real friend 
 wouldn't demand it." 
 
 He followed her eyes as they scanned the unconsciously 
 driven crowd and then looked vindictively from the mass 
 of hurrying figures up to the fourth floor of the Record 
 building. 
 
 "Joan," he pleaded, as if to detain her, "can Ican I 
 ever be your friend a real friend " He stopped, be- 
 lieving that he saw a soft moisture in her eyes. 
 
 She was thinking of Jerry's love for her, that had been 
 revealed at this same corner, in the midst of the bustling 
 traffic, and remembering his test of true love: "Proof of.
 
 196 Unconventional Joan 
 
 love and right to be loved is based on sacrifice alone." 
 She had repeated that to Tom once before. She suspected 
 that he might be thinking of it now as he spoke to her. 
 She was thinking of his patient and aggressive efforts 
 to influence her aggressiveness like that which she was 
 about to use like that which his countrymen her coun- 
 trymen now believed wins everything, eventually. She 
 found herself speculating on the impossibility of ever 
 capitulating of ever being influenced by determined 
 Tom. 
 
 "I think, Joan," he continued, "I think I could help 
 you I think I could save you from terrible things right 
 now I think I could save you from yourself." 
 
 She looked at him in her motherly little way, and re- 
 plied: 
 
 "I probably shouldn't merit a friendship of sacrifice, 
 Tom; but for your own sake, be brave enough to save 
 yourself, and make me happy too, by letting me know 
 when you get the courage to do it." 
 
 She let the Paregorics wait, and crossed hurriedly over 
 the street in the direction of Margaret's book shop, leav- 
 ing him standing alone and looking after her. 
 
 What did she mean? 
 
 Was she flinging his own words back into his face ? 
 
 No! As she reached the other side of the street she 
 deliberately turned around and looked back at him. 
 
 The suspicion that she could love him shook him to 
 the depths of his soul. 
 
 She passed out of sight into the book shop. 
 
 He could remember the blush on her face as she listened 
 to his halting words, and her eyes full of light as she 
 earnestly looked at him and said:
 
 Unconventional Joan 197 
 
 "Make me happy, too, by letting me know when you 
 get the courage to do it." "To do what?" he wondered. 
 "She was talking of sacrifice." He pondered, and re- 
 membered, and never ceased to remember, until the time 
 came to tell her. 
 
 Trinity Church Book Shop was empty of customers. 
 
 An ugly notice tacked on the front door announced the 
 date of a "Bankruptcy Sale." 
 
 Next door roared the presses of the News manufactur- 
 ing "fiction" for a hundred thousand readers. 
 
 Inside, Margaret sat and stared at the morning copy 
 of th Record bearing an account of the "Failure of 
 Preacher Holden's Book Shop." 
 
 "It doesn't matter, Margie," Joan kept repeating to her. 
 "It doesn't matter. It can be started all over again, like 
 new. Five hundred concerns are failing every week " 
 
 "But he does not know," sobbed Margaret. 
 
 Joan remembered the Rector sitting with his papers 
 unread, as she left him. 
 
 The telephone bell rang. 
 
 "No need to answer it," said Margaret, dully, "We 
 are not allowed to sell anything." 
 
 "No need anyhow," added Joan. "The 'phone circuits 
 are in trouble to-day. It's nobody." 
 
 "The Record claims that the telephone currents are 
 being interfered with by wireless amateurs," said Mar- 
 garet. "Nobody will believe that, but it gives them a 
 pretext for starting a campaign to control the amateur 
 news-gatherers by recommending the use of standardized 
 receiving sets. At the commencement of wireless tele-
 
 198 Unconventional Joan 
 
 phony, the Record enviously fought general use of it by 
 complaining about the 'jamming of the air.' Then it 
 fought to restrict radio-broadcasting to music, when what 
 the people want is news. People can get better music out 
 of their phonographs than they can get out of the air. 
 And now the Record wants limited receiving-sets as well 
 as controlled broadcasting." 
 
 Margaret's comment made Joan remember Jerry's pre- 
 diction about this. 
 
 The telephone summoned them again, insistently. 
 
 "I'll answer it, Margie," said Joan, "You just sit there 
 and brush away those tears." 
 
 "Hello!" 
 
 "Oh, is that you, Larry? What? Yes! what? you 
 mean? oh Larry " 
 
 Joan's face turned deathly pale. Margaret spasmodi- 
 cally clutched at her weak heart and gasped. 
 
 "Oh Margie, poor Margie," sobbed Joan, helplessly, 
 "Your father I left him at the table he had not read 
 the Record Larry says he opened it after I left read 
 it and and fainted heart attack the doctor has been 
 there they have put him to bed poor Daddy Holden 
 poor dear Margie there there, that's a dear good girl, 
 don't take it so hard we'll have to help him to be brave 
 Margie, we'll have to help him to keep being brave." 
 
 Hysterically they hurried home. 
 
 VI 
 
 Joan and Margaret and Larry watched beside the Rec- 
 tor's bed. 
 
 Joan and Margaret watched his ashen face, Larry's 
 dazed eyes stared wildly at the faces of all three.
 
 Unconventional Joan 199 
 
 "All of us mad," he reflected. "Soon the Rector will 
 be free." 
 
 The doctor had done what he could. 
 
 "Just watch him," he had said, "until I return." 
 
 Joan covered her face with her hands and knelt with 
 Margaret beside the bed. Her eyes strained heavily from 
 weeping and watching the death mask creeping stealthily 
 over the sick man's face. Tomorrow, and the next day, 
 and weeks and years would come and Daddy Holden 
 would not be there. For nearly three years of her life 
 he had influenced her. Sixty years of age, and all of it 
 devoted to influencing others unsuccessfully ! 
 
 A failure! 
 
 The thought of it suffocated her. She was overcome. 
 Worn out with sleeplessness and worry, she gradually 
 sank into a heavy slumber, half flung across the bed. 
 
 "No, not a failure," she heard a familiar voice say. 
 
 "But I am a failure," she heard the Rector reply. "I 
 am going at the very end of years of failure and I am 
 afraid I am afraid." 
 
 She watched him. He was turning round. He wanted 
 to go back shrinking, cowering, terrible beyond endur- 
 ance to behold, he began to weep. Deep sobs shook his 
 agonized body, and great tears rolled down his furrowed 
 face. 
 
 "Have no fear, comrade," said the familiar voice, 
 "thou hast not failed thou hast been brave !" 
 
 Joan looked and saw that it was the spirit of Joan of 
 Arc speaking. 
 
 "Oh, Joan of Arc, help him !" she cried. 
 
 "Joan, you here?" the dying man pleaded, stretching 
 out his hands towards her.
 
 2OO Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Yes, Joan is here to comfort thee," replied the spirit 
 of Joan of Arc. "I am her voice. Thou hast influenced 
 her and helped her to be brave like thyself. That was thy 
 mission to influence others. That shall be her mission, 
 too. She will remain behind a while to carry on thy 
 work. She is younger and stronger, and I will help her. 
 So thou art not a failure. Look, she gives thee her hand 
 to help thee over. It is but a step." 
 
 Joan could not see for blinding tears. His hand slipped 
 from her grasp. 
 
 "But I know I am a failure," sobbed the Rector, un- 
 comforted yet, tortured by despair and dread in his utter 
 weakness. 
 
 Joan saw him turn again to her and stretch out his 
 arms. 
 
 "Come, brave comrade!" The voice of Joan of Arc 
 rang out, convincing in its strength and help. 
 
 Once more Joan saw him turn to her, on the very 
 threshold, and as he looked at her through his tears, he 
 smiled happily now and called back to her: 
 
 "Joan, be brave." 
 
 Margaret clutched her hysterically, awakened her and 
 cried, "He is gone !" 
 
 Dead! 
 
 Joan stared at the beloved face the same smile on it 
 that she had seen in her sleep. 
 
 On Larry's face shone an answering smile of insane 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "Better dead than mad," he exclaimed. 
 
 Margaret, sobbing in a frenzied grief, glared bitterly 
 at the maniac, tragically tempting him to send her to her 
 parent scarcely sooner than the unbearable anquish of
 
 Unconventional Joan 201 
 
 her separation from him might unaggravated have done. 
 
 "You too," grinned the madman, savagely reaching 
 for her neck with his twitching fingers. 
 
 And terrorized Margaret, clutching at her weak heart 
 already fatally overstrained by her shock of grief, crum- 
 pled up dead from fright. 
 
 "And it's time for you, too." cackled the frantic 
 lunatic, moving murderously towards Joan. 
 
 Joan realized she was dying before he reached her. The 
 horrible creature, gliding stealthily towards her across 
 Margaret's dead body, was killing her as he came. She 
 stood wavering, trembling, unable to move. A bare frac- 
 tion of a second remained to her before her end. Driven 
 by desperation, she feebly took a half-step towards him, 
 instinctively lifted her right foot threateningly as his 
 hands reached for her throat, menacing him with the 
 punishment which she had taught him to fear, and hope- 
 lessly screamed in his face: 
 
 "Larry, do you want me to kick you on the shins/ 1 " 
 
 The trivial phrase touched the one chord of response 
 in the unhinged mind. 
 
 Stronger than his weakened mind his sense of self- 
 preservation dominated him. 
 
 The wild thing stopped in his tracks, covered up his 
 legs with his arms, whimpered like a baby, and slunk 
 back, afraid of her, into the pantry, where submissively 
 he went about his usual duties, until when the doctor rang 
 the bell and the parrot screeched his usual greeting, he 
 fiendishly wrung the bird's neck, threw it into the Rec- 
 tor's bed-room, then let the doctor in and leeringly in- 
 formed him: 
 
 "All the crazy inmates of this damned booby-hatch
 
 202 Unconventional Joan 
 
 have come to a timely death in there, excepting me." 
 The doctor went in and tried to revive Joan. 
 
 VII 
 
 On Sunday the Rector delivered his sermon against 
 the "Tyranny of the Vicious Press," not the one he had 
 intended, but the most effective of his career. 
 
 In the hearts of thousands who jammed Newspaper 
 Row and bared their heads as the two caskets were borne 
 into Trinity Church was sown the seed of a revolution 
 needing only a leader's word of command to make it 
 sprout over night and burst forth in the morning. 
 
 "Heart attacks." said the newspapers. 
 
 "Press attacks," said the readers. 
 
 Relatives, cold and mercenary as most relatives are, 
 took quick and calculating charge of the Rector's effects, 
 and gave Joan until the morning after the funeral to 
 leave. 
 
 The Church elders met and issued a call to the pastor 
 of a rival city's most popular Church. It would be his 
 function to reorganize the book shop. 
 
 The city authorities summarily despatched Larry to 
 an ay slum, and, as he left he whispered to Joan that it 
 was "a most timely thing to do." 
 
 Alone in her room, for the last time, on Sunday 
 evening, Joan, prostrated, remembered Tom's earnest 
 words : "I think I could save you from terrible things " 
 
 Terrible things ! 
 
 Terrible things were happening to her, crowding and 
 closing in upon her. 
 
 Frightful things! 
 
 Maddening things!
 
 Unconventional Joan 203 
 
 How was she to live and not go crazy, remembering 
 them! 
 
 "The penalty for oddness is dementia/' the Rector had 
 said. 
 
 The spectre of insanity loomed up before her and 
 pointed to the accusing symptoms that already marked 
 her as his own her moonlight aberrations her hallucin- 
 ations about Joan of Arc her quarrel with Tom and 
 then, the breaking point, the shock of the awful deaths ! 
 
 "The penalty -for oddness is dementia!" she repeated. 
 
 Mentally agitated she groped hopelessly for something 
 to lean upon counting her losses 
 
 Jerry gone ! 
 
 The Rector gone! 
 
 Margaret gone! 
 
 Her home gone ! 
 
 Her employment gone! 
 
 Keating hating her ! 
 
 Tom fighting her! 
 
 The loft! she could sleep there but could she live 
 there with its memories? could she stand it? the Par- 
 egorics! she suddenly recollected that she had not seen 
 them, had not fed them since Thursday she had lost 
 them, too! 
 
 Everything gone! 
 
 She knew that she could not go on she could not 
 endure it. She was probably mad already. How in pity 
 could she be expected to want to live ? 
 
 But she had to live! Overwhelming realization! To 
 have to live and not want to live ! 
 
 Compelled, condemned to live ! More terrible than the 
 sentence of death!
 
 204 Unconventional Joan 
 
 O agony unspeakably more awful than the agony of 
 death ! 
 
 She moved about among her few belongings, gather- 
 ing them together, mechanically, lifelessly, as in a trance. 
 
 Delirious in her desolation, she began, incoherently, 
 to talk to herself: 
 
 "Tomorrow if I could get through the night per- 
 haps tomorrow I could want to live but to-night alone 
 it is unbearable to-night I am afraid to-night God, 
 show me how to die without offending you to-night " 
 
 God would answer her prayer and show her how. She 
 felt sure of it. She made ready. 
 
 Jerry's picture, and the legacy of his diary must be 
 with her at the end she clasped them to her tightly, 
 caressing them and mothering them childishly. 
 
 "I am ready now," she sobbed. 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop demented. 
 
 "It won't take much to-night," she confidingly per- 
 suaded "it won't take much you see, I've suffered so 
 much I can't stand much more I can't " 
 
 Her ramblings suddenly ceased. It had come to her. 
 She had thought of the way. She could end it all and not 
 offend God. She could do it honourably. She could do it 
 by actually starting to perform her mission delegated by 
 Joan of Arc. The discovery of the way brought comfort 
 to her tortured heart. She went about it calmly and 
 mechanically, bereft of reason, dazed. 
 
 The little mirror on her dressing-table had told her 
 how. Her beautiful tresses! Memories of her dear 
 mother who had treasured them and cared for them ! She 
 dotingly toyed with them as she remembered her mother 
 to have done fondled them, as she fondled Jerry's pic-
 
 Unconventional Joan 205 
 
 ture close to her breast, childishly, pathetically unsettled 
 in her mind. Her remaining treasures all that were 
 left mementos of her mother and of Jerry. Jerry should 
 go with her just as he was, in her arms, she decided ; 
 but her mother's treasure, her tresses must go first. 
 That would be the way. To be faithful to her mission 
 and to Joan of Arc they would have to go. That would 
 kill her to-night she was deliriously certain. So she 
 could go at once, in the very act of beginning her mission. 
 That would be honourable. 
 
 Moving listlessly, as if walking in her sleep, she 
 brought two envelopes to contain her locks. On one of 
 them she wrote: 
 
 "For Jerry, if he ever returns." 
 
 She lingered many minutes over his name, living over 
 again, at the end, what had been the sweetest experience 
 of her life. 
 
 On the other envelope she wrote: 
 
 "For Tom." 
 
 Snip, snip, snip clicked the scissors in her determined 
 little fingers. 
 
 "To make me like a boy and like Joan of Arc," she 
 prattled. 
 
 She dared not look in the mirror. 
 
 Snip, snip, snip, snip- 
 It was all gone now everything was gone ! 
 
 She had come to the absolute end of everything ! 
 
 She looked in the mirror turned deathly white 
 looked at her tresses lying on the table then felt her 
 head go dropping down and her cheek touching them, as 
 she yielded to the sweet relief that gently closed her eyes 
 and ended her unendurable strain.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AT the corner. 
 
 * ^ "Extra, News/' called a soft-voiced, shivering 
 newsboy, at six o'clock on Monday evening. 
 
 "Extra, Record," shouted a rough-voiced, stronger 
 boy, glowering at his frail new competitor, as they both 
 rushed for the two editors, who were meeting, as usual, 
 with the cordiality of rival gladiators. 
 
 "News, Mister," persuaded the soft-voiced newsboy 
 in the new pair of knickers. 
 
 Tom Manly pricked up his ears. Had he not heard that 
 voice before? 
 
 Keating's inscrutable eyes measured the boy from head 
 to foot. 
 
 Pogo had not yet turned on his electric sign to brighten 
 the darkening street. 
 
 Both men bought both papers, as usual, started to 
 read them, and the newsboys disappeared. 
 
 "Who's the new kid?" enquired an elderly newsman 
 of a newswoman. "Looks a little queer. Something 
 wrong with him, eh, Nell?" 
 
 "Been through hell, I guess, like most kids nowadays," 
 observed Nell. 
 
 Joan's little heart beat wildly with exultation, as she 
 left Tom and Keating. The test had been a success. It 
 was her first victory. She had prepared so carefully for 
 it in the loft during the day. 
 
 Arriving at the loft very early, unnoticed, she found 
 the Paregoric family famished, but faithfully waiting 
 and hoping. All her original army had returned too. 
 
 206
 
 Unconventional Joan 207 
 
 Such a noisy welcome they gave her ! As well as she 
 could she entered into their happiness with them. 
 
 "I'm not quite myself," she explained, "or we would 
 have a livelier time." 
 
 There was no food, so she went out to get them somo 
 and on the way made several purchases at out-of-the-way 
 shops. 
 
 After the dogs had been fed she cut and disfigured her 
 newly bought knickers in several places to make them 
 look old and worn, artistically soiled her new blouse by 
 rubbing it on the floor, and after a careful toilet, hiding 
 in the loft during the day, she had ventured out at dark, 
 actually challenging Tom and Keating to recognize her. 
 
 Thrilled with her success, her face was radiant as she 
 slipped away. 
 
 "What yer doin' on my corner?" the rough-voiced 
 newsboy with the Records growled in her ear, as he 
 overtook her. 
 
 Joan turned and faced her antagonist for a moment 
 in dismay. 
 
 The next moment she felt the crack of his fist as it 
 landed squarely on her eye and bowled her over into a 
 kneeling group of newsboys who were matching pennies. 
 
 She was stunned for an instant, but scrambled to her 
 feet and looked for a policeman. There was one across 
 the street. She remembered having seen him looking 
 towards her just as she was struck. Possibly he expected 
 her to be attacked. His face was now discreetly turned 
 away. 
 
 "Wallop him back, kid," encouraged the middle-aged 
 newsman, with copies of the News under his arm. His 
 attitude seemed to say "I am with you."
 
 208 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Later on Joan learned that he was an official slugger 
 for the News, employed to beat up anybody who inter- 
 fered with the sale of its papers. Later on she also 
 learned that policemen would not have dared to prohibit 
 any of the corner-wars of either newspaper. 
 
 "He ain't got no right on my corner," bullied the 
 rough-voiced seller of Records, itching to plant a second 
 blow on Joan's other eye. 
 
 "He can go where he pleases," retorted the middle-aged 
 newsman. "Smash him back, kid." 
 
 "You go to hell," responded the young Record bully, 
 backing away, afraid of the older man, but not in the 
 least afraid of Joan. "I'll fix him," he vindictively 
 promised as he slunk away unsatisfied. 
 
 The disappointed audience of newsboys went back to 
 its game of matching pennies. 
 
