And so from food they came to discuss pronunciation, as most Southerners do sooner or later, and from that subject they drifted into mutual friendships and thence naturally into newspaper work.
"I'm a sub-editor," announced Molly proudly, and she told him about the Commune and her work. "Perhaps you'd like to see our office after a while?" she said.
"I'd be only too glad," said Jimmy, delighted to be able to prolong his tête-à-tête with this gracefully angular young woman with blue eyes and red hair, who spoke with the "tongue of angels" and had the same yearnings he did for corn-bread and fried chicken with cream gravy.
And all this time something strange was taking place in Judy's mind that she could not understand. At first she thought she was catching the grippe. She felt cold and then hot and finally unreasonably irritated against everybody except Molly. At least, she put it that way to herself.
"She never looked more charming," thought Judy to herself.
Molly in her faded blue corduroy skirt and blue silk blouse was a picture to charm the eye. Judy herself looked unusually lovely in her pretty gray serge piped in scarlet with Irish lace collar and cuffs. There were glints of gold in her fluffy hair and her eyes shone with unusual brightness. But Mrs. McLean's good food tasted as sawdust on her palate and the conversation of the eager Dodo sounded trite and stupid to her. Once she had said a word or two to Jimmy Lufton and he had turned and answered her politely and agreeably, but as soon as he decently could he was back with Molly again deep in bluegrass reminiscences.
There were other people who were disgruntled that morning at Mrs. McLean's breakfast. Not Nance and Andy, who seemed well pleased with themselves and the bright fall day; not the doctor nor the doctor's wife beaming at her guests behind the silver tea urn, but Otoyo was strangely silent and averted her face from Molly's if by chance their glances met; looked carefully over Nance's head and avoided Judy's gaze as much as possible. Lawrence Upton, too, had little to say, except to Dr. McLean at his end of the table.
So it was that half the guests thought the breakfast had been a great success and the other half put it down as stupid and dull.
"Would anybody like to go over to the Commune office with us?" Molly vouchsafed some three-quarters of an hour later when the company was breaking up. "I am going to show Mr. Lufton our offices."
But nobody seemed anxious to accept.