"Thought I'd drop in and tell you some inspiriting news, it's such a beastly night," said he with empressement. "—Princess Melisande! What have they been doing to you?" he broke off to ask tenderly under his breath. "Our little princess turned into a Cinderella!"

His tone was calculated to induce self-pity in the breast of an oyster. But Joy, though she liked it mildly, did not feel moved to tears. Clarence was an interruption, even if a flattering one.

"My mother is ill," explained John, when Clarence had greeted him also in his most setting-at-ease manner. ("Kind of a man who'd try to make you welcome in your own house!" he growled under his breath. John also felt interrupted.)

But Clarence established himself friendlily in a third chair, and told Joy with charming masterfulness that she was to put down her work immediately and listen to him.

"We're going to get up a Gilbert and Sullivan opera," said he. "Now it stands to reason that we have to have you. I can tell by the pretty way you speak you have a good stage delivery, and you have all sorts of presence. Question is, have you a voice? If so, much honor shall be yours."

"Well, I've had lessons for years, and they say so," offered Joy modestly. "It's mezzo-soprano—lyric."

Both men looked at her in surprise. People were always being surprised at things she knew—as if she had ever done anything in her life but be trained—for no particular purpose, as it had seemed. And now everything she knew seemed to be going to be useful, one way or another. Harp lessons, singing lessons, lessons in the proper way to speak Grandfather's poetry—there had never seemed to be any particular point to any of them. And now everything was falling into line.

"Go on," said Clarence. "But I forgot, you said you couldn't dance."

"Only the kind that people do in—bare feet and Greek draperies, and I hate that," Joy answered deprecatingly.

"You are a Philistine," said Clarence. "But it's attractive."

"One of Grandfather's friends does it for a living, and taught me, as a token of affection and esteem, she called it. Would it be any use?"

"Use?" said Clarence rapturously. "You are exactly what the doctor ordered. If I can stun Gail into submission you shall be our leading lady, with all the real star parts in your grasp. Rehearsals at ten sharp, and I'm the director. Me voici!"

He rose and made her a deep bow.

He had, apparently, quite forgotten John, who still sat quietly with his paper across his knees, listening to them.

"And where do I come in?" he asked with a little twinkle in his eyes.

"Oh-oh yes," returned Clarence genially, "my dear fellow, how could we have forgotten you? Good old John, to want a part!"

He sounded to Joy rather too much as if he was saying, "Good old Fido!"

"It's something like saying it to a large dog with a bite, too," she meditated naughtily. "Clarence may find that out in a minute."

She went on with her domestic duties, mending the tiny holes in the socks in her lap, and smiling secretly to herself. It did not occur to her, but if any one had told her a month before that she would be sitting alone with two interesting men, watching their relations becoming more and more strained on her account, she would have denied it flatly. Now that it was happening it seemed quite natural. It had doubtless seemed quite natural to Aunt Lucilla.... She darned on placidly, while Clarence continued his infuriating efforts to put John at ease.

"There'll be a delightful part for you, old man," he assured his friend tenderly. "Don't worry about that. You'll have your chance."

The idea of a dominant, large-ideaed, hardworking John Hewitt hungering for "his chance" in an amateur comic opera struck Joy as so funny that she couldn't repress a small giggle and a glance across at him. John caught her look and gave her an answering gleam of amusement.

"You have the kindest heart in the world, Rutherford," said he sedately, "and I'll never forget it of you. ... Joy, my dear, would you mind running upstairs and seeing if Mother needs anything? And you may put away those socks you've been doing in my top drawer at the same time."

Joy stiffened a little at the tone of easy authority, and then caught John's eye again. The amused look was still there—that, and a look of certainty that she would help him play his hand. He was getting neatly back at Clarence!

She rose meekly.

"Yes, John," she said in the very tone she would have used if the alternative had been a beating, and excusing herself to Clarence in the same meek voice, took herself and her completed work upstairs.

