He sounded to Joy rather too much as if he was saying, "Good old Fido!" "It's something like saying it to a large dog with a bite, too," she meditated naughtily. "Clarence may find that out in a minute." She went on with her domestic duties, mending the tiny holes in the socks in her lap, and smiling secretly to herself. It did not occur to her, but if any one had told her a month before that she would be sitting alone with two interesting men, watching their relations becoming more and more strained on her account, she would have denied it flatly. Now that it was happening it seemed quite natural. It had doubtless seemed quite natural to Aunt Lucilla.... She darned on placidly, while Clarence continued his infuriating efforts to put John at ease. "There'll be a delightful part for you, old man," he assured his friend tenderly. "Don't worry about that. You'll have your chance." The idea of a dominant, large-ideaed, hardworking John Hewitt hungering for "his chance" in an amateur comic opera struck Joy as so funny that she couldn't repress a small giggle and a glance across at him. John caught her look and gave her an answering gleam of amusement. "You have the kindest heart in the world, Rutherford," said he sedately, "and I'll never forget it of you. ... Joy, my dear, would you mind running upstairs and seeing if Mother needs anything? And you may put away those socks you've been doing in my top drawer at the same time." Joy stiffened a little at the tone of easy authority, and then caught John's eye again. The amused look was still there--that, and a look of certainty that she would help him play his hand. He was getting neatly back at Clarence! She rose meekly. "Yes, John," she said in the very tone she would have used if the alternative had been a beating, and excusing herself to Clarence in the same meek voice, took herself and her completed work upstairs. A glance at her room through the crack of the door told Joy that Mrs. Hewitt was sleeping sweetly. She opened the door of John's room with a more fearful heart. It seemed a little frightening to go into his own private room where he lived. She pushed open the door and tiptoed in. It was a large room, very orderly, with a faint, fresh smell of cigars and toilet water about it--the smell that no amount of airing can ever quite drive out of a man's room. Joy liked it. The dresser, flanked by a tie-rack, faced her as she came in. She ran to it, jerked out a drawer and stuffed in the socks hurriedly, and turned to go down again. In the middle of the room she paused for a moment. It was all so intimately, dearly John, and she did love John so!... And what was she, after all, with all her independences and certainties, but an ignorant, unwise child whom two wise grown men were using for a pet or a plaything--how could she tell which?