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diff --git a/4687.txt b/4687.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b01534 --- /dev/null +++ b/4687.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19554 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Saturday's Child, by Kathleen Norris + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Saturday's Child + +Author: Kathleen Norris + +Posting Date: May 20, 2013 [EBook #4687] +Release Date: November, 2003 +First Posted: March 2, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATURDAY'S CHILD *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + + + +THE WORKS OF KATHLEEN NORRIS + +SATURDAY'S CHILD + +VOLUME IV + + + + + + "Friday's child is loving and giving; + But Saturday's child must work for her living." + + + + To C. G. N. + + How shall I give you this, who long have known + Your gift of all the best of life to me? + No living word of mine could ever be + Without the stirring echo of your own. + Under your hand, as mine, this book has grown, + And you, whose faith sets all my musing free, + You, whose true vision helps my eyes to see, + Know that these pages are not mine alone. + + Not mine to give, not yours, the happy days, + The happy talks, the hoping and the fears + That made this story of a happy life. + But, in dear memory of your words of praise, + And grateful memory of four busy years, + Accept her portion of it, from your wife. + + + + + + +PART ONE + +Poverty + + + + +SATURDAY'S CHILD + +CHAPTER I + + +Not the place in which to look for the Great Adventure, the dingy, +narrow office on the mezzanine floor of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's great +wholesale drug establishment, in San Francisco city, at the beginning +of the present century. Nothing could have seemed more monotonous, more +grimy, less interesting, to the outsider's eye at least, than life as +it presented itself to the twelve women who were employed in +bookkeeping there. Yet, being young, as they all were, each of these +girls was an adventuress, in a quiet way, and each one dreamed bright +dreams in the dreary place, and waited, as youth must wait, for +fortune, or fame, or position, love or power, to evolve itself somehow +from the dulness of her days, and give her the key that should +open--and shut--the doors of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's offices to her +forever. + +And, while they waited, working over the unvaried, stupid columns of +the company's books, they talked, confided, became friends, and +exchanged shy hints of ambition. The ill-ventilated, neglected room was +a little world, and rarely, in a larger world, do women come to know +each other as intimately as these women did. + +Therefore, on a certain sober September morning, the fact that Miss +Thornton, familiarly known as "Thorny," was out of temper, speedily +became known to all the little force. Miss Thornton was not only the +oldest clerk there, but she was the highest paid, and the longest in +the company's employ; also she was by nature a leader, and generally +managed to impress her associates with her own mood, whatever it might +be. Various uneasy looks were sent to-day in her direction, and by +eleven o'clock even the giggling Kirk sisters, who were newcomers, were +imbued with a sense of something wrong. + +Nobody quite liked to allude to the subject, or ask a direct question. +Not that any one of them was particularly considerate or reserved by +nature, but because Miss Thornton was known to be extremely unpleasant +when she had any grievance against one of the younger clerks. She could +maintain an ugly silence until goaded into speech, but, once launched, +few of her juniors escaped humiliation. Ordinarily, however, Miss +Thornton was an extremely agreeable woman, shrewd, kindly, sympathetic, +and very droll in her passing comments on men and events. She was in +her early thirties, handsome, and a not quite natural blonde, her mouth +sophisticated, her eyes set in circles of a leaden pallor. An +assertive, masterful little woman, born and reared in decent poverty, +still Thorny claimed descent from one of the first families of +Maryland, and talked a good deal of her birth. Her leading +characteristic was a determination never, even in the slightest +particular, to allow herself to be imposed upon, and she gloried in +stories of her own success in imposing upon other people. + +Miss Thornton's desk stood at the inner end of the long room, nearest +the door that led out to the "deck," as the girls called the mezzanine +floor beyond, and so nearest the little private office of Mr. George +Brauer, the arrogant young German who was the superintendent of the +Front Office, and heartily detested by every girl therein. + +When Miss Thornton wanted to be particularly annoying to her associates +she would remark casually that "she and Mr. Brauer" thought this or +that, or that "she suggested, and Mr. Brauer quite agreed" as to +something else. As a matter of fact, she disliked him as much as they +did, although she, and any and every girl there, would really have been +immensely pleased and flattered by his admiration, had he cared to +bestow it. But George Brauer's sea-blue eyes never rested for a second +upon any Front Office girl with anything but annoyed responsibility. He +kept his friendships severely remote from the walls of Hunter, Baxter & +Hunter, and was suspected of social ambitions, and of distinguished, +even noble connections in the Fatherland. + +This morning Miss Thornton and Mr. Brauer had had a conference, as the +lady called it, immediately after his arrival at nine o'clock, and Miss +Murray, who sat next to Miss Thornton, suspected that it had had +something to do with her neighbor's ill-temper. But Miss Thornton, +delicately approached, had proved so ungracious and so uncommunicative, +that Miss Murray had retired into herself, and attacked her work with +unusual briskness. + +Next to friendly, insignificant little Miss Murray was Miss Cottle, a +large, dark, morose girl, with untidy hair, and untidy clothes, and a +bad complexion. Miss Cottle was unapproachable and insolent in her +manner, from a sense of superiority. She was connected, she stated +frequently, with one of the wealthy families of the city, whose old +clothes, the girls suspected, she frequently wore. On Saturday, a +half-day, upon which all the girls wore their best clothes to the +office, if they had matinee or shopping plans for the afternoon, Miss +Cottle often appeared with her frowsy hair bunched under a tawdry +velvet hat, covered with once exquisite velvet roses, and her muscular +form clad in a gown that had cost its original owner more than this +humble relative could earn in a year. Miss Cottle's gloves were always +expensive, and always dirty, and her elaborate silk petticoats were of +soiled pale pinks and blues. + +Miss Cottle's neighbor was Miss Sherman, a freckled, red-headed, pale +little girl, always shabby and pinched-looking, eager, silent, and +hard-working. Miss Sherman gave the impression--or would have given it +to anyone who cared to study her--of having been intimidated and +underfed from birth. She had a keen sense of humor, and, when Susan +Brown "got started," as Susan Brown occasionally did, Miss Sherman +would laugh so violently, and with such agonized attempts at +suppression, that she would almost strangle herself. Nobody guessed +that she adored the brilliant Susan, unless Miss Brown herself guessed +it. The girls only knew of Miss Sherman that she was the oldest of +eight brothers and sisters, and that she gave her mother all her money +every Saturday night. + +Miss Elsie Kirk came next, in the line of girls that faced the room, +and Miss Violet Kirk was next to her sister. The Kirks were pretty, +light-headed girls, frivolous, common and noisy. They had a comfortable +home, and worked only because they rather liked the excitement of the +office, and liked an excuse to come downtown every day. Elsie, the +prettier and younger, was often "mean" to her sister, but Violet was +always good-natured, and used to smile as she told the girls how Elsie +captured her--Violet's--admirers. The Kirks' conversation was all of +"cases," "the crowd," "the times of their lives," and "new crushes"; +they never pinned on their audacious hats to go home at night without +speculating as to possible romantic adventures on the car, on the +street, everywhere. They were not quite approved by the rest of the +Front Office staff; their color was not all natural, their clothes were +"fussy." Both wore enormous dry "rats," that showed through the thin +covering of outer hair, their stockings were quite transparent, and +bows of pink and lavender ribbon were visible under their thin +shirt-waists. It was known that Elsie had been "spoken to" by old Mr. +Baxter, on the subject of a long, loose curl, which had appeared one +morning, dangling over her powdered neck. The Kirks, it was felt, never +gave an impression of freshness, of soapiness, of starched apparel, and +Front Office had a high standard of personal cleanliness. Miss +Sherman's ears glowed coldly all morning long, from early ablutions, +and her fingertips were always icy, and Miss Thornton and Susan Brown +liked to allude casually to their "cold plunges" as a daily +occurrence--although neither one ever really took a cold bath, except, +perhaps, for a few days in mid-summer. But all of cleanliness is +neither embraced nor denied by the taking of cold baths, and the Front +Office girls, hours and obligations considered, had nothing on this +score of which to be ashamed. Manicuring went on in every quiet moment, +and many of the girls spent twenty minutes daily, or twice daily, in +the careful adjustment of large sheets of paper as cuffs, to protect +their sleeves. Two elastic bands held these cuffs in place, and only +long practice made their arrangement possible. This was before the day +of elbow sleeves, although Susan Brown always included elbow sleeves in +a description of a model garment for office wear, with which she +sometimes amused her associates. + +"No wet skirts to freeze you to death," Susan would grumble, "no high +collar to scratch you! It's time that the office women of America were +recognized as a class with a class dress! Short sleeves, loose, baggy +trousers--" + +A shriek would interrupt her. + +"Yes, I SEE you wearing that in the street, Susan!" + +"Well, I WOULD. Overshoes," the inventor would pursue, "fleece-lined +leggings, coming well up on your--may I allude to limbs, Miss Wrenn?" + +"I don't care what you allude to!" Miss Wrenn, the office prude, a +little angry at being caught listening to this nonsense, would answer +snappily. + +"Limbs, then," Susan would proceed graciously, "or, as Miss Sherman +says, legs---" + +"Oh, Miss Brown! I DIDN'T! I never use that word!" the little woman +would protest. + +"You don't! Why, you said last night that you were trying to get into +the chorus at the Tivoli! You said you had such handsome--" + +"Oh, aren't you awful!" Miss Sherman would put her cold red fingers +over her ears, and the others, easily amused, would giggle at intervals +for the next half hour. + +Susan Brown's desk was at the front end of the room, facing down the +double line. At her back was a round window, never opened, and never +washed, and so obscured by the great cement scrolls that decorated the +facade of the building that it gave only a dull blur of light, +ordinarily, and no air at all. Sometimes, on a bright summer's morning, +the invading sunlight did manage to work its way in through the +dust-coated ornamental masonry, and to fall, for a few moments, in a +bright slant, wheeling with motes, across the office floor. But usually +the girls depended for light upon the suspended green-hooded electric +lights, one over each desk. + +Susan though that she had the most desirable seat in the room, and the +other girls carefully concealed from her the fact that they thought so, +too. Two years before, a newcomer, she had been given this same desk, +but it faced directly against the wall then, and was in the shadow of a +dirty, overcrowded letter press. Susan had turned it about, +straightened it, pushed the press down the room, against the +coat-closet, and now, like all the other girls, she faced the room, +could see more than any of them, indeed, and keep an eye on Mr. Brauer, +and on the main floor below, visible through the glass inner wall of +the office. Miss Brown was neither orderly nor industrious, but she had +an eye for proportion, and a fine imagination. She loved small, fussy +tasks, docketed and ruled the contents of her desk scrupulously, and +lettered trim labels for boxes and drawers, but she was a lazy young +creature when regular work was to be done, much given to idle and +discontented dreams. + +At this time she was not quite twenty-one, and felt herself to be +distressingly advanced in years. Like all except a few very fortunate +girls of her age, Susan was brimming with perverted energy--she could +have done a thousand things well and joyously, could have used to the +utmost the exceptional powers of her body and soul, but, handicapped by +the ideals of her sex, and lacking the rare guidance that might have +saved her, she was drifting, busy with work she detested, or equally +unsatisfied in idleness, sometimes lazily diverted and soothed by the +passing hour, and sometimes stung to her very soul by longings and +ambitions. + +"She is no older than I am--she works no harder than I do!" Susan would +reflect, studying the life of some writer or actress with bitter envy. +But how to get out of this groove, and into another, how to work and +fight and climb, she did not know, and nobody ever helped her to +discover. + +There was no future for her, or for any girl here, that she knew. Miss +Thornton, after twelve years of work, was being paid forty-five +dollars, Miss Wrenn, after eight years, forty, and Susan only thirty +dollars a month. Brooding over these things, Susan would let her work +accumulate, and endure, in heavy silence, the kindly, curious +speculations and comments of her associates. + +But perhaps a hot lunch or a friendly word would send her spirits +suddenly up again, Susan would forget her vague ambitions, and reflect +cheerfully that it was already four o'clock, that she was going with +Cousin Mary Lou and Billy Oliver to the Orpheum to-night, that her best +white shirtwaist ought by this time to have come back from the laundry. + +Or somehow, if depression continued, she would shut her desk, in +mid-afternoon, and leave Front Office, cross the long deck--which was a +sort of sample room for rubber goods, and was lined with long cases of +them--descend a flight of stairs to the main floor, cross it and +remount the stairs on the other side of the building, and enter the +mail-order department. This was an immense room, where fifty men and a +few girls were busy at long desks, the air was filled with the hum of +typewriters and the murmur of low voices. Beyond it was a door that +gave upon more stairs, and at the top of them a small bare room known +as the lunch-room. Here was a great locker, still marked with the +labels that had shown where senna leaves and tansy and hepatica had +been kept in some earlier stage of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's existence, +and now filled with the girls' lunch-boxes, and rubber overshoes, and +hair-brushes. There was a small gas-stove in this room, and a long +table with benches built about it. A door gave upon a high strip of +flat roof, and beyond a pebbled stretch of tar were the +dressings-rooms, where there were wash-stands, and soap, and limp +towels on rollers. + +Here Susan would wash her hands and face, and comb her bright thick +hair, and straighten belt and collar. There were always girls here: a +late-comer eating her luncheon, two chatter-boxes sharing a bit of +powdered chamois-skin at a mirror, a girl who felt ill drinking +something hot at the stove. Here was always company, and gossip, Susan +might stop for a half-cup of scalding hot tea, or a chocolate from a +striped paper bag. Returning, refreshed and cheered, to the office, she +would lay a warm, damp hand over Miss Thornton's, and give her the news. + +"Miss Polk and Miss French are just going it up there, Thorny, mad as +hops!" or "Miss O'Brien is going to be in Mr. Joe Hunter's office after +this." + +"'S'at so?" Miss Thornton would interestedly return, wrinkling her nose +under the glasses she used while she was working. And perhaps after a +few moments she would slip away herself for a visit to the lunch-room. +Mr. Brauer, watching Front Office through his glass doors, attempted in +vain to discourage these excursions. The bolder spirits enjoyed defying +him, and the more timid never dared to leave their places in any case. +Miss Sherman, haunted by the horror of "losing her job," eyed the +independent Miss Brown and Miss Thornton with open awe and admiration, +without ever attempting to emulate them. + +Next to Susan sat severe, handsome, reserved little Miss Wrenn, who +coldly repelled any attempts at friendship, and bitterly hated the +office. Except for an occasional satiric comment, or a half-amused +correction of someone's grammar, Miss Wrenn rarely spoke. + +Miss Cashell was her neighbor, a mysterious, pretty girl, with wicked +eyes and a hard face, and a manner so artless, effusive and virtuous as +to awaken the basest suspicions among her associates. Miss Cashell +dressed very charmingly, and never expressed an opinion that would not +well have become a cloistered nun, but the girls read her colorless +face, sensuous mouth, and sly dark eyes aright, and nobody in Front +Office "went" with Miss Cashell. Next her was Mrs. Valencia, a harmless +little fool of a woman, who held her position merely because her +husband had been long in the employ of the Hunter family, and who made +more mistakes than all the rest of the staff put together. Susan +disliked Mrs. Valencia because of the jokes she told, jokes that the +girl did not in all honesty always understand, and because the little +widow was suspected of "reporting" various girls now and then to Mr. +Hunter. + +Finishing the two rows of desks, down opposite Miss Thornton again were +Miss Kelly and Miss Garvey, fresh-faced, intelligent Irish girls, +simple, merry, and devoted to each other. These two took small part in +what did not immediately concern them, but went off to Confession +together every Saturday, spent their Sundays together, and laughed and +whispered together over their ledgers. Everything about them was +artless and pure. Susan, motherless herself, never tired of their talk +of home, their mothers, their married sisters, their cousins in +convents, their Church picnics and concerts and fairs, and +"joshes"--"joshes" were as the breath of life to this innocent pair. +"Joshes on Ma," "joshes on Joe and Dan," "joshes on Cecilia and +Loretta" filled their conversations. + +"And Ma yells up, 'What are you two layin' awake about?'" Miss Garvey +would recount, with tears of enjoyment in her eyes. "But we never said +nothing, did we, Gert? Well, about twelve o'clock we heard Leo come in, +and he come upstairs, and he let out a yell--'My God!' he says--" + +But at the recollection of Leo's discovery of the sheeted form, or the +pail of water, or whatever had awaited him at the top of the stairs, +Miss Garvey's voice would fail entirely, and Miss Kelly would also lay +her head down on her desk, and sob with mirth. It was infectious, +everyone else laughed, too. + +To-day Susan, perceiving something amiss with Miss Thornton, sauntered +the length of the office, and leaned over the older woman's desk. Miss +Thornton was scribbling a little list of edibles, her errand boy +waiting beside her. Tea and canned tomatoes were bought by the girls +every day, to help out the dry lunches they brought from home, and +almost every day the collection of dimes and nickels permitted a +"wreath-cake" also, a spongy, glazed confection filled with chopped +nuts and raisins. The tomatoes, bubbling hot and highly seasoned, were +quite as much in demand as was the tea, and sometimes two or three +girls made their entire lunch up by enlarging this list with cheese, +sausages and fruit. + +"Mad about something," asked Susan, when the list for to-day was +finished. + +Miss Thornton, under "2 wreath" wrote hastily, "Boiling! Tell you +later," and turned it about for Susan to read, before she erased it. + +"Shall I get that?" she asked, for the benefit of the attentive office. + +"Yes, I would," answered her fellow-conspirator, as she turned away. + +The hour droned by. Boys came with bills, and went away again. Sudden +sharp pangs began to assert themselves in Susan's stomach. An odor of +burning rubber drifted up from below, as it always drifted up at about +this time. Susan announced that she was starving. + +"It's not more than half-past eleven," said Miss Cottle, screwing her +body about, so that she could look down through the glass walls of the +office to the clock, on the main floor below. "Why, my heavens! It's +twelve o'clock!" she announced amazedly, throwing down her pen, and +stretching in her chair. + +And, in instant confirmation of the fact, a whistle sounded shrilly +outside, followed by a dozen more whistles, high and low, constant and +intermittent, sharp on the silent noon air. The girls all jumped up, +except Miss Wrenn, who liked to assume that the noon hour meant nothing +to her, and who often finished a bill or two after the hour struck. + +But among the others, ledgers were slammed shut, desk drawers jerked +open, lights snapped out. Miss Thornton had disappeared ten minutes +before in the direction of the lunch-room; now all the others followed, +yawning, cramped, talkative. + +They settled noisily about the table, and opened their lunches. A +joyous confusion of talk rose above the clinking of spoons and plates, +as the heavy cups of steaming tea were passed and the sugar-bowl went +the rounds; there was no milk, and no girl at Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's +thought lemon in tea anything but a wretched affectation. Girls who had +been too pale before gained a sudden burning color, they had been +sitting still and were hungry, now they ate too fast. Without exception +the Front Office girls suffered from agonies of indigestion, and most +of them grew used to a dull headache that came on every afternoon. They +kept flat bottles of soda-mint tablets in their desks, and exchanged +them hourly. No youthful constitution was proof against the speed with +which they disposed of these fresh soft sandwiches at noon-time, and +gulped down their tea. + +In ten minutes some of them were ready to hurry off into sunny Front +Street, there to saunter past warehouses, and warehouses, and +warehouses, with lounging men eyeing them from open doorways. + +The Kirks disappeared quickly to-day, and some of the others went out, +too. When Miss Thornton, Miss Sherman, Miss Cottle and Miss Brown were +left, Miss Thornton said suddenly: + +"Say, listen, Susan. Listen here--" + +Susan, who had been wiping the table carefully, artistically, with a +damp rag, was arrested by the tone. + +"I think this is the rottenest thing I ever heard, Susan," Miss +Thornton began, sitting down at the table. The others all sat down, +too, and put their elbows on the table. Susan, flushing uncomfortably, +eyed Miss Thornton steadily. + +"Brauer called me in this morning," said Miss Thornton, in a low voice, +marking the table with the handle of a fork, in parallel lines, "and he +asked me if I thought--no, that ain't the way he began. Here's what he +said first: he says, 'Miss Thornton,' he says, 'did you know that Miss +Wrenn is leaving us?'" + +"What!" said all the others together, and Susan added, joyfully, "Gee, +that means forty for me, and the crediting." + +"Well, now listen," Miss Thornton resumed. "I says, 'Mr. Brauer, Miss +Wrenn didn't put herself out to inform me of her plans, but never mind. +Although,' I says, 'I taught that girl everything she ever knew of +office work, and the day she was here three weeks Mr. Philip Hunter +himself came to me and said, "Miss Thornton, can you make anything of +her?" So that if it hadn't been for me--'" + +"But, Thorny, what's she leaving for?" broke in Susan, with the excited +interest that the smallest change invariably brought. + +"Her uncle in Milwaukee is going to pay her expenses while she takes a +library course, I believe," Miss Thornton said, indifferently. "Anyway, +then Brauer asked--now, listen, Susan--he asked if I thought Violet +Kirk could do the crediting--" + +"Violet Kirk!" echoed Susan, in incredulous disappointment. This blow +to long-cherished hopes gave her a sensation of actual sickness. + +"Violet Kirk!" the others broke out, indignant and astonished. "Why, +she can't do it! Is he crazy? Why, Joe Hunter himself told Susan to +work up on that! Why, Susan's done all the substituting on that! What +does she know about it, anyway? Well, wouldn't that honestly jar you!" + +Susan alone did not speak. She had in turn begun to mark the table, in +fine, precise lines, with a hairpin. She had grown rather pale. + +"It's a rotten shame, Susan," said Rose Murray, sympathetically. Miss +Sherman eyed Susan with scared and sorrowful eyes. "Don't you +care--don't you care, Susan!" said the soothing voices. + +"I don't care," said Susan presently, in a hard, level voice. She +raised her somber eyes. "I don't care because I simply won't stand it, +that's all," said she. "I'll go straight to Mr. Baxter. Yes, I WILL, +Thorny. Brauer'll see if he can run everything this way! Is she going +to get forty?" + +"What do you care if she does?" Miss Thornton said, hardily. + +"All right," Susan answered. "Very well. But I'll get forty next month +or I'll leave this place! And I'm not one bit afraid to go straight to +old 'J. G.' and tell him so, too! I'll--" + +"Listen, Susan, now listen," urged Miss Thornton. "Don't you get mad, +Susan. She can't do it. It'll be just one mistake after another. Brauer +will have to give it to you, inside of two months. She'll find," said +Miss Thornton, with a grim tightening of the lips, "that precious few +mistakes get by ME! I'll make that girl's life a burden, you trust me! +And meantime you work up on that line, Sue, and be ready for it!" + +Susan did not answer. She was staring at the table again, cleaning the +cracks in its worn old surface with her hairpin. + +"Thorny," she said huskily, "you know me. Do you think that this is +fair?" + +"Aw--aw, now, Susan, don't!" Miss Thornton jumped up, and put her arm +about Susan's shoulders, and Susan, completely unnerved by the sympathy +in the other's tone, dropped her head upon her arm, and began to cry. + +A distressed murmur of concern and pity rose all about her, everyone +patted her shoulder, and bitter denunciations of Mr. Brauer and Miss +Kirk broke forth. Even Hunter, Baxter & Hunter were not spared, being +freely characterized as "the rottenest people in the city to work for!" +"It would serve them right," said more than one indignant voice, "if +the whole crowd of us walked out on them!" + +Presently Susan indicated, by a few gulps, and by straightening +suddenly, that the worst of the storm was over, and could even laugh +shakily when Miss Thornton gave her a small, fringed lunch napkin upon +which to wipe her eyes. + +"I'm a fool to cry this way," said Susan, sniffing. + +"Fool!" Miss Cottle echoed tenderly, "It's enough to make a cow cry!" + +"Not calling Susan a cow, or anything like that," said Miss Thornton +humorously, as she softly smoothed Susan's hair. At which Susan began +to laugh violently, and the others became almost hysterical in their +delight at seeing her equilibrium restored. + +"But you know what I do with my money, Thorny," began Susan, her eyes +filling again. + +"She gives every cent to her aunt," said Miss Thornton sternly, as if +she accused the firm, Mr. Brauer and Miss Kirk by the statement. + +"And I've--worked--so hard!" Susan's lips were beginning to tremble +again. But with an effort she controlled herself, fumbled for a +handkerchief, and faced the group, disfigured as to complexion, tumbled +as to hair, but calm. + +"Well, there's no help for it, I suppose!" said she hardily, in a tone +somewhat hoarsened by tears. "You're all darlings, and I'm a fool. But +I certainly intend to get even with Mr. Brauer!" + +"DON'T give up your job," Miss Sherman pleaded. + +"I will the minute I get another," said Susan, morosely, adding +anxiously, "Do I look a perfect fright, Thorny? Do my eyes show?" + +"Not much--" Miss Cottle wavered. + +"Wash them with cold water, and powder your nose," advised Miss +Thornton briskly. + +"And my hair--!" Susan put her hand to the disordered mass, and laughed +helplessly. + +"It's all right!" Thorny patted it affectionately. "Isn't it gorgeous, +girls? Don't you care, Susan, you're worth ten of the Kirks!" + +"Here they come now!" Miss Murray whispered, at the head of the stairs. +"Beat it, Susan, don't let 'em see you!" + +Susan duly fled to the wash-room, where, concealed a moment later by a +towel, and the hanging veil of her hair, she could meet the Kirks' +glances innocently enough. Later, fresh and tidy, she took her place at +her desk, rather refreshed by her outburst, and curiously peaceful in +spirit. The joys of martyrdom were Susan's, she was particularly busy +and cheerful. Fate had dealt her cruel blows before this one, she +inherited from some persecuted Irish ancestor a grim pleasure in +accepting them. + +Afternoons, from one o'clock until half-past five, seemed endless in +Front Office. Mornings, beside being exactly one hour shorter by the +clock, could be still more abbreviated by the few moments gained by the +disposal of hats and wraps, the dusting of desks, sharpening of +pencils, and filling of ink-wells. The girls used a great many blocks +of yellow paper called scratch-pads, and scratch-pads must be gotten +down almost daily from the closet, dusted and distributed, there were +paper cuffs to adjust, and there was sometimes a ten or fifteen-minute +delay before the bills for the day began to come up. But the afternoons +knew no such delays, the girls were tired, the air in the office stale. +Every girl, consciously or not, sighed as she took her seat at one +o'clock. + +The work in Front Office was entirely with bills. These bills were of +the sales made in the house itself the day before, and those sent by +mail from the traveling salesmen, and were accompanied by duplicate +bills, on thin yellow sheets. It was Mrs. Valencia's work, the easiest +in the office, to compare originals and duplicates, and supply to the +latter any item that was missing. Hundreds of the bills were made out +for only one or two items, many were but one page in length, and there +were several scores of longer ones every day, raging from two to twenty +pages. + +The original bills went downstairs again immediately, and Miss +Thornton, taking the duplicates one by one from Mrs. Valencia, marked +the cost price of every article in the margin beyond the selling price. +Thorny, after twelve years' experience, could jot down costs, +percentages and discounts at an incredible speed. Drugs, patent +medicines, surgical goods and toilet articles she could price as fast +as she could read them, and, even while her right hand scribbled +busily, her left hand turned the pages of her cost catalog +automatically, when her trained eye discovered, half-way down the page, +some item of which she was not quite sure. Susan never tired of +admiring the swiftness with which hand, eye and brain worked together. +Thorny would stop in her mad flight, ponder an item with absent eyes +fixed on space, suddenly recall the price, affix the discounts, and be +ready for the next item. Susan had the natural admiration of an +imaginative mind for power, and the fact that Miss Thornton was by far +the cleverest woman in the office was one reason why Susan loved her +best. + +Miss Thornton whisked her finished duplicates, in a growing pile, to +the left-hand side of Miss Munay's desk. Her neighbor also did +"costing," but in a simpler form. Miss Murray merely marked, sometimes +at cost, sometimes at an advance, those articles that were "B. O." or +"bought out," not carried in Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's regular stock. +Candy, postal-cards, cameras, sporting-goods, stamps, cigars, +stationery, fruit-sirups, all the things in fact, that the firm's +customers, all over the state, carried in their little country stores, +were "B. O." Miss Murray had invoices for them all, and checked them +off as fast as she could find their places on the duplicates. + +Then Miss Cottle and Susan Brown got the duplicates and "extended" +them. So many cases of cold cream at so much per case, so many ounces +of this or that at so much the pound, so many pounds at so much per +ounce, and forty and ten and ten off. Two-thirds of a dozen, one +hundredweight, one eighth of a gross, twelve per cent, off, and +twenty-three per cent. on for freight charges; the "extenders" had to +keep their wits about them. + +After that the duplicates went to Miss Sherman, who set down the +difference between cost and selling price. So that eventually every +article was marked five times, its original selling price, extended by +the salesman, its cost price, separately extended, and the difference +between the two. + +From Miss Sherman the bills went to the Misses Kirk, who gave every +item a red number that marked it in its proper department, drugs or +rubber goods or soaps and creams and colognes. The entire stock was +divided into ten of these departments, and there were ten great ledgers +in which to make entries for each one. + +And for every one of a hundred salesmen a separate great sheet was kept +for the record of sales, all marked with the rubber stamp "B. O.," or +the number of a department in red ink. This was called "crediting," and +was done by Miss Wrenn. Finally, Miss Garvey and Miss Kelly took the +now limp bills, and extracted from them bewildering figures called "the +percentages," into the mysteries of which Susan never dared to +penetrate. + +This whole involved and intricate system had originated, years before, +in the brain of one of the younger members of the firm, whose theory +was that it would enable everyone concerned to tell "at a glance" just +where the firm stood, just where profits and losses lay. Theoretically, +the idea was sound, and, in the hands of a few practiced accountants, +it might have been practically sound as well. But the uninterested, +untrained girls in Front Office never brought their work anywhere near +a conclusion. Several duplicates on Miss Thornton's desk were eternally +waiting for special prices, several more, delayed by the non-appearance +of invoices, kept Miss Murray always in arrears, and Susan Brown had a +little habit of tucking away in a desk drawer any duplicate whose +extension promised to be unusually tedious or difficult. Girls were +continually going into innocent gales of mirth because long-lost bills +were discovered, shut in some old ledger, or rushing awe-struck to Miss +Thornton with accounts of others that had been carried away in +waste-baskets and burned. + +"Sh-sh! Don't make such a fuss," Miss Thornton would say warningly, +with a glance toward Mr. Brauer's office. "Perhaps he'll never ask for +them!" + +And perhaps he never did. If he did, the office presented him a blank +and innocent face. "Miss Brown, did you see this bill Mr. Brauer speaks +of?" "Beg pardon? Oh, no, Miss Thornton." "Miss Cashell, did you?" +"Just-one-moment-Miss-Thornton-until-I-foot-up-this-column. Thank you! +No. No, I haven't seen it, Miss Thornton. Did you trace it to my desk, +Mr. Brauer?" + +Baffled, Mr. Brauer would retire to his office. Ten silent, busy +minutes would elapse before Miss Cottle would say, in a low tone, "Bet +it was that bill that you were going to take home and work on, Miss +Murray!" + +"Oh, sure!" Miss Murray would agree, with a startled smile. "Sure. +Mamma stuck it behind the clock--I remember now. I'll bring it down +to-morrow." + +"Don't you forget it, now," Miss Thornton would perhaps command, with a +sudden touch of authority, "old Baxter'd jump out of his skin if he +knew we ever took 'em home!" + +"Well, YOU do!" Miss Murray would retort, reddening resentfully. + +"Ah, well," Susan Brown would answer pompously, for Miss Thornton, "you +forget that I'm almost a member of the firm! Me and the Baxters can do +pretty much what we like! I'll fire Brauer to-morrow if he--" + +"You shut up, Susan!" Miss Thornton, her rising resentment pricked like +a bubble, would laugh amiably, and the subject of the bill would be +dismissed with a general chuckle. + +On this particular afternoon Miss Thornton delayed Susan Brown, with a +significant glance, when the whistle blew at half-past five, and the +girls crowded about the little closet for their wraps. + +"S'listen, Susan," said she, with a look full of import. Susan leaned +over Miss Thornton's flat-topped desk so that their heads were close +together. "Listen," said Miss Thornton, in a low tone, "I met George +Banks on the deck this afternoon, see? And I happened to tell him that +Miss Wrenn was going." Miss Thornton glanced cautiously about her, her +voice sank to a low murmur. "Well. And then he says, 'Yes, I knew +that,' he says, 'but do you know who's going to take her place?' 'Miss +Kirk is,' I says, 'and I think it's a dirty shame!'" + +"Good for you!" said Susan, grateful for this loyalty. + +"Well, I did, Susan. And it is, too! But listen. 'That may be,' he +says, 'but what do you know about young Coleman coming down to work in +Front Office!'" + +"Peter Coleman!" Susan gasped. This was the most astonishing, the most +exciting news that could possibly have been circulated. Peter Coleman, +nephew and heir of old "J. G." himself, handsome, college-bred, popular +from the most exclusive dowager in society to the humblest errand boy +in his uncle's employ, actually coming down to Front Office daily, to +share the joys and sorrows of the Brauer dynasty--it was unbelievable, +it was glorious! Every girl in the place knew all about Peter Coleman, +his golf record, his blooded terriers, his appearances in the social +columns of the Sunday newspapers! Thorny remembered, although she did +not boast of it, the days when, a little lad of twelve or fourteen, he +had come to his uncle's office with a tutor, or even with an old, and +very proud, nurse, for the occasional visits which always terminated +with the delighted acceptance by Peter of a gold piece from Uncle +Josiah. But Susan only knew him as a man, twenty-five now, a wonderful +and fascinating person to watch, even, in happy moments, to dream about. + +"You know I met him, Thorny," she said now, eager and smiling. + +"'S'at so?" Miss Thornton said, politely uninterested. + +"Yes, old Baxter introduced me, on a car. But, Thorny, he can't be +coming right down here into this rotten place!" protested Susan. + +"He'll have a desk in Brauer's office," Miss Thornton explained. "He is +to learn this branch, and be manager some day. George says that Brauer +is going to buy into the firm." + +"Well, for Heaven's sake!" Susan's thoughts flew. "But, Thorny," she +presently submitted, "isn't Peter Coleman in college?" + +Miss Thornton looked mysterious, looked regretful. + +"I understand old J. G.'s real upset about that," she said discreetly, +"but just what the trouble was, I'm not at liberty to mention. You know +what young men are." + +"Sure," said Susan, thoughtfully. + +"I don't mean that there was any scandal," Miss Thornton amended +hastily, "but he's more of an athlete than a student, I guess--" + +"Sure," Susan agreed again. "And a lot he knows about office work, +NOT," she mused. "I'll bet he gets a good salary?" + +"Three hundred and fifty," supplied Miss Thornton. + +"Oh, well, that's not so much, considering. He must get that much +allowance, too. What a snap! Thorny, what do you bet the girls all go +crazy about him!" + +"All except one. I wouldn't thank you for him." + +"All except TWO!" Susan went smiling back to her desk, a little more +excited than she cared to show. She snapped off her light, and swept +pens and blotters into a drawer, pulling open another drawer to get her +purse and gloves. By this time the office was deserted, and Susan could +take her time at the little mirror nailed inside the closet door. + +A little cramped, a little chilly, she presently went out into the +gusty September twilight of Front Street. In an hour the wind would die +away. Now it was sweeping great swirls of dust and chaff into the eyes +of home-going men and women. Susan, like all San Franciscans, was used +to it. She bent her head, sank her hands in her coat-pockets, and +walked fast. + +Sometimes she could walk home, but not to-night, in the teeth of this +wind. She got a seat on the "dummy" of a cable-car. A man stood on the +step, holding on to the perpendicular rod just before her, but under +his arm she could see the darkened shops they passed, girls and men +streaming out of doors marked "Employees Only," men who ran for the car +and caught it, men who ran for the car and missed it. Her bright eyes +did not miss an inch of the crowded streets. + +Susan smiled dreamily. She was arranging the details of her own +wedding, a simple but charming wedding in Old Saint Mary's. The groom +was of course Mr. Peter Coleman. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The McAllister Street cable-car, packed to its last inch, throbbed upon +its way so jerkily that Susan, who was wedged in close to the glass +shield at the front of the car, had sometimes to cling to the seat with +knees and finger-tips to keep from sliding against her neighbor, a +young man deep in a trade-journal, and sometimes to brace herself to +withstand his helpless sliding against her. They both laughed presently +at the absurdity of it. + +"My, don't they jerk!" said the friendly Susan, and the young man +agreed fervently, in a bashful mumble, "It's fierce, all right," and +returned to his book. Susan, when she got down at her corner, gave him +a little nod and smile, and he lifted his hat, and smiled brightly in +return. + +There was a little bakery on this corner, with two gaslights flaring in +its window. Several flat pies and small cakes were displayed there, and +a limp curtain, on a string, shut off the shop, where a dozen people +were waiting now. A bell in the door rang violently, whenever anyone +came out or in. Susan knew the bakery well, knew when the rolls were +hot, and just the price and variety of the cookies and the pies. + +She knew, indeed, every inch of the block, a dreary block at best, +perhaps especially dreary in this gloomy pitiless summer twilight. It +was lined with shabby, bay-windowed, three-story wooden houses, all +exactly alike. Each had a flight of wooden steps running up to the +second floor, a basement entrance under the steps, and a small cemented +yard, where papers and chaff and orange peels gathered, and grass +languished and died. The dining-room of each house was in the basement, +and slatternly maids, all along the block, could be seen setting +tables, by flaring gas-light, inside. Even the Nottingham lace curtains +at the second-story windows seemed akin, although they varied from the +stiff, immaculate, well-darned lengths that adorned the rooms where the +Clemenceaus--grandmother, daughter and granddaughter, and direct +descendants of the Comte de Moran--were genteelly starving to death, to +the soft, filthy, torn strips that finished off the parlor of the +noisy, cheerful, irrepressible Daleys' once-pretentious home. Poverty +walked visibly upon this block, the cold, forbidding poverty of pride +and courage gone wrong, the idle, decorous, helpless poverty of fallen +gentility. Poverty spoke through the unobtrusive little signs over +every bell, "Rooms," and through the larger signs that said "Costello. +Modes and Children's Dressmaker." Still another sign in a second-story +bay said "Alice. Milliner," and a few hats, dimly discernible from the +street, bore out the claim. + +Upon the house where Susan Brown lived with her aunt, and her aunt's +three daughters, there was no sign, although Mrs. Lancaster, and Mary +Lou, Virginia and Georgianna had supported themselves for many years by +the cheerless process known as taking boarders. Sometimes, when the +Lancasters were in especially trying financial straits, the possibility +of a little sign was discussed. But so far, the humiliating extreme had +been somehow avoided. + +"No, I feel that Papa wouldn't like it," Mrs. Lancaster persisted. + +"Oh, Papa! He'd have died first!" the daughters would agree, in eager +sympathy. And the question of the sign would be dismissed again. + +"Papa" had been a power in his day, a splendid, audacious, autocratic +person, successful as a pioneer, a miner, a speculator, proud of a +beautiful and pampered Southern wife and a nurseryful of handsome +children. These were the days of horses and carriages, when the Eddy +Street mansion was built, when a score of servants waited upon Ma and +the children. But terrible times came finally upon this grandeur, the +stock madness seized "Papa," he was a rich man one day, a millionaire +the next,--he would be a multi-millionaire next week! Ma never ceased +to be grateful that Papa, on the very day that his fortune crashed to +ruin, came home too sick and feverish to fully comprehend the calamity, +and was lying in his quiet grave before his widow and her children did. + +Mrs. Lancaster, in her fresh expensive black, with her five black-clad +children beside her, thus had the world to face, at thirty-four. +George, the first-born, destined to die in his twentieth summer, was +eighteen then, Mary Lou sixteen, helpless and feminine, and Alfred, at +thirteen, already showed indications of being entirely spoiled. Then +came conscientious, gentle little Virginia, ten years old, and finally +Georgianna, who was eight. + +Out of the general wreckage, the Fulton Street house was saved, and to +the Fulton Street house the spoiled, terrified little family moved. +Mary Lou sometimes told Susan with mournful pride of the weeping and +wailing of those days, of dear George's first job, that, with the check +that Ma's uncle in Albany sent every month, supported the family. Then +the uncle died, and George died, and Ma, shaken from her silent and +dignified retirement, rose to the occasion in a manner that Mary Lou +always regarded as miraculous, and filled the house with boarders. And +enjoyed the new venture thoroughly, too, although Mary Lou never +suspected that. Perhaps Ma, herself, did not realize how much she liked +to bustle and toil, how gratifying the stir and confusion in the house +were, after the silent want and loneliness. Ma always spoke of women in +business as unfortunate and hardened; she never spoke of her livelihood +as anything but a temporary arrangement, never made out a bill in her +life. Upon her first boarders, indeed, she took great pride in +lavishing more than the luxuries for which their board money could +possibly pay. Ma reminded them that she had no rent to pay, and that +the girls would soon be married, and Alfie working. + +But Papa had been dead for twenty years now, and still the girls were +unmarried, and Alfred, if he was working, was doing it in so fitful and +so casual a manner as to be much more of a burden than a help to his +mother. Alfred lost one position after another because he drank, and +Ma, upon whose father's table wine had been quite a matter of course, +could not understand why a little too much drinking should be taken so +seriously by Alfie's employers, and why they could not give the boy +another--and another, and another--chance. Ma never alluded, herself, +to this little weakness of Alfie's. He was still her darling, the one +son she had left, the last of the Lancasters. + +But, as the years went on, she grew to be less of the shrinking +Southern lady, more the boarding-house keeper. If she wrote no bills, +she kept them pretty straight in her head, and only her endless courage +and industry kept the crazy enterprise afloat, and the three idle girls +comfortable and decently dressed. Theoretically, they "helped Ma." +Really, one well-trained servant could have done far more than Mary +Lou, Virginia and Georgie did between them. This was, of course, +primarily her own fault. Ma belonged to the brisk and bustling type +that shoves aside a pair of eager little hands, with "Here, I can do +that better myself!" She was indeed proud of the fact that Mary Lou, at +thirty-six, could not rent a room or receipt a bill if her life were at +stake. "While I'm here, I'll do this, dear," said Ma, cheerfully. "When +I'm gone you'll have quite enough to do!" + +Susan entered a small, square entrance-hall, papered in arabesques of +green against a dark brown, where a bead of gas flickered dispiritedly +in a red glass shade over the newel post. Some fly-specked calling +cards languished in the brass tray of an enormous old walnut hat-rack, +where several boarders had already hung wraps and hats. + +The upper part of the front door was set with two panels of beveled +glass, decorated with a scroll design in frosted glass. When Susan +Brown had been a very small girl she would sometimes stand inside this +door and study the passing show of Fulton Street for hours at a time. +Somebody would come running up the street steps, and pull the bell! +Susan could hear it tinkle far downstairs in the kitchen, and would +bashfully retire to the niche by the hat-rack. Minnie or Lizzie, or +perhaps a Japanese schoolboy,--whoever the servant of the hour might +be, would come slowly up the inside stairs, and cautiously open the +street door an inch or two. + +A colloquy would ensue. No, Mrs. Lancaster wasn't in, no, none of the +family wasn't in. He could leave it. She didn't know, they hadn't said. +He could leave it. No, she didn't know. + +The collector would discontentedly depart, and instantly Mary Lou or +Georgie, or perhaps both, would hang over the railing in the upper hall. + +"Lizzie, who was it?" they would call down softly, impatient and +excited, as Lizzie dragged her way upstairs. + +"Who was it, Mary Lou?" + +"Why, how do I know?" + +"Here, GIVE it to me, Lizzie!" + +A silence. Then, "Oh, pshaw!" and the sound of a closing door. Then +Lizzie would drag downstairs again, and Susan would return to her +silent contemplation of the street. + +She had seen nothing particularly odd or unattractive about the house +in those little-girl days, and it seemed a perfectly normal +establishment to her now. It was home, and it was good to get home +after the long day. She ran up the flight of stairs that the gas-bead +dimly lighted, and up another, where a second gas-jet, this one without +a shade, burned unsteadily and opened the door, at the back of the +third-floor hall, that gave upon the bedroom that she shared with Mary +Lou and Georgianna. The boarding-house was crowded, at this particular +time, and Georgie, who flitted about as a rule to whatever room chanced +to be empty, was now quartered here and slept on a narrow couch, set at +an angle from the bay-window, and covered with a worn strip of chenille. + +It was a shabby room, and necessarily crowded, but it was bright, and +its one window gave an attractive view of little tree-shaded backyards +below, where small tragedies and comedies were continually being +enacted by dogs and babies and cats and the crude little maids of the +neighborhood. Susan enjoyed these thoroughly, and she and Georgie also +liked to watch the girl in the house just behind theirs, who almost +always forgot to draw the shades when she lighted her gas. Whatever +this unconscious neighbor did they found very amusing. + +"Oh, look, Georgie, she's changing her slippers. Don't miss this--She +must be going out to-night!" Susan would quiver with excitement until +her cousin joined her at the window. + +"Well, I wish you could have seen her trying her new hat on to-day!" +Georgie would contribute. And both girls would kneel at the window as +long as the bedroom in the next house was lighted. "Gone down to meet +that man in the light overcoat," Susan would surmise, when the light +went out, and if she and Georgie, hurrying to the bakery, happened to +encounter their neighbor, they had much difficulty in suppressing their +mirth. + +To-night the room that the cousins shared was empty, and Susan threw +her hat and coat over the foot of the large, lumpy wooden bed that +seemed to take up at least one-half of the floor-space. She sat down on +the side of the bed, feeling the tension of the day relax, and a +certain lassitude creep over her. An old magazine lay nearby on a +chair, she reached for it, and began idly to re-read it. + +Beside the bed and Georgie's cot, there was a walnut bureau in the +room, two chairs and one rocking chair, and a washstand. One the latter +was a china basin, half-full of cold, soapy water, a damp towel was +spread upon the pitcher that stood beside it on the floor. The wet pink +soap, lying in a blue saucer, scented the room. On the bureau were +combs and brushes, powders and cold creams, little brass and china +trays filled with pins and buttons, and an old hand-mirror, in a +loosened, blackened silver mounting. There was a glazed paper candy-box +with hairpins in it, and a little liqueur glass, with "Hotel +Netherlands" written upon it in gold, held wooden collar buttons and +odd cuff-links. A great many hatpins, some plain, some tarnished and +ornate, all bent, were stuck into a little black china boot. A basket +of china and gold wire was full of combings, some dotted veils were +folded into squares, and pinned into the wooden frame of the mirror, +and the mirror itself was thickly rimmed with cards and photographs and +small souvenirs of all sorts, that had been stuck in between the glass +and the frame. There were dance cards with dangling tiny pencils on +tasseled cords, and score cards plastered with tiny stars. There were +calling cards, and newspaper clippings, and tintypes taken of young +people at the beach or the Chutes. A round pilot-biscuit, with a dozen +names written on it in pencil, was tied with a midshipman's hat-ribbon, +there were wooden plates and champagne corks, and toy candy-boxes in +the shapes of guitars and fire-crackers. Miss Georgie Lancaster, at +twenty-eight, was still very girlish and gay, and she shared with her +mother and sisters the curious instinctive acquisitiveness of the woman +who, powerless financially and incapable of replacing, can only save. + +Moments went by, a quarter-hour, a half-hour, and still Susan sat +hunched up stupidly over her book. It was not an interesting magazine, +she had read it before, and her thoughts ran in an uneasy undercurrent +while she read. "I ought to be doing my hair--it must be half-past six +o'clock--I must stop this--" + +It was almost half-past six when the door opened suddenly, and a large +woman came in. + +"Well, hello, little girlie!" said the newcomer, panting from the climb +upstairs, and turning a cold, fresh-colored cheek for Susan's kiss. She +took off a long coat, displaying beneath, a black walking-skirt, an +elaborate high collar, and a view of shabby corset and shabby +corset-cover between. "Ma wanted butter," she explained, with a +pleasant, rueful smile, "and I just slipped into anything to go for it!" + +"You're an angel, Mary Lou," Susan said affectionately. + +"Oh, angel!" Miss Lancaster laughed wearily, but she liked the +compliment for all that. "I'm not much of an angel," she said with a +sigh, throwing her hat and coat down beside Susan's, and assuming a +somewhat spotted serge skirt, and a limp silk waist a trifle too small +for her generous proportions. Susan watched her in silence, while she +vigorously jerked the little waist this way and that, pinning its torn +edges down firmly, adjusting her skirt over it, and covering the +safety-pin that united them with a cracked patent-leather belt. + +"There!" said Mary Lou, "that doesn't look very well, but I guess it'll +do. I have to serve to-night, and I will not wear my best skirt into +the kitchen. Ready to go down?" + +Susan flung her book down, yawned. + +"I ought to do my hair--" she began. + +"Oh, you look all right," her cousin assured her, "I wouldn't bother." + +She took a small paper bag full of candy from her shopping bag and +tucked it out of sight in a bureau drawer. "Here's a little sweet bite +for you and me, Sue," said she, with childish, sweet slyness, "when +Jinny and Ma go to the lecture to-night, we'll have OUR little party, +too. Just a little secret between you and me." + +They went downstairs with their arms about each other, to the big front +dining-room in the basement. The lower hall was dark and draughty, and +smelled of boiling vegetables. There was a telephone on a little table, +close by the dining-room door, and a slender, pretty young woman was +seated before it. She put her hand over the transmitter, as they came +downstairs, and said in a smiling whisper, "Hello, darling!" to Susan. +"Shut the door," she added, very low, "when you go into the +dining-room." + +Susan nodded, and Georgianna Lancaster returned at once to her +telephoned conversation. + +"Yes, you did!" said she, satirically, "I believe that! ... Oh, of +course you did! ... And I suppose you wrote me a note, too, only I +didn't get it. Now, listen, why don't you say that you forgot all about +it, I wouldn't care ... Honestly, I wouldn't ... honestly, I wouldn't +... Yes, I've heard that before ... No, he didn't either, Rose was +furious. ... No, I wasn't furious at all, but at the same time I didn't +think it was a very gentlemanly way to act, on your part ..." + +Susan and Mary Lou went into the dining-room, and the closing door shut +off the rest of the conversation. The household was quite used to +Georgie's quarrels with her male friends. + +A large, handsome woman, who did not look her sixty years, was moving +about the long table, which, spread with a limp and slightly spotted +cloth, was partially laid for dinner. Knives, spoons, forks and rolled +napkins were laid in a little heap at each place, the length of the +table was broken by salt shakers of pink and blue glass, plates of soda +crackers, and saucers of green pickles. + +"Hello, Auntie!" Susan said, laying an arm about the portly figure, and +giving the lady a kiss. Mrs. Lancaster's anxious eye went to her oldest +daughter. + +"Who's Georgie talking to?" she asked, in a low tone. + +"I don't know, Ma," Mary Lou said, sympathetically, pushing a chair +against the table with her knee, "Fred Persons, most likely." + +"No. 'Tisn't Fred. She just spoke about Fred," said the mother +uneasily. "This is the man that didn't meet them Sunday. Sometimes," +she complained, "it don't seem like Georgie has any dignity at all!" +She had moved to the china closet at one end of the room, and now stood +staring at it. "What did I come here for?" she asked, helplessly. + +"Glasses," prompted Susan, taking some down herself. + +"Glasses," Mrs. Lancaster echoed, in relief. "Get the butter, Mary Lou?" + +"In the kitchen, Ma." Miss Lancaster went into the kitchen herself, and +Susan went on with the table-setting. Before she had finished, a +boarder or two, against the unwritten law of the house, had come +downstairs. Mrs. Cortelyou, a thin little wisp of a widow, was in the +rocker in the bay-window, Major Kinney, fifty, gray, dried-up, was on +the horsehair sofa, watching the kitchen door over his paper. Georgia, +having finished her telephoning, had come in to drop idly into her own +chair, and play with her knives and forks. Miss Lydia Lord, a plain, +brisk woman, her upper lip darkened with hair, her figure flat and +square, like a boy's, had come down for her sister's tray, and was +talking to Susan in the resolutely cheerful tone that Susan always +found annoying, when she was tired. + +"The Keiths are off for Europe again, Susan,--dear me! isn't it lovely +for the people who can do those things!" said Miss Lord, who was +governess in a very wealthy household, and liked to talk of the city's +prominent families. "Some day you and I will have to find a million +dollars and run away for a year in Italy! I wonder, Sue," the mild +banter ceased, "if you could get Mary's dinner? I hate to go into the +kitchen, they're all so busy--" + +Susan took the tray, and went through the swinging door, and into the +kitchen. Two or three forms were flitting about in the steam and smoke +and flickering gas-light, water was running, gravy hissing on the +stove; Alice, the one poor servant the establishment boasted, was +attempting to lift a pile of hot plates with an insufficient cloth. +Susan filled her tray silently. + +"Anything I can do, Mary Lou?" + +"Just get out of the WAY, lovey--that's about all--I salted that once, +Ma. If you don't want that table, Sue--and shut the door, dear! The +smoke--" + +Susan was glad to get out of the kitchen, and in a moment Mrs. +Lancaster and Mary Lou came into the dining-room, too, and Alice rang +the dinner bell. Instantly the boarders streamed downstairs, found +their places with a general murmuring of mild little pleasantries. Mrs. +Lancaster helped the soup rapidly from a large tureen, her worried eyes +moved over the table-furnishings without pause. + +The soup was well cooled before the place next to Susan was filled by a +tall and muscular young man, with very blue eyes, and a large and +exceptionally charming mouth. The youth had teeth of a dazzling +whiteness, a smile that was a bewildering Irish compound of laughter +and tears, and sooty blue-black hair that fitted his head like a thick +cap. He was a noisy lad, this William Oliver, opinionated, excitable, a +type that in its bigness and broadness seemed almost coarse, sometimes, +but he had all a big man's tenderness and sweetness, and everyone liked +him. Susan and he quarreled with and criticized each other, William +imitating her little affectations of speech and manner, Susan reviling +his transparent and absurd ambitions, but they had been good friends +for years. Young Oliver's mother had been Mrs. Lancaster's housekeeper +for the most prosperous period in the history of the house, and if +Susan naturally felt that the son of a working housekeeper was +seriously handicapped in a social sense, she nevertheless had many +affectionate memories of his mother, as the kindly dignified "Nellie" +who used to amuse them so delightfully on rainy days. Nellie had been +long dead, now, and her son had grown up into a vigorous, enthusiastic +young person, burning his big hands with experiments in physics and +chemistry, reading the Scientific American late into the night, until +his broad shoulders were threatened with a permanent stoop, and his +eager eyes blinked wearily at breakfast, anxious to disprove certain +accepted theories, and as eager to introduce others, unaffected, +irreverent, and irresistibly buoyant. William could not hear an opera +praised without dragging Susan off to gallery seats, which the lady +frankly characterized as "smelly," to see if his opinion agreed with +that of the critics. If it did not, Susan must listen to long +dissertations upon the degeneracy of modern music. His current passion +was the German language, which he was studying in odd moments so that +he might translate certain scientific treatises in a manner more to the +scientific mind. + +"Hello, Susan, darling!" he said now, as he slipped into his chair. + +"Hello, heart's delight!" Susan answered composedly. + +"Well, here--here--here!" said an aged gentleman who was known for no +good reason as "Major," "what's all this? You young folks going to give +us a wedding?" + +"Not unless I'm chloroformed first, Major," Susan said, briskly, and +everybody laughed absently at the well-known pleasantry. They were all +accustomed to the absurdity of the Major's question, and far more +absorbed just now in watching the roast, which had just come on. +Another pot-roast. Everybody sighed. + +"This isn't just what I meant to give you good people to-night," said +Mrs. Lancaster cheerfully, as she stood up to carve, "but butchers can +be tyrants, as we all know. Mary Lou, put vegetables on that for Mrs. +Cortelyou." + +Mary Lou briskly served potatoes and creamed carrots and summer squash; +Susan went down a pyramid of saucers as she emptied a large bowl of +rather watery tomato-sauce. + +"Well, they tell us meat isn't good for us anyway!" piped Mrs. Kinney, +who was rheumatic, and always had scrambled eggs for dinner. + +"--ELEGANT chicken, capon, probably, and on Sundays, turkey all winter +long!" a voice went on in the pause. + +"My father ate meat three times a day, all his life," said Mrs. Parker, +a dark, heavy woman, with an angelic-looking daughter of nineteen +beside her, "and papa lived to be--let me see--" + +"Ah, here's Jinny!" Mrs. Lancaster stopped carving to receive the kiss +of a tall, sweet-faced, eye-glassed young woman who came in, and took +the chair next hers. "Your soup's cold, dear," said she tenderly. + +Miss Virginia Lancaster looked a little chilly; her eyes, always weak, +were watery now from the sharp evening air, and her long nose red at +the tip. She wore neat, plain clothes, and a small hat, and laid black +lisle gloves and a small black book beside her plate as she sat down. + +"Good evening, everybody!" said she, pleasantly. "Late comers mustn't +complain, Ma, dear. I met Mrs. Curry, poor thing, coming out of the +League rooms, and time flew, as time has a way of doing! She was +telling me about Harry," Miss Virginia sighed, peppering her soup +slowly. "He knew he was going," she resumed, "and he left all his +little things--" + +"Gracious! A child of seven?" Mrs. Parker said. + +"Oh, yes! She said there was no doubt of it." + +The conversation turned upon death, and the last acts of the dying. +Loretta Parker related the death of a young saint. Miss Lord, pouring a +little lime water into most of her food, chewed religiously, her eyes +moving from one speaker's face to another. + +"I saw my pearl to-day," said William Oliver to Susan, under cover of +the general conversation. + +"Eleanor Harkness? Where?" + +"On Market Street,--the little darling! Walking with Anna Carroll. +Going to the boat." + +"Oh, and how's Anna?" + +"Fine, I guess. I only spoke to them for a minute. I wish you could +have seen her dear little laugh--" + +"Oh, Billy, you fatuous idiot! It'll be someone else to-morrow." + +"It will NOT," said William, without conviction "No, my little treasure +has all my heart--" + +"Honestly," said Susan, in fine scorn, "it's cat-sickening to hear you +go on that way! Especially with that snapshot of Anna Carroll still in +your watch!" + +"That snapshot doesn't happen to be still in my watch, if it's any +business of yours!" the gentleman said, sweetly. + +"Why, it is TOO! Let's see it, then!" + +"No, I won't let you see it, but it's not there, just the same." + +"Oh, Billy, what an awful lie!" + +"Susan!" said Mrs. Lancaster, partly in reproof, partly to call her +niece's attention to apple-pie and tapioca pudding. + +"Pudding, please, auntie." Susan subsided, not to break forth again +until the events of the day suddenly rushed into her mind. She hastily +reviewed them for William's benefit. + +"Well, what do you care?" he consoled her for the disappointment, +"here's your chance to bone up on the segregating, or crediting, or +whatever you call it." + +"Yes, and then have someone else get it!" + +"No one else could get it, if you understood it best!" he said +impatiently. + +"That shows just about how much you know about the office!" Susan +retorted, vexed at his lack of sympathy. And she returned to her +pudding, with the real cream of the day's news yet untold. + +A few moments later Billy was excused, for a struggle with German in +the night school, and departed with a joyous, "Auf wiedersehen, +Fraulein Brown!" to Susan. Such boarders as desired were now drinking +their choice between two dark, cool fluids that might have been tea, or +might have been coffee, or might have been neither. + +"I am going a little ahead of you and Georgie, Ma," said Virginia, +rising, "for I want to see Mamie Evans about tickets for Saturday." + +"Say, listen, Jin, I'm not going to-night," said Miss Georgie, hastily, +and with a little effort. + +"Why, you said you were, Georgie!" the older sister said reproachfully. +"I thought you'd bring Ma." + +"Well, I'm not, so you thought wrong!" Georgie responded airily. + +"Somebody coming to see you, dear?" asked her mother. + +"I don't know--maybe." Miss Georgie got up, brushing the crumbs from +her lap. + +"Who is it, dear?" her mother pursued, too casually. + +"I tell you it may not be anyone, Ma!" the girl answered, suddenly +irritated. A second later they heard her running upstairs. + +"I really ought to be early--I promised Miss Evans--" Virginia murmured. + +"Yes, I know, lovey," said her mother. "So you run right along. I'll +just do a few little things here, and come right after you." Virginia +was Mrs. Lancaster's favorite child, now she kissed her warmly. "Don't +get all tired out, my darling!" said she, and when the girl was gone +she added, "Never gives ONE thought to herself!" + +"She's an angel!" said Loretta Parker fervently. + +"But I kind of hate to have you go down to League Hall alone, Ma," said +Mary Lou, who was piling dishes and straightening the room, with +Susan's help. + +"Yes, let us put you on the car," Susan suggested. + +"I declare I hate to have you," the older woman hesitated. + +"Well, I'll change," Mary Lou sighed wearily. "I'll get right into my +things, a breath of air will do us both good, won't it, Sue?" + +Presently they all walked to the McAllister Street car. Susan, always +glad to be out at night, found something at which to stop in every shop +window; she fairly danced along at her cousin's side, on the way back. + +"I think Fillmore Street's as gay as Kearney, don't you, Mary Lou? +Don't you just hate to go in. Don't you wish something exciting would +happen?" + +"What a girl you are for wanting excitement, Sue. I want to get back +and see that Georgie hasn't shut everyone out of the parlor!" worried +Mary Lou. + +They went through the basement door to the dining room, where one or +two old ladies were playing solitaire, on the red table-cloth, under +the gas-light. Susan drew up a chair, and plunged into a new library +book. Mary Lou, returning from a trip upstairs, said noiselessly, "Gone +walking!" and Susan looked properly disgusted at Georgie's lack of +propriety. Mary Lou began a listless game of patience, with a shabby +deck of cards taken from the sideboard drawer, presently she grew +interested, and Susan put aside her book, and began to watch the cards, +too. The old ladies chatted at intervals over their cards. One game +followed another, Mary Lou prefacing each with a firm, "Now, no more +after this one, Sue," and a mention of the time. + +It was like many of their evenings, like three hundred evenings a year. +The room grew warm, the gas-lights crept higher and higher, flared +noisily, and were lowered. Mary Lou unfastened her collar, Susan +rumpled her hair. The conversation, always returning to the red king +and the black four-spot, ranged idly here and there. Susan observed +that she must write some letters, and meant to take a hot bath and go +early to bed. But she sat on and on; the cards, by the smallest +percentage of amusement, still held them. + +At ten o'clock Mrs. Lancaster and Virginia came in, bright-eyed and +chilly, eager to talk of the lecture. Mrs. Lancaster loosened her coat, +laid aside the miserable little strip of fur she always wore about her +throat, and hung her bonnet, with its dangling widow's veil, over the +back of her deep chair. She drew Susan down to sit on her knee. "All +the baby auntie's got," she said. Georgie presently came downstairs, +her caller, "that fresh kid I met at Sallie's," had gone, and she was +good-natured again. Mary Lou produced the forgotten bag of candy; they +all munched it and talked. The old ladies had gone upstairs long ago. + +All conversations led Mrs. Lancaster into the past, the girls could +almost have reconstructed those long-ago, prosperous years, from +hearing her tell of them. + +"--Papa fairly glared at the man," she was saying presently, won to an +old memory by the chance meeting of an old friend to-night, "I can see +his face this day! I said, 'Why, papa, I'd JUST as soon have these +rooms!' But, no. Papa had paid for the best, and he was going to have +the best--" + +"That was Papa!" laughed his daughters. + +"That was Papa!" his widow smiled and sighed. "Well. The first thing I +knew, there was the proprietor,--you may imagine! Papa says, 'Will you +kindly tell me why I have to bring my wife, a delicate, refined +Southern woman--'" + +"And he said beautiful, too, Ma!" + +Mrs. Lancaster laughed mildly. + +"Poor papa! He was so proud of my looks! 'Will you tell me,' he says, +'why I have to put my wife into rooms like these?' 'Sir,' the landlord +says, 'I have only one better suite--'" + +"Bridal suite, he said, Ma!" + +"Yes, he did. The regular bridal suite. I wasn't a bride then, that was +after poor George was born, but I had a very high color, and I always +dressed very elegantly. And I had a good figure, your father's two +hands could meet around my waist. Anyway, then Papa--dear me, how it +all comes back!--Papa says, fairly shouting, 'Well, why can't I have +that suite?' 'Oh, sir,' the landlord says, 'a Mr. George Lancaster has +engaged that for his wife, and they say that he's a man who WILL get +what he pays for--'" Another mild laugh interrupted the narrative. + +"Didn't you nearly DIE, Ma?" + +"Well, my dear! If you could have seen the man's face when Papa--and +how well he did this sort of thing, deary me!--whips out a card--" + +They all laughed merrily. Then Mrs. Lancaster sighed. + +"Poor Papa, I don't know what he would have done if he could have seen +us to-day," she said. "It's just as well we couldn't see ahead, after +all!" + +"Gee, but I'd like to see what's coming," Susan said thoughtfully. + +"Bed is coming next!" Mary Lou said, putting her arm about the girl. +Upstairs they all filed sleepily, lowering the hall gases as they went. +Susan yawningly kissed her aunt and Virginia good-night, on the second +floor, where they had a dark and rather colorless room together. She +and the other girls went on up to the third-story room, where they +spent nearly another hour in dilatory undressing. Susan hesitated again +over the thought of a hot bath, decided against it, decided against +even the usual brushing of her hair to-night, and sprang into bed to +lie flat on her tired back, watching Mary Lou make up Georgie's bed +with dislocating yawns, and Georgie, wincing as she put her hair into +tight "kids." Susan slept in a small space bounded by the foot of the +bed, the head of the bed, the wall, and her cousin's large person, and, +as Mary Lou generally made the bed in the morning by flapping the +covers back without removing them, they were apt to feel and smell +unaired, and to be rumpled and loose at the foot. Susan could not turn +over in the night without arousing Mary Lou, who would mutter a +terrified "What is it--what is it?" for the next ten minutes. Years +before, Susan, a timid, country-bred child, had awakened many a time in +the night, frightened by the strange city noises, or the fire-bells, +and had lain, with her mouth dry, and her little heart thundering, +through lessening agonies of fright. But she never liked to awake Mary +Lou. Now she was used to the city, and used to the lumpy, ill-made bed +as well; indeed Susan often complained that she fell asleep too fast, +that she wanted to lie awake and think. + +But to-night she lay awake for a long time. Susan was at twenty-one no +more than a sweet and sunny child, after all. She had accepted a rather +cheerless destiny with all the extraordinary philosophy and patience of +a child, thankful for small pleasures, enduring small discomforts +gaily. No situation was too hopeless for Susan's laughter, and no +prospect too dark for her bright dreams. Now, to-night for the first +time, the tiny spark of a definite ambition was added to this natural +endowment. She would study the work of the office systematically, she +would be promoted, she would be head girl some day, some day very soon, +and obliged, as head girl, to come in and out of Mr. Peter Coleman's +office constantly. And by the dignity and gravity of her manner, and +her personal neatness, and her entire indifference to his +charms--always neat little cuffs and collars basted in her tailor-made +suit--always in her place on the stroke of half-past eight-- + +Susan began to get sleepy. She turned over cautiously, and bunched her +pillow comfortably under one cheek. Hazy thoughts wheeled through her +tired brain. Thorny--the man on the dummy--the black king-- + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Among Mrs. Lancaster's reminiscences Susan had heard none more often +than the one in which the first appearance of Billy Oliver and his +mother in the boarding-house was described. Mrs. Oliver had been newly +widowed then, and had the round-faced, square-shouldered little Billy +to support, in a city that was strange and unfriendly. She had gone to +Mrs. Lancaster's intending merely to spend a day or two, until the +right work and the right home for herself and Billy should be found. + +"It happened to be a bad time for me," Mrs. Lancaster would say, +recalling the event. "My cook had gone, the house was full, and I had a +quinsy sore throat. But I managed to find her a room, and Alfie and +George carried in a couch for the little boy. She borrowed a broom, I +remember, and cleaned out the I room herself. I explained how things +were with me, and that I ought to have been on my back THEN! She was +the cleanest soul I ever saw, she washed out the very bureau drawers, +and she took the little half-curtain down, it was quite black,--we used +to keep that window open a good deal. Well, and we got to talking, and +she told me about her husband's death, he was a surveyor, and a pretty +clever man, I guess. Poor thing, she burst right out crying--" + +"And you kept feeling sicker and sicker, Ma." + +"I began to feel worse and worse, yes. And at about four o'clock I sent +Ceely,--you remember Ceely, Mary Lou!--for the doctor. She was getting +dinner--everything was upset!" + +"Was that the day I broke the pitchers, Ma?" + +"No. That was another day. Well, when the doctor came, he said BED. I +was too wretched then to say boo to a goose, and I simply tumbled in. +And I wasn't out of bed for five weeks!" + +"Ma!" + +"Not for five weeks. Well. But that first night, somebody knocked at my +door, and who should it be but my little widow! with her nice little +black gown on, and a white apron. She'd brought me some gruel, and she +began to hang up my things and straighten the room. I asked about +dinner, and she said she had helped Ceely and that it was all right. +The relief! And from that moment she took hold, got a new cook, cleaned +house, managed everything! And how she adored that boy! I don't think +that, in the seven years that she was with me, Nellie ever spent an +evening away from him. Poor Nellie! And a witty, sweet woman she was, +too, far above that sort of work. She was taking the public library +examinations when she died. Nellie would have gone a long way. She was +a real little lady. Billy must be more like his father, I imagine." + +"Oh, now, Ma!" There was always someone to defend Billy. "Look how good +and steady Billy is!" + +"Steady, yes, and a dear, dear boy, as we all know. But--but very +different from what I would wish a son of mine to be!" Mrs. Lancaster +would say regretfully. + +Susan agreed with her aunt that it was a great pity that a person of +Billy's intelligence should voluntarily grub away in a dirty iron +foundry all the days of his youth, associating with the commonest types +of laboring men. A clerkship, an agency, a hundred refined employments +in offices would have seemed more suitable, or even a professional +vocation of some sort. But she had in all honesty to admit that +Alfred's disinclination to do anything at all, and Alfred's bad habits, +made Billy's industry and cleanness and temperance a little less +grateful to Mrs. Lancaster than they might otherwise have been. + +Alfred tried a great many positions, and lost them all because he could +not work, and could not refrain from drinking. The women of his family +called Alfred nothing more unkind than "unfortunate," and endured the +drunkenness, the sullen aftermath, the depression while a new job was +being found, and Alfie's insufferable complacency when the new job was +found, with tireless patience and gentleness. Mary Lou carried Alfie's +breakfast upstairs to his bed, on Sunday mornings, Mrs. Lancaster often +gave him an early dinner, and hung over him adoringly while he ate it, +because he so hated to dine with the boarders. Susan loaned him money, +Virginia's prayers were all for him, and Georgie laughed at his jokes +and quoted him as if he had been the most model of brothers. How much +they realized of Alfie's deficiencies, how important the matter seemed +to them, even Susan could not guess Mrs. Lancaster majestically forbade +any discussion of Alfie. "Many a boy has his little weakness in early +youth," she said, "Alfie will come out all right!" + +She had the same visionary optimism in regarding her daughters' +futures. The girls were all to marry, of course, and marry well, far +above their present station, indeed. + +"Somehow I always think of Mary Lou's husband as a prominent officer, +or a diplomat," Mrs. Lancaster would say. "Not necessarily very rich, +but with a comfortable private income. Mary Lou makes friends very +easily, she likes to make a good appearance, she has a very gracious +manner, and with her fine figure, and her lovely neck, she would make a +very handsome mistress for a big home--yes, indeed you would, dear! +Where many a woman would want to run away and hide, Mary Lou would be +quite in her element--" + +"Well, one thing," Mary Lou would say modestly, "I'm never afraid to +meet strangers, and, don't you know you've spoken of it, Ma? I never +have any trouble in talking to them. Do you remember that woman in the +grocery that night, Georgie, who said she thought I must have traveled +a great deal, I had such an easy way of speaking? And I'd love to dress +every night for dinner." + +"Of course you would!" her mother always said approvingly. "Now, +Georgie," she would pursue, "is different again. Where Mary Lou only +wants the very NICEST people about her, Georgie cares a good deal more +for the money and having a good time!" + +"The man I marry has got to make up his mind that I'm going to keep on +the go," Georgie would admit, with an independent toss of her head. + +"But you wouldn't marry just for that, dear? Love must come, too." + +"Oh, the love would come fast enough, if the money was there!" Georgie +would declare naughtily. + +"I don't like to have you say that even in fun, dear! ... Now Jinny," +and Mrs. Lancaster would shake her head, "sometimes I think Jinny would +be almost too hard upon any man," she would say, lovingly. "There are +mighty few in this world good enough for her. And I would certainly +warn any man," she usually added seriously, "that Jinny is far finer +and more particular than most women. But a good, good man, older than +she, who could give her a beautiful home--" + +"I would love to begin, on my wedding-day, to do some beautiful, big, +charitable thing every day," Virginia herself would say eagerly. "I +would like to be known far and wide as a woman of immense charities. +I'd have only one handsome street suit or two, each season, beside +evening dresses, and people would get to know me by sight, and bring +their babies up to me in the street--" Her weak, kind eyes always +watered at the picture. + +"But Mama is not ready yet to let you go!" her mother would say +jealously. "We'll hope that Mr. Right will be a long time arriving!" + +Then it was Susan's turn. + +"And I want some fine, good man to make my Sue happy, some day," her +aunt often said, affectionately. Susan writhed in spirit under the +implication that no fine, good man yet had desired the honor; she had a +girl's desire that her affairs--or the absence of affairs--of the heart +should not be discussed. Susan felt keenly the fact that she had never +had an offer of marriage; her one consolation, in this humiliation, was +that no one but herself could be quite sure of it. Boys had liked her, +confided in her, made her small Christmas presents,--just how other +girls led them from these stages to the moment of a positive +declaration, she often wondered. She knew that she was attractive to +most people; babies and old men and women, servants and her associates +in the office, strangers on ferryboats and sick people in hospitals +alike responded to her friendliness and gaiety. But none of these was +marriageable, of course, and the moment Susan met a person who was, a +subtle change crept over her whole personality, veiled the bright +charm, made the friendliness stiff, the gaiety forced. Susan, like all +other girls, was not herself with the young unmarried men of her +acquaintance; she was too eager to be exactly what they supposedly +wanted her to be. She felt vaguely the utter unnaturalness of this, +without ever being able to analyze it. Her attitude, the attitude of +all her sex, was too entirely false to make an honest analysis +possible. Susan, and her cousins, and the girls in the office, rather +than reveal their secret longings to be married, would have gone +cheerfully to the stake. Nevertheless, all their talk was of men and +marriage, and each girl innocently appraised every man she met, and was +mentally accepting or refusing an offer of marriage from him before she +had known him five minutes. + +Susan viewed the single state of her three pretty cousins with secret +uneasiness. Georgie always said that she had refused "dozens of +fellows," meeting her mother's occasional mild challenge of some +specific statement with an unanswerable "of course you didn't know, for +I never told you, Ma." And Virginia liked to bemoan the fact that so +many nice men seemed inclined to fall in love with herself, a girl who +gave absolutely no thought to such things at all. Mrs. Lancaster +supported Virginia's suspicions by memories of young men who had +suddenly and mysteriously appeared, to ask her to accept them as +boarders, and young attorneys who had their places in church changed to +the pews that surrounded the Lancaster pew. But Susan dismissed these +romantic vapors, and in her heart held Mary Lou in genuine admiration, +because Mary Lou had undoubtedly and indisputably had a real lover, +years ago. + +Mary Lou loved to talk of Ferd Eastman still; his youth, his manly +charms, his crossing an empty ball-room floor, on the memorable evening +of their meeting, especially to be introduced to her, and to tell her +that brown hair was his favorite color for hair. After that the +memories, if still fondly cherished, were less bright. Mary Lou had +been "perfectly wretched," she had "cried for nights and nights" at the +idea of leaving Ma; Ma had fainted frequently. "Ma made it really hard +for me," said Mary Lou. Ma was also held to blame for not reconciling +the young people after the first quarrel. Ma might have sent for Ferd. +Mary Lou, of course, could do nothing but weep. + +Poor Mary Lou's weeping soon had good cause. Ferd rushed away, rushed +into another marriage, with an heiress and a beauty, as it happened, +and Mary Lou had only the dubious consolation of a severe illness. + +After that, she became cheerful, mild, unnecessary Mary Lou, doing a +little bit of everything about the house, appreciated by nobody. Ferd +and his wife were the great people of their own little town, near +Virginia City, and after a while Mary Lou had several pictures of their +little boy to treasure,--Robbie with stiff curls falling over a lace +collar, and plaid kilts, in a swing, and Robbie in velvet +knickerbockers, on a velocipede. + +The boarding-house had a younger affair than Mary Lou's just now in the +attachment felt for lovely Loretta Parker by a young Mission doctor, +Joseph O'Connor. Susan did not admire the gentleman very much, with his +well-trimmed little beard, and his throaty little voice, but she could +not but respect the dreamy and indifferent Loretta for his +unquestionable ardor. Loretta wanted to enter a convent, to her +mother's bitter anguish, and Susan once convulsed Georgie by the remark +that she thought Joe O'Connor would make a cute nun, himself. + +"But think of sacrificing that lovely beard!" said Georgie. + +"Oh, you and I could treasure it, Georgie! Love's token, don't you +know?" + +Loretta's affair was of course extremely interesting to everyone at +Mrs. Lancaster's, as were the various "cases" that Georgie continually +talked of, and the changing stream of young men that came to see her +night after night. But also interesting were all the other lives that +were shut up here together, the varied forms which sickness and +money-trouble can take for the class that has not learned to be poor. +Little pretenses, timid enjoyments and mild extravagances were all +overshadowed by a poverty real enough to show them ever more shadowy +than they were. Susan grew up in an atmosphere where a lost pair of +overshoes, or a dentist's bill, or a counterfeit half-dollar, was a +real tragedy. She was well used to seeing reddened eyes, and hearing +resigned sighs at the breakfast table, without ever knowing what little +unforeseen calamity had caused them. Every door in the dark hallways +shut in its own little story of suffering and privation. Susan always +thought of second-floor alcoved bedrooms as filled with the pungent +fumes of Miss Beattie's asthma powder, and of back rooms as redolent of +hot kerosene and scorched woolen, from the pressing of old Mr. Keane's +suits, by Mrs. Keane. She could have identified with her eyes shut any +room in the house. A curious chilliness lurked in the halls, from +August to May, and an odor compounded of stale cigarette smoke, and +carbolic acid, and coal-gas, and dust. + +Those women in the house who did not go to business every day generally +came down to the breakfast table very much as they rose from bed. Limp +faded wrappers and "Juliet" slippers were the only additions made to +sleeping wear. The one or two men of the house, with Susan and Jane +Beattie and Lydia Lord, had breakfasted and gone long before these +ladies drifted downstairs. Sometimes Mrs. Parker and Loretta made an +early trip to Church, but even then they wore only long cloaks over +very informal attire, and joined the others, in wrappers, upon their +return. + +Loitering over coffee and toast, in the sunny dining-room, the morning +wasted away. The newspapers were idly discussed, various scraps of the +house gossip went the rounds. Many a time, before her entrance into the +business world, Susan had known this pleasant idleness to continue +until ten o'clock, until eleven o'clock, while the room, between the +stove inside and the winter sunshine outside, grew warmer and warmer, +and the bedrooms upstairs waited in every stage of appalling disorder +and confusion. + +Nowadays Susan ran downstairs just before eight o'clock, to gulp down +her breakfast, with one eye on the clock. The clatter of a cable car +passing the corner meant that Susan had just time to pin on her hat, +seize her gloves and her lunch, and catch the next cable-car. She +flashed through the dreary little entrance yard, past other yards, past +the bakery, and took her seat on the dummy breathless with her hurry, +exhilarated by the morning freshness of the air, and filled with happy +expectation for the new day. + +On the Monday morning that Mr. Peter Coleman made his appearance as a +member of the Front Office staff, Susan Brown was the first girl to +reach the office. This was usually the case, but to-day Susan, +realizing that the newcomer would probably be late, wished that she had +the shred of an excuse to be late herself, to have an entrance, as it +were. Her plain suit had been well brushed, and the coat was +embellished by a fresh, dainty collar and wide cuffs of white linen. +Susan had risen early to wash and press these, and they were very +becoming to her fresh, unaffected beauty. But they must, of course, be +hung in the closet, and Susan, taking her place at her desk, looked +quite as usual, except for the spray of heliotrope pinned against her +lavender shirtwaist. + +The other girls were earlier than was customary, there was much +laughing and chatting as desks were dusted, and inkwells filled for the +day. Susan, watching soberly from her corner, saw that Miss Cottle was +wearing her best hat, that Miss Murray had on the silk gown she usually +saved for Saturdays, that Thorny's hair was unusually crimped and +puffed, and that the Kirks were wearing coquettish black silk aprons, +with pink and blue bows. Susan's face began to burn. Her hand +unobtrusively stole to her heliotrope, which fell, a moment later, a +crushed little fragrant lump, into her waste-basket. Presently she went +into the coat closet. + +"Remind me to take these to the French Laundry at noon," said Susan, +pausing before Thorny's desk, on her way back to her own, with a tight +roll of linen in her hand. "I left 'em on my coat from yesterday. +They're filthy." + +"Sure, but why don't you do 'em yourself, Susan, and save your two +bits?" + +"Well, maybe I will. I usually do." Susan yawned. + +"Still sleepy?" + +"Dying for sleep. I went with my cousin to St. Mary's last night, to +hear that Mission priest. He's a wonder." + +"Not for me! I've not been inside a church for years. I had my friend +last night. Say, Susan, has he come?" + +"Has who come?" + +"Oh, you go to, Susan! Young Coleman." + +"Oh, sure!" Susan's eyes brightened intelligently. "That's so, he was +coming down to-day, wasn't he?" + +"Girls," said Miss Thornton, attracting the attention of the entire +room, "what do you know about Susan Brown's trying to get away with it +that she's forgotten about Peter Coleman!" + +"Oh, Lord, what a bluff!" somebody said, for the crowd. + +"I don't see why it's a bluff," said Susan hardily, back at her own +desk, and turning her light on, full above her bright, innocent face. +"I intended to wear my grandfather's gray uniform and my aunt's widow's +veil to make an impression on him, and you see I didn't!" + +"Oh, Susan, you're awful!" Miss Thornton said, through the general +shocked laughter. "You oughtn't say things like that," Miss Garvey +remonstrated. "It's awful bad luck. Mamma had a married cousin in +Detroit and she put on a widow's veil for fun--" + +At ten o'clock a flutter went through the office. Young Mr. Coleman was +suddenly to be seen, standing beside Mr. Brauer at his high desk. He +was exceptionally big and broad, handsome and fresh looking, with a +look of careful grooming and dressing that set off his fine head and +his fine hands; he wore a very smart light suit, and carried well the +affectation of lavender tie and handkerchief and hose, and an opal +scarf-pin. + +He seemed to be laughing a good deal over his new work, but finally sat +down to a pile of bills, and did not interrupt Mr. Brauer after that +oftener than ten times a minute. Susan met his eye, as she went along +the deck, but he did not remember her, or was too confused to recognize +her among the other girls, and they did not bow. She was very +circumspect and very dignified for a week or two, always busy when +Peter Coleman came into Front Office, and unusually neat in appearance. +Miss Murray sat next to him on the car one morning, and they chatted +for fifteen minutes; Miss Thornton began to quote him now and then; +Miss Kirk, as credit clerk, spent at least a morning a week in Mr. +Brauer's office, three feet away from Mr. Coleman, and her sister +tripped in there now and then on real or imagined errands. + +But Susan bided her time. And one afternoon, late in October, returning +early to the office, she found Mr. Coleman loitering disconsolately +about the deck. + +"Excuse me, Miss Brown," said he, clearing his throat. He had, of +course, noticed this busy, absorbed young woman. + +Susan stopped, attentive, unsmiling. + +"Brauer," complained the young man, "has gone off and locked my hat in +his office. I can't go to lunch." + +"Why didn't you walk through Front Office?" said Susan, leading the way +so readily and so sedately, that the gentleman was instantly put in the +position of having addressed her on very slight provocation. + +"This inner door is always unlocked," she explained, with maternal +gentleness. + +Peter Coleman colored. + +"I see--I am a bally ass!" he said, laughing. + +"You ought to know," Susan conceded politely. And suddenly her dimples +were in view, her blue eyes danced as they met his, and she laughed too. + +This was a rare opportunity, the office was empty, Susan knew she +looked well, for she had just brushed her hair and powdered her nose. +She cast about desperately in her mind for something--anything!--to +keep the conversation going. She had often thought of the words in +which she would remind him of their former meeting. + +"Don't think I'm quite as informal as this, Mr. Coleman, you and I have +been properly introduced, you know! I'm not entirely flattered by +having you forget me so completely, Mr. Coleman!" + +Before she could choose either form, he said it himself. + +"Say, look here, look here--didn't my uncle introduce us once, on a +car, or something? Doesn't he know your mother?" + +"My mother's dead," said Susan primly. But so irresistible was the well +of gaiety bubbling up in her heart that she made the statement mirthful. + +"Oh, gosh, I do beg your pardon--" the man stammered. They both, +although Susan was already ashamed of herself, laughed violently again. + +"Your uncle knows my aunt," she said presently, coldly and unsmilingly. + +"That's it," he said, relieved. "Quite a French sentence, 'does the +uncle know the aunt'?" he grinned. + +"Or 'Has the governess of the gardener some meat and a pen'?" gurgled +Susan. And again, and more merrily, they laughed together. + +"Lord, didn't you hate French?" he asked confidentially. + +"Oh, HATE it!" Susan had never had a French lesson. + +There was a short pause--a longer pause. Suddenly both spoke. + +"I beg your pardon--?" + +"No, you. You were first." + +"Oh, no, you. What were you going to say?" + +"I wasn't going to say anything. I was just going to say--I was going +to ask how that pretty, motherly aunt of yours is,--Mrs. Baxter?" + +"Aunt Clara. Isn't she a peach? She's fine." He wanted to keep talking, +too, it was obvious. "She brought me up, you know." He laughed +boyishly. "Not that I'd want you to hold that against her, or anything +like that!" + +"Oh, she'll live that down!" said Susan. + +That was all. But when Peter Colernan went on his way a moment later he +was still smiling, and Susan walked to her desk on air. + +The office seemed a pleasant place to be that afternoon. Susan began +her work with energy and interest, the light falling on her bright +hair, her fingers flying. She hummed as she worked, and one or two +other girls hummed with her. + +There was rather a musical atmosphere in Front Office; the girls +without exception kept in touch with the popular music of the day, and +liked to claim a certain knowledge of the old classics as well. Certain +girls always hummed certain airs, and no other girl ever usurped them. +Thus Thorny vocalized the "Spring Song," when she felt particularly +cheerful, and to Miss Violet Kirk were ceded all rights to Carmen's own +solos in "Carmen." Susan's privilege included "The Rosary" and the +little Hawaiian fare-well, "Aloha aoi." After the latter Thorny never +failed to say dreamily, "I love that song!" and Susan to mutter +surprisedly, "I didn't know I was humming it!" + +All the girls hummed the Toreador's song, and the immediate favorites +of the hour, "Just Because She Made Those Goo-Goo Eyes," and "I Don't +Know Why I Love You but I Do," and "Hilee-Hilo" and "The Mosquito +Parade." Hot discussions as to the merits of various compositions +arose, and the technique of various singers. + +"Yes, Collamarini's dramatic, and she has a good natural voice," Miss +Thornton would admit, "but she can't get AT it." + +Or, "That's all very well," Miss Cottle would assert boldly, "but +Salassa sings better than either Plancon or de Reszke. I'm not saying +this myself, but a party that KNOWS told me so." + +"Probably the person who told you so had never heard them," Miss +Thornton would say, bringing the angry color to Miss Cottle's face, and +the angry answer: + +"Well, if I could tell you who it IS, you'd feel pretty small!" + +Susan had small respect for the other girls' opinions, and almost as +little for her own. She knew how ignorant she was. But she took to +herself what credit accrued to general quoting, quoting from +newspapers, from her aunt's boarders, from chance conversations +overheard on the cars. + +"Oh, Puccini will never do anything to TOUCH Bizet!" Susan asserted +firmly. Or, "Well, we'd be fighting Spain still if it wasn't for +McKinley!" Or, "My grandmother had three hundred slaves, and slavery +worked perfectly well, then!" If challenged, she got very angry. "You +simply are proving that you don't know anything about it!" was Susan's +last, and adequate, answer to questioners. + +But as a rule she was not challenged. Some quality in Susan set her +apart from the other girls, and they saw it as she did. It was not that +she was richer, or prettier, or better born, or better educated, than +any or all of them. But there was some sparkling, bubbling quality +about her that was all her own. She read, and assimilated rather than +remembered what she read, adopted this little affectation in speech, +this little nicety of manner. She glowed with varied and absurd +ambitions, and took the office into her confidence about them. Wavering +and incomplete as her aunt's influence had been, one fact had early +been impressed upon her; she was primarily and absolutely a "lady." +Susan's forebears had really been rather ordinary folk, improvident and +carefree, enjoying prosperity when they had it with the uneducated, +unpractical serenity of the Old South, shiftless and lazy and unhappy +in less prosperous times. + +But she thought of them as most distinguished and accomplished +gentlefolk, beautiful women environed by spacious estates, by exquisite +old linen and silver and jewels, and dashing cavaliers rising in gay +gallantry alike to the conquest of feminine hearts, or to their +country's defense. She bore herself proudly, as became their +descendants. She brought the gaze of her honest blue eyes frankly to +all the other eyes in the world, a lady was unembarrassed in the +presence of her equals, a lady was always gracious to her inferiors. + +Her own father had been less elevated in rank than his wife, yet Susan +could think of him with genuine satisfaction. He was only a vague +memory to her now, this bold heart who had challenged a whole family's +opposition, a quarter of a century before, and carried off Miss Sue +Rose Ralston, whose age was not quite half his forty years, under her +father's very eyes. + +When Susan was born, four years later, the young wife was still +regarded by her family as an outcast. But even the baby Susan, growing +happily old enough to toddle about in the Santa Barbara rose-garden +that sheltered the still infatuated pair, knew that Mother was +supremely indifferent to the feeling toward her in any heart but one. +Martin Brown was an Irishman, and a writer of random essays. His +position on a Los Angeles daily newspaper kept the little family in +touch with just the people they cared to see, and, when the husband and +father was found dead at his desk one day, with his wife's picture over +the heart that had suddenly and simply ceased to serve him, there were +friends all about to urge the beautiful widow to take up at least a +part of his work, in the old environment. + +But Sue Rose was not quite thirty, and still girlish, and shrinking, +and helpless. Beside, there was Lou's house to go to, and five thousand +dollars life insurance, and three thousand more from the sale of the +little home, to meet the immediate need. So Susan and her mother came +up to Mrs. Lancaster, and had a very fine large room together, and +became merged in the older family. And the eight thousand dollars +lasted a long time, it was still paying little bills, and buying +birthday presents, and treating Alfie to a "safety bicycle," and Mary +Lou to dancing lessons when, on a wet afternoon in her thirteenth +summer, little Susan Brown came in from school to find that Mother was +very ill. + +"Just an ugly, sharp pain, ducky, don't look so scared!" said Mother, +smiling gallantly, but writhing under the bed covers. "Dr. Forsythe has +been here, and it's nothing at all. Ah-h-h!" said Mother, whimsically, +"the poor little babies! They go through this, and we laugh at them, +and call it colic! Never-laugh-at-another-baby, Sue! I shan't. You'd +better call Auntie, dear. This--this won't do." + +A day or two later there was talk of an operation. Susan was told very +little of it. Long afterward she remembered with certain resentment the +cavalier manner in which her claims were dismissed. Her mother went to +the hospital, and two days later, when she was well over the +wretchedness of the ether, Susan went with Mary Lou to see her, and +kissed the pale, brave little face, sunk in the great white pillows. + +"Home in no time, Sue!" her mother said bravely. + +But a few days later something happened, Susan was waked from sleep, +was rushed to the hospital again, was pressed by some unknown hand into +a kneeling position beside a livid and heavily breathing creature whom +she hardly recognized as her mother. It was all confusing and +terrifying; it was over very soon. Susan came blinking out of the dimly +lighted room with Mary Lou, who was sobbing, "Oh, Aunt Sue Rose! Aunt +Sue Rose!" Susan did not cry, but her eyes hurt her, and the back of +her head ached sharply. + +She cried later, in the nights, after her cousins had seemed to be +unsympathetic, feeling that she needed her mother to take her part. But +on the whole the cousins were devoted and kind to Susan, and the child +was as happy as she could have been anywhere. But her restless ambition +forced her into many a discontented hour, as she grew, and when an +office position was offered her Susan was wild with eagerness to try +her own feet. + +"I can't bear it!" mourned her aunt, "why can't you stay here happily +with us, lovey? My own girls are happy. I don't know what has gotten +into you girls lately, wanting to rush out like great, coarse men! Why +can't you stay at home, doing all the little dainty, pretty things that +only a woman can do, to make a home lovely?" + +"Don't you suppose I'd much RATHER not work?" Susan demanded +impatiently. "I can't have you supporting me, Auntie. That's it." + +"Well, if that's it, that's nonsense, dear. As long as Auntie lives all +she asks is to keep a comfortable home for her girls." + +"Why, Sue, you'll be implying that we all ought to have taken horrid +office positions," Virginia said, in smiling warning. + +Susan remained mutinously silent. + +"Have you any fault to find with Auntie's provision for you, dear?" +asked Mrs. Lancaster, patiently. + +"Oh, NO, auntie! That's not it AT ALL!" Susan protested, "it's just +simply that I--I can't--I need money, sometimes--" She stopped, +miserably. + +"Come, now!" Mrs. Lancaster, all sweet tolerance of the vagary, folded +her hands to await enlightenment. "Come, now! Tell auntie what you need +money for. What is this special great need?" + +"No one special thing, auntie--" Susan was anything but sure of her +ground. As a matter of fact she did not want to work at all, she merely +felt a frantic impulse to do something else than settle down for life +as Mary Lou and Virginia and Georgie had done. "But clothes cost +money," she pursued vaguely. + +"What sort of a gown did you want, dear?" Mrs. Lancaster reached for +her shabby purse. Susan refused the gift of a gown with many kisses, +and no more was said for a while of her working. + +This was in her seventeenth summer. For more than a year after that she +drifted idly, reading a great many romantic novels, and wishing herself +a young actress, a lone orphan, the adored daughter of an invalid +father or of a rich and adoring mother, the capable, worshiped oldest +sister in a jolly big family, a lovely cripple in a bright hospital +ward, anything, in short, except what she was. + +Then came the offer of a position in Front Office, and Susan took it on +her own responsibility, and resigned herself to her aunt's anger. This +was a most unhappy time for all concerned. + +But it was all over now. Auntie rebeled no more, she accepted the fact +as she had accepted other unwelcome facts in her life. And soon Susan's +little salary came to be depended upon by the family; it was not much, +but it did pay a gas or a laundry bill, it could be "borrowed" for the +slippers Georgie must have in a hurry, or the ticket that should carry +Alfie to Sacramento or Stockton for his new job. Virginia wondered if +Sue would lend her two dollars for the subscription to the "Weekly +Era," or asked, during the walk to church, if Susan had "plate-money" +for two? Mary Lou used Susan's purse as her own. "I owe you a dollar, +Sue," she would observe carelessly, "I took it yesterday for the +cleaner." + +Or, on their evening walks, Mary Lou would glance in the candy-store +window. "My! Don't those caramels look delicious! This is my treat, +now, remind me to give it back to you." "Oh, Ma told me to get eggs," +she would remember suddenly, a moment later. "I'll have to ask you to +pay for them, dearie, until we get home." + +Susan never was repaid these little loans. She could not ask it. She +knew very well that none of the girls ever had a cent given her except +for some definite and unavoidable purchase. Her aunt never spent money. +They lived in a continual and agonizing shortage of coin. + +Lately, however, Susan had determined that if her salary were raised +she would save the extra money, and not mention the fact of the raise +at home. She wanted a gray feather boa, such as Peter Coleman's girl +friends wore. It would cost twenty dollars, but what beauty and +distinction it lent to the simplest costume! + +Since young Mr. Coleman's appearance in Front Office certain young +girls very prominent in San Francisco society found various reasons for +coming down, in mid-afternoon, to the establishment of Hunter, Baxter & +Hunter, for a chat with old Mr. Baxter, who appeared to be a great +favorite with all girls. Susan, looking down through the glass walls of +Front Office, would suddenly notice the invasion of flowered hats and +smart frocks, and of black and gray and white feather-boas, such as her +heart desired. She did not consciously envy these girls, but she felt +that, with their advantages, she would have been as attractive as any, +and a boa seemed the first step in the desired direction. She always +knew it when Mr. Baxter sent for Peter, and generally managed to see +him as he stood laughing and talking with his friends, and when he saw +them to their carriages. She would watch him wistfully when he came +upstairs, and be glad when he returned briskly to his work, as if the +interruption had meant very little to him after all. + +One day, when a trio of exquisitely pretty girls came to carry him off +bodily, at an early five o'clock, Miss Thornton came up the office to +Susan's desk. Susan, who was quite openly watching the floor below, +turned with a smile, and sat down in her place. + +"S'listen, Susan," said Miss Thornton, leaning on the desk, "are you +going to the big game?" + +"I don't know," said Susan, suddenly wild to go. + +"Well, I want to go," pursued Miss Thornton, "but Wally's in Los +Angeles." Wally was Miss Thornton's "friend." + +"What would it cost us, Thorny?" + +"Two-fifty." + +"Gosh," said Susan thoughtfully. The big intercollegiate game was not +to be seen for nothing. Still, it was undoubtedly THE event of the +sporting year. + +"Hat come?" asked Thorny. + +"Ye-es." Susan was thinking. "Yes, and she's made it look lovely," she +admitted. She drew a sketch of a little face on her scratch pad. "Who's +that?" asked Miss Thornton, interestedly. "Oh, no one!" Susan said, and +scratched it out. + +"Oh, come on, Susan, I'm dying to go!" said the tempter. + +"We need a man for that, Thorny. There's an awful crowd." + +"Not if we go early enough. They say it's going to be the closest YET. +Come on!" + +"Thorny, honest, I oughtn't to spend the money," Susan persisted. + +"S'listen, Susan." Miss Thornton spoke very low, after a cautious +glance about her. "Swear you won't breathe this!" + +"Oh, honestly I won't!" + +"Wait a minute. Is Elsie Kirk there?" asked Miss Thornton. Susan +glanced down the office. + +"Nope. She's upstairs, and Violet's in Brauer's office. What is it?" + +"Well, say, listen. Last night--" began Miss Thornton, impressively, +"Last night I and Min and Floss and Harold Clarke went into the Techau +for supper, after the Orpheum show. Well, after we got seated--we had a +table way at the back--I suddenly noticed Violet Kirk, sitting in one +of those private alcoves, you know--?" + +"For Heaven's sake!" said Susan, in proper horror. + +"Yes. And champagne, if you please, all as bold as life! And all +dressed up, Susan, I wish you could have seen her! Well. I couldn't see +who she was with--" + +"A party?" + +"A party--no! One man." + +"Oh, Thorny--" Susan began to be doubtful, slowly shook her head. + +"But I tell you I SAW her, Sue! And listen, that's not all. We sat +there and sat there, an hour I guess, and she was there all that time. +And when she got up to go, Sue, I saw the man. And who do you suppose +it was?" + +"Do I know him?" A sick premonition seized Susan, she felt a stir of +agonizing jealousy at her heart. "Peter Coleman?" she guessed, with +burning cheeks. "Peter Coleman! That kid! No, it was Mr. Phil!" + +"Mr. Phil HUNTER!" But, through all her horror, Susan felt the warm +blood creep back to her heart. + +"Sure." + +"But--but Thorny, he's married!" + +Miss Thornton shrugged her shoulders, and pursed her lips, as one well +accustomed, if not reconciled, to the wickedness of the world. + +"So now we know how she can afford a velvet tailor-made and ostrich +plumes," said she. Susan shrank in natural cleanness of heart, from the +ugliness of it. + +"Ah, don't say such things, Thorny!" she said. Her brows contracted. +"His wife enjoying Europe!" she mused. "Can you beat it?" + +"I think it's the limit," said Miss Thornton virtuously, "and I think +old J. B. would raise the roof. But anyway, it shows why she got the +crediting." + +"Oh, Thorny, I can't BELIEVE it! Perhaps she doesn't realize how it +looks!" + +"Violet Hunter!" Thorny said, with fine scorn. "Now you mark my words, +Susan, it won't last--things like this don't--" + +"But--but don't they sometimes last, for years?" Susan asked, a little +timidly, yet wishing to show some worldly wisdom, too. + +"Not like her, there's nothing TO her," said the sapient Miss Thornton. +"No. You'll be doing that work in a few months, and getting forty. So +come along to the big game, Sue." + +"Well--" Susan half-promised. But the big game was temporarily lost +sight of in this horrid news of Violet Kirk. Susan watched Miss Kirk +during the remainder of the afternoon, and burst out with the whole +story, to Mary Lou, when they went out to match a piece of tape that +night. + +"Dear me, Ma would hate to have you coming in contact with things like +that, Sue!" worried Mary Lou. "I wonder if Ma would miss us if we took +the car out to the end of the line? It's such a glorious night! +Let's,--if you have carfare. No, Sue, it's easy enough to rob a girl of +her good name. There were some people who came to the house once, a man +and his wife. Well, I suppose I was ordinarily polite to the man, as I +am to all men, and once or twice he brought me candy--but it never +entered my head--" + +It was deliciously bracing to go rushing on, on the car, past the +Children's Hospital, past miles of sandhills, out to the very shore of +the ocean, where the air was salt, and filled with the dull roaring of +surf. Mary Lou, sharing with her mother a distaste for peanuts, crowds, +tin-type men, and noisy pleasure-seekers, ignored Susan's hints that +they walk down to the beach, and they went back on the same car. + +When they entered the close, odorous dining-room, an hour later, +Georgie, lazily engaged with Fan-tan, had a piece of news. + +"Susan, you sly thing! He's adorable!" said Georgie. + +"Who?" said Susan, taking a card from her cousin's hand. Dazedly she +read it. "Mr. Peter Coleman." + +"Did he call?" she asked, her heart giving a great bound. + +"Did he call? With a perfect heart-breaker of a puppy--!" + +"London Baby," Susan said, eagerly. + +"He was airing the puppy, he SAID" Georgie added archly. + +"One excuse as well as another!" Mary Lou laughed delightedly as she +kissed Susan's glowing cheek. + +"He wouldn't come in," continued Georgie, "which was really just as +well, for Loretta and her prize idiot were in the parlor, and I +couldn't have asked him down here. Well, he's a darling. You have my +blessing, Sue." + +"It's manners to wait until you're axed," Susan said demurely. But her +heart sang. She had to listen to a little dissertation upon the joys of +courtship, when she and Mary Lou were undressing, a little later, +tactfully concealing her sense of the contrast between their two +affairs. + +"It's a happy, happy time," said Mary Lou, sighing, as she spread the +two halves of a shabby corset upon the bed, and proceeded to insert a +fresh lacing between them. "It takes me back to the first time Ferd +called upon me, but I was younger than you are, of course, Sue. And +Ferd--!" she laughed proudly, "Do you think you could have sent Ferd +away with an excuse? No, sir, he would have come in and waited until +you got home, poor Ferd! Not but what I think Peter--" He was already +Peter!