I shall not
be back before the last of November."
This information he had volunteered to her immediately after lunch,
having quite forgotten his resentment at her lack of response to his
offers of advice. His quick changes of humour were very puzzling, and
continually made her doubt whether she or anyone else knew him at all,
though she had too much discrimination to doubt the sincerity of any one
of his moods.
She had left him on the point of going to his room to play for Tommy,
and knew that her brother would probably unfold to him during the
afternoon his plan of becoming a violinist.
If the child had talent, Joyselle would, she believed, do his utmost to
help him, and this was another reason why she could not make up her mind
how to manage her own affairs.
Even if she wished to break her engagement and never see Joyselle again,
had she the right thus to take from her brother the chance of great
happiness and protection that seemed to have come to him?
"Joyselle would never speak to me again if I threw Theo over," she told
herself. "First, he would scold me violently, and then he'd lop us all
off, trunk and branch. And--he might be the making of Tommy.
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