It was about ten o’clock on an October night; everything was intensely quiet in the big kitchen where Julia stood.  It was not a cheerful place even in the day time, the windows looked north, and were very high up; the walls and floor were alike of grey stone, which gave it a prison-like aspect, and also took much scrubbing, as she had reason to know.  It was far too large a place to be warmed by the small stove now used; Julia sometimes wondered if the big one that stood empty in its place would have been sufficient to warm it.  She glanced at it now, but without interest; she was very tired, it was almost bed-time, and she had done, as she had every day since she first joined Herr Van de Greutz’s household, a very good day’s work.  She had scarcely been outside the four walls since she first came there on the day after the holiday on the Dunes.  This had been her own choice, for, unlike all the cooks who had been before her, she had asked for no evenings out.  Marthe, the short-tempered housekeeper, had not troubled herself to wonder why, she had been only too pleased to accept the arrangement without comment.  Apart from the self-chosen confinement, the life had been hard enough; the work was hard, the service hard and ill-paid, and both the other inmates of the house cross-grained, and difficult to please.  These things, however, Julia did not mind; discomfort never mattered much to her when she had an end in view; in this case, too, the end should more than repay the worst of her two task-masters.  Which was agreeable, and almost made his unpleasantness desirable, as providing her intended act with a justification.

She drew the coffee pot further on to the stove, and with a splinter of wood stirred the fire.  She had the kitchen to herself, old Marthe had gone to bed; she liked going to bed early, with a glass of something hot, and she had soon found that the young cook could be trusted to finish the work down-stairs.  It was her opinion that it is as well to be comfortable when you can, as blessings are fleeting and fickle, especially when they are cooks; so she indulged often both in bed and the glass, notably the glass.  She had not been able to go to bed quite as early as she liked that day, for her master had a visitor, and there had been some trouble after the dinner.  It was intended to be an hour later than usual to accommodate the visitor, but the chemist had not mentioned the fact—­he seldom troubled about such trifles, expecting his household to divine his wishes instinctively, and resenting their failure to do so with indignation and some abuse.  He did so to-day, and Marthe was consequently kept up later than she had intended, though it was Julia who came in for most of the reproof, and the trouble too; it was she who took away the dinner and kept it hot, and presented it afresh when the time came in as good condition as she could manage.  There had to be a second omelet made; the first would not stand an hour, and so was wasted, to the indignation of Marthe.  The chicken was a trifle dried by waiting, which called down the wrath of Herr Van de Greutz.  Julia had listened to both of them with a meekness which was beautiful to see, albeit perhaps a little suspicious in one of her nature.