--"did quite the correct thing! And I think I'm going to like +him, Sue, if for no other reason than that he had the sense to be +attracted to a plainly-dressed, hard-working little mouse like my Sue--" + +"His grandfather ran a livery stable!" said Susan, smarting under the +role of the beggar maiden. + +"Ah, well, there isn't a girl in society to-day who wouldn't give her +eyes to get him!" said Mary Lou wisely. And Susan secretly agreed. + +She was kept out of bed by the corset-lacing, and so took a bath +to-night and brushed and braided her hair. Feeling refreshed in body +and spirit by these achievements, she finally climbed into bed, and +drifted off upon a sea of golden dreams. Georgie's teasing and Mary +Lou's inferences might be all nonsense, still, he HAD come to see her, +she had that tangible fact upon which to build a new and glorious +castle in Spain. + +Thanksgiving broke dull and overcast, there was a spatter of rain on +the sidewalk, as Susan loitered over her late holiday breakfast, and +Georgie, who was to go driving that afternoon with an elderly admirer, +scolded violently over her coffee and rolls. No boarders happened to be +present. Mrs. Lancaster and Virginia were to go to a funeral, and dwelt +with a sort of melancholy pleasure upon the sad paradox of such an +event on such a day. Mary Lou felt a little guilty about not attending +the funeral, but she was responsible for the roasting of three great +turkeys to-day, and could not be spared. Mrs. Lancaster had stuffed the +fowls the night before. + +"I'll roast the big one from two o'clock on," said Mary Lou, "and give +the little ones turn and turn about. The oven won't hold more than two." + +"I'll be home in time to make the pudding sauce," her mother said, "but +open it early, dear, so that it won't taste tinny. Poor Hardings! A +sad, sad Thanksgiving for them!" And Mrs. Lancaster sighed. Her hair +was arranged in crisp damp scallops under her best bonnet and veil, and +she wore the heavy black skirt of her best suit. But her costume was +temporarily completed by a light kimono. + +"We'll hope it's a happy, happy Thanksgiving for dear Mr. Harding, Ma," +Virginia said gently. + +"I know, dear," her mother said, "but I'm not like you, dear. I'm +afraid I'm a very poor, weak, human sort!" + +"Rotten day for the game!" grumbled Susan. + +"Oh, it makes me so darn mad!" Georgie added, "here I've been working +that precious idiot for a month up to the point where he would take his +old horse out, and now look at it!" + +Everyone was used to Georgie's half-serious rages, and Mrs. Lancaster +only smiled at her absently. + +"But you won't attempt to go to the game on a day like this!" she said +to Susan. + +"Not if it pours," Susan agreed disconsolately. + +"You haven't wasted your good money on a ticket yet, I hope, dear?" + +"No-o," Susan said, wishing that she had her two and a half dollars +back. "That's just the way of it!" she said bitterly to Billy, a little +later. "Other girls can get up parties for the game, and give dinners +after it, and do everything decently! I can't even arrange to go with +Thorny, but what it has to rain!" + +"Oh, cheer up," the boy said, squinting down the barrel of the rifle he +was lovingly cleaning. "It's going to be a perfect day! I'm going to +the game myself. If it rains, you and I'll go to the Orpheum mat., what +do you say?" + +"Well--" said Susan, departing comforted. And true to his prediction +the sky really did clear at eleven o'clock, and at one o'clock, Susan, +the happiest girl in the world, walked out into the sunny street, in +her best hat and her best gown, her prettiest embroidered linen collar, +her heavy gold chain, and immaculate new gloves. + +How could she possibly have hesitated about it, she wondered, when she +came near the ball-grounds, and saw the gathering crowds; tall young +men, with a red carnation or a shaggy great yellow chrysanthemum in +their buttonholes; girls in furs; dancingly impatient small boys, and +agitated and breathless chaperones. And here was Thorny, very pretty in +her best gown, with a little unusual and unnatural color on her cheeks, +and Billy Oliver, who would watch the game from the "dollar section," +providentially on hand to help them through the crowd, and buy Susan a +chrysanthemum as a foil to Thorny's red ribbons. The damp cool air was +sweet with violets; a delightful stir and excitement thrilled the +moving crowd. Here was the gate. Tickets? And what a satisfaction to +produce them, and enter unchallenged into the rising roadway, leaving +behind a line of jealously watching and waiting people. With Billy's +help the seats were easily found, "the best seats on the field," said +Susan, in immense satisfaction, as she settled into hers. She and +Thorny were free to watch the little tragedies going on all about them, +people in the wrong seats, and people with one ticket too few. + +Girls and young men--girls and young men--girls and young men--streamed +in the big gateways, and filed about the field. Susan envied no one +to-day, her heart was dancing. There was a racy autumnal tang in the +air, laughter and shouting. The "rooters" were already in place, their +leader occasionally leaped into the air like a maniac, and conducted a +"yell" with a vigor that needed every muscle of his body. + +And suddenly the bleachers went mad and the air fluttered with banners, +as the big teams rushed onto the field. The players, all giants they +looked, in their clumsy, padded suits, began a little practice play +desperately and violently. Susan could hear the quarter's voice clear +and sharp, "Nineteen-four-eighty-eight!" + +"Hello, Miss Brown!" said a voice at her knee. She took her eyes from +the field. Peter Coleman, one of a noisy party, was taking the seat +directly in front of her. + +"Well!" she said, gaily, "be you a-follering of me, or be I a-follering +of you?" + +"I don't know!--How do you do, Miss Thornton!" Peter said, with his +delighted laugh. He drew to Susan the attention of a stout lady in +purple velvet, beside him. "Mrs. Fox--Miss Brown," said he, "and Miss +Thornton--Mrs. Fox." + +"Mrs. Fox," said Susan, pleasantly brief. + +"Miss Brown," said Mrs. Fox, with a wintry smile. + +"Pleased to meet any friend of Mr. Coleman's, I'm sure," Thorny said, +engagingly. + +"Miss Thornton," Mrs. Fox responded, with as little tone as is possible +to the human voice. + +After that the newcomers, twelve or fourteen in all, settled into their +seats, and a moment later everyone's attention was riveted on the +field. The men were lining up, big backs bent double, big arms hanging +loose, like the arms of gorillas. Breathless attention held the big +audience silent and tense. + +"Don't you LOVE it?" breathed Susan, to Thorny. + +"Crazy about it!" Peter Coleman answered her, without turning. + +It was a wonderful game that followed. Susan never saw another that +seemed to her to have the same peculiar charm. Between halves, Peter +Coleman talked almost exclusively to her, and they laughed over the +peanuts that disappeared so fast. + +The sun slipped down and down the sky, and the air rose chilly and +sweet from the damp earth. It began to grow dark. Susan began to feel a +nervous apprehension that somehow, in leaving the field, she and Thorny +would become awkwardly involved in Mrs. Fox's party, would seem to be +trying to include themselves in this distinguished group. + +"We've got to rush," she muttered, buttoning up her coat. + +"Oh, what's your hurry?" asked Thorny, who would not have objected to +the very thing Susan dreaded. + +"It's so dark!" Susan said, pushing ahead. They were carried by the +crowd through the big gates, out to the street. Lights were beginning +to prick through the dusk, a long line of street cars was waiting, +empty and brightly lighted. Suddenly Susan felt a touch on her shoulder. + +"Lord, you're in a rush!" said Peter Coleman, pushing through the crowd +to join them. He was somehow dragging Mrs. Fox with him, the lady +seemed outraged and was breathless. Peter brought her triumphantly up +to Susan. + +"Now what is it that you want me to do, you ridiculous boy!" gasped +Mrs. Fox,--"ask Miss Brown to come and have tea with us, is that it? +I'm chaperoning a few of the girls down to the Palace for a cup of tea, +Miss Brown,--perhaps you will waive all formality, and come too?" + +Susan didn't like it, the "waive all formality" showed her exactly how +Mrs. Fox regarded the matter. Her pride was instantly touched. But she +longed desperately to go. A sudden thought of the politely interested +Thorny decided her. + +"Oh, thank you! Thank you, Mr. Coleman," she smiled, "but I can't, +to-night. Miss Thornton and I are just--" + +"Don't decline on MY account, Miss Brown," said Thorny, mincingly, "for +I have an engagement this evening, and I have to go straight home--" + +"No, don't decline on any account!" Peter said masterfully, "and don't +tell wicked lies, or you'll get your mouth washed out with soap! Now, +I'll put Miss Thornton on her car, and you talk to Hart here--Miss +Brown, this is Mr. Hart--Gordon, Miss Brown--until I come back!" + +He disappeared with Thorny, and Susan, half terrified, half delighted, +talked to Mr. Hart at quite a desperate rate, as the whole party got on +the dummy of a car. Just as they started, Peter Coleman joined them, +and during the trip downtown Susan kept both young men laughing, and +was her gayest, happiest self. + +The Palace Hotel, grimy and dull in a light rainfall, was nevertheless +the most enchanting place in the world to go for tea, as Susan knew by +instinct, or hearsay, or tradition, and as all these other young people +had proved a hundred times. A covered arcade from the street led +through a row of small, bright shops into the very center of the hotel, +where there was an enormous court called the "Palm-garden," walled by +eight rising tiers of windows, and roofed, far above, with glass. At +one side of this was the little waiting-room called the "Turkish Room," +full of Oriental inlay and draperies, and embroideries of daggers and +crescents. + +To Susan the place was enchanting beyond words. The coming and going of +strange people, the arriving carriages with their slipping horses, the +luggage plastered with labels, the little shops,--so full of +delightful, unnecessary things, candy and glace fruits, and orchids and +exquisite Chinese embroideries, and postal cards, and theater tickets, +and oranges, and paper-covered novels, and alligator pears! The very +sight of these things aroused in her heart a longing that was as keen +as pain. Oh, to push her way, somehow, into the world, to have a right +to enjoy these things, to be a part of this brilliant, moving show, to +play her part in this wonderful game! + +Mrs. Fox led the girls of her party to the Turkish Room to-night, +where, with much laughter and chatter, they busied themselves with +small combs, mirrors powder boxes, hairpins and veils. One girl, a Miss +Emily Saunders, even loosened her long, thin, silky hair, and let it +fall about her shoulders, and another took off her collar while she +rubbed and powdered her face. + +Susan sat rather stiffly on a small, uncomfortable wooden chair, +entirely ignored, and utterly miserable. She smiled, as she looked +pleasantly from one face to another, but her heart was sick within her. +No one spoke to her, or seemed to realize that she was in the room. A +steady stream of talk--such gay, confidential talk!--went on. + +"Let me get there, Connie, you old pig, I'm next. Listen, girls, did +you hear Ward to-day? Wasn't that the richest ever, after last night! +Ward makes me tired, anyway. Did Margaret tell you about Richard and +Ward, last Sunday? Isn't that rich! I don't believe it, but to hear +Margaret tell it, you'd think--Wait a minute, Louise, while I pin this +up! Whom are you going with to-night? Are you going to dinner there? +Why don't you let us call for you? That's all right, bring him along. +Will you? All right. That's fine. No, and I don't care. If it comes +I'll wear it, and if it doesn't come I'll wear that old white +rag,--it's filthy, but I don't care. Telephone your aunt, Con, and then +we can all go together. Love to, darling, but I've got a suitor. You +have not! I have TOO! Who is it? Who is it, I like that! Isn't she +awful, Margaret? Mother has an awful crush on you, Mary, she said--Wait +a minute! I'm just going to powder my nose. Who said Joe Chickering +belonged to you? What nerve! He's mine. Isn't Joe my property? Don't +come in here, Alice, we're just talking about you--" + +"Oh, if I could only slip out somehow!" thought Susan desperately. "Oh, +if only I hadn't come!" + +Their loosened wraps were displaying all sorts of pretty little +costumes now. Susan knew that the simplest of blue linen shirtwaists +was under her own coat. She had not courage to ask to borrow a comb, to +borrow powder. She knew her hair was mussed, she knew her nose was +shiny-- + +Her heart was beating so fast, with angry resentment of their serene +rudeness, and shame that she had so readily accepted the casual +invitation that gave them this chance to be rude, that she could hardly +think. But it seemed to be best, at any cost, to leave the party now, +before things grew any worse. She would make some brief excuse to Mrs. +Fox,--headache or the memory of an engagement-- + +"Do you know where Mrs. Fox is?" she asked the girl nearest her. For +Mrs. Fox had sauntered out into the corridor with some idea of +summoning the men. + +The girl did not answer, perhaps did not hear. Susan tried again. + +"Do you know where Mrs. Fox went to?" + +Now the girl looked at her for a brief instant, and rose, crossing the +little room to the side of another girl. + +"No, I really don't," she said lightly, civilly, as she went. + +Susan's face burned. She got up, and went to the door. But she was too +late. The young men were just gathering there in a noisy group. It +appeared that there was sudden need of haste. The "rooters" were to +gather in the court presently, for more cheering, and nobody wanted to +miss the sight. + +"Come, girls! Be quick!" called Mrs. Fox. "Come, Louise, dear! Connie," +this to her own daughter, "you and Peter run ahead, and ask for my +table. Peter, will you take Connie? Come, everybody!" + +Somehow, they had all paired off, in a flash, without her. Susan needed +no further spur. With more assurance than she had yet shown, she +touched the last girl, as she passed, on the arm. It chanced to be Miss +Emily Saunders. She and her escort both stopped, laughing with that +nervous apprehension that seizes their class at the appearance of the +unexpected. + +"Miss Saunders," said Susan quickly, "will you tell Mrs. Fox that my +headache is much worse. I'm afraid I'd better go straight home--" + +"Oh, too bad!" Miss Saunders said, her round, pale, rather unwholesome +face, expressing proper regret. "Perhaps tea will help it?" she added +sweetly. + +It was the first personal word Susan had won. She felt suddenly, +horrifyingly--near to tears. + +"Oh, thank you, I'm afraid not!" she smiled bravely. "Thank you so +much. And tell her I'm sorry. Good-night." + +"Good-night!" said Miss Saunders. And Susan went, with a sense of +escape and relief, up the long passageway, and into the cool, friendly +darkness of the streets. She had an unreasoning fear that they might +follow her, somehow bring her back, and walked a swift block or two, +rather than wait for the car where she might be found. + +Half an hour later she rushed into the house, just as the Thanksgiving +dinner was announced, half-mad with excitement, her cheeks ablaze, and +her eyes unnaturally bright. The scene in the dining-room was not of +the gayest; Mrs. Lancaster and Virginia were tired and depressed, Mary +Lou nervously concerned for the dinner, Georgie and almost all of the +few boarders who had no alternative to dining in a boarding-house +to-day were cross and silent. + +But the dinner was delicious, and Susan, arriving at the crucial +moment, had a more definite effect on the party than a case of +champagne would have had. She chattered recklessly and incessantly, and +when Mrs. Lancaster's mild "Sue, dear!" challenged one remark, she +capped it with another still less conventional. + +Her spirits were infectious, the gaiety became general. Mrs. Parker +laughed until the tears streamed down her fat cheeks, and Mary Lord, +the bony, sallow-faced, crippled sister who was the light and joy of +Lydia Lord's drudging life, and who had been brought downstairs to-day +as a special event, at a notable cost to her sister's and William +Oliver's muscles, nearly choked over her cranberry sauce. Susan +insisted that everyone should wear the paper caps that came in the +bonbons, and looked like a pretty witch herself, under a cone-shaped +hat of pink and blue. When, as was usual on all such occasions, a +limited supply of claret came on with the dessert, she brought the +whole company from laughter very close to tears, as she proposed, with +pretty dignify, a toast to her aunt, "who makes this house such a happy +home for us all." The toast was drunk standing, and Mrs. Lancaster +cried into her napkin, with pride and tender emotion. + +After dinner the diminished group trailed, still laughing and talking, +upstairs to the little drawing-room, where perhaps seven or eight of +them settled about the coal fire. Mrs. Lancaster, looking her best in a +low-necked black silk, if rather breathless after the hearty dinner, +eaten in too-tight corsets, had her big chair, Georgia curled girlishly +on a footstool at her feet. Miss Lydia Lord stealthily ate a soda mint +tablet now and then; her sister, propped with a dozen pillows on the +sofa, fairly glowed with the unusual pleasure and excitement. Little +Mrs. Cortelyou rocked back and forth; always loquacious, she was +especially talkative after to-night's glass of wine. + +Virginia, who played certain simple melodies very prettily, went to the +piano and gave them "Maryland" and "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes," +and was heartily applauded. Mary Lou was finally persuaded to sing +Tosti's "Farewell to Summer," in a high, sweet, self-conscious soprano. + +Susan had disappeared. Just after dinner she had waylaid William +Oliver, with a tense, "Will you walk around the block with me, Billy? I +want to talk to you," and William, giving her a startled glance, had +quietly followed her through the dark lower hall, and into the +deserted, moonlighted, wind-swept street. The wind had fallen: stars +were shining. + +"Billy," said Susan, taking his arm and walking him along very rapidly, +"I'm going away--" + +"Going away?" he said sympathetically. This statement always meant that +something had gone very wrong with Susan. + +"Absolutely!" Susan said passionately. "I want to go where nobody knows +me, where I can make a fresh start. I'm going to Chicago." + +"What the DEUCE are you raving about?" Mr. Oliver asked, stopping short +in the street. "What have you been doing now?" + +"Nothing!" Susan said, with suddenly brimming eyes. "But I hate this +place, and I hate everyone in it, and I'm simply sick of being treated +as if, just because I'm poor--" + +"You sound like a bum second act, with somebody throwing a handful of +torn paper down from the wings!" Billy observed. But his tone was +kinder than his words, and Susan, laying a hand on his coat sleeve, +told him the story of the afternoon; of Mrs. Fox, with her supercilious +smile; of the girls, so bitterly insulting; of Peter, involving her in +these embarrassments and then forgetting to stand by her. + +"If one of those girls came to us a stranger," Susan declared, with a +heaving breast, "do you suppose we'd treat her like that?" + +"Well, that only proves we have better manners than they have!" + +"Oh, Bill, what rot! If there's one thing society people have, it's +manners!" Susan said impatiently. "Do you wonder people go crazy to get +hold of money?" she added vigorously. + +"Nope. You've GOT to have it. There are lots of other things in the +world," he agreed, "but money's first and foremost. The only reason _I_ +want it," said Billy, "is because I want to show other rich people +where they make their mistakes." + +"Do you really think you'll be rich some day, Billy?" + +"Sure." + +Susan walked on thoughtfully. + +"There's where a man has the advantage," she said. "He can really work +toward the thing he wants." + +"Well, girls ought to have the same chance," Billy said generously. +"Now I was talking to Mrs. Carroll Sunday--" + +"Oh, how are the Carrolls?" asked Susan, diverted for an instant. + +"Fine. They were awfully disappointed you weren't along.--And she was +talking about that very thing. And she said her three girls were going +to work just as Phil and Jim do." + +"But Billy, if a girl has a gift, yes. But you can't put a girl in a +foundry or a grocery." + +"Not in a foundry. But you could in a grocery. And she said she had +talked to Anna and Jo since they were kids, just as she did to the +boys, about their work." + +"Wouldn't Auntie think she was crazy!" Susan smiled. After a while she +said more mildly: + +"I don't believe Peter Coleman is quite as bad as the others!" + +"Because you have a crush on him," suggested Billy frankly. "I think he +acted like a skunk." + +"Very well. Think what you like!" Susan said icily. But presently, in a +more softened tone, she added, "I do feel badly about Thorny! I +oughtn't to have left her. It was all so quick! And she DID have a +date, at least I know a crowd of people were coming to their house to +dinner. And I was so utterly taken aback to be asked out with that +crowd! The most exclusive people in the city,--that set." + +"You give me an awful pain when you talk like that," said Billy, +bluntly. "You give them a chance to sit on you, and they do, and then +you want to run away to Chicago, because you feel so hurt. Why don't +you stay in your own crowd?" + +"Because I like nice people. And besides, the Fox crowd isn't ONE bit +better than I am!" said the inconsistent Susan, hotly. "Who were their +ancestors! Miners and servants and farmers! I'd like to go away," she +resumed, feverishly, "and work up to be something GREAT, and come back +here and have them tumbling over themselves to be nice to me--" + +"What a pipe dream!" Billy observed. "Let 'em alone. And if Coleman +ever offers you another invitation--" + +"He won't!" interposed Susan. + +"--Why, you sit on him so quick it'll make his head spin! Get busy at +something, Susan. If you had a lot of work to do, and enough money to +buy yourself pretty clothes, and to go off on nice little trips every +Sunday,--up the mountain, or down to Santa Cruz, you'd forget this +bunch!" + +"Get busy at what?" asked Susan, half-hopeful, half in scorn. + +"Oh, anything!" + +"Yes, and Thorny getting forty-five after twelve years!" + +"Well, but you've told me yourself how Thorny wastes time, and makes +mistakes, and conies in late, and goes home early---" + +"As if that made any difference! Nobody takes the least notice!" Susan +said hotly. But she was restored enough to laugh now, and a passing +pop-corn cart made a sudden diversion. "Let's get some crisps, Bill! +Let's get a lot, and take some home to the others!" + +So the evening ended with Billy and Susan in the group about the fire, +listening idly to the reminiscences that the holiday mood awakened in +the older women. Mrs. Cortelyou had been a California pioneer, and +liked to talk of the old prairie wagons, of Indian raids, of flood and +fire and famine. Susan, stirred by tales of real trouble, forgot her +own imaginary ones. Indians and wolves in the strange woods all about, +a child at the breast, another at the knee, and the men gone for +food,--four long days' trip! The women of those days, thought Susan, +carried their share of the load. She had heard the story of the Hatch +child before, the three-year-old, who, playing about the wagons, at the +noontime rest on the plains, was suddenly missing! Of the desperate +hunt, the half-mad mother's frantic searching, her agonies when the +long-delayed start must be made, her screams when she was driven away +with her tinier child in her arms, knowing that behind one of those +thousands of mesquite or cactus bushes, the little yellow head must be +pillowed on the sand, the little beloved mouth smiling in sleep. + +"Mrs. Hatch used to sit for hours, strainin' her eyes back of us, +toward St. Joe," Mrs. Cortelyou said, sighing. "But there was plenty of +trouble ahead, for all of us, too! It's a life of sorrow." + +"You never said a truer word than that," Mrs. Lancaster agreed +mournfully. And the talk came about once more to the Harding funeral. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +"Good-morning!" said Susan, bravely, when Miss Thornton came into the +office the next morning. Miss Thornton glanced politely toward her. + +"Oh, good-morning, Miss Brown!" said she, civilly, disappearing into +the coat closet. Susan felt her cheeks burn. But she had been lying +awake and thinking in the still watches of the night, and she was the +wiser for it. Susan's appearance was a study in simple neatness this +morning, a black gown, severe white collar and cuffs, severely braided +hair. Her table was already piled with bills, and she was working +busily. Presently she got up, and came down to Miss Thornton's desk. + +"Mad at me, Thorny?" she asked penitently. She had to ask it twice. + +"Why should I be?" asked Miss Thornton lightly then. "Excuse me--" she +turned a page, and marked a price. "Excuse me--" This time Susan's hand +was in the way. + +"Ah, Thorny, don't be mad at me," said Susan, childishly. + +"I hope I know when I am not wanted," said Miss Thornton stiffly, after +a silence. + +"I don't!" laughed Susan, and stopped. Miss Thornton looked quickly up, +and the story came out. Thorny was instantly won. She observed with a +little complacence that she had anticipated just some such event, and +so had given Peter Coleman no chance to ask HER. "I could see he was +dying to," said Thorny, "but I know that crowd! Don't you care, Susan, +what's the difference?" said Thorny, patting her hand affectionately. + +So that little trouble was smoothed away. Another episode made the day +more bearable for Susan. + +Mr. Brauer called her into his office at ten o'clock. Peter was at his +desk, but Susan apparently did not see him. + +"Will you hurry this bill, Miss Brown?" said Mr. Brauer, in his careful +English. "Al-zo, I wished to say how gratifite I am wiz your work, +before zese las' weeks,--zis monss. You work hardt, and well. I wish +all could do so hardt, and so well." + +"Oh, thank you!" stammered Susan, in honest shame. Had one month's work +been so noticeable? She made new resolves for the month to come. "Was +that all, Mr. Brauer?" she asked primly. + +"All? Yes." + +"What was your rush yesterday?" asked Peter Coleman, turning around. + +"Headache," said Susan, mildly, her hand on the door. + +"Oh, rot! I bet it didn't ache at all!" he said, with his gay laugh. +But Susan did not laugh, and there was a pause. Peter's face grew red. + +"Did--did Miss Thornton get home all right?" he asked. Susan knew he +was at a loss for something to say, but answered him seriously. + +"Quite, thank you. She was a little--at least I felt that she might be +a little vexed at my leaving her, but she was very sweet about it." + +"She should have come, too!" Peter said, embarrassedly. + +Susan did not answer, she eyed him gravely for a few seconds, as one +waiting for further remarks, then turned and went out, sauntering to +her desk with the pleasant conviction that hers were the honors of war. + +The feeling of having regained her dignity was so exhilarating that +Susan was careful, during the next few weeks, to preserve it. She bowed +and smiled to Peter, answered his occasional pleasantries briefly and +reservedly, and attended strictly to her affairs alone. + +Thus Thanksgiving became a memory less humiliating, and on Christmas +Day joy came gloriously into Susan's heart, to make it memorable among +all the Christmas Days of her life. Easy to-day to sit for a laughing +hour with poor Mary Lord, to go to late service, and dream through a +long sermon, with the odor of incense and spicy evergreen sweet all +about her, to set tables, to dust the parlor, to be kissed by Loretta's +little doctor under the mistletoe, to sweep up tissue-paper and red +ribbon and nutshells and tinsel, to hook Mary Lou's best gown, and +accompany Virginia to evening service, and to lend Georgie her best +gloves. Susan had not had many Christmas presents: cologne and +handkerchiefs and calendars and candy, from various girl friends, five +dollars from the firm, a silk waist from Auntie, and a handsome +umbrella from Billy, who gave each one of the cousins exactly the same +thing. + +These, if appreciated, were more or less expected, too. But beside +them, this year, was a great box of violets,--Susan never forgot the +delicious wet odor of those violets!--and inside the big box a smaller +one, holding an old silver chain with a pendant of lapis lazuli, set in +a curious and lovely design. Susan honestly thought it the handsomest +thing she had ever seen. And to own it, as a gift from him! Small +wonder that her heart flew like a leaf in a high wind. The card that +came with it she had slipped inside her silk blouse, and so wore +against her heart. "Mr. Peter Webster Coleman," said one side of the +card. On the other was written, "S.B. from P.--Happy Fourth of July!" +Susan took it out and read it a hundred times. The "P" indicated a +friendliness that brought the happy color over and over again to her +face. She dashed him off a gay little note of thanks; signed it +"Susan," thought better of that and re-wrote it, to sign it "Susan +Ralston Brown"; wrote it a third time, and affixed only the initials, +"S.B." All day long she wondered at intervals if the note had been too +chilly, and turned cold, or turned rosy wondering if it had been too +warm. + +Mr. Coleman did not come into the office during the following week, and +one day a newspaper item, under the heading of "The Smart Set," jumped +at Susan with the familiar name. "Peter Coleman, who is at present the +guest of Mrs. Rodney Chauncey, at her New Year's house party," it ran, +"may accompany Mr. Paul Wallace and Miss Isabel Wallace in a short +visit to Mexico next week." The news made Susan vaguely unhappy. + +One January Saturday she was idling along the deck, when he came +suddenly up behind her, to tell her, with his usual exuberant laughter, +that he WAS going away for a fortnight with the Wallaces, just a flying +trip, "in the old man's private car." He expected "a peach of a time." + +"You certainly ought to have it!" smiled Susan gallantly, "Isabel +Wallace looks like a perfect darling!" + +"She's a wonder!" he said absently, adding eagerly, "Say, why can't you +come and help me buy some things this afternoon? Come on, and we'll +have tea at the club?" + +Susan saw no reason against it, they would meet at one. + +"I'll be down in J.G.'s office," he said, and Susan went back to her +desk with fresh joy and fresh pain at her heart. + +On Saturdays, because of the early closing, the girls had no lunch +hour. But they always sent out for a bag of graham crackers, which they +nibbled as they worked, and, between eleven and one, they took turns at +disappearing in the direction of the lunch-room, to return with well +scrubbed hands and powdered noses, fresh collars and carefully arranged +hair. Best hats were usually worn on Saturdays, and Susan rejoiced that +she had worn her best to-day. After the twelve o'clock whistle blew, +she went upstairs. + +On the last flight, just below the lunch-room, she suddenly stopped +short, her heart giving a sick plunge. Somebody up there was +laughing--crying--making a horrible noise--! Susan ran up the rest of +the flight. + +Thorny was standing by the table. One or two other girls were in the +room, Miss Sherman was mending a glove, Miss Cashell stood in the roof +doorway, manicuring her nails with a hairpin. Miss Elsie Kirk sat in +the corner seat, with her arm about the bowed shoulders of another +girl, who was crying, with her head on the table. + +"If you would mind your own affairs for about five minutes, Miss +Thornton," Elsie Kirk was saying passionately, as Susan came in, "you'd +be a good deal better off!" + +"I consider what concerns Front Office concerns me!" said Miss Thornton +loftily. + +"Ah, don't!" Miss Sherman murmured pitifully. + +"If Violet wasn't such a darn FOOL--" Miss Cashell said lightly, and +stopped. + +"What IS it?" asked Susan. + +Her voice died on a dead silence. Miss Thornton, beginning to gather up +veil and gloves and handbag scattered on the table, pursed her lips +virtuously. Miss Cashell manicured steadily. Miss Sherman bit off a +thread. + +"It's nothing at all!" said Elsie Kirk, at last. "My sister's got a +headache, that's all, and she doesn't feel well." She patted the bowed +shoulders. "And parties who have nothing better to do," she added, +viciously turning to Miss Thornton, "have butted in about it!" + +"I'm all right now," said Violet suddenly, raising a face so terribly +blotched and swollen from tears that Susan was genuinely horrified. +Violet's weak eyes were set in puffy rings of unnatural whiteness, her +loose, weak little mouth sagged, her bosom, in its preposterous, +transparent white lace shirtwaist, rose and fell convulsively. In her +voice was some shocking quality of unwomanliness, some lack of pride, +and reserve, and courage. + +"All I wanted was to do like other girls do," said the swollen lips, as +Violet began to cry again, and to dab her eyes with a soaked rag of a +handkerchief. "I never meant nothing! 'N' Mamma says she KNOWS it +wasn't all my fault!" she went on, half maudlin in her abandonment. + +Susan gasped. There was a general gasp. + +"Don't, Vi!" said her sister tenderly. "It ain't your fault if there +are skunks in the world like Mr. Phil Hunter," she said, in a reckless +half-whisper. "If Papa was alive he'd shoot him down like a dog!" + +"He ought to be shot down!" cried Susan, firing. + +"Well, of course he ought!" Miss Elsie Kirk, strong under opposition, +softened suddenly under this championship, and began to tremble. "Come +on, Vi," said she. + +"Well, of course he ought," Thorny said, almost with sympathy. "Here, +let's move the table a little, if you want to get out." + +"Well, why do you make such a fuss about it?" Miss Cashell asked +softly. "You know as well as--as anyone else, that if a man gets a girl +into trouble, he ought to stand for--" + +"Yes, but my sister doesn't take that kind of money!" flashed Elsie +bitterly. + +"Well, of course not!" Miss Cashell said quickly, "but--" + +"No, you're doing the dignified thing, Violet," Miss Thornton said, +with approval, "and you'll feel glad, later on, that you acted this +way. And, as far as my carrying tales, I never carried one. I DID say +that I thought I knew why you were leaving, and I don't deny it--Use my +powder, right there by the mirror--But as far as anything else goes--" + +"We're both going," Elsie said. "I wouldn't take another dollar of +their dirty money if I was starving! Come on, Vi." + +And a few minutes later they all said a somewhat subdued and +embarrassed farewell to the Misses Kirk, who went down the stairs, +veiled and silent, and out of the world of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's +forever. + +"Will she sue him, Thorny?" asked Susan, awed. + +"Sue him? For what? She's not got anything to sue for." Miss Thornton +examined a finger nail critically. "This isn't the first time this has +happened down here," she said. "There was a lovely girl here--but she +wasn't such a fool as Violet is. She kept her mouth shut. Violet went +down to Phil Hunter's office this morning, and made a perfect scene. +He's going on East to meet his wife you know; it must have been +terribly embarrassing for him! Then old J.G. sent for Violet, and told +her that there'd been a great many errors in the crediting, and showed +'em to her, too! Poor kid--" + +Susan went wondering back to Front Office. The crediting should be +hers, now, by all rights! But she felt only sorry, and sore, and +puzzled. "She wanted a good time and pretty things," said Susan to +herself. Just as Susan herself wanted this delightful afternoon with +Peter Coleman! "How much money has to do with life!" the girl thought. + +But even the morning's events did not cloud the afternoon. She met +Peter at the door of Mr. Baxter's office, and they went laughing out +into the clear winter sunshine together. + +Where first? To Roos Brothers, for one of the new folding trunks. Quite +near enough to walk, they decided, joining the released throng of +office workers who were streaming up to Kearney Street and the theater +district. + +The trunk was found, and a very smart pigskin toilet-case to go in the +trunk; Susan found a sort of fascination in the ease with which a +person of Peter's income could add a box of silk socks to his purchase, +because their color chanced to strike his fancy, could add two or three +handsome ties. They strolled along Kearney Street and Post Street, and +Susan selected an enormous bunch of violets at Podesta and Baldocchi's, +declining the unwholesome-looking orchid that was Peter's choice. They +bought a camera, which was left that a neat "P.W.C." might be stamped +upon it, and went into Shreve's, a place always fascinating to Susan, +to leave Mr. Coleman's watch to be regulated, and look at new +scarf-pins. And finally they wandered up into "Chinatown," as the +Chinese quarter was called, laughing all the way, and keenly alert for +any little odd occurrence in the crowded streets. At Sing Fat's +gorgeous bazaar, Peter bought a mandarin coat for himself, the smiling +Oriental bringing its price down from two hundred dollars to less than +three-quarters of that sum, and Susan taking a great fancy to a little +howling teakwood god; he bought that, too, and they named it "Claude" +after much discussion. + +"We can't carry all these things to the University Club for tea," said +Peter then, when it was nearly five o'clock. "So let's go home and have +tea with Aunt Clara--she'd love it!" + +Tea at his own home! Susan's heart raced-- + +"Oh, I couldn't," she said, in duty bound. + +"Couldn't? Why couldn't you?" + +"Why, because Auntie mightn't like it. Suppose your aunt is out?" + +"Shucks!" he pondered; he wanted his way. "I'll tell you," he said +suddenly. "We'll drive there, and if Aunt Clara isn't home you needn't +come in. How's that?" + +Susan could find no fault with that. She got into a carriage in great +spirits. + +"Don't you love it when we stop people on the crossings?" she asked +naively. Peter shouted, but she could see that he was pleased as well +as amused. + +They bumped and rattled out Bush Street, and stopped at the stately +door of the old Baxter mansion. Mrs. Baxter fortunately was at home, +and Susan followed Peter into the great square hall, and into the +magnificent library, built in a day of larger homes and more splendid +proportions. Here she was introduced to the little, nervous mistress of +the house, who had been enjoying alone a glorious coal fire. + +"Let in a little more light, Peter, you wild, noisy boy, you!" said +Mrs. Baxter, adding, to Susan, "This was a very sweet thing of you to +do, my dear, I don't like my little cup of tea alone." + +"Little cup--ha!" said Peter, eying the woman with immense +satisfaction. "You'll see her drink five, Miss Brown!" + +"We'll send him upstairs, that's what we'll do," threatened his aunt. +"Yes, tea, Burns," she added to the butler. "Green tea, dear? +Orange-Pekoe? I like that best myself. And muffins, Burns, and toast, +something nice and hot. And jam. Mr. Peter likes jam, and some of the +almond cakes, if she has them. And please ask Ada to bring me that box +of candy from my desk. Santa Barbara nougat, Peter, it just came." + +"ISN'T this fun!" said Susan, so joyously that Mrs. Baxter patted the +girl's arm with a veiny, approving little hand, and Peter, eying his +aunt significantly, said: "Isn't SHE fun?" + +It was a perfect hour, and when, at six, Susan said she must go, the +old lady sent her home in her own carriage. Peter saw her to the door, +"Shall you be going out to-night, sir?" Susan heard the younger +man-servant ask respectfully, as they passed. "Not to-night!" said +Peter, and, so sensitive was Susan now to all that concerned him, she +was unreasonably glad that he was not engaged to-night, not to see +other girls and have good times in which she had no share. It seemed to +make him more her own. + +The tea, the firelight, the fragrant dying violets had worked a spell +upon her. Susan sat back luxuriously in the carriage, dreaming of +herself as Peter Coleman's wife, of entering that big hall as +familiarly as he did, of having tea and happy chatter ready for him +every afternoon before the fire---- + +There was no one at the windows, unfortunately, to be edified by the +sight of Susan Brown being driven home in a private carriage, and the +halls, as she entered, reeked of boiling cabbage and corned beef. She +groped in the darkness for a match with which to light the hall gas. +She could hear Loretta Barker's sweet high voice chattering on behind +closed doors, and, higher up, the deep moaning of Mary Lord, who was +going through one of her bad times. But she met nobody as she ran up to +her room. + +"Hello, Mary Lou, darling! Where's everyone?" she asked gaily, +discerning in the darkness a portly form prone on the bed. + +"Jinny's lying down, she's been to the oculist. Ma's in the +kitchen--don't light up, Sue," said the patient, melancholy voice. + +"Don't light up!" Susan echoed, amazedly, instantly doing so, the +better to see her cousin's tear-reddened eyes and pale face. "Why, +what's the matter?" + +"Oh, we've had sad, sad news," faltered Mary Lou, her lips trembling. +"A telegram from Ferd Eastman. They've lost Robbie!" + +"No!" said Susan, genuinely shocked. And to the details she listened +sympathetically, cheering Mary Lou while she inserted cuff-links into +her cousin's fresh shirtwaist, and persuaded her to come down to +dinner. Then Susan must leave her hot soup while she ran up to +Virginia's room, for Virginia was late. + +"Ha! What is it?" said Virginia heavily, rousing herself from sleep. +Protesting that she was a perfect fright, she kept Susan waiting while +she arranged her hair. + +"And what does Verriker say of your eyes, Jinny?" + +"Oh, they may operate, after all!" Virginia sighed. "But don't say +anything to Ma until we're sure," she said. + +Not the congenial atmosphere into which to bring a singing heart! Susan +sighed. When they went downstairs Mrs. Parker's heavy voice was filling +the dining-room. + +"The world needs good wives and mothers more than it needs nuns, my +dear! There's nothing selfish about a woman who takes her share of toil +and care and worry, instead of running away from it. Dear me! many of +us who married and stayed in the world would be glad enough to change +places with the placid lives of the Sisters!" + +"Then, Mama," Loretta said sweetly and merrily, detecting the +inconsistency of her mother's argument, as she always did, "if it's +such a serene, happy life--" + +Loretta always carried off the honors of war. Susan used to wonder how +Mrs. Parker could resist the temptation to slap her pretty, stupid +little face. Loretta's deep, wise, mysterious smile seemed to imply +that she, at nineteen, could afford to assume the maternal attitude +toward her easily confused and disturbed parent. + +"No vocation for mine!" said Georgianna, hardily, "I'd always be +getting my habit mixed up, and coming into chapel without my veil on!" + +This, because of its audacity, made everyone laugh, but Loretta fixed +on Georgie the sweet bright smile in which Susan already perceived the +nun. + +"Are you so sure that you haven't a vocation, Georgie?" she asked +gently. + +"Want to go to a bum show at the 'Central' to-night?" Billy Oliver +inquired of Susan in an aside. "Bartlett's sister is leading lady, and +he's handing passes out to everyone." + +"Always!" trilled Susan, and at last she had a chance to add, "Wait +until I tell you what fun I've been having!" + +She told him when they were on the car, and he was properly interested, +but Susan felt that the tea episode somehow fell flat; had no +significance for William. + +"Crime he didn't take you to the University Club," said Billy, "they +say it's a keen club." + +Susan, smiling over happy memories, did not contradict him. + + The evening, in spite of the "bum" show, proved a great success, +and the two afterwards went to Zinkand's for sardine sandwiches and +domestic ginger-ale. This modest order was popular with them because of +the moderateness of its cost. + +"But, Bill," said Susan to-night, "wouldn't you like to order once +without reading the price first and then looking back to see what it +was? Do you remember the night we nearly fainted with joy when we found +a ten cent dish at Tech's, and then discovered that it was Chili Sauce!" + +They both laughed, Susan giving her usual little bounce of joy as she +settled into her seat, and the orchestra began a spirited selection. +"Look there, Bill, what are those people getting?" she asked. + +"It's terrapin," said William, and Susan looked it up on the menu. + +"Terrapin Parnasse, one-fifty," read Susan, "for seven of them,--Gee! +Gracious!" "Gracious" followed, because Susan had made up her mind not +to say "Gee" any more. + +"His little supper will stand him in about fifteen dollars," estimated +Billy, with deep interest. "He's ordering champagne,--it'll stand him +in thirty. Gosh!" + +"What would you order if you could, Bill?" Susan asked. It was all part +of their usual program. + +"Planked steak," answered Billy, readily. + +"Planked steak," Susan hunted for it, "would it be three dollars?" she +asked, awed. + +"That's it." + +"I'd have breast of hen pheasant with Virginia ham," Susan decided. A +moment later her roving eye rested on a group at a nearby table, and, +with the pleased color rushing into her race, she bowed to one of the +members of the party. + +"That's Miss Emily Saunders," said Susan, in a low voice. "Don't look +now--now you can look. Isn't she sweet?" + +Miss Saunders, beautifully gowned, was sitting with an old man, an +elderly woman, a handsome, very stout woman of perhaps forty, and a +very young man. She was a pale, rather heavy girl, with prominent eyes +and smooth skin. Susan thought her very aristocratic looking. + +"Me for the fat one," said Billy simply. "Who's she?" + +"I don't know. DON'T let them see us looking, Bill!" Susan brought her +gaze suddenly back to her own table, and began a conversation. + +There were some rolls on a plate, between them, but there was no butter +on the table. Their order had not yet been served. + +"We want some butter here," said Billy, as Susan took a roll, broke it +in two, and laid it down again. + +"Oh, don't bother, Bill! I don't honestly want it!" she protested. + +"Rot!" said William. "He's got a right to bring it!" In a moment a +head-waiter was bending over them, his eyes moving rapidly from one to +the other, under contracted brows. + +"Butter, please," said William briskly. + +"Beg pardon?" + +"BUTTER. We've no butter." + +"Oh, certainly!" He was gone in a second, and in another the butter was +served, and Susan and Billy began on the rolls. + +"Here comes Miss---, your friend," said William presently. + +Susan whirled. Miss Saunders and the very young man were looking toward +their table, as they went out. Catching Susan's eye, they came over to +shake hands. + +"How do you do, Miss Brown?" said the young woman easily. "My cousin, +Mr. Brice. He's nicer than he looks. Mr. Oliver? Were you at the +Columbia?" + +"We were--How do you do? No, we weren't at the Columbia," Susan +stammered, confused by the other's languid ease of manner, by the +memory of the playhouse they had attended, and by the arrival of the +sardines and ginger-ale, which were just now placed on the table. + +"I'm coming to take you to lunch with me some day, remember," said Miss +Saunders, departing. And she smiled another farewell from the door. + +"Isn't she sweet?" said Susan. + +"And how well she would come along just as our rich and expensive order +is served!" Billy added, and they both laughed. + +"It looks good to ME!" Susan assured him contentedly. "I'll give you +half that other sandwich if you can tell me what the orchestra is +playing now." + +"The slipper thing, from 'Boheme'," Billy said scornfully. Susan's eyes +widened with approval and surprise. His appreciation of music was an +incongruous note in Billy's character. + +There was presently a bill to settle, which Susan, as became a lady, +seemed to ignore. But she could not long ignore her escort's scowling +scrutiny of it. + +"What's that?" demanded Mr. Oliver, scowling at the card. "Twenty cents +for WHAT?" + +"For bread and butter, sir," said the waiter, in a hoarse, confidential +whisper. "Not served with sandwiches, sir." Susan's heart began to +thump. + +"Billy--" she began. + +"Wait a minute," Billy muttered. "Just wait a minute! It doesn't say +anything about that." + +The waiter respectfully indicated a line on the menu card, which Mr. +Oliver studied fixedly, for what seemed to Susan a long time. + +"That's right," he said finally, heavily, laying a silver dollar on the +check. "Keep it." The waiter did not show much gratitude for his tip. +Susan and Billy, ruffled and self-conscious, walked, with what dignity +they could, out into the night. + +"Damn him!" said Billy, after a rapidly covered half-block. + +"Oh, Billy, don't! What do you care!" Susan said, soothingly. + +"I don't care," he snapped. Adding, after another brooding minute, "we +ought to have better sense than to go into such places!" + +"We're as good as anyone else!" Susan asserted, hotly. + +"No, we're not. We're not as rich," he answered bitterly. + +"Billy, as if MONEY mattered!" + +"Oh, of course, money doesn't matter," he said with fine satire. "Not +at all! But because we haven't got it, those fellows, on thirty per, +can throw the hooks into us at every turn. And, if we threw enough +money around, we could be the rottenest man and woman on the face of +the globe, we could be murderers and thieves, even, and they'd all be +falling over each other to wait on us!" + +"Well, let's murder and thieve, then!" said Susan blithely. + +"I may not do that--" + +"You mayn't? Oh, Bill, don't commit yourself! You may want to, later." + +"I may not do that," repeated Mr. Oliver, gloomily, "but, by George, +some day I'll have a wad in the bank that'll make me feel that I can +afford to turn those fellows down! They'll know that I've got it, all +right." + +"Bill, I don't think that's much of an ambition," Susan said, candidly, +"to want so much money that you aren't afraid of a waiter! Get some +crisps while we're passing the man, Billy!" she interrupted herself to +say, urgently, "we can talk on the car!" + +He bought them, grinning sheepishly. + +"But honestly, Sue, don't you get mad when you think that about the +only standard of the world is money?" he resumed presently. + +"Well, we know that we're BETTER than lots of rich people, Bill." + +"How are we better?" + +"More refined. Better born. Better ancestry." + +"Oh, rot! A lot they care for that! No, people that have money can get +the best of people who haven't, coming and going. And for that reason, +Sue," they were on the car now, and Billy was standing on the running +board, just in front of her, "for that reason, Sue, I'm going to MAKE +money, and when I have so much that everyone knows it then I'll do as I +darn please. And I won't please to do the things they do, either!" + +"You're very sure of yourself, Bill! How are you going to make it?" + +"The way other men make it, by gosh!" Mr. Oliver said seriously. "I'm +going into blue-printing with Ross, on the side. I've got nearly three +thousand in Panhandle lots--" + +"Oh, you have NOT!" + +"Oh, I have, too! Spence put me onto it. They're no good now, but you +bet your life they will be! And I'm going to stick along at the foundry +until the old man wakes up some day, and realizes that I'm getting more +out of my men than any other two foremen in the place. Those boys would +do anything for me--" + +"Because you're a very unusual type of man to be in that sort of place, +Bill!" Susan interrupted. + +"Shucks," he said, in embarrassment. "Well," he resumed, "then some day +I'm going to the old man and ask him for a year's leave. Then I'll +visit every big iron-works in the East, and when I come back, I'll take +a job of casting from my own blue-prints, at not less than a hundred a +week. Then I'll run up some flats in the Panhandle--" + +"Having married the beautiful daughter of the old man himself--" Susan +interposed. "And won first prize in the Louisiana lottery--" + +"Sure," he said gravely. "And meanwhile," he added, with a +business-like look, "Coleman has got a crush on you, Sue. It'd be a +dandy marriage for you, and don't you forget it!" + +"Well, of all nerve!" Susan said unaffectedly, and with flaming cheeks. +"There is a little motto, to every nation dear, in English it's +forget-me-not, in French it's mind your own business, Bill!" + +"Well, that may be," he said doggedly, "but you know as well as I do +that it's up to you--" + +"Suppose it is," Susan said, satisfied that he should think so. "That +doesn't give YOU any right to interfere with my affairs!" + +"You're just like Georgie and Mary Lou," he told her, "always bluffing +yourself. But you've got more brains than they have, Sue, and it'd give +the whole crowd of them a hand up if you made a marriage like that. +Don't think I'm trying to butt in," he gave her his winning, apologetic +smile, "you know I'm as interested as your own brother could be, Sue! +If you like him, don't keep the matter hanging fire. There's no +question that he's crazy about you--everybody knows that!" + +"No, there's no question about THAT," Susan said, softly. + +But what would she not have given for the joy of knowing, in her secret +heart, that it was true! + +Two weeks later, Miss Brown, summoned to Mr. Brauer's office, was asked +if she thought that she could do the crediting, at forty dollars a +month. Susan assented gravely, and entered that day upon her new work, +and upon a new era. She worked hard and silently, now, with only +occasional flashes of her old silliness. She printed upon a card, and +hung above her desk, these words: + + "I hold it true, with him who sings + To one clear harp in divers tones, + That men may rise on stepping-stones + Of their dead selves, to higher things." + +On stepping-stones of her dead selves, Susan mounted. She wore a +preoccupied, a responsible air, her voice softened, her manner was +almost too sweet, too bright and gentle. She began to take cold, or +almost cold, baths daily, to brush her hair and mend her gloves. She +began to say "Not really?" instead of "Sat-so?" and "It's of no +consequence," instead of "Don't matter." She called her long woolen +coat, familiarly known as her "sweater," her "field-jacket," and +pronounced her own name "Syusan." Thorny, Georgianna, and Billy had +separately the pleasure of laughing at Susan in these days. + +"They should really have a lift, to take the girls up to the lunch +room," said Susan to Billy. + +"Of course they should," said Billy, "and a sink to bring you down +again!" + +Peter Coleman did not return to San Francisco until the middle of +March, but Susan had two of the long, ill-written and ill-spelled +letters that are characteristic of the college graduate. It was a wet +afternoon in the week before Holy Week when she saw him again. Front +Office was very busy at three o'clock, and Miss Garvey had been telling +a story. + +"'Don't whistle, Mary, there's a good girl,' the priest says," related +Miss Garvey. "'I never like to hear a girl whistle,' he says. Well, so +that night Aggie,"--Aggie was Miss Kelly--"Aggie wrote a question, and +she put it in the question-box they had at church for questions during +the Mission. 'Is it a sin to whistle?' she wrote. And that night, when +he was readin' the questions out from the pulpit, he come to this one, +and he looked right down at our pew over his glasses, and he says, 'The +girl that asks this question is here,' he says, 'and I would say to +her, 'tis no sin to do anything that injures neither God nor your +neighbor!' Well, I thought Aggie and me would go through the floor!" +And Miss Kelly and Miss Garvey put their heads down on their desks, and +laughed until they cried. + +Susan, looking up to laugh too, felt a thrill weaken her whole body, +and her spine grow cold. Peter Coleman, in his gloves and big overcoat, +with his hat on the back of his head, was in Mr. Brauer's office, and +the electric light, turned on early this dark afternoon, shone full in +his handsome, clean-shaven face. + +Susan had some bills that she had planned to show to Mr. Brauer this +afternoon. Six months ago she would have taken them in to him at once, +and been glad of the excuse. But now she dropped her eyes, and busied +herself with her work. Her heart beat high, she attacked a particularly +difficult bill, one she had been avoiding for days, and disposed of it +in ten minutes. + +A little later she glanced at Mr. Brauer's office. Peter was gone, and +Susan felt a sensation of sickness. She looked down at Mr. Baxter's +office, and saw him there, spreading kodak pictures over the old man's +desk, laughing and talking. Presently he was gone again, and she saw +him no more that day. + +The next day, however, she found him at her desk when she came in. They +had ten minutes of inconsequential banter before Miss Cashell came in. + +"How about a fool trip to the Chutes to-morrow night?" Peter asked in a +low tone, just before departing. + +"Lent," Susan said reluctantly. + +"Oh, so it is. I suppose Auntie wouldn't stand for a dinner?" + +"Pos-i-to-ri-ly NOT!" Susan was hedged with convention. + +"Positorily not? Well, let's walk the pup? What? All right, I'll come +at eight." + +"At eight," said Susan, with a dancing heart. + +She thought of nothing else until Friday came, slipped away from the +office a little earlier than usual, and went home planning just the +gown and hat most suitable. Visitors were in the parlor; Auntie, +thinking of pan-gravy and hot biscuits, was being visibly driven to +madness by them. Susan charitably took Mrs. Cobb and Annie and Daisy +off Mrs. Lancaster's hands, and listened sympathetically to a +dissertation upon the thanklessness of sons. Mrs. Cobb's sons, leaving +their mother and their unmarried sisters in a comfortable home, had +married the women of their own choice, and were not yet forgiven. + +"And how's Alfie doing?" Mrs. Cobb asked heavily, departing. + +"Pretty well. He's in Portland now, he has another job," Susan said +cautiously. Alfred was never criticized in his mother's hearing. A +moment later she closed the hall door upon the callers with a sigh of +relief, and ran downstairs. + +The telephone bell was ringing. Susan answered it. + +"Hello Miss Brown! You see I know you in any disguise!" It was Peter +Coleman's voice. + +"Hello!" said Susan, with a chill premonition. + +"I'm calling off that party to-night," said Peter. "I'm awfully sorry. +We'll do it some other night. I'm in Berkeley." + +"Oh, very well!" Susan agreed, brightly. + +"Can you HEAR me? I say I'm---" + +"Yes, I hear perfectly." + +"What?" + +"I say I can hear!" + +"And it's all right? I'm awfully sorry!" + +"Oh, certainly!" + +"All right. These fellows are making such a racket I can't hear you. +See you to-morrow!" + +Susan hung up the receiver. She sat quite still in the darkness for +awhile, staring straight ahead of her. When she went into the +dining-room she was very sober. Mr. Oliver was there; he had taken one +of his men to a hospital, with a burned arm, too late in the afternoon +to make a return to the foundry worth while. + +"Harkee, Susan wench!" said he, "do 'ee smell asparagus?" + +"Aye. It'll be asparagus, Gaffer," said Susan dispiritedly, dropping +into her chair. + +"And I nearly got my dinner out to-night!" Billy said, with a shudder. +"Say, listen, Susan, can you come over to the Carrolls, Sunday? Going +to be a bully walk!" + +"I don't know, Billy," she said quietly. + +"Well, listen what we're all going to do, some Thursday. We're going to +the theater, and then dawdle over supper at some cheap place, you know, +and then go down on the docks, at about three, to see the fishing fleet +come in? Are you on? It's great. They pile the fish up to their waists, +you know--" + +"That sounds lovely!" said Susan, eying him scornfully. "I see Jo and +Anna Carroll enjoying THAT!" + +"Lord, what a grouch you've got!" Billy said, with a sort of awed +admiration. + +Susan began to mold the damp salt in an open glass salt-cellar with the +handle of a fork. Her eyes blurred with sudden tears. + +"What's the matter?" Billy asked in a lowered voice. + +She gulped, merely shook her head. + +"You're dead, aren't you?" he said repentantly. + +"Oh, all in!" It was a relief to ascribe it to that. "I'm awfully +tired." + +"Too tired to go to church with Mary Lou and me, dear?" asked Virginia, +coming in. "Friday in Passion Week, you know. We're going to St. +Ignatius. But if you're dead--?" + +"Oh, I am. I'm going straight to bed," Susan said. But after dinner, +when Mary Lou was dressing, she suddenly changed her mind, dragged +herself up from the couch where she was lying and, being Susan, brushed +her hair, pinned a rose on her coat lapel, and powdered her nose. +Walking down the street with her two cousins, Susan, storm-shaken and +subdued, still felt "good," and liked the feeling. Spring was in the +air, the early darkness was sweet with the odors of grass and flowers. + +When they reached the church, the great edifice was throbbing with the +notes of the organ, a careless voluntary that stopped short, rambled, +began again. They were early, and the lights were only lighted here and +there; women, and now and then a man, drifted up the center aisle. +Boots cheeped unseen in the arches, sibilant whispers smote the +silence, pew-doors creaked, and from far corners of the church violent +coughing sounded with muffled reverberations. Mary Lou would have +slipped into the very last pew, but Virginia led the way up--up--up--in +the darkness, nearer and nearer the altar, with its winking red light, +and genuflected before one of the very first pews. Susan followed her +into it with a sigh of satisfaction; she liked to see and hear, and all +the pews were open to-night. They knelt for awhile, then sat back, +silent, reverential, but not praying, and interested in the arriving +congregation. + +A young woman, seeing Virginia, came to whisper to her in a rasping +aside. She "had St. Joseph" for Easter, she said, would Virginia help +her "fix him"? Virginia nodded, she loved to assist those devout young +women who decorated, with exquisite flowers and hundreds of candles, +the various side altars of the church. + +There was a constant crisping of shoes in the aisle now, the pews were +filling fast. "Lord, where do all these widows come from?" thought +Susan. A "Brother," in a soutane, was going about from pillar to +pillar, lighting the gas. Group after group of the pendent globes +sprang into a soft, moony glow; the hanging glass prisms jingled +softly. The altar-boys in red, without surplices, were moving about the +altar now, lighting the candles. The great crucifix, the +altar-paintings and the tall candle-sticks were swathed in purple +cloth, there were no flowers to-night on the High Altar, but it +twinkled with a thousand candles. + +The hour began to have its effect on Susan. She felt herself a little +girl again, yielding to the spell of the devotion all about her; the +clicking rosary-beads, the whispered audible prayers, the very +odors,--odors of close-packed humanity,--that reached her were all a +part of this old mood. A little woman fluttered up the aisle, and +squeezed in beside her, panting like a frightened rabbit. Now there was +not a seat to be seen, even the benches by the confessionals were full. + +And now the organ broke softly, miraculously, into enchanting and +enveloping sound, that seemed to shake the church bodily with its great +trembling touch, and from a door on the left of the altar the +procession streamed,--altar-boys and altar-boys and altar-boys, +followed through the altar-gate by the tall young priest who would "say +the Stations." Other priests, a score of them, filled the altar-stalls; +one, seated on the right between two boys, would presently preach. + +The procession halted somewhere over in the distant: arches, the organ +thundered the "Stabat Mater." Susan could only see the candles and the +boys, but the priest's voice was loud and clear. The congregation knelt +and rose again, knelt and rose again, turned and swayed to follow the +slow movement of the procession about the church. + +When priest and boys had returned to the altar, a wavering high soprano +voice floated across the church in an intricate "Veni Creator." Susan +and Mary Lou sat back in their seats, but Virginia knelt, wrapped in +prayer, her face buried in her hands, her hat forcing the woman in +front of her to sit well forward in her place. + +The pulpit was pushed across a little track laid in the altar +enclosure, and the preacher mounted it, shook his lace cuffs into +place, laid his book and notes to one side, and composedly studied his +audience. + +"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, +Amen. 'Ask and ye shall receive---'" suddenly the clear voice rang out. + +Susan lost the sermon. But she got the text, and pondered it with new +interest. It was not new to her. She had "asked" all her life long; for +patience, for truthfulness, for "final perseverance," for help for +Virginia's eyes and Auntie's business and Alfie's intemperance, for the +protection of this widow, the conversion of that friend, "the speedy +recovery or happy death" of some person dangerously ill. Susan had +never slipped into church at night with Mary Lou, without finding some +special request to incorporate in her prayers. + +To-night, in the solemn pause of Benediction, she asked for Peter +Coleman's love. Here was a temporal favor, indeed, indicating a lesser +spiritual degree than utter resignation to the Divine Will. Susan was +not sure of her right to ask it. But, standing to sing the "Laudate," +there came a sudden rush of confidence and hope to her heart. She was +praying for this gift now, and that fact alone seemed to lift it above +the level of ordinary, earthly desires. Not entirely unworthy was any +hope that she could bring to this tribunal, and beg for on her knees. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Two weeks later she and Peter Coleman had their evening at the Chutes, +and a wonderful evening it was; then came a theater trip, and a Sunday +afternoon that they spent in idly drifting about Golden Gate Park, +enjoying the spring sunshine, and the holiday crowd, feeding the +animals and eating peanuts. Susan bowed to Thorny and the faithful +Wally on this last occasion and was teased by Thorny about Peter +Coleman the next day, to her secret pleasure. She liked anything that +made her friendship for Peter seem real, a thing noticed and accepted +by others, not all the romantic fabric of her own unfounded dreams. + +Tangible proof of his affection there was indeed, to display to the +eyes of her world. But it was for intangible proof that Susan's heart +longed day after day. In spite of comment and of envy from the office, +in spite of the flowers and messages and calls upon which Auntie and +the girls were placing such flattering significance, Susan was far too +honest with life not to realize that she had not even a thread by which +to hold Peter Coleman, that he had not given an instant's thought, and +did not wish to give an instant's thought to her, or to any woman, as a +possible sweetheart and wife. + +She surprised him, she amused him, she was the company he liked best, +easiest to entertain, most entertaining in turn, this she knew. He +liked her raptures over pleasures that would only have bored the other +girls he knew, he liked the ready nonsense that inspired answering +nonsense in him, the occasional flashes of real wit, the inexhaustible +originality of Susan's point-of-view. They had their own vocabulary, +phrases remembered from plays, good and bad, that they had seen +together, or overheard in the car; they laughed and laughed together at +a thousand things that Susan could not remember when she was alone, or, +remembering, found no longer amusing. This was all wonderful, but it +was not love. + +But, perhaps, she consoled herself, courtship, in his class, was not +the serious affair she had always known it to be in hers. Rich people +took nothing very seriously, yet they married and made good husbands +for all that. Susan would blame herself for daring to criticize, even +in the tiniest particular, the great gift that the gods laid at her +feet. + +One June day, when Susan felt rather ill, and was sitting huddled at +her desk, with chilled feet and burning cheeks, she was sent for by old +Mr. Baxter, and found Miss Emily Saunders in his office. The visitor +was chatting with Peter and the old man, and gaily carried Susan off to +luncheon, after Peter had regretted his inability to come too. They +went to the Palace Hotel, and Susan thought everything, Miss Emily +especially, very wonderful and delightful, and, warmed and sustained by +a delicious lunch, congratulated herself all during the afternoon that +she herself had risen to the demand of the occasion, had really been +"funny" and "nice," had really "made good." She knew Emily had been +amused and attracted, and suspected that she would hear from that +fascinating young person again. + +A few weeks later a letter came from Miss Saunders asking Susan to +lunch with the family, in their San Rafael home. Susan admired the +handsome stationery, the monogram, the bold, dashing hand. Something in +Mary Lou's and Georgianna's pleasure in this pleasure for her made her +heart ache as she wrote her acceptance. She was far enough from the +world of ease and beauty and luxury, but how much further were these +sweet, uncomplaining, beauty-starved cousins of hers! + +Mary Lou went with her to the ferry, when the Sunday came, just for a +ride on the hot day, and the two, being early, roamed happily over the +great ferry building, watching German and Italian picnics form and file +through the gateways, and late-comers rush madly up to the closing +doors. Susan had been to church at seven o'clock, and had since washed +her hair, and washed and pressed her best shirtwaist, but she felt +fresh and gay. + +Presently, with a shout of pleasure that drew some attention to their +group, Peter Coleman came up to them. It appeared that he was to be +Miss Saunders' guest at luncheon, too, and he took charge of the +radiant Susan with evident satisfaction, and much laughter. + +"Dear me! I wish I was going, too," said Mary Lou mildly, as they +parted. "But I presume a certain young man is very glad I am not," she +added, with deep finesse. Peter laughed out, but turned red, and Susan +wished impatiently that Mary Lou would not feel these embarrassing +inanities to be either welcome or in good taste. + +But no small cloud could long shadow the perfect day. The Saunders' +home, set in emerald lawns, brightened by gay-striped awnings, fragrant +with flowers indoors and out, was quite the most beautiful she had ever +seen. Emily's family was all cordiality; the frail, nervous, richly +dressed little mother made a visible effort to be gracious to this +stranger, and Emily's big sister, Ella, in whom Susan recognized the +very fat young woman of the Zinkand party, was won by Susan's +irrepressible merriment to abandon her attitude of bored, good-natured +silence, and entered into the conversation at luncheon with sudden +zest. The party was completed by Mrs. Saunders' trained nurse, Miss +Baker, a placid young woman who did not seem, to Susan, to appreciate +her advantages in this wonderful place, and the son of the house, +Kenneth, a silent, handsome, pale young man, who confined his remarks +during luncheon to the single observation, made to Peter, that he was +"on the wagon." + +The guest wondered what dinner would be, if this were luncheon merely. +Everything was beautifully served, smoking hot or icy cold, garnished +and seasoned miraculously. Subtle flavors contended with other flavors, +whipped cream appeared in most unexpected places--on the bouillon, and +in a rosette that topped the salad--of the hot bread and the various +chutneys and jellies and spiced fruits and cheeses and olives alone, +Susan could have made a most satisfactory meal. She delighted in the +sparkling glass, the heavy linen and silver, the exquisite flowers. +Together they seemed to form a lulling draught for her senses; Susan +felt as if undue cold, undue heat, haste and worry and work, the office +with its pencil-dust and ink-stains and her aunt's house, odorous, +dreary and dark, were alike a half-forgotten dream. + +After luncheon they drove to a bright, wide tennis-court, set in +glowing gardens, and here Susan was introduced to a score of noisy, +white-clad young people, and established herself comfortably on a bench +near the older women, to watch the games. This second social experience +was far happier than her first, perhaps because Susan resolutely put +her thoughts on something else than herself to-day, watched and +laughed, talked when she could, was happily silent when she could not, +and battled successfully with the thought of neglect whenever it raised +its head. Bitter as her lesson had been she was grateful for it to-day. + +Peter, very lithe, very big, gloriously happy, played in one set, and, +winning, came to throw himself on the grass at Susan's feet, panting +and hot. This made Susan the very nucleus of the gathering group, the +girls strolled up under their lazily twirling parasols, the men ranged +themselves beside Peter on the lawn. Susan said very little; again she +found the conversation a difficult one to enter, but to-day she did not +care; it was a curious, and, as she was to learn later, a +characteristic conversation, and she analyzed it lazily as she listened. + +There was a bright insincerity about everything they said, a languid +assumption that nothing in the world was worth an instant's +seriousness, whether it was life or death, tragedy or pathos. Susan had +seen this before in Peter, she saw him in his element now. He laughed +incessantly, as they all did. The conversation called for no particular +effort; it consisted of one or two phrases repeated constantly, and +with varying inflections, and interspersed by the most trivial and +casual of statements. To-day the phrase, "Would a nice girl DO that?" +seemed to have caught the general fancy. Susan also heard the verb to +love curiously abused. + +"Look out, George--your racket!" some girl said vigorously. + +"Would a nice girl DO that? I nearly put your eye out, didn't I? I tell +you all I'm a dangerous character," her neighbor answered laughingly. + +"Oh, I love that!" another girl's voice said, adding presently, "Look +at Louise's coat. Don't you love it?" + +"I love it," said several voices. Another languidly added, "I'm crazy +about it." + +"I'm crazy about it," said the wearer modestly, "Aunt Fanny sent it." + +"Can a nice girl DO that?" asked Peter, and there was a general shout. + +"But I'm crazy about your aunt," some girl asserted, "you know she told +Mother that I was a perfect little lady--honestly she did! Don't you +love that?" + +"Oh, I LOVE that," Emily Saunders said, as freshly as if coining the +phrase. "I'm crazy about it!" + +"Don't you love it? You've got your aunt's number," they all said. And +somebody added thoughtfully, "Can a nice girl DO that?" + +How sure of themselves they were, how unembarrassed and how marvelously +poised, thought Susan. How casually these fortunate young women could +ask what friends they pleased to dinner, could plan for to-day, +to-morrow, for all the days that were! Nothing to prevent them from +going where they wanted to go, buying what they fancied, doing as they +pleased! Susan felt that an impassable barrier stood between their +lives and hers. + +Late in the afternoon Miss Ella, driving in with a gray-haired young +man in a very smart trap, paid a visit to the tennis court, and was +rapturously hailed. She was evidently a great favorite. + +"See here, Miss Brown," she called out, after a few moments, noticing +Susan, "don't you want to come for a little spin with me?" + +"Very much," Susan said, a little shyly. + +"Get down, Jerry," Miss Saunders said, giving her companion a little +shove with her elbow. + +"Look here, who you pushing?" demanded the gray-haired young man, +without venom. + +"I'm pushing you." + +"'It's habit. I keep right on loving her!'" quoted Mr. Phillips to the +bystanders. But he got lazily down, and Susan got up, and they were +presently spinning away into the quiet of the lovely, warm summer +afternoon. + +Miss Saunders talked rapidly, constantly, and well. Susan was amused +and interested, and took pains to show it. In great harmony they spent +perhaps an hour in driving, and were homeward bound when they +encountered two loaded buckboards, the first of which was driven by +Peter Coleman. + +Miss Saunders stopped the second, to question her sister, who, held on +the laps of a girl and young man on the front seat, was evidently in +wild spirits. + +"We're only going up to Cameroncourt!" Miss Emily shouted cheerfully. +"Keep Miss Brown to dinner! Miss Brown, I'll never speak to you again +if you don't stay!" And Susan heard a jovial echo of "Can a nice girl +DO that?" as they drove away. + +"A noisy, rotten crowd," said Miss Saunders. "Mamma hates Emily to go +with them, and what my cousins--the Bridges and the Eastenbys of +Maryland are our cousins, I've just been visiting them--would say to a +crowd like that I hate to think! That's why I wanted Emily to come out +in Washington. You know we really have no connections here, and no old +friends. My uncle, General Botheby Hargrove, has a widowed daughter +living with him in Baltimore, Mrs. Stephen Kay, she is now,--well, I +suppose she's really in the most exclusive little set you could find +anywhere--" + +Susan listened interestedly. But when they were home again, and Ella +was dressing for some dinner party, she very firmly declined the old +lady's eager invitation to remain. She was a little more touched by +Emily's rudeness than she would admit, a little afraid to trust herself +any further to so uncertain a hostess. + +She went soberly home, in the summer twilight, soothed in spite of +herself by the beauty of the quiet bay, and pondering deeply. Had she +deserved this slight in any way? she wondered. Should she have come +away directly after luncheon? No, for they had asked her, with great +warmth, for dinner! Was it something that she should, in all dignity, +resent? Should Peter be treated a little coolly; Emily's next overture +declined? + +She decided against any display of resentment. It was only the strange +way of these people, no claim of courtesy was strong enough to offset +the counter-claim of any random desire. They were too used to taking +what they wanted, to forgetting what it was not entirely convenient to +remember. They would think it absurd, even delightfully amusing in her, +to show the least feeling. + +Arriving late, she gave her cousins a glowing account of the day, and +laughed with Georgie over the account of a call from Loretta's Doctor +O'Connor. "Loretta's beau having the nerve to call on me!" Georgie +said, with great amusement. + +Almost hourly, in these days when she saw him constantly, Susan tried +to convince herself that her heart was not quite committed yet to Peter +Coleman's keeping. But always without success. The big, sweet-tempered, +laughing fellow, with his generosity, his wealth, his position, had +become all her world, or rather he had become the reigning personage in +that other world at whose doorway Susan stood, longing and enraptured. + +A year ago, at the prospect of seeing him so often, of feeling so sure +of his admiration and affection, of calling him "Peter," Susan would +have felt herself only too fortunate. But these privileges, fully +realized now, brought her more pain than joy. A restless unhappiness +clouded their gay times together, and when she was alone Susan spent +troubled hours in analysis of his tones, his looks, his words. If a +chance careless phrase of his seemed to indicate a deepening of the +feeling between them, Susan hugged that phrase to her heart. If Peter, +on the other hand, eagerly sketched to her plans for a future that had +no place for her, Susan drooped, and lay wakeful and heartsick long +into the night. She cared for him truly and deeply, although she never +said so, even to herself, and she longed with all her ardent young soul +for the place in the world that awaited his wife. Susan knew that she +could fill it, that he would never be anything but proud of her; she +only awaited the word--less than a word!--that should give her the +right to enter into her kingdom. + +By all the conventions of her world these thoughts should not have come +to her until Peter's attitude was absolutely ascertained. But Susan was +honest with herself; she must have been curiously lacking in human +tenderness, indeed, NOT to have yielded her affection to so joyous and +so winning a claimant. + +As the weeks went by she understood his ideals and those of his +associates more and more clearly, and if Peter lost something of his +old quality as a god, by the analysis, Susan loved him all the more for +finding him not quite perfect. She knew that he was young, that his +head was perhaps a little turned by sudden wealth and popularity, that +life was sweet to him just as it was; he was not ready yet for +responsibilities and bonds. He thought Miss Susan Brown was the +"bulliest" girl he knew, loved to give her good times and resented the +mere mention of any other man's admiration for her. Of what could she +complain? + +Of course--Susan could imagine him as disposing of the thought +comfortably--she DIDN'T complain. She took things just as he wanted her +to, had a glorious time whenever she was with him, and was just as +happy doing other things when he wasn't about. Peter went for a month +to Tahoe this summer, and wrote Susan that there wasn't a fellow at the +hotel that was half as much fun as she was. He told her that if she +didn't immediately answer that she missed him like Hannibal he would +jump into the lake. + +Susan pondered over the letter. How answer it most effectively? If she +admitted that she really did miss him terribly--but Susan was afraid of +the statement, in cold black-and-white. Suppose that she hinted at +herself as consoled by some newer admirer? The admirer did not exist, +but Peter would not know that. She discarded this subterfuge as "cheap." + +But how did other girls manage it? The papers were full of engagements, +men WERE proposing matrimony, girls WERE announcing themselves as +promised, in all happy certainty. Susan decided that, when Peter came +home, she would allow their friendship to proceed just a little further +and then suddenly discourage every overture, refuse invitations, and +generally make herself as unpleasant as possible, on the ground that +Auntie "didn't like it." This would do one of two things, either stop +their friendship off short,--it wouldn't do that, she was happily +confident,--or commence things upon a new and more definite basis. + +But when Peter came back he dragged his little aunt all the way up to +Mr. Brauer's office especially to ask Miss Brown if she would dine with +them informally that very evening. This was definite enough! Susan +accepted and planned a flying trip home for a fresh shirtwaist at five +o'clock. But at five a troublesome bill delayed her, and Susan, +resisting an impulse to shut it into a desk drawer and run away from +it, settled down soberly to master it. She was conscious, as she shook +hands with her hostess two hours later, of soiled cuffs, but old Mr. +Baxter, hearing her apologies, brought her downstairs a beautifully +embroidered Turkish robe, in dull pinks and blues, and Susan, feeling +that virtue sometimes was rewarded, had the satisfaction of knowing +that she looked like a pretty gipsy during the whole evening, and was +immensely gratifying her old host as well. To Peter, it was just a +quiet, happy evening at home, with the pianola and flashlight +photographs, and a rarebit that wouldn't grow creamy in spite of his +and Susan's combined efforts. But to Susan it was a glimpse of Paradise. + +"Peter loves to have his girl friends dine here," smiled old Mrs. +Baxter in parting. "You must come again. He has company two or three +times a week." Susan smiled in response, but the little speech was the +one blot on a happy evening. + +Every happy time seemed to have its one blot. Susan would have her +hour, would try to keep the tenderness out of her "When do I see you +again, Peter?" to be met by his cheerful "Well, I don't know. I'm going +up to the Yellands' for a week, you know. Do you know Clare Yelland? +She's the dandiest girl you ever saw--nineteen, and a raving beauty!" +Or, wearing one of Peter's roses on her black office-dress, she would +have to smile through Thorny's interested speculations as to his +friendship for this society girl or that. "The Chronicle said yesterday +that he was supposed to be terribly crushed on that Washington girl," +Thorny would report. "Of course, no names, but you could tell who they +meant!" + +Susan began to talk of going away "to work." + +"Lord, aren't you working now?" asked William Oliver in healthy scorn. + +"Not working as hard as I could!" Susan said. "I can't--can't seem to +get interested--" Tears thickened her voice, she stopped short. + +The two were sitting on the upper step of the second flight of stairs +in the late evening, just outside the door of the room where Alfred +Lancaster was tossing and moaning in the grip of a heavy cold and +fever. Alfred had lost his position, had been drinking again, and now +had come home to his mother for the fiftieth time to be nursed and +consoled. Mrs. Lancaster, her good face all mother-love and pity, sat +at his side. Mary Lou wept steadily and unobtrusively. Susan and Billy +were waiting for the doctor. + +"No," the girl resumed thoughtfully, after a pause, "I feel as if I'd +gotten all twisted up and I want to go away somewhere and get started +fresh. I could work like a slave, Bill, in a great clean institution, +or a newspaper office, or as an actress. But I can't seem to straighten +things out here. This isn't MY house, I didn't have anything to do with +the making of it, and I can't feel interested in it. I'd rather do +things wrong, but do them MY way!" + +"It seems to me you're getting industrious all of a sudden, Sue." + +"No." She hardly understood herself. "But I want to GET somewhere in +this life, Bill," she mused. "I don't want to sit back and wait for +things to come to me. I want to go to them. I want some alternative. So +that--" her voice sank, "so that, if marriage doesn't come, I can say +to myself, 'Never mind, I've got my work!'" + +"Just as a man would," he submitted thoughtfully. + +"Just as a man would," she echoed, eager for his sympathy. + +"Well, that's Mrs. Carroll's idea. She says that very often, when a +girl thinks she wants to get married, what she really wants is +financial independence and pretty clothes and an interest in life." + +"I think that's perfectly true," Susan said, struck. "Isn't she wise?" +she added. + +"Yes, she's a wonder! Wise and strong,--she's doing too much now, +though. How long since you've been over there, Sue?" + +"Oh, ages! I'm ashamed to say. Months. I write to Anna now and then, +but somehow, on Sundays--" + +She did not finish, but his thoughts supplied the reason. Susan was +always at home on Sundays now, unless she went out with Peter Coleman. + +"You ought to take Coleman over there some day, Sue, they used to know +him when he was a kid. Let's all go over some Sunday." + +"That would be fun!" But he knew she did not mean it. The atmosphere of +the Carrolls' home, their poverty, their hard work, their gallant +endurance of privation and restriction were not in accord with Susan's +present mood. "How are all of them?" she presently asked, after an +interval, in which Alfie's moaning and the hoarse deep voice of Mary +Lord upstairs had been the only sounds. + +"Pretty good. Joe's working now, the little darling!" + +"Joe is! What at?" + +"She's in an architect's office, Huxley and Huxley. It's a pretty good +job, I guess." + +"But, Billy, doesn't that seem terrible? Joe's so beautiful, and when +you think how rich their grandfather was! And who's home?" + +"Well, Anna gets home from the hospital every other week, and Phil +comes home with Joe, of course. Jim's still in school, and Betsey helps +with housework. Betsey has a little job, too. She teaches an infant +class at that little private school over there." + +"Billy, don't those people have a hard time! Is Phil behaving?" + +"Better than he did. Yes, I guess he's pretty good now. But there are +all Jim's typhoid bills to pay. Mrs. Carroll worries a good deal. +Anna's an angel about everything, but of course Betts is only a kid, +and she gets awfully mad." + +"And Josephine," Susan smiled. "How's she?" + +"Honestly, Sue," Mr. Oliver's face assumed the engaging expression +reserved only for his love affairs, "she is the dearest little darling +ever! She followed me out to the porch on Sunday, and said 'Don't catch +cold, and die before your time,'--the little cutie!" + +"Oh, Bill, you imbecile! There's nothing to THAT," Susan laughed out +gaily. + +"Aw, well," he began affrontedly, "it was the little way she said it--" + +"Sh-sh!" said Mary Lou, white faced, heavy-eyed, at Alfred's door. +"He's just dropped off... The doctor just came up the steps, Bill, will +you go down and ask him to come right up? Why don't you go to bed, Sue?" + +"How long are you going to wait?" asked Susan. + +"Oh, just until after the doctor goes, I guess," Mary Lou sighed. + +"Well, then I'll wait for you. I'll run up and see Mary Lord a few +minutes. You stop in for me when you're ready." + +And Susan, blowing her cousin an airy kiss, ran noiselessly up the last +flight of stairs, and rapped on the door of the big upper front bedroom. + +This room had been Mary Lord's world for ten long years. The invalid +was on a couch just opposite the door, and looked up as Susan entered. +Her dark, rather heavy face brightened instantly. + +"Sue! I was afraid it was poor Mrs. Parker ready to weep about +Loretta," she said eagerly. "Come in, you nice child! Tell me something +cheerful!" + +"Raw ginger is a drug on the market," said Susan gaily. "Here, I +brought you some roses." + +"And I have eleven guesses who sent them," laughed Miss Lord, drinking +in the sweetness and beauty of the great pink blossoms hungrily. +"When'd they come?" + +"Just before dinner!" Susan told her. Turning to the invalid's sister +she said: "Miss Lydia, you're busy, and I'm disturbing you." + +"I wish you'd disturb us a little oftener, then," said Lydia Lord, +affectionately. "I can work all the better for knowing that Mary isn't +dying to interrupt me." + +The older sister, seated at a little table under the gaslight, was deep +in work. + +"She's been doing that every night this week," said Miss Mary angrily, +"as if she didn't have enough to do!" + +"What is it?" asked Susan. Miss Lydia threw down her pen, and stretched +her cramped fingers. + +"Why, Mrs. Lawrence's sister is going to be married," she explained, +"and the family wants an alphabetic list of friends to send the +announcements to. This is the old list, and this the new one, and +here's his list, and some names her mother jotted down,--they're all to +be put in order. It's quite a job." + +"At double pay, of course," Miss Mary said bitterly. + +"I should hope so," Susan added. + +Miss Lydia merely smiled humorously, benevolently, over her work. + +"All in the day's work, Susan." + +"All in your grandmother's foot," Susan said, inelegantly. Miss Lydia +laughed a little reproachfully, but the invalid's rare, hearty laugh +would have atoned to her for a far more irreverent remark. + +"And no 'Halma'?" Susan said, suddenly. For the invalid lived for her +game, every night. "Why didn't you tell me. I could have come up every +night--" She got out the board, set up the men, shook Mary's pillows +and pushed them behind the aching back. "Come on, Macduff," said she. + +"Oh, Susan, you angel!" Mary Lord settled herself for an hour of the +keenest pleasure she ever knew. She reared herself in her pillows, her +lanky yellow hand hovered over the board, she had no eyes for anything +but the absurd little red and yellow men. + +She was a bony woman, perhaps forty-five, with hair cut across her +lined forehead in the deep bang that had been popular in her girlhood. +It was graying now, as were the untidy loops of hair above it, her face +was yellow, furrowed, and the long neck that disappeared into her +little flannel bed-sack was lined and yellowed too. She lay, restlessly +and incessantly shifting herself, in a welter of slipping quilts and +loose blankets, with her shoulders propped by fancy pillows,--some made +of cigar-ribbons, one of braided strips of black and red satin, one in +a shield of rough, coarse knotted lace, and one with a little boy +printed in color upon it, a boy whose trousers were finished with real +tin buttons. Mary Lord was always the first person Susan thought of +when the girls in the office argued, ignorantly and vigorously, for or +against the law of compensation. Here, in this stuffy boarding-house +room, the impatient, restless spirit must remain, chained and tortured +day after day and year after year, her only contact with the outer +world brought by the little private governess,--her sister--who was +often so tired and so dispirited when she reached home, that even her +gallant efforts could not hide her depression from the keen eyes of the +sick woman. Lydia taught the three small children of one of the city's +richest women, and she and Mary were happy or were despondent in exact +accord with young Mrs. Lawrence's mood. If the great lady were +ungracious, were cold, or dissatisfied, Lydia trembled, for the little +sum she earned by teaching was more than two-thirds of all that she and +Mary had. If Mrs. Lawrence were in a happier frame of mind, Lydia +brightened, and gratefully accepted the occasional flowers or candy, +that meant to both sisters so much more than mere carnations or mere +chocolates. + +But if Lydia's life was limited, what of Mary, whose brain was so +active that merely to read of great and successful deeds tortured her +like a pain? Just to have a little share of the world's work, just to +dig and water the tiniest garden, just to be able to fill a glass for +herself with water, or to make a pudding, or to wash up the breakfast +dishes, would have been to her the most exquisite delight in the world. + +As it was she lay still, reading, sometimes writing a letter, or +copying something for Lydia, always eager for a game of "Halma" or +"Parchesi," a greater part of the time out of pain, and for a certain +part of the twenty-four hours tortured by the slow-creeping agonies +that waited for her like beasts in the darkness of every night. +Sometimes Susan, rousing from the deep delicious sleep that always +befriended her, would hear in the early morning, rarely earlier than +two o'clock or later than four, the hoarse call in the front room, +"Lyddie! Lyddie!" and the sleepy answer and stumbling feet of the +younger sister, as she ran for the merciful pill that would send Miss +Mary, spent with long endurance, into deep and heavenly sleep. Susan +had two or three times seen the cruel trial of courage that went before +the pill, the racked and twisting body, the bitten lip, the tortured +eyes on the clock. + +Twice or three times a year Miss Mary had very bad times, and had to +see her doctor. Perhaps four times a month Miss Lydia beamed at Susan +across the breakfast table, "No pill last night!" These were the +variations of the invalid's life. + +Susan, while Mary considered her moves to-night, studied the room idly, +the thousand crowded, useless little possessions so dear to the sick; +the china statuettes, the picture post-cards, the photographs and +match-boxes and old calendars, the dried "whispering-grass" and the +penwipers. Her eyes reached an old photograph; Susan knew it by heart. +It represented an old-fashioned mansion, set in a sweeping lawn, shaded +by great trees. Before one wing an open barouche stood, with driver and +lackey on the box, and behind the carriage a group of perhaps ten or a +dozen colored girls and men were standing on the steps, in the +black-and-white of house servants. On the wide main steps of the house +were a group of people, ladies in spreading ruffled skirts, a bearded, +magnificent old man, young men with heavy mustaches of the sixties, and +some small children in stiff white. Susan knew that the heavy big baby +on a lady's lap was Lydia, and that among the children Mary was to be +found, with her hair pushed straight back under a round-comb, and +scallops on the top of her high black boots. The old man was her +grandfather, and the house the ancestral home of the Lords... Whose +fault was it that just a little of that ease had not been safely +guarded for these two lonely women, Susan wondered. What WAS the secret +of living honestly, with the past, with the present, with those who +were to come? + +"Your play. Wake up. Sue!" laughed Mary. "I have you now, I can yard in +seven moves!" + +"No skill to that," said Susan hardily, "just sheer luck!" + +"Oh you wicked story-teller!" Mary laughed delightedly, and they set +the men for another game. + +"No, but you're really the lucky one, Sue," said the older woman +presently. + +"_I_ lucky!" and Susan laughed as she moved her man. + +"Well, don't you think you are?" + +"I think I'm darned unlucky!" the girl declared seriously. + +"Here--here! Descriptive adjectives!" called Lydia, but the others paid +no heed. + +"Sue, how can you say so!" + +"Well, I admit, Miss Mary," Susan said with pretty gravity, "that God +hasn't sent me what he has sent you to bear, for some inscrutable +reason,--I'd go mad if He had! But I'm poor--" + +"Now, look here," Mary said authoritatively. "You're young, aren't you? +And you're good-looking, aren't you?" + +"Don't mince matters, Miss Mary. Say beautiful," giggled Susan. + +"I'm in earnest. You're the youngest and prettiest woman in this house. +You have a good position, and good health, and no encumbrances--" + +"I have a husband and three children in the Mission, Miss Mary. I never +mentioned them--" + +"Oh, behave yourself, Sue! Well! And, more than that, you have--we +won't mention one special friend, because I don't want to make you +blush, but at least a dozen good friends among the very richest people +of society. You go to lunch with Miss Emily Saunders, and to Burlingame +with Miss Ella Saunders, you get all sorts of handsome presents--isn't +this all true?" + +"Absolutely," said Susan so seriously, so sadly, that the invalid laid +a bony cold one over the smooth brown one arrested on the "Halma" board. + +"Why, I wasn't scolding you, dearie!" she said kindly. "I just wanted +you to appreciate your blessings!" + +"I know--I know," Susan answered, smiling with an effort. She went to +bed a little while later profoundly depressed. + +It was all true, it was all true! But, now that she had it, it seemed +so little! She was beginning to be popular in the Saunders set,--her +unspoiled freshness appealed to more than one new friend, as it had +appealed to Peter Coleman and to Emily and Ella Saunders. She was +carried off for Saturday matinees, she was in demand for one Sunday +after another. She was always gay, always talkative, she had her value, +as she herself was beginning to perceive. And, although she met very +few society men, just now, being called upon to amuse feminine +luncheons or stay overnight with Emily when nobody else was at home, +still her social progress seemed miraculously swift to Thorny, to Billy +and Georgie and Virginia, even sometimes to herself. But she wanted +more--more--more! She wanted to be one of this group herself, to +patronize instead of accepting patronage. + +Slowly her whole nature changed to meet this new hope. She made use of +every hour now, discarded certain questionable expressions, read good +books, struggled gallantly with her natural inclination to +procrastinate. Her speech improved, the tones of her voice, her +carriage, she wore quiet colors how, and became fastidious in the +matter of belts and cuffs, buttons and collars and corsets. She +diverted Mary Lou by faithfully practicing certain beautifying +calisthenics at night. + +Susan was not deceived by the glittering, prismatic thing known as +Society. She knew that Peter Coleman's and Emily Saunders' reverence +for it was quite the weakest thing in their respective characters. She +knew that Ella's boasted family was no better than her own, and that +Peter's undeniable egoism was the natural result of Peter's +up-bringing, and that Emily's bright unselfish interest in her, +whatever it had now become, had commenced with Emily's simple desire to +know Peter through Susan, and have an excuse to come frequently to +Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's when Peter was there. + +Still, she could not divest these three of the old glory of her first +impressions. She liked Emily and Ella none the less because she +understood them better, and felt that, if Peter had his human +weaknesses, he was all the nearer her for that. + +Mrs. Lancaster would not allow her to dine down-town with him alone. +Susan laughed at the idea that she could possibly do anything +questionable, but kept the rule faithfully, and, if she went to the +theater alone with Peter, never let him take her to supper afterward. +But they had many a happy tea-hour together, and on Sundays lunched in +Sausalito, roamed over the lovely country roads, perhaps stopped for +tea at the Carrolls', or came back to the city and had it at the quiet +Palace. Twice Peter was asked to dine at Mrs. Lancaster's, but on the +first occasion he and Susan were begged by old Mrs. Baxter to come and +amuse her loneliness instead, and on the second Susan telephoned at the +last moment to say that Alfie was at home and that Auntie wanted to ask +Peter to come some other time. + +Alfie was at home for a dreadful week, during which the devoted women +suffered agonies of shame and terror. After that he secured, in the +miraculous way that Alfie always did secure, another position and went +away again. + +"I can stand Alfie," said Susan to Billy in strong disgust. "But it +does make me sick to have Auntie blaming his employers for firing him, +and calling him a dear unfortunate boy! She said to me to-day that the +other clerks were always jealous of Alfie, and tried to lead him +astray! Did you ever hear such blindness!" + +"She's always talked that way," Billy answered, surprised at her +vehemence. "You used to talk that way yourself. You're the one that has +changed." + +Winter came on rapidly. The mornings were dark and cold now when Susan +dressed, the office did not grow comfortably warm until ten o'clock, +and the girls wore their coats loose across their shoulders as they +worked. + +Sometimes at noon Miss Thornton and Susan fared forth into the cold, +sunny streets, and spent the last half of the lunch-hour in a brisk +walk. They went into the high-vaulted old Post Street Library for +books, threaded their way along Kearney Street, where the noontide +crowd was gaily ebbing and flowing, and loitered at the Flower Market, +at Lotta's Fountain, drinking in the glory of violets and daffodils, +under the winter sun. Now and then they lunched uptown at some +inexpensive restaurant that was still quiet and refined. The big hotels +were far too costly but there were several pretty lunchrooms, "The Bird +of Paradise," "The London Tearoom," and, most popular of all, "The +Ladies Exchange." + +The girls always divided a twenty-five-cent entree between them, and +each selected a ten-cent dessert, leaving a tip for the waitress out of +their stipulated half-dollar. It was among the unwritten laws that the +meal must appear to more than satisfy both. + +"Thorny, you've got to have the rest of this rice!" Susan would urge, +gathering the slender remains of "Curried chicken family style" in her +serving spoon. + +"Honestly, Susan, I couldn't! I've got more than I want here," was the +orthodox response. + +"It'll simply go to waste here," Susan always said, but somehow it +never did. The girls loitered over these meals, watching the other +tables, and the women who came to the counters to buy embroidered +baby-sacques, and home-made cakes and jellies. + +"Wouldn't you honestly like another piece of plum pie, Sue?" Thorny +would ask. + +"I? Oh, I couldn't! But YOU have one, Thorny--" + +"I simply couldn't!" So it was time to ask for the check. + +They were better satisfied, if less elegantly surrounded, when they +went to one of the downtown markets, and had fried oysters for lunch. +Susan loved the big, echoing places, cool on the hottest day, never too +cold, lined with long rows of dangling, picked fowls, bright with boxes +of apples and oranges. The air was pleasantly odorous of cheeses and +cooked meats, cocks crowed unseen in crates and cages, bare-headed boys +pushed loaded trucks through the narrow aisles. Susan and Miss Thornton +would climb a short flight of whitewashed stairs to a little lunch-room +over one of the oyster stalls. Here they could sit at a small table, +and look down at the market, the shoppers coming and going, stout +matrons sampling sausages and cheeses, and Chinese cooks, bareheaded, +bare-ankled, dressed in dark blue duck, selecting broilers and roasts. + +Their tablecloth here was coarse, but clean, and a generous management +supplied several sauces, a thick china bowl of crackers, a plate heaped +with bread, salty yellow butter, and saucers of boiled shrimps with +which guests might occupy themselves until the arrival of the oysters. +Presently the main dish arrived, some forty small, brown, buttery +oysters on each smoking hot plate. No pretense was necessary at this +meal, there was enough, and more than enough. Susan's cheeks would burn +rosily all afternoon. She and Thorny departing never tailed to remark, +"How can they do it for twenty-five cents?" and sometimes spent the +walk back to the office in a careful calculation of exactly what the +meal had cost the proprietor. + +"Did he send you a Christmas present?" asked Thorny one January day, +when an irregular bill had brought her to Susan's desk. + +"Who? Oh, Mr. Coleman?" Susan looked up innocently. "Yes, yes indeed he +did. A lovely silver bureau set. Auntie was in two minds about letting +me keep it." She studied the bill. "Well, that's the regular H. B. & H. +Talcum Powder," she said, "only he's made them a price on a dozen +gross. Send it back, and have Mr. Phil O. K. it!" + +"A silver set! You lucky kid! How many pieces?" + +"Oh, everything. Even toilet-water bottles, and a hatpin holder. +Gorgeous." Susan wrote "Mr. P. Hunter will please O. K." in the margin +against the questioned sale. + +"You take it pretty coolly, Sue," Miss Thornton said, curiously. + +"It's cool weather, Thorny dear." Susan smiled, locked her firm young +hands idly on her ledger, eyed Miss Thornton honestly. "How should I +take it?" said she. + +The silver set had filled all Mrs. Lancaster's house with awed +admiration on Christmas Day, but Susan could not forget that Peter had +been out of town on both holidays, and that she had gained her only +knowledge of his whereabouts from the newspapers. A handsome present +had been more than enough to satisfy her wildest dreams, the year +before. It was not enough now. + +"S'listen, Susan. You're engaged to him?" + +"Honestly,--cross my heart!--I'm not." + +"But you will be when he asks you?" + +"Thorny, aren't you awful!" Susan laughed; colored brilliantly. + +"Well, WOULDN'T you?" the other persisted. + +"I don't suppose one thinks of those things until they actually +happen," Susan said slowly, wrinkling a thoughtful forehead. Thorny +watched her for a moment with keen interest, then her own face softened +suddenly. + +"No, of course you don't!" she agreed kindly. "Do you mind my asking, +Sue?" + +"No-o-o!" Susan reassured her. As a matter of fact, she was glad when +any casual onlooker confirmed her own secret hopes as to the +seriousness of Peter Coleman's intention. + +Peter took her to church on Easter Sunday, and afterward they went to +lunch with his uncle and aunt, spent a delightful rainy afternoon with +books and the piano, and, in the casual way that only wealth makes +possible, were taken downtown to dinner by old Mr. Baxter at six +o'clock. Taking her home at nine o' clock, Peter told her that he was +planning a short visit to Honolulu with the Harvey Brocks. "Gee, I wish +you were going along!" he said. + +"Wouldn't it be fun!" Susan agreed. + +"Well, say! Mrs. Brock would love it--" he began eagerly. + +"Oh, Peter, don't talk nonsense!" Susan felt, at a moment like this, +that she actually disliked him. + +"I suppose it couldn't be worked," he said sadly. And no more of it was +said. + +He came into the office but once that week. Late in a summer-like +afternoon Susan looked down at Mr. Baxter's office to see Peter +spreading his steamer tickets on the desk. He looked up and laughed at +her, and later ran up to the deck for a few minutes to say good-bye. +They said it laughingly, among the hot-water bags and surgical +accessories, but when Susan went back to her desk the laughter had died +from her eyes. + +It was an unseasonably warm spring day, she was wearing the first +shirtwaist of the year, and had come downtown that morning through the +fresh early air on the dummy-front. It was hard to-day to be shut up in +a stuffy office. Outside, the watercarts were making the season's first +trip along Front Street and pedestrians chose the shady side to-day. +Susan thought of the big Oriental liner, the awnings that shaded the +decks, the exquisitely cool and orderly little cabins, the green water +rushing alongside. And for her the languorous bright afternoon had lost +its charm. + +She did not see Peter Coleman again for a long time. Summer came, and +Susan went on quiet little Sunday picnics to the beach with Auntie and +Mary Lou, or stayed at home and pressed her collars and washed her +hair. Once or twice she and Billy went over to the Carrolls' Sausalito +home, to spend a happy, quiet week-end. Susan gossiped with the busy, +cheerful mother over the dish-pan, played "Parchesi" with +fifteen-year-old Jim and seventeen-year-old Betsey, reveled in a +confidential, sisterly attitude with handsome Phil, the oldest of the +half-dozen, and lay awake deep into the warm nights to talk, and talk, +and talk with Josephine, who, at her own age, seemed to Susan a much +finer, stronger and more developed character. If Anna, the lovely +serious oldest daughter, happened to be at home on one of her rare +absences from the training-hospital, Susan became her shadow. She loved +few people in the world as she loved Anna Carroll. But, in a lesser +degree, she loved them all, and found these hours in the shabby, frugal +little home among the very happiest of a lonely summer. + +About once a month she was carried off by the Saunders, in whose +perfectly appointed guest-room she was by this time quite at home. The +Fourth of July fell on a Friday this year, and Mr. Brauer, of his own +volition, offered Susan the following day as a holiday, too. So that +Susan, with a heart as light as sunshine itself, was free to go with +Ella Saunders for a memorable visit to Del Monte and Santa Cruz. + +It was one of the perfect experiences only possible to youth and +irresponsibility. They swam, they went for the Seventeen-Mile Drive, +they rode horseback. Ella knew every inch of the great hotels, even +some of the waiters and housekeepers. She had the best rooms, she saw +that Susan missed nothing. They dressed for dinner, loitered about +among the roses in the long twilight, and Susan met a young Englishman +who later wrote her three letters on his way home to Oxfordshire. +Ella's exquisite gowns had a chapter all to themselves when Susan was +telling her cousins about it, but Susan herself alternated contentedly +enough between the brown linen with the daisy-hat and the black net +with the pearl band in her hair. Miss Saunders' compliments, her +confidences, half-intoxicated the girl. + +It was with a little effort that she came back to sober every-day +living. She gave a whole evening to Mary Lord, in her eagerness to +share her pleasure. The sick woman was not interested in gowns, but she +went fairly wild when Susan spoke of Monterey,--the riotous gardens +with their walls of white plaster topped with red pipe, the gulls +wheeling over the little town, the breakers creaming in lazy, +interlocking curves on the crescent of the beach, and the little old +plaster church, with its hundred-year-old red altar-cloth, and its +altar-step worn into grooves from the knees of the faithful. + +"Oh, I must see the sea again!" cried Mary. + +"Well, don't talk that way! You will," Lydia said cheerfully. But +Susan, seeing the shadow on the kind, plain face, wished that she had +held her tongue. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +It was late in July that Georgianna Lancaster startled and shocked the +whole boarding-house out of its mid-summer calm. Susan, chronically +affected by a wish that "something would happen," had been somewhat +sobered by the fact that in poor Virginia's case something HAD +happened. Suddenly Virginia's sight, accepted for years by them all as +"bad," was very bad indeed. The great eye-doctor was angry that it had +not been attended to before. "But it wasn't like this before!" Virginia +protested patiently. She was always very patient after that, so brave +indeed that the terrible thing that was coming swiftly and inevitably +down upon her seemed quite impossible for the others to credit. But +sometimes Susan heard her voice and Mrs. Lancaster's voice rising and +falling for long, long talks in the night. "I don't believe it!" said +Susan boldly, finding this attitude the most tenable in regard to +Virginia's blindness. + +Georgie's news, if startling, was not all bad. "Perhaps it'll raise the +hoodoo from all of us old maids!" said Susan, inelegantly, to Mr. +Oliver. "O'Connor doesn't look as if he had sense enough to raise +anything, even the rent!" answered Billy cheerfully. + +Susan heard the first of it on a windy, gritty Saturday afternoon, when +she was glad to get indoors, and to take off the hat that had been +wrenching her hair about. She came running upstairs to find Virginia +lying limp upon the big bed, and Mary Lou, red-eyed and pale, sitting +in the rocking-chair. + +"Come in, dear, and shut it," said Mary Lou, sighing. "Sit down, Sue." + +"What is it?" said Susan uneasily. + +"Oh, Sue---!" began Virginia, and burst into tears. + +"Now, now, darling!" Mary Lou patted her sister's hand. + +"Auntie--" Susan asked, turning pale. + +"No, Ma's all right," Mary Lou reassured her, "and there's nothing +really wrong, Sue. But Georgie--Georgie, dear, she's married to Joe +O'Connor! Isn't it DREADFUL?" + +"But Ma's going to have it annulled," said Virginia instantly. + +"Married!" Susan gasped. "You mean engaged!" + +"No, dear, married," Mary Lou repeated, in a sad, musical voice. "They +were married on Monday night--" + +"Tell me!" commanded Susan, her eyes flashing with pleasurable +excitement. + +"We don't know much, Sue dear. Georgie's been acting rather odd and she +began to cry after breakfast this morning, and Ma got it out of her. I +thought Ma would faint, and Georgie just SCREAMED. I kept calling out +to Ma to be calm--" Susan could imagine the scene. "So then Ma took +Georgie upstairs, and Jinny and I worked around, and came up here and +made up this room. And just before lunch Ma came up, and--she looked +chalk-white, didn't she, Jinny?" + +"She looked-well, as white as this spread," agreed Virginia. + +"Well, but what accounts for it!" gasped Susan. "Is Georgie CRAZY! Joe +O'Connor! That snip! And hasn't he an awful old mother, or someone, who +said that she'd never let him come home again if he married?" + +"Listen, Sue!--You haven't heard half. It seems that they've been +engaged for two months--" + +"They HAVE!" + +"Yes. And on Monday night Joe showed Georgie that he'd gotten the +license, and they got thinking how long it would be before they could +be married, what with his mother, and no prospects and all, and they +simply walked into St. Peter's and were married!" + +"Well, he'll have to leave his mother, that's all!" said Susan. + +"Oh, my dear, that's just what they quarreled about! He WON'T." + +"He--WON'T?" + +"No, if you please! And you can imagine how furious that made Georgie! +And when Ma told us that, she simply set her lips,--you know Ma! And +then she said that she was going to see Father Birch with Georgie this +afternoon, to have it annulled at once." + +"Without saying a word to Joe!" + +"Oh, they went first to Joe's. Oh, no, Joe is perfectly willing. It +was, as Ma says, a mistake from beginning to end." + +"But how can it be annulled, Mary Lou?" Susan asked. + +"Well, I don't understand exactly," Mary Lou answered coloring. "I +think it's because they didn't go on any honeymoon--they didn't set up +housekeeping, you know, or something like that!" + +"Oh," said Susan, hastily, coloring too. "But wouldn't you know that if +any one of us did get married, it would be annulled!" she said +disgustedly. The others both began to laugh. + +Still, it was all very exciting. When Georgie and her mother got home +at dinner-time, the bride was pale and red-eyed, excited, breathing +hard. She barely touched her dinner. Susan could not keep her eyes from +the familiar hand, with its unfamiliar ring. + +"I am very much surprised and disappointed in Father Birch," said Mrs. +Lancaster, in a family conference in the dining-room just after dinner. +"He seems to feel that the marriage may hold, which of course is too +preposterous! If Joe O'Connor has so little appreciation--!" + +"Ma!" said Georgie wearily, pleadingly. + +"Well, I won't, my dear." Mrs. Lancaster interrupted herself with a +visible effort. "And if I am disappointed in Joe," she presently +resumed majestically. "I am doubly disappointed in Georgie. My +baby--that I always trusted--!" + +Young Mrs. O'Connor began silently, bitterly, to cry. Susan went to sit +beside her, and put a comforting arm about her. + +"I have looked forward to my girls' wedding days," said Mrs. Lancaster, +"with such feelings of joy! How could I anticipate that my own +daughter, secretly, could contract a marriage with a man whose +mother--" Her tone, low at first, rose so suddenly and so passionately +that she was unable to control it. The veins about her forehead swelled. + +"Ma!" said Mary Lou, "you only lower yourself to her level!" + +"Do you mean that she won't let him bring Georgie there?" asked Susan. + +"Whether she would or not," Mrs. Lancaster answered, with admirable +loftiness, "she will not have a chance to insult my daughter. Joe, I +pity!" she added majestically. "He fell deeply and passionately in +love--" + +"With Loretta," supplied Susan, innocently. + +"He never cared for Loretta!" her aunt said positively. "No. With +Georgie. And, not being a gentleman, we could hardly expect him to act +like one! But we'll say no more about it. It will all be over in a few +days, and then we'll try to forget it!" + +Poor Georgie, it was but a sorry romance! Joe telephoned, Joe called, +Father Birch came, the affair hung fire. Georgie was neither married +nor free. Dr. O'Connor would not desert his mother, his mother refused +to accept Georgie. Georgie cried day and night, merely asseverating +that she hated Joe, and loved Ma, and she wished people would let her +alone. + +These were not very cheerful days in the boarding-house. Billy Oliver +was worried and depressed, very unlike himself. He had been recently +promoted to the post of foreman, was beginning to be a power among the +men who associated with him and, as his natural instinct for leadership +asserted itself, he found himself attracting some attention from the +authorities themselves. He was questioned about the men, about their +attitude toward this regulation or that superintendent. It was hinted +that the spreading of heresies among the laborers was to be promptly +discouraged. The men were not to be invited to express themselves as to +hours, pay and the advantages of unifying. In other words, Mr. William +Oliver, unless he became a little less interested and less active in +the wrongs and rights of his fellow-men in the iron-works, might be +surprised by a request to carry himself and his public sentiments +elsewhere. + +Susan, in her turn, was a little disturbed by the rumor that Front +Office was soon to be abolished; begun for a whim, it might easily be +ended for another whim. For herself she did not very much care; a +certain confidence in the future was characteristic of her, but she +found herself wondering what would become of the other girls, Miss +Sherman and Miss Murray and Miss Cottle. + +She felt far more deeply the pain that Peter's attitude gave her, a +pain that gnawed at her heart day and night. He was home from Honolulu +now, and had sent her several curious gifts from Hawaii, but, except +for distant glimpses in the office, she had not seen him. + +One evening, just before dinner, as she was dressing and thinking sadly +of the weeks, the months, that had passed since their last happy +evening together, Lydia Lord came suddenly into the room. The little +governess looked white and sick, and shared her distress with Susan in +a few brief sentences. Here was Mrs. Lawrence's check in her hand, and +here Mrs. Lawrence's note to say that her services, as governess to +Chrissy and Donald and little Hazel, would be no longer required. The +blow was almost too great to be realized. + +"But I brought it on myself, Sue, yes I did!" said Lydia, with dry +lips. She sat, a shapeless, shabby figure, on the side of the bed, and +pressed a veined hand tightly against her knobby temples, "I brought it +on myself. I want to tell you about it. I haven't given Mary even a +hint! Chrissy has been ill, her throat--they've had a nurse, but she +liked me to sit with her now and then. So I was sitting there awhile +this morning, and Mrs. Lawrence's sister, Miss Bacon, came in, and she +happened to ask me--oh, if only she HADN'T!