PLAYTIME December found Joan with dark, happy eyes intent upon the rose-colored phantasmagoria of existence, her worriment past.

Donald was safe with Brian.

It hurt her a little that he did not write.
"I think, girleen," said Kenny, intuitional as always, "that he fears to write, thinking of course you are still at the farm and would try to tempt him back.

And I haven't a doubt he's set his teeth and vowed not to come to you until he's made good." As indeed he had.
After that, save for a wistful moment now and then, she seemed content, trusting Brian.
Unhappiness lay behind her like a forgotten shadow.

After the loneliness and the dreams and the hills, her playtime too had come as Donald's had come to him in Brian's world of spring; and life was whirling around her, brilliant, breathless, kaleidoscopic and altogether beautiful, a fantastic fairyland that kept her dazzled and delighted.
It had no shadows for her wondering eyes; the shadows lay behind her.
New York with its shops where with Ann she had gasped and laughed and colored and stared into mirrors, its lights, its crowds, its theaters, its opera where Max Kreiling sang and left her with a sob in her heart, its amazing Bohemia of success of which Kenny was a part, seemed to her but a never-ending sparkle of romance and kindness.