“I can’t help thinking that this is just what it is shaping towards, Julia.”
“You are horrible,” Miss Townsend moaned sickly. “It couldn’t be.”
“Why not?” Dr. Ray demanded gently.
Julia Townsend shrank back in her chair—speechless. She could not have been more surprised, dismayed, disappointed if Jefferson Davis had proved a traitor or Robert E. Lee disgraced his uniform—not half so much so if Mexico’s gulf had submerged her beloved South. She felt soiled by the tongue of a friend.
“Why not?” Dr. Ray insinuated.
“Why not! Because the bare suggestion is abominable,” Miss Julia exclaimed. “I’d kill Sên King-lo if I believed that he even could harbor the vile thought—which I know he could not.”
“I do not believe that he has thought of it yet,” Dr. Ray said, helping herself to the omelette Miss Julia made no motion to offer. “I am sure they have not thought of it yet—either of them. People usually marry first, and think after, I’ve noticed. And I believe they will do it—marry each other.”
Miss Julia, with a thin old hand that shook violently under its burden of gems, pushed a silver dish of fast-cooling sweetbreads farther afield, as if she feared the other might take food she’d grudge her. She did it automatically.
“They might do worse—perhaps,” the guest said musingly. “But I know you wouldn’t like it.”
“My God!” Julia Townsend moaned. “And you—you a Southern woman! A Southern woman—and my friend! You used to be my friend!”