A glance at her room through the crack of the door told Joy that Mrs. Hewitt was sleeping sweetly. She opened the door of John's room with a more fearful heart. It seemed a little frightening to go into his own private room where he lived. She pushed open the door and tiptoed in.

It was a large room, very orderly, with a faint, fresh smell of cigars and toilet water about it—the smell that no amount of airing can ever quite drive out of a man's room. Joy liked it. The dresser, flanked by a tie-rack, faced her as she came in. She ran to it, jerked out a drawer and stuffed in the socks hurriedly, and turned to go down again. In the middle of the room she paused for a moment. It was all so intimately, dearly John, and she did love John so!... And what was she, after all, with all her independences and certainties, but an ignorant, unwise child whom two wise grown men were using for a pet or a plaything—how could she tell which?

She felt suddenly little and frightened and helpless. The current of mischief and merriment dropped away from her for a minute, here where everything, from the class picture on the wall to the pipe on the bureau, spoke so of John—of what everything about him meant to her—about what going away from him would mean. She flung herself on her knees beside the narrow iron cot in the corner, her arms out over the pillow where his head rested.

"Oh, God, please make it all come straight and right!" she begged. "I don't suppose I did what I ought to, and maybe I'm not now, but please do let things come out the way they should! And if you can't make us both happy, make John—but—oh, God, please try to tuck me in too—I do want to be happy so!"

She knelt there a little longer, with her arms thrown out over the pillow. Saying her prayers always comforted her. She waited till she was quieter. Then she rose resolutely and dried her eyes, and went downstairs again, to make her report.

She found that Clarence was gone.

"I got rid of him," John explained serenely to her questioning glance. "You didn't need him particularly, did you, kiddie?"

Joy lifted her eyebrows.

"Not particularly," she replied, "but I should have liked to say good-night to him."

"I felt exactly that way myself," responded John cheerfully, "so I did. I was like the man in the Ibsen parody, who said, 'I will not only make him feel, but be at home!'" He paused a moment, and looked graver. "Come here, kiddie," he said.

Joy had been standing just inside the door all this time, on tiptoe for flight. She came slowly over in response to his beckoning hand, and he drew her down to a stool beside him, keeping his arm around her.

"Little girl," he said, "you're young, and you're inexperienced, and I don't want to see you let Rutherford go too far. I'd rather you didn't take part in this affair he's getting up."

Joy started back from his encircling arm, and looked at him reproachfully.

"Oh, John! Why, I want to dreadfully!"

"It isn't that I want to take any pleasure away from you," he explained. "It's simply that the opera would of necessity throw you into closer contact with Clarence—and I don't think you quite understand what Clarence is. He is very attractive, but, as I have told you before, he is not a man I would trust. A man who goes as deliberately about making women in love with him as he does, with a frank admission to other men that he collects them, isn't a man I want you to have much to do with."

Joy moved away from the arm entirely. She felt hurt.

"In other words, you're afraid he'll toy with my young affections?" she answered flippantly. "Very well—let him try! Goodness knows he's labeled loudly enough. Every time he comes within a mile somebody says that about him. Everything about him says it for itself, for the matter of that. It isn't any secret. Let him toy! It amuses him and doesn't hurt me."

"If I could be sure it wouldn't hurt you—" said John in a low voice. "He is very fascinating, Joy."

There was a note of pain in John's voice, but Joy did not heed it.

"You are hurting me!" she said angrily, rising. "How can you——"

She did not finish. She had been going to say, "How can you talk that way when I belong to you?" but she had not the courage. He could never know how much she belonged to him. "I very much want to be in this opera, and I think I shall," she said definitely.

"I have no way of preventing you," he answered coldly.

"But can't you trust me not to be silly?" she asked in a softer tone. "Oh, John, I'll promise not to let Clarence break my heart. I promise not to let anything break it. Good-night."

She gathered up her mending-basket, set her chair carefully where it had belonged, and went slowly out of the room without another word.