 II 
 
 "He's blacked your eye, kid," the woman with news- 
 papers under her arm said to Joan. 
 
 That was comforting. Joan had believed he had torn 
 off the top of her head. 
 
 "I'll buy Records and beat him by selling more of them 
 on his corner than he does. That's what I'll do," vouch- 
 safed Joan, by way of re-establishing herself in the 
 estimation of her new-found friends. 
 
 "You can't do that," the middle-aged newsman in- 
 formed her. "You can't sell our papers and the Records 
 too. You're green at this, aren't you?" He sym- 
 pathetically scrutinized Joan's haggard face. 
 
 And Joan had gone to the pains of making her clothes 
 look old, and thought she was acting so cleverly !
 
 Unconventional Joan 209 
 
 It was useless to pretend ! 
 
 "Yes, I have just started," she admitted. "Have you 
 got to fight in this job?" 
 
 "That's the newspaper game, fighting, you know!" 
 
 Yes, she remembered ! Fighting the powerless ! 
 
 The News had certainly picked a capable ally when it 
 selected the middle-aged man to do its fighting. She had 
 followed him and the newswoman into the alley behind 
 the News building, and she had ample opportunity to 
 observe his typical newspaper prowess as he blusteringly 
 terrorized the youngsters waiting for papers. 
 
 He had a crude but telling way of maintaining order. 
 As he swaggered about, swearing and admonishing, he 
 gave a kick here and a shove there, and, in a miniature 
 way, acted towards the newsboys exactly as the Press 
 acted towards the public, Joan thought, taunting them, 
 filling them with fear of his power to crush them. They 
 dared show nothing but a cringing respect for him, just 
 as the intimidated public truckled to the tyrannical Press. 
 It was as if he were the monster's shadow itself. 
 
 "Damn you," he said, cursing at a harmless little waif, 
 "get in line." 
 
 His constant and lurid explosion of oaths appalled 
 Joan. 
 
 "This is one of the kindergarten tutors of the most 
 powerful educational institution in the world!" she 
 thought. 
 
 Looking at his pupils as they smoked cigarettes and 
 matched pennies, and listening to their thoughtless 
 blasphemies, Joan considered the chances against them, 
 and concluded that the devil could not do a more thorough 
 job than this department of the Press was doing.
 
 210 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Soon she understood the source of some of the elderly 
 newsman's vehemence. She saw him covertly take a small 
 quantity of white powder from a little box and draw it 
 up into his nostrils. The newswoman took some, too. 
 
 "Drug fiends !" 
 
 Joan shudderingly pitied them, and sitting down on a 
 box there in the alley between them, drew from them 
 fragments of their bitter experiences, aided by the 
 stimulant they had taken. 
 
 in 
 
 "That's right. I am giving it to you straight. I might 
 have been the editor of the News today. They'll tell you 
 upstairs that I was one of the best reporters they ever 
 had. But it got me, like it gets lots of them. Night 
 work ! Brain fag ! Tobacco ! Alcohol ! More booze 
 finally dope couldn't turn out the right kind of copy 
 after a while got notice gave me this job pays me 
 just as well I'm satisfied eh, Nell ?" 
 
 The newswoman brooded aloud over her own record, 
 by way of reply. She was more vivid than the newsman. 
 She evidently felt her position more keenly. 
 
 "It's hell, Bill; there's no satisfaction in it, and you 
 know it," she replied. "You can forget. I can't. I 
 can never forget. I'm living it over all the time." 
 
 She began to cry. The drug affected her that way. 
 Joan put an arm around her and comforted her. Nobody 
 had done that for years. Not even Bill. He looked at the 
 gratitude welling up in Nell's eyes, then looked at Joan 
 and realized that a simple little touch of nature had 
 suddenly made the three of them pals. He softened 
 perceptibly.
 
 Unconventional Joan 211 
 
 "She's a good scout, kid," he said to Joan. "Stick to 
 her. This is new stuff to you, and she can help you " 
 
 "I have been a reporter, too, just like you," Joan 
 hastened to correct him. 
 
 "Ha, ha, that's a good one," roared Bill, and almost 
 tumbled off the box, as he depreciatingly scanned Joan's 
 diminutive form. 
 
 Nell examined Joan shrewdly through her tears. 
 
 "What's the big idea?" she asked. 
 
 "I worked for Keating," Joan quietly replied. 
 
 "He's a Record spy, Nell," Bill said. "Kid, you're in 
 the wrong alley." 
 
 "I don't think so," protested Joan. "In fact I am sure 
 I am just where I ought to be, sitting here between you 
 two, and I am going to stay." That sounded author- 
 itative and made an impression. 
 
 "Well, what's the game, kid? You're no infant. Let 
 us in on it," answered Bill. 
 
 "Bill," Joan replied, with friendly presumption, "Nell 
 says you are not satisfied with things as they are. That's 
 right, isn't it?" 
 
 "Ha, ha, the precocious kid's a nut, Nell. He's crazy. 
 He's going to start a revolution," burst out Bill. 
 
 "Bill, you answer my question," insisted Joan, still 
 treating him with innocent familiarity. 
 
 Bill was not accustomed to insistence. That was his 
 own prerogative. He looked at Nell. 
 
 Nell felt Joan's arm still around her. Her eyes warned 
 Bill that the kid had won her. Bill fancied that the kid 
 was going to master him, too. To them the influence 
 that Joan exerted upon them was strange but undeniable. 
 They could not know, of course, that all the unconscious
 
 212 Unconventional Joan 
 
 power of her womanhood was enlisted in Joan's aid in 
 this, her supreme effort for the cause which she had 
 fantastically taken to her heart. 
 
 "Yes, that's right," Bill answered her. 
 
 "Well, Bill, that being the case, it's up to us men, you 
 and me and the rest of us, to make things satisfactory not 
 only to ourselves but to the women, like Nell here." 
 
 Joan's diplomatic assumption of Nell's co-operative 
 sympathy elicited from the newswoman an eloquent and 
 emotional endorsement of any attempt that might be 
 proposed to undo the conditions that had brought her to 
 where she was. 
 
 "Kid, I'm with you. Why shouldn't I be? Look at 
 me ! You wouldn't think it, but I used to be this city's 
 biggest department store's star saleswoman." 
 
 She emphasized it, suspecting Joan would think the 
 drug was making her exaggerate: 
 
 "That's the truth! They used to show me off as one 
 of their handsomest. But I got tired of being paid in 
 benevolence. I sided in with the girls who started a 
 strike because they were compelled to stand on their feet 
 all day for less than a living wage, and lend their good 
 looks as well as their talents to luring thousands of 
 women to squander their husband's hard-earned salaries." 
 
 "Legalized slavery," muttered Bill. 
 
 "I became a leader," continued Nell, "I appealed to 
 the Press. To spoil my influence with the other girls the 
 store's officials slandered me as an immoral person." 
 
 "More convenient than murder," interrupted Bill. 
 
 "Oh, they'll do anything! I was discharged. That 
 gave the Press an opportunity for a nasty story about 
 me. But I worked for the strike on the outside. Re-
 
 Unconventional Joan 213 
 
 porters followed me, every step I took. I was interfering 
 with the affairs of the papers' largest benefactor. I was 
 pursued with bitter vindictiveness. Because of the in- 
 famous story circulated about me they had me down and 
 they daily trampled upon my face, my personality, my 
 affairs, my supposed opinions. My suspected innermost 
 thoughts became the subject of discourse and speculation 
 upon the front pages of the papers. It became impossible 
 for me to procure any kind of employment. So what was 
 left to me? Do you think any man worth having would 
 look at me to marry me, a notorious outcast? Well, 
 that's what I became, eventually ! And look at me now ! 
 Look at the pathos of it the tragedy of it actually 
 compelled to try to get a living off the Press that ruined 
 me! If that isn't hell, I can't imagine what is. Why 
 shouldn't I be with you, kid, why shouldn't I ?" 
 
 The reaction from the drug, and her agitated emotions, 
 produced a convulsion of weeping. Bill got up, crossed 
 over and sat beside her, and pacified her by putting his 
 arm alongside of Joan's round her waist. 
 
 "I know, I know," he kept repeating. "But we can't 
 stop the Press." 
 
 "We don't want to stop it. It is invaluable. It should 
 be the bulwark of civilization. We want to make it that. 
 We want to govern its vicious influence " Joan started 
 to say. 
 
 "We can't govern the governor of government," tersely 
 interrupted Bill. 
 
 "We can try," persisted Joan. 
 
 "They will turn their batteries on you in a twinkling 
 if you cross them," warned Bill. His words reminded 
 Joan of Tom's similar caution.
 
 214 Unconventional Joan 
 
 The batteries of public opinion can be turned against 
 them, too," responded Joan. 
 
 "How?" eagerly enquired Bill and Nell together. 
 
 "By the 'Army of the Victims of the Vicious Press' !" 
 was the firm, unhesitating reply. 
 
 "And who will lead the 'Army'?" derisively enquired 
 Bill, grinning broadly. 
 
 "I will, and you and Nell shall be my generals," 
 decisively replied Joan. 
 
 "But the batteries ?" blandly queried Nell. 
 
 "Banners," answered Joan, "delivering shots that will 
 strike home 'News not Nuisance' 'Lift us up, Don't 
 Drag us Down' 'We can make you Bigger if you will 
 make us Stronger' 'We want to Love you instead of 
 Hating you' 'You belong to us as much as we belong to 
 you' 'If you can't see what is smouldering in our hearts 
 you are doomed' sugar-coated, peaceful protests, like 
 that ; nothing rebellious, not yet." 
 
 "March your crazy army and its batteries down News- 
 paper Row and stick 'em up in front of the Newspaper 
 offices that can be done but you can't get your banners 
 believed that is, they won't make any impression on the 
 Press" 
 
 "Bill," interrupted Joan, "listen to me. You are a 
 newspaper man, and so am I, and we both know this. We 
 can take a space on the front page of tomorrow's Record 
 and we can print on it 'Bill is our Best Citizen,' or some 
 other lie," Bill roared "and although most of those 
 who read that will smile at it, some will believe it, and if 
 you keep putting it there long enough, every day, every- 
 body will believe that you are our 'Best Citizen,' Bill, 
 even if you are not." Bill roared again. "That is the
 
 Unconventional Joan 215 
 
 power of propaganda, 'getting anything, even a lie, to be 
 believed.' That's the power of the Press; that's a power 
 which the masses have never dared, never attempted, to 
 use, I agree with you that one or two banners might not 
 influence a vicious newspaper; but a hundred or two 
 hundred might, carried by the most pitiable of all the 
 victims of the Press by young girls by ragged newsies 
 tiny little banners carried by infants in their mother's 
 arms, pleading for a clean chance scarlet banners car- 
 ried by women branded by the Press banners with a 
 cross upon them carried by Christ's disciples struggling 
 against devil-made convention Oh! Yes, Bill, it can be 
 done." 
 
 Bill suspected that he was witnessing a most prodigious 
 kind of enthusiasm, and began to believe that possibly 
 the thing could be done. Nell was certain of it. 
 
 "The Army of the Victims of the Vicious Press !" 
 repeated Joan. 
 
 Bill laughed. 
 
 It sounded funny. 
 
 Nell frowned at him. 
 
 Joan repeated it again. "The Army of the Victims of 
 the Vicious Press that includes the three of us to begin 
 with, doesn't it?" 
 
 Yes, it certainly did ; whether they admitted it or not. 
 
 "It is no damn laughing matter," forcefully assented 
 Nell. 
 
 The three enlisted. 
 
 The first offensive movement was scheduled for Thurs- 
 day at noon. 
 
 Nell was commissioned to round up the female section 
 of the procession of protest, with its banners.
 
 216 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Bill was commissioned to recruit the men. 
 
 Joan undertook to enlist the newsboys. 
 
 And as Nell beheld tough old Bill striding down the 
 alley, betaking himself grimly off to his duty, looking as 
 earnest as she had ever seen him look, and muttering 
 curses against the Press as he went, she caught up in her 
 arms the small little chap who had softened her man and 
 kissed the little fellow on the lips. 
 
 IV 
 
 Joan began to clean up the alley's morals that same 
 Monday night. 
 
 Her task of enlisting the "Newsies" got well under 
 way within the hour. Bill came back shortly and walked 
 tip and down the alley with her several times he a great 
 big giant of intimidating brawn, she a frail little figure, 
 red-cheeked and beautiful; and soon the newsboys could 
 be heard saying: 
 
 "Here comes Bill and the Kid." 
 
 Joan moved about among the boys speaking very 
 decisively. There was a brighter fire than ever in her 
 eye, and a remarkably attractive dignity in her manner. 
 
 She gave orders, instead of asking questions. 
 
 "You are going to stop that swearing," she said to a 
 newsboy whom she was instructing for his part in the 
 Thursday demonstration." 
 
 "Why? I would rather go to " 
 
 "Never mind where you would rather go. You are 
 here now and you stop using that kind of language." 
 
 The hot desire which the "Kid" so quickly aroused in 
 the newsboys to "hold a parade" won Bill's admiration. 
 Before the night had far advanced he and Joan became
 
 Unconventional Joan 217 
 
 inseparable. He was so big, she so little, he was so far 
 on in years, she was so young; he was so rough and 
 brown, she was so fresh and childish; he was such an 
 experienced old sinner, she was unsullied and childlike. 
 
 It was the oddest sort of an alliance, he thought. 
 
 He told her so. 
 
 "I don't know just what makes me fall so hard for you 
 and your scheme, Kid." 
 
 The enchantress who lurks in every woman had him in 
 thrall. 
 
 Joan was learning that the subtle feminine influence, 
 even when hidden, works irresistibly. She replied: 
 
 "Did you ever hear tell of Joan of Arc?" 
 
 Bill said that he had. 
 
 "Well," continued Joan, "if a mere chit of a girl could 
 wake up a whole nation and lead it to victory, don't you 
 think a big strong man like you and a willing little chap 
 like me, can start something of the same sort in this city, 
 against a worse tyrant than hers?" 
 
 Bill said he thought that they could, and asked the 
 "Kid" where he lived. There was not a very prompt 
 response to that, so Bill tactfully added: 
 
 "There's room for you to bunk up over night in one 
 of the news-trucks in the alley, if you like." 
 
 Joan thought that would be useful experience and 
 safer than running the risk of being seen going into the 
 loft, and acquiesced. 
 
 Bill watched his curious waif kneel down before 
 cuddling up. 
 
 "A bit simple, I guess," he observed. His face sagged 
 with sympathy. 
 
 "I am getting my army lined up, Joan of Arc," the
 
 218 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Kid" prayerfully reported, and then quickly fell asleep. 
 
 Several hours later, at about two o'clock on Tuesday 
 morning, as Tom Manly entered his apartment and 
 stopped before his dressing-table, a picture of Joan on it 
 arrested his attention. 
 
 He had treasured the photograph ever since it had been 
 taken during their college days. 
 
 As he looked at it the lips of the smiling face moved 
 and spoke to him: 
 
 "News, Mister," they softly pleaded. 
 
 Tom caught his breath. 
 
 "I knew I had heard that voice before; that newsie 
 was Joan." 
 
 Quivering with excitement he reached for his telephone 
 and called up Joan's home. A sleepy caretaker, resentful 
 of being aroused at such an hour of the morning, curtly 
 informed him that "Miss Joan didn't live there any 
 longer." "Did he know where she could be found?" 
 "No, she had gone away early in the morning." 
 
 Terrible things! 
 
 Too late ! Too late to save her from terrible things 
 maddening things! 
 
 "Joan, Joan," he moaned, holding her picture in his 
 hands. "Brave little Joan. I have the courage to do it 
 now. You have shown me how to do it. I will find you, 
 and tell you, and make you happy, as you asked." 
 
 He waited, sleepless, for the daylight to find her and 
 tell her.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ' I V OM, haggard from loss of sleep and worry over 
 * Joan's safety, hurried to the loft on Tuesday morn- 
 ing to await her arrival. He calculated that she had no 
 other place to go. Suspicions of her destitution oppressed 
 him, and his realization of her pluck shamed him. She 
 was not there when he arrived, so he remained. 
 
 At eight o'clock Joan's original army of the neighbour- 
 hood's destitute dogs came scampering up the three flights 
 of stairs, quietly, as they had been trained to do. Only 
 the patter of their feet could be heard. 
 
 Joan was coming ! Tom waited for her on the landing 
 at the fourth floor. 
 
 As the dogs reached the top floor they stopped, huddled 
 in a group for a moment. 
 
 Who was this intruder? 
 
 They sniffed the air. This was not Jerry. They did 
 not know who he was. Therefore he had no business 
 there, they decided. He might be intending to hurt Joan. 
 So they would get him out of the way. 
 
 A medley of snarls developed instantly into a hubbub 
 of barks, interspersed with such snapping of teeth that 
 Tom, in a panic, indiscreetly took refuge on top of the 
 balustrade, and yelled: 
 
 "Joan, Joan, call off your hounds, before they eat me 
 alive!" 
 
 Tom's precipitate retreat, of course, drew the dogs on, 
 and it began to look doubtful if there would be enough of 
 him left to be of any help to Joan by the time she reached 
 the top of the stairs. 
 
 219
 
 22O Unconventional Joan 
 
 Tom could hear her hurrying up. 
 
 What a fine sight for her he would be, treed on his 
 uncomfortable and dangerous perch! She was bringing 
 someone with her several people. 
 
 This would never do. The editor of the News must 
 not be caught in such a humiliating situation. 
 
 In desperation, he jumped off into the midst of the 
 dogs, just as a group of Record newsboys, who had been 
 standing downstairs in front of the Record building next 
 door, attracted by the terrific barking upstairs, reached 
 the landing on the fourth floor, and discovered the 
 Record's rival at bay, outside Joan's door. 
 
 What a fine story this would make for Keating, Tom 
 thought, if any of the Record newsboys happened to 
 recognize him ! 
 
 The dogs beat a yelping retreat, and left the situation 
 to terrified Tom and the grinning boys. 
 
 "Can't you git in, mister?" laconically enquired the 
 bully who had sold Tom a Record last night and after- 
 wards smashed Joan on the eye. 
 
 "I don't know that I'm trying 'to git in'," Tom retorted 
 evasively. "Maybe I'm trying 'to git out'." 
 
 He walked down stairs with as much dignity as he 
 could muster, strolled up the street a short distance to 
 throw his audience off his track, and then returning, took 
 up a position on the pavement, close to the doorway lead- 
 ing up to the loft, and waited for Joan. 
 
 In a few minutes Joan came round the corner from the 
 alley behind the News building, on her way to feed the 
 dogs and do a little doctoring to a certain black eye. She 
 had decided to risk going up into the loft unseen. 
 
 Within a few feet of him she spied Tom waiting for
 
 Unconventional Joan 221 
 
 her, and darted into a doorway, her heart-a-flutter. 
 