--if I knew that they meant +to let Yates operate on Chrissy's throat. She said she thought it was a +great pity. Oh, if only I'd held my tongue, fool, fool, FOOL that I +was!" Miss Lydia took down her hand, and regarded Susan with hot, dry +eyes. "But, before I thought," she pursued distressedly, "I said yes, I +thought so too,--I don't know just what words I used, but no more than +that! Chrissy asked her aunt if it would hurt, and she said, 'No, no, +dear!' and I began reading. And now, here's this note from Mrs. +Lawrence saying that she cannot overlook the fact that her conduct was +criticized and discussed before Christina--! And after five years, Sue! +Here, read it!" + +"Beast!" Susan scowled at the monogrammed sheet, and the dashing hand. +Miss Lydia clutched her wrist with a hot hand. + +"What shall I do, Sue?" she asked, in agony. + +"Well, I'd simply--" Susan began boldly enough. But a look at the +pathetic, gray-haired figure on the bed stopped her short. She came, +with the glory of her bright hair hanging loose about her face, to sit +beside Lydia. "Really, I don't know, dear," she said gently. "What do +YOU think?" + +"Sue, I don't know!" And, to Susan's horror, poor Lydia twisted about, +rested her arm on the foot of the bed, and began to cry. + +"Oh, these rich!" raged Susan, attacking her hair with angry sweeps of +the brush. "Do you wonder they think that the earth was made for them +and Heaven too! They have everything! They can dash you off a note that +takes away your whole income, they can saunter in late to church on +Easter Sunday and rustle into their big empty pews, when the rest of us +have been standing in the aisles for half an hour; they can call in a +doctor for a cut finger, when Mary has to fight perfect agonies before +she dares afford it--Don't mind me," she broke off, penitently, "but +let's think what's to be done. You couldn't take the public school +examinations, could you, Miss Lydia? it would be so glorious to simply +let Mrs. Lawrence slide!" + +"I always meant to do that some day," said Lydia, wiping her eyes and +gulping, "but it would take time. And meanwhile--And there are Mary's +doctor's bills, and the interest on our Piedmont lot--" For the Lord +sisters, for patient years, had been paying interest, and an occasional +installment, on a barren little tract of land nine blocks away from the +Piedmont trolley. + +"You could borrow--" began Susan. + +But Lydia was more practical. She dried her eyes, straightened her hair +and collar, and came, with her own quiet dignity, to the discussion of +possibilities. She was convinced that Mrs. Lawrence had written in +haste, and was already regretting it. + +"No, she's too proud ever to send for me," she assured Susan, when the +girl suggested their simply biding their time, "but I know that by +taking me back at once she would save herself any amount of annoyance +and time. So I'd better go and see her to-night, for by to-morrow she +might have committed herself to a change." + +"But you hate to go, don't you?" Susan asked, watching her keenly. + +"Ah, well, it's unpleasant of course," Lydia said simply. "She may be +unwilling to accept my apology. She may not even see me. One feels +so--so humiliated, Sue." + +"In that case, I'm going along to buck you up," said Susan, cheerfully. + +In spite of Lydia's protests, go she did. They walked to the Lawrence +home in a night so dark that Susan blinked when they finally entered +the magnificent, lighted hallway. + +The butler obviously disapproved of them. He did not quite attempt to +shut the door on them, but Susan felt that they intruded. + +"Mrs. Lawrence is at dinner, Miss Lord," he reminded Lydia, gravely. + +"Yes, I know, but this is rather--important, Hughes," said Lydia, +clearing her throat nervously. + +"You had better see her at the usual time to-morrow," suggested the +butler, smoothly. Susan's face burned. She longed to snatch one of the +iron Japanese swords that decorated the hall, and with it prove to +Hughes that his insolence was appreciated. But more reasonable tactics +must prevail. + +"Will you say that I am here, Hughes?" Miss Lord asked quietly. + +"Presently," he answered, impassively. + +Susan followed him for a few steps across the hall, spoke to him in a +low tone. + +"Too bad to ask you to interrupt her, Mr. Hughes," said she, in her +friendly little way, "but you know Miss Lord's sister has been having +one of her bad times, and of course you understand--?" The blue eyes +and the pitiful little smile conquered. Hughes became human. + +"Certainly, Miss," he said hoarsely, "but Madam is going to the theater +to-night, and it's no time to see her." + +"I know," Susan interposed, sympathetically. + +"However, ye may depend upon my taking the best moment," Hughes said, +before disappearing, and when he came back a few moments later, he was +almost gracious. + +"Mrs. Lawrence says that if you wish to see her you'll kindly wait, +Miss Lord. Step in here, will you, please? Will ye be seated, ladies? +Miss Chrissy's been asking for you the whole evening, Miss Lord." + +"Is that so?" Lydia asked, brightening. They waited, with fast-beating +hearts, for what seemed a long time. The great entrance to the +flower-filled embrasure that led to the dining-room was in full view +from where they stood, and when Mrs. Lawrence, elegantly emacinated, +wonderfully gowned and jeweled, suddenly came out into the tempered +brilliance of the electric lights both girls went to meet her. + +Susan's heart burned for Lydia, faltering out her explanation, in the +hearing of the butler. + +"This is hardly the time to discuss this, Miss Lord," Mrs. Lawrence +said impatiently, "but I confess I am surprised that a woman who +apparently valued her position in my house should jeopardize it by such +an extraordinary indiscretion--" + +Susan's heart sank. No hope here! + +But at this moment some six or seven young people followed Mrs. +Lawrence out of the dining-room and began hurriedly to assume their +theater wraps, and Susan, with a leap of her heart, recognized among +them Peter Coleman, Peter splendid in evening dress, with a light +overcoat over his arm, and a silk hat in his hand. His face brightened +when he saw her, he dropped his coat, and came quickly across the hall, +hands outstretched. + +"Henrietta! say that you remember your Percy!" he said joyously, and +Susan, coloring prettily, said "Oh, hush!" as she gave him her hand. A +rapid fire of questions followed, he was apparently unconscious of, or +indifferent to, the curiously watching group. + +"Well, you two seem to be great friends," Mrs. Lawrence said +graciously, turning from her conversation with Miss Lord. + +"This is our cue to sing 'For you was once My Wife,' Susan!" Peter +suggested. Susan did not answer him. She exchanged an amused, indulgent +look with Mrs. Lawrence. Perhaps the girl's quiet dignity rather +surprised that lady, for she gave her a keen, appraising look before +she asked, pleasantly: + +"Aren't you going to introduce me to your old friend, Peter?" + +"Not old friends," Susan corrected serenely, as they were introduced. + +"But vurry, vurry de-ah," supplemented Peter, "aren't we?" + +"I hope Mrs. Lawrence knows you well enough to know how foolish you +are, Peter!" Susan said composedly. + +And Mrs. Lawrence said brightly, "Indeed I do! For we ARE very old +friends, aren't we, Peter?" + +But the woman's eyes still showed a little puzzlement. The exact +position of this girl, with her ready "Peter," her willingness to +disclaim an old friendship, her pleasant unresponsiveness, was a little +hard to determine. A lady, obviously, a possible beauty, and entirely +unknown-- + +"Well, we must run," Mrs. Lawrence recalled herself to say suddenly. +"But why won't you and Miss Lord run up to see Chrissy for a few +moments, Miss Brown? The poor kiddy is frightfully dull. And you'll be +here in the morning as usual, Miss Lord? That's good. Good-night!" + +"You did that, Sue, you darling!" exulted Lydia, as they ran down the +stone steps an hour later, and locked arms to walk briskly along the +dark street. "Your knowing Mr. Coleman saved the day!" And, in the +exuberance of her spirits, she took Susan into a brightly lighted +little candy-store, and treated her to ice-cream. They carried some +home in a dripping paper box for Mary, who was duly horrified, agitated +and rejoiced over the history of the day. + +Through Susan's mind, as she lay wakeful in bed that night, one scene +after another flitted and faded. She saw Mrs. Lawrence, glittering and +supercilious, saw Peter, glowing and gay, saw the butler, with his +attempt to be rude, and the little daughter of the house, tossing about +in the luxurious pillows of her big bed. She thought of Lydia Lord's +worn gloves, fumbling in her purse for money, of Mary Lord, so +gratefully eating melting ice-cream from a pink saucer, with a silver +souvenir spoon! + +Two different worlds, and she, Susan, torn between them! How far she +was from Peter's world, she felt that she had never realized until +to-night. How little gifts and pleasures signified from a man whose +life was crowded with nothing else! How helpless she was, standing by +while his life whirled him further and further away from the dull +groove in which her own feet were set! + +Yet Susan's evening had not been without its little cause for +satisfaction. She had treated Peter coolly, with dignity, with reserve, +and she had seen it not only spur him to a sudden eagerness to prove +his claim to her friendship, but also have its effect upon his hostess. +This was the clue, at last. + +"If ever I have another chance," decided Susan, "he won't have such +easy sailing! He will have to work for my friendship as if I were the +heiress, and he a clerk in Front Office." + +August was the happiest month Susan had ever known, September even +better, and by October everybody at Mrs. Lancaster's boarding-house was +confidently awaiting the news of Susan Brown's engagement to the rich +Mr. Peter Coleman. Susan herself was fairly dazed with joy. She felt +herself the most extraordinarily fortunate girl in the world. + +Other matters also prospered. Alfred Lancaster had obtained a position +in the Mission, and seemed mysteriously inclined to hold it, and to +conquer his besetting weakness. And Georgie's affair was at a peaceful +standstill. Georgie had her old place in the house, was changed in +nothing tangible, and, if she cried a good deal, and went about less +than before, she was not actively unhappy. Dr. O'Connor came once a +week to see her, an uncomfortable event, during which Georgie's mother +was with difficulty restrained from going up to the parlor to tell Joe +what she thought of a man who put his mother before his wife. Virginia +was bravely enduring the horrors of approaching darkness. Susan +reproached herself for her old impatience with Jinny's saintliness; +there was no question of her cousin's courage and faith during this +test. Mary Lou was agitatedly preparing for a visit to the stricken +Eastmans, in Nevada, deciding one day that Ma could, and the next that +Ma couldn't, spare her for the trip. + +Susan walked in a golden cloud. No need to hunt through Peter's +letters, to weigh his words,--she had the man himself now unequivocally +in the attitude of lover. + +Or if, in all honesty, she knew him to be a little less than that, at +least he was placing himself in that light, before their little world. +In that world theatre-trips, candy and flowers have their definite +significance, the mere frequency with which they were seen together +committed him, surely, to something! They paid dinner-calls together, +they went together to week-end visits to Emily Saunders, at least two +evenings out of every week were spent together. At any moment he might +turn to her with the little, little phrase that would settle this +uncertainty once and for all! Indeed it occurred to Susan sometimes +that he might think it already settled, without words. At least once a +day she flushed, half-delighted, half-distressed,--under teasing +questions on the subject from the office force, or from the boarders at +home; all her world, apparently, knew. + +One day, in her bureau drawer, she found the little card that had +accompanied his first Christmas gift, nearly two years before. Why did +a keen pain stir her heart, as she stood idly twisting it in her +fingers? Had not the promise of that happy day been a thousand times +fulfilled? + +But the bright, enchanting hope that card had brought had been so +sickeningly deferred! Two years!--she was twenty-three now. + +Mrs. Lancaster, opening the bedroom door a few minutes later, found +Susan in tears, kneeling by the bed. + +"Why, lovey! lovey!" Her aunt patted the bowed head. "What is it, dear?" + +"Nothing!" gulped Susan, sitting back on her heels, and drying her eyes. + +"Not a quarrel with Peter?" + +"Oh, auntie, no!" + +"Well," her aunt sighed comfortably, "of course it's an emotional time, +dear! Leaving the home nest--" Mrs. Lancaster eyed her keenly, but +Susan did not speak. "Remember, Auntie is to know the first of all!" +she said playfully. Adding, after a moment's somber thought, "If +Georgie had told Mama, things would be very different now!" + +"Poor Georgie!" Susan smiled, and still kneeling, leaned on her aunt's +knees, as Mrs. Lancaster sat back in the rocking chair. + +"Poor Georgie indeed!" said her mother vexedly. "It's more serious than +you think, dear. Joe was here last night. It seems that he's going to +that doctor's convention, at Del Monte a week from next Saturday, and +he was talking to Georgie about her going, too." + +Susan was thunderstruck. + +"But, Auntie, aren't they going to be divorced?" + +Mrs. Lancaster rubbed her nose violently. + +"They are if _I_ have anything to say!" she said, angrily. "But, of +course, Georgie has gotten herself into this thing, and now Mama isn't +going to get any help in trying to get her out! Joe was extremely rude +and inconsiderate about it, and got the poor child crying--!" + +"But, Auntie, she certainly doesn't want to go!" + +"Certainly she doesn't. And to come home to that dreadful WOMAN, his +mother? Use your senses, Susan!" + +"Why don't you forbid Joe O'Connor the house, Auntie?" + +"Because I don't want any little whipper-snapper of a medical graduate +from the Mission to DARE to think he can come here, in my own home, and +threaten me with a lawsuit, for alienating his wife's affections!" Mrs. +Lancaster said forcibly. "I never in my life heard such impudence!" + +"Is he mad!" exclaimed Susan, in a low, horrified tone. + +"Well, I honestly think he is!" Mrs. Lancaster, gratified by this show +of indignation, softened. "But I didn't mean to distress you with this, +dear," said she. "It will all work out, somehow. We mustn't have any +scandal in the family just now, whatever happens, for your sake!" + +Pursuant to her new-formed resolutions, Susan was maintaining what +dignity she could in her friendship with Peter nowadays. And when, in +November, Peter stopped her on the "deck" one day to ask her, "How +about Sunday, Sue? I have a date, but I think I can get out of it?" she +disgusted him by answering briskly, "Not for me, Peter. I'm positively +engaged for Sunday." + +"Oh, no, you're not!" he assured her, firmly. + +"Oh, truly I am!" Susan nodded a good-by, and went humming into the +office, and that night made William Oliver promise to take her to the +Carrolls' in Sausalito for the holiday. + +So on a hazy, soft November morning they found themselves on the +cable-car that in those days slipped down the steep streets of Nob +Hill, through the odorous, filthy gaiety of the Chinese quarter, +through the warehouse district, and out across the great crescent of +the water-front. Billy, well-brushed and clean-shaven, looked his best +to-day, and Susan, in a wide, dashing hat, with fresh linen at wrists +and collar, enjoyed the innocent tribute of many a passing glance from +the ceaseless current of men crossing and recrossing the ferry place. + +"If they try to keep us for dinner, we'll bashfully remain," said +Billy, openly enchanted by the prospect of a day with his adored +Josephine. + +But first they were to have a late second breakfast at Sardi's, the +little ramshackle Sausalito restaurant, whose tables, visible through +green arches, hung almost directly over the water. It was a cheap meal, +oily and fried, but Susan was quite happy, hanging over the rail to +watch the shining surface of the water that was so near. The reflection +of the sun shifted in a ceaselessly moving bright pattern on the +white-washed ceiling, the wash of the outgoing steamer surged through +the piles, and set to rocking all the nearby boats at anchor. + +After luncheon, they climbed the long flights of steps that lead +straight through the village, which hangs on the cliff like a cluster +of sea-birds' nests. The gardens were bare and brown now, the trees +sober and shabby. + +When the steps stopped, they followed a road that ran like a shelf +above the bay and waterfront far below, and that gave a wonderful +aspect of the wide sweep of hills and sky beyond, all steeped in the +thin, clear autumn haze. Billy pushed open a high gate that had scraped +the path beyond in a deep circular groove, and they were in a fine, +old-fashioned garden, filled with trees. Willow and pepper and +eucalyptus towered over the smaller growth of orange and lemon-verbena +trees; there were acacia and mock-orange and standard roses, and +hollyhock stalks, bare and dry. Only the cosmos bushes, tall and +wavering, were in bloom, with a few chrysanthemums and late asters, the +air was colder here than it had been out under the bright November sun, +and the path under the trees was green and slippery. + +On a rise of ground stood the plain, comfortable old house, with a +white curtain blowing here and there at an open window and its front +door set hospitably ajar. But not a soul was in sight. + +Billy and Susan were at home here, however, and went through the +hallway to open a back door that gave on the kitchen. It was an +immaculate kitchen, with a fire glowing sleepily behind the shining +iron grating of the stove, and sunshine lying on the well-scrubbed +floor. A tall woman was busy with plants in the bright window. + +"Well, you nice child!" she exclaimed, her face brightening as Susan +came into her arms for her motherly kiss. "I was just thinking about +you! We've been hearing things about you, Sue, and wondering--and +wondering--! And Billy, too! The girls will be delighted!" + +This was the mother of the five Carrolls, a mother to whom it was easy +to trace some of their beauty, and some of their courage. In the twelve +long years of her widowhood, from a useless, idle, untrained member of +a society to which all three adjectives apply, this woman had grown to +be the broad and brave and smiling creature who was now studying +Susan's face with the insatiable motherliness that even her household's +constant claims failed to exhaust. Manager and cook and houseworker, +seamstress and confidante to her restless, growing brood, still there +was a certain pure radiance that was never quite missing from her +smile, and Susan felt a mad impulse to-day to have a long comforting +cry on the broad shoulder. She thoroughly loved Mrs. Carroll, even if +she thought the older woman's interest in soups and darning and the +filling of lamps a masterly affectation, and pitied her for the bitter +fate that had robbed her of home and husband, wealth and position, at +the very time when her children needed these things the most. + +They two went into the sitting-room now, while Billy raced after the +young people who had taken their luncheon, it appeared, and were +walking over the hills to a favorite spot known as "Gioli's" beach. + +Susan liked this room, low-ceiled and wide, which ran the length of the +house. It seemed particularly pleasant to-day, with the uncertain +sunlight falling through the well-darned, snowy window-curtains, the +circle of friendly, shabby chairs, the worn old carpet, scrupulously +brushed, the reading-table with a green-shaded lamp, and the old square +piano loaded with music. The room was in Sunday order to-day, books, +shabby with much handling, were ranged neatly on their shelves, not a +fallen leaf lay under the bowl of late roses on the piano. + +Susan had had many a happy hour in this room, for if the Carrolls were +poor to the point of absurdity, their mother had made a sort of science +of poverty, and concentrated her splendid mind on the questions of +meals, clothes, and the amusements of their home evenings. That it had +been a hard fight, was still a hard fight, Susan knew. Philip, the +handsome first-born, had the tendencies and temptations natural to his +six-and-twenty years; Anna, her mother's especial companion, was taking +a hard course of nursing in a city hospital; Josephine, the family +beauty, at twenty, was soberly undertaking a course in architecture, in +addition to her daily work in the offices of Huxley and Huxley; even +little Betsey was busy, and Jimmy still in school; so that the brunt of +the planning, of the actual labor, indeed, fell upon their mother. But +she had carried a so much heavier burden, that these days seemed bright +and easeful to Mrs. Carroll, and the face she turned to Susan now was +absolutely unclouded. + +"What's all the news, Sue? Auntie's well, and Mary Lou? And what do +they say now of Jinny? Don't tell me about Georgie until the girls are +here! And what's this I hear of your throwing down Phil completely, and +setting up a new young man?" + +"Please'm, you never said I wasn'ter," Susan laughed. + +"No, indeed I never did! You couldn't do a more sensible thing!" + +"Oh, Aunt Jo!" The title was only by courtesy. "I thought you felt that +every woman ought to have a profession!" + +"A means of livelihood, my dear, not a profession necessarily! Yes, to +be used in case she didn't marry, or when anything went wrong if she +did," the older woman amended briskly. "But, Sue, marriage first for +all girls! I won't say," she went on thoughtfully, "that any marriage +is better than none at all, but I could ALMOST say that I thought that! +That is, given the average start, I think a sensible woman has nine +chances out of ten of making a marriage successful, whereas there never +was a really complete life rounded out by a single woman." + +"My young man has what you'll consider one serious fault," said Susan, +dimpling. + +"Dear, dear! And what's that?" + +"He's rich." + +"Peter Coleman, yes, of course he is!" Mrs. Carroll frowned +thoughtfully. "Well, that isn't NECESSARILY bad, Susan!" + +"Aunt Josephine," Susan said, really shaken out of her nonsense by the +serious tone, "do you honestly think it's a drawback? Wouldn't you +honestly rather have Jo, say, marry a rich man than a poor man, other +things being equal?" + +"Honestly no, Sue," said Mrs. Carroll. + +"But if the rich man was just as good and brave and honest and true as +the poor one?" persisted the girl. + +"But he couldn't be, Sue, he never is. The fibers of his moral and +mental nature are too soft. He's had no hardening. No," Mrs. Carroll +shook her head. "No, I've been rich, and I've been poor. If a man earns +his money honestly himself, he grows old during the process, and he may +or may not be a strong and good man. But if he merely inherits it, he +is pretty sure not to be one." + +"But aren't there some exceptions?" asked Susan. Mrs. Carroll laughed +at her tone. + +"There are exceptions to everything! And I really believe Peter Coleman +is one," she conceded smilingly. "Hark!" for feet were running down the +path outside. + +"There you are, Sue!" said Anna Carroll, putting a glowing face in the +sitting-room door. "I came back for you! The others said they would go +slowly, and we can catch them if we hurry!" + +She came in, a brilliant, handsome young creature, in rough, well-worn +walking attire, and a gipsyish hat. Talking steadily, as they always +did when together, she and Susan went upstairs, and Susan was loaned a +short skirt, and a cap that made her prettier than ever. + +The house was old, there was a hint of sagging here and there, in the +worn floors, the bedrooms were plainly furnished, almost bare. In the +atmosphere there lingered, despite the open windows, the faint +undefinable odor common to old houses in which years of frugal and +self-denying living have set their mark, an odor vaguely compounded of +clean linen and old woodwork, hot soapsuds and ammonia. The children's +old books were preserved in old walnut cases, nothing had been renewed, +recarpeted, repapered for many years. + +Still talking, the girls presently ran downstairs, and briskly followed +the road that wound up, above the village, to the top of the hill. Anna +chattered of the hospital, of the superintendent of nurses, who was a +trial to all the young nurses, "all superintendents are tyrants, I +think," said Anna, "and we just have to shut our teeth and bear it! But +it's all so unnecessarily hard, and it's wrong, too, for nursing the +sick is one thing, and being teased by an irritable woman like that is +another! However," she concluded cheerfully, "I'll graduate some day, +and forget her! And meantime, I don't want to worry mother, for Phil's +just taken a real start, and Bett's doctor's bills are paid, and the +landlord, by some miracle, has agreed to plaster the kitchen!" + +They joined the others just below the top of the hill, and were +presently fighting the stiff wind that blew straight across the ridge. +Once over it, however, the wind dropped, the air was deliciously soft +and fresh and their rapid walking made the day seem warm. There was no +road; their straggling line followed the little shelving paths beaten +out of the hillside by the cows. + +Far below lay the ocean, only a tone deeper than the pale sky. The line +of the Cliff House beach was opposite, a vessel under full sail was +moving in through the Golden Gate. The hills fell sharply away to the +beach, Gioli's ranch-house, down in the valley, was only one deeper +brown note among all the browns. Here and there cows were grazing, +cotton-tails whisked behind the tall, dried thistles. + +The Carrolls loved this particular walk, and took it in all weathers. +Sometimes they had a guest or two,--a stray friend of Philip's, or two +or three of Anna's girl friends from the hospital. It did not matter, +for there was no pairing off at the Carroll picnics. Oftener they were +all alone, or, as to-day, with Susan and Billy, who were like members +of the family. + +To-day Billy, Jimmy and Betsey were racing ahead like frolicking +puppies; up banks, down banks, shrieking, singing and shouting. Phil +and Josephine walked together, they were inseparable chums, and Susan +thought them a pretty study to-day; Josephine so demurely beautiful in +her middy jacket and tam-o-shanter cap, and Philip so obviously proud +of her. + +She and Anna, their hands sunk in their coat-pockets, their hair +loosening under the breezes, followed the others rather silently. + +And swiftly, subtly, the healing influences of the hour crept into +Susan's heart. What of these petty little hopes and joys and fears that +fretted her like a cloud of midges day and night? How small they seemed +in the wide silence of these brooding hills, with the sunlight lying +warm on the murmuring ocean below, and the sweet kindly earth underfoot! + +"I wish I could live out here, Nance, and never go near to people and +things again!" + +"Oh, DON'T you, Sue!" + +There was a delay at the farmhouse for cream. The ranchers' damp +dooryard had been churned into deep mud by the cows, strong odors, +delicious to Susan, because they were associated with these happy days, +drifted about, the dairy reeked of damp earth, wet wood, and scoured +tinware. The cream, topping the pan like a circle of leather, was +loosened by a small, sharp stick, and pushed, thick and lumpy, into the +empty jam jar that Josephine neatly presented. A woman came to the +ranch-house door with a grinning Portuguese greeting, the air from the +kitchen behind her was close, and reeked of garlic and onions and other +odors. Susan and Anna went in to look at the fat baby, a brown cherub +whose silky black lashes curved back half an inch from his cheeks. +There were half a dozen small children in the kitchen, cats, even a +sickly chicken or two. + +"Very different from the home life of our dear Queen!" said Susan, when +they were out in the air again. + +The road now ran between marshy places full of whispering reeds, +occasional crazy fences must be crossed, occasional pools carefully +skirted. And then they were really crossing the difficult strip of +sandy dead grasses, and cocoanut shells, and long-dried seaweeds that +had been tossed up by the sea in a long ridge on the beach, and were +racing on the smooth sand, where the dangerous looking breakers were +rolling so harmlessly. They shouted to each other now, above the roar +of the water, as they gathered drift-wood for their fire, and when the +blaze was well started, indulged in the fascinating pastime of running +in long curves so near to the incoming level rush of the waves that +they were all soon wet enough to feel that no further harm could be +done by frankly wading in the shallows, posing for Philip's camera on +half-submerged rocks, and chasing each other through a frantic game of +beach tag. It was the prudent Josephine,--for Anna was too dreamy and +unpractical to bring her attention to detail,--who suggested a general +drying of shoes, as they gathered about the fire for the lunch--toasted +sandwiches, and roasted potatoes, and large wedges of apple-pie, and +the tin mugs of delicious coffee that crowned all these feasts. Only +sea-air accounted for the quantities in which the edibles disappeared; +the pasteboard boxes and the basket were emptied to the last crumb, and +the coffee-pot refilled and emptied again. + +The meal was not long over, and the stiffened boots were being buttoned +with the aid of bent hairpins, when the usual horrifying discovery of +the time was made. Frantic hurrying ensued, the tin cups, dripping salt +water, were strung on a cord, the cardboard boxes fed the last flicker +of the fire, the coffee-pot was emptied into the waves. + +And they were off again, climbing up--up--up the long rise of the +hills. The way home always seemed twice the way out, but Susan found it +a soothing, comforting experience to-day. The sun went behind a cloud; +cows filed into the ranch gates for milking; a fine fog blew up from +the sea. + +"Wonderful day, Anna!" Susan said. The two were alone together again. + +"These walks do make you over," Anna's bright face clouded a little as +she turned to look down the long road they had come. "It's all so +beautiful, Sue," she said, slowly, "and the spring is so beautiful, and +books and music and fires are so beautiful. Why aren't they enough? +Nobody can take those things away from us!" + +"I know," Susan said briefly, comprehending. + +"But we set our hearts on some silly thing not worth one of these +fogs," Anna mused, "and nothing but that one thing seems to count!" + +"I know," Susan said again. She thought of Peter Coleman. + +"There's a doctor at the hospital," Anna said suddenly. "A German, +Doctor Hoffman. Of course I'm only one of twenty girls to him, now. But +I've often thought that if I had pretty gowns, and the sort of +home,--you know what I mean, Sue! to which one could ask that type of +really distinguished man---" + +"Well, look at my case---" began Susan. + +It was almost dark when the seven stormed the home kitchen, tired, +chilly, happy, ravenous. Here they found Mrs. Carroll, ready to serve +the big pot-roast and the squares of yellow cornbread, and to have +Betsey and Billy burn their fingers trying to get baked sweet potatoes +out of the oven. And here, straddling a kitchen chair, and noisily +joyous as usual, was Peter Coleman. Susan knew in a happy instant that +he had gone to find her at her aunt's, and had followed her here, and +during the meal that followed, she was the maddest of all the mad +crowd. After dinner they had Josephine's violin, and coaxed Betsey to +recite, but more appreciated than either was Miss Brown's rendition of +selections from German and Italian opera, and her impersonation of an +inexperienced servant from Erin's green isle. Mrs. Carroll laughed +until the tears ran down her cheeks, as indeed they all did. + +The evening ended with songs about the old piano, "Loch Lomond," +"Love's Old Sweet Song," and "Asthore." Then Susan and Peter and Billy +must run for their hats and wraps. + +"And Peter thinks there's MONEY in my window-washer!" said Mrs. +Carroll, when they were all loitering in the doorway, while Betts +hunted for the new time-table. + +"Mother's invention" was a standing joke with the young Carrolls, but +their mother had a serene belief that some day SOMETHING might be done +with the little contrivance she had thought of some years ago, by which +the largest of windows might be washed outside as easily as inside. "I +believe I really thought of it by seeing poor maids washing fifth-story +windows by sitting on the sill and tipping out!" she confessed one day +to Susan. Now she had been deeply pleased by Peter's casual interest in +it. + +"Peter says that there's NO reason---" she began. + +"Oh, Mother!" Josephine laughed indulgently, as she stood with her arm +about her mother's waist, and her bright cheek against her mother's +shoulder, "you've NOT been taking Peter seriously!" + +"Jo, when I ask you to take me seriously, it'll be time for you to get +so fresh!" said Peter neatly. + +"Your mother is the Lady Edison of the Pacific Coast, and don't you +forget it! I'm going to talk to some men at the shop about this +thing---" + +"Say, if you do, I'll make some blue prints," Billy volunteered. + +"You're on!" agreed Mr. Coleman. + +"You wouldn't want to market this yourself, Mrs. Carroll?" + +"Well--no, I don't think so. No, I'm sure I wouldn't! I'd rather sell +it for a lump sum---" + +"To be not less than three dollars," laughed Phil. + +"Less than three hundred, you mean!" said the interested Peter. + +"Three hundred!" Mrs. Carroll exclaimed. "Do you SUPPOSE so?" + +"Why, I don't know--but I can find out" + +The trio, running for their boat, left the little family rather +excited, for the first time, over the window-cleaner. + +"But, Peter, is there really something in it?" asked Susan, on the boat. + +"Well,--there might be. Anyway, it seemed a good chance to give them a +lift, don't you know?" he said, with his ingenuous blush. Susan loved +him for the generous impulse. She had sometimes fancied him a little +indifferent to the sufferings of the less fortunate, proof of the +contrary warmed her to the very heart! She had been distressed one day +to hear him gaily telling George Banks, the salesman who was coughing +himself to death despite the frantic care of his wife, a story of a +consumptive, and, on another occasion, when a shawled, shabby woman had +come up to them in the street, with the whined story of five little +hungry children, Susan had been shocked to hear Peter say, with his +irrepressible gaiety, "Well, here! Here's five cents; that's a cent +apiece! Now mind you don't waste it!" + +She told herself to-night that these things proved no more than want of +thought. There was nothing wrong with the heart that could plan so +tactfully for Mrs. Carroll. + +On the following Saturday Susan had the unexpected experience of +shopping with Mrs. Lancaster and Georgie for the latter's trousseau. It +was unlike any shopping that they had ever done before, inasmuch as the +doctor's unclaimed bride had received from her lord the sum of three +hundred dollars for the purpose. Georgie denied firmly that she was +going to start with her husband for the convention at Del Monte that +evening, but she went shopping nevertheless. Perhaps she could not +really resist the lure of the shining heap of gold pieces. She became +deeply excited and charmed over the buying of the pretty tailor-made, +the silk house dresses, the hat and shoes and linen. Georgie began to +play the bride, was prettily indignant with clerks, pouted at silks and +velvets. Susan did not miss her cousin's bright blush when certain +things, a linen suit, underlinen, a waist or two, were taken from the +mass of things to be sent, and put into Georgie's suitcase. + +"And you're to have a silk waist, Ma, I INSIST." + +"Now, Baby love, this is YOUR shopping. And, more than that, I really +need a pair of good corsets before I try on waists!" + +"Then you'll have both!" Mrs. Lancaster laughed helplessly as the bride +carried her point. + +At six o'clock the three met the doctor at the Vienna Bakery, for tea, +and Georgie, quite lofty in her attitude when only her mother and +cousin were to be impressed, seemed suddenly to lose her powers of +speech. She answered the doctor's outline of his plans only by +monosyllables. "Yes," "All right," "That's nice, Joe." Her face was +burning red. + +"But Ma--Ma and I--and Sue, too, don't you, Sue?" she stammered +presently. "We think--and don't you think it would be as well, +yourself, Joe, if I went back with Ma to-night---" + +Susan, anxiously looking toward the doctor, at this, felt a little +thrill run over her whole body at the sudden glimpse of the confident +male she had in his reply,--or rather, lack of reply. For, after a +vague, absent glance at Georgie, he took a time-table out of his +pocket, and addressed his mother-in-law. + +"We'll be back next Sunday, Mrs. Lancaster. But don't worry if you +don't hear from Georgie that day, for we may be late, and Mother won't +naturally want us to run off the moment we get home. But on Monday +Georgie can go over, if she wants to. Perhaps I'll drive her over, if I +can." + +"He was the coolest---!" Susan said, half-annoyed, half-admiring, to +Mary Lou, late that night. The boarding-house had been pleasantly +fluttered by the departure of the bride, Mrs. Lancaster, in spite of +herself, had enjoyed the little distinction of being that personage's +mother. + +"Well, she'll be back again in a week!" Virginia, missing her sister, +sighed. + +"Back, yes," Mrs. Lancaster admitted, "but not quite the same, dear!" +Georgie, whatever her husband, whatever the circumstances of her +marriage, was nearer her mother than any of the others now. As a wife, +she was admitted to the company of wives. + +Susan spent the evening in innocently amorous dreams, over her game of +patience. What a wonderful thing, if one loved a man, to fare forth +into the world with him as his wife!---- + +"I have about as much chance with Joe Carroll as a dead rat," said +Billy suddenly. He was busied with his draughting board and the little +box of draughts-man's instruments that Susan always found fascinating, +and had been scowling and puffing over his work. + +"Why?" Susan asked, laughing outright. "Oh, she's so darn busy!" Billy +said, and returned to his work. + +Susan pondered it. She wished she were so "darned" busy that Peter +Coleman might have to scheme and plan to see her. + +"That's why men's love affairs are considered so comparatively +unimportant, I suppose," she submitted presently. "Men are so busy!" + +Billy paid no attention to the generality, and Susan pursued it no +further. + +But after awhile she interrupted him again, this time in rather an odd +tone. + +"Billy, I want to ask you something---" + +"Ask away," said Billy, giving her one somewhat startled glance. + +Susan did not speak immediately, and he did not hurry her. A few silent +minutes passed before she laid a card carefully in place, studied it +with her head on one side, and said casually, in rather a husky voice: + +"Billy, if a man takes a girl everywhere, and gives her things, and +seems to want to be with her all the time, he's in love with her, isn't +he?" + +Billy, apparently absorbed in what he was doing, cleared his throat +before he answered carelessly: + +"Well, it might depend, Sue. When a man in my position does it, a girl +knows gosh darn well that if I spend my good hard money on her I mean +business!" + +"But--it mightn't be so--with a rich man?" hazarded Susan bravely. + +"Why, I don't know, Sue." An embarrassed red had crept into William's +cheeks. "Of course, if a fellow kissed her---" + +"Oh, heavens!" cried Susan, scarlet in turn, "he never did anything +like THAT!" + +"Didn't, hey?" William looked blank. + +"Oh, never!" Susan said, meeting his look bravely. "He's--he's too much +of a gentleman, Bill!" + +"Perhaps that's being a gentleman, and perhaps it's not," said Billy, +scowling. "He--but he--he makes love to you, doesn't he?" The crude +phrase was the best he could master in this delicate matter. + +"I don't--I don't know!" said Susan, laughing, but with flaming cheeks. +"That's it! He--he isn't sentimental. I don't believe he ever would be, +it's not his nature. He doesn't take anything very seriously, you know. +We talk all the time, but not about really serious things." It sounded +a little lame. Susan halted. + +"Of course, Coleman's a perfectly decent fellow---" Billy began, with +brotherly uneasiness. + +"Oh, absolutely!" Susan could laugh, in her perfect confidence. "He +acts exactly as if I were his sister, or another boy. He never +even--put his arm about me," she explained, "and I--I don't know just +what he DOES mean---" + +"Sure," said Billy, thoughtfully. + +"Of course, there's no reason why a man and a girl can't be good +friends just as two men would," Susan said, more lightly, after a pause. + +"Oh, yes there is! Don't you fool yourself!" Billy said, gloomily. +"That's all rot!" + +"Well, a girl can't stay moping in the house until a man comes along +and says, 'If I take you to the theater it means I want to marry you!'" +Susan declared with spirit. "I--I can't very well turn to Peter now and +say, 'This ends everything, unless you are in earnest!'" + +Her distress, her earnestness, her eagerness for his opinion, had +carried her quite out of herself. She rested her face in her hands, and +fixed her anxious eyes upon him. + +"Well, here's the way I figure it out," Billy said, deliberately, +drawing his pencil slowly along the edge of his T-square, and squinting +at it absorbedly, "Coleman has a crush on you, all right, and he'd +rather be with you than anyone else---" + +"Yes," nodded Susan. "I know that, because---" + +"Well. But you see you're so fixed that you can't entertain him here, +Sue, and you don't run in his crowd, so when he wants to see you he has +to go out of his way to do it. So his rushing you doesn't mean as much +as it otherwise would." + +"I suppose that's true," Susan said, with a sinking heart. + +"The chances are that he doesn't want to get married at all yet," +pursued Billy, mercilessly, "and he thinks that if he gives you a good +time, and doesn't--doesn't go any further, that he's playing fair." + +"That's what I think," Susan said, fighting a sensation of sickness. +Her heart was a cold weight, she hoped that she was not going to cry. + +"But all the same, Sue," Billy resumed more briskly, "You can see that +it wouldn't take much to bring an affair like that to a finish. +Coleman's rich, he can marry if he pleases, and he wants what he +wants---You couldn't just stop short, I suppose? You couldn't simply +turn down all his invitations, and refuse everything?" he broke off to +ask. + +"Billy, how could I? Right in the next office!" + +"Well, that's an advantage, in a way. It keeps the things in his mind. +Either way, you're no worse off for stopping everything now, Sue. If +he's in earnest, he'll not be put off by that, and if he's not, you +save yourself from--from perhaps beginning to care." + +Susan could have kissed the top of Billy's rumpled head for the tactful +close. She had thrown her pride to the winds to-night, but she loved +him for remembering it. + +"But he would think that I cared!" she objected. + +"Let him! That won't hurt you. Simply say that your aunt disapproves of +your being so much with him, and stop short." + +Billy went on working, and Susan shuffled her pack for a new game. + +"Thank you, Bill," she said at last, gratefully. "I'm glad I told you." + +"Oh, that's all right!" said William, gruffly. + +There was a silence until Mary Lou came in, to rip up her old velvet +hat, and speculate upon the clangers of a trip to Virginia City. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Life presented itself in a new aspect to Susan Brown. A hundred little +events and influences combining had made it seem to her less a +grab-bag, from which one drew good or bad at haphazard, and more a +rational problem, to be worked out with arbitrarily supplied materials. +She might not make herself either rich or famous, but she COULD,--she +began dimly to perceive,--eliminate certain things from her life and +put others in their places. The race was not to the swift, but to the +faithful. What other people had done, she, by following the old +copybook rules of the honest policy, the early rising, the power of +knowledge, the infinite capacity of taking pains that was genius, could +do, too. She had been the toy of chance too long. She would grasp +chance, now, and make it serve her. The perseverance that Anna brought +to her hospital work, that Josephine exercised in her studies, Susan, +lacking a gift, lacking special training, would seriously devote to the +business of getting married. Girls DID marry. She would presumably +marry some day, and Peter Coleman would marry. Why not, having advanced +a long way in this direction, to each other? + +There was, in fact, no alternative in her case. She knew no other +eligible man half as well. If Peter Coleman went out of her life, what +remained? A somewhat insecure position in a wholesale drug-house, at +forty dollars a month, and half a third-story bedroom in a +boarding-house. + +Susan was not a calculating person. She knew that Peter Coleman liked +her immensely, and that he could love her deeply, too. She knew that +her feeling for him was only held from an extreme by an inherited +feminine instinct of self-preservation. Marriage, and especially this +marriage, meant to her a great many pleasant things, a splendid, +lovable man with whom to share life, a big home to manage and delight +in, a conspicuous place in society, and one that she knew that she +could fill gracefully and well. Marriage meant children, dear little +white-clad sons, with sturdy bare knees, and tiny daughters +half-smothered in lace and ribbons; it meant power, power to do good, +to develop her own gifts; it meant, above all, a solution of the +problems of her youth. No more speculations, no more vagaries, safely +anchored, happily absorbed in normal cares and pleasures, Susan could +rest on her laurels, and look about her in placid content! + +No more serious thought assailed her. Other thoughts than these were +not "nice." Susan safe-guarded her wandering fancies as sternly as she +did herself, would as quickly have let Peter, or any other man, kiss +her, as to have dreamed of the fundamental and essential elements of +marriage. These, said Auntie, "came later." Susan was quite content to +ignore them. That the questions that "came later" might ruin her life +or unmake her compact, she did not know. At this point it might have +made no difference in her attitude. Her affection for Peter was quite +as fresh and pure as her feeling for a particularly beloved brother +would have been. + +"You're dated three-deep for Thursday night, I presume?" + +"Peter--how you do creep up behind one!" Susan turned, on the deck, to +face him laughingly. "What did you say?" + +"I said--but where are you going?" + +"Upstairs to lunch. Where did you think?" Susan exhibited the little +package in her hand. "Do I look like a person about to go to a Browning +Cotillion, or to take a dip in the Pacific?" + +"No," gurgled Peter, "but I was wishing we could lunch together. +However, I'm dated with Hunter. But what about Thursday night?" + +"Thursday." Susan reflected. "Peter, I can't!" + +"All foolishness. You can." + +"No, honestly! Georgie and Joe are coming. The first time." + +"Oh, but you don't have to be there!" + +"Oh, but yes I do!" + +"Well---" Mr. Coleman picked a limp rubber bathing cap from the top of +a case, and distended it on two well-groomed hands. "Well, Evangeline, +how's Sat.? The great American pay-day!" + +"Busy Saturday, too. Too bad. I'm sorry, Peter." + +"Woman, you lie!" + +"Of course you can insult me, sir. I'm only a working girl!" + +"No, but who have you got a date with?" Peter said curiously. "You're +blushing like mad! You're not engaged at all!" + +"Yes, I am. Truly. Lydia Lord is taking the civil service examinations; +she wants to get a position in the public library. And I promised that +I'd take Mary's dinner up and sit with her." + +"Oh, shucks! You could get out of that! However----I'll tell you what, +Susan. I was going off with Russ on Sunday, but I'll get out of it, and +we'll go see guard mount at the Presidio, and have tea with Aunt Clara, +what?" + +"I don't believe they have guard mount on Sundays." + +"Well, then we'll go feed the gold-fish in the Japanese gardens,--they +eat on Sundays, the poor things! Nobody ever converted them." + +"Honestly, Peter---" + +"Look here, Susan!" he exclaimed, suddenly aroused. "Are you trying to +throw me down? Well, of all gall!" + +Susan's heart began to thump. + +"No, of course I'm not!" + +"Well, then, shall I get tickets for Monday night?" + +"Not Monday." + +"Look here, Susan! Somebody's been stuffing you, I can see it! Was it +Auntie? Come on, now, what's the matter, all of a sudden?" + +"There's nothing sudden about it," Susan said, with dignity, "but +Auntie does think that I go about with you a good deal---" + +Peter was silent. Susan, stealing a glance at his face, saw that it was +very red. + +"Oh, I love that! I'm crazy about it!" he said, grinning. Then, with +sudden masterfulness, "That's all ROT! I'm coming for you on Sunday, +and we'll go feed the fishes!" + +And he was gone. Susan ate her lunch very thoughtfully, satisfied on +the whole with the first application of the new plan. + +On Sunday afternoon Mr. Coleman duly presented himself at the +boarding-house, but he was accompanied by Miss Fox, to whom Susan, who +saw her occasionally at the Saunders', had taken a vague dislike, and +by a Mr. Horace Carter, fat, sleepy, and slightly bald at twenty-six. + +"I brought 'em along to pacify Auntie," said Peter on the car. + +Susan made a little grimace. + +"You don't like Con? Oh, she's loads of sport!" he assured her. "And +you'll like Carter, too, he's loads of fun!" + +But Susan liked nobody and nothing that day. It was a failure from +beginning to end. The sky was overcast, gloomy. Not a leaf stirred on +the dripping trees, in the silent Park, fog filled all the little +canons. There were very few children on the merry-go-rounds, or in the +swings, and very few pleasure-seekers in the museum and the +conservatories. Miss Fox was quite comfortable in white furs, but Susan +felt chilly. She tried to strike a human spark from Mr. Carter, but +failed. Attempts at a general conversation also fell flat. + +They listened to the band for a little while, but it was too cold to +sit still very long, and when Peter proposed tea at the Occidental, +Susan visibly brightened. But the shamed color rose in her face when +Miss Fox languidly assured him that if he wanted her mother to scalp +her, well and good; if not, he would please not mention tea downtown. + +She added that Mama was having a tea herself to-day, or she would ask +them all to come home with her. This put Susan in an uncomfortable +position of which she had to make the best. + +"If it wasn't for an assorted bunch of boarders," said Susan, "I would +ask you all to our house." + +Miss Fox eyed her curiously a moment, then spoke to Peter. + +"Well, do let's do something, Peter! Let's go to the Japanese garden." + +To the Japanese garden they went, for a most unsatisfactory tea. Miss +Fox, it appeared, had been to Japan,--"with Dolly Ripley, Peter," said +she, carelessly mentioning the greatest of California's heiresses, and +she delighted the little bowing, smiling tea-woman with a few words in +her native tongue. Susan admired this accomplishment, with the others, +as she drank the tasteless fluid from tiny bowls. + +Only four o'clock! What an endless afternoon it had been! + +Peter took her home, and they chatted on the steps gaily enough, in the +winter twilight. But Susan cried herself to sleep that night. This +first departure from her rule had proven humiliating and disastrous; +she determined not to depart from it again. + +Georgie and the doctor came to the house for the one o'clock Christmas +dinner, the doctor instantly antagonizing his wife's family by the +remark that his mother always had her Christmas dinner at night, and +had "consented" to their coming, on condition that they come home again +early in the afternoon. However, it was delightful to have Georgie back +again, and the cousins talked and laughed together for an hour, in Mary +Lou's room. Almost the first question from the bride was of Susan's +love-affair, and what Peter's Christmas gift had been. + +"It hasn't come yet, so I don't know myself!" Susan said readily. But +that evening, when Georgie was gone and her aunt and cousins were at +church, she sat down to write to Peter. + + MY DEAR PETER (wrote Susan): + + This is a perfectly exquisite pin, and you are a dear to have + remembered my admiring a pearl crescent months ago. I + never saw a pin that I liked better, but it's far too handsome + a gift for me to keep. I haven't even dared show it to Auntie + and the girls! I am sending it back to you, though I hate to + let it go, and thank you a thousand times. + + Always affectionately yours, + + SUSAN BROWN. + +Peter answered immediately from the country house where he was spending +the holidays. Susan read his letter in the office, two days after +Christmas. + + DEAR PANSY IRENE: + + I see Auntie's fine Italian hand in this! You wait till your + father gets home, I'll learn you to sass back! Tell Mrs. Lancaster + that it's an imitation and came in a box of lemon drops, + and put it on this instant! The more you wear the better, this + cold weather! + + I've got the bulliest terrier ever, from George. Show him + to you next week. PETER. + +Frowning thoughtfully, her eyes still on the scribbled half-sheet, +Susan sat down at her desk, and reached for paper and pen. She wrote +readily, and sent the letter out at once by the office boy. + + DEAR PETER: + + Please don't make any more fuss about the pin. I can't + accept it, and that's all there is to it. The candy was quite + enough--I thought you were going to send me books. Hadn't + you better change your mind and send me a book? As ever, + S. B. + +To which Peter, after a week's interval, answered briefly: + + DEAR SUSAN: + + This fuss about the pin gives me a pain. I gave a dozen + gifts handsomer than that, and nobody else seems to be kicking. + + + Be a good girl, and Love the Giver. PETER. + +This ended the correspondence. Susan put the pin away in the back of +her bureau-drawer, and tried not to think about the matter. + +January was cold and dark. Life seemed to be made to match. Susan +caught cold from a worn-out overshoe, and spent an afternoon and a day +in bed, enjoying the rest from her aching head to her tired feet, but +protesting against each one of the twenty trips that Mary Lou made up +and downstairs for her comfort. She went back to the office on the +third day, but felt sick and miserable for a long time and gained +strength slowly. + +One rainy day, when Peter Coleman was alone in Mr. Brauer's office, she +took the little jeweler's box in and laid it beside him on the desk. + +"This is all darn foolishness!" Peter said, really annoyed. + +"Well---" Susan shrugged wearily, "it's the way I feel about it." + +"I thought you were more of a sport!" he said impatiently, holding the +box as if he did not quite know what to do with it. + +"Perhaps I'm not," Susan said quietly. She felt as if the world were +slowly, dismally coming to an end, but she stood her ground. + +An awkward silence ensued. Peter slipped the little box into his +pocket. They were both standing at his high desk, resting their elbows +upon it, and half-turned, so that they faced each other. + +"Well," he said, discontentedly, "I've got to give you something or +other for Christmas. What'll it be?" + +"Nothing at all, Peter," Susan protested, "just don't say anything more +about it!" + +He meditated, scowling. + +"Are you dated for to-morrow night?" he asked. + +"Yes," Susan said simply. The absence of explanation was extremely +significant. + +"So you're not going out with me any more?" he asked, after a pause. + +"Not--for awhile," Susan agreed, with a little difficulty. She felt a +horrible inclination to cry. + +"Well, gosh, I hope somebody is pleased at the trouble she has made!" +Peter burst out angrily. + +"If you mean Auntie, Peter," indignation dried Susan's tears, "you are +quite mistaken! Anyway, she would be quite right not to want me to +accept expensive gifts from a man whose position is so different from +my own---" + +"Rot!" said Peter, flushing, "that sounds like servants' talk!" + +"Well, of course I know it is nonsense---" Susan began. And, despite +her utmost effort, two tears slipped down her cheeks. + +"And if we were engaged it would be all right, is that it?" Peter said, +after an embarrassed pause. + +"Yes, but I don't want you to think for one instant---" Susan began, +with flaming cheeks. + +"I wish to the Lord people would mind their own business," Peter said +vexedly. There was a pause. Then he added, cheerfully, "Tell 'em we're +engaged then, that'll shut 'em up!" + +The world rocked for Susan. + +"Oh, but Peter, we can't--it wouldn't be true!" + +"Why wouldn't it be true?" he demanded, perversely. + +"Because we aren't!" persisted Susan, rubbing an old blot on the desk +with a damp forefinger. + +"I thought one day we said that when I was forty-five and you were +forty-one we were going to get married?" Peter presently reminded her, +half in earnest, half irritated. + +"D-d-did we?" stammered Susan, smiling up at him through a mist of +tears. + +"Sure we did. We said we were going to start a stock-ranch, and raise +racers, don't you remember?" + +A faint recollection of the old joke came to her. + +"Well, then, are we to let people know that in twenty years we intend +to be married?" she asked, laughing uncertainly. + +Peter gave his delighted shout of amusement. The conversation had +returned to familiar channels. + +"Lord, don't tell anyone! WE'LL know it, that's enough!" he said. + +That was all. There was no chance for sentiment, they could not even +clasp hands, here in the office. Susan, back at her desk, tried to +remember exactly what HAD been said and implied. + +"Peter, I'll have to tell Auntie!" she had exclaimed. + +Peter had not objected, had not answered indeed. + +"I'll have to take my time about telling MY aunt," he had said, "but +there's time enough! See here, Susan, I'm dated with Barney White in +Berkeley to-night--is that all right?" + +"Surely!" Susan had assured him laughingly. + +"You see," Peter had explained, "it'll be a very deuce of a time before +we'll want everyone to know. There's any number of things to do. So +perhaps it's just as well if people don't suspect---" + +"Peter, how extremely like you not to care what people think as long as +we're not engaged, and not to want them to suspect it when we are!" +Susan could say, smiling above the deep hurt in her heart. + +And Peter laughed cheerfully again. + +Then Mr. Brauer came in, and Susan went back to her desk, brain and +heart in a whirl. But presently one fact disengaged itself from a mist +of doubts and misgivings, hopes and terrors. She and Peter were engaged +to be married! What if vows and protestations, plans and confidences +were still all to come, what if the very first kiss was still to come? +The essential thing remained; they were engaged, the question was +settled at last. + +Peter was not, at this time, quite the ideal lover. But in what was he +ever conventional; when did he ever do the expected thing? No; she +would gain so much more than any other woman ever had gained by her +marriage, she would so soon enter on a life that would make these days +seem only a troubled dream, that she could well afford to dispense with +some of the things her romantic nature half expected now. It might not +be quite comprehensible in him, but it was certainly a convenience for +her that he seemed to so dread an announcement just now. She must have +some gowns for the entertainments that would be given them; she must +have some money saved for trousseau; she must arrange a little tea at +home, when, the boarders being eliminated, Peter could come to meet a +few of the very special old friends. These things took time. Susan +spent the dreamy, happy afternoon in desultory planning. + +Peter went out at three o'clock with Barney White, looking in to nod +Susan a smiling good-by. Susan returned to her dreams, determined that +she would find the new bond as easy or as heavy as he chose to make it. +She had only to wait, and fate would bring this wonderful thing her +way; it would be quite like Peter to want to do the thing suddenly, +before long, summon his aunt and uncle, her aunt and cousins, and +announce the wedding and engagement to the world at once. + +Lost in happy dreams, she did not see Thorny watching her, or catch the +intense, wistful look with which Mr. Brauer so often followed her. + +Susan had a large share of the young German's own dreams just now, a +demure little Susan in a checked gingham apron, tasting jelly on a +vine-shaded porch, or basting a chicken in a sunny kitchen, or pouring +her lord's coffee from a shining pot. The dream Susan's hair was +irreproachably neat, she wore shining little house-slippers, and she +always laughed out,--the ringing peal of bells that Henry Brauer had +once heard in the real Susan's laugh,--when her husband teased her +about her old fancy for Peter Coleman. And the dream Susan was the +happy mother of at least five little girls--all girls!--a little Susan +that was called "Sanna," and an Adelaide for the gross-mutter in the +old country, and a Henrietta for himself---- + +Clean and strong and good, well-born and ambitious, gentle, and full of +the love of books and music and flowers and children, here was a mate +at whose side Susan might have climbed to the very summit of her +dreams. But she never fairly looked at Mr. Brauer, and after a few +years his plump dark little dumpling of a Cousin Linda came from Bremen +to teach music in the Western city, and to adore clever Cousin +Heinrich, and then it was time to hunt for the sunny kitchen and buy +the shining coffee-pot and change little Sanna's name to Linchen. + +For Susan was engaged to Peter Coleman! She went home on this +particular evening to find a great box of American Beauty roses waiting +for her, and a smaller box with them--the pearl crescent again! What +could the happy Susan do but pin on a rose with the crescent, her own +cheeks two roses, and go singing down to dinner? + +"Lovey, Auntie doesn't like to see you wearing a pin like that!" Mrs. +Lancaster said, noticing it with troubled eyes. "Didn't Peter send it +to you?" + +"Yes'm," said Susan, dimpling, as she kissed the older woman. + +"Don't you know that a man has no respect for a girl who doesn't keep +him a little at a distance, dear?" + +"Oh,--is--that--so!" Susan spun her aunt about, in a mad reel. + +"Susan!" gasped Mrs. Lancaster. Her voice changed, she caught the girl +by the shoulders, and looked into the radiant face. "Susan?" she asked. +"My child---!" + +And Susan strangled her with a hug, and whispered, "Yes--yes--yes! But +don't you dare tell anyone!" + +Poor Mrs. Lancaster was quite unable to tell anyone anything for a few +moments. She sat down in her place, mechanically returning the evening +greetings of her guests. Her handsome, florid face was quite pale. The +soup came on and she roused herself to serve it; dinner went its usual +way. + +But going upstairs after dinner, Mary Lou, informed of the great event +in some mysterious way, gave Susan's waist a girlish squeeze and said +joyously, "Ma had to tell me, Sue! I AM so glad!" and Virginia, sitting +with bandaged eyes in a darkened room, held out both hands to her +cousin, later in the evening, and said, "God bless our dear little +girl!" Billy knew it too, for the next morning he gave Susan one of his +shattering hand-grasps and muttered that he was "darned glad, and +Coleman was darned lucky," and Georgie, who was feeling a little better +than usual, though still pale and limp, came in to rejoice and exclaim +later in the day, a Sunday. + +All of this made Susan vaguely uneasy. It was true, of course, and yet +somehow it was all too new, too strange to be taken quite happily as a +matter of course. She could only smile when Mary Lou assured her that +she must keep a little carriage; when Virginia sighed, "To think of the +good that you can do"; when Georgie warned her against living with the +old people. + +"It's awful, take my word for it!" said Georgie, her hat laid aside, +her coat loosened, very much enjoying a cup of tea in the dining-room. +Young Mrs. O'Connor did not grow any closer to her husband's mother. +But it was to be noticed that toward her husband himself her attitude +was changed. Joe was altogether too smart to be cooped up there in the +Mission, it appeared; Joe was working much too hard, and yet he carried +her breakfast upstairs to her every morning; Joe was an angel with his +mother. + +"I wish--of course you can explain to Peter now--but I wish that I +could give you a little engagement tea," said Georgie, very much the +matron. + +"Oh, surely!" Susan hastened to reassure her. Nothing could have been +less to her liking than any festivity involving the O'Connors just now. +Susan had dined at the gloomy Mission Street house once, and retained a +depressing memory of the dark, long parlor, with only one shutter +opened in the bay window, the grim elderly hostess, in mourning, who +watched Georgie incessantly, the hard-faced elderly maid, so obviously +in league with her mistress against the new-comer, and the dinner that +progressed from a thick, sad-looking soup to a firm, cold apple pie. +There had been an altercation between the doctor and his mother on the +occasion of Susan's visit because there had been no fire laid in +Georgie's big, cold, upstairs bedroom. Susan, remembering all this, +could very readily excuse Georgie from the exercise of any hospitality +whatever. + +"Don't give it another thought, Georgie!" said she. + +"There'll be entertaining enough, soon!" said Mary Lou. + +"But we aren't going to announce it for ever so long!" Susan said. + +"Please, PLEASE don't tell anyone else, Auntie!" she besought over and +over again. + +"My darling, not for the world! I can perfectly appreciate the delicacy +of feeling that makes you wish to leave all that to Peter! And who +knows? Only ourselves, and Billy, who is as close to you as a dear +brother could be, and Joe---" + +"Oh, is Georgie going to tell Joe?" Susan asked, dismayed. + +"Well, now, perhaps she won't," Mrs. Lancaster said soothingly. "And I +think you will find that a certain young gentleman is only too anxious +to tell his friends what a lovely girl he has won!" finished Auntie +archly. + +Susan was somehow wretchedly certain that she would find nothing of the +kind. As a matter of fact, it chanced to be a week when she had no +engagements made with Peter, and two days went by--three--and still she +did not hear from him. + +By Thursday she was acutely miserable. He was evidently purposely +avoiding her. Susan had been sleeping badly for several nights, she +felt feverish with anxiety and uncertainty. On Thursday, when the girls +filed out of the office at noon, she kept her seat, for Peter was in +the small office and she felt as if she must have a talk with him or +die. She heard him come into Front Office the moment she was alone, and +began to fuss with her desk without raising her eyes. + +"Hello!" said Peter, sitting on a corner of the desk. "I've been +terribly busy with the Gerald theatricals, and that's why you haven't +seen me. I promised Mary Gerald two months ago that I'd be in 'em, but +by George! she's leaving the whole darn thing to me! How are you?" + +So gay, so big, so infinitely dear! Susan's doubts melted like mist. +She only wanted not to make him angry. + +"I've been wondering where you were," she said mildly. + +"And a little bit mad in spots?" queried Peter. + +"Well---" Susan took firm grip of her courage. "After our little talk +on Saturday," she reminded him, smilingly. + +"Sure," said Peter. And after a moment, thoughtfully staring down at +the desk, he added again rather heavily, "Sure." + +"I told my aunt--I had to," said Susan then. + +"Well, that's all right," Peter responded, after a perceptible pause. +"Nobody else knows?" + +"Oh, nobody!" Susan answered, her heart fluttering nervously at his +tone, and her courage suddenly failing. + +"And Auntie will keep mum, of course," he said thoughtfully. "It would +be so deuced awkward, Susan," he began. + +"Oh, I know it!" she said eagerly. It seemed so much, after the unhappy +apprehensions of the few days past, to have him acknowledge the +engagement, to have him only concerned that it should not be +prematurely made known! + +"Can't we have dinner together this evening, Sue? And go see that man +at the Orpheum,--they say he's a wonder!" + +"Why, yes, we could. Peter,---" Susan made a brave resolution. "Peter, +couldn't you dine with us, at Auntie's, I mean?" + +"Why, yes, I could," he said hesitatingly. But the moment had given +Susan time to reconsider the impulsively given invitation. For a dozen +reasons she did not want to take Peter home with her to-night. The +single one that the girls and Auntie would be quite unable to conceal +the fact that they knew of her engagement was enough. So when Peter +said regretfully, "But I thought we'd have more fun alone! Telephone +your aunt and ask her if we can't have a pious little dinner at the +Palace, or at the Occidental--we'll not see anybody there!" Susan was +only too glad to agree. + +Auntie of course consented, a little lenience was permissible now. + +"... But not supper afterwards, dear," said Auntie. "If Peter teases, +tell him that he will have you to himself soon enough! And Sue," she +added, with a hint of reproach in her voice, "remember that we expect +to see Peter out here very soon. Of course it's not as if your mother +was alive, dear, I know that! Still, even an old auntie has some claim!" + +"Well, Auntie, darling," said Susan, very low, "I asked him to dinner +to-night. And then it occurred to me, don't you know?---that it might +be better---" + +"Gracious me, don't think of bringing him out here that way!" +ejaculated Mrs. Lancaster. "No, indeed. You're quite right. But arrange +it for very soon, Sue." + +"Oh, surely I will!" Susan said, relievedly. + +After an afternoon of happy anticipation it was a little disappointing +to find that she and Peter were not to be alone, a gentle, pretty Miss +Hall and her very charming brother were added to the party when Peter +met Susan at six o'clock. + +"Friends of Aunt Clara's," Peter explained to Susan. "I had to!" + +Susan, liking the Halls, sensibly made the best of them. She let Miss +Katharine monopolize Peter, and did her best to amuse Sam. She was in +high spirits at dinner, laughed, and kept the others laughing, during +the play,--for the plan had been changed for these guests, and +afterwards was so amusing and gay at the little supper party that Peter +was his most admiring self all the way home. But Susan went to bed with +a baffled aching in her heart. This was not being engaged,--something +was wrong. + +She did not see Peter on Friday; caught only a glimpse of him on +Saturday, and on Sunday learned, from one of the newspapers, that "Mr. +Peter Coleman, who was to have a prominent part in the theatricals to +take place at Mrs. Newton Gerald's home next week, would probably +accompany Mr. Forrest Gerald on a trip to the Orient in February, to be +gone for some months." + +Susan folded the paper, and sat staring blankly ahead of her for a long +time. Then she went to the telephone, and, half stunned by the violent +beating of her heart, called for the Baxter residence. + +Burns answered. Mr. Coleman had gone out about an hour ago with Mr. +White. Burns did not know where. Mr. Coleman would be back for a seven +o'clock dinner. Certainly, Burns would ask him to telephone at once to +Miss Brown. + +Excited, troubled, and yet not definitely apprehensive, Susan dressed +herself very prettily, and went out into the clear, crisp sunshine. She +decided suddenly to go and see Georgie. She would come home early, hear +from Peter, perhaps dine with him and his uncle and aunt. And, when she +saw him, she would tell him, in the jolliest and sweetest way, that he +must make his plans to have their engagement announced at once. Any +other course was unfair to her, to him, to his friends. + +If Peter objected, Susan would assume an offended air. That would +subdue him instantly. Or, if it did not, they might quarrel, and Susan +liked the definiteness of a quarrel. She must force this thing to a +conclusion one way or the other now, her own dignity demanded it. As +for Peter, his own choice was as limited as hers. He must agree to the +announcement,--and after all, why shouldn't he agree to it?--or he must +give Susan up, once and for all. Susan smiled. He wouldn't do that! + +It was a delightful day. The cars were filled with holiday-makers, and +through the pleasant sunshine of the streets young parents were guiding +white-coated toddlers, and beautifully dressed little girls were +wheeling dolls. + +Susan found Georgie moping alone in the big, dark, ugly house; Aggie +was out, and Dr. O'Connor and his mother were making their annual +pilgrimage to the grave of their husband and father. The cousins +prepared supper together, in Aggie's exquisitely neat kitchen, not that +this was really necessary, but because the kitchen was so warm and +pleasant. The kettle was ticking on the back of the range, a scoured +empty milk-pan awaited the milk-man. Susan contrasted her bright +prospects with her cousin's dull lot, even while she cheerfully scolded +Georgie for being so depressed and lachrymose. + +They fell to talking of marriage, Georgie's recent one, Susan's +approaching one. The wife gave delicate hints, the wife-to-be revealed +far more of her secret soul than she had ever dreamed of revealing. +Georgie sat, idly clasping the hands on which the wedding-ring had +grown loose, Susan turned and reversed the wheels of a Dover egg-beater. + +"Marriage is such a mystery, before you're into it," Georgie said. "But +once you're married, why, you feel as if you could attract any man in +the world. No more bashfulness, Sue, no more uncertainty. You treat men +exactly as you would girls, and of course they like it!" + +Susan pondered this going home. She thought she knew how to apply it to +her attitude toward Peter. + +Peter had not telephoned. Susan, quietly determined to treat him, or +attempt to treat him, with at least the frank protest she would have +shown to another girl, telephoned to the Baxter house at once. Mr. +Coleman was not yet at home. + +Some of her resolution crumbled. It was very hard to settle down, after +supper, to an evening of solitaire. In these quiet hours, Susan felt +less confident of Peter's attitude when she announced her ultimatum; +felt that she must not jeopardize their friendship now, must run no +risks. + +She had worked herself into a despondent and discouraged frame of mind +when the telephone rang, at ten o'clock. It was Peter. + +"Hello, Sue!" said Peter gaily. "I'm just in. Burns said that you +telephoned." + +"Burns said no more than the truth," said Susan. It was the old note of +levity, anything but natural to to-night's mood and the matter in hand. +But it was what Peter expected and liked. She heard him laugh with his +usual gaiety. + +"Yes, he's a truthful little soul. He takes after me. What was it?" + +Susan made a wry mouth in the dark. + +"Nothing at all," she said, "I just telephoned--I thought we might go +out somewhere together." + +"GREAT HEAVEN, WE'RE ENGAGED!" she reminded her sinking heart, fiercely. + +"Oh, too bad! I was at the Gerald's, at one of those darn rehearsals." + +A silence. + +"Oh, all right!" said Susan. A writhing sickness of spirit threatened +to engulf her, but her voice was quiet. + +"I'm sorry, Sue," Peter said quickly in a lower tone, "I couldn't very +well get out of it without having them all suspect. You can see that!" + +Susan knew him so well! He had never had to do anything against his +will. He couldn't understand that his engagement entailed any +obligations. He merely wanted always to be happy and popular, and have +everyone else happy and popular, too. + +"And what about this trip to Japan with Mr. Gerald?" she asked. + +There was another silence. Then Peter said, in an annoyed tone: + +"Oh, Lord, that would probably be for a MONTH, or six weeks at the +outside!" + +"I see," said Susan tonelessly. + +"I've got Forrest here with me to-night," said Peter, apropos of +nothing. + +"Oh, then I won't keep you!" Susan said. + +"Well," he laughed, "don't be so polite about it!--I'll see you +to-morrow?" + +"Surely," Susan said. "Good-night." + +"Over the reservoir!" he said, and she hung up her receiver. + +She did not sleep that night. Excitement, anger, shame kept her wakeful +and tossing, hour after hour. Susan's head ached, her face burned, her +thoughts were in a mad whirl. What to do--what to do--what to do----! +How to get out of this tangle; where to go to begin again, away from +these people who knew her and loved her, and would drive her mad with +their sympathy and curiosity! + +The clock struck three--four--five. At five o'clock Susan, suddenly +realizing her own loneliness and loss, burst into bitter crying and +after that she slept. + +The next day, from the office, she wrote to Peter Coleman: + + MY DEAR PETER: + + I am beginning to think that our little talk in the office a + week ago was a mistake, and that you think so. I don't say + anything of my own feelings; you know them. I want to ask + you honestly to tell me of yours. Things cannot go on this + way. Affectionately, + SUSAN. + +This was on Monday. On Tuesday the papers recorded everywhere Mr. Peter +Coleman's remarkable success in Mrs. Newton Gerald's private +theatricals. On Wednesday Susan found a letter from him on her desk, in +the early afternoon, scribbled on the handsome stationery of his club. + + MY DEAR SUSAN: + + I shall always think that you are the bulliest girl I ever knew, + and if you throw me down on that arrangement for our old + age I shall certainly slap you on the wrist. But I know you + will think better of it before you are forty-one! What you + mean by "things" I don't know. I hope you're not calling ME + a thing! + + Forrest is pulling my arm off. See you soon. + Yours as ever, + PETER. + +The reading of it gave Susan a sensation of physical illness. She felt +chilled and weak. How false and selfish and shallow it seemed; had +Peter always been that? And what was she to do now, to-morrow and the +next day and the next? What was she to do this moment, indeed? She felt +as if thundering agonies had trampled the very life out of her heart; +yet somehow she must look up, somehow face the office, and the curious +eyes of the girls. + +"Love-letter, Sue?" said Thorny, sauntering up with a bill in her hand. +"Valentine's Day, you know!" + +"No, darling; a bill," answered Susan, shutting it in a drawer. + +She snapped up her light, opened her ledger, and dipped a pen in the +ink. + + + + +PART TWO + +Wealth + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +The days that followed were so many separate agonies, composed of an +infinite number of lesser agonies, for Susan. Her only consolation, +which weakened or strengthened with her moods, was that, inasmuch as +this state of affairs was unbearable she would not be expected to bear +it. Something must happen. Or, if nothing happened, she would simply +disappear,--go on the stage, accept a position as a traveling governess +or companion, run away to one of the big eastern cities where, under an +assumed name, she might begin life all over again. + +Hour after hour shame and hurt had their way with her. Susan had to +face the office, to hide her heart from Thorny and the other girls, to +be reminded by the empty desk in Mr. Brauer's office, and by every +glimpse she had of old Mr. Baxter, of the happy dreams she had once +dreamed here in this same place. + +But it was harder far at home. Mrs. Lancaster alternated between tender +moods, when she discussed the whole matter mournfully from beginning to +end, and moods of violent rebellion, when everyone but Susan was blamed +for the bitter disappointment of all their hopes. Mary Lou compared +Peter to Ferd Eastman, to Peter's disadvantage. Virginia recommended +quiet, patient endurance of whatever might be the will of Providence. +Susan hardly knew which attitude humiliated and distressed her most. +All her thoughts led her into bitterness now, and she could be +distracted only for a brief moment or two from the memories that +pressed so close about her heart. Ah, if she only had a little money, +enough to make possible her running away, or a profession into which +she could plunge, and in which she could distinguish herself, or a +great talent, or a father who would stand by her and take care of +her---- + +And the bright head would go down on her hands, and the tears have +their way. + +"Headache?" Thorny would ask, full of sympathy. + +"Oh, splitting!" And Susan would openly dry her eyes, and manage to +smile. + +Sometimes, in a softer mood, her busy brain straightened the whole +matter out. Peter, returning from Japan, would rush to her with a full +explanation. Of course he cared for her--he had never thought of +anything else--of course he considered that they were engaged! And +Susan, after keeping him in suspense for a period that even Auntie +thought too long, would find herself talking to him, scolding, +softening, finally laughing, and at last--and for the first time!--in +his arms. + +Only a lovers' quarrel; one heard of them continually. Something to +laugh about and to forget! + +She took up the old feminine occupation of watching the post, weak with +sudden hope when Mary Lou called up to her, "Letter for you on the +mantel, Sue!" and sick with disappointment over and over again. Peter +did not write. + +Outwardly the girl went her usual round, perhaps a little thinner and +with less laughter, but not noticeably changed. She basted cuffs into +her office suit, and cleaned it with benzine, caught up her lunch and +umbrella and ran for her car. She lunched and gossiped with Thorny and +the others, walked uptown at noon to pay a gas-bill, took Virginia to +the Park on Sundays to hear the music, or visited the Carrolls in +Sausalito. + +But inwardly her thoughts were like whirling web. And in its very +center was Peter Coleman. Everything that Susan did began and ended +with the thought of him. She never entered the office without the hope +that a fat envelope, covered with his dashing scrawl, lay on the desk. +She never thought herself looking well without wishing that she might +meet Peter that day, or looking ill that she did not fear it. She +answered the telephone with a thrilling heart; it might be he! And she +browsed over the social columns of the Sunday papers, longing and +fearing to find his name. All day long and far into the night, her +brain was busy with a reconciliation,--excuses, explanations, +forgiveness. "Perhaps to-day," she said in the foggy mornings. +"To-morrow," said her undaunted heart at night. + +The hope was all that sustained her, and how bitterly it failed her at +times only Susan knew. Before the world she kept a brave face, evading +discussion of Peter when she could, quietly enduring it when Mrs. +Lancaster's wrath boiled over. But as the weeks went by, and the full +wretchedness of the situation impressed itself upon her with quiet +force, she sank under an overwhelming sense of wrong and loss. Nothing +amazing was going to happen. She--who had seemed so free, so +independent!--was really as fettered and as helpless as Virginia and +Mary Lou. Susan felt sometimes as if she should go mad with suppressed +feeling. She grew thin, dyspeptic, irritable, working hard, and finding +her only relief in work, and reading in bed in the evening. + +The days slowly pushed her further and further from those happy times +when she and Peter had been such good friends, had gone about so +joyfully together. It was a shock to Susan to realize that she had not +seen him nor heard from him for a month--for two months--for three. +Emily Saunders was in the hospital for some serious operation, would be +there for weeks; Ella was abroad. Susan felt as if her little glimpse +of their world and Peter's had been a curious dream. + +Billy played a brother's part toward her now, always ready to take her +about with him when he was free, and quite the only person who could +spur her to anything like her old vigorous interest in life. They went +very often to the Carrolls, and there, in the shabby old sitting-room, +Susan felt happier than she did anywhere else. Everybody loved her, +loved to have her there, and although they knew, and she knew that they +knew, that something had gone very wrong with her, nobody asked +questions, and Susan felt herself safe and sheltered. There was a shout +of joy when she came in with Phil and Jo from the ferryboat. "Mother! +here's Sue!" Betsey would follow the older girls upstairs to chatter +while they washed their hands and brushed their hair, and, going down +again, Susan would get the motherly kiss that followed Jo's. Later, +when the lamp was lit, while Betsey and Jim wrangled amicably over +their game, and Philip and Jo toiled with piano and violin, Susan sat +next to Mrs. Carroll, and while they sewed, or between snatches of +reading, they had long, and to the girl at least, memorable talks. + +It was all sweet and wholesome and happy. Susan used to wonder just +what made this house different from all other houses, and why she liked +to come here so much, to eat the simplest of meals, to wash dishes and +brush floors, to rise in the early morning and cross the bay before the +time she usually came downstairs at home. Of course, they loved her, +they laughed at her jokes, they wanted this thing repeated and that +repeated, they never said good-by to her without begging her to come +again and thought no special occasion complete without her. That +affected her, perhaps. Or perhaps the Carrolls were a little nicer than +most people; when Susan reached this point in her thoughts she never +failed to regret the loss of their money and position. If they had done +this in spite of poverty and obscurity, what MIGHTN'T they have done +with half a chance! + +In one of the lamplight talks Peter was mentioned, in connection with +the patent window-washer, and Susan learned for the first time that he +really had been instrumental in selling the patent for Mrs. Carroll for +the astonishing sum of five hundred dollars! + +"I BEGGED him to tell me if that wasn't partly from the washer and +partly from Peter Coleman," smiled Mrs. Carroll, "and he gave me his +word of honor that he had really sold it for that! So--there went my +doctor's bill, and a comfortable margin in the bank!" + +She admitted Susan into the secret of all her little economies; the +roast that, cleverly alternated with one or two small meats, was served +from Sunday until Saturday night, and no one any the worse! Susan began +to watch the game that Mrs. Carroll made of her cooking; filling soups +for the night that the meat was short, no sweet when the garden +supplied a salad, or when Susan herself brought over a box of candy. +She grew to love the labor that lay behind the touch of the thin, +darned linen, the windows that shone with soapsuds, the crisp snowy +ruffles of curtains and beds. She and Betts liked to keep the house +vases filled with what they could find in the storm-battered garden, +lifted the flattened chrysanthemums with reverent fingers, hunted out +the wet violets. Susan abandoned her old idea of the enviable life of a +lonely orphan, and began to long for a sister, a tumble-headed brother, +for a mother above all. She loved to be included by the young Carrolls +when they protested, "Just ourselves, Mother, nobody but the family!" +and if Phil or Jimmy came to her when a coat-button was loose or a +sleeve-lining needed a stitch, she was quite pathetically touched. She +loved the constant happy noise and confusion in the house, Phil and +Billy Oliver tussling in the stair-closet among the overshoes, Betts +trilling over her bed-making, Mrs. Carroll and Jim replanting primroses +with great calling and conference, and she and Josephine talking, as +they swept the porches, as if they had never had a chance to talk +before. + +Sometimes, walking at Anna's side to the beach on Sunday, a certain +peace and content crept into Susan's heart, and the deep ache lifted +like a curtain, and seemed to show a saner, wider, sweeter region +beyond. Sometimes, tramping the wet hills, her whole being thrilled to +some new note, Susan could think serenely of the future, could even be +glad of all the past. It was as if Life, into whose cold, stern face +she had been staring wistfully, had softened to the glimmer of a smile, +had laid a hand, so lately used to strike, upon her shoulder in token +of good-fellowship. + +With the good salt air in their faces, and the gray March sky pressing +close above the silent circle of the hills about them, she and Anna +walked many a bracing, tiring mile. Now and then they turned and smiled +at each other, both young faces brightening. + +"Noisy, aren't we, Sue?" + +"Well, the others are making noise enough!" + +Poverty stopped them at every turn, these Carrolls. Susan saw it +perhaps more clearly than they did. A hundred delightful and hospitable +plans came into Mrs. Carroll's mind, only to be dismissed because of +the expense involved. She would have liked to entertain, to keep her +pretty daughters becomingly and richly dressed; she confided to Susan +rather wistfully, that she was sorry not to be able to end the evenings +with little chafing-dish suppers; "that sort of thing makes home so +attractive to growing boys." Susan knew what Anna's own personal +grievance was. "These are the best years of my life," Anna said, +bitterly, one night, "and every cent of spending money I have is the +fifty dollars a year the hospital pays. And even out of that they take +breakage, in the laboratory or the wards!" Josephine made no secret of +her detestation of their necessary economies. + +"Did you know I was asked to the Juniors this year?" she said to Susan +one night. + +"The Juniors! You weren't!" Susan echoed incredulously. For the "Junior +Cotillion" was quite the most exclusive and desirable of the city's +winter dances for the younger set. + +"Oh, yes, I was. Mrs. Wallace probably did it," Josephine assured her, +sighing. "They asked Anna last year," she said bitterly, "and I suppose +next year they'll ask Betts, and then perhaps they'll stop." + +"Oh, but Jo-why couldn't you go! When so many girls are just CRAZY to +be asked!" + +"Money," Josephine answered briefly. + +"But not much!" Susan lamented. The "Juniors" were not to be estimated +in mere money. + +"Twenty-five for the ticket, and ten for the chaperone, and a gown, of +course, and slippers and a wrap--Mother felt badly about it," Josephine +said composedly. And suddenly she burst into tears, and threw herself +down on the bed. "Don't let Mother hear, and don't think I'm an idiot!" +she sobbed, as Susan came to kneel beside her and comfort her, +"but--but I hate so to drudge away day after day, when I know I could +be having GORGEOUS times, and making friends---!" + +Betts' troubles were more simple in that they were indefinite. Betts +wanted to do everything, regardless of cost, suitability or season, and +was quite as cross over the fact that they could not go camping in the +Humboldt woods in midwinter, as she was at having to give up her ideas +of a new hat or a theater trip. And the boys never complained +specifically of poverty. Philip, won by deep plotting that he could not +see to settle down quietly at home after dinner, was the gayest and +best of company, and Jim's only allusions to a golden future were made +when he rubbed his affectionate little rough head against his mother, +pony-fashion, and promised her every luxury in the world as soon as he +"got started." + +When Peter Coleman returned from the Orient, early in April, all the +newspapers chronicled the fact that a large number of intimate friends +met him at the dock. He was instantly swept into the social currents +again; dinners everywhere were given for Mr. Coleman, box-parties and +house-parties followed one another, the club claimed him, and the +approaching opening of the season found him giving special attention to +his yacht. Small wonder that Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's caught only +occasional glimpses of him. Susan, somberly pursuing his name from +paper to paper, felt that she was beginning to dislike him. She managed +never to catch his eye, when he was in Mr. Brauer's office, and took +great pains not to meet him. + +However, in the lingering sweet twilight of a certain soft spring +evening, when she had left the office, and was beginning the long walk +home, she heard sudden steps behind her, and turned to see Peter. + +"Aren't you the little seven-leagued booter! Wait a minute, Susan! +C'est moi! How are you?" + +"How do you do, Peter?" Susan said pleasantly and evenly. She put her +hand in the big gloved hand, and raised her eyes to the smiling eyes. + +"What car are you making for?" he asked, falling in step. + +"I'm walking," Susan said. "Too nice to ride this evening." + +"You're right," he said, laughing. "I wish I hadn't a date, I'd like +nothing better than to walk it, too! However, I can go a block or two." + +He walked with her to Montgomery Street, and they talked of Japan and +the Carrolls and of Emily Saunders. Then Peter said he must catch a +California Street car, and they shook hands again and parted. + +It all seemed rather flat. Susan felt as if the little episode did not +belong in the stormy history of their friendship at all, or as if she +were long dead and were watching her earthly self from a distance with +wise and weary eyes. What should she be feeling now? What would a +stronger woman have done? Given him the cut direct, perhaps, or forced +the situation to a point when something dramatic--satisfying--must +follow. + +"I am weak," said Susan ashamedly to herself; "I was afraid he would +think I cared,--would see that I cared!" And she walked on busy with +self-contemptuous and humiliated thoughts. She had made it easy for him +to take advantage of her. She had assumed for his convenience that she +had suffered no more than he through their parting, and that all was +again serene and pleasant between them. After to-night's casual, +friendly conversation, no radical attitude would be possible on her +part; he could congratulate himself that he still retained Susan's +friendship, and could be careful--she knew he would be careful!--never +to go too far again. + +Susan's estimate of Peter Coleman was no longer a particularly +idealized one. But she had long ago come to the conclusion that his +faults were the faults of his type and his class, excusable and +understandable now, and to be easily conquered when a great emotion +should sweep him once and for all away from the thought of himself. As +he was absorbed in the thought of his own comfort, so, she knew, he +could become absorbed in the thought of what was due his wife, the +wider viewpoint would quickly become second nature with him; young Mrs. +Peter Coleman would be among the most indulged and carefully considered +of women. He would be as anxious that the relationship between his wife +and himself should be harmonious and happy, as he was now to feel when +he met her that he had no reason to avoid or to dread meeting Miss +Susan Brown. + +If Susan would have preferred a little different attitude on his part, +she could find no fault with this one. She had for so many months +thought of Peter as the personification of all that she desired in life +that she could not readily dismiss him as unworthy. Was he not still +sweet and big and clean, rich and handsome and popular, socially +prominent and suitable in age and faith and nationality? + +Susan had often heard her aunt and her aunt's friends remark that life +was more dramatic than any book, and that their own lives on the stage +would eclipse in sensational quality any play ever presented. But, for +herself, life seemed deplorably, maddeningly undramatic. In any book, +in any play, the situation between her and Peter must have been +heightened to a definite crisis long before this. The mildest of little +ingenues, as she came across a dimly lighted stage, in demure white and +silver, could have handled this situation far more skillfully than +Susan did; the most youthful of heroines would have met Peter to some +purpose,--while surrounded by other admirers at a dance, or while +galloping across a moor on her spirited pony. + +What would either of these ladies have done, she wondered, at meeting +the offender when he appeared particularly well-groomed, prosperous and +happy, while she herself was tired from a long office day, conscious of +shabby gloves, of a shapeless winter hat? What could she do, except +appear friendly and responsive? Susan consoled herself with the thought +that her only alternative, an icy repulse of his friendly advances, +would have either convinced him that she was too entirely common and +childish to be worth another thought, or would have amused him hugely. +She could fancy him telling his friends of his experience of the cut +direct from a little girl in Front Office,--no names named--and hear +him saying that "he loved it--he was crazy about it!" + +"You believe in the law of compensation, don't you, Aunt Jo?" asked +Susan, on a wonderful April afternoon, when she had gone straight from +the office to Sausalito. The two women were in the Carroll kitchen, +Susan sitting at one end of the table, her thoughtful face propped in +her hands, Mrs. Carroll busy making ginger cakes,--cutting out the flat +little circles with an inverted wine-glass, transferring them to the +pans with the tip of her flat knife, rolling the smooth dough, and +spilling the hot cakes, as they came back from the oven, into a deep +tin strainer to cool. Susan liked to watch her doing this, liked the +pretty precision of every movement, the brisk yet unhurried repetition +of events, her strong clever hands, the absorbed expression of her +face, her fine, broad figure hidden by a stiffly-starched gown of faded +blue cotton and a stiff white apron. + +Beyond the open window an exquisite day dropped to its close. It was +the time of fruit-blossoms and feathery acacia, languid, perfumed +breezes, lengthening twilights, opening roses and swaying plumes of +lilac. Sausalito was like a little park, every garden ran over with +sweetness and color, every walk was fringed with flowers, and hedged +with the new green of young trees and blossoming hedges. Susan felt a +delicious relaxation run through her blood; winter seemed really +routed; to-day for the first time one could confidently prophesy that +there would be summer presently, thin gowns and ocean bathing and +splendid moons. + +"Yes, I believe in the law of compensation, to a great extent," the +older woman answered thoughtfully, "or perhaps I should call it the law +of solution. I truly believe that to every one of us on this earth is +given the materials for a useful and a happy life; some people use them +and some don't. But the chance is given alike." + +"Useful, yes," Susan conceded, "but usefulness isn't happiness." + +"Isn't it? I really think it is." + +"Oh, Aunt Jo," the girl burst out impatiently, "I don't mean for +saints! I dare say there ARE some girls who wouldn't mind being poor +and shabby and lonesome and living in a boarding-house, and who would +be glad they weren't hump-backed, or blind, or Siberian prisoners! But +you CAN'T say you think that a girl in my position has had a fair start +with a girl who is just as young, and rich and pretty and clever, and +has a father and mother and everything else in the world! And if you do +say so," pursued Susan, with feeling, "you certainly can't MEAN so---" + +"But wait a minute, Sue! What girl, for instance?" + +"Oh, thousands of girls!" Susan said, vaguely. "Emily Saunders, Alice +Chauncey---" + +"Emily Saunders! SUSAN! In the hospital for an operation every other +month or two!" Mrs. Carroll reminded her. + +"Well, but---" Susan said eagerly. "She isn't really ill. She just +likes the excitement and having them fuss over her. She loves the +hospital." + +"Still, I wouldn't envy anyone whose home life wasn't preferable to the +hospital, Sue." + +"Well, Emily is queer, Aunt Jo. But in her place I wouldn't necessarily +be queer." + +"At the same time, considering her brother Kenneth's rather checkered +career, and the fact that her big sister neglects and ignores her, and +that her health is really very delicate, I don't consider Emily a happy +choice for your argument, Sue." + +"Well, there's Peggy Brock. She's a perfect beauty---" + +"She's a Wellington, Sue. You know that stock. How many of them are +already in institutions?" + +"Oh, but Aunt Jo!" Susan said impatiently, "there are dozens of girls +in society whose health is good, and whose family ISN'T insane,--I +don't know why I chose those two! There are the Chickerings---" + +"Whose father took his own life, Sue." + +"Well, they couldn't help THAT. They're lovely girls. It was some money +trouble, it wasn't insanity or drink." + +"But think a moment, Sue. Wouldn't it haunt you for a long, long time, +if you felt that your own father, coming home to that gorgeous house +night after night, had been slowly driven to the taking of his own +life?" + +Susan looked thoughtful. + +"I never thought of that," she admitted. Presently she added brightly, +"There are the Ward girls, Aunt Jo, and Isabel Wallace. You couldn't +find three prettier or richer or nicer girls! Say what you will," Susan +returned undauntedly to her first argument, "life IS easier for those +girls than for the rest of us!" + +"Well, I want to call your attention to those three," Mrs. Carroll +said, after a moment. "Both Mr. Wallace and Mr. Ward made their own +money, started in with nothing and built up their own fortunes. Phil +may do that, or Billy may do that--we can't tell. Mrs. Ward and Mrs. +Wallace are both nice, simple women, not spoiled yet by money, not +inflated on the subject of family and position, bringing up their +families as they were brought up. I don't know Mrs. Ward personally, +but Mrs. Wallace came from my own town, and she likes to remember the +time when her husband was only a mining engineer, and she did her own +work. You may not see it, Sue, but there's a great difference there. +Such people are happy and useful, and they hand happiness on. Peter +Coleman's another, he's so exceptionally nice because he's only one +generation removed from working people. If Isabel Wallace,--and she's +very young; life may be unhappy enough for her yet, poor +child!--marries a man like her father, well and good. But if she +marries a man like--well, say Kenneth Saunders or young Gerald, she +simply enters into the ranks of the idle and useless and unhappy, +that's all." + +"She's beautiful, and she's smart too," Susan pursued, disconsolately, +"Emily and I lunched there one day and she was simply sweet to the +maids, and to her mother. And German! I wish you could hear her. She +may not be of any very remarkable family but she certainly is an +exceptional girl!" + +"Exceptional, just because she ISN'T descended from some dead, old, +useless stock," amended Mrs. Carroll. "There is red blood in her veins, +ambition and effort and self-denial, all handed down to her. But marry +that pampered little girl to some young millionaire, Sue, and what will +her children inherit? And what will theirs, in time?--Peel these, will +you?" went on Mrs. Carroll, interrupting her work to put a bowl of +apples in Susan's hands. "No," she went on presently, "I married a +millionaire, Sue. I was one of the 'lucky' ones!" + +"I never knew it was as much as that!" Susan said impressed. + +"Yes," Mrs. Carroll laughed wholesomely at some memory. "Yes; I began +my married life in the very handsomest home in our little town with the +prettiest presents and the most elaborate wardrobe--the papers were +full of Miss Josie van Trent's extravagances. I had four house +servants, and when Anna came everybody in town knew that her little +layette had come all the way from Paris!" + +"But,--good heavens, what happened?" + +"Nothing, for awhile. Mr. Carroll, who was very young, had inherited a +half-interest in what was then the biggest shoe-factory in that part of +the world. My father was his partner. Philip--dear me! it seems like a +lifetime ago!--came to visit us, and I came home from an Eastern +finishing school. Sue, those were silly, happy, heavenly days! Well! we +were married, as I said. Little Phil came, Anna came. Still we went on +spending money. Phil and I took the children to Paris,--Italy. Then my +father died, and things began to go badly at the works. Phil discharged +his foreman, borrowed money to tide over a bad winter, and said that he +would be his own superintendent. Of course he knew nothing about it. We +borrowed more money. Jo was the baby then, and I remember one ugly +episode was that the workmen, who wanted more money, accused Phil of +getting his children's clothes abroad because his wife didn't think +American things were good enough for them." + +"YOU!" Susan said, incredulously. + +"It doesn't sound like me now, does it? Well; Phil put another foreman +in, and he was a bad man--in league with some rival factory, in fact. +Money was lost that way, contracts broken---" + +"BEAST!" said Susan. + +"Wicked enough," the other woman conceded, "but not at all an uncommon +thing, Sue, where people don't know their own business. So we borrowed +more money, borrowed enough for a last, desperate fight, and lost it. +The day that Jim was three years old, we signed the business away to +the other people, and Phil took a position under them, in his own +factory." + +"Oo-oo!" Susan winced. + +"Yes, it was hard. I did what I could for my poor old boy, but it was +very hard. We lived very quietly; I had begun to come to my senses +then; we had but one maid. But, even then, Sue, Philip wasn't capable +of holding a job of that sort. How could he manage what he didn't +understand? Poor Phil---" Mrs. Carroll's bright eyes brimmed with +tears, and her mouth quivered. "However, we had some happy times +together with the babies," she said cheerfully, "and when he went away +from us, four years later, with his better salary we were just +beginning to see our way clear. So that left me, with my five, Sue, +without a cent in the world. An old cousin of my father owned this +house, and she wrote that she would give us all a home, and out we +came,--Aunt Betty's little income was barely enough for her, so I sold +books and taught music and French, and finally taught in a little +school, and put up preserves for people, and packed their houses up for +the winter---" + +"How did you DO it!" + +"Sue, I don't know! Anna stood by me,--my darling!" The last two words +came in a passionate undertone. "But of course there were bad times. +Sometimes we lived on porridges and milk for days, and many a night +Anna and Phil and I have gone out, after dark, to hunt for dead +branches in the woods for my kitchen stove!" And Mrs. Carroll, +unexpectedly stirred by the pitiful memory, broke suddenly into tears, +the more terrible to Susan because she had never seen her falter before. + +It was only for a moment. Then Mrs. Carroll dried her eyes and said +cheerfully: + +"Well, those times only make these seem brighter! Anna is well started +now, we've paid off the last of the mortgage, Phil is more of a comfort +than he's ever been--no mother could ask a better boy!--and Jo is +beginning to take a real interest in her work. So everything is coming +out better than even my prayers." + +"Still," smiled Susan, "lots of people have things comfortable, WITHOUT +such a terrible struggle!" + +"And lots of people haven't five fine children, Sue, and a home in a +big garden. And lots of mothers don't have the joy and the comfort and +the intimacy with their children in a year that I have every day. No, +I'm only too happy now, Sue. I don't ask anything better than this. And +if, in time, they go to homes of their own, and we have some more +babies in the family--it's all LIVING, Sue, it's being a part of the +world!" + +Mrs. Carroll carried away her cakes to the big stone jar in the pantry. +Susan, pensively nibbling a peeled slice of apple, had a question ready +for her when she came back. + +"But suppose you're one of those persons who get into a groove, and +simply can't live? I want to work, and do heroic things, and grow to BE +something, and how can I? Unless---" her color rose, but her glance did +not fall, "unless somebody marries me, of course." + +"Choose what you want to do, Sue, and do it. That's all." + +"Oh, that SOUNDS simple! But I don't want to do any of the things you +mean. I want to work into an interesting life, somehow. I'll--I'll +never marry," said Susan. + +"You won't? Well; of course that makes it easier, because you can go +into your work with heart and soul. But perhaps you'll change your +mind, Sue. I hope you will, just as I hope all the girls will marry. +I'm not sure," said Mrs. Carroll, suddenly smiling, "but what the very +quickest way for a woman to marry off her girls is to put them into +business. In the first place, a man who wants them has to be in +earnest, and in the second, they meet the very men whose interests are +the same as theirs. So don't be too sure you won't. However, I'm not +laughing at you, Sue. I think you ought to seriously select some work +for yourself, unless of course you are quite satisfied where you are." + +"I'm not," said Susan. "I'll never get more than forty where I am. And +more than that, Thorny heard that Front Office is going to be closed up +any day." + +"But you could get another position, dear." + +"Well, I don't know. You see, it's a special sort of bookkeeping. It +wouldn't help any of us much elsewhere." + +"True. And what would you like best to do, Sue?