Joy, trailing the end of a braid absently in the water, thought a minute longer, then looked up at him.
"It seems to me," she said suddenly, "that you just mock and mock at things all the time. I'm not clever, and I can't answer you cleverly. You might as well make up your mind to it, and then the way I look won't be a disappointment to you. I know I look like a medieval princess. It's because I was brought up to. But I'm not the least bit medieval inside; honestly I'm not. I love to cook and I love children, and I'm always hungry for my meals. I don't want to seem discouraging, but I shall really be a dreadful disappointment to you if you—"
"As long as you have copper-gold hair and sky-blue eyes, nothing you can do will disappoint me," said Clarence caressingly. "Be a suffragette, if you will—be a war-widow! It's all the same. I can be just as happy with you—and I intend to be!"
The mockery dropped from his voice for a moment as he said the last words. Joy looked at him, a little frightened for the moment. She smiled, then.... She was only nineteen, but she was thoroughly human, and the spirit of Aunt Lucilla lighted her eyes. She dropped her black lashes against her pink cheeks and spoke irresponsibly.
"But suppose—suppose I should fall in love with you?" she asked in a most little-girl voice. "Don't you see how dreadfully unhappy I would be?"
"Oh, you won't," Clarence assured her in a tone whose casualness did not quite hide his welcome of the prospect. "We'll just be interested in each other enough to make it interesting. Why, Joy of My Life, I wouldn't take anything from good old Hewitt for anything in the world."
There was a certain amount of conceit in Clarence's voice and manner, patent even to so inexperienced a person as Joy. He seemed to think that all he had to do was take! Joy looked at him curiously for a moment, and then she sighed. Sometimes she almost wished somebody would take her mind off caring so much for John.
"But this isn't real," she suddenly thought, "the sunshine and the gaiety and these kind, handsome Harrington people being good to me, and this Clarence person posing about and trying to toy with my young affections—why, it's like a fairy tale or a play! ... I just rubbed the wishing ring, and it happened!"
She forgot Clarence again and began to sing softly under her breath, watching the ruffled water.
"What are you thinking, Melisande?" asked Clarence softly.