"I don't know; I never saw her. But you—you are getting awfully civilized."
She laughed. Val was very grave.
"Do you remember," Julia went on, "your plan of running away to be a chorus-girl?"
"Yes"—the answer rang sharply—"and I would have done it too but that grandma needed me—" She stopped, with a face suddenly fear-stricken. "It looks as if I was growing like Aunt Valeria"—she walked up and down the room with her head caught between her two hands—"but I'm not—I'm not."
She stopped before Julia, a prey to the feeling that if she allowed Julia to think so she would be like Aunt Valeria. She had the sense of one lying in a trance: that if he does not make a superhuman effort now and protest effectively he will be buried alive. The girl glanced excitedly round the room, and felt the old presence egging her on. It was here that other Valeria had dreamed and tried to work; it was here she faced defeat—here she died, looking out at dawn to the rampart hills that had hemmed them both in beyond escape.
"Don't think I'm the very least like her. I don't want to be a sculptor or a poet, and that's not like Aunt Valeria. I'm not staying here out of respect for any silly old family traditions, nor even because my grandmother needs me. I've been pretending. I'm really staying for Ethan's sake"—her face grew crimson—"that's not like Aunt Valeria."
"For Ethan's sake!" echoed her friend.
"Yes. He made me promise. It's only for a little while I am giving up my music not because I'm growing civilized, as you imagine, but because I shall get something I want more, and that's not like Aunt Valeria. And it doesn't matter who says 'No' to what I want: I'll have it—yes, I'll have it in spite of all the angels in heaven and all the demons in hell, and that's not like Aunt Valeria!"
Julia, still sitting on the hearth-rug, had leaned forward, and was staring at Val with a curious expression. The crouched-together attitude had caused an envelope the girl had hidden in her bodice to work up to the bit of bare neck revealed by the low-folded fichu. Val fastened sharp eyes upon that part of the familiar gray-blue paper where in Ethan's unmistakable hand she read as much of Julia's last name as "tway." Val's fixed stare made the other look down. Two guilty hands flew to her breast.