"I shall probably have to take the leading man's part on the night,"
she told him. "Oh, I forgot it was you, Tiddy--I beg your pardon.
Well, Clarence's, then. And until that awful moment, let me be happy
in obscurity!"
Joy, who had _Iolanthe's_ long, hard part to learn, and was
delighted with the idea, fixed her eyes on the opposite wall and
tried to remember what she had to say first. She was staying on by
special permission, for the opera. Mrs. Hewitt herself had written
Grandmother. Grandfather, very much pleased at the idea that Joy had
inherited another form of his own talent, had said she could stay
the full week of the performance. As they planned to give it on a
Tuesday night, this was almost a week to the good.
"Then it's settled that Mrs. Harrington and Gail, with as many more
as are needed, go chorus-hunting tomorrow," said Clarence with
finality. "Now we'll start that 'When darkly looms the day' duet.
Tiddy, Joy! Look interested, please. Bang the piano, if you don't
mind, Mrs. Harrington. Now!"
Joy and Tiddy accordingly burst into song, assisted by Allan and
John. Mrs. Hewitt, who had to be very stealthy about coming in,
because she had been put out several times for talking in the middle
of some exciting moment, slid into a chair beside the De Guenthers,
and behaved nobly. She was quite able to be around now, and Joy was
beginning to feel that she ought to accede to Phyllis' requests to
go back and stay with them a while.
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