She did not know how John would greet her next morning. But he proved to be no more of a malice-bearing animal than she, and when she smiled brightly at him over the coffee-cups he smiled back in quite as friendly a fashion, and they had a very cheerful breakfast together—so cheerful that John was late getting out on his rounds. At the door he paused, looking back at her.

"Look here, kiddie, I wasn't fair about that thing last night," he said. "I've been thinking it over. I haven't a right in the world to ask you to keep out of something that would give you pleasure. Go on and play all the parts there are in it if you like. I'll be in it myself, in the 'nice part' Rutherford is so considerately saving up for me—" he grinned—"and——"

"And if you see me being swept off my feet you can wave your handkerchief, or something," ended Joy for him, and they both laughed. And so peace was restored, and Joy went on about her morning duties with a happy heart. It seemed to her, as she thought of him while she worked, that he had been unwontedly tender of her as he bade her good-by. She could not think why. At any rate she was very happy, and she sang as she sat at the living-room desk, after her morning inspection of the ice-box, writing out the list for the marketing, and the menus for that day's luncheon and dinner.

The maids took a deep interest in her, and if instant obedience and willing service meant anything, approved of her. This was the day when she was going to have to get the dinner all herself, and she was looking forward to it with pleasure. She had never been left to herself to do anything at home, because Grandmother and old Elizabeth had seen her toddle into the kitchen and "want to help" when she was four, and they therefore honestly thought she was four still where judgment was concerned.

As she sat and hummed to herself and wrote, the telephone rang. She sprang to it with that unquestioned obedience which telephone-bells cow us into, and listened. The Harrington children had called her up a couple of times, and she thought it might be Philip. Or maybe Clarence. But instead, she heard Gail's slow, assured voice.

"Clarence has been telling me the sad story of your life," she drawled, "and implores me to rescue you. I'm coming over to do it in a moment or so—as soon as I can detach Harold Gray from my side.... I've told him he also must devote himself to your service, so expect him along some time today."

She hung up without waiting for an answer, before Joy could do anything. She sat back in her chair, staring out the window in dismay. She had no idea what Clarence might have said about anything, but she devoutly wished he hadn't said it. She did not want Gail in her house. She caught herself up. That was the way she was coming to think of it—her house!

"Well, it isn't," she reminded herself. "After all, I'm a pilgrim and a stranger, and Gail is an old friend."

She returned to her list and her planning, though the fun was all out of it; and when Gail arrived a half-hour later, a bunch of chrysanthemums in her belt and a small grip in her hand, she greeted her with admirable calm.

She wished for a moment that Clarence had seen fit to come himself. He might say too familiar things, but at least there was an undertone of admiration about him very comforting in Gail's half-scornful presence. Also he sat on Gail occasionally in a calm and brotherly manner which cheered.

"Poor little Cinderella!" Gail greeted her. "I hear that Mrs. Hewitt has dropped all the housekeeping on your shoulders, John makes you do all the sewing—including his clothes, I suppose—and treats you like a ten-year-old child. Even allowing for Clarence's passionate transports you seem to be quite painfully noble in your acquiescence.... I have come to see to this!"

Joy stiffened.

"Thank you, I am perfectly happy," she stated untruthfully. "Won't you sit down?"

Gail flung her hat and cloak on a distant settee, and dropped her grip at her feet.

"Not till I go up and see poor dear Mamma Hewitt," she answered. "Poor darling, she must be lonely!"

She sauntered out of the room, leaving Joy at the desk. She was down again in a few minutes. Gail never seemed to hurry. She merely got where she wanted to be with no visible effort. She nodded to Joy as she entered the room again, and dropped into a morris chair.

"Mrs. Hewitt says I am to go as far as I like," she informed Joy, half-amusedly. "Mother never seems to want any help at home, thank goodness, and all I have to do over there is to amuse little friends who drop in. You get tired of that after awhile. I told Clarence to send away any suitors who might trail over!"

She flung her arms up over her head and laughed a little to herself, stretching her whole indolent, graceful body.

