Your assurance
that you loved him----"
Joy leaned forward, her eyes blazing with excitement.
"And suppose I told you I was engaged, would you let me go to visit
Phyllis, if she lived near him, and--and his people were so situated
that he couldn't have me?"
Grandfather was perfectly certain that Joy was no more engaged than
old Elizabeth the cook was, and he went on placidly with his
hypothetical case, which was also his hobby.
"If I had met the young man, received him socially, even once, my
child, you may be sure, under those circumstances, you might go. One
has no right to interfere with----"
Grandmother in the background wasn't so sure, her eager little face
said, but she was a very obedient and adoring wife.
Joy interrupted him. He had given her a loophole, and she was
desperate to go. She couldn't wait forever for the lover!
"Grandfather, I--I _am_ engaged! I met him at one of your
receptions, and so did you, _quite_ socially. You--I know you
must have met him, and liked him, too--everybody does."
It was a terrible thing to do, and Joy's heart beat fast. But surely
the Wishing-Ring Man wouldn't mind--he would never know even! And
Grandfather had talked so long about giving her up at sight to that
hypothetical lover, that he might almost have been said to put the
wickedness into her head. And if she waited for a real one she might
wander alone about the parlors till she was an old, old maid with
trailing gray braids.
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