John still looked doubtful. He still seemed to feel that it was a mean advantage to take of the most domesticated ring and princess.

"You see," he explained, "Mother's idea is--and it's likely a very good one--that when socks have holes you throw 'em away and get more. She doesn't make allowance, though, for one's getting attached to a pair. And I bought six pairs lately that I liked awfully well, and I hated to see them die.... They're just little holes."

"I'll get them and do them as soon as we're through dinner," she promised. "Won't your mother mind?"

"She'll be delighted," John promised sincerely. "But she hasn't them. I have."

Accordingly, after dinner Joy demanded them, and John produced them, while she got out her mending-basket, something he had never suspected her of possessing, he told her.

She sat down under the lamp with her work, tying on the little sewing-ap.r.o.n Mrs. Hewitt had given her the day before.

"Why, they scarcely have holes at all," she marveled. "I can do lots more than these."

"There are lots more," said John rather mournfully. But he did not feel particularly mournful. He was absorbed in the picture she made sitting there by the lamp, near the fire, her red mouth smiling to itself a little, and her black lashes shadowing her cheeks as her hands moved deftly at her work. John himself, on the other side of the fire, had a paper across his knees, but he forgot to read it, watching her. She seemed to turn the place into a home, sitting there quietly happy, swiftly setting her tiny, accurately woven st.i.tches.

John's mother was an adorable playmate, but responsibilities were, to her, something to laugh about. She had always declared that John should have been her father, not her son; and he had always tried to fill the role as best he could. But there had always been things, though he had never admitted it to himself, that he had missed. It would have been pleasant to him if there had been some one who shared his interest in the looks of the place and in the gardens and orchards that were his special pride. He would have liked to have his mother care about his patients, to play for him in the evenings, perhaps, and to think about his tastes in little things. But though a tall harp stood in a corner of the living-room, and a piano was somewhere else, they were not often touched. Mrs. Hewitt was pa.s.sionately interested in people. She loved traveling and house-parties and fads of all kinds--but she had no roots to speak of. John had never felt so much as if his house was his home as he did tonight, with the cold rain dashing against the windows outside, and inside the warm light, and the busy girl sitting across from him, sewing, and smiling to herself.

She looked up, as he glanced across at her contentedly, and spoke.

"I thought you seemed a little down tonight when you came in, John.

How is the little La Guardia girl? You were having something of a struggle over her treatment the last time I went with you."

"By Jove, you have a memory!" said John, seeming a little startled.

"The child is worse today, and it was on my mind. How on earth did you guess it, Joy?"

She only laughed softly.

"Don't you suppose I'm interested in your affairs? I don't like you to be worried. And I knew Giulia La Guardia was the only patient who wasn't doing well at last accounts. Just what is the trouble?"

John leaned forward and began to tell her about the child. Her blue eyes glanced up and down, back and forth, from him to her sewing, as she listened, and occasionally asked a question. They had both forgotten everything but the room and themselves, when they heard a genial male voice in the hall.

"No, indeed, my dear girl," it said, "I don't need to be announced in the very least. I'll go straight in."

And in just as brief a time as it might take an active young man to shed his overshoes and his raincoat, in walked Clarence Rutherford, as gay as always, and unusually secure of his welcome.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PIRATE COUSINS TO THE RESCUE

"Thought I'd drop in and tell you some inspiriting news, it's such a beastly night," said he with _empress.e.m.e.nt_. "--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 a.s.sured 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

"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.