"I like new things to amuse myself with," she informed Joy. "Now you'll send the maids in."

Joy did not like any of this. And she found herself more and more certain that she did not like Gail Maddox.

"If she has all those lovers," she thought resentfully, like a child, "why doesn't she stay home and play with them instead of coming over here where we were perfectly happy without her?"

But she was too proud to do anything about it, so instead of going up to Mrs. Hewitt's bedroom to appeal to Caesar she went to the kitchen without further comment, and informed the maids that Mrs. Hewitt had decided Miss Maddox was to have charge for the day.

The lively chorus of growls with which this was received cheered Joy's unregenerate heart. She did not stay to either soothe or encourage the rebellion.

"I've told the maids," she said colorlessly to Gail, returning.

"Good infant," said Gail, and proceeded to gather the flowers out of the vases where Joy had herself arranged them a half-hour before, and rearrange them.

Joy watched her for a minute or so. Then—"You aren't going to need me?" she asked with a misleading quietness. "Because if you aren't I—I have something to do for a little while."

"Not a bit. Run along," granted Gail. "I'll have some toil ready for you when you get back, if you like."

Joy was like the lady in the poem, who died in such a hurry.

"She did not stop to don her coat,
She did not stop to smooth her bed."

She fled hatless in the direction of a place that had always meant soothed feelings and comfort generally, the Harrington house. Phyllis wouldn't be there, to be sure, but the place would have her peace and sunniness about it.

The children were ranging up and down the garden paths with squeals and shouts of happiness which were, apparently, merely because of life in general. They fell upon her with still wilder shouts; or at least Philip did, while Angela clung as far up as she could reach.

Joy hugged all the children she could reach with a warm sense of gratitude to them for wanting her, and (still led by gratitude) entered enthusiastically into tag herself. It was quite new to her, because she had never played children's games, but she found that she liked it exceedingly.... Suppose Gail did go slidingly around explaining to everybody convincingly that everybody else was in love with her—suppose it was even true? Why, even then—when you're young and alive it's fun to go running up and down a garden in the stimulating October air.

They ended in the big swing. Philip insisted on doing most of the pushing, because, as he explained, they were all girls and he wasn't. Joy held little Angela fast, and gave herself up to the delight of being swung. Philip pushed her higher and higher, till they were both screaming with pleasure, and, when the swing was at the top, could see over the tall hedge to the road outside.

There was something chugging inquiringly out there. And it was—it was, indeed, John's little doctor-car. And it held John, and it was slowing up. As these facts, one by one, became apparent to Joy and Angela in their excursions above the hedge, there was great happiness in the garden.

"I knew he'd come!—He said he'd come!" announced Philip gleefully, pushing like mad. "He said he would! He's been here every day since they went. I asked him yesterday"—these sentences were interspersed with the pantings necessary to pushing a swingful of ladies—"I asked him whyn't he stay for dinner, and he said—he said he wanted to go home an' have luncheon wiv Joy. So I s'pose he'll stay today, long's you're here."

In Joy's naughty mind a Great Idea sprang to birth. Whyn't he stay, indeed? He didn't know about Gail's coming to brighten his fireside, and there wasn't any reason why he should.

"He'll stay if I can make him," she told Philip gaily.

In the back of her head—she should unquestionably have had her hands slapped—there was a beautiful and complete picture of Gail being insolently alluring to three empty chairs and a luncheon table and four unoccupied walls.

"See John!" screamed Angela, trying to clap her hands, and having to be grabbed hastily so she shouldn't fall out of the swing. "Johnny! Johnny! Come in!"

John looked up in time to see the swing before it went downward again. He waved his hand as it came up, and the third time it rose Joy saw the car still, but no John. He was coming in.

He appeared a moment later, striding over the lawn. The children dashed for him, as usual.

"Johnny, Johnny!" they clamored. "She says you can stay to lunch! She says she will if you will."

With the way made so easy for her erring feet, what could Joy say but "Don't you want to?"

She did not insist.

