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[Illustration: "It has never occurred to one of you to ask _why_ I am
different from other women--to ask just what made me so!"]






THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE

BY KATHLEEN NORRIS

_Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert_

1915



CHAPTER I

To Emeline, wife of George Page, there came slowly, in her thirtieth
year, a sullen conviction that life was monstrously unfair. From a
resentful realization that she was not happy in her marriage, Emeline's
mind went back to the days of her pert, precocious childhood and her
restless and discontented girlhood, and she felt, with a sort of
smouldering fury, that she had never been happy, had never had a fair
chance, at all!

It took Mrs. Page some years to come to this conclusion, for, if she was
shrewd and sharp among the women she knew, she was, in essential things,
an unintelligent woman, and mental effort of any sort was strange to
her. Throughout her entire life, her mind had never been truly awakened.
She had scrambled through Grammar School, and had followed it with five
years as saleswoman in a millinery store, in that district of San
Francisco known as the Mission, marrying George Page at twenty-three,
and up to that time well enough pleased with herself and her life.

But that was eight years ago. Now Emeline could see that she had
reached--more, she had passed--her prime. She began to see that the
moods of those early years, however violent and changing, had been fed
upon secret springs of hope, hope vague and baseless enough, but strong
to colour a girl's life with all the brightness of a thousand dawns.
There had been rare potentialities in those days, anything might happen,
something _would_ happen. The little Emeline Cox, moving between the
dreary discomfort of home and the hated routine of school, might
surprise all these dull seniors and school-mates some day! She might
become an actress, she might become a great singer, she might make a
brilliant marriage.

As she grew older and grew prettier, these vague, bright dreams
strengthened. Emeline's mother was an overworked and shrill-voiced
woman, whose personality drove from the Shotwell Street house whatever
small comfort poverty and overcrowding and dirt left in it. She had no
personal message for Emeline. The older woman had never learned the care
of herself, her children, her husband, or her house. She had naturally
nothing to teach her daughter. Emeline's father occasionally thundered a
furious warning to his daughters as to certain primitive moral laws. He
did not tell Emeline and her sisters why they might some day consent to
abandon the path of virtue, nor when, nor how. He never dreamed of
winning their affection and confidence, or of selecting their friends,
and making home a place to which these friends might occasionally come.
But he was fond of shouting, when Emeline, May, or Stella pinned on
their flimsy little hats for an evening walk, that if ever a girl of his
made a fool of herself and got into trouble, she need never come near
his door again! Perhaps Emeline and May and Stella felt that the
virtuous course, as exemplified by their parents, was not all of roses,
either, but they never said so, and always shuddered dutifully at the
paternal warning.

School also failed with the education of the inner Emeline, although she
moved successfully from a process known as "diagramming" sentences to a
serious literary analysis of "Snow-Bound" and "Evangeline," and passed
terrifying examinations in ancient history, geography, and advanced
problems in arithmetic. By the time she left school she was a tall,
giggling, black-eyed creature, to be found walking up and down Mission
Street, and gossiping and chewing gum on almost any sunny afternoon.
Between her mother's whining and her father's bullying, home life was
not very pleasant, but at least there was nothing unusual in the
situation; among all the girls that Emeline knew there was not one who
could go back to a clean room, a hospitable dining-room, a well-cooked
and nourishing meal. All her friends did as she did: wheedled money for
new veils and new shoes from their fathers, helped their mothers
reluctantly and scornfully when they must, slipped away to the street as
often as possible, and when they were at home, added their complaints
and protests to the general unpleasantness.

Had there been anything different before her eyes, who knows what plans
for domestic reform might have taken shape in the girl's plastic brain?
Emeline had never seen one example of real affection and cooperation
between mother and daughters, of work quickly and skilfully done and
forgotten, of a clean bright house and a blossoming garden; she had
never heard a theory otherwise than that she was poor, her friends were
poor, her parents were poor, and that born under the wheels of a
monstrous social injustice, she might just as well be dirty and
discouraged and discontented at once and have done with it, for in the
end she must be so. Why should she question the abiding belief? Emeline
knew that, with her father's good pay and the excellent salaries earned
by her hard-handed, patient-eyed, stupid young brothers, the family
income ran well up toward three hundred dollars a month: her father
worked steadily at five dollars a day, George was a roofer's assistant
and earned eighty dollars a month, and Chester worked in a plumber's
shop, and at eighteen was paid sixty-five dollars. Emeline could only
conclude that three hundred dollars a month was insufficient to prevent
dirt, crowding, scolding, miserable meals, and an incessant atmosphere
of warm soapsuds.

Presently she outraged her father by going into "Delphine's" millinery
store. Delphine was really a stout, bleached woman named Lizzie Clarke,
whose reputation was not quite good, although nobody knew anything
definite against her. She had a double store on Market Street near
Eleventh, a dreary place, with dusty models in the windows, torn
Nottingham curtains draped behind them, and "Delphine" scrawled in gold
across the dusty windows in front. Emeline used to wonder, in the days
when she and her giggling associates passed "Delphine's" window, who
ever bought the dreadful hats in the left-hand window, although they
admitted a certain attraction on the right. Here would be a sign: "Any
Hat in this Window, Two Dollars," surrounded by cheap, dust-grained
felts, gaudily trimmed, or coarse straws wreathed with cotton flowers.
Once or twice Emeline and her friends went in, and one day when a card
in the window informed the passers-by that an experienced saleslady was
wanted, the girl, sick of the situation at home and longing for novelty,
boldly applied for the position. Miss Clarke engaged her at once.

Emeline met, as she had expected, a storm at home, but she weathered it,
and kept her position. It was hard work, and poorly paid, but the girl's
dreams gilded everything, and she loved the excitement of making sales,
came eagerly to the gossip and joking of her fellow-workers every
morning, and really felt herself to be in the current of life at last.

Miss Clarke was no better than her reputation, and would have willingly
helped her young saleswoman into a different sort of life. But Emeline's
little streak of shrewd selfishness saved her. Emeline indulged in a
hundred little coarsenesses and indiscretions, but take the final step
toward ruin she would not. Nobody was going to get the better of her,
she boasted. She used rouge and lip red. She "met fellers" under flaming
gas jets, and went to dance halls with them, and to the Sunday picnics
that were her father's especial abomination; she shyly told vile stories
and timidly used strong words, but there it ended. Perhaps some tattered
remnant of the golden dream still hung before her eyes; perhaps she
still clung to the hope of a dim, wonderful time to come.

More than that, the boys she knew were not a vicious lot; the Jimmies
and Johnnies, the Dans and Eds, were for the most part neighbours, no
more anxious to antagonize Emeline's father than she was. They might
kiss her good-night at her door, they might deliberately try to get the
girls to miss the last train home from the picnic, but their spirit was
of idle mischief rather than malice, and a stinging slap from Emeline's
hand afforded them, as it did her, a certain shamed satisfaction.

George Page came into "Delphine's" on a windy summer afternoon when
Emeline had been there for nearly five years. He was a salesman for some
lines of tailored hats, a San Franciscan, but employed by a New York
wholesale house. Emeline chanced to be alone in the place, for Miss
Clarke was sick in bed, and the other saleswoman away on her vacation.
The trimmers, glancing out through a plush curtain at the rear, saw Miss
Cox and the "drummer" absorbed in a three hours' conversation. From two
to five o'clock they talked; the drummer watching her in obvious
admiration when an occasional customer interrupted, and when Miss Cox
went home the drummer escorted her. Emeline had left the parental roof
some two years before; she was rooming, now, with a mild and virtuous
girl named Regina Lynch, in Howard Street. Regina was the sort of girl
frequently selected by a girl of Emeline's type for confidante and
companion: timid, conventional, always ready to laugh and admire. Regina
consented to go to dinner with Emeline and Mr. Page, and as she later
refused to go to the theatre, Emeline would not go either; they all
walked out Market Street from the restaurant, and reached the Howard
Street house at about nine o'clock. Regina went straight upstairs, but
Emeline and George Page sat on the steps an hour longer, under the
bright summer moon, and when Emeline went upstairs she woke her roommate
up, and announced her engagement.

George came into the store at nine o'clock the next morning, to
radiantly confirm all that they had said the night before, and with
great simplicity the two began to plan for their future; from that time
they had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together every day; they were both
utterly satisfied; they never questioned their fate. In October George
had to go to San Diego, and a dozen little cities en route, for the
firm, and Emeline went, too. They were married in the little church of
Saint Charles in Eighteenth Street, only an hour or two before they
started for San Jose, the first stop in George's itinerary. Emeline's
mother and sisters came to her wedding, but the men of the family were
working on this week-day afternoon. The bride looked excited and happy,
colour burned scarlet in her cheeks, under her outrageous hat; she wore
a brown travelling gown, and the lemon-coloured gloves that were popular
in that day. Emeline felt that she was leaving everything unpleasant in
life behind her. George was the husband of her dreams--or perhaps her
dreams had temporarily adapted themselves to George.

But, indeed, he was an exceptionally good fellow. He was handsome, big,
dashingly dressed. He was steady and successful in his work, domestic in
his tastes, and tenderly--and perhaps to-day a little pityingly--devoted
to this pretty, clever girl who loved him so, and had such faith in him.
His life had kept him a good deal among men, and rather coarse men; he
had had to do more drinking than he cared to do, to play a good deal of
poker, to listen to a good deal of loose talk. Now, George felt a great
relief that this was over; he wanted a home, a wife, children.

The bride and groom had a cloudless three weeks of honeymoon among a
score of little Southern towns--and were scarcely less happy during the
first months of settling down. Emeline was entirely ignorant of what was
suitable or desirable in a home, and George had only the crude ideals of
a travelling man to guide him. They enthusiastically selected a flat of
four handsome, large, dark rooms, over a corner saloon, on O'Farrell
Street. The building was new, the neighbourhood well built, and filled
with stirring, interesting life. George said it was conveniently near
the restaurant and theatre district, and to Emeline, after Mission
Street, it seemed the very hub of the world. The suite consisted of a
large front drawing-room, connected by enormous folding doors with a
rear drawing-room, which the Pages would use as a bedroom, a large
dining-room, and a dark kitchen, equipped with range and "water back."
There were several enormous closets, and the stairs and hall, used by
the several tenants of the house, were carpeted richly. The Pages also
carpeted their own rooms, hung the stiff folds of Nottingham lace
curtains at the high narrow windows, and selected a set of the heavily
upholstered furniture of the period for their drawing-room. When
Emeline's mother and sisters came to call, Emeline showed them her
gold-framed pictures, her curly-maple bed and bureau, her glass closet
in the dining-room, with its curved glass front and sides and its
shining contents--berry saucers and almond dishes in pressed glass, and
other luxuries to which the late Miss Cox had been entirely a stranger.
Emeline was intoxicated with the freedom and the pleasures of her new
life; George was out of town two or three nights a week, but when he was
at home the two slept late of mornings, and loitered over their
breakfast, Emeline in a loose wrapper, filling and refilling her coffee
cup, while George rattled the paper and filled the room with the odour
of cigarettes.

Then Emeline was left to put her house in order, and dress herself for
the day--her corsets laced tight at the waist, her black hair crimped
elaborately above her bang, her pleated skirts draped fashionably over
her bustle. George would come back at one o'clock to take her to lunch,
and after lunch they wandered up and down Kearney and Market streets,
laughing and chatting, glad just to be alive and together. Sometimes
they dined downtown, too, and afterward went to the "Tivoli" or
"Morosco's," or even the Baldwin Theatre, and sometimes bought and
carried home the materials for a dinner, and invited a few of George's
men friends to enjoy it with them. These were happy times; Emeline,
flushed and pretty in her improvised apron, queened it over the three or
four adoring males, and wondered why other women fussed so long over
cooking, when men so obviously enjoyed a steak, baked potatoes, canned
vegetables, and a pie from Swain's. After dinner the men always played
poker, a mild little game at first, with Emeline eagerly guarding a
little pile of chips, and gasping over every hand like a happy child;
but later more seriously, when Emeline, contrary to poker superstition,
sat on the arm of her husband's chair, to bring him luck.

Luck she certainly seemed to bring him; the Pages would go yawning to
bed, after one of these evenings, chuckling over the various hands.

"I couldn't see what you drew, George," Emeline would say, "but I could
see that Mack had aces on the roof, and it made me crazy to have you go
on raising that way! And then your three fish hooks!"

George would shout with pride at her use of poker terms--would laugh all
the harder if she used them incorrectly. And sometimes, sinking
luxuriously into the depths of the curly-maple bed, Emeline would think
herself the luckiest woman in the world. No hurry about getting up in
the morning; no one to please but herself; pretty gowns and an adoring
husband and a home beyond her maddest hopes--the girl's dreams no longer
followed her, happy reality had blotted out the dream.

She felt a little injured, a little frightened, when the day came on
which she must tell George of some pretty well-founded suspicions of her
own condition. George might be "mad," or he might laugh.

But George was wonderfully soothing and reassuring; more, was
pathetically glad and proud. He petted Emeline into a sort of reluctant
joy, and the attitude of her mother and sisters and the few women she
knew was likewise flattering. Important, self-absorbed, she waited her
appointed days, and in the early winter a wizened, mottled little
daughter was born. Julia was the name Emeline had chosen for a girl, and
Julia was the name duly given her by the radiant and ecstatic George in
the very first hour of her life. Emeline had lost interest in the
name--indeed, in the child and her father as well--just then; racked,
bewildered, wholly spent, she lay back in the curly-maple bed, the first
little seed of that general resentment against life that was eventually
to envelop her, forming in her mind.

They had told her that because of this or that she would not have a
"hard time," and she had had a very hard time. They had told her that
she would forget the cruel pain the instant it was over, and she knew
she never would forget it. It made her shudder weakly to think of all
the babies in the world--of the schools packed with children--at what a
cost!

Emeline recovered quickly, and shut her resentment into her own breast.
Julie, as she was always called, was a cross baby, and nowadays the two
front rooms were usually draped with her damp undergarments, and odorous
of sour bottles and drying clothes. For the few months that Emeline
nursed the child she wandered about until late in the day in a loose
wrapper, a margin of draggled nightgown showing under it, her hair in a
tumbled knot at the back of her head. If she had to run out for a loaf
of bread or a pound of coffee, she slipped on a street skirt, and
buttoned her long coat about her; her lean young throat would show, bare
above the lapels of the coat, but even this costume was not conspicuous
in that particular neighbourhood.

By the time Julia was weaned, Emeline had formed the wrapper habit; she
had also slipped back to the old viewpoint: they were poor people, and
the poor couldn't afford to do things decently, to live comfortably.
Emeline scolded and snapped at George, shook and scolded the crying
baby, and loitered in the hall for long, complaining gossips with the
other women of the house.

Time extricated the young Pages from these troubled days. Julia grew
into a handsome, precocious little girl of whom both parents could be
proud. Emeline never quite recovered her girlish good looks, her face
was thin now, with prominent cheek bones; there was a little frowning
line drawn between her eyes, and her expression was sharp and anxious,
but she became more fond of dress than ever.

George's absences were a little longer in these days; he had been given
a larger territory to cover--and Emeline naturally turned for society
toward her women neighbours. There were one or two very congenial
married women of her own type in the same house, pleasure-loving,
excitable young women; one, a Mrs. Carter, with two children in school,
the other, Mrs. Palmer, triumphantly childless. These introduced her to
others; sometimes half a dozen of them would go to a matinee together, a
noisy, chattering group. During the matinee Julia would sit on her
mother's lap, a small awed figure in a brief red silk dress and deep
lace collar. Julia always had several chocolates from the boxes that
circulated among her elders, and usually went to sleep during the last
act, and was dragged home, blinking and whining and wretched, by one
aching little arm.

George was passionately devoted to his little girl, and no toy was too
expensive for Julia to demand. Emeline loved the baby, too, although she
accepted as a martyrdom the responsibility of supplying Julia's needs.
But the Pages themselves rather drifted apart with the years. Both were
selfish, and each accused the other of selfishness, although, as Emeline
said stormily, no one had ever called her that before she was married,
and, as George sullenly claimed, he himself had always been popularity's
self among the "fellows."

In all her life Emeline had never felt anything but a resentful
impatience for whatever curtailed her liberty or disturbed her comfort
in the slightest degree. She had never settled down to do cheerfully
anything that she did not want to do. She had shaken off the claims of
her own home as lightly as she had stepped from "Delphine's" to the more
tempting position of George's wife. Now she could not believe that she
was destined to live on with a man who was becoming a confirmed
dyspeptic, who thought she was a poor housekeeper, an extravagant
shopper, a wretched cook, and worse than all, a sloven about her
personal appearance. Emeline really was all these things at times, and
suspected it, but she had never been shown how to do anything else, and
she denied all charges noisily.

One night when Julia was about four George stamped out of the house,
after a tirade against the prevailing disorder and some insulting
remarks about "delicatessen food." Emeline sent a few furious remarks
after him, and then wept over the sliced ham, the potato salad, and the
Saratoga chips, all of which she had brought home from a nearby delicacy
shop in oily paper bags only an hour ago. She wandered disconsolately
through the four rooms that had been her home for nearly six years. The
dust lay thick on the polished wood and glass of the sideboard and glass
closet in the dining-room; ashes and the ends of cigarettes filled half
a dozen little receptacles here and there; a welter of newspapers had
formed a great drift in a corner of the room, and the thick velour day
cover of the table had been pushed back to make way for a doubled and
spotted tablecloth and the despised meal. The kitchen was hideous with a
confusion of souring bottles of milk, dirty dishes, hardened ends of
loaves, and a sticky jam jar or two; Emeline's range was spotted and
rusty, she never fired it now; a three-burner gas plate sufficed for the
family's needs. In the bedroom a dozen garments were flung over the foot
of the unmade bed, Julia's toys and clothing littered this and the
sitting-room, the silk woof had been worn away on the heavily
upholstered furniture, and the strands of the cotton warp separated to
show the white lining beneath. On the mantel was a litter of medicine
bottles and theatre programs, powder boxes, gloves and slippers,
packages of gum and of cigarettes, and packs of cards, as well as more
ornamental matters: china statuettes and glass cologne bottles, a
palm-leaf fan with roses painted on it, a pincushion of redwood bark,
and a plush rolling-pin with brass screws in it, hung by satin ribbons.
Over all lay a thick coat of dust.

Emeline took Julia in her lap, and sat down in one of the patent
rockers. She remained for a long time staring out of the front window.
George's words burned angrily in her memory--she felt sick of life.

A spring twilight was closing down upon O'Farrell Street. In the row of
houses opposite Emeline could see slits of gaslight behind lowered
shades, and could look straight into the second floor of the
establishment that flourished behind a large sign bearing the words,
"O'Connor, Modes." This row of bay-windowed houses had been occupied as
homes by very good families when the Pages first came to O'Farrell
Street, but six years had seen great changes in the block. A grocery and
bar now occupied the corner, facing the saloon above which the Pages
lived, and the respectable middle-class families had moved away, one by
one, giving place to all sorts of business enterprises. Milliners and
dressmakers took the first floors, and rented the upper rooms; one
window said "Mme. Claire, Palmist," and another "Violin Lessons"; one
basement was occupied by a dealer in plaster statuary, and another by a
little restaurant. Most interesting of all to the stageloving Emeline
was the second floor, obliquely opposite her own, which bore an immense
sign, "Gottoli, Wigs and Theatrical Supplies. Costumes of all sorts
Designed and on Hand." Between Gottoli's windows were two painted panels
representing respectively a very angular, moustached young man in a
dress suit, and a girl in a Spanish dancer's costume, with a tambourine.
Gottoli did not do a very flourishing business, but Emeline watched his
doorway by the hour, and if ever her dreams came back now, it was at
these times.

To-night Julia went to sleep in her arms; she was an unexacting little
girl, accustomed to being ignored much of the time, and humoured,
over-indulged, and laughed at at long intervals. Emeline sat on and on,
crying now and then, and gradually reducing herself to a more softened
mood, when she longed to be dear to George again, to please and content
him. She had just made up her mind that this was no neighbourhood for
ideal home life, when George, smelling strongly of whiskey, but
affectionate and repentant, came in.

"What doing?" asked George, stumbling in the dark room.

"Just watching the cable cars go up and down," Emeline said, rousing.
She set the dazed Julia on her feet, and groped for matches on the
mantel. A second later the stifling odour of block matches drifted
through the room, and Emeline lighted a gas jet.

"Had your supper?" said she, as George sat down and took the child into
his arms.

"Nope," he answered, grinning ashamedly. "Thought maybe you and I'd go
to dinner somewheres, Em."

Emeline was instantly her better self. While she flew into her best
clothes she told George that she knew she was a rotten manager, but she
was so darn sick of this darn flat--She had just been sitting there
wondering if they hadn't better move into the country, say into Oakland.
Her sister May lived there, they might get a house near May, with a
garden for Julia, and a spare room where George could put up a friend.

George was clumsily enthusiastic. Gosh, if she would do that--if she
could stand its being a little quiet--

"I'd get to know the neighbours, and we'd have real good times," said
Emeline optimistically, "and it would be grand for Julie!"

Julia had by this time gone off to sleep in the centre of the large bed.
Her mother removed the child's shoes and some of her clothing, without
rousing her, loosened her garters, and unbuttoned whatever buttons she
could reach.

"She'll be all right," she said confidently. "She never wakes."

George lowered the gas, and they tiptoed out. But Julie did waken half
an hour later, as it happened, and screamed for company for ten hideous
minutes. Then Miss Flossie Miniver, a young woman who had recently
rented the top floor, and of whom Emeline and the other ladies of the
house disapproved, came downstairs and softly entered the Page flat, and
gathered the sobbing little girl to her warm, soft breast. Miss Miniver
soothed her with a new stick of gum and a pincushion that looked like a
fat little pink satin leg, with a smart boot at one end and a ruffle of
lace at the other, and left Julia peacefully settled down to sleep. But
Julia did not remember anything of this in the morning, and the
pincushion had rolled under the bed, so Emeline never knew of it. She
and George had a good dinner, and later went to the Orpheum, and were
happier than they had been for a long time.

The next Sunday they went to Oakland to see Emeline's sister, and
possibly to begin househunting. It was a cold, dark day, with a raw wind
blowing. Gulls dipped and screamed over the wake of the ferryboat that
carried the Pages to Oakland, and after the warm cabin and the heated
train, they all shivered miserably as they got out at the appointed
corner. Oakland looked bleak and dreary, the wind was blowing chaff and
papers against fences and steps.

Emeline had rather lost sight of her sister for a year or two, and had
last seen her in another and better house than the one which they
presently identified by street and number. The sisters had married at
about the same time, but Ed Torney was a shiftless and unfortunate man,
never steadily at work, and always mildly surprised at the discomfort of
life. May had four children, and was expecting a fifth. Two of the older
children, stupid-looking little blondes, with colds in their noses, and
dirt showing under the fair hair, were playing in the dooryard of the
shabby cottage now. The gate hung loose, the ground was worn bare by
children's feet and dug into holes where children had burrowed, and
littered with cans and ropes and boxes.

Emeline was genuinely shocked by the evidences of actual want inside.
May was a thin, bent, sickly looking woman now, her graying hair hanging
in a loose coil over her cotton wrapper. Floors everywhere were bare, a
few chairs were here and there, a few beds running over with thin
bedding, a table in the kitchen was covered with scattered dishes, some
dirty and some clean. Ashes drifted out of the kitchen stove, and in the
sink was a great tin dish-pan full of cool, greasy water. The oldest
child, a five-year-old girl, had followed these dazzling visitors in,
and now mounted a box and attacked this dish-pan with pathetic energy.
The two younger children sat on the floor, apathetically staring. May
made only a few smiling apologies. They "could see how she was," she
said, limping to a chair into which she dropped with a sigh of relief.
They had had a "fierce" time since Ed--Ed was the husband and
father--had lost his job a year ago. He had not been able to get
anything permanent since. Ed had been there just a minute ago, she
said--and indeed the odour of tobacco was still strong on the close
air--but he had been having a good deal of stomach trouble of late, and
the children made him nervous, and he had gone out for a walk. Poor May,
smiling gallantly over the difficulties of her life, drew her firstborn
to her knees, brushed back the child's silky, pale hair with bony,
trembling fingers, and prophesied that things would be easier when
mamma's girlies got to work: Evelyn was going to be a dressmaker, and
Marguerite an actress.

"She can say a piece out of the Third Reader real cute--the children
next door taught her," said May, but Marguerite would not be exploited;
she dug her blonde head into her mother's shoulder in a panic of
shyness; and shortly afterward the Pages went away. Uncle George gave
each child a dime, Julia kissed her little cousins good-bye, and Emeline
felt a sick spasm of pity and shame as May bade the children thank them,
and thanked them herself. Emeline drew her sister to the door, and
pressed two silver dollars, all she happened to have with her, into her
hand.

"Aw, don't, Em, you oughtn't," May said, ashamed and turning crimson,
but instantly she took the money. "We've had an awful hard time--or I
wouldn't!" said she, tears coming to her eyes.

"Oh, that's all right!" Emeline said uncomfortably, as she ran down the
steps. Her heart burned with sympathy for poor May, who had been so
pretty and so clever! Emeline could not understand the change! May had
graduated from High School with honours; she had held a good position as
a bookkeeper in a grocery before her marriage, but, like Emeline, for
the real business of life she had had no preparation at all. Her own
oldest child could have managed the family finances and catered to
sensitive stomachs with as much system and intelligence as May.

On the boat Emeline spoke of her little money gift to her sister, and
George roused himself from a deep study to approve and to reimburse her.
They did not speak again of moving to the country, and went straight
from the boat to a French table d'hote dinner, where Julia, enchanted at
finding herself warm and near food after the long cold adventures of the
day, stuffed herself on sardines and sour bread, soup and salad, and
shrimps and fried chicken, and drank tumblers of claret and sugar and
ice water.

There were still poker parties occasionally in the Page flat; Emeline
was quite familiar with poker phraseology now, and if George seemed less
pleased than he had been when she rattled away about hands, the men who
came were highly diverted by it. Two or three other wives generally
joined the party now; there would be seven or eight players about the
round table.

They all drank as they played, the room would get very warm, and reek of
tobacco and of whiskey and beer. Sometimes Julia woke up with a
terrified shout, and then, if Emeline were playing, she would get
George, or one of the other men or women, to go in and quiet the little
girl. These games would not break up until two or three o'clock. Emeline
would be playing excitedly, her face flushed, her eyes shining, every
fibre of her being alert, when suddenly the life would seem to fade out
of the whole game. An overwhelming ennui would seize her, a cold,
clear-eyed fatigue--the cards would seem meaningless, a chill would
shake her, a need of yawning. The whole company would be suddenly
likewise affected, the game would break up with a few brief words, and
Emeline, going in with her guests to help them with hats and wraps,
would find herself utterly silent, too cold and weary for even the most
casual civilities. When the others had gone, she and George would turn
the lights out on the wreckage of the dining-room, and stagger silently
to bed.

Fatigue would follow Emeline well into the next day after one of these
card parties. If George was going out of town, she would send Julia off
to play with other children in the house, and lie in bed until noon,
getting up now and then to hold a conversation with some tradesman
through a crack in the door. At one she might sally forth in her
favourite combination of wrapper and coat to buy cream and rolls, and
Julia would be regaled on sausages, hot cakes, bakery cookies, and
coffee, or come in to find no lunch at all, and that her mother had gone
out for the afternoon.

Emeline had grown more and more infatuated with the theatre and all that
pertained to it. She went to matinees twice a week, and she and her
group of intimate friends also "went Dutch" to evening performances
whenever it was possible. Their conversation was spattered with
theatrical terms, and when, as occasionally happened, a real actress or
even a chorus girl from the Tivoli joined their group, Emeline could
hardly contain her eagerness and her admiration. She loved, when rare
chance offered, to go behind the scenes; she frankly envied the
egotistic, ambitious young theatrical beginners, so eager to talk of
themselves and their talents, to discuss every detail from grease paint
to management. To poor hungry Emeline it was like a revelation of
another, brighter world.

She would loiter out from the brief enchantment of "Two True Hearts"
into the foggy dampness of Market Street, at twilight, eagerly grasping
the suggestion of ice-cream sodas, because it meant a few minutes more
with her friends. Perhaps, sipping the frothy confection, Emeline would
see some of the young actresses going by, just from the theatre,
buttoned into long coats, their faces still rosy from cold cream; they
must rush off for a light dinner, and be back at the theatre at seven.
At the sight of them a pang always shot through Emeline, an exquisite
agony of jealousy seized her. Oh, to be so busy, so full of affairs, to
move constantly from one place to another--now dragging a spangled gown,
now gay as a peasant, now gaudily dressed as a page!

Emeline would finish her soda in silence, lift the over-dressed Julia
from her chair, and start soberly for home. Julia's short little legs
ached from the quick walk, yet she hated as much as her mother the
plunge from brightly lighted O'Farrell Street into their own hall, so
large and damp and dark, so odorous of stale beer and rubber floor
covering. A dim point of gas in a red shade covered with symmetrical
glass blisters usually burned over the stairway, but the Pages'
apartment was dark, except for a dull reflected light from the street.
Perhaps Julia and her mother would find George there, with his coat and
shoes off, and his big body flung down across the bed, asleep. George
would wake up slowly, with much yawning and grumbling, Emeline would add
her gloves and belt to the unspeakable confusion of the bureau, and
Julia would flatten her tired little back against the curve of an
armchair and follow with heavy, brilliant eyes the argument that always
followed.

"Well, we could get some chops--chops and potatoes--and a can of corn,"
Emeline would grudgingly admit, as she tore off her tight corsets with a
great gasp of relief, and slipped into her kimono, "or you could get
some spaghetti and some mangoes at the delicatessen--"

"Oh, God, cut out the delicatessen stuff!" George invariably said; "me
for the chops, huh, Julie?"

"Or--we could all go somewhere," Emeline might submit tentatively.

"_Nit_," George would answer. "Come on, Ju, we'll go buy a steak!"

But he was not very well pleased with his dinner, even when he had his
own way. When he and Julia returned with their purchases Emeline
invariably met them at the top of the stairs.

"We need butter, George, I forgot to tell you--you'll have to go back!"
she would say. Julia, tired almost beyond endurance, still preferred to
go with her father.

There was not enough gas heat under Emeline's frying pan to cook a steak
well; George growled as he cut it. Emeline jumped up for forgotten table
furnishings; grease splashed on the rumpled cloth. After the one course
the head of the house would look about hungrily.

"No cheese in the house, I suppose?"

"No--I don't believe there is."

"What's the chances on a salad?"

"Oh, no, George--that takes lettuce, you know. My goodness!" And Emeline
would put her elbows on the table and yawn, the rouge showing on her
high cheek bones, her eyes glittering, her dark hair still pressed down
where her hat had lain. "My goodness!" she would exclaim impatiently,
"haven't you had enough, George? You had steak, and potatoes, and
corn--why don't you eat your corn?"

"What's the chances on a cup of tea?" George might ask, seizing a half
slice of bread, and doubling an ounce of butter into it, with his great
thumb on the blade of his knife.

"You can have all the tea you want, but you'll have to use condensed
milk!"

At this George would say "Damn!" and take himself and his evening paper
to the armchair in the front window. When Emeline would go in, after a
cursory disposition of the dishes, she would find Julia curled in his
arms, and George sourly staring over the little silky head.

"It's up to you, and it's your job, and it makes me damn sick to come
home to such a dirty pen as this!" George sometimes burst out. "Look at
that--and look at that--look at that mantel!"

"Well--well--well!" Emeline would answer sharply, putting the mantel
straight, or commencing to do so with a sort of lazy scorn. "I can't do
everything!"

"Other men go home to decent dinners," George would pursue sullenly;
"their wives aren't so darn lazy and selfish--"

Such a start as this always led to a bitter quarrel, after which
Emeline, trembling with anger, would clear a corner of the cluttered
drawing-room table and take out a shabby pack of cards for solitaire,
and George would put Julia to bed. All her life Julia Page remembered
these scenes and these bedtimes.

Her father sometimes tore the tumbled bed apart, and made it up again,
smoothing the limp sheets with clumsy fingers, and talking to Julia,
while he worked, of little girls who had brothers and sisters, and who
lived in the country, and hung their stockings up on Christmas Eve.
Emeline pretended not to notice either father or daughter at these
times, although she could have whisked Julia into bed in half the time
it took George to do it, and was really very kind to the child when
George was not there.

When George asked the little girl to find her hairbrush, and blundered
over the buttons of her nightgown, Emeline hummed a sprightly air. She
never bore resentment long.

"What say we go out later and get something to eat, George?" she would
ask, when George tiptoed out of the bedroom and shut the folding door
behind him. But several hours of discomfort were not to be so lightly
dismissed by George.

"Maybe," he would briefly answer. And invariably he presently muttered
something about asking "Cass" for the time, and so went down to the
saloon of "J. Cassidy," just underneath his own residence.

Emeline, alone, would brood resentfully over her cards. That was the way
of it: men could run off to saloons, while she, pretty and young, and
with the love of life still strong in her veins, might as well be dead
and buried! Bored and lonely, she would creep into bed beside Julia,
after turning the front-room light down to a bead, and flinging over the
"bed lounge," upon which George spent the night, the musty sheets and
blankets and the big soggy pillows.

But George, meanwhile, would have found warmth, brightness,
companionship, and good food. The drink that was his passport to all
these good things was the least of them in his eyes. George did not care
particularly for drink, but he usually came home the worse for it on
these occasions, and Emeline had a real foundation for her furious
harangues in the morning. She would scold while she carried him in hot
coffee or chopped ice, scold while she crimped her hair and covered her
face with a liquid bleach, scold as she jerked Julia's little bonnet on
the child's lovely mane, and depart, with a final burst of scolding and
a bang of the door.

One day Emeline came in to find George at home, ill. She had said
good-bye to him only the day before, for what was supposedly a week, and
was really concerned to find him back so soon, shivering and mumbling,
and apparently unable to get into bed. Emeline sent Julia flying to a
neighbour, made George as comfortable as she could in the big bed, and
listened, with a conviction as firm as his own, to what he believed to
be parting instructions and messages.

"I'm going, Em," said George heavily. "I'm worse now than I was when I
started for home. I wanted to see you again, baby girl, and Julia, too.
I--I can't breathe----"

Julia presently came flying in with a doctor and with a neighbour, Mrs.
Cotter, who had telephoned to him. The doctor said that George had a
sharp touch of influenza, and Emeline settled down to nurse him.

George was a bad patient. He had a great many needs, and he mentioned
one after another in the weighty, serious tone of a person imparting
valuable information.

"Ice--ice," said George, moving hot eyes to meet his wife's glance as
she came in. "And take that extra blanket off, Emeline, and--no hurry,
but I'll try the soup again whenever you say--I seem to feel weak. I
must have more air, dear. Help me sit up, Em, and you can shake these
pillows up again. I think I'm a good deal sicker man than Allan has any
idea----"

Emeline got very tired of it, especially as George was much better on
the third day, and could sit up. He developed a stiff neck, which made
him very irritable, and even Julia "got on his nerves" and was banished
for the day to the company of the cheerful Jewish family who lived on an
upper floor. He sat in an armchair, wrapped in blankets, his rigid gaze
roving a pitifully restricted perspective of street outside the window,
an elaborate cough occasionally racking him.

Emeline had gotten a fairly tempting dinner under way. She could cook
some things well, and at five o'clock she came in from the kitchen with
an appetizing tray.

"Gosh, is it dinner time?" asked George.

"After five," Emeline said, flitting about the bed-room. Julia had come
home now, sweet and tired, and was silently eating slice after slice of
bread and jelly. Emeline opened out the bed lounge, spread sheets and
blankets smoothly, and flung a clean little nightgown for Julia across
the foot. Darkness had fallen outside; she lighted the gas and drew the
shades.

"This is comfortable!" said George. "I wouldn't mind being sick now and
then at this rate! Come over here and undress near Pop, Julie. I'll tell
you what, Em--you call down the air shaft to Cass, and tell him to send
Henny up to make us a nice little coal fire here. I'll give Henny a
quarter."

"She's gone into the bathroom to fix her hair and wash her face," Julia
observed, as Emeline did not answer. A second later the child jumped up
to answer a sharp knock on the door.

To George's disgust it was Emeline's friend, Mrs. Marvin Povey, who came
in. Mrs. Povey was a tightly corseted, coarse-voiced, highly coloured
little blonde, breathless now from running upstairs. Her sister, Myrtle
Montague, was an ingenue in the little stock company at the Central
Theatre, and Mrs. Povey kept house for her and Mr. Povey, who spent all
his waking hours at the racetrack. The Poveys' flat was only a block
away from the Pages'.

George was furious to have this woman, whom he particularly detested,
come in upon him thus informally, and find him at so great a
disadvantage. His neck was better, but he could not move it very easily
still; he was trapped here in blankets like a baby; he was acutely
conscious of his three days' beard, of Julia's bed made up in the middle
of the drawing-room, and of Julia's self, partly disrobed, and running
about in the general disorder.

"Well, how does the other feller look?" said Mrs. Povey, laughing
good-naturedly. "You look like you'd broke out of San Quentin, George,
with that face! Hello, darlin'," she added, waylaying Julia. "When are
you going to come and be Aunt Mame's girl, huh? Going to come home with
me to-night?"

"Em!" bellowed George, with only a sickly smile for the guest. "_Em_!"

"My God, what is it now?" said Emeline sweetly, popping in her head.
"Oh, hello, Mame!" she added, coming in. "Where's the rest of the
girls?"

"They've all blew up to the house with Myrt," said Mrs. Povey, staring
blankly at Emeline. "But say, ain't you going, dear?"

"Wait till I get my dress on, and we'll talk it over while I hook up,"
Emeline said, disappearing again. She did not glance at George.

"Myrt's in a new show, and a few of us girls are going to see that she
gets a hand," Mrs. Povey said. "We're going to have supper at my house.
Mary will have some of the boys there."

"I guess Emeline will have to wait till the next time," George said
coldly. "She wouldn't get much pleasure out of it, leaving me here as
sick as I am!"

"Oh, I don't know!" Mrs. Povey half sang, half laughed. "Emeline likes a
good time, like all the rest of us, George, and it don't do to keep a
pretty girl shut up all the time!"

"Shut up? She's never here," George growled.

"Well, we'll see!" Mrs. Povey hummed contentedly. A moment later Emeline
came in, wrenching the hooks of her best gown together. She had her hat
on, and looked excited and resolute.

"I forgot I'd promised to go out with the girls, George," she began.
"You don't care, do you? You've had your supper, and all Julia's got to
do is get into bed."

George looked balefully from one to the other. Mrs. Povey chanced a
quick little wink of approval and encouragement at Emeline, and he saw
it.

"A lot you forgot!" he said harshly to his wife. "You've been getting
ready for the last hour. Don't either of you think that you're fooling
me--I see through it! I could lay here and die, and a lot you'd care!
You forgot--ha!"

The blood rushed instantly to Emeline's face, she turned upon him her
ugliest look, and the hand with which she was buttoning her glove
trembled.

"Now, I'll tell you something, Mr. George Page!" said she, in an intense
and passionate tone, "there _are_ things I'd rather do than set around
this house and hear you tell how sick you are! You think I'm a white
chip in this family, but let me tell you something--there's plenty of
lovely friends I got who think I'm a fool to keep it up! I had an offer
to go on the stage, not a month ago, from a manager who didn't even know
I was married; didn't I, Mame? And if it wasn't for Julie there----"

"You've not got anything on me, Em," George said, breathing hard, his
face blood red with anger. "Do you think that if it wasn't for this kid,
I'd----"

"Oh, folks--folks!" Mrs. Povey said, really concerned.

"Well, I don't care!" Emeline said, panting. She crossed the floor,
still panting, kissed Julia, and swept from the room. Mrs. Povey,
murmuring some confused farewell, followed her.

Julia climbed out of her big chair. Like all children, she was
frightened by loud voices and domestic scenes; she was glad now that the
quarrel was over, and anxious, in a small girl's fashion, to blot the
recent unpleasantness from her father's mind.

She sat on his knee and talked to him, she sang, she patted his sore
neck with sleek, dirty little fingers. And finally she won him. George
laughed, and entered into her mood. He thought her a very smart little
girl, as indeed she was. She had a precocious knowledge of the affairs
of her mother's friends, sordid affairs enough, and more sordid than
ever when retailed by a child's fresh mouth. Julia talked of money
trouble, of divorce, of dressmaker's bills, of diseases; she repeated
insolent things that had been said to her in the street, and her
insolent replies; her rich, delicious laugh broke out over the memory of
the "drunk" that had been thrown out of Cassidy's.

George laughed at it all; it sounded very funny to him, coming from this
very small person, with her round, serious eyes, and her mop of gold. He
asked her what she wanted him to bring her next time he came home, and
Julia said black boots with white tops and tassels, and made him laugh
again.

Thus early did Julia act as a mediator between her parents, but of this
particular occasion she had no recollection, nor of much that followed
it. Had she been a few years older she might really have affected a
lasting reconciliation between them, for all that was best in George
made him love his daughter, and Emeline was intensely proud of the
child. As it was, Julia was too young. She might unconsciously be the
means of reuniting them now and then, but she could not at all grasp the
situation, and when she was not quite seven a decree of divorce, on the
ground of desertion, set both Emeline and George free, after eight years
of married life.

Emeline was too frightened at the enormity of the thing to be either
glad or sorry. She had never meant to go so far. She had threatened
George with divorce just as George had threatened her, in the heat of
anger, practically since her wedding day. But the emotion that finally
drove Emeline to a lawyer was not anger, it was just dull rebellion
against the gray, monotonous level of her days. She was alone when
George was away on trips; she was not less alone when he was in town. He
had formed the habit of joining "the boys" in the evening; he was surly
and noncommittal with his wife, but Julia, hanging about the lower hall
door or playing with children in the street, always heard a burst of
laughter as he joined his friends; everybody in the world--except
Emeline--liked George!

Poor Emeline--she could easily have held him! A little tenderness toward
him, a little interest in her home and her child, and George would have
been won again. Had he but once come home to a contented wife and a
clean house, George's wavering affection would have been regained. But
Emeline was a loud-mouthed, assertive woman now, noisily set upon her
own way, and filled with a sense of her own wrongs. She had discussed
George too often with her friends to feel any possible interest in him
except as a means of procuring sympathy. George bored her now; as a
matter of fact, Emeline had almost decided that she would prefer alimony
to George.

Goaded on by Mrs. Povey, and a young Mrs. Sunius, affectionately known
as Maybelle, Emeline went to see a lawyer. The lawyer surprised her by
his considerate brevity. Getting a divorce was a very simple affair,
much better done than not. There were ways to make a man pay his alimony
regularly, and the little girl would stay with her mother, of course; at
her age no other solution was possible. Emeline felt that she must know
how much expense she would be put to, and was gratified to find that it
would cost her not more than fifty dollars. The lawyer asked her how
soon she could get hold of her husband.

"Why, he'll let me know as soon as he's in town," Emeline said vaguely;
"he'll come home."

"Come home, eh?" said the lawyer, with a shrewd look. "He knows your
intentions, of course?"

"He ought to!" said Emeline with spirit, and she began again: "I don't
think there's a person in the world could say that I'm not a good wife,
Mr. Knowles! I never so much as looked at another man--I swear to God I
never did! And there's no other man in the case. If I can have my
dolling little girl, and just live quiet, with a few friends near me,
that's all I ask! If Mr. Page had his way, I'd never put foot out of
doors; but mind you, _he'd_ be off with the boys every night. And that
means drink, you know--"

"Well, well," the young lawyer said soothingly, "I guess you've been
treated pretty mean, all right."

Emeline went home to find--somewhat to her embarrassment--that George
had come in, and was in his happiest mood, and playing with Julia. Julia
had somehow lost her babyish beauty now; she was thin and lanky, four
teeth were missing, and even her glorious mop of hair seemed what her
mother called "slinky."

"I landed the Fox order right over Colton's head!" said George.

Emeline said: "I wish to the Lord you'd quit opening that window,
leaving the wind blow through here like a cave!"

"Well, the place smelled like a Jap's room!" George retorted, instantly
aggressive.

"We're going to the Park!" Julia chanted.

"How d'ye mean you're going to the Park?" Emeline asked, as she slammed
down the offending window.

"Well, I thought maybe I'd take her there; kinder fun walking round and
seeing things, what?" George submitted.

Emeline shrugged. "I don't care what you do!"

She sat down before a dresser with a triple mirror, which had lately
been added to the bedroom furniture, and began to ruffle the coarse
puffs of her black hair with slim, ringed fingers.

"You've got something better to do, of course!" George said.

"Don't go to a matinee, Mother!" said Julia, coming to lean coaxingly
against her mother's arm. Emeline looked down at the pale, intelligent
little face, and gave the child a sudden kiss.

"Mama isn't going to a matinee, doll baby. But papa ain't as crazy for
her to go to the Park as you are!" she said, with an oblique and
challenging glance at George.

"Oh, come on!" George urged impatiently. "Only don't wear that rotten
hat," he added. "It don't look like a respectable woman!"

Emeline's expression did not change, but fury seethed within her.

"Don't wait for me," she said levelly. "I'm not going."

"Well, put the kid's hat on then," George suggested, settling his own
with some care at the mantel mirror.

"Get your hand-embroidered dress out of your drawer, Julia," said her
mother, "and the hat Aunt Maybelle gave you!"

"I'm going to Cass's to telephone, and I need some cigarettes," George
announced from the door. "I'll be back in five minutes for Julie."

"Don't forget to get a drink while you're in Cass's," Emeline reminded
him, as she flung an embroidered dress over Julia's limp little draggled
petticoats. George's answer was a violent slamming of the hall door.

Julia's little face was radiant as her mother tied on a soiled white
straw bonnet covered with roses, and put a cologne-soaked handkerchief
into the pocket of her blue velvet coat. The little girl did not have
many pleasures; there were very few children in the neighbourhood, and
Julia was not very strong; she easily caught colds in dark O'Farrell
Street, or in the draughty hall. All winter long she had been hanging
over the coal fire in the front room, or leaning against the window
watching the busy street below--but today was spring! Sunlight glorified
even the dreary aspect from the windows above "J. Cassidy's" saloon, and
the glorious singing freshness of the breeze, the heavenly warmth of the
blue air, had reached Julia's little heart.

When she was quite dressed, and was standing at the window patiently
watching for her father, Emeline came and stood beside her.

"I'll tell you what!" said Emeline suddenly. "I'll go, too! It's too
grand to be indoors today; we'll just go out to the Park and take in the
whole show! And then perhaps papa'll take us somewhere to dinner!"

She began swiftly to dress, pinning on a hat that George liked, and
working on long gray kid gloves as a complement to a gray gown. Then she
came to stand behind Julia again, and both watched the street.

"I guess he's waiting for his change?" suggested Julia, and Emeline
laughed.

"We'll walk over and take the Geary Street car," said she. "We'll go
right to the fountain, and get dummy seats. And we could have dinner at
the Poodle Dog--"

"Here he comes!" Julia cried. And indeed George was to be seen for a
moment, between two friends, standing on the corner.

A long wait ensued. Then steps came up the stairs. Emeline, followed by
Julia, went to the door. It was not George, but a note from George,
delivered by Henny, of Cassidy's saloon.

"Dear Em," Emeline read, "a couple of the fellows want me to go to
Emeryville, have dinner at Tony's, and sit in a little game afterward.
Tell Julie I will take her to the Park to-morrow--and buy her anything
she wants. George."

"Thanks, Henny," Emeline said, without visible emotion. But Julia's lip
quivered, and she burst into bitter crying. Six-years-old knows no
tomorrows, and Julia tasted the bitterness of despair. She cried
quietly, her little body screwed into a big armchair, her face hidden in
the crook of a thin little arm. Emeline stood it as long as she could,
then she slapped and shook Julia to stop her, and Julia strangled and
shrieked hysterically.

Peace was presently restored, and Julia was asked if she would like to
go see her Auntie Mame, and assented with a hiccough. So her mottled
little face was wiped with a soggy gray towel, and her bonnet
straightened, and they set out.

Mrs. Povey was so sympathetic that Emeline stayed with her for dinner, a
casual meal which Myrtle Montague and a sister actress came in to share.
Julia sat with them at table, and stuffed solemnly on fresh bread and
cheese, crab salad and smoked beef, hot tomato sauce and delicious
coffee. The coffee came to table in a battered tin pot, and the cream
was poured into the cups from the little dairy bottle, with its metal
top, but Julia saw these things as little as any one else--as little as
she saw the disorderly welter of theatrical effects in the Poveys'
neglected rooms, the paint on the women's faces, the ugly violence and
coarseness of their talk.

But she did see that they were an impulsive, warm-hearted, generous set.
Nobody ever spoke crossly to her, she was given the freedom of their
rooms, she listened to their chatter, she was often caught up for
embraces heavy with cologne; they loved to dress her up in preposterous
costumes, and shouted with laughter at the sight of her in Dolly Varden
bonnets, Scotch kilts, or spectacles and wigs. "Baby doll," "Lovey," and
"Honey Babe" were Julia's names here, and she was a child hungry for
love and eager to earn it. To-night she ate her supper in that silence
so grateful to grown people, and afterward found some stage jewellery
and played with it until her head was too heavy to hold up any longer.
Then she went to sleep upon an odorous couch piled deep with all sorts
of odd garments, her feet thrust into a tangle of lifeless satin
pillows, her head upon the fur lining of some old cape, a banjo prodding
her uncomfortably whenever she stirred.

Julia--all pins and needles--was presently jerked up into a glare of
lights, and tied into the rose-crowned bonnet, and buttoned into the
velvet coat again. She had not been covered as she slept, and sneezed
and shivered in the cold night air. Emeline walked along briskly, and
Julia stumbled beside her. The child was in such an agony of fatigue and
chill that every separate step toward bed was dreaded by this time. She
fell against her mother, as Emeline tore off shoes and stockings,
stretched blundering, blind little arms for her nightgown sleeves, and
sank deliciously against her pillows, already more than half asleep.

But Emeline sat wide eyed, silent, waiting for George.

George did not come home at all that night. On the next
afternoon--Sunday afternoon--Julia was playing in the street with two
other small girls. Their game was simple. The three huddled into the
deep doorway that led to Julia's home, clinging tight to each other,
laughing and shouting. Then at a given signal they rushed screaming
forth, charged across the street as if pursued by a thousand furies, and
took shelter in a similar doorway, next to the saloon across the street.
This performance had been repeated, back and forth, perhaps a dozen
times, when Julia found her father waylaying her.

"Where y' going?" asked Julia, noticing that he carried a hand bag.

George sat down on the dirty cement steps that connected his dwelling
with the sidewalk, and drew Julia between his knees.

"I've got to go away, baby," said he soberly.

"And ain't choo going to take me to the Park--_never_?" asked Julia, with
a trembling lip.

George freed a lock of her hair that had gotten caught in her collar,
with clumsy, gentle fingers.

"Mama's mad at me, and I'm going away for a while, Babe," said he,
clearing his throat. "But you be a good girl, and I'll come take you to
the Park some day."

Something in the gravity of his tone impressed Julia.

"But I don't want you to go away," she said tearfully. George got up
hastily.

"Come on, walk with Pop to the car," he commanded, and Julia trotted
contentedly beside him to Market Street. There she gave him a child's
soft, impersonal kiss, staring up at the buildings opposite as she did
so. George jumped on a cable car, wedged his bag under his knees as he
took a seat on the dummy, and looked back at the little figure that was
moving toward the dingy opening of O'Farrell Street, and at the spring
sunshine, bright on the child's hair.




CHAPTER II

In summer the rear parlour that was Mrs. Page's bedroom was a rather dim
and dreary place; such light as it had fell through one long, high
window that gave only upon a narrow air shaft; it was only in mid-July
that the actual sunlight--a bright and fleeting triangle--touched the
worn red carpet and the curly-maple bed. In winter the window gave
almost no light at all. Julia dressed by gaslight ten months out of the
year, and had to sit up in her warm blankets and stare at the clock on a
certain January morning in her fifteenth year, to make sure whether it
said twenty minutes of eleven or five minutes of eight o'clock. It was
five minutes of eight--no mistake about it--but eight o'clock was early
for the Pages, mother and daughter. Julia sighed, and cautiously
stretched forth an arm, a bare, shapely little arm, with bangles on the
round wrist and rings on the smooth fingers, and picked a book from the
floor. Cautiously settling herself on the pillows she plunged into her
novel, now and then pushing back a loose strand of hair, or bringing her
pretty fingernails close to her eyes for an admiring and critical
scrutiny.

An hour passed--another hour. The clock in the front room struck a
silvery ten. Then Julia slammed her book noisily together, and gave a
sharp push to the recumbent form beside her.

"Ah--no--darling!" moaned Mrs. Page, tortured out of dreams.
"Don't--Julie--"

"Aw, wake up, Mama!" the daughter urged. Whereupon the older woman
rolled on her back, yawned luxuriously, and said, quite composedly:

"Hello, darling! What time is it?"

Emeline had aged in seven years; she looked hopelessly removed from
youth and beauty now, but later in the day, when her hair would be taken
out of its crimping kids, her sallow cheeks touched with rouge, and her
veined neck covered by a high collar, a coral chain, and an
ostrich-feather ruff, some traces of her former good looks might be
visible. She still affected tight corsets, high heels, enormous hats.
But Emeline's interest in her own appearance was secondary now to her
fierce pride and faith in Julia's beauty. Drifting along the line of
least resistance, asking only to be comfortable and to have a good time,
Emeline had come to a bitter attitude of resentment toward George,
toward the fate that had "forced" her to leave him. Now she began lazily
to fasten upon Julia as the means of gratifying those hopes and
ambitions that were vain for herself. Julia was beautiful, Julia would
be a great success, and some day would repay her mother for the
sacrifices she had made for her child.

Emeline dressed, went about, flirted, and gossiped still; she liked
cocktails and cards and restaurant dinners; she was an authority on all
things theatrical; her favourite pose was that of the martyred mother.
"All I have left," Emeline would say, kissing her daughter effectively,
before strangers. "And only God knows what it has cost me to keep my
girlie with me!"

Julia would grin good-naturedly at this. She had no hallucinations about
her mother. She knew her own value, knew she was pretty, and was glad
with the simple and pathetic complacence of fourteen. Julia at eight had
gone to dancing school, in the briefest skirts ever seen on a small
girl, and the dirtiest white silk stockings. She had sung a shrill
little song, and danced a little dance at a public benefit for the
widows of three heroic firemen, when she was only nine. Her lovely mop
had been crimped out of all natural wave; her youthful digestion menaced
by candy and chewing gum; her naturally rather sober and pensive
disposition completely altered, or at least eclipsed. Julia could
chatter of the stage, could give a pert answer to whoever accosted her,
could tell a dressmaker exactly how she wanted a gown made, at twelve.
While her mother slept in the morning, before the girl learned to sleep
late, too, the child would get up and slip out. Her playground was
O'Farrell Street, dry and hot in summer, wrapped in soft fog four
mornings a week the year round, reeking of stale beer, and echoing to
the rattle of cable cars. The little Julia flitted about everywhere:
watching janitors as they hosed down the sidewalks outside the saloons,
or rinsed cuspidors; watching grocers set out their big signs for the
day; watching little restaurants open, and first comers sit down to
great cups of coffee and plates of hot cakes. Perhaps the sight of food
would remind the little girl of her own empty stomach; she would
straggle home just as the first sunshine was piercing the fog, and
loiter upstairs, and peep into the bedroom to see what the chances of a
meal might be.

