“Yes, dear, I am. Why?”
“Do you think he is doing very much good?”
“Oh, I do, indeed! I consider that he has set me free, body and soul, from the burden that I used to carry about with me.”
“Oh—you mean—fat, darling? Don’t you think it suits you to be a little fat?”
“I don’t think it suits anybody to be fat,” said Regina, with the enthusiasm of the recent convert.
“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.