Part 24 (2/2)
”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?”
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