“Yes?” Julia snipped off the head of a cyclamen.
Cissy was angry at what seemed to her obtuseness.
“The only wonder is,” she said a little acidly, “considering what she is to him, that he doesn’t marry her!”
Julia raised her head from the asparagus-fern and gave Cissy a straight look.
“What are you talking about?” she flashed. Her blush was to the roots of her hair.
Cissy gave a little scream of mingled surprise and horror. “What can you think I mean!” She reached her arm around Julia. “Of course it’s a perfectly straight affair. He’s simply waiting for her answer.”
She felt the girl fairly quiver under her touch. She took one step too far.
“Of course she’s years older than he, but he’s just the sort of a man to like that.”
Julia removed Cissy’s arm from her waist much as she might have plucked off a spider, gathered up her little watering-pot and shears, and left the conservatory without a word. She crossed the library without glancing at the two by the piano.
Cissy looked rather stunned. She looked curiously at the arm Julia had discarded.