"Why, such a dear thing, Julia—Mrs. David E. Drack. Have you heard of her?" he almost fluted.
New York was vast, and she had not had that advantage. "She's a widow—?"
"Oh yes: she's not—" He caught himself up in time. "She's a real one." It was as near as he came. But it was as if he had been looking at her now so pathetically hard. "Julia, she has millions."
Hard, at any rate—whether pathetic or not—was the look she gave him back. "Well, so has—or so will have—Basil French. And more of them than Mrs. Drack, I guess," Julia quavered.
"Oh, I know what they've got!" He took it from her—with the effect of a vague stir, in his long person, of unwelcome embarrassment. But was she going to give up because he was embarrassed? He should know at least what he was costing her. It came home to her own spirit more than ever, but meanwhile he had found his footing. "I don't see how your mother matters. It isn't a question of his marrying her."
"No; but, constantly together as we've always been, it's a question of there being so disgustingly much to get over. If we had, for people like them, but the one ugly spot and the one weak side; if we had made, between us, but the one vulgar kind of mistake: well, I don't say!" She reflected with a wistfulness of note that was in itself a touching eloquence. "To have our reward in this world we've had too sweet a time. We've had it all right down here!" said Julia Bride. "I should have taken the precaution to have about a dozen fewer lovers."
"Ah, my dear, 'lovers'—!" He ever so comically attenuated.
"Well they were!" She quite flared up. "When you've had a ring from each (three diamonds, two pearls, and a rather bad sapphire: I've kept them all, and they tell my story!) what are you to call them?"
"Oh, rings—!" Mr. Pitman didn't call rings anything. "I've given Mrs.
Drack a ring."
Julia stared. "Then aren't you her lover?"