"Could I have a cup of coffee in a little while now, Lily-Anna?" she asked the cook, who was making beaten biscuit in an echoing fashion that would have penetrated any but the thick hundred-year-old walls of the kitchen.
"Why, Miss Joy—you goin' off on a ride with Dr. Johnny this early?" inquired Lily-Anna, thinking the natural thing. "Course you can. I'll make it right now. An' I'll tell Mis' Harrington."
Joy had forgotten Phyllis in her wild desire for flight. But she remembered now. She would have to call Phyllis and tell her. Indeed, she would rather tell her herself than have Gail know. She couldn't go off this way, as if she was taking the silver with her.
She retraced her steps up the stairs, opened the door of Phyllis' room softly. Phyllis' bed was near the door, and she sat up at the slight noise. Joy beckoned to her, and she slipped out of bed, flinging around her a blue kimono that lay across the footboard and setting her feet noiselessly in slippers as she came out with the swift, gliding step that was characteristic of her. She gathered back the loose masses of her amber-colored hair and flung them over her shoulder, shut the door softly in order not to disturb Allan, and followed Joy down the hall.
"What is it, dear?" she asked. "Telephone at this unchristian hour?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you," Joy answered, "but I had to. Where can we go where I can talk to you for half an hour—or maybe ten minutes?"
There was a glowing fire in the living-room, and, of old custom, a long couch stood before it. Phyllis led the way downstairs to this, and established Joy on it, drawing a chair up to it herself.
"Now tell me all about it," she said comfortingly. "And lie down, child—you look dead."
But Joy was too nervous to lie down.
"I have to go away on the nine-ten," she said.... "No, please, Phyllis, wait till I tell you, and you'll see I do. You would, too."