"No, you haven't—nor anything else. I began to think you had dropped me from your list, Joyce."
"I have been so busy. No, I must not put Lucy off just for my own pleasure."
"And ours." Leon was studying her face with a thoughtful expression on his own. She seemed unreal to him, somehow.
"Oh, I shall claim all the rest of your day. I want you all to come over for dinner to-night, down to Dodo. You won't disappoint me?"
"I don't know," pouted Camille, unappeased.
"Well, I do," said Leon heartily, still oblivious to currents and counter-currents. "I shall come at any rate, and I doubt not the rest will come trailing after. Perhaps, Joyce, you won't refuse a drive alone with me, to-morrow?"
"We will see."
"I know you have plenty of calls upon your time, but I won't keep you long. Will you go?"
He looked straight into her eyes with the old commanding manner, which she had never been able to resist. She smiled and murmured "Yes," but, to her own dazed surprise, her whole soul roused up to whisper emphatically "No!"
And she did not go, after all. When Lucy appeared it was to beg with tears that she might be taken to see poor Nate, and Joyce gladly promised all that she desired. Her pride once broken down, Lucy sobbed and cried in an abandon of sorrow, letting her childish heart lie bare beneath Joyce's tender gaze. The latter told the child she could not leave that day on account of the dinner-party, but would be ready early in the morning for the first train.