“Work!”
Jerry laughed. “It’s time I took in washing on the side again. I am not a young lady of independent means.”
Sarah gave forth a groan. “Oh, dear, Jerry, are you going to start again?”
“Must, my lady, the situation spells must, if I am to continue to buy our delicatessen breakfasts. At times, food seems scarcely worth while to me.”
“It seems to me,” said Joy, “that we are pretty extravagant for people having no visible income.”
“How?” demanded Sarah. “We hardly ever buy any meals except breakfasts——”
“But look at the stuff we drink and pass around—so far as I can see, keeping the cellarette filled is as expensive as running a free bar——”
“Little one,” Jerry drawled, “our cellarette is endowed. Some day when I have a lot of time I’ll take you around to the wine closet and tell you the names of who has contributed to which. To send a case of spirits to a young lady was ever a delicate mark of attention. We had a wonderful collection this spring, and before the first of July—don’t you remember the cases and cases of supplies that were pouring in around then? We have to go easy on those Prohibition allotments, though. The donors collect on them every once in so often.”
Joy realized that she was learning something new every day. She travelled down to the Grey’s in a rather sombre frame of mind. Her father had returned home and she had just escaped his descending upon her on the way by business necessity which had made him haste on through and write her, wishing her to return as soon as she could. She had written him that she was at a critical period in voice-placing and did not want to leave her teacher just now, especially when she was so lucky as to have him in Boston during the summer. It was true, she was going through a critical period in voice placing. In spite of her irregular hours, under Pa Graham’s magical touch and through the scales she practised regularly, her voice was coming forth in a way that now bewildered her, now filled her with an exultant sense of power. But the moments of exultation were few and far between. It was baffling to let loose one pure, golden note, and while yet tingling from the joy of it, to follow it with half a dozen that were edgy, or swallowed, or had a thread in them—there seemed to be no end to the variety of ways one could defeat tone production. She had just achieved sufficient grasp in the art of singing to know how little she knew, and instead of discouraging her as it might have at first, she was lured on and stimulated to further endeavour. She was right not to leave Pa,—but she knew that was not the real reason she had signified her wish to remain in Boston. Was it this boy—this boy whom she had seen only once? She ought to know by this time how transient her fancies were. But this was so different from her other affair. She knew more about men now.
Betty met her at the station in a little runabout, and had driven away the flurry in Joy’s brain with her eager chatter. Grant had been intending to come to the station, too, she informed her; but at the last minute Mrs. Grey had found a number of things for him to do. Grant humoured mother a lot. Betty didn’t believe in it; encourage mothers too much, and they’ll expect everything of you.