But John accepted on the spot with unsuspecting heartiness, and Philip solved the last problem by scampering off over the rustling leaves to telephone that John wouldn't be home for luncheon.

So they had a very merry luncheon, though an occasional whiff of guilt made Joy fall silent—which was not noticeable, because Philip's conversation flowed on brightly in all the breaks, and sometimes when there weren't any.

"Want me to take you back, Joy?" John asked when they were done, looking down at her quizzically, as he had a trick of doing. "Gail must want you by this time."

"Gail!" stammered Joy. Then her courage came back, as it usually did when she summoned it, and she laughed.

"Heavens, I am discovered!" she quoted. "Why, John, you don't mean to tell me you ran away too?"

"I didn't run away," countered John. "I promised Philip yesterday that I'd stay here to luncheon with him. In fact, I think I promised to summon you. I stopped at the house to do it just now and found you here already. I explained matters to Gail, and she is up in Mother's room, having her luncheon there."

He turned to the children. "Say good-by to Joy now, infants—I'm going to take her away with me."

"You do that a great deal of the time, it seems to me," observed Philip regretfully. "But of course, I suppose she really does belong to you."

"Exactly," laughed John, lifting the little boy up to kiss him. "She does. Come, my property."

They got into the car amicably, laughing over Philip. But John wasn't through with her.

"Was it quite courteous, my dear," he asked gently, but with a certain firmness, "to leave Gail that way? It was only a chance that I was able to explain it. In a sense she was a guest in your house."

Joy flamed up.

"Was it quite courteous of Gail," she demanded passionately, "to come in and take my house away from me, and demand that I hand her over the housekeeping—no, not demand it, calmly take it?"

John looked a little perplexed for the moment, which gave Joy time to calm down a little, and remind herself that men were like that.

"Somehow one doesn't expect Gail to be considerate," he explained finally. "It—well, it isn't one of her qualities. I think I heard her say once that she had never found it necessary. But you—I expect so much more of you, Joy!"

One would suppose that this might have been soothing. John seemed to consider it so. But it wasn't.

"She's so charming that nobody expects anything else of her," Joy flashed back, "and I have to be good, because all people can like me for is my goodness—is that what you mean?"

And she stood up, as the car slowed before the Hewitt house, and sprang out. She had seen Clarence Rutherford sunning himself expectantly on the steps.

"There's the man who sent her over, if you approve of it all so highly," were her departing words to John. "I promise not to be inhospitable to him!"

She waved her hand.

"Mr. Rutherford!" she called. "Come on down and go off somewhere with me!"

Clarence unfolded himself with more haste than usual, and obliged.

"To the end of the world, Sorcerette, or any little place like that," he said sweetly. "I have no car, alas, but I can telephone for one."

"No, don't," said Joy, whose one idea was to get away. "Just go into the house and bring me my cap and any wrap you can find."

She did not dare look back to John. She felt she was being everything she oughtn't to, but she also felt that she had cause.

"Here's your hat," said Clarence, coming out with it, and refraining from completing the quotation. "Where do you want to go? I have many beautiful plans to offer you, principally about your being leading lady in my comic opera. You are going to have to get an extension of parole from the dear ones at home."

"Oh, do you really think I can act in it?" asked Joy happily as they went down the leafy road together. She gave a little frisk as she spoke.

"Of course you can," said he. "As a matter of fact, that's my principal reason for getting it up. I have a book that contains all the Gilbert librettos in my most bulging pocket. You and I will wander out into the wonderful autumn woods, and sit down on a soft, pleasant log, and pick out the opera, and the cast, and be happy generally. Only I won't play unless, as I explained last night, you are a leading lady with a real star part. As I'm a wonderful stage manager I feel strongly that it will be thus."

"Thank you," said Joy amiably but absently. Something appalling had just occurred to her.

"Good gracious," she told him, "it's a special occasion, and the cook and the waitress are both going off to funerals or something, and Gail is going to have to get that whole dinner single-handed!"