Emeline usually rolled over to smile at her daughter when she heard the
door open, and Julia would be sent to the delicatessen store for the
component parts of a substantial meal. Julia loved the cramped, clean,
odorous shop that smelled of wet wood and mixed mustard pickles and
smoked fish. A little cream bottle would be filled from an immense can
at her request, the shopkeeper's wife wiping it with a damp rag and a
bony hand. And the pat of butter, and the rolls, and the sliced ham, and
the cheese--Herr Bauer scratched their prices with a stubby pencil on an
oily bit of paper, checked their number by the number of bundles, gave
Julia the buttery change, and Julia hurried home for a delicious
loitering breakfast with her mother. Emeline, still in her limp,
lace-trimmed nightgown, with a spotted kimono hanging loosely over it,
and her hair a wildly tousled mass at the top of her head, presided at a
clear end of the kitchen table. She and Julia occupied only two rooms of
the original apartment now; a young lawyer, with his wife and child, had
the big front room, and the dining-room was occupied by two mysterious
young men who came and went for years without ever betraying anything of
their own lives to their neighbours. Julia only knew that they were
young, quiet, hard working, and of irreproachable habits.

But she knew the people in the front room quite well. Mrs. Raymond
Toomey was a neat, bright, hopeful little woman, passionately devoted to
her husband and her spoiled, high-voiced little son. Raymond Toomey was
a big, blustering fool of a man, handsome in a coarse sort of way,
noisy, shallow, and opinionated. Whenever there were races, the Toomeys
went to the races, taking the precocious "Lloydy," in his velvet
Fauntleroy suit and tasselled shoes, and taking "Baby," a shivering
little terrier with wet, terrified eyes. Sometimes Mrs. Toomey came out
to the kitchen in the morning, to curl her ostrich feathers over the gas
stove, or join Mrs. Page in a cup of coffee.

"God, girlie, that goes to the spot," she would yawn, stirring her cup,
both elbows on the table. "We had a fierce day yesterday, and Ray took a
little too much last night--you know how men are! He had a stable tip
yesterday, and went the limit--like a fool! I play hunches--there's no
such thing as a tip!"

And sometimes she would put a little printed list of entries before
Julia and say:

"Pick me a winner, darling. Go on--just pick any one!"

Julia soon reached the age when she could get her own breakfast, and
then, mingled with a growing appreciation of the girl's beauty, her
mother felt that gratitude always paid by an indolent person to one of
energy. She knew that her child was finer than she was, prettier, more
clever, more refined. She herself had never had any reserves; she had
always screamed or shouted or cried or run away when things crossed her,
but she saw Julia daily displaying self-control and composure such as
she had never known. There were subtleties in Julia: her sweet firm
young mouth closed over the swift-coming words she would not say, her
round, round blue eyes were wiser already than her mother's eyes.

The girl had grown very handsome. Her joyous, radiant colouring was
contradicted by her serious expression, her proud, unsmiling mouth. Her
eyes were dark, her colouring softly dark; she had the velvety, tawny
skin that usually accompanies dark hair. Yet her hair was a pure and
exquisite gold. She wore it fluffed over her ears, cut in a bang across
her forehead, and "clubbed" on her neck, in a rather absurd and
artificial fashion. But the effect of her grave little face and severe
expression, with this opulent gold, and her red lips and round blue
eyes, was very piquant. Even powder, earrings, and "clubbing" her hair
did not rob Julia of the appearance of a sweet, wilful, and petulant
child. Besides the powder and earrings, she indulged in cologne, in
open-work silk stockings and high heels, in chains and rings and
bracelets; she wore little corsets, at fourteen, and laced them tight.

Julia's mind, at this time, was a curious little whirlpool. She had the
natural arrogance of her years; she felt that she had nothing to learn.
She had an affectionate contempt for her mother, and gave advice more
often than she accepted it from Emeline. Julia naturally loved order and
cleanliness, but she never came in contact with them. Emeline sometimes
did not air or make her bed for weeks at a time. She washed only such
dishes as were absolutely necessary for the next meal. She never sent
out a bundle to the laundry, but washed handkerchiefs and some underwear
herself, at erratic intervals, drying them on windows, or the backs of
various chairs. Emeline always had a pair or more of silk stockings
soaking in a little bowl of cold suds in the bedroom, and occasionally
carried a waist or a lace petticoat to the little French laundress on
Powell Street, and drove a sharp bargain with her. Julia accepted the
situation very cheerfully; she and her mother both enjoyed their lazy,
aimless existence, and to Julia, at least, the future was full of hope.
She could do any one of a dozen things that would lead to fame and
fortune.

The particular day that opened for her with two hours of quiet reading
progressed like any other day. The mother and daughter arose, got their
breakfast in the kitchen, and sat long over it, sharing the papers, the
hot coffee, the cream, and dividing evenly the little French loaf.
Julia's nightgown was as limp as her mother's, her kimono as dirty, and
her feet were thrust in fur slippers, originally white, now gray. But
her fresh young colour, and the rich loops and waves of her golden hair,
her firm young breasts under her thin wraps, and the brave blue of her
eyes made her a very different picture from her mother, who sat
opposite, a vision of disorder, feasting her eyes upon the girl.

There was a murder story, of which mother and daughter read every word,
and a society wedding to discuss.

"The Chases went," said Julia, dipping her bread in her coffee, her eyes
on the paper. "Isn't that the limit!"

"Why, Marian Chase was a bridesmaid, Julie!"

"Yes, I know. But I didn't think the Byron Chases would go to Maude
Pennell's wedding! But of course she's marrying an Addison--that helps.
'Mrs. Byron Chase, lavender brocade and pearls,'" read Julia. "Well,
Maude Pennell is getting in, all right!"

"What'd Mrs. Joe Coutts wear?" Emeline asked. Among the unknown members
of the city's smartest set she had her favourites.

"'Mrs. Joseph Foulke Coutts,'" Julia read obligingly. '"Red velvet robe
trimmed with fox.'"

"For heaven's sake, Julie--with that red face!"

"And Miss Victoria Coutts in pink silk--she's had that dress for a year
now," Julia said. "Well, Lord!" She yawned luxuriously. "I wouldn't
marry Roy Addison if he was made of money--the bum!" She pushed the
paper carelessly aside. "What you going to do to-day, Ma?" she asked
lazily.

"Oh, go out," Emeline answered vaguely, still reading a newspaper
paragraph. "Gladys has had to pay over a quarter of a million for that
feller's debts!" said she, awed.

"Well, that's what you get for marrying a duke," Julia answered
scornfully. "Let's pile these, Ma, and get dressed."

They went into the bedroom, where the gas was lighted again, the bureau
pushed out from the wall, that the mirror might catch the best light,
and where, in unspeakable confusion, mother and daughter began to dress.
Julia put on her smart little serge skirt, pushing it down over her hips
with both hands. Then she fixed her hair carefully, adjusted her hat,
tied on a spotted white veil, and finally slipped into a
much-embroidered silk shirtwaist, which mother and daughter decided was
dirty, but would "do." Rings, bangles, and chains followed, a pair of
long limp gloves, a final powdering, and a ruff of pink feathers. Julia
was not fifteen and looked fully seventeen, to her great delight. She
gave herself a sober yet approving glance in the mirror; the corners of
her firm yet babyish mouth twitched with pleasure.

She locked the doors, set an empty milk bottle out on the unspeakably
dreary back stairway, and flung the soggy bedding over the foot of the
bed. Then mother and daughter sauntered out into the noontime sunshine.

It was their happiest time, as free and as irresponsible as children
they went forth to meet the day's adventures. Something was sure to
happen, the "crowd" would have some plan; they rarely came home again
before midnight. But this sunshiny start into the day Was most pleasant
of all, its freshness, its potentialities, appealed to them both. It was
a February day, warm and bright, yet with a delicious tingle in the air.

"Leave us go up to Min's, Julie; some of the girls are sure to be there.
There's no mat. to-day."

"Well--" Julia was smiling aimlessly at the sunlight. Now she patted
back a yawn. "Walk?"

"Oh, sure. It's lovely out."

It was tacitly understood that Julia was to be an actress some day, when
she was older, and the boarding-house of Mrs. Minnie Tarbury, to which
the Pages were idly sauntering, was inhabited almost entirely by
theatrical folk. Emeline and Julia were quite at home in the shabby
overcrowded house in Eddy Street, and to-day walked in at the basement
door, under a flight of wooden stairs that led to the parlour floor, and
surprised the household at lunch in the dark, bay-windowed front room.

Mrs. Tarbury, a large, uncorseted woman, presided. Her boarders, girls
for the most part, were scattered down the long table. Luncheon was
properly over, but the girls were still gossiping over their tea. Flies
buzzed in the sunny window, and the rumpled tablecloth was covered with
crumbs. Mrs. Tarbury kissed Mrs. Page, and Julia settled down between
two affectionate chorus girls.

"You know you're getting to be the handsomest thing that ever lived,
Ju!" said one of these. Julia smiled without raising her eyes from the
knives and forks with which she was absently playing.

"She's got the blues to-day," said her mother. "Not a word out of her!"

"Is that right, Ju?" somebody asked solicitously.

"Just about as right as Mama ever gets it," the girl said, still with
her indifferent smile. Because her mother was shallow and violent, she
had learned to like a pose of silence, of absent-mindedness, and
because of the small yet sufficient income afforded by the rented rooms
and from alimony, Julia was removed from the necessity that drove these
other girls to the hard and constant work of the stage, and could afford
her favourite air of fastidious waiting. She was going to be an actress,
yes, but not until some plum worthy of her beauty and youth was offered.
Meanwhile she listened to the others, followed the history of the
favourites of the stage eagerly, and never saw less than four shows a
week. Julia, at Juliet's age, had her own ideas as to the interpretation
of the Balcony Scene, and could tell why she thought the art of Miss
Rehan less finished than that of Madame Modjeska. But personally she
lacked ambition, in this direction at least.

However, she joined in the girls' talk with great zest; a manager was to
be put in his place, and several theories were advanced as to his
treatment.

"I swear to God if Max don't give me twenty lines in the next, I'll go
on to New York," said a Miss Connie Girard dispassionately. "There's a
party I know there rents a house that Frohman owns, and he'd give me a
letter. What I want is a Broadway success."

"That time we played--you know, seven weeks running, in Portland," said
a stout, aging actress, "the time my little dance made such a hit, you
know--"

"Mind jer, Max never come near us this morning," interrupted a Miss Rose
Ransome firmly. "Because he knew what he done, and he wasn't looking for
trouble! He wrote a notice--"

"One of the Portland papers, in c'menting on the show--" the dancer
resumed.

"Say, Julie, want to walk down to Kearney with me?" Miss Girard said,
jumping up. "I want to get my corsets, and we might drop in and see if
we can work Foster for some seats for to-night."

"I've got a date to-night," said Julia, with a glance at her mother.

"What's that?" Emeline said sharply.

"Why, Mama, I told you I was going to the Orpheum with the Rosenthals--"

"She's going with the whole bunch," Mrs. Page commented, with a shrug.
"I can't stand them, but she can!"

"I think Mark Rosenthal's a darling," some girl said, "I want to tell
you right now there's not anybody can play the piano as good as he can."

"That's right," Julia said, very low.

"Well, excuse me from the bunch!" Mrs. Page said lazily.

"But we've got a real pretty little blush, just the same!" Mrs. Tarbury
said, smiling at Julia. The girls shouted, and Julia grew still more
red. "Never mind, baby love!" said the older woman soothingly. "It's
just Aunt Min's nonsense! Say, but listen, Julia!" Her tone grew
suddenly intense. "I meant to ask you something--listen. Say, no
fooling, Artheris wants to know if you would take a job."

"Twenty a week, and twenty towns a month," Julia said, still ruffled.
"No, I would not!"

"No, this isn't anything like that, dearie," explained Mrs. Tarbury.
"There's going to be a big amachure show for charity at the Grand next
month, and they want a few professionals in it, to buck up the others.
All the swells are going to be in it--it's going to be something
elegant! Of course they'd pay something, and it'd be a lot of fun for
you! Artheris wants you to do it, and it wouldn't hurt you none to have
him on your side, Julia. I promised I'd talk to you."

"One performance?" Julia asked. "What play?"

"I'd do it in a minute," said the stout actress from Portland, whose
dance had been so gratifying a success, "but I'm signed up."

"One night, dear," Mrs. Tarbury said. "I don't think they've decided on
the play."

"I don't know," Julia hesitated. "What d'ye think, Mama?"

"I think he's got his gall along," Mrs. Page admitted. "One night!--and
to learn the whole thing for that. I'll tell you what to tell him--you
tell him this: you say that you can't do it for one cent less'n a
hundred dollars!"

"Lay down, Towse!" said Connie Girard, and Mrs. Tarbury expressed the
same incredulity as she said benevolently: "What a pipe dream, Em--she's
lucky if she gets ten!"

"Ten!" squeaked Julia's mother, but Julia silenced her by saying
carelessly:

"I'll tell you what, Aunt Min. If Con and I get through in time we'll go
in and see Artheris to-day. I'd do it for twenty-five--"

"You would not!" said her mother.

"Well, you might get twenty-five," Mrs. Tarbury said, mollified, "if
it's a long part."

"If it don't take a lot of dressing," Julia said thoughtfully, as she
and Miss Girard powdered their noses at the dark mirror of the
sideboard.

"Don't you be fool enough to do it for a cent under fifty," Emeline
said.

Julia smiled at her vaguely, and added to her farewells a daughterly,
"Your hat's all right, Mama, but your veil's sort of caught up over your
ear. Fix it before you go out. We'll be back here at five--"

"Or we'll meet you at Monte's,'" said Connie.

The two girls walked briskly down Eddy Street, conscious of their own
charms, and conscious of the world about them. Connie was nearly
nineteen, a simple, happy little flirt, who had been in and out of love
constantly for three or four years. Julia knew her very well, and
admired her heartily. Connie had twice had a speaking part in the past
year, and the younger girl felt her to be well on her way toward fame.
Miss Girard's family of plain, respectable folk lived in Stockton, and
were somewhat distressed by her choice of a vocation, but Connie was
really a rather well-behaved girl,--and a safe adviser for Julia.

"Say, listen, Con," said Julia, presently, "you know Mark Rosenthal?"

"Sure," said Connie. "Look here, Ju!" She paused at a window. "Don't you
think these Chinese hand bags are swell!"

"Grand. But listen, Con," said Julia, shamefacedly honest as a boy.
"He's got a case on me----"

"On you?" echoed Connie. "Why, he's twenty!"

"I know it," Julia agreed.

"But, my Lord, Ju, your Mother won't stand for that!"

"Mama don't know it."

"Well, I don't think you ought to do that, Ju," Connie began gravely.
But Julia, with sudden angry tears in her eyes, stopped her.

"I've _not_ done anything!" she said crossly. And suddenly Connie saw the
truth: that Julia, in spite of paint and powder, rings and "clubbed"
hair, was only a little girl, after all, still unsexed, still young
enough to resent being teased about boys.

"What's he do?" she asked presently.

"Well, he--he--I have supper with them sometimes"--Julia's words poured
out eagerly--"and he'll kiss me, you know--"

"_Kiss_ you! The nerve!"

"Oh, before them all, I mean--like he always has done. His mother just
laughs. And then, last week, when he asked me to go to Morosco's with
them, why, it was just us two--the others had gone somewhere else."

"Well, of all gall!" said Connie, absorbed.

"And I've been up there with him thousands of times," said Julia. "Maybe
Hannah'd be there, or Sophy, but sometimes we'd be alone--while he was
playing the piano, you know."

"Well, now you look-a-here, Julie," said Connie impressively, "you cut
out that being alone business, and the kissing, too. And now how about
to-night? Are you sure his whole family is going to-night?"

"Well, that's just it, I'm not," Julia confessed, flattered by Connie's
interest.

"Then you don't go one step, my dear; just you fool him a bunch! You see
you're like a little boy, Ju: kisses don't mean nothing to you, _yet_. But
you'll get a crush some day yourself, and then you'll feel like a fool
if you've got mixed up with the wrong one--see?"

"Sure," said Julia, hoarse and embarrassed. Yet she liked the sensation
of being scolded by Connie, too, and tried shyly, as the conversation
seemed inclined to veer toward Connie's own affairs, to bring it back to
her own.

The little matter of the corsets being settled, they sauntered through
the always diverting streets toward the office of Leopold Artheris,
manager of the Grand Opera House, and a very good friend of both girls.

They found him idle, in a bright, untidy office, lined with the pictures
of stage favourites, and with three windows open to the sun and air.

"You're placed, I think, Miss Girard?" said he, giving her a fat little
puffy hand. He was a stout, short man of fifty, with a bald spot showing
under a mop of graying curls, and a bushy moustache also streaked with
gray.

"If you call it placed," said Connie, grinning. "We open Monday in
Sacramento."

"Aha! But why Sacramento?"

"Oh, we've got to open somewhere, I suppose! Try it out on the dog, you
know!" Connie said, with a sort of bored airiness.

"And you, my dear?" said Artheris, turning toward Julia.

"She's come to see you about that amachure job," said Connie, reaching
over to grab a theatrical magazine from the desk, and running her eye
carelessly over its pages. Artheris's blandly smiling face underwent an
instant change. He elevated his eyebrows, pursed his lips, and nodded
with sudden interest.

"Oh--to be sure--to be sure! The performance of 'The Amazons' for the
Hospital--yes, well! And what do you think of it, Miss Page?" he said.

Julia stretched out her little feet before her, shrugged, and brought an
indifferent eye to bear upon the manager.

"What's there in it?" she asked.

"Well, now, _that_ you'd have to settle with them," smiled Mr. Artheris.

"Oh, rot!" said Connie cheerfully. "_You_ manage that for her; what does
_she_ know? Go on!"

"But, my dear young lady, _I_ have nothing to do with it!" the man
protested. "They come to me and wish to hire my theatre, lights, ushers,
orchestra, and so, and they ask me if I know of a young actress who will
take a part--to give them all confidence, you see"--he made encouraging
gestures with his fat little hands--"to--to carry the performance, as
it were!"

"What part?" asked Connie shrewdly.

"The part of--of--a splendid part, that of the Sergeant," said Artheris
cheerfully.

"Yes, I know that part," Connie said grimly.

"The idea is to have Miss Julie here understudy all the parts," said the
manager quickly. "These amateurs are very apt to disappoint, do you see?
They feel that there would be a sense of security in having a
professional right there to fill in a gap."

"Why, that would mean she'd have to learn practically the whole play,"
said Connie. "They ought to be willing to pay a good price for that. Of
course Miss Page is only seventeen," she continued, a calculating eye on
Julia, whose appearance did not belie the statement.

"No objection at all--they are all very young! Come now, what do you
say, Miss Page?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Julia discontentedly. "I'm not so crazy about
acting," she went on childishly. "I'm not so sure I want all these
swells to stand around and impose on me--" She hesitated, uncertain and
vague. "And I don't believe Mama'd be so anxious," she submitted lamely.

Just then the door of Mr. Artheris's office was opened, and a man put in
his head. He was a young man, tall, thin, faultlessly dressed, and
possessed of an infectious smile.

"Excuse me, Mr. Artheris," beamed the intruder, "but could I have a look
at the stage? Far be it from me to interrupt or any little thing like
that," he continued easily, "but my Mother'd have me dragged out and
shot if I came home without seeing it!"

"Come in, come in, Mr. Hazzard," said Artheris cordially; "you're just
the man we want to see! Miss Girard--Miss Page--Mr. Hazzard. Mr. Hazzard
is managing this very affair--manager, isn't that it?"

"God knows what I am!" said Carter Hazzard, mopping his forehead, and
appreciative of Miss Page's beauty and the maturer charms of Miss
Girard. "I'm bell-hop for the whole crowd. My sister plays Thomasine,
her steady is Tweenwayes, and my Mother's a director in the hospital.
Fix it up to suit yourselves; you'll see that I'm every one's goat."

Both the girls laughed, and Artheris said:

"I am glad you came in, for Miss Page is the young lady of whom I spoke
to you. Unfortunately, it seems that she has just promised to sign a
contract with the Alcazar people."

"Oh, shucks! Can't you put it off until after the fifteenth?" asked Mr.
Hazzard in alarm.

"Too much money in it," Connie said, shaking her head.

"Well--well, we expected to--to pay, of course," Carter said,
embarrassed at this crudeness. And Julia, blushing furiously, muttered,
"Oh--it wasn't the _pay_!"

"In a word, Miss Page's price is twenty-five dollars a night," said
Artheris. "Could your people pay it?"

"Why--why, I suppose we could," Hazzard said uncomfortably. "It's--it's
for a charity, you know," he ended weakly.

"Well, Miss Page's usual price is fifty; she's already reduced it half!"
Connie said briskly.

Julia was now bitterly ashamed of her manager and her friend; her face
was burning.

"I'll do it, of course," she promised. "And we'll arrange the terms
afterward!"

"Good work!" said Hazzard gayly. In a few moments, when they all went
out to look at the stage, he dropped behind the others and began to walk
beside her.

"You're sure you're old enough to be on the stage, Miss Page; no Gerry
Society scandal at the last minute?" he asked banteringly. "You look
about twelve!"

Julia flashed him an oblique look.

"The idea! I'm nearly seventeen!" she said, with an uncertain little
laugh. His ardent eyes embarrassed her.

"Honest?" said Carter Hazzard, in a low, caressing tone. He laid his
fingers on her arm. "What's your hurry?" he asked.

"We ought to keep with the others," Julia stammered, scarlet cheeked but
half laughing. At the same instant his inclination to cut across her
path brought her to a full stop. She backed against a heavily tasselled
and upholstered old armchair that chanced to be standing in the wings,
and sitting down on one of its high arms, looked straight up into his
eyes. The others had gone on; they were alone in the draughty wings.

"Why ought we?" said Hazzard, still in a low voice full of significance,
his eyes on her shoulder, where he straightened a ruffle that was caught
under a chain of beads. "If you like me and I like you, why shouldn't we
have a little talk?"

However young she might appear, the inanities of a flirtation were a
familiar field to Julia. She gave him a demure and unsmiling glance from
between curled lashes, and said:

"What would you like to talk about?"

By this time their faces were close together; a sort of heady lightness
in the atmosphere set them both to laughing foolishly; their voices
trembled on uncertain notes. An exhilarating sense of her own sex and
charm thrilled Julia; she knew that he found her sweet and young and
wonderful.

"I'd like to talk about _you_!" said Carter Hazzard. Julia found his
audacity delightful; she began to feel that she could not keep up with
the dazzling rush of his repartee. "You know, the minute I saw you--" he
added.

"Now, _don't_ tell me I'm pretty!" Julia begged, with another flashing
look.

"No--no!" the man exclaimed, discarding mere beauty with violence.
"Pretty! Lord! what does prettiness matter? Of course you're pretty, but
do you know what I said to myself the minute I saw you? I said, 'I'll
bet that little girl has _brains_!' You smile," said Mr. Hazzard, with
passionate earnestness, "but I'll swear to God I did!"

"Oh, you just want me to believe that!" scoffed Julia, dimpling.

What they said, however, mattered as little as what might be said by the
two occupants of a boat that was drifting swiftly toward rapids.

"Why do you think an unkind thing like that?" Carter asked
reproachfully.

"Was that unkind?" Julia countered innocently. At which Mr. Hazzard
observed irrelevantly, in a low voice:

"Do you know you're absolutely fascinating? Do you? You're just the kind
of little girl I want to know--to be friends with--to have for a pal!"

Julia was quite wise enough to know that whatever qualifications she
possessed for this pleasing position could hardly have made themselves
evident to Mr. Hazzard during their very brief acquaintance, and she was
not a shade more sincere than he as she answered coquettishly:

"Yes, that's what they all say! And then they--" She stopped.

"And then they--what?" breathed Carter, playing with the loose ribbons
of her feather boa.

"Then they fall in love with me!" pouted the girl, raising round eyes.

Carter was intoxicated at this confession, and laughed out loud.

"But you're too young to play at falling in love!" he warned her. "How
old are you--seventeen? And you haven't told me your name yet?"

"You know my name is Miss Page," smiled Julia.

"And do you think I'm going to call you that?" Carter reproached her.

"It might be Jane," she suggested.

"Yes, but it isn't, you little devil!" Suddenly the man caught both her
wrists, and Julia got on her feet, and instinctively flung back her
head. "You're going to kiss me for that!" he said, half laughing, half
vexed.

"Oh, no, I'm not!" A sudden twist of her body failed to free her, and
the plume on her hat brushed his cheek.

"Oh, yes, you are!" He caught both wrists in one of his strong hands,
and put his arm about her shoulders like a vise, turning her face toward
him at the same time. Julia, furious with the nervous fear that this
scuffling would be overheard, and that Carter would make her ridiculous,
glared at him, and they remained staring fixedly at each other for a few
moments.

"You _dare_!" she whispered then, held so tightly that Carter could hear
her heart beat, "and I'll scream loud enough to bring every one in the
place!"

"All right--you little cat!" he laughed, freeing her suddenly. Julia
tossed her head and walked off without speaking, but presently an
oblique swift glance at him showed his expression to be all penitent and
beseeching; their eyes met, and they both laughed. Still laughing, they
came upon Artheris and Connie, and all walked out together on the
deserted stage.

The great empty arch was but dimly lighted, draughty, odorous, and
gloomy. Beyond the extinguished footlights they could see the curved
enormous cavern of the house, row upon row of empty seats. In the
orchestra box two or three men, one in his coat sleeves, were disputing
over an opera score. High up in the topmost gallery some one was
experimenting with the calcium machine; a fan of light occasionally
swept the house, or a man's profile was silhouetted against a sputter of
blue flame.

Artheris and young Hazzard paced the stage, consulted, and disagreed.
Connie practised a fancy step in a wide circle, her skirt caught up, her
face quite free of self-consciousness. Julia sat on a box, soberly
looking from face to face.

Something had happened to her, she did not yet know what. She was
frightened, yet strangely bold; she experienced delicious chills, yet
her cheeks were on fire. Love of life flooded her whole being in waves;
she was wrapped, lulled, saturated, in a new and dreamy peace.

Julia felt a sudden warm rush of affection for Connie--dear old Con--the
best friend a girl ever had! She looked about the theatre; how she loved
the old "Grand!" Above all possible conditions in life it was wonderful
to be Julia Page, sitting here, the very hub of the world, a being to
love and be loved.

There, at that hour, she came to that second birth all women know; she
was born into that world of drifting sweet odours, blending and
iridescent colours, evasive and enchanting sounds, that is the kingdom
of the heart. Julia did not know why, from this hour on, she was no
longer a little girl, she was no longer dumb and blind and unseeing. But
a new and delightful consciousness woke within her, a new sense of her
own importance, her own charm.

When she and Connie strolled out again, it was, for Julia at least, into
a changed world. The immortal hour of romance touched even sordid
Mission Street with gold. Julia walked demurely, but conscious of every
admiring glance she won from the passers-by, conscious of a score of
swallows taking flight from a curb, conscious of the pathetic beauty of
the little draggled mother wheeling home her sleepy baby, the setting
sunlight glittering in the eyes of both.

"He's nothing but a big spoiled kid, if you want to know what I think,"
said Connie, ending a long dissertation to which Julia had only half
listened.

"He--who?" asked Julia, suddenly recalled from dreams, and feeling her
heart turn liquid within her. A weakness seized her knees, a delicious
chill ran up her spine.

"Hazzard--the smarty!" Connie elucidated carelessly.

"Oh, sure!" Julia said heavily. She made no further comment.

She and Connie wandered in and out of a few shops, asking prices, and
fingering laces and collars. They went into the dim, echoing old library
on Post Street, to powder their noses at the mirror downstairs; they
went into the music store at Sutter and Kearney, and listened for a few
moments to a phonograph concert; they bought violets--ten cents for a
great bunch--at the curb market about Lotta's fountain.

The sweetness of the dying spring day flooded the city, and its very
essence pierced Julia's heart with a vague pain that was a pleasure,
too. Presently she and Connie walked to California Street, and climbed a
steep block or two to the Maison Montiverte.

Julia and her mother, and a large proportion of their acquaintances,
dined chez Montiverte perhaps a hundred times a year. There was a
regular twenty-five-cent dinner that was extremely good, there was a
fifty-cent dinner fit for a king, and there were specialties de la
maison, as, for example, a combination salad at twenty cents that was a
meal in itself. Irrespective of the other order, the guest of the Maison
Montiverte was regaled with boiled shrimps or crabs' legs while he
waited for his dinner, was eagerly served with all the delicious French
bread and butter that he could eat, and had a little cup of superb black
coffee without charge to finish his meal. Brilliant piano music swept
the rooms whenever any guest cared to send the waiter with a five-cent
piece to the old mechanical piano, and sprightly conversation, carried
on from table to table, gave the place that tone that Monsieur
Montiverte considered to be its most valuable asset. Monsieur himself
was a dried-up little rat of a man, grizzled, and as brown as a walnut.
Madame was large and superb and young, smooth faced, brown haired, regal
in manner. It was said that Madame had had a predecessor, a lady now
living in France, whose claim upon Jules Montiverte was still valid.
However that might be, it did not seem to worry Jules, nor his calm and
lovely companion, nor their two daughters, black-eyed baby girls, whose
heavy straight hair was crimped at the ends into bands of brownish-black
fuzz, and who wore white stockings and tasselled boots, and flounced,
elaborately embroidered white dresses on Sundays. Whatever their bar
sinister, the Montivertes flourished and grew rich, and a suspicion of
something irregular, some high-handed disposition of the benefit of
clergy, helped rather than hurt their business.

Julia and Connie were early to-night, and took their regular places at a
long table that was as yet surrounded only by empty chairs. Madame, who
was feeding bread and milk to a black-eyed three-year-old at a little
table in a corner, nodded a welcome, and a young Frenchwoman, putting
her head in through a swinging door at the back, nodded, too, and said,
showing a double row of white teeth:

"Wait--een?"

"Yes, we'll wait for the others!" Connie called back. She and Julia
nibbled French bread, and played with their knives and forks while they
waited.

The dining-room had that aspect of having been made for domestic and
adapted to general use that is so typically un-American, yet so dear to
the American heart. An American manager would have torn down partitions,
papered in brown cartridge, curtained in pongee, and laid a hardwood
floor. Monsieur Montiverte left the two drawing-rooms as they were: a
shabby red carpet was under foot, stiff Nottingham curtains filtered the
bright sunlight, and an old-fashioned paper in dull arabesques of green
and brown and gold made a background for framed dark engravings,
"Franklin at the Court of France," and "The Stag at Bay," and other
pictures of their type. The tablecloths were coarse, the china and glass
heavy, and the menus were written in blue indelible pencil, in a curly
French hand. From the windows at the back one could look out upon an
iron-railed balcony, a garden beyond, and the old, brick, balconied
houses of the Chinese quarter. At the left the California Street cable
car climbed the hill, and the bell tower of old St. Mary's rose sombre
and dignified against the soft sunset sky. At the right were the Park,
with a home-going tide pouring through it at this hour, and Kearney
Street with its jangling car bells, and below, the square roofs of the
warehouse district, and the spire of the ferry building, and the bay
framed in its rim of hills. Montiverte owned the house in which he
conducted his business; it was one of the oldest in the city, built by
the French pioneers who were the first to erect permanent homes in the
new land. This had been the fashionable part of town in 1860, but its
stately old homes were put to strange uses in these days.
Boarding-houses of the lowest class, shops, laundries, saloons, and such
restaurants as Jules Montiverte's overran the district; the Chinese
quarter pressed hard upon one side, and what was always called the "bad"
part of town upon the other. Yet only two blocks away, straight up the
hill, were some of San Francisco's most beautiful homes, the brownstone
mansion, then the only one in California, that some homesick Easterner
built at fabulous cost, the great house that had been recently given for
an institute of art, and the homes of two or three of the railroad
kings.

Patrons of Montiverte began to saunter in by twos and threes. Some of
these the girls knew, and saluted familiarly; others were strangers, and
ignored, and made to feel as uncomfortable as possible. Julia's beauty
was always the object of notice, and she loved to appear entirely
unconscious of it, to sparkle and chatter as if no eyes were upon her.
Emeline came in, with one or two older women, and Julia looked up from a
great bowl of soup to nod to her.

"Sign up?" asked Emeline languidly. And two or three strangers,
obviously impressed by the term, waited for the answer.

"Oh, I guess I'll do it to please Artheris!" Julia said. The girl was
fairly aglow to-night, palpitating and thrilling with youth and the joy
of life. Everything distracted her--everything amused her--yet now and
then she found a quiet moment in which to take out her little memories
of the afternoon, and to review them with a curiously palpitating heart.

"If you like me and I like you ... I want to talk about you ... do you
know you're absolutely fascinating? ... you're going to kiss me for
that! ..." She could still hear his voice, feel his arm about her.

Somebody producing free seats for the Alcazar Theatre, Julia allowed
herself to drift along with the crowd. They were late for the
performance, but nobody cared; they had all seen it before, and after
commenting on it in a way that somewhat annoyed their neighbours,
straggled out, in the beginning of the last act, giggling and chewing
gum. Julia, raising bewildered, sweet, childish eyes to the stars above
noisy O'Farrell Street, was brought suddenly to earth by a touch on her
arm.

It was a dark, tall young man who stepped out of a shadowy doorway to
address her, a man of twenty, perhaps, with all the ripe and sensuous
beauty of the young Jew. His skin was a clear olive, his magnificent
black eyes were set off with evenly curling lashes, and his firm mouth,
under its faint moustache, made a touch of scarlet colour among the rich
brunette tones. He was dressed with a scrupulous niceness, and carried a
long light overcoat on his arm.

"Julia!" he said sombrely, coming forward, his eyes only for her.

"Why, hello, Mark!" Julia answered. And with a little concern creeping
into her manner she went on, "Why, what is it?"

Young Rosenthal glanced at her friends, and, formally offering her his
arm, said seriously: "You will walk with me?"

"We were going down to Haas's for ice-cream sodas," Julia submitted
hesitatingly.

"Well, I will take you there," Mark said. And as the others, nodding
good-naturedly at this, drifted on ahead, Julia found herself walking
down O'Farrell Street on the arm of a tall and handsome man.

It was the first time that she had done just this thing--or if not the
first time, it had never seemed to have any particular significance
before. Now, however, Julia felt in her heart a little flutter of
satisfaction. Somehow Mark did not seem just a commonplace member of the
"Rosenthal gang" to-night, nor did she seem "the Page kid." Mark was a
man, and--thrilling thought!--was angry at Julia, and Julia, hanging on
his arm, with a hundred street lights flashing on her little powdered
nose and saucy hat, was at last a "young lady!"

"What's the matter, Mark?" she asked, by way of opening the
conversation.

"Oh, nothing whatever!" Mark answered, in a rich, full voice, and with
elaborate irony. "You promised to go to the Orpheum with me, and I
waited--and I waited--and you did not come. But that is nothing, of
course!"

Julia's anger smote her dumb for a moment. Then she jerked her arm from
his, and burst out:

"I'll _tell_ you why I didn't meet you to-night, Mark Rosenthal, and if
you don't like it, you know what you can do! Last week you asked me
would I go to Morosco's with you, and I said yes, and then when it came
right down to it--your mother wasn't going, and Sophy and Hannah weren't
going, and Otto wasn't going--and I tell you right now that Mama don't
like me to go to the theatre--"

"Well, well, well!" Mark interrupted soothingly, half laughing, half
aghast at this burst of rebuke from the usually gentle Julia. "Don't be
so cross about it! So--" He put her arm in his again. "I like to have
you to myself, Julia," he said, his boyish, handsome face suddenly
flushing, his voice very low. "Do you know why?"

"No," said Julia after a pause, the word strangling her.

"You don't, eh?" Mark said, with a smiling side glance.

"Nope," said Julia, dimpling as she returned the look, and shutting her
pretty lips firmly over the little word.

"Do you know you are ador-r-rable?" Mark said, in a sort of eager rush.
"Will you go to Maskey's with me, instead of joining the others at
Haas's?" he asked, more quietly.

"Well," Julia said. She was her own mistress. Her mother had gone home
during the play with Mrs. Toomey, who complained of a headache. So,
grinning like conspirators, they stayed on the south side of the street
until it joined Market, and then went by the fountain and the big
newspaper buildings, and slipped into the confectioner's. Julia sent an
approving side glance at herself in the mirror, as she drew a satisfied
breath of the essence-laden air. She loved lights, perfumes, voices--and
all were here.

An indifferent young woman wiped their table with a damp rag, as she
took their order, both, with the daring of their years, deciding upon
the murderous combination of banana ice-cream and soda with chopped nuts
and fruit. Julia had no sooner settled back contentedly to wait for it,
than her eye encountered the beaming faces of her late companions, who,
finding Haas's crowded, had naturally drifted on to Maskey's.

Much giggling and blushing and teasing ensued. Julia was radiant as a
rose; every time she caught sight of her own pretty reflection in the
surrounding mirrors, a fresh thrill of self-confidence warmed her. She
and Mark followed the banana confection with a dish apiece of raspberry
ice-cream, and afterward walked home--it was not far--to the house in
which they both lived.

"And so we don't quarrel any more?" Mark asked, in the dim hallway
outside her door.

"Not if you won't play mean tricks on me!" Julia pouted, raising her
face so that the dim light of the gas jet that burned year in and year
out, in the blistered red-glass shade, fell upon the soft curves of her
face.

It was a deliberate piece of coquetry, and Julia, although neither he
nor any other man had ever done it before, was not at all surprised to
have Mark suddenly close his strong arms about her, and kiss her, with a
sort of repressed violence, on the mouth. She struggled from his hold,
as a matter of course, laughed a little laugh of triumph and excitement,
and shut herself into her own door.

Emeline was lying in bed, looking over some fashion and theatrical
magazines. Upon her daughter's entrance she gave a comfortable yawn.

"Did Mark find you, Julie? He was sitting on the stairs when I got home,
mad because you didn't go out with them."

"Yep, he found me!" Julia answered, still panting.

"It strikes me he's a little mushy on you, Julie," Emeline said, lazily,
turning a page. "And if you were a little older, or he had more of a
job, I'd give him a piece of my mind. You ain't going to marry _his_ sort,
I should hope. But, Lord, you're both only kids!"

"I guess I can mind my own business, Mama," Julia said.

"Well, I guess you can," Emeline conceded amiably. "Look, Ju, at the
size of these sleeves--ain't that something fierce? Get the light out as
soon as you can, lovey," she added, flinging away her magazine, and
rolling herself tight in the covers, with bright eyes fixed on the girl.

Ten minutes later Emeline was asleep. But Julia lay long awake,
springtime in her blood, her eyes smiling mysteriously into the dark.




CHAPTER III

By just what mental processes Emeline Page had come to feel herself a
dignified martyr in a world full of oppressed women, it would be
difficult to say: Emeline herself would have been the last person from
whom a reasonable explanation might have been expected. But it was a
fact that she never missed an opportunity to belittle the male sex; she
had never had much charm for men, she had none now, and consequently she
associated chiefly with women: with widows and grass widows of her own
type, and with the young actresses and would-be actresses of the curious
social level upon which she lived. Emeline's lack of charm was the most
valuable moral asset she had. Had she attracted men she would not long
have remained virtuous, for she was violently opposed to any restriction
upon her own desires, no matter how well established a restriction or
how generally accepted it might be. For a little while after George's
going, Emeline had indeed frequently used the term "if I marry again,"
but of late years she had rather softened to his memory, and enjoyed
abusing other men while she revelled in a fond recollection of George's
goodness.

"God knows I was only a foolish girl," Emeline would say, resting cold
wet feet against the open oven door while Julia pressed a frill. "But
your papa never was anything but a perfect ge'man, never! I'll never
forget one night when he took me to Grant's Cafe for dinner! I was all
dressed up to kill, and George looked elegant--"

A long reminiscence followed.

"I hope to God you get as good a man as your papa," said Emeline more
than once, romantically.

Julia, thumping an iron, would answer with cool common sense:

"Well, if I do, I want to tell you right now, Mama, I'll treat him a
good deal better than you did!"

"Oh, you'll be a wonder," Emeline would concede good-naturedly.

At very long intervals Emeline dressed herself and her daughter as
elaborately as possible, and went out into the Mission to see her
parents. With the singular readiness to change the known discomfort for
the unknown, characteristic of their class, the various young members of
the family had all gone away now, and lonely old Mrs. Cox, a shrivelled
little shell of a woman at sixty-five, always had a warm welcome for her
oldest daughter and her beautiful grandchild. She would limp about her
bare, uninviting little rooms, complaining of her husband's increasing
meanness and of her own physical ills, while with gnarled, twisted old
hands she filled a "Rebecca" teapot of cheap brown glaze, or cut into a
fresh loaf of "milk bread."

"D'ye see George at all now, Emeline?"

"Not to speak to, Mom. But"--and Emeline would lay down the little
mirror in which she was studying her face--"but the Rosenthal children
say that there's a man who's _always_ hanging about the lower doorway, and
that once he gave Hannah----"

And so on and on. Mrs. Cox was readily convinced that George, repentant,
was unable to keep away from the neighbourhood of his one and only love.
Julia, dreaming over her thick cup of strong tea, granted only a polite,
faintly weary smile to her mother's romances. She knew how glad Emeline
would be to really believe even one tenth of these flattering
suspicions.

A few weeks after Julia's long day of events with Artheris, with Carter
Hazzard, and young Rosenthal, she chanced to awaken one Saturday morning
to a pleasant, undefined sensation that life was sweet. She thought of
Mr. Hazzard, whom she had seen twice since their first meeting, but not
alone again. And she reflected with satisfaction that she knew her part
of "The Amazons" perfectly, and so was ready for the first rehearsal
to-day. This led to a little dream of the leading lady failing to appear
on the great night, and of Julia herself in Lady Noel's part; of Julia
subsequently adored and envied by the entire cast; of Carter Hazzard----

Julia had made an engagement with Mark for to-day, but the rehearsal
plan must interfere. She wondered how she could send him word, and
finally decided to see him herself for a moment early in the afternoon.
Mark, originally employed as office boy, pure and simple, had now made
himself a general handy man, reference and filing clerk, in the big
piano house of Pomeroy and Parke. He had all the good traits of his
race, and some of the traits that, without being wholly admirable, help
a man toward success. No slur at himself or his religion was keen enough
to pierce Mark's smiling armour of philosophy, no hours were too hard
for him, no work too menial for him to do cheerfully, nor too important
for him to undertake confidently. A wisdom far older than his years was
his. Poverty had been his teacher, exile and deprivation. When other
children were in school, repeating mechanically that many a little made
a mickle, that genius was an infinite capacity for taking pains, and
that a man has no handicaps but those of his own making, Mark _knew_ these
things, he knew that the great forces of life were no stronger than his
own two hands, and that any work of any sort must bring him to his
goal--the goal of wealth and power and position.

He knew that his father was not so clever as he was, and why. He saw
that his mother was worn out with housework and child-bearing. He did
not idealize their home, where father, mother, and seven children were
crowded into four rooms, and where of an evening the smell of cabbage
soup and herrings, of soap-suds and hot irons on woollen, of inky school
books and perspiring humanity, mingled with the hot, oily breath of the
lamp.

Yet Mark saw beyond this, too. The food was good, if coarse, the bills
were paid, the bank account grew. Some day the girls would be married,
the boys in good positions; some day the mother should have a little
country house and a garden, and the father come home early to smoke his
pipe and prune his rose bushes. Not a very brilliant future--no. But how
brilliant to them, who could remember Russia!

As for him, Mark, there was no limit to his personal dream at all. Some
day, while yet as young as Mr. Parke, he would be as rich as Mr.
Pomeroy, he would have five splendid children, like the Pomeroy
children, he would have a wife as beautiful as young Mrs. Parke. To his
beautiful Jackson Street palace the city's best people should come, and
sometimes--for a favoured few--he would play his rippling etudes and
nocturnes, his mazurkas and polonaises.

Julia Page, an unnoticed little neighbour for many years, had, just at
present, somewhat ruffled the surface of his dream. Julia was not the
ideal wife of his mind or heart; nor was she apt to grow to fill that
ideal. Mrs. Mark Rosenthal must be a Jewess, a wise, ripened, poised,
and low-voiced woman, a lover of music, babies, gardens, cooking, and
managing.

Yet there had been a certain evening, not long before that spring
evening upon which Julia's own awakening came, when Mark had been
astonished to find a sudden charm in the little girl. She was only a
little girl, of course, he said to himself later; just a kid, but she
was a mighty cunning kid!

Julia often had dinner with the Rosenthals; she loved every separate
member of the family and she knew they all loved her. She used to run
upstairs and pop her pretty head into the Rosenthal kitchen perhaps
twice a week, sure of a welcome and a good meal. On the occasion so
significant to Mark she had been there when he got in from work, helping
his sisters Sophy and Hannah with that careless disposition of iron
knives, great china sugar bowl, oddly assorted plates, and thick cups
that was known as "setting the table."

Mark had noticed then that Julia's figure was getting very pretty, and
he watched her coming and going with a real pleasure. She sat next him
at table, and, conscious as he was of her nearness and of himself, he
found her unconsciousness very charming. Julia had burned her arm
serving the fried hominy, and she held it up for Mark to see, the bare,
sweet young arm close to his face.

And since then, poor Mark seemed to be bewitched. He could not think of
anything but Julia. It made him angry and self-contemptuous, but he was
no better off for that. He did not want to fall in love with Julia Page;
he would not admit that what he felt for Julia was love; he raged with
disappointment at the mere thought of bondage so soon, and especially
this bondage. But the sweetness of her stole upon his senses
nevertheless, tangling about him like a drifting bit of vaporous mist;
he had no sooner detached one section of it than another blew across his
eyes, set pulses to beating in his temples, and shook his whole body
with a delicious weakness.

And then came the night when she had not kept her appointment, and he
had followed her to the Alcazar Theatre, and later kissed her in the
dark hallway. Then Mark knew. From the instant her fresh lips touched
his, and he felt the soft yielding as he drew her to him, Mark knew that
he was of the world's lovers. He wanted her with all the deep passion of
first love--first love in an ardent and romantic and forceful nature.
His dreams did not change; Julia changed to fit them. She was everything
for which he had ever longed, she was perfection absolute. She became
his music, his business, his life. Every little girl, every old woman
that he passed in the street, made him think of Julia, and when he
passed a young man and woman full of concern for, and of shy pride in,
their lumpy baby in its embroidered coat, a wave of divine envy swept
Mark from head to foot.

To-day he whistled over his work, thinking of Julia. They were to meet
at three o'clock, "just to bum," as the girl said, laughing. Mark
thought that, as the season was well forward, they might take a car to
the park or the beach, but the plan had been left indefinite.

He ate his lunch, of butterless bread and sausage, and an entire
five-cent pie, in a piano wareroom, taking great bites, with dreamy
studying of the walls and long delays between. Then he wandered down
through the empty offices--it was Saturday afternoon and Pomeroy and
Parke closed promptly at twelve--had a brief chat with the Japanese
janitor, and washed his hands and combed his hair very conscientiously
in the president's own lavatory.

At half-past one he went into one of the glass showrooms, a prettily
furnished apartment whose most notable article of furniture was a grand
piano in exquisitely matched Circassian walnut. Absorbed and radiant,
Mark put back the cover, twirled the stool, and carefully opened a green
book marked "Chopin." Then he sat down, and, with the sigh of a happy
child falling upon a feast, he struck an opening chord.

The big flexible fingers still needed training, but they showed the
result of hours and hours of patient practice, too. Through his seven
years in the music house, Mark had been faithful to his gift. He made no
secret of it, his associates knew that he came back after dinner to the
very rooms that they themselves left so eagerly at the end of the day.
Mark had indeed once asked old Mr. Pomeroy to hear him play, an occasion
to which the boy still looked back with hot shame. For when his obliging
old employer had settled himself to listen after hours on an appointed
afternoon, and Mark had opened the piano, the performer suddenly found
his spine icy, his hands wet and clumsy. He felt as if he had never
touched a piano before; the attempt was a failure from the first note,
as Mark well knew. When he had finished he whisked open another book.

"That was rotten," he stammered. "I thought I could do it--I can't. But
just let me play you this--"

But the great man was in a hurry, it appeared.

"No--no, my boy, not to-day--some other time! Perhaps a little bit too
ambitious a choice, eh? We must all be ambitious, but we must know our
limitations, too. Some other time!"

Then Mr. Pomeroy was gone and Mark left to bitterest reflection.

But he recovered very sensibly from his boyish chagrin, and very
sensibly went at his practicing again. On this particular Saturday
afternoon he attacked a certain phrase in the bass, and for almost an
hour the big fingers of his left hand rippled over it steadily. Mark,
twisted about halfway on the bench, watched the performance steadily,
his right hand hanging loose.

"Damn!" he said presently, with a weary sigh, as a sharp and familiar
little pain sprang into his left wrist.

"Mark!" breathed a reproachful voice behind him. He whirled about, to
see Julia Page.

She had come noiselessly in at the glass doorway behind him, and was
standing there, laughing, a picture of fresh and demure beauty, despite
the varied colours in hat and waist and gown and gloves.

"I had to see you!" said Julia, in a rush. "And nobody answered your
telephone--there's a rehearsal of that play at the theatre to-day, so I
can't meet you--and the janitor let me in----"

Mark found her incoherence delicious; her being here, in his own
familiar stamping-ground, one of the thrilling and exciting episodes of
his life. He could have shouted--have danced for pure joy as he jumped
up to welcome her. Julia declared that she had to "fly," but Mark
insisted--and she found his insistence curiously pleasant--upon showing
her about, leading her from office to office, beaming at her whenever
their eyes met. And he _must_ play her the little Schumann, he said, but
no--for that Julia positively would _not_ wait; she jerked him by one hand
toward the door. Mark had his second kiss before they emerged laughing
and radiant into the gaiety of Kearney Street on a Saturday afternoon.

And Julia was not late for her rehearsal, or, if late, she was at least
earlier by a full quarter hour than the rest of the caste. She took an
orchestra seat in the empty auditorium at the doorkeeper's suggestion,
and yawned, and stared at the coatless back of a man who was tuning the
orchestra piano.

Presently two distinguished looking girls, beautifully dressed, came in,
and sat down near her in a rather uncertain way, and began to laugh and
talk in low tones. Neither cast a glance at Julia, who promptly decided
that they were hateful snobs, and began to regard them with burning
resentment. They had been there only a few moments when two young men
sauntered down the aisle, unmistakably gentlemen, and genuine enough to
express their enjoyment of this glimpse of a theatre between
performances. Two of them carried little paper copies of "The Amazons,"
so Julia knew them for fellow-performers.

Then a third young woman came in and walked down the aisle as the others
had done. This was an extremely pretty girl of perhaps eighteen, with
dark hair and dark bright eyes, and a very fresh bright colour. Her gown
was plain but beautifully fitting, and her wide hat was crowned with a
single long ostrich plume. She peered at the young men.

"Hello, Bobby--hello, Gray!" she said gayly, and then, catching sight of
the two other girls across the aisle, she added: "Oh, hello, Helen--how
do you do, Miss Carson? Come over here and meet Mr. Sumner and Mr.
Babcock!"

Babel ensued. Three or four waiting young people said, "Oh, Barbara!" in
tones of great delight, and the fourth no less eagerly substituted, "Oh,
Miss Toland!"

"How long have you poor, long-suffering catfish been waiting here?"
demanded Miss Barbara Toland, with a sort of easy sweetness that Julia
found instantly enviable. "Why, we're all out in the foyer--Mother's
here, chaperoning away like mad, and nearly all the others! And"--she
whisked a little gold watch into sight--"my dears, it's twenty minutes
to four!"

Every one exclaimed, as they rushed out. Julia, unaccountably nervous,
wished she were well out of this affair, and wondered what she ought to
do.

Presently some twenty-five or thirty well-dressed folk came streaming
back down the main aisle in a wild confusion of laughter and talk.
Somehow the principals were filtered out of this crowd, and somehow they
got on the stage, and got a few lights turned on, and assembled for the
advice of an agitated manager. Dowagers and sympathetic friends settled
in orchestra seats to watch; the rehearsal began.

Julia had strolled up to the stage after the others; now she sat on a
shabby wooden chair that had lost its back, leaned her back against a
piece of scenery, and surveyed the scene with as haughty and indifferent
an air as she could assume.

"And the Sergeant--who takes that?" demanded the manager, a young fellow
of their own class, familiarly addressed as "Matty."

The caste, which had been churning senselessly about him, chorussed an
explanation.

"A professional takes that, Mat, don't you remember?"

"Well, where is she?" Matty asked irritably.

Julia here sauntered superbly forward, serenely conscious of youth,
beauty, and charm. Every one stared frankly at her, as she said
languidly:

"Perhaps it's I you're looking for? Mr. Artheris--"

"Yes, that's right!" said Matty, relieved. He wiped his forehead.
"Miss--Page, isn't it?" He paused, a little at a loss, eying the other
ladies of the caste dubiously. The girl called Barbara Toland now came
forward with her ready graciousness, and the two girls looked fairly
into each other's eyes.

"Miss Page," said Barbara, and then impatiently to the manager, "Do go
ahead and get started, Matty; we've got to get home some time to-night!"

Julia's introduction was thus waived, and business began at once. The
wavering voices of the principals drifted uncertainly into the theatre.
"Louder!" said the chaperons and friends. The men were facetious,
interpolating their lines with jokes, good-humoured under criticism; the
girls fluttered nervously over cues, could not repeat the simplest line
without a half-giggling "Let's see--yes, I come in here," and were only
fairly started before they must interrupt themselves with an earnest,
"Mat, am I standing still when I say that, or do I walk toward her?"

Julia was the exception. She had been instructed a fortnight before that
she must know her lines and business to-day, and she did know them.
Almost scornfully she took her cues and walked through her part. "Matty"
clapped his hands and overpraised her, and Julia felt with a great rush
of triumph that she had "shown those girls!" She had an exhilarating
afternoon, for the men buzzed about her on every possible occasion, and
she knew that the other girls, for all their lofty indifference, were
keenly conscious of it.

She went out through the theatre with the others, at an early six. The
young people straggled along the aisle in great confusion, laughing and
chattering. Mrs. Toland, a plump, merry, handsomely dressed woman, was
anxious to carry off her tall daughter in time for some early boat.

"_Do_ hurry, Barbara! Sally and Ted may be on that five-fifty, and if Dad
went home earlier they'll have to make the trip alone!"

