Part 10 (1/2)

”As nice as I am?” said Allan, laughing and coming nearer to them.

”That would be difficult, you know, Phyllis! But, seriously, Mrs.

Havenith,” he went on more gravely, ”you can trust Hewitt to make Joy very happy. He's one of the best fellows I ever knew. And he is amply able to take care of Joy, if that is worrying you.”

”He's perfectly adorable to his mother, too,” Phyllis interposed; ”and she's that marvelous thing, a mother who wishes her son would marry. You don't know what a lot there is in that!”

”True,” said Allan teasingly, in a tone too low for any one but his wife to hear; ”it can't be carried too far, as I have reason to know.”

Phyllis had been rather unusually her mother-in-law's choice--indeed, the late Mrs. Harrington had done a good deal more in the business than she had any right to, and only Phyllis' own sweetness and common sense and the fact that Allan and Phyllis fell in love after their marriage had justified what old Mrs. Harrington did in the case. And when it did turn out properly she was not there to see, having died as soon as she had gotten her son (who was then, as every one thought, hopelessly paralyzed) safely married.

Phyllis broke off to say swiftly, under her breath, ”I'll be even with you for that, Allan Harrington!” and went on trying to console the Haveniths; for poor Mr. Havenith sat, dignified and forlorn, trying to look perfectly omniscient and satisfied and not succeeding a bit.

After repeated a.s.surances the Haveniths seemed a little happier, and went back to their bungalow to dress for dinner. The Harringtons sank back in their chairs with a sigh of relief apiece.

”I don't care if Philip eats every marshmallow on earth, I'm not going to stir till I've talked it over with you, Allan,” said his wife determinedly.

She looked so pretty as she said it that Allan rose from his chair, tipped her chin back and kissed her.

”So she should gossip if she wanted to,” he told her teasingly, dropping back into his own chair before she could object, if she had wanted to. ”Go on, my dearest; say all the things you wouldn't say before the Haveniths. I'm perfectly safe.”

”Yes, thank goodness, you are,” acknowledged his wife. ”Telling you things is like dropping them down a deep black well, which is a great comfort to a confiding person like myself. Well, then, if you insist on knowing what my lower nature thinks of this performance, it's my opinion that Joy and Johnny both ought to have their ears boxed. I don't believe in corporal punishment as a rule, but if there ever was a time for it--”

”In Philip's words,” suggested her husband, ”it would have been politer to have told us before they made up their minds!”

Phyllis laughed.

”I confess I rather agree with him,” she said. ”It was a little shock. Just the same, I never came across any one sweeter or prettier or more attractive than Joy, and it certainly is a comfort to know that John's wife will be some one I can be friends with without a struggle. You never _can_ tell what a man's going to marry.”

Allan arose and walked up and down meditatively, his golden-brown eyes fixed on the dulling sunset. He had spent several of his years lying on his back, as the result of an automobile accident in his early youth, and since he had been given back the use of his limbs he never kept still unnecessarily. He had arrears to make up, he said.

Phyllis watched him striding back and forth, tall and graceful, and forgot all about Joy's love-affairs. For the moment, watching his grace of movement lovingly, she was back in the days that had seemed so happy then, but were so much less happy than these, when they had had their first glad certainty that he would entirely recover. It had taken less than six months from the time he first stood, before he could walk easily, and another six before he could go back to horseback--tennis and swimming had been later still. It seemed sometimes to them both as if it had all been a dream, so active and untiring he was now.

”Heaven _has_ been good to us,” she said irrelevantly, but earnestly, looking up at him.

”Heaven's been good to me, I know,” Allan said tenderly. ”I have the best and sweetest girl in the world to spend my life with me...”

”John would disagree with you,” said Phyllis, smiling up at him nevertheless, and flus.h.i.+ng. ”Allan, did it strike you that John would have been just as well pleased if Joy _hadn't_ broken the news to Grandfather right then?”

”Johnny's like Talleyrand; you'd never know it from his expression if some one kicked him from behind.... Not that I'd like to be the kicker.”

”So if he looked surprised, which he certainly did,” pursued Phyllis decisively, ”he was _quite_ surprised, not to say upset.”

”Oh, not as bad as all that,” said Allan, who was not given to a.n.a.lysis. ”I say, Phyllis, we really ought to go off and see if the children aren't dying under a tree somewhere.”

”They are not,” said the children's mother firmly. ”You know Angela is much more under Philip's thumb than she is yours or mine or Viola's, and he's a martinet where she's concerned. She'll never get more than her legal two marshmallows, and a boxful won't hurt _him_.”

”You're such a blessing, Phyllis,” he answered irrelevantly. ”Before the children came I used to wonder a little whether they wouldn't get in the way of my enjoyment of your society; but you didn't die and turn into a mother one bit. You've just added it on, like a sensible girl.”

”Well, of course I'm attached to the babies,” said Phyllis, who would have died cheerfully for either of them, ”but you'd naturally come first. And they're much happier than if I were one of those professional mothers who can't discuss anything but croup.... Allan, it's time we began putting up triumphal arches. Here they are.”