Joy was thinking of the phrases she had heard bandied with such assurance—yes, that she herself had bandied in her own mind; “the risks and sacrifices of marriage,” “marriage clipping the wings.” In the nursery—and now, with Mabel’s suddenly iridescent love spreading beauty in her face—a career with all its gilt glory seemed very far away and unreal. But they came back to a room which was echoing to great music filtered through a sounding-box; and nursery and Mabel’s face sank away. Different hearts, different loves—and what could one love one-half so satisfying as music?
Eustace Drew and the college girl were selecting other records from the cabinet—Jerry and Phil Lancaster were on the other side of the room, beyond the candles, talking. Jerry was sitting on the window-seat; he was standing looking down upon her, his back to the room. Joy frantically wished that she were a pane in that window, then sat down beside the college girl, who turned a smiling face to her with some comment on the music. Joy answered it without impetus, and in the ensuing conversation was surprised to find that Miss Dalrymple was actually interesting on the subject. Besides being well-read, as Joy innocently supposed all college girls to be, she was evidently well-heard. She decided that Miss Dalrymple added up to a very attractive girl. She wasn’t the type that a man would ask to a Prom to cut a wide swath and impress the other fellows with looks and jazz, but she was very attractive just the same. She had beauty of an unobtrusive sort; her clothes were quietly right; and she had a responsive glow that was most winning. Joy continued the conversation in an investigating frame of mind. This girl must be several years older than she was. She seemed older, in some few ways, but on the whole, so much younger. . . .
After a long conversation Joy again looked at the two at the end of the room. It was so maddening to sit through an evening in ignorance of all that was passing. Mabel followed her look.
“Your friend seems to have bewitched my brother, Joy,” she said lightly. “She must be a sorceress, and cast a spell—he hasn’t even been polite to a girl for so long.”
Joy stole a glance at her watch. Quarter of ten—it was surely already too late to stay after a dinner in a butlered house such as this,—even if Jerry did show no signs of desiring to leave the window seat. She was stopped in her preliminary motions of departure by the insistence of the Drews. Why, they were scarcely acquainted with their new cousin yet! They did not even know what she was doing—what school she was attending, or if she was just being a butterfly this year. Somehow, she drew back from telling them about her studying and its aspirations. It sounded so out of place in that atmosphere—so hectic after what she had seen upstairs. So she evaded the subject with a careless, “Oh, I’m not doing much of anything just now,” and this time succeeded in saying her farewells uninterrupted. Somehow Jerry saw her rise, and strolled over to them. Phil following with objecting footsteps. Jerry was palpably nervous. What she had done in allowing herself to be monopolized in a corner at such a small dinner-party where she had been a stranger, had been in bad taste; but it was the sort of thing that was being done continually by yearlings belonging to what is known as “the best families,” and she had not sinned against precedent.
Mabel bade Joy an affectionate good-bye, adjuring her not to forget that the next time she visited New York she must stay with her cousins, and the Bryn Mawr girl shook hands warmly, hoping-to-see-her-again in a really genuine tone. Joy found her voice returning a like remark in as genuine a tone.
Eustace Drew joined Phil as they went to the door, and the two men rode to the Belmont with Joy and Jerry in an easy volleying of general conversation carried on mainly by Mr. Drew. Jerry, back in the gloom of the car, was inscrutable; Phil more so. They left them at the elevator, where the two girls turned to each other as the door closed and they shot upwards.
“Anchor me down, Joy,” Jerry whispered; “anchor me down, or I’ll float away!”
“Jerry! What was he saying?”
An interim while they got off at their floor, passed a maid in the corridor, and gained their room. Jerry threw off her coat and went to the mirror. “Can you believe it, Joy?” she asked, in luxurious wonder, falling into all angles of pose; “he doesn’t know me! I’ve changed so much he doesn’t know me!”