At the doorway they found that the street was almost dark, and foggy.
Much discussion of cars and carriages marked the breaking-up. Enid
Hazzard, a rather noisy girl, who played Noel Belturbet, elected to go
home with the Babcocks. This freed from all responsibility her brother
Carter, who had suddenly appeared to act as escort. Julia, slipping up
the darkening street, after a few moments spent in watching this crowd
of curious young people, found him at her side.

"No coat, Miss Page?" said the easy tones.

"I didn't know it would be so foggy!" said Julia, her heart beginning to
thump.

"And where are you going?"

"Home to get a coat."

"I see. Where is it? I'll take you."

"Oh, it's just a few blocks," Julia said. She knew nothing of the
reputation of San Francisco's neighbourhoods, but Carter gave her a
surprised look. When Julia, quite unembarrassed, stopped at the door
beside the saloon, he was the more confused of the two, although the
accident of seeing him again had set the blood to racing in Julia's
veins and made speech difficult. She had been longing for just this; she
was trembling with eagerness and nervousness.

"Father and Mother live here?" asked Carter.

"Just Mama--she rents rooms."

"Oh, I see!" He had stepped into the deep doorway, and catching her by
the shoulders he said now, inconsequently: "Do you know you're the
prettiest girl that ever _was_?"

"Am I?" said Julia, in a whisper.

"You know you are--you--you little flirt!" Hazzard said, his eyes three
inches from hers. For a tense second neither stirred, then the man
straightened up suddenly: "Well!" he said loudly. "That'll be about all
of _that_. Good-night, my dear!"

He turned abruptly away, and Julia, smiling her little inscrutable
smile, went slowly upstairs. The bedroom was dark, unaired, and in
disorder. Julia looked about it dreamily, picked her library book from
the floor and read a few pages of "Aunt Johnnie," sitting meanwhile on
the edge of the unmade bed, and chewing a piece of gum that had been
pressed, a neat bead, upon the back of a chair. After a while she got
up, powdered her nose, and rubbed her finger-nails with a buffer--a
buffer lifeless and hard, and deeply stained with dirt and red grease.
Emeline had left a note, "Gone up to Min's--come up there for supper,"
but Julia felt that there was no hurry; meals at Mrs. Tarbury's were
usually late.

During the ensuing fortnight there were two or three more rehearsals of
"The Amazons" at the Grand Opera House, which only confirmed Julia's
first impression of her fellow-players. The men she liked, and flirted
with; for the girls she had a supreme contempt. She found herself
younger, prettier, and a better actress than the youngest, prettiest,
and cleverest among them. While these pampered daughters of wealth went
awkwardly through their parts, and chatted in subdued tones among
themselves, Julia rattled her speeches off easily, laughed and talked
with all the young men in turn, posed and pirouetted as one born to the
footlights. If Julia fancied that any girl was betraying a preference
for any particular man, against that man she directed the full battery
of her charms. Carter Hazzard came to every rehearsal, and was quite
openly her slave. He did not offer to walk home with her again, but
Julia knew that he was conscious of her presence whenever she was near
him, and spun a mad little dream about a future in which she queened it
over all these girls as his wife.

It was all delightful and exciting. Life had never been dark to Julia;
now she found the days all too short for her various occupations and
pleasures. Mark was assuming more and more the attitude of a lover, and
Julia was too much of a coquette to discourage him utterly. She really
liked him, and loved the stolen hours in Pomeroy and Parke's big piano
house, when Mark, flinging his hair out of his eyes, played like an
angel, and Julia nibbled caramels and sat curled up on the davenport,
watching him. And through the casual attentions of other men, the
occasional flattering half-hours with Carter Hazzard, the evenings of
gossip at Mrs. Tarbury's, and round the long table at Montiverte's,
Julia liked to sometimes think of Mark; his admiration was a little
warm, reassuring background for all the other thoughts of the day.

At the end of the fourth or fifth rehearsal Julia noticed that pretty
Barbara Toland was trying to manage a moment's speech with her alone.
She amused herself with an attempt to avoid Miss Toland just from pure
mischief, but eventually the two came face to face, in a garishly
lighted bit of passage, Barbara, for all her advantage in years and in
position, seeming the younger of the two.

"Oh, Miss Page," said Barbara nervously, "I wanted to--but were you
going somewhere?"

"Don't matter if I was!" said Julia, airily gracious, but watching
shrewdly.

"Well, I--I hope you won't think this is funny, but, well, I'll tell
you," stammered Barbara, very red. "I know you don't know us all very
well, you know--it's different with us--we've all been brought up
together--but I didn't know whether you knew--perhaps you did--that
Carter Hazzard is married?"

Julia felt stunned, and a little sick. She got only the meaning of the
words, their value would come later. But with a desperate effort she
pulled herself together, and smiled with dry lips.

"Yes, I knew that," she said, pleasantly, not meeting Barbara's eye.

"Oh, well, then it's all _right_," Barbara said hastily, relieved. "But
he--he has a teasing sort of way, you know. His wife is in San Diego
now, with her own people."

"Yes, he told me that," Julia said, only longing to escape before a
maddening impulse to cry overpowered her. Barbara saw the truth, and
laid a friendly hand on Julia's arm.

"I just wanted you to know," she said in her kindliest tone.

Suddenly Julia burst out crying, childishly blubbering with her wrists
in her eyes. Barbara, very much distressed, shielded her as well as she
could from the eyes of possible passers-by, and patted her shoulder with
a gloved hand.

"I don't know why--perfectly _crazy_--" gulped Julia, desperately fighting
the sobs that shook her. "And I've had a dreadful headache all day," she
broke out, pitifully, beginning to mop her eyes with a folded
handkerchief, her face still turned away from Barbara.

"Oh, poor thing!" said Barbara. "And the rehearsal must have made it
worse!"

"It's splitting," Julia said sombrely. She gave Barbara one grave,
almost resentful, look, straightened her hat and fluffed up her hair,
and went away. Barbara looked after her, and thought that Carter was a
beast, and that there was something very pitiful about common little
ignorant Miss Page, and that she wouldn't tell the girls about this, and
give them one more cause to laugh at the little actress. For Barbara
Toland was a conscientious girl, and very seriously impressed with the
gravity of her own responsibility toward other people.

Meanwhile Julia walked toward the Mechanics' Library in a very fury of
rage and resentment. She hated the entire caste of "The Amazons," and
she hated Barbara Toland and Carter Hazzard more than the rest! He could
play with her and flirt with her and deceive her, and while she, Julia,
fancied herself envied and admired of the other girls, this delicately
perfumed and exquisitely superior Barbara could be deciding in all
sisterly kindness that she must inform Miss Page of her admirer's real
position. Angry tears came to Julia's eyes, but she went into the
Mechanics' Library and washed the evidences of them away, and made
herself nice to meet Mark.

But a subtle change in the girl dated from that day; casual and foolish
as the affair with Carter had been, it left its scar. Julia's heart
winced away from the thought of him as she herself might have shrunk
from fire. She never forgave him.

It was good to find Mark still enslaved, everything soothing and
reassuring. When Julia left him, at her own door at six o'clock, she was
her radiant, confident self again, and they kissed each other at parting
like true lovers. To his eager demand for a promise Julia still returned
a staid, "Mama'd be crazy, Mark. I ain't sixteen yet!" but on this
enchanted afternoon she had consented to linger, on Kearney Street,
before the trays of rings in jewellers' windows, and it was in the
wildest spirits that Mark bounded on upstairs to his own apartment.

Julia had expected to find her mother at home. Instead the room was
empty, but the gas was flaring high, and all about was more than the
customary disorder; there were evidences that Emeline had left home in
something of a hurry. The girl searched until she found the explanatory
note, and read it with knitted brow.

"I'm going to Santa Rosa on important business, deary," Emeline had
scribbled, "and you'd better go to Min's for a few days. I'll write and
leave you know if there is anything in it, otherwise there's no use
getting Min and the girls started talking. There's ten dollars in the
hairpin box. With love, Mama."

"Well, I'd give a good deal to know what struck Em," said Mrs. Tarbury,
for the hundredth time. It was late in the evening of the same day, and
the lady and Julia were in the room shared by Miss Connie Girard and
Miss Rose Ransome. Both the young actresses had previously appeared in a
skit at a local vaudeville house, but had come home to prepare for a
supper to be given by friends in their own profession, after the
theatres had closed. Each girl had a bureau of her own, hopelessly
cluttered and crowded, and over each bureau an unshielded gas jet
flared.

"Well, I'm _going_ to know!" Julia added, in a heavy, significant tone.
She had come to feel herself very much abused by her mother's treatment,
and was inclined to entertain ugly suspicions.

"Oh, come now!" Rose Ransome said, scowling at herself in a hand mirror
as she carefully rouged her lips. "Don't you get any silly notions in
your head!"

"No," Mrs. Tarbury added heavily, as she rocked comfortably to and fro,
"no, that ain't Em. Em is a cut-up, all right, and she's a great one for
a josh with the boys, but she's as straight as a string! You'll find
that she's got some good reason for this!"

"Well, she'd better have!" Julia said sulkily. "I'm going out to see my
grandmother to-morrow and see if she knows anything!"

But she really gave less thought to her mother than to the stinging
memory of Barbara Toland's generosity and Carter Hazzard's deception.
She settled down contentedly enough, sharing the room with Connie and
Rose, and sharing their secrets, and her visit to old Mrs. Cox was
indefinitely postponed. The girls drifted about together, in and out of
theatres, in and out of restaurants and hotels, reading cheap theatrical
magazines, talking of nothing but their profession. The days were long
and dull, the evenings feverish; Julia liked it all. She had no very
high ideal of home life; she did not mind the disorder of their room,
the jumbled bureau drawers, the chairs and tables strewn with garments,
the fly-specked photographs nailed against the walls. It was a
comfortable, irresponsible, diverting existence, at its worst.

Emeline did not write her daughter for nearly two weeks, but Julia was
not left in doubt of her mother's moral and physical safety for that
time. Only two or three days after Emeline's disappearance Julia was
called upon by a flashily dressed, coarse-featured man of perhaps forty
who introduced himself--in a hoarse voice heavy with liquor--as Dick
Palmer.

"I used to know your Pop when you's only a kid," said the caller, "and I
know where your Mamma is now--she's gone down to Santa Rosa, see?"

"What'd she go there for?" Julia demanded clearly.

Mr. Palmer cast an agitated glance about Mrs. Tarbury's dreadful
drawing-room, and lowered his voice confidentially:

"Well, d'ye see--here's how it is! Your Papa's down there in Santa Rosa.
I run acrost him in a boarding-house a few days ago, and d'ye see--he's
sick. That's right," added the speaker heavily, "he's sick."

"Dying?" said Julia dramatically.

"No, he ain't dying. It's like this," pursued the narrator, still with
his air of secrecy, "there's a party there that runs the
boarding-house--her name's Lottie Clute, she's had it for years, and
she's got on to the fact that George is insured for nine thousand
dollars, d'ye see? Well, she's got him to promise to make the policy
over to her."

"Ha!" said Julia, interested at last.

"Well, d'ye see?" said Mr. Palmer triumphantly. "So I come up to town
last week, and I thought I'd drop in on your Mamma! No good letting this
other little lady have it _all_ her own way, you know!"

"That's right, too, she's no more than a thief!" Julia commented simply.
"I don't know what Mama can do, but I guess you can leave it to Mama!"

Mr. Palmer, agreeing eagerly to this, took his leave, after paying a
hoarse tribute to the beauty of his old friend's daughter, and Julia
dismissed the matter from her mind.

She told Connie that she meant, as soon as this amateur affair was over,
to try the stage in real earnest, and Connie, whose own last venture had
ended somewhat flatly, was nevertheless very sanguine about Julia's
success. She took Julia to see various managers, who were invariably
interested and urbane, and Julia, deciding bitterly that she would have
no more to do with her fellow-performers in the caste of "The Amazon,"
had Connie accompany her to rehearsals, and went through her part with a
sort of sullen hauteur.

She and Connie were down in the dressing-rooms one day after a rehearsal
chatting with the woman star of a travelling stock company, who chanced
to be there, when Barbara Toland suddenly came in upon them.

"Oh, Miss Page," said Barbara in relief, "I _am_ so glad to find you! I
don't know whether you heard Mr. Pope announce that we're to have our
dress rehearsal on Saturday, at the yacht club in Sausalito? There is
quite a large stage."

Julia shook her head.

"I don't know that I can come Saturday," she objected, only anxious to
be disobliging.

"Oh, you _must_," said Barbara brightly. "_Do_ try! You take the
one-forty-five from the Sausalito ferry, and somebody'll meet you! And
if we should be kept later than we expect, somebody'll bring you home!"

"I have a friend who would come for me," said Julia stiffly, thinking of
Mark.

For just a second mirth threatened Barbara's dignity, but she said
staidly:

"That's fine! And remember, we _depend_ on you!"




CHAPTER IV

The family of Dr. Robert Toland, discovered at breakfast in the Tolands'
big house in Sausalito on an exquisite May morning, presented to the
casual onlooker as charming a picture of home life as might be found in
the length and breadth of California. The sunny dining-room, with its
windows wide open to sunshine and fresh sea air, the snowy curtains
blowing softly to and fro, the wide sideboard where the children's
outgrown mugs stood in a battered and glittering row, the one or two
stiff, flat, old oil portraits that looked down from the walls, the jars
of yellow acacia bloom, and bowls of mingled wild flowers; these made a
setting wonderfully well suited to the long table and the happy family
about it.

There were seven children, five girls and two boys; there was the
gracious, genial mother at the head and the wiry, gray-haired and
gray-bearded surgeon at the foot; there was, as usual, Jim Studdiford,
and to-day, besides, there was Aunt Sanna, an unmarried younger sister
of the doctor, and a little black-eyed, delicate ten-year-old guest of
the eleven-year-old Janie, Keith Borroughs, who was sitting near to
Janie, and evidently adoring that spirited chatterbox. And there was
Addie, a cheerful black-clad person in a crackling white apron, coming
and going with muffins and bacon, and Toy, who was a young cousin of
Hee, the cook, and who padded softly in Addie's wake, making himself
generally useful.

Barbara, very pretty, very casual as to what she ate, sat next to her
father; she was the oldest of the seven Tolands, and slipping very
reluctantly out of her eighteenth year. Ned, a big, handsome fellow of
sixteen, came next in point of age, and then a tall, lanky, awkward
blond boy, Richie, with a plain thin face and the sweetest smile of them
all. Richie never moved without the aid of a crutch, and perhaps never
would. After Richie, and nearing fourteen, was a sweet, fat, giggling
lump of a girl called Sally, with a beautiful skin and beautiful untidy
hair, and a petticoat always dragging, a collar buttoned awry, and a
belt that never by any chance united her pretty shirt waist to her crisp
linen skirt. Only a year younger than Sally was Theodora, whose staid,
precocious beauty Barbara already found disquieting--"Ted" was already
giving signs of rivalling her oldest sister--then came Jane, bold,
handsome, boyish at eleven, and lastly eight-year-old Constance, a
delicate, pretty, tearful little girl who was spoiled by every member of
the family.

The children's mother was a plump, handsome little woman with bright,
flashing eyes, dimples, and lovely little hands covered with rings.
There was no gray in her prettily puffed hair, and, if she was stouter
than any of her daughters, none could show a more trimly controlled
figure. Mrs. Toland had been impressed in the days of her happy girlhood
with the romantic philosophies of the seventies. To her, as an impulsive
young woman brimful of the zest of living, all babies had been "just too
dear and sweet," all marriages were "simply _lovely_" regardless of
circumstances, and all men were "just the dearest great big manly
fellows that ever _were_!" As Miss Sally Ford, Mrs. Toland had flashed
about on many visits to her girl friends admiring, exclaiming, rejoicing
in their joys, and now, as a mother of growing girls and boys, there
still hung between her and real life the curtain of her unquenchable
optimism. She loved babies, and they had come very fast, and been cared
for by splendid maids, and displayed in effective juxtaposition to their
gay little mother for the benefit of admiring friends, when opportunity
offered. And if, in the early days of her married life, there had ever
been troublous waters to cross, Sally Toland had breasted them
gallantly, her fixed, confident smile never wavering.

At first Doctor Toland had felt something vaguely amiss in this
persistent attitude of radiant and romantic surety. "Are you sure the
boy understands?" "D'ye think Bab isn't old enough to know that you're
just making that up?" he would ask uneasily, when a question of
disciplining Ned or consoling Barbara arose. But Mrs. Toland always was
sure of her course, and would dimple at him warningly: "Of course it's
all right, Daddykins, and we're all going to be happy, and not even
think of our naughty old troubles any more!"

So the doctor gave her her way, and settled back to enjoy his children
and his wife, his yacht and his roses; growing richer and more famous,
more genial and perhaps a little more mildly cynical as time went on.
And the children grew up, their mother, never dreaming that Barbara at
eighteen was more than the sweet, light-hearted, manageable child she
had been at ten; that Ned was beginning to taste of a life of whose
existence she was only vaguely aware; that Sally was plotting an escape
to the ranks of trained nurses; that Ted needed a firm hand and close
watching if she were not to break all their hearts. No, to Mrs. Toland
they were still her "rosebud garden," "just the merriest, romping crowd
of youngsters that ever a little scrap of a woman had to keep in order!"

"Now, you're going to wipe that horrid frown off your forehead, Daddy,"
she would say blithely, if Doctor Toland confessed to a misgiving in the
contemplation of any one of his seven, "and stop worrying about Richie!
His bad old hip is going to get well, and he'll be walking just like any
one else in no time!" And in the same tone she said to Barbara: "I know
my darling girl is going to that luncheon, and going to forget that her
hat isn't quite the thing for the occasion," and said to little
Constance, "We're going to forget that it's raining, and not think about
dismal things any more!" No account of flood or fire or outrage was
great enough to win from her more than a rueful smile, a sigh, and a
brisk: "Well, I suppose such things _must_ be, or they wouldn't be
permitted. Don't let's think about it!"

Women who knew Mrs. Toland spoke of her as "wonderful." And indeed she
was wonderful in many ways, a splendid manager, a delightful hostess,
and essentially motherly and domestic in type. She was always happy and
always busy, gathering violets, chaperoning Sally or Barbara at the
dentist's, selecting plaids for the "girlies'" winter suits. Her married
life--all her life, in fact--had been singularly free from clouds, and
she expected the future to be even brighter, when "splendid, honourable
men" should claim her girls, one by one, and all the remembered romance
of her youth begin again. That the men would be forthcoming she did not
doubt; had not Fate already delivered Jim Studdiford into her hands for
Barbara?

James Studdiford, who had just now finished his course at medical
college, was affectionately known to the young Tolands as "Jim," and
stood to them in a relationship peculiarly pleasing to Mrs. Toland. He
was like a brother, and yet, actually, he bore not the faintest real
kinship to--well, to Barbara, for instance. Years before, twenty years
before, to be exact, Doctor Toland, then unmarried, and unacquainted, as
it happened, with the lovely Miss Sally Ford, had been engaged to a
beautiful young widow, a Mrs. Studdiford, who had been left with a large
fortune and a tiny boy some two years before. This was in Honolulu,
where people did a great deal of riding in those days, and it presently
befell that the doctor, two weeks before the day that had been set for
the wedding, found himself kneeling beside his lovely fiancee on a rocky
headland, as she lay broken and gasping where her horse had flung her,
and straining to catch the last few agonized words she would ever say:

"You'll--keep Jim--with you, Robert?"

How Doctor Toland brought the small boy to San Francisco, how he met the
dashing and indifferent Sally, and how she came at last to console him
for his loss, was another story, one that Mrs. Toland never tired of
telling. Little Jim had his place in their hearts from their wedding
day. Barbara was eleven years old when, with passionate grief, she
learned that he was not her half brother, and many casual friends did
not know it to this day. Jim, to the doctor's delight, chose to follow
the profession of his foster father, and had stumbled, with not too much
application, through medical college. Now he was to go to New York for
hospital work, and then to Berlin for a year's real grind, and until the
Eastern hospital should open classes, was back in his old enormous
third-floor bedroom upstairs, enjoying a brief season of idleness and
petting, the handsome, unaffected, sunshiny big brother of Mrs. Toland's
fondest dreams.

"And he can hardly keep his eyes off Babbie," the mother confided to her
sister-in-law.

Miss Toland gave her a shrewd glance.

"For heaven's sake don't get that notion in your head, Sally! Babbie may
be ready to make a little fool of herself, but if ever I saw a man who
_isn't_ in love, it's Jim!" said Miss Toland, who was a thin, gray-haired,
well-dressed woman of forty, with a curious magnetism quite her own.
Miss Toland had lived in France for the ten years before thirty, and had
a Frenchwoman's reposeful yet alert manner, and a Frenchwoman's art in
dressing. After many idle years, she had suddenly become deeply
interested in settlement work, had built a little settlement house, "The
Alexander Toland Neighbourhood House," in one of the factory districts
south of San Francisco, and was in a continual state of agitation and
upset because worthy settlement workers were at that time almost an
unknown quantity in California. Just at present she was availing herself
of her brother's hospitality because she had no assistant at all at the
"Alexander," and was afraid to stay in its very unsavoury environment
alone. She loved Barbara dearly, but she was usually perverse with her
sister-in-law.

"You may say what you like about notions in my head," Mrs. Toland
answered with a wise little nod. "But the dear girl is _radiant_ every
time she looks at him, and both Dad and I think we notice a new
_protective_ quality in Jim--"

"Did Robert say so?" Miss Toland asked dryly. To this Mrs. Toland
answered with a merry laugh and a little squeeze of her sister-in-law's
arm.

"Oh, you old Sanna!" she chided. "You won't believe that there's a
blessed time when Nature just takes the young things by the hand and
pushes them right into happiness, whether or no!"

This little talk had taken place just before breakfast, and now Mrs.
Toland was reassuring herself of her own position with many a glance at
Barbara and at Jim. Barbara seemed serious almost to ungraciousness--that
might be a sign. Jim was teasing Sally, who laughed deeply and richly,
like a child, and spilled her orange juice on her fresh gown. Perhaps he
was trying to pique Barbara by assuming an indifferent manner--that
might be it----

"Jim!" It was Barbara speaking. Jim did not hear. "Jim," said Barbara
again, patient and cold.

"I beg your pardon!" Jim said with swift contrition. His glance flashed
to Barbara for a second, flashed back to Sally. "Now, you throw
that--you throw that," said he to the latter young woman, in reference
to a glass of water with which she was carelessly toying, "and you'll be
sorrier than you ever were in your life!"

"Sally, what are you thinking of!" her mother said.

"Look out--look out!" Sally said, swinging the glass up and down.
Suddenly she set it back on the table firmly. "You deserve that straight
in your face, Jim, but Mother'd be mad!"

"Well, I should think Mother would!" Mrs. Toland said, in smiling
reproof. "But we interrupted Bab, I think. Bab had something dreadfully
important to say," she added playfully, "to judge from that great big
frown!"

"It wasn't dreadfully important at all," Barbara said, in cold
annoyance.

"Oh, wasn't it? And what was it, dear?"

"It was simply--it was nothing at all," Barbara protested, reddening. "I
was just thinking that we have to have that rehearsal at the clubhouse
this afternoon, and I was wondering if Jim would walk down there with me
now, and see about getting the room ready----"

"Dad's got an eleven-o'clock operation, and I'm going to assist," said
Jim.

"Did you forget that, dear?" Mrs. Toland asked.

"It's of no consequence," said Barbara, her voice suddenly thick with
tears. Her hand trembled as she reached for a muffin.

"Keith, do you want to go down with us to the rehearsal this afternoon?"
said Sally amiably to the little guest.

"Oh, I don't think the whole pack of us ought to go!" Ted protested in
alarm. "You aren't going to let Janey and Con go, are you, Mother?"

"Oh, why not?" Mrs. Toland asked soothingly. Barbara here returned to
the discussion with a tragic: "Mother, they _can't_! It would look
perfectly awful!"

"Well, you don't own the yacht club, you know, Babbie," Ted supplied
sweetly.

"Well," said Barbara, rising, and speaking quickly in a low voice, "of
course the whole family, including Addie and Hee, can troop down there
if they want to, but I think it's too bad that I can't do a thing in
this family without being tagged by a bunch of _kids_!"

The door closed behind her; they could hear her running upstairs.

"Now she'll cry; she's getting to be an awful cry baby," said Janey,
wide eyed, pleasurably excited.

"Doesn't seem very well, does she, Mummie? Not a bit like herself," said
the head of the house, raising mild eyebrows.

"Now, never mind; she's just a little bit tired and excited over this
'Amazon' thing," Mrs. Toland assured him cheerfully, "and she'll have a
little talk with Mother by and by, and be her sweet self again by lunch
time!"

The little episode was promptly blotted out by the rising tide of
laughter and conversation that was usual at breakfast. Miss Toland
presently drifted into the study for some letter writing. Jim took a
deep porch rocker, and carried off the morning papers. Richie, sitting
at his father's left, squared about for one of the eager rambling talks
of which he and his father never tired. The doctor's blue eyes twinkled
over his theories of religion, science, history, poetry, and philosophy.
Richie's lean, colourless face was bright with interest. Ted
volunteered, as she often volunteered of late, to go for the mail, and
sauntered off under a red parasol, and Mrs. Toland slipped from the
table just in time to waylay her oldest son in the hall.

"Not going to catch the 9:40, Ned?" she asked.

"Sure pop I am!" He was sorry to be caught, and she saw it under his
bluff, pleasant manner.

"You couldn't take the 10:20 with Dad and Jim?"

"I've got to meet Reynolds at half-past ten, Mother," the boy said
patiently.

"Reynolds!" she frowned. "Don't like my fine big boy to have friends
like that--" His eyes warned her. "Friends that aren't as fine and dear
and good as he is!" she finished, her hands on his shoulders.

"Reynolds is all right," said Ned, bored, and looking coldly beyond her.

"And you'll be home for dinner, Ned?"

"Sure! Unless the Orpheum should be awfully long. In that case we may
get a bite somewhere."

"Try to be home for dinner," persisted the mother. And, as if to warrant
the claim on his consideration, she added: "I paid the Cutter bill
myself, dear, and Dad will pay Jordan next month. I didn't say anything
about Cutter, but he begged me to make you _feel_ how wrong it is to let
these things run. You have a splendid allowance, Ned," she was almost
apologetic, "and there's no necessity of running over it, dear!"

"Sure. I'm not going to do that again," Ned said gruffly, uncomfortably.

"That's right, dear! And you will--you'll try to be home for dinner?"

"Sure I'll try!" and Ned was gone, down through the roses and through
the green gate.

Mrs. Toland watched him out of sight. Then she trotted off to Hee's
domain. Sally straggled out into the garden, with Janey and Constance
and the small boy following after. There was great distress because the
little girls were all for tennis, and Keith Borroughs frankly admitted
that he hated tennis.

The Tolands' rambling mansion was built upon so sharp a hill that the
garden beds were bulkheaded like terraces, and the paths were steep.
Roses--delicious great white roses and the apricot-coloured San Rafael
rose--climbed everywhere, and hung in fragrant festoons from the low,
scrub-oak trees that were scattered through the garden. Every vista
ended with the blue bay, and the green gate at the garden's foot opened
directly upon a roadway that hung like a shelf above the water.

Sally and the children gathered nasturtiums and cornflowers and ferns
for the house. The place had been woodland only a few years ago, the
earth was rich with rotting leaves, and all sorts of lovely forest
growths fringed the paths. Groups of young oaks and an occasional bay or
madrone tree broke up any suggestion of formal arrangement, and there
were still wild columbine and mission bells in the shady places.

Presently, to the immense satisfaction of her little sisters, Sally
dismissed them for tennis, and carried the music-mad small boy off to
the old nursery, where he could bang away at an old piano to his heart's
content, while she pasted pictures in her camera book, in a sunny
window. Now and then she cast a look full of motherly indulgence at the
little figure at the piano: the pale, earnest little face; the tumbled
black hair, the bony, big, unchildlike hands.

The morning slipped by, and afternoon came, to find Barbara welcoming
the arriving players at the yacht club, and looking her very prettiest
in a gown of striped scarlet and white, and a white hat. Hello,
Matty--Hello, Enid--Hello, Bobby--and did any one see Miss Page? Ah, how
do you do, Miss Page, awfully good of you to make it.

The girls dressed in a square room upstairs, lined with hooks and
mirrors. Julia was not self-conscious, because, while different from the
crisp snowy whiteness of the other girls' linen, it did not occur to her
that her well-worn pink silk underwear, her ornate corset cover, and her
shabby ruffled green silk skirt were anything but adequate.

Carter Hazzard was not in evidence to-day, to Julia's relief. The
rehearsal dragged on and on, everybody thrown out because Miss Dorothy
Chase, the girl who was to play Wilhelmina, failed to appear. Julia took
the part, when it was finally decided to go on without Dorothy, but by
that time it was late, and the weary manager assured them that there
must be another rehearsal that evening. Hilariously the young people
accepted this decree, and Julia was carried home with the Tolands to
dinner.

Good-hearted Mrs. Toland could be nothing less than kind to any young
girl, and Julia's place at table was next to the kindly old doctor, who
only saw an extremely pretty girl, and joked with her, and looked out
for her comfort in true fatherly fashion. Julia carried herself with
great dignity, said very little, being in truth quite overawed and
nervously anxious not to betray herself, and after the first frightened
half-hour she enjoyed the adventure thoroughly.

The evening rehearsal went much better, a final rehearsal was set for
Sunday, and Julia was driven to the ten o'clock boat in the station
omnibus, which smelled of leather and wet straw. She sat yawning in the
empty ferry building, smiling over her recollection of dinner at the
Tolands': the laughter, the quarrels, the joyous confusion of voices.

Suddenly struck by the deserted silence of the waiting-room, Julia
jumped up and went to the ticket office.

"Isn't there a train at 10:03?"

The station agent yawned, eyed her with pleasant indifference.

"No train now until 12:20, lady," said he.

For a moment Julia was staggered. Then she thought of the telephone.

A few minutes later she climbed out of the station omnibus again, this
time to be warmly welcomed into the Tolands' lamp-lighted drawing-room.
Barbara and her mother were still at the yacht club, but the old doctor
himself was eagerly apologetic. Doctor Studdiford, Ned, and Richie added
their cheerful questions and regrets to the hospitable hubbub, and
Sally, who had been at the piano, singing Scotch ballads to her father,
took possession of Julia with heartening and obvious pleasure.

Sally took her upstairs, lighted a small but exquisitely appointed guest
room, found a stiffly embroidered nightgown, a wrapper of dark-blue
Japanese crepe, and a pair of straw slippers. Julia, inwardly trembling
with excitement, was outwardly calm as she got ready for bed; she hung
her clothes in a closet delightfully redolent of pine, and brushed and
braided her splendid hair. Sally whisked about on various errands, and
presently Mrs. Toland bustled in, brimful of horrified apologies and
regrets, and Barbara dawdled after, rolling her belt and starched stock,
generally unhooking and unbuttoning.

Perhaps the haughty Barbara found the round-eyed, golden-haired girl in
a blue wrapper a little more companionable than the dreadful Miss Page,
or perhaps she was a little too lonely to-night to be fastidious in her
choice of a confidante. At all events, she elected to wander in and out
of Julia's room while she undressed, and presently sat on Julia's bed,
and braided her dark hair. And if the whole adventure had excited Julia,
she was doubly excited now, frantic to win Barbara's friendship,
nervously afraid to try.

"You're an actress, Miss Page?" asked Barbara, scowling at her
hairbrush.

"Will be, I guess! I've had dozens of chances to sign up already, but
Mama don't want me to be in any rush."

The other girl eyed her almost enviously.

"I wish I could do something--sometimes," she sighed. And she added,
giving Julia a shamefaced grin, "I've got the blues to-night."

It was from this second that Julia dated her love for Barbara Toland. A
delicious sensation enveloped her--to be in Barbara's confidence--to
know that she was sometimes unhappy, too; to be lying in this fragrant,
snowy bed, in this enchanting room--

"Well," said Barbara presently, jumping up, "you'll want _some_ sleep. If
you hear us rushing about, at the screech of dawn to-morrow, it's
because some of us may go out with Dad in the Crow, if there's a breeze.
Do you like yachting? Would you care to go?"

"I've never been," said Julia.

"Oh, well, then, you ought to!" Barbara said with round eyes. "I'll tell
you--I'll peep in here to-morrow, and if you're awake I'll give you a
call!" she arranged, after a minute's frowning thought.

"I sleep awfully sound!" smiled Julia.

But she was awake when Barbara, true to her plan, peeped in at five
o'clock the next morning, and presently, in a bluejacket's blouse and
brief blue skirt, with a white canvas hat on her head, and a boy's old
gray jersey buttoned loosely about her, followed muffled shapes through
the cold house and into the wet, chilly garden. Richie was going, Sally
had the gallant but shivering Jane and the dark-eyed Keith by the hand,
and Barbara hung on her father's arm.

The waters of the bay were gray and cold; a sharp breeze swept their
steely surfaces into fans of ruffled water. The little Crow rocked at
her anchor, her ropes and brasswork beaded with dew. Julia, sitting in
desperate terror upon a slanting upholstered ledge, felt her teeth
chatter, and wondered why she had come.

Barbara, Sally, Richie, and their father all fell to work, and
presently, a miracle to Julia, the little boat was running toward
Richardson's Bay under a good breeze. Presently glorious sunlight
enveloped them, flashed from a thousand windows on San Francisco hills,
and struck to dazzling whiteness the breasts of the gulls that circled
Sausalito's piers. Everything sparkled and shone: the running blue water
that slapped the Crow's side, the roofs of houses on the hillside, the
green trees that nearly concealed them.

Growing every instant warmer and more content, Julia sat back and let
her whole body and soul soak in the comfort and beauty of the hour. Her
eyes roved sea and sky and encircling hills; she saw the last wisp of
mist rise and vanish from the stern silhouette of Tamalpais, and saw an
early ferryboat cut a wake of exquisite spreading lacework across the
bay. And whenever her glance crossed Sally's, or the doctor's, or
Richie's glance, she smiled like a happy child, and the Tolands smiled
back.

They all rushed into the house, ravenous and happy, for a nine o'clock
breakfast, Julia so lovely, in her borrowed clothing and with her
bright, loosened hair, that the young men of the family began, without
exception, to "show off" for her benefit, as Theodora scornfully
expressed it. And there was bacon and rolls and jam for every one, blue
bowls of cereal, glass pitchers of yellow cream, smoking hot coffee
always ready to run in an amber stream from the spout of the big silver
urn.

"And you must eat at least four waffles," said Ned, "or my father will
never let you come again! He has to drum up trade, you know--"

It was all delightful, not the less so because it was all tinged, for
Julia, with a little current of something exquisitely painful; not envy,
not regret, not resentment, a little of all three. This happy,
care-free, sun-flooded life was not for her, how far, far, far from her,
indeed! She was here only by accident, tolerated gayly for hospitality's
sake, her coming and going only an insignificant episode in their lives.
Wistfully she watched Mrs. Toland tying little Constance's sash and
straightening her flower-crowned hat for church; wistfully eyed the
cheerful, white-clad Chinese cook, grinning as he went to gather
lettuces; wistfully she stared across the brilliant garden from her deep
porch chair. Barbara, in conference with a capped and aproned maid at
the end of a sunny corridor, Sally chatting with Richie, as she
straightened the scattered books on the library table, Ted dashing off a
popular waltz with her head turned carelessly aside to watch the
attentive Keith; all these to Julia were glimpses of a life so free, so
full, so invigorating as to fill her with hopeless longing and
admiration.

All her affectation and arrogance dropped from her before their simple,
joyous naturalness. Julia had no feeling of wishing to impress them, to
assert her own equality. Instead she genuinely wanted them to like her;
she carried herself like the little girl she looked in her sailor
blouse, like the little girl she was.

At twelve o'clock a final rehearsal of "The Amazons" was held at the
yacht club, and to-day Julia entered into her part with zest, her
enthusiasm really carrying the performance, as the appreciative "Matty"
assured her. She had the misfortune to step on a ruffle of her borrowed
white petticoat, at the very close of the last act, and slipped into the
dressing-room to pin it up as soon as the curtain descended.

The dressing-room was deserted. Julia found a paper of pins, and,
putting her foot up on a chair, began to repair the damage as well as
she could. The day was warm, and only wooden shutters screened the big
window that gave on one of the club's wide porches. Julia, humming
contentedly to herself, presently became aware that there were chairs
just outside the window, and girls in the chairs--Barbara Toland and
Ted, and Miss Grinell and Miss Hazzard, and one or two Julia did not
know.

"Yes, Mother's a darling," Barbara was saying. "You know she didn't get
this up, Margaret; she had _nothing_ to do with it, and yet she's
practically carrying the whole responsibility now! She'll be as nervous
as we are to-morrow night!"

Julia pinned on serenely. It was in no code of hers to move out of
hearing.

"The only thing she really bucked at was when she found Miss Page at our
house last night," Ted said. "Mother's no snob--but I wish you could
have seen her face!"

"Was she perfectly awful, Ted?" somebody asked.

"Who, Miss Page? No-o, she wasn't perfectly awful--yes, she was pretty
bad," Theodora admitted. "Wasn't she, Babbie?"

"Oh, well"--Barbara hesitated--"she's--of course she's terribly common.
Just the second-rate actress type, don't you know?"

"Did she call your Mother 'ma'am'?" giggled Enid Hazzard. "Do you
remember when she said 'Yes, ma'am?' And did she say 'eyether,' and
'between you and I' again?" Something was added to this, but Julia did
not catch it. The girls laughed again.

"Listen," said Ted, "this is the richest yet! Last night Sally said to
her, 'Breakfast's at nine, Miss Page; how do you like your bath?' and
she looked at Sally sort of surprised and said, '_I_ don't want a
bath!'"

"Oh, I don't think that's fair, Teddy," Barbara protested; "she's never
had any advantages; it's a class difference, that's all. She's simply
not a lady; she never will be. You'd be the same in her place."

"Oh, I would not! I wouldn't mark my eyebrows and I wouldn't wear such
dirty clothes, and I wouldn't try to look twenty-five--" Ted began.

Again there was a quick commentary that Julia missed, and another laugh.
Then Barbara said:

"Poor kid! And she looked so sweet in some of Sally's things."

Julia, still bent over her ruffle, did not move a muscle from the
instant she first heard her name until now, when the girls dismissed the
subject with a laugh. She felt as if the house were falling about her,
as if every word were a smashing blow at her very soul. She felt sick
and dizzy, cold and suddenly weak.

She walked across the room to the door, and stood there with her hand on
the knob, and said in a whisper: "Now, what shall I do? What shall I
do?"

At first she thought she would hide, then that she would run away. Then
she knew what she must do: she opened the dressing-room door, and walked
unchallenged through the big auditorium. Groups of chattering people
were scattered about it; somebody was banging the piano; nobody paid the
least attention to Julia as she went down the stairs, and started to
walk to the Toland house.

She was not thinking now. She only wanted to get away.

Nobody stopped her. The house was deserted. A maid put her head in
Julia's door, and finding Julia dressing immediately apologized.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Page! I thought--"

"That's all right," said Julia quietly. She was very pale. "Will you
tell Mrs. Toland that I had to take the two o'clock boat?"

"Yes'm. You won't be here for dinner?"

"No," said Julia, straining to make a belt meet.

"Could I bring you a cup of tea or a sandwich?"

"Oh, no, thank you!"

The maid was gone. Julia went down through the house quietly, a few
moments later. Her breath came quick and short until she was fairly on
the boat, with Sausalito slipping farther and farther into the
background. Even then her mind was awhirl, and fatigue and perhaps
hunger, too, made it impossible to think seriously. Far easier to lean
back lazily in the sun, and watch the water slip by, and make no attempt
to control the confused, chaotic thoughts that wheeled dreamily through
her brain. Now and then memory brought her to a sudden upright position,
brought the hot colour to her face.

"I don't care!" Julia would say then, half aloud. "They're nothing to me
and I'm nothing to them; and good riddance!"

May--but it was like a midsummer afternoon in San Francisco. A hot wind
blew across the ferry place; papers and chaff swept before it. Julia's
skirt was whisked about her knees, her hat was twisted viciously about
on her head. She caught a reflection of herself in a car window,
dishevelled, her hat at an ugly angle, her nose reddened by the wind.

Mrs. Tarbury's house, when she got to it, presented its usual Sunday
afternoon appearance. The window curtains were up at all angles in the
dining-room, hot sunshine streamed through the fly-specked panes, the
draught from the open door drove a wild whirl of newspapers over the
room. Cigarette smoke hung heavy upon the air.

Julia peeped into the dark kitchen; the midday meal was over, and a
Japanese boy was hopelessly and patiently attacking scattered heaps of
dishes and glassware. The girl was hungry, but the cooling wreck of a
leg of mutton and the cold vegetables swimming in water did not appeal
to her, and she went slowly upstairs, helping herself in passing to no
more substantial luncheon than two soda crackers and a large green
pickle.

Mrs. Tarbury, dressed in a loose kimono, with her bare feet thrust into
well-worn Juliet slippers, was lying across her bed, in the pleasant
leisure of Sunday afternoon, a Dramatic Supplement held in one fat
ringed hand, her head supported by her pillows in soiled muslin cases,
and several satin and velvet cushions from a couch. In the room also
were Connie Girard and Rose Ransome, who had a bowl of soapsuds and
several scissors and orange-wood sticks on the table between them, and
were manicuring each other very fastidiously. A third actress, a young
Englishwoman with a worn, hard face, rouged cheeks, and glittering eyes,
was calling, with her little son, upon Mrs. Tarbury.

"Hello, darling!" said the lady of the house herself, as Julia came in.
The girls gave her an affectionate welcome, and Julia was introduced to
the stranger.

"Mrs. Cloke is my real name," said the Englishwoman briskly. "But you'd
know me better as Alice Le Grange, I daresay. You'll have heard of my
little sketches--the Mirror gave Mr. Cloke and I a whole page when first
we came to this country, and we had elegant bookings--elegant. I'd my
little flat in New York all furnished, and," she said to Mrs. Tarbury,
"I was used to _everything_--the managers at home all knew me, and all,
you know--" She laughed with some bitterness. "It does seem funny to be
out here doing this," she added. "But there was the kiddy to
consider--and, as I told you, there was trouble!"

"Parties who used their influence to get 'em out!" said Miss Girard
darkly, in explanation, with a glance at Julia. "Favouritism--"

"And jealousy," added Alice Le Grange.

Julia was sympathetic, but not deeply impressed. She had heard this
story in many forms before. She attracted the attention of little Eric
Cloke, and showed him the pictures of the Katzenjammer Kids and Foxy
Grandpa in the newspaper. Later she accompanied Rose and Connie to their
room, put on loose clothing, and lay on her bed watching them dress.

The girls were to dine together, with two admirers, and urged Julia to
ask a third man, and come, too. Julia refused steadily; she was very
quiet and the others thought her tired.

She lay on her side, one hand falling idle over the edge of the bed, her
serious, magnificent eyes moving idly from Connie's face to Rose's, and
roving over the room. Hot sunlight poured through the dirty windows and
the torn curtains of Nottingham lace, and flamed on the ugly wallpaper
and the flawed mirrors. A thousand useless knickknacks made the room
hideous; every possible surface was strewn with garments large and
small, each bureau was a confusion of pins and brushes, paste and powder
boxes, silk stockings and dirty white gloves, cologne bottles and
powdered circles of discoloured chamois, hair kids and curls of false
hair, handkerchiefs and hat pins, cheap imitations of jewellery, cheap
bits of lace, sidecombs, veils and belts and collars, and a hundred
other things, all wound up in an indistinguishable mass. From these
somewhat sodden heaps Connie and Rose cheerfully selected what they
needed, leaning over constantly to inspect their faces closely in the
mirrors.

Julia watched them with a sudden, new, and almost terrifying distaste
growing in her heart. How dirty and shiftless and common--yes,
common--these girls were! Julia felt sick with the force of the
revelation. She saw Connie lace her shabby pink-brocade corset together
with a black shoestring; she saw Rose close with white thread a great
hole in the heel of a black silk stocking. Their crimped hair nauseated
her, their rouge and powder and cologne. She could hardly listen in
patience to their careless and sometimes coarse chatter.

And when they were gone she still lay there, thinking--thinking--
thinking! The sunlight crept lower and lower over the room's disorder;
its last bright triangle was gone, twilight came, and the soft early
darkness.

Mrs. Tarbury presently called Julia, in mellifluous accents, and the
girl pulled herself stiffly from the bed, and went blinking down to an
improvised supper. They two were alone in the big house, and fell into
intimate conversation over their sardines and coffee and jam, discussing
the characters of every person in the house with much attention to
trivial detail. At nine o'clock some friends came in to see Mrs.
Tarbury, and Julia went upstairs again.

She lighted the bedroom, and began idly to fold and straighten the
clothes that were strewn about everywhere. But she very speedily gave up
the task: there were no closets to hang things in, and many things were
too torn or dirty to be hung up, anyway! Julia went down one flight of
stairs to the nearest bathroom, in search of hot water, but both faucets
ran cold, and she went upstairs again. She hunted through Connie's
bureau and Rose's for a fresh nightgown, but not finding one, had to put
on the limp and torn garment one of the girls had loaned her a week or
two before.

Now she sat down on the edge of her bed, vaguely discouraged. Tears came
to her eyes, she did not quite know why. She opened a novel, and
composed herself to read, but could not become interested, and finally
pushed up the window the two inches that the girls approved, turned out
the lights, and jumped into bed. She would want her beauty sleep for
"The Amazons" to-morrow night. Julia had been fully determined, when she
got home, to abandon the amateur company, to fail them at the very hour
of their performance, but a casual word from Connie had caused her to
change her mind.

"Don't you be a fool and get in Dutch with Artheris!" Connie had said,
and upon sober reflection Julia had found the advice good.

But she got no beauty sleep that night. She lay hour after hour wakeful
and wretched, the jumbled memories of the last twenty-four hours
slipping through her mind in ceaseless review: the green, swift-rushing
water, with gulls flying over it; the coffee pot reflecting a dozen
joyous young faces; the garden bright with roses--

And then, with sickening regularity, the clubhouse and the girls'
voices--

How she hated them all, Julia said to herself, raising herself on one
elbow to punch her sodden pillow, and sending a hot, restless glance
toward the streak of bright light that forced its way in from a street
lamp. How selfish, how smug, how arrogant they were, with their daily
baths, and their chests full of fresh linen, and their assured speech!
What had Sally and Theodora Toland ever done to warrant their
insufferable conceit? Why should they have lovely parents and an ideal
home, frocks and maids and delightful meals, while she, Julia, was born
to the dirt and sordidness of O'Farrell Street?

Barbara--but no, she couldn't hate Barbara! The memory of that moment of
confidence last night still thrilled Julia to her heart's core. Barbara
had been kind to her in the matter of Carter Hazzard, had defended her
to-day, in her careless, indifferent fashion. Julia's heart ached with
fierce envy of Barbara, ached with fierce longing and admiration. She
tortured herself with a picture of the charm of Barbara's life: her
waking in the sunshine, her breakfast eaten between the old doctor and
the young, her hours at her pretty writing-desk, on the porch, at the
piano. Always dignified, always sweet and dainty, always adored.

Well, she, Julia, should be an actress, a great actress. But even as she
flung herself on her back and stared sternly up at the ceiling,
resolving it, her heart failed her. It was a long road. Julia was
fifteen; she must count upon ten or fifteen years at least of slavery in
stock companies, of weeks spent in rushing from one cheap hotel to
another, of associating with just such women as Connie and Rose. No one
that she knew, in the profession, had bureaus full of ruffled fresh
linen, had a sunshiny breakfast table with flowers on it--

Julia twisted about on her arm and began to cry. She cried for a long
time.

True, she could marry Mark, and Mark would be rich some day. But would
Barbara Toland Studdiford--for Julia had married them as a matter of
course--ever stoop to notice Julia Rosenthal? No, she wouldn't marry
Mark.

Then there was her mother's home, over the saloon. Julia finally went to
sleep planning, in cold-blooded childish fashion, that if her father
died, and left her mother a really substantial sum of money, she would
persuade Emeline to take a clean, bright little flat somewhere, and
leave this neighbourhood forever.

"And we could keep a few boarders," thought Julia drowsily, "and I will
learn to cook, and have nice little ginghams, like Janey's--"

The amateur performance of "The Amazons" duly took place on the
following night, with a large and fashionable audience packing the old
Grand Opera House, and society reporters flitting from box to box
between the acts. Julia found the experience curiously flat. She had no
opportunity to deliver to Barbara a withering little speech she had
prepared, and received no attention from any one. The performers were
excited and nervous, each frankly bent upon scoring a personal and
exclusive success, and immediately after the last act they swarmed out
to greet friends in the house, and Babel ensued.

Walking soberly home with Mark at half-past eleven, with her cheque in
her purse, Julia decided bitterly that she washed her hands of them all;
she was done with San Francisco's smart set, she would never give
another thought to a single one of them.




CHAPTER V

Days of very serious thinking followed this experience. The face of the
world was changed. Much that had been unnoticed, or taken for granted,
became insufferable to Julia now. She winced at Connie's stories, she
looked with a coldly critical eye at Mrs. Tarbury's gray hair showing
through a yellow "front"; the sights and sounds of the boarding-house
sickened her. She was accustomed to helping Mrs. Tarbury with the
housework, not in any sense as payment for her board--for never was
hospitality more generously extended--but merely because she was there,
and idle, and energetic; but she found this a real hardship now. The
hot, close bedrooms, odorous of perfume and cigarette smoke, the grayish
sheets and thin blankets were odious to her; she longed to set fire to
the whole, and start afresh, with clean new furnishings.

Presently Connie asked her if she would care to talk to a manager about
going on an "eleven weeks' circuit," as assistant to a sleight-of-hand
performer.

"Twenty a week," said Connie, "and a whole week in Sacramento and
another in Los Angeles. All you have to do is wear a little suit like a
page, and hand him things. Rose says he looks like an old devil--I
haven't seen him, but you can sit on him easy enough. And the Nevilles
are making the same trip, and she's a real nice woman. Not much, Ju, but
it's a start, and I think we could land it for you."

"Yes, I know," Julia said vaguely.

"Well, wake up!" said Connie briskly. "Do you want it?"

"I'd rather wait until Mama gets here," the younger girl decided
uncomfortably. And that afternoon, in vague hope of news of her mother,
she took a Mission Street car and went out to call on her grandmother.

As usual, old Mrs. Cox's cheap little house reeked of soapsuds and
carbolic acid. Julia, admitted after she had twisted the little gong set
in the panels of the street door, kissed her grandmother in a stifling
dark hall. Mrs. Cox was glad of company, she limped ahead into her
little kitchen, chattering eagerly of her rheumatism and of family
matters. She told Julia that May's children, Evelyn and Marguerite, were
with her, Marguerite holding a position as dipper in a nearby candy
factory, and Evelyn checking in an immense steam laundry.

"How many children _has_ Aunt May now?" Julia asked, sighing.

"She's got too many!" Mrs. Cox said sharply. "A feller like Ed, who
never keeps a position two weeks running, has got no business to raise
such a family! For a while May had two of the boys in a home--"

"Oh, really!" said Julia, distressed.

"Lloyd and Elmer--yes, but they're home again now," the old woman
pursued. "May felt dreadful when they went, but I guess she wasn't so
awfully glad to get them back. Boys make a lot of work."

"Elmer and Lloyd, and then there was Muriel, and another baby?" Julia
asked.

"Muriel and Geraldine, and then the baby, Regina."

"Has Aunt May seven children?" Julia asked, awed.

Mrs. Cox delayed the brewing of a pot of tea while she counted them with
a bony knotted hand. Then she nodded. Julia digested the fact in
frowning silence.

"Grandma," said she presently, "did you ever have enough money?"

Mrs. Cox, now drinking her tea from a saucer, smiled toothlessly.

"Oh, sure," said she, with a cackle of laughter, "Why, there's nobody
knows it, but I'm rich!" But immediately the sorry joke lost flavour.
The old woman sighed, and into her wrinkled face and filmed eyes there
came her usual look of patient and unintelligent endurance. "I've never
yet had a dollar that didn't have to do two dollars' work," said she,
suddenly, in a mighty voice, staring across the kitchen, and lifting one
hand as if she were taking an oath. "I've never laid down at night when
I wasn't so tired my back was splitting. I've never had no thanks and no
ease--the sixty years of my life! There's some people meant to be rich,
Julia, and some that'll be poor the longest day of their lives, and
that's all there is to it!"

"I know--but it don't seem fair," Julia mused. She presently went on an
errand for her grandmother, and came back with sausages and fresh pulpy
bread and large spongy crullers from the grocery. By this time the windy
summer twilight was closing in, and the homegoing labourers and factory
hands were filing home through the dirty streets. Julia found her two
cousins in the lamp-lighted kitchen, Evelyn rather heavy and coarse
looking, Marguerite reedy and thin, both wearing an unwholesome pallor.
They made a little event of her coming, and the three girls chatted
gayly enough throughout the meal, which was eaten at the kitchen table
and washed down with strong tea.

Julia's grandfather, a gnarled old man in a labourer's rough clothes,
who reeked of whiskey, mumbled his meal in silence, and afterward went
into the room known as the parlour, snarling as he went that some one
must come in and light his lamp. Julia went in with Evelyn to the rather
pitiful room: a red rug was on the floor, and there were two chairs and
a cheap little table, besides the big chair in which the old man settled
himself.

"Ain't he going out, Grandma?" said Evelyn, returning to the kitchen,
and exchanging a rueful look with Marguerite.

"Well, I thought he was!" Mrs. Cox made a pilgrimage to the parlour
door, and returned confident. "He'll go out!" she said reassuringly.

"Comp'ny coming?" Julia asked smilingly. The other girls giggled and
looked at each other.

"Well, why couldn't Grandpa sit in the kitchen?" the girl asked.
"There's a better light out here!"

"Catch him doing anything decent," Evelyn said, and Marguerite added:
"And, Ju, he'll sit there sometimes just to be mean, and he'll take his
shoes off, and put his socks up----"

"And nights he knows we want the parlour he'll stay in on purpose,"
Evelyn supplemented eagerly.

"I wouldn't _stand_ for it," Julia asserted.

"Pa's awfully cranky," Mrs. Cox said resignedly. "He's always been that
way! You cook him corn beef--that's the night he wanted pork chops;
sometimes he'll snap your head off if you speak, and others he'll ask
you why you sit around like a mute and don't talk. Sometimes, if you ask
him for money, he'll put his hand in his pocket real willing, and other
times for weeks he won't give you a cent!"

"I wouldn't put up with it," said Julia again. "What does he _do_ with his
money?"

"Oh, he treats the boys, and sometimes, when he's drunk, they'll borrow
it off him," said his wife. "Pa's always open-handed with the boys!"

Evelyn, who had washed her coarse, handsome face at the kitchen sink,
began now to arrange her hair with a small comb that had been wedged
into the sinkboard. Marguerite, having completed similar operations,
offered to walk with Julia to the Mission Street car.

