“Judy Kean, who has been telling you things?”
“No one, I declare, Margaret. I was just visualizing. I wouldn’t have presumed to hit the nail on the head had I realized I was doing it. You must forgive me, dear, but I am rather proud of being able to predict, and if I ever meet the ‘Baby of the Senate’ I shall tell him to ‘try, try again’.”
Molly interfered at this point and stopped Judy’s naughty mouth with a beaten biscuit. “Aren’t you ashamed, Judy? How should you like to be teased as you have teased Margaret?”
“Shouldn’t mind in the least. If in a moment of ambitious dreaming I have said ‘nay, nay’ to any handsome young western senators, Margaret has my permission to tell them to ‘try, try again,’ that I was just a-fooling. I am perfectly frank about my intentions in regard to the husband question. I am wedded to my art, but it is merely a temporary arrangement, and I may get a divorce any day if more attractive inducements are offered than my art can furnish. It is fine, though, to get my picture accepted and almost well hung by The American Artists. I have an idea its size had something to do with the judges taking it. It would have been cruel to refuse such a little thing; and then it is so easy to hang a tiny picture, and there are so many gaps in galleries that have to be filled in somehow.”
“What a rattler you are, Judy,” broke in Edith. “Your picture is lovely, and it made me proud to tell James, who took me to the exhibition, that you were my classmate and one of the immortal eight.”
“Three more to report,” rapped Margaret, “Molly and Nance and Otoyo. Otoyo first, to punish her for being so noisy,” and Margaret drew the little Japanese to her side with an affectionate smile.
“It is not for humble Japanese maidens to bare lay their heart throbbings, so my beloved friends will have to excuse the little Otoyo.”
And it spoke well for the breeding of the other seven that they respected the reticence of their little foreign friend and did not try to force her confidence, although they were none of them ignorant of the intentions of the wily Mr. Seshu.
“Otoyo is right,” declared Nance. “I have nothing to confess, but if I had, I should be Japanesque and keep it to myself.”
“Oh, you ‘copy cat’,” sang Judy. “I’ll wager anything that Nance has more up her sleeve than any of us. Look, look! It has gone all the way up her sleeve and is crawling out at her neck.”