If it had been anybody but John she would have been much more
embarrassed than she was, but by now she had come unconsciously to
feel that when things went wrong John was the natural person to come
to. He could always help her through them.
"Grandmother told me--" she began, then stopped. It was pretty hard
to tell, after all.
"Go on," he told her encouragingly. "Grandmother told you what?"
"She told me that she wrote your mother, and your mother said--she
said she wished we'd told her; but, anyway, she's sent out
invitations for a big party--to meet _me_!"
It all came with a rush. She didn't dare to meet John's eyes after
she had said it.
She heard his long, low whistle of astonishment, scarcely suppressed
in time, and a lower, but quite as fervent, "Great Scott!" and then
silence. It was not for a full minute that she dared look in the
direction of his chair, which he had swung away when she had told
him. She gave one quick glance, then another longer one. She could
not see his face, but his shoulders were shaking.... Had it moved
him so?
Joy was used, at Grandfather's, to hear of people being "moved."
"I didn't think John was the kind of a man to have emotions outside
of him that way," she thought a little disappointedly, "but I
suppose an awful thing like this--"
About then he turned himself toward her. He was laughing!
"Do you think it's funny?" she demanded.
"Funny?" replied John Hewitt, still laughing desperately, and trying
quite as desperately to do it quietly enough to prevent the descent
of the others, wanting to know what he was laughing at.
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