She went home for three or four days at the time of her father’s death, and afterward deliberately decided not to accompany her mother on a trip south.  Emeline had nine thousand dollars of life insurance, and thought of buying a half interest in a boarding-house in Los Angeles.

“All the theatrical trade goes there,” said Emeline, “and you could get a berth as easy as not!”

“Yes, I know,” Julia said, gently, concealing an inward shudder.  She went quietly back to The Alexander, when the funeral was over, to her mother’s disgust.  Emeline did not go south, but lingered on at home, drinking tea and gossiping with her mother, quarrelling with her old father, and gradually eating into her bank account.  She called upon her daughter, to Julia’s secret embarrassment, though the girl introduced this overdressed, sallow, hard-eyed mother with what dignity she could muster to Miss Pierce, Miss Scott, and Miss Toland.  Emeline laughed and talked with an air of ease, was forced into silence when Julia said the closing prayer, and burst out laughing at its close.

“That does sound so funny, dolling!  But I mustn’t laugh,” said Emeline.  “I’m sure you do wonders for these girls, and they need it,” she added graciously to Miss Toland.  She followed Julia into the little kitchen.

“Don’t she help you cook?” she asked in a low tone, indicating Miss Toland with a jerk of her much-puffed head.

“Sometimes she does,” Julia answered, annoyed.

“H’m!” Emeline said.  And she asked curiously a moment later, “Why you do it is what gets me!  Here’s Marguerite going to get married, and Ev has an elegant job, and I want you to go south with me; you’d have a grand time!”

She stopped on a complaining note, her eyes honestly puzzled.  Julia closed the oven door upon some potatoes, and stood up.

“I’m perfectly satisfied, Mama,” said she briefly.  “I’m doing what I want to do.”

“Lord!” Emeline ejaculated, discontentedly, vaguely baffled by the girl’s definiteness and dignity.  She left soon after, Julia dutifully walking with her to her car.  Miss Toland said nothing of the visitor when Julia came back, but she knew the girl was troubled, and lay awake a long time herself that night, conscious that Julia, in the next room, was restless and wakeful.

Besides a certain troubled consciousness of her failure to please her own people, Julia had in these years a more definite source of worry.  Mark Rosenthal was still her patient adorer, and if, like Julia, he allowed the flying months to steal a march upon him, and drifted along in the comfortable conviction that “a little while” would bring a change in Julia’s feeling, still he was none the less a watchful and ardent lover, with whom she sometimes found it very difficult to deal.