perhaps grown
to be a woman. After all she was a woman, with a great deal of the
natural woman in her, too, he had said--and he was a man, a gentleman,
first, perhaps, polished and finished, her senior, her superior--yet a
man, possibly with his share of the natural man, the thing on which
one cannot reckon. Just then the kettle boiled and she made the tea.

"Where is father?" she asked; and Mr. Gillat went to look for him.

"He is up-stairs," he said when he came back; "he does not feel well,
he says, not the thing; he'll have tea up there; I'll take it."

Julia looked at Rawson-Clew and laughed. "He does not feel equal to
facing you," she said.

"Yes, yes," Johnny added, "that's it; that's what he says--I
mean"--suddenly realising what he was saying--"he does not feel equal
to facing strangers."

"Mr. Rawson-Clew is not a stranger," Julia answered; she took a
perverse delight in recalling the beginning of the acquaintance which
she knew quite well was better ignored. "How odd," she said, turning
to Rawson-Clew, "that father should have forgotten you, just as you
told me you had forgotten him and all about the time when you saw
him."

"I expect he regarded the matter as trivial and unimportant, just as I
did," Rawson-Clew answered; "though if I told you I had forgotten all
about it I made a mistake; I can hardly say that; I remember some
details quite plainly; for instance, your position--you stood between
your father and me--very much as you did between me and the Van
Heigens."

"I did not!" Julia said hotly, pouring the tea all over the edge of
the cup; "I didn't stand between you and the Van Heigens. I mean--"

"Allow me!" Rawson-Clew moved the cup so that she poured the tea into
it and not the saucer.

"Dear, dear!" Johnny said; he had not the least idea what they were
talking about, but he fancied that one or both must be annoyed,
perhaps by the upsetting of the tea; he could think of nothing else.
"Such a mess," he said; "and such a waste. Is the cup ready? Shall I
take it up-stairs?"

"No, thank you," Julia said; "I will take it."

Rawson-Clew did not seem to mind, and Julia, after she had lingered a
little with her father, decided to come down again. If she stayed
away she knew perfectly well that Johnny would do nothing but talk
about her; moreover it was absurd to be put out because Rawson-Clew
could answer better than Mr. Gillat; that was one of the reasons for
which she had liked him.

Capt