Once more he assured himself that Joan was a kid and must have her head until she became a woman and faced facts.
Over and over again he repeated to himself the creed that she had flung into the teeth of fate, and in this he found more excuse than she deserved for the way in which she had used him to suit her purpose and put him into the position of a big elder brother whose duty it was to support her, in loco parentis, and not interfere with her pastimes.
However much she fooled and flirted, he had an unshakable faith in her cleanness and sweetness, and if he continued to let her alone, to get fed up with what she called the Merry-go-round, she would one day come home and begin all over again.

She was a kid, just a kid as she had said, and why, after all, should she be bullied and bully-ragged before she had had time to work it off?
That's how he argued.
Meanwhile, he was, thankfully enough, no longer alone.

Here were Howard and the two girls and the yawl and the sun, and he would keep merry and bright until Joan came back.

He was too proud and sensitive to go to Joan and have it all out with her and thus dispel what had developed into a double misunderstanding, and too loyal to go to Joan's mother and tell his story and beg for help.

Like Joan and Howard, and who knows how many other young things in the world, he was paying the inevitable penalty for believing that he could face the problems of life unassisted, unadvised and was making a dreadful hash of it in consequence.