"The worst of Grandpa is this," said Marguerite, on the way, and Julia
glancing sideways under a street lamp surprised an earnest and most
winning expression on her cousin's plain, pale face, "he don't give
Grandma any money, d'you see?--and that means that Ev and I have to give
her pretty much what we get, and so we can't help Mamma, and that makes
me awfully blue."

"But--but Uncle Ed's working, Rita?"

"Pop works when he can, Ju. Work isn't ever very steady in his line, you
know. But he don't drink any more, Mamma says, only--there's five
children younger'n we are, you know--"

"Sure," said Julia, heavy oppressed. But Marguerite was cheered at this
point by encountering two pimply and embarrassed youths, and Julia,
climbing a moment later into a Mission Street car, looked back to see
her cousin walking off between the two masculine forms, and heard their
loud laughter ring upon the night.

About ten days later, unannounced, Emeline came home, and with her came
a stout, red-faced, grayhaired man, in whom Julia was aghast to find her
father. They reached Mrs. Tarbury's at about four o'clock in the
afternoon, and Julia, coming in from a call on a theatrical manager,
found them in the dining-room. George had been very ill, and moved
ponderously and slowly. He looked far older than Julia's memory of him.
There were sagging red pockets under his eyes, and his heavy jowls were
darkened with a day's growth of gray stubble. He and Emeline had had a
complete reconciliation, and entertained Mrs. Tarbury with the history
of their remarriage and an outline of their plans.

George took a heavy, sportive interest in his pretty girl, but Julia
could not realize their relationship sufficiently to permit of any
liberties. She smiled an uneasy, perfunctory smile when George kissed
her, and moved away from the arm he would have kept about her.

"Don't liked to be kissed?" asked George.

"Oh, I don't mind," said Julia, in a lifeless voice, and with averted
eyes. "Did you go to the flat, Mama?" she asked, clearing her throat.

"I did," Emeline answered, biting a loose thread from a finger of her
dirty white gloves. "I got Toomey's rent, and told them that we might
want the room on the first."

"Going to give up the flat?" Julia asked, in surprise.

"Well"--Emeline glanced at her husband--"it's this way, Ju," said she:
"Papa can't stand the city, sick as he is now--"

George coughed loosely in confirmation of this, and shook his head.

"And Papa's got a half interest in a little fruit ranch down in Santa
Clara Valley," Emeline pursued. "So I'm going to take him down there for
a little while, and nurse him back to real good health."

"My God, Em, you'll die!" Mrs. Tarbury said frankly. "Why'n't you go
somewhere where there's something doing?"

"My sporting days are over, Min," George said with mournful
satisfaction. "No more midnight suppers in mine!"

"Nor mine, either. I guess I'm old enough to settle down," Emeline added
cheerfully. She and Mrs. Tarbury exchanged a look, and Julia knew
exactly what concessions her mother had made before the reconciliation;
knew just how sincere this unworldly wifely devotion was.

"Doc says I am to have fresh air, and light, nourishing foods, and quiet
nights," George explained, gravely important.

"And what about Julie?" asked Mrs. Tarbury.

"Well, we thought we'd leave Julie here, Min," Emeline began
comfortably, "until we see if it works. Then in, say, a month--"

"Mama, you can't!" Julia interrupted, cheeks hot with shame. "Aunt Min's
got to rent that room--"

"You see how it is, Em," the lady of the house explained regretfully:
"Connie's gone off on the road now, and Rose Ransome's gone to Virginia
City, and there's a party and wife that'll give me twenty a month for
the room. And as it happens I'm full up now, Em--"

"Well, of course we'll pay--" George was beginning, somewhat haughtily,
but Emeline, who had grown rather red, interrupted:

"It don't make the slightest difference," she said, with spirit. "I
guess I'm the last woman in the world to want my child to stay where she
isn't welcome!"

"It ain't that at all, Em," Mrs. Tarbury threw in pacifically, but
Emeline was well launched now.

"If it hadn't been that George was all but passing away with kidney
trouble," Emeline said, her voice rising, "I never would of let such an
arrangement go on for five minutes! But there was days when we never
knew from hour to hour that George wasn't dying, and what with having
him moved and that woman holding up his clothes, and telling the doctor
lies about me, I guess I had troubles enough without worrying about
Julie. But I want to tell you right now, Min," said Emeline, with kindly
superiority, "that this isn't the kind of a house I'm crazy about having
my daughter in, anyway. It ain't you, so much--"

"Ha! that's good!" Mrs. Tarbury interpolated, with a sardonic laugh.

"But you know very well that such girls as Rosie and Con--" Emeline
rushed on.

"Oh, my God, Em!" Mrs. Tarbury began in a low voice rich with feeling,
but Julia took a hand.

"Don't be such a fool, Aunt Min!" she said, going over to sit on an arm
of Mrs. Tarbury's chair, and putting a caressing arm about her
shoulders. "And cut it out, Mama! Aunt Min's been kinder to me than any
one else, and you know it--and I've felt pretty darn mean living here
day after day! And now I say if Aunt Min has a chance to rent her
room--"

"God knows you're welcome to that room as long as you'll stay, Julie,"
Mrs. Tarbury said tremulously; "it's only--"

"If every one was as good to me as you are, Aunt Min!" Julia said,
beginning to cry. Mrs. Tarbury burst into sobs, and they clung together.

"I never meant that you wasn't awfully good to her, Min," Emeline said
stiffly. Then her eyes watered, and she, too, began to cry, and groped
for her handkerchief. "I'm just worn out with worrying and taking care
of George, I guess," sobbed Emeline, laying her head on the arm she
flung across a nearby table.

"Don't cry, Mama!" Julia gulped, leaving Mrs. Tarbury's lap to come and
pat her mother's shoulder. Emeline convulsively seized her, and their
wet cheeks touched.

"If any one ever says that I don't appreciate what you've done for me
and mine," choked Emeline, "it's a lie!"

"Well, it didn't _sound_ like you, Em," Mrs. Tarbury said, drying eyes
between sniffs.

Emeline immediately went over and kissed her, and all three laughed
shakily over a complete reconciliation, which was pleasingly interrupted
by George's gallant offer to take the whole crowd to dinner, if they
didn't mind his eating only tea and toast.

Still, it was decided that Julia should not stay at Mrs. Tarbury's, but
should spend the next week or two with her grandmother in the Mission.
Julia's quiet acceptance of this arrangement was both unexpected and
pleasing to her parents.

But as a matter of fact the girl was rather dazed, at this time, too
deeply sunk in a miserable contemplation of her own affairs to be
conscious of the immediate discomfort of the moment. She had dreamed
many a happy dream, as the years went by, of her father: had thought he
would claim her some day, be proud of her. She had fancied a little home
circle of which she would be the centre and star, spoiled alike by
father and mother. Dearer than any dream of a lover had been to Julia
this hope for days to come, when she should be a successful young
actress, with an adoring Daddy to be proud of her. Now the dream was
clouded; her father was an old man, self-absorbed; her mother--but Julia
had always known her mother to be both selfish and mercenary. More than
this, her little visit in Sausalito had altered her whole viewpoint.
Ignorant of life as she was, and bewildered by the revelations of that
visit, she was still intelligent enough to feel an acute discontent with
her old world, an agonizing longing for that better and cleaner and
higher existence. How to grasp at anything different from life as it was
lived in her mother's home--in her grandmother's, in Mrs.
Tarbury's--Julia had not the most remote idea. Until a few months ago
she had not known that she wanted anything different.

She brooded over the problem night and day; sometimes her hours of
gloomy introspection were interrupted by bursts of rebellious fury. She
would _not_ bear it, she would _not_ be despised and obscure and ignorant,
when, so close to her, there were girls of her own age to whom Fate had
been utterly kind; it was not her fault, and it was not _right_--it was
not right to despise her for what she could not help! But usually her
attitude was of passive if confused endurance.

Julia pored over the society columns of the Sunday papers, in these
days, and when she came across the name of Barbara Toland or Enid
Hazzard, it was as if a blow had been struck at her heart. Barbara's
face, smiling out at her from a copy of the News Letter, made Julia
wretched for a whole day, and the mere sight of the magazine that
contained it was obnoxious to her for days to come. Walking with Mark,
she saw in some Kearney Street window an enlarged photograph of a little
yacht cutting against a stiff breeze, and felt a rush of unwelcome
memories suddenly assail her.

Mark was very much the devoted lover just now, but the contemplation of
marriage with Mark never for a moment entered Julia's head. She had
really liked him much better when he was only Hannah's big brother, who
ignored all small girls in kindly, big-boy fashion. His adoring devotion
embarrassed her, and his demand for a definite answer to his suggestion
of marriage worried and perhaps a little frightened her.

One summer Sunday Mark asked her to go to the Park with him, and the two
made the trip on a Geary Street dummy front, and wandered through wide,
sunny stretches of lawn and white roadway to the amphitheatre, where
several thousand persons of all ages and conditions were already
listening to the band. Benches were set in rows under a grove of young
maple and locust trees, and Julia and Mark, sauntering well up to the
front, found seats, and settled themselves to listen.

Julia, enjoying the sunshine and the good hour, looked lazily at the
curiously variegated types about them: young men who lay almost
horizontally in their seats, their eyes shut, newspapers blowing about
their feet; toddling babies in Sunday white; young fathers and mothers
with tiny coats laid across their laps; groups of middle-aged Teutons
critically alert, and, everywhere, lovers and lovers and lovers. Mark
was pleasantly aware that his companion's beauty made her conspicuous,
even though Julia was plainly, almost soberly, dressed to-day, and
showed none of her usual sparkle and flash. She wore a trim little gown
of blue serge, with a tiny white ruffle about its high collar for its
only relief, her gloves were black, her small hat black, and she wore no
rings, no chains, and no bangles, a startling innovation for Julia. The
change in her appearance, and some more subtle change in face and voice
and manner, affected Mark like a strong wine.

"Do you know you're different from what you uster be, Julie?" he said,
laying his arm about her shoulders, on the back of the bench, and
squaring about so that his handsome black eyes could devour her.

"Getting older, maybe," Julia smiled indifferently. "I'll be sixteen in
no time, now!"

"My mother was only fifteen when she was married," Mark said, in a deep
and shaken voice, yet with pride and laughter in his eyes. Julia flushed
and looked at the toe of her shoe.

"Well, what about it--eh?" Mark pursued in an eager undertone. Julia was
silent. "What about it?" he said again.

"Why--why, I don't know," Julia stammered, uncomfortably, with a nervous
and furtive glance about her; anywhere but at his face.

"Suppose I _do_ know?" he urged, tightening a little the arm that layabout
her. "Suppose I know for us both?"

Julia straightened herself suddenly, evading the encircling arm.

"Don't, Mark!" she pleaded, giving him a glimpse of wet blue eyes.

"I'm not teasing you, darling," he said tenderly. "I'm not going to
tease you! But you do love me, Julia?"

A silence, but she tightened the hold of the little glove that rested on
his free hand.

"Don't you, Julie?" he begged.

"Why--you know I do, Mark!" the girl said, and both began to laugh.

"But then what's the matter?" Mark asked, serious again.

"Well--" Julia looked all about her, and finally brought her troubled
eyes to rest on his.

"Well, what, you darling?"

"Well, it's just this, Mark. I don't know whether I can get it over to
you." The girl interrupted herself for a little puzzled laugh. "I don't
know that I can get it over to myself," she said. "But it's this: I feel
as if I didn't know _myself_ yet, d'ye see? I don't know what I want,
myself, and of course I don't know what I want my husband to be
like--d'ye see, Mark? I--I feel as if I didn't know _anything_--I don't
know what's good and what's just common. I haven't read books, I haven't
had any one to tell me things, and show me things!" She turned to him
eyes that he was amazed to see were brimming again. "My mother never
told me about things," she burst out incoherently, "about how to talk,
and taking baths--and not using cologne!"

Mark could not quite follow this argument, but he was quick with
soothing generalities.

"Aw, pshaw, Julie, as if you aren't about as good as they make 'em, just
as you are! Why, I'm crazy about you--I'm crazy about the way you look
and about the way you act; you're good enough for _me_! Julie," his voice
sank again, "Julie, won't you let me pick out a little flat somewheres?
Pomeroy said I could have any one of the old squares for nothing; we
could get some rugs and chairs from the People's Easy Payment Company.
Just you and me, Julie; what do you think?"

"I-I'd like to have a cute little house," said Julia, with a shaky
smile.

"Sure you would! And a garden--"

"Oh, I'd love a little garden!" The girl smiled again.

"Well, then, why not, Julia?"

She looked at him obliquely.

"Suppose I stopped loving you, Mark?"

Mark gave a great laugh.

"Once I have you, Ju, I'll risk it!"

Child that she was, a glimpse of that complete possession stained her
cheeks crimson.

"I have to go down to Mama in Santa Clara next week," she submitted
awkwardly.

"Well, go down. But--how about New Year's, Julie? Will you marry me
then?"

Julia got up, and they walked away across the soft green of the grass.

"I don't honestly know what I want to do, Mark," she said a little
drearily. "I'm not crazy to go to Santa Clara, and yet it's something
awful--living at my grandmother's house! I'd like to kill my
grandfather, I know that. He's the meanest old man I ever saw. I suppose
I could keep at Artheris for an engagement--he's awfully decent--but now
that Rose and Connie have gone, I have to go round alone, and--it isn't
that I'm afraid of anything, but I simply don't seem to care any more! I
don't believe I want to be an actress. Artheris offered me small parts
with the Sacramento Star Stock, playing fourteen weeks and twenty plays,
this winter, but I thought of getting up there, and having to hunt up a
boarding-house--" Her voice sank indifferently. "I don't believe I'd
take anything less than ingenue," she added presently. "Florence Pitt
played ingenue in stock when she was only fifteen!"

"You could work up, Ju," Mark suggested, honestly anxious to console.

"Yes, the way Connie and Rose have!" the girl answered dryly. "Con's
been in the business six years and Rose nine!" Her eyes travelled the
blue spaces of the summer sky. "I wish I could go to New York," she said
vaguely.

"They say New York is jam-packed with girls hanging round theatrical
agencies," Mark submitted, to which Julia answered with a dispirited, "I
know!"

George had promised to send five dollars each week to old Mrs. Cox for
Julia's board, so that her stay in the Mission Street house was
agreeable for more than one reason, and her cousins understood perfectly
that Julia was to remain idle while they continued to be
self-supporting. They had no room in their crowded lives for envy of the
prettier and more fortunate Julia, but Julia vaguely envied them, seeing
them start off for work every morning, and joined by other girls and
young men as they reached the corner. Evelyn and Marguerite had each an
admirer, and between the romance of their evenings and the thousand
little episodes of the factory day, they seemed to find life cheerful
enough.

Julia tried, early in her stay, to make the room she shared with her
cousins, and her grandmother's kitchen, a little more attractive. But
the material to her hand was not very easily improved. In the bare
bedroom there was an iron bed, large enough to be fairly comfortable for
three tenants, two chairs, a washstand, and a chest of drawers that
would not stand straight. The paper was light, and streaked with dirt
and mould, and the bare wooden floor was strewn with paper candy bags
and crumpled programs from cheap theatres. There were no curtains at the
two windows, and the blue-green roller shades were faded by the sun. Not
a promising field for a reformer whose ideal was formed on a memory of
the Tolands' guest room!

The kitchen was quite as bad; worse in the sense that while Julia might
do as she pleased in the bedroom, her grandmother resented any
interference in what old Mrs. Cox regarded as her own domain. The old
woman found nothing amiss in the dirty newspapers that covered the
table, the tin of melting grease on the stove, the odds and ends of rags
and rope and clothespins and stockings that littered the chairs and
floor, the flies that walked on the ceiling and buzzed over the sugar
bowl. Julia quite enraged her on that morning that she essayed to clean
a certain wide shelf that, crowded to its last inch, hung over the sink.

"Do you need this, Grandma--can I throw this away?" the girl said over
and over, displaying a nearly empty box of blacking, a moist bag tightly
rolled over perhaps a pound of sugar, a broken egg beater, a stopped
alarm clock, a bottle of toothache drops, a dog's old collar, a cracked
saucer with a cake of brown soap tightly adhering to it, a few dried
onions, a broken comb, the two halves of a broken vase, and a score of
similarly assorted small articles.

"Jest don't meddle with 'em, Julia," Mrs. Cox said over and over again
uneasily. "I'm going to give all that a thorough cleaning when I get
around to it!"

She was obviously relieved when Julia gave the whole thing up as a bad
job, and went back to her aimless wandering about the house. Mrs. Cox
never went out except to church, but now and then Julia went down to
Mrs. Tarbury's and vaguely discussed the advisability of taking a
theatrical engagement, exactly as if several very definite offers were
under consideration.

Just at this time Julia's youngest uncle, Chester Cox, wrote his mother
from the big prison at San Quentin that he was coming home. The letter,
pencilled on two sheets of lined, grayish paper, caused a good deal of
discussion between Mrs. Cox, her husband, and her granddaughters.
Chester, now about thirty years old, had been pardoned because of late
evidence in his favour, when a five-year term for burglary was but one
quarter served, but in his old father's eyes a jailbird was a jailbird,
and Chester was still in some mysterious way to blame. Mrs. Cox was only
concerned because the boy was ill and out of a job and apt to prove a
burden, but the three girls, frankly curious about him, nevertheless
reserved judgment. He had always been an idler, he had always been a
weakling, but if he really were accused falsely, they could champion him
still.

The day he had set for his return was a Sunday, but he arrived
unexpectedly on the Saturday afternoon, to find great trouble in the
Mission Street house. Evelyn and Marguerite were free for the afternoon,
and were in the kitchen with Julia and their grandmother. It had lately
come to Evelyn's ears that her grandfather had been borrowing money on
the little property, and old Mrs. Cox was beside herself with anger and
fear. The house was her one hope against a destitute old age. She fairly
writhed at the contemplation of her husband's treachery in undermining
that one stay. While she was slaving and struggling, he had airily
disposed of three hundred dollars. She was stifled by the thought.

"He'd ought to be sent to jail for it!" the old woman said bitterly.

"You can't do it," Evelyn, the bearer of the badnews, assured her
impatiently.

"Well, he'll see what I can do, when he gets home!" Mrs. Cox muttered.
Julia, distressed by the scene, laid her hand over her grandmother's old
knotted one, as she sat beside her at the table, but could find no words
with which to comfort her. Her soul was sick with this fresh sordid
revelation; she felt as if she must scream in another minute of
existence in this dreary, dirty house, with the glaring sunshine
streaming in the kitchen window and a high summer wind howling outside.

The talk was ended by a ring at the door, and Julia went through the
dark, stifling passage to admit a lean, pale young man, with a rough
growth of light hair on his sunken cheeks, and a curious look of not
belonging to his clothes.

"It's Uncle Chess, Grandma," said she, leading the way back to the
kitchen. Mrs. Cox gave her youngest child a kiss, assuring him that she
never would have known him, he looked like a ghost, she said, and
Chester sat down and talked a little awkwardly to his mother and nieces.
His voice was husky, full of apologetic cadences; he explained
painstakingly the chance that had brought him home twenty-four hours
early, as if it were the most important thing in the world. Julia,
helping her grandmother with preparations for dinner, did not know why
she found Chester's presence unendurably trying; she did not know that
it was pity that wrung her heart; she only wished he were not there.

An hour's talk cheered the newcomer amazingly, as perhaps did also the
dinner odours of frying potatoes and bacon. He was venturing upon a
history of his wrongs when a damper fell upon the little company with
the arrival of the man of the house. Her husband's return brought back
in a flood to old Mrs. Cox's heart the memory of his outrageous
negotiations regarding the house; the three girls all cordially detested
the old man and were silent and ungracious in his presence, and Chester
flushed deeply as his father came in, and became dumb.

Old Cox made no immediate acknowledgement of the newcomer's arrival, but
grunted as he jerked a chair to the table, indicating his readiness for
dinner, and dinner was served with all speed. It was only when he had
drunk off half a cup of scalding strong tea that the man of the house
turned to his last born and said:

"So, you're out again?"

"I should never have been in!" Chester said, eagerly and huskily.

"Yes, I've heard lots of that kind of talk," the old man assured him.
"'Cording to what you hear there's a good many up there that never done
nothing at all!"

Julia saw the son shrink, and a look of infinite wistfulness for a
moment darkened his eyes. He was a stupid-looking, gentle-faced fellow,
pitiable as a sick child.

"Perhaps you'll read these, Pa," he said, fumbling in his pockets for a
moment before producing two or three short newspaper clippings from an
inner coat pocket. "There--there's the truth of it; it's all there," he
said eagerly. "'Cox will immediately be given his freedom--after sixteen
months as an innocent victim of the law'--that's what it says!"

"I'll read nothin'," the old man said, sweeping back the slips with a
scornful hand, his small, deep-set eyes blinking at his son like a
monkey's.

"Well, all right, all right," Chester answered, his thin face burning
again, his voice hoarsely belligerent.

"That's the jestice you'll get from your father!" the old woman said,
with a cackle. Julia gathered up the newspaper clippings.

"Aren't you mean, Grandpa!" she said, indignantly, beginning to read.

"Maybe I am, maybe I am," he retorted fiercely. "But you'll find there's
no smoke without some fire, my fine lady, and when a boy that's always
been a lazy, idle shame to his father and mother gets a taste of blame,
you can depend that no newspaper is going to make a saint of him!"

"Grandma, don't let him talk that way!" Julia protested, her breast
rising and falling. Chester turned to his father.

"Maybe if you'd a-give me a better chance," he said sullenly, "maybe if
us boys hadn't been kicked around so much, shoved into the first job
that came handy, seeing Ma and the girls afraid to breathe while you was
in the house--"

Both men were now standing, their faces close together.

"Well, you ain't going to have another chance here!" the old man
shouted. "I'll have no jailbirds settin' around here to be petted and
babied! Get that into your head! Don't you let me come into the house
and find you here again----"

"Pa!" protested Mrs. Cox, fired by the eyes of her granddaughters.
"Yes--an' 'Pa'!" he snarled, pulling on his old hat, and opening the
kitchen door. "But it'll be Pa on the wrong side of your face if you
make any mistake about it! Jailbird!" he muttered to himself, with a
final slam at the door. The others looked at each other.

"That's a sweet welcome home," said Chester, with a bitter laugh. He was
standing, his head lowered; there was bewilderment as well as anger in
his look.

"Pa's got to be a terrible crank," said Mrs. Cox, returning to her
teapot, after a glance through the window at her retiring lord. "He
carries on something terrible sometimes."

"Well, he won't carry on any longer as far as I am concerned!" Chester
said, a little vaguely.

"I don't know what's got into Pa!" his wife complained.

"Don't you care, Uncle Chess," Marguerite submitted with timid sympathy.

"Oh, no, sure I don't care," the man said with a short laugh. "Of course
it's nothing to me! A man comes home to his own folks, he's had a tough
time--" His voice sank huskily. The sleeves of his coat were too short
for him, and Julia noticed how thin his wrists were, as he gathered up
his newspaper clippings and restored them to his inside pocket. The
women watched him in silence. Presently he stooped down and kissed his
mother's forehead, at the edge of her untidy, grizzled hair.

"Good-bye, Ma!" he said. "Good-bye, girls!"

"It'll be a judgment on your father," Mrs. Cox protested. "I don't know
what's gotten into him!"

But she made no further objection; she did not get up from her place at
table when Chester crossed the kitchen, opened the street door, and went
out.

"Grandpa's a prince, all right!" said Marguerite then, and Evelyn added,
"Wouldn't it give you a pain?"

"But I notice that none of us did anything about it!" Julia said
bitterly.

"If your grandpa found Chess here when he got home to-night, there'd be
a reckoning!" the old woman asserted dully.

"And what is Uncle Chess supposed to do?" Julia demanded.

"I betcher he kills himself," Evelyn submitted.

"I betcher he does," her sister agreed.

"Well, it'll be on your grandfather's head!" the old woman said. She
began to cry, still drinking her tea.

"I wonder if he has any money?" speculated Julia.

"Where'd he get money?" Evelyn said. Julia, following an uncomfortable
impulse, went to the window in the close little parlour and looked out
into the street. It was about six o'clock, and still broad day. The wind
had died down, but the street was dirty, and the glaring light of the
sinking sun fell full on the faces of the home-going stream of men and
women. Julia's quick eye found Chester instantly. He had loitered no
farther than the corner, a hundred feet away, and was standing there,
irresolute, stooped, still wearing his look of vague bewilderment.

The girl ran upstairs, and snatched her hat and a light coat. Two
minutes later she was downstairs again, the chatelaine bag in which all
girls carried their money in those days jumping at her belt.

But in those two minutes Chester had disappeared. Julia felt sick with
disappointment as she reached the corner only to find him gone. She
stood looking quickly about her: up the street, down the street; he was
gone. It seemed to the girl that she could not go back to her
grandmother's house again; a disgust for everything and everybody in it
shook her from head to foot. She was sorry for them, her grandmother,
her cousins, but the simple fact remained that they could bear this sort
of existence and she could not; it was stifling her; it was killing her.

"If they minded things as I do they would change them, somehow!" said
Julia to herself, walking on blindly. "My grandmother should never have
let things get to such a pass--I can't bear it! The smells and the
fights--"

She stopped a car, one of the cable cars that ran out into the factory
district. Julia had no idea where she was going, nor did she care. She
got on because one of the small forward outside seats was empty, and she
could sit there comfortably. The car went on and on, through a less and
less populated district, but Julia, buried in unhappy thought, paid no
attention to route or neighbourhood.

"All off!" shouted the conductor presently. Julia had meant to keep her
seat for the return trip, but the man's glance at her young beauty
annoyed her, and she got off the car.

She walked aimlessly along a battered cement sidewalk, between
irregularly placed and shabby little houses. These were of too familiar
a type to interest Julia, but she presently came to a full stop before a
wide, one-story brick building, with a struggling garden separating it
from the street, and straggling window boxes at every one of the wide
windows. A flight of steps led up from the garden to the pretty white
front door, and a neat brass plate, screwed to the cement at the turn of
the steps, bore the words: "Alexander Toland Neighbourhood House."

It would have been a pretty house anywhere, with its crisp dotted muslin
curtains, its trim colonial walls, but in this particular neighbourhood
it had an added charm of contrast, and Julia stood before it literally
spellbound by admiration, and smitten, too, with that strange sick
fascination to which the mere name of Toland subjected her.

And while she stood there, Miss Anna Toland came to the door and stood
looking down at the street. Julia's heart began to beat very fast, and
the blood rushed to her face. She bowed, and Miss Toland bowed.

"Oh, Miss Page!" said Miss Toland then, crisply ready with the name and
the request. "This is very fortunate! I wonder if you won't come in and
help me a moment? I've been trying for one hour to make the hall key
work."

Julia said nothing. She mounted the steps and followed Miss Toland into
the hall.




CHAPTER VI

The Alexander Toland Neighbourhood House, familiarly known by all who
had anything to do with it as The Alexander, was small, as neighbourhood
houses go, but exceptionally pretty and complete, and financially so
well backed by a certain group of San Francisco's society women as to be
entirely free from the common trouble of its kind. Miss Toland had built
it, and had made it her personal business to interest some of her
friends in its success, but she now found herself confronted by an
unexpected problem: it seemed impossible to get an experienced woman as
resident worker with whom Miss Toland could live in peace. The few women
who had been qualified to try the position had all swiftly, quietly, and
firmly resigned, with that pained reticence that marks the trained
worker. Miss Toland told her committees, with good-humoured tolerance,
that Miss Smith or Mrs. Brown had been a splendid person, perfectly
splendid, but unable to understand the peculiar conditions that made
social work in San Francisco utterly--and totally--different from social
work elsewhere. Meanwhile, she did the best she could with volunteer
workers, daily bewailing the fact that, without the trained worker, her
girls' clubs and classes, her boys' and mothers' clubs, had been
difficult to start, and maintained but a languishing existence. She was
a sanguine woman, and filled with confidence in the eventual success of
The Alexander, and with energy to push it toward a completely fruitful
existence, but she herself was inexperienced, and Julia had chanced upon
her in a thoroughly discouraged mood.

Julia's first aid--in climbing through a transom and opening a stubborn
door--being entirely successful, Miss Toland kept her to show her the
little establishment, and was secretly soothed and pleased by the girl's
delight.

The front door opened into a wide square hall, furnished with neat
Mission chairs and tables, and with a large brown rug. There were two
doors on each side, and a large double door at the back. One door on the
right led to a model kitchen, floored in bright blue-and-white
linoleum, and with a shining stove, a shining dresser full of
blue-and-white china, a tiled sink, a table, and two chairs. The other
right-hand door opened into a little committee room, where there were
wall closets full of ginghams and boxes of buttons and braid, and more
Mission furniture. On the left each door opened into a bedroom, one
occupied by Miss Toland and littered by her possessions, one empty and
immaculate. The two were joined by a shining little bath. Julia looked
at the white bed in the unoccupied room, the white bureau, the white
chairs, the white dotted curtains at the windows, the dark-blue rugs on
a painted floor, and a gasp of honest admiration broke from her. Miss
Toland gave her a quick approving glance, but said nothing.

Through the big double door they stepped straight on the stage that
filled one end of the tiny auditorium, Miss Toland touching an electric
button that flooded the room with light, for Julia's benefit. There were
wide windows, curtained in crisp dotted white, all about the hall, and a
door at the far end that gave, as Julia afterward learned, on a side
street. An upright piano was on the stage, and at one side a flight of
three or four steps led down to the hall. The main floor was broken by
tables and benches, a hundred sewing bags of blue linen hung on numbered
hooks on the wall, and at the far end there were two deep closets for
kindergarten materials and sewing supplies.

The tour of inspection was ended in the kitchen, where Miss Toland put
several paper bags on the table, dropped into a chair, and asked Julia
also to be seated.

"Well, what do you think of it?" she said, reaching behind her to get a
knife from a drawer. With the knife she cut a spongy crust from a loaf
of bread, without fairly withdrawing it from the bag, and subtracting a
thin pink slice of ham from some oiled paper in another bag, she folded
it into the crust and began to eat it. "I picnic here--when I come,"
said Miss Toland, unembarrassed. "You've had your dinner?"

"Oh, yes," said Julia, "but do let me--" And without further words she
took two plates from the dresser, served the ham neatly, cut a slice or
two of bread, and removed the bags.

"Ah, yes, that's _much_ better!" Miss Toland said. "There's tea there. I
suppose you couldn't manage a cup?"

A deep and peculiar pleasure began to thrill through Julia. She stepped
to the entrance hall, laid aside her hat and jacket, and returned to set
about tea-making with deftness and quickness. She found a wilted slice
of butter in a safe, and set out cups and sugar beside it. Miss Toland
stopped eating, and watched these preparations with great satisfaction.
Presently she stood up to pin her handsome silk-lined skirt about her
hips, and pushed her face veil neatly above the brim of her hat. The
water in the white enamelled kettle boiled, and Julia made tea in a blue
Japanese pot.

"This is _much_ better!" said Miss Toland again. "I get to be a perfect
barbarian--eating alone!" She rummaged in a closet. "Here's some jam
Sally sent," said she, producing it. "They are always sending me pies
and fresh eggs and jelly; they are always afraid of my starving to
death."

They began the meal again, and this time Julia joined her hostess, and
really enjoyed her tea and bread and jam. It was dark now, and they drew
the shades at the two street windows and turned on the electric light.
Julia knew by some instinct that she need not be afraid of the
gray-haired, eccentric, kindly woman opposite; in that very hour she
assumed a maternal attitude that was to be the key to her relationship
with Miss Toland for many years. The two, neither realizing it,
instantly liked each other. Never in her rather reserved little life had
Julia shown her heart as she showed it in this hour over the teacups.

"So you like it?" said Miss Toland. "It's small, but it's the most
complete thing of the kind in the State. I've been scrambling along here
as best I might for three months, but as soon as I get a resident head
worker, we'll get everything straightened out." She gave her nose a
sudden rub with her hand, frowned in a worried fashion.

"Girls--regularly appointed girls ought to take care of all this!" she
went on, indicating the kitchen with a wave of her hand. "But no! You
can't get them to systematize! Now I tell you," she added sternly, "I am
going to lay down the law in this house! They do it in other settlement
houses, and it shall be done here! Every yard of gingham, every thimble
and spool of thread, is going to be _accounted_ for! Do you suppose that
at the Telegraph Hill House they allow the children to run about
grabbing here and grabbing there--poh! They'd laugh at you!"

"Of course," said Julia vaguely.

"Classes of the smaller girls should keep this kitchen and bathroom like
a _pin_," said Miss Toland sharply. "And, as soon as we get a regular
manager in here--Now that's what I tell my sister Sally, that is Mrs.
Toland," she broke off to say. "Here's Barbara, home from a finishing
school and six months abroad. Why couldn't she step in here? But no!
Barbara'll come in now and then if it's a special occasion--"

"But she has such wonderful good times at home; she has everything in
the world now," Julia said wistfully. Miss Toland gave her a shrewd
glance; it was as if she saw Julia for the first time.

"Barbara?" Barbara's aunt poured herself another cup of tea, and fell
into thought for a few moments. Then she set down her cup, straightened
herself suddenly, and burst forth: "Barbara! That's one of the most
absurd things in the world, you know--the supposition that a girl like
Barbara is perfectly happy! Perfectly wretched and discontented, if you
ask me!"

"Oh, no!" Julia protested.

"Oh, yes! Barbara's idle, she's useless, she doesn't know what to do
with herself. No girl of her age does. I know, for my mother brought me
up in the same way. She got a lot of half-baked notions in school; she
had a year of college in which to get a lot more; she came home afraid
to go back to college for fear of missing something at home, afraid of
staying home for fear of missing something at college; compromised on
six months in Europe. Now, here she is, the finished product. We've been
spending twelve years getting Barbara ready for something, and, as a
result, she's ready for nothing! What does she know of the world?
Absolutely nothing! She's never for one instant come in contact with
anything real--she can't. She's been so educated that she wouldn't know
anything real if she saw it! Mind you," said Miss Toland, fixing the
somewhat bewildered Julia with a stern eye, "mind you, I admit it's hard
for people of income to bring a girl up sensibly. 'But,' I've said to my
sister-in-law, 'hand me over one of the younger girls--I'll promise you
that she'll grow up something more than a poor little fashionably
dressed doll, looking sidewise out of her eyes at every man she meets,
to see whether he'll marry her or not!' Of course there's only one
answer to that. I've never married, and I don't know anything about it!"

"Miss Toland will marry," Julia submitted.

"Perhaps she will," her aunt said. "Perhaps, again, she won't. But at
all events, it's a rather flat business, all this rushing about to
dinners and dances; it'll last a few years perhaps--then what? I tell
you what, my dear, there's only one good thing in this world, and that's
_work_--self-expression. It hurts my pride every time I see a nice girl
growing older year after year, idle, expensive, waiting for some man to
miraculously happen along and take her out of it. I tell you the
interesting lives are those of people who've had to work up from the
bottom. A working girl may have her troubles, but they're _real_. Why,
let's suppose that Barbara marries, that she marries the man her mother
has picked out, for example, still she doesn't get away from the tiring,
the sickening conventions that all her set has laid down for her! I wish
I had my own girlhood to live over--I know that!" finished the older
woman, with a gloomy nod.

"Miss Toland seems to me to have everything in the world," Julia said,
in childish protest. "She's--she's beautiful, and every one loves her.
She's always been rich enough to do what she pleased, and go places, and
wear what she liked! And--and"--Julia's eyes watered suddenly--"and
she's a lady," she added unsteadily. "She's always been told how to do
things, she's--she's different from--from girls who have had no chances,
who--"

Her voice thickened, speech became too difficult, and she stopped,
looking down at her teacup through a blur of tears. Miss Toland watched
her for a silent moment or two; despite all her oddities, no woman who
ever lived had a kinder heart or a keener insight than Anna Toland. It
was in a very winning tone that she presently said:

"Tell me a little something about yourself, Miss Page!"

"Oh, there's nothing interesting about _me_!" Julia said, ashamed of
showing emotion. She jumped up, and began to put the kitchen in order.
But the recital came, nevertheless, beginning with Chester, and ending
with Julia's earliest memories of the O'Farrell Street house. The girl
tumbled it out regardless of sequence, and revealing far more than she
knew. Julia told of the episode of Carter Hazzard; she repeated the
conversation she had overheard at the club.

Miss Toland did not once interrupt her; she listened in an appreciative
silence. They washed and put away the dishes, straightened the kitchen,
and finally found themselves standing in the reception room, Julia still
talking.

".... so you see why it sounds so funny to me, your talking about your
niece," Julia said. "Because she--she seems to me such _miles_ ahead--she
seems to have everything I would like to have!" She paused, and then
said awkwardly: "I'll never be a lady, I know that. I--I wish I had a
chance to be!"

And she sat down at the little Mission table, and flung her arms out
before her, her face tired and wretched, her blue eyes dark with pain.
Miss Toland's face, from showing mere indulgent interest, took on a
sharper look. She was a quick-witted woman, and this chanced to touch
her in a sensitive spot.

"As for a lady, ladies are made and not born," she said decidedly.
"Don't ever let them fool you. Barbara may run around until she's tired
talking about belonging to the Daughters of Southern Officers; she can
stick a sampler up here, and lend a Copley portrait to a loan exhibition
now and then; but you mark my words, Barbara had to learn things like
any other girl. One sensible mother in this world is worth sixteen
distinguished great-grandmothers!"

Julia said nothing; she began to think it was time for her to go. But
Miss Toland was well launched in a favourite argument.

"Why, look here," said the older woman, who was enjoying herself,
"you're young, you're pretty, you're naturally inclined to choose what
is nice, what is refined. You say you're not a lady--how do you know?
You may take my word for it--Julia, your name is?--Julia, then, that if
you make up your mind to be one, nothing can stop you. Now I've been
thinking while we talked. Why couldn't you come here and try this sort
of thing? You could keep things running smoothly here; you could work
into the girls' clubs, perhaps; no harm to try, anyway. Do you sing?"

Julia had to clear her throat before she could say huskily:

"I can play the piano a little."

"You see--you play. Well, what do you think of it, then?"

"Live here?" stammered Julia.

"Certainly, live right here. I want some one right _here_ with me. You can
arrange your own work, you can read all the books you want, you'll come
in contact with nice people. I'm afraid to be here alone at night very
much, and I've come to the conclusion that we'll never accomplish
anything until I can stay, day out and in. Why don't you try it, anyway?
Telephone your grandmother--sleep right here to-night!"

Julia struggled for absolute control of her facial muscles.

"Here?" she asked, a little thickly.

"Right in here--you can but try it!" Miss Toland urged, throwing open
the door of the immaculate, unused bedroom. Julia looked again at the
fresh white bed, the rug, the bureau. Her own--her own domain! Just what
entering it meant to her she never tried to say, but the moment was a
memorable one in her life. She presently found herself telephoning a
message to the drug store that was nearest her grandmother's home. She
selected a flannelette nightgown from a deep drawer marked: "Nightgowns
and petticoats--Women's." She assured Miss Toland that she could buy a
toothbrush the next day, and when the older woman asked her how she
liked her bath in the morning, Julia said very staidly: "Warm, thank
you."

"Warm? Well, so do I," said Miss Toland's approving voice from the next
room. "This business of ice-cold baths! Fad. There's a gas heater in the
kitchen."

Julia, laying her underwear neatly over a chair, was struck by the
enormity of the task she had undertaken. A great blight of utter
discouragement swept over her--she never could do it! Her mother--all
her kin--seemed to take shadowy shape to menace this little haven she
had found. Chester--suppose he should find her! Suppose Mark should!
Sooner or later some one must discover where she was.

And clothes! These clothes would not do! She had no money; she must
borrow. And how was she to help in sewing classes and cooking classes,
knowing only what she knew?

".... said to her as nicely as I could, but firmly," Miss Toland was
saying, above the rasp of a running faucet in the bathroom, '"Well, my
dear Miss Hewitt, you may be a trained worker and I'm not, but you can't
expect your theories to work under conditions--'"

"What a bluffer I am," thought Julia, getting into bed. She snapped her
light off, but Miss Toland turned it on again when she came to the door
to look at Julia with great satisfaction.

"Comfortable, my dear?"

"Oh, yes, thank you."

"Have you forgotten to open your window?"

Julia raised herself on an elbow.

"Well, I believe I have," said she.

Miss Toland flung it up.

"We're as safe as a church here," she said, after a moment's study of
the street. "Sometimes the Italians opposite get noisy, but they're
harmless. Well, I'm going to read--you'll see my light. Sleep tight!"

"Thank you," said Julia.

Miss Toland went back to her room, and Julia, wide awake, lay staring at
her own room's pure bare walls, the triangle of light that fell in the
little passageway from Miss Toland's reading lamp, and the lights in the
street outside. Now and then a passing car sent lights wheeling across
her ceiling like the flanges of a fan; now and then a couple of men
passing just under her window roused her with their deep voices, or a
tired child's voice rose up above the patter of footsteps like a bird's
pipe in the night. Cats squalled and snarled, and fled up the street; a
soprano voice floated out on the night air:

"But the waves still are singing to the shore As they sang in the happy
days of yore--"

To these and a thousand less sharply defined noises, to the constant,
steady flicking of stiff pages in Miss Toland's room, Julia fell asleep.

Miss Toland told her family of the arrangement some three months later.
She met her sister-in-law and oldest niece downtown for luncheon one day
in November, and when the ladies had ordered their luncheon and piled
superfluous wraps and parcels upon a fourth chair, Barbara, staring
about the Palm Room, and resting her chin on one slender wrist, asked
indifferently:

"And how's The Alexander, Aunt Sanna?"

"Why don't you come and see?" asked her aunt briskly. "You've all
deserted me, and I don't know whether I'm on speaking terms with you or
not! We're getting on splendidly. Nineteen girls in our Tuesday evening
club; mothers' meetings a great success. I've captured a rare little
personality in Julia."

She enlarged upon the theme: Julia's industry, her simplicity, her
natural sympathy with and comprehension of the class from which the
frequenters of The Alexander were drawn. Mrs. Toland listened smilingly,
her bright eyes roving the room constantly. Barbara did not listen at
all; she studied the scene about her sombrely, with heavy-lidded eyes.

Barbara was at an age when exactly those things that a certain small
group of her contemporaries did, said, and thought, made all her world.
She wished to be with these young people all the time; she wished for
nothing else, to-day she was heartsick because there was to be a weekend
house party to which she was not invited. A personal summons from the
greatest queen of Europe would have meant nothing to Barbara to-day,
except for its effect upon the little circle she desired so eagerly to
impress. Parents, sisters, and brothers, nature, science, and art, were
but pale shapes about her. The burning fact was that Elinor Sparrow had
asked the others down for tennis Saturday and to stay overnight, and had
asked her, Barbara, to join them on Sunday for luncheon--

"Tell Aunt Sanna about the wedding, dear!" commanded Mrs. Toland
suddenly. Barbara smiled with mechanical brightness.

"Oh, it was lovely! Every one was there. Georgie looked stunning--ever
so much prettier than Hazel!" she said, rather lifelessly.

"Tell Aunt Sanna who got the bride's bouquet!"

"Oh," Barbara again assumed an expression of animation. "Oh, I did."

"Jim go?"

"Oh, yes, he went with the Russells. That's getting to be quite a case,
you know," Barbara said airily.

"I _thought_ that was Elinor Sparrow and her mother," Mrs. Toland said,
bowing to two ladies who were now at some distance, and were leaving the
room. "They were at that table, but I couldn't be sure who they were
until they got up."

"Was Elinor right there?" Barbara asked quickly.

"Why, yes; but as I say--"

Barbara pushed back her broiled bird with a gesture of utter
exasperation.

"I think you might have _said_ something about it, Mother," she said,
angry and disappointed.

"Why, my darling," Mrs. Toland began, fluttered, "how could I
dream--besides, as I say, I couldn't see--"

"You knew how I felt about Saturday," Barbara said bitterly, "and you
let them sit there an hour! I could have turned around--I could have--"

"Listen to Mother, dear. You--"

"And I can't understand why you wouldn't naturally mention it," Barbara
interrupted, in a high, critical voice. Tears trembled into her eyes. "I
would have given a great deal to have seen Elinor to-day," she said
stiffly.

Mrs. Toland, smitten dumb with penitence, could only eye her with
sympathy and distress.

"Listen, dear," she suggested eagerly, after a moment. "Suppose you run
out and see Elinor in the cloakroom? Mother's so sorry she--"

"No, I couldn't do that," Barbara answered moodily. "It would have been
all right to have it just seem to happen--No, it doesn't make any
difference, Mother. Please--_please_--don't bother about it."

"I'm sure Elinor didn't see you," Mrs. Toland continued. Barbara,
throwing her a glance of utter weariness, begged politely:

"_Please_ don't bother about it, Mother. _Please_. I'd rather not."

"Well," Mrs. Toland conceded, with dissatisfaction. An uncomfortable
silence reigned, until Miss Toland began suddenly to talk of Julia.

"She's a very unusual girl," said she. "She's _utterly_ and _entirely_
satisfactory to me."

"I think you're very fortunate, Sanna," Mrs. Toland commented absently.
She speculated a little as to Julia; there really must be something
unusual about the girl; Sanna was notoriously difficult to live with.

"She's not stiff--she's amenable to reason," Miss Toland said, smiling
vaguely. "We--we have really good times together."

"I hope she's improved in appearance," Mrs. Toland remarked severely.
"You remember how dreadfully she looked, Barbara?"

Barbara smiled, half lifted dubious brows, and shrugged slightly.

"She's _enormously_ improved," Miss Toland said sharply. "She wears an
extremely becoming uniform now."

"She's evidently got _your_ number, Auntie," Barbara said, watching three
young men who were entering the room. "She evidently knows that you're
nutty about appearances!"

"I am not nutty about appearances at all," her aunt responded, as she
attacked an elaborate ice. "I like things done decently, and I like to
see Julia in her nice, trim dresses. That Eastern woman I tried, Miss
Knox, wouldn't hear of wearing a uniform--not she! Julia has more
sense."

"I expect that Julia hasn't an idea in her head that you haven't put
there," Barbara said dryly.

"Don't you believe it!" her aunt said with fire. She seemed ready for
further speech, but interrupted herself, and was contented with a mere
repetition of her first words, "Don't you _believe_ it."

"Your geese are all swans, Sanna," Mrs. Toland said, with a tolerant
smile.

"Very likely," Miss Toland said briefly, drinking off her black coffee
at a draught. "Now," she went on briskly, "where are you good people
going? Julia's to meet me here in the Turkish Room at two; we have to
pick out a hundred books, to start our library."

"It's after that now," Barbara said. "She's probably waiting. Let's go
out that way, Mother, and walk over to Sutter?"

They sauntered along the wide passage to the Turkish Room, and just
before they reached it a young woman came toward them, a slender, erect
person, under whose neatly buttoned long coat showed the crisp hem of a
blue linen dress. Julia bowed briefly to the mother and daughter, but
her eyes were only for Miss Toland. She was nervous and constrained;
bright colour had come into her cheeks; she could not speak. But Barbara
merely thought that the cheap little common actress had miraculously
improved in appearance and manner, and noted the blue, blue eyes, and
the glittering sweep of hair under Julia's neat hat, and Miss Toland
felt herself curiously touched by the appealing look that Julia gave
her.

"Now for the books, Julia," said she, beaming approval. The two went off
together, chattering like friends and equals.

"What does Aunt Sanna _see_ in her?" marvelled Barbara, watching.

"Your aunt is peculiar," Mrs. Toland said, with vague disapproval,
compressing her lips.

"Well, the way she runs The Alexander is curious, to say the least,"
Barbara commented vigorously. "I couldn't stay out there one _week_,
myself, and have Aunt Sanna carrying on the way she does, planning a
thing, and forgetting it in two seconds, and yelling at the children one
day, and treating them to ice-cream the next! Why, the last time I went
out there Aunt Sanna was in bed, at eleven o'clock, because she felt
like reading, and she'd called off the housekeeping class for no reason
at all except that she didn't feel like it!"

"Yes, I know, I know," Mrs. Toland said, picking her way daintily across
Market Street. "But she has her own money, and I suppose she'll go her
own gait!" But she looked a little uneasy, and was silent for some
moments, busy with her own thoughts.

Long before this Julia's whereabouts had been discovered by her own
family, and by at least one of her friends, Mark Rosenthal. Mark walked
in upon her one Sunday afternoon, when she had been about a month at The
Alexander. Miss Toland had gone for a few hours to Sausalito, and Julia
was alone, and had some leisure. She put on her hat, and she and Mark
walked through the noisy Sunday streets; everybody was out in the
sunshine, and saloons everywhere were doing a steady business.

"Evelyn told me where you were," Mark explained. Julia made a little
grimace of disapproval, and the man, watching her, winced.

"Are you so sorry to have me know?" he asked, a sword in his heart.

"Oh, it's not that, Mark! But"--Julia stammered--"but I only went home
to see grandma Thursday, and it struck me that Evelyn hadn't lost much
time!"

"Wouldn't you ever have written me?" Mark asked, his dark eyes caressing
her.

"Oh, of course I would. Only I wanted to get a start first. Why do you
laugh?" Julia broke off to ask offendedly.

"Just because I love you so, darling. Just because I've been hungry for
you all these weeks--and it's just ecstasy to be here!" Mark's eyes were
moist now, though he was still smiling. "You don't know it, but I just
_live_ to see you, Julie. I can't think of anything else. This--this new
job isn't going to make any difference about our marrying, is it,
darling?"

Julia surveyed a stretch of dirty street lined with dirty yet somewhat
pretentious houses. Women sat on drifts of newspapers on the steps,
white-stockinged children quarrelled in the hot, dingy dooryards.

"I wish you didn't care that way, Mark," she said, uncomfortably.

"Why, dearest?" he said eagerly. "Because I care more for you than you
do for me? I know that, Julie." He watched the cool little cheek nearest
him. "But wait until we're married, Julie, you'll love me then; I'll
_make_ you!"

But all his young fire could not touch her. He could only win an
occasional troubled glance.

"I want to stay here a long, long time, you know, Mark--if I can. I want
to read things and study things. I want to be let alone. It'll be _years_
before I want to marry!" Julia raised her anxious, harassed eyes to his.
"I don't really think of men or of marriage at all," said she.

"Well, that's all right, darling," Mark said, smiling down at her, a
little touched. "I'm going to be sent up to Sacramento for a while; I'll
not worry you. But see here, if I go back to the house with you again,
do I get a kiss?"

Julia gave him a grave smile, and let him follow her into the settlement
house. But Mark did not get his kiss, for Miss Toland was there, and a
group of eager club girls who had something to arrange for a meeting the
following night. Mark left the lady of his delight staidly discussing
the relative merits of lemonade and gingersnaps and two pounds of
"broken mixed" candy, as evening refreshments, and carried away a
troubled heart. He wrote Julia, at least twice a week, shyly
affectionate and honestly egotistical letters, but it was some months
before he saw her again.

Julia's visit to her grandparents, through which Mark had been able to
trace her, had taken place some days before, on a certain Wednesday
afternoon. Suddenly, after the daily three o'clock sewing class had had
its meeting in the big hall, the thought had come to her that she must
see her own people. It was a still autumn afternoon, a little chilly,
and Julia, setting forth, felt small relish for her errand.

Her grandmother's house presented a dingy, discouraging front. Julia
twisted the familiar old bell, and got the familiar old odours of
carbolic acid and boiling onions, superimposed upon a basis of thick,
heavy, stale air. But the hour she spent in the dirty kitchen was
nevertheless not an unpleasant one. Her grandmother was all alone, and
was too used to similar vagaries on the part of all her family to resent
Julia's disappearance and long silence.

"We had your postal," she admitted, in answer to her granddaughter's
embarrassed query. "You look thin, me dear; you've not got your old
bold, stylish look about you."

And she wrinkled her old face and studied Julia with blinking eyes. "The
girls was glad enough to use your dresses. Marguerite looked real nice
in the one she took. Your Mama wrote in to know what kind of a job you
had--Sit down, Julia," she said as she poked about the stove with a lid
lifter.

Julia, who had drawn a long breath to recount her experiences, suddenly
expelled it. It occurred to her, with a great relief, that her
grandmother was not interested in details. Her hard life had left her no
curiosity; she was only mildly satisfied at finding her granddaughter
apparently prosperous and well; Mrs. Cox was never driven to the
necessity of borrowing trouble.

Julia learned that her own father and mother were in Los Angeles, where
George was looking for employment. Evelyn had developed a sudden
ambition to be a dressmaker, Marguerite had a new admirer. Pa, Mrs. Cox
said, was awful cross and cranky. Julia, with a premonition of trouble,
asked for Chester.

"He's fine; he's the only one Pa'll speak to," her grandmother said,
unexpectedly.

"Oh," said Julia eagerly, "he's here?"

"Sure, he come back," Mrs. Cox assured her indifferently. "He's got good
work."

Walking home in the early darkness, Julia could have danced for very
lightness of heart. She had dreaded the call, dreaded their jealousy of
her new chance, dreaded the possibility of their wishing to share the
joys of The Alexander with her. She found them entirely uninterested in
her problems, and entirely absorbed in themselves. Marguerite remarked
that she did not see why Julia "let them make" her wear the plain linen
uniform of which Julia was secretly so proud. Evelyn was fretting
because dressmakers' apprentices could depend upon such very poor pay,
and vouchsafed Julia a moment's attention only when Julia observed that
the Tolands patronized a very fashionable dressmaker, and might say a
good word to her for Evelyn. This excited Evelyn very much, and she
suggested that perhaps she herself had better see Miss Toland.

"No--no! I'll do it," Julia said hastily.

Mrs. Cox, upon her departure, extended her granddaughter a warm
invitation.

"If they don't treat you good, dearie, you come right back here and
Grandma'll take good care of you," said she, and Evelyn and Marguerite,
eying Julia over their cups of tea, nodded half pityingly. They thought
it a very poor job that did not permit one to come home to this kitchen
at night, even less desirable than their own despised employments.
Julia's being kept at night only added one more item to the long total
that made the helplessness of the poor. It was as if Julia, dancing back
to The Alexander in the early darkness, hugged to her heart the
assurance that these kinswomen were as contentedly independent of her as
she of them.

These experiences belonged to early days at The Alexander. There were
other experiences, hours of cold discouragement and doubt, hours of
bitter self-distrust. Julia trembled over mistakes, and made a hundred
mistakes of which she never knew. But by some miracle, she never chanced
to offend her erratic superior. To Miss Toland there was small
significance in the fact of an ill-cut pattern or a lost key. At the
mothers' meetings, when Julia was dismally smitten with a sense of her
own uselessness, Miss Toland thought her shy little attempts at
friendliness very charming, and when she casually corrected the faults
of Julia's speech, she gave no further thought to the matter, although
Julia turned hot and cold at the recollection for many a day to come.

