“That is true,” she said. “I never show that side of me to him. He would not know what strange spirit moved me. I inherited none of it from him or my mother. I never show that side to anybody.”
“Except to me,” I said mischievously.
“Except to you,” she affirmed without a smile. “But sometimes I feel like a wolf in lamb skin.”
“At those times I take a brisk walk,” I said.
“I do, too. I walk around the Monument nearly every afternoon at five, with father’s dog. Usually at that hour he is at the club.”
“Shall I recognize you then by a shaggy, Scotch hound?” I asked.
“By all means,” she said, laughing wholesomely. “I suppose in the novels they would call that a secret meeting.”
In spite of the light manner in which she had spoken, she had lowered her voice a little when she heard a step in the hall. Margaret entered, as I have seen her so many, many times since, to collect the little coffee-cups.
The old servant, I felt without seeing, did not take her eyes away from me while she was in the room; so conscious was I of being the subject of her observation that I could find but few words to carry on the conversation. The very effect—that of an intimate dialogue interrupted—was produced in spite of my desire to avoid it, and when she left, Julianna had changed her mood. Finding, perhaps, that I was content to listen, she employed a delicate piece of strategy to place me in her father’s lounging-chair where I could watch her as she leaned back among the pillows, and in a voice, more soothing than any I had ever heard, described to me in quaint phrases the character of six imaginary persons who might among themselves make up a world, with all the traits of personality which we find in our own. From this piquant attempt, she emerged to plunge into a light discussion of heredity.
“I can see a trace of the Judge in your belief,” said I.