"But where to, Noble?"
"I don't——Well, maybe to China."
"China!" she cried in amazement. "Why, Noble Dill!"
"There's lots of openings in China," he said. "A white man can get a commission in the Chinese army any day."
"And so," she said, "you mean you'd rather be an officer in the Chinese army than stay—here?" With that, she bit her lip and averted her face for an instant, then turned to him again, quite calm. Julia could not help doing these things; she was born that way, and no punishment changed her.
"Julia——" the dazzled Noble began, but he stopped with this beginning, his voice seeming to have exhausted itself upon the name.
"When do you think you'll start?" she asked.
His voice returned. "I don't know just when," he said; and he began to feel a little too much committed to this sudden plan of departure, and to wonder how it had come about. "I—I haven't set any day—exactly."
"Have you talked it over with your mother yet, Noble?"
"Not yet—exactly," he said, and was conscious of a distaste for China as something unpleasant and imminent. "I thought I'd wait till—till it was certain I would go."