CHAPTER XXI
Awakened by the bright dawn of the sunlit day which was to witness the incredible cortège paraded to the honor of George Baretta, Joan started in accordance with recent habit to arouse Dads before she recollected that he had mentioned to her last night that he would not be going to the office this morning. Of course not; for Mr. Max Elmen no longer had a stake in Dads' respectability; no longer had he cause to expend Ket's money in subsidy to the real estate firm which supplied Dads with ostensible employment. Beginning again to-day, business with Dads undoubtedly would be what it had been.
Joan arose to resume the ordinary daily round and to proceed, at the usual hour, to Mr. Hoberg's office; so she lit a burner under the coffeepot and put on an egg to boil; she dressed, breakfasted in the kitchenette, washed the dishes and restored her bed to its aspect of a davenport, without disturbing the silence of the sleepers beyond the bedroom door.
Silent was the room below, as it had been throughout the months of Ket's imprisonment; to-night or next week or never again it might be tenanted by Ket and his wife. Joan Daisy reckoned the alternatives with hardly a pang; no longer was that room endowed with a dream. No longer might Joan Daisy Royle lie between the paid-for linen of her couch and imagine Ket's name in stone beside Mozart's, and hers printed in the account of Ket's achievement in the Orchestra program of the great day his symphony would be played.
Upon a cushion of the couch, as she bent over to push it into place, a tear fell; she stood up, smiling at herself
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