ubject entirely by her next remark, and Dalton's name was not again
mentioned.

But when Camille proposed the drive the two had planned, Joyce found
Lucy's promised call a sufficient excuse to decline going. Her neighbors
would not be so easily put off, however.

"How absurd, Joyce! 'Phone her to come later, can't you? We'll be back
by two or three o'clock. You know Leon's furlough only lasts a
fortnight."

"But it may be a grave matter with Lucy. Have you told Leon of our
tragic happenings, here? I believe I have not written them?" giving him
a quick glance.

"No, you haven't--nor anything else. I began to think you had dropped me
from your list, Joyce."

"I have been so busy. No, I must not put Lucy off just for my own
pleasure."

"And ours." Leon was studying her face with a thoughtful expression on
his own. She seemed unreal to him, somehow.

"Oh, I shall claim all the rest of your day. I want you all to come over
for dinner to-night, down to Dodo. You won't disappoint me?"

"I don't know," pouted Camille, unappeased.

"Well, I do," said Leon heartily, still oblivious to currents and
counter-currents. "I shall come at any rate, and I doubt not the rest
will come trailing after. Perhaps, Joyce, you won't refuse a drive alone
with me, to-morrow?"

"We will see."

"I know you have plenty of calls upon your time, but I won't keep you
long. Will you go?"

He looked straight into her eyes with the old commanding manner, which
she had never been able to resist. She smiled and murmured "Yes," but,
to her own dazed surprise, her whole soul roused up to whisper
emphatically "_No!_"

And she did not go, after all. When Lucy appeared it was to beg with
tears that she might be taken to see poor Nate, and Joyce gladly
promised all that she desired. Her pride once broken down, Lucy sobbed
and cried in an abandon of sorrow, letting her childish heart lie bare
beneath Joyce's tender gaze. The latter told the child she could not
leave that day on account of the dinner-party, but would be ready early
in the morning for the first train.

"I will have to excuse myself to Leon," she thought with an odd
lightening at her heart.

And then, as the vision of his fine face and figure, his grace of
manner, his joyous frankness and charm of conversation, rose before her,
a wave of astonishment, almost of protest, swept over her till the tears
rose in her eyes. What had so changed her that she should be glad to
avoid her ol