Joy was not one of those
nerve-shaking people who insist on having things out, anyhow. She
was perfectly content with things as they were.
The weather settled down to be legitimate October weather, a little
early: crisply lovely outdoors, and of the temperature to be an
excuse for fires indoors at night. Tiddy transferred his allegiance,
still a little shyly, to Joy. The change was good for him, because
they were, after all, very much of an age. They got to be excellent
friends. Also Joy kept him at his studies in a fashion that was, for
her, quite severe: he had asked her if she wouldn't, and she did.
She went off for tramps with him when John was otherwise employed,
which seemed to please John, and prevented her from having Clarence
too much underfoot.
Gail referred to Tiddy's desertion with her usual note of indolent
amusement--it did not occur to Joy till years later that Gail might
occasionally pretend a superiority to such things as annoy other
girls--and summoned another man from the city for week-ends. Tiddy
was indigenous to the soil. This, as Clarence, with _his_ amiable
superiority, said, was so much to the good, for when you come to
amateur theatricals every man is a man. Clarence was working with an
industry nobody would ever have suspected in him, over "Iolanthe."
It was easy enough to collect the principals. With a certain amount
of nobility of character, Clarence assigned himself the part of
_Lord Chancellor_, remarking that he could make a fool of
himself rather better than most men he knew.
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