He laughed again, and she hurried on. "As I said, there's so, so much to talk about——"
"As for instance——?"
One saw her hurriedly and desperately searching her mind. "Why, er—of course—Judy!"
The tone even implied reproach that he could have thought it anything but Judy.
"All right, my lady," his name for her of old. "I accept the cue. Judy it's to be, is it? You're sparring for time, I'm to understand? The idea's planted now alongside any foolishness which Tuttle may have been putting there and I'm to let you get used to it awhile? And what's the trouble with Judy, now? Still sore with her father, or something fresh?"
"We're not supposed to know what she's doing," with a rush of evident relief at his docility, "but we do. She's being coached for her college examinations by some college chap Algy found and arranged with. It's mostly done through Algy, too, with an occasional meeting at the circulating library to outline more work. She'll have to go to Cincinnati for the examinations when they come, in June, which her father won't let her do, so we can't see how any of it's going to help her?"
"Go on," from Culpepper. "Talk along, amuse yourself. But one of these days when my time comes, my lady——"
Selina's breath came piteously in its flutterings. And for all her rallyings to that womanhood, her heart had never ceased its cruel clamberings, and her blood its beatings in her ears and its pulsings in her throat. And on all that vast sea of terror fast returning on her again, terror not of him, that was secondary, but of that within her innocent self she could no longer deny as being there, on all this rising sea of fear and terror, she could see but the one absurd little spar of inconsequence to cling to still—Judy.
"We feel so sort of dishonorable toward her father and mother, Maud and Adele and I do, Culpepper. But we're not supposed to know she's doing this. And of all people, little Judy!"