“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—?”
“Maudie? Oh, Maudie’s mind works in quite a different way to mine—always did. Maudie thinks it is just an ordinary affair of that kind, and left alone she would have gone down and taxed him with it, but Harry wouldn’t hear of it. But daddy was there and she was there—and a horrid-looking brute she was—but whoever she was, and whatever she may be, I am perfectly sure there is not the slightest occasion for you to worry about her, one way or the other.”
“I don’t—” Regina began, but Julia promptly cut her short.
“Oh, yes, darling, you do. You were quite a changed woman after that night—ah, and before that night, too. I know perfectly well that you are worrying, I could burst out crying sometimes to see the look on your face, and poor old daddy is quite unconscious, he hasn’t the least idea why you are so quiet and so unlike yourself. He asked me quite anxiously the other day if I thought you were over-doing the treatment with Dr. Money-Berry.”