"Poor little thing! I keep forgetting that you're just a child.
Sometimes you aren't, you know."
"No, sometimes I'm not," Joy echoed. Then she laughed up at him
impishly. "You say this thing is going to be done right?" she
mocked. "Very well, then, when Mr. Rutherford is nice to me you
ought to be nicer. When he sits down close to me and tells me I'm a
sorcerette--"
"A what?" demanded John swiftly. "See here, Joy, I'm practically in
charge of you, and you're very young, you know, and can't be
expected to know much about men. Rutherford is attractive and all
that, but he's a man I wouldn't trust the other side of a biscuit.
Any man can tell you that. Allan--"
"He talks just like a poet," said Joy innocently. How could John
know that this was an insult, not a compliment, in Joy's mind? She
had seen any amount of Clarences--ignoring her, to be sure, but
still saying Clarence things to others in her hearing--all her days.
"That may be," said John. "I'm no judge of poets, and I suppose you
are.... See here, Joy, there's an inhabitant--two of 'em--coming in
the doorway. Mother'll be wanting you to stand in a silly line and
pass people along to her, or away from her, or something. Come here
with me and we'll finish this. You're getting a wrong impression of
what I mean."
Joy found herself being steered masterfully into a little semi-dark
room that opened off the long parlor. John planted her in a low
chair in a corner and pulled up a stool for himself just opposite.
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