Julia never made any objection, never hinted by so much as a reproachful
eyelid, that Miss Toland's way of doing things was not that usually
adopted. Julia would show her delight when a shopping tour and a lunch
downtown were substituted for a sewing lesson; she docilely pushed back
her boiling potatoes and beef stew when Miss Toland was for delaying
supper while they went out to buy a waffle iron, and made some
experiments with batter. On three or four mornings each week there were
no classes, and on these mornings the two loitered along over their
coffee and toast, Miss Toland talking, Julia a passionately interested
listener. Perhaps the older woman would read some passage from Meredith
or de Balzac, after which Julia dipped into Meredith for herself, but
found him slow, and plunged back into Dickens and Thackeray. It amused
Miss Toland to watch her read, to have Julia burst out, with flaming
cheeks:

"Oh, I _hope_ Charles Darney won't be such a fool as to go to Paris
_now_--oh, _does_ he?" or:

"You wouldn't catch _me_ marrying George Osborne--a spoiled, selfish pig,
that's what _he_ is!"

So the months went by, and the day came when Julia, standing shyly
beside Miss Toland, said smilingly:

"Do you know what day _this_ is, Miss Toland?"

"To-day?" Miss Toland said briskly. "No, I don't. Why?"

"I've been here a year to-day," Julia said, dimpling.

"You _have_?" Miss Toland, handling bolts of pink-and-white gingham at a
long table, straightened up to survey her demure little assistant.
"Well, now I'll tell you what we'll do to celebrate," she said, after a
thoughtful interval. "I understand that the Sisters over on Lake Merritt
have a very _remarkable_ sewing school. Now, we ought to see that, Julia,
don't you think so?"

"We might get some ideas," Julia agreed.

"Precisely. So you put the card--'No Classes Today'--on the door, and
we'll go. And put your milk bottle out, because we may be late. I hate
to do it, but I really think we should know what they're doing over
there."

"I do, too," Julia said. This form preceded most of their excursions. A
few moments later they were out in the open air, with the long sunny day
before them.

The months sped on their way again, and Julia had been in the settlement
two years--three years. She was eighteen, and the world did not stand
still. She was nineteen--twenty. She changed by slow degrees from the
frightened little rabbit that had fled to Miss Toland for refuge to an
observant, dignified young woman who was quietly sure of herself and her
work. The rumpled ashen glory that had been her hair was transformed
into the soft thick braids that now marked Miss Page's head apart from
those of the other girls of her day. The round arms were guiltless of
bracelets; Julia wore her severe blue uniform, untouched by any
ornament; her stockings and shoes were as plain as money could buy.

Her beauty, somewhat in eclipse for a time, presently shone out again.
But there were few to see it. Miss Watts, the simple, sweet, middle-aged
teacher of the kindergarten, admired it wistfully, and Miss Toland
watched it with secret pride. But the society girls and young matrons
who flitted in once or twice a week to teach their classes never saw it
at all, or, seeing it, merely told each other that little Miss Page
would be awfully pretty in decent things, and the women and girls and
children who formed the classes at The Alexander never saw her at all.
The women were too much absorbed in their own affairs, children are
proverbially blind to beauty, and the girls who came to the monthly
dances, the evening sewing classes and reading clubs, thought their
sober little guardian rather plain, as indeed she was, when judged by
their standard of dress, their ruffled lace collars and high-heeled
shoes, their curls and combs and coloured glass jewellery.

Julia's amazing detachment from the ordinary ideals of girlhood was an
unending surprise to Miss Toland.

"She has simply and quietly set that astonishing little mind of hers
upon making herself a lady," Miss Toland said now and then to her
sister-in-law. Mrs. Toland would answer with only an abstracted smile.
If she had any convictions at all in her genial view of life, she
certainly believed a lady to be a thing born, not made. But she was not
concerned about Julia; she hardly realized the girl's existence.

Miss Toland, however, was keenly concerned about Julia. Julia had come
to be the absorbing interest of her life. It was quite natural that
Julia should love her, yet to the older woman it always seemed a
miracle, tremulously dear. That any one so young, so lovely, so ardent
as Julia should depend so utterly upon her was to Anna Toland an
unceasing delight. Julia had been bewildered and heartsick when she
turned to The Alexander, but she had never in her life known such an
aching loneliness as had been Miss Toland's fate for many years. To such
a nature the solitary years in Paris, the solitary return to California,
the tentative and unencouraged approaches to her nieces, all made a dark
memory. Rich as she was, independent and popular as she was, Miss
Toland's life had brought her nothing so sweet as this young thing, to
teach, to dominate, to correct, and to watch and delight in, too. As
Julia's grammar and manner and appearance rapidly improved, Miss Toland
began to exploit her, in a quiet way, and quietly gloried in the girl's
almost stern dignity. When the members of the board of directors were
buzzing about, Julia, with her neatly written report, was a little study
in alert and silent efficiency.

"She's a cute little thing," said Mrs. von Hoffmann, president of The
Alexander Toland Neighbourhood House, after one of these meetings of the
board, "but she never has much to say."

"No, she's a very silent girl," Miss Toland agreed, with that little
warmth at her heart the thought of Julia always brought.

"You imported her, Sanna?"

"Oh, no. She's a Californian."

"Really? And what do we pay her?"

"Forty."

"Forty? And didn't we pay that awful last creature sixty-five?"

"Seventy-five--yes." Miss Toland smiled wisely. "But she had been
specially trained, Tillie."

"Oh, specially trained!" Mrs. von Hoffmann, flinging a mass of rich
sables about her throat, began to work on the fingers of her white
gloves. "This girl's worth two of her," she asserted, "with her nice
little silent ways and her little uniform!"

"I'll see that she's treated fairly," Miss Toland promised.

"Well, do! Don't lose her, whatever you do! I suppose she has beaus?"

"Not Julia! She's entirely above the other sex. No; there's a young Jew
in Sacramento who writes her now and then, but that's a mere
boy-and-girl memory."

"Well, let's hope it remains one!" And the great lady, sailing out to
her waiting coupe, stopped on the outer steps to speak to Miss Page, who
was tying up some rain-beaten chrysanthemums in the little front garden.

"How crushed they are! Do you like flowers, Miss Page?"

"Oh, yes," smiled Julia, looking like a flower herself in the clear
twilight.

"You must come and see Mr. von Hoffmann's orchids some day," Mrs. von
Hoffmann volunteered. Julia smiled again, but did not speak. The older
woman glanced up and down the desolate street, and shuddered. "Dreadful
neighbourhood!" she said with a rueful smile and a shake of the head,
and climbing into her carriage, she was gone. Julia looked about her,
but found the neighbourhood only interesting and friendly, as usual, and
so returned to her flowers.

When her chrysanthemums were trim and secure once more, perhaps--if
this were one of the club evenings--she put on her long coat, and the
hat with the velvet rose, and went upon a little shopping expedition, a
brown twine bag dangling from one of her ungloved arms. The bakery was
always bright and odorous, and at this hour filled with customers. The
perspiring Swedish proprietress and a blond-haired daughter or two would
be handling the warm loaves, the flat, floury pies, and the brown
cookies as fast as hands could move; the cash register behind the
counter rang and rang, the air was hot, the windows obscured with steam.
Men were among the customers, but the Weber girls had no time to flirt
now. They rustled the thin large sheets of paper, snapped the flimsy
pink string, lifted a designated pie out of the window, or weighed pound
cake with serious swiftness.

From the bakery Julia crossed an indeterminate street upon which shabby
scattered houses backed or faced with utter disregard of harmony, and
entered a dark and disorderly grocery, which smelled of beer and brooms
and soap and stale cakes. Tired women, wrapped in shawls, their money
held tight in bony, bare hands, sat about on cracker boxes and cheese
crates, awaiting their turn to be served. A lamp, with a reflector, gave
the only light. The two clerks, red-faced young men in their shirt
sleeves, leaned on the dark counter as they took orders, listening with
impatient good nature to whispered appeals for more credit, grinding
coffee in an immense wheel, and thumping each loaf of bread as they
brought it up from under the counter.

Julia, out in the street again and enjoying, as she always did enjoy,
the sense of being a busy householder, facing the tide of home-goers,
would perhaps have an errand in the damp depth of the big milk depot,
would get chops or sausages at some small shop, or stop a fruit cart,
driving by in the dimness, for apples or oranges.

Then home to the brightly lighted little kitchen, the tireless little
gas stove. Julia, cheerfully attempting to do ten things at once, would
look up to see Miss Toland, comfortably wrappered and corsetless, in the
doorway.

"Don't forget your window shades, Julie."

"I know, but I wanted to get this oven started--if these sweets are to
bake."

"Give me something to do!" And the older woman, seated, was pleased to
cut bread and fill salt shakers at the request of her busy assistant.
"To-night's the older girls, is it?" she would yawn. "Is Miss Pierce
coming? Good! Well, tell me if you need me, and I'll dress and come
out."

"Oh, we're not doing much to-night," Julia invariably assured her. Miss
Toland never questioned the verdict that freed her for an evening of
restful reading. Julia it was who lighted the hall and opened the street
door, and welcomed the arriving club girls. Sometimes these young women
brought their sewing--invariably fancywork. Sometimes there was a
concert to rehearse, or they danced with each other, or stood singing
about Julia at the piano while she banged away at the crude
accompaniments of songs. Miss Pierce or Miss Watts, older women, usually
came in for a little while to see what was going on, but again it was
Julia alone who must bid the girls good-night and lock and darken the
hall.

Once a month there was a dance for the older girls, to which their
"friends," a word which meant to each girl her foremost male admirer,
were asked, and at which cake and ice-cream were served. Julia always
wore her uniform to these dances, but she also danced, when asked, and
never attempted to deny that she enjoyed herself. But that there was an
immense gulf already widening between her and these other girls, one of
whom she might have been, she soon began to perceive. They were noisy,
ignorant, coarse young creatures, like children unable to see beyond the
pleasure or the discomfort of the day, unable to help themselves out of
the sordid rut in which they had been born. Julia watched them soberly,
silently, as the years went by. One by one they told her of their
wedding plans, and introduced the boyish, ill-shaven, grinning lads who
were to be husbands and fathers soon. One by one Julia watched the
pitifully gay little weddings, in rooms poisonous with foul air and
crowded with noisy kinspeople. One by one she welcomed old members of
the Girls' Club as new members of the Mothers' Club. The young mother's
figure would be curiously shapeless now, her girlish beauty swept away
as by a sponge, her nervous pride in the beribboned baby weakened by her
own physical weakness and clouded by the fear that already a second
child's claim was disputing that of the first. And already her young
voice would borrow some of the hopeless whining tones of the older
women's.

Julia was really happiest in her relationship with the children. She
frequently peeped into the kindergarten during the morning, and had her
dearly loved favourites among the tiny girls and boys, and she could
never be absent from the sewing class every afternoon when some forty
small girls scattered themselves about the assembly hall, and chattered
and sang as they worked. Volunteers from among the city's best families
were usually on hand to inspect the actual sewing--vague, daintily
dressed girls who alternately spoiled and neglected their classes, who
came late and left early--but Julia kept order, supplied materials,
recited the closing prayer, and played the marches by which the children
marched out at five o'clock. Now and then she incited some small girl to
sing or recite for the others, and two or three times a year the sewing
classes gave an evening entertainment--extraordinary affairs at the
memory of which Julia and Miss Toland used to laugh for weeks. To drill
the little, indifferent, stupid youngsters in songs and dances, to
spangle fifty costumes of paper cambric and tissue, to shout emphatic
directions about the excited murmurings of the churning performers, to
chalk marks on the stage, and mark piano scores, were all duties that
fell to the two resident workers. Julia sacrificed her immaculate
bedroom for a green room, the perspiration would stream from her face as
she whipped off one dirty little frock after another, fastened the fairy
regalia over unspeakable undergarments, and loosened sticky braids of
black or yellow hair into something approaching a fairylike fluffiness.
One second to straighten her own tumbled hair at a mirror, another to
warn her carefully ranged performers in the passage, and Julia was off
to light the hall and open the street door to the clamorous audience.
Opening the performance with a crash of chords from the piano, fifteen
minutes later, she would turn her face to the stage, that the singers
might see her lips framing the words they were so apt to forget, and
manage to keep a watchful eye upon the noisy group of boys that filled
the back benches and the gaslights that might catch a fairy's spear or a
witch's wand.

"Well, we've had some _awful_ performances in the place, but really I
think to-night's was _about_ the worst!" Miss Toland might remark, when
the last dirty little garment had been claimed by its owner, and the
last fairy had reluctantly gone away.

"Well, the mothers and fathers thought it was fine," Julia would submit,
with a weary grin.

"When that awful Cunningham child, with her awful, flat, slapping feet,
began to dance the Highland Fling, I truly thought I would strangle,
trying not to laugh!" Miss Toland, gazing absently over her book, would
add reflectively.

"And the Queen of the Elves in those _dirty_ pink stockings! And poor
Hazel, bursting into tears as usual!" Julia, collapsed in a chair,
dishevelled and rosy, would give a long sigh of relaxation and relief.

"But we don't do the slightest good this way," Miss Toland sometimes
said with asperity. "We merely amuse them; it goes no further. Now, next
time, we will make it an absolute condition that every child has a bath
before coming, and wears clean clothes!"

"But we made that a condition this time, and it didn't do any good."

"Very well. Next time"--flushed at the merest hint of opposition, Miss
Toland would speak with annoyance--"next time every child who hasn't had
a bath will go straight into that tub, I don't care if the performance
doesn't begin until midnight!"

"Well," Julia would concede tolerantly. She very speedily learned not to
dispute these vigorous resolutions. Miss Toland always forgot them
before morning; she would not have considered them seriously in any
case.

"We are the laughing-stock of the city," she would frequently say with
bitterness, upon being informed that more thimbles were needed, or that
the girls hated to sew on the ugly gray ginghams. But sometimes Julia
found her giving out candy and five-cent pieces, without regard for the
girls' merits and achievements, for the mere pleasure of hearing their
thanks.

Or sometimes, when for any reason the attendance upon the sewing classes
was poor, Miss Toland bought herself a new blank book, dated it
fiercely, and proceeded to ransack the neighbourhood for children in a
house-to-house canvass. Julia and she would take a car into Mission
Street, eat their dinner at the Colonial dining-room, where all sorts
of wholesome dairy dishes were consumed by hungry hundreds every night,
and where a white-clad man turned batter cakes in the window.

"They do that everywhere in New York," said Miss Toland, thereby
thrilling Julia. "What, d'you like New York?" asked the older woman.

"I've never seen it!" Julia breathed.

"Well, some day we'll go on--study methods there. Spring's the time,"
said Miss Toland, raising gold-rimmed eyeglasses to study the grimy and
spotted menu. "Spring afternoons on the Avenue, or driving in the
Park--it's quite wonderful! I see they have chicken pie specially
starred, thirty-five cents; shall we try that?"

After the meal the canvassing began, Miss Toland doing all the talking,
while Julia stared about the small, stuffy interiors, and smiled at the
babies and old women. Miss Toland jotted down in her book all the
details she gathered in each house, and only stopped in her quest when
the hour and the darkened houses reminded her that the evening was
flying.

This might keep up every free evening for two weeks; it would end as
suddenly as it began, and Miss Toland enter upon a lazy and luxurious
phase. She would spend whole mornings and even afternoons in bed,
reading and dozing, and fresh from a hot bath at four o'clock, would
summon her assistant and make a suggestion or two.

"Julia, suppose we go down to the Palace for tea?"

Julia, standing gravely in the doorway, considered.

"The girls won't be gone for another hour, Miss Toland!"

"The--Oh, the girls, to be sure. Of course. Who else is there, Julia?"

"Miss Parker and Miss Chetwynde. And Mrs. Forbes Foster was here for a
little while."

Miss Toland, drawing on silk stockings, would make a grimace.

"What did you tell them?"

"Sick headache."

"Oh, yes, quite right! Well, get through out there, and we'll go
somewhere."

The assistant, about to depart, would hesitate:

"I have nothing to wear but my tailor-made and a white waist, Miss
Toland."

"And quite good enough! No one will notice us."

Perhaps truly no one noticed the eagerly talking, middle-aged woman and
her pretty and serious little companion, as they sat in a quiet corner
of the big grill-room, eating their dinner, but Julia noticed
everything, and even while she answered Miss Toland politely, her eyes
were moving constantly to and fro. She watched the cellarer, in his
leather apron, the well-dressed, chattering men and women who came and
went; she drank in the warm, perfumed air as if it were the elixir of
life. The music enchanted her, the big room with its lofty ceiling, its
clustered lights and flowers, swam in a glorious blur before her.

Miss Toland would bow now and then, and tell Julia about the people to
whom she bowed. Once they saw Doctor Studdiford laughing and talking at
a distant table with a group of young men, and once it was Barbara,
lovely in a blue evening gown, who came across the room to speak to her
aunt.

"And hello, Julia!" said Barbara pleasantly, on this occasion, resting
her armful of blue brocade and eiderdown upon a chair back. "It's
awfully nice to see you two enjoying yourselves!"

"What are you doing, dear?" her aunt asked.

"Mrs. Maitland's party--and we're going to the Orpheum. I don't care
much for vaudeville, though" And idly eying Julia, she added, "Do you,
Julia?"

Julia's heart leaped, her mouth felt dry.

"I like plays," she stammered, trying to smile, and clearing her throat.

"Well, so do I." Barbara shrugged, gathered up her coat again, and
drifted away. Julia heard nothing else that night but the kindly,
insolent little voice that seemed to make a friend and equal of her, and
when she was alone in bed in the dark, she went over and over the little
scene again, and thrilled again at Barbara's graciousness.

Perhaps six times a year Miss Toland went to Sausalito for a few days,
and then, during her first year as a settlement worker, Julia went to
her grandmother's house. Evelyn was now working with Ryan, the Tolands'
fashionable dressmaker, and doing extremely well. Marguerite was engaged
to be married, and as foolishly happy as if her eyes had been fixed upon
ideal unions since the days of her childhood. Nobody paid very much
attention to Julia except Marguerite's promised husband, who disgusted
her by hoarsely assuring her that she was a little peach, and attempting
to kiss her. There were several letters from her mother, from which
Julia learned that her father was well again, but that he had left her
mother, who had entered, with a friend, upon the boarding-house business
in Los Angeles. She wrote her mother an affectionate letter, and, after
a few months, stopped going to her grandmother's house.

Miss Pierce, a delicate, refined, unmarried woman, was a daily teacher
in the kindergarten, and grew very fond of the grave, demure, silent
Miss Page. Julia felt enormously flattered when Miss Pierce suggested
that she come home with her during one of Miss Toland's brief absences,
and as merry, impulsive, affectionate little Miss Scott followed suit,
she usually had the choice of two pleasant places in which to spend her
holidays.

Miss Pierce lived with her old mother in a handsome upper flat on
Broadway. Julia liked the quiet, dignified neighbourhood, and thought
Mrs. Pierce a lovely old lady. She chattered with Adachi, the Japanese
boy, tried the piano, whistled at the canary, and sat watching Mrs.
Pierce's game of patience with the absorption of a rosy-cheeked,
wide-eyed child. Miss Pierce, glancing up now and then from her
needlework, thought it very nice to see pretty Miss Page there and Mamma
so well amused, and wished that she had more inducements to offer her
young guest. But Julia found the atmosphere, the quiet voices and quiet
laughter, inducement enough, and quite touched Mrs. Pierce with her
gratitude.

The first visit to Miss Scott's house, however, was a revelation, and
the memory of it stood out in such bold colours as made the decorous
pleasures of the visit to Miss Pierce turn pale. Julia was rushed into
the centre of a group of eager, noisy, clever young people, six brothers
and sisters who had been motherless from babyhood, and were in mourning
now for their father. The Scotts were bold and outspoken in their grief
as in everything else; they showed Julia their father's picture before
she had been ten minutes in the house, and Kennedy--Julia's "Miss Scott"
of The Alexander--flung open the big desk so violently as to bring two
vases and a calendar to the floor, and read Julia various notes and
letters that had been sent them at the time of their father's death,
until tears stood in more than one pair of lovely black eyes. Dinner was
somehow cooked in a Babel of voices, served in a rush, and afterward
their chatter rose above the hissing of dishwater and the clash of hot
plates. Julia laughed herself tired at the nonsense, the mad plans, and
untrammelled dreams. Kennedy was to be a writer, 'Lizabeth the president
of a girls' college, little Mary wanted to live in "Venith." The boys
were all to be rich; Peter, the oldest, drew his brothers into a long,
serious discussion as to the exact proportions of the ideal private car.

"We'll have the finish mahogany, d'ye see?" said Peter, "and the walls
and curtains of dark green velvet."

"Dark green velvet!" Kennedy said, from the couch where she was sitting,
busy with a torn sleeve lining. "Oh, horrors! Why not red velvet and
gold braid!"

"Well, what would _you_ have?" Peter asked belligerently.

"Oh, grayish blue velvet," 'Lizabeth suggested rapturously.

"Very pale, you know, and silvery curtains," Kennedy agreed, "and one
gorgeous bluish-grayish-pinkish rug, like the two-thousand-dollar one
at the White House!"

"Well," Peter said, satisfied. "And what colour upholstery?"

"Dark blue might be beautiful," Julia submitted timidly.

"Dark blue--you're on, Miss Page!"

"Or a sort of blue brocade," 'Lizabeth said dreamily.

"And I'll tell you what we'll name the cars," George, the second
brother, suddenly contributed; "you know they've got to be named, Pete.
We'll call the dining-car, 'Dinah,' and the sleeper, 'Bertha'; do you
see?"

The others shouted approval, Peter adding with a grin, a moment later:

"And we might call the observation car 'Luke'!"

"Oh, _Peter_!" Kennedy expostulated, laughing. She presently interrupted
the completing details of the private train by general suggestions of
bed. The four girls went upstairs together.

"Oh, Mary, you've fixed everything, you little angel, you!" said
Kennedy, seeing that hats and wraps had been put away, and a couch made
up in a large shabby bedroom. 'Lizabeth, professing that she loved a
couch, settled herself upon it with great satisfaction, Julia had a
single bed, and Kennedy and the little Mary shared a somewhat larger
one.

Julia watched the sisters with deep admiration; they were all tired, she
knew, yet vigorous ablutions went on in the cold little bathroom, and
clothes were brushed and made ready for to-morrow's need. Their joyous
talk was pitifully practical, Mary raising the dread topic of new shoes
for Stephen, the youngest, and Kennedy somewhat ruefully conceding that
the shoes must be had, even at the cost of the needed gallon of olive
oil.

"No salads for a month, and they're so cheap!" she mourned. "And that
young terror seems to me to need shoes every week! Don't ever have sons,
Miss Page, they're a heart scald wid the bould ways av thim! Stephen had
nine pairs of shoes in eight months--that's true, isn't it, 'Lizabeth?
For we were keeping accounts then--while Dad's will was in probate, we
had to."

"A good thing to have a will to fall back on," said Julia.

"Even if we only inherited one hundred and sixteen dollars apiece,"
'Lizabeth added.

"Dad had had losses--it wasn't any one's fault--everything went to
smash," Kennedy supplemented instantly. "And of course when we found
that Steve had been braking his coaster with his feet, that helped. But
me--I'm going to have only girls--five darling little gray-eyed girls
with brown hair!"

"I'd like a boy to start off with," 'Lizabeth said. "He could take his
sisters to parties--"

"Yes, but they never do; they take other girls to parties!" the
fifteen-year-old Mary said suddenly, and the older girls laughed
together at her sapience.

"Peter has a girl," Kennedy said. "But naturally he won't desert the
bunch. Next year, when some bills we simply couldn't help--"

"Doctor and nurse when George and Mary had typhoid," 'Lizabeth
explained.

"--are paid off," Kennedy continued. "Then, if he still likes her, he
might. But he never stays in love very long," she ended hopefully.

The four girls talked late into the night, and after a picnic the next
day, a Sunday, Julia felt as if she loved them all, and she and Kennedy
began shyly to call each other by their given names. Peter and George
did not go on the picnic, having plans of their own for the day, but the
others spent a dreamy day on Baker's Beach, and the two older boys,
joining the group at dinner, ended the holiday happily. Julia carried
away definite impressions to be brooded over in her quiet times. The
Scotts were "ladies," of course. Somehow, although they were very poor,
they all worked very hard, and all dressed very shabbily, they were
"ladies," and knew only nice people. The sisters were really stronger
and braver than the brothers, and loved their brothers more than they
were loved. Julia wondered why. Also she came a little reluctantly to
the conclusion, as girls at twenty, whether they be Julias or Barbaras,
usually do, that if there were a great many nice young men in the world,
there were a great many marriageable girls, too. No girl could expect a
very wide choice of adorers, there were too many other girls. And
affairs of the heart, and offers of marriage, occurred much more often
in books than in life.

Two or three times a week Miss Toland liked to rise early and go to the
beautiful eight o'clock mass at St. Anne's, the big institution for
unfortunate girls that was not far from The Alexander Toland
Neighbourhood House. There was no church in the immediate vicinity, and
in asking for permission to come to the convent chapel, Miss Toland had
felt herself doing no extraordinary thing, had felt almost within her
rights.

But the good nuns in charge of St. Anne's had whetted her appetite for
the experience by interposing unexpected objections. Their charges, they
explained, about two hundred in number, were very impressionable, very
easily excited. A stranger in the chapel meant a sensation. Of course,
the lay workers of the institution and the old people from the Home
across the way sometimes came in, but they were so soberly dressed.
Perhaps if Miss Toland and Miss Page would dress in dark things, and
assure Good Mother that they would not speak to the girls--

"Oh, certainly!" Miss Toland had agreed eagerly. Julia, awed by the
airy, sombre interior of the great building, the closed doors, the
far-away echoes of footsteps and subdued voices, was a little pale.

"And this is your little assistant?" said Good Mother, suddenly, turning
a smile of angelic brightness upon Julia. "Well, come to mass by all
means, both of you. And pray for our poor children, dear child; we are
always in need of prayers."

"You must have extraordinary experiences here," Miss Toland said.

"And extraordinary compensations," said the nun. "Of course, some of our
poor children are very wild--at first. We do what we can. I had a little
pet of mine here until yesterday, Alice, ten years old; she is--"

"_Ten_!" ejaculated Miss Toland.

"Oh, yes, my dear! And younger; she was but eight when she came. What I
was going to say was that her mother took her away yesterday, and Sister
Philip Neri was amused to see how sad I was to have her go. She reminded
me that when Alice first came here she had bitten my hand to the bone,
so that I could not use it for three weeks. Ah, well!" And Good Mother
gave the sweet toneless laugh of the religious. "That is not the worst
of it--a clean bite on the hand!"

Miss Toland bought an alarm clock on the way home, and she and Julia
went to early mass on the very next morning. Julia found this first
experience an ordeal; she and Miss Toland were in a side pew before the
big gong struck, and Julia did not raise her eyes from her book as the
girls filed in. The steady rustle of frocks and shuffle of feet made her
feel cold and sick.

A day or two later she could watch them, although never without profound
emotion. Two hundred girls, ranging in years from ten to twenty, with
roughly clipped hair, and the hideous gray-green checked aprons of the
institution. Two hundred faces, sullen or vacuous, pretty, silly faces,
hard faces, faces tragically hopeless and pale. These young things were
offenders against the law, shut away here behind iron bars for the good
of the commonwealth. Julia, whose life had made her wise beyond her
years, watched them and pondered. Here was an almost babyish face; what
did that innocent-looking twelve-year-old think of life, now that she
had thrown her own away? Here was a sickly looking girl a few years
older, coughing incessantly and ashen cheeked; why had some woman borne
her in deathly anguish, loved her and watched her through the years that
least need loving and watching? This thing that they had all done--this
treasure they had all thrown away--what did they think about it?

She would come out very soberly into the convent garden, and walk home,
through the delicious airs of a spring morning, without speaking,
perhaps to break out, over her belated coffee:

"Oh, I think it's horrible--their being shut up there, the poor little
things!"

"They have sensible work, plenty to eat, and they're safe," Miss Toland
might answer severely. "And that's a great deal more than they deserve!"

"Nobody worried about them until it was too late," Julia suggested once,
in great distress. "Lots of them never would have done anything wrong if
they'd had work and food _then_!"

"Well, the nuns are very kind to them," Miss Toland answered
comfortably; and Julia knew this was true, as far as possible.

One morning, when Julia slipped into her place in St. Anne's, she saw,
two feet away from her, on an undraped trestle, a narrow coffin, and in
the coffin the rigid form of a girl who had been prayed for a few
mornings earlier as very ill. There was not a flower on the still, flat
young breast, and no kindly artifice beautified the stern face or the
bare, raw little hands that protruded from the blue-green gingham
sleeves. The ruined little tenement that had served some man's pleasure
and been flung aside lay there as little beholden to the world in death
as it had been in life. And as if the usual silence of the chapel would
be too hard to bear, the living girls chanted to-day the "Dies Irae" and
the "Libera me."

When winter came, the little trestle was often in requisition, for the
inmates of St. Anne's were ill-fitted to cope with any sickness. Once it
was a nun, in her black robes, who lay there, her magnificent still face
wearing its usual deep, wise smile, her tired hands locked about her
crucifix. For her there were flowers, masses of flowers, and more than
one black-robed priest, and a special choir, and Julia knew that the
other nuns envied that one of their number who had gone on to other work
in other fields.

She grew grave, who was always grave, thinking of these things, and
talked them over with Kennedy Scott. Kennedy was deeply, even
passionately, concerned for a while, and she and Julia decided to
establish a home some day for girls who were still to be saved.

Time went very swiftly now: years were not as long as they used to be,
one birthday was in sight of another. Sometimes Julia was astonished and
a little saddened, as is the way of youth, at the realization of the
flying months. She was busy, contented, beloved; she was accomplishing
her ambition--but at what a cost of years! The great moment might come
now at any time--Prince Charming might be on his way to her now, but
meantime she must work and eat and sleep--and the birthdays came apace.
Sometimes she grew very restless; this was not life! But a visit to her
grandmother's house usually sent her back to The Alexander with fresh
courage. No possible alternative offered itself anywhere.

Just at first she had hoped for inspiring frequent glimpses of her
adored Tolands, but these were very few. Sometimes Barbara or the
younger girls would come to Easter or Christmas entertainments at the
settlement, but Julia, always especially busy on these occasions, saw no
more than Barbara's pretty, bored face, framed in furs, across a room
full of people, or returned a dignified good-bye to Sally's hasty,
"Mother and the others have gone on, Miss Page; they asked me to say
good-bye!" But then there was the prospect of a day with Kennedy Scott,
to console her, or perhaps the reflection that little Mr. Craig, who
came out on Tuesday evenings to the meetings of the Boys' Club, was in
love with her. She did not wish to marry Mr. Craig, still it was nice of
him to admire her; it was nice to have a new hat; it was pleasant to
visit the San Jose convent, with Miss Toland, and be petted by the nuns.
So Julia cheated herself, as youth forever cheats itself, with the
lesser joys.

She went home for three or four days at the time of her father's death,
and afterward deliberately decided not to accompany her mother on a trip
south. Emeline had nine thousand dollars of life insurance, and thought
of buying a half interest in a boarding-house in Los Angeles.

"All the theatrical trade goes there," said Emeline, "and you could get
a berth as easy as not!"

"Yes, I know," Julia said, gently, concealing an inward shudder. She
went quietly back to The Alexander, when the funeral was over, to her
mother's disgust. Emeline did not go south, but lingered on at home,
drinking tea and gossiping with her mother, quarrelling with her old
father, and gradually eating into her bank account. She called upon her
daughter, to Julia's secret embarrassment, though the girl introduced
this overdressed, sallow, hard-eyed mother with what dignity she could
muster to Miss Pierce, Miss Scott, and Miss Toland. Emeline laughed and
talked with an air of ease, was forced into silence when Julia said the
closing prayer, and burst out laughing at its close.

"That does sound so funny, dolling! But I mustn't laugh," said Emeline.
"I'm sure you do wonders for these girls, and they need it," she added
graciously to Miss Toland. She followed Julia into the little kitchen.

"Don't she help you cook?" she asked in a low tone, indicating Miss
Toland with a jerk of her much-puffed head.

"Sometimes she does," Julia answered, annoyed.

"H'm!" Emeline said. And she asked curiously a moment later, "Why you do
it is what gets me! Here's Marguerite going to get married, and Ev has
an elegant job, and I want you to go south with me; you'd have a _grand_
time!"

She stopped on a complaining note, her eyes honestly puzzled. Julia
closed the oven door upon some potatoes, and stood up.

"I'm perfectly satisfied, Mama," said she briefly. "I'm doing what I
want to do."

"Lord!" Emeline ejaculated, discontentedly, vaguely baffled by the
girl's definiteness and dignity. She left soon after, Julia dutifully
walking with her to her car. Miss Toland said nothing of the visitor
when Julia came back, but she knew the girl was troubled, and lay awake
a long time herself that night, conscious that Julia, in the next room,
was restless and wakeful.

Besides a certain troubled consciousness of her failure to please her
own people, Julia had in these years a more definite source of worry.
Mark Rosenthal was still her patient adorer, and if, like Julia, he
allowed the flying months to steal a march upon him, and drifted along
in the comfortable conviction that "a little while" would bring a change
in Julia's feeling, still he was none the less a watchful and ardent
lover, with whom she sometimes found it very difficult to deal.

Mark, always tall, was broad as well now, an imposing big fellow,
prosperous, shrewd, and self-confident. He had handsome dark eyes, and
showed white teeth when he laughed; he dressed well, but not
conspicuously; his shoes might be well worn, but they were always
bright; and if his suit were shabby, still he was never without gloves.
He liked to talk business; he had long ago given up his music and
devoted himself with marvellous success to his work. He was no longer
with the piano house, but had an excellent position as adjuster of
damages, out of court, for one of the street railway companies. The
history of his various promotions and his favour with his employers was
absorbing to him; but the time came, when Julia was about twenty-two,
when his determination to win her became a serious menace to her peace.

His manner, which had once been boyish and uncertain, was in these days
good-humouredly proprietary. He laughed at little Julia's earnest
explanations, and would answer her most eager appeal only with a lover's
fond comment upon her eyes.

"Yes, darling, I wasn't listening--forgive me!" he said one day, when,
with a spark of real anger, Julia had begged him to make his calls at
the settlement house a little less frequent and less conspicuous. "What
was it?" And with twinkling eyes he caught up the hand that lay near him
on the table and kissed it.

"I want you not to do that, Mark," said Julia gravely, moving a little
farther away, "and please don't call me darling!"

"All right, darling!" smiled Mark.

"I'm not joking," Julia said resentfully, two red spots in her cheeks.

Mark moved to lay his hand over hers penitently, and said, in the low,
gentle voice Julia dreaded:

"Do you know what's the matter with you, Julie? I'll tell you. You love
me and you won't admit it. Girls never will. But that's what makes you
so unhappy--you won't let yourself go. Ah, Julia! be fair to yourself,
darling! Tell me that you care for me. I've waited seven years for you,
dear--"

"Oh, you have not!" Julia said impatiently.

"I'd like to know why I haven't!" Mark said challengingly. "Ah, but you
know I have, darling. And I want my wife." It was a Saturday afternoon,
and Miss Toland was dozing in her own room. Julia and Mark were alone in
the deserted assembly hall. Suddenly he slipped on his knees beside her,
and locked one arm about her waist. "You will, won't you, Julia?" he
stammered.

Julia, scarlet cheeked, tried to rise, and held him off with her hands.

"Oh, please, _please_," she begged. "I can't, Mark. You are awfully good
to me--I'm not worth it, and all that--but I _can't_. I--it's not my fault
I don't want to, is it? It would be wrong to do it, feeling this way--"

She was on her feet now, and Mark stood up, too. Both were breathing
hard; they looked at each other through a widening silence. Flies buzzed
against the closed windows, a gust of summer wind swept along the street
outside. Suddenly Mark caught Julia fiercely in his arms, and felt her
heart beating madly against him, and forcing up her chin with a gentle
big hand, kissed her again and again upon her unresponsive lips.

"There!" he said, freeing her, a laugh of triumph in his voice. "Now you
belong to me! That's the kind of a man that's in love with you, my girl,
and don't you think for one instant that you can play fast and loose
with him!"

Julia sat still for a long time after the street door banged, staring
straight ahead of her. She was going for this week-end to the little
house the Scotts had been loaned in Belvedere for the season, and she
dressed and packed her suitcase very soberly. Miss Toland went with her
to the ferry, both glad to get the fresh breath of the water, and Julia
had a riotous dinner with the Scotts, and a wonderful evening drifting
about in their punt between the stars in the low summer sky and the
stars in the bay. When they were in their porch beds she told Kennedy
all about Mark, and Kennedy commented that he certainly was a
gratifyingly ardent admirer.

"Ardent? I should think so!" sighed Julia, and went to sleep, not
ill-pleased with her role of the inaccessible lady. But the fact that
Mark's persistence could not be discouraged fretted her a good deal. He
rarely gave her a chance for a definite snub; if she was ungracious, his
humble patience waited tirelessly upon her mood; and if she smiled, he
showed such wistful delight that even Julia's cool little heart was
stirred. That he never stirred her in any deeper way, that his kisses
did not warm her, was not a serious trouble to Mark. She would be all
the sweeter to win; he would wake her in his arms to the knowledge that
she loved him! And Julia won, as his little wife, would be dearer even
than the demure and inaccessible Julia of to-day. Mark fed his hungry
heart on love tales; many a man had won a harder fight than his; these
cold, shy girls made the best wives in the world!

Julia began seriously to consider the marriage. She visioned a safe and
pleasant life, if no very thrilling one. Mark was handsome, devoted, he
was making money, he would be faithful to his wife and adore his
children. Julia would have no social position, of course. She sighed.
She would be a comfortable little complacent wife among a thousand
others. She would have her silk gowns, her cut glass; she could afford
an outing at Pacific Grove with the children; some day she and Mark
would go to New York--

No, not she and Mark! She couldn't; she didn't love him enough to sit
opposite him all the mornings of her life, to sell her glowing dreams
for him! She had come so far from the days that united her childhood
with all the Rosenthals--she had not seen Mrs. Tarbury, nor Rose, nor
Connie for years. She was climbing, climbing, away from all those old
associations. And she could climb faster alone!




CHAPTER VII

One warm morning in August, when Miss Toland was stretched out on the
reception-room couch, and Julia, who had washed her hair, was shaking
it, a flying, fluffy mop, over the sill of the bathroom window, a sudden
hubbub broke out in the kindergarten. Miss Toland flung down her book
and Julia gathered her loose wrapper about her, and both ran to the door
of the assembly hall. The children, crying and frightened, were gathered
in a group, and in the centre of it Julia, from the elevation of the
stage, could see Miss Pierce half-kneeling and leaning over as if she
tried to raise something from the floor. While they watched she arose,
holding the limp body of a five-year-old child in her arms.

"What is it--what is it?" screamed Miss Toland, but as every one else
was screaming and crying, and Julia's automatic, "Is she dead?" was
answered over and over again only by Miss Pierce's breathless,
"No--no--no--I don't think so!" it was some time before any clear idea
of the tragedy could be had. The small girl was carried in to Julia's
bed, where she lay half-conscious, moaning; great bubbles of blood
formed from an ugly skin wound in her lip, and her little frock was
stained with blood. As an attempt to remove her clothes only roused her
to piercing screams, Julia and Miss Pierce gave up the attempt, and fell
to bathing the child's forehead, which, with the baby curls pushed away
from it, gave a ghastly look to the little face.

"Well, you've killed her, Miss Pierce!" said Miss Toland, beside herself
with nervousness. "That's a dying child, if I ever saw one. That ruins
_this_ Settlement House! That ends it! Poor little thing!"

"I was at the board," said Miss Pierce, white-lipped, and in a low tone.

"I don't care where you were," said Miss Toland. "There, there, darling!
I pay you to watch these children! It's a fine thing if a child is going
to be killed right here in the house! Where was Miss Watts?" she broke
off to ask.

"Miss Watts is at home, sick," Miss Pierce said eagerly. "And I was at
the board, when some of those bigger boys set a bench up on top of
another bench. I heard the noise and turned around; this child--poor
little Maude Daley, it is--was standing right there, and got the full
weight of both benches as they fell."

"This boy is back," said Julia, coming from the front door, "and he says
that Doctor White is out and Doctor McGuire is out, too!"

"Great heavens!" Miss Toland began despairingly. "No doctor! of course,
eleven o'clock they're all out on morning rounds! And the child's
mother, where is she? Am I the only person here who can do something
except sit around and say 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry!'"

"She has no mother, and her grandmother's out," Julia said soothingly.
"Miss Toland, if I telephone do you think I can catch Doctor Studdiford
at the City and County?"

"A two hours' trip from Sausalito!" Miss Toland said scornfully. "You
must be crazy, that's all! No! Go into Mission Street--"

"I don't mean in Sausalito," Julia said firmly; "he's at the City and
County on Wednesday mornings, you know. I could get him there."

Miss Toland stared at her unblinkingly for a second.

"Yes, do that!" she said then. "Yes, that's a good idea!" And as Julia
ran to the telephone she called after her, "Yes, that's a very good
idea!"

Julia's heart thumped as she called the big institution, thumped when
after a long wait a crisp voice, out of utter silence, said:

"Yes? This is Doctor Studdiford!"

She explained as concisely as she could, feeling that he listened
attentively.

"Keep the child flat, no pillow," he said, as Julia concluded. "Tell my
aunt I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

Julia, thrilled by she knew not what, knotted her flying hair loosely on
her neck and buttoned on a fresh uniform. Ten minutes later she admitted
Doctor Studdiford to the sickroom.

He had laid aside his hat and washed his hands. Now he sat down by the
bed and smiled at the dazed, moaning little Maude. Julia felt something
expand in her heart as she watched him, his intense, intelligent face,
his singularly winning smile, the loose lock of dark hair on his
forehead.

"Now, then, Maude," said he, his clever, supple fingers on her wrist,
"where does it hurt?"

Maude whimpered something made unintelligible by the fast-stiffening
cut in her lip.

"Her back's broken, Jim, no doubt about it," said Miss Toland grimly.

"I think her side hurts," Miss Pierce submitted eagerly.

"Well, we'll see--we'll see!" Doctor Studdiford said soothingly. "Now,
if you'll help me, Miss Page, we'll get off these clothes--ah!" For an
anguished moan from the sufferer coincided with his discovery that the
little left arm hung limp. Julia loosened the sleeve as the surgeon's
scissors clipped it away, and she held the child while the arm was set
and bandaged. Miss Pierce was faint, and Miss Toland admitted freely
that she hated to see a child suffer, and went away. "Only a clean
dislocation, Aunt Sanna!" said Jim, cheerfully, when he came out of the
sickroom. "She'll have to lie still for a while, but that's all. The cut
on her mouth doesn't amount to anything. She's all right, now--Miss Page
is telling her stories. She ought to have a glass of milk, or soup, or
something; then she'll go to sleep. I'll be in to-morrow. By the way,
you have a little treasure there in Miss Page!"

"Julia? Glad you have the sense to see it, Jim!"

"She--is--a--peach!" the doctor mused, packing his very smart little
instrument case. "Who is she?"

"A little girl I found. Yes, she's a nice child, Julia. She's been here
six years now."

"Six years! Great Scott! How old is she?"

"Twenty-two--twenty-three--something like that."

"It doesn't sound much of a life for a young girl, Aunt Sanna. Imagine
the Barbary-flower!" Doctor Studdiford shook his thermometer, looked at
it, and screwed it into its case.

"How _is_ Barbara?" Miss Toland asked dryly.

"Fine! Mother came to me with a long tale, the other day, about her
being run down, or blue, or something, but I don't see it. She has a
dandy time."

"Why doesn't she marry? Barbara must be twenty-six," her aunt said, with
directness.

"Oh, I don't know; why don't all the girls? The fellows they run with
are an awfully bum lot," Jim said contentedly. "Look at me! Why don't
I?" he added, laughing.

"Well, why don't you?"

"I'm waiting to settle the others off, I guess. Besides, you know, I've
been working like the devil! Sally's been worrying Mother with her
affairs lately," said Jim.

"_Sally_--and who?"

"Keith Borroughs!" Jim announced, grinning.

"Keith Borroughs? Why, he's ten years younger!"

"He's about three years younger, and he's an awful fool," said Jim, "but
he's very much in love with Sally, and she certainly seems to like it!"

"I think that's disgusting!" said Miss Toland. "Has he a _job_?"

"Job? He's a genius, my dear aunt. His father pays for his music
lessons, and his mother gives him an allowance. He's a pianist."

"H'm!" commented the lady briefly.

"Ned has definitely announced his intention of marrying his Goldfield
girl," pursued Jim.

"Yes, I knew that. Kill your mother!"

"It'll just about kill her. And the latest is Ted--falling in love with
Bob Carleton!"

"Carleton! Not the lumber man? But he's fifty!"

"He's forty-five, forty-seven perhaps."

"But he's married, Jim!"

"Divorced, Aunt Sanna."

"Oh, Jim, that's awful!" said his aunt, horrified.

"Well, it may come to nothing. Ted's only twenty--I hope devoutly it
will. There--that's all the news!" Jim jumped up from his chair, and
gave his aunt a kiss. "Why don't you come over and get it for yourself,
now and then! I don't know how much there is in any of this stuff,
because I use my rooms at the club a good deal, but it's all in the
wind. That little Julia Page is a peach, isn't she?"

"You said that once," Miss Toland said dispassionately. Jim grinned,
unabashed. He had been in love with one girl or another since his
fourteenth year, and liked nothing so much as having his affairs of the
heart discussed.

"Well, it's true, and I'll say it again for luck!" said he. "Who is she?
I suppose Pius Aloysius Maloney, or some good soul who comes to teach
the kids boxing, has got it all framed up with her?"

"I don't know any Mr. Maloney," Miss Toland answered imperturbably. "Mr.
Craig is director of the Boys' Club, and I know he admires her, and she
has another admirer, too, who comes here now and then. But how likely
she is to marry I really can't say! She's an extremely ambitious girl,
and she has determined to raise herself."

"Raise herself!" Jim said, with a casual laugh. "I don't suppose she
started much lower than other people?"

"Oh, I imagine she did. Her father was a--I don't know--a sort of
drummer, I guess, but her mother is an awful person, and her grandfather
was a day labourer!"

"Ha!" Jim said, discomfited. "Well, see you tomorrow!" he added,
departing. He walked briskly to the corner of the street, and
experienced a thump at the heart when a casual backward glance
discovered Julia, in a most fetching hat, coming out of the settlement
house with a market basket on her arm. She did not see him, and Jim
decided not to see her. Of course she _was_ a little peach, but that
labourer grandfather was too much.

That same evening Julia used the accident to little Maude as an excuse
to break a half engagement with Mark. He was to be given only a few
moments' chat before the Girls' Club met for a rehearsal, but he showed
such bitter disappointment at losing it that Julia, half against her
will, promised to spend at least part of her Sunday afternoon with him.

This was on Wednesday, and on Thursday and Saturday Doctor Studdiford
came to see his little patient, and both times saw Julia, too. He asked
Julia what books she liked, and, surprised that she knew nothing of
Browning, he sent her a great volume of his poetry, a leather-bound
exquisite edition that Jim had taken some trouble to find. With the book
came a box of violets, and Julia, opening the package, suddenly
remembered that he was a rich man, and stood, flushed and palpitating to
a thousand emotions, looking down at the damp, fragrant flowers.

She wore a few violets at the breast of her sober little gown when she
met Mark on Sunday for the promised walk. Julia had been most reluctant
to go, but Maude had been moved to her own home, and the child's father
was sitting with her, so that Julia had no excuse to visit her.

"I want to show you something--something you'll like!" said Mark
eagerly. "We take the Sixteenth Street car and transfer down
Sacramento."

Julia accepted his guidance good-naturedly, and they crossed the city,
which lay in a clear wash of the warm September sunlight. Mark led Julia
finally to the ornate door of a new apartment house in Sacramento
Street.

"What is it, Mark?" the girl asked, as they went in. "Some one we know
live here?"

"You wait!" Mark said mysteriously. He went to a desk in the handsome
entrance hall, and talked for a few moments to a clerk who sat there.
Then a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman came out, and Mark and Julia
went upstairs with her, in a little elevator.

The woman turned a key in a door, and led them into a charmingly bright
front apartment of four good-sized rooms and a shining bathroom. There
was a bedroom with curly-maple furniture, a dining-room with a hanging
lamp of art glass on a brass chain, and Mission oak table and chairs, a
kitchen delightfully convenient and completely equipped, and a little
drawing-room, with a gas log, a bookshelf, a good rug, a little desk,
and some rocking chairs and small tables. The sun shone in through fresh
net curtains, and the high windows commanded a bright view of city roofs
and a glimpse of the bay.

Julia began to feel nervous and uncomfortable. She did not understand at
all what Mark meant by this, but it was impossible to doubt, from his
beaming face, that some plan involving her was afoot. He couldn't have
furnished this apartment in the hope--?

"Whose place _is_ this, Mark?" she asked, trying to laugh naturally.

"Do you like it?" Mark countered, his eyes dancing.

"Like it? It's simply sweet, of course! But whose is it?"

"Well, now listen," Mark explained. "It's Joe Kirk's furniture; he's
just been married, you know. He and his wife had just got back from
their honeymoon when Joe got an offer of a fine job in New York. He
asked me to see if I couldn't find a tenant for this--two years' lease
to run--just as it stands; no raise in rent. And the rent's fifty-five?"
he called to the woman in the next room.

"Fifty, Mr. Rosenthal," she answered impassively.

"Fifty!" Mark exulted. "Think of getting all this for fifty! Ah,
Julia"--he came close to her as she stood staring down from the window,
and lowered his voice--"will you, darling? Will you? You like it, don't
you? Will you marry me, dearest, and make a little home here with me?"
"Oh, Mark!" Julia stammered, a nervous smile twitching her lips.

"Well, why won't you, Ju? Do you doubt that I love you? Answer me that!"

"Why, no--no, I don't, of course." Julia moved a little away.

"Don't go over there; she'll hear us! And you love me, don't you, Ju?"

"But not that way I don't, Mark," Julia said childishly.

"Oh, 'not that way'--that's all rubbish--that's the way girls talk;
that's just an expression they have! Listen! Do you doubt that I'll
always, _always_ love you?"

"Oh, no, Mark, of course not!" Julia admitted. "But I don't want to
marry any one--"

"Well, what do you want? Haven't I loved you since you were a little
girl?"

"Yes, I know--of course you have! Only"--Julia gave him a desperate
smile--"only I can't discuss such things here," she pleaded, "with that
woman so near!"

"You're right!" Mark said, with military promptness, and as one who
loves to receive his lady's orders. "We'll go out. Only--I wanted you to
see it!"

And as they went out he must stop to show her the admirably deep drawers
of the little sideboard and the ingenious arrangement by which the gas
was electrically lighted.

They thanked the woman, and began the long ride back to the settlement
house, for Julia never left Miss Toland long alone. In the Sacramento
Street car they both had to stand, but Mark found seats without
difficulty on the dummy of the Fillmore Street car, and laying his arm
along the back of Julia's seat, swung about so that his face was very
close to hers. A world of wistful tenderness filled his voice as he said
again:

"Well, darling, what do you think of it?"

Poor Mark! Perhaps if he had asked her only a week earlier, his lady
might have given him a kinder answer. But Julia was walking in a golden
dream to-day, a dream peopled only by herself and one other, and she
hardly noticed his emotion. She fixed her blue eyes vaguely on the black
eyes so near, and smiled a little.

"Oh, answer me, Julia!" Mark said impatiently. And a second later he
asked alertly: "Where'd you get the violets?"

"Oh--somebody," Julia temporized. Pink flooded her cheeks.

"Who?" said Mark, very calm.

"Oh, Mark, what a tone! Nobody you know!" Julia laughed.

"Is he in love with you?" Mark asked fiercely.

"Oh, don't be so silly! No, of course he's not."

"Tell me who he is!" Mark commanded grimly.

"Now, look here, Mark," Julia said sternly, "you stop that nonsense, or
you can get straight off this car, and I'll go home alone! And don't you
sulk, either, for it's too ridiculous, and I won't have it!"

Mark succumbed instantly.

"It's because I love you so," he said humbly. There was a little
silence, then Julia, watching the Sunday streets, said suddenly:

"Look, Mark, look at the _size_ of that hat!"

Mark, disdaining to turn his eyes for the fraction of a moment from her
face, said reproachfully:

"Are you going to answer me, Julia?"

"How do you mean?" Julia said nervously.

"You know what I mean," Mark answered, with an impatient nod.

"No, I don't," Julia said, with a little laugh.

"Now, you look-a-here, Julia--you look-a-here," Mark began, almost
angrily. "I am going to ask you to marry me! You've fooled about it, and
you've laughed about it, and I've got a right to _know_! I think about it
all the time; I lie awake at night and think about it. I"--his voice
softened suddenly--"I love you awfully, Julia," he said. And then, with
a sort of concentrated passion that rather frightened the girl, he
added, "So I'm going to ask you once more. I want you to answer me, d'ye
see?"

The car sped on, clanged across Market Street, turned into the Mission.
Julia had grown a little pale. She gave Mark a fleeting glance, looked
away, and finally brought her eyes back to him again.

"I wish you wouldn't take things so _seriously_, Mark," she began
uneasily. "You're always forcing me to say things--and I don't want
to--I don't want to get married _at all_--"

"Nonsense!" said Mark harshly.

"It's not nonsense!" Julia protested, glad to feel her anger rising.
Mark saw her heightened colour, and misread it.

"Yes," he said sneeringly. "That's all very well, but I'll bet you'd
feel pretty badly if I never came near you again--if I let the whole
thing drop!"

"Oh, Mark," said Julia fervently, "if you only _would_--I don't mean
that!" she interrupted herself, compunction seizing her at the look of
mortal hurt on his face. "But I mean--if you only didn't love me! You
see, I'm perfectly happy, Mark, I've got what I want. And if Miss Toland
takes me abroad with her next year, why, it'll mean more to me than _any_
marriage could, don't you see that? You know what my childhood was,
Mark; my mother didn't love my father--" And as a sudden memory of the
old life rose to confront her, Julia's tone became firm; she felt a
certain sureness. "Married people ought to love each other, Mark," she
said positively. "I _know_ that. And I won't--I _never_ will marry a man I
don't love. If everything goes wrong, after that, you have only yourself
to blame. And so many times it goes wrong, Mark! I should be unhappy, I
should keep wondering if I wouldn't be happier going my own way--wondering
if I wouldn't have--have gotten farther--do you understand me?"

This was a long speech for Julia, and during it Mark had twisted about,
and pulled his hat over his face. Now, in a voice curiously dead and
hard, he asked briefly:

"Gotten farther--_where_?"

"I don't know," said Julia candidly. "But the more I read, and the more
I think, the more it seems to me that anyone can be anything in this
world; there's some queer rule that makes you rise if you want to rise,
if only you don't compromise! The reason so many people _don't_ ultimately
get what they want is because they stop trying for it, and take
something else!"

"And marriage with me would be a compromise, is that it?" Mark muttered
sullenly.

