"Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know."
William Blake.
At three o'clock in the afternoon Julia put on her hat. Her dressingtable with its triple mirror stood in an alcove. It was a very finesevere little table. It was Julia's vanity to be very fine and dainty inher toilet. Here was no powder box, but lotions and expensive scents.When she sat before the glass she enjoyed the defiant delicacy which shesaw in the lines of her lifted head, and there was a thrill which shecould not analyze in the sight of her long white hands lying useless inher lap. They made her in love with herself.
Her hat was of bright brown straw and when she slipped on her fur coatshe was pleased with the luxurious incongruity of the effect.
Nellie, the old Negro servant, was away, and Julia's step-children, Mayand Bobby, were at school. As Julia descended the stairway to the lowerhall, her silk dress, brushing the carpet, made a cool hissing sound inthe quiet passageway.
She opened the front door softly and passed into the long street whichappeared sad and deserted in the spring sunshine. Under the cold trees,that were budding here and there, were small blurred shadows. In thetall yellow apartment house across the way windows were open and whitecurtains shook mysteriously against the light. Above a cornice smokefrom a hidden chimney rushed in opaque volumes to dissolve against thecold glow of the remote sky.
Julia walked along, feeling as though she were the one point in whichthe big silent city in the chill wind grew conscious of itself. It wasonly when she reached Dudley Allen's doorstep that her mood changed, andshe felt that when she went in she would be robbed of her new gloriousindifference about her life.
She rang the bell above the small brass plate, and when the white doorhad opened and she was mounting the soft green-carpeted stairs up thelong corridor, it seemed to her that she was going back into herself.
In the passage before Dudley's rooms he came to meet her as he had donebefore. His hard eyes as they looked at her had a sort of bloom oftriumph.
"I was sure you'd come." He grasped both her hands and drew her throughthe tall doorway. "Dear!"
"I suppose you were." She smiled at him with a clear look, knowing thatin his discomfort before her he was condemning himself.
"Won't you kiss me?" They were in his studio. He pouted his lips underhis mustache. His eyes shone with uneasy brilliance.
She kissed him. She understood that the simpler she was in her abandonthe more disconcerted he became.
When she had taken off her hat and laid it upon his drawing-board, heheld her against him and caressed her hair. Because he was afraid of hisown silence, he kept repeating, "Dear! My dear!"
"Aren't we lovers, Julia?" he insisted at last, childishly. He wasembarrassed and wanted to make a joke of his own mood, but she saw thathe was trembling. His mouth smiled. His eyes were clouded and watchfulwith resentment.
"How deeply are we lovers, Dudley?" She leaned her cheek against hisbreast. She did not wish to look at him. Suddenly she was terrified thata lover was able to give her nothing of what other women received.
"You love me. Look at me, Julia. Say you love me."
Her lids fluttered, but she kept her eyes fixed upon his small plumphand