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She came down the corridor and stopped at Sadie Corn’s desk. Sadie Corn had her key ready for her. Two-eighteen took it daintily between white-gloved fingers.

“I’ll want a maid in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Tell them to send me the one I had yesterday. The pretty one. She isn’t so clumsy as some.”

Sadie Corn jotted down a note without looking up.

“Oh, Julia? Sorry–Julia’s busy,” she lied.

Two-eighteen knew she lied, because at that moment there came round the bend in the broad, marble stairway that led up from the parlour floor the trim, slim figure of Julia herself.

Two-eighteen took a quick step forward. “Here, girl! I’ll want you to hook me in fifteen minutes,” she said.

“Very well, ma’am,” replied Julia softly.

There passed between Sadie Corn and Two-eighteen a–well, you could hardly call it a look, it was so fleeting, so ephemeral; that electric, pregnant, meaning something that flashes between two women who dislike and understand each other. Then Two-eighteen was off down the hall to her room.

Julia stood at the head of the stairway just next to Sadie’s desk and watched Two-eighteen until the bend in the corridor hid her. Julia, of the lady’s-maid staff, could never have qualified for the position of floor clerk, even if she had chosen to bury herself in lavender-and-white crocheted shawls to the tip of her marvellous little Greek nose. In her frilly white cap, her trim black gown, her immaculate collar and cuffs and apron, Julia looked distractingly like the young person who, in the old days of the furniture-dusting drama, was wont to inform you that it was two years since young master went away–all but her feet. The feather-duster person was addicted to French-heeled, beaded slippers. Not so Julia. Julia was on her feet for ten hours or so a day. When you subject your feet to ten-hour tortures you are apt to pass by French-heeled effects in favour of something flat-heeled, laced, with an easy, comfortable crack here and there at the sides, and stockings with white cotton soles.

Julia, at the head of the stairway, stood looking after Two-eighteen until the tail of her silken draperies had whisked round the corner. Then, still staring, Julia spoke resentfully:

“Life for her is just one darned pair of long white kid gloves after another! Look at her! Why is it that kind of a face is always wearing the sables and diamonds?”

“Sables and diamonds,” replied Sadie Corn, sniffing essence of peppermint, “seem a small enough reward for having to carry round a mug like that!”

Julia came round to the front of Sadie Corn’s desk. Her eyes were brooding, her lips sullen.

“Oh, I don’t know!” she said bitterly. “Being pretty don’t get you anything–just being pretty! When I first came I used to wonder at those women that paint their faces and colour their hair, and wear skirts that are too tight and waists that are too low. But–I don’t know! This town’s so big and so–so kind of uninterested. When you see everybody wearing clothes that are more gorgeous than yours, and diamonds bigger, and limousines longer and blacker and quieter, it gives you a kind of fever. You–you want to make people look at you too.”

Sadie Corn leaned back in her chair. The peppermint bottle was held at her nose. It may have been that which caused her eyes to narrow to mere slits as she gazed at the drooping Julia. She said nothing. Suddenly Julia seemed to feel the silence. She looked down at Sadie Corn. As by a miracle all the harsh, sullen lines in the girl’s face vanished, to be replaced by a lovely compassion.

“Your neuralgy again, dearie?” she asked in pretty concern.

Sadie sniffed long and audibly at the peppermint bottle.

“If you ask me I think there’s some imp inside of my head trying to push my right eye out with his thumb. Anyway it feels like that.”

“Poor old dear!” breathed Julia. “It’s the weather. Have them send you up a pot of black tea.”