"Good-by, my little girl," she said. "I know Grace Carpenter's boy can't but be good to you. And, darling—she asked me to keep it for a surprise—I only heard this morning—but I know surprises aren't always pleasant—and you're so young, you need to be prepared. Grace wrote me she was greatly surprised by the news, though I'm sure she needn't have expected to be told if we weren't—but she was very sweet about it, and is giving a dance to all the nice people in Wallraven for you. It's set for the evening after you get there. She tells me she has arranged the invitations already, in a way that makes the short notice seem all right. Grace was always so ingenious.... Oh, there's the train—good-by, darling! Be a good girl!"
Joy was aghast.
"Grandmother!" she began. "Oh, Grandmother. I have to tell you! ... I—oh, John, tell her! I can't go! I—"
She turned to Hewitt despairingly. But he had not been listening: he had been watching the argument between Philip and the baggageman.
"Hurry, Joy, train's coming," was all he said, and caught her arm, whisking her aboard.
She pulled back, but that made no difference. He had her established in a seat, with what Phyllis called his "genial medical relentlessness," in spite of her appeals.
"But I can't go!" she protested weakly from her seat, as the train pulled out of the station.
"But, you see, you have," was John's placidly unanswerable reply, as he stowed his light overcoat on the rack above them and laid her coat over that with maddening precision. He smiled at her protectingly.
"Why, my dear child, what made you lose your nerve that way at the last minute?"
Then Joy understood that he had not heard the blow fall.