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"Oh, dearest child, do you realize the privilege you have? Think of actually living so close to a poet that you become a part of his inspiration. Dear little Joy " Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones was one of the nicest, kindest, fattest people that ever lived, and furthermore, she had taken Joy, all by herself, to a performance of "Pelleas and Melisande" only the spring before.
"It isn't a privilege a bit," she said defiantly, out of a clear sky. "It isn't half as much fun as being the kind of girl everybody else is. Poor Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones! She hadn't done a thing. Her own girls went to fashionable schools and attended sub-deb dances by the score until they came out, which they did at eighteen each like clockwork.
It was a part of the reception that Joy usually looked forward to happily. She was just pulling herself together for flight when Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones, jingling, purple-upholstered and smiling, bore down on her. "How is our dear little Joy-Flower this afternoon?" she asked as inevitably as Fate, patting Joy's slim bare arm with one plump, gloved hand, and beaming.
Harmsworth-Jones, and past Grandfather's bronze bust at twenty-five, and almost past the framed autograph letter of Whittier, on the easel. That was as far as she got, because there was a nail sticking out at the side of the Whittier frame, and it caught her by one of the straps that held her satin panels together across the violet chiffon sidepieces.
Between her and Grandfather, a useful shelter, spread the massive purple-velvet back of Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones, who always came, and always asked afterwards, "And how is our little Joy-Flower today?" She was as good as she could be, but she was one more of the things Joy felt as if she couldn't stand right now. She tiptoed very carefully indeed past Mrs.
Joy hadn't had any such thing as a poem: nothing at all but a fit of rebellion. But if she wanted to check her grandfather's inquiries she had taken the most perfect way known to civilization. He couldn't possibly blame her for bolting if the poem had to be put down. Nor even for being impolite to Mrs. Harmsworth-Jones. "You always say, 'The Muse must out," continued Joy defiantly.
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