 "Tom is looking for me. He ought to be in bed now. 
 How pale and worn he looks ! He expects me to go up 
 into the loft. He will pry into my future plans. Deter- 
 mined Tom!" 
 
 She could have made him hear by whispering he was 
 so close. 
 
 "What would he think if he knew I was selling his 
 papers? How would he feel about me being dressed like 
 this? How would he like my black eye? What would 
 he think about the 'Army of the Victims of the Vicious 
 Press' ? He would try to disband it. I must keep out of 
 his way." 
 
 As she looked in Tom's direction she saw the Record 
 bully, who had hit her, come out of the Record building. 
 She winced at sight of him and drew farther back into 
 the doorway. Joan thought he had a very suspicious grin 
 on his face. She watched him take up a stand near the 
 doorway to the loft, not far from Tom, where he kept a 
 sly watch on Tom and on the loft entrance. 
 
 Her heart almost ceased beating. 
 
 Could it be possible that he had discovered her identity 
 and was waiting there to finish his defeat of her? She 
 felt like running. 
 
 Could Keating have penetrated her disguise and put 
 the fellow on her trail ? Was he going to watch for her 
 all day and spoil her plans? 
 
 Or was the Record boy watching Tom, to find out what 
 he was doing there? 
 
 Perhaps her imagination was needlessly alarming her. 
 
 She did not know what to think, but she did know 
 that she was not safe where she was, so she slipped in
 
 222 Unconventional Joan 
 
 front of a pedestrian for a shield and went back to the 
 alley with Bill, where she felt more secure. 
 
 ii 
 
 Joan did not see the Record newsboy again all day. 
 She kept to the alley for safety's sake, but began to cul- 
 tivate a healthy determination to kick the bully's shins 
 full of holes if he crossed her path. This determination 
 actually grew into a desire as the day wore on, and she 
 planned to sally forth at dark and take her chances with 
 him if she encountered him. 
 
 But although she did not see the Record bully she did 
 see Tom. He came out of the alley-entrance to the News 
 building into the alley itself, and walked out through it 
 into the street. She did not suspect that he could be look- 
 ing for her there. But still it seemed strange that he 
 should be in the News building during the day, because 
 he regularly spent the night there, from six o'clock on. 
 
 "That's the editor of the News," Bill confided to her. 
 
 "Is that so?" replied Joan, "He is a very nice-looking 
 man. It's too bad we must fight him." She did not think 
 it prudent to explain her lesser antagonism to Tom's 
 paper. 
 
 "He's looking for one of the newsboys," Bill informed 
 her. 
 
 Joan trembled. How had he found out ? 
 
 "Must be a new one. I know 'em all. Your name 
 isn't John, is it?" Bill surveyed her intently. 
 
 In desperation, Joan denied that it was, and wondered 
 how she could possibly elude Tom if he was determined 
 to keep on her trail. 
 
 "Well, if you hear any of these kids calling somebody
 
 Unconventional Joan 223 
 
 'John,' send him up the alley entrance to the boss. He's 
 got something coming to him, I reckon." 
 
 "All right, I'll send him up, Bill, she said aloud, and to 
 herself added, "I'll send myself up by the front entrance, 
 at noon the day after tomorrow, in broad daylight, at the 
 head of my army, and, I don't like to do it, but he's one 
 of those who will unexpectedly have something coming 
 to him." 
 
 in 
 
 Joan kept making little speeches of confidence to her- 
 self all day long, and grew braver and braver in her at- 
 titude towards the Record bully and Tom. She was sure 
 she would be defiant towards either of them should she 
 meet them after dark. But she kept to the alley during 
 the day, rounding up her cohorts, and receiving reports 
 from her generals. 
 
 "It's going to be the most spectacular parade this city 
 has ever seen," Nell, informed her at five o'clock. "I've 
 made the rounds of the department stores, seen my 
 friends, put them quietly to work on the banners, and 
 there'll be enough for everybody. It's a great idea to hold 
 it at noon hour, when enough people are off work to take 
 part in it and see it. And it's great that we're doing it 
 quick. They won't have time to stop us. They'll hardly 
 have time to find out what we are going to do. We are 
 practically ready now. All that's necessary is for you to 
 take your place at the head of the line and give the order 
 to march." 
 
 Joan thanked God for sending her such an organizer 
 as Nell, with the experience and bitterness of past strike- 
 failures to guide her.
 
 224 Unconventional Joan 
 
 IV 
 
 "Bill," said Joan to her stalwart aide-de-camp, towards 
 dusk on Tuesday, "I have some special friends whom I 
 have been thinking about in connection with our parade 
 the day after tomorrow, and I should like to have your 
 advice about letting them take part." 
 
 "The more the merrier, Kid," replied Bill. 
 
 "They are a lot of dogs," Joan informed him. 
 
 "Dogs?" 
 
 "Yes, I raised and maintained a regular army of dogs 
 before I ever thought of raising the 'Army of the Victims 
 of the Vicious Press'." 
 
 Bill meditatively scratched his head and observed to 
 himself: "Another army of dogs? The Kid's dippy 
 on armies." But he must humour her. Aloud he replied, 
 "Dogs can't carry any banners." 
 
 "Well, I expect trouble, Bill, from one particular man. 
 He is a very determined man. He always gets what he 
 wants. I expect him to make a rush for me and grab me 
 away from my place at the head of the procession. But 
 I have an idea that if he sees my dogs around me he will 
 think twice before he tries to get past them." 
 
 "Fetch 'em along," said Bill. "But had you forgotten 
 that he will have to get past me?" 
 
 "Good old Bill," responded Joan. "You'll like my 
 dogs, and I know they'll like you." 
 
 "All right," said Bill, "but I don't want to go in any 
 circus parade with a lot of wild animals. This is a 
 damned serious demonstration, and I am more deter- 
 mined that it shall succeed than your kind friend can 
 possibly be to have it fail. I'll take particular delight 
 in slaughtering him if he is a newspaper man."
 
 Unconventional Joan 225 
 
 "Very well, Bill, I won't bring the dogs," Joan 
 hastened to conciliate him. 
 
 "Suit yourself, Kid, don't mind me," he answered, "but 
 their being there to keep that fellow off will deprive me 
 of the opportunity of making mincemeat out of him." 
 
 "On second thought, Bill, I believe I will bring the 
 dogs," she said, remembering Bill's envy of Tom for 
 holding what might have been his position, and realizing, 
 with a surprising degree of solicitude, that she could 
 never bear to have Tom harmed. 
 
 Tom left the News building in time to buy the papers 
 at the corner shortly before six o'clock, in order to avoid 
 encountering Keating. He calculated that Joan would be 
 selling papers there again. 
 
 Joan did not appear. 
 
 The Record bully sold him a paper. 
 
 "Didn't you sell me a paper here at about this time 
 yesterday?" Tom asked him. 
 
 "Yep." 
 
 "Do you remember what became of the lad who sold 
 me a copy of the News at the same time ?" enquired Tom. 
 
 "Yep, I punched him in the eye." 
 
 "What?" Tom wanted to take the bully by the neck, 
 and with the greatest difficulty restrained himself. 
 
 "He can't sell his trashy paper on my corner." 
 
 Trashy ! 
 
 So he edited trash! 
 
 Well, perhaps the same newsboy wouldn't sell his 
 "trash" there on the corner any more, but some other boy 
 would. Tom promised himself to see to that.
 
 226 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Do you know where he is?" Tom enquired, expecting 
 to be referred to some hospital. 
 
 "I ain't seen him today." 
 
 "If you see him again, I'd like you to let me know 
 where he's selling papers now, since leaving your corner. 
 You may see him yet, to-night. I'll drop back here in an 
 hour to see you." Tom did not want the "newsie" to 
 find out who he was by reporting to him up in his office. 
 He gave him an extra coin. 
 
 When Tom had gone, the Record bully went across 
 the street, entered the Record office, went upstairs and 
 remained ten minutes or so before returning to the street. 
 In an hour, Tom approached him on the corner. 
 
 "Ain't seen him yet," reported the Record newsboy. 
 
 "I'll be back again in an hour," said Tom, persistent in 
 his efforts to find Joan, who was just then contemplating 
 leaving the alley, under cover of the darkness. 
 
 Tom returned every hour until after midnight, without 
 success. 
 
 Soon he would have to go home and get some sleep. 
 His work for the night would shortly be over. He could 
 do nothing more to find her until morning. He wrote a 
 hurried note to her, gave it to the Record newsboy, and 
 asked him to give it to the "other newsie" as soon as he 
 saw him in the morning. Then he returned to finish 
 his work in the News office and go home. 
 
 As soon as Tom had disappeared into the News build- 
 ing the Record newsboy took Tom's note over to the 
 Record building and went upstairs with it. 
 
 VI 
 
 Although Joan came out of the alley and watched Tom
 
 Unconventional Joan 227 
 
 leave for his home before deciding to "bunk up" again in 
 the truck, Tom went wearily home without seeing her. 
 
 It was after he had left the Record newsboy for the 
 last time and had gone back to his office to finish his work, 
 that Joan came out of the alley, still thinking solicitously 
 about the chances of Bill injuring Tom during the Thurs- 
 day demonstration. 
 
 Within less than an hour after she left the alley, Joan 
 learned how far solicitude about a man may lead. 
 
 Her last great battle between her instinct and her feel- 
 ings was fought on the kerb directly facing Tom Manly 's 
 office, in the early hours of the day preceding her demon- 
 stration against the press. Thinking of Tom, she walked 
 directly to a point opposite the News Building, where she 
 deliberately sat down in the darkness and gazed up at the 
 brilliantly illuminated windows where Tom and his staff 
 were finishing the morning edition. 
 
 Up there was her old class-mate, a successful man of 
 the world. With him she had been trained to go through 
 life on a plane level with his own. There he was, on top, 
 wanting her ; here she was, at the bottom, literally in the 
 gutter, fighting him. 
 
 And yet her pity was for him, not for herself. 
 
 "I don't want to hurt you, Tom," she spoke upwards 
 at the window to him. "But I must go through with this, 
 even if it does hurt you/' 
 
 Newspaper Row was very quiet. The city was sound 
 asleep. Joan had never before been out so late. It seemed 
 very peaceful. She thought of the calm before the storm. 
 Only one straggling pedestrian slouched along behind her 
 during the time she sat there, and even the drivers of the 
 waiting delivery trucks were asleep on the seats ; but up-
 
 228 Unconventional Joan 
 
 stairs in both newspaper offices the city's rulers were wide 
 awake. 
 
 "Less than thirty-six hours left in your reign," Joan 
 reflected, as she visualized the procession of protest which 
 she would lead into Newspaper Row on Thursday at 
 noon. 
 
 Bill by her side, and her dogs on leashes ! 
 
 Then the newsboys, her own picked company ! 
 
 After them Nell's brigade of the city's persecuted girls ! 
 
 And at the end Bill's group of men, about which he had 
 maintained an ominous secrecy! 
 
 Silently, at the stroke of twelve, the procession would 
 move into Newspaper Row, with its banners, and quietly 
 take up its position in front of the Record office. 
 
 Bill had significantly told her to "Watch the finish !" 
 
 She had gladly left Bill to his own discretion, up to the 
 point of his possible attack upon Tom. But she felt she 
 could not trust him to restrain himself when he learned 
 that her opponent was the editor of the News. Tom 
 would certainly be there. The newspapers could not be 
 expected to be ignorant of the protest up to the last 
 minute. It occurred to her to protect Tom by going right 
 up to him, now, and warning him to take precautions. 
 
 She stood up to go. 
 
 The reporters would see her if she went up, and they 
 might accomplish some interference with her plans ! 
 
 She decided to stop Tom in the darkness, when he left 
 the building to go home. She would save him if she 
 could, little appreciating what she was about to precipitate 
 upon him. 
 
 She sat down and kept thinking about him, while wait- 
 ing for him to leave the building.
 
 Unconventional Joan 229 
 
 "I have been dodging you all day, Tom, and no\v I am 
 waiting to see you," she said to herself. "You have been 
 looking for me to protect me; now I am looking for 
 you to protect you. We have been dodging each other 
 this way a good part of our lives, haven't we?" 
 
 She began to speculate upon how other women would 
 have changed Tom's policy by marrying him first and in- 
 fluencing him gradually. That would be their tactful 
 solution of the problem. Incidentally, it would take care 
 of the matter of their sustenance, and would bring them 
 happiness. It would, indeed, make them very happy, pro- 
 vided they successfully swayed him. 
 
 She looked at her apparel, appraised her few assets, 
 thought of her absolute loneliness in the world, calculated 
 the possibility of the failure of her demonstration, and 
 decided that ninety-nine women out of one hundred would 
 marry Tom under the circumstances. 
 
 "And I am so strange that I could never marry him. I 
 like him. I want to help him. I would not for the world 
 have him harmed much less bring harm to him ; but love 
 him marry him never " 
 
 At this moment Tom appeared in the doorway on his 
 way home. 
 
 "Providential," she murmured. 
 
 She stood up again. 
 
 Bill and Nell called to her from behind. A group of 
 newsboys got in her way. Hundreds of dejected girls 
 and women and men pleaded against her going, with their 
 sorrowful eyes. 
 
 "I cannot have him harmed," she remonstrated. "I 
 must warn him. Bill will kill him." 
 
 "You are capitulating to convention in the very hour of
 
 230 Unconventional Joan 
 
 your triumph over it," rebuked a feeble little voice inside. 
 "You have yielded so far that only a miracle of courage 
 can save you now." 
 
 Tom passed up the street, wearily trudging along. She 
 could see that he was very tired. Helplessly she watched 
 him and let him go. 
 
 Then she sat down, in an agony of doubt and inde- 
 cision. 
 
 "What have I done?" she muttered. "What am I do- 
 ing, most of the time I don't seem to know " 
 
 Behind her, the Record bully who had given her her 
 black eye came out of the Record building, walked quickly 
 to where she was sitting, handed her Tom's note and dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Joan opened the folded sheet of paper and read: 
 
 "J. will you please see me immediately?" 
 
 She had told him "to let her know" ! 
 
 Was he letting her know ? Was he going to save him- 
 self, as she had begged him to do? Was he wanting to 
 help her with her demonstration against the vicious 
 Press? 
 
 Question upon question pressed for answer. 
 
 She had never before in her life received a note from 
 Tom Manly. 
 
 It came to her at the weakest and most hazardous mo- 
 ment of her life came to her tottering on the verge of 
 madness came to her feeling her need of a protector. 
 
 She had risen to her feet after reading it, and stood 
 staring in the direction taken by Tom. It occurred to her 
 that she might be able to overtake him. 
 
 In a moment she was hurrying after him in the dark. 
 
 At the corner her haste almost cost her her life. One
 
 Unconventional Joan 231 
 
 of the big newspaper trucks rolled noiselessly out of the 
 alley behind the Record building, without any lights, and 
 almost ran her down in the dark. The narrow escape 
 took away her breath, and made her lose her chance of 
 overtaking Tom. When she had composed herself, she 
 hurried along as fast as her feet could carry her, but she 
 was nearly a whole block behind him when he turned from 
 the street to enter his apartment. 
 
 When Joan arrived there a few moments later he had 
 disappeared within. 
 
 It was two o'clock on Wednesday morning. 
 
 She stood looking at the closed door. 
 
 Two men were coming down the street, approaching 
 her. 
 
 They could attack or overtake her, within a block, if 
 they desired. 
 
 It was a long way back to Bill and the truck in the 
 alley. 
 
 Could she trust her disguise to protect her from the 
 men? 
 
 She had trusted it in broad daylight. 
 
 But in the middle of the night, beset with many fears, 
 Tom's hallway seemed to offer greater security. 
 
 As the men drew closer to her she ran up the steps and 
 took refuge in the vestibule.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 i 
 
 TJEERING through the glass door, waiting for the two 
 
 men to pass, Joan in terror watched them turn from 
 the pavement at the foot of the steps and start to walk up 
 after her. In the darkness she seemed to see that one of 
 them carried a dark object in his hands, and the other 
 appeared to have a short stick raised up above his head, as 
 if ready to strike a blow. 
 
 In consternation, Joan pressed the bell-button and 
 rattled the door, which was instantly opened by Tom in 
 his bath-robe, just as the two men reached the outside 
 vestibule door. 
 
 "Joan!" Tom cried pityingly, touched to the depths of 
 his heart by the spectacle of her standing there in the 
 gloom, drooping, tattered, come to him at last. Over- 
 whelmed with emotion, he reached out towards her. 
 
 "Tom!" she cried, and rushed for protection through 
 the open door into his arms. 
 
 There was a flash, and a loud report! 
 
 Joan trembled. Was she being shot? 
 
 She turned in Tom's arms to look at the two men 
 one with the short uplifted stick, the other with the dark 
 object held in front of him. As she turned, there came 
 again the blinding flash right in her startled eyes, and an- 
 other muffled report. 
 
 Tom switched on the light. 
 
 Worse than being shot ! Infinitely more diabolical than 
 murder ! 
 
 There in the open doorway stood Keating's photo- 
 grapher, camera in hand, Keating himself still holding 
 
 232
 
 Unconventional Joan 233 
 
 the flash-light stick aloft, behind them the young Record 
 bully coming up the steps, and just rolling up at the kerb 
 the big Record truck that had barely missed running over 
 Joan. 
 
 And on the camera plates, two convicting photographs ! 
 
 One depicting the illustrious editor of the News, in his 
 bathrobe, embracing a young woman in newsboy's attire 
 in his room at night, with all the emotion of which his 
 heart was capable showing on his face! 
 
 The other picture revealing both of them startled and 
 chagrined at being discovered. 
 
 Freedom of the Press! 
 
 ii 
 
 When Joan had sold Keating a newspaper on Monday 
 evening, his inscrutable eyes had concealed two things, 
 his recognition of Joan and his observation that Tom 
 Manly gave no outward evidence of recognition of her. 
 
 He had come upon some kind of newspaper plot ! 
 
 Tom Manly and Joan were unitedly up to something 
 that could not be expected to do the Record any good, he 
 suspected. 
 
 From that moment Joan's movements were followed. 
 
 The "Army of the Victims of the Vicious Press" had 
 hardly been projected before the fact was known in the 
 Record office. The demonstration engineered by Joan 
 dressed up as a newsboy, presumably with the knowledge 
 of the editor of the News, was obviously aimed at the 
 Record. The Record would watch developments and 
 handle the situation in its own typical way. 
 
 When the Record bully reported to the Record office 
 on Tuesday morning that the editor of the News had been
 
 234 Unconventional Joan 
 
 treed on a balustrade by a lot of dogs, on the fourth floor 
 of the loft building next door, he never suspected that 
 Manly was waiting for the newsboy whose eye he himself 
 had blackened; but the day-editor of the Record noted 
 another link in his chain of evidence, and directed the 
 Record newsboy to take up his position downstairs, out- 
 side the loft building, to watch the movements- of the 
 editor of the News and report them as they occurred. 
 His satellite obediently tracked his quarry throughout the 
 day. 
 
