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“At the moment I can’t think of anything but Susan. I’m afraid you’ll feel I’ve come to interfere.”
    â€œOf course you have,” said Mrs. Packett. “Not that I blame you. Nor do I blame Susan, though I think she’s behaving most unreasonably. I expect you thought she was locked in her room on bread and water?”
    â€œI expected to find her … worse,” Julia admitted.
    â€œInstead of which I’m feeding them both twice a day on the fat of the land. You’ll see at lunchtime. You’ll see him . Susan made me promise not to speak about him until you’d met, in case I prejudiced you; but you know I disapprove, because she must have said so in her letter. Isn’t that so?”
    â€œYes,” agreed Julia, “but she didn’t say why.”
    Mrs. Packett looked surprised: “Simply because she’s too young. I’ve nothing against Bryan personally. But no girl should get married at twenty.”
    â€œThen you don’t object to an engagement?”
    â€œUntil Susan is twenty-one I do. If they would like to announce their engagement next year, and get married when Susan is twenty-three, I have no objection at all.”
    This was a new light on the subject, and Julia considered it thoughtfully. Susan’s birthday was in March—only eight months away—and after a formal engagement the time of waiting could probably be abridged. Then why wouldn’t Susan wait? Why so desperate a measure as the fetching of her mother from London? She wasn’t’—Julia could have sworn it—consumed by the impatience of passion. She was escaping from no present ills. Then why …?
    â€œI can’t understand it,” said Mrs. Packett, meeting her thought. “She’s enjoying the life at Girton, she loves it. Another two years, and one getting ready, shouldn’t seem long to her. And at the beginning she agreed with me; it’s only in the last few weeks that she’s become so—so heady.”
    â€œAnd the young man?” asked Julia. “Is he willing to wait too?”
    â€œIf he is, my dear, he can hardly say so, with Susan clamouring to get married next month.” Mrs. Packett sighed. “Perhaps I’m being selfish. Perhaps, when I say I want her to have her girlhood, I really mean I want to keep her a little longer for myself. You know, my dear, we’ve always been very grateful to you?”
    Julia moved uneasily. What a family they were for distributing nonexistent virtues!
    â€œI’m grateful to you ,” she said almost curtly. “When I see Susan now I know I could never have done half as well for her. She’s her father’s daughter much more than mine—and a very good thing too.”
    The old woman’s glance was suddenly so shrewd that Julia was taken by surprise. “I bet it was she who wouldn’t let Sue come and stay with me!” she thought. And quite right, all things considered: there were some people who shouldn’t mix, however nearly they were related; the tie of the spirit was closer than the tie of the flesh, and in spirit Susan was pure Packett. Julia’s spirit—“If I’ve got one!” she thought suddenly. “If you ask me, I’m all flesh!”
    Mrs. Packett put out her hard old hand and touched Julia’s plump one.
    â€œYou’re my daughter-in-law, and I’m very glad to see you. Stay with us as long as you can.”
    â€œI’ll stay for always!” cried Julia impetuously; but they were both wise enough to take the sentiment at its true value.

Chapter 8
    1
    The dining-room at the villa was a small square apartment, always rather dark because of the great jasmine, whose lower garlands drooped over its French window like a natural sun-blind. The light that filtered through was green rather than golden, and Julia, putting her head in from the bright terrace, could at first make out