"And yet I have heard you describe daddy as a man of commanding presence. How would you like it if daddy were to starve himself down until all the command of his presence disappeared into nothingness?" "Ah, but I was gross," said Regina. "I never knew you when you were gross," said Julia. "I thought at Maudie's wedding you looked lovely, and daddy said to me--" "What did your father say to you?" Julia drew a step nearer to her mother, and smoothed down, with tender yet nervous fingers, the stole of soft gray fur which was around her shoulders. "Why don't you ever wear your sables?" she asked irrelevantly. "My sables?" said Regina. "Oh, I don't like to wear them every day." "But when you are going to town, among smart West-End physicians--that doesn't mean every day. I don't suggest that you should put them on to go up the village in. Don't you like them?" "Oh, yes, no woman in the world would dislike them." "That's what I thought. You know, mother dear, you're cooking up something about daddy." "No, I would rather not discuss it with you, my darling." "Sometimes," said Julia, still smoothing the stole up and down, "sometimes it's better to get it off your chest." "What a very vulgar remark!" said Regina. "Yes, perhaps, but very practical. Now, I've been watching you." "I wish you wouldn't," said Regina. "Yes, we all wish others wouldn't. You see, that night at the Trocadero let us all behind the scenes a little. Yes--I must speak, it's been trembling on the tip of my tongue for weeks past, but, somehow, you always put me off. I believe that daddy could explain it all." "There is no necessity for explanation." She looked very stern, very severe; but Julia was minded to speak, and when Julia was minded to speak she generally had her say. "You are quite a different woman to what you were when Maudie was married. You're not fretting after her, that's certain--an outsider might think so, but I know better. You've never told daddy a word about our having seen him at the Trocadero that night. You didn't notice him very much; you resolutely kept your eyes away from him. I had no such delicacy of feeling, I watched him very closely. That woman is nothing to him. I don't know why he was dining with her, I don't know why he didn't tell you about it, but he was bored and annoyed. He was trying to pull something off, and he couldn't get what he wanted. If she ever had any sort of hold over him, that hold has long since ceased to be an attractive one--he was bored to death with her. I don't know that Maudie wasn't right." "You have discussed it with Maudie?" "I have, or rather she has discussed it with me. She was all for going down and tackling daddy right away, and I believe her instinct was right, and that daddy would rather you knew he was there." "And Maudie thinks--?"