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that Amelia guessed she’d purchased at a lovely shop they both had patronized on the Rue de la Paix. Julia’s hair was neatly piled on top of her head and her round glasses sat halfway down her nose, giving her a highly studious appearance.
    “I so appreciate everything you’ve done on my behalf, Julia. Without people like you and Edith, I don’t know how I would have managed. It’s been just ghastly.” She felt a catch rise in her throat. “I miss Grandfather so much, and you can’t imagine what it’s been like to lose his hotel as well.”
    “Your grandfather was a wonderful, generous-spirited man. We all miss him.” Julia resumed her chair facing her drafting table. “Actually, I’m rather surprised to see you so soon. I should have thought there were many loose ends for you to deal with.”
    “Not many, now, unfortunately, since J.D. Thayer took over complete control of the Bay View. Though I haven’t given up,” Amelia added quickly. She hesitated. It was so humiliating to reveal, even to Julia, her family’s current state of personal and financial chaos. “I still intend to fight for the hotel, though I’m not quite sure how yet—or with what funds. With Mother in Paris and the hotel now in other hands, my aunt and I barely have a sou between us. Besides wanting to express my thanks for your support, Julia, I’m here to see about employment. Can you take me on, as you said you might? Immediately? ” she added with deliberate emphasis.
    Julia glanced down at her desk. “I feel absolutely horrid about this, Amelia, but I can barely pay my employees’ wages as it is.” She shook her head. “I don’t need to tell you , it’s an uphill battle, being the only female in a male profession. I’m terribly sorry to disappoint us both, but with the limited number of commissions I have presently, I’m afraid I can’t put you on as a full-time architect as I’d hoped.”
    “You can’t ? But then who in the world will hire me?”
    Stunned, she sank back into the chair and stared at the woman she had hoped would serve as a professional mentor. All her hopes, all her assumptions of at least six years came crashing down to earth. Flashing through her mind were endless late-night sessions at the atelier and a host of arduous design projects at L’École des Beaux Arts. For years now, her principal goal had been to gain a place in Julia’s firm, even when she thought she didn’t have to make her own living.
    Now, she needed to earn her keep and support her aunt and mother, especially since Victoria had already written from France complaining that “the price of caviar and suitable lodging here are so dear.” Mrs. Hunter Bradshaw had been a coddled woman all her life and would expect to continue that privilege.
    Yet, Julia Morgan had just said there was no room for another desk and no funds to pay Amelia’s wages.
    “You can’t imagine how sorry I am,” Julia continued, but Amelia’s mind could only echo the architect’s earlier pronouncement that she wouldn’t be hiring her.
    Julia’s troubled gaze did little to soften the blow. Amelia warded off a sudden sense of panic that could easily bring on tears of frustration.
    “There isn’t another firm in all of San Francisco likely to hire a woman architect,” she murmured, ashamed of the flood of self-pity that threatened to drown her.
    “I know. Believe me.”
    Julia had worked briefly for John Galen Howard, the haughty master architect at the University of California at Berkeley, and had parted company fairly quickly, founding her own firm as a result, with the enthusiastic support of her well-to-do family in Oakland. She gestured toward the adjacent room with its drafting boards squeezed into a tiny space.
    “Our friends from college do what they can to give me commissions. A residence here, a garage for a new motorcar there. If it were just me, I’d probably be doing reasonably well, but with my rent here in the city, and the draftsmen