“But,” the girl demurred, “I’m not sure that I don’t.”
“You are not sure that you do,” the woman insinuated with a smile.
“That is perfectly true,” the girl owned. “I don’t know whether I like or dislike him. I hope I did neither. I’d not care to believe that I either liked or disliked him.”
“Why not, girl?”
“I’m not sure I can explain. I—yes, that is it; I resented him.”
“Resented him?” Miss Julia spoke warmly. “Why?”
“His color, I suppose,” Ivy said hesitatingly. “For I can’t think of any other reason. I don’t feel as you do, Miss Townsend, about colored people and all that—we don’t in England. But still—I don’t quite take it lying down, I suppose, when I see one of them, not only evidently thinking himself as good as we are, but assuming that we think so too.”
“Sên King-lo is very much better than most of us,” Miss Townsend said quietly, “and far too intelligent not to know it.”
The girl stared in astonishment. She was wordless.
The woman laughed. “Don’t be a goose, Ivy,” she advised good-humoredly. “And don’t talk about ‘colored people’ as if Mr. Sên were one. He is nothing of the sort.”