 When the editor of the News paid the Record bully to 
 find the newsboy whose eye he had blacked, that request 
 was revengefully reported to the office of the Record. 
 
 When Tom's note was entrusted for delivery to Joan, 
 it was first of all taken up to Keating, where its contents 
 strengthened the evidence of the suspected plot and sup- 
 gested the method of neutralizing it. 
 
 Keating shrewdly calculated that Joan would go to 
 Tom upon receipt of the note. But instead of having her 
 go to him in his office, it was necessary for his purpose 
 that she should be induced to go to him at his home. The 
 Record bully reported that she was in the alley behind the 
 News building. Keating watched out of the window for 
 Tom Manly to start home before he had the note de- 
 livered to Joan in the alley. Then Joan helped his plan 
 by coming out of the alley, shortly before Tom left, and 
 taking up her position on the kerb. When she was gaz- 
 ing after Tom, Keating tempted her, with Tom's note, to 
 follow him. When she started after Tom, Keating drove 
 out of the alley behind the Record building with his pho- 
 tographer and the Record newsboy, in the truck that al- 
 most ran over Joan at the corner, and in a roundabout
 
 Unconventional Joan 235 
 
 way proceeded one block beyond Tom's apartment, where 
 Keating and his photographer left the truck, planning to 
 effect an entrance to Tom's apartment while Joan was 
 with him, walked down the avenue towards Joan standing 
 alone at two a. m., in front of Tom's door, unexpectedly 
 scared her into his vestibule, pursued and crowded her 
 into his presence, snapped the incriminating photographs, 
 and stood for a moment grinning over their accomplish- 
 ment and enjoying the discomforture of their victims, 
 before rushing the waiting truck back to the Record 
 office with a choice bit of delightfully scandalous material 
 for the morning edition, which was being held to receive 
 it. 
 
 "This," chuckled Keating to himself, "supplies the 
 second exposure in the morning edition that will interest 
 the people of this city." 
 
 in 
 
 Keating's mouth was twisted in a derisive smile. 
 
 "Quite an edifying scene," he sneered, gloating over 
 his conquest. "How shall we head it? 'At Home with 
 Editor Manly's Lady Newsboy', might do." 
 
 Tom quivered under the murderous impulse surging 
 within him. 
 
 "Gawd! Is the Kid a girl?" ejaculated the Record 
 bully. Such sweet revenge ! 
 
 Joan had a mental vision of the effect of the rowdy's 
 information when conveyed with boorish raillery to the 
 newsboys in the alley. It would mean the end of tomor- 
 row's demonstration. She had been counting on the pub- 
 lic protest to bear more heavily upon the Record than 
 upon the News. She was now determined that it should.
 
 236 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Keating's intrusion was welding her to Tom. She was 
 holding his trembling hand and pressed it, to comfort and 
 calm him. It had not dawned upon her that Keating was 
 going to print the picture of herself and Tom. Soon 
 enough he enlightened her. 
 
 "Manly," he sneered, "I know all about the plot against 
 the Record concocted by you and your lady friend here " 
 
 "He has nothing to do with my plans," interrupted 
 Joan in defence of him. 
 
 Keating ignored her. 
 
 "I am not particularly anxious to publish this exposure 
 of you and your private life in our paper this morning. I 
 would rather hold it over you, to use at some future date 
 if you again forget that it is not good newspaper business 
 to start an attack upon your competitor. It will come in 
 handy. I prefer, for the present, to hold up publication 
 of this material while you call off your demonstration 
 against the Record scheduled for tomorrow." 
 
 "He has no part in my demonstration, I tell you," Joan 
 protested. 
 
 "Oh, of course not," sneered Keating. "It is quite 
 likely isn't it, that you should be carrying on a love in- 
 trigue with the editor of the News and not have his sup- 
 port?" 
 
 Tom's restraint was giving way. The need to kill was 
 strong within him. Joan saw murder gleaming in his 
 eyes. Weakly realizing that she must try to stave off the 
 catastrophe, she moved almost in front of him. 
 
 "What is your proposal?" she demanded of Keating. 
 
 "You will sign this to be sent to your partners in the 
 alley," coldly replied Keating, handing her a prepared 
 statement and a pen.
 
 Unconventional Joan 237 
 
 Joan read one copy and put the other into Tom's 
 twitching fingers. 
 
 "Bill: Call off the Protest. I shall not be back." 
 
 Joan paled, steadied herself, and looked into Tom's 
 murderous eyes. 
 
 If she did not send this to the alley Keating would 
 print the photographs. Tom would intercept him before 
 he moved; but nothing, not even the murder of Keating 
 could save them from ruin by the Record's exposures. 
 
 On the other hand, if she did send it, the protest was 
 impossible; the Record would hold the whip-hand over 
 Tom and the News, and her life's fight against the dy- 
 nasty of convention was at an end. 
 
 No matter what she did, she had brought disgrace to 
 Tom, whose advice she had never heeded, and she had 
 added a final failure to her dismal record of defeat. 
 
 Convention and the Record had won. 
 
 Mercilessly accussing thoughts of self-reproach ob- 
 sessed her. 
 
 Terrifying hallucinations of Tom's voice scolding her: 
 "I told you so." 
 
 Haunting echoes of Jerry's cry of despair: "What 
 more could I do?" 
 
 Bitter realization of the hopelessness of opposition to 
 the vicious Press! 
 
 Tragic consequences of her woman's effort to do the 
 work of a man ! 
 
 Humiliating memories of her argument with the Rec- 
 tor: "Be and remain true to that which it is a good 
 woman's stupendous privilege to be a woman .... A 
 woman functions normally and best by influence, rather 
 than by direct action."
 
 238 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Crushing reproach of her refusal to influence and vvcrk 
 through Tom! 
 
 Appalling intimations of the fulfilment of the Rector's 
 prediction: "Th-e penalty for oddness is dementia." 
 
 Horrorstricken, in the depths of despair, she signed 
 her disastrous abdication with her alley name of "Kid." 
 
 "Take this to Bill in the alley," Keating instructed the 
 Record rowdy, handing him Joan's surrender. 
 
 To the photographer he said: 
 
 "Tell the night editor to hold up this story, but to run 
 the other story, as planned." 
 
 Joan dimly wondered, "what other story?" 
 
 Tom still stared at Keating with a wild fury in his 
 eyes. 
 
 As the photographer and newsboy turned to the wait- 
 ing truck, Keating, looking into Tom's menacing face, 
 called to them: 
 
 "If I am not back at the office in half an hour print both 
 stories. Before I return I have some things to say to Mr. 
 Manly which I think his companion will be interested to 
 hear." 
 
 Keating viciously surveyed his victim. 
 
 Manly 's eyes were no more menacing than his. 
 
 Keating was plainly unafraid. 
 
 His attitude was that of the man conserving his power ; 
 withholding his ammunition. 
 
 Joan tottered between the two antagonists in momen- 
 tary peril of collapse, wanting to protect and fight for 
 Tom, fearful of intensifying Keating's vengeance. 
 
 As a deliberate act of seeming caution, rather than fear, 
 Keating left the front door wide open behind him. Barely 
 the length of their arms separated the two men. They
 
 Unconventional Joan 239 
 
 could wildly reach each other's throats in an instant. 
 
 Through the open door the night's chill air blew idly 
 in, unable to cool the fires of hate that burned in their 
 hearts. Outside, and beyond, on all sides, their subjects 
 lay peacefully sleeping, while the masters of their 
 thoughts, controllers of their conduct, custodians of their 
 welfare, temporal and even eternal, savagely faced each 
 other with the venom and fury of wild beasts. 
 
 "Thus," had written poor Larry, "newspapers quarrel, 
 grinding down innocent men and women in their com- 
 plicated assaults upon one another; while the public ig- 
 norant of the motives behind their warfare, passively tol- 
 erates their savagery and eventually imitates it. 
 
 Civilization !
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 look as if you wanted to kill me," sneered 
 Keating. 
 
 His insolence was maddening. 
 
 "You haven't it in you to do it," he continued taunt- 
 ingly. 
 
 Was the man inviting annihilation? 
 
 Manly uttered no word. Joan tightly held his hand. 
 
 Was Keating calculating that Manly was too shrewd 
 to kill him? 
 
 Was Manly plotting a more potent retaliation than 
 murder ? 
 
 "You deceive yourself, and her, that it is her humilia- 
 tion which angers you." 
 
 "Let him rave," Joan whispered. 
 
 Keating heard her, and said : 
 
 "Don't be so solicitous about him. He hasn't been about 
 you." 
 
 Joan felt the shackles of the bondage of imbecility 
 tightening around her. 
 
 "I don't mind telling you, Manly, that your wild eyes 
 don't scare me a bit," Keating continued. "I am not 
 afraid of a traitor like you, and I am not afraid to tell 
 you that I am here to-night to fight you and your paper 
 out of existence. This woman who thinks she holds you 
 from harming me is going to loathe you in the next ten 
 minutes. I am going to drive a knife so sharply between 
 the pair of you that your dirty plots against my paper, 
 and the various campaigns against the "Freedom of the 
 Press," hatched up in the loft next door to the Record 
 
 240
 
 Unconventional Joan 241 
 
 office, will be ended. You have the chance to stop me 
 before I start, if you dare !" 
 
 Manly stared. 
 
 Keating waited a moment, then continued : 
 
 "Thirteen days ago you bowed to this girl and her 
 former lover at the street corner where we have been 
 meeting at six o'clock, and at the same time handed out 
 to me some bait about Englin's plan to "multiply the 
 power of the Press." You thought it was very cleverly 
 done. You calculated that it would lead me into an attack 
 on Englin. And it did. But you didn't figure that the 
 consequences would involve so much fatality. You didn't 
 care, as a matter of fact, because you were actuated by 
 the most unscrupulous of all motives. You planned to 
 have me do the dirty work of attacking Englin and get- 
 ting rid of him so that you could thereby take this girl 
 away from him " 
 
 "Prove it !" gasped Joan, urged now herself to spring 
 at Keating's throat. 
 
 Keating continued to ignore her, and lashed his victim 
 mercilessly. 
 
 "You successfully tempted me to publish next morning 
 an attack on Englin, while at the same time you published 
 some bunk about wirelss telephony to make him, and es- 
 pecially the girl, believe you were friendly to Englin, 
 though you were actually inducing me to belittle him for 
 you" 
 
 "That proves nothing," put in Joan. 
 
 Keating paid no attention to the interruption. 
 
 "While my paper pursued its policy of attacking Eng- 
 lin, as one plotting against our business, your paper kept 
 silence. Was this because you believed the Record's at-
 
 242 Unconventional Joan 
 
 tacks on Englin to be just or because you wanted the girl 
 to imagine you were not inimical to him? You couldn't 
 condemn him and please her, could you ?" 
 
 "If the News had defended Jerry, your paper's attacks 
 would have been intensified," answered Joan. 
 
 Keating still ignored her, and flung another bitter taunt 
 at Tom. 
 
 "Why didn't you, at your age, go to the Front?" 
 
 "Didn't you read the account of his intended departure, 
 printed on the evening of the first announcement of the 
 armistice? He didn't have to go after that," Joan con- 
 tinued, unchecked in her defence of Tom. 
 
 "Oh yes, I read it," Keating said replying to her for 
 the first time. "He didn't go because he feared Englin 
 would get you while he was gone. That was the quality 
 of his patriotism ! And when, on November 8th, the ad- 
 vance rumours about the surrender began to trickle in on 
 the wires, and there was no likelihood of his having to 
 go, he took the chance of slapping into his paper that 
 eulogistic notice concerning himself being about to go 
 which he ripped out an hour later, when the people began 
 celebrating the evident certainty of the impending armis- 
 tice after he had made a record of his unselfish patriot- 
 ism for the attention of his friends." 
 
 Joan looked at Manly. He no longer stared. Like a 
 prisoner at the bar he stood mute, with downcast eyes, 
 submissive to his judge's scathing denunciation of him. 
 
 Keating went unsparingly on with his flogging. 
 
 "When Englin fled, effectually disgraced, through your 
 marvellously clever use of the Record to expose him and 
 get rid of him, it was your voice that told me over the 
 telephone that he had disappeared. You thought I did
 
 Unconventional Joan 243 
 
 not recognize you. I didn't at first. But I did after you 
 had abruptly hung up, and I recognized your motive, too, 
 in wanting him to be as quickly as possible condemned in 
 the Record columns to eternal obloquy, so as to make 
 room for yourself with the girl ; and I played up to your 
 dirty game, and damned him as you wanted him damned, 
 not to please you and help your scheme, but because I 
 hated him for his plotting against the Press." 
 
 Joan bewildered stumbled away from Manly and sank 
 into a chair, while he mechanically stalked across the 
 room to the telephone, sat down beside it, and waited for 
 Keating to finish. 
 
 The room and its contents began to swim in Joan's 
 vision. Deliriously and dimly, she seemed to see two 
 snakes coiled and striking at each other, while people 
 round' about cowered, trembling from fear that the veno- 
 mous fangs would strike in their direction. Faintly she 
 heard a hissing voice: 
 
 "You put Pogo's wench into the Church to desecrate 
 it, as a means of helping you on with your conquest of the 
 girl. Your paper, that might have helped the Rector and 
 his daughter, and saved them, if you believed in them, 
 damned them and suffocated them with silence, deliber- 
 ately" 
 
 "No, no! Not that! Not deliberately!" Joan seemed to 
 hear herself protesting, as it was astoundingly being 
 revealed to her that Tom Manly had fallen a victim to 
 the "Press-promoted passivity" for which he was largely 
 responsible. "Concoctor of conventional cowardice," 
 Larry had alliteratively denounced him, "propagator of 
 popular practice" "supporter of servile submission to 
 things as they are" she realized that he had been con-
 
 244 Unconventional Joan 
 
 sistently and fatally controlled by the very rules of ex- 
 pediency which he had helped to set up, in place of the 
 dictates of conscience. 
 
 The hissing voice continued: 
 
 "When I took the girl into my employ, you knew I 
 didn't do it on her merit as a newspaper writer. But you 
 let it go at that. You calculated it would help to wear 
 her down and subject her to your designs upon her. And 
 after I verified my suspicions of her, by catching her in 
 the very act of trying to wreck my paper, it was no ad- 
 ditional surprise to find you playing up to her newsboy 
 scheme, pretending not to recognize her at the corner, and 
 having her come to you by your tricky note. It's a nice 
 piece of work, Manly taking her from Englin, using her 
 in your paper's interests against me it's a good story " 
 
 The room began fantastically to revolve round Joan 
 with a swift whirling motion that seemed to form a cir- 
 cular dish with blurred objects in it a sort of round nest 
 a nest, that was it a nest of snakes darting and biting 
 at each other with the quickness of lightning flashes. She 
 crouched back in a corner out of their way. The sight 
 of them was appalling; the stench was sickening. She 
 could not stand it. She would have to get out. With a 
 tremendous effort she tried to pick her way to an opening. 
 The centre of the nest wavered beneath her weight. 
 
 "Alley?" Did she hear some one say "alley?" Yes, she 
 was sure she heard a voice: 
 
 "Don't you dare go back to the alley," it said. 
 
 Another tremendous effort she was out of it out 
 into the warm rain no, not rain piteous delusion 
 tears! streaming upon her hot tears furrowing her 
 cheeks, draining her heart of all but its last bit of strength,
 
 Unconventional Joan 245 
 
 blinding her completely and beating her down to the 
 ground. 
 
 ii 
 
 "She's gone," said Keating, triumphantly. 
 
 Manly stood up and stared out through the open door. 
 
 His face was livid. 
 
 "You let her go," Keating sneered at him. "I've di- 
 vided the pair of you, made her despise you, and put you 
 with your newspaper under my thumb, as I told you I 
 would do. I call it a good night's work. Now I am go- 
 ing back to the office to report that you didn't murder 
 me, and then I am going home to bed to dream about how 
 much older and wiser a newspaper man is the editor of 
 the Record than the editor of the News, while you sit 
 here plotting how you are going to retaliate by annihila- 
 ting me in your paper tomorrow. Go ahead ! But don't 
 forget that I hold a couple of interesting photographs of 
 your private life to reveal if you go too far ! And mean- 
 time buy the morning Record and learn from a certain 
 bit of interesting news in it that it does not pay to inter- 
 fere with the 'Freedom of the Press.' Good night." 
 
 He walked calmly out and shut the door behind him. 
 
 in 
 
 When the executioner had departed, his victim, coming 
 to life, feebly lifted the telephone receiver off the hook 
 and called up the office of the News. 
 
 "I neglected, before I left, to tell the night staff to be 
 on hand an hour earlier this evening. See that they are 
 told," he nervously ordered.
 
 246 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "It's half-past two, and everyone has gone for the 
 night," replied his assistant. 
 
 "Call them all up and tell them," said Manly. 
 
 "Right," answered the assistant, remarking to him- 
 self as he made the memorandum: "Some big story must 
 be going to break tonight. I wonder who's going to be 
 exposed now?" 
 
 Tom Manly rushed wildly out into the darkness to find 
 Joan.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ' I V HE little form that had deliriously found its way 
 * back to the alley before it collapsed beside Bill's 
 truck, was discovered by him late in the morning huddled 
 in a heap. 
 
 Unconsciousness had yielded to sleep when Bill tenderly 
 picked Joan up, trying to avoid awakening her, and laid 
 her in the truck. 
 
 The Record bully had duly spread the news that the 
 Kid was a girl. Bill realized it the instant that he heard 
 the tale, and understood then why he had been so strongly 
 attracted to her from the first. 
 
 Joan stirred in Bill's arms, and tried to speak. It was 
 only a feeble murmur. 
 
 "They warned me not to come back to the alley, but 
 there was no place else to go except " she intended to 
 say "the loft," but sank deliriously into sleep again, as 
 Bill gently placed her on the floor of the truck and 
 smoothed back her hair. 
 
 Instantly Joan of Arc entered the fatal cart of execu- 
 tion with her, lifted her up, and said softly: 
 
 "Joan." 
 
 She gazed at her guardian with a wan little smile, and 
 answered meekly: 
 
 "You have something to tell me?" 
 
 "Yes, Joan, if thou canst bear it." 
 
 Joan did not answer at once. No. She did not think 
 she wanted to hear any more. 
 
 The Rector's sympathetic voice encouraged her. 
 
 "Be brave, Joan," he urged. 
 
 247
 
 248 Unconventional Joan 
 
 She turned from his strong face to her guardian angel, 
 strengthened, and answered: 
 
 "Yes, I will hear it." 
 
 "I am come to be with thee at the end, Joan." 
 
