“Not a bit of it,” Dr. Ray protested. “The scandal is coming. But she watched the surf-riding and loved it. She bought a Hawaiian phrase-book and climbed up Diamond Head road to the peak on a pony. She wore a lei! She went to a moonlight picnic at Weiniea, and she saw a hula dance.”
Sên King-lo’s face broke into ripples of fun, as only a Chinese face can, and then the room moaned with his laughter.
“But,” Ivy expostulated, “Dr. Ray! How could you let her do it!”
“Let her! Have you never seen Julia Townsend with the bit between her teeth? I have. Let her, indeed! I assure you, this is her trip, and she runs no risk of my forgetting it. She asserts herself.”
“She always did,” Sên said, with a tender smile on his handsome mouth.
“Yes,” his wife agreed, “in her quiet, beautiful way.”
“Oh, Julia is quiet still. But there is a sort of wonderful, hushed splendor about her. I believe she has grown an inch since we left Washington.”
“In width?” Mrs. Sên asked smoothly. And they both knew that she meant not “width” but “breadth.”
The physician shook her head. “But I wish you could see the way she carries her head, the history of all the Townsends in her face, a child’s unspoilt joy in her eyes, and the Star-Spangled Banner waving over her.”
“The Star-Spangled Banner?” Sên reminded.