Joy interrupted him. He had given her a loophole, and she was desperate to go. She couldn't wait forever for the lover!
"Grandfather, I—I am engaged! I met him at one of your receptions, and so did you, quite socially. You—I know you must have met him, and liked him, too—everybody does."
It was a terrible thing to do, and Joy's heart beat fast. But surely the Wishing-Ring Man wouldn't mind—he would never know even! And Grandfather had talked so long about giving her up at sight to that hypothetical lover, that he might almost have been said to put the wickedness into her head. And if she waited for a real one she might wander alone about the parlors till she was an old, old maid with trailing gray braids.
There was a frozen silence.
"En-gaged?" said Grandfather faintly.
Grandfather had a code all to himself. He didn't know it, being a man, but he had. It forbade ever being taken by surprise, ever being at a loss, ever being in the wrong, or ever contradicting himself. This made for great respect, given to him by the world at large, his family, and himself; but it put him at a terrible disadvantage in things like this. He couldn't go back on what the great Alton Havenith had said for many years. Joy, shivering but desperate, knew this perfectly well, though she didn't formulate it.
"You always hoped for it," she told him firmly.
"I—I did," said Grandfather with an obvious discomfort, but with unabated loyalty to himself. Then he snatched at a pretext. Poor little Grandmother's, hands were opening and shutting, but she was well trained, and she didn't speak till he was through dealing with the situation.
"Can your friends vouch for him socially?" Grandfather demanded.
Joy's alert, frightened mind scurried about for a moment, then she plunged into further fabrications.