Joan and Co.

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In glittering New York society, Dicky Burnett is startled to discover that his flirtation with Joan Fairburne has become real love. The memory of a snowy courtyard beneath the stars haunts him, while Joan's cool, amused distance only deepens his urgency to speak. Polished, restless, and self-critical, Dicky also chafes at his role as second vice-president in the Burnett Manufacturing Company, preferring to devote himself to protecting his overworked father's health. At last he confesses his feelings and announces, with sudden seriousness, that he means to propose. Joan, however, is no simple prize. College has widened her world through her friendship with the self-made Mildred Devons, whose struggle, illness, and death leave Joan newly aware of life beyond privilege. Though Dicky is kind, he cannot free her from the "prison wall" of class and routine. Meanwhile, Joan's concern extends to Mark Devons, a starving inventor whose patent-leather dressing invention has been rejected by financiers afraid of the Burnett empire. When Joan visits his sickbed, reads to him, and returns with practical help, she becomes both muse and rescuer in a romance shaped by pride, longing, and the hard realities of ambition.