CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE GIFT OF THE RING
Joy had no idea in the world how she got into the car. John's guiding hand on her arm probably was all that saved her from stumbling into the hedge, or trying to walk up a tree, she thought afterwards. She was on the back seat, finally, with John by her. She laid her head back with a little tired half-moan, and felt John's strong, comforting arm drawing her over so that she could rest against his shoulder.
"You poor little girl, you're all worn out," she heard him say tenderly. "But I was proud of you, little Joy. I didn't know what a wonderful person I had found.... Little fairy princess!"
Ten minutes earlier the note of affection and pride in his voice would have made Joy so deliriously happy that she wouldn't have known what to do. But ... Gail knew ... Gail knew all about it all! ... How could men! And she had said she was going to give a tea. That probably meant that she was going to tell everybody everything, and laugh about it.
She was tired, and the shock of Gail's words had taken all the capacity for action out of her. She knew that if she'd had any proper feelings she would have moved coldly away from John, and accused him of betraying her to Gail, and demanded why he had done it. Evidently she had no proper feelings. You can't have, if you love people hard. She merely lay against John's strong, broad shoulder that felt so alive and comforting, and thought that this was the last time she would ever lean against it, or feel, as she always did when he touched her, as if there was some one who would look after her, and stand between her and every one else. She could not talk.
When they reached the Harrington house Allan took the car around to the garage at the back, himself, and Phyllis said she would stay in the car with him while he locked the garage. The men began to tease her for the idea she had offered, but Joy, hearing Phyllis laughingly defend herself, and explain what she really meant, knew that it was Phyllis' way of giving John a chance to say good-night to her alone.
"Dear Phyllis!" she thought, with a gush of gratitude in her heart that there was one person in the world so unfailingly thoughtful and honest and dependable. The world did not quite go down in ruins while Phyllis stood her friend.
"Dear Phyllis!" she heard John's gay voice say, as if in echo of her own thoughts. "She knew I'd want a chance to see you alone a minute.... What an awful amount of people too many there are in the world, aren't there, kiddie? I'm beginning to think with yearning of Crusoe's isle, and a barbed-wire fence around that."
He drew her into the shadow of the vines on the porch, and took her in his arms. ... And he had told Gail ... oh, how could men?