"What made you think I had one?" Jathrop asked, quite bewildered. "Who said I had one?"
Susan rose with dignity and coughed. Mrs. Macy rose, too, looking at Susan. Poor Mrs. Lathrop seemed fairly terror-stricken.
"I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her much longer, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor as has been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not to be lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee."
"But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinely bewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"
Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy faltered. "Maybe it was all right in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under the situation.
"Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop.
"To buy her with beads."
"To buy who with beads? Who's her?" Jathrop's voice was becoming exasperated.
"Hop Loo," said Susan, in a tone of piercing scorn, "the Chinese lady as you brought with you and gave me to board."
Jathrop looked at them all in amazement. "But Hop Loo's a boy—my boy," he said.