When Marie had waved to her husband a stereotyped good-bye, and had kissed schoolboy George a warm one, on Monday morning, when leisurely quiet had come again to the flat, and as she still lingered over her newspaper, the door bell rang and Mrs. Desmond Rokeby was admitted.
Julia—fresh, heavenly, without a frown, without a care, without a regret—blew into Number Thirty like a Christmas rose and clasped Marie in a glad embrace.
"It's early; it's shockingly early, but I came up with Desmond this morning and knowing your habits—you do still wheel your own perambulator on the Heath, don't you, at eleven-thirty?—I rushed here first."
"How splendid you look!"
"I feel splendid!" The two women stood at arm's length, eyeing each other inquisitively and frankly, and Julia's ingenuous blush was the reflection of a divine dawn.
She sat down, put her feet on the fender, loosened her furs.
"I may stay and talk?"
"May you not! Oh! I'm glad to see you—it seemed as if your honeymoon was going to last for ever."
"It's not over."
"That's what we all say."