“I forget,” said Henry, wickedly.
“One wonders,” said Mrs Norris slowly, “what he meant by Americanism.”
“He didn’t define it,” said Henry. “Cult of the dollar, I suppose.”
“Well,” said Mrs Norris. “The cult of the dollar, in my experience, is far more intense in the countries that haven’t got the dollar, than in the United States.”
Kate felt that the table was like a steel disc to which they were all, as victims, magnetised and bound.
“Where is your garden, Mrs Norris?” she asked.
They trooped out, gasping with relief, to the terrace. The Judge hobbled behind, and Kate had to linger sympathetically to keep him company.
They were on the little terrace.
“Isn’t this strange stuff!” said Kate, picking up one of the Aztec stone knives on the parapet. “Is it a sort of jade?”
“Jade!” snarled the Judge. “Jade’s green, not black. That’s obsidian.”