 It was then that Bill felt her little body twitch beneath 
 his hand, which protectingly caressed her. And he 
 thought he heard her whisper: 
 
 "The procession, you mean?" 
 
 Trinity chimes began to toll the hour of noon. 
 
 "Yes," mumbled Bill, "tomorrow at this hour." 
 
 "Thy triumphal procession to thy reward," The con- 
 soling words of the Angel fell softly on Joan's ears. 
 
 "My reward for failure?" she gasped. 
 
 "Thy reward, Joan, but not for failure blessed mar- 
 tyrdom !" 
 
 Bill felt a spasm convulse the limp little body in his 
 arms. 
 
 "When?" pleaded Joan. 
 
 Trinity chimes tolled the last stroke of twelve. 
 
 "Now, Joan, now. Look, we are on the way." 
 
 She began to sob in her sleep, and moan, and twist first 
 one way, then another. 
 
 Bill could hardly endure it. For an instant he turned 
 away, with the tears welling up in his eyes. Then he was 
 quickly on his knees beside her, soothingly muttering: 
 
 "There, there" 
 
 And then the violent sobs that shook her body grew less 
 and ceased. The Spirit of Joan of Arc had shown the 
 little Joan the shining badge around her forehead the 
 badge that glistened like the sun as her guardian angel 
 unbound it and pointed to its golden lettering: 
 
 "Protester Dissenter."
 
 Unconventional Joan 249 
 
 Proudly she helped to deck her brow again with the 
 emblem of her honour proud indeed to proclaim to all 
 the world her dissention, her protestation against the 
 evil might of Convention. 
 
 Convention that now would wreak its vengeance on 
 her, blazoning abroad its unassailable supremacy. 
 
 The very trappings of the horses that drew the cart 
 were stamped and decked with a colossal "C", and the 
 banners of the guards along the route flaunted it boldly. 
 But here and there behind the guards she saw the banners 
 of her "Army of the Victims of the Vicious Press," and 
 behold, held firmly back by the sabres of the tyrant's 
 forces, she glimpsed thousands upon thousands of her 
 cohorts, stretching far away into the depths of the city. 
 Sad and singular spectacle ! There to honour her, though 
 powerless to protect. 
 
 As the cart turned into Newspaper Row and paused in 
 front of the newspaper offices, Tom Manly, with ghastly 
 face and dishevelled hair tore frantically through the mob, 
 and flinging himself upon his knees beside the cart, threw 
 up his hands to her and piteously pleaded: 
 
 "Forgive me, Joan, forgive me !" 
 
 And out of her aching heart she forgave him, and in an 
 infinite compassion bent down and told him that she 
 understood that it was not he, but only the poor weaker 
 side of him, trammelled by Convention, caught in the toils 
 of popular practice, that had schemed and plotted so to 
 seize her. 
 
 Midway between the two newspaper offices had been 
 erected a platform, and the stake at which she was to 
 suffer. 
 
 Keating, Pogo and a band of business men of the city
 
 250 Unconventional Joan 
 
 mercilessly judged her. Short shrift from such as these. 
 
 "Protest against Convention is futile." 
 
 The mandate of the judges, pronounced by one of their 
 minions, typical in the hideously familiar eyeshade of the 
 reporter, cut clear and sharp into the tense silence. 
 
 "Disssent from common practice is destructive of the 
 common good. Protesters and dissenters must be de- 
 stroyed, to prevent their destruction of what is best for 
 all." 
 
 And with the words: 
 
 "So perish all the enemies of the Press," he delivered 
 her to her executioner, behind whose mask glittered the 
 venomous, gloating eyes of Keating, her arch-enemy. 
 
 Joan looked beseechingly around for friends. There, 
 close by her side, stood the serene form of Joan of Arc, 
 and near at hand were Margaret and her father, proudly 
 erect, and comforting and encouraging her with their 
 eyes. 
 
 And, as she looked, Jerry came and stood beside her. 
 
 Wistful, gentle Jerry. 
 
 "Jerry!" she breathed. 
 
 A world of love in the single word an ecstacy of con- 
 tentment ! She smiled radiantly at him through her blind- 
 ing tears. 
 
 His dear eyes were worshipping her again. She could 
 read them so distinctly. 
 
 "Give her strength to be a woman," they were saying. 
 
 "Oh, Jerry, how could I," she pleaded, "how could I 
 without you?" 
 
 She stretched out her hands to him. 
 
 "I needed you, Jerry," she chidingly sobbed, "I needed 
 you ever so much more than I knew how could I do
 
 Unconventional Joan 251 
 
 anything except through you taking you away took 
 everything that the woman who loved you needed to have, 
 Jerry needed to have to be a woman to do as you 
 wanted me to do to do my work through another 
 through you to be normal natural right-minded 
 Jerry can't you see that, Jerry? took away my reason 
 - see I can't even think right any more without you 
 Jerry !" She pressed her hands to her eyes. "And I 
 want to, so much, Jerry, I want to 'be just as you want me 
 to be and you can make me so, Jerry you can bring 
 back everything to me oh, dear Jerry, I must be with 
 you" 
 
 His eyes were compassionately answering her telling 
 her that she would come to him instantly through her 
 martyrdom. Joan of Arc was telling her, too. 
 
 "Must I, Jerry?" the frail mortal in her pleaded, as he 
 helped the little form to mount the scaffold to the stake 
 and the faggots that awaited her. 
 
 "Yes, Joan," she heard him tenderly answer her, shield- 
 ing from the stare of the mob her little limbs so soon to 
 be encircled by the flames. 
 
 "I will go, Jerry," she said submissively, striving to 
 hide her limbs by pulling down her jacket over her news- 
 ie's knickers, as if by a final feminine instinct. "You wait 
 here, just in front of me, so that I may see you to the 
 end." 
 
 She placed her back against the stake and gazed down 
 into his worshipping eyes. Then she saw Keating mount 
 up to the top of the scaffold beside her and set to his 
 task. Around her neck she felt him fasten a thick rough 
 rope, twisted and knotted, chafing her delicate skin and 
 twining round it like an earthworm round a flower. Then
 
 2S2 Unconventional Joan 
 
 ^/ +/ 
 
 around her slender body he wound chains that would hold 
 her fast throughout her fiery ordeal, till, vanquished fin- 
 ally, she won her freedom from their fetters. 
 
 Just before he touched the torch to the faggots, she 
 heard Keating call up to her: 
 
 "Will you conform to Convention, Joan?" 
 
 The tones of his voice were kindly, and for the first 
 time he called her by her name. He had a gentle and 
 plaintive accent which contrasted sadly with the haughty 
 harshness of his features. 
 
 But Jerry's eyes spoke courage to her heart, in the last 
 torment of temptation, and she called out loudly: 
 
 "Let me die!" 
 
 ii 
 
 "No! No! No! No!" exclaimed Bill, answering her 
 loud cry, chafing her hands and rudely arousing her from 
 her delirious sleep. 
 
 She raised her eyelids, looked at Bill, then closed them 
 again suddenly wanting to see Jerry. 
 
 "Where am I, Bill?" she asked, later, mistily recog- 
 nizing him through her tears. 
 
 "In the alley, in the truck, in my arms." 
 
 "Are you sure, Bill?" she asked faintly. 
 
 "Quite sure, little lady." 
 
 "Oh! I thought I was with somebody else." 
 
 "Would you prefer to be?" he questioned, hanging 
 upon her answer. She sat up, and patted his arm. 
 
 "You know you have been calling his name," he told 
 her. 
 
 "Jerry?" she enquired. 
 
 Bill solicitously nodded his head.
 
 Unconventional Joan 253 
 
 "Next to him, Bill, you have a terribly big place in 
 my heart but you see, he used to have the whole of it- 
 you would have understood if you had known him 
 and the memory of him and the hurt of never being able 
 to have him will always be there. It has affected me 
 a bit, Bill. I'm not just as I ought to be." 
 
 Bill understood. He knew that. He did not need to 
 be told. He had known it all along. His silence now 
 as much as said so. 
 
 "You see, I have got to be with him to grow better, 
 Bill," she explained. "No one else, not even you, Bill, 
 will do. I have got to die to be with Jerry " 
 Bill looked anxiously up the alley for Nell. 
 Joan began to fumble nervously with the newspapers 
 lying in the truck. 
 
 "What is it, little girl what is it you want?" Bill 
 asked. 
 
 "His picture I used to have it maybe there's one 
 in the paper there was one in it once," she ravingly 
 prattled. 
 
 She pressed one of the papers to her bosom, as if it 
 were Jerry's picture. It was the Record. She did not 
 want that vicious thing near her. She threw it from 
 her. It fell open by her side. There on its front page 
 was the "other story" that Keating had vindictively 
 promised. 
 
 "Bill Bill," she cried, "am I wandering am I read- 
 ing it right?" 
 
 Bill, ignorant of its significance to her, read the head- 
 line to ease her: 
 
 "Electrical Englin Arrested."
 
 254 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Joan hysterically clutched Bill's arm, pulled herself 
 up on her knees beside him and read on: 
 
 "Jerry Englin arrested at instigation of the 'Record' 
 for violating War Regulations governing -wireless. Re- 
 cent tinklings of city telephone bells due to his experi- 
 ments, which set up electrical interferences. Caught last 
 night in his loft laboratory. Now in city jail, etc., etc." 
 
 Joan's poor head swayed helplessly upon her over- 
 burdened shoulders, as she sagged down against Bill. 
 
 The gigantic crushing mass of her crowning sorrow 
 fell like stone upon her! 
 
 At last the uttermost depths of despair! 
 
 The tragic climax of her unconventional career! 
 
 Before her yawned her bottomless abyss! 
 
 Poised on the brink, before her leap, she dimly dis- 
 cerned and surveyed in its depths the frightful ruins of 
 the struggle with the vicious Press. 
 
 Margaret and her father in their graves! 
 
 Larry in the asylum! 
 
 The Church ridiculed! 
 
 The book shop ruined! 
 
 Tom Manly corrupted ! 
 
 Herself disgraced, deserted, abandoned to a life of 
 horrible memories! 
 
 Jerry in prison! 
 
 And she could have intercepted him, during the night, 
 she bitterly realized the lone pedestrian who passed 
 unrecognized behind her in the darkness at one o'clock 
 in the morning probably on the way back to the loft 
 to get some of his equipment while she sat looking up 
 from the kerb at Tom's window !
 
 Unconventional Joan 
 f 
 
 But now he was locked in a felon's cell, and the Record 
 could be counted upon to keep him there. 
 
 While Keating would continue to prosper and Pogo 
 would continue to prosper and Peggy would continue 
 to prosper! 
 
 And the Record would remain supreme over the News! 
 
 With Keating triumphant over Manly! 
 
 And convention vanquishing idealism! 
 
 Jerry's sacrifice of love in vain ! 
 
 Her own conscientious fidelity to instinct unrequited ! 
 
 Everything dear to her destroyed ! 
 
 In all the range of the expressions of human emotion 
 there was left to her no rational outlet for the misery 
 of her soul. 
 
 Childishly clasping Jerry's headline in the Record to 
 her bosom, she crumpled up, unconscious and deliriously 
 crooning in Bill's arms. 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop mad! 
 
 in 
 
 Around her an instant later crackled the flames as they 
 began to ignite the faggots piled beneath her stake. 
 
 Distress shone in her eyes for Jerry. 
 
 She had begged him to stand where she might see 
 him to the end. But the flames were reaching him 
 quickly. 
 
 "Save yourself, Jerry," she shrieked pitifully. 
 
 Then a wreath of pitchy black smoke, interspersed 
 with livid flames, shut him from the sight of her tear- 
 filled eyes, and strangled her as the tongues of flame leapt 
 to her unsullied body.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 i 
 
 T3 ILL sent hurriedly for Nell and together they worked 
 ""^ over Joan in an effort to restore her to consciousness. 
 Bill's part was mainly patrol work, keeping the curious 
 newsboys away from the truck, while Nell's maternal 
 spirit arose and helped out in the vital emergency as she 
 ministered to Joan in the way that only women can care 
 for one another. 
 
 Poor Bills' eyes blinked mistily, and his big heart was 
 breaking with its mixed feelings of sorrow for Joan 
 and hatred for the vicious Press. Joan's merit and pluck, 
 and her importance as revealed by the Record bully's 
 narration of the oppressive attention accorded to her 
 by the Record overnight, raised her in his heart from the 
 level of sympathy to the pinnacle of his most profound 
 reverence. Bill began to feel that he would gladly die 
 for Joan if she could be saved and enabled to go on with 
 her fight. 
 
 "Is she any better, Nell?" he solicitously enquired, 
 peering over the side of the truck. 
 
 At last he heard Joan's voice asking feebly: 
 
 "Is that Bill?" 
 
 He leapt up beside her. Nell was bathing her temples 
 with cold water. Her poor little lips trembled, as her 
 eyes, big with fright, recognized him. She spoke to 
 him: 
 
 "Bill, let me stay right here, in the alley, with you and 
 Nell don't take me away." 
 
 Her eyes closed heavily again while she was looking at 
 him. 
 
 256
 
 Unconventional Joan 257 
 
 "Is she gone, Nell? he sobbed. 
 
 "Sleeping, Bill. She's gone to sleep. It isn't uncon- 
 sciousness now," Nell reassured him. 
 
 Bill almost laughed in his relief. 
 
 "That's good that's good," he kept repeating, "and 
 she stays right here, Nell, you understand? What she 
 says goes! She stays right " 
 
 He caught sight of the Record bully who had blackened 
 her eye, peering into the truck with the newsboys who 
 had crowded up. 
 
 "You damned rascal," he shouted, as he gritted his 
 teeth and jumped over the side, pursuing the terrified 
 lout like a fiend, until he had come close enough to him 
 to land a demolishing kick, when he let go with all his 
 weight behind the blow, missed, and came down on his 
 back, as the bully disappeared in the crowd. 
 
 Picking himself up, and turning back up the alley 
 toward the truck, he saw Tom Manly come through the 
 alley-exit from the News building and walk toward the 
 truck. Bill made for him on the run. He felt an im- 
 pulse to smash his doubled fist against every newspaper 
 official in the city. The editor of the News saw him 
 coming, turned back with as much dignity as he could 
 command in the small period of time allowed to him, 
 gained the door of the News building ahead of Bill and 
 shut it in his face. 
 
 A few minutes later, after Bill had returned to his 
 station beside the truck, Tom Manly slipped out into the 
 alley, unnoticed by Bill, approached a group of newsies 
 near the door and enquired: 
 
 "What's going on in the truck?" 
 
 "Sick newsie," they told him. "Coin' to die.' 
 

 
 258 Unconventional Joan 
 
 He started down towards the truck. Bill saw him 
 coming. Manly put up his hands to arrest attention. 
 For answer, Bill let out a volley of oaths and advanced 
 menacingly. 
 
 "It's a world of hellish torment, I say, and it's devils 
 of newspaper men like you who are constantly making 
 it more miserable instead of better! I'll work for none 
 of you any longer." 
 
 Tom Manly raced for his life back behind the protect- 
 ing door. 
 
 From time to time during Wednesday afternoon the 
 editor of the News came to the alley door and looked 
 down in the direction of the truck securely guarded by 
 Bill, wholly unconscious, of course, of the extreme seri- 
 ousness of its occupant's condition. Scrutinizing him 
 from a distance, Bill thought he had grown older during 
 the day. He had thought the same thing about him 
 when he had seen him searching up and down the alley 
 the preceding day. 
 
 II 
 
 Upstairs in the editorial rooms of the News there was 
 tense excitement. An important meeting of both morn- 
 ing and afternoon staffs had been scheduled to be held 
 late in the afternoon, before work was commenced on 
 the morning edition. During the day, as on the day pre- 
 ceding, reporters noticed that serious and confidential 
 conferences were being held between the editor and his 
 assistants. It was rumoured that the preparations and the 
 meeting had to do with an overwhelming attack upon the 
 Record. 
 
 As the time for the scheduled staff-meeting drew near,
 
 Unconventional Joan 259 
 
 suspense over what might be the projected exposures of 
 the Record affected the conversations of the waiting 
 writers. A remark of one of them, looking across the 
 street at the camp of Keating, typified the thoughts in 
 the minds of all: 
 
 "I shouldn't like to be in your position, tomorrow," he 
 said. 
 
 When the combined meeting of the staff was called to 
 order, much as a general would gather around him his 
 assistants preparatory to an attack, the editor of the News 
 presented the anxiously anticipated material for the 
 morning's sensational revelations in the form of two 
 astounding articles, which took away the breath of the 
 members of the staff to whom they were passed for crit- 
 icism, correction and approval. 
 
 Just at this moment Bill was looking up from the alley 
 at the brilliantly illuminated editorial floor of the News, 
 and profanely speculating: 
 
 "I wonder what hellish exposures they are up to to- 
 night ! Damn them, anyhow, and their eternal exposures. 
 I'll read no more of them !" 
 
 He kept his word. All night long he guarded the 
 truck where Joan lay sleeping beside Nell, and when the 
 foreman of the press-room came out, according to cus- 
 tom, and brought him a first copy of the paper, with the 
 exclamation, "Can you beat that for an answer to the 
 Record? he hurled it back into his face and told him to 
 "go to hell." 
 
 Bill's vociferous explosion awakened Nell, who ordered 
 him to keep quiet. Joan half awoke and muttered, 
 "Jerry." 
 
 "That's a good sign," thought Bill, "she's just sleep-
 
 260 Unconventional Joan 
 
 ing." Aloud to Nell he inquisitively, and Nell imagined, 
 enviously, said: 
 
 "Who's this Jerry?" 
 
 Nell explained to him that it was the Jerry Englin who 
 had been put in jail by the Record, and the greatest act 
 of self-control that Bill had ever practiced in his life 
 was his restraint at that moment of his hatred of Keating, 
 that was piling up prodigiously in his heart against the 
 time when it could be no longer restrained and would 
 break furiously upon the head of the fiend whose func- 
 tion seemed to be to despise and destroy. 
 
 in 
 
 Joan awoke in the truck on Thursday morning oblivi- 
 ous of the past. Dumb apathy had taken the place of 
 outraged feelings. Faculties that had functioned pa- 
 thetically in excess of their capacity refused to function 
 any longer. A glassy stare from vacant blue eyes be- 
 trayed the mental havoc that her shocks had wrought. 
 
 Frightened, Nell sent one of the newsboys after Bill, 
 and meantime did her best to loosen the bonds that had 
 bound up Joan's emotions. 
 
 "I can't make her cry I can't make her smile. She 
 is senseless, Bill she she just looks and prattles," 
 gasped awestricken Nell. "Poor kid ain't it hell to be 
 a girl." She broke down and blubbered. 
 
 Bill stared. 
 
 "Gawd Bill, she's out of her mind," moaned Nell. 
 