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I think the stage. Or something with lots +of traveling in it." Susan laughed, a little ashamed of her vagueness. + +"Why not take a magazine agency, then? There's a lot of money---" + +"Oh, no!" Susan shuddered. "You're joking!" + +"Indeed I'm not. You're just the sort of person who would make a fine +living selling things. The stage--I don't know. But if you really mean +it, I don't see why you shouldn't get a little start somewhere." + +"Aunt Jo, they say that Broadway in New York is simply LINED with girls +trying---" + +"New York! Well, very likely. But you try here. Go to the manager of +the Alcazar, recite for him---" + +"He wouldn't let me," Susan asserted, "and besides, I don't really know +anything." + +"Well, learn something. Ask him, when next some manager wants to make +up a little road company---" + +"A road company! Two nights in Stockton, two nights in +Marysville--horrors!" said Susan. + +"But that wouldn't be for long, Sue. Perhaps two years. Then five or +six years in stock somewhere---" + +"Aunt Jo, I'd be past thirty!" Susan laughed and colored charmingly. +"I--honestly, I couldn't give up my whole life for ten years on the +chance of making a hit," she confessed. + +"Well, but what then, Sue?" + +"Now, I'll tell you what I've often wanted to do," Susan said, after a +thoughtful interval. + +"Ah, now we're coming to it!" Mrs. Carroll said, with satisfaction. +They had left the kitchen now, and were sitting on the top step of the +side porch, reveling in the lovely panorama of hillside and waterfront, +and the smooth and shining stretch of bay below them. + +"I've often thought I'd like to be the matron of some very smart school +for girls," said Susan, "and live either in or near some big Eastern +city, and take the girls to concerts and lectures and walking in the +parks, and have a lovely room full of books and pictures, where they +would come and tell me things, and go to Europe now and then for a +vacation!" + +"That would be a lovely life, Sue. Why not work for that?" + +"Why, I don't know how. I don't know of any such school." + +"Well, now let us suppose the head of such a school wants a matron," +Mrs. Carroll said, "she naturally looks for a lady and a linguist, and +a person of experience---" + +"There you are! I've had no experience!" Susan said, instantly +depressed. "I could rub up on French and German, and read up the +treatment for toothache and burns--but experience!" + +"But see how things work together, Sue!" Mrs. Carroll exclaimed, with a +suddenly bright face. + +"Here's Miss Berrat, who has the little school over here, simply CRAZY +to find someone to help her out. She has eight--or nine, I forget--day +scholars, and four or five boarders. And such a dear little cottage! +Miss Pitcher is leaving her, to go to Miss North's school in Berkeley, +and she wants someone at once!" + +"But, Aunt Jo, what does she pay?" + +"Let me see---" Mrs. Carroll wrinkled a thoughtful brow. "Not much, I +know. You live at the school, of course. Five or ten dollars a month, I +think." + +"But I COULDN'T live on that!" Susan exclaimed. + +"You'd be near us, Sue, for one thing. And you'd have a nice bright +sunny room. And Miss Berrat would help you with your French and German. +It would be a good beginning." + +"But I simply COULDN'T--" Susan stopped short. "Would you advise it, +Aunt Jo?" she asked simply. + +Mrs. Carroll studied the bright face soberly for a moment. + +"Yes, I'd advise it, Sue," she said then gravely. "I don't think that +the atmosphere where you are is the best in the world for you just now. +It would be a fine change. It would be good for those worries of yours." + +"Then I'll do it!" Susan said suddenly, the unexplained tears springing +to her eyes. + +"I think I would. I'll go and see Miss Berrat next week," Mrs. Carroll +said. "There's the boat making the slip, Sue," she added, "let's get +the table set out here on the porch while they're climbing the hill!" + +Up the hill came Philip and Josephine, just home from the city, +escorted by Betsey and Jim who had met them at the boat. Susan received +a strangling welcome from Betts, and Josephine, who looked a little +pale and tired after this first enervating, warm spring day, really +brightened perceptibly when she went upstairs with Susan to slip into a +dress that was comfortably low-necked and short-sleeved. + +Presently they all gathered on the porch for dinner, with the sweet +twilighted garden just below them and anchor lights beginning to prick, +one by one, through the soft dusky gloom of the bay. + +"Well, 'mid pleasures and palaces---" Philip smiled at his mother. + +"Charades to-night!" shrilled Betts, from the kitchen where she was +drying lettuce. + +"Oh, but a walk first!" Susan protested. For their aimless strolls +through the dark, flower-scented lanes were a delight to her. + +"And Billy's coming over to-morrow to walk to Gioli's," Josephine added +contentedly. + +That evening and the next day Susan always remembered as terminating a +certain phase of her life, although for perhaps a week the days went on +just as usual. But one morning she found confusion reigning, when she +arrived at Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's. Front Office was to be +immediately abolished, its work was over, its staff already dispersing. + +Workmen, when she arrived, were moving out cases and chairs, and Mr. +Brauer, eagerly falling upon her, begged her to clean out her desk, and +to help him assort the papers in some of the other desks and cabinets. +Susan, filled with pleasant excitement, pinned on her paper cuffs, and +put her heart and soul into the work. No bills this morning! The +office-boy did not even bring them up. + +"Now, here's a soap order that must have been specially priced," said +Susan, at her own desk, "I couldn't make anything of it yesterday---" + +"Let it go--let it go!" Mr. Brauer said. "It iss all ofer!" + +As the other girls came in they were pressed into service, papers and +papers and papers, the drift of years, were tossed out of drawers and +cubby-holes. Much excited laughter and chatter went on. Probably not +one girl among them felt anything but pleasure and relief at the +unexpected holiday, and a sense of utter confidence in the future. + +Mr. Philip, fussily entering the disordered room at ten o'clock, +announced his regret at the suddenness of the change; the young ladies +would be paid their salaries for the uncompleted month--a murmur of +satisfaction arose--and, in short, the firm hoped that their +association had been as pleasant to them as it had been to his partners +and himself. + +"They had a directors' meeting on Saturday," Thorny said, later, "and +if you ask me my frank opinion, I think Henry Brauer is at the bottom +of all this. What do you know about his having been at that meeting on +Saturday, and his going to have the office right next to J. G.'s--isn't +that the extension of the limit? He's as good as in the firm now." + +"I've always said that he knew something that made it very well worth +while for this firm to keep his mouth shut," said Miss Cashell, darkly. + +"I'll bet you there's something in that," Miss Cottle agreed. + +"H. B. & H. is losing money hand over fist," Thorny stated, gloomily, +with that intimate knowledge of an employer's affairs always displayed +by an obscure clerk. + +"Brauer asked me if I would like to go into the big office, but I don't +believe I could do the work," Susan said. + +"Yes; I'm going into the main office, too," Thorny stated. "Don't you +be afraid, Susan. It's as easy as pie." + +"Mr. Brauer said I could try it," Miss Sherman shyly contributed. But +no other girl had been thus complimented. Miss Kelly and Miss Garvey, +both engaged to be married now, Miss Kelly to Miss Garvey's brother, +Miss Garvey to Miss Kelly's cousin, were rather congratulating +themselves upon the turn of events; the other girls speculated as to +the wisest step to take next, some talking vaguely of post-office or +hospital work; Miss Cashell, as Miss Thornton later said to Susan, +hopelessly proving herself no lady by announcing that she could get +better money as a coat model, and meant to get into that line of work +if she could. + +"Are we going to have lunch to-day?" somebody asked. Miss Thornton +thoughtfully drew a piece of paper toward her, and wet her pencil in +her mouth. + +"Best thing we can do, I guess," she said. + +"Let's put ten cents each in," Susan suggested, "and make it a real +party." + +Thorny accordingly expanded her list to include sausages and a pie, +cheese and rolls, besides the usual tea and stewed tomatoes. The girls +ate the little meal with their hats and wraps on, a sense of change +filled the air, and they were all a little pensive, even with an +unexpected half-holiday before them. + +Then came good-bys. The girls separated with many affectionate +promises. All but the selected three were not to return. Susan and Miss +Sherman and Thorny would come back to find their desks waiting for them +in the main office next day. + +Susan walked thoughtfully uptown, and when she got home, wrote a formal +application for the position open in her school to little Miss Berrat +in Sausalito. + +It was a delightful, sunshiny afternoon. Mary Lou, Mrs. Lancaster and +Virginia were making a mournful trip to the great institution for the +blind in Berkeley, where Virginia's physician wanted to place her for +special watching and treatment. Susan found two or three empty hours on +her hands, and started out for a round of calls. + +She called on her aunt's old friends, the Langs, and upon the bony, +cold Throckmorton sisters, rich, nervous, maiden ladies, shivering +themselves slowly to death in their barn of a house, and finally, and +unexpectedly, upon Mrs. Baxter. + +Susan had planned a call on Georgie, to finish the afternoon, for her +cousin, slowly dragging her way up the last of the long road that ends +in motherhood, was really in need of cheering society. + +But the Throckmorton house chanced to be directly opposite the old +Baxter mansion, and Susan, seeing Peter's home, suddenly decided to +spend a few moments with the old lady. + +After all, why should she not call? She had had no open break with +Peter, and on every occasion his aunt had begged her to take pity on an +old woman's loneliness. Susan was always longing, in her secret heart, +for that accident that should reopen the old friendship; knowing Peter, +she knew that the merest chance would suddenly bring him to her side +again; his whole life was spent in following the inclination of the +moment. And today, in her pretty new hat and spring suit, she was +looking her best. + +Peter would not be at home, of course. But his aunt would tell him that +that pretty, happy Miss Brown was here, and that she was going to leave +Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's for something not specified. And then Peter, +realizing that Susan had entirely risen above any foolish old memory---- + +Susan crossed the street and rang the bell. When the butler told her, +with an impassive face, that he would find out if Mrs. Baxter were in, +Susan hoped, in a panic, that she was not. The big, gloomy, handsome +hall rather awed her. She watched Burns's retreating back fearfully, +hoping that Mrs. Baxter really was out, or that Burns would be +instructed to say so. + +But he came back, expressionless, placid, noiseless of step, to say in +a hushed, confidential tone that Mrs. Baxter would be down in a moment. +He lighted the reception room brilliantly for Susan, and retired +decorously. Susan sat nervously on the edge of a chair. Suddenly her +call seemed a very bold and intrusive thing to do, even an indelicate +thing, everything considered. Suppose Peter should come in; what could +he think but that she was clinging to the association with which he had +so clearly indicated that he was done? + +What if she got up and went silently, swiftly out? Burns was not in +sight, the great hall was empty. She had really nothing to say to Mrs. +Baxter, and she could assume that she had misunderstood his message if +the butler followed her---- + +Mrs. Baxter, a little figure in rustling silk, came quickly down the +stairway. Susan met her in the doorway of the reception room, with a +smile. + +"How do you do, how do you do?" Mrs. Baxter said nervously. She did not +sit down, but stood close to Susan, peering up at her shortsightedly, +and crumpling the card she held in her hand. "It's about the office, +isn't it?" she said quickly. "Yes, I see. Mr. Baxter told me that it +was to be closed. I'm sorry, but I never interfere in those +things,--never. I really don't know ANYTHING about it! I'm sorry. But +it would hardly be my place to interfere in business, when I don't know +anything about it, would it? Mr. Baxter always prides himself on the +fact that I don't interfere. So I don't really see what I could do." + +A wave of some supreme emotion, not all anger, nor all contempt, nor +all shame, but a composite of the three, rose in Susan's heart. She had +not come to ask a favor of this more fortunate woman, but--the thought +flashed through her mind--suppose she had? She looked down at the +little silk-dressed figure, the blinking eyes, the veiny little hand, +and the small mouth, that, after sixty years, was composed of nothing +but conservative and close-shut lines. Pity won the day over her hurt +girlish feeling and the pride that claimed vindication, and Susan +smiled kindly. + +"Oh, I didn't come about Front Office, Mrs. Baxter! I just happened to +be in the neighborhood---" Two burning spots came into the older +woman's face, not of shame, but of anger that she had misunderstood, +had placed herself for an instant at a disadvantage. + +"Oh," she said vaguely. "Won't you sit down? Peter---" she paused. + +"Peter is in Santa Barbara, isn't he?" asked Susan, who knew he was not. + +"I declare I don't know where he is half the time," Mrs. Baxter said, +with her little, cracked laugh. They both sat down. "He has SUCH a good +time!" pursued his aunt, complacently. + +"Doesn't he?" Susan said pleasantly. + +"Only I tell the girls they mustn't take Peter too seriously," cackled +the sweet, old voice. "Dreadful boy!" + +"I think they understand him." Susan looked at her hostess +solicitously. "You look well," she said resolutely. "No more neuritis, +Mrs. Baxter?" + +Mrs. Baxter was instantly diverted. She told Susan of her new +treatment, her new doctor, the devotion of her old maid; Emma, the +servant of her early married life, was her close companion now, and +although Mrs. Baxter always thought of her as a servant, Emma was +really the one intimate friend she had. + +Susan remained a brief quarter of an hour, chatting easily, but burning +with inward shame. Never, never, never in her life would she pay +another call like this one! Tea was not suggested, and when the girl +said good-by, Mrs. Baxter did not leave the reception room. But just as +Burns opened the street-door for her Susan saw a beautiful little coupe +stop at the curb, and Miss Ella Saunders, beautifully gowned, got out +of it and came up the steps with a slowness that became her enormous +size. + +"Hello, Susan Brown!" said Miss Saunders, imprisoning Susan's hand +between two snowy gloves. "Where've you been?" + +"Where've YOU been?" Susan laughed. "Italy and Russia and Holland!" + +"Don't be an utter little hypocrite, child, and try to make talk with a +woman of my years I I've been home two weeks, anyway." + +"Emily home?" + +Miss Saunders nodded slowly, bit her lip, and stared at Susan in a +rather mystifying and very pronounced way. + +"Emily is home, indeed," she said absently. Then abruptly she added: +"Can you lunch with me to-morrow--no, Wednesday--at the Town and +Country, infant?" + +"Why, I'd love to!" Susan answered, dimpling. + +"Well; at one? Then we can talk. Tell me," Miss Saunders lowered her +voice, "is Mrs. Baxter in? Oh, damn!" she added cheerfully, as Susan +nodded. Susan glanced back, before the door closed, and saw her meet +the old lady in the hall and give her an impulsive kiss. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +The little Town and Country Club, occupying two charmingly-furnished, +crowded floors of what had once been a small apartment house on Post +Street, next door to the old library, was a small but remarkable +institution, whose members were the wealthiest and most prominent women +of the fashionable colonies of Burlingame and San Mateo, Ross Valley +and San Rafael. Presumably only the simplest and least formal of +associations, it was really the most important of all the city's social +institutions, and no woman was many weeks in San Francisco society +without realizing that the various country clubs, and the Junior +Cotillions were as dust and ashes, and that her chances of achieving a +card to the Browning dances were very slim if she could not somehow +push her name at least as far as the waiting list of the Town and +Country Club. + +The members pretended, to a woman, to be entirely unconscious of their +social altitude. They couldn't understand how such ideas ever got +about, it was "delicious"; it was "too absurd!" Why, the club was just +the quietest place in the world, a place where a woman could run in to +brush her hair and wash her hands, and change her library book, and +have a cup of tea. A few of them had formed it years ago, just half a +dozen of them, at a luncheon; it was like a little family circle, one +knew everybody there, and one felt at home there. But, as for being +exclusive and conservative, that was all nonsense! And besides, what +did other women see in it to make them want to come in! Let them form +another club, exactly like it, wouldn't that be the wiser thing? + +Other women, thus advised and reassured, smiled, instead of gnashing +their teeth, and said gallantly that after all they themselves were too +busy to join any club just now, merely happened to speak of the Town +and Country. And after that they said hateful and lofty and insulting +things about the club whenever they found listeners. + +But the Town and Country Club flourished on unconcernedly, buzzing six +days a week with well-dressed women, echoing to Christian names and +intimate chatter, sheltering the smartest of pigskin suitcases and +gold-headed umbrellas and rustling raincoats in its tiny closets, +resisting the constant demand of the younger element for modern club +conveniences and more room. + +No; the old members clung to its very inconveniences, to the gas-lights +over the dressing-tables, and the narrow halls, and the view of ugly +roofs and buildings from its back windows. They liked to see the +notices written in the secretary's angular hand and pinned on the +library door with a white-headed pin. The catalogue numbers of books +were written by hand, too--the ink blurred into the shiny linen bands. +At tea-time a little maid quite openly cut and buttered bread in a +corner of the dining-room; it was permissible to call gaily, "More +bread here, Rosie! I'm afraid we're a very hungry crowd to-day!" + +Susan enormously enjoyed the club; she had been there more than once +with Miss Saunders, and found her way without trouble to-day to a big +chair in a window arch, where she could enjoy the passing show without +being herself conspicuous. A constant little stream of women came and +went, handsome, awkward school-girls, in town for the dentist or to be +fitted to shoes, or for the matinee; debutantes, in their exquisite +linens and summer silks, all joyous chatter and laughter; and +plainly-gowned, well-groomed, middle-aged women, escorting or +chaperoning, and pausing here for greetings and the interchange of news. + +Miss Saunders, magnificent, handsome, wonderfully gowned, was +surrounded by friends the moment she came majestically upstairs. Susan +thought her very attractive, with her ready flow of conversation, her +familiar, big-sisterly attitude with the young girls, her positiveness +when there was the slightest excuse for her advice or opinions being +expressed. She had a rich, full voice, and a drawling speech. She had +to decline ten pressing invitations in as many minutes. + +"Ella, why can't you come home with me this afternoon?--I'm not +speaking to you, Ella Saunders, you've not been near us since you got +back!--Mama's so anxious to see you, Miss Ella!--Listen, Ella, you've +got to go with us to Tahoe; Perry will have a fit if you don't!" + +"Mama's not well, and the kid is just home," Miss Saunders told them +all good-naturedly, in excuse. She carried Susan off to the lunch-room, +announcing herself to be starving, and ordered a lavish luncheon. Ella +Saunders really liked this pretty, jolly, little book-keeper from +Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's. Susan amused her, and she liked still better +the evidence that she amused Susan. Her indifferent, not to say +irreverent, air toward the sacred traditions and institutions of her +class made Susan want to laugh and gasp at once. + +"But this is a business matter," said Miss Saunders, when they had +reached the salad, "and here we are talking! Mama and Baby and I have +talked this thing all over, Susan," she added casually, "and we want to +know what you'd think of coming to live with us?" + +Susan fixed her eyes upon her as one astounded, not a muscle of her +face moved. She never was quite natural with Ella; above the sudden +rush of elation and excitement came the quick intuition that Ella would +like a sensational reception of her offer. Her look expressed the +stunned amazement of one who cannot credit her ears. Ella's laugh +showed an amused pleasure. + +"Don't look so aghast, child. You don't have to do it!" she said. + +Again Susan did the dramatic and acceptable thing, typical of what she +must give the Saunders throughout their relationship. Instead of the +natural "What on earth are you talking about?" she said slowly, +dazedly, her bewildered eyes on Ella's face: + +"You're joking---" + +"Joking! You'll find the Saunders family no joke, I can promise you +that!" Ella said, humorously. And again Susan laughed. + +"No, but you see Emily's come home from Fowler's a perfect nervous +wreck," explained Miss Ella, "and; she can't be left alone for +awhile,--partly because her heart's not good, partly because she gets +blue, and partly because, if she hasn't anyone to drive and walk and +play tennis with, and so on, she simply mopes from morning until night. +She hates Mama's nurse; Mama needs Miss Baker herself anyway, and we've +been wondering and wondering how we could get hold of the right person +to fill the bill. You'd have a pretty easy time in one way, of course, +and do everything the Kid does, and I'll stand right behind you. But +don't think it's any snap!" + +"Snap!" echoed Susan, starry-eyed, crimson-cheeked. "---But you don't +mean that you want ME?" + +"I wish you could have seen her; she turned quite pale," Miss Saunders +told her mother and sister later. "Really, she was overcome. She said +she'd speak to her aunt to-night; I don't imagine there'll be any +trouble. She's a nice child. I don't see the use of delay, so I said +Monday." + +"You were a sweet to think of it," Emily said, gratefully, from the +downy wide couch where she was spending the evening. + +"Not at all, Kid," Ella answered politely. She yawned, and stared at +the alabaster globe of the lamp above Emily's head. A silence fell. The +two sisters never had much to talk about, and Mrs. Saunders, dutifully +sitting with the invalid, was heavy from dinner, and nearly asleep. +Ella yawned again. + +"Want some chocolates?" she finally asked. + +"Oh, thank you, Ella!" + +"I'll send Fannie in with 'em!" Miss Ella stood up, bent her head to +study at close range an engraving on the wall, loitered off to her own +room. She was rarely at home in the evening and did not know quite what +to do with herself. + +Susan, meanwhile, walked upon air. She tasted complete happiness for +almost the first time in her life; awakened in the morning to blissful +reality, instead of the old dreary round, and went to sleep at night +smiling at her own happy thoughts. It was all like a pleasant dream! + +She resigned from her new position at Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's exactly +as she resigned in imagination a hundred times. No more drudgery over +bills, no more mornings spent in icy, wet shoes, and afternoons heavy +with headache. Susan was almost too excited to thank Mr. Brauer for his +compliments and regrets. + +Parting with Thorny was harder; Susan and she had been through many a +hard hour together, had shared a thousand likes and dislikes, had loved +and quarreled and been reconciled. + +"You're doing an awfully foolish thing, Susan. You'll wish you were +back here inside of a month," Thorny prophesied when the last moment +came. "Aw, don't you do it, Susan!" she pleaded, with a little real +emotion. "Come on into Main Office, and sit next to me. We'll have +loads of sport." + +"Oh, I've promised!" Susan held out her hand. "Don't forget me!" she +said, trying to laugh. Miss Thornton's handsome eyes glistened with +tears. With a sudden little impulse they kissed each other for the +first time. + +Then Susan, a full hour before closing, went down from the lunch-room, +and past all the familiar offices; the sadness of change tugging at her +heart-strings. She had been here a long time, she had smelled this same +odor of scorching rubber, and oils and powders through so many slow +afternoons, in gay moods and sad, in moods of rebellion and distaste. +She left a part of her girlhood here. The cashier, to whom she went for +her check, was all kindly interest, and the young clerks and salesmen +stopped to offer her their good wishes. Susan passed the time-clock +without punching her number for the first time in three years, and out +into the sunny, unfamiliar emptiness of the streets. + +At the corner her heart suddenly failed her. She felt as if she could +not really go away from these familiar places and people. The +warehouses and wholesale houses, the wholesale liquor house with a live +eagle magnificently caged in one window, the big stove establishment, +with its window full of ranges in shining steel and nickel-plate; these +had been her world for so long! + +But she kept on her way uptown, and by the time she reached the old +library, where Mary Lou, very handsome in her well-brushed suit and +dotted veil, with white gloves still odorous of benzine, was waiting, +she was almost sure that she was not making a mistake. + +Mary Lou was a famous shopper, capable of exhausting any saleswoman for +a ten-cent purchase, and proportionately effective when, as to-day, a +really considerable sum was to be spent. She regretfully would decline +a dozen varieties in handkerchiefs or ribbons, saying with pleasant +plaintiveness to the saleswoman: "Perhaps I am hard to please. My +mother is an old Southern lady--the Ralstons, you know?--and her linen +is, of course, like nothing one can get nowadays! No; I wouldn't care +to show my mother this. + +"My cousin, of course, only wants this for a little hack hat," she +added to Susan's modest suggestion of price to the milliner, and in the +White House she consented to Susan's selections with a consoling +reminder, "It isn't as if you didn't have your lovely French underwear +at home, Sue! These will do very nicely for your rough camping trip!" + +Compared to Mary Lou, Susan was a very poor shopper. She was always +anxious to please the saleswoman, to buy after a certain amount of +looking had been done, for no other reason than that she had caused +most of the stock to be displayed. + +"I like this, Mary Lou," Susan would murmur nervously. And, as the +pompadoured saleswoman turned to take down still another heap of +petticoats, Susan would repeat noiselessly, with an urgent nod, "This +will do!" + +"Wait, now, dear," Mary Lou would return, unperturbed, arresting +Susan's hand with a white, well-filled glove. "Wait, dear. If we can't +get it here we can get it somewhere else. Yes, let me see those you +have there---" + +"Thank you, just the same," Susan always murmured uncomfortably, +averting her eyes from the saleswoman, as they went away. But the +saleswoman, busily rearranging her stock, rarely responded. + +To-day they bought, besides the fascinating white things, some tan +shoes, and a rough straw hat covered with roses, and two linen skirts, +and three linen blouses, and a little dress of dotted lavender lawn. +Everything was of the simplest, but Susan had never had so many new +things in the course of her life before, and was elated beyond words as +one purchase was made after another. + +She carried home nearly ten dollars, planning to keep it until the +first month's salary should be paid, but Auntie was found, upon their +return in the very act of dissuading the dark powers known as the +"sewing-machine men" from removing that convenience, and Susan, only +too thankful to be in time, gladly let seven dollars fall into the oily +palm of the carrier in charge. + +"Mary Lou," said she, over her fascinating packages, just before +dinner, "here's a funny thing! If I had gone bad, you know, so that I +could keep buying nice, pretty, simple things like this, as fast as I +needed them, I'd feel better--I mean truly cleaner and more moral--than +when I was good!" + +"Susan! Why, SUSAN!" Her cousin turned a shocked face from the window +where she was carefully pasting newly-washed handkerchiefs, to dry in +the night. "Do you remember who you ARE, dear, and don't say dreadful +things like that!" + +In the next few days Susan pressed her one suit, laundered a score of +little ruffles and collars, cleaned her gloves, sewed on buttons and +strings generally, and washed her hair. Late on Sunday came the joyful +necessity of packing. Mary Lou folded and refolded patiently, Georgie +came in with a little hand-embroidered handkerchief-case for Susan's +bureau, Susan herself rushed about like a mad-woman, doing almost +nothing. + +"You'll be back inside the month," said Billy that evening, looking up +from Carlyle's "Revolution," to where Susan and Mary Lou were busy with +last stitches, at the other side of the dining-room table. "You can't +live with the rotten rich any more than I could!" + +"Billy, you don't know how awfully conceited you sound when you say a +thing like that!" + +"Conceited? Oh, all right!" Mr. Oliver accompanied the words with a +sound only to be described as a snort, and returned, offended, to his +book. + +"Conceited, well, maybe I am," he resumed with deadly calm, a moment +later. "But there's no conceit in my saying that people like the +Saunders can't buffalo ME!" + +"You may not see it, but there IS!" persisted Susan. + +"You give me a pain, Sue! Do you honestly think they are any better +than you are?" + +"Of course they're not better," Susan said, heatedly, "if it comes +right down to morals and the Commandments! But if I prefer to spend my +life among people who have had several generations of culture and +refinement and travel and education behind them, it's my own affair! I +like nice people, and rich people ARE more refined than poor, and +nobody denies it! I may feel sorry for a girl who marries a man on +forty a week, and brings up four or five little kids on it, but that +doesn't mean I want to do it myself! And I think a man has his nerve to +expect it!" + +"I didn't make you an offer, you know, Susan," said William pleasantly. + +"I didn't mean you!" Susan answered angrily. Then with sudden calm and +sweetness, she resumed, busily tearing up and assorting old letters the +while, "But now you're trying to make me mad, Billy, and you don't care +what you say. The trouble with you," she went on, with sisterly +kindness and frankness, "is that you think you are the only person who +really ought to get on in the world. You know so much, and study so +hard, that you DESERVE to be rich, so that you can pension off every +old stupid German laborer at the works who still wants a job when they +can get a boy of ten to do his work better than he can! You mope away +over there at those cottages, Bill, until you think the only important +thing in the world is the price of sausages in proportion to wages. And +for all that you pretend to despise people who use decent English, and +don't think a bath-tub is a place to store potatoes; I notice that you +are pretty anxious to study languages and hear good music and keep up +in your reading, yourself! And if that's not cultivation---" + +"I never said a word about cultivation!" Billy, who had been apparently +deep in his book, looked up to snap angrily. Any allusion to his +efforts at self-improvement always touched him in a very sensitive +place. + +"Why, you did TOO! You said---" + +"Oh, I did not! If you're going to talk so much, Sue, you ought to have +some faint idea what you're talking about!" + +"Very well," Susan said loftily, "if you can't address me like a +gentleman, we won't discuss it. I'm not anxious for your opinion, +anyway." + +A silence. Mr. Oliver read with passionate attention. Susan sighed, +sorted her letters, sighed again. + +"Billy, do you love me?" she asked winningly, after a pause. + +Another silence. Mr. Oliver turned a page. + +"Are you sure you've read every word on that page, Bill,--every little +word?" + +Silence again. + +"You know, you began this, Bill," Susan said presently, with childish +sweet reproach. "Don't say anything, Bill; I can't ask that! But if you +still love me, just smile!" + +By some miracle, Billy preserved his scowl. + +"Not even a glimmer!" Susan said, despondently. "I'll tell you, Bill," +she added, gushingly. "Just turn a page, and I'll take it for a sign of +love!" She clasped her hands, and watched him breathlessly. + +Mr. Oliver reached the point where the page must be turned. He moved +his eyes stealthily upward. + +"Oh, no you don't! No going back!" exulted Susan. She jumped up, +grabbed the book, encircled his head with her arms, kissed her own hand +vivaciously and made a mad rush for the stairs. Mr. Oliver caught her +half-way up the flight, with more energy than dignity, and got his book +back by doubling her little finger over with an increasing pressure +until Susan managed to drop the volume to the hall below. + +"Bill, you beast! You've broken my finger!" Susan, breathless and +dishevelled, sat beside him on the narrow stair, and tenderly worked +the injured member, "It hurts!" + +"Let Papa tiss it!" + +"You try it once!" + +"Sh-sh! Ma says not so much noise!" hissed Mary Lou, from the floor +above, where she had been summoned some hours ago, "Alfie's just +dropped off!" + +On Monday a new life began for Susan Brown. She stepped from the dingy +boarding-house in Fulton Street straight into one of the most beautiful +homes in the state, and, so full were the first weeks, that she had no +time for homesickness, no time for letters, no time for anything but +the briefest of scribbled notes to the devoted women she left behind +her. + +Emily Saunders herself met the newcomer at the station, looking very +unlike an invalid,--looking indeed particularly well and happy, if +rather pale, as she was always pale, and a little too fat after the +idle and carefully-fed experience in the hospital. Susan peeped into +Miss Ella's big room, as they went upstairs. Ella was stretched +comfortably on a wide, flowery couch, reading as her maid rubbed her +loosened hair with some fragrant toilet water, and munching chocolates. + +"Hello, Susan Brown!" she called out. "Come in and see me some time +before dinner,--I'm going out!" + +Ella's room was on the second floor, where were also Mrs. Saunders' +room, various guest-rooms, an upstairs music-room and a sitting-room. +But Emily's apartment, as well as her brother's, were on the third +floor, and Susan's delightful room opened from Emily's. The girls had a +bathroom as large as a small bedroom, and a splendid deep balcony +shaded by gay awnings was accessible only to them. Potted geraniums +made this big outdoor room gay, a thick Indian rug was on the floor, +there were deep wicker chairs, and two beds, in day-covers of green +linen, with thick brightly colored Pueblo blankets folded across them. +The girls were to spend all their days in the open air, and sleep out +here whenever possible for Emily's sake. + +While Emily bathed, before dinner, Susan hung over the balcony rail, +feeling deliciously fresh and rested, after her own bath, and eager not +to miss a moment of the lovely summer afternoon. Just below her, the +garden was full of roses. There were other flowers, too, carnations and +velvety Shasta daisies, there were snowballs that tumbled in great +heaps of white on the smooth lawn, and syringas and wall-flowers and +corn-flowers, far over by the vine-embroidered stone wall, and late +Persian lilacs, and hydrangeas, in every lovely tone between pink and +lavender, filled a long line of great wooden Japanese tubs, leading, by +a walk of sunken stones, to the black wooden gates of the Japanese +garden. But the roses reigned supreme--beautiful standard roses, with +not a shriveled leaf to mar the perfection of blossoms and foliage; San +Rafael roses, flinging out wherever they could find a support, great +sprays of pinkish-yellow and yellowish-pink, and gold and cream and +apricot-colored blossoms. There were moss roses, sheathed in dark-green +film, glowing Jacqueminot and Papagontier and La France roses, white +roses, and yellow roses,--Susan felt as if she could intoxicate herself +upon the sweetness and the beauty of them all. + +The carriage road swept in a great curve from the gate, its smooth +pebbled surface crossed sharply at regular intervals by the clean-cut +shadows of the elm trees. Here and there on the lawns a sprinkler flung +out its whirling circles of spray, and while Susan watched a gardener +came into view, picked up a few fallen leaves from the roadway and +crushed them together in his hand. + +On the newly-watered stretch of road that showed beyond the wide gates, +carriages and carts, and an occasional motor-car were passing, flinging +wheeling shadows beside them on the road, and driven by girls in light +gowns and wide hats or by grooms in livery. Presently one very smart, +high English cart stopped, and Mr. Kenneth Saunders got down from it, +and stood whipping his riding-boot with his crap and chatting with the +young woman who had driven him home. Susan thought him a very +attractive young man, with his quiet, almost melancholy expression, and +his air of knowing exactly the correct thing to do, whenever he cared +to exert himself at all. + +She watched him now with interest, not afraid of detection, for a small +head, on a third story balcony, would be quite lost among the details +of the immense facade of the house. He walked toward the stable, and +whistled what was evidently a signal, for three romping collies came +running to meet him, and were leaping and tumbling about him as he went +around the curve of the drive and out of sight. Then Susan went back to +her watching and dreaming, finding something new to admire and delight +in every moment. The details confused her, but she found the whole +charming. + +Indeed, she had been in San Rafael for several weeks before she found +the view of the big house from the garden anything but bewildering. +With its wings and ells, its flowered balconies and French windows, its +tiled pergola and flower-lined Spanish court, it stood a monument to +the extraordinary powers of the modern architect; nothing was +incongruous, nothing offended. Susan liked to decide into which room +this casement window fitted, or why she never noticed that particular +angle of wall from the inside. It was always a disappointment to +discover that some of the quaintest of the windows lighted only +linen-closets or perhaps useless little spaces under a sharp angle of +roof, and that many of the most attractive lines outside were so cut +and divided as to be unrecognizable within. + +It was a modern house, with beautifully-appointed closets tucked in +wherever there was an inch to spare, with sheets of mirror set in the +bedroom doors, with every conceivable convenience in nickel-plate +glittering in its bathrooms, and wall-telephones everywhere. + +The girl's adjectives were exhausted long before she had seen half of +it. She tried to make her own personal choice between the dull, soft, +dark colors and carved Circassian walnut furniture in the dining-room, +and the sharp contrast of the reception hall, where the sunlight +flooded a rosy-latticed paper, an old white Colonial mantel and +fiddle-backed chairs, and struck dazzling gleams from the brass +fire-dogs and irons. The drawing-room had its own charm; the largest +room in the house, it had French windows on three sides, each one +giving a separate and exquisite glimpse of lawns and garden beyond. +Upon its dark and shining floor were stretched a score of silky Persian +rugs, roses mirrored themselves in polished mahogany, and here and +there were priceless bits of carved ivory, wonderful strips of +embroidered Chinese silks, miniatures, and exquisite books. Four or +five great lamps glowing under mosaic shades made the place lovely at +night, but in the heat of a summer day, shaded, empty, deliciously airy +and cool, Susan thought it at its loveliest. At night heavy brocaded +curtains were drawn across the windows, and a wood fire crackled in the +fireplace, in a setting of creamy tiles. There was a small grand-piano +in this room, a larger piano in the big, empty reception room on the +other side of the house, Susan and Emily had a small upright for their +own use, and there were one or two more in other parts of the house. + +Everywhere was exquisite order, exquisite peace. Lightfooted maids came +and went noiselessly, to brush up a fallen daisy petal, or straighten a +rug. Not the faintest streak of dust ever lay across the shining +surface of the piano, not the tiniest cloud ever filmed the clear +depths of the mirrors. A slim Chinese houseboy, in plum-color and pale +blue, with his queue neatly coiled, and his handsome, smooth young face +always smiling, padded softly to and fro all day long, in his +thick-soled straw slippers, with letters and magazines, parcels and +messages and telegrams. + +"Lizzie-Carrie--one of you girls take some sweet-peas up to my room," +Ella would say at breakfasttime, hardly glancing up from her mail. And +an hour later Susan, looking into Miss Saunders' apartment to see if +she still expected Emily to accompany her to the Holmes wedding, or to +say that Mrs. Saunders wanted to see her eldest daughter, would notice +a bowl of the delicately-tinted blossoms on the desk, and another on +the table. + +The girls' beds were always made, when they went upstairs to freshen +themselves for luncheon; tumbled linen and used towels had been +spirited away, fresh blotters were on the desk, fresh flowers +everywhere, windows open, books back on their shelves, clothes +stretched on hangers in the closets; everything immaculately clean and +crisp. + +It was apparently impossible to interrupt the quiet running of the +domestic machinery. If Susan and Emily left wet skirts and umbrellas +and muddy overshoes in one of the side hallways, on returning from a +walk, it was only a question of a few hours, before the skirts, dried +and brushed and pressed, the umbrellas neatly furled, and the +overshoes, as shining as ever, were back in their places. If the girls +wanted tea at five o'clock, sandwiches of every known, and frequently +of new types, little cakes and big, hot bouillons, or a salad, or even +a broiled bird were to be had for the asking. It was no trouble, the +tray simply appeared and Chow Yew or Carrie served them as if it were a +real pleasure to do so. + +Whoever ordered for the Saunders kitchen--Susan suspected that it was a +large amiable person in black whom she sometimes met in the halls, a +person easily mistaken for a caller or a visiting aunt, but respectful +in manner, and with a habit of running her tongue over her teeth when +not speaking that vaguely suggested immense capability--did it on a +very large scale indeed. It was not, as in poor Auntie's case, a +question of selecting stewed tomatoes as a suitable vegetable for +dinner, and penciling on a list, under "five pounds round steak," +"three cans tomatoes." In the Saunders' house there was always to be +had whatever choicest was in season,--crabs or ducks, broilers or +trout, asparagus an inch in diameter, forced strawberries and peaches, +even pomegranates and alligator pears and icy, enormous grapefruit--new +in those days--and melons and nectarines. There were crocks and boxes +of cakes, a whole ice-chest just for cream and milk, another for +cheeses and olives and pickles and salad-dressings. Susan had seen the +cook's great store-room, lined with jars and pots and crocks, tins and +glasses and boxes of delicious things to eat, brought from all over the +world for the moment when some member of the Saunders family fancied +Russian caviar, or Chinese ginger, or Italian cheese. + +Other people's brains and bodies were constantly and pleasantly at work +to spare the Saunders any effort whatever, and as Susan, taken in by +the family, and made to feel absolutely one of them, soon found herself +taking hourly service quite as a matter of course, as though it was +nothing new to her luxury-loving little person. If she hunted for a +book, in a dark corner of the library, she did not turn her head to see +which maid touched the button that caused a group of lights, just above +her, to spring suddenly into soft bloom, although her "Thank you!" +never failed; and when she and Emily came in late for tea in the +drawing-room, she piled her wraps into some attendant's arms without so +much as a glance. Yet Susan personally knew and liked all the maids, +and they liked her, perhaps because her unaffected enjoyment of this +new life and her constant allusions to the deprivations of the old days +made them feel her a little akin to themselves. + +With Emily and her mother Susan was soon quite at home; with Ella her +shyness lasted longer; and toward a friendship with Kenneth Saunders +she seemed to make no progress whatever. Kenneth addressed a few +kindly, unsmiling remarks to his mother during the course of the few +meals he had at home; he was always gentle with her, and deeply +resented anything like a lack of respect toward her on the others' +parts. He entirely ignored Emily, and if he held any conversation at +all with the spirited Ella, it was very apt to take the form of a +controversy, Ella trying to persuade him to attend some dance or +dinner, or Kenneth holding up some especial friend of hers for scornful +criticism. Sometimes he spoke to Miss Baker, but not often. Kenneth's +friendships were mysteries; his family had not the most remote idea +where he went when he went out every evening, or where he was when he +did not come home. Sometimes he spoke out in sudden, half-amused praise +of some debutante, she was a "funny little devil," or "she was the +decentest kid in this year's crop," and perhaps he would follow up this +remark with a call or two upon the admired young girl, and Ella would +begin to tease him about her. But the debutante and her mother +immediately lost their heads at this point, called on the Saunders, +gushed at Ella and Emily, and tried to lure Kenneth into coming to +little home dinners or small theater parties. This always ended matters +abruptly, and Kenneth returned to his old ways. + +His valet, a mournful, silent fellow named Mycroft, led rather a +curious life, reporting at his master's room in the morning not before +ten, and usually not in bed before two or three o'clock the next +morning. About once a fortnight, sometimes oftener, as Susan had known +for a long time, a subtle change came over Kenneth. His mother saw it +and grieved; Ella saw it and scolded everyone but him. It cast a +darkness over the whole house. Kenneth, always influenced more or less +by what he drank, was going down, down, down, through one dark stage +after another, into the terrible state whose horrors he dreaded with +the rest of them. He was moping for a day or two, absent from meals, +understood to be "not well, and in bed." Then Mycroft would agitatedly +report that Mr. Kenneth was gone; there would be tears and Ella's +sharpest voice in Mrs. Saunders' room, pallor and ill-temper on Emily's +part, hushed distress all about until Kenneth was brought home from +some place unknown by Mycroft, in a cab, and gotten noisily upstairs +and visited three times a day by the doctor. The doctor would come +downstairs to reassure Mrs. Saunders; Mycroft would run up and down a +hundred times a day to wait upon the invalid. Perhaps once during his +convalescence his mother would go up to see him for a little while, to +sit, constrained and tender and unhappy, beside his bed, wishing +perhaps that there was one thing in the wide world in which she and her +son had a common interest. + +She was a lonesome, nervous little lady, and at these times only a +little more fidgety than ever. Sometimes she cried because of Kenneth, +in her room at night, and Ella braced her with kindly, unsympathetic, +well-meant, uncomprehending remarks, and made very light of his +weakness; but Emily walked her own room nervously, raging at Ken for +being such a beast, and Mama for being such a fool. + +Susan, coming downstairs in the morning sunlight, after an evening of +horror and strain, when the lamps had burned for four hours in an empty +drawing-room, and she and Emily, early in their rooms, had listened +alternately to the shouting and thumping that went on in Kenneth's room +and the consoling murmur of Ella's voice downstairs, could hardly +believe that life was being so placidly continued; that silence and +sweetness still held sway downstairs; that Ella, in a foamy robe of +lace and ribbon, at the head of the table, could be so cheerfully +absorbed in the day's news and the Maryland biscuit, and that Mrs. +Saunders, pottering over her begonias, could show so radiant a face +over the blossoming of the double white, that Emily, at the telephone +could laugh and joke. + +She was a great favorite with them all now, this sunny, pretty Susan; +even Miss Baker, the mouse-like little trained nurse, beamed for her, +and congratulated her upon her influence over every separate member of +the family. Miss Baker had held her place for ten years and cherished +no illusions concerning the Saunders. + +Susan had lost some few illusions herself, but not many. She was too +happy to be critical, and it was her nature to like people for no +better reason than that they liked her. + +Emily Saunders, with whom she had most to do, who was indeed her daily +and hourly companion, was at this time about twenty-six years old, and +so two years older than Susan, although hers was a smooth-skinned, +baby-like type, and she looked quite as young as her companion. She had +had a very lonely, if extraordinarily luxurious childhood, and a sickly +girlhood, whose principal events were minor operations on eyes or ears, +and experiments in diets and treatments, miserable sieges with oculists +and dentists and stomach-pumps. She had been sent to several schools, +but ill-health made her progress a great mortification, and finally she +had been given a governess, Miss Roche, a fussily-dressed, effusive +Frenchwoman, who later traveled with her. Emily's only accounts of her +European experience dealt with Miss Roche's masterly treatment of +ungracious officials, her faculty for making Emily comfortable at short +notice and at any cost or place, and her ability to bring certain small +possessions through the custom-house without unnecessary revelations. +And at eighteen the younger Miss Saunders had been given a large +coming-out tea, had joined the two most exclusive Cotillions,--the +Junior and the Browning--had lunched and dined and gone to the play +with the other debutantes, and had had, according to the admiring and +attentive press, a glorious first season. + +As a matter of fact, however, it had been a most unhappy time for the +person most concerned. Emily was not a social success. Not more than +one debutante in ten is; Emily was one of the nine. Before every dance +her hopes rose irrepressibly, as she gazed at her dainty little person +in the mirror, studied her exquisite frock and her pearls, and the +smooth perfection of the hair so demurely coiled under its wreath of +rosebuds, or band of shining satin. To-night, she would be a success, +to-night she would wipe out old scores. This mood lasted until she was +actually in the dressing-room, in a whirl of arriving girls. Then her +courage began to ebb. She would watch them, as the maid took off her +carriage shoes; pleasantly take her turn at the mirror, exchange a shy, +half-absent greeting with the few she knew; wish, with all her heart, +that she dared put herself under their protection. Just a few were cool +enough to enter the big ballroom in a gale of mirth, surrender +themselves for a few moments of gallant dispute to the clustered young +men at the door, and be ready to dance without a care, the first dozen +dances promised, and nothing to do but be happy. + +But Emily drifted out shyly, fussed carefully with fans or glove-clasps +while looking furtively about for possible partners, returned in a +panic to the dressing-room on a pretense of exploring a slipper-bag for +a handkerchief, and made a fresh start. Perhaps this time some group of +chattering and laughing girls and men would be too close to the door +for her comfort; not invited to join them, Emily would feel obliged to +drift on across the floor to greet some gracious older woman, and sink +into a chair, smiling at compliments, and covering a defeat with a +regretful: + +"I'm really only looking on to-night. Mama worries so if I overdo." + +And here she would feel out of the current indeed, hopelessly shelved. +Who would come looking for a partner in this quiet corner, next to old +Mrs. Chickering whose two granddaughters were in the very center of the +merry group at the door? Emily would smilingly rise, and go back to the +dressing-room again. + +The famous Browning dances, in their beginning, a generation earlier, +had been much smaller, less formal and more intimate than they were +now. The sixty or seventy young persons who went to those first dances +were all close friends, in a simpler social structure, and a less +self-conscious day. They had been the most delightful events in Ella's +girlhood, and she felt it to be entirely Emily's fault that Emily did +not find them equally enchanting. + +"But I don't know the people who go to them very well!" Emily would +say, half-confidential, half-resentful. Ella always met this argument +with high scorn. + +"Oh, Baby, if you'd stop whining and fretting, and just get in and +enjoy yourself once!" Ella would answer impatiently. "You don't have to +know a man intimately to dance with him, I should hope! Just GO, and +have a good time! My Lord, the way we all used to laugh and talk and +rush about, you'd have thought we were a pack of children!" + +Ella and her contemporaries always went to these balls even now, the +magnificent matrons of forty showing rounded arms and beautiful bosoms, +and gowns far more beautiful than those the girls wore. Jealousy and +rivalry and heartaches all forgot, they sat laughing and talking in +groups, clustered along the walls, or played six-handed euchre in the +adjoining card-room, and had, if the truth had been known, a far better +time than the girls they chaperoned. + +After a winter or two, however, Emily stopped going, except perhaps +once in a season. She began to devote a great deal of her thought and +her conversation to her health, and was not long in finding doctors and +nurses to whom the subject was equally fascinating. Emily had a +favorite hospital, and was frequently ordered there for experiences +that touched more deeply the chords of her nature than anything else +ever did in her life. No one at home ever paid her such flattering +devotion as did the sweet-faced, low-voiced nurses, and the +doctor--whose coming, twice a day, was such an event. The doctor was a +model husband and father, his beautiful wife a woman whom Ella knew and +liked very well, but Emily had her nickname for him, and her little +presents for him, and many a small, innocuous joke between herself and +the doctor made her feel herself close to him. Emily was always glad +when she could turn from her mother's mournful solicitude, Kenneth's +snubs and Ella's imperativeness, and the humiliating contact with a +society that could get along very well without her, to the universal +welcome she had from all her friends in Mrs. Fowler's hospital. + +To Susan the thought of hypodermics, anesthetics, antisepsis and clinic +thermometers, charts and diets, was utterly mysterious and abhorrent, +and her healthy distaste for them amused Emily, and gave Emily a good +reason for discussing and defending them. + +Susan's part was to listen and agree, listen and agree, listen and +agree, on this as on all topics. She had not been long at "High +Gardens" before Emily, in a series of impulsive gushes of confidence, +had volunteered the information that Ella was so jealous and selfish +and heartless that she was just about breaking Mama's heart, never +happy unless she was poisoning somebody's mind against Emily, and never +willing to let Emily keep a single friend, or do anything she wanted to +do. + +"So now you see why I am always so dignified and quiet with Ella," said +Emily, in the still midnight when all this was revealed. "That's the +ONE thing that makes her mad!" + +"I can't believe it!" said Susan, aching for sleep, and yawning under +cover of the dark. + +"I keep up for Mama's sake," Emily said. "But haven't you noticed how +Ella tries to get you away from me? You MUST have! Why, the very first +night you were here, she called out, 'Come in and see me on your way +down!' Don't you remember? And yesterday, when I wasn't dressed and she +wanted you to go driving, after dinner! Don't you remember?" + +"Yes, but---" Susan began. She could dismiss this morbid fancy with a +few vigorous protests, with a hearty laugh. But she would probably +dismiss herself from the Saunders' employ, as well, if she pursued any +such bracing policy. + +"You poor kid, it's pretty hard on you!" she said, admiringly. And for +half an hour she was not allowed to go to sleep. + +Susan began to dread these midnight talks. The moon rose, flooded the +sleeping porch, mounted higher. The watch under Susan's pillow ticked +past one o'clock, past half-past one-- + +"Emily, you know really Ella is awfully proud of you," she was finally +saying, "and, as for trying to influence your mother, you can't blame +her. You're your mother's favorite--anyone can see that--and I do think +she feels--" + +"Well, that's true!" Emily said, mollified. A silence followed. Susan +began to settle her head by imperceptible degrees into the pillow; +perhaps Emily was dropping off! Silence--silence--heavenly delicious +silence. What a wonderful thing this sleeping porch was, Susan thought +drowsily, and how delicious the country night-- + +"Susan, why do you suppose I am Mama's favorite?" Emily's clear, +wide-awake voice would pursue, with pensive interest. + +Or, "Susan, when did you begin to like me?" she would question, on +their drives. "Susan, when I was looking straight up into Mrs. Carter's +face,--you know the way I always do!--she laughed at me, and said I was +a madcap monkey? Why did she say that?" Emily would pout, and wrinkle +her brows in pretty, childish doubt. "I'm not a monkey, and _I_ don't +think I'm a madcap? Do you?" + +"You're different, you see, Emily. You're not in the least like anybody +else!" Susan would say. + +"But WHY am I different?" And if it was possible, Emily might even come +over to sit on the arm of Susan's chair, or drop on her knees and +encircle Susan's waist with her arms. + +"Well, in the first place you're terribly original, Emily, and you +always say right out what you mean--" Susan would begin. + +With Ella, when she grew to know her well, Susan was really happier. +She was too honest to enjoy the part she must always play with Emily, +yet too practically aware of the advantages of this new position, to +risk it by frankness, and eventually follow the other companions, the +governesses and trained nurses who had preceded her. Emily +characterized these departed ladies as "beasts," and still flushed a +deep resentful red when she mentioned certain ones among them. + +Susan found in Ella, in the first place, far more to admire than she +could in Emily. Ella's very size made for a sort of bigness in +character. She looked her two hundred and thirty pounds, but she looked +handsome, glowing and comfortable as well. Everything she wore was +loose and dashing in effect; she was a fanatic about cleanliness and +freshness, and always looked as if freshly bathed and brushed and +dressed. Ella never put on a garment, other than a gown or wrap, twice. +Sometimes a little heap of snowy, ribboned underwear was carried away +from her rooms three or four times a day. + +She was dictatorial and impatient and exacting, but she was witty and +good-natured, too, and so extremely popular with men and women of her +own age that she could have dined out three times a night. Ella was +fondly nicknamed "Mike" by her own contemporaries, and was always in +demand for dinners and lunch parties and card parties. She was beloved +by the younger set, too. Susan thought her big-sisterly interest in the +debutantes very charming to see and, when she had time to remember her +sister's little companion now and then, she would carry Susan off for a +drive, or send for her when she was alone for tea, and the two laughed +a great deal together. Susan could honestly admire here, and Ella liked +her admiration. + +Miss Saunders believed herself to be a member of the most distinguished +American family in existence, and her place to be undisputed as queen +of the most exclusive little social circle in the world. She knew +enough of the social sets of London and Washington and New York society +to allude to them casually and intimately, and she told Susan that no +other city could boast of more charming persons than those who composed +her own particular set in San Francisco. Ella never spoke of "society" +without intense gravity; nothing in life interested her so much as the +question of belonging or not belonging to it. To her personally, of +course, it meant nothing; she had been born inside the charmed ring, +and would die there; but the status of other persons filled her with +concern. She was very angry when her mother or Emily showed any +wavering in this all-important matter. + +"Well, what did you have to SEE her for, Mama?" Ella would irritably +demand, when her autocratic "Who'd you see to-day? What'd you do?" had +drawn from her mother the name of some caller. + +"Why, dearie, I happened to be right there. I was just crossing the +porch when they drove up!" Mrs. Saunders would timidly submit. + +"Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord! Mama, you make me crazy!" Ella would drop her +hands, fling her head back, gaze despairingly at her mother. "That was +your chance to snub her, Mama! Why didn't you have Chow Yew say that +you were out?" + +"But, dearie, she seemed a real sweet little thing!" + +"Sweet little--! You'll have me CRAZY! Sweet little nothing--just +because she married Gordon Jones, and the St. Johns have taken her up, +she thinks she can get into society! And anyway, I wouldn't have given +Rosie St. John the satisfaction for a thousand dollars! Did you ask her +to your bridge lunch?" + +"Ella, dear, it is MY lunch," her mother might remind her, with dignity. + +"Mama, did you ask that woman here to play cards?" + +"Well, dearie, she happened to say--" + +"Oh, happened to say--!" A sudden calm would fall upon Miss Ella, the +calm of desperate decision. The subject would be dropped for the time, +but she would bring a written note to the lunch table. + +"Listen to this, Mama; I can change it if you don't like it," Ella +would begin, kindly, and proceed to read it. + + HIGH GARDENS. MY DEAR MRS. JONES: + + Mother has asked me to write you that her little bridge lunch + for Friday, the third, must be given up because of the dangerous + illness of a close personal friend. She hopes that it is only a + pleasure deferred, and will write you herself when less anxious + and depressed. Cordially yours, + + ELLA CORNWALLIS SAUNDERS. + +"But, Ella, dear," the mother would protest, "there are others coming--" + +"Leave the others to me! I'll telephone and make it the day before." +Ella would seal and dispatch the note, and be inclined to feel +generously tender and considerate of her mother for the rest of the day. + +Ella was at home for a few moments, almost every day; but she did not +dine at home more than once or twice in a fortnight. But she was always +there for the family's occasional formal dinner party in which events +Susan refused very sensibly to take part. She and Miss Baker dined +early and most harmoniously in the breakfast-room, and were free to +make themselves useful to the ladies of the house afterward. Ella would +be magnificent in spangled cloth-of-gold; Emily very piquante in demure +and drooping white, embroidered exquisitely with tiny French blossoms +in color; Mrs. Saunders rustling in black lace and lavender silk, as +the three went downstairs at eight o'clock. Across the wide hall below +would stream the hooded women and the men in great-coats, silk hats in +hand. Ella did not leave the drawing-room to meet them, as on less +formal occasions, but a great chattering and laughing would break out +as they went in. + +Susan, sitting back on her knees in the upper hall, to peer through the +railing at the scene below, to Miss Baker's intense amusement, could +admire everything but the men guests. They were either more or less +attractive and married, thought Susan, or very young, very old, or very +uninteresting bachelors. Red-faced, eighteen-year-old boys, laughing +nervously, and stumbling over their pumps, shared the honors with +cackling little fifty-year-old gallants. It could only be said that +they were males, and that Ella would have cheerfully consigned her +mother to bed with a bad headache rather than have had one too few of +them to evenly balance the number of women. The members of the family +knew what patience and effort were required, what writing and +telephoning, before the right number was acquired. + +The first personal word that Kenneth Saunders ever spoke to his +sister's companion was when, running downstairs, on the occasion of one +of these dinners, he came upon her, crouched in her outlook, and +thoroughly enjoying herself. + +"Good God!" said Kenneth, recoiling. + +"Sh-sh--it's only me--I'm watching 'em!" Susan whispered, even laying +her hand upon the immaculate young gentleman's arm in her anxiety to +quiet him. + +"Why, Lord; why doesn't Ella count you in on these things?" he +demanded, gruffly. "Next time I'll tell her--" + +"If you do, I'll never speak to you again!" Susan threatened, her merry +face close to his in the dark. "I wouldn't be down there for a farm!" + +"What do you do, just watch 'em?" Kenneth asked sociably, hanging over +the railing beside her. + +"It's lots of fun!" Susan said, in a whisper. "Who's that?" + +"That's that Bacon girl--isn't she the limit!" Kenneth whispered back. +"Lord," he added regretfully, "I'd much rather stay up here than go +down! What Ella wants to round up a gang like this for--" + +And, sadly speculating, the son of the house ran downstairs, and Susan, +congratulating herself, returned to her watching. + +Indeed, after a month or two in her new position, she thought an +evening to herself a luxury to be enormously enjoyed. It was on such an +occasion that Susan got the full benefit of the bathroom, the +luxuriously lighted and appointed dressing-table, the porch with its +view of a dozen gardens drenched in heavenly moonlight. At other times +Emily's conversation distracted her and interrupted her at her toilet. +Emily gave her no instant alone. + +Emily came up very late after the dinners to yawn and gossip with Susan +while Gerda, her mother's staid middle-aged maid, drew off her slippers +and stockings, and reverently lifted the dainty gown safely to its +closet. Susan always got up, rolled herself in a wrap, and listened to +the account of the dinner; Emily was rather critical of the women, but +viewed the men more romantically. She repeated their compliments, +exulting that they had been paid her "under Ella's very nose," or while +"Mama was staring right at us." It pleased Emily to imagine a great +many love-affairs for herself, and to feel that they must all be made +as mysterious and kept as secret as possible. + +It was the old story, thought Susan, listening sympathetically, and in +utter disbelief, to these recitals. Mary Lou and Georgie were not alone +in claiming vague and mythical love-affairs; Emily even carried them to +the point of indicating old bundles of letters in her desk as "from Bob +Brock--tell you all about that some time!" or alluding to some youth +who had gone away, left that part of the country entirely for her sake, +some years ago. And even Georgie would not have taken as seriously as +Emily did the least accidental exchange of courtesies with the eligible +male. If the two girls, wasting a morning in the shops in town, +happened to meet some hurrying young man in the street, the color +rushed into Emily's face, and she alluded to the incident a dozen times +during the course of the day. Like most girls, she had a special manner +for men, a rather audacious and attractive manner, Susan thought. The +conversation was never anything but gay and frivolous and casual. It +always pleased Emily when such a meeting occurred. + +"Did you notice that Peyton Hamilton leaned over and said something to +me very quickly, in a low voice, this morning?" Emily would ask, later, +suddenly looking mischievous and penitent at once. + +"Oh, ho! That's what you do when I'm not noticing!" Susan would upbraid +her. + +"He asked me if he could call," Emily would say, yawning, "but I told +him I didn't like him well enough for that!" + +Susan was astonished to find herself generally accepted because of her +association with Emily Saunders. She had always appreciated the +difficulty of entering the inner circle of society with insufficient +credentials. Now she learned how simple the whole thing was when the +right person or persons assumed the responsibility. Girls whom years +ago she had rather fancied to be "snobs" and "stuck-up" proved very +gracious, very informal and jolly, at closer view; even the most +prominent matrons began to call her "child" and "you little Susan +Brown, you!" and show her small kindnesses. + +Susan took them at exactly their own valuation, revered those women +who, like Ella, were supreme; watched curiously others a little less +sure of their standing; and pitied and smiled at the struggles of the +third group, who took rebuffs and humiliations smilingly, and fell only +to rise and climb again. Susan knew that the Thayers, the Chickerings +and Chaunceys and Coughs, the Saunders and the St. Johns, and Dolly +Ripley, the great heiress, were really secure, nothing could shake them +from their proud eminence. It gave her a little satisfaction to put the +Baxters and Peter Coleman decidedly a step below; even lovely Isabel +Wallace and the Carters and the Geralds, while ornamenting the very +nicest set, were not quite the social authorities that the first-named +families were. And several lower grades passed before one came to +Connie Fox and her type, poor, pushing, ambitious, watching every +chance to score even the tiniest progress toward the goal of social +recognition. Connie Fox and her mother were a curious study to Susan, +who, far more secure for the time being than they were, watched them +with deep interest. The husband and father was an insurance broker, +whose very modest income might have comfortably supported a quiet +country home, and one maid, and eventually have been stretched to +afford the daughter and only child a college education or a trousseau +as circumstances decreed. As it was, a little house on Broadway was +maintained with every appearance of luxury, a capped-and-aproned maid +backed before guests through the tiny hall; Connie's vivacity covered +the long wait for the luncheons that an irate Chinese cook, whose wages +were perpetually in arrears, served when it pleased him to do so. Mrs. +Fox bought prizes for Connie's gay little card-parties with the rent +money, and retired with a headache immediately after tearfully +informing the harassed breadwinner of the fact. She ironed Connie's +gowns, bullied her little dressmaker, cried and made empty promises to +her milliner, cut her old friends, telephoned her husband at six +o'clock that, as "the girls" had not gone yet, perhaps he had better +have a bite of dinner downtown. She gushed and beamed on Connie's +friends, cultivated those she could reach assiduously, and never +dreamed that a great many people were watching her with amusement when +she worked her way about a room to squeeze herself in next to some +social potentate. + +She had her reward when the mail brought Constance the coveted +dance-cards; when she saw her name in the society columns of the +newspapers, and was able to announce carelessly that that lucky girlie +of hers was really going to Honolulu with the Cyrus Holmes. Dolly +Ripley, the heiress, had taken a sudden fancy to Connie, some two years +before Susan met her, and this alone was enough to reward Mrs. Fox for +all the privations, snubs and humiliations she had suffered since the +years when she curled Connie's straight hair on a stick, nearly blinded +herself tucking and embroidering her little dresses, and finished up +the week's ironing herself so that her one maid could escort Connie to +an exclusive little dancing-class. + +Susan saw Connie now and then, and met the mother and daughter on a +certain autumn Sunday when Ella had chaperoned the two younger girls to +a luncheon at the Burlingame club-house. They had spent the night +before with a friend of Ella's, whose lovely country home was but a few +minutes' walk from the club, and Susan was elated with the glorious +conviction that she had added to the gaiety of the party, and that +through her even Emily was having a really enjoyable time. She met a +great many distinguished persons to-day, the golf and polo players, the +great Eastern actress who was the center of a group of adoring males, +and was being entertained by the oldest and most capable of dowagers, +and Dolly Ripley, a lean, eager, round-shouldered, rowdyish little +person, talking as a professional breeder might talk of her dogs and +horses, and shadowed by Connie Fox. Susan was so filled with the +excitement of the occasion, the beauty of the day, the delightful club +and its delightful guests, that she was able to speak to Miss Dolly +Ripley quite as if she also had inherited some ten millions of dollars, +and owned the most expensive, if not the handsomest, home in the state. + +"That was so like dear Dolly!" said Mrs. Fox later, coming up behind +Susan on the porch, and slipping an arm girlishly about her waist. + +"What was?" asked Susan, after greetings. + +"Why, to ask what your first name was, and say that as she hated the +name of Brown, she was going to call you Susan!" said Mrs. Fox sweetly. +"Don't you find her very dear and simple?" + +"Why, I just met her--" Susan said, disliking the arm about her waist, +and finding Mrs. Fox's interest in her opinion of Dolly Ripley quite +transparent. + +"Ah, I know her so well!" Mrs. Fox added, with a happy sigh. "Always +bright and interested when she meets people. But I scold her--yes, I +do!--for giving people a false impression. I say, 'Dolly,'--I've known +her so long, you know!--'Dolly, dear, people might easily think you +meant some of these impulsive things you say, dear, whereas your +friends, who know you really well, know that it's just your little +manner, and that you'll have forgotten all about it to-morrow!' I don't +mean YOU, Miss Brown," Mrs. Fox interrupted herself to say hastily. +"Far from it!----Now, my dear, tell me that you know I didn't mean you!" + +"I understand perfectly," Susan said graciously. And she knew that at +last she really did. Mrs. Fox was fluttering like some poor bird that +sees danger near its young. She couldn't have anyone else, especially +this insignificant little Miss Brown, who seemed to be making rather an +impression everywhere, jeopardize Connie's intimacy with Dolly Ripley, +without using such poor and obvious little weapons as lay at her +command to prevent it. + +Standing on the porch of the Burlingame Club, and staring out across +the gracious slopes of the landscape, Susan had an exhilarated sense of +being among the players of this fascinating game at last. She must play +it alone, to be sure, but far better alone than assisted as Connie Fox +was assisted. It was an immense advantage to be expected to accompany +Emily everywhere; it made a snub practically impossible, while +heightening the compliment when she was asked anywhere without Emily. +Susan was always willing to entertain a difficult guest, to play cards +or not to play with apparently equal enjoyment--more desirable than +either, she was "fun," and the more she was laughed at, the funnier she +grew. + +"And you'll be there with Emily, of course, Miss Brown," said the +different hostess graciously. "Emily, you're going to bring Susan +Brown, you know!--I'm telephoning, Miss Brown, because I'm afraid my +note didn't make it clear that we want you, too!" + +Emily's well-known eccentricity did not make Susan the less popular; +even though she was personally involved in it. + +"Oh, I wrote you a note for Emily this morning, Mrs. Willis," Susan +would say, at the club, "she's feeling wretchedly to-day, and she wants +to be excused from your luncheon to-morrow!" + +"Oh?" The matron addressed would eye the messenger with kindly +sharpness. "What's the matter--very sick?" + +"We-ell, not dying!" A dimple would betray the companion's demureness. + +"Not dying? No, I suppose not! Well, you tell Emily that she's a silly, +selfish little cat, or words to that effect!" + +"I'll choose words to that effect," Susan would assure the speaker, +smilingly. + +"You couldn't come, anyway, I suppose?" + +"Oh, no, Mrs. Willis! Thank you so much!" + +"No, of course not." The matron would bite her lips in momentary +irritation, and, when they parted, the cause of that pretty, +appreciative, amusing little companion of Emily Saunders would be +appreciably strengthened. + +One winter morning Emily tossed a square, large envelope across the +breakfast table toward her companion. + +"Sue, that looks like a Browning invitation! What do you bet that he's +sent you a card for the dances!" + +"He couldn't!" gasped Susan, snatching it up, while her eyes danced, +and the radiant color flooded her face. Her hand actually shook when +she tore the envelope open, and as the engraved card made its +appearance, Susan's expression might have been that of Cinderella +eyeing her coach-and-four. + +For Browning--founder of the cotillion club, and still manager of the +four or five winter dances--was the one unquestioned, irrefutable, +omnipotent social authority of San Francisco. To go to the "Brownings" +was to have arrived socially; no other distinction was equivalent, +because there was absolutely no other standard of judgment. Very high +up, indeed, in the social scale must be the woman who could resist the +temptation to stick her card to the Brownings in her mirror frame, +where the eyes of her women friends must inevitably fall upon it, and +yearly hundreds of matrons tossed through sleepless nights, all through +the late summer and the fall, hoping against hope, despairing, hoping +again, that the magic card might really be delivered some day in early +December, and her debutante daughter's social position be placed beyond +criticism once more. Only perhaps one hundred persons out of +"Brownie's" four hundred guests could be sure of the privilege. The +others must suffer and wait. + +Browning himself, a harassed, overworked, kindly gentleman, whose +management of the big dances brought him nothing but responsibility and +annoyance, threatened yearly to resign from his post, and yearly was +dragged back into the work, fussing for hours with his secretary over +the list, before he could personally give it to the hungrily waiting +reporters with the weary statement that it was absolutely correct, that +no more names were to be added this year, that he did not propose to +defend, through the columns of the press, his omission of certain names +and his acceptance of others, and that, finally, he was off for a +week's vacation in the southern part of the state, and thanked them all +for their kindly interest in himself and his efforts for San Francisco +society. + +It was the next morning's paper that was so anxiously awaited, and so +eagerly perused in hundreds of luxurious boudoirs--exulted over, or +wept over and reviled,--but read by nearly every woman in the city. + +And now he had sent Susan a late card, and Susan knew why. She had met +the great man at the Hotel Rafael a few days before, at tea-time, and +he had asked Susan most affectionately of her aunt, Mrs. Lancaster, and +recalled, with a little emotion, the dances of two generations before, +when he was a small boy, and the lovely Georgianna Ralston was a beauty +and a belle. Susan could have kissed the magic bit of pasteboard! + +But she knew too well just what Emily wanted to think of Browning's +courtesy, to mention his old admiration for her aunt. And Emily +immediately justified her diplomatic silence by saying: + +"Isn't that AWFULLY decent of Brownie! He did that just for Ella and +me--that's like him! He'll do anything for some people!" + +"Well, of course I can't go," Susan said briskly. "But I do call it +awfully decent! And no little remarks about sending a check, either, +and no chaperone's card! The old duck! However, I haven't a gown, and I +haven't a beau, and you don't go, and so I'll write a tearful regret. I +hope it won't be the cause of his giving the whole thing up. I hate to +discourage the dear boy!" + +Emily laughed approvingly. + +"No, but honestly, Sue," she said, in eager assent, "don't you know how +people would misunderstand--you know how people are! You and I know +that you don't care a whoop about society, and that you'd be the last +person in the world to use your position here--but you know what other +people might say! And Brownie hates talk--" + +Susan had to swallow hard, and remain smiling. It was part of the price +that she paid for being here in this beautiful environment, for being, +in every material sense, a member of one of the state's richest +families. She could not say, as she longed to say, "Oh, Emily, don't +talk ROT! You know that before your own grandfather made his money as a +common miner, and when Isabel Wallace's grandfather was making shoes, +mine was a rich planter in Virginia!" But she knew that she could +safely have treated Emily's own mother with rudeness, she could have +hopelessly mixed up the letters she wrote for Ella, she could have set +the house on fire or appropriated to her own use the large sums of +money she occasionally was entrusted by the family to draw for one +purpose or another from the bank, and been quickly forgiven, if +forgivness was a convenience to the Saunders family at the moment. But +to fail to realize that between the daughter of the house of Saunders +and the daughter of the house of Brown an unspanned social chasm must +forever stretch would have been, indeed, the unforgivable offense. + +It was all very different from Susan's old ideals of a paid companion's +duties. She had drawn these ideals from the English novels she consumed +with much enjoyment in early youth--from "Queenie's Whim" and "Uncle +Max" and the novels of Charlotte Yonge. She had imagined herself, +before her arrival at "High Gardens," as playing piano duets with +Emily, reading French for an hour, German for an hour, gardening, +tramping, driving, perhaps making a call on some sick old woman with +soup and jelly in her basket, or carrying armfuls of blossoms to the +church for decoration. If one of Emily's sick headaches came on, it +would be Susan's duty to care for her tenderly, and to read to her in a +clear, low, restful voice when she was recovering; to write her notes, +to keep her vases filled with flowers, to "preside" at the tea-table, +efficient, unobtrusive, and indispensable. She would make herself +useful to Ella, too; arrange her collections of coins, carry her +telephone messages, write her notes. She would accompany the little old +mother on her round through the greenhouses, read to her and be ready +to fly for her book or her shawl. And if Susan's visionary activities +also embraced a little missionary work in the direction of the son of +the house, it was of a very sisterly and blameless nature. Surely the +most demure of companions, reading to Mrs. Saunders in the library, +might notice an attentive listener lounging in a dark corner, or might +color shyly when Ken's sisters commented on the fact that he seemed to +be at home a good deal these days. + +It was a little disillusioning to discover, as during her first weeks +in the new work she did discover, that almost no duties whatever would +be required of her. It seemed to make more irksome the indefinite thing +that was required of her; her constant interested participation in just +whatever happened to interest Emily at the moment. Susan loved tennis +and driving, loved shopping and lunching in town, loved to stroll over +to the hotel for tea in the pleasant afternoons, or was satisfied to +lie down and read for an hour or two. + +But it was very trying to a person of her definite impulsive briskness +never to know, from one hour or one day to the next, just what +occupation was in prospect. Emily would order the carriage for four +o'clock, only to decide, when it came around, that she would rather +drag the collies out into the side-garden, to waste three dozen camera +plates and three hours in trying to get good pictures of them. +Sometimes Emily herself posed before the camera, and Susan took picture +after picture of her. + +"Sue, don't you think it would be fun to try some of me in my Mandarin +coat? Come up while I get into it. Oh, and go get Chow Yew to get that +Chinese violin he plays, and I'll hold it! We'll take 'em in the +Japanese garden!" Emily would be quite fired with enthusiasm, but +before the girls were upstairs she might change in favor of her riding +habit and silk hat, and Susan would telephone the stable that Miss +Emily's riding horse was wanted in the side-garden. "You're a darling!" +she would say to Susan, after an exhausting hour or two. "Now, next +time I'll take you!" + +But Susan's pictures never were taken. Emily's interest rarely touched +twice in the same place. + +"Em, it's twenty minutes past four! Aren't we going to tea with Isabel +Wallace?" Susan would ask, coming in to find Emily comfortably +stretched out with a book. + +"Oh, Lord, so we were! Well, let's not!" Emily would yawn. + +"But, Em, they expect us!" + +"Well, go telephone, Sue, there's a dear! And tell them I've got a +terrible headache. And you and I'll have tea up here. Tell Carrie I +want to see her about it; I'm hungry; I want to order it specially." + +Sometimes, when the girls came downstairs, dressed for some outing, it +was Miss Ella who upset their plans. Approving of her little sister's +appearance, she would lure Emily off for a round of formal calls. + +"Be decent now, Baby! You'll never have a good time, if you don't go +and do the correct thing now and then. Come on. I'm going to town on +the two, and we can get a carriage right at the ferry--" + +But Susan rarely managed to save the afternoon. Going noiselessly +upstairs, she was almost always captured by the lonely old mistress of +the house. + +"Girls gone?" Mrs. Saunders would pipe, in her cracked little voice, +from the doorway of her rooms. "Don't the house seem still? Come in, +Susan, you and I'll console each other over a cup of tea." + +Susan, smilingly following her, would be at a loss to account for her +own distaste and disappointment. But she was so tired of people! She +wanted so desperately to be alone! + +The precious chance would drift by, a rich tea would presently be +served; the little over-dressed, over-fed old lady was really very +lonely; she went to a luncheon or card-party not oftener than two or +three times a month, and she loved company. There was almost no close +human need or interest in her life; she was as far from her children as +was any other old lady of their acquaintance. + +Susan knew that she had been very proud of her sons and daughters, as a +happy young mother. The girl was continually discovering, among old +Mrs. Saunders' treasures, large pictures of Ella, at five, at seven, at +nine, with straight long bangs and rosetted hats that tied under her +chin, and French dresses tied with sashes about her knees, and pictures +of Kenneth leaning against stone benches, or sitting in swings, a thin +and sickly-looking little boy, in a velvet suit and ribboned straw hat. +There were pictures of the dead children, too, and a picture of Emily, +at three months, sitting in an immense shell, and clad only in the +folds of her own fat little person. On the backs of these pictures, +Mrs. Saunders had written "Kennie, six years old," and the date, or +"Totty, aged nine"--she never tired of looking at them now, and of +telling Susan that the buttons on Ella's dress had been of sterling +silver, "made right from Papa's mine," and that the little ship Kenneth +held had cost twenty-five dollars. All of her conversation was +boastful, in an inoffensive, faded sort of way. She told Susan about +her wedding, about her gown and her mother's gown, and the cost of her +music, and the number of the musicians. + +Mrs. Saunders, Susan used to think, letting her thoughts wander as the +old lady rambled on, was an unfortunately misplaced person. She had +none of the qualities of the great lady, nothing spiritual or mental +with which to fend off the vacuity of old age. As a girl, a bride, a +young matron, she had not shown her lack so pitiably. But now, at +sixty-five, Mrs. Saunders had no character, no tastes, no opinions +worth considering. She liked to read the paper, she liked her flowers, +although she took none of the actual care of them, and she liked to +listen to music; there was a mechanical piano in her room, and Susan +often heard the music downstairs at night, and pictured the old lady, +reading in bed, calling to Miss Baker when a record approached its +finish, and listening contentedly to selections from "Faust" and +"Ernani," and the "Chanson des Alpes." Mrs. Saunders would have been +far happier as a member of the fairly well-to-do middle class. She +would have loved to shop with married daughters, sharply interrogating +clerks as to the durability of shoes, and the weight of little +underflannels; she would have been a good angel in the nurseries, as an +unfailing authority when the new baby came, or hushing the less recent +babies to sleep in tender old arms. She would have been a judge of hot +jellies, a critic of pastry. But bound in this little aimless groove of +dressmakers' calls, and card-parties, she was quite out of her natural +element. It was not astonishing that, like Emily, she occasionally +enjoyed an illness, and dispensed with the useless obligation of +getting up and dressing herself at all! + +Invitations, they were really commands, to the Browning dances were +received early in December; Susan, dating her graceful little note of +regret, was really shocked to notice the swift flight of the months. +December already! And she had seemed to leave Hunter, Baxter & Hunter +only last week. Susan fell into a reverie over her writing, her eyes +roving absently over the stretch of wooded hills below her window. +December--! Nearly a year since Peter Coleman had sent her a circle of +pearls, and she had precipitated the events that had ended their +friendship. It was a sore spot still, the memory; but Susan, more sore +at herself for letting him mislead her than with him, burned to +reestablish herself in his eyes as a woman of dignity and reserve, +rather than to take revenge upon him for what was, she knew now, as +much a part of him as his laughing eyes and his indomitable buoyancy. + +The room in which she was writing was warm. Furnace heat is not common +in California, but, with a thousand other conveniences, the Saunders +home had a furnace. There were winter roses, somewhere near her, making +the air sweet; the sunlight slanted in brightly across the wide couch +where Emily was lying, teasing Susan between casual glances at her +magazine. A particularly gay week had left both girls feeling decidedly +unwell. Emily complained of headache and neuralgia; Susan had +breakfasted on hot soda and water, her eyes felt heavy, her skin hot +and dry and prickly. + +"We all eat too much in this house!" she said aloud, cheerfully. "And +we don't exercise enough!" Emily did not answer, merely smiled, as at a +joke. The subject of diet was not popular with either of the Misses +Saunders. Emily never admitted that her physical miseries had anything +to do with her stomach; and Ella, whose bedroom scales exasperated her +afresh every time she got on them, while making dolorous allusions to +her own size whenever it pleased her to do so, never allowed anyone +else the privilege. But even with her healthy appetite, and splendid +constitution, Susan was unable to eat as both the sisters did. Every +other day she resolved sternly to diet, and frequently at night she +could not sleep for indigestion; but the Saunders home was no +atmosphere for Spartan resolutions, and every meal-time saw Susan's +courage defeated afresh. She could have remained away from the table +with far less effort than was required, when a delicious dish was +placed before her, to send it away untouched. There were four regular +meals daily in the Saunders home; the girls usually added a fifth when +they went down to the pantries to forage before going to bed; and +tempting little dishes of candy and candied fruits were set +unobtrusively on card-tables, on desks, on the piano where the girls +were amusing themselves with the songs of the day. + +It was a comfortable, care-free life they led, irresponsible beyond any +of Susan's wildest dreams. She and Emily lounged about their bright, +warm apartments, these winter mornings, until nine o'clock, lingered +over their breakfast--talking, talking and talking, until the +dining-room clock struck a silvery, sweet eleven; and perhaps drifted +into Miss Ella's room for more talk, or amused themselves with Chow +Yew's pidgin English, while he filled vases in one of the pantries. At +twelve o'clock they went up to dress for the one o'clock luncheon, an +elaborate meal at which Mrs. Saunders plaintively commented on the +sauce Bechamel, Ella reviled the cook, and Kenneth, if he was present, +drank a great deal of some charged water from a siphon, or perhaps made +Lizzie or Carrie nearly leap out of their skins by a sudden, terrifying +inquiry why Miss Brown hadn't been served to salad before he was, or +perhaps growled at Emily a question as to what the girls had been +talking about all night long. + +After luncheon, if Kenneth did not want the new motor-car, which was +supposed to be his particular affectation, the girls used it, giggling +in the tonneau at the immobility of Flornoy, the French chauffeur; +otherwise they drove behind the bays, and stopped at some lovely home, +standing back from the road behind a sweep of drive, and an avenue of +shady trees, for tea. Susan could take her part in the tea-time gossip +now, could add her surmises and comment to the general gossip, and knew +what the society weeklies meant when they used initials, or alluded to +a "certain prominent debutante recently returned from an Eastern +school." + +As the season ripened, she and Emily went to four or five luncheons +every week, feminine affairs, with cards or matinee to follow. Dinner +invitations were more rare; there were men at the dinners, and the risk +of boring a partner with Emily's uninteresting little personality was +too great to be often taken. Her poor health served both herself and +her friends as an excuse. Ella went everywhere, even to the debutante's +affairs; but Emily was too entirely self-centered to be popular. + +She and Susan were a great deal alone. They chattered and laughed +together through shopping trips, luncheons at the clubs, matinees, and +trips home on the boat. They bought prizes for Ella's card-parties, or +engagement cups and wedding-presents for those fortunate girls who +claimed the center of the social stage now and then with the +announcement of their personal plans. They bought an endless variety of +pretty things for Emily, who prided herself on the fact that she could +not bear to have near her anything old or worn or ugly. A thousand +little reminders came to Emily wherever she went of things without +which she could not exist. + +"What a darling chain that woman's wearing; let's go straight up to +Shreve's and look at chains," said Emily, on the boat; or "White-bait! +Here it is on this menu. I hadn't thought of it for months! Do remind +Mrs. Pullet to get some!" or "Can't you remember what it was Isabel +said that she was going to get? Don't you remember I said I needed it, +too?" + +If Susan had purchases of her own to make, Emily could barely wait with +patience until they were completed, before adding: + +"I think I'll have a pair of slippers, too. Something a little nicer +than that, please"; or "That's going to make up into a dear wrapper for +you, Sue," she would enthusiastically declare, "I ought to have another +wrapper, oughtn't I? Let's go up to Chinatown, and see some of the big +wadded ones at Sing Fat's. I really need one!" + +Just before Christmas, Emily went to the southern part of the state +with a visiting cousin from the East, and Susan gladly seized the +opportunity for a little visit at home. She found herself strangely +stirred when she went in, from the bright winter sunshine, to the +dingy, odorous old house, encountering the atmosphere familiar to her +from babyhood, and the unaltered warm embraces of Mary Lou and her +aunt. Before she had hung up her hat and coat, she was swept again into +the old ways, listening, while she changed her dress, to Mary Lou's +patient complaints and wistful questions, slipping out to the bakery +just before dinner to bring home a great paper-bag of hot rolls, and +ending the evening, after a little shopping expedition to Fillmore +Street, with solitaire at the dining-room table. The shabbiness and +disorder and a sort of material sordidness were more marked than ever, +but Susan was keenly conscious of some subtle, touching charm, +unnoticed heretofore, that seemed to flavor the old environment +to-night. They were very pure and loving and loyal, her aunt and +cousins, very practically considerate and tender toward each other, +despite the flimsy fabric of their absurd dreams; very good, in the +old-fashioned sense of the term, if not very successful or very clever. + +They made much of her coming, rejoiced over her and kissed her as if +she never had even in thought neglected them, and exulted innocently in +the marvelous delights of her new life. Georgie was driven over from +the Mission by her husband, the next day, in Susan's honor, and carried +the fat, loppy baby in for so brief a visit that it was felt hardly +worth while to unwrap and wrap up again little Myra Estelle. Mrs. +Lancaster had previously, with a burst of tears, informed Susan that +Georgie was looking very badly, and that, nursing that heavy child, she +should have been spared more than she was by the doctor's mother and +the old servant. But Susan, although finding the young mother pale and +rather excited, thought that Georgie looked well, and admired with the +others her heavy, handsome new suit and the over-trimmed hat that quite +eclipsed her small face. The baby was unmanageable, and roared +throughout the visit, to Georgie's distress. + +"She never cries this way at home!" protested young Mrs. O'Connor. + +"Give her some ninny," Mrs. Lancaster suggested, eagerly, but Georgie, +glancing at the street where Joe was holding the restless black horse +in check, said nervously that Joe didn't like it until the right time. +She presently went out to hand Myra to Susan while she climbed into +place, and was followed by a scream from Mrs. Lancaster, who remarked +later that seeing the black horse start just as Susan handed the child +up, she had expected to see them all dashed to pieces. + +"Well, Susan, light of my old eyes, had enough of the rotten rich?" +asked William Oliver, coming in for a later dinner, on the first night +of her visit, and jerking her to him for a resounding kiss before she +had any idea of his intention. + +"Billy!" Susan said, mildly scandalized, her eyes on her aunt. + +"Well, well, what's all this!" Mrs. Lancaster remarked, without alarm. +William, shaking out his napkin, drawing his chair up to the table, and +falling upon his dinner with vigor, demanded: + +"Come on, now! Tell us all, all!" + +But Susan, who had been chattering fast enough from the moment of her +arrival, could not seem to get started again. It was indeed a little +difficult to continue an enthusiastic conversation, unaffected by his +running fire of comment. For in these days he was drifting rapidly +toward a sort of altruistic socialism, and so listened to her recital +with sardonic smiles, snorts of scorn, and caustic annotations. + +"The Carters--ha! That whole bunch ought to be hanged," Billy remarked. +"All their money comes from the rents of bad houses, and--let me tell +you something, when there was a movement made to buy up that Jackson +Street block, and turn it into a park, it was old Carter, yes, and his +wife, too, who refused to put a price on their property!" + +"Oh, Billy, you don't KNOW that!" + +"I don't? All right, maybe I don't," Mr. Oliver returned growlingly to +his meal, only to break out a moment later, "The Kirkwoods! Yes; that's +a rare old bunch! They're still holding the city to the franchise they +swindled the Government out of, right after the Civil War! Every time +you pay taxes--" + +"I don't pay taxes!" Susan interrupted frivolously, and resumed her +glowing account. Billy made no further contribution to the conversation +until he asked some moments later, "Does old Brock ever tell you about +his factories, while he's taking you around his orchid-house? There's a +man a week killed there, and the foremen tell the girls when they hire +them that they aren't expected to take care of themselves on the wages +they get!" + +But the night before her return to San Rafael, Mr. Oliver, in his +nicest mood, took Susan to the Orpheum, and they had fried oysters and +coffee in a little Fillmore Street restaurant afterward, Billy +admitting with graceful frankness that funds were rather low, and Susan +really eager for the old experience and the old sensations. Susan liked +the brotherly, clumsy way in which he tried to ascertain, as they sat +loitering and talking over the little meal, just how much of her +thoughts still went to Peter Coleman, and laughed outright, as soon as +she detected his purpose, as only an absolutely heart-free girl could +laugh, and laid her hand over his for a little appreciative squeeze +before they dismissed the subject. After that he told her of some of +his own troubles, the great burden of the laboring classes that he felt +rested on his particular back, and his voice rose and he pounded the +table as he talked of the other countries of the world, where even +greater outrages, or where experimental solutions were in existence. +Susan brought the conversation to Josephine Carroll, and watched his +whole face grow tender, and heard his voice soften, as they spoke of +her. + +"No; but is it really and truly serious this time, Bill?" she asked, +with that little thrill of pain that all good sisters know when the +news comes. + +"Serious? GOSH!" said the lover, simply. + +"Engaged?" + +"No-o. I couldn't very well. I'm in so deep at the works that I may get +fired any minute. More than that, the boys generally want me to act as +spokesman, and so I'm a sort of marked card, and I mightn't get in +anywhere else, very easily. And I couldn't ask Jo to go with me to some +Eastern factory or foundry town, without being pretty sure of a job. +No; things are just drifting." + +"Well, but Bill," Susan said anxiously, "somebody else will step in if +you don't! Jo's such a beauty--" + +He turned to her almost with a snarl. + +"Well, what do you want me to do? Steal?" he asked angrily. And then +softening suddenly he added: "She's young,--the little queen of queens!" + +"And yet you say you don't want money," Susan said, drily, with a shrug +of her shoulders. + +The next day she went back to Emily, and again the lazy, comfortable +days began to slip by, one just like the other. At Christmas-time Susan +was deluged with gifts, the holidays were an endless chain of good +times, the house sweet with violets, and always full of guests and +callers; girls in furs who munched candy as they chattered, and young +men who laughed and shouted around the punch bowl. Susan and Emily were +caught in a gay current that streamed to the club, to talk and drink +eggnog before blazing logs, and streamed to one handsome home after +another, to talk and drink eggnog before other fires, and to be shown +and admire beautiful and expensive presents. They bundled in and out of +carriages and motors, laughing as they crowded in, and sitting on each +other's laps, and carrying a chorus of chatter and laughter everywhere. +Susan would find herself, the inevitable glass in hand, talking hard to +some little silk-clad old lady in some softly lighted lovely +drawing-room, to be whisked away to some other drawing-room, and to +another fireside, where perhaps there was a stocky, bashful girl of +fourteen to amuse, or somebody's grandfather to interest and smile upon. + +Everywhere were holly wreaths and lights, soft carpets, fires and rich +gowns, and everywhere the same display of gold picture frames and +silver plates, rock crystal bowls, rugs and cameras and mahogany desks +and tables, furs and jeweled chains and rings. Everywhere were candies +from all over the world, and fruitcake from London, and marrons and +sticky candied fruit, and everywhere unobtrusive maids were silently +offering trays covered with small glasses. + +Susan was frankly sick when the new year began, and Emily had several +heart and nerve attacks, and was very difficult to amuse. But both +girls agreed that the holidays had been the "time of their lives." + +It was felt by the Saunders family that Susan had shown a very becoming +spirit in the matter of the Browning dances. Ella, who had at first +slightly resented the fact that "Brownie" had chosen to honor Emily's +paid companion in so signal a manner, had gradually shifted to the +opinion that, in doing so, he had no more than confirmed the family's +opinion of Susan Brown, after all, and shown a very decent +discrimination. + +"No EARTHLY reason why you shouldn't have accepted!" said Ella. + +"Oh, Duchess," said Susan, who sometimes pleased her with this name, +"fancy the talk!" + +"Well," drawled Ella, resuming her perusal of a scandalous weekly, "I +don't know that I'm afraid of talk, myself!" + +"At the same time, El," Emily contributed, eagerly, "you know what a +fuss they made when Vera Brock brought that Miss De Foe, of New York!" + +Ella gave her little sister a very keen look, + +"Vera Brock?" she said, dreamily, with politely elevated brows. + +"Well, of course, I don't take the Brocks seriously--" Emily began, +reddening. + +"Well, I should hope you wouldn't, Baby!" answered the older sister, +promptly and forcibly. "Don't make an UTTER fool of yourself!" + +Emily retired into an enraged silence, and a day or two later, Ella, on +a Sunday morning late in February, announced that she was going to +chaperone both the girls to the Browning dance on the following Friday +night. + +Susan was thrown into a most delightful flutter, longing desperately to +go, but chilled with nervousness whenever she seriously thought of it. +She lay awake every night anxiously computing the number of her +possible partners, and came down to breakfast every morning cold with +the resolution that she would make a great mistake in exposing herself +to possible snubbing and neglect. She thought of nothing but the +Browning, listened eagerly to what the other girls said of it, her +heart sinking when Louise Chickering observed that there never were men +enough at the Brownings, and rising again when Alice Chauncey hardily +observed that, if a girl was a good dancer, that was all that mattered, +she couldn't help having a good time! Susan knew she danced well-- + +However, Emily succumbed on Thursday to a heart attack. The whole +household went through its usual excitement, the doctor came, the nurse +was hurriedly summoned, Susan removed all the smaller articles from +Emily's room, and replaced the bed's flowery cover with a sheet, the +invalid liking the hospital aspect. Susan was not very much amazed at +the suddenness of this affliction; Emily had been notably lacking in +enthusiasm about the dance, and on Wednesday afternoon, Ella having +issued the casual command, "See if you can't get a man or two to dine +with us at the hotel before the dance, Emily; then you girls will be +sure of some partners, anyway!" Emily had spent a discouraging hour at +the telephone. + +"Hello, George!" Susan had heard her say gaily. "This is Emily +Saunders. George, I rang up because--you know the Browning is Friday +night, and Ella's giving me a little dinner at the Palace before +it--and I wondered--we're just getting it up hurriedly--" An interval +of silence on Emily's part would follow, then she would resume, +eagerly, "Oh, certainly! I'm sorry, but of course I understand. Yes, +indeed; I'll see you Friday night--" and the conversation would be +ended. + +And, after a moment of silence, she would call another number, and go +through the little conversation again. Susan, filled with apprehensions +regarding her own partners, could not blame Emily for the heart attack, +and felt a little vague relief on her own account. Better sure at home +than sorry in the dreadful brilliance of a Browning ball! + +"I'm afraid this means no dance!" murmured Emily, apologetically. + +"As if I cared, Emmy Lou!" Susan reassured her cheerfully. + +"Well, I don't think you would have had a good time, Sue!" Emily said, +and the topic of the dance was presumably exhausted. + +But when Ella got home, the next morning, she reopened the question +with some heat. Emily could do exactly as Emily pleased, declared Ella, +but Susan Brown should and would come to the last Browning. + +"Oh, please, Duchess--!" Susan besought her. + +"Very well, Sue, if you don't, I'll make that kid so sorry she ever--" + +"Oh, please!--And beside--" said Susan, "I haven't anything to wear! So +that DOES settle it!" + +"What were you going to wear?" demanded Ella, scowling. + +"Em said she'd lend me her white lace." + +"Well, that's all right! Gerda'll fix it for you--" + +"But Emily sent it back to Madame Leonard yesterday afternoon. She +wanted the sash changed," Susan hastily explained. + +"Well, she's got other gowns," Ella said, with a dangerous glint in her +eyes. "What about that thing with the Persian embroidery? What about +the net one she wore to Isabel's?" + +"The net one's really gone to pieces, Duchess. It was a flimsy sort of +thing, anyway. And the Persian one she's only had on twice. When we +were talking about it Monday she said she'd rather I didn't--" + +"Oh, she did? D'ye hear that, Mama?" Ella asked, holding herself in +check. "And what about the chiffon?" + +"Well, Ella, she telephoned Madame this morning not to hurry with that, +because she wasn't going to the dance." + +"Was she going to wear it?" + +"Well, no. But she telephoned Madame just the same--I don't know why +she did," Susan smiled. "But what's the difference?" she ended +cheerfully. + +"Quite a Flora McFlimsey!" said Mrs. Saunders, with her nervous, shrill +little laugh, adding eagerly to the now thoroughly aroused Ella. "You +know Baby doesn't really go about much, Totty; she hasn't as many gowns +as you, dear!" + +"Now, look here, Mama," Ella said, levelly, "if we can manage to get +Susan something to wear, well and good; but--if that rotten, selfish, +nasty kid has really spoiled this whole thing, she'll be sorry! That's +all. I'd try to get a dress in town, if it wasn't so late! As it is +I'll telephone Madame about the Persian--" + +"Oh, honestly, I couldn't! If Emily didn't want me to!" Susan began, +scarlet-cheeked. + +"I think you're all in a conspiracy to drive me crazy!" Ella said +angrily. "Emily shall ask you just as nicely as she knows how, to +wear--" + +"Totty, she's SICK!" pleaded Emily's mother. + +"Sick! She's chock-full of poison because she never knows when to stop +eating," said Kenneth, with fraternal gallantry. He returned to his own +thoughts, presently adding, "Why don't you borrow a dress from Isabel?" + +"Isabel?" Ella considered it, brightened. "Isabel Wallace," she said, +in sudden approval. "That's exactly what I'll do!" And she swept +magnificently to the little telephone niche near the dining-room door. +"Isabel," said she, a moment later, "this is Mike--" + +So Susan went to the dance. Miss Isabel Wallace sent over a great box +of gowns from which she might choose the most effective, and Emily, +with a sort of timid sullenness, urged her to go. Ella and her charge +went into town in the afternoon, and loitered into the club for tea. +Susan, whose color was already burning high, and whose eyes were +dancing, fretted inwardly at Ella's leisurely enjoyment of a second and +a third sup. It was nearly six o'clock, it was after six! Ella seemed +willing to delay indefinitely, waiting on the stairs of the club for a +long chat with a passing woman, and lingering with various friends in +the foyer of the great hotel. + +But finally they were in the big bedrooms, with Clemence, Ella's maid, +in eager and interested attendance. Clemence had laid Susan's delicious +frills and laces out upon the bed; Susan's little wrapper was waiting +her; there was nothing to do now but plunge into the joy of dressing. A +large, placid person known to Susan vaguely as the Mrs. Keith, who had +been twice divorced, had the room next to Ella, and pretty Mary +Peacock, her daughter, shared Susan's room. The older ladies, assuming +loose wrappers, sat gossiping over cocktails and smoking cigarettes, +and Mary and Susan seized the opportunity to monopolize Clemence. +Clemence arranged Susan's hair, pulling, twisting, flinging hot masses +over the girl's face, inserting pins firmly, loosening strands with her +hard little French fingers. Susan had only occasional blinded glimpses +of her face, one temple bare and bald, the other eclipsed like a +gipsy's. + +"Look here, Clemence, if I don't like it, out it comes!" she said. + +"Mais, certainement, ca va sans dire!" Clemence agreed serenely. Mary +Peacock, full of amused interest, watched as she rubbed her face and +throat with cold cream. + +"I wish I had your neck and shoulders, Miss Brown," said Miss Peacock. +"I get so sick of high-necked gowns that I'd almost rather stay home!" + +"Why, you're fatter than I am!" Susan exclaimed. "You've got lovely +shoulders!" + +"Yes, darling!" Mary said, gushingly. "And I've got the sort of blood +that breaks out, in a hot room," she added after a moment, "don't look +so scared, it's nothing serious! But I daren't ever take the risk of +wearing a low gown!" + +"But how did you get it?" ejaculated Susan. "Are you taking something +for it?" + +"No, love," Mary continued, in the same, amused, ironic strain, +"because I've been traveling about, half my life, to get it cured, +Germany and France, everywhere! And there ain't no such animal! Isn't +it lovely?" + +"But how did you get it?" Susan innocently persisted. Mary gave her a +look half exasperated and half warning; but, when Clemence had stepped +into the next room for a moment, she said: + +"Don't be an utter fool! Where do you THINK I got it? + +"The worst of it is," she went on pleasantly, as Clemence came back, +"that my father's married again, you know, to the sweetest little thing +you ever saw. An only girl, with four or five big brothers, and her +father a minister! Well--" + +"Voici!" exclaimed the maid. And Susan faced herself in the mirror, and +could not resist a shamed, admiring smile. But if the smooth rolls and +the cunning sweeps and twists of bright hair made her prettier than +usual, Susan was hardly recognizable when the maid touched lips and +cheeks with color and eyebrows with her clever pencil. She had thought +her eyes bright before; now they had a starry glitter that even their +owner thought effective; her cheeks glowed softly-- + +"Here, stop flirting with yourself, and put on your gown, it's after +eight!" Mary said, and Clemence slipped the fragrant beauty of silk and +lace over Susan's head, and knelt down to hook it, and pushed it down +over the hips, and tied the little cord that held the low bodice so +charmingly in place. Clemence said nothing when she had finished, nor +did Mary, nor did Ella when they presently joined Ella to go +downstairs, but Susan was satisfied. It is an unfortunate girl indeed +who does not think herself a beauty for one night at least in her life; +Susan thought herself beautiful tonight. + +They joined the men in the Lounge, and Susan had to go out to dinner, +if not quite "on a man's arm," as in her old favorite books, at least +with her own partner, feeling very awkward, and conscious of shoulders +and hips as she did so. But she presently felt the influence of the +lights and music, and of the heating food and wine, and talked and +laughed quite at her ease, feeling delightfully like a great lady and a +great beauty. Her dinner partner presently asked her for the "second" +and the supper dance, and Susan, hoping that she concealed indecent +rapture, gladly consented. By just so much was she relieved of the +evening's awful responsibility. She did not particularly admire this +nice, fat young man, but to be saved from visible unpopularity, she +would gladly have danced with the waiter. + +It was nearer eleven than ten o'clock when they sauntered through +various wide hallways to the palm-decorated flight of stairs that led +down to the ballroom. Susan gave one dismayed glance at the brilliant +sweep of floor as they descended. + +"They're dancing!" she ejaculated,--late, and a stranger, what chance +had she! + +"Gosh, you're crazy about it, aren't you?" grinned her partner, Mr. +Teddy Carpenter. "Don't you care, they've just begun. Want to finish +this with me?" + +But Susan was greeting the host, who stood at the foot of the stairs, a +fat, good-natured little man, beaming at everyone out of small +twinkling blue eyes, and shaking hands with the debutantes while he +spoke to their mothers over their shoulders. + +"Hello, Brownie!" Ella said, affectionately. "Where's everybody?" + +Mr. Browning flung his fat little arms in the air. + +"I don't know," he said, in humorous distress. "The girls appear to be +holding a meeting over there in the dressing-room, and the men are in +the smoker! I'm going to round 'em up! How do you do, Miss Brown? Gad, +you look so like your aunt,--and she WAS a beauty, Ella!--that I could +kiss you for it, as I did her once!" + +"My aunt has black hair and brown eyes, Miss Ella, and weighs one +hundred and ninety pounds!" twinkled Susan. + +"Kiss her again for that, Brownie, and introduce me," said a tall, +young man at the host's side easily. "I'm going to have this, aren't I, +Miss Brown? Come on, they're just beginning--" + +Off went Susan, swept deliciously into the tide of enchanting music and +motion. She wasn't expected to talk, she had no time to worry, she +could dance well, and she did. + +Kenneth Saunders came up in the pause before the dance was encored, and +asked for the "next but one,"--there were no cards at the Brownings; +all over the hall girls were nodding over their partners' shoulders, in +answer to questions, "Next, Louise?" "Next waltz--one after that, +then?" "I'm next, remember!" + +Kenneth brought a bashful blonde youth with him, who instantly claimed +the next dance. He did not speak to Susan again until it was over, +when, remarking simply, "God, that was life!" he asked for the third +ensuing, and surrendered Susan to some dark youth unknown, who said, +"Ours? Now, don't say no, for there's suicide in my blood, girl, and +I'm a man of few words!" + +"I am honestly all mixed up!" Susan laughed. "I think this is +promised--" + +It didn't appear to matter. The dark young man took the next two, and +Susan found herself in the enchanting position of a person reproached +by disappointed partners. Perhaps there were disappointed and unpopular +girls at the dance, perhaps there was heart-burning and disappointment +and jealousy; she saw none of it. She was passed from hand to hand, +complimented, flirted with, led into the little curtained niches where +she could be told with proper gravity of the feelings her wit and +beauty awakened in various masculine hearts. By twelve o'clock Susan +wished that the ball would last a week, she was borne along like a +feather on its glittering and golden surface. + +Ella was by this time passionately playing the new and fascinating game +of bridge whist, in a nearby room, but Browning was still busy, and +presently he came across the floor to Susan, and asked her for a +dance--an honor for which she was entirely unprepared, for he seldom +danced, and one that she was quick enough to accept at once. + +"Perhaps you've promised the next?" said Browning. + +"If I have," said the confident Susan, "I hereby call it off." + +"Well," he said smilingly, pleased. And although he did not finish the +dance, and they presently sat down together, she knew that it had been +the evening's most important event. + +"There's a man coming over from the club, later," said Mr. Browning, +"he's a wonderful fellow! Writer, and a sort of cousin of Ella Saunders +by the way, or else his wife is. He's just on from New York, and for a +sort of rest, and he may go on to Japan for his next novel. Very +remarkable fellow!" + +"A writer?" Susan looked interested. + +"Yes, you know him, of course. Bocqueraz--that's who it is!" + +"Not Stephen Graham Bocqueraz!" ejaculated Susan, round-eyed. + +"Yes--yes!" Mr. Browning liked her enthusiasm. + +"But is he here?" Susan asked, almost reverently. "Why, I'm perfectly +crazy about his books!" she confided. "Why--why--he's about the biggest +there IS!" + +"Yes, he writes good stuff," the man agreed. "Well, now, don't you miss +meeting him! He'll be here directly," his eyes roved to the stairway, a +few feet from where they were sitting. "Here he is now!" said he. "Come +now, Miss Brown---" + +"Oh, honestly! I'm scared--I don't know what to say!" Susan said in a +panic. But Browning's fat little hand was firmly gripped over hers and +she went with him to meet the two or three men who were chatting +together as they came slowly, composedly, into the ball-room. