The Wishing-Ring Man Part 24

She puzzled all the time she was dressing. There was no use talking--his mother _needn't_ be amused by such things. She would get on perfectly well without seeing them. John might think he was doing it as a sacred duty--in spite of her adoration of him it did not impress Joy that way.... There were men who kissed you just because you were a girl, if you let them; Clarence was that kind, according to all accounts. But--John! He was the best, kindest, n.o.blest man she had ever known. Every one seemed to have the same feelings about him that she had. Even when Clarence had sneered at him he had only been able to call him a "reliable citizen."... And yet--he seemed to want to kiss her! He liked it.

"Of course," said Joy to herself, with a beating heart beneath the wisdom of Aunt Lucilla, "the answer is that he probably doesn't know it. Men don't ever seem to know things about themselves. But I must remember that it's no sign he likes _me._"

But it was quite true that it was going to have to continue. It had dawned on Joy that her will was no match for that of the Hewitt family. But it was a very kindly will. She smiled a little, irrepressibly, as she clasped her girdle--she was wearing one of the old picture dresses--and went downstairs. For even if you are a little impostor who has captured a five-weeks' lover by means of a wishing ring, unlimited things to wear are nice, and having the man you are in love with want to pet you is nice, too!

At the top of the stairs a thought struck her. Joy's thoughts had a way of arriving suddenly. She had set out to be happy. Very well!

"I don't see why I shouldn't be engaged to the limit!" she thought daringly. "I--don't--see--why I shouldn't! ... for just this little while--just this one little while out of my life before I go back to the shadows! ... I don't care if I am bad! I don't care if I am unmaidenly! I'll be as happy as ever I can. They'll think I'm very dreadful, anyway, all of them, when they know all about me!"

She swept on down the stairs, head up, cheeks flaming.

And so, when she came upon John, waiting her courteously at the stair-foot, she did just exactly what in her heart she desired to do. She stood on the step above him and deliberately laid both little white hands on his shoulders and smiled into his eyes.

"I am so glad I'm here with you," she said, looking at him with no attempt to hide the love she felt for him. "Are you glad to have your sweetheart in the house--for a little while? Say so--please, dear!"

He laughed light-heartedly, and his eyes shone.

"A little while?" he answered gaily. "I can stand a lot more of you than that, kiddie.... Come, now, Mother's waiting. Or shall I lift you down from the step? ... I always seem to want to lift you about, somehow, you're so little and light--such a little princess:"

He set his hands about her waist, but she slipped from him, laughing excitedly.

"I believe you think I'm just a doll somebody gave you to play with!" she told him with a certain sweet mockery that was hers sometimes.... "Come, now, Mother's waiting!"

She ran down the hall, evading his grasp, and laughing back at him over her shoulder, to Mrs. Hewitt and safety.

"Come, children, dinner will be cold," said Mrs. Hewitt obliviously.

"Coming, Mother dear!" answered Joy.

CHAPTER TEN

CLARENCE SWOOPS DOWN

It was quite as pleasant to breakfast with John as it had been to dine with him, which had been something Joy had secretly wondered about. When breakfast was over, he told her matter-of-coursely that he was going to take her with him on his morning rounds.

"You'd better take a book," he advised her practically. "If you don't, you'll be bored, because I'll be leaving you outside a good deal while I'm inside seeing patients."

"I'll take my sewing," she told him, trying to be as matter-of-fact as he was. "That is, if you don't mind."

She was smiling as happily as a child over being allowed to go, and he smiled down at her, pleased, too.

"Not unless it's too big," he told her with an attempt at firmness which failed utterly.

She went off, singing under her breath, as usual, to get a very small sewing-bag, with a little piece of to-be-hemst.i.tched pink silk in it, and John looked over at his mother.

"She certainly has the prettiest ways!" he said involuntarily.

"You're a good lover, Johnny," his mother rejoined appreciatively.

"Nonsense!" said John before he thought, and then pulled himself up.

"That is--I don't think a man would have to be in love with her to see that," he ended lamely. "I thought they were attractive before I----"

"Exactly," retorted his mother with distinct skepticism. "That's why you--" She paused in mimicry of his breaking off, and, then, as Joy came back, gave him an affectionate little push toward the door.

She followed them out to the gate and leaned over it, watching them.

"Good-by, children!" she called after them. "Don't be late for luncheon!"

"Don't stand out there in the wind with no wraps, Mother," advised John.

"Nonsense!" she replied with spirit. "You have Isabel De Guenther's rheumatism on your mind, that's what's the matter with you. The idea of a woman of her intelligence giving up to inflammatory rheumatism is simply ridiculous. You don't get things unless you give up to them."

It was a beautiful doctrine, and doubtless had much to do with making Mrs. Hewitt the healthy and dauntless person she was, but it had its limitations, and John reminded her of them inexorably.

"You have neuritis when you catch cold in the wind, and you know it," he told her. "Do go in, Mother, to please me."

"You know I'll be back again as soon as you're out of sight," she observed. But she did go in.

Alas for the power of elderly ladies to keep off neuritis by defiance! When they came back at twelve-thirty Mrs. Hewitt was nowhere to be seen.

"Mrs. Hewitt says she has a slight headache, and will you please not wait luncheon for her: she's having it upstairs," was the message they received.

"Very well," said John gravely, and he and Joy proceeded to have luncheon alone together.

He glanced smilingly across the table at Joy as she poured his tea with steady little hands.

"It looks very much as if you were going to have to take charge, more or less," he said. "That's our friend the neuritis. Mother never admits it's anything but a headache the first day. Do you think you can look after things?"

"Why not, if she wants me to?" asked Joy.

"Well, I can imagine you standing on a drawbridge or a portcullis, or whatever it was they trimmed medieval castles with, and waving your hands to the knights going by," began John teasingly; "but it's a stretch of imagination to fancy a medieval princess pouring my tea and seeing that my papers are in order ..."

"You _know_ I can't help having red hair," protested Joy, coming straight to the point. "And if your grandfather had always dressed you in costumes, you couldn't get to be modern all at once, either. I think I'm doing very well."

John threw back his fair head and laughed.

The idea of his grandfather, who had been a wholesale hardware merchant, with a New England temperament to match, "dressing him in costumes," was an amusing one, and he said as much.

Joy laughed, too.

"Well, there, you see!" she said triumphantly. "There's a great deal in not having handicaps. Why, there was a poet used to write things as if he were me, all about that, and I couldn't stop him. One began:

_'I was a princess in an ivory tower: Why did you sit below and sing to me?'"_

"Well," said John, as she paused indignantly, "I'll be the goat. Why _did_ he sit below and sing to you?"