 "Don't I know it," mechanically answered Bill, still 
 staring at Joan's piteously emotionless eyes. "Haven't 
 I known it all along? But, at that, she's sane enough 
 for me. If she canJt lead her parade against the scoun-
 
 Unconventional Joan 261 
 
 drels, I can damn them it's important enough " 
 
 "Getting her back to normal is more important," in- 
 terrupted Nell. 
 
 "That can be done, too," answered Bill. 
 
 "How are you going to do it I can't do it. I can't 
 make her cry I can't make her smile she just stares " 
 
 "I'm not going to try. He's going to do it." 
 
 "Who's he?" 
 
 "Jerry Jerry Englin " 
 
 "He's in jail." 
 
 "Maybe we can bail him out got any money?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Makes no difference the sight of him will do- 
 listen:" 
 
 Bill drew somewhat inaccurately upon his memories of 
 Tennyson for Nell's enlightenment: 
 
 "She nor swooned, nor uttered cry; 
 All her maidens watching said, 
 'She must weep or she will die.' 
 
 "Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
 Set her child upon her knee 
 Like summer tempest came her tears 
 'Sweet, my child, I live for thee.' " 
 
 "The sight of him will do," repeated Bill. 
 
 Nell led Joan around to her lodging for a "bit of a 
 wash-up and some breakfast" and then she and Bill gently 
 took her to the jail. 
 
 IV 
 
 On the way Bill tried to explain to Joan that they were 
 going "to see Jerry."
 
 262 Unconventional Joan 
 
 It did not seem to impress her until she saw the jail 
 and the bars. Then Nell thought she detected a sign of 
 returning intelligence in her childish prattle. She ap- 
 peared to have identified the idea of jail in her mind with 
 Jerry. 
 
 "Is Jerry in the jail ?" she blandly asked the policeman 
 behind the high desk. 
 
 Her head did not reach to the top of the desk, and the 
 sergeant had to lean over to see her. 
 
 Bill and Nell towered protectingly on either side of her. 
 
 "Jerry who ?" growled the officer peering down at her. 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed, "I forgot there were other 
 Jerrys I mean my Jerry Jerry Englin." 
 
 "He is," gruffly blurted the thick lips of the big round 
 face pushed over to hers as she rose up on tiptoe to see 
 and be seen. 
 
 "Oh " She sank back from her toes and stood solidly 
 on the floor, dejected, staring. 
 
 "But he is coming out, now," continued the sergeant. 
 
 "Is he is he ?" she exclaimed, rising up on her tiptoes 
 again. 
 
 "Yes, a chap named Manly was in here and left the 
 amount of his bail." 
 
 "Oh-oh-oh!" ejaculated Joan. 
 
 "That was Tom Manly, the editor of the News," Nell 
 excitedly reminded Bill. 
 
 Bill recollected his efforts to thrash him. 
 
 "I'll remember it in his favour," he circumspectly 
 replied. 
 
 Joan ran across to an iron-barred door opening into 
 a corridor leading to the cells, and peered through it. 
 
 Nell leaned heavily on Bill's arm. Her white lips
 
 Unconventional Joan 263 
 
 moved as if in prayer, entreating Heaven for the miracle. 
 Bill's eyes were beginning to overflow. 
 
 A wide shaft of light fell slanting from a window and 
 lit up Joan's face. It had been totally colourless a mo- 
 ment earlier, but now it glowed with expectation, smooth 
 and pure and still girlish in spite of her terrible suffering. 
 
 Half way down the corridor the turnkey opened a 
 clanking door, and she saw Jerry step into the corridor, 
 like a cowed animal let loose from one steel cage into 
 another. 
 
 O agonizing instant suspense unbearable! 
 
 Crisis of her sorrowful career! 
 
 "God be good," reverently muttered impious Bill. 
 
 Nell sobbed aloud. 
 
 "Jer-ry !" Joan's feeble lips stuttered, with all the glad- 
 ness of her heart pulsating in her voice. 
 
 Nell collapsed upon Bill's twitching shoulder, weeping 
 convulsively. Bill's handkerchief hid his brimming eyes. 
 
 "Jer-ry Jer-ry dear Jerry !" 
 
 He had stopped startled mystified. 
 
 Wistful, puzzling, deliberative Jerry he must stop 
 and consider who this little boy in the distance was. 
 
 Joan's tiny jacketed arms stretched through his cage, 
 towards him, standing there. 
 
 Of all places in the world in which to see him again ! 
 
 She swayed a little and clung for support to the bars. 
 
 "Jer-ry -dear Jerry don't you know me Jerry?" 
 
 The sight of his sad eyes unloosed her tears. 
 
 Yes he recognized the voice she could see that 
 but not herself. But how could he she suddenly re- 
 alized in a newsboy's clothes? 
 
 "Jerry, it's Joan," she called to him.
 
 264 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "Joan Joan My God Joan " 
 
 The same piteous cry that once before he had uttered 
 in the loft! The same piteous need of her! 
 
 His dear voice sounding once again in her ears. 
 
 He came hurrying towards her to take her in his 
 arms. 
 
 "Joan, my Joan, my my " 
 
 No he suddenly stopped. 
 
 Not his ! Tom's ! 
 
 Merciless disillusion ! 
 
 Conscientious, considerate, scrupulous Jerry with the 
 same old indomitable spirit of resignation he broke off his 
 pathetic greeting, remembering that he had left her to 
 Tom. 
 
 He must control his emotions. She was Tom's. 
 
 "Joan dear Joan," he substituted, "it was just like 
 you and wonderful old Tom to provide my bail and get 
 me out of here !" 
 
 And Joan clinging weakly to his arm, and weeping as 
 he patted her hand, said to him: 
 
 "Jerry, I want to tell you about Tom." She must 
 explain. 
 
 "Yes, Joan I I want to hear about Tom about you 
 and Tom." It took the whole of his courage to say it 
 to make it seem to her that he was really happy over her 
 being with Tom. But it tried him too terribly to linger 
 on it. He sought to lead the conversation away from 
 Tom. 
 
 "So you are a newsboy, now, Joan," he playfully re- 
 marked and there he was getting right back to her with 
 Tom again because it was plain to him that her costume 
 meant she was helping Tom in some of his newspaper
 
 Unconventional Joan 265 
 
 investigations, just as she used to help him faithfully in 
 the loft. Once so devoted to him, now devoted to Tom ! 
 
 Joan could not answer. She wanted him to take her 
 in his arms, right there, before them all. 
 
 The evidence of her unknown suffering affected him 
 terribly. So profoundly had she been broken by despair 
 that her hold upon her returning faculties was precar- 
 iously insecure. He surmised that her agitation was due 
 to her recollection of their former intimacy hurting her 
 just as it was unbearably hurting him. He tried to dis- 
 tract her from it. 
 
 "Won't you introduce me to your friends, Joan," he 
 stooped and softly asked her. 
 
 She controlled herself with a tremendous effort and 
 meaningly replied: 
 
 "Next to you, Jerry, these are the two best friends I 
 have, Bill and Nell." 
 
 "But you have good old Tom," he comfortingly re- 
 monstrated, failing utterly to see what she meant. 
 
 They moved to the door. The sorry little procession 
 walked along aimlessly in the direction of Newspaper 
 Row Jerry and Joan together, Bill and Nell following 
 behind. Homeless, friendless, worn out from suffering, 
 all of them, shabbily attired, practically penniless, con- 
 fronted by venomous court proceedings in the morning, 
 the little band would never have been picked by any of 
 the prosperous pedestrians among whom it made its way 
 as being destined within the hour to clash and grapple 
 stupendously with the mightiest of all earthly forces, in 
 the most important revolution that the world had ever 
 seen attempted. 
 
 They stopped at the "corner."
 
 266 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Jerry and Joan looked knowingly into each other's 
 eyes. 
 
 Their corner. 
 
 Where they had seen each other last. 
 
 Where Jerry had awkwardly revealed his love. 
 
 The meeting place of life's currents. 
 
 Intimate with all their ups and downs. 
 
 Tarrying place for thousands. 
 
 It had been that to them. 
 
 Turning point for others. 
 
 Was it yet to be the turning point for them the corner 
 in their lives? 
 
 Snatches of familiar conversation greeted their ears. 
 
 "Hello Ed: Goodbye" 
 
 " Come along with me " 
 
 " Get out of my way " 
 
 "Let's turn here" 
 
 Joan bought the morning papers, as she had done so 
 often before. 
 
 "I'll have one, too," familiarly said Bill. "It's my 
 business, or used to be, but I haven't seen them yet." 
 
 "We'll leave you here, a while," said Nell, pulling 
 reluctant Bill away. 
 
 "That's right," acquiesced Bill. "We'll leave you 
 here a while and you can tell him about your new clothes 
 and the black eye," he added with great seriousness. 
 "And when you want us we'll be back in the alley, at 
 the paper-room. You can give us a ring, eh, Nell ?" 
 
 Bill sauntered slowly off after Nell, who led the way. 
 Joan gazed after them with tear-filled eyes, and said to 
 Jerry: 
 
 "I owe them my life, Jerry." Then she added, still
 
 Unconventional Joan 267 
 
 trying to make him understand, "and my return to you." 
 
 A bright November sun shone full upon her, and added 
 to the warmth of love that burned her little body through 
 and through. Life had returned. It seemed to her that 
 she had been rescued from hell and borne into God's 
 bright world outside. She was still clinging to Jerry's 
 arm. 
 
 "I want to tell you about Tom," she began again, as 
 soon as Bill and Nell had gone. 
 
 "Yes, tell me about Tom, Joan," he answered, know- 
 ing it would be hard to hear, but wanting her to have 
 the happiness of telling him. 
 
 "Up in the loft, Jerry; shall we go up to the loft 
 in the old way?" 
 
 "Yes, Joan," he replied, wondering how he would be 
 able to stand going up there with her again. "Let's go 
 up to the loft, in the old way." 
 
 Arm in arm, helping each other, they walked half-way 
 down the block to the familiar doorway alongside of the 
 Record building, and entered. 
 
 "What possible catastrophe is waiting for us up here 
 where we have suffered so much?" they were both won- 
 dering, as they paused upon the threshold. 
 
 "Yelp-yelp-yelp-yelp," came a chorus of canine voices. 
 
 "That's the Paregorics welcoming us back," cried Joan 
 happily. "Come on, Jerry," she exclaimed, as she went 
 hurrying up the stairs tugging at his arm.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 JOAN sat down at her little breakfast table, and said: 
 "Jerry, I want to tell you about Tom." 
 
 "Yes, Joan," he replied, very slowly, not anxious, and 
 forcing himself to rejoice with her in her happiness over 
 Tom. 
 
 He picked up Tom's paper, which she had purchased 
 at the corner, to keep looking at it while she talked to 
 him, not trusting himself to watch her while she spoke 
 of her happiness with his successful rival. 
 
 Instantly, he ejaculated: 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 Joan feared to look, feeling, as Bill had felt, that she 
 could bear no more newspaper exposures. Was it about 
 Jerry, she wondered, or might it be Tom's reply to Keat- 
 ing?" 
 
 She forced herself to look. 
 
 It was Tom's answer to Keating. 
 
 How monstrous! Unprecedented! Extraordinary! 
 
 And yet, her first hurried glance convinced her that it 
 was the one natural and compulsory solution of his prob- 
 lem their problem the nation's problem! 
 
 Veritable thunderbolt, unexpected, mercilessly fatal! 
 
 Clinging to Jerry's arm, Joan stared in stupefied won- 
 derment, and marvelled at the master-stroke delivered by 
 their old schoolmate. 
 
 "Wonderful Tom!" commented Jerry. 
 
 Joan made no reply as she pored over the results of 
 Tom's Tuesday and Wednesday conferences with his 
 associates, as contained in the two articles which he had 
 
 268
 
 Unconventional Joan 269 
 
 presented to his staff the evening before for approval, 
 and which he now presented to the public. 
 
 II 
 
 Occupying the whole of the top of the front page of 
 the morning News, Joan saw printed in heavy, dignified 
 type: 
 
 MY CONFESSION 
 BY 
 
 Thomas Manly 
 Editor 
 
 Underneath this challenging and humiliating headline, 
 radically different from any headline ever before inserted 
 in any paper by any editor, followed a series of terse, 
 self-condemnatory paragraphs: 
 
 "I am a prostitute among you, my fellow citizens. 
 
 "I have gone about among you, searching everywhere and 
 ahvays for human weakness. 
 
 "When I have found it I have made money out of it for 
 my keepers and for myself. 
 
 "When I have failed to find it I have produced it. 
 
 "Instead of being the greatest power for good among you, 
 I am the most vicious influence in the lives of all 
 of you. 
 
 "Instead of serving you I prey upon you and compel you 
 to serve my keepers, the politicians and the profiteers. 
 
 "Instead of championing your rights, needs and aspirations, 
 I force the will of my keepers upon you.
 
 270 Unconventional Joan 
 
 "/ make you believe in -war or peace, as their profits demand 
 in vice or virtue, in Heaven or Hell. 
 
 "Instead of publishing public opinion as I find it I manu- 
 facture it. 
 
 "Instead of mental and moral food I feed you poison brewed 
 by deputies of the devil demoralising rubbish. 
 
 "Therefore nothing that enters your home is so contaminat- 
 ing and contemptible as my newspaper. 
 
 "Nobody is viler than the man who edits and is responsible 
 for the material which it contains." 
 
 "In place of an exposure of Keating," Joan amazed, 
 comprehended and said: "It is actually an exposure of 
 himself." 
 
 "1 miserably confess to having been the willing tool of my 
 unscrupulous keepers. 
 
 "I have accepted a princely salary to keep my conscience 
 out of the paper which I edit for them, not for you. 
 
 "Those under me have been compelled to follow my example 
 in order to keep their jobs. 
 
 "We pretend to justify our practices in the name of 'Free- 
 dom of the Press' when we have actually substituted 
 'Licence' for 'Freedom.' 
 
 "Our real business is to lie, conceal, exaggerate, pervert, 
 vilify and blackmail for profit, under the protection 
 of the 'Freedom of the Press.'" 
 
 "Think of such an admission," ejaculated Jerry, "not 
 accusation but admission and coming from the lips of 
 an editor himself ! Think of the fine effect it will have 
 when circulated around the country ! Think of the good 
 that it will do ! Brave old Tom !" 
 
 They continued to read:
 
 Unconventional Joan 271 
 
 "It is our secure professional prerogative and obligation to 
 dishonour and ruin. 
 
 "We arbitrarily sell you for a living. 
 
 "We are uncontrollable' mental and moral bandits who keep 
 you constantly afraid of us. 
 
 "We are fearless hired assassins who terrorize you into 
 subjection to us. 
 
 "For money -we recklessly kill the things we love most. 
 
 "When we cannot kill with the truth we use half-true 1 head- 
 lines which are just as deadly. 
 
 "We have never been known to admit being wrong and we 
 have never been known to praise. 
 
 "But we have come to feel the disgrace of prostituting our 
 ability for a livelihood and we have penitently decided 
 that if we cannot live by promoting conventional 
 uplift, we will go out of existence rather than persist 
 in our detestable position of propagating conventional 
 demoralization." 
 
 "It is your influence upon Tom, Joan, that has changed 
 him," said Jerry admiringly. "It is your victory as much 
 as it is his." 
 
 Joan was thinking of her last words to Tom, when she 
 had said to him : "Be brave enough to save yourself, and 
 make me happy by letting me know when you get the 
 courage to do it." 
 
 Tom had found the marvellous courage to do it. 
 
 Tom always did something! 
 
 But although making her happy by his self -conquest, 
 there was a tinge of sadness in the happiness which she 
 could not explain.
 
 272 Unconventional Joan 
 
 She read on: 
 
 "God helping us, we will henceforth attack the fundamental 
 evils of our social and economic system. 
 
 "Unswayed by any influence, we will print the news that 
 is fit to print, exactly as we see it, to the best of our 
 ability. 
 
 "We can never undo the wrong that we have been respon- 
 sible for in the past, but we intend to try in the 
 future to use our tremendous influence properly, in 
 your interest. 
 
 "Humbly and sincerely signed for myself and my staff 
 
 "Thomas Manly, Editor." 
 
 "There is no man greater than the man who humbly 
 confesses and sincerely endeavours to make amends," 
 commented Jerry, with fires of sincere admiration and 
 extraordinary excitement in his eyes. 
 
 Joan read the second article aloud. It was brief: 
 
 "We, the undersigned members of the staff of the NEWS, 
 are in sympathetic revolt against the conventional 
 demoralization propagated by unscrupulous news- 
 papers, and we pledge ourselves to overthrow this 
 most despotic tyranny that has ever oppressed the 
 human race." 
 
 Joan calculated that Tom's revolutionary policy meant 
 running the risk of financial ruin and oblivion. Jerry 
 broke in on her thoughts with an exactly contrary re- 
 flection: 
 
 "It is an overwhelming victory, Joan. It spells ruin 
 for the Record and enormous prosperity for you and 
 Tom. It is unbeatable "
 
 Unconventional Joan 273 
 
 "Jerry, I want to tell you about Tom," Joan inter- 
 rupted him. 
 
 "It isn't necessary, Joan. Tom has told it himself 
 told it magnificently." 
 
 His eyes sparkled like the flashes of his dynamos as 
 he excitedly got up, walked back into his workshop, and 
 began to busy himself with his beloved machines. 
 
 There was something in his manner so confidently and 
 contentedly unlike him that Joan did not at first under- 
 stand. 
 
 His demeanour mystified her. 
 
 Joan had never seen him look so happy. Never before 
 in his life had he actually been so happy. 
 
 "Let's find out how the Record feels about it," he called 
 to her. "Come here, Joan." 
 
 His happy eyes gave him away. 
 
 Joan read his secret in them before he revealed it. 
 
 She flew to him in an ecstacy of excitement. 
 
 "Jerry Jerry tell me Jerry what makes you look 
 so happy? Jerry " 
 
 He was masterful in his manner ! 
 
 A skilful adjustment of his rheostat and his dynamos 
 began to hum in their soothing way. 
 
 His beloved dynamos! He could not have Joan, but 
 he could be absorbed in them. His mind slipped auto- 
 matically into tune with their peaceful murmuring. His 
 features took on their wistful look. Once again he was 
 the same old Jerry. 
 
 Solemn, meditative, serious Jerry. 
 
 With the old deliberation he turned to her and said: 
 
 "Yes, I am happy, Joan, tremendously happy, Joan, 
 because at last I can do something to make you happy,
 
 274 Unconventional Joan 
 
 instead of doing as I have always done make you sad." 
 
 He paused and lifted up the telephone. 
 