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +From among them she could instantly pick the writer, even though all +three were strangers, and although, from the pictures she had seen of +him, she had always fancied that Stephen Bocqueraz was a large, +athletic type of man, instead of the erect and square-built gentleman +who walked between the other two taller men. He was below the average +height, certainly, dark, clean-shaven, bright-eyed, with a thin-lipped, +wide, and most expressive mouth, and sleek hair so black as to make his +evening dress seem another color. He was dressed with exquisite +precision, and with one hand he constantly adjusted and played with the +round black-rimmed glasses that hung by a silk ribbon about his neck. +Susan knew him, at this time, to be about forty-five, perhaps a little +less. If her very first impression was that he was both affected and +well aware of his attractiveness, her second conceded that here was a +man who could make any affectation charming, and not the less +attractive because he knew his value. + +"And what do I do, Mr. Br-r-rowning," asked Mr. Bocqueraz with pleasant +precision, "when I wish to monopolize the company of a very charming +young lady, at a dance, and yet, not dancing, cannot ask her to be my +partner?" + +"The next is the supper dance," suggested Susan, dimpling, "if it isn't +too bold to mention it!" + +He flashed her an appreciative look, the first they had really +exchanged. + +"Supper it is," he said gravely, offering her his arm. But Browning +delayed him for a few introductions first; and Susan stood watching +him, and thinking him very distinguished, and that to study a really +great man, so pleasantly at her ease, was very thrilling. Presently he +turned to her again, and they went in to supper; to Susan it was all +like an exciting dream. They chose a little table in the shallow angle +of a closed doorway, and watched the confusion all about them; and +Susan, warmed by the appreciative eyes so near her, found herself +talking quite naturally, and more than once was rewarded by the +writer's unexpected laughter. She asked him if Mrs. Bocqueraz and his +daughter were with him, and he said no, not on this particular trip. + +"Julie and her mother are in Europe," he said, with just a suggestion +of his Spanish grandfather in his clean-clipped speech. "Julie left +Miss Bence's School at seventeen, had a coming-out party in our city +house the following winter. Now it seems Europe is the thing. Mrs. +Bocqueraz likes to do things systematically, and she told me, before +Julie was out of the nursery, that she thought it was very nice for a +girl to marry in her second winter in society, after a European trip. I +have no doubt my daughter will announce her engagement upon her return." + +"To whom?" said Susan, laughing at his precise, re-signed tone. + +"That I don't know," said Stephen Bocqueraz, with a twinkle in his eye, +"nor does Julie, I fancy. But undoubtedly her mother does!" + +"Here is somebody coming over for a dance, I suppose!" he said after a +few moments, and Susan was flattered by the little hint of regret in +his tone. But the newcomer was Peter Coleman, and the emotion of +meeting him drove every other thought out of her head. She did not +rise, as she gave him her hand; the color flooded her face. + +"Susan, you little turkey-buzzard--" It was the old Peter!--"where've +you been all evening? The next for me!" + +"Mr. Bocqueraz, Mr. Coleman," Susan said, with composure, "Peter, Mr. +Stephen Graham Bocqueraz." + +Even to Peter the name meant something. + +"Why, Susan, you little grab-all!" he accused her vivaciously. "How +dare you monopolize a man like Mr. Bocqueraz for the whole supper +dance! I'll bet some of those women are ready to tear your eyes out!" + +"I've been doing the monopolizing," Mr. Bocqueraz said, turning a +rather serious look from Peter, to smile with sudden brightness at +Susan. "When I find a young woman at whose christening ALL the fairies +came to dance," he added, "I always do all the monopolizing I can! +However, if you have a prior claim--" + +"But he hasn't!" Susan said, smilingly. "I'm engaged ten deep," she +added pleasantly to Peter. "Honestly, I haven't half a dance left! I +stole this." + +"Why, I won't stand for it," Peter said, turning red. + +"Come, it seems to me Mr. Coleman deserves something!" Stephen +Bocqueraz smiled. And indeed Peter looked bigger and happier and +handsomer than ever. + +"Not from me," Susan persisted, quietly pleasant. Peter stood for a +moment or two, not quite ready to laugh, not willing to go away. Susan +busied herself with her salad, stared dreamily across the room. And +presently he departed after exchanging a few commonplaces with +Bocqueraz. + +"And what's the significance of all that?" asked the author when they +were alone again. + +Susan had been wishing to make some sort of definite impression upon +Mr. Stephen Graham Bocqueraz; wishing to remain in his mind as +separated from the other women he had met to-night. Suddenly she saw +this as her chance, and she took him somewhat into her confidence. She +told him of her old office position, and of her aunt, and of Peter, and +that she was now Emily Saunders' paid companion, and here only as a +sort of Cinderella. + +Never did any girl, flushing, dimpling, shrugging her shoulders over +such a recital, have a more appreciative listener. Stephen Bocqueraz's +sympathetic look met hers whenever she looked up; he nodded, agreed, +frowned thoughtfully or laughed outright. They sat through the next +dance, and through half the next, hidden in one of the many diminutive +"parlors" that surrounded the ball-room, and when Susan was surrendered +to an outraged partner she felt that she and the great man were fairly +started toward a real friendship, and that these attractive boys she +was dancing with were really very young, after all. + +"Remember Stephen Bocqueraz that Brownie introduced to you just before +supper?" asked Ella, as they went home, yawning, sleepy and headachy, +the next day. Ella had been playing cards through the supper hour. + +"Perfectly!" Susan answered, flushing and smiling. + +"You must have made a hit," Ella remarked, "because--I'm giving him a +big dinner on Tuesday, at the Palace--and when I talked to him he asked +if you would be there. Well, I'm glad you had a nice time, kiddy, and +we'll do it again!" + +Susan had thanked her gratefully more than once, but she thanked her +again now. She felt that she truly loved Ella, so big and good natured +and kind. + +Emily was a little bit cold when Susan told her about the ball, and the +companion promptly suppressed the details of her own successes, and +confined her recollections to the girls who had asked for Emily, and to +generalities. Susan put her wilting orchids in water, and went dreamily +through the next two or three days, recovering from the pleasure and +excitement. It was almost a week before Emily was quite herself again; +then, when Isabel Wallace came running in to Emily's sick-room to beg +Susan to fill a place at their dinner-table at a few hours' notice, +Susan's firm refusal quite won Emily's friendship back. + +"Isabel's a dear," said Emily, contentedly settling down with the +Indian bead-work in which she and Susan had had several lessons, and +with which they filled some spare time, "but she's not a leader. I took +you up, so now Isabel does! I knew--I felt sure that, if Ella let you +borrow that dress, Isabel would begin to patronize you!" + +It was just one of Emily's nasty speeches, and Emily really wasn't +well, so Susan reminded herself, when the hot, angry color burned in +her face, and an angry answer came to her mind. What hurt most was that +it was partly true; Emily HAD taken her up, and, when she ceased to be +all that Emily required of sympathy and flattery and interest, Emily +would find someone else to fill Miss Brown's place. Without Emily she +was nobody, and it did not console Susan to reflect that, had Emily's +fortune been hers and Emily in her position, the circumstances would be +exactly reversed. Just the accident of having money would have made +Miss Brown the flattered and admired, the safe and secure one; just the +not having it would have pushed Emily further even than Susan was from +the world of leisure and beauty and luxury. + +"This world IS money!" thought Susan, when she saw the head-waiter come +forward so smilingly to meet Ella and herself at the Palm Garden; when +Leonard put off a dozen meekly enduring women to finish Miss Emily +Saunders' gown on time; when the very sexton at church came hurrying to +escort Mrs. Saunders and herself through the disappointed crowds in the +aisles, and establish them in, and lock them in, the big empty pew. The +newspapers gave half a column of blame to the little girl who tried to +steal a two-dollar scarf from the Emporium, but there was nothing but +admiration for Ella on the day when she and a twenty-year-old boy, for +a wager, led a woolly white toy lamb, a lamb costing twenty-five +dollars, through the streets, from the club to the Palace Hotel. The +papers were only deeply interested and amused when Miss Elsa Chisholm +gave a dinner to six favorite riding-horses, who were entertained in +the family dining-room after a layer of tan-bark had been laid on the +floor, and fed by their owners from specially designed leather bags and +boxes; and they merely reported the fact that Miss Dolly Ripley had +found so unusual an intelligence in her gardener that she had deeded to +him her grandfather's eighty-thousand-dollar library. "He really has +ever so much better brains than I have, don't you know?" said Miss +Ripley to the press. + +In return for the newspapers' indulgent attitude, however, they were +shown no clemency by the Saunders and the people of their set. On a +certain glorious, golden afternoon in May, Susan, twisting a card that +bore the name of Miss Margaret Summers, representing the CHRONICLE, +went down to see the reporter. The Saunders family hated newspaper +notoriety, but it was a favorite saying that since the newspapers would +print things anyway, they might as well get them straight, and Susan +often sent dinner or luncheon lists to the three morning papers. + +However, the young woman who rose when Susan went into the drawing-room +was not in search of news. Her young, pretty face was full of distress. + +"Miss Saunders?" asked she. + +"I'm Miss Brown," Susan said. "Miss Saunders is giving a card-party and +I am to act for her." + +Miss Summers, beginning her story, also began to cry. She was the +society editor, she explained, and two weeks before she had described +in her column a luncheon given by Miss Emily Saunders. Among the list +of guests she had mentioned Miss Carolyn Seymour. + +"Not Carolyn Seymour!" said Susan, shocked. "Why, she never is here! +The Seymours---" she shook her head. "I know people do accept them," +said Susan, "but the Saunders don't even know them! They're not in the +best set, you know, they're really hardly in society at all!" + +"I know NOW," Miss Summers said miserably. "But all the other +girls--this year's debutantes--were there, and I had to guess at most +of the names, and I chanced it! Fool that I was!" she interrupted +herself bitterly. "Well, the next day, while I was in the office, my +telephone rang. It was Thursday, and I had my Sunday page to do, and I +was just RUSHING, and I had a bad cold,--I've got it yet. So I just +said, 'What is it?' rather sharply, you know, and a voice said, in a +businesslike sort of way, 'How did you happen to put Miss Carolyn +Seymour's name on Miss Emily Saunders' lunch list?' I never dreamed +that it was Miss Saunders; how should I? She didn't say 'I' or 'me' or +anything--just that. So I said, 'Well, is it a matter of international +importance?'" + +"Ouch!" said Susan, wincing, and shaking a doubtful head. + +"I know, it was awful!" the other girl agreed eagerly. "But--" her +anxious eyes searched Susan's face. "Well; so the next day Mr. Brice +called me into the office, and showed me a letter from Miss Ella +Saunders, saying--" and Miss Summers began to cry again. "And I can't +tell Mamma!" she sobbed. "My brother's been so ill, and I was so proud +of my position!" + +"Do you mean they--FIRED you?" Susan asked, all sympathy. + +"He said he'd have to!" gulped Miss Summers, with a long sniff. "He +said that Saunders and Babcock advertise so much with them, and that, +if she wasn't appeased somehow--" + +"Well, now, I'll tell you," said Susan, ringing for tea, "I'll wait +until Miss Saunders is in a good mood, and then I'll do the very best I +can for you. You know, a thing like that seems small, but it's just the +sort of thing that is REALLY important," she pursued, consolingly. She +had quite cheered her caller before the tea-cups were emptied, but she +was anything but hopeful of her mission herself. + +And Ella justified her misgivings when the topic was tactfully opened +the next day. + +"I'm sorry for the little thing," said Ella, briskly, "but she +certainly oughtn't to have that position if she doesn't know better +than that! Carolyn Seymour in this house--I never heard of such a +thing! I was denying it all the next day at the club and it's extremely +unpleasant. Besides," added Ella, reddening, "she was extremely +impertinent about it when I telephoned---" + +"Duchess, she didn't dream it was you! She only said that she didn't +know it was so important---" Susan pleaded. + +"Well," interrupted Miss Saunders, in a satisfied and final tone, "next +time perhaps she WILL know who it is, and whether it is important or +not! Sue, while you're there at the desk," she added, "will you write +to Mrs. Bergess, Mrs. Gerald Florence Bergess, and tell her that I +looked at the frames at Gump's for her prizes, and they're lovely, from +fourteen up, and that I had him put three or four aside---" + +After the dance Peter began to call rather frequently at "High +Gardens," a compliment which Emily took entirely to herself, and to +escort the girls about on their afternoon calls, or keep them and Ella, +and the old mistress of the house as well, laughing throughout the late +and formal dinner. Susan's reserve and her resolutions melted before +the old charm; she had nothing to gain by snubbing him; it was much +pleasanter to let by-gones be by-gones, and enjoy the moment. Peter had +every advantage; if she refused him her friendship a hundred other +girls were only too eager to fill her place, so she was gay and +companionable with him once more, and extracted a little fresh flavor +from the friendship in Emily's unconsciousness of the constant +interchange of looks and inflections that went on between Susan and +Peter over her head. Susan sometimes thought of Mrs. Carroll's old +comment on the popularity of the absorbed and busy girl when she +realized that Peter was trying in vain to find time for a personal word +with her, or was resenting her interest in some other caller, while she +left Emily to him. She was nearer to Peter than ever, a thousand times +more sure of herself, and, if she would still have married him, she was +far less fond of him than she had been years ago. + +Susan asked him some questions, during one idle tea-time, of Hunter, +Baxter & Hunter. His uncle had withdrawn from the firm now, he told +her, adding with characteristic frankness that in his opinion "the old +guy got badly stung." The Baxter home had been sold to a club; the old +people had found the great house too big for them and were established +now in one of the very smartest of the new apartment houses that were +beginning to be built in San Francisco. Susan called, with Emily, upon +Mrs. Baxter, and somehow found the old lady's personality as curiously +shrunk, in some intangible way, as was her domestic domain in +actuality. Mrs. Baxter, cackling emphatically and disapprovingly of the +world in general, fussily accompanying them to the elevator, was merely +a rather tiresome and pitiful old woman, very different from the +delicate little grande dame of Susan's recollection. Ella reported the +Baxter fortune as sadly diminished, but there were still maids and the +faithful Emma; there were still the little closed carriage and the +semi-annual trip to Coronado. Nor did Peter appear to have suffered +financially in any way; although Mrs. Baxter had somewhat fretfully +confided to the girls that his uncle had suggested that it was time +that Peter stood upon his own feet; and that Peter accordingly had +entered into business relations with a certain very wealthy firm of +grain brokers. Susan could not imagine Peter as actively involved in +any very lucrative deals, but Peter spent a great deal of money, never +denied himself anything, and took frequent and delightful vacations. + +He took Emily and Susan to polo and tennis games, and, when the season +at the hotel opened, they went regularly to the dances. In July Peter +went to Tahoe, where Mrs. Saunders planned to take the younger girls +later for at least a few weeks' stay. Ella chaperoned them to +Burlingame for a week of theatricals; all three staying with Ella's +friend, Mrs. Keith, whose daughter, Mary Peacock, had also Dolly Ripley +and lovely Isabel Wallace for her guests. Little Constance Fox, +visiting some other friends nearby, was in constant attendance upon +Miss Ripley, and Susan thought the relationship between them an +extraordinary study; Miss Ripley bored, rude, casual, and Constance +increasingly attentive, eager, admiring. + +"When are you going to come and spend a week with me?" drawled Miss +Ripley to Susan. + +"You'll have the loveliest time of your life!" Connie added, +brilliantly. "Be sure you ask me for that week, Dolly!" + +"We'll write you about it," Miss Ripley said lazily, and Constance, +putting the best face she could upon the little slight, slapped her +hand playfully, and said: + +"Oh, aren't you mean!" + +"Dolly takes it so for granted that I'm welcome at her house at ANY +time," said Constance to Susan, later, "that she forgets how rude a +thing like that can sound!" She had followed Susan into her own room, +and now stood by the window, looking down a sun-steeped vista of lovely +roads and trees and gardens with a discontented face. Susan, changing +her dress for an afternoon on the tennis-courts, merely nodded +sympathetically. + +"Lord, I would like to go this afternoon!" added Constance, presently. + +"Aren't you going over for the tennis?" Susan asked in amazement. For +the semi-finals of the tournament were to be played on this glorious +afternoon, and there would be a brilliant crowd on the courts and tea +at the club to follow. + +"No; I can't!" Miss Fox said briefly. "Tell everyone that I'm lying +down with a terrible headache, won't you?" + +"But why?" asked Susan. For the headache was obviously a fiction. + +"You know that mustard-colored linen with the black embroidery that +Dolly's worn once or twice, don't you?" asked Connie, with apparent +irrelevancy. + +Susan nodded, utterly at a loss. + +"Well, she gave it to me to-day, and the hat and the parasol," said +Constance, with a sort of resigned bitterness. "She said she had got +the outfit at Osbourne's, last month, and she thought it would look +stunning on me, and wouldn't I like to wear it to the club this +afternoon?" + +"Well--?" Susan said, as the other paused. "Why not?" + +"Oh, why not!" echoed Connie, with mild exasperation. "Don't be a +damned fool!" + +"Oh, I see!" Susan said, enlightened. "Everybody knows it's Miss +Ripley's, of course! She probably didn't think of that!" + +"She probably did!" responded Connie, with a rather dry laugh. +"However, the fact remains that she'll take it out of me if I go and +don't wear it, and Mamma never will forgive me if I do! So, I came in +to borrow a book. Of course, Susan, I've taken things from Dolly Ripley +before, and I probably will again," she added, with the nearest +approach to a sensible manner that Susan had ever seen in her, "but +this is going a little TOO far!" + +And, borrowing a book, she departed, leaving Susan to finish her +dressing in a very sober frame of mind. She wondered if her +relationship toward Emily could possibly impress any outsider as +Connie's attitude toward Dolly Ripley impressed her. + +With Isabel Wallace she began, during this visit, the intimate and +delightful friendship for which they two had been ready for a long +time. Isabel was two years older than Susan, a beautiful, grave-eyed +brunette, gracious in manner, sweet of voice, the finest type that her +class and environment can produce. Isabel was well read, musical, +traveled; she spoke two or three languages besides her mother tongue. +She had been adored all her life by three younger brothers, by her +charming and simple, half-invalid mother, and her big, clever father, +and now, all the girls were beginning to suspect, was also adored by +the very delightful Eastern man who was at present Mrs. Butler Holmes' +guest in Burlingame, and upon whom all of them had been wasting their +prettiest smiles. John Furlong was college-bred, young, handsome, of a +rich Eastern family, in every way a suitable husband for the beautiful +woman with whom he was so visibly falling in love. + +Susan watched the little affair with a heartache, not all unworthy. She +didn't quite want to be Isabel, or want a lover quite like John. But +she did long for something beautiful and desirable all her own; it was +hard to be always the outsider, always alone. When she thought of +Isabel's father and mother, their joy in her joy, her own pleasure in +pleasing them, a thrill of pain shook her. If Isabel was all grateful, +all radiant, all generous, she, Susan, could have been graceful and +radiant and generous too! She lay awake in the soft summer nights, +thinking of what John would say to Isabel, and what Isabel, so lovely +and so happy, would reply. + +"Sue, you will know how wonderful it is when it comes to you!" Isabel +said, on the last night of their Burlingame visit, when she gave Susan +a shy hint that it was "all RIGHT," if a profound secret still. + +The girls did not stay for the theatricals, after all. Emily was deeply +disgusted at being excluded from some of the ensembles in which she had +hoped to take part and, on the very eve of the festivities, she became +alarmingly ill, threw Mrs. Keith's household into utter consternation +and confusion, and was escorted home immediately by Susan and a trained +nurse. + +Back at "High Gardens," they settled down contentedly enough to the +familiar routine. Emily spent two-thirds of the time in bed, but Susan, +fired by Isabel Wallace's example, took regular exercises now, airing +the dogs or finding commissions to execute for Emily or Mrs. Saunders, +made radical changes in her diet, and attempted, with only partial +success, to confine her reading to improving books. A relative had sent +Emily the first of the new jig-saw puzzles from New York, and Emily had +immediately wired for more. She and Susan spent hours over them; they +became in fact an obsession, and Susan began to see jig-saw divisions: +in everything her eye rested on; the lawn, the clouds, or the +drawing-room walls. + +Sometimes Kenneth joined them, and Susan knew that it was on her +account. She was very demure with him; her conversation for Emily, her +eyes all sisterly unembarrassment when they met his. Mrs. Saunders was +not well, and kept to her room, so that more than once Susan dined +alone with the man of the house. When this happened Kenneth would bring +his chair down from the head of the table and set it next to hers. He +called her "Tweeny" for some favorite character in a play, brought her +some books she had questioned him about, asked her casually, on the +days she went to town for Emily, at what time she would come back, and +joined her on the train. + +Susan had thought of him as a husband, as she thought of every +unattached man, the instant she met him. But the glamour of those early +views of Kenneth Saunders had been somewhat dimmed, and since her +arrival at "High Gardens" she had tried rather more not to displease +this easily annoyed member of the family, than to make a definite +pleasant impression upon him. Now, however, she began seriously to +consider him. And it took her a few brief moments only to decide that, +if he should ask her, she would be mad to refuse to become his wife. He +was probably as fine a match as offered itself at the time in all San +Francisco's social set, good-looking, of a suitable age, a gentleman, +and very rich. He was so rich and of so socially prominent a family +that his wife need never trouble herself with the faintest thought of +her own standing; it would be an established fact, supreme and +irrefutable. Beside him Peter Coleman was a poor man, and even Isabel's +John paled socially and financially. Kenneth Saunders would be a +brilliant "catch" for any girl; for little Susan Brown--it would be a +veritable triumph! + +Susan's heart warmed as she thought of the details. There would be a +dignified announcement from Mrs. Saunders. Then,--Babel! Telephoning, +notes, telegrams! Ella would of course do the correct thing; there +would be a series of receptions and dinners; there would be formal +affairs on all sides. The newspapers would seize upon it; the family +jewels would be reset; the long-stored silver resurrected. There would +be engagement cups and wedding-presents, and a trip East, and the +instant election of young Mrs. Saunders to the Town and Country Club. +And, in all the confusion, the graceful figure of the unspoiled little +companion would shine serene, poised, gracious, prettily deferential to +both the sisters-in-law of whom she now, as a matron, took precedence. + +Kenneth Saunders was no hero of romance; he was at best a little silent +and unresponsive; he was a trifle bald; his face, Susan had thought at +first sight, indicated weakness and dissipation. But it was a very +handsome face withal, and, if silent, Kenneth could be very dignified +and courteous in his manner; "very much the gentleman," Susan said to +herself, "always equal to the situation"! + +Other things, more serious things, she liked to think she was woman of +the world enough to condone. He drank to excess, of course; no woman +could live in the same house with him and remain unaware of that; Susan +had often heard him raging in the more intense stages approaching +delirium tremens. There had been other things, too;--women, but Susan +had only a vague idea of just what that meant, and Kenneth's world +resolutely made light of it. + +"Ken's no molly-coddle!" Ella had said to her complacently, in +connection with this topic, and one of Ella's closest friends had +added, "Oh, Heaven save me from ever having one of my sons afraid to go +out and do what the other boys do. Let 'em sow their wild oats, they're +all the sooner over it!" + +So Susan did not regard this phase of his nature very seriously. Indeed +his mother often said wailingly that, if Kenneth could only find some +"fine girl," and settle down, he would be the steadiest and best fellow +in the world. It was Mrs. Saunders who elucidated the last details of a +certain episode of Kenneth's early life for Susan. Emily had spoken of +it, and Ella had once or twice alluded to it, but from them Susan only +gathered that Kenneth, in some inexplicable and outrageous way, had +been actually arrested for something that was not in the least his +fault, and held as a witness in a murder case. He had been but +twenty-two years old at the time, and, as his sisters indignantly +agreed, it had ruined his life for years following, and Ken should have +sued the person or persons who had dared to involve the son of the +house of Saunders in so disgraceful and humiliating an affair. + +"It was in one of those bad houses, my dear," Mrs. Saunders finally +contributed, "and poor Ken was no worse than the thousands of other men +who frequent 'em! Of course, it's terrible from a woman's point of +view, but you know what men are! And when this terrible thing happened, +Ken wasn't anywhere near--didn't know one thing about it until a great +big brute of a policeman grabbed hold of his arm---! And of course the +newspapers mentioned my poor boy's name in connection with it, far and +wide!" + +After that Kenneth had gone abroad for a long time, and whether the +trained nurse who had at that time entered his life was really a nurse, +or whether she had merely called herself one, Susan could not quite +ascertain. Either the family had selected this nurse, to take care of +Kenneth who was not well at the time, or she had joined him later and +traveled with him as his nurse. Whatever it was, the association had +lasted two or three years, and then Kenneth had come home, definitely +disenchanted with women in general and woman in particular, and had +settled down into the silent, cynical, unresponsive man that Susan +knew. If he ever had any experiences whatever with the opposite sex +they were not of a nature to be mentioned before his sisters and his +mother. He scorned all the women of Ella's set, and was bitingly +critical of Emily's friends. + +One night, lying awake, Susan thought that she heard a dim commotion +from the direction of the hallway--Kenneth's voice, Ella's voice, high +and angry, some unfamiliar feminine voice, hysterical and shrill, and +Mrs. Saunders, crying out: "Tottie, don't speak that way to Kennie!" + +But before she could rouse herself fully, Mycroft's soothing tones +drowned out the other voices; there was evidently a truce. The episode +ended a few moments later with the grating of carriage wheels on the +drive far below, and Susan was not quite sure, the next morning, that +it had been more than a dream. + +But Kenneth's history, summed up, was not a bit less edifying, was not +indeed half as unpleasant, as that of many of the men, less rich and +less prominent than he, who were marrying lovely girls everywhere, with +the full consent and approval of parents and guardians. Susan had seen +the newspaper accounts of the debauch that preceded young Harry van +Vleet's marriage only by a few hours; had seen the bridegroom, still +white-faced and shaking, lead away from the altar one of the sweetest +of the debutantes. She had heard Rose St. John's mother say pleasantly +to Rose's promised husband, "I asked your Chinese boy about those +little week-end parties at your bungalow, Russell; I said, 'Yoo, were +they pretty ladies Mr. Russ used to have over there?' But he only said +'No can 'member!'" + +"That's where his wages go up!" the gentleman had responded cheerfully. + +And, after all, Susan thought, looking on, Russell Lord was not as bad +as the oldest Gerald boy, who married an Eastern girl, an heiress and a +beauty, in spite of the fact that his utter unfitness for marriage was +written plain in his face; or as bad as poor Trixie Chauncey's husband, +who had entirely disappeared from public view, leaving the buoyant +Trixie to reconcile two infant sons to the unknown horrors and dangers +of the future. + +If Kenneth drank, after his marriage, Mycroft would take care of him, +as he did now; but Susan honestly hoped that domesticity, for which +Kenneth seemed to have a real liking, would affect him in every way for +good. She had not that horror of drink that had once been hers. +Everybody drank, before dinner, with dinner, after dinner. It was +customary to have some of the men brighten under it, some overdo it, +some remain quite sober in spite of it. Susan and Emily, like all the +girls they knew, frequently ordered cocktails instead of afternoon tea, +when, as it might happen, they were in the Palace or the new St. +Francis. The cocktails were served in tea-cups, the waiter gravely +passed sugar and cream with them; the little deception was immensely +enjoyed by everyone. "Two in a cup, Martini," Emily would say, settling +into her seat, and the waiter would look deferentially at Susan, "The +same, madam?" + +It was a different world from her old world; it used a different +language, lived by another code. None of her old values held here; +things she had always thought quite permissible were unforgivable sins; +things at which Auntie would turn pale with horror were a quietly +accepted part of every-day life. No story was too bad for the women to +tell over their tea-cups, or in their boudoirs, but if any little +ordinary physical misery were alluded to, except in the most flippant +way, such as the rash on a child's stomach, or the preceding +discomforts of maternity, there was a pained and disgusted silence, and +an open snub, if possible, for the woman so crude as to introduce the +distasteful topic. + +Susan saw good little women ostracized for the fact that their husbands +did not appear at ease in evening dress, for their evident respect for +their own butlers, or for their mere eagerness to get into society. On +the other hand, she saw warmly accepted and admired the beautiful Mrs. +Nokesmith, who had married her second husband the day after her release +from her first, and pretty Beulah Garrett, whose father had swindled a +hundred trusting friends out of their entire capital, and Mrs. Lawrence +Edwards, whose oldest son had just had a marriage, contracted with a +Barbary Coast woman while he was intoxicated, canceled by law. Divorce +and disease, and dishonesty and insanity did not seem so terrible as +they once had; perhaps because they were never called by their real +names. The insane were beautifully cared for and safely out of sight; +to disease no allusion was ever made; dishonesty was carried on in +mysterious business avenues far from public inspection and public +thought; and, as Ella once pointed out, the happiest people in society +were those who had been married unhappily, divorced, and more +fortunately mated a second time. All the married women Ella knew had +"crushes"--young men who lounged in every afternoon for tea and +cigarettes and gossip, and filled chairs at dinner parties, and formed +a background in a theater box. Sometimes one or two matrons and their +admirers, properly chaperoned, or in safe numbers, went off on motoring +trips, and perhaps encountered, at the Del Monte or Santa Cruz hotels +their own husbands, with the women that they particularly admired. +Nothing was considered quite so pitiful as the wife who found this +arrangement at all distressing. "It's always all right," said Ella, +broadly, to Susan. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +In the autumn Susan went home for a week, for the Lancaster family was +convulsed by the prospect of Alfie's marriage to a little nobody whose +father kept a large bakery in the Mission, and Susan was needed to +brace Alfred's mother for the blow. Mary Lou's old admirer and his +little, invalid wife, were staying at the house now, and Susan found +"Ferd" a sad blow to her old romantic vision of him: a stout, little, +ruddy-cheeked man, too brilliantly dressed, with hair turning gray, and +an offensive habit of attacking the idle rich for Susan's benefit, and +dilating upon his own business successes. Georgie came over to spend a +night in the old home while Susan was there, carrying the heavy, lumpy +baby. Myra was teething now, cross and unmanageable, and Georgie was +worried because a barley preparation did not seem to agree with her, +and Joe disapproved of patent foods. Joe hoped that the new baby--Susan +widened her eyes. Oh, yes, in May, Georgie announced simply, and with a +tired sigh,--Joe hoped the new baby would be a boy. She herself hoped +for a little girl, wouldn't it be sweet to call it May? Georgie looked +badly, and if she did not exactly break down and cry during her visit, +Susan felt that tears were always close behind her eyes. + +Billy, beside her somewhat lachrymose aunt and cousins, shone out, +during this visit, as Susan had never known him to do before. He looked +splendidly big and strong and well, well groomed and erect in carriage, +and she liked the little compliment he paid her in postponing the +German lesson that should have filled the evening, and dressing himself +in his best to take her to the Orpheum. Susan returned it by wearing +her prettiest gown and hat. They set out in great spirits, Susan +chattering steadily, in the relief it was to speak her mind honestly, +and Billy listening, and now and then shouting out in the laughter that +never failed her spirited narratives. + +He told her of the Carrolls,--all good news, for Anna had been offered +a fine position as assistant matron in one of the best of the city's +surgical hospitals; Betts had sold a story to the Argonaut for twelve +dollars, and Philip was going steadily ahead; "you wouldn't believe he +was the same fellow!" said Billy. Jimmy and Betts and their mother were +to go up in a few days for a fortnight's holiday in the little +shooting-box that some Eastern friends had built years ago in the +Humboldt woods. The owners had left the key with Mrs. Carroll, and she +might use the little cabin as much as she liked. + +"And what about Jo?" Susan asked. + +This was the best news of all. Jo was to go East for the winter with +one of her mother's friends, whose daughter was Jo's own age. They were +to visit Boston and Washington, New York for the Opera, Palm Beach in +February, and New Orleans for the Mardi Gras. Mrs. Frothingham was a +widow, and had a son at Yale, who would join them for some of the +holidays. Susan was absolutely delighted at the news, and alluded to it +over and over again. + +"It's so different when people DESERVE a thing, and when it's all new +to them," she said to Billy, "it makes it seem so much more glorious!" + +They came out of the theater at eleven, cramped and blinking, and +Susan, confused for a moment, was trying to get her bearings, when +Billy touched her arm. + +"The Earl of Somerset is trying to bow to you, Sue!" + +She laughed, and followed the direction of his look. It was Stephen +Bocqueraz who was smiling at her, a very distinguished figure under the +lamp-post, with his fur-lined great-coat, his round tortoise-shell +eye-glasses and his silk hat. He came up to them at once, and Susan, +pleasantly conscious that a great many people recognized the great man, +introduced him to Billy. + +He had just gotten back from a long visit in the Southern part of the +state, he said, and had been dining to-night with friends at the +Bohemian Club, and was walking back to his hotel. Susan could not keep +the pleasure the meeting gave her out of her eyes and voice, and Billy +showed a sort of boyish and bashful admiration of the writer, too. + +"But this--this is a very felicitous occasion," said Mr. Bocqueraz. "We +must celebrate this in some fitting manner!" + +So he took them to supper, dismissing their hesitation as unworthy of +combat; Susan and Billy laughed helplessly and happily as they sat down +at the little table, and heard the German waiter's rapture at the +commands Stephen Bocqueraz so easily gave him in his mother tongue. +Billy, reddening but determined, must at once try his German too, and +the waiter and Bocqueraz laughed at him even while they answered him, +and agreed that the young man as a linguist was ganz wunderbar. Billy +evidently liked his company; he was at his best to-night, unaffected, +youthful, earnest. Susan herself felt that she had never been so happy +in her life. + +Long afterward she tried to remember what they had talked about. She +knew that the conversation had been to her as a draught of sparkling +wine. All her little affections were in full play to-night, the little +odds and ends of worldly knowledge she had gleaned from Ella and Ella's +friends, the humor of Emily and Peter Coleman. And because she was an +Irishman's daughter a thousand witticisms flashed in her speech, and +her eyes shone like stars under the stimulus of another's wit and the +admiration in another's eyes. + +It became promptly evident that Bocqueraz liked them both. He began to +call Billy "lad," in a friendly, older-brotherly manner, and his +laughter at Susan was alternated with moments of the gravest, the most +flattering attention. + +"She's quite wonderful, isn't she?" he said to Billy under his breath, +but Susan heard it, and later he added, quite impersonally, "She's +absolutely extraordinary! We must have her in New York, you know; my +wife must meet her!" + +They talked of music and musicians, and Bocqueraz and Billy argued and +disputed, and presently the author's card was sent to the leader of the +orchestra, with a request for the special bit of music under +discussion. They talked of authors and poets and painters and actors, +and he knew many of them, and knew something of them all. He talked of +clubs, New York clubs and London clubs, and of plays that were yet to +be given, and music that the public would never hear. + +Susan felt as if electricity was coursing through her veins. She felt +no fatigue, no sleepiness, no hunger; her champagne bubbled untouched, +but she emptied her glass of ice-water over and over again. Of the +lights and the music and the crowd she was only vaguely conscious; she +saw, as if in a dream, the hands of the big clock, at the end of the +room, move past one, past two o'clock, but she never thought of the +time. + +It was after two o'clock; still they talked on. The musicians had gone +home, lights were put out in the corners of the room, tables and chairs +were being piled together. + +Stephen Bocqueraz had turned his chair so that he sat sideways at the +table; Billy, opposite him, leaned on his elbows; Susan, sitting +between them, framing her face in her hands, moved her eyes from one +face to the other. + +"And now, children," said the writer, when at last they were in the +empty, chilly darkness of the street, "where can I get you a carriage? +The cars seem to have stopped." + +"The cars stop at about one," said William, "but there's a place two +blocks up where we can get a hack. Don't let us take you out of your +way." + +"Good-night, then, lad," said Bocqueraz, laying his hand affectionately +on Billy's shoulder. "Good-night, you wonderful little girl. Tell my +wife's good cousins in San Rafael that I am coming over very soon to +pay my respects." + +He turned briskly on his heel and left them, and Susan stood looking +after him for a moment. + +"Where's your livery stable?" asked the girl then, taking Billy's arm. + +"There isn't any!" Billy told her shamelessly. "But I've got just a +dollar and eighty cents, and I was afraid he would put us into a +carriage!" + +Susan, brought violently to earth, burst out laughing, gathered her +skirts up philosophically, and took his arm for the long walk home. It +was a cool bright night, the sky was spattered thickly with stars, the +moon long ago set. Susan was very silent, mind and heart swept with +glorious dreams. Billy, beyond the remark that Bocqueraz certainly was +a king, also had little to say, but his frequent yawns indicated that +it was rather because of fatigue than of visions. + +The house was astir when they reached it, but the confusion there was +too great to give anyone time to notice the hour of their return. Alfie +had brought his bride to see his mother, earlier in the evening, and Ma +had had hysterics the moment that they left the house. These were no +sooner calmed than Mrs. Eastman had had a "stroke," the doctor had now +come and gone, but Mary Lou and her husband still hovered over the +sufferer, "and I declare I don't know what the world's coming to!" Mrs. +Lancaster said despairingly. + +"What is it-what is it?" Mary Lord was calling, when Susan reached the +top flight. Susan went in to give her the news, Mary was restless +to-night, and glad of company; the room seemed close and warm. Lydia, +sleeping heavily on the couch, only turned and grunted occasionally at +the sound of the girls' voices. + +Susan lay awake until almost dawn, wrapped in warm and delicious +emotion. She recalled the little separate phases of the evening's talk, +brought them from her memory deliberately, one by one. When she +remembered that Mr. Bocqueraz had asked if Billy was "the fiance," for +some reason she could not define, she shut her eyes in the dark, and a +wave of some new, enveloping delight swept her from feet to head. +Certain remembered looks, inflections, words, shook the deeps of her +being with a strange and poignantly sweet sense of weakness and power: +a trembling joy. + +The new thrill, whatever it was, was with her when she wakened, and +when she ran downstairs, humming the Toreador's song, Mary Lou and her +aunt told her that she was like a bit of sunshine in the house; the +girl's eyes were soft and bright with dreams; her cheeks were glowing. + +When the postman came she flew to meet him. There was no definite hope +in her mind as she did so, but she came back more slowly, nevertheless. +No letter for her. + +But at eleven o'clock a messenger boy appeared with a special delivery +letter for Miss Susan Brown, she signed the little book with a +sensation that was almost fear. This--this was beginning to frighten +her---- + +Susan read it with a fast-beating heart. It was short, dignified. Mr. +Bocqueraz wrote that he was sending her the book of which he had +spoken; he had enjoyed nothing for a long time as much as their little +supper last evening; he hoped to see her and that very fine lad, Billy, +very soon again. His love to them both. He was her faithful friend, all +ways and always, Stephen Graham Bocqueraz. + +She slipped it inside her blouse, ignored it for a few moments, +returned to it from other thoughts with a sense of infinite delight, +and read it again. Susan could not quite analyze its charm, but in her +whole being she was conscious of a warmth, a lightness, and a certain +sweet and heady happiness throughout the entire day and the next day. + +Her thoughts began to turn toward New York. All young Californians are +conscious, sooner or later in their growth, of the call of the great +city, and just now Susan was wrapped in a cloud of dreams that hung +over Broadway. She saw herself one of the ebbing and flowing crowd, +watching the world from her place at the breakfast table in a great +hotel, sweeping through the perfumed warmth and brightness of a theater +lobby to her carriage. + +Stephen Bocqueraz had spoken of her coming to New York as a matter of +course. "You belong there," he decided, gravely appraising her. "My +wife will write to ask you to come, and we will find you just the niche +you like among your own sort and kind, and your own work to do." + +"Oh, it would be too wonderful!" Susan had gasped. + +"New York is not wonderful," he told her, with smiling, kindly, +disillusioned eyes, "but YOU are wonderful!" + +Susan, when she went back to San Rafael, was seized by a mood of bitter +dissatisfaction with herself. What did she know--what could she do? She +was fitted neither for the stage nor for literature, she had no gift of +music or of art. Lost opportunities rose up to haunt her. Ah, if she +had only studied something, if she were only wiser, a linguist, a +student of poetry or of history. Nearing twenty-five, she was as +ignorant as she had been at fifteen! A remembered line from a +carelessly read poem, a reference to some play by Ibsen or Maeterlinck +or d'Annunzio, or the memory of some newspaper clipping that concerned +the marriage of a famous singer or the power of a new +anaesthetic,--this was all her learning! + +Stephen Bocqueraz, on the Sunday following their second meeting, called +upon his wife's mother's cousin. Mrs. Saunders was still at the +hospital, and Emily was driven by the excitement of the occasion behind +a very barrier of affectations, but Kenneth was gracious and +hospitable, and took them all to the hotel for tea. Here they were the +center of a changing, admiring, laughing group; everybody wanted to +have at least a word with the great man, and Emily enjoyed a delightful +feeling of popularity. Susan, quite eclipsed, was apparently pleasantly +busy with her tea, and with the odds and ends of conversation that fell +to her. But Susan knew that Stephen Bocqueraz did not move out of her +hearing for one moment during the afternoon, nor miss a word that she +said; nor say, she suspected, a word that she was not meant to hear. +Just to exist, under these conditions, was enough. Susan, in quiet +undertones, laughed and chatted and flirted and filled tea-cups, never +once directly addressing the writer, and never really addressing anyone +else. + +Kenneth brought "Cousin Stephen" home for dinner, but Emily turned +fractious, and announced that she was not going down. + +"YOU'D rather be up here just quietly with me, wouldn't you, Sue?" +coaxed Emily, sitting on the arm of Susan's chair, and putting an arm +about her. + +"Of course I would, old lady! We'll send down for something nice, and +get into comfortable things," Susan said. + +It hardly disappointed her; she was walking on air. She went demurely +to the library door, to make her excuses; and Bocqueraz's look +enveloped her like a shaft of sunlight. All the evening, upstairs, and +stretched out in a long chair and in a loose silk wrapper, she was +curiously conscious of his presence downstairs; whenever she thought of +him, she must close her book, and fall to dreaming. His voice, his +words, the things he had not said ... they spun a brilliant web about +her. She loved to be young; she saw new beauty to-night in the thick +rope of tawny hair that hung loosely across her shoulder, in the white +breast, half-hidden by the fold of her robe, in the crossed, silk-clad +ankles. All the world seemed beautiful tonight, and she beautiful with +the rest. + +Three days later she came downstairs, at five o'clock on a gloomy, dark +afternoon, in search of firelight and tea. Emily and Kenneth, Peter +Coleman and Mary Peacock, who were staying at the hotel for a week or +two, were motoring. The original plan had included Susan, but at the +last moment Emily had been discovered upstairs, staring undecidedly out +of the window, humming abstractedly. + +"Aren't you coming, Em?" Susan had asked, finding her. + +"I--I don't believe I will," Emily said lightly, without turning. "Go +on, don't wait for me! It's nothing," she had persisted, when Susan +questioned her, "Nothing at all! At least," the truth came out at last, +"at least, I think it looks ODD. So now go on, without me," said Emily. + +"What looks odd?" + +"Nothing does, I tell you! Please go on." + +"You mean, three girls and two men," Susan said slowly. + +Emily assented by silence. + +"Well, then, you go and I'll stay," Susan said, in annoyance, "but it's +perfect rubbish!" + +"No, you go," Emily said, pettishly. + +Susan went, perhaps six feet; turned back. + +"I wish you'd go," she said, in dissatisfaction. + +"If I did," Emily said, in a low, quiet tone, still looking out of the +window, "it would be simply because of the looks of things!" + +"Well, go because of the looks of things then!" Susan agreed cheerfully. + +"No, but you see," Emily said eagerly, turning around, "it DOES look +odd--not to me, of course! But mean odd to other people if you go and I +don't-don't you think so, Sue?" + +"Ye-es," drawled Susan, with a sort of bored and fexasperated sigh. And +she went to her own room to write letters, not disappointed, but +irritated so thoroughly that she could hardly control her thoughts. + +At five o'clock, dressed in a childish black velvet gown--her one +pretty house gown--with the deep embroidered collar and cuffs that were +so becoming to her, and with her hair freshly brushed and swept back +simply from her face, she came downstairs for a cup of tea. + +And in the library, sunk into a deep chair before the fire, she found +Stephen Bocqueraz, his head resting against the back of the chair, his +knees crossed and his finger-tips fitted together. Susan's heart began +to race. + +He got up and they shook hands, and stood for too long a moment looking +at each other. The sense of floating--floating--losing her +anchorage--began to make Susan's head spin. She sat down, opposite him, +as he took his chair again, but her breath was coming too short to +permit of speech. + +"Upon my word I thought the woman said that you were all out!" said +Bocqueraz, appreciative eyes upon her, "I hardly hoped for a piece of +luck like this!" + +"Well, they are, you know. I'm not, strictly speaking, a Saunders," +smiled Susan. + +"No; you're nobody but yourself," he agreed, following a serious look +with his sudden, bright smile. "You're a very extraordinary woman, +Mamselle Suzanne," he went on briskly, "and I've got a nice little plan +all ready to talk to you about. One of these days Mrs. Bocqueraz--she's +a wonderful woman for this sort of thing!--shall write to your aunt, or +whoever is in loco parentis, and you shall come on to New York for a +visit. And while you're there---" He broke off, raised his eyes from a +study of the fire, and again sent her his sudden and sweet and most +disturbing smile. + +"Oh, don't talk about it!" said Susan. "It's too good to be true!" + +"Nothing's too good to be true," he answered. "Once or twice before +it's been my extraordinary good fortune to find a personality, and give +it a push in the right direction. You'll find the world kind enough to +you--Lillian will see to it that you meet a few of the right people, +and you'll do the rest. And how you'll love it, and how they'll love +you!" He jumped up. "However, I'm not going to spoil you," he said, +smilingly. + +He went to one of the bookcases and presently came back to read to her +from Phillips' "Paolo and Francesca," and from "The Book and the Ring." +And never in later life did Susan read either without hearing his +exquisite voice through the immortal lines: + + "A ring without a poesy, and that ring mine? + O Lyric Love! ..." + + "O Lord of Rimini, with tears we leave her, as we leave a + child, + Be gentle with her, even as God has been...." + +"Some day I'll read you Pompilia, little Suzanne," said Bocqueraz. "Do +you know Pompilia? Do you know Alice Meynell and some of Patmore's +stuff, and the 'Dread of Height'?" + +"I don't know anything," said Susan, feeling it true. "Well," he said +gaily, "we'll read them all!" + +Susan presently poured his tea; her guest wheeling his great leather +chair so that its arm touched the arm of her own. + +"You make me feel all thumbs, watching me so!" she protested. + +"I like to watch you," he answered undisturbed. "Here, we'll put this +plate on the arm of my chair,--so. Then we can both use it. Your scones +on that side, and mine on this, and my butter-knife between the two, +like Prosper Le Gai's sword, eh?" + +Susan's color heightened suddenly; she frowned. He was a man of the +world, of course, and a married man, and much older than she, but +somehow she didn't like it. She didn't like the laughter in his eyes. +There had been just a hint of this--this freedom, in his speech a few +nights ago, but somehow in Billy's presence it had seemed harmless-- + +"And why the blush?" he was askingly negligently, yet watching her +closely, as if he rather enjoyed her confusion. + +"You know why," Susan said, meeting his eyes with a little difficulty. + +"I know why. But that's nothing to blush at. Analyze it. What is there +in that to embarrass you?" + +"I don't know," Susan said, awkwardly, feeling very young. + +"Life is a very beautiful thing, my child," he said, almost as if he +were rebuking her, "and the closer we come to the big heart of life the +more wonderful things we find. No--no--don't let the people about you +make you afraid of life." He finished his cup of tea, and she poured +him another. "I think it's time to transplant you," he said then, +pleasantly, "and since last night I've been thinking of a very +delightful and practical way to do it. Lillian--Mrs. Bocqueraz has a +very old friend in New York in Mrs. Gifford Curtis--no, you don't know +the name perhaps, but she's a very remarkable woman--an invalid. All +the world goes to her teas and dinners, all the world has been going +there since Booth fell in love with her, and Patti--when she was in her +prime!--spent whole Sunday afternoons singing to her! You'll meet +everyone who's at all worth while there now, playwrights, and painters, +and writers, and musicians. Her daughters are all married to prominent +men; one lives in Paris, one in London, two near her; friends keep +coming and going. It's a wonderful family. Well, there's a Miss +Concannon who's been with her as a sort of companion for twenty years, +but Miss Concannon isn't young, and she confided to me a few months ago +that she needed an assistant,--someone to pour tea and write notes and +play accompaniments---" + +"A sort of Julie le Breton?" said Susan, with sparkling eyes. She +resolved to begin piano practice for two hours a day to-morrow. + +"I beg pardon? Yes--yes, exactly, so I'm going to write Lillian at +once, and she'll put the wheels in motion!" + +"I don't know what good angel ever made you think of ME," said Susan. + +"Don't you?" the man asked, in a low tone. There was a pause. Both +stared at the fire. Suddenly Bocqueraz cleared his throat. + +"Well!" he said, jumping up, "if this clock is right it's after +half-past six. Where are these good people?" + +"Here they are--there's the car coming in the gate now!" Susan said in +relief. She ran out to the steps to meet them. + +A day or two later, as she was passing Ella's half-open doorway, Ella's +voice floated out into the hall. + +"That you, Susan? Come in. Will you do your fat friend a favor?" Ella, +home again, had at once resumed her despotic control of the household. +She was lying on a couch at this moment, lazily waving a scribbled half +sheet of paper over her head. + +"Take this to Mrs. Pullet, Sue," said she, "and ask her to tell the +cook, in some confidential moment, that there are several things +written down here that he seems to have forgotten the existence of. I +want to see them on the table, from time to time. While I was with the +Crewes I was positively MORTIFIED at the memory of our meals! And from +now on, while Mr. Bocqueraz's here, we'll be giving two dinners a week." + +"While--?" Susan felt a delicious, a terrifying weakness run like a +wave from head to feet. + +"He's going to be here for a month or two!" Ella announced +complacently. "It was all arranged last night. I almost fell off my +feet when he proposed it. He says he's got some work to finish up, and +he thinks the atmosphere here agrees with him. Kate Stanlaws turned a +lovely pea-green, for they were trying to get him to go with them to +Alaska. He'll have the room next to Mamma's, with the round porch, and +the big room off the library for a study. I had them clear everything +out of it, and Ken's going to send over a desk, and chair, and so on. +And do try to do everything you can to make him comfortable, Sue. +Mamma's terribly pleased that he wants to come," finished Ella, making +a long arm for her novel, "But of course he and I made an instant hit +with each other!" + +"Oh, of course I will!" Susan promised. She went away with her list, +pleasure and excitement and a sort of terror struggling together in her +heart. + +Pleasure prevailed, however, when Stephen Bocqueraz was really +established at "High Gardens," and the first nervous meeting was safely +over. Everybody in the house was the happier and brighter for his +coming, and Susan felt it no sin to enjoy him with the rest. Meal times +became very merry; the tea-hour, when he would come across the hall +from his workroom, tired, relaxed, hungry, was often the time of +prolonged and delightful talks, and on such evenings as Ella left her +cousin free of dinner engagements, even Emily had to admit that his +reading, under the drawing-room lamp, was a rare delight. + +Sometimes he gave himself a half-holiday, and joined Emily and Susan in +their driving or motoring. On almost every evening that he did not dine +at home he was downstairs in time for a little chat with Susan over the +library fire. They were never alone very long, but they had a dozen +brief encounters every day, exchanged a dozen quick, significant +glances across the breakfast table, or over the book that he was +reading aloud. + +Susan lived in a dazed, wide-eyed state of reasonless excitement and +perilous delight. It was all so meaningless, she assured her pretty +vision in the mirror, as she arranged her bright hair,--the man was +married, and most happily married; he was older than she; he was a man +of honor! And she, Susan Brown, was only playing this fascinating game +exceptionally well. She had never flirted before and had been rather +proud of it. Well, she was flirting now, and proud of that, too! She +was quite the last girl in the world to fall SERIOUSLY in love, with +her eyes wide open, in so extremely undesirable a direction! This was +not falling in love at all. Stephen Bocqueraz spoke of his wife half a +dozen times a day. Susan, on her part, found plenty of things about him +to dislike! But he was clever, and--yes, and fascinating, and he +admired her immensely, and there was no harm done so far, and none to +be done. Why try to define the affair by cut-and-dried rules; it was +quite different from anything that had ever happened before, it stood +in a class quite by itself. + +The intangible bond between them strengthened every day. Susan, +watching him when Ella's friends gathered about him, watching the +honest modesty with which he evaded their empty praises, their attempts +at lionizing, could not but thrill to know that HER praise stirred him, +that the deprecatory, indifferent air was dropped quickly enough for +HER! It was intoxicating to know, as she did know, that he was +thinking, as she was, of what they would say when they next had a +moment together; that, whatever she wore, he found her worth watching; +that, whatever her mood, she never failed to amuse and delight him! Her +rather evasive beauty grew more definite under his eyes; she bubbled +with fun and nonsense. "You little fool!" Ella would laugh, with an +approving glance toward Susan at the tea-table, and "Honestly, Sue, you +were killing tonight!" Emily, who loved to be amused, said more than +once. + +One day Miss Brown was delegated to carry a message to Mr. Bocqueraz in +his study. Mrs. Saunders was sorry to interrupt his writing, but a very +dear old friend was coming to dinner that evening, and would Cousin +Stephen come into the drawing-room for a moment, before he and Ella +went out? + +Susan tripped demurely to the study door and rapped. + +"Come in!" a voice shouted. Susan turned the knob, and put her head +into the room. Mr. Bocqueraz, writing at a large table by the window, +and facing the door across its shining top, flung down his pen, and +stretched back luxuriously in his chair. + +"Well, well!" said he, smiling and blinking. "Come in, Susanna!" + +"Mrs. Saunders wanted me to ask you---" + +"But come in! I've reached a tight corner; couldn't get any further +anyway!" He pushed away his papers. "There are days, you know, when +you're not even on bowing acquaintance with your characters." + +He looked so genial, so almost fatherly, so contentedly lazy, leaning +back in his big chair, the winter sunshine streaming in the window +behind him, and a dozen jars of fragrant winter flowers making the +whole room sweet, that Susan came in, unhesitatingly. It was the mood +of all his moods that she liked best; interested, interesting, +impersonal. + +"But I oughtn't--you're writing," said Susan, taking a chair across the +table from him, and laying bold hands on his manuscript, nevertheless. +"What a darling hand you write!" she observed, "and what enormous +margins. Oh, I see, you write notes in the margins--corrections?" + +"Exactly!" He was watching her between half-closed lids, with lazy +pleasure. + +"'The only,' in a loop," said Susan, "that's not much of a note! I +could have written that myself," she added, eying him sideways through +a film of drifting hair. + +"Very well, write anything you like!" he offered amusedly. + +"Oh, honestly?" asked Susan with dancing eyes. And, at his nod, she +dipped a pen in the ink, and began to read the story with a serious +scowl. + +"Here!" she said suddenly, "this isn't at all sensible!" And she read +aloud: + + "So crystal clear was the gaze with which he met her own, + that she was aware of an immediate sense, a vaguely alarming + sense, that her confidence must be made with concessions not + only to what he had told her--and told her so exquisitely as to + indicate his knowledge of other facts from which those he + chose to reveal were deliberately selected--but also to what he + had not--surely the most significant detail of the whole + significant episode--so chosen to reveal!" + +"Oh, I see what it means, when I read it aloud," said Susan, cheerfully +honest. "But at first it didn't seem to make sense!" + +"Go ahead. Fix it anyway you like." + +"Well---" Susan dimpled. "Then I'll--let's see--I'll put 'surely' after +'also,'" she announced, "and end it up, 'to what he had not so chosen +to reveal!' Don't you think that's better?" + +"Clearer, certainly.--On that margin, Baby." + +"And will you really let it stay that way?" asked the baby, eying the +altered page with great satisfaction. + +"Oh, really. You will see it so in the book." + +His quiet certainty that these scattered pages would surely be a book +some day thrilled Susan, as power always thrilled her. Just as she had +admired Thorny's old scribbled prices, years before, so she admired +this quiet mastery now. She asked Stephen Bocqueraz questions, and he +told her of his boyhood dreams, of the early struggles in the big city, +of the first success. + +"One hundred dollars for a story, Susan. It looked a little fortune!" + +"And were you married then?" + +"Married?" He smiled. "My dear child, Mrs. Bocqueraz is worth almost a +million dollars in her own right. No--we have never faced poverty +together!" There was almost a wistful look in his eyes. + +"And to whom is this book going to be dedicated?" asked Susan. + +"Well, I don't know. Lillian has two, and Julie has one or two, and +various men, here and in London. Perhaps I'll dedicate this one to a +bold baggage of an Irish girl. Would you like that?" + +"Oh, you couldn't!" Susan said, frightened. + +"Why couldn't I?" + +"Because,--I'd rather you wouldn't! I--and it would look odd!" +stammered Susan. + +"Would you care, if it did?" he asked, with that treacherous sudden +drop in his voice that always stirred her heart so painfully. + +"No-o---" Susan answered, scarcely above a whisper. + +"What are you afraid of, little girl?" he asked, putting his hand over +hers on the desk. + +Susan moved her hand away. + +"Because, your wife---" she began awkwardly, turning a fiery red. + +Bocqueraz abruptly left his seat, and walked to a window. + +"Susan," he said, coming back, after a moment, "have I ever done +anything to warrant--to make you distrust me?" + +"No,--never!" said Susan heartily, ashamed of herself. + +"Friends?" he asked, gravely. And with his sudden smile he put his two +hands out, across the desk. + +It was like playing with fire; she knew it. But Susan felt herself +quite equal to anyone at playing with fire. + +"Friends!" she laughed, gripping his hands with hers. "And now," she +stood up, "really I mustn't interrupt you any longer!" + +"But wait a moment," he said. "Come see what a pretty vista I +get--right across the Japanese garden to the woods!" + +"The same as we do upstairs," Susan said. But she went to stand beside +him at the window. + +"No," said Stephen Bocqueraz presently, quietly taking up the thread of +the interrupted conversation, "I won't dedicate my book to you, Susan, +but some day I'll write you a book of your own! I have been wishing," +he added soberly, his eyes on the little curved bridge and the dwarfed +shrubs, the pond and the stepping-stones across the garden, "I have +been wishing that I never had met you, my dear. I knew, years ago, in +those hard, early days of which I've been telling you, that you were +somewhere, but--but I didn't wait for you, Susan, and now I can do no +more than wish you God-speed, and perhaps give you a helping hand upon +your way! That's all I wanted to say." + +"I'm--I'm not going to answer you," said Susan, steadily, composedly. + +Side by side they looked out of the window, for another moment or two, +then Bocqueraz turned suddenly and catching her hands in his, asked +almost gaily: + +"Well, this is something, at least, isn't it--to be good friends, and +to have had this much of each other?" + +"Surely! A lot!" Susan answered, in smiling relief. And a moment later +she had delivered her message, and was gone, and he had seated himself +at his work again. + +How much was pretense and how much serious earnest, on his part, she +wondered. How much was real on her own? Not one bit of it, said Susan, +fresh from her bath, in the bracing cool winter morning, and walking +briskly into town for the mail. Not--not much of it, anyway, she +decided when tea-time brought warmth and relaxation, the leaping of +fire-light against the library walls, the sound of the clear and +cultivated voice. + +But what was the verdict later, when Susan, bare-armed and +bare-shouldered, with softened light striking brassy gleams from her +hair, and the perfumed dimness and silence of the great house +impressing every sense, paused for a message from Stephen Bocqueraz at +the foot of the stairs, or warmed her shining little slipper at the +fire, while he watched her from the chair not four feet away? + +When she said "I--I'm not going to answer you," in the clear, bright +morning light, Susan was enjoyably aware of the dramatic value of the +moment; when she evaded Bocqueraz's eye throughout an entire luncheon +she did it deliberately; it was a part of the cheerful, delightful game +it pleased them both to be playing. + +But not all was posing, not all was pretense. Nature, now and then, +treacherously slipped in a real thrill, where only play-acting was +expected. Susan, laughing at the memory of some sentimental fencing, +was sometimes caught unaware by a little pang of regret; how blank and +dull life would be when this casual game was over! After all, he WAS +the great writer; before the eyes of all the world, even this pretense +at an intimate friendship was a feather in her cap! + +And he did not attempt to keep their rapidly developing friendship a +secret; Susan was alternately gratified and terrified by the reality of +his allusions to her before outsiders. No playing here! Everybody knew, +in their little circle, that, in the nicest and most elder-brotherly +way possible, Stephen Bocqueraz thought Susan Brown the greatest fun in +the world, and quoted her, and presented her with his autographed +books. This side of the affair, being real, had a tendency to make it +all seem real, and sometimes confused, and sometimes a little +frightened Susan. + +"That a woman of Emily's mental caliber can hire a woman of yours, for +a matter of dollars and cents," he said to Susan whimsically, "is proof +that something is radically wrong somewhere! Well, some day we'll put +you where values are a little different. Anybody can be rich. Mighty +few can be Susan!" + +She did not believe everything he said, of course, or take all his +chivalrous speeches quite seriously. But obviously, some of it was said +in all honesty, she thought, or why should he take the trouble to say +it? And the nearness of his bracing personality blew across the +artificial atmosphere in which she lived like the cool breath of great +moors or of virgin forests. Genius and work and success became the real +things of life; money but a mere accident. A horrible sense of the +unreality of everything that surrounded her began to oppress Susan. She +saw the poisoned undercurrent of this glittering and exquisite +existence, the selfishness, the cruelties, the narrowness. She saw its +fundamental insincerity. In a world where wrongs were to be righted, +and ignorance enlightened, and childhood sheltered and trained, she +began to think it strange that strong, and young, and wealthy men and +women should be content to waste enormous sums of money upon food to +which they scarcely ever brought a normal appetite, upon bridge-prizes +for guests whose interest in them scarcely survived the moment of +unwrapping the dainty beribboned boxes in which they came, upon costly +toys for children whose nurseries were already crowded with toys. She +wondered that they should think it worth while to spend hours and days +in harassing dressmakers and milliners, to make a brief appearance in +the gowns they were so quickly ready to discard, that they should +gratify every passing whim so instantly that all wishes died together, +like little plants torn up too soon. + +The whole seemed wonderful and beautiful still. But the parts of this +life, seriously analyzed, seemed to turn to dust and ashes. Of course, +a hundred little shop-girls might ache with envy at reading that Mrs. +Harvey Brock was to give her debutante daughter a fancy-dress ball, +costing ten thousand dollars, and might hang wistfully over the +pictures of Miss Peggy Brock in her Dresden gown with her ribbon-tied +crook; but Susan knew that Peggy cried and scolded the whole afternoon, +before the dance, because Teddy Russell was not coming, that young +Martin Brock drank too much on that evening and embarrassed his entire +family before he could be gotten upstairs, and that Mrs. Brock +considered the whole event a failure because some favors, for which she +had cabled to Paris, did not come, and the effect of the german was +lost. Somehow, the "lovely and gifted heiress" of the newspapers never +seemed to Susan at all reconcilable with Dolly Ripley, vapid, +overdressed, with diamonds sparkling about her sallow throat, and the +"jolly impromptu" trip of the St. Johns to New York lost its point when +one knew it was planned because the name of young Florence St. John had +been pointedly omitted from Ella Saunders dance list. + +Boasting, lying, pretending--how weary Susan got of it all! She was too +well schooled to smile when Ella, meeting the Honorable Mary Saunders +and Sir Charles Saunders, of London, said magnificently, "We bear the +same arms, Sir Charles, but of course ours is the colonial branch of +the family!" and she nodded admiringly at Dolly Ripley's boyish and +blunt fashion of saying occasionally "We Ripleys,--oh, we drink and +gamble and do other things, I admit; we're not saints! But we can't +lie, you know!" + +"I hate to take the kiddies to New York, Mike," perhaps some young +matron would say simply. "Percy's family is one of the old, old +families there, you know, shamelessly rich, and terribly exclusive! And +one doesn't want the children to take themselves seriously yet awhile!" + +"Bluffers!" the smiling and interested Miss Brown would say to herself, +as she listened. She listened a great deal; everyone was willing to +talk, and she was often amused at the very slight knowledge that could +carry a society girl through a conversation. In Hunter, Baxter & +Hunter's offices there would be instant challenges, even at auntie's +table affectation met its just punishment, and inaccuracy was promptly +detected. But there was no such censorship here. + +"Looks like a decent little cob!" some girl would say, staring at rider +passing the hotel window, at teatime. + +"Yes," another voice would agree, "good points. Looks thoroughbred." + +"Yes, he does! Looks like a Kentucky mount." + +"Louisa! Not with that neck!" + +"Oh, I don't know. My grandfather raised fancy stock, you know. Just +for his own pleasure, of course, So I DO know a good horse!" + +"Well, but he steps more like a racer," somebody else would contribute. + +"That's what I thought! Loose-built for a racer, though." + +"And what a fool riding him--the man has no seat!" + +"Oh, absolutely not! Probably a groom, but it's a shame to allow it!" + +"Groom, of course. But you'll never see a groom riding a horse of mine +that way!" + +"Rather NOT!" + +And, an ordinary rider, on a stable hack, having by this time passed +from view, the subject, would be changed. + +Or perhaps some social offense would absorb everybody's attention for +the better part of half-an-hour. + +"Look, Emily," their hostess would say, during a call, "isn't this +rich! The Bridges have had their crest put on their +mourning-stationery! Don't you LOVE it! Mamma says that the girls must +have done it; the old lady MUST know better! Execrable bad taste, I +call it." + +"Oh, ISN'T that awful!" Emily would inspect the submitted letter with +deep amusement. + +"Oh, Mary, let's see it--I don't believe it!" somebody else would +exclaim. + +"Poor things, and they try so hard to do everything right!" Kindly pity +would soften the tones of a fourth speaker. + +"But you know Mary, they DO do that in England," somebody might protest. + +"Oh, Peggy, rot! Of course they don't!" + +"Why, certainly they do!" A little feeling would be rising. "When Helen +and I were in London we had some friends--" + +"Nonsense, Peggy, it's terribly vulgar! I know because Mamma's cousin--" + +"Oh honestly, Peggy, it's never done!" + +"I never heard of such a thing!" + +"You might use your crest in black, Peg, but in color--!" + +"Just ask any engraver, Peg. I know when Frances was sending to England +for our correct quarterings,--they'd been changed--" + +"But I tell you I KNOW," Miss Peggy would say angrily. "Do you mean to +tell me that you'd take the word of a stationer--" + +"A herald. You can't call that a stationer--" + +"Well, then a herald! What do they know?" + +"Why, of course they know!" shocked voices would protest. "It's their +business!" + +"Well," the defender of the Bridges would continue loftily, "all I can +say is that Alice and I SAW it--" + +"I know that when WE were in London," some pleasant, interested voice +would interpose, modestly, "our friends--Lord and Lady Merridew, they +were, you know, and Sir Henry Phillpots--they were in mourning, and +THEY didn't. But of course I don't know what other people, not +nobility, that is, might do!" + +And of course this crushing conclusion admitted of no answer. But Miss +Peggy might say to Susan later, with a bright, pitying smile: + +"Alice will ROAR when I tell her about this! Lord and Lady +Merridew,--that's simply delicious! I love it!" + +"Bandar-log," Bocqueraz called them, and Susan often thought of the +term in these days. From complete disenchantment she was saved, +however, by her deepening affection for Isabel Wallace, and, whenever +they were together, Susan had to admit that a more lovely personality +had never been developed by any environment or in any class. Isabel, +fresh, unspoiled, eager to have everyone with whom she came in contact +as enchanted with life as she was herself, developed a real devotion +for Susan, and showed it in a hundred ways. If Emily was away for a +night, Isabel was sure to come and carry Susan off for as many hours as +possible to the lovely Wallace home. They had long, serious talks +together; Susan did not know whether to admire or envy most Isabel's +serene happiness in her engagement, the most brilliant engagement of +the winter, and Isabel's deeper interest in her charities, her tender +consideration of her invalid mother, her flowers, her plan for the +small brothers. + +"John is wonderful, of course," Isabel would agree in a smiling aside +to Susan when, furred and glowing, she had brought her handsome big +lover into the Saunders' drawing-room for a cup of tea, "but I've been +spoiled all my life, Susan, and I'm afraid he's going right on with it! +And--" Isabel's lovely eyes would be lighted with an ardent glow, "and +I want to do something with my life, Sue, something BIG, in return for +it all!" + +Again, Susan found herself watching with curious wistfulness the girl +who had really had an offer of marriage, who was engaged, openly adored +and desired. What had he said to her--and she to him--what emotions +crossed their hearts when they went to watch the building of the +beautiful home that was to be theirs? + +A man and a woman--a man and a woman--loving and marrying--what a +miracle the familiar aspects of approaching marriage began to seem! In +these days Susan read old poems with a thrill, read "Trilby" again, and +found herself trembling, read "Adam Bede," and shut the book with a +thundering heart. She went, with the others, to "Faust," and turned to +Stephen Bocqueraz a pale, tense face, and eyes brimming with tears. + +The writer's study, beyond the big library, had a fascination for her. +At least once a day she looked in upon him there, sometimes with Emily, +sometimes with Ella, never, after that first day, alone. + +"You can see that he's perfectly devoted to that dolly-faced wife of +his!" Ella said, half-contemptuously. "I think we all bore him," Emily +said. "Stephen is a good and noble man," said his wife's old cousin. +Susan never permitted herself to speak of him. "Don't you like him?" +asked Isabel. "He seems crazy about you! I think you're terribly fine +to be so indifferent about it, Susan!" + +On a certain December evening Emily decided that she was very unwell, +and must have a trained nurse. Susan, who had stopped, without Emily, +at the Wallaces' for tea, understood perfectly that the youngest Miss +Saunders was delicately intimating that she expected a little more +attention from her companion. A few months ago she would have risen to +the occasion with the sort of cheerful flattery that never failed in +its effect on Emily, but to-night a sort of stubborn irritation kept +her lips sealed, and in the end she telephoned for the nurse Emily +fancied, a Miss Watts, who had been taking care of one of Emily's +friends. + +Miss Watts, effusive and solicitous, arrived, and Susan could see that +Emily was repenting of her bargain long before she, Susan, had dressed +for dinner. But she ran downstairs with a singing heart, nevertheless. +Ella was to bring two friends in for cards, immediately after dinner; +Kenneth had not been home for three days; Miss Baker was in close +attendance upon Mrs. Saunders, who had retired to her room before +dinner; so Susan and Stephen were free to dine alone. Susan had +hesitated, in the midst of her dressing, over the consideration of a +gown, and had finally compromised with her conscience by deciding upon +quite the oldest, plainest, shabbiest black silk in the little +collection. + +"Most becoming thing you ever put on!" said Emily, trying to +reestablish quite cordial relations. + +"I know," Susan agreed guiltily. + +When she and Stephen Bocqueraz came back into one of the smaller +drawing-rooms after dinner Susan walked to the fire and stood, for a +few moments, staring down at the coals. The conversation during the +softly lighted, intimate little dinner had brought them both to a +dangerous mood. Susan was excited beyond the power of reasonable +thought. It was all nonsense, they were simply playing; he was a +married man, and she a woman who never could by any possibility be +anything but "good," she would have agreed impatiently and gaily with +her own conscience if she had heard it at all--but just now she felt +like enjoying this particular bit of foolery to the utmost, and, since +there was really no harm in it, she was going to enjoy it! She had not +touched wine at dinner, but some subtler intoxication had seized her, +she felt conscious of her own beauty, her white throat, her shining +hair, her slender figure in its clinging black, she felt conscious of +Stephen's eyes, conscious of the effective background for them both +that the room afforded; the dull hangings, subdued lights and softly +shining surfaces. + +Her companion stood near her, watching her. Susan, still excitedly +confident that she controlled the situation, began to feel her breath +come deep and swift, began to wish that she could think of just the +right thing to say, to relieve the tension a little-began to wish that +Ella would come in-- + +She raised her eyes, a little frightened, a little embarrassed, to his, +and in the next second he had put his arms about her and crushed her to +him and kissed her on the mouth. + +"Susan," he said, very quietly, "you are my girl--you are MY girl, will +you let me take care of you? I can't help it--I love you." + +This was not play-acting, at last. A grim, an almost terrible +earnestness was in his voice; his face was very pale; his eyes dark +with passion. Susan, almost faint with the shock, pushed away his arms, +walked a few staggering steps and stood, her back turned to him, one +hand over her heart, the other clinging to the back of a chair, her +breath coming so violently that her whole body shook. + +"Oh, don't--don't--don't!" she said, in a horrified and frightened +whisper. + +"Susan"--he began eagerly, coming toward her. She turned to face him, +and breathing as if she had been running, and in simple entreaty, she +said: + +"Please--please--if you touch me again--if you touch me again--I +cannot--the maids will hear--Bostwick will hear--" + +"No, no, no! Don't be frightened, dear," he said quickly and +soothingly. "I won't. I won't do anything you don't want me to!" + +Susan pressed her hand over her eyes; her knees felt so weak that she +was afraid to move. Her breathing slowly grew more even. + +"My dear--if you'll forgive me!" the man said repentantly. She gave him +a weary smile, as she went to drop into her low chair before the fire. + +"No, no, Mr. Bocqueraz, I'm to blame," she said quietly. And suddenly +she put her elbows on her knees, and buried her face in her hands. + +"Listen, Susan--" he began again. But again she silenced him. + +"Just--one--moment--" she said pleadingly. For two or three moments +there was silence. + +"No, it's my fault," Susan said then, more composedly, pushing her hair +back from her forehead with both hands, and raising her wretched eyes. +"Oh, how could I--how could I!" And again she hid her face. + +Stephen Bocqueraz did not speak, and presently Susan added, with a sort +of passion: + +"It was wicked, and it was COMMON, and no decent woman--" + +"No, you shan't take that tone!" said Bocqueraz, suddenly looking up +from a somber study of the fire. "It is true, Susan, and--and I can't +be sorry it is. It's the truest thing in the world!" + +"Oh, let's not--let's NOT talk that way!" All that was good and honest +in her came to Susan's rescue now, all her clean and honorable +heritage. "We've only been fooling, haven't we?" she urged eagerly. +"You know we have! Why, you--you--" + +"No," said Bocqueraz, "it's too big now to be laughed away, Susan!" He +came and knelt beside her chair and put his arm about her, his face so +close that Susan could lay an arresting hand upon his shoulder. Her +heart beat madly, her senses swam. + +"You mustn't!" said Susan, trying to force her voice above a hoarse +whisper, and failing. + +"Do you think you can deceive me about it?" he asked. "Not any more +than I could deceive you! Do you think I'M glad--haven't you seen how +I've been fighting it--ignoring it--" + +Susan's eyes were fixed upon his with frightened fascination; she could +not have spoken if life had depended upon it. + +"No," he said, "whatever comes of it, or however we suffer for it, I +love you, and you love me, don't you, Susan?" + +She had forgotten herself now, forgotten that this was only a sort of +play--forgotten her part as a leading lady, bare-armed and +bright-haired, whose role it was to charm this handsome man, in the +soft lamplight. She suddenly knew that she could not deny what he +asked, and with the knowledge that she DID care for him, that this +splendid thing had come into her life for her to reject or to keep, +every rational thought deserted her. It only seemed important that he +should know that she was not going to answer "No." + +"Do you care a little, Susan?" he asked again. Susan did not answer or +move. Her eyes never left his face. + +She was still staring at him, a moment later, ashen-faced and helpless, +when they heard Bostwick crossing the hall to admit Ella and her +chattering friends. Somehow she stood up, somehow walked to the door. + +"After nine!" said Ella, briskly introducing, "but I know you didn't +miss us! Get a card-table, Bostwick, please. And, Sue, will you wait, +like a love, and see that we get something to eat at twelve--at one? +Take these things, Lizzie. NOW. What is it, Stephen? A four-spot? You +get it. How's the kid, Sue?" + +"I'm going right up to see!" Susan said dizzily, glad to escape. She +went up to Emily's room, and was made welcome by the bored invalid, and +gladly restored to her place as chief attendant. When Emily was sleepy +Susan went downstairs to superintend the arrangements for supper; +presently she presided over the chafing-dish. She did not speak to +Bocqueraz or meet his look once during the evening. But in every fiber +of her being she was conscious of his nearness, and of his eyes. + +The long night brought misgivings, and Susan went down to breakfast +cold with a sudden revulsion of feeling. Ella kept her guest busy all +day, and all through the following day. Susan, half-sick at first with +the variety and violence of her emotions, had convinced herself, before +forty-eight hours were over, that the whole affair had been no more +than a moment of madness, as much regretted by him as by herself. + +It was humiliating to remember with what a lack of self-control and +reserve she had borne herself, she reflected. "But one more word of +this sort," Susan resolved, "and I will simply go back to Auntie within +the hour!" + +On the third afternoon, a Sunday, Peter Coleman came to suggest an idle +stroll with Emily and Susan, and was promptly seized by the gratified +Emily for a motor-trip. + +"We'll stop for Isabel and John," said Emily, elated. "Unless," her +voice became a trifle flat, "unless you'd like to go, Sue," she +amended, "and in that case, if Isabel can go, we can--" + +"Oh, heavens, no!" Susan said, laughing, pleased at the disgusted face +Peter Coleman showed beyond Emily's head. "Ella wants me to go over to +the hotel, anyway, to talk about borrowing chairs for the concert, and +I'll go this afternoon," she added, lowering her voice so that it +should not penetrate the library, where Ella and Bocqueraz and some +luncheon guests were talking together. + +But when she walked down the drive half an hour later, with the collies +leaping about her, the writer quietly fell into step at her side. Susan +stopped short, the color rushing into her face. But her companion paid +no heed to her confusion. + +"I want to talk to you, Susan," said he unsmilingly, and with a tired +sigh. "Where shall we walk? Up behind the convent here?" + +"You look headachy," Susan said sympathetically, distracted from larger +issues by the sight of his drawn, rather colorless face. + +"Bad night," he explained briefly. And with no further objection she +took the convent road, and they walked through the pale flood of winter +sunshine together. There had been heavy rains; to-day the air was +fresh-washed and clear, but they could hear the steady droning of the +fog-horn on the distant bay. + +The convent, washed with clear sunlight, loomed high above its bare, +well-kept gardens. The usual Sunday visitors were mounting and +descending the great flight of steps to the doorway; a white-robed +portress stood talking to one little group at the top, her folded arms +lost in her wide sleeves. A three-year-old, in a caped white coat, made +every one laugh by her independent investigations of arches and doorway. + +"Dear Lord, to be that size again!" thought Susan, heavy-hearted. + +"I've been thinking a good deal since Tuesday night, Susan," began +Bocqueraz quietly, when they had reached the shelved road that runs +past the carriage gates and lodges of beautiful private estates, and +circles across the hills, above the town. "And, of course, I've been +blaming myself bitterly; but I'm not going to speak of that now. Until +Tuesday I hoped that what pain there was to bear, because of my caring +for you, would be borne by me alone. If I blame myself, Sue, it's only +because I felt that I would rather bear it, any amount of it, than go +away from you a moment before I must. But when I realize that you, +too--" + +He paused, and Susan did not speak, could not speak, even though she +knew that her silence was a definite statement. + +"No--" he said presently, "we must face the thing honestly. And perhaps +it's better so. I want to speak to you about my marriage. I was +twenty-five, and Lillian eighteen. I had come to the city, a +seventeen-year-old boy, to make my fortune, and it was after the first +small success that we met. She was an heiress--a sweet, pretty, spoiled +little girl; she is just a little girl now in many ways. It was a very +extraordinary marriage for her to wish to make; her mother disapproved; +her guardians disapproved. I promised the mother to go away, and I did, +but Lillian had an illness a month or two later and they sent for me, +and we were married. Her mother has always regarded me as of secondary +importance in her daughter's life; she took charge of our house, and of +the baby when Julie came, and went right on with her spoiling and +watching and exulting in Lillian. They took trips abroad; they decided +whether or not to open the town house; they paid all the bills. Lillian +has her suite of rooms, and I mine. Julie is very prettily fond of me; +they like to give a big tea, two or three times a winter, and have me +in evidence, or Lillian likes to have me plan theatricals, or manage +amateur grand-opera for her. When Julie was about ten I had my own +ideas as to her upbringing, but there was a painful scene, in which the +child herself was consulted, and stood with her mother and grandmother-- + +"So, for several years, Susan, it has been only the decent outer shell +of a marriage. We sometimes live in different cities for months at a +time, or live in the same house, and see no more of each other than +guests in the same hotel. Lillian makes no secret of it; she would be +glad to be free. We have never had a day, never an hour, of real +companionship! My dear Sue--" his voice, which had been cold and +bitter, softened suddenly, and he turned to her the sudden winning +smile that she remembered noticing the first evening they had known +each other. "My dear Sue," he said, "when I think what I have missed in +life I could go mad! When I think what it would be to have beside me a +comrade who liked what I like, who would throw a few things into a suit +case, and put her hand in mine, and wander over the world with me, +laughing and singing through Italy, watching a sudden storm from the +doorway of an English inn--" + +"Ah, don't!" Susan said wistfully. + +"You have never seen the Canadian forests, Sue, on some of the tropical +beaches, or the color in a japanese street, or the moon rising over the +Irish lakes!" he went on, "and how you would love it all!", + +"We oughtn't--oughtn't to talk this way--", Susan said unsteadily. + +They were crossing a field, above the town, and came now to a little +stile. Susan sat down on the little weather-burned step, and stared +down on the town below. Bocqueraz leaned on the rail, and looked at her. + +"Always--always--always," he pursued seriously. "I have known that you +were somewhere in the world. Just you, a bold and gay and witty and +beautiful woman, who would tear my heart out by the roots when I met +you, and shake me out of my comfortable indifference to the world and +everything in it. And you have come! But, Susan, I never knew, I never +dreamed what it would mean to me to go away from you, to leave you in +peace, never guessing--" + +"No, it's too late for that!" said Susan, clearing her throat. "I'd +rather know." + +If she had been acting it would have been the correct thing to say. The +terrifying thought was that she was not acting; she was in deadly, +desperate earnest now, and yet she could not seem to stop short; every +instant involved her the deeper. + +"We--we must stop this," she said, jumping up, and walking briskly +toward the village. "I am so sorry--I am so ashamed! It all +seemed--seemed so foolish up to--well, to Tuesday. We must have been +mad that night! I never dreamed that things would go so far. I don't +blame you, I blame myself. I assure you I haven't slept since, I can't +seem to eat or think or do anything naturally any more! Sometimes I +think I'm going crazy!" + +"My poor little girl!" They were in a sheltered bit of road now, and +Bocqueraz put his two hands lightly on her shoulders, and stopped her +short. Susan rested her two hands upon his arms, her eyes, raised to +his, suddenly brimmed with tears. "My poor little girl!" he said again +tenderly, "we'll find a way out! It's come on you too suddenly, Sue--it +came upon me like a thunderbolt. But there's just one thing," and Susan +remembered long afterward the look in his eyes as he spoke of it, "just +one thing you mustn't forget, Susan. You belong to me now, and I'll +move heaven and earth--but I'll have you. It's come all wrong, +sweetheart, and we can't see our way now. But, my dearest, the +wonderful thing is that it has come---- + +"Think of the lives," he went on, as Susan did not answer, "think of +the women, toiling away in dull, dreary lives, to whom a vision like +this has never come!" + +"Oh, I know!" said Susan, in sudden passionate assent. + +"But don't misunderstand me, dear, you're not to be hurried or troubled +in this thing. We'll think, and talk things over, and plan. My world is +a broader and saner world than yours is, Susan, and when I take you +there you will be as honored and as readily accepted as any woman among +them all. My wife will set me free---" he fell into a muse, as they +walked along the quiet country road, and Susan, her brain a mad whirl +of thoughts, did not interrupt him. "I believe she will set me free," +he said, "as soon as she knows that my happiness, and all my life, +depend upon it. It can be done; it can be arranged, surely. You know +that our eastern divorce laws are different from yours here, Susan---" + +"I think I must be mad to let you talk so!" burst out Susan, "You must +not! Divorce---! Why, my aunt---!" + +"We'll not mention it again," he assured her quickly, but although for +the rest of their walk they said very little, the girl escaped upstairs +to her room before dinner with a baffled sense that the dreadful word, +if unpronounced, had been none the less thundering in her brain and his +all the way. + +She made herself comfortable in wrapper and slippers, rather to the +satisfaction of Emily, who had brought Peter back to dinner, barely +touched the tray that the sympathetic Lizzie brought upstairs, and lay +trying to read a book that she flung aside again and again for the +thoughts that would have their way. + +She must think this whole thing out, she told herself desperately; view +it dispassionately and calmly; decide upon the best and quickest step +toward reinstating the old order, toward blotting out this last +fortnight of weakness and madness. But, if Susan was fighting for the +laws of men, a force far stronger was taking arms against her, the +great law of nature held her in its grip. The voice of Stephen +Bocqueraz rang across her sanest resolution; the touch of Stephen +Bocqueraz's hand burned her like a fire. + +Well, it had been sent to her, she thought resentfully, lying back +spent and exhausted; she had not invited it. Suppose she accepted it; +suppose she sanctioned his efforts to obtain a divorce, suppose she +were married to him--And at the thought her resolutions melted away in +the sudden delicious and enervating wave of emotion that swept over +her. To belong to him! + +"Oh, my God, I do not know what to do!" Susan whispered. She slipped to +her knees, and buried her face in her hands. If her mind would but be +still for a moment, would stop its mad hurry, she might pray. + +A knock at the door brought her to her feet; it was Miss Baker, who was +sitting with Kenneth to-night, and who wanted company. Susan was glad +to go noiselessly up to the little sitting-room next to Kenneth's room, +and sit chatting under the lamp. Now and then low groaning and +muttering came from the sick man, and the women paused for a pitiful +second. Susan presently went in to help Miss Baker persuade him to +drink some cooling preparation. + +The big room was luxurious enough for a Sultan, yet with hints of +Kenneth's earlier athletic interests in evidence too. A wonderful lamp +at the bedside diffused a soft light. The sufferer, in embroidered and +monogrammed silk night-wear, was under a trimly drawn sheet, with a +fluffy satin quilt folded across his feet. He muttered and shook his +head, as the drink was presented, and, his bloodshot eyes discovering +Susan, he whispered her name, immediately shouting it aloud, hot eyes +on her face: + +"Susan!" + +"Feeling better?" Susan smiled encouragingly, maternally, down upon him. + +But his gaze had wandered again. He drained the glass, and immediately +seemed quieter. + +"He'll sleep now," said Miss Baker, when they were back in the +adjoining room. "Doesn't it seem a shame?" + +"Couldn't he be cured, Miss Baker?" + +"Well," the nurse pursed her lips, shook her head thoughtfully. "No, I +don't believe he could now. Doctor thinks the south of France will do +wonders, and he says that if Mr. Saunders stayed on a strict diet for, +say a year, and then took some German cure--but I don't know! Nobody +could make him do it anyway. Why, we can't keep him on a diet for +twenty-four hours! Of course he can't keep this up. A few more attacks +like this will finish him. He's going to have a nurse in the morning, +and Doctor says that in about a month he ought to get away. It's my +opinion he'll end in a mad-house," Miss Baker ended, with quiet +satisfaction. + +"Oh, don't!" Susan cried in horror. + +"Well, a lot of them do, my dear! He'll never get entirely well, that's +positive. And now the problem is," the nurse, who was knitting a +delicate rainbow afghan for a baby, smiled placidly over her faint +pinks and blues, "now the question is, who's going abroad with him? He +can't go alone. Ella declines the honor," Miss Baker's lips curled; she +detested Ella "Emily--you know what Emily is! And the poor mother, who +would really make the effort, he says gets on his nerves. Anyway, she's +not fit. If he had a man friend---! But the only one he'd go with, Mr. +Russell, is married." + +"A nurse?" suggested Susan. + +"Oh, my dear!" Miss Baker gave her a significant look. "There are two +classes of nurses," she said, "one sort wouldn't dare take a man who +has the delirium tremens anywhere, much less to a strange country, and +the other---! They tried that once, before my day it was, but I guess +that was enough for them. Of course the best thing that he could do," +pursued the nurse lightly, "is get married." + +"Well," Susan felt the topic a rather delicate one. "Ought he marry?" +she ventured. + +"Don't think I'd marry him!" Miss Baker assured her hastily, "but he's +no worse than the Gregory boy, married last week. He's really no worse +than lots of others!" + +"Well, it's a lovely, lovely world!" brooded Susan bitterly. "I wish to +GOD," she added passionately, "that there was some way of telling right +from wrong! If you want to have a good time and have money enough, you +can steal and lie and marry people like Kenneth Saunders; there's no +law that you can't break--pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, +envy and sloth! That IS society! And yet, if you want to be decent, you +can slave away a thousand years, mending and patching and teaching and +keeping books, and nothing beautiful or easy ever comes your way!" + +"I don't agree with you at all," said Miss Baker, in disapproval. "I +hope I'm not bad," she went on brightly, "but I have a lovely time! +Everyone here is lovely to me, and once a month I go home to my sister. +We're the greatest chums ever, and her baby, Marguerite, is named for +me, and she's a perfect darling! And Beek--that's her husband--is the +most comical thing I ever saw; he'll go up and get Mrs. Tully--my +sister rents one of her rooms,--and we have a little supper, and more +cutting-UP! Or else Beek'll sit with the baby, and we girls go to the +theater!" + +"Yes, that's lovely," Susan said, but Miss Baker accepted the words and +not the tone, and went on to innocent narratives of Lily, Beek and the +little Marguerite. + +"And now, I wonder what a really good, conscientious woman would do," +thought Susan in the still watches of the night. Go home to Auntie, of +course. He might follow her there, but, even if he did, she would have +made the first right step, and could then plan the second. Susan +imagined Bocqueraz in Auntie's sitting-room and winced in the dark. +Perhaps the most definite stand she took in all these bewildering days +was when she decided, with a little impatient resentment, that she was +quite equal to meeting the situation with dignity here. + +But there must be no hesitation, no compromise. Susan fell asleep +resolving upon heroic extremes. + +Just before dinner, on the evening following, she was at the grand +piano in the big drawing-room, her fingers lazily following the score +of "Babes in Toyland," which Ella had left open upon the rack. Susan +felt tired and subdued, wearily determined to do her duty, wearily sure +that life, for the years to come, would be as gray and sad as to-day +seemed. She had been crying earlier in the day and felt the better for +the storm. Susan had determined upon one more talk with Bocqueraz,--the +last. + +And presently he was leaning on the piano, facing her in the dim light. +Susan's hands began to tremble, to grow cold. Her heart beat high with +nervousness; some primitive terror assailed her even here, in the +familiar room, within the hearing of a dozen maids. + +"What's the matter?" he asked, as she did not smile. + +Susan still watched him seriously. She did not answer. + +"My fault?" he asked. + +"No-o." Susan's lip trembled. "Or perhaps it is, in a way," she said +slowly and softly, still striking almost inaudible chords. "I can't--I +can't seem to see things straight, whichever way I look!" she confessed +as simply as a troubled child. + +"Will you come across the hall into the little library with me and talk +about it for two minutes?" he asked. + +"No." Susan shook her head. + +"Susan! Why not?" + +"Because we must stop it all," the girl said steadily, "ALL, every bit +of it, before we--before we are sorry! You are a married man, and I +knew it, and it is ALL WRONG--" + +"No, it's not all wrong, I won't admit that," he said quickly. "There +has been no wrong." + +It was a great weight lifted from Susan's heart to think that this was +true. Ended here, the friendship was merely an episode. + +"If we stop here," she said almost pleadingly. + +"If we stop here," he agreed, slowly. "If we end it all here. Well. And +of course, Sue, chance might, MIGHT set me free, you know, and then--" + +Again the serious look, followed by the sweet and irresistible smile. +Susan suddenly felt the hot tears running down her cheeks. + +"Chance won't," she said in agony. And she began to fumble blindly for +a handkerchief. + +In an instant he was beside her, and as she stood up he put both arms +about her, and she dropped her head on his shoulder, and wept silently +and bitterly. Every instant of this nearness stabbed her with new joy +and new pain; when at last he gently tipped back her tear-drenched +face, she was incapable of resisting the great flood of emotion that +was sweeping them both off their feet. + +"Sue, you do care! My dearest, you DO care?" + +Susan, panting, clung to him. + +"Oh, yes--yes!" she whispered. And, at a sound from the hall, she +crushed his handkerchief back into his hand, and walked to the deep +archway of a distant window. When he joined her there, she was still +breathing hard, and had her hand pressed against her heart, but she was +no longer crying. + +"I am mad I think!" smiled Susan, quite mistress of herself. + +"Susan," he said eagerly, "I was only waiting for this! If you knew--if +you only knew what an agony I've been in yesterday and to-day--! And +I'm not going to distress you now with plans, my dearest. But, Sue, if +I were a divorced man now, would you let it be a barrier?" + +"No," she said, after a moment's thought. "No, I wouldn't let anything +that wasn't a legal barrier stand in the way. Even though divorce has +always seemed terrible to me. But--but you're not free, Mr. Bocqueraz." + +He was standing close behind her, as she stood staring out into the +night, and now put his arm about her, and Susan, looking up over her +shoulder, raised childlike blue eyes to his. + +"How long are you going to call me that?" he asked. + +"I don't know--Stephen," she said. And suddenly she wrenched herself +free, and turned to face him. + +"I can't seem to keep my senses when I'm within ten feet of you!" Susan +declared, half-laughing and half-crying. + +"But Sue, if my wife agrees to a divorce," he said, catching both her +hands. + +"Don't touch me, please," she said, loosening them. + +"I will not, of course!" He took firm hold of a chair-back. "If +Lillian--" he began again, very gravely. + +Susan leaned toward him, her face not twelve inches away from his face, +her hand laid lightly for a second on his arm. + +"You know that I will go with you to the end of the world, Stephen!" +she said, scarcely above a whisper, and was gone. + +It became evident, in a day or two, that Kenneth Saunders' illness had +taken a rather alarming turn. There was a consultation of doctors; +there was a second nurse. Ella went to the extreme point of giving up +an engagement to remain with her mother while the worst was feared; +Emily and Susan worried and waited, in their rooms. Stephen Bocqueraz +was a great deal in the sick-room; "a real big brother," as Mrs. +Saunders said tearfully. + +The crisis passed; Kenneth was better, was almost normal again. But the +great specialist who had entered the house only for an hour or two had +left behind him the little seed that was to vitally affect the lives of +several of these people. + +"Dr. Hudson says he's got to get away," said Ella to Susan, "I wish I +could go with him. Kenneth's a lovely traveler." + +"I wish I could," Emily supplemented, "but I'm no good." + +"And doctor says that he'll come home quite a different person," added +his mother. Susan wondered if she fancied that they all looked in a +rather marked manner at her. She wondered, if it was not fancy, what +the look meant. + +They were all in the upstairs sitting-room in the bright morning light +when this was said. They had drifted in there one by one, apparently by +accident. Susan, made a little curious and uneasy by a subtle sense of +something unsaid--something pending, began to wonder, too, if it had +really been accident that assembled them there. + +But she was still without definite suspicions when Ella, upon the +entrance of Chow Yew with Mr. Kenneth's letters and the new magazines, +jumped up gaily, and said: + +"Here, Sue! Will you run up with these to Ken--and take these violets, +too?" + +She put the magazines in Susan's hands, and added a great bunch of dewy +wet violets that had been lying on the table. Susan, really glad to +escape from the over-charged atmosphere of the room, willingly went on +her way. + +Kenneth was sitting up to-day, very white, very haggard,--clean-shaven +and hollow-eyed, and somehow very pitiful. He smiled at Susan, as she +came in, and laid a thin hand on a chair by the bed. Susan sat down, +and as she did so the watching nurse went out. + +"Well, had you ordered a pillow of violets with shaky doves?" he asked, +in a hoarse thin echo of his old voice. "No, but I guess you were +pretty sick," the girl said soberly. "How goes it to-day?" + +"Oh, fine!" he answered hardily, "as soon as I am over the ether I'll +feel like a fighting cock! Hudson talked a good deal with his mouth," +said Kenneth coughing. "But the rotten thing about me, Susan," he went +on, "is that I can't booze,--I really can't do it! Consequently, when +some old fellow like that gets a chance at me, he thinks he ought to +scare me to death!" He sank back, tired from coughing. "But I'm all +right!" he finished, comfortably, "I'll be alright again after a while." + +"Well, but now, honestly, from now on---" Susan began, timidly but +eagerly, "won't you truly TRY--" + +"Oh, sure!" he said simply. "I promised. I'm going to cut it out, ALL +of it. I'm done. I don't mean to say that I've ever been a patch on +some of the others," said Kenneth. "Lord, you ought to see some of the +men who really DRINK! At the same time, I've had enough. It's me to the +simple joys of country life--I'm going to try farming. But first they +want me to try France for awhile, and then take this German treatment, +whatever it is. Hudson wants me to get off by the first of the year." + +"Oh, really! France!" Susan's eyes sparkled. "Oh, aren't you wild!" + +"I'm not so crazy about it. Not Paris, you know, but some dinky resort." + +"Oh, but fancy the ocean trip--and meeting the village people--and New +York!" Susan exclaimed. "I think every instant of traveling would be a +joy!" And the vision of herself in all these places, with Stephen +Bocqueraz as interpreter, wrung her heart with longing. + +Kenneth was watching her closely. A dull red color had crept into his +face. + +"Well, why don't you come?" he laughed awkwardly. + +Something in his tone made Susan color uncomfortably too. + +"That DID sound as if I were asking myself along!" she smiled. + +"Oh, no, it didn't!" he reassured her. "But--but I mean it. Why don't +you come?" + +They were looking steadily at each other now. Susan tried to laugh. + +"A scandal in high life!" she said, in an attempt to make the +conversation farcical. "Elopement surprises society!" + +"That's what I mean--that's what I mean!" he said eagerly, yet +bashfully too. "What's the matter with our--our getting married, Susan? +You and I'll get married, d'ye see?" + +And as, astonished and frightened and curiously touched she stood up, +he caught at her skirt. Susan put her hand over his with a reassuring +and soothing gesture. + +"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he said, beginning to cough again. +"You said you would. And I--I am terribly fond of you--you could do +just as you like. For instance, if you wanted to take a little trip off +anywhere, with friends, you know," said Kenneth with boyish, smiling +generosity, "you could ALWAYS do it! I wouldn't want to tie you down to +me!" He lay back, after coughing, but his bony hand still clung to +hers. "You're the only woman I ever asked to undertake such a bad job," +he finished, in a whisper. + +"Why--but honestly---" Susan began. She laughed out nervously and +unsteadily. "This is so sudden," said she. Kenneth laughed too. + +"But, you see, they're hustling me off," he complained. "This weather +is so rotten! And El's keen for it," he urged, "and Mother too. If +you'll be so awfully, awfully good--I know you aren't crazy about +me--and you know some pretty rotten things about me--" + +The very awkwardness of his phrasing won her as no other quality could. +Susan felt suddenly tender toward him, felt old and sad and wise. + +"Mr. Saunders," she said, gently, "you've taken my breath away. I don't +know what to say to you. I can't pretend that I'm in love with you--" + +"Of course you're not!" he said, very much embarrassed, "but if there's +no one else, Sue--" + +"There is someone else," said Susan, her eyes suddenly watering. +"But--but that's not going--right, and it never can! If you'll give me +a few days to think about it, Kenneth--" + +"Sure! Take your time!" he agreed eagerly. + +"It would be the very quietest and quickest and simplest wedding that +ever was, wouldn't it?" she asked. + +"Oh, absolutely!" Kenneth seemed immensely relieved. "No riot!" + +"And you will let me think it over?" the girl asked, "because--I know +other girls say this, but it's true!--I never DREAMED--" + +"Sure, you think it over. I'll consider you haven't given me the +faintest idea of how you feel," said Kenneth. They clasped hands for +good-by. Susan fancied that his smile might have been an invitation for +a little more affectionate parting, but if it was she ignored it. She +turned at the door to smile back at him before she went downstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Susan went straight downstairs, and, with as little self-consciousness +as if the house had been on fire, tapped at and opened the door of +Stephen Bocqueraz's study. He half rose, with a smile of surprise and +pleasure, as she came in, but his own face instantly reflected the +concern and distress on hers, and he came to her, and took her hand in +his. + +"What is it, Susan?" he asked, sharply. + +Susan had closed the door behind her. Now she drew him swiftly to the +other side of the room, as far from the hall as possible. They stood in +the window recess, Susan holding tight to the author's hand; Stephen +eyeing her anxiously and eagerly. + +"My very dear little girl, what IS it?" + +"Kenneth wants me to marry him," Susan said panting. "He's got to go to +France, you know. They want me to go with him." + +"What?" Bocqueraz asked slowly. He dropped her hands. + +"Oh, don't!" Susan said, stung by his look. "Would I have come straight +to you, if I had agreed?" + +"You said 'no'?" he asked quickly. + +"I didn't say anything!" she answered, almost with anger. "I don't know +what to do--or what to say!" she finished forlornly. + +"You don't know what to do?" echoed Stephen, in his clear, decisive +tones. "What do you mean? Of course, it's monstrous! Ella never should +have permitted it. There's only one thing for you to do?" + +"It's not so easy as that," Susan said. + +"How do you mean that it's not easy? You can't care for him?" + +"Care for him!" Susan's scornful voice was broken by tears. "Of course +I don't care for him!" she said. "But--can't you see? If I displease +them, if I refuse to do this, that they've all thought out evidently, +and planned, I'll have to go back to my aunt's!" + +Stephen Bocqueraz, his hands in his coat-pockets, stood silently +watching her. + +"And fancy what it would mean to Auntie," Susan said, beginning to pace +the floor in agony of spirit. "Comfort for the rest of her life! And +everything for the girls! I would do anything else in the world," she +said distressfully, "for one tenth the money, for one twentieth of it! +And I believe he would be kind to me, and he SAYS he is positively +going to stop--and it isn't as if you and I--you and-I---" she stopped +short, childishly. + +"Of course you would be extremely rich," Stephen said quietly. + +"Oh, rich--rich--rich!" Susan pressed her locked hands to her heart +with a desperate gesture. "Sometimes I think we are all crazy, to make +money so important!" she went on passionately. "What good did it ever +bring anyone! Why aren't we taught when we're little that it doesn't +count, that it's only a side-issue! I've seen more horrors in the past +year-and-a-half than I ever did in my life before;--disease and lying +and cruelty, all covered up with a layer of flowers and rich food and +handsome presents! Nobody enjoys anything; even wedding-presents are +only a little more and a little better than the things a girl has had +all her life; even children don't count; one can't get NEAR them! +Stephen," Susan laid her hand upon his arm, "I've seen the horribly +poor side of life,--the poverty that is worse than want, because it's +hopeless,--and now I see the rich side, and I don't wonder any longer +that sometimes people take violent means to get away from it!" + +She dropped into the chair that faced his, at the desk, and cupped her +face in her hands, staring gloomily before her. "If any of my own +people knew that I refused to marry Kenneth Saunders," she went on +presently, "they would simply think me mad; and perhaps I am! But, +although he was his very sweetest and nicest this morning,--and I know +how different he can be!--somehow, when I leaned over him, the little +odor of ether!