"What else can I say?" retorted Emily.
"I know it. There isn't anything to be said; but people will find enough to talk about, you know that."
"Has he got a job?"
"Yes; that is—a sort of a job." Her voice forbade even friendly inquiry.
Martha said, when Emily told her of it, "I bet he's gone into the movies."
Emily was annoyed by her cynical comment.
"Why should you think Johnnie's gone into the movies!"
"Well, it would be just like him; and he's got such lovely ears. People who can move their ears the way he can never have nice ones, really. Or else he's playing baseball, or rubbing them down, or something."
Later Emily ventured timidly to protest against Martha's plan for the summer. Although in Miss Curtis's quieting presence Martha never railed, still, when she was with her mother alone, there came forth at times spurtings of molten resentment and red-hot bitterness against the nature of things in general, and her nature in particular, so that Emily was never sure what the effect of her words might be. On this occasion Martha turned upon her quickly, in a manner which cried, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"
"I suppose you want me to give up my novel altogether! It's not so easy as I thought. I've started to do it all over. I didn't even know what form was, when I began. It's all out of proportion! And you want me just to loaf. If I don't tell the truth about things, who's going to, I'd like to know? Do you think I'm going to let all these idiots that call themselves realists just go on spoofing girls, and never say a word to them? I'm going to have it all done by Christmas, and send it to some publisher."