"Full of bad yellow men and a few good ones of whom let's hope Wen Ho
is one. And full of bric-à-brac like all these things that surprise
you so. Do you like bright colors, Joan?"
She pondered in the unself-conscious and unhurried fashion of the
West, stroking the yellow, spotted skin that lay over the black arm of
her chair and letting her eyes flit like butterflies in a garden on a
zigzag journey to one after another of the flowers of color in the
room.
"Well, sir," she said, "I c'd take to 'em better if they was more one
at a time. I mean"--she pushed up the braid a little from wrinkling
brows--"jest blue is awful pretty an' jest green. They're sort of
cool, an' yeller, that's sure fine. You'd like to take it in your
hands. Red is most too much like feelin' things. I dunno, it most
hurts an' yet it warms you up, too. If I hed to live here--"
Prosper's eyebrows lifted a trifle.
"I'd--sure clear out the whole of this"--and she swept a ruthless
hand.
Again Prosper made delighted use of that upward stretching of his
arms. He laughed. "And you'd clear me out, too, wouldn't you?--if you
had to live here."
"Oh, no," said Joan. She paused and fastened her enormous, grave look
upon him. "I'd like right soon now to begin to work for you."
Again Prosper laughed. "Why," said he, "you don't know the first thing
about woman's work, Joan. What could you do?"
Joan straightened wrathfully. "I sure do know. Sure I do. I can cook
fine. I can make a room clean. I can launder--"
"Oh, pooh! The Chinaman does all that as well--no, better than you
ever could do it. That's not woman's work."
Joan saw all the business of femininity swept off the earth. Profound
astonishment, incredulity, and alarm possessed her mind and so her
face. Truly, thought Prosper, it was like talking to a grave,
trustful, and most impressionable child, the way she sat there, rather
on the edge of her chair, her hands folded, letting everything he said
disturb and astonish the whole pool of her thought.
"But, Mr. Gael, sweepin', washin', cookin',--ain't all that a woman's
work?"
"Men can do it so much better," said Prosper, blowing forth a cloud of
blue cigarette smoke and brushing it impatiently aside so that he
could smile at her evident offense and perplexity.