--" She broke off short, with a little shudder. + +There was a silence. Then Susan looked at her companion uncomfortably. + +"Why don't you talk to me?" she asked, with a tremulous smile. + +Bocqueraz sat down at the desk opposite her, and stared at her across +folded arms. + +"Nothing to say," he said quietly. But instantly some sudden violent +passion shook him; he pressed both palms to his temples, and Susan +could see that the fingers with which he covered his eyes were shaking. +"My God! What more can I do?" he said aloud, in a low tone. "What more +can I do? You come to me with this, little girl," he said, gripping her +hands in his. "You turn to me, as your only friend just now. And I'm +going to be worthy of your trust in me!" + +He got up and walked to the window, and Susan followed him there. + +"Sweetheart," he said to her, and in his voice was the great relief +that follows an ended struggle, "I'm only a man, and I love you! You +are the dearest and truest and wittiest and best woman I ever knew. +You've made all life over for me, Susan, and you've made me believe in +what I always thought was only the fancy of writers and poets;--that a +man and woman are made for each other by God, and can spend all their +lives,--yes, and other lives elsewhere--in glorious companionship, +wanting nothing but each other. I've seen a good many women, but I +never saw one like you. Will you let me take care of you, dear? Will +you trust me? You know what I am, Sue; you know what my work stands +for. I couldn't lie to you. You say you know the two extremes of life, +dear, but I want to show you a third sort; where money ISN'T paramount, +where rich people have souls, and where poor people get all the +happiness that there is in life!" + +His arm was about her now; her senses on fire; her eyes brimming. + +"But do you love me?" whispered Susan. + +"Love you!" His face had grown pale. "To have you ask me that," he said +under his breath, "is the most heavenly--the most wonderful thing that +ever came into my life! I'm not worthy of it. But God knows that I will +take care of you, Sue, and, long before I take you to New York, to my +own people, these days will be only a troubled dream. You will be my +wife then--" + +The wonderful word brought the happy color to her face. + +"I believe you," she said seriously, giving him both her hands, and +looking bravely into his eyes. "You are the best man I ever met--I +can't let you go. I believe it would be wrong to let you go." She +hesitated, groped for words. "You're the only thing in the world that +seems real to me," Susan said. "I knew that the old days at Auntie's +were all wrong and twisted somehow, and here--" She indicated the house +with a shudder. "I feel stifled here!" she said. "But--but if there is +really some place where people are good and simple, whether they're +rich or poor, and honest, and hard-working--I want to go there! We'll +have books and music, and a garden," she went on hurriedly, and he felt +that the hands in his were hot, "and we'll live so far away from all +this sort of thing, that we'll forget it and they'll forget us! I would +rather," Susan's eyes grew wistful, "I would rather have a garden where +my babies could make mud-pies and play, then be married to Kenneth +Saunders in the Cathedral with ten brides-maids!" + +Perhaps something in the last sentence stirred him to sudden +compunction. + +"You know that it means going away with me, little girl?" he asked. + +"No, it doesn't mean that," she answered honestly. "I could go back to +Auntie, I suppose. I could wait!" "I've been thinking of that," he +said, seriously. "I want you to listen to me. I have been half planning +a trip to Japan, Susan, I want to take you with me. We'll loiter +through the Orient--that makes your eyes dance, my little Irishwoman; +but wait until you are really there; no books and no pictures do it +justice! We'll go to India, and you shall see the Taj Mahal--all lovers +ought to see it!" + +"And the great desert--" Susan said dreamily. + +"And the great desert. We'll come home by Italy and France, and we'll +go to London. And while we're there, I will correspond with Lillian, or +Lillian's lawyer. There will be no reason then why she should hold me." + +"You mean," said Susan, scarlet-cheeked, "that--that just my going with +you will be sufficient cause?" + +"It is the only ground on which she would," he assented, watching her, +"that she could, in fact." Susan stared thoughtfully out of the window. +"Then," he took up the narrative, "then we stay a few months in London, +are quietly married there,--or, better yet, sail at once for home, and +are married in some quiet little Jersey town, say, and then--then I +bring home the loveliest bride in the world! No one need know that our +trip around the world was not completely chaperoned. No one will ask +questions. You shall have your circle--" + +"But I thought you were not going to Japan until the serial rights of +the novel were sold?" Susan temporized. + +For answer he took a letter from his pocket, and with her own eyes she +read an editor's acceptance of the new novel for what seemed to her a +fabulous sum. No argument could have influenced her as the single +typewritten sheet did. Why should she not trust this man, whom all the +world admired and trusted? Heart and mind were reconciled now; Susan's +eyes, when they were raised to his, were full of shy adoration and +confidence. + +"That's my girl!" he said, very low. He put his arm about her and she +leaned her head on his shoulder, grateful to him that he said no more +just now, and did not even claim the kiss of the accepted lover. +Together they stood looking down at the leafless avenue, for a long +moment. + +"Stephen!" called Ella's voice at the door. Susan's heart lost a beat; +gave a sick leap of fear; raced madly. + +"Just a moment," Bocqueraz said pleasantly. He stepped noiselessly to +the door of the porch, noiselessly opened it, and Susan slipped through. + +"Don't let me interrupt you, but is Susan here?" called Ella. + +"Susan? No," Susan herself heard him say, before she went quietly about +the corner of the house and, letting herself in at the side-door, lost +the sound of their voices. + +She had entered the rear hall, close to a coat-closet; and now, +following a sudden impulse, she put on a rough little hat and the long +cloak she often wore for tramps, ran down the drive, crossed behind the +stables, and was out in the quiet highway, in the space of two or three +minutes. + +Quick-rising clouds were shutting out the sun; a thick fog was creeping +up from the bay, the sunny bright morning was to be followed by a dark +and gloomy afternoon. Everything looked dark and gloomy already; +gardens everywhere were bare; a chilly breeze shook the ivy leaves on +the convent wall. As Susan passed the big stone gateway, in its +close-drawn network of bare vines, the Angelus rang suddenly from the +tower;--three strokes, a pause, three more, a final three,--dying away +in a silence as deep as that of a void. Susan remembered another +convent-bell, heard years ago, a delicious assurance of meal-time. A +sharp little hungry pang assailed her even now at the memory, and with +the memory came just a fleeting glimpse of a little girl, eager, +talkative, yellow of braids, leading the chattering rush of girls into +the yard. + +The girls were pouring out of the big convent-doors now, some of them +noticed the passer-by, eyed her respectfully. She knew that they +thought of her as a "young lady." She longed for a wistful moment to be +one of them, to be among them, to have no troubles but the possible +"penance" after school, no concern but for the contents of her +lunch-basket! + +She presently came to the grave-yard gate, and went in, and sat down on +a tilted little filigree iron bench, near one of the graves. She could +look down on the roofs of the village below, and the circle of hills +beyond, and the marshes, cut by the silver ribbons of streams that went +down to the fog-veiled bay. Cocks crowed, far and near, and sometimes +there came to her ears the shouts of invisible children, but she was +shut out of the world by the soft curtain of the fog. + +Not even now did her breath come evenly. Susan began to think that her +heart would never beat normally again. She tried to collect her +thoughts, tried to analyze her position, only to find herself studying, +with amused attention, the interest of a brown bird in the tip of her +shoe, or reflecting with distaste upon the fact that somehow she must +go back to the house, and settle the matter of her attitude toward +Kenneth, once and for all. + +Over all her musing poured the warm flood of excitement and delight +that the thought of Stephen Bocqueraz invariably brought. Her most +heroic effort at self-blame melted away at the memory of his words. +What nonsense to treat this affair as a dispassionate statement of the +facts might represent it! Whatever the facts, he was Stephen Bocqueraz, +and she Susan Brown, and they understood each other, and were not +afraid! + +Susan smiled as she thought of the romances built upon the histories of +girls who were "led astray," girls who were "ruined," men whose +promises of marriage did not hold. It was all such nonsense! It did not +seem right to her even to think of these words in connection with this +particular case; she felt as if it convicted her somehow of coarseness. + +She abandoned consecutive thought, and fell to happy musing. She shut +her eyes and dreamed of crowded Oriental streets, of a great desert +asleep under the moonlight, of New York shining clean and bright, the +spring sunlight, and people walking the streets under the fresh green +of tall trees. She had seen it so, in many pictures, and in all her +dreams, she liked the big city the best. She dreamed of a little +dining-table in a flying railway-train-- + +But when Stephen Bocqueraz entered the picture, so near, so kind, so +big and protecting, Susan thought as if her heart would burst, she +opened her eyes, the color flooding her face. + +The cemetery was empty, dark, silent. The glowing visions faded, and +Susan made one more conscientious effort to think of herself, what she +was doing, what she planned to do. + +"Suppose I go to Auntie's and simply wait--" she began firmly. The +thought went no further. Some little memory, drifting across the +current, drew her after it. A moment later, and the dreams had come +back in full force. + +"Well, anyway, I haven't DONE anything yet and, if I don't want to, I +can always simply STOP at the last moment," she said to herself, as she +began to walk home. + +At the great gateway of the Wallace home, two riders overtook her; +Isabel, looking exquisitely pretty in her dashing habit and hat, and +her big cavalier were galloping home for a late luncheon. + +"Come in and have lunch with us!" Isabel called gaily, reining in. But +Susan shook her head, and refused their urging resolutely. Isabel's +wedding was but a few weeks off now, and Susan knew that she was very +busy. But, beside that, her heart was so full of her own trouble, that +the sight of the other girl, radiant, adored, surrounded by her father +and mother, her brothers, the evidences of a most unusual popularity, +would have stabbed Susan to the heart. What had Isabel done, Susan +asked herself bitterly, to have every path in life made so lovely and +so straight, while to her, Susan, even the most beautiful thing in the +world had come in so clouded and distorted a form. + +But he loved her! And she loved him, and that was all that mattered, +after all, she said to herself, as she reentered the house and went +upstairs. + +Ella called her into her bed-room as she passed the door, by humming +the Wedding-march. + +"Tum-TUM-ti-tum! Tum TUM-ti-tum!" sang Ella, and Susan, uneasy but +smiling, went to the doorway and looked in. + +"Come in, Sue," said Ella, pausing in the act of inserting a large bare +arm into a sleeve almost large enough to accommodate Susan's head. +"Where've you been all this time? Mama thought that you were upstairs +with Ken, but the nurse says that he's been asleep for an hour." + +"Oh, that's good!" said Susan, trying to speak naturally, but turning +scarlet. "The more he sleeps the better!" + +"I want to tell you something, Susan," said Ella, violently tugging at +the hooks of her skirt,--"Damn this thing!--I want to tell you +something, Susan. You're a very lucky girl; don't you fool yourself +about that! Now it's none of my affair, and I'm not butting in, but, at +the same time, Ken's health makes this whole matter a little unusual, +and the fact that, as a family--" Ella picked up a hand-mirror, and +eyed the fit of her skirt in the glass--"as a family," she resumed, +after a moment, "we all think it's the wisest thing that Ken could do, +or that you could do, makes this whole thing very different in the eyes +of society from what it MIGHT be! I don't say it's a usual marriage; I +don't say that we'd all feel as favorably toward it as we do if the +circumstances were different," Ella rambled on, snapping the clasp of a +long jeweled chain, and pulling it about her neck to a becoming +position. "But I do say that it's a very exceptional opportunity for a +girl in your position, and one that any sensible girl would jump at. I +may be Ken's sister," finished Ella, rapidly assorting rings and +slipping a selected few upon her fingers, "but I must say that!" + +"I know," said Susan, uncomfortably. Ella, surprised perhaps at the +listless tone, gave her a quick glance. + +"Mama," said Miss Saunders, with a little color, "Mama is the very +mildest of women, but as Mama said, 'I don't see what more any girl +could wish!' Ken has got the easiest disposition in the world, if he's +let alone, and, as Hudson said, there's nothing really the matter with +him, he may live for twenty or thirty years, probably will!" + +"Yes, I know," Susan said quickly, wishing that some full and +intelligent answer would suggest itself to her. + +"And finally," Ella said, quite ready to go downstairs for an informal +game of cards, but not quite willing to leave the matter here. +"Finally, I must say, Sue, that I think this shilly-shallying is +very--very unbecoming. I'm not asking to be in your confidence, _I_ +don't care one way or the other, but Mama and the Kid have always been +awfully kind to you--" + +"You've all been angels," Susan was glad to say eagerly. + +"Awfully kind of you," Ella pursued, "and all I say is this, make up +your mind! It's unexpected, and it's sudden, and all that,--very well! +But you're of age, and you've nobody to please but yourself, and, as I +say--as I say--while it's nothing to me, I like you and I hate to have +you make a fool of yourself!" + +"Did Ken say anything to you?" Susan asked, with flaming cheeks. + +"No, he just said something to Mama about it's being a shame to ask a +girl your age to marry a man as ill as he. But that's all sheer +nonsense," Ella said briskly, "and it only goes to show that Ken is a +good deal more decent than people might think! What earthly objection +any girl could have I can't imagine myself!" Ella finished pointedly. + +"Nobody could!" Susan said loyally. + +"Nobody could,--exactly!" Ella said in a satisfied tone. "For a month +or two," she admitted reasonably, "you may have to watch his health +pretty closely. I don't deny it. But you'll be abroad, you'll have +everything in the world that you want. And, as he gets stronger, you +can go about more and more. And, whatever Hudson says, I think that the +day will come when he can live where he chooses, and do as he likes, +just like anyone else! And I think---" Ella, having convinced herself +entirely unaided by Susan, was now in a mellowed mood. "I think you're +doing much the wisest thing!" she said. "Go up and see him later, +there's a nice child! The doctor's coming at three; wait until he goes." + +And Ella was gone. + +Susan shut the door of Ella's room, and took a deep chair by a window. +It was perhaps the only place in the house in which no one would think +of looking for her, and she still felt the need of being alone. + +She sat back in the chair, and folded her arms across her chest, and +fell to deep thinking. She had let Ella leave her under a +misunderstanding, not because she did not know how to disabuse Ella's +mind of the idea that she would marry Kenneth, and not because she was +afraid of the result of such a statement, but because, in her own mind, +she could not be sure that Kenneth Saunders, with his millions, was not +her best means of escape from a step even more serious in the eyes of +the world than this marriage would have been. + +If she would be pitied by a few people for marrying Kenneth, she would +be envied by a thousand. The law, the church, the society in which they +moved could do nothing but approve. On the other hand, if she went away +with Stephen Bocqueraz, all the world would rise up to blame her and to +denounce her. A third course would be to return to her aunt's +house,--with no money, no work, no prospects of either, and to wait, +years perhaps---- + +No, no, she couldn't wait. Rebellion rose in her heart at the mere +thought. "I love him!" said Susan to herself, thrilled through and +through by the mere words. What would life be without him now--without +the tall and splendid figure, the big, clever hands, the rich and +well-trained voice, without his poetry, his glowing ideals, his +intimate knowledge of that great world in whose existence she had +always had a vague and wistful belief? + +And how he wanted her---! Susan could feel the nearness of his +eagerness, without sharing it. + +She herself belonged to that very large class of women for whom passion +is only a rather-to-be-avoided word. She was loving, and generous where +she loved, but far too ignorant of essential facts regarding herself, +and the world about her, to either protect herself from being +misunderstood, or to give even her thoughts free range, had she desired +to do so. What knowledge she had had come to her,--in Heaven alone +knows what distorted shape!--from some hazily remembered passage in a +play, from some joke whose meaning had at first entirely escaped her, +or from some novel, forbidden by Auntie as "not nice," but read +nevertheless, and construed into a hundred vague horrors by the +mystified little brain. + +Lately all this mass of curiously mixed information had had new light +thrown upon it because of the sudden personal element that entered into +Susan's view. Love became the great Adventure, marriage was no longer +merely a question of gifts and new clothes and a honeymoon trip, and a +dear little newly furnished establishment. Nothing sordid, nothing +sensual, touched Susan's dreams even now, but she began to think of the +constant companionship, the intimacy of married life, the miracle of +motherhood, the courage of the woman who can put her hand in any man's +hand, and walk with him out from the happy, sheltered pale of girlhood, +and into the big world! + +She was interrupted in her dreaming by Ella's maid, who put her head +into the room with an apologetic: + +"Miss Saunders says she's sorry, Miss Brown, but if Mrs. Richardson +isn't here, and will you come down to fill the second table?" + +Downstairs went Susan, to be hastily pressed into service. + +"Heaven bless you, Sue," said Ella, the cards already being dealt. +"Kate Richardson simply hasn't come, and if you'll fill in until she +does----You say hearts?" Ella interrupted herself to say to her nearest +neighbor. "Well, I can't double that. I lead and you're down, Elsa--" + +To Susan it seemed a little flat to sit here seriously watching the +fall of the cards, deeply concerned in the doubled spade or the dummy +for no trump. When she was dummy she sat watching the room dreamily, +her thoughts drifting idly to and fro. It was all curiously +unreal,--Stephen gone to a club dinner in the city, Kenneth lying +upstairs, she, sitting here, playing cards! When she thought of Kenneth +a little flutter of excitement seized her; with Stephen's memory a warm +flood of unreasoning happiness engulfed her. + +"I beg your pardon!" said Susan, suddenly aroused. + +"Your lead, Miss Brown---" + +"Mine? Oh, surely. You made it---?" + +"I bridged it. Mrs. Chauncey made it diamonds." + +"Oh, surely!" Susan led at random. "Oh, I didn't mean to lead that!" +she exclaimed. She attempted to play the hand, and the following hand, +with all her power, and presently found herself the dummy again. + +Again serious thought pressed in upon her from all sides. She could not +long delay the necessity of letting Kenneth, and Kenneth's family, know +that she would not do her share in their most recent arrangement for +his comfort. And after that---? Susan had no doubt that it would be the +beginning of the end of her stay here. Not that it would be directly +given as the reason for her going; they had their own ways of bringing +about what suited them, these people. + +But what of Stephen? And again warmth and confidence and joy rose in +her heart. How big and true and direct he was, how far from everything +that flourished in this warm and perfumed atmosphere! "It must be right +to trust him," Susan said to herself, and it seemed to her that even to +trust him supremely, and to brave the storm that would follow, would be +a step in the right direction. Out of the unnatural atmosphere of this +house, gone forever from the cold and repressing poverty of her aunt's, +she would be out in the open air, free to breathe and think and love +and work---- + +"Oh, that nine is the best, Miss Brown! You trumped it---" + +Susan brought her attention to the game again. When the cards were +finally laid down, tea followed, and Susan must pour it. After that she +ran up to her room to find Emily there, dressing for dinner. + +"Oh, Sue, there you are! Listen, Mama wants you to go in and see her a +minute before dinner," Emily said. + +"I am dead!" Susan began flinging off her things, loosened the masses +of her hair, and shook it about her, tore off her tight slippers and +flung them away. + +"Should think you would be," Emily said sympathetically. She was +evidently ready for confidences, but Susan evaded them. At least she +owed no explanation to Emily! + +"El wants to put you up for the club," called Emily above the rush of +hot water into the bathtub. + +"Why should she?" Susan called back smiling, but uneasy, but Emily +evidently did not hear. + +"Don't forget to look in on Mama," she said again, when Susan was +dressed. Susan nodded. + +"But, Lord, this is a terrible place to try to THINK in!" the girl +thought, knocking dutifully on Mrs. Saunders' door. + +The old lady, in a luxurious dressing-gown, was lying on the wide couch +that Miss Baker had drawn up before the fire. + +"There's the girl I thought had forgotten all about me!" said Mrs. +Saunders in tremulous, smiling reproach. Susan went over and, although +uncomfortably conscious of the daughterliness of the act, knelt down +beside her, and squeezed the little shell-like hand. Miss Baker smiled +from the other side of the room where she was folding up the day-covers +of the bed with windmill sweeps of her arms. + +"Well, now, I didn't want to keep you from your dinner," murmured the +old lady. "I just wanted to give you a little kiss, and tell you that +I've been thinking about you!" + +Susan gave the nurse, who was barely out of hearing, a troubled look. +If Miss Baker had not been there, she would have had the courage to +tell Kenneth's mother the truth. As it was, Mrs. Saunders +misinterpreted her glance. + +"We won't say ONE WORD!" she whispered with childish pleasure in the +secret. The little claw-like hands drew Susan down for a kiss; "Now, +you and Doctor Cooper shall just have some little talks about my boy, +and in a year he'll be just as well as ever!" whispered the foolish, +fond little mother, "and we'll go into town next week and buy all sorts +of pretty things, shall we? And we'll forget all about this bad +sickness! Now, run along, lovey, it's late!" + +Susan, profoundly apprehensive, went slowly out of the room. She turned +to the stairway that led to the upper hall to hear Ella's voice from +her own room: + +"Sue! Going up to see Ken?" + +"Yes," Susan said without turning back. + +"That's a good child," Ella called gaily. "The kid's gone down to +dinner, but don't hurry. I'm dining out." + +"I'll be down directly," Susan said, going on. She crossed the dimly +lighted, fragrant upper hall, and knocked on Kenneth's door. + +It was instantly opened by the gracious and gray-haired Miss Trumbull, +the night nurse. Kenneth, in a gorgeous embroidered Mandarin coat, was +sitting up and enjoying his supper. + +"Come in, woman," he said, smiling composedly. Susan felt warmed and +heartened by his manner, and came to take her chair by the bed. Miss +Trumbull disappeared, and the two had the big, quiet room to themselves. + +"Well," said Kenneth, laying down a wish-bone, and giving her a shrewd +smile. "You can't do it, and you're afraid to say so, is that it?" + +A millstone seemed lifted from Susan's heart. She smiled, and the tears +rushed into her eyes. + +"I--honestly, I'd rather not," she said eagerly. + +"That other fellow, eh?" he added, glancing at her before he attacked +another bone with knife and fork. + +Taken unawares, she could not answer. The color rushed into her face. +She dropped her eyes. + +"Peter Coleman, isn't it?" Kenneth pursued. + +"Peter Coleman!" Susan might never have heard the name before, so +unaffected was her astonishment. + +"Well, isn't it?" + +Susan felt in her heart the first stirring of a genuine affection for +Kenneth Saunders. He seemed so bright, so well to-night, he was so kind +and brotherly. + +"It's Stephen," said she, moved by a sudden impulse to confide. He eyed +her in blank astonishment, and Susan saw in it a sort of respect. But +he only answered by a long whistle. + +"Gosh, that is tough," he said, after a few moments of silence. "That +is the limit, you poor kid! Of course his wife is particularly well and +husky?" + +"Particularly!" echoed Susan with a shaky laugh. For the first time in +their lives she and Kenneth talked together with entire naturalness and +with pleasure. Susan's heart felt lighter than it had for many a day. + +"Stephen can't shake his wife, I suppose?" he asked presently. + +"Not--not according to the New York law, I believe," Susan said. + +"Well--that's a case where virtue is its own reward,--NOT," said +Kenneth. "And he--he cares, does he?" he asked, with shy interest. + +A rush of burning color, and the light in Susan's eyes, were her only +answer. + +"Shucks, what a rotten shame!" Kenneth said regretfully. "So he goes +away to Japan, does he? Lord, what a shame---" + +Susan really thought he was thinking more of her heart-affair than his +own, when she finally left him. Kenneth was heartily interested in the +ill-starred romance. He bade her good-night with real affection and +sympathy. + +Susan stood bewildered for a moment, outside the door, listening to the +subdued murmurs that came up from the house, blinking, after the bright +glow of Kenneth's lamps, in the darkness of the hall. Presently she +crossed to a wide window that faced across the village, toward the +hills. It was closed; the heavy glass gave back only a dim reflection +of herself, bare-armed, bare-throated, with spangles winking dully on +her scarf. + +She opened the window and the sweet cold night air came in with a rush, +and touched her hot cheeks and aching head with an infinite coolness. +Susan knelt down and drank deep of it, raised her eyes to the silent +circle of the hills, the starry arch of the sky. + +There was no moon, but Tamalpais' great shoulder was dimly outlined +against darker blackness, and moving, twinkling dots showed where +ferryboats were crossing and recrossing the distant bay. San +Francisco's lights glittered like a chain of gems, but San Rafael, +except for a half-concealed household light, here and there under the +trees, was in darkness. Faint echoes of dance-music came from the +hotel, the insistent, throbbing bass of a waltz; Susan shuddered at the +thought of it; the crowd and the heat, the laughing and flirting, the +eating and drinking. Her eyes searched the blackness between the +stars;--oh, to plunge into those infinite deeps, to breathe the +untainted air of those limitless great spaces! + +Garden odors, wet and sweet, came up to her; she got the exquisite +breath of drenched violets, of pinetrees. Susan thought of her mother's +little garden, years ago, of the sunken stone ale-bottles that framed +the beds, of alyssum and marigolds and wall-flowers and hollyhocks +growing all together. She remembered her little self, teasing for +heart-shaped cookies, or gravely attentive to the bargain driven +between her mother and the old Chinese vegetable-vendor, with his +loaded, swinging baskets. It went dimly through Susan's mind that she +had grown too far away from the good warm earth. It was years since she +had had the smell of it and the touch of it, or had lain down in its +long grasses. At her aunt's house, in the office, and here, it seemed +so far away! Susan had a hazy vision of some sensible linen gardening +dresses--of herself out in the spring sunshine, digging, watering, +getting happier and dirtier and hotter every minute---- + +Somebody was playing Walther's song from "Die Meistersinger" far +downstairs, and the plaintive passionate notes drew Susan as if they +had been the cry of her name. She went down to find Emily and Peter +Coleman laughing and flirting over a box of chocolates, at the +inglenook seat in the hall, and Stephen Bocqueraz alone in the +drawing-room, at the piano. He stopped playing as she came in, and they +walked to the fire and took opposite chairs beside the still brightly +burning logs. + +"Anything new?" he asked. + +"Oh, lots!" Susan said wearily. "I've seen Kenneth. But they don't know +that I can't--can't do it. And they're rather taking it for granted +that I am going to!" + +"Going to marry him!" he asked aghast. "Surely you haven't equivocated +about it, Susan?" he asked sharply. + +"Not with him!" she answered in quick self-defense, with a thrill for +the authoritative tone. "I went up there, tired as I am, and told him +the absolute truth," said Susan. "But they may not know it!" + +"I confess I don't see why," Bocqueraz said, in disapproval. "It would +seem to me simple enough to---" + +"Oh, perhaps it does seem simple, to you!" Susan defended herself +wearily, "but it isn't so easy! Ella is dreadful when she's angry,--I +don't know quite what I will do, if this ends my being here---" + +"Why should it?" he asked quickly. + +"Because it's that sort of a position. I'm here as long as I'm wanted," +Susan said bitterly, "and when I'm not, there'll be a hundred ways to +end it all. Ella will resent this, and Mrs. Saunders will resent it, +and even if I was legally entitled to stay, it wouldn't be very +pleasant under those circumstances!" She rested her head against the +curved back of her chair, and he saw tears slip between her lashes. + +"Why, my darling! My dearest little girl, you mustn't cry!" he said, in +distress. "Come to the window and let's get a breath of fresh air!" + +He crossed to a French window, and held back the heavy curtain to let +her step out to the wide side porch. Susan's hand held his tightly in +the darkness, and he knew by the sound of her breathing that she was +crying. + +"I don't know what made me go to pieces this way," she said, after a +moment. "But it has been such a day!" And she composedly dried her +eyes, and restored his handkerchief to him. + +"You poor little girl!" he said tenderly. "---Is it going to be too +cold out here for you, Sue?" + +"No-o!" said Susan, smiling, "it's heavenly!" + +"Then we'll talk. And we must make the most of this too, for they may +not give us another chance! Cheer up, sweetheart, it's only a short +time now! As you say, they're going to resent the fact that my girl +doesn't jump at the chance to ally herself with all this splendor, and +to-morrow may change things all about for every one of us. Now, Sue, I +told Ella to-day that I sail for Japan on Sunday---" + +"Oh, my God!" Susan said, taken entirely unawares. + +He was near enough to put his arm about her shoulders. + +"My little girl," he said, gravely, "did you think that I was going to +leave you behind?" + +"I couldn't bear it," Susan said simply. + +"You could bear it better than I could," he assured her. "But we'll +never be separated again in this life, I hope! And every hour of my +life I'm going to spend in trying to show you what it means to me to +have you--with your beauty and your wit and your charm--trust me to +straighten out all this tangle! You know you are the most remarkable +woman I ever knew, Susan," he interrupted himself to say, seriously. +"Oh, you can shake your head, but wait until other people agree with +me! Wait until you catch the faintest glimpse of what our life is going +to be! And how you'll love the sea! And that reminds me," he was all +business-like again, "the Nippon Maru sails on Sunday. You and I sail +with her." + +He paused, and in the gradually brightening gloom Susan's eyes met his, +but she did not speak nor stir. + +"It's the ONLY way, dear!" he said urgently. "You see that? I can't +leave you here and things cannot go on this way. It will be hard for a +little while, but we'll make it a wonderful year, Susan, and when it's +over, I'll take my wife home with me to New York." + +"It seems incredible," said Susan slowly, "that it is ever RIGHT to do +a thing like this. You--you think I'm a strong woman, Stephen," she +went on, groping for the right words, "but I'm not--in this way. I +think I COULD be strong," Susan's eyes were wistful, "I could be strong +if my husband were a pioneer, or if I had an invalid husband, or if I +had to--to work at anything," she elucidated. "I could even keep a +store or plow, or go out and shoot game! But my life hasn't run that +way, I can't seem to find what I want to do, I'm always bound by +conditions I didn't make---" + +"Exactly, dear! And now you are going to make conditions for yourself," +he added eagerly, as she hesitated. Susan sighed. + +"Not so soon as Sunday," she said, after a pause. + +"Sunday too soon? Very well, little girl. If you want to go Sunday, +we'll go. And, if you say not, I'll await your plans," he agreed. + +"But, Stephen--what about tickets?" + +"The tickets are upstairs," he told her. "I reserved the prettiest +suite on board for Miss Susan Bocqueraz, my niece, who is going with me +to meet her father in India, and a near-by stateroom for myself. But, +of course, I'll forfeit these reservations rather than hurry or +distress you now. When I saw the big liner, Susan, the cleanness and +brightness and airiness of it all; and when I thought of the +deliciousness of getting away from the streets and smells and sounds of +the city, out on the great Pacific, I thought I would be mad to prolong +this existence here an unnecessary day. But that's for you to say." + +"I see," she said dreamily. And through her veins, like a soothing +draught, ran the premonition of surrender. Delicious to let herself go, +to trust him, to get away from all the familiar sights and faces! She +turned in the darkness and laid both hands on his shoulders. "I'll be +ready on Sunday," said she gravely. "I suppose, as a younger girl, I +would have thought myself mad to think of this. But I have been wrong +about so many of those old ideas; I don't feel sure of anything any +more. Life in this house isn't right, Stephen, and certainly the old +life at Auntie's,--all debts and pretense and shiftlessness,--isn't +right either." + +"You'll not be sorry, dear," he told her, holding her hands. + +An instant later they were warned, by a sudden flood of light on the +porch, that Mr. Coleman had come to the open French window. + +"Come in, you idiots!" said Peter. "We're hunting for something to eat!" + +"You come out, it's a heavenly night!" Stephen said readily. + +"Nothing stirring," Mr. Coleman said, sauntering toward them +nevertheless. "Don't you believe a word she says, Mr. Bocqueraz, she's +an absolute liar!" + +"Peter, go back, we're talking books," said Susan, unruffled. + +"Well, I read a book once, Susan," he assured her proudly. "Say, let's +go over to the hotel and have a dance, what?" + +"Madman!" the writer said, in indulgent amusement, as Peter went back. +"We'll be in directly, Coleman!" he called. Then he said quickly, and +in a low tone to Susan. "Shall you stay here until Sunday, or would you +rather be with your own people?" + +"It just depends upon what Ella and Emily do," Susan answered. "Kenneth +may not tell them. If he does, it might be better to go. This is +Tuesday. Of course I don't know, Stephen, they may be very generous +about it, they may make it as pleasant as they can. But certainly Emily +isn't sorry to find some reason for terminating my stay here. +We've--perhaps it's my fault, but we've been rather grating on each +other lately. So I think it's pretty safe to say that I will go home on +Wednesday or Thursday." + +"Good," he said. "I can see you there!" + +"Oh, will you?" said Susan, pleased. + +"Oh, will I! And another thing, dear, you'll need some things. A big +coat for the steamer, and some light gowns--but we can get those. We'll +do some shopping in Paris---" + +He had touched a wrong chord, and Susan winced. + +"I have some money," she assured him, hastily, "and I'd rather--rather +get those things myself!" + +"You shall do as you like," he said gravely. Silently and thoughtfully +they went back to the house. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Susan lay awake almost all night, quiet and wide-eyed in the darkness, +thinking, thinking, thinking. She arraigned herself mentally before a +jury of her peers, and pleaded her own case. She did not think of +Stephen Bocqueraz to-night,--thought of him indeed did not lead to +rational argument!--but she confined her random reflections to the +conduct of other women. There was a moral code of course, there were +Commandments. But by whose decree might some of these be set aside, and +ignored, while others must still be observed in the letter and the +spirit? Susan knew that Ella would discharge a maid for stealing +perfumery or butter, and within the hour be entertaining a group of her +friends with the famous story of her having taken paste jewels abroad, +to be replaced in London by real stones and brought triumphantly home +under the very eyes of the custom-house inspectors. She had heard Mrs. +Porter Pitts, whose second marriage followed her divorce by only a few +hours, addressing her respectful classes in the Correction Home for +Wayward Girls. She had heard Mrs. Leonard Orvis congratulated upon her +lineage and family connections on the very same occasion when Mrs. +Orvis had entertained a group of intimates with a history of her +successful plan for keeping the Orvis nursery empty. + +It was to the Ellas, the Pitts, the Orvises, that Susan addressed her +arguments. They had broken laws. She was only temporarily following +their example. She heard the clock strike four, before she went to +sleep, and was awakened by Emily at nine o'clock the next morning. + +It was a rainy, gusty morning, with showers slapping against the +windows. The air in the house was too warm, radiators were purring +everywhere, logs crackled in the fireplaces of the dining-room and +hall. Susan, looking into the smaller library, saw Ella in a wadded +silk robe, comfortably ensconced beside the fire, with the newspapers. + +"Good-morning, Sue," said Ella politely. Susan's heart sank. "Come in," +said Ella. "Had your breakfast?" + +"Not yet," said Susan, coming in. + +"Well, I just want to speak to you a moment," said Ella, and Susan +knew, from the tone, that she was in for an unpleasant half-hour. +Emily, following Susan, entered the library, too, and seated herself on +the window-seat. Susan did not sit down. + +"I've got something on my mind, Susan," Ella said, frowning as she +tossed aside her papers, "and,--you know me. I'm like all the Roberts, +when I want to say a thing, I say it!" Ella eyed her groomed fingers a +moment, bit at one before she went on. "Now, there's only one important +person in this house, Sue, as I always tell everyone, and that's Mamma! +'Em and I don't matter,' I say, 'but Mamma's old, and she hasn't very +much longer to live, and she DOES count!' I--you may not always see +it," Ella went on with dignity, "but I ALWAYS arrange my engagements so +that Mamma shall be the first consideration, she likes to have me go +places, and I like to go, but many and many a night when you and Em +think that I am out somewhere I'm in there with Mamma---" + +Susan knew that they were in the realm of pure fiction now, but she +could only listen. She glanced at Emily, but Emily only looked +impressed and edified. + +"So--" Ella, unchallenged, went on. "So when I see anyone inclined to +be rude to Mamma, Sue---" + +"As you certainly were---" Emily began. + +"Keep out of this, Baby," Ella said. Susan asked in astonishment; + +"But, good gracious, Ella! When was I ever rude to your mother?" + +"Just--one--moment, Sue," Ella said, politely declining to be hurried. +"Well! So when I realize that you deceived Mamma, Sue, it--I've always +liked you, and I've always said that there was a great deal of +allowance to be made for you," Ella interrupted herself to say kindly, +"but, you know, that is the one thing I can't forgive!--In just a +moment---" she added, as Susan was about to speak again. "Well, about a +week ago, as you know, Ken's doctor said that he must positively +travel. Mamma isn't well enough to go, the kid can't go, and I can't +get away just now, even," Ella was deriving some enjoyment from her new +role of protectress, "even if I would leave Mamma. What Ken suggested, +you know, seemed a suitable enough arrangement at the time, although I +think, and I know Mamma thinks, that it was just one of the poor boy's +ideas which might have worked very well, and might not! One never can +tell about such things. Be that as it may, however---" + +"Oh, Ella, what on earth are you GETTING at!" asked Susan, in sudden +impatience. + +"Really, Sue!" Emily said, shocked at this irreverence, but Ella, +flushing a little, proceeded with a little more directness. + +"I'm getting at THIS--please shut up, Baby! You gave Mamma to +understand that it was all right between you and Ken, and Mamma told me +so before I went to the Grahams' dinner, and I gave Eva Graham a pretty +strong hint! Now Ken tells Mamma that that isn't so at all,--I must say +Ken, for a sick boy, acted very well! And really, Sue, to have you +willing to add anything to Mamma's natural distress and worry now +it,--well, I don't like it, and I say so frankly!" + +Susan, angered past the power of reasonable speech, remained silent for +half-a-minute, holding the back of a chair with both hands, and looking +gravely into Ella's face. + +"Is that all?" she asked mildly. + +"Except that I'm surprised at you," Ella said a little nettled. + +"I'm not going to answer you," Susan said, "because you know very well +that I have always loved your Mother, and that I deceived nobody! And +you can't make me think SHE has anything to do with this! It isn't my +fault that I don't want to marry your brother, and Emily knows how +utterly unfair this is!" + +"Really, I don't know anything about it!" Emily said airily. + +"Oh, very well," Susan said, at white heat. She turned and went quietly +from the room. + +She went upstairs, and sat down crosswise on a small chair, and stared +gloomily out of the window. She hated this house, she said to herself, +and everyone in it! A maid, sympathetically fluttering about, asked +Miss Brown if she would like her breakfast brought up. + +"Oh, I would!" said Susan gratefully. Lizzie presently brought in a +tray, and arranged an appetizing little meal. + +"They're something awful, that's what I say," said Lizzie presently in +a cautious undertone. "But I've been here twelve years, and I say +there's worse places! Miss Ella may be a little raspy now, Miss Brown, +but don't you take it to heart!" Susan, the better for hot coffee and +human sympathy, laughed out in cheerful revulsion of feeling. + +"Things are all mixed up, Lizzie, but it's not my fault," she said +gaily. + +"Well, it don't matter," said the literal Lizzie, referring to the +tray. "I pile 'em up anyhow to carry 'em downstairs!" + +Breakfast over, Susan still loitered in her own apartments. She wanted +to see Stephen, but not enough to risk encountering someone else in the +halls. At about eleven o'clock, Ella knocked at the door, and came in. + +"I'm in a horrible rush," said Ella, sitting down on the bed and +interesting herself immediately in a silk workbag of Emily's that hung +there. "I only want to say this, Sue," she began. "It has nothing to do +with what we were talking of this morning, but--I've just been +discussing it with Mamma!--but we all feel, and I'm sure you do, too, +that this is an upset sort of time. Emily, now," said Ella, reaching +her sister's name with obvious relief, "Em's not at all well, and she +feels that she needs a nurse,--I'm going to try to get that nurse Betty +Brock had,--Em may have to go back to the hospital, in fact, and Mamma +is so nervous about Ken, and I---" Ella cleared her throat, "I feel +this way about it," she said. "When you came here it was just an +experiment, wasn't it?" + +"Certainly," Susan agreed, very red in the face. + +"Certainly, and a most successful one, too," Ella conceded relievedly. +"But, of course, if Mamma takes Baby abroad in the spring,--you see how +it is? And of course, even in case of a change now, we'd want you to +take your time. Or,--I'll tell you, suppose you go home for a visit +with your aunt, now. Monday is Christmas, and then, after New Year's, +we can write about it, if you haven't found anything else you want to +do, and I'll let you know---" + +"I understand perfectly," Susan said quietly, but with a betraying +color. "Certainly, I think that would be wisest." + +"Well, I think so," said Ella with a long breath. "Now, don't be in a +hurry, even if Miss Polk comes, because you could sleep upstairs---" + +"Oh, I'd rather go at once-to-day," Susan said. + +"Indeed not, in this rain," Ella said with her pleasant, half-humorous +air of concern. "Mamma and Baby would think I'd scared you away. +Tomorrow, Sue, if you're in such a hurry. But this afternoon some +people are coming in to meet Stephen--he's really going on Sunday, he +says,--stay and pour!" + +It would have been a satisfaction to Susan's pride to refuse. She knew +that Ella really needed her this afternoon, and would have liked to +punish that lady to that extent. But hurry was undignified and +cowardly, and Stephen's name was a charm, and so it happened that Susan +found herself in the drawing-room at five o'clock, in the center of a +chattering group, and stirred, as she was always stirred, by Stephen's +effect on the people he met. He found time to say to her only a few +words, "You are more adorable than ever!" but they kept Susan's heart +singing all evening, and she and Emily spent the hours after dinner in +great harmony; greater indeed than they had enjoyed for months. + +The next day she said her good-byes, agitated beyond the capacity to +feel any regret, for Stephen Bocqueraz had casually announced his +intention to take the same train that she did for the city. Ella gave +her her check; not for the sixty dollars that would have been Susan's +had she remained to finish out her month, but for ten dollars less. + +Emily chattered of Miss Polk, "she seemed to think I was so funny and +so odd, when we met her at Betty's," said Emily, "isn't she crazy? Do +YOU think I'm funny and odd, Sue?" + +Stephen put her in a carriage at the ferry and they went shopping +together. He told her that he wanted to get some things "for a small +friend," and Susan, radiant in the joy of being with him, in the +delicious bright winter sunshine, could not stay his hand when he +bought the "small friend" a delightful big rough coat, which Susan +obligingly tried on, and a green and blue plaid, for steamer use, a +trunk, and a parasol "because it looked so pretty and silly," and in +Shreve's, as they loitered about, a silver scissors and a gold thimble, +a silver stamp-box and a traveler's inkwell, a little silver watch no +larger than a twenty-five-cent piece, a little crystal clock, and, +finally, a ring, with three emeralds set straight across it, the +loveliest great bright stones that Susan had ever seen, "green for an +Irish gir-rl," said Stephen. + +Then they went to tea, and Susan laughed at him because he remembered +that Orange Pekoe was her greatest weakness, and he laughed at Susan +because she was so often distracted from what she was saying by the +flash of her new ring. + +"What makes my girl suddenly look so sober?" + +Susan smiled, colored. + +"I was thinking of what people will say." + +"I think you over-estimate the interest that the world is going to take +in our plans, Susan," he said, gravely, after a thoughtful moment. "We +take our place in New York, in a year or two, as married people. 'Mrs. +Bocqueraz'"--the title thrilled Susan unexpectedly,--"'Mrs. Bocqueraz +is his second wife,' people will say. 'They met while they were both +traveling about the world, I believe.' And that's the end of it!" + +"But the newspapers may get it," Susan said, fearfully. + +"I don't see how," he reassured her. "Ella naturally can't give it to +them, for she will think you are at your aunt's. Your aunt---" + +"Oh, I shall write the truth to Auntie," Susan said, soberly. "Write +her from Honolulu, probably. And wild horses wouldn't get it out of +HER. But if the slightest thing should go wrong---" + +"Nothing will, dear. We'll drift about the world awhile, and the first +thing you know you'll find yourself married hard and tight, and being +invited to dinners and lunches and things in New York!" + +Susan's dimples came into view. + +"I forget what a very big person you are," she smiled. "I begin to +think you can do anything you want to do!" + +She had a reminder of his greatness even before they left the tea-room, +for while they were walking up the wide passage toward the arcade, a +young woman, an older woman, and a middle-aged man, suddenly addressed +the writer. + +"Oh, do forgive me!" said the young woman, "but AREN'T you Stephen +Graham Bocqueraz? We've been watching you--I just couldn't HELP--" + +"My daughter is a great admirer---" the man began, but the elder woman +interrupted him. + +"We're ALL great admirers of your books, Mr. Bocqueraz," said she, "but +it was Helen, my daughter here!--who was sure she recognized you. We +went to your lecture at our club, in Los Angeles---" + +Stephen shook hands, smiled and was very gracious, and Susan, shyly +smiling, too, felt her heart swell with pride. When they went on +together the little episode had subtly changed her attitude toward him; +Susan was back for the moment in her old mood, wondering gratefully +what the great man saw in HER to attract him! + +A familiar chord was touched when an hour later, upon getting out of a +carriage at her aunt's door, she found the right of way disputed by a +garbage cart, and Mary Lou, clad in a wrapper, holding the driver in +spirited conversation through a crack in the door. Susan promptly +settled a small bill, kissed Mary Lou, and went upstairs in harmonious +and happy conversation. + +"I was just taking a bath!" said Mary Lou, indignantly. Mary Lou never +took baths easily, or as a matter of course. She always made an event +of them, choosing an inconvenient hour, assembling soap, clothing and +towels with maddening deliberation, running about in slippered feet for +a full hour before she locked herself into, and everybody else out of, +the bathroom. An hour later she would emerge from the hot and +steam-clouded apartment, to spend another hour in her room in leisurely +dressing. She was at this latter stage now, and regaled Susan with all +the family news, as she ran her hand into stocking after stocking in +search of a whole heel, and forced her silver cuff-links into the +starched cuffs of her shirtwaist. + +Ferd Eastman's wife had succumbed, some weeks before, to a second +paralytic stroke, and Mary Lou wept unaffectedly at the thought of poor +Ferd's grief. She said she couldn't help hoping that some sweet and +lovely girl,--"Ferd knows so many!" said Lou, sighing,--would fill the +empty place. Susan, with an unfavorable recollection of Ferd's fussy, +important manner and red face, said nothing. Georgie, Mary Lou +reported, was a very sick woman, in Ma's and Mary Lou's opinion. Ma had +asked the young O'Connors to her home for Christmas dinner; "perhaps +they expected us to ask the old lady," said Mary Lou, resentfully, +"anyway, they aren't coming!" Georgie's baby, it appeared, was an +angel, but Joe disciplined the poor little thing until it would make +anyone's heart sick. + +Of Alfie the report was equally discouraging: "Alfie's wife is +perfectly awful," his sister said, "and their friends, Sue,--barbers +and butchers! However, Ma's asked 'em here for Christmas dinner, and +then you'll see them!" Virginia was still at the institution, but of +late some hope of eventual restoration of her sight had been given her. +"It would break your heart to see her in that place, it seems like a +poorhouse!" said Mary Lou, with trembling lips, "but Jinny's an angel. +She gets the children about her, and tells them stories; they say she's +wonderful with them!" + +There was really good news of the Lord sisters, Susan was rejoiced to +hear. They had finally paid for their lot in Piedmont Hills, and a new +trolley-car line, passing within one block of it, had trebled its +value. This was Lydia's chance to sell, in Mary Lou's opinion, but +Lydia intended instead to mortgage the now valuable property, and build +a little two-family house upon it with the money thus raised. She had +passed the school-examinations, and had applied for a Berkeley school. +"But better than all," Mary Lou announced, "that great German muscle +doctor has been twice to see Mary,--isn't that amazing? And not a cent +charged---" + +"Oh, God bless him!" said Susan, her eyes flashing through sudden mist. +"And will she be cured?" + +"Not ever to really be like other people, Sue. But he told her, last +time, that by the time that Piedmont garden was ready for her, she'd be +ready to go out and sit in it every day! Lydia fainted away when he +said it,--yes, indeed she did!" + +"Well, that's the best news I've heard for many a day!" Susan rejoiced. +She could not have explained why, but some queer little reasoning +quality in her brain made her own happiness seem the surer when she +heard of the happiness of other people. + +The old odors in the halls, the old curtains and chairs and dishes, the +old, old conversation; Mrs. Parker reading a clean, neatly lined, +temperate little letter from Loretta, signed "Sister Mary Gregory"; +Major Watts anxious to explain to Susan just the method of building an +army bridge that he had so successfully introduced during the Civil +War,--"S'ee, 'Who is this boy, Cutter?' 'Why, sir, I don't know,' says +Captain Cutter, 'but he says his name is Watts!' 'Watts?' says the +General, 'Well,' s'ee, 'If I had a few more of your kind, Watts, we'd +get the Yanks on the run, and we'd keep 'em on the run.'" + +Lydia Lord came down to get Mary's dinner, and again Susan helped the +watery vegetable into a pyramid of saucers, and passed the green glass +dish of pickles, and the pink china sugar-bowl. But she was happy +to-night, and it seemed good to be home, where she could be her natural +self, and put her elbows on the table, and be listened to and laughed +at, instead of playing a role. + +"Gosh, we need you in this family, Susie!" said William Oliver, won +from fatigue and depression to a sudden appreciation of her gaiety. + +"Do you, Willie darling?" + +"Don't you call me Willie!" he looked up to say scowlingly. + +"Well, don't you call me Susie, then!" retorted Susan. Mrs. Lancaster +patted her hand, and said affectionately, "Don't it seem good to have +the children scolding away at each other again!" + +Susan and William had one of their long talks, after dinner, while they +cracked and ate pine-nuts, and while Mary Lou, at the other end of the +dining-room table, painstakingly wrote a letter to a friend of her +girlhood. Billy was frankly afraid that his men were reaching the point +when a strike would be the natural step, and as president of their +new-formed union, and spokesman for them whenever the powers had to be +approached, he was anxious to delay extreme measures as long as he +could. Susan was inclined to regard the troubles of the workingman as +very largely of his own making. "You'll simply lose your job," said +Susan, "and that'll be the end of it. If you made friends with the +Carpenters, on the other hand, you'd be fixed for life. And the +Carpenters are perfectly lovely people. Mrs. Carpenter is on the +hospital board, and a great friend of Ella's. And she says that it's +ridiculous to think of paying those men better wages when their homes +are so dirty and shiftless, and they spend their money as they do! You +know very well there will always be rich people and poor people, and +that if all the money in the world was divided on Monday morning---" + +"Don't get that old chestnut off!" William entreated. + +"Well, I don't care!" Susan said, a little more warmly for the +interruption. "Why don't they keep their houses clean, and bring their +kids up decently, instead of giving them dancing lessons and white +stockings!" + +"Because they've had no decent training themselves, Sue---" + +"Oh, decent training! What about the schools?" + +"Schools don't teach anything! But if they had fair play, and decent +hours, and time to go home and play with the kids, and do a little +gardening, they'd learn fast enough!" + +"The poor you have always with you," said Mary Lou, reverently. Susan +laughed outright, and went around the table to kiss her cousin. + +"You're an old darling, Mary Lou!" said she. Mary Lou accepted the +tribute as just. + +"No, but I don't think we ought to forget the IMMENSE good that rich +people do, Billy," she said mildly. "Mrs. Holly's daughters gave a +Christmas-tree party for eighty children yesterday, and the Saturday +Morning Club will have a tree for two hundred on the twenty-eighth!" + +"Holly made his money by running about a hundred little druggists out +of the business," said Billy, darkly. + +"Bought and paid for their businesses, you mean," Susan amended sharply. + +"Yes, paid about two years' profits," Billy agreed, "and would have run +them out of business if they hadn't sold. If you call that honest!" + +"It's legally honest," Susan said lazily, shuffling a pack for +solitaire. "It's no worse than a thousand other things that people do!" + +"No, I agree with you there!" Billy said heartily, and he smiled as if +he had had the best of the argument. + +Susan followed her game for awhile in silence. Her thoughts were glad +to escape to more absorbing topics, she reviewed the happy afternoon, +and thrilled to a hundred little memories. The quiet, stupid evening +carried her back, in spirit, to the Susan of a few years ago, the +shabby little ill-dressed clerk of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter, who had +been such a limited and suppressed little person. The Susan of to-day +was an erect, well-corseted, well-manicured woman of the world; a +person of noticeable nicety of speech, accustomed to move in the very +highest society. No, she could never come back to this, to the old +shiftless, penniless ways. Any alternative rather! + +"And, besides, I haven't really done anything yet," Susan said to +herself, uneasily, when she was brushing her hair that night, and Mary +Lou was congratulating her upon her improved appearance and manner. + +On Saturday she introduced her delighted aunt and cousin to Mr. +Bocqueraz, who came to take her for a little stroll. + +"I've always thought you were quite an unusual girl, Sue," said her +aunt later in the afternoon, "and I do think it's a real compliment for +a man like that to talk to a girl like you! I shouldn't know what to +say to him, myself, and I was real proud of the way you spoke up; so +easy and yet so ladylike!" + +Susan gave her aunt only an ecstatic kiss for answer. Bread was needed +for dinner, and she flashed out to the bakery for it, and came flying +back, the bread, wrapped in paper and tied with pink string, under her +arm. She proposed a stroll along Filmore Street to Mary Lou, in the +evening, and they wrapped up for their walk under the clear stars. +There was a holiday tang to the very air; even the sound of a premature +horn, now and then; the shops were full of shoppers. + +Mary Lou had some cards to buy, at five cents apiece, or two for five +cents, and they joined the gently pushing groups in the little +stationery stores. Insignificant little shoppers were busily making +selections from the open trays of cards; school-teachers, +stenographers, bookkeepers and clerks kept up a constant little murmur +among themselves. + +"How much are these? Thank you!" "She says these are five, Lizzie; do +you like them better than the little holly books?" "I'll take these +two, please, and will you give me two envelopes?--Wait just a moment, I +didn't see these!" "This one was in the ten-cent box, but it's marked +five, and that lady says that there were some just like it for five. If +it's five, I want it!" "Aren't these cunnin', Lou?" "Yes, I noticed +those, did you see these, darling?" "I want this one--I want these, +please,--will you give me this one?" + +"Are you going to be open at all to-morrow?" Mary Lou asked, unwilling +to be hurried into a rash choice. "Isn't this little one with a baby's +face sweet?" said a tall, gaunt woman, gently, to Susan. + +"Darling!" said Susan. + +"But I want it for an unmarried lady, who isn't very fond of children," +said the woman delicately. "So perhaps I had better take these two +funny little pussies in a hat!" + +They went out into the cold street again, and into a toy-shop where a +lamb was to be selected for Georgie's baby. And here was a roughly +dressed young man holding up a three-year-old boy to see the elephants +and horses. Little Three, a noisy little fellow, with cold red little +hands, and a worn, soiled plush coat, selected a particularly charming +shaggy horse, and shouted with joy as his father gave it to him. + +"Do you like that, son? Well, I guess you'll have to have it; there's +nothing too good for you!" said the father, and he signaled a +saleswoman. The girl looked blankly at the change in her hand. + +"That's two dollars, sir," she said, pleasantly, displaying the tag. + +"What?" the man stammered, turning red. "Why--why, sure--that's right! +But I thought---" he appealed to Susan. "Don't that look like twenty +cents?" he asked. + +Mary Lou tugged discreetly at Susan's arm, but Susan would not desert +the baby in the plush coat. + +"It IS!" she agreed warmly. + +"Oh, no, ma'am! These are the best German toys," said the salesman +firmly. + +"Well, then, I guess---" the man tried gently to disengage the horse +from the jealous grip of its owner, "I guess we'd better leave this +horse here for some other little feller, Georgie," said he, "and we'll +go see Santa Claus." + +"I thess want my horse that Dad GAVE me!" said Georgie, happily. + +"Shall I ask Santa Claus to send it?" asked the saleswoman, tactfully. + +"No-o-o!" said Georgie, uneasily. "Doncher letter have it, Dad!" + +"Give the lady the horse, old man," said the father, "and we'll go find +something pretty for Mamma and the baby!" The little fellow's lips +quivered, but even at three some of the lessons of poverty had been +learned. He surrendered the horse obediently, but Susan saw the little +rough head go down tight against the man's collar, and saw the clutch +of the grimy little hand. + +Two minutes later she ran after them, and found them seated upon the +lowest step of an out-of-the-way stairway; the haggard, worried young +father vainly attempting to console the sobbing mite upon his knee. + +"Here, darling," said Susan. And what no words could do, the touch of +the rough-coated pony did for her; up came the little face, radiant +through tears; Georgie clasped his horse again. + +"No, ma'am, you mustn't--I thank you very kindly, ma'am, but----" was +all that Susan heard before she ran away. + +She would do things like that every day of her life, she thought, lying +awake in the darkness that night. Wasn't it better to do that sort of +thing with money than to be a Mary Lou, say, without? She was going to +take a reckless and unwise step now. Admitted. But it would be the only +one. And after busy and blameless years everyone must come to see that +it had been for the best. + +Every detail was arranged now. She and Stephen had visited the big +liner that afternoon; Susan had had her first intoxicating glimpse of +the joy of sea-travel, had peeped into the lovely little cabin that was +to be her own, had been respectfully treated by the steward as the +coming occupant of that cabin. She had seen her new plaid folded on a +couch, her new trunk in place, a great jar of lovely freesia lilies +already perfuming the fresh orderliness of the place. + +Nothing to do now but to go down to the boat in the morning. Stephen +had both tickets in his pocket-book. A careful scrutiny of the +first-cabin list had assured Susan that no acquaintances of hers were +sailing. If, in the leave-taking crowd, she met someone that she knew, +what more natural than that Miss Brown had been delegated by the +Saunders family to say good-bye to their charming cousin? Friends had +promised to see Stephen off, but, if Ella appeared at all, it would be +but for a moment, and Susan could easily avoid her. She was not afraid +of any mishap. + +But three days of the pure, simple old atmosphere had somewhat affected +Susan, in spite of herself. She could much more easily have gone away +with Stephen Bocqueraz without this interval. Life in the Saunders home +stimulated whatever she had of recklessness and independence, frivolity +and irreverence of law. She would be admired for this step by the +people she had left; she could not think without a heartache of her +aunt's shame and distress. + +However there seemed nothing to do now but to go to sleep. Susan's last +thought was that she had not taken the step YET,--in so much, at least, +she was different from the girls who moved upon blind and passionate +impulses. She could withdraw even now. + +The morning broke like many another morning; sunshine and fog battling +out-of-doors, laziness and lack of system making it generally +characteristic of a Sunday morning within. Susan went to Church at +seven o'clock, because Mary Lou seemed to expect it of her, and because +it seemed a good thing to do, and was loitering over her breakfast at +half-past-eight, when Mrs. Lancaster came downstairs. + +"Any plan for to-day, Sue?" asked her aunt. Susan jumped nervously. + +"Goodness, Auntie! I didn't see you there! Yes, you know I have to go +and see Mr. Bocqueraz off at eleven." + +"Oh, so you do! But you won't go back with the others, dear? Tell them +we want you for Christmas!" + +"With the others?" + +"Miss Ella and Emily," her aunt supplied, mildly surprised. + +"Oh! Oh, yes! Yes, I suppose so. I don't know," Susan said in great +confusion. + +"You'll probably see Lydia Lord there," pursued Mrs. Lancaster, +presently. "She's seeing Mrs. Lawrence's cousins off." + +"On the Nippon Maru?" Susan asked nervously. + +"How you do remember names, Sue! Yes, Lydia's going down." + +"I'd go with you, Sue, if it wasn't for those turkeys to stuff," said +Mary Lou. "I do love a big ship!" + +"Oh, I wish you could!" Susan said. + +She went upstairs with a fast-beating heart. Her heart was throbbing so +violently, indeed, that, like any near loud noise, it made thought very +difficult. Mary Lou came in upon her packing her suitcase. + +"I suppose they may want you to go right back," said Mary Lou +regretfully, in reference to the Saunders, "but why don't you leave +that here in case they don't?" + +"Oh, I'd rather take it," said Susan. + +She kissed her cousin good-bye, gave her aunt a particularly fervent +hug, and went out into the doubtful morning. The fog-horn was booming +on the bay, and when Susan joined the little stream of persons filing +toward the dock of the great Nippon Maru, fog was already shutting out +all the world, and the eaves of the pier dripped with mist. Between the +slow-moving motor-cars and trucks on the dock, well-dressed men and +women were picking their way through the mud. + +Susan went unchallenged up the gang-plank, with girls in big coats, +carrying candy-boxes and violets, men with cameras, elderly persons who +watched their steps nervously. The big ship was filled with chattering +groups, young people raced through cabins and passageways, eager to +investigate. + +Stevedores were slinging trunks and boxes on board; everywhere were +stir and shouting and movement. Children shrieked and romped in the +fitful sunlight; there were tears and farewells, on all sides; +postal-writers were already busy about the tables in the writing-room, +stewards were captured on their swift comings and goings, and +interrogated and importuned. Fog lay heavy and silent over San +Francisco; and the horn still boomed down the bay. + +Susan, standing at the rail looking gravely on at the vivid and +exciting picture, felt an uneasy and chilling little thought clutch at +her heart. She had always said that she could withdraw, at this +particular minute she could withdraw. But in a few moments more the +dock would be moving steadily away from her; the clock in the +ferry-tower, with gulls wheeling about it, the ferry-boats churning +long wakes in the smooth surface of the bay, the stir of little craft +about the piers, the screaming of a hundred whistles, in a hundred +keys, would all be gone. Alcatraz would be passed, Black Point and the +Golden Gate; they would be out beyond the rolling head-waters of the +harbor. No withdrawing then. + +Her attention was attracted by the sudden appearance of guards at the +gang-plank, no more visitors would be allowed on board. Susan smiled at +the helpless disgust of some late-comers, who must send their candy and +books up by the steward. Twenty-five minutes of twelve, said the ferry +clock. + +"Are you going as far as Japan, my dear?" asked a gentle little lady at +Susan's shoulder. + +"Yes, we're going even further!" said friendly Susan. + +"I'm going all alone," said the little lady, "and old as I am, I so +dread it! I tell Captain Wolseley---" + +"I'm making my first trip, too," said Susan, "so we'll stand by each +other!" + +A touch on her arm made her turn suddenly about; her heart thundering. +But it was only Lydia Lord. + +"Isn't this thrilling, Sue?" asked Lydia, excited and nervous. "What +WOULDN'T you give to be going? Did you go down and see the cabins; +aren't they dear? Have you found the Saunders party?" + +"Are the Saunders here?" asked Susan. + +"Miss Ella was, I know. But she's probably gone now. I didn't see the +younger sister. I must get back to the Jeromes," said Lydia; "they +began to take pictures, and I'd thought I run away for a little peep at +everything, all to myself! They say that we shore people will have to +leave the ship at quarter of twelve." + +She fluttered away, and a second later Susan found her hand covered by +the big glove of Stephen Bocqueraz. + +"Here you are, Susan," he said, with business-like satisfaction. "I was +kept by Ella and some others, but they've gone now. Everything seems to +be quite all right." + +Susan turned a rather white and strained face toward him, but even now +his bracing bigness and coolness were acting upon her as a tonic. + +"We're at the Captain's table," he told her, "which you'll appreciate +if you're not ill. If you are ill, you've got a splendid +stewardess,--Mrs. O'Connor. She happens to be an old acquaintance of +mine; she used to be on a Cunarder, and she's very much interested in +my niece, and will look out for you very well." He looked down upon the +crowded piers. "Wonderful sight, isn't it?" he asked. Susan leaned +beside him at the rail, her color was coming back, but she saw nothing +and heard nothing of what went on about her. + +"What's he doing that for?" she asked suddenly. For a blue-clad coolie +was working his way through the crowded docks, banging violently on a +gong. The sound disturbed Susan's overstrained nerves. + +"I don't know," said Stephen. "Lunch perhaps. Would you like to have a +look downstairs before we go to lunch?" + +"That's a warning for visitors to go ashore," volunteered a +bright-faced girl near them, who was leaning on the rail, staring down +at the pier. "But they'll give a second warning," she added, "for we're +going to be a few minutes late getting away. Aren't you glad you don't +have to go?" she asked Susan gaily. + +"Rather!" said Susan huskily. + +Visitors were beginning now to go reluctantly down the gang-plank, and +mass themselves on the deck, staring up at the big liner, their faces +showing the strained bright smile that becomes so fixed during the long +slow process of casting off. Handkerchiefs began to wave, and to wipe +wet eyes; empty last promises were exchanged between decks and pier. A +woman near Susan began to cry,--a homely little woman, but the big +handsome man who kissed her was crying, too. + +Suddenly the city whistles, that blow even on Sunday in San Francisco, +shrilled twelve. Susan thought of the old lunch-room at Hunter, Baxter +& Hunter's, of Thorny and the stewed tomatoes, and felt the bitter +tears rise in her throat. + +Various passengers now began to turn their interest to the life of the +ship. There was talk of luncheon, of steamer chairs, of asking the +stewardess for jars to hold flowers. Susan had drawn back from the +rail, no one on the ship knew her, but somebody on the pier might. + +"Now let us go find Mrs. O'Connor," Stephen said, in a matter-of-fact +tone. "Then you can take off your hat and freshen up a bit, and we can +look over the ship." He led her cleverly through the now wildly +churning crowds, into the comparative quiet of the saloon. + +Here they found Mrs. O'Connor, surrounded by an anxious group of +travelers. Stephen put Susan into her charge, and the two women studied +each other with interest. + +Susan saw a big-boned, gray-haired, capable-looking Irishwoman, in a +dress of dark-blue duck, with a white collar and white cuffs, heard a +warming, big voice, and caught a ready and infectious smile. In all the +surrounding confusion Mrs. O'Connor was calm and alert; so normal in +manner and speech indeed that merely watching her had the effect of +suddenly cooling Susan's blood, of reducing her whirling thoughts to +something like their old, sane basis. Travel was nothing to Mrs. +O'Connor; farewells were the chief of her diet; and her manner with +Stephen Bocqueraz was crisp and quiet. She fixed upon him shrewd, wise +eyes that had seen some curious things in their day, but she gave Susan +a motherly smile. + +"This is my niece, Mrs. O'Connor," said Stephen, introducing Susan. +"She's never made the trip before, and I want you to help me turn her +over to her Daddy in Manila, in first-class shape." + +"I will that," agreed the stewardess, heartily. + +"Well, then I'll have a look at my own diggings, and Mrs. O'Connor will +take you off to yours. I'll be waiting for you in the library, Sue," +Stephen said, walking off, and Susan followed Mrs. O'Connor to her own +cabin. + +"The very best on the ship, as you might know Mr. Bocqueraz would get +for anyone belonging to him," said the stewardess, shaking pillows and +straightening curtains with great satisfaction, when they reached the +luxurious little suite. "He's your father's brother, he tells me. Was +that it?" + +She was only making talk, with the kindliest motives, for a nervous +passenger, but the blood rushed into Susan's face. Somehow it cut her +to the heart to have to remember her father just at this instant; to +make him, however distantly, a party to this troubled affair. + +"And you've lost your dear mother," Mrs. O'Connor said, +misunderstanding the girl's evident distress. "Well, my dear, the trip +will do you a world of good, and you're blessed in this--you've a good +father left, and an uncle that would lay down and die for you. I leave +my own two girls, every time I go," she pursued, comfortably. "Angela's +married,--she has a baby, poor child, and she's not very strong,--and +Regina is still in boarding-school, in San Rafael. It's hard to leave +them---" + +Simple, kindly talk, such as Susan had heard from her babyhood. And the +homely honest face was not strange, nor the blue, faded eyes, with +their heartening assurance of good-fellowship. + +But suddenly it seemed to Susan that, with a hideous roaring and +rocking, the world was crashing to pieces about her. Her soul sickened +and shrank within her. She knew nothing of this good woman, who was +straightening blankets and talking--talking--talking, three feet from +her, but she felt she could not bear--she could not BEAR this kindly +trust and sympathy--she could not bear the fear that some day she would +be known to this woman for what she was! + +A gulf yawned before her. She had not foreseen this. She had known that +there were women in the world, plenty of them, Stephen said, who would +understand what she was doing and like her in spite of it, even admire +her. + +But what these blue eyes would look when they knew it, she very well +knew. Whatever glories and heights awaited Susan Brown in the days to +come, she could never talk as an equal with Ann O'Connor or her like +again, never exchange homely, happy details of babies and +boarding-school and mothers and fathers again! + +Plenty of women in the world who would understand and excuse her,--but +Susan had a mad desire to get among these sheltering women somehow, +never to come in contact with these stupid, narrow-visioned others---! + +"Leo--that's my son-in-law, is an angel to her," Mrs. O'Connor was +saying, "and it's not everyone would be, as you know, for poor Angela +was sick all the time before Raymond came, and she's hardly able to +stir, even yet. But Leo gets his own breakfasts----" + +Susan was at the washstand busy with brush and comb. She paused. + +Life stretched before her vision a darkened and wearisome place. She +had a sudden picture of Mrs. O'Connor's daughter,--of Georgie--of all +helpless women upon whom physical weakness lays its heavy load. Pale, +dispirited women, hanging over the little cradles, starting up at +little cries in the night, comforted by the boyish, sympathetic +husbands, and murmuring tired thanks and appreciations---- + +She, Susan, would be old some day, might be sick and weak any day; +there might be a suffering child. What then? What consolation for a +woman who set her feet deliberately in the path of wrong? Not even a +right to the consolation these others had, to the strong arm and the +heartening voice at the day's end. And the child--what could she teach +a child of its mother? + +"But I might not have one," said Susan to herself. And instantly tears +of self-pity bowed her head over the little towel-rack, and turned her +heart to water. "I love children so--and I couldn't have children!" +came the agonized thought, and she wept bitterly, pressing her eyes +against the smooth folds of the towel. + +"Come now, come now," said Ann O'Connor, sympathetic but not surprised. +"You mustn't feel that way. Dry your eyes, dear, and come up on deck. +We'll be casting off any moment now. Think of meeting your good +father---" + +"Oh, Daddy!---" The words were a long wail. Then Susan straightened up +resolutely. + +"I mustn't do this," she said sensibly. "I must find Mr. Bocqueraz." + +Suddenly it seemed to her that she must have just the sight and touch +of Stephen or she would lose all self-control. "How do I get to the +library?" she asked, white lipped and breathing hard. + +Sympathetic Mrs. O'Connor willingly directed her, and Susan went +quickly and unseeingly through the unfamiliar passageway and up the +curving staircase. Stephen--said her thoughts over and over again--just +to get to him,--to put herself in his charge, to awaken from the +nightmare of her own fears. Stephen would understand--would make +everything right. People noticed her, for even in that self-absorbed +crowd, she was a curious figure,--a tall, breathless girl, whose eyes +burned feverishly blue in her white face. But Susan saw nobody, noticed +nothing. Obstructions she put gently aside; voices and laughter she did +not hear; and when suddenly a hand was laid upon her arm, she jumped in +nervous fright. + +It was Lydia Lord who clutched her eagerly by the wrist, homely, +excited, shabbily dressed Lydia who clung to her, beaming with relief +and satisfaction. + +"Oh, Sue,--what a piece of good fortune to find you!" gasped the little +governess. "Oh, my dear, I've twisted my ankle on one of those awful +deck stairways!" she panted. "I wonder a dozen people a day don't get +killed on them! And, Sue, did you know, the second gong has been rung? +I didn't hear it, but they say it has! We haven't a second to +lose--seems so dreadful--and everyone so polite and yet in such a +hurry--this way, dear, he says this way--My! but that is painful!" + +Dashed in an instant from absolute security to this terrible danger of +discovery, Susan experienced something like vertigo. Her senses seemed +actually to fail her. She could do only the obvious thing. Dazed, she +gave Lydia her arm, and automatically guided the older woman toward the +upper deck. But that this astounding enterprise of hers should be +thwarted by Lydia Lord! Not an earthquake, not a convulsed conspiracy +of earth and sea, but this little teacher, in her faded little best, +with her sprained ankle! + +That Lydia Lord, smiling in awkward deprecation, and giving apologetic +glances to interested bystanders who watched their limping progress, +should consider herself the central interest of this terrible +hour!---It was one more utterly irreconcilable note in this time of +utter confusion and bewilderment. Terror of discovery, mingled in the +mad whirl of Susan's thoughts with schemes of escape; and under all ran +the agonizing pressure for time--minutes were precious now--every +second was priceless! + +Lydia Lord was the least manageable woman in the world. Susan had +chafed often enough at her blunt, stupid obstinacy to be sure of that! +If she once suspected what was Susan's business on the Nippon +Maru--less, if she so much as suspected that Susan was keeping +something, anything, from her, she would not be daunted by a hundred +captains, by a thousand onlookers. She would have the truth, and until +she got it, Susan would not be allowed out of her arm's reach. Lydia +would cheerfully be bullied by the ship's authorities, laughed at, +insulted, even arrested in happy martyrdom, if it once entered into her +head that Mrs. Lancaster's niece, the bright-headed little charge of +the whole boarding-house, was facing what Miss Lord, in virtuous +ignorance, was satisfied to term "worse than death." Lydia would be +loyal to Mrs. Lancaster, and true to the simple rules of morality by +which she had been guided every moment of her life. She had sometimes +had occasion to discipline Susan in Susan's naughty and fascinating +childhood; she would unsparingly discipline Susan now. + +Mary Lou might have been evaded; the Saunders could easily have been +silenced, as ladies are easily silenced; but Lydia was neither as +unsuspecting as Mary Lou, nor was she a lady. Had Susan been rude and +cold to this humble friend throughout her childhood, she might have +successfully defied and escaped Lydia now. But Susan had always been +gracious and sympathetic with Lydia, interested in her problems, polite +and sweet and kind. She could not change her manner now; as easily +change her eyes or hair as to say, "I'm sorry you've hurt your foot, +you'll have to excuse me,--I'm busy!" Lydia would have stopped short in +horrified amazement, and, when Susan sailed on the Nippon Maru, Lydia +would have sailed, too. + +Guided by various voices, breathless and unseeing, they limped on. Past +staring men and women, through white-painted narrow doorways, in a +general hush of shocked doubt, they made their way. + +"We aren't going to make it!" gasped Lydia. Susan felt a sick throb at +her heart. What then? + +"Oh, yes we are!" she murmured as they came out on the deck near the +gang-plank. Embarrassment overwhelmed her; everyone was watching +them--suppose Stephen was watching--suppose he called her---- + +Susan's one prayer now was that she and Lydia might reach the +gang-plank, and cross it, and be lost from sight among the crowd on the +dock. If there was a hitch now!---- + +"The shore gong rang ten minutes ago, ladies!" said a petty officer at +the gang-plank severely. + +"Thank God we're in time!" Lydia answered amiably, with her honest, +homely smile. + +"You've got to hurry; we're waiting!" added the man less disapprovingly. + +Susan, desperate now, was only praying for oblivion. That Lydia and +Stephen might not meet--that she might be spared only that--that +somehow they might escape this hideous publicity--this noise and blare, +was all she asked. She did not dare raise her eyes; her face burned. + +"She's hurt her foot!" said pitying voices, as the two women went +slowly down the slanting bridge to the dock. + +Down, down, down they went! And every step carried Susan nearer to the +world of her childhood, with its rigid conventions, its distrust of +herself, its timidity of officials, and in crowded places! The +influence of the Saunders' arrogance and pride failed her suddenly; the +memory of Stephen's bracing belief in the power to make anything +possible forsook her. She was only little Susan Brown, not rich and not +bold and not independent, unequal to the pressure of circumstances. + +She tried, with desperate effort, to rally her courage. Men were +waiting even now to take up the gang-plank when she and Lydia left it; +in another second it would be too late. + +"Is either of you ladies sailing?" asked the guard at its foot. + +"No, indeed!" said Lydia, cheerfully. Susan's eye met his +miserably--but she could not speak. + +They went slowly along the pier, Susan watching Lydia's steps, and +watching nothing else. Her face burned, her heart pounded, her hands +and feet were icy cold. She merely wished to get away from this scene +without a disgraceful exposition of some sort, to creep somewhere into +darkness, and to die. She answered Lydia's cheerful comments briefly; +with a dry throat. + +Suddenly beside one of the steamer's great red stacks there leaped a +plume of white steam, and the prolonged deep blast of her whistle +drowned all other sounds. + +"There she goes!" said Lydia pausing. + +She turned to watch the Nippon Maru move against the pier like a moving +wall, swing free, push slowly out into the bay. Susan did not look. + +"It makes me sick," she said, when Lydia, astonished, noticed she was +not watching. + +"Why, I should think it did!" Lydia exclaimed, for Susan's face was +ashen, and she was biting her lips hard to keep back the deadly rush of +faintness that threatened to engulf her. + +"I'm afraid--air--Lyd---" whispered Susan. Lydia forgot her own injured +ankle. + +"Here, sit on these boxes, darling," she said. "Well, you poor little +girl you! There, that's better. Don't worry about anyone watching you, +just sit there and rest as long as you feel like it! I guess you need +your lunch!" + + + + +PART THREE + +Service + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +December was unusually cold and bleak, that year, and after the +holidays came six long weeks during which there were but a few glimpses +of watery sunlight, between long intervals of fogs and rains. Day after +day broke dark and stormy, day after day the office-going crowds +jostled each other under wet umbrellas, or, shivering in wet shoes and +damp outer garments, packed the street-cars. + +Mrs. Lancaster's home, like all its type, had no furnace, and moisture +and cold seemed to penetrate it, and linger therein. Wind howled past +the dark windows, rain dripped from the cornice above the front door, +the acrid odor of drying woolens and wet rubber coats permeated the +halls. Mrs. Lancaster said she never had known of so much sickness +everywhere, and sighed over the long list of unknown dead in the +newspaper every morning. + +"And I shouldn't be one bit surprised if you were sickening for +something, Susan," her aunt said, in a worried way, now and then. But +Susan, stubbornly shaking her head, fighting against tears, always +answered with ill-concealed impatience: + +"Oh, PLEASE don't, auntie! I'M all right!" + +No such welcome event as a sudden and violent and fatal illness was +likely to come her way, she used bitterly to reflect. She was here, at +home again, in the old atmosphere of shabbiness and poverty; nothing +was changed, except that now her youth was gone, and her heart broken, +and her life wrecked beyond all repairing. Of the great world toward +which she had sent so many hopeful and wistful and fascinated glances, +a few years ago, she now stood in fear. It was a cruel world, cold and +big and selfish; it had torn her heart out of her, and cast her aside +like a dry husk. She could not keep too far enough away from it to +satisfy herself in future, she only prayed for obscurity and solitude +for the rest of her difficult life. + +She had been helped through the first dreadful days that had followed +the sailing of the Nippon Maru, by a terrified instinct of +self-protection. Having failed so signally in this venture, her only +possible course was concealment. Mary Lord did not guess--Mrs. Saunders +did not guess--Auntie did not guess! Susan spent every waking hour, and +many of the hours when she was supposedly asleep, in agonized search +for some unguarded move by which she might be betrayed. + +A week went by, two weeks--life resumed its old aspect outwardly. No +newspaper had any sensational revelation to make in connection with the +news of the Nippon Maru's peaceful arrival in Honolulu harbor, and the +reception given there for the eminent New York novelist. Nobody spoke +to Susan of Bocqueraz; her heart began to resume its natural beat. And +with ebbing terror it was as if the full misery of her heart was +revealed. + +She had severed her connections with the Saunders family; she told her +aunt quietly, and steeled herself for the scene that followed, which +was more painful even than she had feared. Mrs. Lancaster felt +indignantly that an injustice had been done Susan, was not at all sure +that she herself would not call upon Miss Saunders and demand a full +explanation. Susan combated this idea with surprising energy; she was +very silent and unresponsive in these days, but at this suggestion she +became suddenly her old vigorous self. + +"I don't understand you lately, Sue," her aunt said disapprovingly, +after this outburst. "You don't act like yourself at all! Sometimes you +almost make auntie think that you've got something on your mind." + +Something on her mind! Susan could have given a mad laugh at the +suggestion. Madness seemed very near sometimes, between the anguished +aching of her heart, and the chaos of shame and grief and impotent +rebellion that possessed her soul. She was sickened with the constant +violence of her emotions, whether anger or shame shook her, or whether +she gave way to desperate longings for the sound of Stephen Bocqueraz's +voice, and the touch of his hand again, she was equally miserable. +Perhaps the need of him brought the keenest pang, but, after all, love +with Susan was still the unknown quantity, she was too closely +concerned with actual discomforts to be able to afford the necessary +hours and leisure for brooding over a disappointment in love. That pain +came only at intervals,--a voice, overheard in the street, would make +her feel cold and weak with sudden memory, a poem or a bit of music +that recalled Stephen Bocqueraz would ring her heart with sorrow, or, +worst of all, some reminder of the great city where he made his home, +and the lives that gifted and successful and charming men and women +lived there, would scar across the dull wretchedness of Susan's +thoughts with a touch of flame. But the steady misery of everyday had +nothing to do with these, and, if less sharp, was still terrible to +bear. + +Desperately, with deadly determination, she began to plan an escape. +She told herself that she would not go away until she was sure that +Stephen was not coming back for her, sure that he was not willing to +accept the situation as she had arranged it. If he rebelled,--if he +came back for her,--if his devotion were unaffected by what had passed, +then she must meet that situation as it presented itself. + +But almost from the very first she knew that he would not come back +and, as the days went by, and not even a letter came, however much her +pride suffered, she could not tell herself that she was very much +surprised. In her most sanguine moments she could dream that he had had +news in Honolulu,--his wife was dead, he had hurried home, he would +presently come back to San Francisco, and claim Susan's promise. But +for the most part she did not deceive herself; her friendship with +Stephen Bocqueraz was over. It had gone out of her life as suddenly as +it had come, and with it, Susan told herself, had gone so much more! +Her hope of winning a place for herself, her claim on the life she +loved, her confidence that, as she was different, so would her life be +different from the other lives she knew. All, all was gone. She was as +helpless and as impotent as Mary Lou! + +She had her moods when planning vague enterprises in New York or Boston +satisfied her, and other moods when she determined to change her name, +and join a theatrical troupe. From these some slight accident might +dash her to the bitterest depths of despondency. She would have a +sudden, sick memory of Stephen's clear voice, of the touch of his hand, +she would be back at the Browning dance again, or sitting between him +and Billy at that memorable first supper---- + +"Oh, my God, what shall I do?" she would whisper, dizzy with pain, +stopping short over her sewing, or standing still in the street, when +the blinding rush of recollection came. And many a night she lay +wakeful beside Mary Lou, her hands locked tight over her fast-beating +heart, her lips framing again the hopeless, desperate little prayer: +"Oh, God, what shall I do!" + +No avenue of thought led to comfort, there was no comfort anywhere. +Susan grew sick of her own thoughts. Chief among them was the +conviction of failure, she had tried to be good and failed. She had +consented to be what was not good, and failed there, too. + +Shame rose like a rising tide. She could not stem it; she could not +even recall the arguments that had influenced her so readily a few +months ago, much less be consoled by them. Over and over again the +horrifying fact sprang from her lulled reveries: she was bad--she was, +at heart at least, a bad woman--she was that terrible, half-understood +thing of which all good women stood in virtuous fear. + +Susan rallied to the charge as well as she could. She had not really +sinned in actual fact, after all, and one person only knew that she had +meant to do so. She had been blinded and confused by her experience in +a world where every commandment was lightly broken, where all sacred +matters were regarded as jokes. + +But the stain remained, rose fresh and dreadful through her covering +excuses. Consciousness of it influenced every moment of her day and +kept her wakeful far into the night. Susan's rare laughter was cut +short by it, her brave resolves were felled by it, her ambition sank +defeated before the memory of her utter, pitiable weakness. A hundred +times a day she writhed with the same repulsion and shock that she +might have felt had her offense been a well-concealed murder. + +She had immediately written Stephen Bocqueraz a shy, reserved little +letter, in the steamship company's care at Yokohama. But it would be +two months before an answer to that might be expected, and meanwhile +there was great financial distress at the boarding-house. Susan could +not witness it without at least an effort to help. + +Finally she wrote Ella a gay, unconcerned note, veiling with nonsense +her willingness to resume the old relationship. The answer cut her to +the quick. Ella had dashed off only a few lines of crisp news; Mary +Peacock was with them now, they were all crazy about her. If Susan +wanted a position why didn't she apply to Madame Vera? Ella had heard +her say that she needed girls. And she was sincerely Susan's, Ella +Cornwallis Saunders. + +Madame Vera was a milliner; the most popular of her day. Susan's cheeks +flamed as she read the little note. But, meditating drearily, it +occurred to her that it might be as well to go and see the woman. She, +Susan, had a knowledge of the social set that might be valuable in that +connection. While she dressed, she pleased herself with a vision of +Mademoiselle Brown, very dignified and severely beautiful, in black +silk, as Madame Vera's right-hand woman. + +The milliner was rushing about the back of her store at the moment that +Susan chanced to choose for her nervously murmured remarks, and had to +have them repeated several times. Then she laughed heartily and +merrily, and assured Susan in very imperfect and very audible English, +that forty girls were already on her list waiting for positions in her +establishment. + +"I thought perhaps--knowing all the people--" Susan stammered very low. + +"How--why should that be so good?" Madame asked, with horrible +clearness. "Do I not know them myself?" + +Susan was glad to escape without further parley. + +"See, now," said Madame Vera in a low tone, as she followed Susan to +the door, "You do not come into my workshop, eh?" + +"How much?" asked Susan, after a second's thought. + +"Seven dollars," said the other with a quick persuasive nod, "and your +dinner. That is something, eh? And more after a while." + +But Susan shook her head. And, as she went out into the steadily +falling rain again, bitter tears blinded her eyes. + +She cried a great deal in these days, became nervous and sensitive and +morbid. She moped about the house, restless and excited, unwilling to +do anything that would take her away from the house when the postman +arrived, reading the steamship news in every morning's paper. + +Yet, curiously enough, she never accepted this experience as similar to +what poor Mary Lou had undergone so many years ago,--this was not a +"disappointment in love,"--this was only a passing episode. Presently +she would get herself in hand again and astonish them with some +achievement brilliant enough to sweep these dark days from everyone's +memory. + +She awaited her hour, impatiently at first, later with a sort of +resentful calm. Susan's return home, however it affected them +financially, was a real delight to her aunt and Mary Lou. The cousins +roomed together, were together all day long. + +Susan presently flooded the house with the circulars of a New York +dramatic school, wrote mysterious letters pertaining to them. After a +while these disappeared, and she spent a satisfied evening or two in +filling blanks of application for admission into a hospital +training-school. In February she worked hard over a short story that +was to win a hundred dollar prize. Mary Lou had great confidence in it. + +The two loitered over their toast and coffee, after the boarders' +breakfast, made more toast to finish the coffee, and more coffee to +finish the toast. The short winter mornings were swiftly gone; in the +afternoon Susan and Mary Lou dressed with great care and went to +market. They would stop at the library for a book, buy a little bag of +candy to eat over their solitaire in the evening, perhaps pay a call on +some friend, whose mild history of financial difficulties and helpless +endurance matched their own. + +Now and then, on Sundays, the three women crossed the Oakland ferry and +visited Virginia, who was patiently struggling back to the light. They +would find her somewhere in the great, orderly, clean institution, with +a knot of sweet-faced, vague-eyed children clustered about her. +"Good-bye, Miss 'Ginia!" the unearthly, happy little voices would call, +as the uncertain little feet echoed away. Susan rather liked the +atmosphere of the big institution, and vaguely envied the brisk +absorbed attendants who passed them on swift errands. Stout Mrs. +Lancaster, for all her panting and running, invariably came within half +a second of missing the return train for the city; the three would +enter it laughing and gasping, and sink breathless into their seats, +unable for sheer mirth to straighten their hats, or glance at their +fellow-passengers. + +In March Georgie's second little girl, delicate and tiny, was born too +soon, and the sturdy Myra came to her maternal grandmother for an +indefinite stay. Georgie's disappointment over the baby's sex was +instantly swallowed up in anxiety over the diminutive Helen's weight +and digestion, and Susan and Mary Lou were delighted to prolong Myra's +visit from week to week. Georgie's first-born was a funny, merry little +girl, and Susan developed a real talent for amusing her and caring for +her, and grew very fond of her. The new baby was well into her second +month before they took Myra home,--a dark, crumpled little thing Susan +thought the newcomer, and she thought that she had never seen Georgie +looking so pale and thin. Georgie had always been freckled, but now the +freckles seemed fairly to stand out on her face. But in spite of the +children's exactions, and the presence of grim old Mrs. O'Connor, Susan +saw a certain strange content in the looks that went between husband +and wife. + +"Look here, I thought you were going to be George Lancaster O'Connor!" +said Susan, threateningly, to the new baby. + +"I don't know why a boy wouldn't have been named Joseph Aloysius, like +his father and grandfather," said the old lady disapprovingly. + +But Georgie paid no heed. The baby's mother was kneeling beside the bed +where little Helen lay, her eyes fairly devouring the tiny face. + +"You don't suppose God would take her away from me, Sue, because of +that nonsense about wanting a boy?" Georgie whispered. + +Susan's story did not win the hundred dollar prize, but it won a fifth +prize of ten dollars, and kept her in pocket money for some weeks. +After that Mary Lord brought home an order for twenty place-cards for a +child's Easter Party, and Susan spent several days happily fussing with +water colors and so earned five dollars more. + +Time did not hang at all heavily on her hands; there was always an +errand or two to be done for auntie, and always a pack of cards and a +library book with which to fill the evening. Susan really enjoyed the +lazy evenings, after the lazy days. She and Mary Lou spent the first +week in April in a flurry of linens and ginghams, making shirtwaists +for the season; for three days they did not leave the house, nor dress +fully, and they ate their luncheons from the wing of the sewing-machine. + +Spring came and poured over the whole city a bath of warmth and +perfume. The days lengthened, the air was soft and languid. Susan loved +to walk to market now, loved to loiter over calls in the late +after-noon, and walk home in the lingering sunset light. If a poignant +regret smote her now and then, its effect was not lasting, she +dismissed it with a bitter sigh. + +But constant humiliation was good for neither mind nor body; Susan felt +as pinched in soul as she felt actually pinched by the old cheerless, +penniless condition, hard and bitter elements began to show themselves +in her nature. She told herself that one great consolation in her +memories of Stephen Bocqueraz was that she was too entirely obscure a +woman to be brought to the consideration of the public, whatever her +offense might or might not be. Cold and sullen, Susan saw herself as +ill-used, she could not even achieve human contempt--she was not worthy +of consideration. Just one of the many women who were weak---- + +And sometimes, to escape the desperate circling of her thoughts, she +would jump up and rush out for a lonely walk, through the wind-blown, +warm disorder of the summer streets, or sometimes, dropping her face +suddenly upon a crooked arm, she would burst into bitter weeping. + +Books and pictures, random conversations overheard, or contact with +human beings all served, in these days, to remind her of herself. +Susan's pride and self-confidence and her gay ambition had sustained +her through all the self-denial of her childhood. Now, failing these, +she became but an irritable, depressed and discouraged caricature of +her old self. Her mind was a distressed tribunal where she defended +herself day and night; convincing this accuser--convincing that +one--pleading her case to the world at large. Her aunt and cousin, +entirely ignorant of its cause, still were aware that there was a great +change in her, and watched her with silent and puzzled sympathy. + +But they gave her no cause to feel herself a failure. They thought +Susan unusually clever and gifted, and, if her list of actual +achievements were small, there seemed to be no limit to the things that +she COULD do. Mary Lou loved to read the witty little notes she could +dash off at a moment's notice, Lydia Lord wiped her eyes with emotion +that Susan's sweet, untrained voice aroused when she sang "Once in a +Purple Twilight," or "Absent." Susan's famous eggless ginger-bread was +one of the treats of Mrs. Lancaster's table. + +"How do you do it, you clever monkey!" said Auntie, watching over +Susan's shoulder the girl's quick fingers, as Susan colored Easter +cards or drew clever sketches of Georgie's babies, or scribbled a +jingle for a letter to amuse Virginia. And when Susan imitated Mrs. +Patrick Campbell as Paula, or Mrs. Fiske as Becky Sharp, even William +had to admit that she was quite clever enough to be a professional +entertainer. + +"But I wish I had one definite big gift, Billy," said Susan, on a July +afternoon, when she and Mr. Oliver were on the ferry boat, going to +Sausalito. It was a Sunday, and Susan thought that Billy looked +particularly well to-day, felt indeed, with some discomfort, that he +was better groomed and better dressed than she was, and that there was +in him some new and baffling quality, some reserve that she could not +command. His quick friendly smile did not hide the fact that his +attention was not all hers; he seemed pleasantly absorbed in his own +thoughts. Susan gave his clean-shaven, clear-skinned face many a +half-questioning look as she sat beside him on the boat. He was more +polite, more gentle, more kind that she remembered him--what was +missing, what was wrong to-day? + +It came to her suddenly, half-astonished and half-angry, that he was no +longer interested in her. Billy had outgrown her, he had left her +behind. He did not give her his confidence to-day, nor ask her advice. +He scowled now and then, as if some under-current of her chatter +vaguely disturbed him, but offered no comment. Susan felt, with a +little, sick pressure at her heart, that somehow she had lost an old +friend! + +He was stretched out comfortably, his long legs crossed before him, his +hands thrust deep in his trousers pockets, and his half-shut, handsome +eyes fixed on the rushing strip of green water that was visible between +the painted ropes of the deck-rail. + +"And what are your own plans, Sue?" he presently asked, unsmilingly. + +Susan was chilled by the half-weary tone. + +"Well, I'm really just resting and helping Auntie, now," Susan said +cheerfully. "But in the fall---" she made a bold appeal to his +interest, "--in the fall I think I shall go to New York?" + +"New York?" he echoed, aroused. "What for?" + +"Oh, anything!" Susan answered confidently. "There are a hundred +chances there to every one here," she went on, readily, "institutions +and magazines and newspapers and theatrical agencies--Californians +always do well in New York!" + +"That sounds like Mary Lou," said Billy, drily. "What does she know +about it?" + +Susan flushed resentfully. + +"Well, what do you!" she retorted with heat. + +"No, I've never been there," admitted Billy, with self-possession. "But +I know more about it than Mary Lou! She's a wonder at pipe-dreams,--my +Lord, I'd rather have a child of mine turned loose in the street than +be raised according to Mary Lou's ideas! I don't mean," Billy +interrupted himself to say seriously, "that they weren't all perfectly +dandy to me when I was a kid--you know how I love the whole bunch! But +all that dope about not having a chance here, and being 'unlucky' makes +me weary! If Mary Lou would get up in the morning, and put on a clean +dress, and see how things were going in the kitchen, perhaps she'd know +more about the boarding-house, and less about New York!" + +"It may never have occurred to you, Billy, that keeping a +boarding-house isn't quite the ideal occupation for a young +gentlewoman!" Susan said coldly. + +"Oh, darn everything!" Billy said, under his breath. Susan eyed him +questioningly, but he did not look at her again, or explain the +exclamation. + +The always warm and welcoming Carrolls surrounded them joyfully, Susan +was kissed by everybody, and Billy had a motherly kiss from Mrs. +Carroll in the unusual excitement of the occasion. + +For there was great news. Susan had it from all of them at once; found +herself with her arms linked about the radiant Josephine while she said +incredulously: + +"Oh, you're NOT! Oh, Jo, I'm so glad! Who is it--and tell me all about +it--and where's his picture---" + +In wild confusion they all straggled out to the lawn, and Susan sat +down with Betsey at her feet, Anna sitting on one arm of her low chair, +and Josephine kneeling, with her hands still in Susan's. + +He was Mr. Stewart Frothingham, and Josephine and his mother and sister +had gone up to Yale for his graduation, and "it" had been +instantaneous, "we knew that very day," said Josephine, with a lovely +awe in her eyes, "but we didn't say anything to Mrs. Frothingham or +Ethel until later." They had all gone yachting together, and to Bar +Harbor, and then Stewart had gone into his uncle's New York office, "we +shall have to live in New York," Josephine said, radiantly, "but one of +the girls or Mother will ALWAYS be there!" + +"Jo says it's the peachiest house you ever saw!" Betsey contributed. + +"Oh, Sue--right down at the end of Fifth Avenue--but you don't know +where that is, do you? Anyway, it's wonderful---" + +It was all wonderful, everybody beamed over it. Josephine already wore +her ring, but no announcement was to be made until after a trip she +would make with the Frothinghams to Yellowstone Park in September. Then +the gallant and fortunate and handsome Stewart would come to +California, and the wedding would be in October. + +"And you girls will all fall in love with him!" prophesied Josephine. + +"Fall?" echoed Susan studying photographs. "I head the waiting list! +You grab-all! He's simply perfection--rich and stunning, and an old +friend--and a yacht and a motor---" + +"And a fine, hard-working fellow, Sue," added Josephine's mother. + +"I begin to feel old and unmarried," mourned Susan. "What did you say, +William dear?" she added, suddenly turning to Billy, with a honeyed +smile. + +They all shouted. But an hour or two later, in the kitchen, Mrs. +Carroll suddenly asked her of her friendship with Peter Coleman. + +"Oh, we've not seen each other for months, Aunt Jo!" Susan said +cheerfully. "I don't even know where he is! I think he lives at the +club since the crash." + +"There was a crash?" + +"A terrible crash. And now the firm's reorganized; it's Hunter, Hunter +& Brauer. Thorny told me about it. And Miss Sherman's married, and Miss +Cottle's got consumption and has to live in Arizona, or somewhere. +However,---" she returned to the original theme, "Peter seems to be +still enjoying life! Did you see the account of his hiring an electric +delivery truck, and driving it about the city on Christmas Eve, to +deliver his own Christmas presents, dressed up himself as an +expressman? And at the Bachelor's dance, they said it was his idea to +freeze the floor in the Mapleroom, and skate the cotillion!" + +"Goose that he is!" Mrs. Carroll smiled. "How hard he works for his +fun! Well, after all that's Peter--one couldn't expect him to change!" + +"Does anybody change?" Susan asked, a little sadly. "Aren't we all born +pretty much as we're going to be? There are so many lives---" She had +tried to keep out the personal note, but suddenly it crept in, and she +saw the kitchen through a blur of tears. "There are so many lives," she +pursued, unsteadily, "that seem to miss their mark. I don't mean poor +people. I mean strong, clever young women, who could do things, and who +would love to do certain work,--yet who can't get hold of them! Some +people are born to be busy and happy and prosperous, and others, like +myself," said Susan bitterly, "drift about, and fail at one thing after +another, and never get anywhere!" + +Suddenly she put her head down on the table and burst into tears. + +"Why Sue--why Sue!" The motherly arm was about her, she felt Mrs. +Carroll's cheek against her hair. "Why, little girl, you musn't talk of +failure at your age!" said Mrs. Carroll, tenderly. + +"I'll be twenty-six this fall," Susan said, wiping her eyes, "and I'm +not started yet! I don't know how to begin. Sometimes I think," said +Susan, with angry vigor, "that if I was picked right out of this city +and put down anywhere else on the globe, I could be useful and happy! +But here I can't! How---" she appealed to the older woman passionately, +"How can I take an interest in Auntie's boarding-house when she herself +never keeps a bill, doesn't believe in system, and likes to do things +her own way?" + +"Sue, I do think that things at home are very hard for you," Mrs. +Carroll said with quick sympathy. "It's too bad, dear, it's just the +sort of thing that I think you fine, energetic, capable young creatures +ought to be saved! I wish we could think of just the work that would +interest you." + +"But that's it--I have no gift!" Susan said, despondingly. + +"But you don't need a gift, Sue. The work of the world isn't all for +girls with gifts! No, my dear, you want to use your energies--you won't +be happy until you do. You want happiness, we all do. And there's only +one rule for happiness in this world, Sue, and that's service. Just to +the degree that they serve people are happy, and no more. It's an +infallible test. You can try nations by it, you can try kings and +beggars. Poor people are just as unhappy as rich people, when they're +idle; and rich people are really happy only when they're serving +somebody or something. A millionaire--a multimillionaire--may be +utterly wretched, and some poor little clerk who goes home to a sick +wife, and to a couple of little babies, may be absolutely +content--probably is." + +"But you don't think that the poor, as a class, are happier than the +rich?" + +"Why, of course they are!" + +"Lots of workingmen's wives are unhappy," submitted Susan. + +"Because they're idle and shiftless and selfish, Sue. But there are +some among them who are so busy mixing up spice cake, and making +school-aprons, and filling lamps and watering gardens that they can't +stop to read the new magazines,--and those are the happiest people in +the world, I think. No, little girl, remember that rule. Not money, or +success, or position or travel or love makes happiness,--service is the +secret." + +Susan was watching her earnestly, wistfully. Now she asked simply: + +"Where can I serve?" + +"Where can you serve--you blessed child!" Mrs. Carroll said, ending her +little dissertation with a laugh. "Well, let me see--I've been thinking +of you lately, Sue, and wondering why you never thought of settlement +work? You'd be so splendid, with your good-nature, and your buoyancy, +and your love for children. Of course they don't pay much, but money +isn't your object, is it?" + +"No-o, I suppose it isn't," Susan said uncertainly. "I--I don't see why +it should be!" And she seemed to feel her horizon broadening as she +spoke. + +She and Billy did not leave until ten o'clock, fare-wells, as always, +were hurried, but Josephine found time to ask Susan to be her +bridesmaid, Betsey pleaded for a long visit after the wedding, "we'll +simply die without Jo!" and Anna, with her serious kiss, whispered, +"Stand by us, Sue--it's going to break Mother's heart to have her go so +far away!" + +Susan could speak of nothing but Josephine's happiness for awhile, when +she and Billy were on the boat. They had the dark upper deck almost to +themselves, lights twinkled everywhere about them, on the black waters +of the bay. There was no moon. She presently managed a delicately +tentative touch upon his own feeling in the matter. "He--he was glad, +wasn't he? He hadn't been seriously hurt?" + +Bill, catching her drift, laughed out joyously. + +"That's so--I was crazy about her once, wasn't I?" Billy asked, +smilingly reminiscent. "But I like Anna better now. Only I've sort of +thought sometimes that Anna has a crush on someone--Peter Coleman, +maybe." + +"No, not on him," Susan hesitated. "There's a doctor at the hospital, +but he's awfully rich and important---" she admitted. + +"Oh." Billy withdrew. "And you--are you still crazy about that mutt?" +he asked. + +"Peter? I've not seen him for months. But I don't see why you call him +a mutt!" + +"Say, did you ever know that he made a pretty good thing out of Mrs. +Carroll's window washer?" Billy asked confidentally, leaning toward her +in the dark. + +"He paid her five hundred dollars for it!" Susan flashed back. "Did YOU +know that?" + +"Sure I knew that," Billy said. + +"Well--well, did he make more than THAT?" Susan asked. + +"He sold it to the Wakefield Hardware people for twenty-five thousand +dollars," Billy announced. + +"For WHAT!" + +"For twenty-five thousand," he repeated. "They're going to put them +into lots of new apartments. The National Duplex, they call it. Yep, +it's a big thing, I guess." + +"Bill, you mean twenty-five hundred!" + +"Twenty-five thousand, I tell you! It was in the 'Scientific American,' +I can show it to you!" + +Susan kept a moment's shocked silence. + +"Billy, I don't believe he would do that!" she said at last. + +"Oh, shucks," Billy said good-naturedly, "it was rotten, but it wasn't +as bad as that! It was legal enough. She was pleased with her five +hundred, and I suppose he told himself that, but for him, she mightn't +have had that! Probably he meant to give her a fat check---." + +"Give her? Why, it was hers!" Susan burst out. "What did Peter Coleman +have to do with it, anyway!" + +"Well, that's the way all big fortunes are built up," Billy said. "You +happen to see this, though, and that's why it seems so rotten!" + +"I'll never speak to Peter Coleman again!" Susan declared, outraged. + +"You'll have to cut out a good many of your friends in the Saunders set +if you want to be consistent," Billy said. "This doesn't seem to me +half as bad as some others! What I think is rotten is keeping hundreds +of acres of land idle, for years and years, or shutting poor little +restless kids up in factories, or paying factory girls less than they +can live on, and drawing rent from the houses where they are ruined, +body and soul! The other day some of our men were discharged because of +bad times, and as they walked out they passed Carpenter's +eighteen-year-old daughter sitting in the motor, with a chauffeur in +livery in front, and with her six-hundred-dollar Pekingese sprawling in +her lap, in his little gold collar. Society's built right on that sort +of thing, Sue! you'd be pretty surprised if you could see a map of the +bad-house district, with the owners' names attached." + +"They can't be held responsible for the people who rent their +property!" Susan protested. + +"Bocqueraz told me that night that in New York you'll see nice-looking +maids, nice-looking chauffeurs, and magnificent cars, any afternoon, +airing the dogs in the park," said Billy. + +The name silenced Susan; she felt her breath come short. + +"He was a dandy fellow," mused Billy, not noticing. "Didn't you like +him?" + +"Like him!" burst from Susan's overcharged heart. An amazed question or +two from him brought the whole story out. The hour, the darkness, the +effect of Josephine's protected happiness, and above all, the desire to +hold him, to awaken his interest, combined to break down her guard. + +She told him everything, passionately and swiftly, dwelling only upon +the swift rush of events that had confused her sense of right and +wrong, and upon the writer's unparalleled devotion. + +Billy, genuinely shocked at her share of the affair, was not inclined +to take Bocqueraz's protestations very seriously. Susan found herself +in the odious and unforeseen position of defending Stephen Bocqueraz's +intentions. + +"What a dirty rotter he must be, when he seemed such a prince!" was +William's summary. "Pretty tough on you, Sue," he added, with fraternal +kindly contempt, "Of course you would take him seriously, and believe +every word! A man like that knows just how to go about it,--and Lord, +you came pretty near getting in deep!" + +Susan's face burned and she bit her lip in the darkness. It was +unbearable that Billy should think Bocqueraz less in earnest than she +had been, should imagine her so easily won! She wished heartily that +she had not mentioned the affair. + +"He probably does that everywhere he goes," said Billy, thoughtfully. +"You had a pretty narrow escape, Sue, and I'll bet he thought he got +out of it pretty well, too! After the thing had once started, he +probably began to realize that you are a lot more decent than most, and +you may bet he felt pretty rotten about it---" + +"Do you mean to say that he DIDN'T mean to---" began Susan hotly, stung +even beyond anger by outraged pride. But, as the enormity of her +question smote her suddenly, she stopped short, with a sensation almost +of nausea. + +"Marry you?" Billy finished it for her. "I don't know--probably he +would. Lord, Lord, what a blackguard! What a skunk!" And Billy got up +with a short breath, as if he were suffocating, walked away from her, +and began to walk up and down across the broad dark deck. + +Susan felt bitter remorse and shame sweep her like a flame as he left +her. She felt, sitting there alone in the darkness, as if she would die +of the bitterness of knowing herself at last. In beginning her +confidence, she had been warmed by the thought of the amazing and +romantic quality of her news, she had thought that Bocqueraz's +admiration would seem a great thing in Billy's eyes. Now she felt sick +and cold and ashamed, the glamour fell, once and for all, from what she +had done and, as one hideous memory after another roared in her ears, +Susan felt as if her thoughts would drive her mad. + +Billy came suddenly back to his seat beside her, and laid his hand over +hers. She knew that he was trying to comfort her. + +"Never you mind, Sue," he said, "it's not your fault that there are men +rotten enough to take advantage of a girl like you. You're easy, Susan, +you're too darned easy, you poor kid. But thank God, you got out in +time. It would have killed your aunt," said Billy, with a little +shudder, "and I would never have forgiven myself. You're like my own +sister, Sue, and I never saw it coming! I thought you were wise to dope +like that---" + +"Wise to dope like that!" Susan could have risen up and slapped him, in +the darkness. She could have burst into frantic tears; she would gladly +have felt the boat sinking--sinking to hide her shame and his contempt +for her under the friendly, quiet water. + +For long years the memory of that trip home from Sausalito, the boat, +the warm and dusty ferry-place, the jerking cable-car, the grimy, +wilted street, remained vivid and terrible in her memory. + +She found herself in her room, talking to the aroused Mary Lou. She +found herself in bed, her heart beating fast, her eyes wide and bright. +Susan meant to stop thinking of what could not be helped, and get to +sleep at once. + +The hours went by, still she lay wakeful and sick at heart. She turned +and tossed, sighed, buried her face in her pillow, turned and tossed +again. Shame shook her, worried her in dreams, agonized her when she +was awake. Susan felt as if she would lose her mind in the endless +hours of this terrible night. + +There was a little hint of dawn in the sky when she crept wearily over +Mary Lou's slumbering form. + +"Ha! What is it?" asked Mary Lou. + +"It's early--I'm going out--my head aches!" Susan said. Mary Lou sank +back gratefully, and Susan dressed in the dim light. She crept +downstairs, and went noiselessly out into the chilly street. + +Her head ached, and her skin felt dry and hot. She took an early car +for North Beach, sat mute and chilled on the dummy until she reached +the terminal, and walked blindly down to the water. Little waves +shifted wet pebbles on the shore, a cool wind sighed high above her. + +Susan found a sheltered niche among piles of lumber--and sat staring +dully ahead of her. The water was dark, but the fog was slowly lifting, +to show barges at anchor, and empty rowboats rocking by the pier. The +tide was low, piles closely covered with shining black barnacles rose +lank from the water; odorous webs of green seaweed draped the wooden +cross-bars and rusty iron cleats of the dock. + +Susan remembered the beaches she had known in her childhood, when, a +small skipping person, she had run ahead of her father and mother, wet +her shoes in the sinking watery sand, and curved away from the path of +the waves in obedience to her mother's voice. She remembered walks home +beside the roaring water, with the wind whistling in her ears, the +sunset full in her eyes, her tired little arms hooked in the arms of +the parents who shouted and laughed at each other over the noisy +elements. + +"My good, dear, hungry, little, tired Mouse!" her mother had called +her, in the blissful hour of supper and warmth and peace that followed. + +Her mother had always been good--her father good. Every one was +good,--even impractical, absurd Mary Lou, and homely Lydia Lord, and +little Miss Sherman at the office, with her cold red hands, and her +hungry eyes,--every one was good, except Susan. + +Dawn came, and sunrise. The fog lifted like a curtain, disappeared in +curling filaments against the sun. Little brown-sailed fishing-smacks +began to come dipping home, sunlight fell warm and bright on the roofs +of Alcatraz, the blue hills beyond showed soft against the bluer sky. +Ferry boats cut delicate lines of foam in the sheen of the bay, morning +whistles awakened the town. Susan felt the sun's grateful warmth on her +shoulders and, watching the daily miracle of birth, felt vaguely some +corresponding process stir her own heart. Nature cherishes no +yesterdays; the work of rebuilding and replenishing goes serenely on. +Punctual dawn never finds the world unready, April's burgeoning colors +bury away forever the memories of winter wind and deluge. + +"There is some work that I may still do, in this world, there is a +place somewhere for me," thought Susan, walking home, hungry and weary, +"Now the question is to find them!" + +Early in October came a round-robin from the Carrolls. Would Susan come +to them for Thanksgiving and stay until Josephine's wedding on December +third? "It will be our last time all together in one sense," wrote Mrs. +Carroll, "and we really need you to help us over the dreadful day after +Jo goes!" + +Susan accepted delightedly for the wedding, but left the question of +Thanksgiving open; her aunt felt the need of her for the anniversary. +Jinny would be at home from Berkeley and Alfred and his wife Freda were +expected for Thanksgiving Day. Mrs. Alfred was a noisy and assertive +little person, whose complacent bullying of her husband caused his +mother keen distress. Alfred was a bookkeeper now, in the bakery of his +father-in-law, in the Mission, and was a changed man in these days; his +attitude toward his wife was one of mingled fear and admiration. It was +a very large bakery, and the office was neatly railed off, "really like +a bank," said poor Mrs. Lancaster, but Ma had nearly fainted when first +she saw her only son in this enclosure, and never would enter the +bakery again. The Alfreds lived in a five-room flat bristling with +modern art papers and shining woodwork; the dining-room was papered in +a bold red, with black wood trimmings and plate-rail; the little +drawing-room had a gas-log surrounded with green tiles. Freda made +endless pillows for the narrow velour couch, and was very proud of her +Mission rocking-chairs and tasseled portieres. Her mother's +wedding-gift had been a piano with a mechanical player attached; the +bride was hospitable and she loved to have groups of nicely dressed +young people listening to the music, while she cooked for them in the +chafing-dish. About once a month, instead of going to "Mama's" for an +enormous Sunday dinner, she and Alfred had her fat "Mama" and her small +wiry "Poppa" and little Augusta and Lulu and Heinie come to eat a +Sunday dinner with them. And when this happened stout Mrs. Hultz always +sent her own cook over the day before with a string of sausages and a +fowl and a great mocha cake, and cheese and hot bread, so that Freda's +party should not "cost those kits so awful a lot," as she herself put +it. + +And no festivity was thought by Freda to warrant Alfred's approach to +his old habits. She never allowed him so much as a sherry sauce on his +pudding. She frankly admitted that she "yelled bloody murder" if he +suggested absenting himself from her side for so much as a single +evening. She adored him, she thought him the finest type of man she +knew, but she allowed him no liberty. + +"A doctor told Ma once that when a man drank, as Alfie did, he couldn't +stop right off short, without affecting his heart," said Mary Lou, +gently. + +"All right, let it affect his heart then!" said the twenty-year-old +Freda hardily. Ma herself thought this disgustingly cold-blooded; she +said it did not seem refined for a woman to admit that her husband had +his failings, and Mary Lou said frankly that it was easy enough to see +where THAT marriage would end, but Susan read more truly the little +bride's flashing blue eyes and the sudden scarlet in her cheeks, and +she won Freda's undying loyalty by a surreptitious pressure of her +fingers. