"It isn't that I want to take any pleasure away from you," he explained. "It's simply that the opera would of necessity throw you into closer contact with Clarence—and I don't think you quite understand what Clarence is. He is very attractive, but, as I have told you before, he is not a man I would trust. A man who goes as deliberately about making women in love with him as he does, with a frank admission to other men that he collects them, isn't a man I want you to have much to do with."
Joy moved away from the arm entirely. She felt hurt.
"In other words, you're afraid he'll toy with my young affections?" she answered flippantly. "Very well—let him try! Goodness knows he's labeled loudly enough. Every time he comes within a mile somebody says that about him. Everything about him says it for itself, for the matter of that. It isn't any secret. Let him toy! It amuses him and doesn't hurt me."
"If I could be sure it wouldn't hurt you—" said John in a low voice. "He is very fascinating, Joy."
There was a note of pain in John's voice, but Joy did not heed it.
"You are hurting me!" she said angrily, rising. "How can you——"
She did not finish. She had been going to say, "How can you talk that way when I belong to you?" but she had not the courage. He could never know how much she belonged to him. "I very much want to be in this opera, and I think I shall," she said definitely.
"I have no way of preventing you," he answered coldly.
"But can't you trust me not to be silly?" she asked in a softer tone. "Oh, John, I'll promise not to let Clarence break my heart. I promise not to let anything break it. Good-night."
She gathered up her mending-basket, set her chair carefully where it had belonged, and went slowly out of the room without another word.