The Wishing-Ring Man | Page 3

to them.
"They feel so lovely and happy," said Joy, warming her little hands at
their happiness.
They were lovers; anybody could see that. And they weren't poets or
anything of the sort; you could see that, too. She was in a little trim
white pongee street suit, with a close little hat above a little rosy,
powdered, cheerful face. He had rather heavy shoulders and a shock of
carefully brushed straight light hair, and looked about one year out of
Harvard. They didn't at all belong with the middle-aged roomful. As a
matter of fact, her mother knew Mrs. Havenith a little, and so they had
dashed in here to save her suit from the rain. They were sitting and
smiling at each other against a background of Mark Twain's life-sized
head in a broad gilt frame. They faced another life-sized head of
Browning, also autographed, but they liked looking at each other better.
Joy, from her hiding-place, could feel the current of their happiness and
youth, and it made her very warm in her soul, and comfortable. She
listened to them quite unashamedly, as she would have to a nice play.
"She has wonderful hair, hasn't she?" she heard the girl say.
"Not as lovely as my girl's," the man answered softly.
His girl laughed, a little low pleased laugh. "But you can't see mine
hanging down that way, like a picture," she fenced.
"I'm glad you don't wear it that way," he insisted. "I like you to look
like a real girl, not a movie star or an advertisement."
"Do you suppose she likes it?" asked the girl. "I'd go crazy if I had to
be like that--why, she isn't as old as I am! I suppose they write poems
about her, though," she added, as if that might be a compensation.
"Oh, if that's all--" began the man, and they both laughed happily, as at

a wonderful joke.
Joy, frozen behind her curtains, heard a little rustle, as if he was taking
her hand, and her protest--
"Oh, Dicky, don't--they'll see us!"
"Not a bit," said he cheerfully. "They're all looking at dear Grandpapa,
the Angora Poet--oldest in captivity to be reading his own sonnets. Bet
you it's about the little girl, poor kid--he seems to be looking around for
her."
"Sonnets? Oh, let's go; the rain's stopped," whispered the girl. "You
were awfully extravagant this afternoon. Now we're going to take a
nice, inexpensive walk up home."
She heard him protesting a little at that; then they slid out softly, while
poor Joy sat behind her curtains, moveless and aghast.... Oh, was this
what she was like ... to real, happy, gay people her own age? And she
had liked the girl so, and been so glad she had her lover, and that they
loved each other! And Grandfather.... She had never thought whether
he wrote poetry about her or not. She had just taken it for granted.
People had to write about something, and it was just as apt to be you as
a public crisis or a sunset, or anything else useful for the purpose. But
they had laughed about it.... Oh, she did hope it wouldn't be a poem
about her that he was going to read! She felt she couldn't stand it, if it
were. She knew that when she was the subject she was expected to be
in sight, as a sort of outward and visible sign.
"I won't go out into the room!" she said defiantly. "He doesn't expect
the sunsets and public crises to stand up and be looked at when he reads
about them!"
So she stayed just where she was. As she stayed, incongruously, a joke
out of an old Punch came into her head--not at all an esthetic one. It
was a picture of a furious woman brandishing a broom, while the tips
of her husband's boots showed under the bed-foot. The husband was
saying: "Ye may poke at me and ye may threaten me, but ye canna

break my manly sperrit. I willna come out fra under the bed!"
Joy laughed a little, even in her sad state of mind, at the remembrance.
"I willna come out fra under the bed, either," she decided rather shakily,
curling her flowing yellow satin closer about her, and making herself
quite flat against the window-frame. She tried to stop her ears and not
listen, so she wouldn't know whether the poetry was about her or not.
But she had fatally sharp ears, and Grandfather always practised on her
and Grandmother, adoringly silent at the breakfast table. She would
know the poems apart if she only caught a half word.... And it was
about her.
Grandfather's beautiful voice carried as well as it ever had. No matter
how many fingers