She sat on his knee and talked to him, she sang, she patted his sore
neck with sleek, dirty little fingers. And finally she won him. George
laughed, and entered into her mood. He thought her a very smart little
girl, as indeed she was. She had a precocious knowledge of the affairs
of her mother's friends, sordid affairs enough, and more sordid than
ever when retailed by a child's fresh mouth. Julia talked of money
trouble, of divorce, of dressmaker's bills, of diseases; she repeated
insolent things that had been said to her in the street, and her
insolent replies; her rich, delicious laugh broke out over the memory of
the "drunk" that had been thrown out of Cassidy's.
George laughed at it all; it sounded very funny to him, coming from this
very small person, with her round, serious eyes, and her mop of gold. He
asked her what she wanted him to bring her next time he came home, and
Julia said black boots with white tops and tassels, and made him laugh
again.
Thus early did Julia act as a mediator between her parents, but of this
particular occasion she had no recollection, nor of much that followed
it.
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