She came down a moment later, brown-clad and demure, and looking so young and harmless that any man would have been sure his tilt with her, of the night before, was a dream. She greeted him shyly, with her lashes down.
"Isn't—isn't it a little early for you to be away from your patients?" she asked.
"My morning office hours are just over, and I'm on my way to make some calls in the car. Want to come?" he asked.
"Thank you," said Joy. "That is, if you don't think I'd be in the way."
"If I thought you would be I wouldn't have asked you," said Dr. Hewitt matter-of-factly. "So run along and pin up your hair, child. I don't want people to think I've been robbing the cradle."
He smiled at her in a brotherly fashion, and Joy began to feel a little ashamed of herself for trying to tease him, even if he didn't seem to see it. She liked him so much, apart from any other feeling, that it was hard to be anything but nice and grateful to him—except when she thought of Gail Maddox.
"It just takes two hairpins," she informed him, coming over to him and holding up the ends of her braids. "You wind it round and pin it behind."
He took the hairpins and the braids, and quite deftly did as she asked him to.
"Hurry, my dear," he said authoritatively, yet with a certain note of affection in his voice that made Joy feel very comforted. As she flew to get her cap her heart gave a queer, pleasant sort of turn-over. His voice made her feel so belonging.
She sang as she went, and Phyllis and John smiled across at each other, as over a dear child.