“What two attitudes? I’m afraid I for one, don’t understand. You are talking in riddles to-night!” She spoke in a gay debonair manner so like her usual self that her brother-in-law was unsuspicious of any underlying intent of opposition. This was just the opportunity for which he was waiting. With a sardonic smile he went on, singling out Joy as before:
“Your mother, my dear, has told us one of them. Perhaps the young man did look at you. There’s little wonder in that. Were I a young man and a stranger I should look at you myself; and I would also have looked at any other man who dared to look at you too. If this is a man’s attitude he should be more genial—more explicit—more open—less constrained to her relatives. That my dear Judy,”—he turned to her as he spoke “is the other attitude.” Mrs. Ogilvie answered—the conversation to-night was decidedly oblique:
“Really, Colonel, I can’t agree with you. For my own part I thought his attitude towards her relatives was all that was courteous and respectful. Certainly to her mother!” She bridled, and Joy grew more serious. Her mother calling her husband “Colonel” was another danger-signal; and she knew that if once her father and mother got to loggerheads over him—“him” was her way of thinking of Mr. Hardy—it might keep him away from her. She summoned up her courage and said with all the affectionate raillery which was usually so effective with her father:
“Daddy dear do you remember Æsop’s fable about the Boy and the Frogs?”
“I suppose I ought to, little girl; but I’m afraid I have forgotten. What was it about?”
“The Boys were throwing stones at the Frogs, and when the Frogs remonstrated the Boys said they were doing it for fun. So the Frogs answered: ‘It may be fun to you; but it is death to us!’” Colonel Ogilvie puckered up his eyebrows:
“I remember, now, my dear; but for the life of me I don’t see its application here.” Joy said with a preternatural demureness:
“It means Daddy, that you are the Boy and I am the Frog!” Her father’s gravity became intensified:
“That does not help me much, daughter!”
“Well, you see, Daddy, here are you and mother commenting on how a man looked at me—and—so forth. But you don’t take into consideration the sensitiveness of a woman’s heart—let alone her vanity. I think you’ve forgotten that I am not now ‘merely a child emerging into womanhood’—don’t you remember on the Cryptic—but a staid woman to whose waning attractions everything relating to a man is sacred. One who looks on man, her possible rescuer from the terrors of old maidhood with the desperation of accomplished years.” As she had spoken unthinkingly the word “rescuer” a hot tide of blood had rushed to her face, but she went bravely on to the end of her sentence. There was not one of the three who did not understand the meaning. Her mother and aunt were concerned at the self-betrayal. Her father’s face grew fixed, now to sternness. With a faint heart Joy felt that she had made a terrible mistake, and inwardly condemned herself for its foolishness. Colonel Ogilvie now went on with grave deliberateness, he was determined that there should be no error regarding his disapprobation. All the time he was inwardly fuming against Mr. Hardy whom he held responsible: