“I’ve seen him several times—he’s working in Boston.”
“Oh, he’s all right—I guess his friends like him well enough.”
More praising with faint damns! But Joy did not absorb the mandate of the busy college man, as she would have last spring. She laughed amiably as she sped Tom on his way. She was still laughing as she came into the hall and passed her father, who was coming in from his evening smoke.
“What are you laughing at, my dear?” Mr. Nelson inquired, pausing for a moment although he had an excellent book of the vintage of ’61 awaiting him in the library.
“Myself, mostly!” she replied, and went on into the music room, walking slowly over the tacked-down carpet to her beloved grand piano. How standards of college changed after college, and how futilely provincial were they who still saw life through those standards! Jim Dalton was far from the nonentity class in which she had placed him last spring. If only Grant had been like Jim——
Her fingers found the accompaniment of little bells, chiming from far away—and she was murmuring the words—
“My only love is always near
In country or in town——”
She broke off with a little sob, and her hands stayed without motion on the soundless keys. “The Unrealized Ideal!” And so it was.
“Lightly I speed while hope is high