"It's only a quarter to twelve, Alf."
"I know how the Point will be talking tomorrow!"
"Alf, I—"
"Oh—I've nothing to say. No, Anna, I realize she's your sister. But I must tell you what I think." And he was back once more on the topic that so turbulently absorbed him. "I think Marjory has been led into an unfortunate way of living. She's always run so free and never cared what people thought or said. I really don't know how the Point is going to take her." And after a moment's pause, during which the minister could be heard pacing up and down: "Anna, what do we know about the nature of her life in Tahulamaji? Has she told you anything definitely about that? No. But she's hinted...." He paced on, and presently added: "Now here she is, just back; and the very first thing she does is walk all over with a man's arm round her!"
Miss Whitcom abandoned the wonderful night. When she entered, her sister smiled and brightened generally. But her brother-in-law seemed rather taken off his feet.
Marjory wanted to make the minister feel perfectly at home, so she sat down and began rocking cosily.
"How snug you're fixed here!" she murmured. "How happy you ought to be, Alfred, in your little nest! Ah, it's fine to be in the bosom of a family again. You know, I feel somehow as though I'd come back from an absence of nearly a lifetime. It's a curious feeling, to come back like this. Like a sort of prodigal, Alfred—just fancy! But I did have to go away," she pleaded earnestly. "In the beginning, it was quite necessary! You see there were such a lot of things I wanted to find out, and I felt from the very first—Anna, you remember how I used to talk to you about life, and all that?—well, I somehow felt I shouldn't find out anything just sitting in the front parlour with a family album spread open on my lap. You see, it wasn't what the others were like that I wanted to be like, and it wasn't what all the others had done that I wanted to do in the world. So I broke away. Yes, the prodigal left, to roam far and wide. Now that we're chatting here all snug, I may tell you, Alfred, that it's been pretty interesting and pretty broadening."
"Marjie, dear—"
"Now, Anna, don't let's go up to bed just yet. Not just yet. It is so cosy down here, and I'm much too excited to sleep. Just a little while. I—I want to visit with Alfred a little about my life in Tahulamaji." The atmosphere in the living room grew subtly electric. The minister sat rigid. But the speaker went on in a cheery, simple way: "Just think, just think! When you would be sitting down in your nice house in Ohio, there I was...." She interrupted herself with a laugh. "It does sound rather dreadful, now doesn't it? You in Ohio and me.... Fancy my going way off there alone—for you know the Tahulamajians were once cannibals!—all by myself, and—and living! Gracious, how extraordinary it does sound!"
She rocked with folded arms and peeped at her brother-in-law out of the wicked corners of her eyes.