Sard nodded. "Hush, his sister is our waitress, and she—oh, it's pretty dreadful to see her. Father thinks he's just a criminal, but don't you see, Minga, he's only a boy, only eighteen."
Minga looked very cold and decided. The two spots of color stood out high on her little sobered face.
"But a murderer," said she solemnly. "He must pay the penalty." Minga pronounced the word "peenulty," but her dignity was superb. She was very sure about justice as she was very sure about patriotism. If you did wrong you must not be found out, if you cared for your country you must say so very loudly with strong dramatic effects; the idea of caring for one's country to the extent of having a better kind of women and men live in it had not occurred to Minga. It does not occur to the men and women Mingas of this world. But they are very sure of their "patriotism." They have quite a little patriotic strut and they imagine patriotism to consist in a long hate of some other nation. And that it is based forever and ever on the machinery of killing.
"Minga," said Sard passionately, "do you and I always do right? Isn't it our ease and good fortune that keep continually pulling us back from very wrong things? How about that time on the bacon-bat up at Divens Lake when we stole the firewood and the corn, did we pay any fines—did the county follow us up? Just a private letter to the faculty and old Pressy and the Dean talking to us and that was all—yet," Sard looked thoughtfully out of the window, "that was crime, stealing and trespassing, but we are so pampered and petted and taken care of that we—well, we don't need to murder."
"Oh, don't we need to murder? Well, I can tell you, Sard Bogart, that I need to murder Marjorie Atboon every time I look at her." Minga's face was injured. "Her father gave her a new car if she'd stop smoking. Well, Marjorie has the car." Minga paused and remarked drily, "Her bedroom smells queerly—she says she likes lots of air, she burns a good deal of incense, but you ought to see the car, lovely long thing, eight-cylinder, blue, cooooooooly—oilllly—olly. Oh! how a good machine turns your dark little world to white velvet!"
Sard giggled. "Minga, you always make me laugh," she protested, "when I'm most in earnest you're crazy and dreadful, but you're an everlasting dear."
Minga whirled them both about the pretty cretonned room.
"You know you love it," she chanted, "you know you love it, you've been having too much Aunt Aurelley." Minga putting her arms akimbo swayed neatly pumped feet back and forth. "Did you see Auntie stare at my rouge?" she whispered. "She knows the worst now, doesn't she, Sard? She knows I know there ain't no Santa Claus." With a burst of laughter, Minga released her friend. "Wait till I get a bath." She ripped off her little frilled blouse, her short skirt fell to the floor. Minga stood a pretty figure in dark knickers and white chemise. "For the tub!" she chanted, and dove into the bathroom.
Amid the gushing of the faucet, Sard saw the little figure stripped and dancing in the white porcelain bath.