When Julia came home it wanted but a short time to Cherie’s wedding.  A great deal seemed to have happened since she went away, not only to her family, but, and that was less obviously correct, to herself.  She stood in the drawing-room on the morning after her return and looked round her and felt that somehow she had travelled a long way from her old point of view.  The room was very untidy; it had not been used, and so, in accordance with the Polkington custom, not been set tidy for two days; dust lay thick on everything; there were dead leaves in the vases, cigarette ash on the table, no coals on the half-laid fire.  In the merciless morning light Julia saw all the deficiencies; the way things were set best side foremost, though, to her, the worst side contrived still to show; the display there was everywhere, the trumpery silver ornaments, all tarnished for want of rubbing, and of no more intrinsic value and beauty than the tinfoil off champagne bottles; the cracked pieces of china—­rummage sale relics, she called them—­set forth in a glass-doored cabinet, as if they were heirlooms.  Mrs. Polkington had a romance about several of them that made them seem like heirlooms to her friends and almost to herself.  The whole, as Julia looked around, struck her as shoddy and vulgar in its unreality.

“I’m not coming back to it, no, I’m not,” she said, half aloud; “the corduroy and onions would be a great deal better.”

Cherie passed the open door at that minute and half heard her.  “What did you say?” she asked.

Julia looked round.  “Nothing,” she answered, “only that I am not coming back to this sort of life.”

“To Marbridge?” Cherie asked, “or to the house?  If it is the house you mean, you need not trouble about that; there isn’t much chance of your being able to go on living here; you will have to move into something less expensive.  I am sure Uncle William will insist on it.  There is more room than you will want here after I am gone, and as for appearance and society, there won’t be much object in keeping that up.”

Julia laughed.  “You don’t think I am a sufficiently marketable commodity to be worth much outlay?” she said.  “You are quite right; besides, it is just that which I mean; I have come to the conclusion that I don’t admire the way we live here.”

“So have I,” Cherie answered; “no one in their senses would; but it was the best we could do in the circumstances and before you grumble at it you had better be sure you don’t get something worse.”

Julia did not think she should do that, and Cherie seeing it went on, “Oh, of course you have got L50 a year, I know, but you can’t live on that; besides, I expect Uncle William will want you to do something else with it.”

“I shall do what I please,” Julia replied, and Cherie never doubted it; she would have done no less herself had she been the fortunate legatee, Uncle William or twenty Uncle Williams notwithstanding.