At first Julia had only laughed at her lord’s masterful progress.  It was very funny to her to see how quickly his money and his determination won him his way.  A great deal of money was wasted, of course, but then, this was their honeymoon, and some day they would settle down and spend rationally.  Jim, like all rich men, had an absolute faith in the power of gold.  The hall maid must come in and hook Mrs. Studdiford’s gown; oh, and would she be here at, say, one o’clock, when Mrs. Studdiford came home?  She went off at twelve, eh?  Well, what was it worth to her to stay on to-night, until one?  Good.  And by the way, Mrs. Studdiford had torn a lace gown and wanted it to-morrow; could the maid mend it and press it?  She didn’t think so?  Well, come, there must be somebody who would rush it through for Mrs. Studdiford?  Ah, that was fine, thank you very much, that would do very nicely.  Or perhaps it was a question of theatre tickets, and Jim would stop his taxicab on Broadway at the theatre’s door.  Here, boy!  Boy, come here!  Go up and ask him what his best for to-night are?  There’s a line of people waiting, eh?—­well, go up and ask some fellow at the top of the line what it’s worth to him to get two seats for me.  Oh, fine.  Much obliged to you, sir.  Thank you.  And here—­boy!

“Do you think the entire world circles about your convenience, Jim?” Julia asked amusedly one day, after some such episode.  “Sure,” he answered, grinning.

“Jim, you don’t think you can go through life walking over people this way?”

“Why not, my good lady?”

“Well,” said Julia gravely, “some day you may find you want something you can’t buy!”

“There ain’t no such animal,” Jim assured her cheerfully.

Only a trifling cloud, after all, Julia assured herself hardily.  But there was a constant little sensation of uneasiness in her heart.  She tried to convince herself that the sweetness of his nature had not been undermined by this ability to indulge himself however fast his fancies shifted; she reasoned that because so many good things were his, he need not necessarily hold them in light esteem.  Yet the thought persisted that he knew neither his own mind nor his own heart; there had been no discipline there, no hard-won battles—­there were no reserves.

“I call that simply borrowing trouble!” said Kennedy Scott Marbury healthily, one day when she and the tiny Scott were lunching with Julia at the hotel.  Kennedy was close to her second confinement, and the ladies had lunched in Julia’s handsome sitting-room.  “Lord, Julie dear!  It seems sometimes as if you have to have something in this world,” Kennedy went on cheerfully; “either actual trouble or mental worries!  Anthony and I were talking finances half last night:  we decided that we can’t move to a larger house, just now, and so on—­and we both said what would it be like to be free from money worries for ten minutes—­”