“Met your husband, I suppose?”

“N—­no.  I had something, quickly, at Swan and Edgar’s.  I was in a hurry.”

Julia signalled a waitress serving tea at the other end of the vast room.  “The usual tea,” she ordered, “and sandwiches.”

Marie leaned back against her cushion restfully.  She had the slow glance of a woman much preoccupied, whose mind comes very heavily back to matters not of her immediate concern.  She went on for a little while talking of the topics which filled her brain to the exclusion of all else.

“We’re thinking of sending George to a day school soon—­at least, I am.  I’ve not spoken of it to Osborn yet; there hasn’t been a chance.”

“How do you mean—­no chance?  I thought married people lived together.”

“Oh, well ... you don’t understand.  One has to make an opportunity; get a man into the right mood.  He won’t like the expense, of course, though it’s only a guinea and a half a term, if you send them till mid-day only.  That would do at first, don’t you think?  I don’t believe in pushing children.  Still, a guinea and a half a term is four and a half guineas a year.  Well, I can’t help it, can I?  He’ll have to go to school soon, there’s no doubt of that.  He’s getting too much for me, and it would be a great help, having him out of the way in the mornings, while I’m doing my work.”

“I think it would be a very good plan, darling,” Julia replied.

“I know you’d agree with me about it.  I shall tell Osborn you think it’s a good plan, and I shall get mother to tell him too.  We shall persuade him.”

“How is your husband?” Julia asked punctiliously.

“Very well, thank you.”

“Still delighted with domestic life?”

“Oh, that doesn’t last, of course,” said Marie, looking away and sighing.  “A man always gets to think of his home as just the place where bills are sent.  Osborn’s out a good deal in the evenings, like other men, of course.  There’s one thing—­it leaves me very free.  There’s always something to be done, you see, and I can get through a great deal in the evenings if he’s out.”

“And if he’s in?”

“Oh well, a man likes one to sit down and talk to him, naturally.”

“How awf’ly obliging wives are!”

“My dear, if you were married, you’d know that the only way is to humour them.”

The waitress came in with the tea tray and set the table daintily.  To Julia it was a matter of course, but Marie watched the deft girl who handled things so swiftly and quietly; she took in the neatness of her black frock, and the starched whiteness of her laundering; and when the maid had left them, she turned with an envious, smiling sigh to Julia, and said: 

“The servants here are so nice.  I always used to think, when I had a maid, she’d look like that.  We were going to have one, you know, when Osborn got his first rise after we were married, but George came; and now—­three of them!  It’ll always be impossible, of course.”