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +One afternoon in mid-November Susan and Mary Lou chanced to be in the +dining-room, working over a puzzle-card that had been delivered as an +advertisement of some new breakfast food. They had intended to go to +market immediately after lunch, but it was now three o'clock, and still +they hung over the fascinating little combination of paper angles and +triangles, feeling that any instant might see the problem solved. + +Suddenly the telephone rang, and Susan went to answer it, while Mary +Lou, who had for some minutes been loosening her collar and belt +preparatory to changing for the street, trailed slowly upstairs, +holding her garments together. + +Outside was a bright, warm winter day, babies were being wheeled about +in the sunshine, and children, just out of school, were shouting and +running in the street. From where Susan sat at the telephone she could +see a bright angle of sunshine falling through the hall window upon the +faded carpet of the rear entry, and could hear Mrs. Cortelyou's +cherished canary, Bobby, bursting his throat in a cascade of song +upstairs. The canary was still singing when she hung up the receiver, +two minutes later,--the sound drove through her temples like a knife, +and the placid sunshine in the entry seemed suddenly brazen and harsh. + +Susan went upstairs and into Mary Lou's room. + +"Mary Lou---" she began. + +"Why, what is it?" said Mary Lou, catching her arm, for Susan was very +white, and she was staring at her cousin with wide eyes and parted lips. + +"It was Billy," Susan answered. "Josephine Carroll's dead." + +"WHAT!" Mary Lou said sharply. + +"That's what he said," Susan repeated dully. "There was an +accident,--at Yellowstone--they were going to meet poor Stewart--and +when he got in--they had to tell him--poor fellow! Ethel Frothingham's +arm was broken, and Jo never moved--Phil has taken Mrs. Carroll on +to-day--Billy just saw them off!" Susan sat down at the bureau, and +rested her head in her hands. "I can't believe it!" she said, under her +breath. "I simply CANNOT believe it!" + +"Josephine Carroll killed! Why--it's the most awful thing I ever +heard!" Mary Lou exclaimed. Her horror quieted Susan. + +"Billy didn't know anything more than that," Susan said, beginning +hastily to change her dress. "I'll go straight over there, I guess. He +said they only had a wire, but that one of the afternoon papers has a +short account. My goodness--goodness--goodness--when they were all so +happy! And Jo always the gayest of them all--it doesn't seem possible!" + +Still dazed, she crossed the bay in the pleasant afternoon sunlight, +and went up to the house. Anna was already there, and the four spent a +quiet, sad evening together. No details had reached them, the full +force of the blow was not yet felt. When Anna had to go away the next +day Susan stayed; she and Betsy got the house ready for the mother's +home-coming, put away Josephine's dresses, her tennis-racket, her +music---- + +"It's not right!" sobbed the rebellious little sister. "She was the +best of us all--and we've had so much to bear! It isn't fair!" + +"It's all wrong," Susan said, heavily. + +Mrs. Carroll, brave and steady, if very tired, came home on the third +day, and with her coming the atmosphere of the whole house changed. +Anna had come back again; the sorrowing girls drew close about their +mother, and Susan felt that she was not needed. + +"Mrs. Carroll is the most wonderful woman in the world!" she said to +Billy, going home after the funeral. "Yes," Billy answered frowningly. +"She's too darn wonderful! She can't keep this up!" + +Georgie and Joe came to Mrs. Lancaster's house for an afternoon visit +on Thanksgiving Day, arriving in mid-afternoon with the two babies, and +taking Myra and Helen home again before the day grew too cold. Virginia +arrived, using her own eyes for the first time in years, and the +sisters and their mother laughed and cried together over the miracle of +the cure. When Alfie and Freda came there was more hilarity. Freda very +prettily presented her mother-in-law, whose birthday chanced to fall on +the day, with a bureau scarf. Alfred, urged, Susan had no doubt, by his +wife, gave his mother ten dollars, and asked her with a grin to buy +herself some flowers. Virginia had a lace collar for Ma, and the +white-coated O'Connor babies, with much pushing and urging, bashfully +gave dear Grandma a tissue-wrapped bundle that proved to be a silk +gown. Mary Lou unexpectedly brought down from her room a box containing +six heavy silver tea-spoons. + +Where Mary Lou ever got the money to buy this gift was rather a mystery +to everyone except Susan, who had chanced to see the farewells that +took place between her oldest cousin and Mr. Ferd Eastman, when the +gentleman, who had been making a ten-days visit to the city, left a day +or two earlier for Virginia City. + +"Pretty soon after his wife's death!" Susan had accused Mary Lou, +vivaciously. + +"Ferd has often kissed me--like a brother---" stammered Mary Lou, +coloring painfully, and with tears in her kind eyes. And, to Susan's +amazement, her aunt, evidently informed of the event by Mary Lou, had +asked her not to tease her cousin about Ferd. Susan felt certain that +the spoons were from Ferd. + +She took great pains to make the holiday dinner unusually festive, +decorated the table, and put on her prettiest evening gown. There were +very few boarders left in the house on this day, and the group that +gathered about the big turkey was like one large family. Billy carved, +and Susan with two paper candle-shades pinned above her ears, like +enormous rosettes, was more like her old silly merry self than these +people who loved her had seen her for years. + +It was nearly eight o'clock when Mrs. Lancaster, pushing back an +untasted piece of mince pie, turned to Susan a strangely flushed and +swollen face, and said thickly: + +"Air--I think I must--air!" + +She went out of the dining-room, and they heard her open the street +door, in the hall. A moment later Virginia said "Mama!" in so sharp a +tone that the others were instantly silenced, and vaguely alarmed. + +"Hark!" said Virginia, "I thought Mama called!" Susan, after a +half-minute of nervous silence, suddenly jumped up and ran after her +aunt. + +She never forgot the dark hall, and the sensation when her foot struck +something soft and inert that lay in the doorway. Susan gave a great +cry of fright as she knelt down, and discovered it to be her aunt. + +Confusion followed. There was a great uprising of voices in the +dining-room, chairs grated on the floor. Someone lighted the hall gas, +and Susan found a dozen hands ready to help her raise Mrs. Lancaster +from the floor. + +"She's just fainted!" Susan said, but already with a premonition that +it was no mere faint. + +"We'd better have a doctor though---" she heard Billy say, as they +carried her aunt in to the dining-room couch. Mrs. Lancaster's breath +was coming short and heavy, her eyes were shut, her face dark with +blood. + +"Oh, why did we let Joe go home!" Mary Lou burst out hysterically. + +Her mother evidently caught the word, for she opened her eyes and +whispered to Susan, with an effort: + +"Georgia--good, good man--my love---" + +"You feel better, don't you, darling?" Susan asked, in a voice rich +with love and tenderness. + +"Oh, yes!" her aunt whispered, earnestly, watching her with the +unwavering gaze of a child. + +"Of course she's better--You're all right, aren't you?" said a dozen +voices. "She fainted away!--Didn't you hear her fall?--I didn't hear a +thing!--Well, you fainted, didn't you?--You felt faint, didn't you?" + +"Air---" said Mrs. Lancaster, in a thickened, deep voice. Her eyes +moved distressedly from one face to another, and as Virginia began to +unfasten the pin at her throat, she added tenderly, "Don't prick +yourself, Bootsy!" + +"Oh, she's very sick--she's very sick!" Susan whispered, with white +lips, to Billy who was at the telephone. + +"What do you think of sponging her face off with ice-water?" he asked +in a low tone. Susan fled to the kitchen. Mary Lou, seated by the table +where the great roast stood in a confusion of unwashed plates and +criss-crossed silver, was sobbing violently. + +"Oh, Sue--she's dying!" whispered Mary Lou, "I know it! Oh, my God, +what will we do!" + +Susan plunged her hand in a tall pitcher for a lump of ice and wrapped +it in a napkin. A moment later she knelt by her aunt's side. The +sufferer gave a groan at the touch of ice, but a moment later she +caught Susan's wrist feverishly and muttered "Good!" + +"Make all these fools go upstairs!" said Alfie's wife in a fierce +whisper. She was carrying out plates and clearing a space about the +couch. Virginia, kneeling by her mother, repeated over and over again, +in an even and toneless voice, "Oh God, spare her--Oh God, spare her!" + +The doctor was presently among them, dragged, Susan thought, from the +faint odor of wine about him, from his own dinner. He helped Billy +carry the now unconscious woman upstairs, and gave Susan brisk orders. + +"There has undoubtedly been a slight stroke," said he. + +"Oh, doctor!" sobbed Mary Lou, "will she get well?" + +"I don't anticipate any immediate change," said the doctor to Susan, +after a dispassionate look at Mary Lou, "and I think you had better +have a nurse." + +"Yes, doctor," said Susan, very efficient and calm. + +"Had you a nurse in mind?" asked the doctor. + +"Well, no," Susan answered, feeling as if she had failed him. + +"I can get one," said the doctor thoughtfully. + +"Oh, doctor, you don't know what she's BEEN to us!" wailed Mary Lou. + +"Don't, darling!" Susan implored her. + +And now, for the first time in her life, she found herself really busy, +and, under all sorrow and pain, there was in these sad hours for Susan +a genuine satisfaction and pleasure. Capable, tender, quiet, she went +about tirelessly, answering the telephone, seeing to the nurse's +comfort, brewing coffee for Mary Lou, carrying a cup of hot soup to +Virginia. Susan, slim, sympathetic, was always on hand,--with clean +sheets on her arm or with hot water for the nurse or with a message for +the doctor. She penciled a little list for Billy to carry to the +drugstore, she made Miss Foster's bed in the room adjoining Auntie's, +she hunted up the fresh nightgown that was slipped over her aunt's +head, put the room in order; hanging up the limp garments with a +strange sense that it would be long before Auntie's hand touched them +again. + +"And now, why don't you go to bed, Jinny darling?" she asked, coming in +at midnight to the room where her cousins were grouped in mournful +silence. But Billy's foot touched hers with a significant pressure, and +Susan sat down, rather frightened, and said no more of anyone's going +to bed. + +Two long hours followed. They were sitting in a large front bedroom +that had been made ready for boarders, but looked inexpressibly grim +and cheerless, with its empty mantel and blank, marble-topped bureau. +Georgie cried constantly and silently, Virginia's lips moved, Mary Lou +alone persisted that Ma would be herself again in three days. + +Susan, sitting and staring at the flaring gas-lights, began to feel +that in the midst of life was death, indeed, and that the term of human +existence is as brief as a dream. "We will all have to die too," she +said, awesomely to herself, her eyes traveling about the circle of +faces. + +At two o'clock Miss Foster summoned them and they went into the +invalid's room; to Susan it was all unreal and unconvincing. The figure +in the bed, the purple face, the group of sobbing watchers. No word was +said: the moments slipped by. Her eyes were wandering when Miss Foster +suddenly touched her aunt's hand. + +A heavy, grating breath--a silence--Susan's eyes met Billy's in +terror--but there was another breath--and another--and another silence. + +Silence. + +Miss Foster, who had been bending over her patient, straightened up, +lowered the gray head gently into the pillow. + +"Gone," said Dr. O'Connor, very low, and at the word a wild protest of +grief broke out. Susan neither cried nor spoke; it was all too unreal +for tears, for emotion of any kind. + +"You stay," said Miss Foster when she presently banished the others. +Susan, surprised, complied. + +"Sorry to ask you to help me," said Miss Foster then briskly, "but I +can't do this alone. They'll want to be coming back here, and we must +be ready for them. I wonder if you could fix her hair like she wore it, +and I'll have to get her teeth---" + +"Her what?" asked Susan. + +"Her teeth, dear. Do you know where she kept them?" + +Appalled, sickened, Susan watched the other woman's easy manipulation +of what had been a loving, breathing woman only a few hours before. But +she presently did her own share bravely and steadily, brushing and +coiling the gray-brown locks as she had often seen her aunt coil them. +Lying in bed, a small girl supposedly asleep, years before, she had +seen these pins placed so--and so--seen this short end tucked under, +this twist skilfully puffed. + +This was not Auntie. So wholly had the soul fled that Susan could feel +sure that Auntie--somewhere, was already too infinitely wise to resent +this fussing little stranger and her ministrations. A curious lack of +emotion in herself astonished her. She longed to grieve, as the others +did, blamed herself that she could not. But before she left the room +she put her lips to her aunt's forehead. + +"You were always good to me!" Susan whispered. + +"I guess she was always good to everyone," said the little nurse, +pinning a clever arrangement of sheets firmly, "she has a grand face!" +The room was bright and orderly now, Susan flung pillows and blankets +into the big closet, hung her aunt's white knitted shawl on a hook. + +"You're a dear good little girl, that's what YOU are!" said Miss +Foster, as they went out. Susan stepped into her new role with +characteristic vigor. She was too much absorbed in it to be very sorry +that her aunt was dead. Everybody praised her, and a hundred times a +day her cousins said truthfully that they could not see how these +dreadful days would have been endurable at all without Susan. Susan +could sit up all night, and yet be ready to brightly dispense hot +coffee at seven o'clock, could send telegrams, could talk to the men +from Simpson and Wright's, could go downtown with Billy to select plain +black hats and simple mourning, could meet callers, could answer the +telephone, could return a reassuring "That's all attended to, dear," to +Mary Lou's distracted "I haven't given one THOUGHT to dinner!" and +then, when evening came again, could quietly settle herself in a big +chair, between Billy and Dr. O'Connor, for another vigil. + +"Never a thought for her own grief!" said Georgie, to a caller. Susan +felt a little prick of guilt. She was too busy and too absorbed to feel +any grief. And presently it occurred to her that perhaps Auntie knew +it, and understood. Perhaps there was no merit in mere grieving. "But I +wish I had been better to her while she was here!" thought Susan more +than once. + +She saw her aunt in a new light through the eyes of the callers who +came, a long, silent stream, to pay their last respect to Louisianna +Ralston. All the old southern families of the city were represented +there; the Chamberlains and the Lloyds, the Duvals and Fairfaxes and +Carters. Old, old ladies came, stout matrons who spoke of the dead +woman as "Lou," rosy-faced old men. Some of them Susan had never seen +before. + +To all of them she listened with her new pretty deference and dignity. +She heard of her aunt's childhood, before the war, "Yo' dea' auntie and +my Fanny went to they' first ball togethah," said one very old lady. +"Lou was the belle of all us girls," contributed the same Fanny, now +stout and sixty, with a smile. "I was a year or two younger, and, my +laws, how I used to envy Miss Louis'anna Ralston, flirtin' and laughin' +with all her beaux!" + +Susan grew used to hearing her aunt spoken of as "your cousin," "your +mother," even "your sister,"--her own relationship puzzled some of Mrs. +Lancaster's old friends. But they never failed to say that Susan was "a +dear, sweet girl--she must have been proud of you!" + +She heard sometimes of her own mother too. Some large woman, wiping the +tears from her eyes, might suddenly seize upon Susan, with: + +"Look here, Robert, this is Sue Rose's girl--Major Calhoun was one of +your Mama's great admirers, dear!" + +Or some old lady, departing, would kiss her with a whispered "Knew your +mother like my own daughter,--come and see me!" + +They had all been young and gay and sheltered together, Susan thought, +just half a century ago. Now some came in widow's black, and some with +shabby gloves and worn shoes, and some rustled up from carriages, and +patronized Mary Lou, and told Susan that "poor Lou" never seemed to be +very successful! + +"I sometimes think that it would be worth any effort in the first forty +years of your life, to feel sure that you would at least not be an +object of pity for the last twenty!" said Susan, upon whom these +callers, with the contrasts they presented, had had a profound effect. + +It was during an all-night vigil, in the room next to the one in which +the dead woman lay. Dr. O'Connor lay asleep on a couch, Susan and Billy +were in deep chairs. The room was very cold, and the girl had a big +wrapper over her black dress. Billy had wrapped himself in an Indian +blanket, and put his feet comfortably up on a chair. + +"You bet your life it would be!" said Billy yawning. "That's what I +tell the boys, over at the works," he went on, with awakening interest, +"get INTO something, cut out booze and theaters and graphophones +now,--don't care what your neighbors think of you now, but mind your +own affairs, stick to your business, let everything else go, and then, +some day, settle down with a nice little lump of stock, or a couple of +flats, or a little plant of your own, and snap your fingers at +everything!" + +"You know I've been thinking," Susan said slowly, "For all the wise +people that have ever lived, and all the goodness everywhere, we go +through life like ships with sealed orders. Now all these friends of +Auntie's, they thought she made a brilliant match when she married +Uncle George. But she had no idea of management, and no training, and +here she is, dying at sixty-three, leaving Jinny and Mary Lou +practically helpless, and nothing but a lot of debts! For twenty years +she's just been drifting and drifting,--it's only a chance that Alfie +pulled out of it, and that Georgie really did pretty well. Now, with +Mrs. Carroll somehow it's so different. You know that, before she's +old, she's going to own her little house and garden, she knows where +she stands. She's worked her financial problem out on paper, she says +'I'm a little behind this month, because of Jim's dentist. But there +are five Saturdays in January, and I'll catch up then!'" + +"She's exceptional, though," he asserted. + +"Yes, but a training like that NEEDN'T be exceptional! It seems so +strange that the best thing that school can give us is algebra and +Caesar's Commentaries," Susan pursued thoughtfully. "When there's so +MUCH else we don't know! Just to show you one thing, Billy,--when I +first began to go to the Carrolls, I noticed that they never had to +fuss with the building of a fire in the kitchen stove. When a meal was +over, Mrs. Carroll opened the dampers, scattered a little wet coal on +the top, and forgot about it until the next meal, or even overnight. +She could start it up in two seconds, with no dirt or fuss, whenever +she wanted to. Think what that means, getting breakfast! Now, ever +since I was a little girl, we've built a separate fire for each meal, +in this house. Nobody ever knew any better. You hear chopping of +kindlings, and scratching of matches, and poor Mary Lou saying that it +isn't going to burn, and doing it all over---- + +"Gosh, yes!" he said laughing at the familiar picture. "Mary Lou always +says that she has no luck with fires!" + +"Billy," Susan stated solemnly, "sometimes I don't believe that there +is such a thing as luck!" + +"SOMETIMES you don't--why, Lord, of course there isn't!" + +"Oh, Billy," Susan's eyes widened childishly, "don't you honestly think +so?" + +"No, I don't!" He smiled, with the bashfulness that was always +noticeable when he spoke intimately of himself or his own ideas. "If +you get a big enough perspective of things, Sue," he said, "everybody +has the same chance. You to-day, and I to-morrow, and somebody else the +day after that! Now," he cautiously lowered his voice, "in this house +you've heard the Civil War spoken of as 'bad luck' and Alf's drinking +spoken of as 'bad luck'"---- + +Susan dimpled, nodded thoughtfully. + +"--And if Phil Carroll hadn't been whipped and bullied and coaxed and +amused and praised for the past six or seven years, and Anna pushed +into a job, and Jim and Betsy ruled with an iron hand, you might hear +Mrs. Carroll talking about 'bad luck,' too!" + +"Well, one thing," said Susan firmly, "we'll do very differently from +now on." + +"You girls, you mean," he said. + +"Jinny and Mary Lou and I. I think we'll keep this place going, Billy." + +Billy scowled. + +"I think you're making a big mistake, if you do. There's no money in +it. The house is heavily mortgaged, half the rooms are empty." + +"We'll fill the house, then. It's the only thing we can do, Billy. And +I've got plenty of plans," said Susan vivaciously. "I'm going to market +myself, every morning. I'm going to do at least half the cooking. I'm +going to borrow about three hundred dollars---" + +"I'll lend you all you want," he said. + +"Well, you're a darling! But I don't mean a gift, I mean at interest," +Susan assured him. "I'm going to buy china and linen, and raise our +rates. For two years I'm not going out of this house, except on +business. You'll see!" + +He stared at her for so long a time that Susan--even with +Billy!--became somewhat embarrassed. + +"But it seems a shame to tie you down to an enterprise like this, Sue," +he said finally. + +"No," she said, after a short silence, turning upon him a very bright +smile. "I've made a pretty general failure of my own happiness, Bill. +I've shown that I'm a pretty weak sort. You know what I was willing to +do---" + +"Now you're talking like a damn fool!" growled Billy. + +"No, I'm not! You may be as decent as you please about it, Billy," said +Susan with scarlet cheeks, "but--a thing like that will keep me from +ever marrying, you know! Well. So I'm really going to work, right here +and now. Mrs. Carroll says that service is the secret of happiness, I'm +going to try it. Life is pretty short, anyway,--doesn't a time like +this make it seem so!--and I don't know that it makes very much +difference whether one's happy or not!" + +"Well, go ahead and good luck to you!" said Billy, "but don't talk rot +about not marrying and not being happy!" + +Presently he dozed in his chair, and Susan sat staring wide-eyed before +her, but seeing nothing of the dimly lighted room, the old +steel-engravings on the walls, the blotched mirror above the empty +grate. Long thoughts went through her mind, a hazy drift of plans and +resolutions, a hazy wonder as to what Stephen Bocqueraz was doing +to-night--what Kenneth Saunders was doing. Perhaps they would some day +hear of her as a busy and prosperous boarding-house keeper; perhaps, +taking a hard-earned holiday in Europe, twenty years from now, Susan +would meet one of them again. + +She got up, and went noiselessly into the hall to look at the clock. +Just two. Susan went into the front room, to say her prayers in the +presence of the dead. + +The big dim room was filled with flowers, their blossoms dull blots of +light in the gloom, their fragrance, and the smell of wet leaves, heavy +on the air. One window was raised an inch or two, a little current of +air stirred the curtain. Candles burned steadily, with a little sucking +noise; a clock ticked; there was no other sound. + +Susan stood, motionless herself, looking soberly down upon the quiet +face of the dead. Some new dignity had touched the smooth forehead, and +the closed eyes, a little inscrutable smile hovered over the sweet, +firmly closed mouth. Susan's eyes moved from the face to the locked +ivory fingers, lying so lightly,--yet with how terrible a weight!--upon +spotless white satin and lace. Virginia had put the ivory-bound +prayer-book and the lilies-of-the-valley into that quiet clasp, +Georgie, holding back her tears, had laid at the coffin's foot the +violets tied with a lavender ribbon that bore the legend, "From the +Grandchildren." + +Flowers--flowers--flowers everywhere. And auntie had gone without them +for so many years! + +"What a funny world it is," thought Susan, smiling at the still, wise +face as if she and her aunt might still share in amusement. She thought +of her own pose, "never gives a thought to her own grief!" everyone +said. She thought of Virginia's passionate and dramatic protest, "Ma +carried this book when she was married, she shall have it now!" and of +Mary Lou's wail, "Oh, that I should live to see the day!" And she +remembered Georgie's care in placing the lettered ribbon where it must +be seen by everyone who came in to look for the last time at the dead. + +"Are we all actors? Isn't anything real?" she wondered. + +Yet the grief was real enough, after all. There was no sham in Mary +Lou's faint, after the funeral, and Virginia, drooping about the +desolate house, looked shockingly pinched and thin. There was a family +council in a day or two, and it was at this time that Susan meant to +suggest that the boarding-house be carried on between them all. + +Alfred and his wife, and Georgie and the doctor came to the house for +this talk; Billy had been staying there, and Mr. Ferd Eastman, in +answer to a telegram, had come down for the funeral and was still in +the city. + +They gathered, a sober, black-dressed group, in the cold and dreary +parlor, Ferd Eastman looking almost indecorously cheerful and rosy, in +his checked suit and with his big diamond ring glittering on his fat +hand. There was no will to read, but Billy had ascertained what none of +the sisters knew, the exact figures of the mortgage, the value of the +contents of Mrs. Lancaster's locked tin box, the size and number of +various outstanding bills. He spread a great number of papers out +before him on a small table; Alfred, who appeared to be sleepy, after +the strain of the past week, yawned, started up blinking, attempted to +take an intelligent interest in the conversation; Georgie, thinking of +her nursing baby, was eager to hurry everything through. + +"Now, about you girls," said Billy. "Sue feels that you might make a +good thing of it if you stayed on here. What do you think?" + +"Well, Billy--well, Ferd---" Everyone turned to look at Mary Lou, who +was stammering and blushing in a most peculiar way. Mr. Eastman put his +arm about her. Part of the truth flashed on Susan. + +"You're going to be married!" she gasped. But this was the moment for +which Ferd had been waiting. + +"We are married, good people," he said buoyantly. "This young lady and +I gave you all the slip two weeks ago!" + +Susan rushed to kiss the bride, but upon Virginia's bursting into +hysterical tears, and Georgie turning faint, Mary Lou very sensibly set +about restoring her sisters' composure, and, even on this occasion, +took a secondary part. + +"Perhaps you had some reason---" said Georgie, faintly, turning +reproachful eyes upon the newly wedded pair. + +"But, with poor Ma just gone!" Virginia burst into tears again. + +"Ma knew," sobbed Mary Lou, quite overcome. "Ferd--Ferd---" she began +with difficulty, "didn't want to wait, and I WOULDN'T,--so soon after +poor Grace!" Grace had been the first wife. "And so, just before Ma's +birthday, he took us to lunch--we went to Swains---" + +"I remember the day!" said Virginia, in solemn affirmation. + +"And we were quietly married afterward," said Ferd, himself, +soothingly, his arm about his wife, "and Mary Lou's dear mother was +very happy about it. Don't cry, dear---" + +Susan had disliked the man once, but she could find no fault with his +tender solicitude for the long-neglected Mary Lou. And when the first +crying and exclaiming were over, there was a very practical +satisfaction in the thought of Mary Lou as a prosperous man's wife, and +Virginia provided for, for a time at least. Susan seemed to feel +fetters slipping away from her at every second. + +Mr. Eastman took them all to lunch, at a modest table d'hote in the +neighborhood, tipped the waiter munificently, asked in an aside for a +special wine, which was of course not forthcoming. Susan enjoyed the +affair with a little of her old spirit, and kept them all talking and +friendly. Georgie, perhaps a little dashed by Mary Lou's recently +acquired state, told Susan in a significant aside, as a doctor's wife, +that it was very improbable that Mary Lou, at her age, would have +children; "seems such a pity!" said Georgie, shrugging. Virginia, to +her new brother-in-law's cheerful promise to find her a good husband +within the year, responded, with a little resentful dignity, "It seems +a little soon, to me, to be JOKING, Ferd!" + +But on the whole it was a very harmonious meal. The Eastmans were to +leave the next day for a belated honeymoon; to Susan and Virginia and +Billy would fall the work of closing up the Fulton Street house. + +"And what about you, Sue?" asked Billy, as they were walking home that +afternoon. + +"I'm going to New York, Bill," she answered. And, with a memory of the +times she had told him that before, she turned to him a sudden smile. +"--But I mean it this time!" said Susan cheerfully. "I went to see Miss +Toland, of the Alexander Toland Settlement House, a few weeks ago, +about working there. She told me frankly that they have all they need +of untrained help. But she said, 'Miss Brown, if you COULD take a +year's course in New York, you'd be a treasure!' And so I'm going to +borrow the money from Ferd, Bill. I hate to do it, but I'm going to. +And the first thing you know I'll be in the Potrero, right near your +beloved Iron Works, teaching the infants of that region how to make +buttonholes and cook chuck steak!" + +"How much money do you want?" he asked, after a moment's silence. + +"Three hundred." + +"Three hundred! The fare is one hundred!" + +"I know it. But I'm going to work my way through the course, Bill, even +if I have to go out as a nurse-girl, and study at night." + +Billy said nothing for awhile. But before they parted he went back to +the subject. + +"I'll let you have the three hundred, Sue, or five hundred, if you +like. Borrow it from me, you know me a good deal better than you do +Ferd Eastman!" + +The next day the work of demolishing the boarding-house began. Susan +and Virginia lived with Georgie for these days, but lunched in the +confusion of the old home. It seemed strange, and vaguely sad, to see +the long-crowded rooms empty and bare, with winter sunlight falling in +clear sharp lines across the dusty, un-carpeted floors. A hundred old +scars and stains showed on the denuded walls; there were fresher +squares on the dark, faded old papers, where the pictures had been +hung; Susan recognized the outline of Mary Lord's mirror, and Mrs. +Parker's crucifix. The kitchen was cold and desolate, a pool of water +on the cold stove, a smooth thin cake of yellow soap in a thick saucer, +on the sink, a drift of newspapers on the floor, and old brooms +assembled in a corner. + +More than the mortgage, the forced sale of the old house had brought +only a few hundreds of dollars. It was to be torn down at once, and +Susan felt a curious stirring of sadness as she went through the +strange yet familiar rooms for the last time. + +"Lord, how familiar it all is!" said Billy, "the block and the bakery! +I can remember the first time I saw it." + +The locked house was behind them, they had come down the street steps, +and turned for a last look at the blank windows. + +"I remember coming here after my father died," Susan said. "You gave me +a little cologne bottle filled with water, and one of those spools that +one braids worsted through, do you remember?" + +"Do you remember Miss Fish,--the old girl whose canary we hit with a +ball? And the second-hand type-writer we were always saving up for?" + +"And the day we marked up the steps with chalk and Auntie sent us out +with wet rags?" + +"Lord--Lord!" They were both smiling as they walked away. + +"Shall you go to Nevada City with the Eastmans, Sue?" + +"No, I don't think so. I'll stay with Georgie for a week, and get +things straightened out." + +"Well, suppose we go off and have dinner somewhere, to-morrow?" + +"Oh, I'd love it! It's terribly gloomy at Georgie's. But I'm going over +to see the Carrolls to-morrow, and they may want to keep me---" + +"They won't!" said Billy grimly. + +"WON'T?" Susan echoed, astonished. + +"No," Billy said with a sigh. "Mrs. Carroll's been awfully queer +since--since Jo, you know---" + +"Why, Bill, she was so wonderful!" + +"Just at first, yes. But she's gone into a sort of melancholia, now, +Phil was telling me about it." + +"But that doesn't sound a bit like her," Susan said, worriedly. + +"No, does it? But go over and see them anyway, it'll do them all good. +Well--look your last at the old block, Sue!" + +Susan got on the car, leaning back for a long, goodbye look at the +shabby block, duller than ever in the grimy winter light, and at the +dirt and papers and chaff drifting up against the railings, and at the +bakery window, with its pies and bread and Nottingham lace curtains. +Fulton Street was a thing of the past. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The next day, in a whirling rainstorm, well protected by a trim +raincoat, overshoes, and a close-fitting little hat about which spirals +of bright hair clung in a halo, Susan crossed the ferry and climbed up +the long stairs that rise through the very heart of Sausalito. The sky +was gray, the bay beaten level by the rain, and the wet gardens that +Susan passed were dreary and bare. Twisting oak trees gave vistas of +wind-whipped vines, and of the dark and angry water; the steps she +mounted ran a shallow stream. + +The Carrolls' garden was neglected and desolate, chrysanthemum stalks +lay across the wet flagging of the path, and wind screamed about the +house. Susan's first knock was lost in a general creaking and banging, +but a second brought Betsey, grave and tired-looking, to the door. + +"Oh, hello. Sue," said Betsey apathetically. "Don't go in there, it's +so cold," she said, leading her caller past the closed door of the +sitting-room. "This hall is so dark that we ought to keep a light +here," added Betsey fretfully, as they stumbled along. "Come out into +the dining-room, Sue, or into the kitchen. I was trying to get a fire +started. But Jim NEVER brings up enough wood! He'll talk about it, and +talk about it, but when you want it I notice it's never there!" + +Everywhere were dust and disorder and evidences of neglect. Susan +hardly recognized the dining-room; it was unaired, yet chilly; a tall, +milk-stained glass, and some crumbs on the green cloth, showed where +little Betsey had had a lonely luncheon; there were paper bags on the +sideboard and a litter of newspapers on a chair. Nothing suggested the +old, exquisite order. + +The kitchen was even more desolate, as it had been more inviting +before. There were ashes sifting out of the stove, rings of soot and +grease on the table-top, more soot, and the prints of muddy boots on +the floor. Milk had soured in the bottles, odds and ends of food were +everywhere, Betsey's book was open on the table, propped against the +streaked and stained coffee-pot. + +"Your mother's ill?" asked Susan. She could think of no other +explanation. + +"Doesn't this kitchen look awful?" said Betsey, resuming operations +with books and newspapers at the range. "No, Mother's all right. I'm +going to take her up some tea. Don't you touch those things, Sue. Don't +you bother!" + +"Has she been in bed?" demanded Susan. + +"No, she gets up every day now," Betsey said impatiently. "But she +won't come downstairs!" + +"Won't! But why not!" gasped Susan. + +"She--" Betsey glanced cautiously toward the hall door. "She hasn't +come down at all," she said, softly. "Not--since!" + +"What does Anna say?" Susan asked aghast. + +"Anna comes home every Saturday, and she and Phil talk to Mother," the +little sister said, "but so far it's not done any good! I go up two or +three times a day, but she won't talk to me.--Sue, ought this have more +paper?" + +The clumsy, roughened little hands, the sad, patient little voice and +the substitution of this weary little woman for the once-radiant and +noisy Betsey sent a pang to Susan's heart. + +"Well, you poor little old darling, you!" she burst out, pitifully. "Do +you mean that you've been facing this for a month? Betsey--it's too +dreadful--you dear little old heroic scrap!" + +"Oh, I'm all right!" said Betsey, beginning to tremble. She placed a +piece or two of kindling, fumbled for a match, and turned abruptly and +went to a window, catching her apron to her eyes. "I'm all right--don't +mind me!" sobbed Betsey. "But sometimes I think I'll go CRAZY! Mother +doesn't love me any more, and everybody cried all Thanksgiving Day, and +I loved Jo more than they think I did--they think I'm too young to +care--but I just can't BEAR it!" + +"Well, you poor little darling!" Susan was crying herself, but she put +her arms about Betsey, and felt the little thing cling to her, as they +cried together. + +"And now, let me tackle this!" said Susan, when the worst of the storm +was over a few moments later. She started the fire briskly, and tied an +apron over her gown, to attack the disorder of the table. Betsey, +breathing hard, but visibly cheered, ran to and fro on eager errands, +fell upon the sink with a vigorous mop. + +Susan presently carried a tea-tray upstairs, and knocked on Mrs. +Carroll's door. "Come in," said the rich, familiar voice, and Susan +entered the dim, chilly, orderly room, her heart beyond any words +daunted and dismayed. Mrs. Carroll, gaunt and white, wrapped in a dark +wrapper, and idly rocking in mid-afternoon, was a sight to strike +terror to a stouter heart than Susan's. + +"Oh, Susan?" said she. She said no more. Susan knew that she was +unwelcome. + +"Betsey seems to have her hands full," said Susan gallantly, "so I +brought up your tea." + +"Betts needn't have bothered herself at all," said Mrs. Carroll. Susan +felt as if she were in a bad dream, but she sat down and resolutely +plunged into the news of Georgie and Virginia and Mary Lou. Mrs. +Carroll listened attentively, and asked a few nervous questions; Susan +suspected them asked merely in a desperate effort to forestall the +pause that might mean the mention of Josephine's name. + +"And what are your own plans, Sue?" she presently asked. + +"Well, New York presently, I think," Susan said. "But I'm with Georgie +now,--unless," she added prettily, "you'll let me stay here for a day +or two?" + +Instant alarm darkened the sick eyes. + +"Oh, no, dear!" Mrs. Carroll said quickly. "You're a sweet child to +think of it, but we mustn't impose on you. No, indeed! This little +visit is all we must ask now, when you are so upset and busy--" + +"I have nothing at all to do," Susan said eagerly. But the older woman +interrupted her with all the cunning of a sick brain. + +"No, dear. Not now! Later perhaps, later we should all love it. But +we're better left to ourselves now, Sue! Anna shall write you--" + +Susan presently left the room, sorely puzzled. But, once in the hall, +she came quickly to a decision. Phil's door was open, his bed unaired, +an odor of stale cigarette smoke still in the air. In Betsey's room the +windows were wide open, the curtains streaming in wet air, everything +in disorder. Susan found a little old brown gingham dress of Anna's, +and put it on, hung up her hat, brushed back her hair. A sudden singing +seized her heart as she went downstairs. Serving these people whom she +loved filled her with joy. In the dining-room Betsey looked up from her +book. Her face brightened. + +"Oh, Sue--you're going to stay overnight!" + +"I'll stay as long as you need me," said Susan, kissing her. + +She did not need Betsey's ecstatic welcome; the road was clear and +straight before her now. Preparing the little dinner was a triumph; +reducing the kitchen to something like its old order, she found +absorbing and exhilarating. "We'll bake to-morrow--we'll clean that +thoroughly to-morrow--we'll make out a list of necessities to-morrow," +said Susan. + +She insisted upon Philip's changing his wet shoes for slippers when the +boys came home at six o'clock; she gave little Jim a sisterly kiss. + +"Gosh, this is something like!" said Jim simply, eyes upon the hot +dinner and the orderly kitchen. "This house has been about the +rottenest place ever, for I don't know how long!" + +Philip did not say anything, but Susan did not misread the look in his +tired eyes. After dinner they kept him a place by the fire while he +went up to see his mother. When he came down twenty minutes later he +seemed troubled. + +"Mother says that we're imposing on you, Sue," he said. "She made me +promise to make you go home tomorrow. She says you've had enough to +bear!" + +Betsey sat up with a rueful exclamation, and Jimmy grunted a +disconsolate "Gosh!" but Susan only smiled. + +"That's only part of her--trouble, Phil," she said, reassuringly. And +presently she serenely led them all upstairs. "We've got to make those +beds, Betts," said Susan. + +"Mother may hear us," said Betsey, fearfully. + +"I hope she will!" Susan said. But, if she did, no sound came from the +mother's room. After awhile Susan noticed that her door, which had been +ajar, was shut tight. + +She lay awake late that night, Betts' tear-stained but serene little +face close to her shoulder, Betts' hand still tight in hers. The wind +shook the casements, and the unwearied storm screamed about the house. +Susan thought of the woman in the next room, wondered if she was lying +awake, too, alone with sick and sorrowful memories? + +She herself fell asleep full of healthy planning for to-morrow's meals +and house-cleaning, too tired and content for dreams. + +Anna came quietly home on the next Saturday evening, to find the little +group just ready to gather about the dinner-table. A fire glowed in the +grate, the kitchen beyond was warm and clean and delightfully odorous. +She said very little then, took her share, with obvious effort at +first, in their talk, sat behind Betsey's chair when the four presently +were coaxed by Jim into a game of "Hearts," and advised her little +sister how to avoid the black queen. + +But later, just before they went upstairs, when they were all grouped +about the last of the fire, she laid her hands on Susan's shoulders, +and stood Susan off, to look at her fairly. + +"No words for it, Sue," said Anna steadily. + +"Ah, don't, Nance--" Susan began. But in another instant they were in +each other's arms, and crying, and much later that evening, after a +long talk, Betsey confided to Susan that it was the first time Anna had +cried. + +"She told me that when she got home, and saw the way that you have +changed things," confided Betsey, "she began to think for the first +time that we might--might get through this, you know!" + +Wonderful days for Susan followed, with every hour brimming full of +working and planning. She was the first one up in the morning, the last +one in bed at night, hers was the voice that made the last decision, +and hers the hands for which the most critical of the household tasks +were reserved. Always conscious of the vacant place in their circle, +and always aware of the presence of that brooding and silent figure +upstairs, she was nevertheless so happy sometimes as to think herself a +hypocrite and heartless. But long afterward Susan knew that the sense +of dramatic fitness and abiding satisfaction is always the reward of +untiring and loving service. + +She and Betsey read together, walked through the rain to market, and +came back glowing and tired, to dry their shoes and coats at the +kitchen fire. They cooked and swept and dusted, tried the furniture in +new positions, sent Jimmy to the White House for a special new pattern, +and experimented with house-dresses. Susan heard the first real +laughter in months ring out at the dinner-table, when she and Betsey +described their experiences with a crab, who had revived while being +carried home in their market-basket. Jimmy, silent, rough-headed and +sweet, followed Susan about like an affectionate terrier, and there was +another laugh when Jimmy, finishing a bowl in which cake had been +mixed, remarked fervently, "Gosh, why do you waste time cooking it?" + +In the evening they played euchre, or hearts, or parchesi; Susan and +Philip struggled with chess; there were talks about the fire, and they +all straggled upstairs at ten o'clock. Anna, appreciative and +affectionate and brave, came home for almost every Saturday night, and +these were special occasions. Susan and Betsey wasted their best +efforts upon the dinner, and filled the vases with flowers and ferns, +and Philip brought home candy and the new magazines. It was Anna who +could talk longest with the isolated mother, and Susan and she went +over every word, afterwards, eager to find a ray of hope. + +"I told her about to-day," Anna said one Saturday night, brushing her +long hair, "and about Billy's walking with us to the ridge. Now, when +you go in tomorrow, Betsey, I wish you'd begin about Christmas. Just +say, 'Mother, do you realize that Christmas is a week from to-morrow?' +and then, if you can, just go right on boldly and say, 'Mother, you +won't spoil it for us all by not coming downstairs?'" + +Betsey looked extremely nervous at this suggestion, and Susan slowly +shook her head. She knew how hopeless the plan was. She and Betsey +realized even better than the absent Anna how rooted was Mrs. Carroll's +unhappy state. Now and then, on a clear day, the mother would be heard +going softly downstairs for a few moments in the garden; now and then +at the sound of luncheon preparations downstairs she would come out to +call down, "No lunch for me, thank you, girls!" Otherwise they never +saw her except sitting idle, black-clad, in her rocking-chair. + +But Christmas was very close now, and must somehow be endured. + +"When are you boys going to Mill Valley for greens?" asked Susan, on +the Saturday before the holiday. + +"Would you?" Philip asked slowly. But immediately he added, "How about +to-morrow, Jimsky?" + +"Gee, yes!" said Jim eagerly. "We'll trim up the house like always, +won't we, Betts?" + +"Just like always," Betts answered. + +Susan and Betsey fussed with mince-meat and frosted cookies; Susan +accomplished remarkably good, if rather fragile, pumpkin pies. The four +decorated the down-stairs rooms with ropes of fragrant green. The +expressman came and came and came again; Jimmy returned twice a day +laden from the Post Office; everyone remembered the Carrolls this year. + +Anna and Philip and Billy came home together, at midday, on Christmas +Eve. Betsey took immediate charge of the packages they brought; she +would not let so much as a postal card be read too soon. Billy had +spent many a Christmas Eve with the Carrolls; he at once began to run +errands and carry up logs as a matter of course. + +A conference was held over the turkey, lying limp in the center of the +kitchen table. The six eyed him respectfully. + +"Oughtn't this be firm?" asked Anna, fingering a flexible breast-bone. + +"No-o--" But Susan was not very sure. "Do you know how to stuff them, +Anna?" + +"Look in the books," suggested Philip. + +"We did," Betsey said, "but they give chestnut and mushroom and sweet +potato--I don't know how Mother does it!" + +"You put crumbs in a chopping bowl," began Susan, uncertainly, "at +least, that's the way Mary Lou did--" + +"Why crumbs in a chopping bowl, crumbs are chopped already?" William +observed sensibly. + +"Well--" Susan turned suddenly to Betsey, "Why don't you trot up and +ask, Betts?" she suggested. + +"Oh, Sue!" Betsey's healthy color faded. "I can't!" She turned +appealing eyes to Anna. Anna was looking at her thoughtfully. + +"I think that would be a good thing to do," said Anna slowly. "Just put +your head in the door and say, 'Mother, how do you stuff a turkey?'" + +"But--but--" Betsey began. She got down from the table and went slowly +on her errand. The others did not speak while they waited for her +return. + +"Hot water, and butter, and herbs, and half an onion chopped fine!" +announced Betts returning. + +"Did she--did she seem to think it was odd, Betts?" + +"No, she just answered--like she would have before. She was lying down, +and she said 'I'm glad you're going to have a turkey---'" + +"What!" said Anna, turning white. + +"Yes, she did! She said 'You're all good, brave children!'" + +"Oh, Betts, she didn't!" + +"Honest she did, Phil--" Betsey said aggrievedly, and Anna kissed her +between laughter and tears. + +"But this is quite the best yet!" Susan said, contentedly, as she +ransacked the breadbox for crumbs. + +Just at dinner-time came a great crate of violets. "Jo's favorites, +from Stewart!" said Anna softly, filling bowls with them. And, as if +the thought of Josephine had suggested it, she added to Philip in a low +tone: + +"Listen, Phil, are we going to sing to-night?" + +For from babyhood, on the eve of the feast, the Carrolls had gathered +at the piano for the Christmas songs, before they looked at their gifts. + +"What do you think?" Philip returned, troubled. + +"Oh, I couldn't---" Betts began, choking. + +Jimmy gave them all a disgusted and astonished look. + +"Gee, why not?" he demanded. "Jo used to love it!" + +"How about it, Sue?" Philip asked. Susan stopped short in her work, her +hands full of violets, and pondered. + +"I think we ought to," she said at last. + +"I do, too!" Billy supported her unexpectedly. "Jo'd be the first to +say so. And if we don't this Christmas, we never will again!" + +"Your mother taught you to," Susan said, earnestly, "and she didn't +stop it when your father died. We'll have other breaks in the circle +some day, but we'll want to go right on doing it, and teaching our own +children to do it!" + +"Yes, you're right," said Anna, "that settles it." + +Nothing more was said on the subject; the girls busied themselves with +the dinner dishes. Phil and Billy drew the nails from the waiting +Christmas boxes. Jim cracked nuts for the Christmas dinner. It was +after nine o'clock when the kitchen was in order, the breakfast table +set, and the sitting-room made ready for the evening's excitement. Then +Susan went to the old square piano and opened it, and Phil, in absolute +silence, found her the music she wanted among the long-unused sheets of +music on the piano. + +"If we are going to DO this," said Philip then, "we mustn't break down!" + +"Nope," said Betts, at whom the remark seemed to be directed, with a +gulp. Susan, whose hands were very cold, struck the opening chords, and +a moment later the young voices rose together, through the silent house. + + "Adeste, fideles, + Laeti triumphantes, + Venite, venite in Bethlehem...." + +Josephine had always sung the little solo. Susan felt it coming, and +she and Betts took it together, joined on the second phrase by Anna's +rich, deep contralto. They were all too conscious of their mother's +overhearing to think of themselves at all. Presently the voices became +more natural. It was just the Carroll children singing their Christmas +hymns, as they had sung them all their lives. One of their number was +gone now; sorrow had stamped all the young faces with new lines, but +the little circle was drawn all the closer for that. Phil's arm was +tight about the little brother's shoulder, Betts and Anna were clinging +to each other. + +And as Susan reached the triumphant "Gloria--gloria!" a thrill shook +her from head to foot. She had not heard a footstep, above the singing, +but she knew whose fingers were gripping her shoulder, she knew whose +sweet unsteady voice was added to the younger voices. + +She went on to the next song without daring to turn around;--this was +the little old nursery favorite, + + "Oh, happy night, that brings the morn + To shine above the child new-born! + Oh, happy star! whose radiance sweet + Guided the wise men's eager feet...." + +and after that came "Noel,"--surely never sung before, Susan thought, +as they sang it then! The piano stood away from the wall, and Susan +could look across it to the big, homelike, comfortable room, sweet with +violets now, lighted by lamp and firelight, the table cleared of its +usual books and games, and heaped high with packages. Josephine's +picture watched them from the mantel; "wherever she is," thought Susan, +"she knows that we are here together singing!" + + "Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices! + Oh, night divine, oh night, when Christ was born!" + +The glorious triumphant melody rose like a great rising tide of faith +and of communion; Susan forgot where she was, forgot that there are +pain and loss in the world, and, finishing, turned about on the piano +bench with glowing cheeks and shining eyes. + +"Gee, Moth', I never heard you coming down!" said Jim delightedly, as +the last notes died away and the gap, his seniors had all been +dreading, was bridged. + +"I heard you," Betts said, radiant and clinging to her mother. + +Mrs. Carroll was very white, and they could see her tremble. + +"Surely, you're going to open your presents to-night, Nance?" + +"Not if you'd rather we shouldn't, Mother!" + +"Oh, but I want you to!" Her voice had the dull, heavy quality of a +voice used in sleep, and her eyes clung to Anna's almost with terror. +No one dared speak of the miracle; Susan spoke with nervousness, but +Anna bustled about cheerfully, getting her established in her big chair +by the fire. Billy and Phil returned from the cellar, gasping and bent +under armfuls of logs. The fire flamed up, and Jimmy, with a bashful +and deprecatory "Gosh!" attacked the string of the uppermost bundle. + +So many packages, so beautifully tied! Such varied and wonderful gifts? +Susan's big box from Virginia City was not for her alone, and from the +other packages at least a dozen came to her. Betts, a wonderful +embroidered kimono slipped on over her house dress, looked like a +lovely, fantastic picture; and Susan must button her big, woolly +field-coat up to her chin and down to her knees. "For ONCE you thought +of a DANDY present, Billy!" said she. This must be shown to Mother; +that must be shown to Mother; Mother must try on her black silk, +fringed, embroidered Chinese shawl. + +"Jimmy, DEAR, no more candy to-night!" said Mother, in just the old +voice, and Susan's heart had barely time for a leap of joy when she +added: + +"Oh, Anna, dear, that is LOVELY. You must tell Dr. and Mrs. Jordan that +is exactly what you've been wanting!" + +"And what are your plans for to-morrow, girls?" she asked, just before +they all went up-stairs, late in the evening. + +"Sue and I to early ..." Anna said, "then we get back to get breakfast +by nine, and all the others to ten o'clock." + +"Well, will you girls call me? I'll go with you, and then before the +others get home we can have everything done and the turkey in." + +"Yes, Mother," was all that Anna said, but later she and Susan were +almost ready to agree with Betts' last remark that night, delivered +from bed: + +"I bet to-morrow's going to be the happiest Christmas we ever had!" + +This was the beginning of happier days, for Mrs. Carroll visibly +struggled to overcome her sorrow now, and Susan and Betsey tried their +best to help her. The three took long walks, in the wet wintry weather, +their hats twisting about on their heads, their skirts ballooning in +the gale. By the middle of March Spring was tucking little patches of +grass and buttercups in all the sheltered corners, the sunshine gained +in warmth, the twilights lengthened. Fruit blossoms scented the air, +and great rain-pools, in the roadways, gave back a clear blue sky. + +The girls dragged Mrs. Carroll with them to the woods, to find the +first creamy blossoms of the trillium, and scented branches of wild +lilac. One Sunday they packed a lunch basket, and walked, boys and +girls and mother, up to the old cemetery, high in the hills. Three +miles of railroad track, twinkling in the sun, and a mile of country +road, brought them to the old sunken gate. Then among the grassy paths, +under the oaks, it was easy to find the little stone that bore +Josephine's name. + +It was an April day, but far more like June. There was a wonderful +silence in the air that set in crystal the liquid notes of the lark, +and carried for miles the softened click of cowbells, far up on the +ridges. Sunshine flooded buttercups and poppies on the grassy slopes, +and where there was shade, under the oaks, "Mission bells" and scarlet +columbine and cream and lavender iris were massed together. Everywhere +were dazzling reaches of light, the bay far below shone blue as a +turquoise, the marshes were threaded with silver ribbons, the sky was +high and cloudless. Trains went by, with glorious rushes and puffs of +rising, snowy smoke; even here they could hear the faint clang of the +bell. A little flock of sheep had come up from the valley, and the soft +little noises of cropping seemed only to underscore the silence. + +Mrs. Carroll walked home between Anna and Phil; Susan and Billy and the +younger two engaged in spirited conversation on ahead. + +"Mother said 'Happiness comes back to us, doesn't it, Nance!'" Anna +reported that night. "She said, 'We have never been happier than we +have to-day!'" + +"Never been so happy," Susan said sturdily. "When has Philip ever been +such an unmitigated comfort, or Betts so thoughtful and good?" + +"Well, we might have had that, and Jo too," Anna said wistfully. + +"Yes, but one DOESN'T, Anna. That's just it!" + +Susan had long before this again become a woman of business. When she +first spoke of leaving the Carrolls, a violent protest had broken out +from the younger members of the family. This might have been ignored, +but there was no refusing the sick entreaty of their mother's eyes; +Susan knew that she was still needed, and was content to delay her +going indefinitely. + +"It seems unfair to you, Sue," Anna protested. But Susan, standing at +the window, and looking down at the early spring flood of blossoms and +leaves in the garden, dissented a little sadly. + +"No, it's not, Nance," she said. "I only wish I could stay here +forever. I never want to go out into the world, and meet people again--" + +Susan finished with a retrospective shudder. + +"I think coming to you when I did saved my reason," she said presently, +"and I'm in no hurry to go again. No, it would be different, Nance, if +I had a regular trade or profession. But I haven't and, even if I go to +New York, I don't want to go until after hot weather. Twenty-six," +Susan went on, gravely, "and just beginning! Suppose somebody had cared +enough to teach me something ten years ago!" + +"Your aunt thought you would marry, and you WILL marry, Sue!" Anna +said, coming to put her arm about her, and lay her cheek against +Susan's. + +"Ah, well!" Susan said presently with a sigh, "I suppose that if I had +a sixteen-year-old daughter this minute I'd tell her that Mother wanted +her to be a happy girl at home; she'd be married one of these days, and +find enough to do!" + +But it was only a few days after this talk that one Orville Billings, +the dyspeptic and middle-aged owner and editor of the "Sausalito Weekly +Democrat" offered her a position upon his editorial staff, at a salary +of eight dollars a week. Susan promptly accepted, calmly confident that +she could do the work, and quite justified in her confidence. For six +mornings a week she sat in the dingy little office on the water-front, +reading proof and answering telephone calls, re-writing contributions +and clipping exchanges. In the afternoons she was free to attend +weddings, club-meetings or funerals, or she might balance books or send +out bills, word advertisements, compose notices of birth and death, or +even brew Mr. Billings a comforting cup of soup or cocoa over the +gas-jet. Susan usually began the day by sweeping out the office. +Sometimes Betsey brought down her lunch and they picnicked together. +There was always a free afternoon or two in the week. + +On the whole, it was a good position, and Susan enjoyed her work, +enjoyed her leisure, enormously enjoyed the taste of life. + +"For years I had a good home, and a good position, and good friends and +was unhappy," she said to Billy. "Now I've got exactly the same things +and I'm so happy I can scarcely sleep at night. Happiness is merely a +habit." + +"No, no," he protested, "the Carrolls are the most extraordinary people +in the world, Sue. And then, anyway, you're different--you've learned." + +"Well, I've learned this," she said, "There's a great deal more +happiness, everywhere, than one imagines. Every baby brings whole tons +of it, and roast chickens and apple-pies and new lamps and husbands +coming home at night are making people happy all the time! People are +celebrating birthdays and moving into bigger houses, and having their +married daughters home for visits, right straight along. But when you +pass a dark lower flat on a dirty street, somehow it doesn't occur to +you that the people who live in it are saving up for a home in the +Western Addition!" + +"Well, Sue, unhappiness is bad enough, when there's a reason for it," +William said, "but when you've taken your philanthropy course, I wish +you'd come out and demonstrate to the women at the Works that the only +thing that keeps them from being happy and prosperous is not having the +sense to know that they are!" + +"I? What could I ever teach anyone!" laughed Susan Brown. + +Yet she was changing and learning, as she presently had reason to see. +It was on a hot Saturday in July that Susan, leaving the office at two +o'clock, met the lovely Mrs. John Furlong on the shore road. Even more +gracious and charming than she had been as Isabel Wallace, the young +matron quite took possession of Susan. Where had Susan been hiding--and +how wonderfully well she was looking--and why hadn't she come to see +Isabel's new house? + +"Be a darling!" said Mrs. Furlong, "and come along home with me now! +Jack is going to bring Sherwin Perry home to dinner with him, and I +truly, truly need a girl! Run up and change your dress if you want to, +while I'm making my call, and meet me on the four o'clock train!" + +Susan hesitated, filled with unreasoning dread of a plunge back into +the old atmosphere, but in the end she did go up to change her +dress,--rejoicing that the new blue linen was finished, and did join +Isabel at the train, filled with an absurd regret at having to miss a +week-end at home, and Anna. + +Isabel, very lovely in a remarkable gown and hat, chatted cheerfully +all the way home, and led the guest to quite the smartest of the +motor-cars that were waiting at the San Rafael station. Susan was +amazed--a little saddened--to find that the beautiful gowns and +beautiful women and lovely homes had lost their appeal; to find herself +analyzing even Isabel's happy chatter with a dispassionate, quiet +unbelief. + +The new home proved to be very lovely; a harmonious mixture of all the +sorts of doors and windows, porches and roofs that the young owners +fancied. Isabel, trailing her frothy laces across the cool deep +hallway, had some pretty, matronly questions to ask of her butler, +before she could feel free for her guest. Had Mrs. Wallace +telephoned--had the man fixed the mirror in Mr. Furlong's bathroom--had +the wine come? + +"I have no housekeeper," said Isabel, as they went upstairs, "and I +sha'n't have one. I think I owe it to myself, and to the maids, Sue, to +take that responsibility entirely!" Susan recognized the unchanged +sweetness and dutifulness that had marked the old Isabel, who could +with perfect simplicity and reason seem to make a virtue of whatever +she did. + +They went into the sitting-room adjoining the young mistress' bedroom, +an airy exquisite apartment all colonial white and gay flowered +hangings, with French windows, near which the girls settled themselves +for tea. + +"Nothing's new with me," Susan said, in answer to Isabel's smiling +inquiry. What could she say to hold the interest of this radiant young +princess? Isabel accordingly gave her own news, some glimpses of her +European wedding journey, some happy descriptions of wedding gifts. The +Saunders were abroad, she told Susan, Ella and Emily and their mother +with Kenneth, at a German cure. "And Mary Peacock--did you know her? is +with them," said Isabel. "I think that's an engagement!" + +"Doesn't that seem horrible? You know he's incurable--" Susan said, +slowly stirring her cup. But she instantly perceived that the comment +was not acceptable to young Mrs. Furlong. After all, thought Susan, +Society is a very jealous institution, and Isabel was of its inner +circle. + +"Oh, I think that was all very much exaggerated!" Isabel said lightly, +pleasantly. "At least, Sue," she added kindly, "you and I are not fair +judges of it!" And after a moment's silence, for Susan kept a passing +sensation of irritation admirably concealed, she added, "--But I didn't +show you my pearls!" + +A maid presently brought them, a perfect string, which Susan slipped +through her fingers with real delight. + +"Woman, they're the size of robins' eggs!" she said. Isabel was all +sweet gaiety again. She touched the lovely chain tenderly, while she +told of Jack's promise to give her her choice of pearls or a motor-car +for her birthday, and of his giving her both! She presently called the +maid again. + +"Pauline, put these back, will you, please?" asked Isabel, smilingly. +When the maid was gone she added, "I always trust the maids that way! +They love to handle my pretty things,--and who can blame them?--and I +let them whenever I can!" + +They were still lingering over tea when Isabel heard her husband in the +adjoining room, and went in, closing the door after her, to welcome him. + +"He's all dirty from tennis," said the young wife, coming back and +resuming her deep chair, with a smile, "and cross because I didn't go +and pick him up at the courts!" + +"Oh, that was my fault!" Susan exclaimed, remembering that Isabel could +not always be right, unless innocent persons would sometimes agree to +be wrong. Mrs. Furlong smiled composedly, a lovely vision in her loose +lacy robe. + +"Never mind, he'll get over it!" she said and, accompanying Susan to +one of the handsome guest-rooms, she added confidentially, "My dear, +when a man's first married, ANYTHING that keeps him from his wife makes +him cross! It's no more your fault than mine!" + +Sherwin Perry, the fourth at dinner, was a rosy, clean-shaven, stupid +youth, who seemed absorbed in his food, and whose occasional violent +laughter, provoked by his host's criticism of different tennis-players, +turned his big ears red. John Furlong told Susan a great deal of his +new yacht, rattling off technical terms with simple pride, and quoting +at length one of the men at the ship-builders' yard. + +"Gosh, he certainly is a marvelous fellow,--Haley is," said John, +admiringly. "I wish you could hear him talk! He knows everything!" + +Isabel was deeply absorbed in her new delightful responsibilities as +mistress of the house. + +"Excuse me just a moment, Susan----Jack, the stuff for the library +curtains came, and I don't think it's the same," said Isabel or, "Jack, +dear, I accepted for the Gregorys'," or "The Wilsons didn't get their +card after all, Jack. Helen told Mama so!" All these matters were +discussed at length between husband and wife, Susan occasionally +agreeing or sympathizing. Lake Tahoe, where the Furlongs expected to go +in a day or two, was also a good deal considered. + +"We ought to sit out-of-doors this lovely night," said Isabel, after +dinner. But conversation languished, and they began a game of bridge. +This continued for perhaps an hour, then the men began bidding madly, +and doubling and redoubling, and Isabel good-naturedly terminated the +game, and carried her guest upstairs with her. + +Here, in Susan's room, they had a talk, Isabel advisory and interested, +Susan instinctively warding off sympathy and concern. + +"Sue,--you won't be angry?" said Isabel, affectionately "but I do so +hate to see you drifting, and want to have you as happy as I am! Is +there somebody?" + +"Not unless you count the proprietor of the 'Democrat,'" Susan laughed. + +"It's no laughing matter, Sue---" Isabel began, seriously. But Susan, +laying a quick hand upon her arm, said smilingly: + +"Isabel! Isabel! What do you, of all women, know about the problems and +the drawbacks of a life like mine?" + +"Well, I do feel this, Sue," Isabel said, just a little ruffled, but +smiling, too, "I've had money since I was born, I admit. But money has +never made any real difference with me. I would have dressed more +plainly, perhaps, as a working woman, but I would always have had +everything dainty and fresh, and Father says that I really have a man's +mind; that I would have climbed right to the top in any position! So +don't talk as if I didn't know ANYTHING!" + +Presently she heard Jack's step, and ran off to her own room. But she +was back again in a few moments. Jack had just come up to find some +cigars, it appeared. Jack was such a goose! + +"He's a dear," said Susan. Isabel agreed. "Jack was wonderful," she +said. Had Susan noticed him with older people? And with babies---- + +"That's all we need, now," said the happy Isabel. + +"Babies are darling," agreed Susan, feeling elderly and unmarried. + +"Yes, and when you're married," Isabel said dreamily, "they seem so--so +sacred--but you'll see yourself, some day, I hope. Hark!" + +And she was gone again, only to come back. It was as if Isabel gained +fresh pleasure in her new estate by seeing it afresh through Susan's +eyes. She had the longing of the bride to give her less-experienced +friend just a glimpse of the new, delicious relationship. + +Left alone at last, Susan settled herself luxuriously in bed, a heap of +new books beside her, soft pillows under her head, a great light +burning over her shoulder, and the fragrance of the summer night +stealing in through the wide-opened windows. She gave a great sigh of +relief, wondered, between desultory reading, at how early an hour she +could decently excuse herself in the morning. + +"I SUPPOSE that, if I fell heir to a million, I might build a house +like this, and think that a string of pearls was worth buying," said +Susan to herself, "but I don't believe I would!" + +Isabel would not let her hurry away in the morning; it was too pleasant +to have so gracious and interested a guest, so sympathetic a witness to +her own happiness. She and Susan lounged through the long morning, +Susan admired the breakfast service, admired the rugs, admired her +host's character. Nothing really interested Isabel, despite her polite +questions and assents, but Isabel's possessions, Isabel's husband, +Isabel's genius for housekeeping and entertaining. The gentlemen +appeared at noon, and the four went to the near-by hotel for luncheon, +and here Susan saw Peter Coleman again, very handsome and gay, in white +flannels, and very much inclined toward the old relationship with her. +Peter begged them to spend the afternoon with him, trying the new +motor-car, and Isabel was charmed to agree. Susan agreed too, after a +hesitation she did not really understand in herself. What pleasanter +prospect could anyone have? + +While they were loitering over their luncheon, in the shaded, +delightful coolness of the lunch-room, suddenly Dolly Ripley, +over-dressed, gay and talkative as always, came up to their table. + +She greeted the others negligently, but showed a certain enthusiasm for +Susan. + +"Hello, Isabel," said Dolly, "I saw you all come in--'he seen that a +mother and child was there!'" + +This last was the special phrase of the moment. Susan had heard it +forty times within the past twenty-four hours, and was at no pains to +reconcile it to this particular conversation. + +"But you, you villain--where've you been?" pursued Dolly, to Susan, +"why don't you come down and spend a week with me? Do you see anything +of our dear friend Emily in these days?" + +"Emily's abroad," said Susan, and Peter added: + +"With Ella and Mary Peacock--'he seen that a mother and child was +there!'" + +"Oh, you devil!" said Dolly, laughing. "But honestly," she added gaily +to Susan, "'how you could put up with Em Saunders as long as you did +was a mystery to ME! It's a lucky thing you're not like me, Susan van +Dusen, people all tell me I'm more like a boy than a girl,--when I +think a thing I'm going to SAY it or bust! Now, listen, you're coming +down to me for a week---" + +Susan left the invitation open, to Isabel's concern. + +"Of course, as you say, you have a position, Sue," said Isabel, when +they were spinning over the country roads, in Peter's car, "but, my +dear, Dolly Ripley and Con Fox don't speak now,--Connie's going on the +stage, they say!---" + +"'A mother and child will be there', all right!" said John Furlong, +leaning back from the front seat. Isabel laughed, but went on seriously, + +"---and Dolly really wants someone to stay with her, Sue, and think +what a splendid thing that would be!" + +Susan answered absently. They had taken the Sausalito road, to get the +cool air from the bay, and it flashed across her that if she COULD +persuade them to drop her at the foot of the hill, she could be at home +in five minutes,--back in the dear familiar garden, with Anna and Phil +lazily debating the attractions of a walk and a row, and Betsey +compounding weak, cold, too-sweet lemonade. Suddenly the only important +thing in the world seemed to be her escape. + +There they were, just as she had pictured them; Mrs. Carroll, +gray-haired, dignified in her lacy light black, was in a deep chair on +the lawn, reading aloud from the paper; Betsey, sitting at her feet, +twisted and folded the silky ears of the setter; Anna was lying in a +hammock, lazily watching her mother, and Billy Oliver had joined the +boys, sprawling comfortably on the grass. + +A chorus of welcome greeted Susan. + +"Oh, Sue, you old duck!" said Betsey, "we've just been waiting for you +to decide what we'd do!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +These were serene and sweet days for them all, and if sometimes the old +sorrow returned for awhile, and there were still bitter longing and +grieving for Josephine, there were days, too, when even the mother +admitted to herself that some new tender element had crept into their +love for each other since the little sister's going, the invisible +presence was the closest and strongest of the ties that bound them all. +Happiness came back, planning and dreaming began again. Susan teased +Anna and Betsey into wearing white again, when the hot weather came, +Billy urged the first of the walks to the beach without Jo, and Anna +herself it was who began to extend the old informal invitations to the +nearest friends and neighbors for the tea-hour on Saturday. Susan was +to have her vacation in August; Billy was to have at least a week; Anna +had been promised the fortnight of Susan's freedom, and Jimmy and +Betsey could hardly wait for the camping trip they planned to take all +together to the little shooting box in the mountains. + +One August afternoon Susan, arriving home from the office at one +o'clock, found Mrs. Carroll waiting to ask her a favor. + +"Sue, dear, I'm right in the middle of my baking," Mrs. Carroll said, +when Susan was eating a late lunch from the end of the kitchen table, +"and here's a special delivery letter for Billy, and Billy's not coming +over here to-night! Phil's taking Jimmy and Betts to the circus--they +hadn't been gone five minutes when this thing came!" + +"Why a special delivery--and why here--and what is it?" asked Susan, +wiping buttery fingers carefully before she took the big envelope in +her hands. "It's from Edward Dean," she said, examining it with +unaffected interest. "Oh, I know what this is--it's about that +blue-print business!" Susan finished, enlightened. "Probably Mr. Dean +didn't have Billy's new address, but wanted him to have these to work +on, on Sunday." + +"It feels as if something bulky was in there," Mrs. Carroll said. "I +wish we could get him by telephone! As bad luck would have it, he's a +good deal worried about the situation at the works, and told me he +couldn't possibly leave the men this week. What ARE the blue-prints?" + +"Why, it's some little patent of Billy's,--a deep-petticoat, +double-groove porcelain insulator, if that means anyone to anyone!" +laughed Susan. "He's been raving about it for weeks! And he and Mr. +Dean have to rush the patent, because they've been using these things +for some time, and they have to patent them before they've been used a +year, it seems!" + +"I was just thinking, Sue, that, if you didn't mind crossing to the +city with them, you could put on a special-delivery stamp and then +Billy would have them to-night. Otherwise, they won't leave here until +tomorrow morning." + +"Why, of course, that'll do!" Susan said willingly. "I can catch the +two-ten. Or better yet, Aunt Jo, I'll take them right out there and +deliver them myself." + +"Oh, dearie, no! Not if there's any ugliness among the men, not if they +are talking of a strike!" the older woman protested. + +"Oh, they're always striking," Susan said easily. "And if I can't get +him to bring me back," she added, "don't worry, for I may go stay with +Georgie overnight, and come back with Bill in the morning!" + +She was not sorry to have an errand on this exquisite afternoon. The +water of the bay was as smooth as blue glass, gulls were flashing and +dipping in the steamer's wake. Sailboats, waiting for the breeze, +drifted idly toward the Golden Gate; there was not a cloud in the blue +arch of the sky. The little McDowell whistled for her dock at Alcatraz. +On the prison island men were breaking stone with a metallic +clink--clink--clink. + +Susan found the ferry-place in San Francisco hot and deserted; the tar +pavements were softened under-foot; gongs and bells of cars made a +raucous clamor. She was glad to establish herself on the front seat of +a Mission Street car and leave the crowded water-front behind her. + +They moved along through congested traffic, past the big docks, and +turned in between the great ware-houses that line Mission Street. The +hot streets were odorous of leather and machine-oils, ropes and coffee. +Over the door of what had been Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's hung a new +bright sign, "Hunter, Hunter & Brauer." Susan caught a glimpse, through +the plaster ornamentation of the facade, of old Front Office, which +seemed to be full of brightly nickeled samples now, and gave back a +blinking flash of light to the afternoon sun. + +"Bathroom fixtures," thought Susan. "He always wanted to carry them!" +What a long two years since she had known or cared what pleased or +displeased Mr. Brauer! + +The car clanged out of the warehouse district, past cheap flats and +cheap shops, and saloons, and second-hand stores, boiling over, at +their dark doorways, with stoves and rocking-chairs, lamps and china +ware. This neighborhood was sordid enough, but crowded, happy and full +of life. Now the road ran through less populous streets; houses stood +at curious angles, and were unpainted, or painted in unusual colors. +Great ware-houses and factories shadowed little clusters of +workingmen's homes; here and there were country-like strips of brown +palings with dusty mallow bushes spraying about them, or a lean cow +grazing near a bare little wooden farmhouse. Dumps, diffusing a dry and +dreadful odor, blighted the prospect with their pyramids of cans and +broken umbrellas; little grocery stores, each with its wide unrailed +porch, country fashion, and its bar accessible through the shop, or by +a side entrance, often marked the corners on otherwise vacant blocks. + +Susan got off the car in the very shadow of the "works," and stood for +a moment looking at the great foundries, the dark and dirty yards, with +their interlacing tracks and loaded cars, the enormous brick buildings +set with rows and rows of blank and dusty windows, the brick chimneys +and the black pipes of the blast-furnaces, the heaps of twisted old +iron and of ashes, the blowing dust and glare of the hot summer day. +She had been here with Billy before, had peeped into the furnace rooms, +all a glare of white heat and silhouetted forms, had breathed the ashy +and choking air. + +Now she turned and walked toward the rows of workingmen's cottages that +had been built, solidly massed, nearby. Presenting an unbroken, +two-story facade, the long buildings were divided into tiny houses that +had each two flat-faced windows upstairs, and a door and one window +downstairs. The seven or eight long buildings might have been as many +gigantic German toys, dotted with apertures by some accurate brush, and +finished with several hundred flights of wooden steps and several +hundred brick chimneys. Ugly when they first were built, they were even +uglier now, for the exterior was of some shallow plaster that chipped +and cracked and stained and in nearly every dooryard dirt and disorder +added a last touch to the unlovely whole. + +Children swarmed everywhere this afternoon; heavy, dirty-faced babies +sat in the doorways, women talked and laughed over the low dividing +fences. Gates hung awry, and baby carriages and garbage tins obstructed +the bare, trampled spaces that might have been little gardens. + +Up and down the straight narrow streets, and loitering everywhere, were +idle, restless men. A few were amusing babies, or joining in the idle +chatter of the women, but for the most part they were silent, or +talking in low tones among themselves. + +"Strikers!" Susan said to herself, with a thrill. + +Over the whole curious, exotic scene the late summer sunshine streamed +generously; the street was hot, the talking women fanned themselves +with their aprons. + +Susan, walking slowly alone, found herself attracting a good deal of +attention, and was amazed to find that it frightened her a little. She +was conspicuously a newcomer, and could not but overhear the comments +that some of the watching young men made as she went by. + +"Say, what's that song about 'I'd leave my happy home for you,' Bert?" +she heard them say. "Don't ask me! I'm expecting my gurl any minute!" +and "Pretty good year for peaches, I hear!" + +Susan had to pretend that she did not hear, but she heartily wished +herself back on the car. However, there was nothing to do but walk +senselessly on, or stop and ask her way. She began to look furtively +about for a friendly face, and finally stopped beside a dooryard where +a slim pretty young woman was sitting with a young baby in her arms. + +"Excuse me," said Susan, "but do you know where Mr. William Oliver +lives, now?" + +The girl studied her quietly for a minute, with a closed, composed +mouth. Then she said evenly: + +"Joe!" + +"Huh?" said a tall young man, lathered for shaving, who came at once to +the door. + +"I'm trying to find Mr. Oliver--William Oliver," Susan said smiling. +"I'm a sort of cousin of his, and I have a special delivery letter for +him." + +Joe, who had been rapidly removing the lather from his face with a +towel, took the letter and, looking at it, gravely conceded: + +"Well, maybe that's right, too! Sure you can see him. We're haying a +conference up at the office tonight," he explained, "and I have to +clean up or I'd take you to him myself! Maybe you'd do it, Lizzie?" he +suggested to his wife, who was all friendliness to Susan now, and +showed even a hint of respect in her friendliness. + +"Well, I could nurse him later, Joe," she agreed willingly, in +reference to the baby, "or maybe Mama--Mama!" she interrupted herself +to call. + +An immense, gray-haired old woman, who had been an interested auditor +of this little conversation, got up from the steps of the next house, +and came to the fence. Susan liked Ellan Cudahy at first sight, and +smiled at her as she explained her quest. + +"And you're Mr. Oliver's sister, I c'n see that," said Mrs. Cudahy +shrewdly. + +"No, I'm not!" Susan smiled. "My name is Brown. But Mr. Oliver was a +sort of ward of my aunt's, and so we call ourselves cousins." + +"Well, of course ye wud," agreed Mrs. Cudahy. "Wait till I pin on me +hat wanst, and I'll take you up to the Hall. He's at the Hall, Joe, I +dunno?" she asked. + +Joseph assenting, they set out for the Hall, under a fire of curious +eyes. + +"Joe's cleaning up for the conference," said Mrs. Cudahy. "There's a +committee going to meet tonight. The old man-that's Carpenter, the boss +of the works, will be there, and some of the others." + +Susan nodded intelligently, but Saturday evening seemed to her a +curious time to select for a conference. They walked along in silence, +Mrs. Cudahy giving a brief yet kindly greeting to almost every man they +met. + +"Hello, Dan, hello, Gene; how are ye, Jim?" said she, and one young +giant, shouldering his scowling way home, she stopped with a fat +imperative hand. "How's it going, Jarge?" + +"It's going rotten," said George, sullenly evading her eyes. + +"Well,--don't run by me that way--stand still!" said the old woman. +"What d'ye mean by rotten?" + +"Aw, I mean rotten!" said George ungraciously. "D'ye know what the old +man is going to do now? He says that he'll give Billy just two or three +days more to settle this damn thing, and then he'll wire east and get a +carload of men right straight through from Philadelphia. He said so to +young Newman, and Frank Harris was in the room, and heard him. He says +they're picked out, and all ready to come!" + +"And what does Mr. Oliver say?" asked Mrs. Cudahy, whose face had grown +dark. + +"I don't know! I went up to the Hall, but at the first word he says, +'For God's sake, George--None of that here! They'll mob the old man if +they hear it!' They was all crowding about him, so I quit." + +"Well," said Mrs. Cudahy, considering, "there's to be a conference at +six-thirty, but befoor that, Mr. Oliver and Clem and Rassette and +Weidermeyer are going to meet t'gether in Mr. Oliver's room at +Rassette's house. Ye c'n see them there." + +"Well, maybe I will," said George, softening, as he left them. + +"What's the conference about?" asked Susan pleasantly. + +"What's the--don't tell me ye don't know THAT!" Mrs. Cudahy said, eying +her shrewdly. + +"I knew there was a strike---" Susan began ashamedly. + +"Sure, there's a strike," Mrs. Cudahy agreed, with quiet grimness, and +under her breath she added heavily, "Sure there is!" + +"And are Mr. Oliver's--are the men out?" Susan asked. + +"There's nine hundred men out," Mrs. Cudahy told her, coldly. + +"Nine hundred!" Susan stopped short. "But Billy's not responsible for +all that!" she added, presently. + +"I don't know who is, then," Mrs. Cudahy admitted grimly. + +"But--but he never had more than thirty or forty men under him in his +life!" Susan said eagerly. + +"Oh? Well, maybe he doesn't know anything about it, thin!" Mrs. Cudahy +agreed with magnificent contempt. + +But her scorn was wasted upon another Irishwoman. Susan stared at her +for a moment, then the dimples came into view, and she burst into her +infectious laughter. + +"Aren't you ashamed to be so mean!" laughed Susan. "Won't you tell me +about it?" + +Mrs. Cudahy laughed too, a little out of countenance. + +"I misdoubt me you're a very bad lot!" said she, in high good humor, +"but 'tis no joke for the boys," she went on, sobering quickly. "They +wint on strike a week ago. Mr. Oliver presided at a meeting two weeks +come Friday night, and the next day the boys went out!" + +"What for?" asked Susan. + +"For pay, and for hours," the older woman said. "They want regular pay +for overtime, wanst-and-a-half regular rates. And they want the +Chinymen to go,--sure, they come in on every steamer," said Mrs. Cudahy +indignantly, "and they'll work twelve hours for two bits! Bether +hours," she went on, checking off the requirements on fat, square +fingers, "overtime pay, no Chinymen, and--and--oh, yes, a risin' scale +of wages, if you know what that is? And last, they want the union +recognized!" + +"Well, that's not much!" Susan said generously. "Will they get it?" + +"The old man is taking his time," Mrs. Cudahy's lips shut in a worried +line. "There's no reason they shouldn't," she resumed presently, "We're +the only open shop in this part of the world, now. The big works has +acknowledged the union, and there's no reason why this wan shouldn't!" + +"And Billy, is he the one they talk to, the Carpenters I mean--the +authorities?" asked Susan. + +"They wouldn't touch Mr. William Oliver wid a ten-foot pole," said Mrs. +Cudahy proudly. "Not they! Half this fuss is because they want to get +rid of him--they want him out of the way, d'ye see? No, he talks to the +committee, and thin they meet with the committee. My husband's on it, +and Lizzie's Joe goes along to report what they do." + +"But Billy has a little preliminary conference in his room first?" +Susan asked. + +"He does," the other assented, with a chuckle. "He'll tell thim what to +say! He's as smart as old Carpenter himself!" said Mrs. Cudahy, "he's +prisidint of the local; Clem says he'd ought to be King!" And Susan was +amazed to notice that the strong old mouth was trembling with emotion, +and the fine old eyes dimmed with tears. "The crowd av thim wud lay +down their lives for him, so they would!" said Mrs. Cudahy. + +"And--and is there much suffering yet?" Susan asked a little timidly. +This cheery, sun-bathed scene was not quite her idea of a labor strike. + +"Well, some's always in debt and trouble annyway," Mrs. Cudahy said, +temperately, "and of course 'tis the worse for thim now!" + +She led Susan across an unpaved, deeply rutted street, and opened a +stairway door, next to a saloon entrance. + +Susan was glad to have company on the bare and gloomy stairs they +mounted. Mrs. Cudahy opened a double-door at the top, and they looked +into the large smoke-filled room that was the "Hall." + +It was a desolate and uninviting room, with spirals of dirty, colored +tissue-paper wound about the gas-fixtures, sunshine streaming through +the dirty, specked windows, chairs piled on chairs against the long +walls, and cuspidors set at regular intervals along the floor. There +was a shabby table set at a platform at one end. + +About this table was a group of men, talking eagerly and noisily to +Billy Oliver, who stood at the table looking abstractedly at various +letters and papers. + +At the entrance of the women, the talk died away. Mrs. Cudahy was +greeted with somewhat sheepish warmth; the vision of an extremely +pretty girl in Mrs. Cudahy's care seemed to affect these vociferous +laborers profoundly. They began confused farewells, and melted away. + +"All right, old man, so long!" "I'll see you later, Oliver," "That was +about all, Billy, I must be getting along," "Good-night, Billy, you +know where I am if you want me!" "I'll see you later,--good-night, sir!" + +"Hello, Mrs. Cudahy--hello, Susan!" said Billy, discovering them with +the obvious pleasure a man feels when unexpectedly confronted by his +womenkind. "I think you were a peach to do that, Sue!" he said +gratefully, when the special delivery letter had been read. "Now I can +get right at it, to-morrow!--Say, wait a minute, Clem---" + +He caught by the arm an old man,--larger, more grizzled, even more blue +of eye than was Susan's new friend, his wife,--and presented her to Mr. +Cudahy. + +"---My adopted sister, Clem! Sue, he's about as good as they come!" + +"Sister, is it?" asked Mrs. Cudahy, "Whin I last heard it was cousin! +What do you know about that, Clem?" + +"Well, that gives you a choice!" said Susan, laughing. + +"Then I'll take the Irishman's choice, and have something different +entirely!" the old woman said, in great good spirits, as they all went +down the stairs. + +"I'll take me own gir'rl home, and give you two a chanst," said Clem, +in the street. "That'll suit you, Wil'lum, I dunno?" + +"You didn't ask if it would suit ME," sparkled Susan Brown. + +"Well, that's so!" he said delightedly, stopping short to scratch his +head, and giving her a rueful smile. "Sure, I'm that popular that there +never was a divvle like me at all!" + +"You get out, and leave my girl alone!" said William, with a shove. And +his tired face brightened wonderfully, as he slipped his hand under +Susan's arm. + +"Now, Sue," he said contentedly, "we'll go straight to Rassette's--but +wait a minute--I've got to telephone!" + +Susan stood alone on the corner, quite as a matter of course, while he +dashed into a saloon. In a moment he was back, introducing her to a +weak-looking, handsome young man, who, after a few wistful glances back +toward the swinging door, walked away with them, and was presently left +in the care of a busily cooking little wife and a fat baby. Billy was +stopped and addressed on all sides. Susan found it pleasantly exciting +to be in his company, and his pleasure in showing her this familiar +environment was unmistakable. + +"Everything's rotten and upset now," said Billy, delighted with her +friendly interest and sympathy. "You ought to see these people when +they aren't on strike! Now, let's see, it's five thirty. I'll tell you, +Sue, if you'll miss the seven-five boat, I'll just wait here until we +get the news from the conference, then I'll blow you to Zink's best +dinner, and take you home on the ten-seventeen." + +"Oh, Bill, forget me!" she said, concerned for his obvious fatigue, for +his face was grimed with perspiration and very pale. "I feel like a +fool to have come in on you when you're so busy and so distressed! +Anything will be all right---" + +"Sue, I wouldn't have had you miss this for a million, if you can only +get along, somehow!" he said eagerly. "Some other time---" + +"Oh, Billy, DON'T bother about me!" Susan dismissed herself with an +impatient little jerk of her head. "Does this new thing worry you?" she +asked. + +"What new thing?" he asked sharply. + +"Why, this--this plan of Mr. Carpenter's to bring a train-load of men +on from Philadelphia," said Susan, half-proud and half-frightened. + +"Who said so?" he demanded abruptly. + +"Why, I don't know his name, Billy--yes I do, too! Mrs. Cudahy called +him Jarge---" + +"George Weston, that was!" Billy's eyes gleamed. "What else did he say?" + +"He said a man named Edward Harris---" "Sure it wasn't Frank Harris?" +"Frank Harris--that was it! He said Harris overheard him--or heard him +say so!" + +"Harris didn't hear anything that the old man didn't mean to have him +hear," said Billy grimly. "But that only makes it the more probably +true! Lord, Lord, I wonder where I can get hold of Weston!" + +"He's going to be at that conference, at half-past five," Susan assured +him. He gave her an amused look. + +"Aren't you the little Foxy-Quiller!" he said. "Gosh, I do love to have +you out here, Sue!" he added, grinning like a happy small boy. "This is +Rassette's, where I'm staying," he said, stopping before the very +prettiest and gayest of little gardens. "Come in and meet Mrs. +Rassette." + +Susan went in to meet the blonde, pretty, neatly aproned little lady of +the house. + +"The boys already are upstairs, Mr. Oliver," said Mrs. Rassette, and as +Billy went up the little stairway with flying leaps, she led Susan into +her clean little parlor. Susan noticed a rug whose design was an +immense brown dog, a lamp with a green, rose-wreathed shade, a carved +wooden clock, a little mahogany table beautifully inlaid with white +holly, an enormous pair of mounted antlers, and a large concertina, +ornamented with a mosaic design in mother-of-pearl. The wooden floor +here, and in the hall, was unpainted, but immaculately clean and the +effect of the whole was clean and gay and attractive. + +"You speak very wonderful English for a foreigner, Mrs. Rassette." + +"I?" The little matron showed her white teeth. "But I was born in New +Jersey," she explained, "only when I am seven my Mama sends me home to +my Grandma, so that I shall know our country. It is a better country +for the working people," she added, with a smile, and added +apologetically, "I must look into my kitchen; I am afraid my boy shall +fall out of his chair." + +"Oh, let's go out!" Susan followed her into a kitchen as spotless as +the rest of the house, and far more attractive. The floor was +cream-white, the woodwork and the tables white, and immaculate blue +saucepans hung above an immaculate sink. + +Three babies, the oldest five years old, were eating their supper in +the evening sunshine, and now fixed their solemn blue eyes upon the +guest. Susan thought they were the cleanest babies she had ever seen; +through their flaxen mops she could see their clean little heads, their +play-dresses were protected by checked gingham aprons worked in +cross-stitch designs. Marie and Mina and Ernie were kissed in turn, +after their mother had wiped their rosy little faces with a damp cloth. + +"I am baby-mad!" said Susan, sitting down with the baby in her lap. "A +strike is pretty hard, when you have these to think of, isn't it?" she +asked sympathetically. + +"Yes, we don't wish that we should move," Mrs. Rassette agreed +placidly, "We have been here now four years, and next year it is our +hope that we go to our ranch." + +"Oh, have you a ranch?" asked Susan. + +"We are buying a little ranch, in the Santa Clara valley," the other +woman said, drawing three bubbling Saucepans forward on her shining +little range. "We have an orchard there, and there is a town nearby +where Joe shall have a shop of his own. And there is a good school! But +until my Marie is seven, we think we shall stay here. So I hope the +strike will stop. My husband can always get work in Los Angeles, but it +is so far to move, if we must come back next year!" + +Susan watched her, serenely beginning to prepare the smallest girl for +bed; the helpful Marie trotting to and fro with nightgowns and +slippers. All the while the sound of men's voices had been rising and +falling steadily in an upstairs room. Presently they heard the scraping +of chairs on a bare floor, and a door slammed. + +Billy Oliver put his head into the kitchen. He looked tired, but smiled +when he saw Susan with the sleepy baby in her lap. + +"Hello, Sue, that your oldest? Come on, woman, the Cudahys expect us to +dinner, and we've not got much time!" + +Susan kissed the baby, and walked with him to the end of the block, and +straight through the open door of the Cudahy cottage, and into the +kitchen. Here they found Mrs. Cudahy, dashing through preparations for +a meal whose lavishness startled Susan. Bottles of milk and bottles of +cream stood on the table, Susan fell to stripping ears of corn; there +were pop-overs in the oven; Mrs. Cudahy was frying chickens at the +stove. Enough to feed the Carroll family, under their mother's +exquisite management, for a week! + +There was no management here. A small, freckled and grinning boy known +as "Maggie's Tim" came breathless from the grocery with a great bottle +of fancy pickles; Billy brought up beer from the cellar; Clem Cudahy +cut a thick slice of butter from a two-pound square, and helped it into +the serving-dish with a pudgy thumb. A large fruit pie and soda +crackers were put on the table with the main course, when they sat +down, hungry and talkative. + +"Well, what do you think of the Ironworks Row?" asked Billy, at about +seven o'clock, when the other men had gone off to the conference, and +Susan was helping Mrs. Cudahy in the kitchen. + +"Oh, I like it!" Susan assured him, enthusiastically. "Only," she added +in a lowered tone, with a glance toward Mrs. Cudahy, who was out in the +yard talking to Lizzie, "only I prefer the Rassette establishment to +any I've seen!" + +"The Rassettes," he told her, significantly, "are trained for their +work; she just as much as he is! Do you wonder I think it's worth while +to educate people like that?" + +"But Billy--everyone seems so comfortable. The Cudahys, now,--why, this +dinner was fit for a king--if it had been served a little differently!" + +"Oh, Clem's a rich man, as these men go," Billy said. "He's got two +flats he rents, and he's got stock! And they've three married sons, all +prosperous." + +"Well, then, why do they live here?" + +"Why wouldn't they? You think that it's far from clubs and shops and +theaters and libraries, but they don't care for these things. They've +never had time for them, they've never had time to garden, or go to +clubs, and consequently they don't miss them. But some day, Sue," said +Billy, with a darkening face, "some day, when these people have the +assurance that their old age is to be protected and when they have +easier hours, and can get home in daylight, then you'll see a change in +laborers' houses!" + +"And just what has a strike like this to do with that, Billy?" said +Susan, resting her cheek on her broom handle. + +"Oh, it's organization; it's recognition of rights; it's the +beginning!" he said. "We have to stand before we can walk!" + +"Here, don't do that!" said Mrs. Cudahy, coming in to take away the +broom. "Take her for a walk, Billy," said she, "and show her the +neighborhood." She laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Now, don't ye +worry about the men coming back," said she kindly, "they'll be back +fast enough, and wid good news, too!" + +"I'm going to stay overnight with Mrs. Cudahy," said Susan, as they +walked away. + +"You are!" he stopped short, in amazement. + +"Yes, I am!" Susan returned his smile with another. "I could no more +go home now than after the first act of a play!" she confessed. + +"Isn't it damned interesting?" he said, walking on. + +"Why, yes," she said. "It's real at last--it's the realest thing I ever +saw in my life! Everything's right on the surface, and all kept within +certain boundaries. In other places, people come and go in your lives. +Here, everybody's your neighbor. I like it! It could be perfect; just +fancy if the Carrolls had one house, and you another, and I a third, +and Phil and his wife a fourth--wouldn't it be like children playing +house! And there's another thing about it, Billy," Susan went on +enthusiastically, "it's honest! These people are really worried about +shoes and rent and jobs--there's no money here to keep them from +feeling everything! Think what a farce a strike would be if every man +in it had lots of money! People with money CAN'T get the taste of +really living!" + +"Ah, well, there's a lot of sin and wretchedness here now!" he said +sadly. "Women drinking--men acting like brutes! But some day, when the +liquor traffic is regulated, and we have pension laws, and perhaps the +single tax---" + +"And the Right-Reverend William Lord Oliver, R. I., in the Presidential +Chair, hooray and Glory be to God---!" Susan began. + +"Oh, you dry up, Susan," Billy said laughing. "I don't care," he added +contentedly. "I like to be at the bottom of things, shoving up. And my +Lord, if we only pull this thing off---!" + +"It's not my preconceived idea of a strike," Susan said, after a +moment's silence. "I thought one had to throw coal, and run around the +streets with a shawl over one's head---" + +"In the east, where the labor is foreign, that's about it," he said, +"but here we have American-born laborers, asking for their rights. And +I believe it's all coming!" + +"But with ignorance and inefficiency on one hand, and graft and cruelty +on the other, and drink and human nature and poverty adding their +complications, it seems rather a big job!" Susan said. "Now, look at +these small kids out of bed at this hour of night, Bill! And what are +they eating?--Boiled crabs! And notice the white stockings--I never had +a pair in my life, yet every kidlet on the block is wearing them. And +look upstairs there, with a bed still airing!" + +"The wonder is that it's airing at all," Billy said absently. "Is that +the boys coming back?" he asked sharply. + +"Now, Bill, why do you worry---?" But Susan knew it was useless to +scold him. They went quietly back, and sat on Mrs. Cudahy's steps, and +waited for news. All Ironworks Row waited. Down the street Susan could +see silent groups on nearly every door-step. It grew very dark; there +was no moon, but the sky was thickly strewn with stars. + +It was after ten o'clock when the committee came back. Susan knew, the +moment that she saw the three, moving all close together, silently and +slowly, that they brought no good news. + +As a matter of fact, they brought almost no news at all. They went into +Clem Cudahy's dining-room, and as many men and women as could crowded +in after them. Billy sat at the head of the table. + +Carpenter, the "old man" himself, had stuck to his guns, Clem Cudahy +said. He was the obstinate one; the younger men would have conceded +something, if not everything, long ago. But the old man had said that +he would not be dictated to by any man alive, and if the men wanted to +listen to an ignorant young enthusiast--- + +"Three cheers for Mr. Oliver!" said a strong young voice, at this +point, and the cheers were given and echoed in the street, although +Billy frowned, and said gruffly, "Oh, cut it out!" + +It was a long evening. Susan began to think that they would talk +forever. But, at about eleven o'clock, the men who had been streaming +in and out of the house began to disperse, and she and Mrs. Cudahy went +into the kitchen, and made a pot of coffee. + +Susan, sitting at the foot of the table, poured it, and seasoned it +carefully. + +"You are going to be well cared for, Mr. Oliver," said Ernest Rassette, +in his careful English. + +"No such luck!" Billy said, smiling at Susan, as he emptied his cup at +a draught. "Well! I don't know that we do any good sitting here. Things +seem to be at a deadlock." + +"What do they concede, Bill?" Susan asked. + +"Oh, practically everything but the recognition of the union. At least, +Carpenter keeps saying that if this local agitation was once wiped +out,--which is me!