"It would be for me," Julia answered serenely. "Because staying where I
am keeps me nearer what I want."

"Money, huh?" asked Mark.

"Oh, money, _no_! Books and talk--things. And--and if I loved you, Mark,
then don't you see it _would_ be the right thing to marry you?" she added
brightly. "But now, it would only be because it was easier, or because I
was tired of The Alexander, do you see?"

"I suppose so," Mark answered drearily.

A long silence ensued. In silence they got off the car, and walked
through the cheerless twilight of the dirty streets, and they were
almost in sight of the settlement house before Mark burst out, a little
huskily:

"Then there's no chance for me at all, Julie?"

"Oh, Mark, I feel rotten about it!" said Julia frankly, her eyes full of
pity and regret, and yet a curious relief evident in her voice. "I _am_ so
sorry! I've just been thinking of girls who like this sort of thing--I
don't see how they _can_! I _am_ so sorry! But you won't mind very long,
Mark; you won't always care; you'll--why, there's Doctor Studdiford's
automobile!"

For they were in sight of The Alexander now, and could see the electric
runabout at the door. Motor cars were still new to San Francisco and to
the world, and a crowd of curious children surrounded the machine.

"What's he there for?" Mark asked gruffly.

Julia explained: the accident--the emergency call.

"Well, but the kid is not there now, you say?"

"Yes, I know. But he didn't know that. I suppose he's calling on his
aunt."

To this Mark made no immediate answer. Presently he said:

"City and County! I'll bet the city pays for his automobile!"

"Oh, no!" Julia protested. "He's a rich man in his own right, Mark."

They were at the house now, and went up the steps together. Doctor
Studdiford was in the little reception hall with Miss Toland. He looked
very handsome, very cheerful, as he came forward with his fine eyes on
Julia. And Julia stood looking up at him with an expression Mark never
had won from her, her serious, beautiful little face flooded with light,
her round eyes soft and luminous. A woman at last, she seemed as she
stood there, a grave and wise and beautiful woman, ripe for her share of
loving and living, ready to find her mate.

"You got the book?" Jim said, with a little laugh. He laughed because
his heart was shaking curiously, and because the sudden sight of Julia
disconcerted him so that he hardly knew what he said.

Julia did not answer; she only touched the wilting and fragrant violets
on her breast with her free hand. Jim still held one hand.

"You--you'll like Browning," added Jim. And inconsequentially he added,
"I was thinking of our little talk yesterday--all night."

"So was I," Julia breathed. They turned suddenly and self-consciously
to Miss Toland and Mark. Julia introduced the men; her breath was coming
unevenly and her colour was exquisite; she talked nervously, and did not
meet Mark's eye. Mark was offered a lift in Doctor Studdiford's motor
car, and declined it. The doctor seemed to be in no hurry to go;
wandered into her room to advise his aunt upon the placing of a
telephone extension. Julia and Mark loitered about the assembly hall for
a few empty moments, and then Mark said he must go, and Julia, absently
consenting, went with him toward the stage door.

"And he's rich, is he?" said Mark.

Julia came out of a brief dream.

"He's very rich--yes!" she smiled.

She mounted to the stage as she spoke, and Mark held out his hand and
turned about as if to say goodbye. The next instant Julia felt as if the
dull twilight room had turned to brass and was falling with a wild
clamour; she felt as if her heart were being dragged bodily to her lips,
and she heard her own wild scream.

Silence fell, and Mark was still staring at her, still smiling. But now
he toppled slowly toward her and stumbled, and as his body, with a
hideous, slithering sound, slipped down to the floor, his arm fell lax,
and the still smoking revolver slid to Julia's very feet.

"_Stop_, Julia--what is it?--what is it?" Miss Toland was crying. She
locked her arms tight about the girl, and drew her back into the
reception hall. Julia was silent, suddenly realizing that she had been
screaming. She moved her tongue over her dry lips, and struggled to
explain.

"Now we understand perfectly!" Doctor Studdiford said soothingly. "He
shot himself, poor fellow. I'm going to take care of him, do you see?
Just keep _still_, Aunt Sanna, or we'll have a crowd here. Aunt Sanna, do
you want this to get into the papers?" For Miss Toland's surmises were
delivered at a sort of shriek.

"Oo--oo--oo!" shuddered Julia, fearful eyes on the assembly room door.
"He was--we were just talking--"

"Is he dead, Jim?" asked Miss Toland fearfully.

"I think so. I'm going to call the hospital for an ambulance, anyway."
Doctor Studdiford was all brisk authority.

"But what ever possessed him?" shrilled Miss Toland again. "Of all
_things_!"

"Had you quarrelled?" asked Jim, keen eyes on Julia as he rattled the
telephone hook.

"No," Julia said shortly, like a child who holds something back. Then
her face wrinkled, and she began to cry. "He wanted to marry me," she
said piteously. "He wanted me to promise! But he always has asked
me--ever since I was fifteen years old, and I always said no!"

"Well, now," Jim said soothingly. "Don't cry. You couldn't help it. Do
you know why he carried a revolver?"

"He has to carry it, his business isn't a very safe one," Julia said
shakily. "He's shown it to me once or twice!" Her voice dropped on a
trembling note, and her eyes were wild with fright.

"Now, Aunt Sanna," said Jim quietly, after telephoning, "I think that
you and Miss Page ought to get out of here. You'll have a raft of
reporters and busybodies here to-morrow. It's a ghastly thing, of
course, and the quieter we keep it the better for every one. I'll manage
my end of it. I'll have as conservative an account as I can in the
papers--simply that he was despondent over a love affair and, in a fit
of temporary aberration--and so on. Could you close this place up for a
week?"

"Certainly!" said Miss Toland, with Spartan promptness, beginning to
enjoy the desperate demand of the hour.

"And could you take that poor child somewhere, out of the public eye?"

"I will indeed, Jim!"

"Well, that's the best way to do. You're a trump, Aunt Sanna! I will say
that Miss Page is naturally prostrated, and gone away to friends."

"Jim, has that poor boy a chance?"

"A chance? No. No; he died instantly. It was straight through the brain.
Yes, terrible--naturally. Now, will you take what you need--"
"Instantly!" said Miss Toland, with a shudder. "Oh, Jim, I'm so glad
you're a doctor," she added weakly, clutching his arm, "and so cold
blooded and reliable!"

"I'm glad I was here," Jim answered simply. "Hello, look at poor little
Miss Page! She's fainted!"




CHAPTER VIII

It was Christmas time before Julia saw Doctor Studdiford again, and then
it was but for a few minutes. Christmas Eve was wet and blowy out of
doors, but the assembly hall of The Alexander looked warm and bright;
there were painfully made garlands of green looped about the windows,
bells of red paper hung from all the chandeliers, and on the stage an
enormous Christmas tree glittered with colour and light. Six hundred
people were crowded into the room, more than half of them children.
Babies twisted and climbed on the laps of their radiant mothers, small
girls and boys everywhere were restless with excitement and
anticipation. Miss Toland only appeared at intervals, spending most of
the afternoon with a few chosen guests in the reception hall, but Julia
was everywhere at once. She wore a plain white linen gown, with a bit of
holly in her hair and on her breast, and whether she was marshalling
small girls into groups, stopping to admire a new baby, meeting the
confectioner's men and their immense freezers at the draughty side door,
talking shyly with the directors in Miss Toland's room, or consoling
some weeping infant in the hall, she was followed by admiring eyes.

At three o'clock the general restlessness visibly increased, and the air
in the hall, between steaming wet garments and perspiring humanity,
became almost insufferable. Julia experimentally opened a door and let
in a wet blast of air, but this was too drastic, and her eyes were
brought back from a wistful study of the high windows by a voice that
said:

"Merry Christmas! Give me a stick, and I'll do it for you!"

The girl found her hand in Doctor Studdiford's, and their eyes met.

"I didn't know you were here!" said Julia, in swift memory of their last
meeting.

"Just come." He looked at her, all kindliness. "How goes it?"

"Finely," Julia answered. When he had opened a window, he followed her
across the room. "I may stay near you, mayn't I?"

"I am just going to begin," Julia said, taking her place at the piano,
and facing the room across the top of it. Her small person seemed
suddenly fired with authority. She struck a full chord. "Children!" she
said. "_Children_! Who is talking? Some one is still talking! Keep still,
everybody, please! Keep still, every one.

"Now we are going to sing the 'Adeste'--four verses. And then we'll give
out the presents. Listen, every one! We are going to sing the 'Adeste,'
and then give out the presents. The presents, of course, go only to our
own girls and boys, do you understand that? Listen, children, please!

"But we have a box of candy for every child here, whether that child
comes to any of the classes or not! So don't go home without your candy.
And don't come up for your present until you hear your name called, do
you understand that? If I see any child coming up before Miss Pierce
calls her name, I'll send her right back to her seat! Now, the 'Adeste,'
please!"

Jim had listened in intense amusement. How positive she was and how
authoritative! Her straight little back, her severe braids, her stern
blue eyes roving the hall as she touched the familiar chords, were all
so different from the vague young women who were Barbara's friends. She
played a few wandering chords after the distribution of gifts began,
watching the children file up the aisle, and listening, with only an
occasional lifting of her blue eyes to his face, to Doctor Studdiford's
smiling comments. Her heart was beating high under a flood of unsensed
joy, she did not know why--but she was happy beyond all words.

"I'm afraid I'll have to go help Miss Pierce and Miss Furey, Doctor,"
she said presently, standing up. "Our Miss Scott, who got married two
years ago, used to be a perfect wonder at times like this! Here, little
girl, little girl! You don't come to the classes, do you? No? Well,
then, go back to your seat and wait--you see!" She turned despairingly
to Jim. "You see, they're simply making a _mess_ of it!"

"I have to go, anyway," said Jim.

"Oh?" Julia turned surprised eyes toward him, and said the one thing she
meant to avoid. "But Mrs. Toland and Miss Barbara are coming," she
submitted.

"And what of it?" Jim said meaningly. It was his turn to say the awkward
thing. "How are the nerves these days?" he asked quickly.

Colour flooded Julia's face.

"Much better, thank you! I gave the tonic up weeks ago. It was just
nerves," explained Julia, "a sort of breakdown after we came back from
Cloverdale! And I'm so much obliged to you!" she ended shyly.

"Oh, not at all, not at all!" Jim protested gruffly. An unmanageable
silence hung between them for a few seconds; then Julia, with a murmured
excuse, went to the extrication of Miss Pierce, now hopelessly involved
in a surge of swarming children, and Jim went on his way. He carried
with him a warm memory of the erect young figure in white, and the thick
twisted braid, set against a background of Christmas green. For Julia
the rest of the afternoon was enchanted; an enchantment subtly flavoured
with the odour of evergreen, and pierced by rapturous voices, and by the
glowing colours of the Christmas tree, and the slapping rain at the
window.

She and Miss Toland sat down, exhausted and well satisfied, at seven
o'clock, to a scrappy little supper in the littered dining-room: one
director had left chocolates, another violets; a child's soiled hair
ribbon, still tied, lay on the floor; the chairs were pushed about at
all angles.

"Give me some more coffee, dear, and open that box of candy," said Miss
Toland luxuriously. "We'll sleep late, and go to high mass at the
Cathedral. Alice always has room in her pew. And then we might go over
to Sausalito and say 'Merry Christmas.' They'll all be scattered; Jim
tells me he and my brother have an operation at twelve, poor wretches!
And I suppose Barbara and little Sally will be off somewhere. Sally
always tries to keep them together for Christmas Eve, but in my opinion
they're all bored by this tree and stocking business. But of course Ned
and his extraordinary wife will be all over the place!"

"I've not been in Sausalito, except once, for eight years," Julia said
reflectively.

"I know you've not. Well, we'll go to-morrow." Miss Toland reached for a
cigarette; yawned as she lighted it. But Julia's heart began to beat
fast in nervous anticipation.

Mrs. Toland received them very graciously the next day, and Julia was at
once made to feel at home in the pretty house, which was littered
charmingly to-day with all sorts of Christmas gifts, and bright with
open fires. Barbara was there, and the crippled Richie, but Sally had
gone to a Christmas concert with her devoted little squire, Keith
Borroughs, and Mrs. Toland presently took Miss Sanna aside for a long,
distressed confidence. Theodora, it seemed, had had a stormy argument
with her father on the subject of her admirer, Robert Carleton, some
days before, and yesterday had left, in defiance of all authority, to
meet him for a walk, and lunch with him. She and her father had not
spoken to each other since, and Ted was keeping her room. Julia met
Ned's wife, a pretentious, complacent little gabbling village belle, and
was dragged about by the younger sisters to look at everybody's
presents.

"Must be a long time since we saw you here, Miss Page?" said the old
doctor, smiling at her over his glasses, as he carved at luncheon.

"I was here two years ago, one afternoon," Julia smiled. "But I think I
haven't seen _you_ since 'The Amazons'--eight years ago!"

"Eight years!" Barbara said, struck. "Mother, do you realize that it is
eight years since I was in that play with the Hazzards and Gray Babcock
and the Grinells? Isn't that _awful_?" She fell into sombre thought.

Julia went through the day in a sort of deep study. This was the
enchanted castle that had stood to her for so long as the unattainable
height of dreams; these were the envied inhabitants of that castle.
Everything was the same, except herself, yet how incredibly the change
in her affected everything about her! She was at home here now, could
answer the table pleasantries with her ready, grave smile, could feel
that her interest in Constance and Jane was a pleasure to them, or could
pick a book from the drawing-room table with the confidence that what
she said of it would not be ridiculous. She could even feel herself
happier than Barbara, who listened so closely to what Julia said of the
settlement house, and sighed as she listened.

After luncheon Richie took her driving over cold country roads, behind a
big-boned gray mare, and adored her, though she never dreamed it,
because she neither offered to take the reins nor asked him at intervals
if his back was tired. He was finishing work at the school of medicine
now, and although he could never hope to be in regular practice, his
thin, bony face was very bright as he outlined his plans. Julia listened
to him sympathetically, and said good-bye to him at the boat with a
sense of genuine liking on both sides. Miss Toland was waiting for her
on the upper deck, her long nose nipped and red in the cold air.

"Well, he saw that you didn't miss it, after all!" said she, with a
welcoming light for Julia in her sharp eyes, though she did not smile.
"Sit down! I've been hearing nice things about you, my dear! I said to
Sally, 'So there _is_ something in old maids' children, eh?'" Miss Toland
chuckled; she was well pleased with her protegee. Julia settled herself
comfortably beside her. She liked to watch the running gray water, and
to feel the cold December wind in her face. The thought of Mark was
always with her, poor Mark! so much more in her heart dead than living!
But to-day his memory seemed only a part of the tender past; it was
toward the future that her heart turned; she felt young and strong and
full of hope.

In the new year Jim began to come pretty regularly to the settlement
house. Sometimes he stayed but for two minutes, never for more than ten,
and usually, even if Julia was out, he left some little gift for her, a
book or a magazine, flower seeds, or violets, or a box of candy. She
would glance up from the soiled and rumpled sewing of some small girl to
find Jim smiling at her from the stage door, or come back from her
little shopping round and have a moment's chat with him on the steps.
She grew more and more silent, more and more self-contained, but her
beauty deepened daily, and her eyes shone like blue stars.

"God, I will not believe it--I _cannot_ believe it!" said Julia, on her
knees, at night, her hands pressed tight against her eyes. "But I think
he is beginning to love me!" And she walked in a strange dazzle of
happiness, rejoicing in every sunny morning that, with its warmth and
blueness and distant soft whistles from the bay, seemed to promise the
spring, and rejoicing no less when rain beat against the windows of The
Alexander, and the children rushed in upon her at three o'clock with
raindrops in their hair and on their glowing cheeks. The convent garden,
in the February mornings, the assembly room, with late uncertain
sunlight checking its floor in the long afternoons, the Colonial
restaurant filled with lights and the odours of food at night, all these
familiar things seemed strangely new and thrilling, and the arrival of
the postman was, twice a day, a heart-shaking event.

In April Doctor Toland went on a fortnight's trip to Mexico, and took
his third daughter with him, in the undisguised hope of winning some
small share of her confidence, and convincing her of his own
disinterested affection. Two days later Barbara telephoned her aunt the
harrowing news of Sally's elopement with Keith Borroughs, and Miss
Toland went at once to Sausalito, taking Julia along.

They found the big house full of excitement. Richie was with his mother,
who had retired to her room and was tearful and hysterical; Ned and his
wife had gone back after Christmas to the country town, where he held a
small position under his father-in-law; and Jim was doing both his own
work and that of his foster father for the time being, and could not be
found by telephone; so Julia was received by Barbara and the two younger
girls, who were not inclined to make light of the event.

"Four years younger than Sally!" said Constance, not for the first time.

"It's not _that_," Barbara contributed disgustedly. "But he's only
nineteen--not of age, even! And he hasn't one single penny! Why, Mrs.
Carter was thinking of sending him abroad for two years' work with his
music. I _see_ her doing it now! Little sloppy-haired, conceited idiot,
that's what _he_ is!"

"And Richie says he'll have to have his mother's consent before he can
marry her," said Jane with a virtuous air.

"It's too disgusting!" Barbara added, giving Jane a sharp glance. "And
you oughtn't talk that way, Jane; it doesn't sound very well in a girl
your age to talk about any one's having to marry any one!"

"I know this," said Constance gloomily. "It's going to give this family
a horrible black eye. A fine chance we'll have to marry, we younger
ones, with Sally disgracing every one this way!" Constance was the
handsomest of all the Tolands, and felt keenly the disadvantages of
being the youngest of four unmarried sisters.

"Don't worry about your marriage until it comes along, Con," said
Barbara wearily.

"I'll bet I marry before you do!" said Constance, without venom.

"I long ago made up my mind never to marry at all," Barbara said, with a
bored air. Julia chuckled.

"It is so funny to hear you go at each other," she explained. "It sounds
so cross--and it really isn't at all! Don't worry, Miss Toland," she
added soothingly, "Miss Sally wouldn't marry him if she didn't love
him--"

"Oh, she loves him fast enough!" Barbara admitted, consoled.

"And if people love each other, it's all right," Julia went on. Barbara
sighed.

"Oh, I hope it is, Julia!" said she, as conscious of the little
familiarity for all her abstracted air as Julia was, and suspecting that
it thrilled Julia, as indeed it did.

"And it's all the result of idleness, that's what it is, and that's what
I've been telling your mother," said Miss Toland, coming in. "You've all
got nothing to do except sit about and think how bored you are!"

"Oh, Auntie, aren't you low?" Barbara said tranquilly, going to take an
arm of her chair. "All sorts of people elope--there's nothing so
disgraceful in _that_."

"It's disgraceful considering what a father you've got, and what a
mother!" Miss Toland said vexatiously. "And Ted worrying your father to
death about that scamp, too! I declare it's too much!"

"He's a pretty rich scamp, and a pretty attractive scamp," Barbara said
in defence of Theodora's choice. "He's not like that _kid_ of a Keith!"

Julia heard the garden gate slam, and a quick, springing step on the
porch before the others did, but it was Jane who said, "Here's Jim!" and
Barbara who went to let him in.

"Oh, Jimmy, have you heard of Sally?" she faltered, and as they came in
from the hall Julia's quick eye saw that she was half clinging to his
shoulder, sister fashion, and that his arm was half about her.

"Hello, every one!" said his big, reassuring voice. "How's Mother?
Hello, Aunt Sanna--and Miss Page, too! Well, this is fun, isn't it? Yes,
Miss Babbie, I've heard of Sally, Sally Borroughs, as she is now--"

"What! Married?" said every one at once, and Mrs. Toland, making an
impressive entrance with Richie, sank into a deep chair and echoed:
"Married?"

"Married, Mother dear," said Jim. "They found me in Dad's office at five
o'clock; Keith's father, a fierce sort of man, was with them, and was
for calling the whole thing off. Sally was crying, poor girl, and Keith
miserable--"

"Oh, poor old Sally!" said Barbara's tender voice.

"You should have brought her straight home to me!" Mrs. Toland added
severely.

"Well, so I thought at first. But they had their license, which would be
in the morning papers anyway, and Sally had done the fool thing of
mailing letters to two girl friends when she left here this morning--"

"She left me a mere scribble, pinned to her pin-cushion," said her
mother, magnificently. "Just as any common actress--"

"Oh, Mother! it wasn't pinned to her cushion at all!" Barbara protested.
"She had no pincushion, she has a pin tray."

"I hardly see how it matters, Babbie; it was on her bureau, anyway! Just
like a servant girl!" Mrs. Toland persisted.

"Well, anyway, it seemed best to push it right through," said Jim,
"especially as they persisted that they would do it again or die--or
rather, Sally did!"

"Oh, Jim, _don't_!" wailed Sally's mother. "Poor, deluded child!"

"I don't mean that Keith wasn't fiery enough," Jim hastened to say.
"He's a decent enough little fellow, and he's madly in love. So we all
went up to the French church, and Father Marchand married them--"

"A child of mine!" said Mrs. Toland, stricken.

"Keith's father and I witnessed," pursued Jim, "and we both kissed the
bride--"

"Sally! And she was such a dear sweet baby!" whispered Mrs. Toland, big
tears beginning to run down her cheeks.

"Ah, Mother!" Constance said soothingly, at her mother's knees.

"Sally's of age, of course," Jim argued soothingly, "and one couldn't
bring her home like a child. The thing would have gotten out, and she'd
have been a marked girl for life! There's really no _reason_ why they
shouldn't marry, and the boy--Keith, that is, put her into a carriage
quite charmingly, and they drove off. They'll go no farther than
Tamalpais or the Hotel Rafael, probably, for Keith has to be back at
work on Monday, and I made him promise to bring Sally here on Sunday
night."

"And what will they live on?" Mrs. Toland asked stonily.

"That isn't worrying them. Sally has--what? From those bonds of her
grandfather's?"

"Three hundred a year," Mrs. Toland said discouragingly.

"And Keith gets fifty-five a month. That's eighty--h'm!" pursued Jim.

"Well, some of us simply will have to help them," suggested Mrs. Toland,
with a swift, innocent glance at Miss Sanna.

"His father will have to help," Miss Toland countered firmly.

They presently adjourned to the dining-room, all still talking--even
Julia--of Sally. Sally would have to take the Barnes cottage, at fifteen
dollars a month, and do her own cooking, and her own sewing--

"They can dine here on Sundays," said Sally's mother, sniffing and
wiping her eyes.

"And wouldn't it be awful if they had a baby!" Jane flung out casually.

Every one felt the indelicacy of this, except Julia, who relieved all
Jane's hearers by saying warmly:

"Oh, don't say awful! Why, you'd all go wild over a dear little baby!"

Doctor Studdiford gave her a curious look at this, and though Julia did
not see it, Barbara did. After dinner the doctor and Barbara played
whist with the older ladies, and Julia sat looking over their shoulders
for a few minutes, and then went upstairs with Constance and Jane for a
long, delightful gossip. The girls must show her various pictures of
Keith and Sally, books full of kodak prints, and everywhere Julia saw
Jim, too: Jim from the days of little boyhood on to to-day, Jim as camp
cook, Jim as tennis champion, Jim riding, yachting, fishing; a younger
Jim, in the East at college, a small, stocky, unrecognizable Jim, in
short trousers and straw hat. And everywhere, with him, Barbara.

"That's when they gave a play--I was only five," Constance said. "See,
this is Jim as Jack Horner, and Babbie as Mother Goose. And look! here's
Jim on a pony--that's at his grandfather's place in Honolulu, He stayed
there a month every year, when he was a little boy, and Mother and
Barbara visited there once. Here we all are, swimming, at Tahoe. And
here's Bab in the dress she wore at her coming-out tea--isn't it dear?
And look! here she is in an old dress of Jim's mother, and see the old
pearls; aren't they lovely? Jim gave them to her when she was twenty."

"Jim was crazy about her then," said Jane.

"_I_ don't think he was," Constance said perversely.

"Oh, Con, you know he was!" Jane protested. "He _was_, too," she added, to
Julia.

"_I_ don't think he was," persisted Constance lightly.

Barbara came in a second later, and again the talk went back to Sally.

"Mother and Aunt Sanna said good-night," reported Barbara, "and Aunt
Sanna said to leave the door between your rooms open, and--oh, yes,
Doctor Studdiford has been teasing Aunt Sanna to stay for a few days,
Miss Page; he says you look as pale as a little ghost!"

"I liked so much to have you call me Julia," was Julia's extremely
tactful answer to this. Barbara, perhaps glad to find her message so
casually dismissed, smiled her prettiest.

"Julia--then!" and Barbara sat down on a bed, and began to roll up her
belt. "Aunt Sanna says she gives Sally and Keith about three months--"
she began.

Two days later, on Sunday, the bride and groom came home. Sally, who
looked particularly well and was quite unashamed, rushed into her
mother's arms, and laughed and cried like a creature possessed. She
kissed all her sisters, and if there was a note of disapproval in her
welcome, she did not get it. Richie having charitably carried off the
somewhat sullen young husband, the bride was presently free to open her
heart to the women of the house.

"It's all so different when you're married, isn't it, Mother?" bubbled
Sally. "Going into hotels and everything--you don't care who looks at
you, you know you've a perfect right to go anywhere with your husband!
Now, that look that Keith just gave me, as he went off with
Richie--_blazing_! Well, it would just have amused me when we were
engaged, but now I know that he's simply wretched with jealousy, and
I'll have to pet him a little and quiet him down! He is a perfect child
about money; he _will_ spend too much on everything, and if we go abroad
I'll simply have to--"

"Go abroad?" every one echoed.

"Oh, I think we must, for Keith's music," Sally said gravely. "He can't
settle down here, you know. He's got to live abroad, and he's got to
have lessons--expensive lessons. Office work makes him too nervous,
anyway."

"Well, my dear, I hope you have money enough to carry out these pleasing
plans," said Miss Toland dryly.

"Well, we have my twenty-five a month," Sally said capably, "and Keith's
father _ought_ to give him another twenty-five, because the expense of
having Keith live at home will be gone, and"--Sally fixed a hopeful eye
on her mother--"and I should think Dad would give me at least that,
Mother," said she. "I must cost him much more than that!"

"Oh, I--don't--know!" said Mrs. Toland guardedly, taken unawares, and
slowly shaking her head.

"Then I thought," pursued the practical Sally, "that if you would give
me half the clothes of a regular trousseau, and if Dad would give us our
travelling expenses to Berlin for a wedding present--why, there you
are!"

"But you two couldn't live on seventy-five dollars a month, Sally!"

"Oh, Mother, Jeannette said you could get a lovely room for two--in a
pension--for a dollar a day! And that leaves forty for lessons, two a
week, and five dollars over!"

"For laundry and carfare and doctor's bills," said Miss Toland
unsympathetically.

"Well!" Sally flared, resentful colour in her cheeks.

"And Dad will never consent to anything so _outrageously_ unfair as living
on thirty-five and spending forty for lessons!" said Barbara.

Poor little Sally looked somewhat crushed.

"For heaven's sake don't let Keith hear you say that, Babbie!" she said
nervously. "It makes him frantic to suggest that you can get decent
lessons in harmony for nothing! I don't know what you know about it,
anyway. I'll fix it with Dad!"

"If Dad allows Sally so much, he ought to do the same for the rest of
us," Constance suggested. Julia, foreseeing a scene, slipped out of the
room.

In the hallway she encountered Doctor Studdiford, who was just
downstairs after a late sleep. Jim had the satisfied air of a man who
has had a long rest, a shave and a bath, and a satisfactory breakfast.

"Family conference?" he said, nodding toward the sitting-room door.

"Sally and Keith are here," Julia announced.

"Oh, are they? Well, I ought to go in. But I also ought to walk up to
the Ridge, and see that poor fellow who ran a shaft into his leg." Jim
hesitated. "I suppose you wouldn't like to go with me?" he asked, with
his sudden smile. Julia's heart jumped; her eyes answered him. "Well,
wrap up snug," said Jim, "for there's the very deuce of a wind!"

So Julia tied herself into the most demure of hats, and buttoned her
long coat about her, and Jim shook himself into his heaviest overcoat,
and pulled an old cap down over his eyes. They let themselves out at a
side door, and a gust of wet wind howled down upon them, and shook a
shower from the madly rippling ivy leaves. The sky was high and pale,
and crossed by hurrying and scattered clouds; a clean, roaring gale tore
over the hills, and ruffled the rain pools in the road, and bowed the
trees like whips. The bay was iron colour; choppy waves chased each
other against the piers. Now and then a pale flicker of sunlight
brightened the whole scene with blues and greens and shadows
spectacularly clear; then the clouds met again, and the wind sang like a
snapped wire.

Julia and the doctor climbed the long flights of stairs that cut
straight up through the scattered homes on the hill. These earthen steps
were still running with the late rain, and moss lay on them like a green
film. Julia breathed hard, a veil of blown hair crossed her bright eyes,
her stinging cheeks glowed.

"I love this kind of a day!" she shouted. Jim's gloved hand helped her
to cross a wide pool, and his handsome eyes were full of all delight as
he shouted back.

Presently, when they were in a more quiet bit of road, he told her of
some of his early boyish walks. "Listen, Julia!" he said, catching her
arm. "D'you hear them? It's the peepers! We used to call them that,
little frogs, you know--sure sign of the spring!"

And as the wind lulled Julia heard the brave little voices of a hundred
tiny croakers in some wet bit of meadow. "We'll have buttercups next
week!" said Jim.

He told her something of the sick man to whom they were going, and spoke
of other cases, of his work and his hopes.

"Poor Kearney!" said Jim, "his oldest kid was sick, then his wife had a
new baby, and now this! You'll like the baby--he's a nice little kid. I
took him in my arms last time I was here, and I wish you could have seen
the little lip curl up, but he wouldn't cry! A kid two months old can be
awfully cunning!" He looked a little ashamed of this sentiment, but
Julia thought she had never seen anything so bright and simple and
lovable as the smile with which he asked her sympathy.

She was presently mothering the baby, in the Kearneys' little hot
living-room, while Doctor Studdiford caused the patient in the room
beyond to shout with pain. The howling wind had a sinister sound, heard
up here within walls, and Julia was glad to be out in it, and going down
the hills again.

"Well, how do you like sick calls?" asked Jim.

"I was glad not to have to see him," Julia confessed. "But it is a
darling baby, and such a nice little wife! She has a sister who comes up
every afternoon, so she can get some sleep, poor thing. His mother is
going to pay their rent until he gets well, and he gets two dollars a
week from his union. But she said that if you hadn't--"

"Well, you know now, for such a quiet little mouse of a girl, Julia, you
are a pretty good confidence woman!"

"And the baby's to be named for you!" Julia ended triumphantly.

"Lord, they needn't have done that!" said the doctor, with his confused,
boyish flush. "Look, Julia, how the tide has carried that ferryboat out
of her course!"

Julia's heart flew with the winds; she felt as if she had never known
such an hour of ecstasy before. They had crossed the upper road, and
were halfway down the last flight of steps, when Jim suddenly caught her
hand, and turned her about to face him. Dripping trees shut in this
particular landing, and they were alone under the wind-swept sky. Jim
put his arms about her, and Julia raised her face, with all a child's
serene docility, for his kiss.

"_Do_ you love me, Julie?" said Jim urgently, then. "Do you love me,
little girl? Because I love you _so_ much!"

Not the words he had so carefully chosen to say, but he said them a
score of times. If Julia answered, it was only with a confused murmur,
but she clung to him, and her luminous eyes never moved from his own.

"Oh, my God, I love you so!" Jim said, finally releasing her, only to
catch her in his arms again. "Won't you say it once, Julia, just to let
me hear you?"

"But I did say it," Julia said, dimpling and rosy.

"Oh, but darling, you don't know how _hungry_ I am to hear you!"

"How--how could I help it?" Julia stammered; and now the blue eyes she
raised were misty with tears.

Jim found this satisfactory, intoxicatingly so. They went a few steps
farther and sat on a bit of dry bulk-heading, and began to discuss the
miracle. About them the winds of spring shouted their eternal promise,
and in their hearts the promise that is as new and as old as spring came
to dazzling flower.

"My clever, sweet, little dignified girl!" said Jim. "Julia, do you know
that you are the most fascinating woman in the world? I never saw any
one like you!"

"I--Oh, Jim!" was all that Julia said, but her dimples and the nearness
of the blue eyes helped the stammered words.

"Among all the chattering, vapid girls I know," pursued Jim, "you stand
utterly alone, you with your ambitions, and your _wiseness_! By George!
when I think what you have made of yourself, I could get down and
worship you. I feel like a big spoiled kid beside you! I've always had
all the money I could spend, and you, you game little thing, you've
grubbed and worked and made things do!"

"I never had any ambition as high as marrying _you_," Julia said, with the
mysterious little smile that at once baffled and enchanted him. "When I
think of it, it makes me feel giddy, like a person walking in a valley
who found himself set down on top of a mountain! I never thought of
marriage at all!"

"But you are going to marry me, sweet, aren't you?" Jim asked anxiously.
"And you _are_ happy, dear? For I feel as if I would die of joy and
pride!"

"Oh, I'm happy!" Julia said, and instantly her lip quivered, and her
eyes brimmed with tears. She jumped to her feet, and caught him by the
hand. "Come on!" she said. "We _mustn't_ be so long!"

"But darling," said Jim, infinitely tender, "why the tears?"

For answer she caught his coat in her shabbily gloved little hands.

"Because I love you so, Jim," she faltered, trying to smile. "You don't
know how much!" Her voice had dropped to a whisper, and for a moment her
eyes looked far beyond him, down into the valley, and at the iron-cold
bay with its racing whitecaps. Then she took his hand, and they began to
descend the steps.

"I may tell my mother, Julie?" Jim asked joyously. "And Aunt Sanna? And
do you know that Julia is one of my favourite names--"

"No, I want you not to tell any one," Julia decided quickly. "You must
promise me that. Nobody." Something in her tone surprised, a little
chilled, him.

"Julie--but why?"

"Well, because we want to be _sure_--"

"Oh, sure! Why, but, dearest, _aren't_ you--"

"No, but wait a moment," Julia interrupted, and Jim, turning toward her,
saw a real trouble reflected in her face. "I want you to meet my mother,
and my own people," she said, scarlet cheeked. Jim's grave,
comprehensive look met hers.

"And I want to, dear," he said. And then, as her face did not brighten:
"Why, my dearest, you aren't going to worry because your people aren't
in the Social Register, and don't go to the Brownings'? I know all sorts
of people, Ju--Kearney, up there, is a good friend of mine! And I know
from Aunt Sanna that you're a long way ahead of your own people."

"I don't know whether it's 'ahead' or not," said Julia, with a worried
laugh. "I suppose only God knows the real value of finger bowls and
toothbrushes and silk stockings! I _suppose_ it's 'ahead'!"

She opened the Tolands' side gate as she spoke, and they went into the
bare garden.

"Well--but _don't_ go in," pleaded Jim, "there'll be a mob about us in no
time, and I've never had you to myself before! When may I come see your
people?"

"Will you write?" Julia asked at the side door.

"Oh, but darling, when we've just begun to talk!" fretted Jim. "Would
you dare to kiss me right here--no one could possibly see us!"

"I would _not_!" And Julia flashed him one laughing look as she opened the
door. A moment later he heard her running up the stairway.

Julia found Miss Toland upstairs, hastily packing. "Well, runaway!" said
the older lady. And then, in explanation, "I think we'd best go, Julia,
for my brother and Teddy have just got home, and there'll have to be a
great family council to-night."

"Would you stay if I went?" Julia asked, coming close to her.

"No, you muggins! I'd pack you off in a moment if that was what I meant!
No, I'm glad enough to get out of it!" Miss Toland stood up. "What's Jim
Studdiford been saying to you to give you cheeks like that?" she asked.

"I don't know," Julia whispered, with a tremulous laugh. And for the
first time she went into Miss Toland's open arms, and hid her face, and
for the first time they kissed each other.

"Anything settled?" the older woman presently asked in great
satisfaction.

"Not--quite!" Julia said.

"Not quite! Well, that's right; there's no need of hurry. Oh, law me!
I've seen this coming," Miss Toland assured her; "he all but told me
himself a week ago! Well, well, well! And it only goes to show, Julia,"
she added, shaking a skirt before she rolled it into a ball and laid it
in her suitcase, "that if you give a girl an occupation, she's better
off, she's more useful, and it doesn't keep her fate from finding her
out! You laugh, because you've heard me say this before, but it's true!"

Julia had laughed indeed; her heart was singing. She would have laughed
at anything to-day.

Four days later, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Doctor Studdiford
called at The Alexander, and Miss Page joined him, in street attire, at
once. They walked away to the car together, in a street suddenly flooded
with golden sunshine.

"Did you tell your mother I was coming, dear?"

"Oh, Jim, of course! I never would dare take them unawares!"

"And did you tell her that you were going to be my adored and beautiful
little wife in a few months?"

"In a few months--hear the man! In a few years! No, but I gave them to
understand that you were my 'friend.' I didn't mention that you are a
multi-millionaire and a genius on leg bones--"

"Julia, my poor girl, if you think you are marrying a multi-millionaire,
disabuse your mind, dear child! Aren't women mercenary, though! Here I
thought I--No, but seriously, darling, why shouldn't your mother have
the satisfaction of knowing that your future is pretty safe?"

"Well, that's hard to say, Jim. But I think you will like her better if
she takes it for granted that you are just--well, say just the sort of
doctor we might have called in to the settlement house, establishing a
practice, but quite able to marry. I feel," said Julia, finding her
words with a little difficulty, "that my mother might hurt my
feelings--by doubting my motives, otherwise--and if she hurt my
feelings she would anger you, wouldn't she?"

"She certainly would!" Jim smiled, but the look he gave his plucky
little companion was far removed from mirth.

"And I do dread this call," Julia said nervously. "I came down here
yesterday, just to say we were coming, and it all struck me as
being--However, there's the house, and you'll soon see for yourself!"

The house itself was something of a shock to Jim, but if Julia guessed
it, he gave her no evidence of his feeling, and was presently taken into
the stifling parlour, and introduced to Julia's mother, a little gray
now, but hard lipped and bright eyed as ever, and to Mrs. Cox, who had
been widowed for some years, and was a genial, toothless, talkative old
woman, much increased in her own esteem and her children's as the actual
owner of the old house.

"Mother, we want some air in here!" Julia said, going to a window.

"Julia's a great girl for fresh air," said Emeline. "Sit down, Doctor,
and don't mind Ma!" Mrs. Cox, perhaps slightly self-conscious, was
wandering about the room picking threads from the carpet, straightening
the pictures on the walls, and dubiously poking a small stopped clock on
the mantel.

"How's your arm to-day?" Julia asked, stopping behind her mother's
chair, and laying two firm young hands on her shoulders.

"What do you think of a girl that runs off and doesn't see her mother
for weeks at a time, Doctor?" Mrs. Page demanded a little tartly. "Her
papa and I was devoted to her, too! But I suppose if she marries, she'll
be too grand for us altogether!"

"Now, Mother!" said Julia pleadingly, half vexed, half indulgent.

"I had an elegant little place myself when I was first married," Mrs.
Page continued, in a sort of discontented sing-song. "Julia must have
told you about her papa--"

Julia's serious eyes flashed a look to Jim, and he saw something almost
like humour in their blue deeps.

"That's a crayon enlargement of my youngest son," the old woman was
presently saying, "Chess. A better boy never lived, but he got in with
bad companions and they got him in jail. Yes, indeed they did! On'y the
governor let him out again--"

The call was not long. Doctor Studdiford shook hands with both the
ladies, in departing, and Julia kissed her mother and grandmother
dutifully. The two walked almost in silence to the car.

"Downtown?" asked Julia, in surprise.

"Downtown, for tea," Jim said. And when they were comfortably
established in a secluded corner of the Golden Pheasant, he expelled a
long breath from his lungs, and sent Julia his sunniest smile as he
said:

"Well, you're a wonder!"

"I?" Julia touched her heart with her fingers, and raised her eyebrows.

"Oh, yes, you are!" Jim repeated. "You're a little wonder! To make
yourself so sweet and fine and dear, it shows that you're one of the big
people of the world, Julie! Some one of the writers, Emerson I guess it
was, says that when you find a young person who is willing to accept the
wisdom of older people, and abide by it, why, you may watch that young
person for great things. And you see, I propose to!"

Julia had no answering smile ready. Instead her face was very grave as
she said musingly:

"I hardly know why I wanted you to meet my mother and grandmother, Jim.
I don't know quite what I expected when you _did_ meet them, but--but you
mustn't make light of the fact that they _are_ different from your people,
and different from me, too. For three or four days and nights now I've
been thinking about--us. I've been wondering whether this engagement
would be a--a happy thing for you, Jim. I've wondered--"

"But, sweetheart!" he interrupted eagerly, "I love you! You're the only
woman I ever wanted to marry! I love you just because you _are_ different,
you are so much wiser and deeper and truer than any other girl I ever
knew, and if your people and your life have made you that, why I love
them, too! And you do love me, Julie?"

Julia raised heavy eyes, and he could see that tears were pressing close
behind them. She did not speak, but her look suddenly enveloped him like
a cloud. Jim felt a sudden prick of tears behind his own eyes.

"Sweetness," he said gravely, "I know you love me! And Julia, my whole
soul is simply on fire for you. Don't--_don't_ let any mere trifle come
between us now. Let me tell my mother and father to-morrow!"

A clear light was shining in Julia's eyes. Now, as she automatically
arranged the tea things before her, and poured him his first cup of tea,
she said:

"Jim, I told you that I haven't thought much about marriage for myself.
I suppose it's funny that I shouldn't, for they say most girls do! But
perhaps it was because the biographies and histories I began to read
when I came to the settlement house were all about men: how Lincoln
rose, how Napoleon rose, how this rich man sold newspapers when he was a
little boy, and that other one spent his first money in taking his
mother out of the poorhouse. And of course marriage doesn't enter so
much into the lives of men. It came to me years ago that what wise men
are trying to din into young people everywhere is just this: that if you
make yourself ready for anything, that thing will come to you. Just do
your end, and somewhere out in the queer, big, incomprehensible
machinery of the world your place will mysteriously begin to get ready
for you--Am I talking sense, Jim?"

"Absolutely. Go on!" said Jim.

"Well, and so I thought that if I took years and years I might--well,
you won't see why, but I wanted to be a lady!" confessed Julia, her lips
smiling, but with serious eyes. "And, Jim, everything comes so much more
easily than one thinks. Your aunt knew I wasn't, but I happened to be
what she needed, and I kept quiet, and listened and learned!"

"And suppose you _hadn't_ happened upon the settlement house?" asked Jim,
his ardent eyes never moving from her face.

"Why, I would have done it somehow, some other way. I meant to take a
position in some family, and perhaps be a trained nurse when I was
older, or study to be a librarian and take the City Hall examinations,
or work up to a post-office position! I had lots of plans, only of
course I was only a selfish little girl then, and I thought I would
disappear, and never let my own people hear from me again!"

"But you softened on that point, eh?" asked Jim.

"Oh, right away!" Julia's wonderful eyes shone upon him with something
unearthly in their light. "Because God decides to whom we shall belong,
Jim," said she, with childish faith, "and to start wrong with my own
people would mean that I was all wrong, everywhere. But my highest
ambition then was to grow, as the years went on, to be useful to nice
people, and to be liked by them. I never dreamed every one would be so
friendly! And when Miss Pierce and Miss Scott have asked me to their
homes, and when Mrs. Forbes took me to Santa Cruz, and Mrs. Chetwynde
asked me to dine with them, well, I can't tell you what it meant!"

"It meant that you are as good--and better, in every way--than all the
rest of them put together!" said the prejudiced Jim.

"Oh, Jim!" Julia looked at him over her teacup, a breach of manners
which Jim thought very charming. "No," she said, presently, pursuing her
own thoughts, "but I never thought of marriage! And now you come along,
Jim, so--so good to me, so infinitely dear, and I can't--I can't help
caring--" And suddenly her lip trembled, and tears filled her eyes. She
looked down at her teacup, and stirred it blindly.

"You angel!" Jim said.

"Don't--make--me--cry--!" Julia begged thickly. A second later she
looked up and laughed through tears. "And I feel like a person who has
been skipped over four or five grades at school; I don't know whether I
_can_ be a rich man's wife!" she said whimsically. "I know I can go on as
I am, reading and thinking, and listening to other people, and keeping
quiet when I have nothing to say, but--but when I think of being Mrs.
James Studdiford--"

"Oh, I love to hear you say it!" Jim leaned across the table, and put
one warm big hand over hers. "My darling little wife!"

The word dyed Julia's cheeks crimson, and for the long hour that they
lingered over their tea she seemed to Jim more charming than he had ever
found her before. Her gravity, with its deep hint of suppressed mirth,
and her mirth that was always so delicate and demure, so shot with
sudden pathos and seriousness, were equally exquisite; and her beauty
won all eyes, from the old waiter who hovered over their happiness, to
the little baby in the street car who would sit in Julia's lap and
nowhere else. Jim presently left Julia to her Girls' Club, consoling
himself with the thought that on the following night they were to make
their first trip to the theatre together.

But when, at half-past seven the next evening, Jim presented himself at
the settlement house, he found Julia alone, and obviously not dressed
for the theatre. She admitted him with a kiss that to his lover's
enthusiasm was strangely cool, and drew him into the reception hall.

"Your aunt had to go out with Miss Parker," said Julia. "But she'll
positively be here a little after eight."

"My darling, I didn't come to see Aunt Sanna!" Jim caught her to him.
"But, sweetheart," he said, "how hot your face is, and your poor little
hands are icy! Aren't you well?"

"No, I don't believe I'm very well!" Julia admitted restlessly, lighting
the shaded lamp on the centre table, and snapping off the side lights
that so mercilessly revealed her pale face and burning eyes.

"Not well enough for the theatre? Well, but darling, I don't care one
snap for the theatre," Jim assured her eagerly. "Only I hate to see you
so nervous and tired. Has it been a hard day? Aunt Sanna--?"

"No, your aunt's an angel to me--no, it's been an easy day," Julia said,
dropping into a chair, and pushing her hair back from her face with a
feverish gesture. A second later she sprang up and disappeared into the
assembly hall. "I thought I mightn't have locked the door," she said,
returning.

"Why, sweetheart," Jim said, in great distress, "what is it? You're not
one bit like yourself!"

"No, I know I'm not," Julia said wildly. She sat down again. "I've been
thinking and thinking all day, until I feel as if I must go _crazy_!" she
said with a desperate gesture. "And it's come to this, Jim--Don't think
I'm excited--I mean it. I--we can't be married, Jim. That's all.
Don't--don't look so amazed. People break engagements all the time,
don't they? And we aren't really engaged, Jim; nobody knows it. And--and
so it's _all_ right!"

Anything less right than Julia's ashen face and blazing eyes, and the
touch of her cold wet little hands, Jim thought he had never seen. He
stepped into the bathroom, and ran his eye along the trim row of
labelled bottles on the shelf.

"Here, drink this, dear," he said, coming back to her with something
clear and pungent in a glass. "Now, come here," and half lifting the
little figure in his arms he put her on the couch, and tucked a plaid
warmly about her. "Don't forget that your husband is also a doctor,"
said Jim, sitting down so that he could see her face, and hold one hand
in both of his. "You're all worn out and excited, and no wonder! You
see, most girls take out their excess emotion on their families, but my
little old girl is too much alone!"

Julia's eyes were fixed on him as if she were powerless to draw them
away. It was sweet--it was poignantly sweet--to be cared for by him, to
feel that Jim's warm heart and keen mind were at her service, that the
swift smile was for her, the ardour in his eyes was all her own. For
perhaps half an hour she rested, almost without speaking, and Jim talked
to her with studied lightness and carelessness. Then suddenly she sat
up, and put her hands to her loosened hair.

"I must look wild, Jim!"

"You look like a ravishing little gipsy! But I wish you had more colour,
mouse!"

"Am I pale?" Julia asked, with a little nervous laugh. Jim dropped on
one knee beside her, and studied her with anxious eyes, and she pushed
the hair off his forehead, and rested her cheek against it with a long
sigh as if she were very tired.

"What is it, dear?" asked Jim, with infinite solicitude.

"Well!" Julia put the faintest shadow of a kiss on his forehead, then
got abruptly to her feet and crossed the room, as if she found his
nearness suddenly insufferable. "I can't break my engagement to you this
way, Jim," said she. "For even if I told you a thousand times that I had
stopped loving you"--a spasm of pain crossed her face, she shut her
hands tightly together over her heart--"even then you would know that I
love you with my whole soul," she said in a whisper with shut eyes. "But
you see," and Julia turned a pitiful smile upon him, "you see there's
something you don't understand, Jim! You say I have climbed up alone,
from being a tough little would-be actress, who lived over a saloon in
O'Farrell Street, to this! You say--and your aunt says--that I am wise,
wise to see what is worth having, and to work for it! But has it never
occurred to _one_ of you--" Julia's voice, which had been rising steadily,
sank to a cold, low tone. "No," she said, as if to herself, sitting down
at the table, and resting her arms upon it. "No, it has never occurred
to one of them to ask _why_ I am different--to ask just what made me so!
Life boils itself down to this, doesn't it?" she went on, staring
drearily at the shadowy corner of the room beyond her. "That women have
something to sell, or give away, and the question is just how much each
one can get for it! That's what makes the most insignificant married
woman feel superior to the happiest and richest old maid. She says to
herself, 'I've made my market. Somebody chose me!' That's what
motherhood and homemaking rest on: the whole world is just one great big
question of sex, spinning away in space! And even after a woman is
married, she still plays with sex; she likes to feel that men admire
her, doesn't she? At dinners there must be a man for every woman; at
dances no two girls must dance together! And here, the minute a new girl
comes to join my clubs, I try to read her face. Is she pure, or has she
already thrown away--"

"Julia, _dear_!" said Jim, amazed and troubled, but she silenced him with
a quick gesture. Her cheeks were burning now, and her words came fast.

"Those poor little girls at St. Anne's," she said feverishly, "they've
thrown their lives away because this thing that is in the air all about
them came too close. They were too young legally to be trusted as Nature
has trusted them for years! They heard people talk of it, and laugh
about it--it didn't _seem_ very dangerous--"

"Julia!" Jim said again, pleadingly.

"Just one moment, Jim, and I'll be done! When they had learned their
lesson, when they had found out what sorrow it brought, when they knew
that there was only loss and shame in it for them--then it was too late!
Then men, and women, too, expected them to go on giving; there was
nothing else to do. Oh," said Julia, in a heartbreaking voice, bringing
her locked hands down upon the table as if she were in physical agony,
"if the law would only take a hand before and not afterward! Or if, when
they are sick to death of men, they could believe that time would wash
it all away; that there was clean, good work for them somewhere in the
world!"

"My darling, why distress yourself about what can't possibly concern
you?" Jim said. Julia stared at him thoughtfully for a few silent
seconds.

"It _does_ concern me. That's how I bought my wisdom," she said quietly
then, with no emotion deeper than a mild regret visible in her face.
Voice and manner were swept bare of passion; she seemed infinitely
fatigued. "That's why I can't marry you, Jim."

"What do you mean?" Jim said easily, uncomprehendingly, the indulgent
smile hardly stricken from his lips.

Julia's eyes met his squarely across the lamplight.

"That," she said simply.

There was a silence, and no change of expression on either face. Then
Jim stood up.

"I don't believe it!" he said, with a short laugh.

"It's true," said Julia. "I was not fifteen. How long ago it was! Nobody
has ever known--you need not have known. But I am glad I told you. I
have been thinking of nothing else but telling you for two days and two
nights. And sometimes I would say to myself that what that old little
ignorant Julia did would not concern you--"

Jim made an inarticulate sound, from where he sat with his elbows on his
knees, with his face dropped in his hands.

"But I see it does concern you!" Julia said, quickly, with great
simplicity. "I--luckily I decided to tell you this morning," she said,
"for I am absolutely exhausted now. It was a terrible thing to keep
thinking about, and I could not have fought it out any longer! There
were extenuating circumstances, I suppose. I was a spoiled little
empty-headed girl; the girls all about me were reckless in everyway; I
did not know the boundary-line, or dream that it mattered very much, so
long as no one knew! My mother had been unhappy in my childhood, and
used to talk a good deal about the disappointment of marriage. Perhaps I
don't make myself clear?"

"_You_! Julia!" Jim whispered, his hands still over his face.

"Yes, I know," Julia said drearily. "I don't seem like that sort of a
girl, I know."

Then there was a long silence.

"You--poor--little--kid!" Jim said, after a while, getting up and
beginning to walk the floor. "Oh, my God! My God! Poor little kid!"

"I suppose there are psychological moments when one wakes up to things,"
Julia went on, in a tone curiously impersonal. "I was in some
theatricals with your sister, years ago. Every one snubbed me, and no
wonder! There was a man named Carter Hazzard--and I suddenly seemed to
wake up at about that time--"

"Carter Hazzard!" The horror in Jim's voice rang through the room. Julia
frowned.

"I only saw him two or three times," she said. "No. But he flirted with
me, and flattered me, and then Barbara told me he was married, and then
I found out that they all thought I was vulgar and common--and so I was.
And I suppose I wanted to be loved and made much of, and he--this
man--was good to me!"

"Not you--of all women!" Jim said dully, as if to himself.

"I know how you feel," Julia said without emotion, "because of course I
feel that way, too--now! And I never loved him, never even thought I
did! It was only a little while--two weeks or three, I guess--before I
told him I couldn't ever love him. I said I thought I might, but it was
like--like realizing that I had been throwing away gold pieces for
dimes. Do you know what I mean? And the most awful disgust came over me,
Jim--a sort of disappointment, that this talked-of and anticipated thing
was no more than that! And then I came here, and I knew that keeping
still about it was my only chance, and oh, how sick I was, soul and
body, for a fresh start! And then your aunt talked to me, and said what
a pity it is that young girls think of nothing but love and lovers, and
so throw away their best years, and I thought that I was done with love;
no more curiosity--no more thrill--and that I would do something with my
life after all!"

Her voice dropped, and again there was silence in the room. Jim
continued to pace the floor.

"Why, there's never been a morning at St. Anne's that I haven't looked
at those girls," Julia presently resumed, "and said to myself that I
might have been there, with my head shaved and a green check dress on!
Lots of them must be better than I!"

"Don't!" Jim said sharply, and there was a silence until Julia said
wonderingly:

"Isn't it funny that all last night, and the night before, I thought I
was going to _die_, telling you this--and now it just doesn't seem to
matter at all?"

"That's why you've never married?" Jim said, clearing his throat.

"I've never wanted to until now," Julia said. "And I--I am so changed
now that somehow I would never think of that--that bad old time, in
connection with marriage! It was as if that part of my life was sealed
beyond opening again--

"And then you came. I only wanted no one to guess that I cared at first.
And then, when I saw that you were beginning to care, too, oh, my God! I
thought my heart would burst!"

And with sudden terrible passion in her voice, she got up in her turn
and began to pace the room. Jim, who had flung himself into a chair
opposite hers, rested his elbows on the table, and his face in his
hands.

