The Story of Julia Page Part 58

"You've changed very much," Jim observed, after a sulphurous silence.

"I have?" Julia asked naively. "In what way?"

"Why didn't you want to see me?"

"Oh--" Julia laid the letter down, and for the first time gave him her full attention. "I've changed my mind about that, Jim," she said frankly. "I thought at first that it was an unwise thing, but I feel differently now. Of course you know," continued Julia, with pretty childish gravity, "that for me there can be no consideration of divorce; I shall never be any other man's wife, and never be free. But if, as Bab says, you have come to feel that you want something different, and if you have drifted so far from your religion as to feel that a legal doc.u.ment can undo what was solemnly done in the name of G.o.d, why then I shan't oppose it. You can call it desertion or incompatibility, I don't care."

"Who said I wanted a divorce?" Jim demanded, in his ugliest tone. His face was a dull, heavy red, and veins swelled on his forehead.

"My life is full and happy," Julia pursued contentedly, paying no attention to his question. "I'm not very exacting, as you know. Mama needs me, and I have everything I want."

"You talk very easily of divorce," Jim said, in an injured tone, after a pause. "But is it fair to have it all arranged before I say a word?"

Julia's answer was only a look--a full, clear, level look that scorched him like a flame; her cheeks above the black of her gown burned scarlet; she was growing angry.

Jim played with an empty envelope for a few minutes, fitting a ringer tip to each corner and lifting it stiffly. Presently he dropped it, folded his arms, and rested them on the table.

"This is a serious matter," he said gravely. "And we must think about it. But you must forgive me for saying that it is a great shock to come home and find you talking that way, Julie. I--G.o.d knows I'm bad enough, but I _don't_ think I deserve quite this!" added Jim gently.

A long interval of silence, for Julia a busy interval, followed.

"When am I going to see Anna?" Jim asked, ending it.

"Whenever you want to," Julia said pleasantly. "I've familiarized her with your picture; she'll be friendly at once; she always is. Some day, when you are going to be here, I'll send her over for the day. She loves Sausalito, and I really believe she'd do poor Mother good."

"And when shall I come and see you--to talk about things?" Jim asked humbly.

"My dear Jim," Julia answered briskly, "I cannot see the need of our meeting again; I think it is most unwise--just a nervous strain on both sides. What have we to discuss? I tell you that I am perfectly willing to let you have your way. It's too bad, it's a thing I detest--divorce; but the whole situation is unfortunate, and we must make the best of it!"

Jim's stunned amazement showed in a return of his sullen colour and the fixed gla.s.sy look in his eyes.

"What will people think of this, Ju? Every one will have to know it--it will make a deuce of a lot of talk!" he said, trying to scare her.

Julia shook her head, with just a suggestion of a smile.

"Much less than you think, Jim," she answered sensibly. "Society long ago suspected that something was wrong; the announcement of a divorce will only confirm it."

"We'll have the whole crowd of them buzzing about our heads," Jim said, determined to touch her serenity by one phase or another.

"Oh, no, we won't!" Julia returned placidly. "The only circ.u.mstances under which there would have been buzzing would have been if I had tried to keep my place in society. I dropped out, and they let me go without a murmur. No buzzing from San Francisco society ever reaches Shotwell Street, and as for you, you'll be in London."

"How do you know I'll be in London?" Jim growled, utterly nonplussed.

Julia gave him a bright look over a letter, but did not answer, and the man fell to worrying an envelope again. Moments pa.s.sed, the autumn twilight fell, Julia began to stack her letters in neat piles.

Presently she quietly rose, and quietly left the room, without a word, without a backward glance. Jim sat on in the dusk, staring moodily ahead of him, his eyes half shut, the fingers of one big hand drumming gently on the table.

A few days later he went out to Shotwell Street to see her. Julia met him very quietly, and presented the little Anna with the solicitous interest in the child's manner that she would have shown had Jim been any casual friend. Anna, who was lovely in a pale pink cotton garment a little too small for her, looked seriously at her father, submitted to his kisses, her wondering eyes never moving from his face, and wriggled out of his arms as soon as she could.

"My G.o.d! She's beautiful, isn't she?" said Jim, under his breath.

"She looks very nice when she's clean and good," Julia agreed practically, kissing Anna herself.

"'My G.o.d's' a bad word," Anna said gravely to her father, "isn't it, Mother?"