--then he'd talk. He doesn't love me, Sue." + +"Damn him!" said one of his listeners, a young man who sat with his +head in his hands. + +"It's after twelve," Billy said, yawning. "Me to the hay! Goodnight, +everyone; goodnight, Sue!" + +"And annywan that cud get a man like that, and doesn't," said Mrs. +Cudahy when he was gone, "must be lookin' for a saint right out av the +lit'ny!" + +"I never heard of any girl refusing Mr. Oliver," Susan said demurely. + +She awoke puzzled, vaguely elated. Sunshine was streaming in at the +window, an odor of coffee, of bacon, of toast, drifted up from below. +Susan had slept well. She performed the limited toilet necessitated by +a basin and pitcher, a comb somewhat beyond its prime, and a mirror too +full of sunlight to be flattering. + +But it was evidently satisfactory, for Clem Cudahy told her, as she +went smiling into the kitchen, that she looked like a streak of +sunlight herself. Sunlight was needed; it was a worried and anxious day +for them all. + +Susan went with Lizzie to see the new Conover baby, and stopped on the +way back to be introduced to Mrs. Jerry Nelson, who had been stretched +on her bed for eight long years. Mrs. Nelson's bright little room was +easily accessible from the street; the alert little suffering woman was +never long alone. + +"I have to throw good soup out, the way it spoils on me," said Mrs. +Nelson's daughter to Susan, "and there's nobody round makes cake or +custard but what Mama gets some!" + +"I'm a great one for making friends," the invalid assured her happily. +"I don't miss nothing!" + +"And after all I don't see why such a woman isn't better off than Mary +Lord," said Susan later to Billy, "so much nearer the center of things! +Of course," she told him that afternoon, "I ought to go home today. But +I'm too interested. I simply can't! What happens next?" + +"Oh, waiting," he said wearily. "We have a mass meeting this afternoon. +But there's nothing to do but wait!" + +Waiting was indeed the order of the day. The whole colony waited. It +grew hotter and hotter; flies buzzed in and out of the open doorways, +children fretted and shouted in the shade. Susan had seen no drinking +the night before; but now she saw more than one tragedy. The meeting at +three o'clock ended in a more grim determination than ever; the men +began to seem ugly. Sunset brought a hundred odors of food, and +unbearable heat. + +"I've got to walk some of this off," said Billy, restlessly, just +before dark. "Come on up and see the cabbage gardens!" + +Susan pinned on her wide hat, joined him in silence, and still in +silence they threaded the path that led through various dooryards and +across vacant lots, and took a rising road toward the hills. + +The stillness and soft dusk were very pleasant to Susan; she could find +a beauty in carrot-tops and beet greens, and grew quite rapturous over +a cow. + +"Doesn't the darling look comfortable and countryish, Bill?" + +Billy interrupted his musing to give her an absent smile. They sat down +on a pile of lumber, and watched the summer moon rise gloriously over +the hills. + +"Doesn't it seem FUNNY to you that we're right in the middle of a +strike, Bill?" Susan asked childishly. + +"Funny--! Oh, Lord!" + +"Well---" Susan laughed at herself, "I didn't mean funny! But I'll tell +you what I'd do in your place," she added thoughtfully. + +Billy glanced at her quickly. + +"What YOU'D do?" he asked curiously. + +"Certainly! I've been thinking it over, as a dispassionate outsider," +Susan explained calmly. + +"Well, go on," he said, grinning indulgently. + +"Well, I will," Susan said, firing, "if you'll treat me seriously, and +not think that I say this merely because the Carrolls want you to go +camping with us! I was just thinking---" Susan smiled bashfully, "I was +wondering why you don't go to Carpenter---" + +"He won't see me!" + +"Well, you know what I mean!" she said impatiently. "Send your +committee to him, and make him this proposition. Say that if he'll +recognize the union--that's the most important thing, isn't it?" + +"That's by far the most important! All the rest will follow if we get +that. But he's practically willing to grant all the rest, EXCEPT the +union. That's the whole point, Sue!" + +"I know it is, but listen. Tell him that if he'll consent to all the +other conditions--why," Susan spread open her hands with a shrug, +"you'll get out! Bill, you know and I know that what he hates more than +anything or anybody is Mr. William Oliver, and he'd agree to almost ANY +terms for the sake of having you eliminated from his future +consideration!" + +"I--get out?" Billy repeated dazedly. "Why, I AM the union!" + +"Oh, no you're not, Bill. Surely the principles involved are larger +than any one man!" Susan said pleasantly. + +"Well, well--yes--that's true!" he agreed, after a second's silence. +"To a certain extent--I see what you mean!--that is true. But, Sue, +this is an unusual case. I organized these boys, I talked to them, and +for them. They couldn't hold together without me--they'll tell you so +themselves!" + +"But, Billy, that's not logic. Suppose you died?" + +"Well, well, but by the Lord Harry I'm not going to die!" he said +heatedly. "I propose to stick right here on my job, and if they get a +bunch of scabs in here they can take the consequences! The hour of +organized labor has come, and we'll fight the thing out along these +lines---" + +"Through your hat--that's the way you're talking now!" Susan said +scornfully. "Don't use those worn-out phrases, Bill; don't do it! I'm +sick of people who live by a bunch of expressions, without ever +stopping to think whether they mean anything or not! You're too big and +too smart for that, Bill! Now, here you've given the cause a splendid +push up, you've helped these particular men! Now go somewhere else, and +stir up more trouble. They'll find someone to carry it on, don't you +worry, and meanwhile you'll be a sort of idol--all the more influential +for being a martyr to the cause!" + +Billy did not answer. He got up and walked away from her, turned, and +came slowly back. + +"I've been here ten years," he said then, and at the sound of pain in +his voice the girl's heart began to ache for him. "I don't believe +they'd stand for it," he added presently, with more hope. And finally, +"And I don't know what I'd do!" + +"Well, that oughtn't to influence you," Susan said bracingly. + +"No, you're quite right. That's not the point," he agreed quickly. + +Presently she saw him lean forward in the darkness, and put his head in +his hands. Susan longed to put her arm about him, and draw the rough +head to her shoulder and comfort him. + +At breakfast time the next morning, Billy walked into Mrs. Cudahy's +dining-room, very white, very serious, determined lines drawn about his +firm young mouth. Susan looked at him, half-fearful, half-pitying. + +"How late did you walk, Bill?" she asked, for he had gone out again +after bringing her back to the house the night before. + +"I didn't go to bed," he said briefly. He sat down by the table. "Well, +I guess Miss Brown put her finger on the very heart of the matter, +Clem," said he. + +"And how's that?" asked Clem Cudahy. His wife, in the very act of +pouring the newcomer a cup of coffee, stopped with arrested arm. Susan +experienced a sensation of panic. + +"Oh, but I didn't mean anything!" she said eagerly. "Don't mind what I +said, Bill!" + +But the matter had been taken out of her hands now, and in less than an +hour the news spread over the entire settlement. Mr. Oliver was going +to resign! + +The rest of the morning and the early afternoon went by in a confused +rush. At three o'clock Billy, surrounded by vociferous allies, walked +to the hall, for a stormy and exhausting meeting. + +"The boys wouldn't listen to him at all at first," said Clem, in giving +the women an account of it, later. "But eventually they listened, and +eventually he carried the day. It was all too logical to be ignored and +turned aside, he told them. They had not been fighting for any personal +interest, or any one person. They had asked for this change, and that, +and the other,--and these things they might still win. He, after all, +had nothing to do with the issue; as a recognized labor union they +might stand on their own feet." + +After that the two committees met, in old Mr. Carpenter's office, and +Billy came home to Susan and Mrs. Cudahy, and sat for a tense hour +playing moodily with Lizzie's baby. + +Then the committee came back, almost as silently as it had come last +night. But this time it brought news. The strike was over. + +Very quietly, very gravely, they made it known that terms had been +reached at last. Practically everything had been granted, on the single +condition that William Oliver resign from his position in the Iron +Works, and his presidency of the union. + +Billy congratulated them. Susan knew that he was so emotionally shaken, +and so tired, as to be scarcely aware of what he was doing and saying. +Men and women began to come in and discuss the great news. There were +some tears; there was real grief on more than one of the hard young +faces. + +"I'll see all you boys again in a day or two," Billy said. "I'm going +over to Sausalito to-night,--I'm all in! We've won, and that's the main +thing, but I want you to let me off quietly to-night,--we can go over +the whole thing later. + +"Gosh, about one cheer, and I would have broken down like a kid!" he +said to Susan, on the car. Rassette and Clem had escorted them thither; +Mrs. Cudahy and Lizzie walking soberly behind them, with Susan. Both +women kissed Susan good-bye, and Susan smiled through her tears as she +saw the last of them. + +"I'll take good care of him," she promised the old woman. "He's been +overdoing it too long!" + +"Lord, it will be good to get away into the big woods," said Billy. +"You're quite right, I've taken the whole thing too hard!" + +"At the same time," said Susan, "you'll want to get back to work, +sooner or later, and, personally, I can't imagine anything else in life +half as fascinating as work right there, among those people, or people +like them!" + +"Then you can see how it would cut a fellow all up to leave them?" he +asked wistfully. + +"See!" Susan echoed. "Why, I'm just about half-sick with homesickness +myself!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The train went on and on and on; through woods wrapped in dripping +mist, and fields smothered in fog. The unseasonable August afternoon +wore slowly away. Betsey, fitting her head against the uncomfortable +red velvet back of the seat, dozed or seemed to doze. Mrs. Carroll +opened her magazine over and over again, shut it over and over again, +and stared out at the landscape, eternally slipping by. William Oliver, +seated next to Susan, was unashamedly asleep, and Susan, completing the +quartette, looked dreamily from face to face, yawned suppressedly, and +wrestled with "The Right of Way." + +They were making the six hours' trip to the big forest for a month's +holiday, and it seemed to each one of the four that they had been in +the train a long, long time. In the racks above their heads were coats +and cameras, suit-cases and summer hats, and a long cardboard box, +originally intended for "Gents' medium, ribbed, white," but now +carrying fringed napkins and the remains of a luncheon. + +It had all been planned a hundred times, under the big lamp in the +Sausalito sitting-room. The twelve o'clock train--Farwoods Station at +five--an hour's ride in the stage--six o'clock. Then they would be at +the cabin, and another hour--say--would be spent in the simplest of +housewarming. A fire must be built to dry bedding after the long +months, and to cook bacon and eggs, and just enough unpacking to find +night-wear and sheets. That must do for the first night. + +"But we'll sit and talk over the fire," Betsey would plead. "Please, +Mother! We'll be all through dinner at eight o'clock!" + +The train however was late, nearly half-an-hour late, when they reached +Farwoods. The stage, pleasant enough in pleasant weather, was +disgustingly cramped and close inside. Susan and Betsey were both young +enough to resent the complacency with which Jimmy climbed up, with his +dog, beside the driver. + +"You let him stay in the baggage-car with Baloo all the way, Mother," +Betts reproached her, flinging herself recklessly into the coach, "and +now you're letting him ride in the rain!" + +"Well, stop falling over everything, for Heaven's sake, Betts!" Susan +scolded. "And don't step on the camera! Don't get in, Billy,--I say +DON'T GET IN! Well, why don't you listen to me then! These things are +all over the floor, and I have to---" + +"I have to get in, it's pouring,--don't be such a crab, Sue!" Billy +said pleasantly. "Lord, what's that! What did I break?" + +"That's the suitcase with the food in it," Susan snapped. "PLEASE wait +a minute, Betts!--All right," finished Susan bitterly, settling herself +in a dark corner, "tramp over everything, I don't care!" + +"If you don't care, why are you talking about it?" asked Betts. + +"He says that we'll have to get out at the willows, and walk up the +trail," said Mrs. Carroll, bending her tall head, as she entered the +stage, after a conversation with the driver. "Gracious sakes, how +things have been tumbled in! Help me pile these things up, girls!" + +"I was trying to," Susan began stiffly, leaning forward to do her +share. A sudden jolt of the starting stage brought her head against +Betts with a violent concussion. After that she sat back in magnificent +silence for half the long drive. + +They jerked and jolted on the uneven roads, the rain was coming down +more steadily now, and finally even Jimmy and the shivering Baloo had +to come inside the already well-filled stage. + +It was quite dark when they were set down at the foot of the overgrown +trail, and started, heavily loaded, for the cabin. Wind sighed and +swept through the upper branches of the forest, boughs creaked and +whined, the ground underfoot was spongy with moisture, and the air very +cold. + +The cabin was dark and deserted looking; a drift of tiny redwood +branches carpeted the porch. The rough steps ran water. Once inside, +they struck matches and lighted a candle. + +Cold, darkness and disorder everybody had expected to find. But it was +a blow to discover that the great stone fireplace, the one real beauty +of the room, and the delight of every chilly evening, had been brought +down by some winter gale. A bleak gap marked its once hospitable +vicinity, cool air rushed in where the breath of dancing flames had so +often rushed out, and, some in a great heap on the hearth, and some +flung in muddy confusion to the four corners of the room, the sooty +stones lay scattered. + +It was a bad moment for everyone. Betsey began to cry, her weary little +head on her mother's shoulder. + +"This won't do!" Mrs. Carroll said perplexedly. "B-r-r-r-r! How cold it +is!" + +"This is rotten," Jimmy said bitterly. "And all the fellows are going +to the Orpheum to-night too!" he added enviously. + +"It's warm here compared to the bedroom," Susan, who had been +investigating, said simply. "The blankets feel wet, they're so cold!" + +"And too wet for a camp-fire--" mused the mother. + +"And the stage gone!" Billy added. + +A cold draught blew open the door and set the candle guttering. + +"Oh, I'm so COLD!" Susan said, hunching herself like a sick chicken. + +The rest of the evening became family history. How they took their +camping stove and its long tin pipe from the basement, and set it up in +the woodshed that, with the little bedroom, completed the cabin, how +wood from the cellar presently crackled within, how suitcases were +opened by maddening candle-light, and wet boots changed for warm +slippers, and wet gowns for thick wrappers. How the kettle sang and the +bacon hissed, and the coffee-pot boiled over, and everybody took a turn +at cutting bread. Deep in the heart of the rain-swept, storm-shaken +woods, they crowded into the tiny annex, warm and dry, so lulled by the +warm meal and the warm clothes that it was with great difficulty that +Mrs. Carroll roused them all for bed at ten o'clock. + +"I'm going to sleep with you, Sue," announced Betsey, shivering, and +casting an envious glance at her younger brother who, with Billy, was +to camp for that night in the kitchen, "and if it's like this +to-morrow, I vote that we all go home!" + +But they awakened in all the fragrant beauty and stillness of a great +forest, on a heavenly August morning. Sunshine flooded the cabin, when +Susan opened her eyes, and the vista of redwood boughs beyond the +window was shot with long lines of gold. Everywhere were sweetness and +silence; blots of bright gold on feathery layers of soft green. +High-arched aisles stretched all about the cabin like the spokes of a +great wheel; warm currents, heavy with piney sweetness, drifted across +the crystal and sparkling brightness of the air. The rain was gone; the +swelled creek rushed noisily down a widened course; it was cool now, +but the day would be hot. Susan, dressing with her eyes on the world +beyond the window, was hastened by a sudden delicious odor of boiling +coffee, and the delightful sound of a crackling wood fire. + +Delightful were all the sights and sounds and duties of the first days +in camp. There must be sweeping, airing, unpacking in the little +domicile. Someone must walk four miles to the general store for salt, +and more matches, and pancake flour. Someone must take the other +direction, and climb a mile of mountain every day or two for milk and +eggs and butter. The spring must be cleared, and a board set across the +stream; logs dragged in for the fire, a pantry built of boxes, for +provisions, and ship-shape disposition made of mugs and plates. + +Billy sharpened cranes for their camp-kitchen, swung the kettles over a +stone-lined depression, erected a protection of flat redwood boughs. +And under his direction the fireplace was rebuilt. + +"It just shows what you can do, if you must!" said Susan, complacently +eying the finished structure. + +"It's handsomer than ever!" Mrs. Carroll said. The afternoon sunlight +was streaming in across the newly swept hearth, and touching to +brighter colors the Navajo blanket stretched on the floor. "And now we +have one more happy association with the camp!' she finished +contentedly. + +"Billy is wishing he could transfer all his strikers up here," said +Susan dimpling. "He thinks that a hundred miles of forest are too much +for just a few people!" + +"They wouldn't enjoy it," he answered seriously, "they have had no +practice in this sort of life. They'd hate it. But of course it's a +matter of education---" + +"Help! He's off!" said the irreverent Susan, "now he'll talk for an +hour! Come on, Betts, I have to go for milk!" + +Exquisite days these for them all, days so brimming with beauty as to +be forever memorable. Susan awoke every morning to a rushing sense of +happiness, and danced to breakfast looking no more than a gay child, in +her bluejacket's blouse, with her bright hair in a thick braid. Busy +about breakfast preparations, and interrupted by a hundred little +events in the forest or stream all about her, Billy would find her. +There was always a moment of heat and hurry, when toast and oatmeal and +coffee must all be brought to completion at once, and then they might +loiter over their breakfast as long as they liked. + +Afterward, Susan and Mrs. Carroll put the house in order, while the +others straightened and cleaned the camp outside. Often the talks +between the two women ran far over the time their work filled, and +Betsey would come running in to ask Mother and Susan why they were +laughing. Laughter was everywhere, not much was needed to send them all +into gales of mirth. + +Usually they packed a basket, gathered the stiff, dry bathing suits +from the grass, and lunched far up in the woods. Fishing gear was +carried along, although the trout ran small, and each fish provided +only a buttery, delicious mouthful. Susan learned to swim and was more +proud of her first breathless journey across the pool than were the +others with all their expert diving and racing. Mrs. Carroll swam well, +and her daughters were both splendid swimmers. + +After the first dip, they lunched on the hot shingle, and dozed and +talked, and skipped flat stones on the water, until it was time to swim +again. All about them the scene was one of matchless beauty. Steep +banks, aquiver with ferns, came down on one side of the pool, to the +very edge of the crystal water; on the other, long arcades, shot with +mellow sunlight, stretched away through the forest. Bees went by on +swift, angry journeys, and dragon-flies rested on the stones for a few +dazzling palpitating seconds, and were gone again. Black water-bugs +skated over the shallows, throwing round shadows on the smooth floor of +the pool. + +Late in the afternoon, the campers would saunter home, crossing hot +strips of meadow, where they started hundreds of locusts into flight, +or plunging into the cool green of twilight woods. Back at the camp, +there would be the crackle of wood again, with all the other noises of +the dying forest day. Good odors drifted about, broiling meat and +cooking wild berries, chipmunks and gray squirrels and jays chattered +from the trees overhead; there was a whisking of daring tails, a +flutter of bold wings. + +Daylight lasted for the happy meal, and stars came out above their +camp-fire. And while they talked or sang, or sat with serious young +eyes watching the flames, owls called far away through the wood, birds +chuckled sleepily in the trees, and, where moonlight touched the +stream, sometimes a trout rose and splashed. + +When was it that Billy always began to take his place at Susan's side, +at the campfire, their shoulders almost touching in the dark? When was +it that, through all the careless, happy companionship that bound them +all, she began to know, with a thrill of joy and pain at her heart, +that there were special looks for her, special glad tones for her? She +did not know. + +But she did know that suddenly all the world seemed Billy,--Billy's arm +to cross a stream, Billy's warning beside the swimming pool, Billy's +laughter at her nonsense, and Billy's eyes when she looked up from +musing over her book or turned, on a trail, to call back to the others, +following her. She knew why the big man stumbled over words, grew +awkward and flushed when she turned upon him the sisterly gaze of her +blue eyes. + +And with the knowledge life grew almost unbearably sweet. Susan was +enveloped in some strange golden glory; the mere brushing of her hair, +or shaking out of her bathing-suit became a rite, something to be done +with an almost suffocating sense of significance. Everything she did +became intensified, her laughter and her tears were more ready, her +voice had new and sweeter notes in it, she glowed like a rose in the +knowledge that he thought her beautiful, and because he thought her +sweet and capable and brave she became all of these things. + +She did not analyze him; he was different from all other men, he stood +alone among them, simply because he was Billy. He was tall and strong +and clean of heart and sunny of temper, yes--but with these things she +did not concern herself,--he was poor, too, he was unemployed, he had +neither class nor influence to help him,--that mattered as little. + +He was Billy,--genial and clever and good, unconventional, eager to +learn, full of simple faith in human nature, honest and unaffected +whether he was dealing with the president of a great business, or +teaching Jim how to play his reel for trout,--and he had her whole +heart. Whether she was laughing at his arguments, agreeing with his +theories, walking silently at his side through the woods, or watching +the expressions that followed each other on his absorbed face, while he +cleaned his gun or scrutinized the detached parts of Mrs. Carroll's +coffee-mill, Susan followed him with eyes into which a new expression +had crept. She watched him swimming, flinging back an arc of bright +drops with every jerk of his sleek wet head; she bent her whole +devotion on the garments he brought her for buttons, hoping that he did +not see the trembling of her hands, or the rush of color that his mere +nearness brought to her face. She thrilled with pride when he came to +bashfully consult her about the long letters he wrote from time to time +to Clem Cudahy or Joseph Rassette, listened eagerly to his talks with +the post-office clerk, the store-keeper, the dairymen and ranchers up +on the mountain. + +And always she found him good. "Too good for me," said Susan sadly to +herself. "He has made the best of everything that ever came his way, +and I have been a silly fool whenever I had half a chance." + +The miracle was worked afresh for them, as for all lovers. This was no +mere attraction between a man and a maid, such as she had watched all +her life, Susan thought. This was some new and rare and wonderful +event, as miraculous in the eyes of all the world as it was to her. + +"I should be Susan Oliver," she thought with a quick breath. An actual +change of name--how did other women ever survive the thrill and +strangeness of itl "We should have to have a house," she told herself, +lying awake one night. A house--she and Billy with a tiny establishment +of their own, alone over their coffee-cups, alone under their lamp! +Susan's heart went out to the little house, waiting for them somewhere. +She hung a dream apron on the door of a dream kitchen, and went to meet +a tired dream-Billy at the door---- + +He would kiss her. The blood rushed to her face and she shut her happy +eyes. + +A dozen times a day she involved herself in some enterprise from which +she could not extricate herself without his help. Billy had to take +heavy logs out of her arms, had to lay a plank across the stretch of +creek she could not cross, had to help her down from the crotch of a +tree with widespread brotherly arms. + +"I thought--I--could--make--it!" gasped Susan, laughing, when he swam +after her, across the pool, and towed her ignominiously home. + +"Susan, you're a fool!" scolded Billy, when they were safe on the bank, +and Susan, spreading her wet hair about her, siren-wise, answered +meekly: "Oh, I know it!" + +On a certain Saturday Anna and Philip climbed down from the stage, and +the joys of the campers were doubled as they related their adventures +and shared all their duties and delights. Susan and Anna talked nearly +all night, lying in their canvas beds, on a porch flooded with +moonlight, and if Susan did not mention Billy, nor Anna allude to the +great Doctor Hoffman, they understood each other for all that. + +The next day they all walked up beyond the ranch-house, and followed +the dripping flume to the dam. And here, beside a wide sheet of blue +water, they built their fire, and had their lunch, and afterward spent +a long hour in the water. Quail called through the woods, and rabbits +flashed out of sight at the sound of human voices, and once, in a +silence, a doe, with a bright-eyed fawn clinking after her on the +stones, came down to the farther shore for a drink. + +"You ought to live this sort of life all the time, Sue!" Billy said +idly, as they sat sunning themselves on the wide stone bulkhead that +held back the water. + +"I? Why?" asked Susan, marking the smooth cement with a wet forefinger. + +"Because you're such a kid, Sue--you like it all so much!" + +"Knowing what you know of me, Bill, I wonder that you can think of me +as young at all," the girl answered drily, suddenly somber and raising +shamed eyes to his. + +"How do you mean?" he stammered, and then, suddenly enlightened, he +added scornfully, "Oh, Lord!" + +"That---" Susan said quietly, still marking the hot cement, "will keep +me from ever--ever being happy, Bill---" Her voice thickened, and she +stopped speaking. + +"I don't look at that whole episode as you do, Sue," Billy said gruffly +after a moment's embarrassed silence. "I don't believe chance controls +those things. I often think of it when some man comes to me with a +hard-luck story. His brother cheated him, and a factory burned down, +and he was three months sick in a hospital--yes, that may all be true! +But follow him back far enough and you'll find he was a mean man from +the very start, ruined a girl in his home town, let his wife support +his kids. It's years ago now perhaps, but his fate is simply working +out its natural conclusion. Somebody says that character IS fate, +Sue,--you've always been sweet and decent and considerate of other +people, and your fate saved you through that. You couldn't have done +anything wrong--it's not IN you!" + +He looked up with his bright smile but Susan could hear no more. She +had scrambled to her feet while he was speaking, now she stopped only +long enough to touch his shoulder with a quick, beseeching pressure. +The next instant she was walking away, and he knew that her face was +wet with tears. She plunged into the pool, and swam steadily across the +silky expanse, and when he presently joined her, with Anna and Betts, +she was quite herself again. + +Quite her old self, and the life and heart of everything they did. Anna +laughed until the tears stood in her eyes, the others, more easily +moved, went from one burst of mirth to another. They were coming home +past the lumber mill when Billy fell in step just beside her, and the +others drifted on without them. There was nothing in that to startle +Susan, but she did feel curiously startled, and a little shy, and +managed to keep a conversation going almost without help. + +"Stop here and watch the creek," said Billy, at the mill bridge. Susan +stopped, and they stood looking down at the foaming water, tumbling +through barriers, and widening, in a ruffled circle, under the great +wheel. + +"Was there ever such a heavenly place, Billy?" + +"Never," he said, after a second. Susan had time to think his voice a +little deep and odd before he added, with an effort, "We'll come back +here often, won't we? After we're married?" + +"Oh, are we going to be married?" Susan said lightly. + +"Well, aren't we?" He quietly put his arm about her, as they stood at +the rail, so that in turning her innocent, surprised eyes, she found +his face very near. Susan held herself away rigidly, dropped her eyes. +She could not answer. + +"How about it, Sue?" he asked, very low and, looking up, she found that +he was half-smiling, but with anxious eyes. Suddenly she found her eyes +brimming, and her lip shook. Susan felt very young, a little frightened. + +"Do you love me, Billy?" she faltered. It was too late to ask it, but +her heart suddenly ached with a longing to hear him say it. + +"Love you!" he said scarcely above his breath. "Don't you know how I +love you! I think I've loved you ever since you came to our house, and +I gave you my cologne bottle!" + +There was no laughter in his tone, but the old memory brought laughter +to them both. Susan clung to him, and he tightened his arms about her. +Then they kissed each other. + +Half an hour behind the others they came slowly down the home trail. +Susan had grown shy now and, although she held his hand childishly, she +would not allow him to kiss her again. The rapid march of events had +confused her, and she amused him by a plea for time "to think." + +"Please, please don't let them suspect anything tonight, Bill!" she +begged. "Not for months! For we shall probably have to wait a long, +long time!" + +"I have a nerve to ask any girl to do it!" Billy said gloomily. + +"You're not asking any girl. You're asking me, you know!" + +"But, darling, you honestly aren't afraid? We'll have to count every +cent for awhile, you know!" + +"It isn't as if I had been a rich girl," Susan reminded him. + +"But you've been a lot with rich people. And we'll have to live in some +place in the Mission, like Georgie, Sue!" + +"In the Mission perhaps, but not like Georgie! Wait until you eat my +dinners, and see my darling little drawing-room! And we'll go to dinner +at Coppa's and Sanguinetti's, and come over to Sausalito for +picnics,--we'll have wonderful times! You'll see!" + +"I adore you," said Billy, irrevelantly. + +"Well," Susan said, "I hope you do! But I'll tell you something I've +been thinking, Billy," she resumed dreamily, after a silence. + +"And pwhats dthat, me dar-r-rlin'?" + +"Why, I was thinking that I'd rather---" Susan began hesitatingly, +"rather have my work cut out for me in this life! That is, I'd rather +begin at the bottom of the ladder, and work up to the top, than be at +the top, through no merit of my own, and live in terror of falling to +the bottom! I believe, from what I've seen of other people, that we'll +succeed, and I think we'll have lots of fun doing it!" + +"But, Sue, you may get awfully tired of it!" + +"Everybody gets awfully tired of everything!" sang Susan, and caught +his hand for a last breathless run into camp. + +At supper they avoided each other's eyes, and assumed an air of +innocence and gaiety. But in spite of this, or because of it, the meal +moved in an unnatural atmosphere, and everyone present was conscious of +a sense of suspense, of impending news. + +"Betts dear, do listen!--the SALT," said Mrs. Carroll. "You've given me +the spoons and the butter twice! Tell me about to-day," she added, in a +desperate effort to start conversation. "What happened?" + +But Jimmy choked at this, Betsey succumbed to helpless giggling, and +even Philip reddened with suppressed laughter. + +"Don't, Betts!" Anna reproached her. + +"You're just as bad yourself!" sputtered Betsey, indignantly. + +"I?" Anna turned virtuous, outraged eyes upon her junior, met Susan's +look for a quivering second, and buried her flushed and laughing face +in her napkin. + +"I think you're all crazy!" Susan said calmly. + +"She's blushing!" announced Jimmy. + +"Cut it out now, kid," Billy growled. "It's none of your business!" + +"WHAT'S none of his business?" carroled Betsey, and a moment later +joyous laughter and noise broke out,--Philip was shaking William's +hand, the girls were kissing Susan, Mrs. Carroll was laughing through +tears. Nobody had been told the great news, but everybody knew it. + +Presently Susan sat in Mrs. Carroll's lap, and they all talked of the +engagement; who had suspected it, who had been surprised, what Anna had +noticed, what had aroused Jimmy's suspicions. Billy was very talkative +but Susan strangely quiet to-night. + +It seemed to make it less sacred, somehow, this open laughter and +chatter about it. Why she had promised Billy but a few hours ago, and +here he was threatening never to ask Betts to "our house," unless she +behaved herself, and kissing Anna with the hilarious assurance that his +real reason for "taking" Susan was because she, Anna, wouldn't have +him! No man who really loved a woman could speak like that to another +on the very night of his engagement, thought Susan. A great coldness +seized her heart, and pity for herself possessed her. She sat next to +Mrs. Carroll at the camp-fire, and refused Billy even the little +liberty of keeping his fingers over hers. No liberties to-night! + +And later, tucked by Mrs. Carroll's motherly hands into her little camp +bed on the porch, she lay awake, sick at heart. Far from loving Billy +Oliver, she almost disliked him! She did not want to be engaged this +way, she wanted, at this time of all times in her life, to be treated +with dignity, to be idolized, to have her every breath watched. How she +had cheapened everything by letting him blurt out the news this way! +And now, how could she in dignity draw back---- + +Susan began to cry bitterly. She was all alone in the world, she said +to herself, she had never had a chance, like other girls! She wanted a +home to-night, she wanted her mother and father---! + +Her handkerchief was drenched, she tried to dry her eyes on the harsh +hem of the sheet. Her tears rushed on and on, there seemed to be no +stopping them. Billy did not care for her, she sobbed to herself, he +took the whole thing as a joke! And, beginning thus, what would he feel +after a few years of poverty, dark rooms and unpaid bills? + +Even if he did love her, thought Susan bursting out afresh, how was she +to buy a trousseau, how were they to furnish rooms, and pay rent, "one +always has to pay a month's rent in advance!" she thought gloomily. + +"I believe I am going to be one of those weepy, sensitive women, whose +noses are always red," said Susan, tossing restlessly in the dark. "I +shall go mad if I can't get to sleep!" And she sat up, reached for her +big, loose Japanese wrapper and explored with bare feet for her +slippers. + +Ah--that was better! She sat on the top step, her head resting against +the rough pillar of the porch, and felt a grateful rush of cool air on +her flushed face. Her headache lessened suddenly, her thoughts ran more +quietly. + +There was no moon yet. Susan stared at the dim profile of the forest, +and at the arch of the sky, spattered with stars. The exquisite beauty +of the summer night soothed and quieted her. After a time she went +noiselessly down the dark pathway to the spring-house for a drink. + +The water was deliciously cool and fresh. Susan, draining a second cup +of it, jumped as a voice nearby said quietly: + +"Don't be frightened--it's me, Billy!" + +"Heaven alive--how you scared me!" gasped Susan, catching at the hand +he held out to lead her back to the comparative brightness of the path. +"Billy, why aren't you asleep?" + +"Too happy, I guess," he said simply, his eyes on her. + +She held his hands at arm's length, and stared at him wistfully. + +"Are you so happy, Bill?" she asked. + +"Well, what do you think?" The words were hardly above a whisper, he +wrenched his hands suddenly free from her, and she was in his arms, +held close against his heart. "What do you think, my own girl?" said +Billy, close to her ear. + +"Heavens, I don't want him to care THIS much!" said the terrified +daughter of Eve, to herself. Breathless, she freed herself, and held +him at arm's length again. + +"Billy, I can't stay down here--even for a second--unless you promise +not to!" + +"But darling--however, I won't! And will you come over here to the +fence for just a minute--the moon's coming up!" + +Billy Oliver--the same old Billy!--trembling with eagerness to have +Susan Brown--the unchanged Susan!--come and stand by a fence, and watch +the moon rise! It was very extraordinary, it was pleasant, and +curiously exciting, too. + +"Well---" conceded Susan, as she gathered her draperies about her, and +went to stand at the fence, and gaze childlishly up at the stars. +Billy, also resting elbows on the old rail, stood beside her, and never +moved his eyes from her face. + +The half-hour that followed both of them would remember as long as they +lived. Slowly, gloriously, the moon climbed up the dark blue dome of +the sky, and spread her silver magic on the landscape; the valley below +them swam in pale mist, clean-cut shadows fell from the nearby forest. + +The murmur of young voices rose and fell--rose and fell. There were +little silences, now and then Susan's subdued laughter. Susan thought +her lover magnificent in the moonlight; what Billy thought of the +lovely downcast face, the loose braid of hair that caught a dull gleam +from the moon, the slender elbows bare on the rail, the breast that +rose and fell, under her light wraps, with Susan's quickened breathing, +perhaps he tried to tell her. + +"But I must go in!" she protested presently. "This has been wonderful, +but I must go in!" + +"But why? We've just begun talking--and after all, Sue, you're going to +be my wife!" + +The word spurred her. In a panic Susan gave him a swift half-kiss, and +fled, breathless and dishevelled, back to the porch. And a moment later +she had fallen into a sleep as deep as a child's, her prayer of +gratitude half-finished. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The days that followed were brightened or darkened with moods so +intense, that it was a real, if secret, relief to Susan when the forest +visit was over, and sun-burned and shabby and loaded with forest +spoils, they all came home again. Jim's first position awaited him, and +Anna was assistant matron in the surgical hospital now,--fated to see +the man she loved almost every day, and tortured afresh daily by the +realization of his greatness, his wealth, his quiet, courteous +disregard of the personality of the dark-eyed, deft little nurse. Dr. +Conrad Hoffman was seventeen years older than Anna. Susan secretly +thought of Anna's attachment as quite hopeless. + +Philip and Betts and Susan were expected back at their respective +places too, and Billy was deeply interested in the outcome of the +casual, friendly letters he had written during the month in camp to +Joseph Rassette. These letters had been passed about among the men +until they were quite worn out; Clem Cudahy had finally had one or two +printed, for informal distribution, and there had been a little +sensation over them. Now, eastern societies had written asking for back +numbers of the "Oliver Letter," and a labor journal had printed one +almost in full. Clement Cudahy was anxious to discuss with Billy the +feasibility of printing such a letter weekly for regular circulation, +and Billy thought well of the idea, and was eager to begin the +enterprise. + +Susan was glad to get back to the little "Democrat," and worked very +hard during the fall and winter. She was not wholly happy, or, rather, +she was not happy all the time. There were times, especially when Billy +was not about, when it seemed very pleasant to be introduced as an +engaged girl, and to get the respectful, curious looks of other girls. +She liked to hear Mrs. Carroll and Anna praise Billy, and she liked +Betts' enthusiasm about him. + +But little things about him worried her inordinately, sometimes she +resented, for a whole silent evening, his absorption in other people, +sometimes grew pettish and unresponsive and offended because he could +keep neither eyes nor hands from her. And there were evenings when they +seemed to have nothing to talk about, and Billy, too tired to do +anything but drowse in his big chair, was confronted with an alert and +horrified Susan, sick with apprehension of all the long evenings, +throughout all the years. Susan was fretted by the financial barrier to +the immediate marriage, too, it was humiliating, at twenty-six, to be +affected by a mere matter of dollars and cents. + +They quarreled, and came home silently from a dinner in town, Susan's +real motive in yielding to a reconciliation being her disinclination to +confess to Mrs. Carroll,--and those motherly eyes read her like a +book,--that she was punishing Billy for asking her not to "show off" +before the waiter! + +But early in the new year, they were drawn together by rapidly maturing +plans. The "Oliver Letter," called the "Saturday Protest" now, was +fairly launched. Billy was less absorbed in the actual work, and began +to feel sure of a moderate success. He had rented for his office half +of the lower floor of an old house in the Mission. Like all the old +homes that still stand to mark the era when Valencia Street was as +desired an address as California Street is to-day, it stood upon +bulkheaded ground, with a fat-pillared wooden fence bounding the wide +lawns. + +The fence was full of gaps, and the house, with double bay-windows, and +with a porch over its front door, was shabby and bare. Its big front +door usually stood open; opposite Billy, across a wide hall, was a +modest little millinery establishment, upstairs a nurses' home, and a +woman photographer occupied the top floor. The "Protest," a slim little +sheet, innocent of contributed matter or advertising, and written, +proofed and set up by Billy's own hands, was housed in what had been +the big front drawing-room. Billy kept house in the two back rooms that +completed the little suite. + +Susan first saw the house on a Saturday in January, a day that they +both remembered afterwards as being the first on which their marriage +began to seem a definite thing. It was in answer to Billy's rather +vague suggestion that they must begin to look at flats in the +neighborhood that Susan said, half in earnest: + +"We couldn't begin here, I suppose? Have the office downstairs in the +big front room, and clean up that old downstairs kitchen, and fix up +these three rooms!" + +Billy dismissed the idea. But it rose again, when they walked downtown, +in the afternoon sunlight, and kept them in animated talk over a happy +dinner. + +"The rent for the whole thing is only twenty dollars!" said Susan, "and +we can fix it all up, pretty old-fashioned papers, and white paint! You +won't know it!" + +"I adore you, Sue--isn't this fun?" was William's somewhat indirect +answer. They missed one boat, missed another, finally decided to leave +it to Mrs. Carroll. + +Mrs. Carroll's decision was favorable. "Loads of sunlight and fresh +air, Sue, and well up off the ground!" she summarized it. + +The decision made all sorts of madness reasonable. If they were to live +there, would this thing fit--would that thing fit--why not see paperers +at once, why not look at stoves? Susan and Billy must "get an idea" of +chairs and tables, must "get an idea" of curtains and rugs. + +"And when do you think, children?" asked Mrs. Carroll. + +"June," said Susan, all roses. + +"April," said the masterful male. + +"Oh, doesn't it begin to seem exciting!" burst from Betsey. The +engagement was an old story now, but this revived interest in it. + +"Clothes!" said Anna rapturously. "Sue, you must be married in another +pongee, you NEVER had anything so becoming!" + +"We must decide about the wedding too," Mrs. Carroll said. "Certain old +friends of your mother, Sue---" + +"Barrows can get me announcements at cost," Philip contributed. + +After that Susan and Billy had enough to talk about. Love-making must +be managed at odd moments; Billy snatched a kiss when the man who was +selling them linoleums turned his back for a moment; Susan offered him +another as she demurely flourished the coffee-pot, in the deep recesses +of a hardware shop. + +"Do let me have my girl for two seconds together!" Billy pleaded, when +between Anna, with samples of gowns, Betts, wild with excitement over +an arriving present, and Mrs. Carroll's anxiety that they should not +miss a certain auction sale, he had only distracted glimpses of his +sweetheart. + +It is an undeniable and blessed thing that, to the girl who is buying +it, the most modest trousseau in the world seems wonderful and +beautiful and complete beyond dreams. Susan's was far from being the +most modest in the world, and almost every day brought her beautiful +additions to it. Georgie, kept at home by a delicate baby, sent one +delightful box after another; Mary Lou sent a long strip of beautiful +lace, wrapped about Ferd's check for a hundred dollars. + +"It was Aunt Sue Rose's lace," wrote Mary Lou, "and I am going to send +you a piece of darling Ma's, too, and one or two of her spoons." + +This reminded Georgie of "Aunt Sue Rose's box," which, unearthed, +brought forth more treasures; a thin old silver ladle, pointed +tea-spoons connected with Susan's infant memories of castor-oil. +Virginia had a blind friend from whom she ordered a wonderful knitted +field-coat. Anna telephoned about a patient who must go into mourning, +and wanted to sell at less than half its cost, the loveliest of +rose-wreathed hats. + +Susan and Anna shopped together, Anna consulting a shabby list, Susan +rushing off at a hundred tangents. Boxes and boxes and boxes came home, +the engagement cups had not stopped coming when the wedding presents +began. The spareroom closet was hung with fragrant new clothes, its bed +was heaped with tissue-wrapped pieces of silver. + +Susan crossed the bay two or three times a week to rush through some +bit of buying, and to have dinner with Billy. They liked all the little +Spanish and French restaurants, loitered over their sweet black coffee, +and dry cheese, explored the fascinating dark streets of the Chinese +Quarter, or went to see the "Marionettes" next door to the old Broadway +jail. All of it appealed to Susan's hunger for adventure, she wove +romances about the French families among whom they dined,--stout +fathers, thin, nervous mothers, stolid, claret-drinking little girls, +with manes of black hair,--about the Chinese girls, with their painted +lips, and the old Italian fishers, with scales glittering on their +rough coats. + +"We've got to run for it, if we want it!" Billy would say, snatching +her coat from a chair. Susan after jabbing in her hatpins before a +mirror decorated with arabesques of soap, would rush with him into the +street. Fog and pools of rain water all about, closed warehouses and +lighted saloons, dark crossings--they raced madly across the ferry +place at last, with the clock in the tower looking down on them. + +"We're all right now!" Billy would gasp. But they still ran, across the +long line of piers, and through the empty waiting-room, and the iron +gates. + +"That was the closest yet!" Susan, reaching the upper deck, could stop +to breathe. There were seats facing the water, under the engine-house, +where Billy might put his arm about her unobserved. Their talk went on. + +Usually they had the night boat to themselves, but now and then Susan +saw somebody that she knew on board. One night she went in to talk for +a moment with Ella Saunders. Ella was gracious, casual. Ken was +married, as Susan knew,--the newspapers had left nothing to be imagined +of the most brilliant of the season's matches, and pictures of the +fortunate bride, caught by the cameras as she made her laughing way to +her carriage, a white blur of veil and flowers, had appeared +everywhere. Emily was not well, said Ella, might spend the summer in +the east; Mama was not very well. She asked Susan no questions, and +Susan volunteered nothing. + +And on another occasion they were swept into the company of the +Furlongs. Isabel was obviously charmed with Billy, and Billy, Susan +thought, made John Furlong seem rather stupid and youthful. + +"And you MUST come and dine with us!" said Isabel. Obviously not in the +month before the wedding, Isabel's happy excuses, in an aside to Susan, +were not necessary, "---But when you come back," said Isabel. + +"And you with us in our funny little rooms in the Mission," Susan said +gaily. Isabel took her husband's arm, and gave it a little squeeze. + +"He'd love to!" she assured Susan. "He just loves things like that. And +you must let us help get the dinner!" + +On Sundays the old walks to the beach had been resumed, and the hills +never had seemed to Susan as beautiful as they did this year, when the +first spring sweetness began to pierce the air, and the breeze brought +faint odors of grass, and good wet earth, and violets. Spring this year +meant to the girl's glowing and ardent nature what it meant to the +birds, with apple-blossoms and mustard-tops, lilacs and blue skies, +would come the mating time. Susan was the daughter of her time; she did +not know why all the world seemed made for her now; her heritage of +ignorance and fear was too great. But Nature, stronger than any folly +of her children, made her great claim none the less. Susan thrilled in +the sunshine and warm air, dreamed of her lover's kisses, gloried in +the fact that youth was not to pass her by without youth's hour. + +By March all Sausalito was mantled with acacia bloom, and the silent +warm days were sweet with violets. The sunshine was soft and warm, if +there was still chill in the shade. The endless weeks had dragged +themselves away; Susan and Billy were going to be married. + +Susan walked in a radiant dream, curiously wrapped away from reality, +yet conscious, in a new and deep and poignant way, of every word, of +every waking instant. + +"I am going to be married next week," she heard herself saying. Other +women glanced at her; she knew they thought her strangely unmoved. She +thought herself so. But she knew that running under the serene surface +of her life was a dazzling great river of joy! Susan could not look +upon it yet. Her eyes were blinded. + +Presents came in, more presents. A powder box from Ella, candle-sticks +from Emily, a curiously embroidered tablecloth from the Kenneth +Saunders in Switzerland. And from old Mrs. Saunders a rather touching +note, a request that Susan buy herself "something pretty," with a check +for fifty dollars, "from her sick old friend, Fanny Saunders." + +Mary Lou, very handsomely dressed and prosperous, and her beaming +husband, came down for the wedding. Mary Lou had a hundred little +babyish, new mannerisms, she radiated the complacency of the adored +woman, and, when Susan spoke of Billy, Mary Lou was instantly reminded +of Ferd, the salary Ferd made at twenty, the swiftness of his rise in +the business world, his present importance. Mary Lou could not hide the +pity she felt for Susan's very modest beginning. "I wish Ferd could +find Billy some nice, easy position," said Mary Lou. "I don't like you +to live out in that place. I don't believe Ma would!" + +Virginia was less happy than her sister. The Eastmans were too busy +together to remember her loneliness. "Sometimes it seems as if Mary Lou +just likes to have me there to remind her how much better off she is," +said Virginia mildly, to Susan. "Ferd buys her things, and takes her +places, and all I can do is admire and agree! Of course they're +angels," added Virginia, wiping her eyes, "but I tell you it's hard to +be dependent, Sue!" + +Susan sympathized, laughed, chattered, stood still under dressmakers' +hands, dashed off notes, rushed into town for final purchases, opened +gifts, consulted with everyone,--all in a golden, whirling dream. +Sometimes a cold little doubt crossed her mind, and she wondered +whether she was taking all this too much for granted, whether she +really loved Billy, whether they should not be having serious talks +now, whether changes, however hard, were not wiser "before than after"? + +But it was too late for that now. The big wheels were set in motion, +the day was coming nearer and more near. Susan's whole being was tuned +to the great event; she felt herself the pivot upon which all her world +turned. A hundred things a day brought the happy color to her face, +stopped her heart-beats for a second. She had a little nervous qualm +over the announcements; she dreamed for a moment over the cards that +bore the new name of Mrs. William Jerome Oliver. "It seems so--so funny +to have these things here in my trunk, before I'm married!" said Susan. + +Anna came home, gravely radiant; Betsy exulted in a new gown of flimsy +embroidered linen; Philip, in the character of best man, referred to a +list of last-moment reminders. + +Three days more--two days more--then Susan was to be married to-morrow. +She and Billy had enough that was practical to discuss the last night, +before he must run for his boat. She went with him to the door. + +"I'm going to be crazy about my wife!" whispered Billy, with his arms +about her. Susan was not in a responsive mood. + +"I'm dead!" she said wearily, resting her head against his shoulder +like a tired child. + +She went upstairs slowly to her room. It was strewn with garments and +hats and cardboard boxes; Susan's suitcase, with the things in it that +she would need for a fortnight in the woods, was open on the table. The +gas flared high, Betsey at the mirror was trying a new method of +arranging her hair. Mrs. Carroll was packing Susan's trunk, Anna sat on +the bed. + +"Sue, dear," said the mother, "are you going to be warm enough up in +the forest? It may be pretty cold." + +"Oh, we'll have fires!" Susan said. + +"Well, you are the COOLEST!" ejaculated Betsey. "I should think you'd +feel so FUNNY, going up there alone with Billy---" + +"I'd feel funnier going up without him," Susan said equably. She got +into a loose wrapper, braided her hair. Mrs. Carroll and Betsey kissed +her and went away; Susan and Anna talked for a few minutes, then Susan +went to sleep. But Anna lay awake for a long time thinking,--thinking +what it would be like to know that only a few hours lay between the end +of the old life and the beginning of the new. + +"My wedding day." Susan said it slowly when she awakened in the +morning. She felt that the words should convey a thrill, but somehow +the day seemed much like any other day. Anna was gone, there was a +subdued sound of voices downstairs. + +A day that ushered in the full glory of the spring. All the flowers +were blooming at once, at noon the air was hot and still, not a leaf +stirred. Before Susan had finished her late breakfast Billy arrived; +there was talk of tickets and train time before she went upstairs. Mary +Lou had come early to watch the bride dress; good, homely, happy Miss +Lydia Lord must run up to Susan's room too,--the room was full of +women. Isabel Furlong was throned in the big chair, John was to take +her away before the wedding, but she wanted to kiss Susan in her +wedding gown. + +Susan presently saw a lovely bride, smiling in the depths of the +mirror, and was glad for Billy's sake that she looked "nice." Tall and +straight, with sky-blue eyes shining under a crown of bright hair, with +the new corsets setting off the lovely gown to perfection, her mother's +lace at her throat and wrists, and the rose-wreathed hat matching her +cheeks, she looked the young and happy woman she was, stepping bravely +into the world of loving and suffering. + +The pretty gown must be gathered up safely for the little walk to +church. "Are we all ready?" asked Susan, running concerned eyes over +the group. + +"Don't worry about us!" said Philip. "You're the whole show to-day!" + +In a dream they were walking through the fragrant roads, in a dream +they entered the unpretentious little church, and were questioned by +the small Spanish sexton at the door. No, that was Miss Carroll,--this +was Miss Brown. Yes, everyone was here. The groom and his best man had +gone in the other door. Who would give away the bride? This gentleman, +Mr. Eastman, who was just now standing very erect and offering her his +arm. Susan Ralston Brown--William Jerome Oliver--quite right. But they +must wait a moment; the sexton must go around by the vestry for some +last errand. + +The little organ wheezed forth a march; Susan walked slowly at Ferd +Eastman's side,--stopped,--and heard a rich Italian voice asking +questions in a free and kindly whisper. The gentleman this side--and +the lady here--so! + +The voice suddenly boomed out loud and clear and rapid. Susan knew that +this was Billy beside her, but she could not raise her eyes. She +studied the pattern that fell on the red altar-carpet through a +sun-flooded window. She told herself that she must think now seriously; +she was getting married. This was one of the great moments of her life. + +She raised her head, looked seriously into the kind old face so near +her, glanced at Billy, who was very pale. + +"I will," said Susan, clearing her throat. She reflected in a panic +that she had not been ready for the question, and wondered vaguely if +that invalidated her marriage, in the eyes of Heaven at least. Getting +married seemed a very casual and brief matter. Susan wished that there +was more form to it; pages, and heralds with horns, and processions. +What an awful carpet this red one must be to sweep, showing every +speck! She and Billy had painted their floors, and would use rugs---- + +This was getting married. "I wish my mother was here!" said Susan to +herself, perfunctorily. The words had no meaning for her. + +They knelt down to pray. And suddenly Susan, whose ungloved hand, with +its lilies-of-the-valley, had dropped by her side, was thrilled to the +very depth of her being by the touch of Billy's cold fingers on hers. + +Her heart flooded with a sudden rushing sense of his goodness, his +simplicity. He was marrying his girl, and praying for them both, his +whole soul was filled with the solemn responsibility he incurred now. + +She clung to his hand, and shut her eyes. + +"Oh, God, take care of us," she prayed, "and make us love each other, +and make us good! Make us good---" + +She was deep in her prayer, eyes tightly closed, lips moving fast, when +suddenly everything was over. Billy and she were walking down the aisle +again, Susan's ringed hand on the arm that was hers now, to the end of +the world. + +"Billy, you didn't kiss her!" Betts reproached him in the vestibule. + +"Didn't I? Well, I will!" He had a fragrant, bewildered kiss from his +wife before Anna and Mrs. Carroll and all the others claimed her. + +Then they walked home, and Susan protested that it did not seem right +to sit at the head of the flower trimmed table, and let everyone wait +on her. She ran upstairs with Anna to get into her corduroy +camping-suit, and dashing little rough hat, ran down for kisses and +good-byes. Betsey--Mary Lou--Philip--Mary Lou again. + +"Good-bye, adorable darling!" said Betts, laughing through tears. + +"Good-bye, dearest," whispered Anna, holding her close. + +"Good-bye, my own girl!" The last kiss was for Mrs. Carroll, and Susan +knew of whom the mother was thinking as the first bride ran down the +path. + +"Well, aren't they all darlings?" said young Mrs. Oliver, in the train. + +"Corkers!" agreed the groom. "Don't you want to take your hat off, Sue?" + +"Well, I think I will," Susan said pleasantly. Conversation languished. + +"Tired, dear?" + +"Oh, no!" Susan said brightly. + +"I wonder if you can smoke in here," Billy observed, after a pause. + +"I don't believe you can!" Susan said, interestedly. + +"Well, when he comes through I'll ask him---" + +Susan felt as if she should never speak spontaneously again. She was +very tired, very nervous, able, with cold dispassion, to wonder what +she and Billy Oliver were doing in this close, dirty train,--to wonder +why people ever spoke of a wedding-day as especially pleasant,--what +people found in life worth while, anyway! + +She thought that it would be extremely silly in them to attempt to +reach the cabin to-night; far more sensible to stay at Farwoods, where +there was a little hotel, or, better yet, go back to the city. But +Billy, although a little regretful for the darkness in which they ended +their journey, suggested no change of plan, and Susan found herself +unable to open the subject. She made the stage trip wedged in between +Billy and the driver, climbed down silently at the foot of the familiar +trail, and carried the third suitcase up to the cabin. + +"You can't hurt that dress, can you, Sue?" said Billy, busy with the +key. + +"No!" Susan said, eager for the commonplace. "It's made for just this!" + +"Then hustle and unpack the eats, will you? And I'll start a fire!" + +"Two seconds!" Susan took off her hat, and enveloped herself in a +checked apron. There was a heavy chill in the room; there was that +blank forbidding air in the dusty, orderly room that follows months of +unuse. Susan unpacked, went to and fro briskly; the claims of +housekeeping reassured and soothed her. + +Billy made thundering journeys for wood. Presently there was a flare of +lighted papers in the fireplace, and the heartening snap and crackle of +wood. The room was lighted brilliantly; delicious odors of sap mingled +with the fragrance from Susan's coffee pot. + +"Oh, keen idea!" said Billy, when she brought the little table close to +the hearth. "Gee, that's pretty!" he added, as she shook over it the +little fringed tablecloth, and laid the blue plates neatly at each side. + +"Isn't this fun?" It burst spontaneously from the bride. + +"Fun!" Billy flung down an armful of logs, and came to stand beside +her, watching the flames. "Lord, Susan," he said, with simple force, +"if you only knew how perfect you seem to me! If you only knew how many +years I've been thinking how beautiful you were, and how clever, and +how far above me----!" + +"Go right on thinking so, darling!" said Susan, practically, escaping +from his arm, and taking her place behind the cold chicken. "Do ye feel +like ye could eat a little mite, Pa?" asked she. + +"Well, I dunno, mebbe I could!" William answered hilariously. "Say, +Sue, oughtn't those blankets be out here, airing?" he added suddenly. + +"Oh, do let's have dinner first. They make everything look so horrid," +said young Mrs. Oliver, composedly carving. "They can dry while we're +doing the dishes." + +"You know, until we can afford a maid, I'm going to help you every +night with the dishes," said Billy. + +"Well, don't put on airs about it," Susan said briskly. "Or I'll leave +you to do them entirely alone, while I run over the latest songs on the +PIARNO. Here now, deary, chew this nicely, and when I've had all I +want, perhaps I'll give you some more!" + +"Sue, aren't we going to have fun--doing things like this all our +lives?" + +"_I_ think we are," said Susan demurely. It was strange, it had its +terrifying phases, but it was curiously exciting and wonderful, too, +this wearing of a man's ring and his name, and being alone with him up +here in the great forest. + +"This is life--this is all good and right," the new-made wife said to +herself, with a flutter at her heart. And across her mind there flitted +a fragment of the wedding-prayer, "in shamefacedness grave." "I will be +grave," thought Susan. "I will be a good wife, with God's help!" + +Again morning found the cabin flooded with sunlight, and for all their +happy days there the sun shone, and summer silences made the woods seem +like June. + +"Billum, if only we didn't have to go back!" said William's wife, +seated on a stump, and watching him clean trout for their supper, in +the soft close of an afternoon. + +"Darling, I love to have you sitting there, with your little feet +tucked under you, while I work," said William enthusiastically. + +"I know," Susan agreed absently. "But don't you wish we didn't?" she +resumed, after a moment. + +"Well, in a way I do," Billy answered, stooping to souse a fish in the +stream beside which he was kneeling. "But there's the 'Protest' you +know,--there's a lot to do! And we'll come back here, every year. We'll +work like mad for eleven months, and then come up here and loaf." + +"But, Bill, how do we know we can manage it financially?" said Susan +prudently. + +"Oh, Lord, we'll manage it!" he answered comfortably. "Unless, of +course, you want to have all the kids brought up in white stockings," +grinned Billy, "and have their pictures taken every month!" + +"Up here," said Susan dreamily, yet very earnestly too, "I feel so sure +of myself! I love the simplicity, I love the work, I could entertain +the King of England right here in this forest and not be ashamed! But +when we go back, Bill, and I realize that Isabel Wallace may come in +and find me pressing my window curtains, or that we honestly can't +afford to send someone a handsome wedding present, I'll begin to be +afraid. I know that now and then I'll find myself investing in +finger-bowls or salted almonds, just because other people do." + +"Well, that's not actionable for divorce, woman!" + +Susan laughed, but did not answer. She sat looking idly down the long +aisles of the forest, palpitating to-day with a rush of new fragrance, +new color, new song. Far above, beyond the lacing branches of the +redwoods, a buzzard hung motionless in a blue, blue sky. + +"Bill," she said presently, "I could live at a settlement house, and be +happy all my life showing other women how to live. But when it comes to +living down among them, really turning my carpets and scrubbing my own +kitchen, I'm sometimes afraid that I'm not big enough woman to be +happy!" + +"Why, but, Sue dear, there's a decent balance at the bank. We'll build +on the Panhandle lots some day, and something comes in from the +blue-prints, right along. If you get your own dinner five nights a +week, we'll be trotting downtown on other nights, or over at the +Carrolls', or up here." Billy stood up. "There's precious little real +poverty in the world," he said, cheerfully, "we'll work out our list of +expenses, and we'll stick to it! But we're going to prove how easy it +is to prosper, not how easy it is to go under. We're the salt of the +earth!" + +"You're big; I'm not," said Susan, rubbing her head against him as he +sat beside her on the stump. But his nearness brought her dimples back, +and the sober mood passed. + +"Bill, if I die and you remarry, promise me, oh, promise! that you +won't bring her here!" + +"No, darling, my second wife is going to choose Del Monte or Coronado!" +William assured her. + +"I'll bet she does, the cat!" Susan agreed gaily, "You know when Elsie +Rice married Jerry Philips," she went on, in sudden recollection, "they +went to Del Monte. They were both bridge fiends, even when they were +engaged everyone who gave them dinners had to have cards afterwards. +Well, it seems they went to Del Monte, and they moped about for a day +or two, and, finally, Jerry found out that the Joe Carrs were at Santa +Cruz,--the Carrs play wonderful bridge. So he and Elsie went straight +up there, and they played every afternoon and every night for the next +two weeks,--and all went to the Yosemite together, even playing on the +train all the way!" + +"What a damn fool class for any nation to carry!" Billy commented, +mildly. + +"Ah, well," Susan said, joyfully, "we'll fix them all! And when there +are model poorhouses and prisons, and single tax, and labor pensions, +and eight-hour days, and free wool--THEN we'll come back here and +settle down in the woods for ever and ever!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +In the years that followed they did come back to the big woods, but not +every year, for in the beginning of their life together there were hard +times, and troubled times, when even a fortnight's irresponsibility and +ease was not possible. Yet they came often enough to keep fresh in +their hearts the memory of great spaces and great silences, and to +dream their old dreams. + +The great earthquake brought them home hurriedly from their honeymoon, +and Susan had her work to do, amid all the confusion that followed the +uprooting of ten thousand homes. Young Mrs. Oliver listened to terrible +stories, while she distributed second-hand clothing, and filed cards, +walked back to her own little kitchen at five o'clock to cook her +dinner, and wrapped and addressed copies of the "Protest" far into the +night. + +With the deeper social problems that followed the days of mere physical +need,--what was in her of love and charity rushed into sudden +blossoming,--she found that her inexperienced hands must deal. She, +whose wifehood was all joy and sanity, all sweet and mysterious +deepening of the color of life, encountered now the hideous travesty of +wifehood and motherhood, met by immature, ill-nourished bodies, and +hearts sullen and afraid. + +"You ought not be seeing these things now," Billy warned her. But Susan +shook her head. + +"It's good for me, Billy. And it's good for the little person, too. +It's no credit to him that he's more fortunate than these--he needn't +feel so superior!" smiled Susan. + +Every cent must be counted in these days. Susan and Billy laughed long +afterward to remember that on many a Sunday they walked over to the +little General Post Office in Mission Street, hoping for a subscription +or two in the mail, to fan the dying fires of the "Protest" for a few +more days. Better times came; the little sheet struck roots, carried a +modest advertisement or two, and a woman's column under the heading +"Mary Jane's Letter" whose claims kept the editor's wife far too busy. + +As in the early days of her marriage all the women of the world had +been simply classified as wives or not wives, so now Susan saw no +distinction except that of motherhood or childlessness. When she lay +sick, feverish and confused, in the first hours that followed the +arrival of her first-born, she found her problem no longer that of the +individual, no longer the question merely of little Martin's crib and +care and impending school and college expenses. It was the great burden +of the mothers of the world that Susan took upon her shoulders. Why so +much strangeness and pain, why such ignorance of rules and needs, she +wondered. She lay thinking of tired women, nervous women, women hanging +over midnight demands of colic and croup, women catching the little +forms back from the treacherous open window, and snatching away the +dangerous bottle from little hands---! + +"Miss Allen," said Susan, out of a silence, "he doesn't seem to be +breathing. The blanket hasn't gotten over his little face, has it?" + +So began the joyous martyrdom. Susan's heart would never beat again +only for herself. Hand in hand with the rapture of owning the baby +walked the terror of losing him. His meals might have been a special +miracle, so awed and radiant was Susan's face when she had him in her +arms. His goodness, when he was good, seemed to her no more remarkable +than his badness, when he was bad. Susan ran to him after the briefest +absences with icy fear at her heart. He had loosened a pin--gotten it +into his mouth, he had wedged his darling little head in between the +bars of his crib---! + +But she left him very rarely. What Susan did now must be done at home. +Her six-days-old son asleep beside her, she was discovered by Anna +cheerfully dictating to her nurse "Mary Jane's Letter" for an +approaching issue of the "Protest." The young mother laughed joyfully +at Anna's concern, but later, when the trained nurse was gone, and the +warm heavy days of the hot summer came, when fat little Martin was +restless through the long, summer nights with teething, Susan's courage +and strength were put to a hard test. + +"We ought to get a girl in to help you," Billy said, distressedly, on a +night when Susan, flushed and excited, refused his help everywhere, and +attempted to manage baby and dinner and house unassisted. + +"We ought to get clothes and china and linen and furniture,--we ought +to move out of this house and this block!" Susan wanted to say. But +with some effort she refrained from answering at all, and felt tears +sting her eyes when Billy carried the baby off, to do with his big +gentle fingers all the folding and pinning and buttoning that preceded +Martin's disappearance for the evening. + +"Never mind!" Susan said later, smiling bravely over the dinner table, +"he needs less care every day! He'll soon be walking and amusing +himself." + +But Martin was only staggering uncertainly and far from self-sufficient +when Billy Junior came laughing into the family group. "How do women DO +it!" thought Susan, recovering slowly from a second heavy drain on +nerves and strength. + +No other child, of course, would ever mean to her quite what the oldest +son meant. The first-born is the miracle, brought from Heaven itself +through the very gates of death, a pioneer, merciless and helpless, a +little monarch whose kingdom never existed before the day he set up his +feeble little cry. All the delightful innovations are for him,--the +chair, the mug, the little airings, the remodeled domestic routine. + +"Pain in his poor little tum!" Susan said cheerfully and tenderly, when +the youthful Billy cried. Under exactly similar circumstances, with +Martin, she had shed tears of terror and despair, while Billy, +shivering in his nightgown, had hung at the telephone awaiting her word +to call the doctor. Martin's tawny, finely shaped little head, the grip +of his sturdy, affectionate little arms, his early voyages into the +uncharted sea of English speech,--these were so many marvels to his +mother and father. + +But it had to be speedily admitted that Billy had his own particular +charm too. The two were in everything a sharp contrast. Martin's bright +hair blew in loose waves, Billy's dark curls fitted his head like a +cap. Martin's eyes were blue and grave, Billy's dancing and brown. +Martin used words carefully, with a nice sense of values, Billy +achieved his purposes with stamping and dimpling, and early coined a +tiny vocabulary of his own. Martin slept flat on his small back, a +muscular little viking drifting into unknown waters, but drowsiness +must always capture Billy alive and fighting. Susan untangled him +nightly from his covers, loosened his small fingers from the bars of +his crib. + +She took her maternal responsibilities gravely. Billy Senior thought it +very amusing to see her, buttering a bowl for bread-pudding, or running +small garments through her machine, while she recited "The Pied Piper" +or "Goblin Market" to a rapt audience of two staring babies. But +somehow the sight was a little touching, too. + +"Bill, don't you honestly think that they're smarter than other +children, or is it just because they're mine?" Susan would ask. And +Billy always answered in sober good faith, "No, it's not you, dear, for +I see it too! And they really ARE unusual!" + +Susan sometimes put both boys into the carriage and went to see +Georgie, to whose group a silent, heavy little boy had now been added. +Mrs. O'Connor was a stout, complacent little person; the doctor's +mother was dead, and Georgie spoke of her with sad affection and +reverence. The old servant stayed on, tirelessly devoted to the new +mistress, as she had been to the old, and passionately proud of the +children. Joe's practice had grown enormously; Joe kept a runabout now, +and on Sundays took his well-dressed wife out with him to the park. +They had a circle of friends very much like themselves, prosperous +young fathers and mothers, and there was a pleasant rivalry in +card-parties, and the dressing of little boys and girls. Myra and +Helen, colored ribbons tying their damp, straight, carefully ringletted +hair, were a nicely mannered little pair, and the boy fat and sweet and +heavy. + +"Georgie is absolutely satisfied," Susan said wistfully. "Do you think +we will ever reach our ideals, Aunt Jo, as she has hers?" + +It was a summer Saturday, only a month or two after the birth of +William Junior. Susan had not been to Sausalito for a long time, and +Mrs. Carroll was ending a day's shopping with a call on mother and +babies. Martin, drowsy and contented, was in her arms. Susan, +luxuriating in an hour's idleness and gossip, sat near the open window, +with the tiny Billy. Outside, a gusty August wind was sweeping chaff +and papers before it; passers-by dodged it as if it were sleet. + +"I think there's no question about it, Sue," Mrs. Carroll's motherly +voice said, cheerfully. "This is a hard time; you and Billy are both +doing too much,--but this won't last! You'll come out of it some day, +dear, a splendid big experienced woman, ready for any big work. And +then you'll look back, and think that the days when the boys needed you +every hour were short enough. Character is the one thing that you have +to buy this way, Sue,--by effort and hardship and self-denial!" + +"But after all," Susan said somberly, so eager to ease her full heart +that she must keep her voice low to keep it steady, "after all, Aunt +Jo, aren't there lots of women who do this sort of thing year in and +year out and DON'T achieve anything? As a means to an end," said Susan, +groping for words, "as a road--this is comprehensible, but--but one +hates to think of it as a goal!" + +"Hundreds of women reach their highest ambitions, Sue," the other woman +answered thoughtfully, "without necessarily reaching YOURS. It depends +upon which star you've selected for your wagon, Sue! You have just been +telling me that the Lords, for instance, are happier than crowned +kings, in their little garden, with a state position assured for Lydia. +Then there's Georgie; Georgie is one of the happiest women I ever saw! +And when you remember that the first thirty years of her life were +practically wasted, it makes you feel very hopeful of anyone's life!" + +"Yes, but I couldn't be happy as Mary and Lydia are, and Georgie's life +would drive me to strong drink!" Susan said, with a flash of her old +fire. + +"Exactly. So YOUR fulfilment will come in some other way,--some way +that they would probably think extremely terrifying or unconventional +or strange. Meanwhile you are learning something every day, about women +who have tiny babies to care for, about housekeeping as half the women +of the world have to regard it. All that is extremely useful, if you +ever want to do anything that touches women. About office work you +know, about life downtown. Some day just the use for all this will come +to you, and then I'll feel that I was quite right when I expected great +things of my Sue!" + +"Of me?" stammered Susan. A lovely color crept into her thin cheeks and +a tear splashed down upon the cheek of the sleeping baby. + +Anna's dearest dream was suddenly realized that summer, and Anna, +lovelier than ever, came out to tell Sue of the chance meeting with +Doctor Hoffmann in the laboratory that had, in two short minutes, +turned the entire current of her life. It was all wonderful and +delightful beyond words, not a tiny cloud darkened the sky. + +Conrad Hoffmann was forty-five years old, seventeen years older than +his promised wife, but splendidly tall and strong, and--Anna and Susan +agreed--STRIKINGLY handsome. He was at the very top of his profession, +managed his own small surgical hospital, and maintained one of the +prettiest homes in the city. A musician, a humanitarian, rich in his +own right, he was so conspicuous a figure among the unmarried men of +San Francisco that Anna's marriage created no small stir, and the six +weeks of her engagement were packed with affairs in her honor. + +Susan's little sons were presently taken to Sausalito to be present at +Aunt Anna's wedding. Susan was nervous and tired before she had +finished her own dressing, wrapped and fed the beribboned baby, and +slipped the wriggling Martin into his best white clothes. But she +forgot everything but pride and pleasure when Betsey, the bride and +"Grandma" fell with shrieks of rapture upon the children, and during +the whole happy day she found herself over and over again at Billy's +side, listening to him, watching him, and his effect on other people, +slipping her hand into his. It was as if, after quiet months of taking +him for granted, she had suddenly seen her big, clever, gentle husband +as a stranger again, and fallen again in love with him. + +Susan felt strangely older than Anna to-day; she thought of that other +day when she and Billy had gone up to the big woods; she remembered the +odor of roses and acacia, the fragrance of her gown, the stiffness of +her rose-crowned hat. + +Anna and Conrad were going away to Germany for six months, and Susan +and the babies spent a happy week in Anna's old room. Betsey was +filling what had been Susan's position on the "Democrat" now, and +cherished literary ambitions. + +"Oh, why must you go, Sue?" Mrs. Carroll asked, wistfully, when the +time for packing came. "Couldn't you stay on awhile, it's so lovely to +have you here!" + +But Susan was firm. She had had her holiday; Billy could not divide his +time between Sausalito and the "Protest" office any longer. They +crossed the bay in mid-afternoon, and the radiant husband and father +met them at the ferry. Susan sighed in supreme relief as he lifted the +older boy to his shoulder, and picked up the heavy suitcase. + +"We could send that?" submitted Susan, but Billy answered by signaling +a carriage, and placing his little family inside. + +"Oh, Bill, you plutocrat!" Susan said, sinking back with a great sigh +of pleasure. + +"Well, my wife doesn't come home every day!" Billy said beaming. + +Susan felt, in some subtle climatic change, that the heat of the summer +was over. Mission Street slept under a soft autumn haze; the hint of a +cool night was already in the air. + +In the dining-room, as she entered with her baby in her arms, she saw +that a new table and new chairs replaced the old ones, a ruffled little +cotton house-gown was folded neatly on the table. A new, hooded +baby-carriage awaited little Billy. + +"Oh, BILLY!" The baby was bundled unceremoniously into his new coach, +and Susan put her arms about her husband's neck. "You OUGHTN'T!" she +protested. + +"Clem and Mrs. Cudahy sent the carriage," Billy beamed. + +"And you did the rest! Bill, dear--when I am such a tired, cross +apology for a wife!" Susan found nothing in life so bracing as the arm +that was now tight about her. She had a full minute's respite before +the boys' claims must be met. + +"What first, Sue?" asked Billy. "Dinner's all ordered, and the things +are here, but I guess you'll have to fix things---" + +"I'll feed baby while you give Mart his milk and toast," Susan said +capably, "then I'll get into something comfortable and we'll put them +off, and you can set the table while I get dinner! It's been a heavenly +week, Billy dear," said Susan, settling herself in a low rocker, "but +it does seem good to get home!" + +The next spring all four did indeed go up to the woods, but it was +after a severe attack of typhoid fever on Billy Senior's part, and +Susan was almost too much exhausted in every way to trust herself to +the rough life of the cabin. But they came back after a month's +gypsying so brown and strong and happy that even Susan had forgotten +the horrors of the winter, and in mid-summer the "Protest" moved into +more dignified quarters, and the Olivers found the comfortable old +house in Oakland that was to be a home for them all for a long time. + +Oakland was chosen because it is near the city, yet country-like enough +to be ideal for children. The house was commonplace, shabby and cheaply +built, but to Susan it seemed delightfully roomy and comfortable, and +she gloried in the big yards, the fruit trees, and the old-fashioned +garden. She cared for her sweet-pea vines and her chickens while the +little boys tumbled about her, or connived against the safety of the +cat, and she liked her neighbors, simple women who advised her about +her plants, and brought their own babies over to play with Mart and +Billy. + +Certain old interests Susan found that she must sacrifice for a time at +least. Even with the reliable, capable, obstinate personage +affectionately known as "Big Mary" in the kitchen, they could not leave +the children for more than a few hours at a time. Susan had to let some +of the old friends go; she had neither the gowns nor the time for +afternoon calls, nor had she the knowledge of small current events that +is more important than either. She and Billy could not often dine in +town and go to the theater, for running expenses were heavy, the +"Protest" still a constant problem, and Big Mary did not lend herself +readily to sudden changes and interruptions. + +Entertaining, in any formal sense, was also out of the question, for to +be done well it must be done constantly and easily, and the Oliver +larder and linen closet did not lend itself to impromptu suppers and +long dinners. Susan was too concerned in the manufacture of nourishing +puddings and soups, too anxious to have thirty little brown stockings +and twenty little blue suits hanging on the line every Monday morning +to jeopardize the even running of her domestic machinery with very much +hospitality. She loved to have any or all of the Carrolls with her, +welcomed Billy's business associates warmly, and three times a year had +Georgie and her family come to a one o'clock Sunday dinner, and planned +for the comfort of the O'Connors, little and big, with the greatest +pleasure and care. But this was almost the extent of her entertaining +in these days. + +Isabel Furlong had indeed tried to bridge the gulf that lay between +their manners of living, with a warm and sweet insistence that had +conquered even the home-loving Billy. Isabel had silenced all of +Susan's objections--Susan must bring the boys; they would have dinner +with Isabel's own boy, Alan, then the children could all go to sleep in +the Furlong nursery, and the mothers have a chat and a cup of tea +before it was time to dress for dinner. Isabel's car should come all +the way to Oakland for them, and take them all home again the next day. + +"But, angel dear, I haven't a gown!" protested Susan. + +"Oh, Sue, just ourselves and Daddy and John's mother!" + +"I could freshen up my black---" mused Susan. + +"Of course you could!" triumphed Isabel. And her enthusiasm carried the +day. The Olivers went to dine and spend the night with the Furlongs, +and were afterward sorry. + +In the first place, it was expensive. Susan indeed "freshened up" the +black gown, but slippers and gloves, a belt and a silk petticoat were +new for the occasion. The boys' wardrobes, too, were supplemented with +various touches that raised them nearer the level of young Alan's +clothes; Billy's dress suit was pressed, and at the last moment there +seemed nothing to be done but buy a new suitcase--his old one was quite +too shabby. + +The children behaved well, but Susan was too nervous about their +behavior to appreciate that until the visit was long over, and the +exquisite ease and order of Isabel's home made her feel hopelessly +clumsy, shabby and strange. Her mood communicated itself somewhat to +Billy, but Billy forgot all lesser emotions in the heat of a discussion +into which he entered with Isabel's father during dinner. The old man +was interested, tolerant, amused. Susan thought Billy nothing short of +rude, although the meal finished harmoniously enough, and the men made +an engagement the next morning to see each other again, and thresh out +the subject thoroughly. + +Isabel kept Susan until afternoon, and strolled with her across the +road to show her the pretty house that had been the Wallaces' home, in +her mother's lifetime, empty now, and ready to lease. + +Susan had forgotten what a charming house it really was, bowered in +gardens, flooded with sunshine, old-fashioned, elegant, comfortable and +spacious. The upper windows gave on the tree-hidden roofs of San +Rafael's nicest quarter, the hotel, the tennis-courts were but a few +minutes' walk away. + +"Oh, if only you dear people could live here, what bliss we'd have!" +sighed Isabel. + +"Isabel--it's out of the question! But what's the rent?" + +"Eighteen hundred---" submitted Isabel dubiously. "What do you pay?" + +"We're buying, you know. We pay six per cent, on a small mortgage." + +"Still, you could rent that house?" Isabel suggested, brightening. + +"Well, that's so!" Susan let her fancy play with it. She saw Mart and +Billy playing here, in this sheltered garden, peeping through the +handsome iron fence at horsemen and motor-cars passing by. She saw them +growing up among such princely children as little Alan, saw herself the +admired center of a group of women sensible enough to realize that +young Mrs. Oliver was of no common clay. + +Then she smiled and shook her head. She went home depressed and silent, +vexed at herself because the question of tipping or not tipping +Isabel's chauffeur spoiled the last half of the trip, and absent-minded +over Billy's account of the day, and the boys' prayers. + +Other undertakings, however, terminated more happily. Susan went with +Billy to various meetings, somehow found herself in charge of a girls' +dramatic club, and meeting in a bare hall with a score or two of little +laundry-workers, waitresses and factory girls on every Tuesday evening. +Sometimes it was hard to leave the home lamp-light, and come out into +the cold on Tuesday evenings, but Susan was always glad she had made +the effort when she reached the hall and when her own particular +friends among the "Swastika Hyacinth Club" girls came to meet her. + +She had so recently been a working girl herself that it was easy to +settle down among them, easy to ask the questions that brought their +confidence, easy to discuss ways and means from their standpoint. Susan +became very popular; the girls laughed with her, copied her, confided +in her. At the monthly dances they introduced her to their "friends," +and their "friends" were always rendered red and incoherent with +emotion upon learning that Mrs. Oliver was the wife of Mr. Oliver of +the "Protest." + +Sometimes Susan took the children to see Virginia, who had long ago +left Mary Lou's home to accept a small position in the great +institution for the blind. Virginia, with her little class to teach, +and her responsibilities when the children were in the refectory and +dormitory, was a changed creature, busy, important, absorbed. She +showed the toddling Olivers the playroom and conservatory, and sent +them home with their fat hands full of flowers. + +"Bless their little hearts, they don't know how fortunate they are!" +said Virginia, saying good-bye to Mart and Billy. "But _I_ know!" And +she sent a pitiful glance back toward her little charges. + +After such a visit, Susan went home with a heart too full of gratitude +for words. "God has given us everything in the world!" she would say to +Billy, looking across the hearth at him, in the silent happy evening. + +Walking with the children, in the long spring afternoons, Susan liked +to go in for a moment to see Lydia Lord in the library. Lydia would +glance up from the book she was stamping, and at the sight of Susan and +the children, her whole plain face would brighten. She always came out +from behind her little gates and fences to talk in whispers to Susan, +always had some little card or puzzle or fan or box for Mart and Billy. + +"And Mary's well!" + +"Well---! You never saw anything like it. Yesterday she was out in the +garden from eight o'clock until ten at night! And she's never alone, +everyone in the neighborhood loves her---!" Miss Lord would accompany +them to the door when they went, wave to the boys through the glass +panels, and go back to her desk still beaming. + +Happiest of all the times away from home were those Susan spent with +the Carrolls, or with Anna in the Hoffmanns' beautiful city home. Anna +did not often come to Oakland, she was never for more than a few hours +out of her husband's sight, but she loved to have Susan and the boys +with her. The doctor wanted a glimpse of her between his operations and +his lectures, would not eat his belated lunch unless his lovely wife +sat opposite him, and planned a hundred delights for each of their +little holidays. Anna lived only for him, her color changed at his +voice, her only freedom, in the hours when Conrad positively must be +separated from her, was spent in doing the things that pleased him, +visiting his wards, practicing the music he loved, making herself +beautiful in some gown that he had selected for her. + +"It's idolatry, mon Guillaume," said Mrs. Oliver, briskly, when she was +discussing the case of the Hoffmanns with her lord. "Now, I'm crazy +enough about you, as you well know," continued Susan, "but, at the same +time, I don't turn pale, start up, and whisper, 'Oh, it's Willie!' when +you happen to come home half an hour earlier than usual. I don't +stammer with excitement when I meet you downtown, and I don't cry when +you--well, yes, I do! I feel pretty badly when you have to be away +overnight!" confessed Susan, rather tamely. + +"Wait until little Con comes!" Billy predicted comfortably. "Then +they'll be less strong on the balcony scene!" + +"They think they want one," said Susan wisely, "but I don't believe +they really do!" + +On the fifth anniversary of her wedding day Susan's daughter was born, +and the whole household welcomed the tiny Josephine, whose sudden +arrival took all their hearts by storm. + +"Take your slangy, freckled, roller-skating, rifle-shooting boys and be +off with you!" said Susan, over the hour-old baby, to Billy, who had +come flying home in mid-morning. "Now I feel like David Copperfield's +landlady, 'at last I have summat I can love!' Oh, the mistakes that you +WON'T make, Jo!" she apostrophized the baby. "The smart, capable, +self-sufficient way that you'll manage everything!" + +"Do you really want me to take the boys away for a few days?" asked +Billy, who was kneeling down for a better view of mother and child. + +Susan's eyes widened with instant alarm. + +"Why should you?" she asked, cool fingers tightening on his. + +"I thought you had no further use for the sex," answered Billy meekly. + +"Oh---?" Susan dimpled. "Oh, she's too little to really absorb me yet," +she said. "I'll continue a sort of superficial interest in the boys +until she's eighteen or so!" + +Sometimes echoes of the old life came to her, and Susan, pondering them +for an hour or two, let them drift away from her again. Billy showed +her the headlines one day that told of Peter Coleman's narrow escape +from death, in his falling airship, and later she learned that he was +well again and had given up aeronautics, and was going around the world +to add to his matchless collection of semi-precious stones. Susan was +sobered one day to hear of Emily Saunders' sudden death. She sat for a +long time wondering over the empty and wasted life. Mrs. Kenneth +Saunders, with a smartly clad little girl, was caught by press cameras +at many fashionable European watering-places; Kenneth spent much of his +time in institutions and sanitariums, Susan heard. She heard that he +worshipped his little girl. + +And one evening a London paper, at which she was carelessly glancing in +a library, while Billy hunted through files nearby for some lost +reference, shocked her suddenly with the sight of Stephen Bocqueraz's +name. Susan had a sensation of shame and terror; she shut the paper +quickly. + +She looked about her. Two or three young men, hard-working young men to +judge from appearance, were sitting with her at the long, +magazine-strewn table. Gas-lights flared high above them, soft +footfalls came and went in the warm, big room. At the desk the +librarian was whispering with two nervous-looking young women. At one +of the file-racks, Billy stood slowly turning page after page of a heap +of papers. Susan looked at him, trying to see the kind, keen face from +an outsider's viewpoint, but she had to give up the attempt. Every +little line was familiar now, every little expression. William looked +up and caught her smile and his lips noiselessly formed, "I love you!" + +"Me?" said Susan, also without a voice, and with her hand on her heart. + +And when he said "Fool!" and returned grinning to his paper, she opened +her London sheet and turned to the paragraph she had seen. + +Not sensational. Mr. Stephen Bocqueraz, the well-known American writer, +and Mrs. Bocqueraz, said the paragraph, had taken the house of Mrs. +Bromley Rose-Rogers for the season, and were being extensively +entertained. Mr. and Mrs. Bocqueraz would thus be near their daughter, +Miss Julia Bocqueraz, whose marriage to Mr. Guy Harold Wetmore, second +son of Lord Westcastle, would take place on Tuesday next. + +Susan told Billy about it late that night, more because not telling him +gave the thing the importance inseparable from the fact withheld than +because she felt any especial pang at the opening of the old wound. + +They had sauntered out of the library, well before closing time, Billy +delighted to have found his reference, Susan glad to get out into the +cool summer night. + +"Oysters?" asked William. Susan hesitated. + +"This doesn't come out of my expenses," she stipulated. "I'm hard-up +this week!" + +"Oh, no--no! This is up to me," Billy said. So they went in to watch +the oyster-man fry them two hot little panfuls, and sat over the coarse +little table-cloth for a long half-hour, contentedly eating and +talking. Fortified, they walked home, Susan so eager to interrogate Big +Mary about the children that she reached the orderly kitchen quite +breathless. + +Not a sound out of any of them was Big Mary's satisfactory report. +Still their mother ran upstairs. Children had been known to die while +parents and guardians supposed them to be asleep. + +However the young Olivers were slumbering safely, and were wide-awake +in a flash, the boys clamoring for drinks, from the next room, +Josephine wide-eyed and dewy, through the bars of her crib. Susan sat +down with the baby, while Billy opened windows, wound the alarm clock, +and quieted his sons. + +A full half-hour passed before everything was quiet. Susan found +herself lying wakeful in the dark. Presently she said: + +"Billy?" + +"What is it?" he asked, roused instantly. + +"Why, I saw something funny in the London 'News' to-night," Susan +began. She repeated the paragraph. Billy speculated upon it +interestedly. + +"Sure, he's probably gone back to his wife," said Billy. "Circumstances +influence us all, you know." + +"Do you mean that you don't think he ever meant to get a divorce?" + +"Oh, no, not necessarily! Especially if there was any reason for him to +get it. I think that, if it had been possible, he would have gotten it. +If not, he wouldn't have. Selfish, you know, darned selfish!" + +Susan pondered in silence. + +"I was to blame," she said finally. + +"Oh, no, you weren't, not as much as he was--and he knew it!" Billy +said. + +"All sensation has so entirely died out of the whole thing," Susan said +presently, "that it's just like looking at a place where you burned +your hand ten years ago, and trying to remember whether the burn hurt +worst, or dressing the burn, or curing the burn! I know it was all +wrong, but at the time I thought it was only convention I was going +against--I didn't realize that one of the advantages of laws is that +you can follow them blind, when you've lost all your moorings. You +can't follow your instincts, but you can remember your rule. I've +thought a lot about Stephen Bocqueraz in the past few years, and I +don't believe he meant to do anything terribly wrong and, as things +turned out, I think he really did me more good than harm! I'm confident +that but for him I would have married Kenneth, and he certainly did +teach me a lot about poetry, Billy, about art and music, and more than +that, about the SPIRIT of art and music and poetry, the sheer beauty of +the world. So I've let all the rest go, like the fever out of a burn, +and I believe I could meet him now, and like him almost. Does that seem +very strange to you? Have you any feeling of resentment?" + +Billy was silent. + +"Billy!" Susan said, in quick uneasiness, "ARE you angry?" + +After a tense moment the regular sound of deep and placid breathing +answered her. Billy lay on his back sound asleep. + +Susan stared at him a moment in the dimness. Then the absurdity of the +thing struck her, and she began to laugh. + +"I wonder if, when we get to another world, EVERYTHING we do here will +seem just ridiculous and funny?" speculated Susan. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +For their daughter's first Thanksgiving Day the Olivers invited a dozen +friends to their Oakland house for dinner; the first really large +gathering of their married lives. + +"We have always been too poor, or I haven't been well, or there's been +some other good reason for lying low," wrote Mrs. Oliver to Mrs. +Carroll, "but this year the stork is apparently filling previous +orders, and our trio is well, and we have been blessed beyond all rhyme +and reason, and want to give thanks. Anna and Conrad and the O'Connors +have promised, Jinny will be here, and I'm only waiting to hear from +you three to write and ask Phil and Mary and Pillsey and the baby. So +DO come--for next year Anna says that it's her turn, and by the year +after we may be so prosperous that I'll have to keep two maids, and +miss half the fun--it will certainly break my heart if I ever have to +say, 'We'll have roast turkey, Jane, and mince pies,' instead of making +them myself. PLEASE come, we are dying to see the little cousins +together, they will be simply heavenly---" + +"There's more than wearing your best dress and eating too much turkey +to Thanksgiving," said Susan to Billy, when they were extending the +dining-table to its largest proportions on the day before Thanksgiving. +"It's just one of those things, like having a baby, that you have to DO +to appreciate. It's old-fashioned, and homelike, and friendly. Perhaps +I have a commonplace, middle-class mind, but I do love all this! I love +the idea of everyone arriving, and a big fire down here, and Betts and +her young man trying to sneak away to the sun-room, and the boys +sitting in Grandma's lap, and being given tastes of white meat and +mashed potato at dinnertime. Me to the utterly commonplace, every time!" + +"When you are commonplace, Sue," said her husband, coming out from +under the table, where hasps had been absorbing his attention, "you'll +be ready for the family vault at Holy Cross, and not one instant +before!" + +"No, but the consolation is," Susan reflected, "that if this is +happiness,--if it makes me feel like the Lord Mayor's wife to have +three children, a husband whom most people think is either a saint or a +fool,--I think he's a little of both, myself!--and a new sun-room built +off my dining-room,--why, then there's an unexpected amount of +happiness in this world! In me--a plain woman, sir, with my hands still +odorous of onion dressing, and a safety-pin from my daughter's +bathing-struggle still sticking into my twelve-and-a-half-cent +gingham,--in me, I say, you behold a contented human creature, who +confidently hopes to live to be ninety-seven!" + +"And then we'll have eternity together!" said the dusty Billy, with an +arm about her. + +"And not a minute too long!" answered his suddenly serious wife. + +"You absolutely radiate content, Sue," Anna said to her wistfully, the +next day. + +Anna had come early to Oakland, to have luncheon and a few hours' +gossip with her hostess before the family's arrival for the six o'clock +dinner. The doctor's wife reached the gate in her own handsome little +limousine, and Susan had shared her welcome of Anna with enthusiasm for +Anna's loose great sealskin coat. + +"Take the baby and let me try it on," said Susan. "Woman--it is the +most gorgeous thing I ever saw!" + +"Conrad says I will need it in the east,--we go after Christmas," Anna +said, her face buried against the baby. + +Susan, having satisfied herself that what she really wanted, when +Billy's ship came in, was a big sealskin coat, had taken her guest +upstairs, to share the scuffle that preceded the boys' naps, and hold +Josephine while Susan put the big bedroom in order, and laid out the +little white suits for the afternoon. + +Now the two women were sitting together, Susan in a rocker, with her +sleepy little daughter in the curve of her arm, Anna in a deep low +chair, with her head thrown back, and her eyes on the baby. + +"Radiate happiness?" Susan echoed briskly, "My dear, you make me +ashamed. Why, there are whole days when I get really snappy and +peevish,--truly I do! running from morning until night. As for getting +up in the dead of night, to feed the baby, Billy says I look like +desolation--'like something the cat dragged in,' was his latest pretty +compliment. But no," Susan interrupted herself honestly, "I won't deny +it. I AM happy. I am the happiest woman in the world." + +"Yet you always used to begin your castles in Spain with a million +dollars," Anna said, half-wistfully, half-curiously. "Everything else +being equal, Sue," she pursued, "wouldn't you rather be rich?" + +"Everything else never IS equal," Susan answered thoughtfully. "I used +to think it was--but it's not! Now, for instance, take the case of +Isabel Wallace. Isabel is rich and beautiful, she has a good +husband,--to me he's rather tame, but probably she thinks of Billy as a +cave-man, so that doesn't count!--she has everything money can buy, she +has a gorgeous little boy, older than Mart, and now she has a girl, two +or three months old. And she really is a darling, Nance, you never +liked her particularly---" + +"Well, she was so perfect," pleaded Anna smiling, "so gravely wise and +considerate and low-voiced, and light-footed---!" + +"Only she's honestly and absolutely all of that!" Susan defended her +eagerly, "there's no pose! She really is unspoiled and good--my dear, +if the other women in her set were one-tenth as good as Isabel! +However, to go back. She came over here to spend the day with me, just +before Jo was born, and we had a wonderful day. Billy and I were taking +our dinners at a boarding-house, for a few months, and Big Mary had +nothing else to do but look out for the boys in the afternoon. Isabel +watched me giving them their baths, and feeding them their lunches, and +finally she said, 'I'd like to do that for Alan, but I never do!' 'Why +don't you?' I said. Well, she explained that in the first place there +was a splendid experienced woman paid twenty-five dollars a week to do +it, and that she herself didn't know how to do it half as well. She +said that when she went into the nursery there was a general smoothing +out of her way before her, one maid handing her the talcum, another +running with towels, and Miss Louise, as they call her, pleasantly +directing her and amusing Alan. Naturally, she can't drive them all +out; she couldn't manage without them! In fact, we came to the +conclusion that you have to be all or nothing to a baby. If Isabel made +up her mind to put Alan to bed every night say, she'd have to cut out a +separate affair every day for it, rush home from cards, or from the +links, or from the matinee, or from tea--Jack wouldn't like it, and she +says she doubts if it would make much impression on Alan, after all!" + +"I'd do it, just the same!" said Anna, "and I wouldn't have the nurse +standing around, either--and yet, I suppose that's not very +reasonable," she went on, after a moment's thought, "for that's +Conrad's free time. We drive nearly every day, and half the time dine +somewhere out of town. And his having to operate at night so much makes +him want to sleep in the morning, so that we couldn't very well have a +baby in the room. I suppose I'd do as the rest do, pay a fine nurse, +and grab minutes with the baby whenever I could!" + +"You have to be poor to get all the fun out of children," Susan said. +"They're at their very sweetest when they get their clothes off, and +run about before their nap, or when they wake up and call you, or when +you tell them stories at night." + +"But, Sue, a woman like Mrs. Furlong does NOT have to work so hard," +Anna said decidedly, "you must admit that! Her life is full of ease and +beauty and power--doesn't that count? Doesn't that give her a chance +for self-development, and a chance to make herself a real companion to +her husband?" "Well, the problems of the world aren't answered in +books, Nance. It just doesn't seem INTERESTING, or worth while to me! +She could read books, of course, and attend lectures, and study +languages. But--did you see the 'Protest' last week?" + +"No, I didn't! It comes, and I put it aside to read--" + +"Well, it was a corking number. Bill's been asserting for months, you +know, that the trouble isn't any more in any special class, it's +because of misunderstanding everywhere. He made the boys wild by saying +that when there are as many people at the bottom of the heap reaching +up, as there are people at the top reaching down, there'll be no more +trouble between capital and labor! And last week he had statistics, he +showed them how many thousands of rich people are trying--in their +entirely unintelligent ways!--to reach down, and--my dear, it was +really stirring! You know Himself can write when he tries!--and he +spoke of the things the laboring class doesn't do, of the way it +educates its children, of the way it spends its money,--it was as good +as anything he's ever done, and it made no end of talk! + +"And," concluded Susan contentedly, "we're at the bottom of the heap, +instead of struggling up in the world, we're struggling down! When I +talk to my girls' club, I can honestly say that I know some of their +trials. I talked to a mothers' meeting the other day, about simple +dressing and simple clothes for children, and they knew I had three +children and no more money than they. And they know that my husband +began his business career as a puddler, just as their sons are +beginning now. In short, since the laboring class can't, seemingly, +help itself, and the upper class can't help it, the situation seems to +be waiting for just such people as we are, who know both sides!" + +"A pretty heroic life, Susan!" Anna said shaking her head. + +"Heroic? Nothing!" Susan answered, in healthy denial. "I like it! I've +eaten maple mousse and guinea-hen at the Saunders', and I've eaten +liver-and-bacon and rice pudding here, and I like this best. Billy's a +hero, if you like," she added, suddenly, "Did I tell you about the +fracas in August?" + +"Not between you and Billy?" Anna laughed. + +"No-o-o! We fight," said Susan modestly, "when he thinks Mart ought to +be whipped and I don't, or when little Billums wipes sticky fingers on +his razor strop, but he ain't never struck me, mum, and that's more +than some can say! No, but this was really quite exciting," Susan +resumed, seriously. "Let me see how it began--oh, yes!--Isabel +Wallace's father asked Billy to dinner at the Bohemian Club,--in +August, this was. Bill was terribly pleased, old Wallace introduced him +to a lot of men, and asked him if he would like to be put up---" + +"Conrad would put him up, Sue---" Anna said jealously. + +"My dear, wait--wait until you hear the full iniquity of that old divil +of a Wallace! Well, he ordered cocktails, and he 'dear boyed' Bill, and +they sat down to dinner. Then he began to taffy the 'Protest,' he said +that the railroad men were all talking about it, and he asked Bill what +he valued it at. Bill said it wasn't for sale. I can imagine just how +graciously he said it, too! Well, old Mr. Wallace laughed, and he said +that some of the railroad men were really beginning to enjoy the way +Billy pitched into them; he said he had started life pretty humbly +himself; he said that he wanted some way of reaching his men just now, +and he thought that the 'Protest' was the way to do it. He said that it +was good as far as it went, but that it didn't go far enough. He +proposed to work its circulation up into hundreds of thousands, to buy +it at Billy's figure, and to pay him a handsome salary,--six thousand +was hinted, I believe,--as editor, under a five-year contract! Billy +asked if the policy of the paper was to be dictated, and he said, no, +no, everything left to him! Billy came home dazed, my dear, and I +confess I was dazed too. Mr. Wallace had said that he wanted Billy, as +a sort of side-issue, to live in San Rafael, so that they could see +each other easily,--and I wish you could see the house he'd let us have +for almost nothing! Then there would be a splendid round sum for the +paper, thirty or forty thousand probably, AND the salary! I saw myself +a lady, Nance, with a 'rising young man' for a husband---" + +"But, Sue--but, Sue," Anna said eagerly, "Billy would be editor--Billy +would be in charge--there would be a contract--nobody could call that +selling the paper, or changing the policy of the 'Protest'---" + +"Exactly what I said!" laughed Susan. "However, the next morning we +rushed over to the Cudahys--you remember that magnificent old person +you and Conrad met here? That's Clem. And his wife is quite as +wonderful as he is. And Clem of course tore our little dream to rags---" + +"Oh, HOW?" Anna exclaimed regretfully. + +"Oh, in every way. He made it betrayal, and selling the birthright. +Billy saw it at once. As Clem said, where would Billy be the minute +they questioned an article of his, or gave him something for insertion, +or cut his proof? And how would the thing SOUND--a railroad magnate +owning the 'Protest'?" + +"He might do more good that way than in any other," mourned Anna +rebelliously, "and my goodness, Sue, isn't his first duty to you and +the children?" + +"Bill said that selling the 'Protest' would make his whole life a +joke," Susan said. "And now I see it, too. Of course I wept and wailed, +at the time, but I love greatness, Nance, and I truly believe Billy is +great!" She laughed at the artless admission. "Well, you think Conrad +is great," finished Susan, defending herself. + +"Yes, sometimes I wish he wasn't--yet," Anna said, sighing. "I never +cooked a meal for him, or had to mend his shirts!" she added with a +rueful laugh. "But, Sue, shall you be content to have Billy slave as he +is slaving now," she presently went on, "right on into middle-age?" + +"He'll always slave at something," Susan said, cheerfully, "but that's +another funny thing about all this fuss--the boys were simply WILD with +enthusiasm when they heard about old Wallace and the 'Protest,' trust +Clem for that! And Clem assured me seriously that they'd have him Mayor +of San Francisco yet!--However," she laughed, "that's way ahead! But +next year Billy is going east for two months, to study the situation in +different cities, and if he makes up his mind to go, a newspaper +syndicate has offered him enough money, for six articles on the +subject, to pay his expenses! So, if your angel mother really will come +here and live with the babies, and all goes well, I'm going, too!" + +"Mother would do anything for you," Anna said, "she loves you for +yourself, and sometimes I think that she loves you for--for Jo, you +know, too! She's so proud of you, Sue---" + +"Well, if I'm ever anything to be proud of, she well may be!" smiled +Susan, "for, of all the influences of my life--a sentence from a talk +with her stands out clearest! I was moping in the kitchen one day, I +forget what the especial grievance was, but I remember her saying that +the best of life was service--that any life's happiness may be measured +by how much it serves!" + +Anna considered it, frowning. + +"True enough of her life, Sue!" + +"True of us all! Georgie, and Alfie, and Virginia! And Mary Lou,--did +you know that they had a little girl? And Mary Lou just divides her +capacity for adoration into two parts, one for Ferd and one for +Marie-Louise!" + +"Well, you're a delicious old theorist, Sue! But somehow you believe in +yourself, and you always do me good!" Anna said laughing. "I share with +Mother the conviction that you're rather uncommon--one watches you to +see what's next!" + +"Putting this child in her crib is next, now," said Susan flushing, a +little embarrassed. She lowered Josephine carefully on the little +pillow. "Best--girl--her--mudder--ever--did--HAB!" said Susan tenderly +as the transfer was accomplished. "Come on, Nance!" she whispered, +"we'll go down and see what Bill is doing." + +So they went down, to add a score of last touches to the orderly, +homelike rooms, to cut grape-fruit and taste cranberry sauce, to fill +vases with chrysanthemums and ferns, and count chairs for the long +table. + +"This is fun!" said Susan to her husband, as she filled little dishes +with nuts and raisins in the pantry and arranged crackers on a plate. + +"You bet your life it's fun!" agreed Billy, pausing in the act of +opening a jar of olives. "You look so pretty in that dress, Sue," he +went on, contentedly, "and the kids are so good, and it seems dandy to +be able to have the family all here! We didn't see this coming when we +married on less than a hundred a month, did we?" + +He put his arm about her, they stood looking out of the window together. + +"We did not! And when you were ill, Billy--and sitting up nights with +Mart's croup!" Susan smiled reminiscently. + +"And the Thanksgiving Day the milk-bill came in for five months--when +we thought we'd been paying it!" + +"We've been through some TIMES, Bill! But isn't it wonderful to--to do +it all together--to be married?" + +"You bet your life it's wonderful," agreed the unpoetic William. + +"It's the loveliest thing in the world," his wife said dreamily. She +tightened his arm about her and spoke half aloud, as if to herself. "It +IS the Great Adventure!" said Susan. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Saturday's Child, by Kathleen Norris + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATURDAY'S CHILD *** + +***** This file should be named 4687.txt or 4687.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/8/4687/ + +Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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