 "Yes," he continued as he listened with the receiver 
 at his ear, "I can now do something helpful for you 
 for you and Tom."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 i 
 
 TT'S such a stupendously big thing that Tom has done 
 * for you Joan, in fact for everybody, that my bit 
 won't mean so much to you no, of course not! What 
 am I saying? Of course nothing of mine could possibly 
 mean as much to you as what Tom has done. What 
 I meant, Joan, was that the bigness of what Tom has 
 done, and the bigness about it that must be so grati- 
 fying to you, and so different in its effects upon you 
 from anything that I could do for you, is his sacrificing 
 self-conquest." 
 
 He hurriedly busied himself with the adjustments of 
 his mechanism as he talked. 
 
 "It's tremendous ! Nobody but Tom and you can ap- 
 preciate the bigness of it more than I do, Joan. Tom 
 has mastered the greatest obstacles imaginable within 
 and without. Tom has done the biggest thing that it is 
 possible for a man to do. And, of course, it's due to 
 you, Joan; it was done for you. Nothing really big 
 was ever done by any man excepting to please or help 
 or save a good woman. And when what the man does 
 is a sacrifice, such as Tom's, it takes the best that is in 
 a man his most unselfish love to do it; the kind of 
 love, of course, that begets love demands love in return. 
 Happy girl, possessing a good man's love proved by 
 sacrifice !" 
 
 Abstracted, argumentative Jerry, theorizing in the 
 same old way. 
 
 His convincing and impartial manner of emphasizing 
 Tom's worth might easily have intensified solicitude in 
 
 275
 
 276 Unconventional Joan 
 
 many a tormented woman's heart to the critical point 
 where, confronted with the obligation of selection, she 
 would weigh her love and her sympathy in the same 
 scale, and choose the object of her pity, to her eternal 
 misfortune, or else make no decision whatsoever, and 
 simply suffer herself to be carried away by the one who, 
 in the hour of her crisis, stormed her heart and captured 
 it by the very vehemence of his assault. Thus destiny 
 sometimes seems to take unfair advantage of a heart 
 already overtaxed and burdened with suffering, by bring- 
 ing instead of surcease of sorrow an additional tortuous 
 problem to test, and frequently to destroy the sufferer. 
 Thus rivals, regardless of merit, have lost or won in the 
 race of love, by force of circumstance. 
 
 Joan, standing beside Jerry in front of his dynamos 
 and coils, and lamps, and condensers, and batteries and 
 telephones, listening as of old to the hum of the arm- 
 atures, watching the sparks snapping over the induction 
 coils, pressed him for the details of his invention in a 
 tactful effort to lead his conversation away from Tom 
 to himself. She had been familiar with his experi- 
 ments and what he aimed to accomplish up to a certain 
 point, but not beyond. 
 
 "Where have you been experimenting, Jerry?" she 
 enquired. 
 
 "Down at the telephone company's plant, mostly," he 
 replied. 
 
 "Why did you go down there?" 
 
 "I will show you, in a minute. But I was back here 
 in the old loft again, night before last." 
 
 "You passed in front of the Record building going 
 toward the loft, after midnight?"
 
 Unconventional Joan 277 
 
 "How did you know?" 
 
 "You passed behind me sitting on the kerb in front 
 of the Record Building looking over at Tom's office in 
 the News Building," she explained before she realized 
 what she had said. 
 
 "Oh, waiting for Tom. Playing newsboy in connec- 
 tion with some of his plans." 
 
 "Jerry, I want to tell you about Tom " 
 
 'If I had seen you and stopped I might not have been 
 arrested," Jerry interrupted TOST. 
 
 Arrested ! 
 
 Joan shuddered. 
 
 "When was it that you were arrested, Jerry?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Five minutes after I passed you," he replied. "Keat- 
 ing caught me on the fire-escape that runs from the loft 
 floor to his editorial floor, in the rear of the building. I 
 had slipped a dictograph into his editorial room earlier 
 in the evening. I had reasons for wanting to know 
 what goes on in there. I am listening to him now." He 
 placed a telephone receiver to his ear. 
 
 "Keating had no case against me. He suspected I 
 had been responsible for the occasional ringing of the 
 telephone bells all over the city. He called up the au- 
 thorities, charged me with making wireless experiments 
 that interfered with telephone currents, invoked certain 
 war restrictions under which to hold me, sent me down 
 to headquarters, and had me locked up " 
 
 "Had he any proof that your experiments actually 
 interfered with the telephone currents?" Joan solicitously 
 interrupted. 
 
 "He will have proof in a minute," Jerry answered,
 
 278 Unconventional Joan 
 
 with a suggestion of vindictiveness in his tone, "but he 
 wasn't bothering about proof. My removal was his pur- 
 pose, as it has always been," he continued, with restrained 
 bitterness, as he went back in his mind over Keating's 
 incessant and unsparing campaign to eliminate him as an 
 enemy of the "Freedom of the Press." 
 
 "Then you did ring the city's telephone bells?" Joan 
 enquired. "How did you do it? From the telephone 
 company's plant?" 
 
 "We will do it right from this room," Jerry replied. 
 
 "But you have no wires running into all the city's 
 homes?" she queried. 
 
 "No, and neither has the lightning flash, Joan, and 
 yet that can and does occasionally ring every telephone 
 bell in the city. And there are no wires between the 
 wireless stations of two countries which can telegraph 
 and even telephone to each other without them." 
 
 "True enough," replied Joan, "but wireless telephone 
 equipments are fitted with delicate valves which detect 
 and rectify and amplify currents communicated to them 
 by such broadcasting stations as yours here." She picked 
 up one of the tubular glass valves, to emphasize her 
 argument, and pointed to the tuning apparatus, as she 
 continued : 
 
 "The citizens' telephones are not equipped with these 
 things, therefore they cannot receive wireless communi- 
 cations." 
 
 Jerry admiringly let her talk, wanting her to solve her 
 problem herself. 
 
 "But, even though the citizens' telephones are not 
 equipped with detectors and amplifiers, they are never- 
 theless reached by the electric waves which are sent forth
 
 Unconventional Joan 279 
 
 by our broadcasting station here and which reach every- 
 where " he prompted. 
 
 "Reached, yes," Joan interrupted him, "but the ordin- 
 ary 'phones are not in tune with the waves and can't get 
 in tune with them, because they have no tuning apparatus, 
 no valves, no detectors, no amplifiers." She held to her 
 point. 
 
 "I admit that, Joan, but instead of the telephones get- 
 ing into tune with the waves, did it occur to you that the 
 waves might be put into tune with the telephones might 
 be shot through the air so completely in tune with the 
 telephones, .like the lightning flash, as to ring them, and 
 make speech with them possible, without wires and with- 
 out detectors or amplifiers?" 
 
 "That is impossible," insisted Joan. 
 
 "Nothing is impossible at least not forever!" insisted 
 Jerry. 
 
 "Doing the impossible is what many an amateur has 
 accomplished when he has made his crude apparatus 
 little more improved than an ordinary 'phone pick up 
 waves a thousand miles away. Doing the impossible is 
 the electrical experimenter's duty. It was impossible for 
 me to do what I have done until you pointed out to me 
 the proper test to make, and until I carefully studied the 
 telephone company's equipment; but it is not impossible 
 now, and, if you are ready we will do it, and give Keating 
 his proof, and the shock of his life, and supply you and 
 Tom with an aid in your campaign against the injurious 
 monopoly of propaganda by the vicious Press." 
 
 "But, Jerry, if you can lift up that telephone and talk, 
 unrestrainedly, to all the telephones in the city without 
 their being equipped with standardized receiving appar-
 
 280 Unconventional Joan 
 
 atus, controlled by the Press, there no longer is any mon- 
 opoly of news or propaganda by the Press !" 
 
 The significance of the invention, and its unlimited 
 possibilities, amazed her. 
 
 "Exactly," quietly replied Jerry. 
 
 "Wonderful Jerry!" She applied to him the epithet 
 he had so regularly applied to Tom. 
 
 "Not so wonderful as the man who first talked over a 
 wire, or the man who first telegraphed without wires, or 
 the man who first talked from continent to continent 
 through the air," Jerry humbly replied. "My little in- 
 vention is the simplest of logical steps onward from 
 what has previously been done, and it would very quickly 
 have been accomplished by somebody other than myself 
 even by some amateur if you had not helpfully sup- 
 plied me with the 'missing link' on the night of the first 
 news of the Armistice." 
 
 "But its possibilities are prodigious," insisted Joan. 
 "You underrated it when you led us to believe you were 
 merely aiming to 'Multiply the Power of the Press.' You 
 have not only multiplied but annihilated the power of the 
 unscrupulous Press." 
 
 "Annihilate wireless broadcasters of enemy propa- 
 ganda it could have done that during the war," he dis- 
 mally reflected, remembering the operations of the Ger- 
 man wireless tower at Nauen. "Today I could have 
 closed this little electric switch and unrestainedly out- 
 stripped such liars in a lightning-like dash ahead of them, 
 to not merely a few telephones in tune but to all of them 
 to the brains of the world." 
 
 "You can still do it today. The broadcasters of vicious 
 propaganda are still at it." She pointed to Keating's
 
 Unconventional Joan 281 
 
 room next door. "It will be just as valuable to the 
 nation now, and to you, too, Jerry," she comforted him. 
 "You will be rich, immensely rich." 
 
 "I could be richer," he said to himself, thinking of 
 Joan with Torn. Aloud he excitedly said: 
 
 "Just listen to this, Joan." 
 
 He handed her the telephone connected with the dict- 
 ograph in Keating's editorial room, and strode vin- 
 dictively over to the wall that separated him from his 
 persecutor. Once before he had stood at this same wall, 
 gritting his teeth and muttering in his ungovernable re- 
 sentment of Keating's oppression of him: "I'll take away 
 from him his power to do to others what he has done 
 to me." 
 
 His hour had come ! 
 
 This time he said: 
 
 "I am going to crush you as I would the vilest snake 
 that crawls." 
 
 He could have heard Keating's venomous voice at that 
 very moment, screeching in fury, if he had placed his 
 ear to the wall. 
 
 "Oh oh oh listen to what he is plotting to do to 
 Tom " Joan exclaimed in consternation. "Jerry we 
 must warn we must save Tom," she nervously added, 
 and Jerry hurried to her side vowing that he would pro- 
 tect Tom for her. 
 
 He listened with the receiver for a moment, and then 
 
 said: 
 
 "We will let the whole city hear what Keating is plot- 
 ting! Ready! Quick! Press the switch down, Joan! 
 To you belongs the honour of issuing the first edition 
 of the freest, widest, most independent and unmonopo-
 
 282 Unconventional Joan 
 
 lized news-service that the world has so far received." 
 
 Joan pressed the switch. 
 
 Instantly a hundred thousand telephones rang in a 
 hundred thousand homes, offices, workshops, schools, 
 rectories, hospitals and public institutions, and a hundred 
 thousand men, women and children listened in stupefac- 
 tion to Jerry's voice announcing: 
 
 "Your telephone is now connected with the secret- 
 chamber of your despotic tyrant, the editorial room of the 
 editor of the Record, and you will hear what the monster 
 and his minions are plotting against you and the editor of 
 the News in retaliation for his courageous confession and 
 promise published this morning. Listen!" 
 
 Jerry switched on the dictograph wire from Keating's 
 office, and a hundred thousand startled ears heard Keat- 
 ing excitedly repeating: 
 
 " we are ruined there is no hope for the Record 
 against the News now we will set fire to our building 
 at once our insurance money is all the money that this 
 plant can ever make now we will see that the loft build- 
 ing next door is burned up too, together with its electrical 
 apparatus that 'Electrical Englin* is using against the 
 Press there's a strong enough wind blowing maybe we 
 can burn up a part of the city too the bigger the fire 
 the worse for the editor of the News we will implicate 
 him we will prove that he enviously applied the torch 
 we will have him proved crazy his mad 'confession* 
 proves it already he must go down with us in our 
 crash " 
 
 The hundred thousand ears heard Keating repeating 
 the details of his plot for a moment longer then they 
 heard one of his assistants interrupt him and tell him
 
 Unconventional Joan 283 
 
 what the telephones in the room were repeating then 
 they heard him curse Jerry Englin, and give the order 
 to 'start the conflagration at once' and immediately a 
 hundred thousand frightened and maddened listeners 
 dropped their telephone receivers and went tearing and 
 crowding towards Newspaper Row. 
 
 ii 
 
 Jerry and Joan ran to the window and with throbbing 
 hearts watched the frenzied mob below, as it gathered 
 for its assault upon the Record building next door. 
 
 The crowd overflowed into all the neighbouring streets. 
 
 Uproar filled the city. 
 
 Bill and Nell waiting at the telephone for word from 
 Joan, had read Tom's paper and got Jerry's telephone 
 revelation. The alley was jammed with men, women 
 and boy members of Joan's "Army of the Victims of 
 the Vicious Press," who had not been disbanded. Bill 
 and Nell hurried them into line with their banners and 
 rushed them into the street, where they were now stand- 
 ing in front of the Record building, with all their banners 
 turned towards Keating's windows. 
 
 From their straining throats arose an immense and 
 threatening imprecation. 
 
 Bill started upstairs to the loft. Nell demurred. 
 
 "I am going up to give her a note from the editor of 
 the News" he explained to her. 
 
 Joan's eyes glistened as she peered across the fire- 
 escape at the appalling climax of her crusade the new 
 aspect of Newspaper Row the removal of Government 
 from vicious newspaper control and its restoration to the 
 people.
 
 284 Unconventional Joan 
 
 At that moment mid-day tolled slowly out from the 
 clock of Trinity steeple. The appointed hour the hour 
 selected by Joan and Bill and Nell the hour selected, 
 abandoned, now surprisingly replaced. The last vibra- 
 tion of the twelfth stroke had hardly died away when 
 heads beneath the fluttering banners swayed like waves 
 beneath a squall and an immense shout went up: 
 
 "Joan, Joan!" 
 
 "That's my army," she fancifully informed Jerry. 
 "Bill and Nell and I organized it to fight the tyranny 
 of the vicious Press. That's why I am wearing news- 
 boy's clothes." She excitedly told him all about Joan 
 of Arc. 
 
 Jerry measured her few feet of slender stature, and 
 murmured what Margaret had said: 
 
 "Joan, you're bigger than most men." 
 
 From the crowd there came tremendous howls in 
 which were mingled all tongues all dialects all accents. 
 
 "This day makes history," commented Jerry. "The 
 day of the triple attack upon the vicious Press by Joan 
 and Tom and their friend Jerry." 
 
 The scene in the street had become terrifying. The 
 tumult was increasing. There was no resisting that ra- 
 ging tide of frightful faces. Wrath made their fierce 
 countenances blood-red, their brows were dripping with 
 sweat, their eyes darted lightnings. The fateful hour of 
 the Revolution against the unscrupulous Press had come ! 
 
 The people's hour! They had silently hated their 
 vicious Press and had not known what to do about it. 
 Now they knew, and they were doing it! 
 
 Their pleas had been ignored. Their influence had 
 been destroyed. The stubborn pride and insane avarice
 
 Unconventional Joan 285 
 
 of their tyrant had driven them straight to the precipice 
 of revolution. The Record's cruelty, greed, lust of power 
 and falsehood were to be dealt with by other than im- 
 possible legal means. The pent-up hatred of the city 
 was let loose! 
 
 Clubs of policemen hopelessly beating back the mob 
 gave way to the bayonets of boys deprived of using them 
 elsewhere by the sudden ending of the war. Instead of 
 the great munition factories and depots which they had 
 hoped to attack abroad, these disappointed fighters stood 
 sullenly confronting Keating's gigantic munition factory, 
 where Pogo and other privileged interests manufactured 
 mental bombs and gas shells for their annihilation. 
 Threateningly they clamoured for their tyrant, more 
 hated than the foreign enemy. 
 
 Suddenly dense clouds of smoke rolled from the upper 
 floors of the Record office. 
 
 The staff took to the fire-escapes and started down- 
 wards on the front of the building. 
 
 A hundred rifles shot up to a hundred shoulders to pick 
 them off one by one. 
 
 Joan shrieked ! 
 
 These boys who had gathered around her in Keating's 
 office, and told her with their eyes that they hated the 
 work they had to do they must not die ! 
 
 She leapt out upon the fire-escape that ran down the 
 front of the loft building, in the midst of the smoke, and 
 screamed above the roar below. 
 
 The sight of her, still clad in her knickers like one of 
 them, evoked an ovation from her army of supporters 
 in the street, and momentarily distracted the riflemen 
 from their prey.
 
 286 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Instantly she was in command! 
 
 Jerry had run back to the loft door to let in some one 
 knocking at it Bill! 
 
 Meantime Keating came crawling along the Record 
 cornice through the smoke and flames toward Joan. 
 
 Rifles were jerked up to shoulders once again. 
 
 Joan flung up a protecting hand. 
 
 The rifles were lowered. 
 
 In her eyes shone compassion, and the will to help. 
 
 In his eyes terror, hatred, and the lust for vengeance. 
 
 "Jerry!" she shrieked, and reached over to extend to 
 Keating a helping hand. 
 
 But Jerry had gone to let in Bill. 
 
 Keating strained forward to take her hand. 
 
 The cornice crumpled beneath his weight ! 
 
 He hung by his hands! 
 
 Doomed ! 
 
 Joan clutched the iron railing of the fire-escape with 
 her right hand, and leaning far over into the blinding 
 smoke, stretched out her left hand to the poor wretch 
 swinging within a few feet of it. 
 
 From that point, gibbeted, he seemed to be showing 
 to the entire city. 
 
 "Jerry!" she screamed again. 
 
 Keating swung his body backward to get momentum 
 for a lurching leap at Joan's extended hand. 
 
 A doomed man's desperate attempt. 
 
 A demon's diabolical design. 
 
 She might sustain his weight if he caught her hand! 
 
 Mad hope ! 
 
 If she could not he would carry her with him down 
 to destruction!
 
 Unconventional Joan 287 
 
 Mad revenge! 
 
 He leapt. 
 
 Joan's little body strained towards him. 
 
 Jerry and Bill reached the fire-escape at the instant of 
 the leap! 
 
 Four tense hands strongly, agonizingly grasped her 
 arm struggled to draw her back 
 
 But Keating's frantic clutch was on her wrist with the 
 grip of death ! 
 
 He hung dangling in full view of the horror-stricken 
 mob! 
 
 His dead-weight, and part of Joan's, against the 
 strength of Jerry and Bill! 
 
 And the flames driving closer! 
 
 All of them on the brink! 
 
 The mob breathless ! 
 
 Fire-bells clanged and firemen struggled to lift a ladder. 
 
 It would be too late. 
 
 Keating was tugging Joan down ! 
 
 A great gasp broke from the crowd. 
 
 He had let go! Shrieking, they saw him fall down 
 through the smoke to his doom. 
 
 in 
 
 Nell hurriedly joined Bill in the loft after the Record 
 fire had burned itself out and the mob had dispersed. 
 
