Part 15 (1/2)

Joy ripped and handed with tremulously eager hands, while Phyllis swiftly cut away the sleeves of the green dress and slashed a _decolletage_, and draped the net over it and pinned on the girdle.

”Try if you can get into that without being scratched,” she invited, lifting the frock gingerly off Dora and dropping it over Joy. Then she wheeled her around to where she could see her reflection in the tall pier-gla.s.s between the windows.

”Of course, that's rough,” she told her; ”but what do you think of it, generally? Are there any changes you want?”

”Oh, not one!” Joy replied ecstatically, regarding the slim little green and silver figure in the gla.s.s.

”It needs to be shorter,” meditated Phyllis aloud, and fell to pinning it up to the proper shortness.

Joy continued to look at it rapturously. It had been a straight, long gown, and all Phyllis had needed to do was to drape it with the net ripped from the other dress and shorten and cut it into fas.h.i.+onableness. It was charming--springlike and becoming, and, best of all, strictly up to date!

”Don't you think you'll feel equal to being the feature of the reception in that?” demanded Phyllis. ”I certainly should in your place.... That is, if you have silver slippers.”

”I have, and I think I do,” said Joy gravely.

”Then I'll hand this over to Viola to put the finis.h.i.+ng st.i.tches in.

Look out the window--do you see anything familiar coming up the path?”

Joy, in her pinned finery, looked, then s.n.a.t.c.hed her clothes from the sofa, where they lay in state, and ran upstairs. John was coming along the path, and she didn't want him to know about her frock till it was all done.

She came down a moment later, brown-clad and demure, and looking so young and harmless that any man would have been sure his tilt with her, of the night before, was a dream. She greeted him shyly, with her lashes down.

”Isn't--isn't it a little early for you to be away from your patients?” she asked.

”My morning office hours are just over, and I'm on my way to make some calls in the car. Want to come?” he asked.

”Thank you,” said Joy. ”That is, if you don't think I'd be in the way.”

”If I thought you would be I wouldn't have asked you,” said Dr.

Hewitt matter-of-factly. ”So run along and pin up your hair, child.

I don't want people to think I've been robbing the cradle.”

He smiled at her in a brotherly fas.h.i.+on, and Joy began to feel a little ashamed of herself for trying to tease him, even if he didn't seem to see it. She liked him so much, apart from any other feeling, that it was hard to be anything but nice and grateful to him--except when she thought of Gail Maddox.

”It just takes two hairpins,” she informed him, coming over to him and holding up the ends of her braids. ”You wind it round and pin it behind.”

He took the hairpins and the braids, and quite deftly did as she asked him to.

”Hurry, my dear,” he said authoritatively, yet with a certain note of affection in his voice that made Joy feel very comforted. As she flew to get her cap her heart gave a queer, pleasant sort of turn-over. His voice made her feel so belonging.

She sang as she went, and Phyllis and John smiled across at each other, as over a dear child.

”Oh, John, I'm so glad you chose such a darling!” said Phyllis warmly, putting her hands on his shoulders, as ”A Perfect Day”

floated back to them from above. ”You know, Johnny, even the best of men do marry so--so surprisingly. She might have been--”

”'She might have been a Roosian, or French or Dutch or Proosian,'”

he quoted frivolously. ”Well, Phyllis, I'm glad you approve of my--ah--choice. How long do you think it will take it to get its hat on?”

”Oh, you can laugh,” Phyllis answered him, ”but I know you're proud of her, just the same.”