“That sounds like Mother!” Richie said with a dry laugh.

“Doesn’t it?” Julia smiled.  “But the truth is,” she added, “Jim has no preconcerted plan.  He’s made a very close man friend or two in Germany, belongs to a doctors’ club.  I know him so well!  He lets the days, and the weeks, and the years go by, forgetting me and everything that concerns me as much as he can, and getting into a slow, dull rage whenever he remembers that fate hit him, of all men in the world, such a blow!”

“And the baby?” said Richie.  “Don’t you suppose she counts?  Oh, Lord, to have a kid of one’s own,” he added slowly, with the half-smiling sigh Julia knew so well.

“I imagine she would count if he had seen her lately,” Julia suggested.  “But she was such a tiny scrap!  And Jim, as men go, isn’t a lover of children.”

“You wouldn’t divorce him, Julie?” Richard asked, after a silence.

“Oh, never!” she answered quickly.  “No, I won’t do that.”  She smiled.  “Yet, Rich,” she added presently, “it’s a strange thing to me that really my one dread is that he will come back.  I think he means nothing to me, yet, if I saw him—­I don’t know!  Sometimes I worry for fear that he might want Anna, and of course I wouldn’t give her up if it meant a dozen divorces.”

Richard sat staring into the fire for a few moments; then he roused himself to ask smilingly: 

“How’d we get started on this little heart to heart, anyway?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Julia said, smiling, too.  “I couldn’t talk of it for a long while.  I can’t now, to any one but you.  But it all means less to me than it did.  Jim never could hurt me now as he did then.”  She straightened up in her chair.  “It’s been a wonderful talk!” she said, with shining eyes.  “And you’re a friend in a million, Richie, dear!  And now,” very practically, “where are you going to sleep, my dear?  Aunt Sanna has your room.”

“This couch out here is made up!” Richard said, with a backward jerk of his head toward the room behind him.

“Ah, then you’re all right!” Julia rose, and stopped behind his chair for a moment, to lay a light kiss on his hair.  “Good-night, Little Brother!” she said affectionately.

Instantly one of the bony hands shot out, and Julia felt her wrist caught as in a vise.  Richard swiftly twisted about and got on his own feet, and for a minute their eyes glittered not many inches apart.  Julia tried to laugh, but she was breathing fast.

“Richard!” she said in a sharp whisper.  “What is it?”

“Julia!” he choked, breathing hard.

For a long moment they remained motionless, staring at each other.  Then Richard’s grip on her wrists relaxed, and he sank into his deep chair, dropped his elbows on his knees, and put his hands over his face.  Julia stood watching him for a second.

“Good-night, Richie!” she said then, almost inaudibly.

“Good-night!” he whispered through his shut fingers.  Julia slipped softly away, closing the door of her bedroom noiselessly behind her.