At twelve o’clock a final rehearsal of “The Amazons” was held at the yacht club, and to-day Julia entered into her part with zest, her enthusiasm really carrying the performance, as the appreciative “Matty” assured her.  She had the misfortune to step on a ruffle of her borrowed white petticoat, at the very close of the last act, and slipped into the dressing-room to pin it up as soon as the curtain descended.

The dressing-room was deserted.  Julia found a paper of pins, and, putting her foot up on a chair, began to repair the damage as well as she could.  The day was warm, and only wooden shutters screened the big window that gave on one of the club’s wide porches.  Julia, humming contentedly to herself, presently became aware that there were chairs just outside the window, and girls in the chairs—­ Barbara Toland and Ted, and Miss Grinell and Miss Hazzard, and one or two Julia did not know.

“Yes, Mother’s a darling,” Barbara was saying.  “You know she didn’t get this up, Margaret; she had nothing to do with it, and yet she’s practically carrying the whole responsibility now!  She’ll be as nervous as we are to-morrow night!”

Julia pinned on serenely.  It was in no code of hers to move out of hearing.

“The only thing she really bucked at was when she found Miss Page at our house last night,” Ted said.  “Mother’s no snob—­but I wish you could have seen her face!”

“Was she perfectly awful, Ted?” somebody asked.

“Who, Miss Page?  No-o, she wasn’t perfectly awful—­yes, she was pretty bad,” Theodora admitted.  “Wasn’t she, Babbie?”

“Oh, well”—­Barbara hesitated—­“she’s—­of course she’s terribly common.  Just the second-rate actress type, don’t you know?”

“Did she call your Mother ’ma’am’?” giggled Enid Hazzard.  “Do you remember when she said ‘Yes, ma’am?’ And did she say ‘eyether,’ and ‘between you and I’ again?” Something was added to this, but Julia did not catch it.  The girls laughed again.

“Listen,” said Ted, “this is the richest yet!  Last night Sally said to her, ’Breakfast’s at nine, Miss Page; how do you like your bath?’ and she looked at Sally sort of surprised and said, ’I don’t want a bath!’”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s fair, Teddy,” Barbara protested; “she’s never had any advantages; it’s a class difference, that’s all.  She’s simply not a lady; she never will be.  You’d be the same in her place.”

“Oh, I would not!  I wouldn’t mark my eyebrows and I wouldn’t wear such dirty clothes, and I wouldn’t try to look twenty-five—­” Ted began.

Again there was a quick commentary that Julia missed, and another laugh.  Then Barbara said: 

“Poor kid!  And she looked so sweet in some of Sally’s things.”

Julia, still bent over her ruffle, did not move a muscle from the instant she first heard her name until now, when the girls dismissed the subject with a laugh.  She felt as if the house were falling about her, as if every word were a smashing blow at her very soul.  She felt sick and dizzy, cold and suddenly weak.