Nevertheless, she at once picked up the letter, with an expression of eager curiosity.
To her surprise she first discovered Bettina’s name. She had not anticipated this, presuming the note had been written to Mrs. Burton. Instantly she became more interested.
The note was also written in French and not English.
Julie devoted no time to puzzling over this fact. However, the explanation was simple, Bettina and David Hale had been studying French together and therefore David had written in French.
At first Julie read the note idly, but with no compunction, and without even glancing toward Mrs. Burton’s door as if she were fearful of interruption. She really scarcely appeared to appreciate the fact that one did not read a note addressed to another person without that person’s consent. Later she grew more absorbed.
But to understand the young girl’s apparent lack of principle, one needs to know something of her history and also of the state of mind which her stay in Miss Patricia Lord’s household had engendered.
Julie’s mother had died when she was a baby; after a careless fashion she had been brought up by her father, who was a Bohemian and ne’er-do-well. Never for any length of time had her father worked long at any task, or Julie been sure of sufficient food. But always she had shared her father’s confidence and a certain shallow affection and had never criticized or reproached him. Indeed, he was the only person for whom she had ever cared until after her father’s death when she had first learned to know Marguerite Arnot.
When war was declared, Robert Dupont, Julie’s father, had gone off to fight and had been killed in so gallant a manner at Verdun, that one must forgive his weaknesses.
Yet can one ever escape the consequence of weakness? Julie had been left behind, without training, without a natural sense of honor, to repeat his mistakes, unless some one would help her to a new ideal of life. So far there had been no such influence for good in the young French girl’s life.
Marguerite Arnot, Julie cared for devotedly, nevertheless, although this may not have appeared upon the surface, of the two girls Julie Dupont possessed the stronger nature.