"The world nearly did come to an end," said Allan in a low voice. She made no answer to this in words, but Joy saw her catch Allan's hand and hold it hard for a moment before the men helped her to rise to her feet. She was perfectly able to walk, she declared, after standing a moment and recovering from the dizziness that came over her for a moment when she got up. She went back to the house with Allan's arm around her, and the children, whom nobody had as yet taken time to scold, following, awestruck and very meek, at a safe distance behind. "He _did_ act as if the world had come to an end," mused Joy aloud. "I was frightened for a minute, though." "You didn't show it. You were very brave and clear-headed," John told her comfortingly.... "I don't know that I'd have behaved very differently in his place. As he said, it wasn't I." "Oh, was that what he meant?" said Joy. "I didn't quite know." "Thank heaven it wasn't!" said John. CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE SLIGHTLY SURPRISING CLARENCE Phyllis was perfectly all right the next day. She stayed in the hammock because Allan made her, and she confessed to a shadow of a headache, but altogether, she said, her accident was worth much less fuss than was made over it. The rehearsals swept relentlessly on, past all stemming. Clarence was getting thinner under the strain, which was very becoming, and pleased him exceedingly. Joy, too, was a little affected by the current of things. In all Clarence's off moments he was either with her or trying to be, and she could not at all make him out. If he had been anybody else she would have thought he was very much in earnest about trying to make her marry him. But, then, John, when she came to think of it, could have been described the same way. A bit of Gail's careless wisdom, dropped one day at rehearsal, gave her a clue to things. Gail had been stating to one of the teachers, who played _Fleta_, one of the leaders of the chorus, that she'd had four proposals that summer. Gail's attitude of cynical frankness about her desire to collect scalps was something to make the average person gasp. She really meant it. She was, as Joy had discovered by this time, quite without malice--also quite without considerateness. "It isn't difficult," said Gail to the stiffening teacher. "Competition is the soul of trade. If I can give the poor souls an idea that other men want me--quite flaunt them, you know--they all come bounding up to want me, too. It's very cheering, don't you think, to have a faithful hound or so about?" Fortunately the teacher was called away by the exigencies of her part, just at that moment. Joy, who was not easily shocked by Gail, having spent nearly four weeks in her immediate vicinity now, lingered. She had an inquiring mind. "Do you think that really is true, Gail, or were you just trying to shock Miss Archinard?" she asked.