"But I feel this about your caring for me, Jim," Julia said. "In a
strange, mysterious way I feel that giving you up--giving you up, my
best and dearest, is purification! When--when this is over, I shall have
paid! It may be"--tears flooded her eyes, and she came back to her chair
and laid her head on her arm--"it may be that I can't bear it, and that
I will die!" sobbed Julia. "But I shall always be glad that I told you
this to-night!" There was a long silence, and then again Jim came to
kneel beside her, and put one arm about her.

"My own little girl!" said he. At his voice Julia raised her head, and
put her arms about his neck like a weary child, and rested her wet face
against his own.

"My own brave girl!" Jim said. "I know what courage it took to have you
tell me this! It will never be known to any one else, sweetheart, and we
will bury it in our hearts forever. Kiss me, dearest, and promise me
that my little wife will stop crying!"

For a moment it was as if she tried to push him away.

"Jim," she whispered, tears running down her face, "have you
thought--are you _sure_?"

"Quite sure, sweetheart," he said soothingly and tenderly. "Why, Julie,
wouldn't you forgive me anything I might have done when I was only an
ignorant little boy?"

Julia tightened her arms about him, and sobbed desperately for a long
while. Then her breathing quieted, and she let Jim dry her eyes with his
own handkerchief, and listened, with an occasional long sigh, to his
eager, confident plans. They were still talking quietly when the street
door was flung open and Miss Toland came in, on a rush of fresh air.

"Rain!" said Miss Toland. "Terrible night! Not an umbrella in the Parker
house until Clem came home--it's quarter to ten!"

"Congratulate us, Aunt Sanna," said Jim, rising to his feet with his arm
still about Julia. "Julia has promised to marry me!"

End of Part One




PART II




CHAPTER I

Yet Dr. James Studdiford, walking down to his club, an hour later, with
the memory of his aunt's joyous congratulations ringing in his ears, and
of Julia's last warm little kiss upon his cheek, was perhaps more
miserable than he had been before in the course of his life. Julia was
his girl--his own girl--and the thrill of her submission, the enchanting
realization that she loved him, rose over and over again in his heart,
like the rising of deep waters--only to wash against the firm barrier
of that hideous Fact.

Jim could do nothing with the Fact. It did not seem to belong to him, or
to Julia, to their love and future together, or to her gallant,
all-enduring past. Julia was Julia--that was the only significant thing,
the sweetest, purest, cleverest woman he knew. And she loved him! A rush
of ecstasy flooded his whole being; how sweet she was when he made her
say she loved him--when she surrendered her hands, when she raised her
gravely smiling blue eyes! What a little wife she would be, what a gay
little comrade, and some day, perhaps, what a mother!

Again the Fact. After such a little interval of radiant peace it seemed
to descend upon him with an ugly violence. It was true; nothing that
they could do now would alter it. And, of course, the thing was serious.
If anything in life was serious, this was. It was frightful--it seemed
sacrilegious to connect such things for an instant with Julia. Dear
little Julia, with her crisp little uniforms, her authority in the
classroom, her charming deference to Aunt Sanna! And she loved him----

"Damn it, the thing either counts or it doesn't count!" Jim muttered,
striding down Market Street, past darkened shops and corners where
lights showed behind the swinging doors of saloons. Either it was all
important or it was not important at all. With most women, all
important, of course. With Julia--Jim let his mind play for a few
minutes with the thought of renunciation. There would be no trouble with
Julia, and Aunt Sanna could easily be silenced.

He shook the mere vision from him with an angry shake of the head. She
belonged to him now, his little steadfast, serious girl. And she had
deceived them all these years! Not that he could blame her for it!
Naturally, Aunt Sanna would never have overlooked that, and presumably
no other woman would have engaged her, knowing it, even to wash dishes
and sweep steps.

"Lord, what a world for women!" thought Jim, in simple wonder. Hunted
down mercilessly, pushed at the first sign of weakening, they know not
where, and then lost! Hundreds of thousands of them forever outcast, to
pay through all the years that are left to them for that hour of
yielding! Hundreds of thousands of them, and his Julia only different
because she had made herself so--

It seemed to Jim, in his club now, and sunk in a deep chair before the
wood fire in the quiet library, that he could never marry her. It must
simply be his sorrow to have loved Julia--God, how he did love her!

But, through all their years together, there must not be that shadow
upon their happiness; it was too hideous to be endured. "It must be
endured," mused Jim wretchedly. "It is true!

"Anyway," he went on presently, rousing himself, "the thing is no more
important than I choose to make it. Ordinarily, yes. But in this case
the thing to be considered is its effect on Julia's character, and if
ever any soul was pure, hers is!

"And if we marry, we must simply make up our minds that the past is
dead!" And suddenly Jim's heart grew lighter, and the black mood of the
past hour seemed to drop. He stretched himself luxuriously and folded
his arms. "If Julia isn't a hundred per cent, sweeter and better and
finer than these friends of Babbie's, who go chasing about to bad plays
and read all the rottenest books that are printed," he said, "then
there's no such thing as a good woman! My little girl--I'm not half
worthy of _her_, that's the truth!"

"Hello, Jim!" said Gray Babcock, coming in from the theatre, and
stretching his long cold hands over the dying fire. "We thought you
might come in to-night. Hazzard and Tom Parley had a little party for
Miss Manning, of the 'Dainty Duchess' Company, you know--awfully pretty
girl, straight, too, they say. There were a couple of other girls, and
Roy Grinell--things were just about starting up when I came away!"

Jim rose, and kicked the scattered ends of a log toward the flame.

"I've not got much use for Hazzard," he observed, frowning.

Babcock gave a surprised and vacant laugh.

"Gosh! I thought all you people were good friends!"

"Hazzard's an ass," observed Jim irritably. "There are some things that
aren't any too becoming to college kids--however, you can forgive them!
But when it comes to an ass like Hazzard chasing to every beauty show,
and taking good little girls to supper--"

"Alice don't care a whoop what he does," Babcock remarked hastily.

"Yes, so of course that makes everything all right," Jim said
ironically. But Mr. Babcock was in no mood to be critical of tones.

"Sure it does!" he agreed contentedly. And when Jim had disgustedly
departed, he remained still staring into the fire, a pleased smile upon
his face.

Julia spent the next day in bed fighting a threatened nervous breakdown,
and Jim came to see her at two o'clock, and they had a long and
memorable talk, with Jim's chair drawn close to the couch, and the
girl's lax hand in his own. She had not slept all night, she told him,
and he suspected that she had spent much of the long vigil in tears.
Tears came again as she begged a hundred times to set him free, but he
quieted her at last, and the old tragedy that had risen to haunt them
was laid. And if Julia felt a rush of blind gratitude and hope when they
sealed their new compact with a kiss, Jim was no less happy--everything
had come out wonderfully, and he loved Julia not less, but more than he
had ever loved her. The facts of her life, whatever they had been, had
made her what she was; now let them all be forgotten.

"Still, you are not sorry I told you, Jim?" Julia asked.

"No, oh, no, dearest! If only because you would have been sure to want
to do it sooner or later--it would have worried you. But now I do know,
Julie, you little Spartan! And this ends it. We'll never speak of it
again, and we'll never think of it again. You and I are the only two who
know--And we love each other. When all's said and done, it's I that am
not good enough for you, darling, not worthy to tie your little shoe
laces!"

"Oh, _you_!" Julia said, in great content.

The rest followed, as Julia herself said, like "a house-maid's dream."
Jim went home to tell his own people that night, and the very next
morning Julia, surprised and smiling, took in at the door a trim little
package that proved to be a blue-and-white Copenhagen teacup, with a
card that bore only the words "Miss Barbara Lowe Toland." Julia twisted
it in her fingers with a curious little thrill at the heart. The
"nicest" people sent cups to engaged girls, the "nicest" people sent
their cards innocent of scribbled messages. She, Julia Page, was one of
the "nicest" people now, and these were the first tentacles of her new
estate reaching out to meet her.

Notes and flowers from the Tolands and the warm-hearted Tolands
themselves followed thick and fast, and in a day or two notes and
cups--cups--cups--were coming from other people as well. The Misses
Saunders, the Harvey Brocks, the George Chickerings, Mr. Peter Coleman,
Mr. Jerome Phillips, Mrs. Arnold Keith, and Miss Mary Peacock--all had
found time to go into Nathan Dohrmann's, or Gump's, or the White House,
and pick out a beautiful cup to send Miss Julia Page.

Six weeks--five weeks--three weeks to the wedding, sang Julia's heart;
the time ran away. She had dreaded having to meet Jim's friends, and had
dreaded some possible embarrassment from an unexpected move on the part
of her own family, but the days fled by, and the miracle of their
happiness only expanded and grew sweeter, like a great opening rose.
Their hours together, with so much to tell each other and so much to
discuss, no matter how short the parting had been, were hours of
exquisite delight. And as Julia's beauty and charm were praised on all
sides, Jim beamed like a proud boy. As for Julia, every day brought to
her notice something new to admire in this wonderful lover of hers: his
scowl as he fixed his engine, the smile that always met hers, the
instant soberness and attention with which he answered any question as
to his work from the older doctor--all this was delightful to her. And
when he took her to luncheon, his careless big fingers on the ready gold
pieces and his easy nod to the waiter were not lost upon Julia. She had
loved him for himself, but it was additionally endearing to learn that
other people loved him, too, to be stopped by elderly women who smiled
and praised him, to have young people affectionately interested in his
plans.

"You know you are nothing but a small boy, Jim," Julia said one day,
"just a sweet, happy kid! You were a spoiled and pitied little boy, with
your big eyes and your velvet suits and your patent leathers; you loved
every one--every one loved you; you had your allowance, you were born to
be a surgeon, and chance made your guardian a doctor--"

"I fell down on my exams," Jim submitted meekly. "And there was a fellow
at college who said I bored him!"

"Oh, dearest," Julia said, beginning to laugh at his rueful face, "and
are those the worst things that ever happened to you?"

"About," said Jim, enjoying the consolatory little kiss she gave him.

"And your youngness baffles me," pursued Julia thoughtfully. "You're ten
years older than I am, you've been able to do a thousand things I never
did, you're a rising young surgeon, and yet--and yet sometimes there's a
sort of level--level isn't the word!--a sort of _positive_ youth about you
that makes me feel eighty! It's just as if you had been born everything
you are, ready made! When you have to straighten a child's hip, you push
your hair back like a nice little kid, and say to yourself, 'Sure--I
can do that!' You seem as pleased and surprised as any one else when
everything comes out right!"

"Well, gosh! I never can put on any lugs!" said James, rumpling his hair
in penitential enjoyment.

"I have to learn things so _hard_," Julia mused, "they dig down right into
the very soul of me--"

"You're implying that I'm shallow," said the doctor sternly. "You think
I'm a pampered child of luxury, but I'm not! I just think I'm a pretty
ordinary fellow who came in for an extraordinary line of luck. I would
have made a pretty good bluff at supporting myself in any sort of life;
as it was, when I was a youngster, growing up, I used to say to myself,
'You think you're going to be rich, but half the poor men in the world
are born rich, anything may happen!' However, I enjoyed things just the
same, and I went to medical college just because Dad said every man
ought to be able to support himself. Then I got interested in the thing,
and old Fox was a king to me, and told me I ought to go in for surgery.
My own father was a surgeon, you know. Some hands are just naturally
better for it than others, and his were, and mine are. And at
twenty-five I came of age, and found that my money was pretty safely
fixed, and that Dad was kind of counting on my going in with him. So
there you are! Things just come my way; as I say, I'd have been
satisfied with less, but I've got in the habit of taking my luck for
granted."

"And some people, like--well, like my grandmother, for instance, just
get in the habit of bad luck," Julia said, with a sigh. "And some, like
myself," she added, brightening, "are born in the bad belt, and push
into the good! And we're the really lucky ones! I shall never put on a
fresh frock, or go downtown with you to the theatre, without a special
separate joy!"

Jim said, "You angel!" and as she jumped up--they had been sitting side
by side in the hall at The Alexander--he caught her around the waist,
and Julia set a little kiss on the top of his hair.

"But you do love me, Ju?" Jim asked.

"But I do indeed!" she answered. "Why do you always ask me in that
argumentative sort of way? But me no buts!"

"Ah, well, it's because I'm always afraid you'll stop!" Jim pleaded.
"And I do so want you to begin to love me as much as I do you!"

"You must have had thousands of girls!" Julia remarked, idly rumpling
his hair.

"I never was engaged before!" he assured her promptly. "Except to that
Delaware girl, as I told you, and after five years she threw me over for
a boy named Gregory Biddle, with several millions, but no chin, Julia,
and had the gall to ask me to the wedding!"

"Jim, and you went?"

"Sure I went!" Jim declared.

"Oh, Jim!" and Julia gave him another kiss, through a gale of laughter,
and ran off to change her gown and put on her hat.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and they were going to Sausalito. But first
they went downtown in the lazy soft spring afternoon, to buy gloves for
Julia and a scarf pin for Richie, who was to be Jim's best man, and to
go into the big railroad office to get tickets for the use of Dr. and
Mrs. James Studdiford three days later.

"Where are we going?" Julia asked idly, her eyes moving about the bright
pigeonholed office, and to the window, and the street beyond. Jim for
answer put his thumb upon the magic word that stared up at her from the
long ticket.

"New York!" she whispered; her radiant look flashed suddenly to him.
"Oh, Jim!" And as they went out he heard a little sigh of utter content
beside him. "It's too much!" said Julia. "To go to New York--with you!"

"Wherever you go, you go with me," he reminded her, with a glance that
brought the swift colour to her face.

Then they went down to the boat. It was the first hot afternoon of the
season; there was a general carrying of coats, and people were using the
deck seats; there was even some grumbling at the heat. But Sausalito was
at its loveliest, and Julia felt almost oppressed by the exquisite
promise of summer that came with the sudden sound of laughter and voices
in lanes that had long been silent, and with the odour of dying grass
and drooping buttercups beside the road. The Toland garden was full of
roses, bright in level sunshine, windows and doors were all wide open,
and the odours from bowls of flowers drifted about the house. Barbara,
lovely in white, came to meet them.

"Come in, you poor things, you must be roasted! Jim, you're as red as a
beet; go take a bath!" said Barbara. "And Julia, Aunt Sanna is here, and
she says that you're to lie down for not less than an hour. And there
are some packages for you, so come up and lie down on my bed, and we'll
open them!"

"Barbara, I am so happy I think my heart will burst!" said Julia, ten
minutes later, from Barbara's pillows.

"Well, you ought to be, my good woman! Jim Studdiford--when he's
sober--is as good a husband as you're likely to get!" said Barbara,
laughing. "Now, look, Julia, here's a jam pot from the Fowlers--Frederic
Fowlers--I call that decent of them! Janey, come in here and put this
jam pot down on Julia's list! And this heavy thing from the Penroses. I
hope to goodness it isn't more carvers!"

It was Barbara who said later to Julia, in a confidential undertone:

"You know you've got to write personal notes for every bit of this
stuff, Julia, right away? Lots of girls do it on their honeymoons."

"Well, I wanted to ask you, Barbara: how do I sign myself to these
people I've never seen: 'Yours truly'?"

"Oh, heavens, no! 'Sincerely yours' or 'Yours cordially' and make 'em
short. The shorter they are the smarter they are, remember that."

"And if I sign J. P. Studdiford, or Julia P. Studdiford--then oughtn't
'Mrs. J. N.' go in one corner?"

"Oh, _no_, you poor webfoot! No. Just write a good splashy 'Julia Page
Studdiford' all over the page; they'll know who you are fast enough!"

"Thanks," said Julia shyly.

"You're welcome," Barbara said, smiling. "Are you ready to go down?"

After dinner the young Tolands, augmented by several young men, and by
Julia and the doctor, all wandered out into the thick darkness,
rejoicing in the return of summer. Sausalito's lanes were sweet with
roses, lights shone out across the deep fresh green of gardens, and
lights moved on the gently moving waters of the bay. A ferryboat, a mass
of checkered brightness, plowed its way from Alcatraz--far off the city
lay like a many-stranded chain of glittering gems upon the water. Julia
and Doctor Studdiford let the others go on without them, and sat
together in the dim curve of the O'Connell seat, and the heartbreaking
beauty of the night wrapped them both in a happiness so deep as to touch
the borderland of pain.

"Was there ever such a night?" said little Julia. "Shall we ever be so
happy again?"

Jim could not see her clearly, but he saw her bright, soft eyes in the
gloom, the shimmer of her loosened hair, the little white-clad figure in
the seat's wide curve, and the crossed slim ankles. He put his arm about
her, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Don't say that, darling!" said Jim. "This is great, of course. But it's
nothing to all the happy months and years that we'll belong to each
other. Nothing but death will ever come between you and me, Julie!"

"And I shouldn't be afraid of death," murmured Julia, staring up at the
stars. "Strange--strange--strange that we all must go that way some
day!" she mused.

"Well, please God, we'll do some living first," Jim said, with healthy
anticipation. "We'll go to New York, and gad about, and go to Washington
and Boston, and pick up things here and there for the house, do you see?
Then we'll come back here and go to a hotel, and find a house and fix it
up!"

"That'll be fun," said Julia.

"You bet your life it'll be fun! And then, my dear, we'll give some
corking dinners, and my beautiful wife will wear blue velvet, or white
lace, or peachy silk--"

"Or all three together," the prospective wife suggested, "with the flags
of all nations in my hair!"

"Then next year we'll visit old Gilchrist, at Monterey, and go up to
Tahoe," continued Jim, unruffled. "Or we could take some place in
Ross--"

"And then I will give a small and select party for one guest," said
Julia whimsically, "and board him, free, for fifteen or twenty years--"

"Julia, you little _duck_!" Jim bent his head over her in the starlight,
and felt her soft hair brush his face, and caught the glint of her
laughing eyes close to his own, and the vague delicious little perfume
of youth and beauty and radiant health that hung about her. "Do you know
that you are as cunning as a sassy kid?" he demanded. "Now, kiss me once
and for all, and no nonsense about it, for I can hear the others coming
back!"

Two days later they were married, very quietly, in the little Church of
Saint Charles Borromeo, where Julia's father and mother had been married
a quarter of a century ago. They had "taken advantage," as Julia said,
of her old grandfather's death, and announced that because the bride's
family was in mourning the ceremony would be a very quiet one. Even the
press was not notified; the Tolands filled two pews, and two more were
filled by Julia's mother, her grandmother, and cousins. Kennedy Scott
Marbury and her husband were there, and sturdy two-year-old Scott
Marbury, who was much interested in this extraordinary edifice and
impressive proceeding, but there were no other witnesses. Julia wore a
dark-blue gown, and a wide black hat whose lacy brim cast a most
becoming shadow over her lovely, serious face. She and Miss Toland drove
from the settlement house, and stopped to pick up Mrs. Page, who was
awed by Julia's dignity, and a little resentful of the way in which
others had usurped her place with her daughter. However, Emeline had
very wisely decided to make the best of the situation, and treated Miss
Toland with stiff politeness. Julia was in a smiling dream, out of which
she roused herself, at intervals, for only a gentle, absent-minded "Yes"
or "No."

"I tried to persuade her to be married at the Cathedral, by His Grace,"
said Miss Toland to Mrs. Page. "But she wanted it this way!"

"Well, I'm sure she feels you've done too much for her as it is,"
Emeline said mincingly. "Now she must turn around and return some of
it!"

To this Miss Toland made no answer except an outraged snort, and a
closer pressure of her fine, bony hand upon Julia's warm little fingers.
They presently reached the church, and Julia was in Barbara's hands.

"You look lovely, darling, and your hat is a dream!" said Barbara, who
looked very handsome herself, in her brown suit and flower-trimmed hat.
"We go upstairs, I think. Jim's here, nervous as a _fish_. You're
wonderful--as calm! I'd simply be in spasms. Ted was awful; you'd think
she had been married every day, but Robert--his collar was _wilted_!"

They had reached the upper church now, and Miss Toland and Mrs. Page
followed the girls down the long aisle to the altar. Julia saw her
little old grandmother, in an outrageous flowered bonnet, and Evelyn who
was a most successful modiste now, and Marguerite, looking flushed and
excited, with her fat, apple-faced young husband, and three lumpy little
children. Also her Aunt May was there, and some young people: Muriel,
who was what Evelyn had been at fifteen, and a toothless nine-year-old
Regina, in pink, and some boys. On the other side were the elegant
Tolands, the dear old doctor in an aisle seat, with his hands, holding
his eye-glasses and his handkerchief, fallen on either knee; Ted lovely
in blue, Constance and Jane with Ned and Mrs. Ned, frankly staring.

As Julia came down the aisle, with a sudden nervous jump of her heart,
she saw Jim and Richie, who was limping badly, but without his crutch,
come toward her. The old priest came down the altar steps at the same
time. She and Jim listened respectfully to a short address without
hearing a word of it, and found themselves saying the familiar words
without in the least sensing them. Julia battled through the prayer with
a vague idea that she was losing a valuable opportunity to invoke the
blessing of God, but unable to think of anything but the fact that the
bride usually walked out of church on the groom's arm, and that St.
Charles's aisle was long and rather dismal in the waning afternoon
light.

"Here, darling, in the vestry!" Jim was whispering, smiling his dear,
easy, reassuring smile as he guided her to the nearby door. And in a
second they were all about her, her first kiss on the wet cheek of Aunt
Sanna, the second to her mother--"Evelyn, you were a darling to come way
across the city, and Marguerite, you were a darling to bring those
precious angels"--and then the old doctor's kiss, and Richie's kiss, and
a pressure from his big bony fingers. Julia half knelt to embrace little
Scott Marbury. "He's beautiful, Kennedy; no wonder you're proud!" And
she tore her beautiful bunch of roses apart, that each girl might have a
few.

"I've got to get her to the train!" Jim protested presently, trying
patiently to disengage his wife's hands, eyes, and attention. "Julia!
Julia Studdiford!"

"Yes, I know!" Julia laughed, and was snatched away, half laughing and
half in tears, and hurried down to the side street, where a carriage was
waiting. And here there was one more delay: Chester Cox, a thin
shambling figure, came forward from a shadowy doorway, and rather
timidly held out his hand.

"I couldn't get away until jest now," said Chester. "But of course I
wish you luck, Julia!"

"Why, it's my uncle!" Julia said, cordially clasping his hand. "Mr.
Cox--Doctor Studdiford. I'm so glad you came, Chess!"

"Glad to know you, Mr. Cox," Jim said heartily.

"And I brought you a little present; it ain't much, but maybe you can
use it!" mumbled Chester, terribly embarrassed, and with a nervous laugh
handing Julia a rather large package somewhat flimsily wrapped and tied.

"Oh, thank you!" Julia said gratefully. And before she got in the
carriage she put her hand on Chester's arm, and raised her fresh,
exquisite little face for a kiss.

"Now, about this--" Doctor Studdiford began delicately, glancing at
Chester's gift, which Julia had given him to hold. "I wonder if it
wouldn't be wise to ask your uncle to send this to my mother's until we
get back, Ju. You see, dear--"

"Oh, no-no!" Julia said eagerly, leaning out of the carriage, and taking
the package again. She sent Chester a last bright smile, as Jim jumped
in and slammed the door, but it was an April face that she turned a
second later to her husband.

"They're all so good to me, and it just breaks my heart!" she said.

"At last--it's all over--and you belong to me!" exulted Jim. "I have
been longing and _longing_ for this, just to be alone with you, and have
you to myself. Are you tired, sweetheart?"

"No-o. Just a little--perhaps."

"But you do love me?"

"Oh, Jim--you idiot!" Julia slipped her hand into his, as he put one arm
about her, and rested against his shoulder. "When I think that I will
often ride in carriages," she mused, half smiling, "and that, besides
being my Jim, you are a rich man, it makes me feel as if I were
Cinderella!"

"You shall have your own carriage if you want it, Pussy!" he smiled.

"Oh, don't--don't give me anything more," begged Julia, "or a clock
somewhere will strike twelve, and I'll wake up in The Alexander, with
the Girls' Club rehearsing a play!"

When she had examined every inch of her Pullman drawing-room, and
commented upon one hundred of its surprising conveniences, and when her
smart little travelling case, the groom's gift, had been partly
unpacked, and when her blue eyes had refreshed themselves with a long
look at the rolling miles of lovely San Mateo hills, then young Mrs.
Studdiford looked at her Uncle Chester's wedding gift. She found a brush
and comb and mirror in pink celluloid, with roses painted on them,
locked with little brass hasps into a case lined with yellow silk.

"Look, Jim!" said Julia pitifully, not knowing whether to laugh or to
cry.

"Gosh!" said the doctor thoughtfully, looking over the coat he was
neatly arranging on a hanger. "I've often wondered who buys those
things!"

"I'll give it to the porter," Julia decided. "He may like it. Dear old
Chess!" And Jim grinned indulgently a few minutes later at the picture
of his beautiful little wife enslaving the old coloured porter, and
gravely discussing with him the advantages and disadvantages of his
work.

"You know, we could have our meals in here, Ju," Jim suggested. "Claude
here"--all porters were "Claude" to Jim--"would take care of us,
wouldn't you, Claude?"

"Dat I would!" said Claude with husky fervour. But Julia's face fell.

"Oh, Jim! But it would be such fun to go out to the dining-car!" she
pleaded.

Jim shouted. "All right, you baby!" he said. "You see, my wife's only a
little girl," he explained. "She's--are you eight or nine, Julia?"

"She sho' don't look more'n dat," Claude gallantly assured them, as he
departed.

"I'll be twenty-four on my next birthday," Julia said thoughtfully, a
few moments later.

"Well, at that, you may live three or four years more!" Jim consoled
her. "Do you know what time it is, Loveliness? It's twenty minutes past
six. We've been married exactly two hours and twenty minutes. How do you
like it?"

"I love it!" said Julia boldly. "Do I have to change my dress for
dinner?"

"You do not."

"But I ought to fix my hair, it's all mashed!" Julia did wonders to it
with one of the ivory-backed brushes that had come with the new
travelling case, fluffing the thick braids and tucking the loose golden
strands about her temples trimly into place. Then she rubbed her face
with a towel, and jumped up to straighten her belt, and run an
investigating finger about the embroidered "turn-down" collar that
finished her blue silk blouse. Finally she handed Jim her new
whisk-broom with a capable air, and presented straight little shoulders
to be brushed.

Jim turned her round and round, whisking and straightening, and
occasionally kissing the tip of a pink ear, or the straight white line
where her hair parted.

"Here, you can't keep that up all night!" Julia suddenly protested,
grabbing the brush. "I'll do you!" But Jim stopped the performance by
suddenly imprisoning girl and whiskbroom in his arms.

"Do you know I think we are going to have great fun!" said he. "You're
such a good little sport, Ju! No nerves and no nonsense about you! It's
such fun to do things with a person who isn't eternally fussing about
heat and cold, and whether she ought to wear her gloves into the
dining-car, and whether any one will guess that she's just married!"

"Oh, I have my nervous moments," Julia confessed, her eyes looking
honestly up into his. "It seems awfully strange and queer, rushing
farther and farther away from home, alone with you!" Her voice sank a
little; she put up her arms and locked them about his neck. "I have to
keep reminding myself that you are just you, Jim," she said bravely,
"who gave me my Browning, and took me to tea at the Pheasant--and then
it all seems right again! And then--such lots of nice people _have_ got
married, and gone away on honeymoons," she ended, argumentatively.

The laughter had gone from Jim's eyes; a look almost shy, almost
ashamed, had taken its place. He kept her as she was for a moment, then
gave her a serious kiss, and they went laughing through the rocking cars
to eat their first dinner together as man and wife. And Jim watched her
as she radiantly settled herself at table, and watched the frown of
childish gravity with which she studied her menu, with some new and
tender emotion stirring at his heart. Life had greater joys in it than
he had ever dreamed, and greater potentialities for sorrow, too. What
was bright in life was altogether more gloriously bright, and what was
dark seemed to touch him more closely; he felt the sorrow of age in the
trembling old man at the table across the aisle, the pathos of youth in
the two young travelling salesmen who chattered so self-confidently over
their meal.

Several weeks later young Mrs. Studdiford wrote to Barbara that New York
was "a captured dream." "I seem to belong to it," wrote Julia, "and it
seems to belong to me! I can't tell you how it _satisfies_ me; it is good
just to look down from my window at Fifth Avenue, every morning, and say
to myself, 'I'm still in New York!' For the first two weeks Jim and I
did everything alone, like two children: the new Hippodrome, and Coney
Island, and the Liberty Statue, and the Bronx Zoo. I _never_ had such a
good time! We went to the theatres, and the museums, and had breakfast
at the Casino, and _lived_ on top of the green 'busses! But now Jim has
let some of his old college friends know we are here, and we are
spinning like tops. One is an artist, and has the most fascinating
studio I ever saw, down on Washington Square, and another is an editor,
and gave us a tea in his rooms, overlooking Stuyvesant Square, and
Barbara, everybody there was a celebrity (except us) and all so sweet
and friendly--it was a hot spring day, and the trees in the square were
all such a fresh, bright green.

"They make a great fuss about the spring here, and you can hardly blame
them. The whole city turns itself inside out; people simply stream to
the parks, and the streets swarm with children. Some of the poorer women
go bareheaded or with shawls, even in the cars--did you ever see a
bareheaded woman in a car at home? But they are all much nearer the
peasant here. And after clean San Francisco, you wouldn't believe how
dirty this place is; all the smaller stores have shops in the basements,
and enough dirt and old rags and wet paper lying around to send Doctor
Blue into a convulsion! And they use pennies here, which seems so petty,
and paper dollars instead of silver, which I hate. And you say 'L' or
'sub' for the trains, and always 'surface cars' for the regular
cars--it's all so different and so interesting.

"Tell Richie Jim is going to assist the great Doctor Cassell in some
demonstrations of bone transplanting, at Bellevue, next week--oh, and
Barbara, did I write Aunt Sanna that we met the President! My dear, we
did. We were at the theatre with the Cassells, and saw him in a box, and
Doctor Cassell, the old darling, knows him, and went to the President's
box to ask if we might be brought in and presented, and, my dear, he got
up and came back with Doctor Cassell to our box, and was simply _sweet_,
and asked me if I wasn't from the South, and I nearly said, 'Yes, south
of Market Street,' but refrained in time. I had on the new apricot
crepe, and a black hat, and felt very Lily-like-a-princess, as Jane
says.

"But we're both getting homesick; it will seem good to see the old ferry
building again--and Sausalito, and all of you."

Early in July they did start homeward, but by so circuitous a route, and
with such prolonged stops at the famous hotels of Canada, that it was on
a September afternoon that they found themselves taking the Toland
household by storm. And Julia thought no experience in her travels so
sweet as this one: to be received into the heart of the family, and to
settle down to a review of the past five months. Richie was so brotherly
and kind, the girls so admiring of her furs and her diamonds, so full of
gay chatter, the old doctor so gallant and so affectionate! Mrs. Toland
chirped and twittered like the happy mother of a cageful of canaries;
and Julia, when they gathered about the fire after dinner, took a low
stool next to Miss Toland's chair and rested a shoulder, little-girl
fashion, against the older woman's knee.

"It was simply a tour of triumph for Ju," said Doctor Jim, packing his
pipe at the fireplace, with satisfied eyes on his wife. "She has friends
in the Ghetto and friends in the White House. We went down to the
Duponts', on Long Island, and Dupont said she--"

"Oh, please, Jim!" Julia said seriously.

"Dupont said she was one of the most interesting women he ever talked
to," Jim continued inexorably, "and John Mandrake wanted to paint her!"

"Tell me the news!" begged Julia. "How's The Alexander, Aunt Sanna--how
is Miss Striker turning out?"

"She's turned out," said Miss Toland grimly, her knitting needles
flashing steadily. "She came to me with her charts and rules, and oh,
she couldn't lie in bed after half-past six in the morning, and she
couldn't put off the sewing class, and she would like to ask me not to
eat my breakfast after nine o'clock! A girl who never cared what she
ate--sardines and tea!--and she wouldn't come in with me to dinner at
the Colonial because she was afraid they used coal tar and
formaldehyde--ha! Finally she asked me if I wouldn't please keep the
expenditures of the house and my own expenditures separate, and that was
the _end_!"

Jim's great laugh burst out, and Julia dimpled as she asked demurely:

"What on _earth_ did you say?"

"Say? I asked her if she knew I built The Alexander, and sent her
packing! And now"--Miss Toland rubbed her nose with the gesture Julia
knew so well--"now Miss Pierce is temporarily in charge, but she won't
stay there nights, so the clubs are given up," she observed
discontentedly.

"And what's the news from Sally?" Julia pursued.

"Just the loveliest in the world," Mrs. Toland said. "Keith is working
like a little Trojan; and Sally sent us a perfectly charming description
of the pension, and their walks--"

"Yes, and how she couldn't go out because she hadn't shoes," Jane added,
half in malice, half in fun. "_Don't_ look so shocked, Mother dear, you
know it's true. And the landlady cheating them out of a whole week's
board--"

"Gracious me!" said Mrs. Toland, in a low undertone full of annoyance.
"Did any one ever hear such nonsense! All that is past history now,
Janey," she reminded her young daughter, in her usual hopeful voice.
"Dad sent a cheque, like the dear, helpful daddy he is, and now
everything's lovely again!"

Julia did not ask for Ted until she saw Barbara alone for a moment the
next day. It was about ten o'clock on a matchless autumn morning, and
Julia, stepping from her bedroom's French window to the wide sunny porch
that ran the width of the house, saw Barbara some forty feet away
sitting just outside her own window, with a mass of hair spread to the
sun.

Julia joined her, dragged out a low, light chair from Barbara's room,
and settled herself for a gossip.

"Had breakfast?" Barbara smiled. "Jim downstairs?"

"Oh, hours ago!" Julia said to the first question, and to the second,
with the young wife's conscious blush, "Jim's dressing. He's the most
impossible person to get started in the morning!"

Barbara did not blush but she felt a little tug at her heart.

"Come," she said, "I thought Jim had no faults?"

"Well, he hasn't," Julia laughed. And then, a little confused by her own
fervent tone, she changed the subject, and asked about Ted.

"Why, Ted's happy, and rich, and simply adored by Bob Carleton," Barbara
summarized briefly, in a rather dry voice, "but Mother and Dad never
will get over it, and I suppose Ted herself doesn't like the idea of
that other wife--she lives at The Palace, and she's got a seven-year-old
girl! It's _done_, you know, Julie, and of course Ted's accepted
everywhere; she'll go to the Brownings' this year, and Mrs. Morton has
asked her to receive with her at some sort of dinner reception next
month, you'll meet her everywhere. But I do think it's terribly hard on
Mother and Dad!"

"But how _could_ she, that great big black creature?"

"Oh, she loves him fast enough! It was perfectly legal, of course. I
think Dad was at the wedding, and I think Richie was, but we girls never
knew anything until it was all over. Mother simply announced to us one
night that Ted was married, and that there was to be no open break, but
that she and Dad were just about _sick_! I never saw Mother give way so!
She said--and it's true--that if ever there was a mother who deserved
her children's confidence, and so on! All the newspapers blazed about
it--Ted's picture, Bob's picture--and, as I say, society welcomed her
with open arms. They've got a gorgeous suite at the St. Francis, and Ted
really looks stunning, and acts as if she'd done something very smart.
Con says that when she called, it reminded her of the second act of a
bad play. Ted came here with Bob, one Saturday afternoon, but Mother
hasn't been near her!"

"It seems too bad," Julia said thoughtfully, "when your father and
mother are always so sweet!"

"There must be some reason for it," Barbara observed, "I suppose we were
all spoiled as kids, with our dancing schools and our dresses from
Paris, and so now when we want things we oughtn't have, we just take
'em, from habit! I remember a governess once, a nice enough little
Danish woman, but Ned and I got together and decided we wouldn't stand
her, and Mother let her go. It seems funny now. Mother used to say that
never in her life did she allow her children to want anything she could
give them; but I'm not at all sure that's a very wise ideal!"

"Nor I," said Julia earnestly. Barbara had parted and brushed her dark
hair now, and as she gathered it back, the ruthless morning sunlight
showed lines on her pretty face and faint circles about her eyes.

"Because life gets in and gives you whacks," Barbara presently pursued,
"you're going to want a lot of things you can't have before you get
through, and it only makes it harder! Sally's paying for her jump in the
dark, poor old Ned is condemned to Yolo City and Eva for the rest of his
life, and somehow Ted's the saddest of all--so confident and noisy and
rich, boasting about Bob's affection, buying everything she sees--and so
_young_, somehow! As for me," said Barbara, "my only consolation is that
nearly every family has one of me, and some have more--a nice-looking,
well-liked, well-dressed young woman, who has cost her parents an
enormous amount of money, to get--nowhere!"

"Why, Lady Babbie!" Julie protested. "It's not like you to talk so!"

Barbara patted the hand that had been laid upon her knee, and laughed.

"And the moral of that is, Ju," she said, "if you have children, don't
spoil them! You've had horribly hard times, but they've given you some
sense. As for Jim, he's an exception. It's a miracle he wasn't
ruined--but he wasn't!" And she gathered up her towels and brushes to go
back into her room. "But I needn't tell you that, Julie!" said she.

"Ah, well, Jim!" Julia conceded, smiling.

Jim had no faults, of course. Yet the five-months wife sighed
unconsciously as she went back to her room. Jim had qualities that had
now and then caused a faint little cloud to drift across Julia's life,
but that sheer loyalty had kept her from defining, even in her inmost
heart. Now this talk with Barbara had suddenly seemed to make them
clear. Jim was--spoiled was too harsh a word. But Jim wanted his own
way, in little things and big--all the time. The world just now for Jim
held only Julia. What she wanted he wanted, and, at any cost, he would
have. If her gown was not right for the special occasion, she should
have a new gown; if the motor car was out of order, telephone for
another; if the steward assured them that there was not another table in
the dining-room--tip him, tip everybody, make a scene, but see that the
"Reserved" card comes off somebody's table, and that the Studdifords are
seated there in triumph.

At first Julia had only laughed at her lord's masterful progress. It was
very funny to her to see how quickly his money and his determination won
him his way. A great deal of money was wasted, of course, but then, this
was their honeymoon, and some day they would settle down and spend
rationally. Jim, like all rich men, had an absolute faith in the power
of gold. The hall maid must come in and hook Mrs. Studdiford's gown; oh,
and would she be here at, say, one o'clock, when Mrs. Studdiford came
home? She went off at twelve, eh? Well, what was it worth to her to stay
on to-night, until one? Good. And by the way, Mrs. Studdiford had torn a
lace gown and wanted it to-morrow; could the maid mend it and press it?
She didn't think so? Well, come, there must be somebody who would rush
it through for Mrs. Studdiford? Ah, that was fine, thank you very much,
that would do very nicely. Or perhaps it was a question of theatre
tickets, and Jim would stop his taxicab on Broadway at the theatre's
door. Here, boy! Boy, come here! Go up and ask him what his best for
to-night are? There's a line of people waiting, eh?--well, go up and ask
some fellow at the top of the line what it's worth to him to get two
seats for me. Oh, fine. Much obliged to you, sir. Thank you. And
here--boy!

"Do you think the entire world circles about your convenience, Jim?"
Julia asked amusedly one day, after some such episode. "Sure," he
answered, grinning.

"Jim, you don't think you can go through life walking over people this
way?"

"Why not, my good lady?"

"Well," said Julia gravely, "some day you may find you want something
you _can't_ buy!"

"There ain't no such animal," Jim assured her cheerfully.

Only a trifling cloud, after all, Julia assured herself hardily. But
there was a constant little sensation of uneasiness in her heart. She
tried to convince herself that the sweetness of his nature had not been
undermined by this ability to indulge himself however fast his fancies
shifted; she reasoned that because so many good things were his, he need
not necessarily hold them in light esteem. Yet the thought persisted
that he knew neither his own mind nor his own heart; there had been no
discipline there, no hard-won battles--there were no reserves.

"I call that simply borrowing trouble!" said Kennedy Scott Marbury
healthily, one day when she and the tiny Scott were lunching with Julia
at the hotel. Kennedy was close to her second confinement, and the
ladies had lunched in Julia's handsome sitting-room. "Lord, Julie dear!
It seems sometimes as if you have to have _something_ in this world,"
Kennedy went on cheerfully; "either actual trouble or mental worries!
Anthony and I were talking finances half last night: we decided that we
can't move to a larger house, just now, and so on--and we both said _what_
would it be like to be free from money worries for ten minutes--"

"But, Ken, don't you see how necessary you are to each other!" said
Julia, kneeling before the chair in which her fat godson was seated, and
displaying a number of gold chains and bracelets for his amusement. "You
have to take a turn at everything--cooking and sewing and caring for old
Sweetum here--Anthony couldn't get on without you!"

"And I suppose you think Doctor Studdiford could find twenty wives as
pretty and clever and charming as you are, Ju?"

"Fifty!" Julia answered.

"Well, now, that just shows what a little idiot you are!" Mrs. Marbury
scolded. "Not but what most women feel that way sooner or later," she
added, less severely. "I remember that phase very well, myself! But the
thing for you to do, Julie, is to remember that you're exactly the same
woman he fell in love with, d'you see? Just mind your own affairs, and
be happy and busy, and try not to fancy things!"

"What a sensible old thing you are, Ken!" said Julia gratefully. And as
Kennedy came over to stand near her, Julia gave her a little rub with
her head, like an affectionate pony. "I think it's partly this hotel
that's demoralizing me," Julia went on, a little shamed. "I feel so
useless--getting up, eating, dressing, idling about, and going to bed
again. Jim has his work, and I'll be glad when I have mine again!"




CHAPTER II

In these days, the Studdifords were househunting in all of Jim's free
hours; confining their efforts almost entirely to the city, although a
trip to San Mateo or Ross Valley made a welcome change now and then. It
was not until late in October that the right house was found, on Pacific
Avenue, almost at the end of the cable-car line. It was a new house,
large and square, built of dignified dark-red brick, and with a roomy
and beautiful garden about it. There was a street entrance, barred by an
iron gate elaborately grilled, and giving upon three shallow brick steps
that led to the heavily carved door. On the side street was an entrance
for the motor car and tradespeople, the slope of the hill giving room
for a basement kitchen, with its accompanying storerooms and laundries.

Upstairs, the proportions of the rooms, and their exquisite finish, made
the house prominent among the city's beautiful homes. Even Jim could
find nothing to change. The splendid dark simplicity of the drawing-room
was in absolute harmony with the great main hall, and in charming
contrast to the cheerful library and the sun-flooded morning-room. The
dining-room had its own big fireplace, with leather-cushioned ingle
seats, and quaint, twinkling, bottle-paned windows above. On the next
floor the four big bedrooms, with their three baths and three
dressing-rooms and countless closets, were all bright and sunny, with
shining cream-coloured panelling, cretonne papers in gay designs of
flowers and birds, and crystal door knobs. Upstairs again were maids'
rooms, storerooms lined in cedar, and more baths.

"Perfect!" said Jim radiantly, on the afternoon when, the Studdifords
first inspected the house. "It's just exactly right, and I'm strong for
it!" He came over to Julia, who was thoughtfully staring out of a
drawing-room window. Her exquisite beauty was to-day set off by a long
loose sealskin coat, for the winter was early, and a picturesque little
motor bonnet, also of seal, with a velvet rose against her soft hair.
"Little bit sad to-day, sweetheart?" Jim asked, kissing the tip of her
ear.

"No--o. I was just thinking what a lovely, sheltered backyard!" Julia
said sensibly, raising her blue eyes. But she had brightened perceptibly
at his tenderness. "I love you, Jim," she said, very simply.

"And I adore you!" Jim answered, his arms about her. "I've been thinking
all day how rotten that sounded this morning!" he added in a lower tone.
"I'm so sorry!"

"As if it was your fault!" Julia protested generously. And a moment
later she charmed him by declaring herself to be entirely satisfied with
this enchanting house, and by entering vigorously upon the question of
furnishings.

The little episode to which Doctor Studdiford had made a somewhat
embarrassed allusion had taken place in their rooms at the hotel that
morning, while they were breakfasting. Plans for a little dinner party
were progressing pleasantly, over the omelette and toast, when Jim
chanced to suggest that a certain Mrs. Pope be included among the
guests.

"Oh, Jim--not Mrs. Jerry Pope?" Julia questioned, wide eyed.

"Yes, but she calls herself Mrs. Elsie Carroll Pope now. Why not?"

"Oh, Jim--but she's divorced!"

"Well, so are lots of other people!"

"Yes, I know. But it was such a horrid divorce, Jim!"

"Horrid how?"

"Oh, some other man, and letters in the papers, and Mr. Pope kept both
the children! It was awful!"

"Oh, come, Ju--she's a nice little thing, awfully witty and clever. Why
go out of your way to knock her!"

"I'm not going out of my way," Julia answered with dignity. "But she was
a great friend of Mary Chetwynde, who used to teach at The Alexander,
and she came out there two or three times, and she's a noisy, yelling
sort of woman--and her hair is dyed--yes, it _is_, Jim!"

"Lord, you women do love to rip each other up the back!" Jim smiled
lazily, as he wheeled his chair about, and lighted a cigarette.

"I'm not ripping her up the back at all," Julia protested with spirit.
"But she's not a lady, and I hate the particular set she goes with--"

"Not a lady--ha!" Jim ejaculated. "She was a Cowdry."

Julia leaned back in her chair, and opened a fat letter from Sally
Borroughs in Europe, that had come in her morning's mail.

"Ask her by all means to dinner," she said calmly. "Only don't expect me
to admire her and approve of her, Jim, for I won't do it; I know too
much about her!"

"It's just possible Mrs. Pope isn't waiting for your admiration and
approval, my dear," Jim said, nettled "But I doubt, whatever she knew of
you, if she would speak so unkindly about _you_!"

Julia turned as scarlet as if a whip had fallen across her face. She
stared at him for a moment with fixed, horrified eyes, then crushed her
letter together with a spasmodic gesture of the hands, and let it fall
as she went blindly toward the bedroom door. Jim sat staring after her,
puzzled at first, then with the red blood surging into his face. He
dropped his cigarette and his newspaper, and for perhaps three minutes
there was no sound in the apartment but the coffee bubbling in the
percolator, and the occasional clank of the radiator.

Then Jim jumped up suddenly and flung open the door of the bedroom.
Julia was sitting at her dressing-table, one elbow resting upon it, and
her head dropped on her hand. She raised heavy eyes and looked at him.

"Don't be a fool, Ju," Jim said, solicitous and impatient. "You know I
didn't mean anything by that. I wouldn't be such a cad. You know I
wouldn't say a thing like that--I couldn't. Come on back and finish your
coffee."

But he did not kiss her; he did not put his arm about her; and Julia
felt curiously weary and cold as she came slowly back to her place. Jim
immediately lighted a fresh cigarette, and began to rattle away somewhat
nervously of his plans for the day. He was going over to the Oakland
Hospital to look at his man with the spine--better not try to meet for
lunch. But how about that Pacific Avenue house? If Julia took the motor
and stopped at the agent's for the key, he would meet her there at
four--how about it?

Agreed. Gosh! It was nearly ten o'clock, and Jim had to get out to the
Children's Hospital before he went to Oakland. Julia had a quick kiss,
and was advised to take good care of herself. Then Jim was gone, and she
could fling her arm across the table and sob as if her heart would
break.

Julia cried for a long time. Then she stopped resolutely, and spent a
long half hour in serious thought, her fingers absently tracing the
threads of the tablecloth with a fork, her thoughts flying.

Presently she roused herself, telephoned Jim's chauffeur and the agent
of the Pacific Avenue house, bathed her reddened eyes, and inspected her
new furs, just home from the shop. Now and then her breast rose with a
long sigh, but she did not cry again.

"I'll wear my new furs," she decided soberly. "Jim loves me to look
pretty. And I _must_ cheer up; he hates me to be blue! Who can I lunch
with, to cheer up? Aunt Sanna! I'll get a cold chicken and some cake,
and go out to The Alexander!"

So the outward signs of the storm were obliterated, and no one knew of
the scar that Julia carried from that day in her heart. Only a tiny,
tiny scar, but enough to remind her now and then with cold terror that
even into her Paradise the serpent could thrust his head, enough to
prove to her bitter satisfaction that there was already something that
Jim's money could not buy.

The furnishing of the Pacific Avenue house proceeded apace--it was an
eminently gratifying house to furnish, and Jim and Julia almost wished
their labours not so light. All rugs looked well on those beautiful
floors; all pictures were at their best against the dull rich tones of
the walls. Did Mrs. Studdiford like the soft blue curtains in the
library, or the dull gold, or the coffee-coloured tapestry? Mrs.
Studdiford, an exquisite little figure of indecision, in a great
Elizabethan chair of carved black oak, didn't really know; they were all
so beautiful! She wondered why the blue wouldn't be lovely in the
breakfast room, if they used the gold here? Then she wouldn't use the
English cretonne in the breakfast room? Oh, yes, of course, she had
forgotten the English cretonne!

At last it was all done, from the two stained little Roman marble
benches outside the front door, to the monogrammed sheets in the attic
cedar closet. The drawing-room had its grand piano, its great mahogany
davenport facing the fire, its rich dark rugs, its subdued gleam of
copper and crystal, dull blue china and bright enamel. The little
reception room was gay with yellow-gold silk and teakwood; Jim's library
was severely handsome with its dark leather chairs and rows of dark
leather bindings. A dozen guests could sit about the long oak table in
the dining-room; the great sideboard with its black oak cupids and
satyrs, and its enormous claw feet, struck perhaps the only pretentious
note in the house. A wide-lipped bowl, in clear yellow glass, held rosy
pippins or sprawling purple grapes on the table in the window, the
sideboard carried old jugs and flagons in blackened silver or dull
pottery.

Upstairs the sunny perfection of the bedrooms was not marred by the need
of so much as a cake of violet soap. Julia revelled in details here:
flowers in the bedrooms must match the hangings; there must be so many
fringed towels and so many plain, in each bathroom. She amused as well
as edified Jim with her sedate assurance in the matter of engaging
maids; her cheeks would grow very pink when interviews were afoot, but
she never lost her air of calm.

"We are as good as they are," said Julia, "but how hard it is to
remember it when you are talking to them!"

Presently Foo Ting was established supreme in the kitchen, Lizzie
secured as waitress, and Ellie, Lizzie's sister, engaged to do upstairs
work. Chadwick, Jim's chauffeur, was accustomed occasionally to enact
also the part of valet, so that it was with a real luxury of service
that the young Studdifords settled down for the winter.

Julia had anticipated this settling as preceding a time of quiet, when
she and Jim should loiter over their snug little dinners, should come to
know the comforts of their own chairs, at each side of the library fire,
and laugh and cry over some old book, or talk and dream while they
stared into the coals. The months were racing about to her first wedding
anniversary, yet she felt that she really knew Jim only in a certain
superficial, holiday sense--she knew what cocktail he liked best, of
course, and what seats in the theatre; she was quite sure of the effect
of her own beauty upon him. But she longed for the real Jim, the soul
that was hidden somewhere under his gay mask, under the trim,
cleanshaven, smiling face. When there was less confusion, less laughing
and interrupting and going about, then she would find her husband, Julia
thought, and they would have long silent hours together in which to
build the foundation of their life.

Her beautiful earnest face came to have a somewhat strained and wistful
look, as the weeks fled past without bringing the quiet, empty time for
which she longed. All about her now stretched the glittering spokes of
the city's great social wheel, every mail brought her a flood of notes,
every quarter hour summoned her to the telephone, every fraction of the
day had its appointed pleasure. Julia must swiftly eliminate from her
life much of the rich feminine tradition of housewifery; it was not for
her to darn her husband's hose, to set exquisite patches in thinning
table linen, to gather flowers for jars and vases. Julia never saw Jim's
clothing except when he was wearing it, the table linen was Ellie's
affair, and Lizzie had the entire lower floor bright and fragrant with
fresh flowers before Jim and Julia came down to breakfast. Young Mrs.
Studdiford found herself readily assuming the society woman's dry, brief
mannerisms. Jim used to grin sometimes when he heard her at the
telephone:

"Oh, that would be charming, Mrs. Babcock," Julia would say, "if you'll
let me run away at three, for I must positively keep an appointment with
Carroll at three, if I'm to have my gown for dear Mrs. Morton's bal
masque Friday night. And if I'm just a tiny bit late you won't be cross?
For we all do German at twelve now, you know, and it _will_ run over the
hour! Oh, you're very sweet! Oh, no, Mrs. Talcott spoke to me about it,
but we can't--we're both _so_ sorry, but this week seems to be just
_full_--no, she said that, but I told her that next week was just as bad,
so she's to let me know about the week after. Oh, I know she is. And I
_did_ want to give her a little tea, but there doesn't seem to be a
_moment_! I think perhaps I'll ask Mrs. Castle to let us dine with her
some other time, and give Betty a little dinner Monday--"

And so on and on, in the quick harassed voice of one who must meet
obligations.

"You're a great social success, Ju," Jim said, smiling, one morning.

Julia made a little grimace over her letters.

"Oh, come off, now!" her husband railed good-naturedly. "You know you
love it. You know you like to dress up and trot about with me and be
admired!"

"I like to trot about with you," Julia conceded, sighing in spite of her
smile. "But I get very tired of dinners. Some other woman gets you, and
some other woman's husband gets me, and we say such _flat_ things, about
motor cars, or the theatre--nothing friendly or intimate or
interesting!"

"Wait until you know them all better, Ju. Besides, you couldn't get
intimate at a dinner, very well. Besides"--Jim defended the institutions
of his class--"you didn't look very gay when young Jo Coutts seemed
inclined to get very friendly at dinner the other night!"

"Jo Coutts was drunk," Julia asserted briefly. "As they very often are,"
she added severely. "Not raging drunk, but just silly, or sentimental
and important, you know."

"I know," Jim laughed.

"And it makes me furious!" Julia said. "As for knowing them better, they
aren't one bit more interesting when they're old friends. They're more
familiar, I admit that, but all this cheeky yelling back and forth isn't
interesting--it's just tiresome! 'I'm holding your husband's hand,
Alice!' 'All right, then I'm going to kiss your husband!'" Her voice
rose in mimicry. "And then Kenneth Roberts tells some little shady
story, and every one screams, and every one goes on telling it over and
over! Why, that little silly four-line verse Conrad Kent had last
night--every one in the room had to learn it by heart and say it six
hundred times before we were done with it!"

"You're a cynic, woman," Jim said, kissing his wife, who by this time
had come around to his chair. "It's all too easy for you, that's the
trouble! They've accepted you with open arms; you're the rage! You ought
to have been kept for a while on the anxious seat, like the poor Groves,
and Mrs. McCann; then you'd appreciate High Sassiety!"

"Well, I wouldn't make myself ridiculous and pathetic like the Groves,
trying to burst into society, and giving people a chance to snub me!"
Julia said thoughtfully. "Never mind," she added, "next month Lent
begins, and then there must be some let-up!"

