“Some day I shall keep an awf’ly good parlour-maid,” Marie promised herself.

She went in to criticise and retouch her mother’s painstaking arrangements.  She grew flushed and irritated over the cooking.

“And a good cook,” she added.  “What dreams!”

Julia looked a good deal at Marie during dinner in the delusive light of the shaded candles, and at last she said: 

“You’re thinner.  And there’s something about you—­I don’t know what it is.  You are almost fragile.”

“I manage this flat entirely without help, you know,” said Marie, looking round the speckless dining-room proudly.

“That ought not to do it,” replied Julia, dismissing domestic work with a contemptuous wave of the hand.  “Are you worrying?”

“Worrying?” Marie repeated.  “What about?”

“Oh, anything.”

“I have nothing to worry over.”

“Blessed woman!” replied Julia, diving into the freak pocket of an expensive garment bought with her own money.  “May I begin to smoke?”

“Let me get cigarettes,” said Marie, springing up for Osborn’s box, which lay on the mantelpiece behind her.

“Always carry my own, thanks,” said Julia, brandishing the cigarette-case she had produced.

The sudden movement she had made gave Marie a curious sensation; Julia and the room and the red fire swam around her; her brain was numb and dizzy; she staggered and caught at her chair-back.

“Oh!” she gasped.  “I feel so—­so—­”

“What?” exclaimed the other girl, springing up.

Marie sank into her chair.

“I was so giddy—­and faint, Julia.”

Julia drew her chair close to Marie’s, put down her yet unlighted cigarette, and looked at her friend shrewdly.

“Look here, kiddy,” she began, with a softness Marie had never heard in her voice before.  Then she stopped and asked:  “Where’s the brandy?”

“There isn’t any,” said Marie in a far-away voice; “there’s only Osborn’s whisky, and that’s horrid.  I’ll be all right soon.  Make the coffee, dear, will you?  And make it strong.”

Julia not only made the coffee strong, but she made it very quickly; she had a wonderfully quiet, efficient way of accomplishing things.  The coffee stimulated Marie and steadied the erratic beating of her heart.

“That’s better,” she said.

Then Julia was modern enough to ask without preliminary that question which had asked in Mrs. Amber’s elderly heart all day.

“Marie, are you going to have a baby?”

Marie could not have been more confused and confounded.

“I!” she stammered.  “Have a baby!  I never thought of such a thing!”

“It’s not an unknown event,” said Julia; “it has been done before.  Think!”

Marie thought.

“Julia,” she whispered, hushed, “perhaps—­”

“You must know—­or you can make a good guess.”