"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?"