 Joan's eyes detected Nell's motive instantly. She re- 
 membered how reluctant Bill had been when Nell had 
 pulled him along with her as the four leaders of the little 
 band had entered Newspaper Row and stopped at the 
 "corner" a short while before beaten then all four of 
 them triumphant now!
 
 288 Unconventional Joan 
 
 Joan glanced out of the corner of her eyes at poor old 
 Bill looking at her yearningly, and confirmed her sus- 
 picions of the motive of Nell's visit. Then she looked 
 from him to Nell. Bill followed her eyes, and looked at 
 Nell, too. 
 
 Nell was quietly weeping. 
 
 Bill understood. 
 
 His big heart overflowed in a comforting reassurance 
 to his pal that he had "merely come up to deliver to Miss 
 Joan a note which Mr. Manly had entrusted to him to 
 give to her," which relieved Nell completely. 
 
 Joan turned crimson at mention of the note from Tom, 
 and looked towards Jerry standing at the window watch- 
 ing the smouldering ruins. 
 
 "I guess we'll go, now Nell," mumbled Bill. 
 
 Joan held his hand and Nell's, trying to speak to them 
 as they departed, but had to let them go with only the 
 assurance in her eyes of what the lump in her throat 
 would not let her say. 
 
 "I suppose there won't be any trial," Jerry remarked, 
 as he continued looking out of the window. He was 
 thinking of what Keating might have tried to do to him 
 in court on the morrow. 
 
 "Trial!" thought Joan, as she looked at Tom's un- 
 opened note.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 OOD newspapers are the nation's greatest assets," 
 continued Jerry, looking from the ruins of the mis- 
 guided Record to the News." 
 
 Joan did not reply. Tom's opened note absorbed her. 
 
 "Good newspapers have unfortunately had to sustain 
 and defend the bad ones," Jerry went on. "Vicious prop- 
 aganda and sensational journalism have masqueraded 
 under the protecting name of 'the Press,' usurped the 
 prerogatives of 'the Press/ demanded the co-operation 
 of 'the Press/ abused our country's fundamental principle 
 of the 'Freedom of the Press/ demoralized our people 
 for money in the name of 'the Press/ and the tragedy is 
 that they have been tolerated, shielded, and championed 
 by 'the Press' as one of the family." 
 
 Joan's emotions would not have allowed her to answer 
 Jerry now, even had she heard him. Tom's pathetic note 
 pleaded with her effectually for the moment to the ex- 
 clusion of all else. 
 
 "Bad newspapers haven't had the benefit of criticism," 
 Jerry went on with his meditation. "They have deprived 
 themselves of it, Joan." 
 
 Joan was deaf to Jerry's argumentation. 
 
 "They would not tolerate it. They admitted the value 
 of criticism by practicing it, but blindly and arrogantly 
 resented its application to themselves. As a consequence, 
 while various other human instrumentalities have been 
 kept constantly improving through the aid of criticism, 
 bad newspapers have deliberately kept themselves de- 
 teriorating by rejecting criticism, until finally, as a result 
 
 289
 
 290 Unconventional Joan 
 
 of having proudly put themselves above it, they have 
 sunk so far below the point where they could be helped by 
 it that their absolute abolition is now demanded by a pub- 
 lic formerly disposed to criticize merely but now de- 
 termined to condemn." 
 
 Jerry's typically sober words competed altogether in- 
 effectually in Joan's ears with Tom's touching tribute to 
 her influence over him, revealed in his pleading note. 
 
 "I am giving this to Bill to give to you, Joan," Tom's 
 note began. "I have no idea where you are. I would 
 humbly crawl to you at once, on my knees, if I did. I 
 think Bill probably does know where you are. He has 
 fought me away from the truck where I suspected you 
 lay ill. This morning the truck is gone. I went to the 
 loft and could not find you. I thought you might be with 
 Jerry at the jail, so I went there." 
 
 Joan noted that Tom modestly avoided saying that he 
 had secretly supplied Jerry's bail. 
 
 "I have just returned," the note went on, "and ventured 
 to ask Bill if he would take a note to you for me. He 
 seems less harshly disposed towards me this morning. 
 This is the second note that I have had to entrust for de- 
 livery to you within the last thirty-six hours. The other 
 note was sent to you after I had. looked everywhere for 
 you, all day Tuesday and most of Tuesday night. I went 
 unsuccessfully looking for you, and finally sent my note 
 to you by the newsboy in an effort to reach you, to tell 
 you, what you asked me to make you happy by telling you 
 when I got the courage to do it. When I reached home, 
 Monday night, after you had sold me a newspaper, your 
 dear photograph spoke to me from my table, where it has 
 always stood since we went to school together, and told
 
 Unconventional Joan 291 
 
 me that it was you who sold me the paper, and shamed 
 me into resolving to do what you have so often pleaded 
 with me to do. It gave me the courage to do it." 
 
 Remorseful realization of the successive stages of her 
 relationship towards Tom ! Friendship solicitude 
 sympathy admiration! Tom, she feared, to these may 
 have hopefully added encouragement even though she 
 meant merely to help him to help himself. 
 
 "In between my efforts to find you, on Tuesday," the 
 note continued, "Idiscussed and arranged with my as- 
 sociates to do what I have humbly and earnestly tried to 
 start to do in my paper this morning. I ask you to be- 
 lieve, Joan, that I did not exactly do it to well, bluntly, 
 to get you, but I did do it on account of you, and could 
 never have done it except for you although I admit having 
 failed miserably to do it, and that I did all sorts of shame- 
 ful things in its place to get you, being eventually shamed 
 into it by the suffering which you had assumed for your 
 crusade which suffering I could not endure and which 
 crusade you have compelled me by your example to as- 
 sume thus tardily as my own." 
 
 Joan read Tom's mind between his lines. Side by side 
 with his words she read Jerry's words: "proof of love 
 and right to be loved is based on sacrifice alone." 
 
 The note continued : "Just as your example has forced 
 me to confess to the public the wrongs I have perpetrated 
 against them in the name of what you call 'convention/ 
 so does it force me to confess to you abjectly in writing, 
 as I will confess to you in person, if you will let me see 
 you, the wrongs that I have similarly done you in my 
 uncontrollable determination to have you. 
 
 "Everything of which Keating scorchingly accused me
 
 292 Unconventional Joan 
 
 in your presence is true everything up to his accusation 
 that I lured you to my home by my note. 
 
 "That is false. 
 
 "I sent you my note to tell you, as you asked me to tell 
 you, that I had started in to try to do what you so often 
 had pleaded with me to do. I sent it to you in the very 
 midst of trying to carry out your wishes. I did not ex- 
 pect it to bring you to my home, but I did hope that it 
 might help to make you begin to believe in me." 
 
 "Merciless reprisal!" painfully realized Joan. "Bitter 
 retribution! Counter-stroke of compensation! Fateful 
 perhaps Providential intervention !" 
 
 Memories of her fight against her inclination to yield to 
 Tom attacked her. Visions of her forced flight into his 
 home for protection harassed her. 
 
 "I might have been Tom's now," she admitted to her- 
 self, "but for Keating's malign interception of his note !" 
 
 The revelation drained her heart of all its sympathy 
 and showered it woman-like, upon her hapless, misguided 
 but persevering wooer. 
 
 "Keating's disclosure to you," wrote Tom, "was liter- 
 ally my own confession intended to be made to you, ac- 
 tually taken out of my mouth before I could utter it and 
 used by him to accuse and condemn me. It was useless 
 to try to tell you this while he was in the act of condemn- 
 ing me before you. 
 
 "I know, of course, just how you feel, and I understand 
 that with Jerry's return I am a poor second in the race, 
 but if ever a man desperately and humbly begged to be 
 forgiven and pleaded for a chance, I humbly beg you 
 Joan for God's sake give me my chance to prove to you 
 that I have finally learned the full truth of what you told
 
 Unconventional Joan 293 
 
 me that 'the proof of love is based on sacrifice alone'." 
 
 The metamorphosis of Tom ! 
 
 Tom with all his magnetic aggressiveness as of old, 
 but with an added flavour of Jerry. Irresistible blend 
 and she had not thought it possible. Tom transformed ! 
 Miracle of assimilation! Mystery of woman's influence 
 over man ! Harvest of love nurtured by the tears of self 
 sacrifice ! 
 
 "Jerry was right," she realized. "How truly the Tom 
 who generously released Jerry from jail instead of taking 
 advantage of his absence, had it in him to be big, and how 
 really big had been his public confession of self -conquest, 
 made for me a love of sacrifice meriting love in return 
 deserving richest sympathy for its tragic frustration !" 
 
 "This is a great day's work for you, Joan," Jerry 
 turned from the window and broke in upon her absorbing 
 reverie. 
 
 Tom's note fell to her lap, and she looked up at him. 
 
 Jerry analytically, as usual, continued: 
 
 "You have scored a victory over your arch enemy, 
 'convention,' removed Keating, triumphed over the vic- 
 ious Press, helped the hirelings of the Press to be true to 
 their better selves, led Tom to his magnificent triumph, 
 and enabled me to make my own little contribution to- 
 wards your successful campaign." 
 
 "I have done absolutely nothing myself," Joan pro- 
 tested. "My independent efforts were foredoomed to 
 disaster I can see that plainly now. I have proved it to 
 be madness for a woman to try to function as a man. I 
 have done nothing, nothing, but look on and weep!" 
 
 "Yes, that's all that a good woman ever imagines she 
 is doing, because she never comprehends the extent of
 
 294 Unconventional Joan 
 
 her silent power the greatest influence in the universe 
 next to the omnipotence of God by which she actually 
 inspires, and stimulates and directs the accomplishments 
 of men in the very way that you have been responsible 
 for Tom's efforts and mine," replied didactic Jerry. "It 
 was never intended that you or any other woman should 
 function independently and aggressively through yourself 
 alone, and I will not question your contention of possible 
 delusion and failure in that respect, but you cannot deny, 
 Joan, that you have all along been guiding Tom's talents 
 into the path which he has so admirably chosen. And as 
 for your influence over me, I am certain that you must 
 know you have always been the motive-power behind my 
 poor efforts. Like wireless waves to my mind there have 
 flown to me incessantly from your mind impulses direct- 
 ing not only my actions but even my thoughts. Ever 
 since I read in Tom's paper that every human being is 
 both a sending and a receiving radio-telephonic instru- 
 ment I have liked to compare the process by which you 
 controlled me to wireless transmission. You remember 
 what the article said about 'minds in tune/ 'mental telep- 
 athy/ 'intuition/ 'instinct ' " 
 
 Joan interrupted him under the influence of a suspicion 
 of an ingenious explanation of her misdirected efforts. 
 
 "But you didn't keep on holding my mind in tune with 
 your own, Jerry. That's why I went wrong! I didn't 
 have your thoughts to guide me when I needed them. 
 You suddenly ceased to " 
 
 "Of course I couldn't let myself think of you in the 
 same way after Tom " 
 
 He broke off realizing that he was encroaching upon 
 another's domain. Similarly he had broken off in his
 
 Unconventional Joan 295 
 
 tremendous effort of relinquishing her to Tom like 
 breaking the circuit of magnetic influence by which a ship 
 is helmed. 
 
 But in his mind he went on, discursively as ever, as if 
 seriously adding to the curious diary of his dogmas about 
 women: "Woman's sensitive soul harkens to two voices 
 the inner, spiritual voice of conscience, instinct typi- 
 fied in Joan's dream by the spirit of Joan of Arc and the 
 mortal voice of her beloved. Both voices call her, in- 
 cessantly. Wayward the woman to whom either voice is 
 missing either one. Tormented the woman to whom 
 the two voices clash. Happy alone the woman to whom 
 both voices harmonize. Joan's happiness shall not de- 
 teriorate into torment because of me!" 
 
 His jaw tightened rigidly under the realization that he 
 endangered her happiness, and sealed his lips against 
 any further reference to his former relations with her. 
 
 And in her mind, too, Joan's thoughts rushed rapidly 
 on to her similarly heroic decision: "Two such wonderful 
 men!" she soliloquized. "And to be credited by men of 
 the calibre of Jerry and Tom with the merit of their ac- 
 complishments ! To be wanted by two such men ! Both 
 of them have done such marvellous things ! Both of them 
 have made such terrific sacrifices! Both of them have 
 been so devoted, for so long a time, to one so far beneath 
 them!" 
 
 Her sense of her unworthiness became acute. 
 
 She decided to be bluntly frank. 
 
 "Jerry, no matter what you kindly believe I may have 
 formerly amounted to in the way of influence, it is im- 
 possible for me to accept credit for any part whatsoever 
 in what either you or Tom have just done, because I
 
 296 Unconventional Joan 
 
 haven't seen you for two long weeks, and I haven't seen 
 Tom, except once or twice, for a moment, during the 
 same interval of time." 
 
 Jerry's eyes revealed a great awakening in his mind. 
 
 He moved across to where Joan sat with Tom's letter 
 in her lap. 
 
 "Ting-a-ling, Ting-a-ling," rang the telephone. 
 
 Joan picked up the receiver and answered the call. 
 
 Jerry pondered over Joan's disclosure. 
 
 "Hello," answered Joan. 
 
 "Joan," replied Tom's voice. 
 
 Jerry, watching her, saw her turn crimson. 
 
 "Yes, Tom." 
 
 "Bill has just told me he delivered my note, and that 
 you were up in the loft. May I come up, Joan, please?" 
 
 Tom's sorrowful voice pleaded earnestly for his 
 chance. 
 
 Joan hesitated, and glanced at Jerry. 
 
 "Certainly, Tom," she finally replied, and added, 
 "Jerry is here and we'll have *T 4 3' " 
 
 Overpowering memories of the treasured menu-card 
 from the tea-shop, on which Jerry had pencilled the little 
 circle and the two dots "contestants at the post." Over- 
 whelming reminders to both of them about the start of 
 the race. 
 
 "Tom is coming up," she said to Jerry. 
 
 Ending of the race! 
 
 Jerry despairingly looked at her with the eyes that had 
 hopelessly worshipped her on their "corner." 
 
 Turning point? 
 
 Joan dropped her gaze from him to Tom's letter in her 
 lap.
 
 Unconventional Joan 297 
 
 Heart-breaking final dash for the post ! 
 
 She had not mentioned the note to Jerry. It seemed 
 to need an explanation. She said simply: 
 
 "I think I ought to tell you that Tom sent me this 
 letter" 
 
 She broke off, and stopped. 
 
 Jerry understood. 
 
 Tom's proposal! 
 
 The Finish! 
 
 Too late! 
 
 He got up nervously, and walked away toward the 
 window, trying in the old way "to get away from 
 things," struggling with his thoughts. 
 
 The conviction that destiny is an irresistible force 
 dominated him. He had no logical resistance to oppose 
 to it. He could not sway it one way or the other, but he 
 could be fair to Tom he must be fair to Tom. He was) 
 born to lose it was in his stars he knew that he bad 
 always known that he could not change that but he 
 could be fair fair to Tom. 
 
 Looking out of the window he saw Tom leaving the 
 News building on his way to the loft. 
 
 In a few minutes he would be here to take what he 
 had won! 
 
 He pulled himself together with a tremendous effort, 
 and called to Joan. "Here comes Tom." 
 
 She rose and stood beside him at the window, watching 
 the editor of the News crossing the street. 
 
 Hundreds of grateful and admiring eyes saluted him 
 as he passed. 
 
 "Tom's triumphal march wonderful Tom !" breathed 
 Jerry.
 
 298 Unconventional Joan 
 
 He forced himself to smile and look at Joan as he said 
 it. 
 
 She stood with bowed head, now raising her misty eyes 
 to his, now hiding them beneath her lids. 
 
 Uncontrollably agitated, Jerry abruptly placed his hand 
 beneath her chin and gently tilted back her head. 
 
 "You love him, Joan?" he half-sobbed in desperation. 
 
 Joan heavily closed her eyes, and two great tears rolled 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 Jerry impetuously clasped her little body in his arms 
 and passionately kissed her on her aching eyes and on 
 her lips. 
 
 Audacious Jerry! The first aggressive act of his life! 
 
 Gentle Jerry with a sudden dash of Tom's masterful 
 aggressiveness. 
 
 Deliberate, retiring Jerry decisively and surprisingly 
 quick upon occasion. 
 
 Her marvellous ideal at last ! 
 
 And she had thought it impossible! 
 
 Prodigy of woman's power to mould and make the 
 man! 
 
 The door opened. 
 
 Tom saw them in each other's arms. 
 
 Jerry walked over to his old friend, steadied him with 
 both hands on his shoulders, and said: 
 
 "Too late, Tom ! I've taken her." 
 
 He had never seemed so brave ! 
 
 "You should have done it long ago, Jerry," 
 stammered Tom. 
 
 "Wonderful Tom !" marvelled Jerry. 
 
 They went over and sat with Joan between them, an 
 arm apiece around her, and tried to stem her tears.
 
 Unconventional Joan 299 
 
 ii 
 
 "Ting-a-ling, Ting-a-ling" sounded the telephone again. 
 
 Tom reached for the telephone receiver and listened. 
 
 "It's the City Asylum," he said. "One of the 'trusties' 
 out there who heard Jerry's wireless telephone message 
 says he wants to speak to Joan." 
 
 "Hello ?" sobbed Joan into the transmitter. 
 
 "Is this Miss Joan?" came a familiar voice. 
 
 "Yes, this is Joan/' 
 
 "This is Larry." 
 
 Joan gasped. 
 
 "It's poor Larry!" she whispered to Jerry and Tom. 
 
 "Yes, Larry " she spoke into the phone. 
 
 "Sometimes fools are prophets, Miss Joan, and so I 
 thought it would be timely to suggest that we would do 
 well now to sell out our monopoly of the air to our windy 
 politicians before they try to make us believe they always 
 owned it by Divine Right " 
 
 Joan silently and sadly hung up the receiver and handed 
 the telephone back to Tom. 
 
 Heartbroken Tom kept looking longingly into Joan's 
 tenderly pitying eyes as he mechanically took the in- 
 strument from her, and, in placing it back upon Jerry's 
 work-table inadvertently touched one of the little electric 
 switches connecting the aerials with the big amplifier, 
 which inauspiciously spoke with the sorrowful voice of 
 the sad singer from afar and disappointingly reminded 
 him, that 
 
 "Memory is the only friend 
 That Grief can call its own."
 
 30O Unconventional Joan 
 
 in 
 
 A little later there was "T 4 2," with the knife be- 
 side the spoon. 
 
 The little mother of the tea-shop, mother-like through 
 many sorrows come into her own. 
 
 Patiently, persistently, even if need be militantly and 
 sorrowfully, may all of our good women come quickly 
 into their natural right of mothering the world for the 
 restraint of what erratically ails it. 
 
 THE END
 
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