"
She heard him protesting a little at that; then they slid out
softly, while poor Joy sat behind her curtains, moveless and
aghast.... Oh, was this what she was like ... to real, happy, gay
people her own age? And she had liked the girl so, and been so
glad she had her lover, and that they loved each other! And
Grandfather.... She had never thought whether he wrote poetry about
her or not. She had just taken it for granted. People had to write
about something, and it was just as apt to be you as a public crisis
or a sunset, or anything else useful for the purpose. But they had
_laughed_ about it.... Oh, she did hope it wouldn't be a poem
about her that he was going to read! She felt she couldn't stand it,
if it were. She knew that when she was the subject she was expected
to be in sight, as a sort of outward and visible sign.
"I won't go out into the room!" she said defiantly. "He doesn't
expect the sunsets and public crises to stand up and be looked at
when he reads about them!"
So she stayed just where she was. As she stayed, incongruously, a
joke out of an old Punch came into her head--not at all an esthetic
one. It was a picture of a furious woman brandishing a broom, while
the tips of her husband's boots showed under the bed-foot. The
husband was saying: "Ye may poke at me and ye may threaten me, but
ye canna break my manly sperrit. I willna come out fra under the bed!"
Joy laughed a little, even in her sad state of mind, at the
remembrance.
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