In this mood Jim did not join her.  As the weeks went by his aspect grew darker and more dark, and life in the Pacific Avenue house became a thing of long silences and rare and stilted phrases, and for the brief time daily that they were alone together, husband and wife were wretchedly unhappy, Jim watching his wife gloomily, Julia feeling that his look could chill her happiest mood.  She had sometimes suspected that this state of affairs existed between other husbands and wives, and marvelled that life went smoothly on; there were dinners and dances, there were laughter and light speech.  Jim might merely answer her half-timid, half-confident “Good-morning” with only a jerk of his head; he might eat his breakfast in silence, and accord to Julia’s brief outline of dinner or evening engagements only a scowling monosyllable.  Yet the day proceeded, there was the baby to visit, a dressmaker’s appointment to keep, luncheon and the afternoon’s plans to be gotten through, and then there was the evening again, and Jim and herself dressing in adjoining rooms in utter silence, silently descending to welcome their guests, or silently whirling off in the limousine.

Sometimes she fancied that when she resolutely assumed a cheerful tone, and determined to fight this unwholesome atmosphere with honest bravery, she merely succeeded in making Jim’s mood uglier than ever.  Often she tried a shy tenderness, but with no success.

One day when Miss Toland was lunching with her Julia made some allusion to the subject, in answer to the older woman’s comment that she did not look very well.

“I’m not very well, Aunt Sanna,” said Julia, pushing her plate away, and resting both slim elbows on the table.  “I’m worried.”

“Not about Anna?” Miss Toland asked quickly.

“No-o!  Anna, God bless her, is simply six-months-old perfection!” Julia said, with a brief smile.  “No—­about myself and Jim.”

Miss Toland gave her a shrewd glance.

“Quarrelled, eh?” she said simply.

“Oh, no!” Julia felt her eyes watering.  “No.  I almost wish we had.  Because then I could go to him, and say ‘I’m sorry!’” she stammered.

“Sorry for what?” demanded Miss Toland.

“For whatever I’d done!” elucidated Julia, with her April smile.

“Yes, but suppose he’d done it, what then?” Miss Toland asked.

“Ah, well,” Julia hesitated.  “Jim doesn’t do things!” she said vaguely.

“Jim’s in one of his awful moods, I suppose?” his adopted aunt asked, after a pause.

“Oh, in a dreadful one!” Julia confessed.

“How long—­days?”

“Weeks, Aunt Sanna!”

“Weeks?  For the Lord’s sake, that’s awful!” Miss Toland frowned and rubbed the bridge of her nose.  “What gets into the boy?” she said impatiently.  “You don’t know what it’s about, I suppose?”

Julia hesitated.  “I think it’s that he gets to thinking of my old life, when I was a little nobody, south of Market Street,” she hazarded with as much truth as she could.