"Glad you met John, dear child," Phyllis corrected. "So am I. Glad I met you, I mean, and particularly glad John did. We were all so afraid he was going to marry Gail Maddox. I think he was getting a little worried over it himself!"
Joy looked up, startled.
"You mean—he wasn't really thinking of marrying some one else?"
Phyllis anchored her hat more securely, and smiled down out of the white cloud her veil made around the rose and blue and gold of her.
"He seems principally to have been thinking, in his monumental silence, of marrying you. But Gail was certainly 'spoken of for the position.'"
"Gail!" Joy murmured worriedly.
She had never thought of this complication.
Phyllis nodded.
"She's as nice as possible, but everybody could see how fearfully they wouldn't fit—everybody, that is, but the parties concerned. Gail's one of those people who are always dashing about aimlessly, doing something because she didn't do it yesterday. And John's the kind of a man—well, you know the kind he is: dependable, authoritative, angel-kind, and deadly clever. He's not a bit like Allan," said Allan's wife, as if Allan were the standard pattern for men. "If I didn't adore Allan too much to be so mean, I could fool him a dozen times a day, and so could any woman. If it meant John's life I don't believe I could hoodwink him, any more than I could another girl. I suppose it comes from diagnosing cases."
"We're almost at Wallraven, Phyllis," Allan spoke from behind them before Joy could answer. "Better come in and get your caravan in order."