She sat down, put her feet on the fender, loosened her furs.

“I may stay and talk?”

“May you not!  Oh!  I’m glad to see you—­it seemed as if your honeymoon was going to last for ever.”

“It’s not over.”

“That’s what we all say.”

“Don’t be cynical, dear,” said the new Julia.

Marie waved this away with a brief laugh.  “I want all your news,” she demanded.  “Where are you living?  What are your plans?  What’s the house like, and where did you get your furniture?”

“We’ve got a wee house, the dearest thing, near Onslow Gardens, and we’ve not finished furnishing yet; we’re proceeding with it this afternoon.  I’m lunching with Desmond, and then we’re going furnishing together.  Desmond loves it.”

“And you—­you’re happy?”

“Oh, Marie!  I was never so happy in my life.”

The baby rose from its play at the other side of the dining-room, and, tottering to her mother, begged to be lifted upon her lap.

“I only want one of those,” said Julia, regarding the mite.

“That will come,” Marie replied with a forced gaiety.

“Desmond took me for a motoring honeymoon,” said Julia.  “As you know, we had made no plans.  There wasn’t time.  At least, I hadn’t, but it seemed he’d got them all mapped out in his head, the wicked thing!  We had a simply lovely time, and coming home is lovelier.  I adore pottering round a house, arranging this and that, and ordering the dinner.”

“You enjoy it?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“But you hated the domestic life; you were always up in arms at the thought of marriage; you loathed even hearing of a wedding.  You used to talk of slavery ... don’t you remember?”

“Ah, but—­that was before I married.”

“Then, what do you think now?”

“It’s the only life,” Julia stated with final conviction.  “It’s meant for us all; we were made for it; and we’re never truly happy otherwise.  Desmond and I have talked over all these things, and I understand a lot which I didn’t understand before.”

Marie stroked the baby’s curly head without replying; she held its feet in her hand, and caressed them, and patted its small fat legs, and coaxed a gurgle from it.  But even while the baby ravished her heart, the heart was busy with the bride before her and the bridal raptures which she had known, only to lose upon the wayside where so many bridal raptures lie dead and dying; outworn and weary.  Tears to which she had long been a stranger rose in her eyes, and formed one of those big hurtful lumps in her throat, so that she would not trust her voice to Julia’s ears.

That dreadful softness of longing—­she had thought she would never know it again, never more be covered with it like a shore beneath the inward flow of the sea.

“Desmond wants to meet Osborn,” said Julia.  “He rang him up on Saturday morning, but he was engaged.  Won’t you and your husband come to dinner with me and my husband one evening at Onslow Gardens?”