“Miss Nelson!” she hailed her. “I didn’t know you were in Boston!” Joy interrupted as she started to present Grant. “We’ve already met. I didn’t know _you_ were in Boston, Miss Dalrymple.” The college girl explained that she was visiting a friend in her vacation, that it was her first visit in Boston, and that she liked it _very much_. Her eyes dwelt on Grant in naïve compliment at this last, and Grant smiled appreciatively in return. Joy nearly smiled, herself. Six months ago, and one would have thought she had ruined a life. Now Grant was looking better, and happier, than she had ever seen him; and he was regarding her with offhand friendliness. The girl at his side was really an exquisite thing, with clear, eager eyes like his own. Joy knew that her own radiant eyes had been dulled, first by the experience of disillusionment, and then by monotonous routine. She knew that she was thin and pale from a life of irregular restaurant eating; she knew that the exquisite young thing at Grant’s side gained colour by comparison; and she was glad. This could be a last picture that would wipe out all regret, in dreams of what might have been. Miss Dalrymple was all exclamations over Jerry’s marriage. “To think that it happened the very next day, and there we sat never suspecting what was going on! It’s the most romantic thing I ever knew!” Mabel had written Joy twice; at first when she had been so upset over the unconventionality that marked this Lancaster marriage, then later when she had seen them together and lost her shock, in joy at finding her brother in the heights she was beginning to fear would never be his. “Mabel always said he was awfully romantic,” the college girl was saying; “that explained his cynicism, for they say cynics are always really romantic—that’s the way they hide it. But did you ever hear of anything so sudden?” Joy’s eyes caught Grant’s on that. “Not—that turned out so well,” she said demurely. Miss Dalrymple turned to Grant. “You know, Miss Nelson’s cousin had her brother all picked out for me—when Miss Nelson walked in with the most fascinating girl you ever saw, who walked right off with him.” “Then I owe Miss Nelson—a very great debt!” said Grant, with a smile that broke in the middle as he looked at Joy and saw her amusement shrieking from beneath the sheltered surface of polite friendliness. The air was tingling with omissions, as Joy said her good-byes and left them. Their status was plain—an affair well along in interest and momentum.