“Oh, I should love to,” said Joy, “but it would mean leaving the girl with whom I came over, all alone——”
“Bring her too, then! That settles it!” Mabel laughed. “I’ll send the car back for you at seven-fifteen. You’re a nice child, Joy!” She paused in her exit, and lifted a black-gloved finger. “So you and she are staying alone at an hotel in the wicked city. Dear me—these New England cousins!”
Joy went slowly back to the room where Jerry stared out of the window at a New York that had grown barren to her. She had made an opportunity—given Jerry her fighting chance. And now she was overwhelmed by misgivings. It did not seem possible that a love could have endured so long upon so little. And how could Jerry hold her own in the house of Mabel Lancaster Drew? She—Mabel—had all but raised her eyebrows—at their being alone in New York together. What would she think, when she saw Jerry—— But Joy put away that thought.
What should she tell Jerry? It was hard not to tell her the incredible truth; it was the fair, square way that Jerry would have taken. But it might be better for Jerry to be unprepared. She debated; and since she could not decide, did not tell her. Jerry showed no enthusiasm at the thought of dining with Joy’s cousins.
“You say you don’t know them at all, yet you’re passing up a wonderful chance for us to go along to some awful little joint while Félicie isn’t here to clamp down on dirty food!”
“We might as well get a meal paid for,” said Joy, watching Jerry’s preparations with ill-concealed suspense. Jerry, always sensitive to waves of feeling, dropped the bright green dinner gown she had taken up and laughed. “Why did you make ’em throw me in with the invitation, Joy, if you’re going to feel cross-eyed about my get-up?”
“Haven’t you brought anything—darker?” Joy asked feebly.
“Not in the dinner line. Never mind. Here’s a black velvet of Félicie’s.”
“It will hang on you in folds.”
“Oh, no, it won’t.” Jerry had wriggled in and out of the velvet, pinned a few bunches in the luscious material, then sat down with her sewing-kit in her favourite cross-legged position. Inside of six minutes, she put away her thimble, stuck her needle on the outside of the kit and threw it on the bed, and put on the velvet, which fell about her in full, majestic lines, but looked as if it had been built for her. Joy thought with a spurt of hope that she had never seen Jerry look so well. The black toned her down; the velvet softened her. She felt ashamed of her momentary qualms, and tried to make up for it by talking effusively on the way over, and jesting about the way cars were being sent for them. However, her efforts only evoked a puzzled look from Jerry, who did not know Joy in a talkative vein.