“I saw your car,” said Joy, “or else I wouldn’t have tried to jump.”
“Oh—so that’s what brought about the smash!”
Jerry whistled. “Joy, when I saw the car hit the tree——No matter; and we certainly paid Packy off. We picked you up—or rather Jim did—and put you in the taxi—and Packy was rolling about with only an eye gone wrong—so Jim put him to sleep beside his car, which was all in, too, from the looks of it; and came back home—leaving Packy to his own devices, as the saying is. Not a peep has been heard from him; he must have come to and slapped the car into shape, or there’d at least have been a squib in the papers.”
“Now you’ve gotten to me,” said Joy.
Jerry suddenly sobered, dropping the light tone she had been using to gild the narrative. “You’ve had a little—concussion of the brain. I don’t know whether the doctor wanted me to tell you or not—but he says you’ll be all right in a couple of weeks, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t have the straight facts.”
“Concussion.” Joy considered her state. “Oh, yes—that’s what football athletes are always getting, aren’t they?”
“That’s right—the idea’s the same,” said Jerry. “You tackled a tree, instead of a person.” There was a slight pause, and Jerry said briskly: “Mr. Grant Grey has called up once or twice. I told him you were ill, but I guess he thinks it’s only a stall.”
“Oh—Grant——” She dismissed the subject as a triviality that could be attended to at any time. “My father, Jerry—you haven’t let him know about me, have you?”
“No, I didn’t. I would have, if the doctor had given me any reason to; but he said that you would be all right and if you by any chance should start sliding, it wouldn’t be sudden—your father could be reached in time. I sort of thought you wouldn’t want him to know.”
“I wonder—what would have happened.” Joy tried to imagine her father’s arrival in the apartment; his meeting with Sarah and Jerry; his hearing the no doubt picturesque recital of her accident that Jerry would render. The arrival of the doctor put a stop to this conjecture, which was not a sufficiently pleasant line of thought to be reopened at any other time.