"I wouldn't like to hear you say it," Julia answered. "Now trot out to Aunt Regina, dear, and ask her to give you your lunch. Mother'll be there immediately.

"She's exquisite," Jim said, when the child was gone. "You all over again, Ju!"

"She's smarter than I was." Julia smiled dispa.s.sionately. "I've taught her to read--simple things, of course; she writes a little, and does wonders with her numerical chart. She's very cunning, she has an unusual little mind, and occasionally says something that proves she thinks!"

A silence followed. Suns.h.i.+ne was streaming into the sitting-room; nasturtiums bloomed in Julia's window boxes; the net curtains fanned softly to and fro in the soft autumn air. In the city, a hundred whistles shrilled for noon.

"I hardly knew the place," Jim said, searching for something to say.

"You've made it over--the whole block looks better!"

"Gardens have come into fas.h.i.+on," Julia explained; "the Mission is a wonderful place for gardens. And the change in my mother is more marked," she went on, with perfunctory pleasantness; "you would hardly know her. She is much thinner, of course, but so bright and contented, and so brave!"

"I am going to meet her, I hope?" Jim suggested. Julia looked troubled.

"I hardly see how," she said regretfully. "As things are I can't exactly ask you to lunch, Jim. It would be most unnatural, and they--they look to me for a certain principle," she went on. "They know what these four years have meant for me; I couldn't begin now to treat the whole thing casually and cheerfully."

"I don't expect you to," Jim said quickly. "I'm not taking this lightly.

I only want to think the thing well over before any step is taken that we might regret."

Again Julia answered him with only a tolerant, bright look. She stood up and busied herself with the potted fern that stood on the centre table, breaking off dead leaves and gathering them into the palm of her hand.

Jim, feeling clumsy and helpless, stood up, too. And as he watched her, a sudden agony of admiration broke out in his heart. Her head was bent a little to one side, as if the weight of the glorious braids bowed it; her thick lashes hid her eyes; her sweet, firm mouth moved a little as she broke and straightened the fern. Where the wide collar of her checked gown was turned back at her throat, a triangle of her soft skin showed, as white and pure as the white of daisy petals; her firm young breast moved regularly under the fresh crisp gingham; the folds of her skirt were short enough to show her slender ankles and square-toed sensible low shoes tied with wide bows.

"You used not to be so cold, Julie," Jim said, baffled and uncomfortable.

"I am not cold," she answered mildly. "I never was a very demonstrative--never a very emotional person, I think. Three years ago--two years ago, even--I would have gone on my knees to you, Jim, begged you to come back, for Anna's sake as well as my own. But that time has gone by. This life, I've come to see, is far better for Anna than any child in our old set leads, and for me--well, I'm happy. I never was so happy, or busy, or necessary, in my life, as I am now."

"Do you mean that there's _no_ chance of a reconciliation?" Jim asked huskily. Julia gave him a glance of honest surprise.

"Jim," she asked crisply, "do you mean that you came on with the hope of a reconciliation? I thought you told Barbara something very different from that!"

"I don't know what I came on for. I wish Barbara would mind her own business," said Jim, feeling himself at a disadvantage.

"My dear Jim," Julia said with motherly kindness, "I know you so well!

You came on here determined to get a divorce, you want to be free, you may already have in mind some other woman! But I've hurt your feelings by making it all easy for you--by coming over to your side. You wanted a fuss, tears, protests, a convulsion among your old friends. And you find, instead, that all San Francisco takes the situation for granted, and that I do, too. I've made my own life, I have Anna, and more than enough money to live on; you have your freedom; every one's satisfied."

"That's nonsense and you know it!" Jim exclaimed angrily. "There's not one word of truth in it!" He began to pull on his gloves, a handsome figure in his irreproachable trim black sack suit with low oxfords showing a glimpse of gray hose, and an opal winking in his gray silk scarf. "There's absolutely no reason in the world why you should consider yourself as more or less than my wife," he said. "There's no object in this sort of reckless talk. We've been separated for a few years; it's no one's business but our own to know why!"

"Oh, Jim--Jim!" Julia said, shaking her head.

"Don't talk that way to me!" he said fiercely. "I tell you I'm serious!

It's all nonsense--this talk of divorce! Why," he came so near, and spoke in so menacing a tone, that Julia perforce lifted her eyes to his, "this situation isn't all of my making," he said. "I've not been ungenerous to you! Can't you be generous in your turn, and talk the whole thing over reasonably?"