“I’ll hand it to you for the line of Noah Webster’s specials, anyway,” he drawled. “Didn’t you know little girls shouldn’t use such long words?”
“Well, I don’t care, it’s true! I’ve noticed it everywhere I’ve ever been, except at Jerry’s. You—even you—have changed a little since we got down here.”
The smile left his face. “That’s what I get for trying to treat you as if you’d never seen Jerry’s.”
“Why—what on earth do you mean?”
Before her amazed directness he turned away his face. “I can’t understand you at all,” he muttered.
At the end of that dance, Betty came running up to her, a different man in tow. “You must meet my brother Grant,” she panted; “and he wants to meet you, too!”
Laughing, the two shook hands, and Joy found herself looking into eyes of the richest blue she had ever seen. Betty’s brother was very tall, very brown, and either very quiet or temporarily overcome. And at the very first survey, Joy decided that he was by far the nicest looking man she had met since she came to Boston.
“She sings, and everything,” chanted Betty, “and Packy brought her, and he’s danced every dance with her so far, and it’s only fair he should dance a little with some of the rest of us, don’t you think? Come on, Packy!”
Packy, looking volumes, moved off with Betty. Left alone, the two looked at each other and laughed. “That’s the way she always is,” explained Grant. “Mind if we sit this out? I’ve been sailing all day, and was dragged here under protest.”
They sat out on the porch, under the stars, and talked of various indifferent things. He discovered that she had not been there before, and insisted on taking her down the Promenade to the beach. There they sat on the sand and talked again upon indifferent things. It was calm and cool with the water sipping in front of them and the music from the hotel faintly behind them. Joy found herself liking Grant Grey very much indeed for so short an acquaintance. There was something so boyish and straightforward about him, a something that was decidedly different from the men she had been meeting at Jerry’s. Even if they were only college boys, they had a great deal of slangy sophistication that “Grant” did not possess. Then, too, the way he treated her was less—the only fitting word she could think of was hectic—than the way she had been treated lately. His grave respect and quiet talk of sailing, boats and similar neutral subjects were especially welcome after the argument with Packy on the way down in the car. And when he did abruptly shift the conversation to personalities, it was done in such a way that she did not mind.