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Then, the three days gone, the wind died down suddenly, the flakes grew larger, softer, the snow clung tenaciously to the trees and fences and eaves of house and stable. Jim in arctic shoes and mittens, his ears lost under the flaps of his cap, having sighed and bestirred himself from his snug comfort by Julia's stove, got his shovel and went up on the housetop.

Not that he ever mentioned Julia to Ivy; but she knew, of course, of Julia's existence, and being a shrewd and experienced woman she drew her own conclusions. One day she expressed herself very frankly on the subject. "You've taken the rooms above Sir Peveril's, eh?" she asked him. "Well, yes," Jim answered, after a second's pause. "They're bully rooms!"

Dick smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 'Your blood be upon your own head, he answered. 'If I perish, I perish. And so it came about that when Alec had been ten minutes in Julia's cosy sitting-room, Lucy was announced. Julia went up to her, greeting her effusively to cover the awkwardness of the moment. Alec grew very pale, but made no sign that he was disconcerted. Only Dick was troubled.

Lady Agnes was a woman who measured outlays and returns, but she was both too acute and too just not to recognise the scantest offer from which an advantage could proceed. "Dear Julia!" she exclaimed responsively; and her tone made this brevity of acknowledgment adequate. Julia's own few words were all she wanted. "It's so interesting about Harsh," she added. "We're immensely excited."

Even in the agony of my awakening consciousness I felt the inevitable sting of shame at my weakness and womanishness. I pushed away Julia's hand, and raised myself. I got up on my feet and walked unsteadily and blindly toward the shut door. "Martin," said Julia, "you must not go back there. It is all over." I heard my father calling me in a broken voice, and I turned to him.

Polkington's voice, face, feelings, sayings, everything. Julia's own behaviour was perfect, though all the time she saw how it looked as plainly as if she had been another and disinterested person, and once or twice she had an hysterical desire to applaud a good stroke of her mother's or prompt a backward speech of her uncle's. Mr. Gillat, of course, did nothing suitable; he never did.

It seemed impossible that the afternoon would ever end. The interval for tea came and passed tea in tin cans, with thick bread and melting butter. The respite was worse almost than the mechanical toil. Julia's eyes ranged over the housetops, westwards. There was another world of trees, flowers, and breezes; another world altogether. She set her teeth. It was hard to have no place in it.

But it is written: "Before the Soul can stand in the prescence of the Masters, its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart." It devolved upon his Teacher to break that heart for him; so that he might stand in the presence of the Masters. Agrippa had died; and for Julia's sake it was wise and better to provide her with a husband.

The telephone bell sounded again. Venner, of two-twenty-three, plunged his hand into his pocket, took out something and pressed it in Julia's palm, shutting her fingers over it. Julia did not need to open them and look to see she knew by the feel of the crumpled paper, stiff and crackling. He was making for the door, with some last instructions that she did not hear, before she spoke.

Besides this, Chess was working, and paying his mother something every week for board. It had been Julia's first confident plan to move the family from the Mission entirely. There were lovely roomy flats in the Western Addition, or there were sunny houses out toward the end of Sutter Street, where her mother and grandmother would be infinitely more comfortable and more accessible.