It was on a day of the previous October that she had stopped, after Juliet’s lesson, to ask if she might speak to Juliet’s papa.  One had always to apply to Mr. Deering if there was anything to be said about the lessons.  Mrs. Deering lay on her lounge up-stairs, reading greasy relays of dog-eared novels, the choice of which she left to the cook and the nurse, who were always fetching them forher from the cabinet de lecture; and it was understood inthe house that she was not to be “bothered” about Juliet.  Mr. Deering’s interest in his daughter was fitful rather than consecutive; but at least he was approachable, and listened sympathetically, if a little absently, stroking his long, fair mustache, while Lizzie stated her difficulty or put in her plea for maps or copy-books.

“Yes, yes—­of course—­whatever you think right,” he would always assent, sometimes drawing a five-franc piece from his pocket, and laying it carelessly on the table, or oftener saying, with his charming smile:  “Get what you please, and just put it onyour account, you know.”

But this time Lizzie had not come to ask for maps or copy-books, or even to hint, in crimson misery,—­as once, poor soul! she had had to do,—­that Mr. Deering had overlooked her last little account had probably not noticed that she had left it, some two months earlier, on a corner of his littered writing-table.  That hour had been bad enough, though he had done his best to make it easy to carry it off gallantly and gaily; but this was infinitely worse.  For she had come to complain of her pupil; to say that, much as she loved little Juliet, it was useless, unless Mr. Deering could “do something,” to go on with the lessons.

“It wouldn’t be honest—­I should be robbing you; I’m not sure that I haven’t already,” she half laughed, through mounting tears, as she put her case.  Little Juliet would not work, would not obey.  Her poor, little, drifting existence floated aimlessly between the kitchen and the lingerie, and all the groping tendrils ofher curiosity were fastened about the doings of the backstairs.

It was the same kind of curiosity that Mrs. Deering, overhead in her drug-scented room, lavished on her dog-eared novels and onthe “society notes” of the morning paper; but since Juliet’s horizon was not yet wide enough to embrace these loftier objects, her interest was centered in the anecdotes that Celeste and Suzanne brought back from the market and the library.  That these were not always of an edifying nature the child’s artless prattle too often betrayed; but unhappily they occupied her fancy to the complete exclusion of such nourishing items as dates and dynasties, and the sources of the principal European rivers.

At length the crisis became so acute that poor Lizzie felt herself bound to resign her charge or ask Mr. Deering’s intervention; and for Juliet’s sake she chose the harder alternative.  It was hard to speak to him not onlybecause one hated still more to ascribe it to such vulgar causes, but becauseone blushed to bring them to the notice of a spirit engaged with higher things.  Mr. Deering was very busy at that moment:  he had a new picture “on.”  And Lizzie entered the studio with the flutterof one profanely intruding on some sacred rite; she almost heard the rustle of retreating wings as she approached.