“I’d forgotten that we were waiting for her,” said Terry. “Do you know, I think that nigger is jealous of me—you know, as dogs are sometimes jealous of their mistress’ friends—and he’s only being civil now because I’m talking to you instead of Gloria. Some day he’s going to put something in my high ball.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” said Ruth. “I’m sure George is perfectly harmless. It’s only that he doesn’t talk like other niggers.”
“Don’t call him a nigger!” exclaimed Terry, pretending to be shocked. “Hasn’t Gloria told you that he is a Hindoo—half-caste I imagine, and he came from some weird place, and I heartily wish he’d return to it.”
A Hindoo—that explained George’s appearance, but it made him more puzzling as a servant than before. He was not like the imaginations of Hindoos that her reading had built up, but perhaps as Terry said he was a half-caste. Terry’s words, for the moment, surprised her out of speech.
“Here’s Gloria now,” he said. “We must stop talking treason. She thinks she has the best servants in the world.”
Gloria came in, filling the room with cold outer air mingled with the odour of the violets pinned on her sables.
“Just look who’s here,” she said, holding a small, plump, frizzled, blond woman of about forty in front of her. “Billie Irwin—she came over from London with the unfortunate ‘Love at First Sight’ company, and here she is with no more engagement than a trapeze performer with a broken leg—you know her, don’t you, Terry?—well, anyway you know her now, and this is Ruth Mayfield—not in the profession, an artist of a different kind.”
“How interesting!” murmured Billie Irwin.
“Tea? Take it away, George—we don’t want tea. I want dinner just as soon as Amy can get it. We’re all going to see the opening of ‘Three Merry Men.’ You thought I was going to fail you, didn’t you, Terry? But we’re not, we’ll all be there. And, George, do get a room ready for Miss Irwin. She’s going to stay for a few days with me.”
“She means a few months,” whispered Terry to Ruth, thereby establishing between them a secret confidence.