"Oh, it _is_ ridiculous," she gasped. "I feel as if I'd kidnapped you and couldn't dispose of you.... We really must stop laughing, or the others will come down on us to know what we're laughing at." "You won't be able to dispose of me till the visit's over, at any rate," John answered her, sobering a little. "My mother and your grandmother have settled that for us effectually." Joy sat bolt upright and faced him. "You mean you're going to let it go on?" "Why, of course I'm going to let it go on," said he matter-of-factly. "What else can we do about it?" Joy's heart gave a spring of happiness. She wouldn't miss her visit, after all! "We can find out that we don't like each other, and break off the day you go home. I'll come back from the train very sad," he told her. "Thank you _very_ much," she said happily. "I thought I was going to have to confess to every one and go back to Grandmother. I'm very glad I needn't." "You poor kiddie!" he said, as he had said the first time he met her. "Well, on this particular point all you have to do is remember what Beatrice Fairfax says, 'Never explain and never confess, and you'll be respected and admired by all.'" "It sounds like getting admiration and respect under false pretenses," Joy answered doubtfully. But she dimpled as she said it and looked up sideways at John under her black eyelashes. The effect was so unexpected and pretty that it set John wondering why she didn't do it oftener. Suddenly a probable reason dawned on him. When John Hewitt discovered anything wrong it was his prompt habit to right it, and he did so now. "See here, child, I can't have you being afraid of me," he said peremptorily. "When I told you I was a trial fiancé, I didn't mean that I was to be less of a fiancé than a trial. If we're going to be theoretically engaged for a month, we'll have to be friends, at least, and friends trust each other, and know they can ask each other to do anything they want. They know, too, that they never need be afraid of either being angry at the other." "Then I'm to take it for granted that you feel as friendly toward me as I do toward you?" she asked. "Why, naturally," he answered. "That's friendship." "It sounds much nicer than anything I ever heard about in my life," said Joy enthusiastically. "But--are you sure I'm not the one that's going to be more of a trial than a fiancé? I--I don't want to be a bother, you know." "If you are, I'll tell you," he promised. "All right," said Joy contentedly, "and I promise not to have my feelings hurt a bit." She felt quite unafraid of him by now, as he had intended, for they had been talking together as if they were exactly the same age--or, rather, Joy thought, as if nobody had any age at all.