The Wishing-Ring Man Part 19

"Could you?" flashed Joy. "Men see so much! ... She's beckoning to you."

She flung her head back angrily. n.o.body likes to be told she doesn't understand another girl--and the fact that the girl is mighty brilliant doesn't make you feel better about it.

"I'll be back in just a moment," said John obliviously, and went with what seemed to Joy unnecessary docility.

She stood there alone, her hands clasped hard, her head up--to all appearance a vivid, triumphant little figure. Her heart was beating like mad and her cheeks burnt. She had just found out something about herself, something that a wiser, older woman would have known a long time ago: as long ago as when the Wishing Ring Man stood, the light glinting on his fair hair and st.u.r.dy shoulders, in the opening of Grandfather's hall door.

She was in love with John--furiously, wildly, heart-breakingly in love with him. And she was going to have to live close by him for a month, knowing that, and keeping him from knowing it--and then go away from him and never see him any more.

"This is our dance, Sorcerette," said Clarence's voice in her ear.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A FOUNTAIN IN FAIRYLAND

Joy had supposed, when she finally went to sleep at three in the morning, that she would waken with all the excitement gone and feeling very unhappy. She had always heard that it made you unhappy to be in love.

Instead, she opened her eyes with the excitement of it all still pulsing through her. The fact that John was in the world and she could care for him seemed almost enough to account for the sense of happiness that possessed her as she pattered over to the window and looked out. And what little more was needed to account for her exhilaration could be found in the wonderful September morning outside. There probably _were_ troubles somewhere or other, such as darkened city parlors, minor poets, and sophisticated seekers after John, but somehow she and they didn't connect. The air was so tingling and sunny, and the garden was so beautiful, and being young and free and in the country was so heavenly that she dressed and ran down, and sang along the garden paths as she picked herself a big bunch of golden chrysanthemums and purple and pink asters.

n.o.body else, apparently, was stirring yet. Joy was beginning to feel hungry, so she strayed into the dining-room, to see whether by any chance anybody else was down.

Phyllis was just coming into the dining-room, with her son frolicking about her.

"How do you feel after your triumph last night?" she asked. "Dead; or do you want another party this morning? I was proud of you, Joy.

Everybody told me how pretty you were, and how charming, and how intelligent it was of me to be a friend of yours."

Joy flushed with genuine pleasure.

"Oh, was I--did they?" she asked. "Phyllis, it was _lovely!_ ...

And think of being able to dance like that without knowing how!

That was just a plain miracle, if you like!"

"Good-morning, Joy," said Allan, coming in at this point.

He sat down with them and attacked his grapefruit.

"I see I'm two laps behind on breakfast. Philip, you young rascal, where's my cherry?"

Philip giggled uncontrollably.

"Why, Father, you ate it yourself! _You_ ate it while you said good-morning to Joy!"

"You seem to have made one fast friend, Joy," pursued Allan, dismissing the subject of the cherry for later consideration.

"Rutherford confided to me last night that he thought he had been working too hard; he isn't returning to his native heath for a month more. His aunt's been pressing him to stay on, and he thinks he will. He's coming over to see me this morning. He's devoted to me,"

stated Allan sweetly. "There's nothing he needs more than my friendship. He explained it to me."

Phyllis and he both laughed.

"You always did have winning ways, Allan," said his wife mischievously. "When is John expected to drop in? He, too, loves you--don't forget that!"

Allan grinned.

"Poor old Johnny has to look after his patients. He can't very well s.n.a.t.c.h a vacation in his own home town. It's a hard world for gentlemen, Joy!"

Phyllis looked from one to the other of them with an answering light of mischief in her eyes.

"I suppose John could take anybody he liked to hold the car, couldn't he?" she said demurely. "In fact--he has!"

"If you mean me," answered Joy, "he was very severe with me yesterday. John is bringing me up in the way I should go!" The feeling of vivid excitement was still carrying her along, and she laughed as she answered them.

Allan looked at her critically.

"H'm!" he said thoughtfully. "I seem to have a feeling that he won't bring you such an amazing distance, at that--short time as I have known you. Did you say popovers this morning, Phyllis?"

"Popovers," nodded Phyllis, "and some of Lily-Anna's fresh marmalade."

"An' little dogs!" broke in Philip enthusiastically. "Oh, Father, don't you just _love_ little dogs?"

His mother tried to look troubled.

"Allan, don't you think you could teach Phil, by precept or example, that they really are sausages?" she asked. "The other day at Mrs.

Varney's we had them for luncheon, and he said, 'I'd like another pup, please!' And she was shocked to the heart's core."

"It's such a nice convenient name," pleaded Allan. "Joy, I have to waste most of the morning talking over the long-distance 'phone to my lawyer. I shall spend an hour discussing leases, and two more bullying him and his wife into coming out to visit us. You will readily see that I can't entertain my new-found soulmate at the same time. I don't suppose you could offer any suggestions about his amus.e.m.e.nt?"

"Solitaire," suggested Joy demurely. "Or you might give him a book to read."

Allan threw back his head and laughed.

"Excellent ideas, both!" he said, "and truly original. He shall have his choice!"

"You have the kindest hearts in the world," said Phyllis, summoning the waitress. "Allan, before you finish that million-dollar conversation to Mr. De Guenther, please call me. I want to speak to him a minute, too."

"I'll call you," he promised.

They drifted off, Phyllis to attend to her housekeeping, Allan to his long-distance leases, and Philip to find Angela, whom he never forgot for long. She had breakfast with her nurse, and Philip felt it was time he looked her up. He adored his little sister, and spent the larger part of his days in teaching her everything he had been taught, which was sometimes hard on Angela, who obeyed him implicitly.

As for Joy, she strayed out into the garden again. The feeling of intense, happy aliveness in a wonderful world was still on her, and she wanted to be alone to think things out--to think out especially the thing she had discovered last night--and what to do about it.

It was as warm as June by this time, for the sun was getting higher, and she went slowly down the paths with the sun shining on her hair and making it look like fire, breaking, as she went, a few more flowers to pin in her dress. She had put on one of her old picture-frocks, a straight dull-cream wool thing that she wore in the mornings at home, girdled in with a silver cord about the hips.

She fitted the garden exceedingly well, though nothing was further from her thoughts.

At the far end, among a tangle of roses and beneath a group of shade-trees, the Harringtons had set a little fountain, a flat, low-set marble basin with a single jet of water springing high, and falling almost straight down again. Its purpose was to cool the air on very hot days, but it always flowed till frost, because it was so pretty Phyllis never could bear to have it shut off. Joy loved the half-hidden, lovely place, though she had only had one glimpse of it before, and she sat down by it and began to try to think things out.

She had a much harder thinking to do than she'd had for a long time.