m struck a
silvery ten. Then Julia slammed her book noisily together, and gave a
sharp push to the recumbent form beside her.

"Ah--no--darling!" moaned Mrs. Page, tortured out of dreams.
"Don't--Julie--"

"Aw, wake up, Mama!" the daughter urged. Whereupon the older woman
rolled on her back, yawned luxuriously, and said, quite composedly:

"Hello, darling! What time is it?"

Emeline had aged in seven years; she looked hopelessly removed from
youth and beauty now, but later in the day, when her hair would be taken
out of its crimping kids, her sallow cheeks touched with rouge, and her
veined neck covered by a high collar, a coral chain, and an
ostrich-feather ruff, some traces of her former good looks might be
visible. She still affected tight corsets, high heels, enormous hats.
But Emeline's interest in her own appearance was secondary now to her
fierce pride and faith in Julia's beauty. Drifting along the line of
least resistance, asking only to be comfortable and to have a good time,
Emeline had come to a bitter attitude of resentment toward George,
toward the fate that had "forced" her to leave him. Now she began lazily
to fasten upon Julia as the means of gratifying those hopes and
ambitions that were vain for herself. Julia was beautiful, Julia would
be a great success, and some day would repay her mother for the
sacrifices she had made for her child.

Emeline dressed, went about, flirted, and gossiped still; she liked
cocktails and cards and restaurant dinners; she was an authority on all
things theatrical; her favourite pose was that of the martyred mother.
"All I have left," Emeline would say, kissing her daughter effectively,
before strangers. "And only God knows what it has cost me to keep my
girlie with me!"

Julia would grin good-naturedly at this. She had no hallucinations about
her mother. She knew her own value, knew she was pretty, and was glad
with the simple and pathetic complacence of fourteen. Julia at eight had
gone to dancing school, in the briefest skirts ever seen on a small
girl, and the dirtiest white silk stockings. She had sung a shrill
little song, and danced a little dance at a public benefit for the
widows of three heroic firemen, when she was only nine. Her lovely mop
had been crimped out of all natural wave; her youthful digestion menaced
by candy and chewing gum; her naturally rather sober and pensive
disposition completely altered, or at least eclipsed. Julia could
chatter of t