He protested.
"You men were talking about it, I'll be bound," Julia said.
"No, we weren't, feather-brain," replied Scherer, with a patronizing air.
"Something very far removed from balls," Harry Wilbur put in, with a laugh.
"What?"
"Oh, we were cheerfully considering the ethics of suicide," said Scherer, stretching himself comfortably in a long wicker-chair.
Val started, but no one observed her.
"Pleasant topic," said Julia.
"Quite, if looked at rightly," responded Scherer. "Gano was saying how curiously illogical people are. We've all heard Christian people who shudder at the word 'suicide'—tender women, mothers—who hasn't heard them say, looking back to the early death of a child, 'I've come to thank God for taking him unspotted from the world.'"