However, Lent had only begun when the Studdifords made a flying trip to
Honolulu, where Jim had a patient. The great liner was fascinating to
Julia, and, as usual, her beauty and charm, and the famous young
surgeon's unostentatious bigness, made them friends on all sides, so
that the life of cocktail mixing and card playing and gossip went on as
merrily as it had in San Francisco. Julia could not spend the empty days
staring dreamily out at the rolling green Pacific; every man on board
was anxious to improve her acquaintance, from the Captain to the
seventeen-year-old little English lad who was going out to his father in
India, and to not one of them did it ever occur that lovely little Mrs.
Studdiford might prefer to be left alone.

But the sea air shook Julia into splendid health and energy, and she was
her sweetest self in Honolulu; she and Jim both seemed to recapture here
some of the exquisite tenderness of their honeymoon a year ago. Neither
would admit that there had been any drifting apart, they had never been
less than lovers, yet now they experienced the delights of a
reconciliation. Julia, in her delicate linens and thin embroidered
pongees, with a filmy parasol shading her bright hair, seemed more
wonderful than ever before, and lovely Hawaii was a setting for one of
their happiest times together.

On the boat, coming home, however, there occurred a little incident that
darkened Julia's sky for a long time to come. On the very day of
starting she and Jim, with some other returning San Franciscans, were
standing, a laughing group on the deck, when a dark, handsome young
woman came forward from a nearby cabin doorway, and held out her hand.

"Do you remember me, Julia?" said she, smiling.

Julia, whose white frock was draped with a dozen ropes of brilliant
flowers, and who looked like a little May Queen in her radiant bloom,
looked at the newcomer for a few moments, and then said, with a clearing
face:

"Hannah! Of course I know you. Mrs. Palmer, may I present Doctor
Studdiford?"

Jim smilingly shook hands, and as the rest of the group melted away,
Mrs. Palmer explained that her husband's business was in Manila, but she
was bringing up her two little children to visit her parents in Oakland.

"She's extremely pretty," Jim said, when he and Julia were alone in
their luxurious stateroom. "Who is she?"

"I don't know why I supposed you knew that she is one of Mark's
sisters," Julia said, colouring. "I saw something of them all,
after--afterward, you know."

"Oh!" Jim's face, which he chanced to be washing, also grew red; he
scowled as he plunged it again into the towel. Julia proceeded with her
own lunch toilet in silence, humming a little now and then, but the
brightness was gone from the day for her; the swift-flying green water
outside the window had turned to lead, the immaculate little apartment
was bleak and bare. Jim did not speak as they went down to lunch, nor
was he himself when they met again, after a game of auction, at dinner.
In fact, this marked Julia's first acquaintance with a new side of his
character.

For Jim's sunny nature was balanced by an occasional mood so dark as to
make him a different man while it lasted. Barbara had once lightly
hinted this to Julia--"Jim was glooming terribly, and did nothing but
snarl"--and Miss Toland had confirmed the hint when she asked him, at
Christmas dinner, when he and Julia had been eight months man and wife:
"Well, Jim, never a blue devil once, eh?"

"Never a one. Aunt Sanna!" Jim had responded gayly.

"What should he have blue devils about?" Julia had demanded on this
occasion, presenting herself indignantly to them, and looking in her
black velvet and white lace like a round-eyed child.

She thought of that happy moment this afternoon, with a little chill at
her heart. For there was no doubt that Jim had blue devils now. When she
came back to her stateroom at six o'clock, he was already there, flung
across the bed, his arms locked under his head, his sombre eyes on the
ceiling, where green water-lights were playing.

"Jim, don't you feel well, dear?"

"Perfectly well, thank you!" Jim said coldly.

Slightly angered by his tone, Julia fell silent, busied herself with her
brushes, hooked on a gown of demure cherry colour and gray, caught up a
great silky scarf.

"Anything I can do for you, Jim?" she said then, politely.

"Just--_let me alone_!" Jim answered, without stirring.

Hurt to the quick, and with sudden colour in her face, Julia left the
room. She held her head high, but she felt almost a little sick with the
shock. Five minutes later she was the centre of a chattering group on
the deck. A milky twilight held the sea, the skyline was no longer to be
discerned in the opal spaces all about them, the ship moved over a vast
plain of pearl-coloured smooth waters. Where staterooms were lighted,
long fingers of rosy brightness fell across the deck; here and there in
the shelter of a bit of wall were dark blots that were passengers,
wrapped and reclining, and unrecognizable in the gloom.

Julia and a young man named Manners began to pace the deck. Mr. Manners
was a poet, and absorbed in the fascinating study of his own
personality, but he served Julia's need just now, and never noticed her
abstraction and indifference. He described to Julia the birth of his own
soul, when he was what the world considered only a clumsy, unthinking
lad of seventeen, and Julia listened as a pain-racked fever patient
might listen with vague distress to the noise of distant hammers.

Presently they were all at dinner; soup, but no Jim; fish, but no Jim.
Here was Jim at last, pale, freshly shaven, slipping into his place with
a muttered apology and averted eyes. With a sense of impending calamity
upon her, Julia struggled through her dinner; after a while she found
herself holding cards, under a bright light; after a while again, she
reached her stateroom.

Julia turned up the light. The room was close and empty, littered with
the evidences of Jim's hasty toilet. She opened a window, and the sweet
salt air filtered in, infinitely soothing and refreshing. She began to
go about the room, picking up Jim's clothes, and putting the place in
order. Once or twice her face twitched with pain, and once she stopped
and pressed Jim's coat to her heart with both hands, as if to stop a
wound, but she did not cry, and presently began her usual preparations
for bed in her usual careful fashion. The cherry-coloured gown had been
put away, and Julia, in an embroidered white kimono almost stiff enough
to stand alone, was putting her rings into their little cases when Jim
came in. She looked at him over her shoulder.

"Where have you been, Jim?" she asked quietly, noticing his white face,
his tumbled hair, and a certain disorder in his appearance. Jim did not
answer, and after a puzzled moment Julia repeated her question.

"Up on deck," Jim said, a bitter burst of words breaking through his
ugly silence. He dropped into a chair, and put his head in his hands.

Julia watched him for a few moments in silence, while she went on with
her preparations. She wound her little watch and put it under her
pillow; she folded the counterpanes neatly back from both beds, and got
out her slippers. Then she sat down to put trees into the little satin
slippers she had been wearing, and carried them to the closet.

Suddenly Jim sat up, dropped his hands, and stared at her haggardly.

"Julia," said he hoarsely, "I've been up there thinking--I'm going mad,
I guess--"

He stopped, and there was silence. Julia stood still, looking at him.

"Tell me," Jim said, "was it Mark?"

The hideous suddenness of it struck Julia like a bodily blow; she stood
as if she had been turned to ice. A great weight seemed to seize her
limbs, a sickening vertigo attacked her. She had a suffocating sense
that time was passing, that ages were going by in that bright, glaring
room, with the sea air coming in a shuttered window, and the two beds,
with their smooth white pillows, so neatly turned down--Still, she could
not speak--not yet.

"Yes, it was Mark," she said tonelessly and gently, after a long
silence. "I thought you knew."

"Oh, my God!" Jim said, choking. He flung his hands madly in the air and
got on his feet. Then, as if ashamed, through all the boiling surge of
his emotions, at this loss of control, he rammed his hands into the
pockets of his light overcoat, and began to pace the room.
"You--you--you!" he said, in a sort of wail, and in another moment,
muttering some incoherency about air, he had snatched up his cap and was
gone again.

Julia slowly crossed the room, and sat down on her bed. She felt as a
person who had swallowed a dose of poison might feel: agonies were soon
to begin that would drive the life from her body, but she could not feel
them yet. Instead she felt tired, tired beyond all bearing, and the
lights hurt her eyes. She slipped her kimono from her, stepped out of
her slippers, and plunged the room into utter darkness. Like a tired
child she crept into bed, and with a great sigh dropped her head on the
pillow.

The ship plowed on, its great lights cutting a steady course over the
black water, its whole bulk quivering to the heartbeat of the mighty
engines; whispered good-nights and laughing good-nights were said in the
narrow, hot hallways. Lights went out in cabin after cabin. The decks
were dark and deserted. Below stairs the world that never slept hummed
like a beehive; squads of men were washing floors, laying tables; the
kitchen was as hot and busy as at midday; the engine rooms were filled
with silhouetted forms briskly coming and going. Up on one of the dark
decks, with the soft mist blowing in his face, Jim spent the long night,
his folded arms resting on the rail, his sombre eyes following the
silent rush of waters, and in her cabin Julia lay wide awake and
battling with despair.

She had thought the old dim horror over and done with. Now she knew it
never would be that; now she knew there was no escape. The happy little
castle she had builded for herself fell about her like a house of cards;
she was dishonoured, she was abased, she was powerless. In telling Jim
her whole history, on that terrible night at the settlement house, she
had flung down her arms; there was no new extenuating fact to add to the
story; it was all stale and unchangeable; it must stand before their
eyes forever, a hideous fact. And it seemed to Julia, tossing restlessly
in the dark, that a thousand sleeping menaces rose now to terrify her.
Perhaps Hannah Palmer knew! Julia's breath stopped, her whole body shook
with terror. And if Hannah, why not others? A letter of Mark's to some
one--to any one--might be in existence now, waiting its hour to appear,
and to disgrace her, and Jim, and all who loved them!

And was it for this, she asked herself bitterly, that she had so risen
from the past, so studied and struggled and aspired? Had she been mad
all these years to forget the danger in which she stood, to imagine that
she had buried her tragedy too deep for discovery? Had she been mad to
marry Jim, her dear, sweet, protecting old Jim, who was always so good
to her?

But at the thought of him, and of her bitter need of him in this
desolate hour, Julia fell to violent crying, and after her tears she
drifted into a deep sleep, her lashes wet, and her breast occasionally
rising with a sharp sigh as a child's might.

When she awakened, dawn was breaking, the level waste of the sea was
pearl colour and rose under a slowly rising mist. Julia bathed and
dressed, and went out to the deck, where, with a great plaid wrapped
about her, she might watch the miracle of the birth of day. And as the
warming rays of the sun enveloped her, and the newly washed decks dried
under its touch, and as signs of life began to be heard all about,
slamming doors and gay greetings, laughter and the crisp echoes of feet,
hope and self-confidence crept again into her heart. She was young,
after all, and pretty, and Jim's very agony of jealousy only proved that
he loved her. She had never deceived him, he could not accuse her of one
second's weakness there. He had only had a sudden, terrible revelation
of the truth he had known so long; it could not affect him permanently.

"Going down?" said a voice gayly.

Julia turned to smile upon a group of cheerful acquaintances.

"Thinking about it," she smiled.

"Where's Himself?" somebody asked.

"Still asleep--the lazy bones!" Julia answered calmly. They all went
downstairs together, and Julia was perhaps a little ashamed to find the
odours of coffee and bacon delightful, and to enjoy her breakfast.

Afterward she went straight to her room, not at all surprised to find
Jim there, flung, dressed as he was, across his bed, and breathing
heavily. Julia studied him for a moment in silence. Then she set about
the somewhat difficult task of rousing him, quite her capable wifely
little self when there was something she could do for him.

"Jim! You'll have to get these damp things off, dear! Come, Jim, you
can't sleep this way. Wake up, Jim!"

Drowsily, heavily, he consented to be partially undressed, and covered
with a warm rug. Julia grew quite breathless over her exertions, tucked
him in carefully.

"I'm going to tell the chambermaid not to come in until I ring, Jim. But
shall I send you in a cup of coffee?"

"Ha!" Jim said, already asleep.

"Do you want some coffee, Jim?"

"No--no coffee!"

Julia tiptoed about the room a moment more, took her little sewing
basket and a new magazine, and giving a departing look at her husband,
found his eyes wide open and watching her. Instantly a rush of tears
pressed behind her eyelids, and she felt herself grow weak and confused.

"Thank you for fixing me up so nicely, darling," Jim said meekly.

"Oh, you're welcome!" Julia answered, with a desperate effort to appear
calm.

"Will you kiss me, Julie?" Jim pursued, and a second later she was on
her knees beside him, their arms were locked together, and their lips
met as if they had never kissed each other before.

"You little angel," Jim said, "what a beast I am! As if life hadn't been
hard enough for you without my adding to it! Oh, but what a night I've
had! And you'll forgive me, won't you, sweetheart, for I _love_ you so?"

Julia put her face down and cried stormily, her wet face pressed against
his, his arms holding her close. After a while, when the sobs lessened,
they began to talk together, and then laugh together in the exquisite
relief of being reconciled. Then Jim went to sleep, and Julia sat beside
him, his hand in hers, her eyes idly following the play of broken bright
lights that quivered on the wall.

She leaned back in her big chair, feeling weary and spent, broken, but
utterly at peace. From that hour life was changed to her, and she dimly
felt the change, accepted it as stoically as an Indian might the loss of
a limb, and adjusted herself to all it implied. If Jim was a little less
her god, he was still hers, hers in some new relationship that appealed
to what was protective and maternal in her. And if the burden of her
secret had grown inconceivably heavy for her to bear, she knew by some
instinct that this burst of jealous frenzy had somehow lightened its
weight for Jim; she, not he, would henceforth pay the price.

"And life isn't easy and gay, say what you will," thought Julia
philosophically. "There is no use grumbling and groaning, and saying to
yourself, 'Oh, if only it wasn't just this or that thing worrying me!'
for there is always this or that. Kennedy and Bab think I am the most
fortunate girl in the world, and yet, to be able to go back ten years,
and live a few weeks over again, I'd give up everything I have, even
Jim. Just to start _square_! Just to feel that wretched thing wasn't there
like a layer of mud under everything I do, making it a farce for me to
talk of uplifting girls by settlement work, as people are eternally
making me talk! Or if only every one _knew_ it, it would be easier, for
then I would feel at least that I stood on my own feet! But now, of
course, that's impossible, on Jim's account. What a horrible scandal it
would be, what a horrible thing it _is_, that any girl can cloud her own
life in this way!

"As for boys, I suppose mighty few of them are pure by the time they're
through college, by the time they're through High School, perhaps! It's
all queer, for that involves girls and women, too, thousands of them!
And how absurd it would be to bring such a charge as this against a man,
ten years after it happened, when he was married and a respectable
citizen!

"Well, society is very queer; civilization hasn't got very far;
sometimes I think virtue is a good deal of an accident, and that people
take themselves pretty seriously!" And so musing, Julia dozed, and
wakened, and dozed again. But in her heart had been sowed the seed that
was never to be uprooted, the little seed of doubt: doubt of the social
structure, doubt of its grave authorities, its awe-inspired
interpreters. What were the mummers all so busy about and how little
their mummery mattered! This shall be permitted, this shall not be
permitted; what is in your heart and brain concerns us not at all; where
your soul spends its solitudes is not our affair; so that you keep a
certain surface smoothness, so that you dress and talk and spend as we
bid you, you--for such time as we please--shall be one of us!




CHAPTER III

Nevertheless, the young Studdifords, upon their return to San Francisco,
entered heartily upon the social joys of the hour. Barbara had been only
waiting their arrival to demurely announce her engagement, and Julia's
delight immediately took the form of dinners and theatre parties for the
handsome Miss Toland and her fiance. A new and softened sweetness marked
Barbara in these days; she was more gentle and more charming than she
had ever been before. Captain Edward Francis Humphry Gunther Fox was an
officer in the English army, a blond, silent man of forty, with kind
eyes and a delightfully modulated voice. He had a comfortable private
income, a "place" in Oxfordshire, an uncle, young and healthy to be
sure, but still a lord, and an older sister who had married a lord, so
that his credentials were unexceptionable, and Mrs. Toland was nearly as
happy as her daughter was.

"It's curious," said Barbara to Julia, in one of their first hours
alone, "but there _is_ a distinction and an excitement about getting
engaged, and you enjoy it just as much at thirty as at twenty--perhaps
more. People--or persons, as Francis says--who have never paid me any
attention before, are flocking to the front now with presents and good
wishes, and some who never have seen Captain Fox congratulate me--it
amounts to congratulation--as if _any_ marriage were better than none!"

"Well, there is a something about marriage," Julia admitted; "you may
not have any reason for feeling so, but you _do_ feel superior, 'way down
in your secret heart! And yet, Babbie," and a little shadow darkened her
bright face, "and yet, once you _are_ married, you see a sort of--well, a
sort of uncompromising brightness about girlhood, too! When I go out to
The Alexander now, and remember my old busy days there, and walking to
chapel with Aunt Sanna, in the fresh, early mornings--I don't know--it
makes me almost a little sad!"

"Don't speak of it," said Barbara. "When I think of leaving Dad, and
home, and going off to England, and having to make friends of awful
women with high cheek bones, and mats of crimps coming down to their
eyebrows, it scares me to death!"

And both girls laughed gayly. They were having tea in Julia's
drawing-room on a cold bright afternoon in May.

"I'll miss Dad most," pursued Barbara seriously. "Mother's so much with
Ted now, anyway." She frowned at the fire. "Mother's curious, Ju," she
added presently. "Every one says she's an ideal mother, and so on, and I
suppose she is, but--"

"You're more like your father, anyway," Julia suggested in the pause.

"It's not only that," said Barbara slowly, "but Mother has never been in
sympathy with any one of us! Ned deceived her, Sally deceived her,
Theodora went deliberately against her advice, and broke her heart, and
Con and Jane don't really respect her opinion at all! I'm the oldest,
her first born--"

"And she loves you dearly," Julia said soothingly.

"Used to Ju, when I was a baby. And loves me theoretically now. But she
has taken my not marrying to heart much more than the curious marriages
Ned and the girls have made! Hints about old maids, and stories about
her own popularity as a girl, regardless of the fact that no one wanted
me--"

"Oh, Babbie!"

"Well, no one did!" Barbara laughed a little dryly. "Why, not two months
ago," she went on, "that little sprig of a Paul Smith called on Con, and
Mother engineered me out of the room, and said something laughingly to
Richie and Ted about not wanting to stand in Con's way, 'one old maid
was enough in a family!'"

"Maddening! Yes, I know," Julia said, laughing and shaking her head.
"I've heard her a hundred times!"

"Of course it's all love and kisses, now," Barbara added, "and Francis
is a bold, big thief, and how can she give up her dear big girl--"

"Oh, Barbara, don't be bitter!"

"Well," Barbara flung her head back as if she tossed the subject aside,
"I suppose I am bitter! And why you're not, Ju, I can't understand, for
you never had one tenth the chance I did!"

"No," Julia assented gravely, "I never did. If my mother had kept me
with her--and she could have done it--if she hadn't left my father--he
loved me so--it would all have been different. Mothers are strange,
Babby, they have so much power--or seem to! It seems to me that one
could do so much to straighten things out for the poor little baby
brains; this is worth while, and this isn't worth while, and so on!
Suppose"--Julia poured herself a fresh cup of tea, and leaned back
comfortably in her chair--"suppose you had young daughters, Bab," said
she, "what would you do, differently from your mother, I mean?"

"Oh, I don't know!" Barbara said, "only it seems funny that mothers
can't help their daughters more. Half my life is lived now, probably,
yet Mother goes right on theorizing, she--she doesn't get down to _facts_,
somehow! I don't know--"

"It all comes down to this," Julia said briskly, as Barbara's voice
trailed into silence, "sitting around and waiting for some one to ask
her to marry him is not a sufficiently absorbing life work for the
average young woman!"

"She isn't expected to do anything else," Barbara added, "except--
attract. And it isn't as if she could be deciding in her own mind about
it; the decision is in _his_ mind: if he chooses he can ask her; if he
doesn't, all right! It's a _shame_--it's a shame, I say, not to give her a
more dignified existence than that!"

"Yes, but, Bab, your mother couldn't have put you into a shop to sell
ribbons, or made a telephone girl of you!"

"No; my brothers didn't sell ribbons, or go on a telephone board,
either. But I don't see why I shouldn't have studied medicine, like Jim
and Richie, or gone into the office at the works in Yolo City, like
Ned."

"Yes, but, Babby, you've no leaning toward medicine!"

"Well, then, something else, just as Jim would have done something else,
in that case! Office hours and responsibility, and meeting of men in
some other than a social way. You and I have somehow dragged a solution
out of it, Julie: we are happy in spite of all the blundering and
stumbling, but I've not got my Mother to thank for it, and neither have
you!"

"No, neither have I!" Julia said, with a long sigh, and for a few
moments they both watched the coals in silence. The room was quite dark
now; the firelight winked like a drowsy eye; here and there the gold of
a picture frame or the smooth curve of a bit of copper or brassware
twinkled. The windows showed opaque squares of dull gray; elsewhere was
only heavy shadow, except where Barbara's white gown made a spot of dull
relief in the gloom, and Julia's slipper buckles caught the light. A
great jar of lilacs, somewhere in the room, sent out a subtle and
delicious scent.

"Funny world, isn't it, Julie?"

"Oh, _funny_!" Julia put out her hand, and met Barbara's, and their
fingers pressed. "Nothing better in it, Barbara, than a friend like
you!" she said affectionately.

"That's what I was thinking," said Barbara.

The Studdifords went to San Mateo after the wedding, and Julia, who had
taken herself seriously in hand, entered upon the social life of the
summer with a perfectly simulated zest. She rode and drove, played golf
and tennis and polo, gossiped and spent hours at bridge, she went
tirelessly from luncheon to tea, from dinner to supper party, and when
Jim was detained in town, she went without him; a little piece of
self-reliance that pleased him very much. If society was not extremely
popular with Julia, Julia was very popular with society; her demure
beauty made her conspicuous wherever she went, and in July, prominent in
some theatricals at the clubhouse, she earned all honours before her.

Julia found the theatricals perilously delightful; the grease paint and
the ornate costume seemed like old friends; she was intoxicated and
enchanted by the applause. For several days after her most successful
performance she was thoughtful: what if she had never joined the
"Amazon" caste, never gone to Sausalito, followed naturally in the
footsteps of Connie Girard and Rose Ransome? She might have been a great
actress; she would have been a great beauty.

San Mateo, frankly, bored her, although she could not but admire the
beautiful old place, the lovely homes set in enchanting old gardens, the
lawns and drives stretching under an endless vista of superb oaks.
There, alone with Jim, in a little cottage--ah, there would have been
nothing boring about that!

But the Hardesty cottage never seemed like home to her, they had rented
the big, shingled brown house for only three months, and Jim was anxious
that she should not tire herself with altering the arrangement of
furniture and curtains for so casual a tenancy. The Hardesty's pictures
looked down from the wall, their chairs were unfriendly, their books
under lock and key. Not a lamp, not a cup or saucer was familiar to
Julia; she felt uncomfortable in giving dinner parties with "H" on the
silver knives and forks; she never liked the look of the Hardesty linen.
Life seemed unreal in the "Cottage"; she seemed to be pushed further and
further away from reassuring contact with the homely realities of love
and companionship; chattering people were always about her, pianoplayers
were rippling out the waltz from "The Merry Widow," ice was clinking in
cocktail shakers, the air was scented with cigarettes, with the powder
and perfumery of women. She and Jim dined alone not oftener than once a
week, and their dinner was never finished before friendly feet crisped
on the gravel curve of the drive, and friendly invaders appeared to
invite them to do something amusing: to play cards, to take long spins
in motor cars, or to spend an idle hour or two at the club. Sometimes
they were separated, and Julia would come in, chilled and tired after a
long drive, to find Jim ahead of her, already sound asleep. Sometimes
she left him smoking with some casual guest, and fell asleep long before
the voices downstairs subsided. Even if they went upstairs together,
both were tired; there was neither time nor inclination for confidences,
for long and leisurely talk.

"Happy?" Jim said to his wife one day, when Julia, looking the picture
of happiness, had come downstairs to join him for some expedition.

"Happy enough," Julia said, with her grave smile. She took the deep
wicker chair next his, on the porch, and sat looking down the curve of
the drive to the roadway beyond a screen of trees.

"Heavenly afternoon," she said. "Just what are we doing?"

"Well, as near as I got it from Greg," Jim informed her a little
uncertainly, "we go first to his place, and then split up into about
three cars there; Mrs. Peter and Mrs. Billings will take the eats, Peter
will have a whole hamper of cocktails and things, and we go up to the
ridge for a sort of English nursery tea, I think."

"Doing it all ourselves?" Julia suggested, brightening.

"Well, practically. Although Greg's cook is going ahead with a couple of
maids in the Peters' car. They're going to broil trout or something;
anyway, I know Greg has been having fits about seeing that enough plates
go, and so on. I know Paula Billings is taking something frozen--"

"Oh, Lord, what a fuss and what a mess!" Julia said ungratefully.

"Well, you know how the Peters always do things. And then, after tea, if
this glorious weather holds, we'll send the maids and the hampers home,
and all go on down to Fernand's."

"Fernand's! Forty miles, Jim?"

"Oh, why not? If we're having a good time?"

"Well, I hope Peter Vane and Alan Gregory keep sober, that's all!" Julia
said. "The ride will be lovely, and it's a wonderful day. But Minna Vane
always bores me so!"

"Why, you little cat!" Jim laughed, catching her hand as it hung loose
over the arm of her chair.

"They've no brains," complained Julia seriously; "they were
born doing this sort of thing, they think they like it!
Buying--buying--buying--eating--dancing--rushing--rushing--rushing! It's
no life at all! I'd rather pack a heavy basket, and lug it over a hot
hill, and carry water half a mile, when I picnic, instead of rolling a
few miles in a motor car, and then sitting on a nice camp-chair, and
having a maid to pass me salads and ices and toast and broiled trout!"

"Well, if you would, I wouldn't!" Jim said good-naturedly.

"I wasn't born to this," Julia added thoughtfully; "my life has always
been full of real things; perhaps that's the trouble. I think of all the
things that aren't going right in the world, and I _can't_ just turn my
back on them, like a child--I get thinking of poor little clerks whose
wives have consumption--"

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Jim protested frowningly, biting the end from
his cigar with a clip of firm white teeth.

"It isn't as if I had never been poor," Julia pursued uncertainly. "I
know that there are times when a new gown or a paid bill actually would
affect a girl's whole life! I think of those poor little girls at St.
Anne's--"

"I would like to suggest," Jim said incisively, "that the less you let
your mind run on those little girls from St. Anne's, the better for you!
If you have no consideration for my feelings in this matter, Julie, for
your own I should think you would consider such topics absolutely--well,
absolutely in poor taste!"

Silence. Jim puffed on his cigar. Julia sat without stirring, feeling
that every drop of blood in her body had rushed to her head. The muscles
of her temples and throat ached, her eyes saw only a green-and-gold
dazzle, her wet little hands gripped the arms of her chair.

"It is all very well to criticise these people," pursued Jim
sententiously, after a long silence, "although they have all been
kindness and graciousness itself to you! They may be shallow, they may
be silly; I don't hold any brief for Minna Vane and Paula Billings. But
I know that Minna is on the Hospital Board, and Paula a mighty
kind-hearted, good little woman, and they don't sit around pulling long
faces, and wishing they were living south of Market Street!"

Julia sat perfectly still. She could not have battled with the lump in
her throat if life had depended upon her speaking. She felt her chest
strain with a terrible rush of sobbing, but she held herself stiffly,
and only prayed that her tears might be kept back until she was alone.

"Hello! Here's Greg," Jim said cheerfully, after another silence. And
here, truly, was Alan Gregory, a red-faced, smooth-shaven young man,
already slightly hilarious and odorous of drink, and very gallant to
beautiful Mrs. Studdiford. A great silky veil must be tied over Julia's
hat; sure she was warm enough? Might be late, might get cold, you know.

"Shall I get you your white coat, dear?" Jim asked solicitously.

"Oh, no, thank you, Jim!"

Then they were off, and Julia told herself that men and their wives
often quarrelled this way; it was a common enough thing to have some
woman announce, with a casual laugh, that she and her husband had had a
"terrible scene," and "weren't speaking." Only, with Jim it seemed so
different! It seemed so direfully, so hopelessly wrong!

She felt a hypocrite when they joined the others, and when she presently
found herself laughing and talking with them all, even with Jim. And
through the jolly afternoon and noisy evening she found herself watching
her husband, when she could do so unobserved, with gravely analytical
eyes. No barbed sentence of his could long affect her, for Julia had
pondered and prayed too long over this matter to find any fresh distress
in a reminder of it. Her natural simple honesty very soon adjusted the
outraged sensibilities. But Jim could hurt himself with his wife, and
this afternoon he had done so. Unconsciously Julia said to herself, over
and over, "Oh, he should not have said that! That was not kind!"

Mrs. Vane had a great favour to ask the men of the party to-night. She
proffered it somewhat doubtfully, like a spoiled child who is almost
sure of being denied, yet risks its little charms in one more entreaty.
She and Paula, yes, and Mrs. Jerome, and little Julia--wasn't that so,
Julia?--wanted to see a roadhouse. No--no--no--not the sort of place
where nice women went, but a regular roadhouse--oh, please, please,
please! They had their veils to tie over their faces, and they would
keep very unobtrusively in the background, and there was a man apiece
and two men over to protect them.

"All the girls in town are doing it!" argued Mrs. Vane, "and they say
it's perfectly killing! Dancing, you know, and singing. You have to keep
your veil down, of course! Betty said they'd been three times!"

"Nothing doing," Jim said good-naturedly, shaking his head.

"Oh, now, don't say that, Doctor!" Mrs. Vane commanded animatedly; "it's
too _mean_! Well, if you couldn't take us to the very worst, where _could_
you take us--Hunter's?"

"Hunter's!" the three men echoed, laughing and exchanging glances.

"Well, where then?" the lady pursued.

"Look here, Min," said her husband uneasily, "there's nothing to it. And
you girls might get insulted and mixed into something--"

"Oh, divine!" Mrs. Billings said; "now I _will_ go!"

"White's, huh, Jim?" Greg suggested tentatively.

"White's?" Jim considered it, shook his head. "Nothing doing there,
anyway!" was his verdict.

"Larry's, where the pretty window boxes are," suggested Mrs. Vane,
hopeful eyes upon the judges. "Come on! _Oh, come on_! You see such flossy
ladies getting out of motor cars in front of Larry's!"

"There's this about Larry's," Mr. Billings contributed; "we could get
one of those side places, and then, if things got too hot, just step out
on to the porch, d'ye see, and get the girls away with no fuss at all."

"That's so," Jim conceded; "but I'll be darned if I know why they want
to do it. However--"

"However, you're all angels!" sang Mrs. Vane, and catching Julia about
the waist, she began to waltz upon the pleasant meadow grass where they
had just had their high tea. "Come on, everybody! We won't be at
Fernand's until nearly night, then dinner, and then Larry's!"

"Mind now," growled one of the somewhat unwilling escort, "you girls
keep your veils down. Nix on the front-page story to-morrow!"

"Oh, we'll behave!" Mrs. Billings assured him. And slipping an
affectionate arm about Julia's waist, as they walked to the motor cars,
she murmured: "My dear, there isn't one decent woman in the place! Isn't
this fun!"

Julia did not answer. She got into the car and settled herself for the
run; so much of the day at least would be pleasant. It was the close of
a lovely summer afternoon, the long shadows of the trees lay ahead of
them on the road, the sky was palest blue and palest pink, a flock of
white baby clouds lay low against the eastern horizon. The warm air bore
the clean good scent of wilting grass and hot pine sap. The car rolled
along smoothly, its motion stirring the still air into a breeze. Mr.
Billings, sitting next to Julia, began an interested disquisition upon
the difficulties of breeding genuine, bat-eared, French bulldogs. Julia
scarcely heard him, but she nodded now and then, and now and then her
blue eyes met his; once she gratified him with a dreamy smile. This
quite satisfied Morgan Billings, to whom it never occurred that Julia's
thoughts might be on the beauties of the rolling landscape, and her
smile for the first star that came prickling through the soft twilight.

And after a while some aching need of her soul grew less urgent, and
some of the wistfulness left her face. She forgot the ideals that had
come with her into her married life, and crushed down the conviction
that Jim, like all men, liked his wife to slip into the kitchen and
concoct some little sweet for his supper, even with an artist like Foo
Ting at his command. She realized that when she declined old Mrs.
Chickering's luncheon invitation for the mere pleasure of rushing home
to have lunch with Jim, her only reward might be a disapproving: "My
Lord! Julia, I hope you didn't offend Mrs. Chickering! She's been so
decent to us!"

It was as if Julia, offering high interest on her marriage bond, had at
last learned that one tenth of what she would pay would satisfy Jim.
Feeling as she did that no demonstration on his part, no inclination to
monopolize her, would do more than satisfy her longing to be all in all
to him, it was not an easy lesson. For a while she could not believe
that he knew his own happiness in the matter, and a dispassionate
onlooker might have found infinitely pathetic the experimental temerity
with which she told him that this invitation had been accepted, this
social obligation incurred, this empty Sunday filled to overflowing with
engagements.

And now Jim approved, and Julia had to hide in the depth of her hurt
soul the fact that she had never dreamed he _could_ approve. However
tired, he liked to come home to the necessity of immediately assuming
evening dress, and going out into the night again. He and Julia held a
cheerful conversation between their dressing-rooms as they dressed;
later they chattered eagerly enough in the limousine, Jim enthusiastic
over his wife's gown, and risking a kiss on her bare shoulder when the
car turned down a dark street. Jim, across a brilliant table, in a
strange house, did not seem to Julia to belong to her at all; but it was
almost as if he found his wife more fascinating when the eyes of
outsiders were upon her, and admired Julia in a ballroom more than he
did when they had the library and the lamplight to themselves, at home.

They would come home together late and silent. Ellie would come in to
help her lovely mistress out of the spangled gown, to lift the
glittering band from her bright hair. And because of Ellie, and because
Jim usually was dressed and gone before she was up in the morning, Julia
had a room to herself now. She would have much preferred to breakfast
with her lord, but Jim himself forbade it.

"No, no, no, Ju! It's not necessary, and you're much better off in bed.
That's the time for you to get a little extra rest. No human being can
stand the whole season without making some rest up somehow! You'll see
the girls begin to drop with nervous prostration in January; Barbara
used to lose twenty pounds every winter. And I won't _have_ you getting
pale. Just take things easy in the morning, and sleep as late as you
can!"

Julia accepted the verdict mildly. With the opening of her second winter
in San Francisco's most exclusive set, she had tried to analyze the
whole situation, honestly putting her prejudices on one side, and
attempting to get her husband's point of view. It was the harder because
she had hoped to be to Jim just what Kennedy Marbury was to Anthony,
united by a thousand needs, little and big, by the memory of a thousand
little comedies and tragedies. Kennedy, who worried about bills and who
dreaded the coming of the new baby, could stop making a pie to
administer punishment and a lecture to her oldest son, stop again to
answer the telephone, stop again to kiss her daughter's little bumped
nose, and yet find in her tired soul and body enough love and energy to
put a pastry "A. M." on the top of her pie, to amuse the head of the
house when he should cut into it that night.

But this mixture of the ridiculous and the sublime was not for Julia.
And just as Kennedy had adjusted herself to the life of a poor man's
wife, so Julia must adjust herself to her own so different destiny.

And adjust herself she did. Nobody dreamed of the thoughts that went on
behind the beautiful blue eyes, nobody found little Mrs. Studdiford
anything but charming. With that steadfast, serious resolution that had
marked her all her life, Julia set herself to the study of gowns, of
dinners, of small talk. She kept a slim little brown Social Register on
her dressing-table, and pored over it at odd moments; she listened
attentively to the chatter that went on all about her. She drew
infinitely less satisfaction from the physical evidences of her
success--her beauty, her wealth, her handsome husband, and her
popularity--than any one of the women who envied her might have done,
yet she did draw some satisfaction, loved her pretty gowns, the freedom
of bared white neck and shoulders, the atmosphere of perfumed
drawing-rooms and glittering dinner tables. She wrote long letters to
Barbara, was a devoted godmother to Theodora Carleton's tiny son, loved
to have Miss Toland with her for an occasional visit, and perhaps once a
month went over to Sausalito, to spoil the old doctor with her
affectionate attentions, hold long conferences with their mother on the
subject of the girls' love affairs, and fall into deep talks with
Richie--perhaps the happiest talks in her life, for Richie, whose mind
and body had undergone for long years the exquisite discipline of pain,
was delightfully unexpected in his views, and his whole lean, ungainly
frame vibrated with the eager joy of expressing them.

Perhaps once a month, too, Julia went to see her own mother, calls which
always left her definitely depressed. Emeline was becoming more and more
crippled with rheumatism, the old grandmother was now the more brisk of
the two. May's two younger girls, Muriel and Geraldine, were living
there now, as Marguerite and Evelyn had done; awkward, dark, heavy-faced
girls who attended the High School. Julia's astonishing rise in life had
necessarily affected her relatives, but much less, she realized in utter
sickness of spirit, than might have been imagined. She and Jim were
paying for the schooling of two of May's boys, and a substantial check,
sent to her mother monthly, supposedly covered the main expenses of the
entire household. Besides this, Chess was working, and paying his mother
something every week for board.

It had been Julia's first confident plan to move the family from the
Mission entirely. There were lovely roomy flats in the Western Addition,
or there were sunny houses out toward the end of Sutter Street, where
her mother and grandmother would be infinitely more comfortable and more
accessible. She was stunned when her grandmother flatly refused. Even
her mother's approval of the plan was singularly wavering and half
hearted. Mrs. Cox argued shrilly that they were poor folks, and poor
folks were better off not trapesing all over the city, and Emeline added
that Ma would feel lost without her backyard and her neighbours, to say
nothing of the privilege of bundling up in a flat black bonnet and brown
shawl, hot weather or cold, and trotting off to St. Charles's Church at
all hours of the day and night.

"I don't care, Julie," Mrs. Page made her daughter exquisitely
uncomfortable by saying very formally, "but there's no girl in God's
world that wouldn't think of asking her mother to stay with her for a
while--till things got settled, anyway. You haven't done it!"

"Well, I'll tell you, Mama--" Julia began, but Emeline interrupted her.

"You haven't done it, Julie, and let me tell you right now, it looks
queer. I'm not the one that says it; every one says it. I don't want to
force myself where I'm not--"

"But, Mama _dear_, we're only at the hotel now!" Julia protested, feeling
a hypocrite.

"I see," said Emeline, "and I'm not good enough, of course. I couldn't
meet your friends, of course!" She laughed heartily. "That's _good_!" she
said appreciatively.

Julia used to flush angrily under these withering comments, at first;
later, her poor little mother's attitude filled her only with a great
pity. For Emeline was suffering a great deal now, and Julia longed to be
able to take her with her to the Pacific Avenue house, if only to prove
that its empty splendour held no particular advantages over the life on
Shotwell Street, for Emeline. She was definitely better off in her
mother's warm kitchen, gossiping and idling her days away, than she
would have been limping aimlessly about in Julia's house, and catching
glimpses of Julia only between the many claims of the daughter's day.

More than this, Jim would not hear of such a visit; it never even came
to a discussion between husband and wife; he would have been frankly as
much surprised as horrified at the idea. So Julia did what was left to
her, for her mother: listened patiently to long complaints, paid bills,
and supplemented Jim's generous cheque with many a gold piece pressed
into her mother's hand or slipped into her grandmother's dreadful old
shopping-bag. She carried off her young cousins to equip them with
winter suits and sensible shoes, aware all the while that their
high-heeled slippers and flimsy, cheap silk dresses, the bangles that
they slipped over dirty little hands, and the fancy combs they pushed
into their untidy hair, were infinitely more prized by them.

The Shotwell Street house was still close and stuffy, the bedrooms as
dark and horrible as Julia remembered them, and no financial aid did
more than temporarily soften the family's settled opinion that poor
folks were poor folks, and predestined to money trouble. Julia knew that
when the clothes she bought her cousins grew dirty they would not be
cleaned; she knew that her grandmother had never taken a tub bath in her
life and rather scorned the takers of tub baths; she knew that such a
thing as the weekly washing of clothes, the transformation of dirty
linen into piles of fragrant whiteness, never took place in the Shotwell
Street house. Mrs. Cox indeed liked to keep a tub full of gray suds
standing in the kitchen, and occasionally souse in it one of her calico
wrappers, or a shirt waist belonging to the girls. These would be dried
on a rope stretched across the kitchen, and sooner or later pressed with
one of the sad irons that Julia remembered as far back as she remembered
anything; rough-looking old irons, one with a broken handle, all with
the figure seven stamped upon them with a mould. Mrs. Cox had several
ironholders drifting about the kitchen, folds of dark cloth that had
been so often wet and singed that the covering had split, and the folded
newspaper inside showed its burned edges, but she never could find one
when she wanted it, and usually improvised a new one from a grocery bag
or the folds of her apron, and so burned her veined old knotted hands.

Julia came soon to see that her actual presence did them small good, and
did herself real harm, and so, somewhat thankfully, began to confine her
attentions more and more to mere financial assistance. She presently
arranged for the best of medical care for her mother, even for a
hospital stay, but her attitude grew more and more that of the
noncommittal outsider, who helps without argument and disapproves
without comment. Evelyn had made a great success of her dressmaking, but
such aid as she could give must be given her sister, for Marguerite's
early and ill-considered marriage had come to the usual point when, with
an unreliable husband, constantly arriving and badly managed babies, and
bitter poverty and want, she found herself much in the position of her
mother, twenty years before. May was still living in Oakland, widowed.
Her two sons were at home and working, and with a small income from
rented rooms as well, the three and her youngest daughter, Regina,
somehow managed to maintain the dreary cottage in which most of the
children were born.

"They all give me a great big pain!" Evelyn said one day frankly, when
Julia was at Madame Carroll's for a fitting, and the cousins--one
standing in her French hat and exquisite underlinen, and the other
kneeling, her gown severely black, big scissors in hand, and a
pincushion dangling at her breast--were discussing the family. "Gran'ma
isn't so bad, because she's old, but Aunt Emeline and Mama have a right
to get next to themselves! Mama had a fit because I wouldn't take a flat
over here, and have her and Regina with me; well, I could do it
perfectly well; it isn't the money!" Evelyn stood up, took seven pins
separately and rapidly from her mouth, and inserted them in the flimsy
lining that dangled about Julia's arm. "You want this tight, but not too
tight, don't you, Julie?" said she. "That can come in a little, still.
No," she resumed aggrievedly, "but I board at a nice place on Fulton
street; the Lancasters, the people that keep it, are just lovely. Mrs.
Lancaster is so motherly and the girls are so jolly; my wash costs me a
dollar a week; I belong to the library; I've got a lovely room; I go to
the theatre when I want to; I buy the clothes I like, and why should I
worry? I know the way Mama keeps house, and I've had enough of it!"

"It's awfully hard," Julia mused, "Marguerite's just doing the same
thing over again. It's just discouraging!"

"Well, you got out of it, and I got out of it," Evelyn said briskly,
"and they call it our luck! Luck? There ain't any such thing," she went
on indignantly. "I'm going to New York for Madame next year--me, to New
York, if you please, and stay at a good hotel, and put more than twenty
thousand dollars into materials and imported wraps and scarfs and so
on--is there any luck to that? There's ten years' slavery, that's what
there is! How much do you suppose you'd have married Jim Studdiford if
you hadn't kept yourself a little above the crowd, and worked away at
the settlement house for years and years?" she demanded. "I can put a
little hook in here, Ju, where the lace comes, to keep that in place for
you!" she added, more quietly.

"Well, it's true!" Julia said, sighing. She looked with real admiration
at the capable, black-clad figure, the clear-skinned, black-eyed face of
Madame Carroll's chief assistant. "Why don't you ever come and have
lunch with me, Evelyn?" she demanded affectionately.

"Oh, Lord, dearie!" Evelyn said, in her most professional way, as she
pencilled a list of young Mrs. Studdiford's proportions on a printed
card, "this season Madame has our lunches, and even our dinners, sent
in--simply one rush! But some time I'd love to."

"You like your work, don't you, Evelyn?" Julia said curiously.

"You go tell Madame I'm ready for Mrs. Addison," Evelyn said capably to
a small black-clad girl who answered her bell, "and then carry this to
Minnie and tell her it's rush--don't drop the pins out. I love my work,"
she added, when she and Julia were alone again; "I'm crazy about it! The
girls here are awfully nice, and some of the customers treat me simply
swell--most of them do. This way, Julia. Christmas time we get more
presents than you could shake a stick at!" said Evelyn, opening a door.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Addison, I'm all ready for you."

"That's a good girl!" the woman who was waiting in Carroll's handsome
parlour said appreciatively; she recognized Julia. "Well, how do you do,
Mrs. Studdiford?" she smiled, "so sorry not to see you on Saturday, you
bad little thing!"

Julia gave her excuse. "You know Evelyn here is my cousin?" she said, in
her quiet but uncompromising way, as she hooked her sables together.

"About eleven times removed!" Evelyn said cheerfully. "Right in here,
please, Mrs. Addison! At the same time to-morrow, Mrs. Studdiford. Thank
you, good-night."

"Good-night!" Julia said, smiling. For some reason she could not fathom,
Evelyn never seemed willing to claim the full relationship; always
assumed it to be but a hazy and distant connection. It was as if in her
success the modiste wished to recognize no element but her own worth; no
wealthy or influential relative could claim to have helped _her_! Julia
always left her with a certain warmth at her heart. It was good to come
in contact now and then with such self-confidence, such capability, such
prosperity. "I could almost envy Evelyn!" thought Julia, spinning home
in the twilight.




CHAPTER IV

The Studdifords, with some four hundred other San Francisco society
folk, regarded the Browning dances as quite the most important of the
winter's social affairs, and Julia, who thoroughly liked the host and
the brilliant assembly, really enjoyed them more than the smaller and
more select affairs. The Brownings were a beloved and revered
institution; very few new faces appeared there from year to year, except
the very choice of the annual crop of debutantes. Little Mrs. Studdiford
had made a sensation when she first came, at her handsome husband's
side, a year ago, her dazzling prettiness set off by the simplest of
milk-white Paris gowns, her wonderful crown of hair wound about with
pearls. Now she was a real favourite, and at the January ball, in her
second winter in society, a score of admirers assured her that her gown
was the prettiest in the room.

"That pleases you, doesn't it, Jim?" she smiled, as he put her into a
red velvet armchair, at the end of the long ballroom, and dropped into a
chair beside her.

"Well, it's true," Jim assured her, "and, what's more, you're the most
beautiful woman in the room, too!"

"Oh, Jeemy! What a story! But go get your dances, dear, if we're not
going to stay for supper. Here's Mrs. Thayer to amuse me," said Julia,
as a magnificent old woman came toward her with a smile.

"Not dancing, dear?" said the dowager, as she sank heavily into the seat
Jim left. "Whyn't you dancing with the other girls? I"--she panted and
fanned, idly scanning the room--"I tell Brownie I don't know how he gets
the men!" she added, "lots of 'em; supper brings 'em, probably! Whyn't
you dancing, dear?"

"She's implying that her ankle was sprained," Jim grinned, departing.
Julia dimpled. The dowager brought an approving eye to bear upon her.

"Well--well, you don't say so? Now that's very nice indeed," she said
comfortably; "well, I declare! I hadn't heard a word of it--and you're
glad, of course?"

"Oh, very glad!" Julia assured her, colouring.

"That's nice, too!" Mrs. Thayer rumbled on, her eyes beginning again to
rove the room. "Fuss, of course, and lots of trouble, but you forget all
that! Yes, I love children myself, used to be the most devoted mother
alive, puttin' 'em to bed, and all that, yes, indeed!"

"You had two?" Julia hazarded. The dowager gave her a surprised glance.

"I, me dear? I had five--Rose there, that's Mrs. St. John, and Kate, you
know her? Mrs. Willis, and my boy that's in Canada now, and the boy I
lost, and Lillian--Lily we called her, she was only three. Diphtheria."

"Oh!" Julia said, shocked.

"Yes, indeed, I thought it would break Colonel Thayer's heart," pursued
Mrs. Thayer, fanning regally, and watching the room. "She was the
first--Lily would be nearly forty now! Look, Julia, who is that with
Isabel Wallace? Who? Oh, yes, Mary Chauncey. See if you can see her
husband anywhere. I'd give a good deal to know if she came with him!"

"Mrs. Thayer," said Julia presently, "how long have you been coming to
the Brownings?"

"I? Oh, since they were started, child. There was a little group of us
that used to dance round at each other's houses, then some of the men
got together and formed a little club--Brownie was one of them. The
Saunders used to come. Ella was about eighteen, and Sally and Anna
Toland, and the Harts, and the Kirkwoods. Who's that with young Brice,
Julia, me dear? Peter Coleman, is it?"

"Talking to Mr. Carter, yes, that's Mr. Coleman. He's a beautiful
dancer," said Julia.

"Peter is? Yes, well, then, why don't you--But you're not dancing, of
course," Mrs. Thayer said. "There's Gordon Jones and his wife! Why
Brownie ever let them in I don't--Ah, Ella, how are you, dear?"

"Fine, thank you!" said the newcomer, a magnificent woman of perhaps
forty, in a very beautiful gown. "How do you do, Mrs. Studdiford?" she
added cordially, as she sat down. "Dancing, surely?"

"Now she's got the best reason in the world for not dancing," said old
Mrs. Thayer, with a protective motion of her fan.

"Oh--so?" Miss Saunders said, after a quick look of interrogation.
"Well, that's--dutiful, isn't it?" She raised her eyebrows, made a
little grimace, and laughed.

"Now, Ella, don't ye say anything wicked!" Mrs. Thayer warned her, and
the fan was used to tap Miss Saunders sharply on her smooth, big arm.

"Wicked!" Miss Saunders said negligently, watching the dancers, "I think
it's fine. I always said I'd have ten. Is Jim pleased?"

"He's perfectly delighted--yes," Julia assented, suddenly feeling that
this careless talk, in this bright, hot room, was not fair to the little
one she already loved so dearly.

"Is that Mrs. Brock or Vera?" Mrs. Thayer asked. "I declare they look
alike!"

"That's Alice," Ella answered, after a glance, "don't you know that blue
silk? They've got the Hazzards with them."

"Gets worse every year, absolutely," the old lady declared, "doesn't it,
Ella? Emily here?"

"No, she's wretched, poor kid. But Ken's here somewhere. There are the
Geralds," Miss Saunders added, leaning toward the old woman and sinking
her tone to a low murmur. "Have you heard about Mason Gerald and Paula
Billings--oh, _haven't_ you? Not about the car breaking down--_haven't_
you? Well, my _dear_--"

Julia lost the story, and sat watching the room, a vague little smile
curving her lips, her blue eyes moving idly to and fro. She saw Mrs.
Toland come in with her two lovely daughters. Julia had had tea with
them that afternoon at the hotel, where they would spend the night. The
orchestra was silent just now, and the dancers were drifting about the
room, a great brilliant circle. Some of the men were clapping their
hands, all of them were laughing as they bent their sleek heads toward
their partners, and all the girls were laughing, too, and talking
animatedly as they raised wide-open eyes. Julia admired the gowns:
shining pink and cloudy pink, blue with lace and blue with spangles,
white alone, and white with every colour in the world; a yellow and
black gown that was indescribably dashing, and a yellow and black gown
that somehow looked very flat and dowdy. She noticed the Ripley pearls
on Miss Dolly Ripley's scrawny little lean neck, and that charming
Isabel Wallace danced a good deal with her own handsome, shy young
brothers, and seemed eager that they should enjoy what was evidently
their first Browning. She studied the old faces, the hard faces, the
faded faces, the painted cheeks and powdered necks; she read the tragedy
behind the drooping head of some debutante, the triumph in the high
laugh of another. There was poor Connie Fox, desperately eager and
amiable, dancing with the youngest men and the oldest men, glittering
and jolly in her dingy blue silk; and Connie's mother, who was her
chaperon, a little fluttering fool of a woman, nervously eager to
ingratiate, and nervously afraid to intrude her company upon these
demi-gods and goddesses; and Theodora Carleton, handsome in too low cut
a gown, laughing with Alan Gregory, and aware, as every one in the room
was aware, that her husband's first wife was also at the dance. The room
grew warm, the air heavy with delicate perfumes. Men were mopping their
faces; some of the debutantes looked like wilting roses; the faces of
some of the older women were shining. It was midnight, the latest comers
had arrived, the floor was well filled.

"I wonder if I will be doing this twenty years from now," thought Julia.
"I wonder if my daughter will come to the Brownings, then?"

"... which I call disgraceful, don't you, Mrs. Studdiford?" asked Miss
Saunders suddenly.

"I beg your pardon!" Julia said, startled into attention, "I didn't hear
you!"

"I know you didn't," the other said, laughing, "nevertheless, it was a
low trick," she added to Mrs. Thayer, "and Leila Orvis can wait a long
time before she makes the peace with _me_! Charity's all very well, but
when it comes to palming off girls like that upon your friends, it's
just a little too _much_!"

"How's it happen ye didn't ask the girl for any references, me dear?"
asked Mrs. Thayer.

"Because Leila told me she knew all about her!" snapped Miss Saunders.

"What was she, a waitress?" Julia asked, amused.

"No, she was nothing!" Miss Saunders said in high scorn; "she'd had no
training whatever--not that I mind _that_. She was simply supposed to help
with the pantry work and make herself generally useful. Well, one day
Carrie, a maid Mother's had for _years_, told Mother that something this
Ada had said she fancied Ada had been in some sort of reform
school--imagine! Of course poor Mother collapsed, and Emily telephoned
for me--the kid always rises to an emergency, I will say that. So I
rushed home, and got the whole story out of Ada in five minutes. At
first she cried a good deal, and pretended it was an orphans' home;
orphans' home--ha! Finally I scared her into admitting that it was a
place just for girls of her sort--"

"Fancy!" said Mrs. Thayer, fanning. Julia had grown a little pale.

"What did you do, Miss Saunders?" said she.

"Do? I sent her packing, of course!" said that lady, smiling as she
bowed to an acquaintance across the room. "I told her to go straight
back to Mrs. Orvis, and say I sent her. However, she didn't, for I
telephoned Leila at once--Lucy Bacon is trying to bow to you, Mrs.
Studdiford--over there, with your husband!"

"I wonder where she did go?" pursued Julia.

"I really have no idea!" Miss Saunders said.

"You may be sure she knew just where to go, a creature like that!" old
Mrs. Thayer said wisely. "How de do, Peter, Auntie here?" she called to
a smiling man who went by.

"Oh, she wouldn't go utterly bad," Julia protested; "you can't tell, she
may have been decent for years. It may have been years ago--"

"Still, me dear," old Mrs. Thayer said comfortably, "one doesn't like
the idea--one can't overlook that, ye know."

"Of course, it's too bad," Miss Saunders added briskly, "and it's a
great pity, and things ought to be different from what they are, and all
_that_; but at the same time you couldn't have a girl like that in the
house, now could you?"

"Oh, yes, I could!" said Julia, scarlet cheeked, "I was just thinking
how glad I would be to give her a trial!"

She stopped because Jim, very handsome in evening dress and with his
pretty partner beside him, had come up to them.

"Tired, dear?" Jim said, smiling approval of the little figure in white
lace, and the earnest eyes under loosened bright hair.

"Just about time you came up, Jim!" Ella Saunders said cheerfully,
"here's your wife championing the cause of unfortunate girls--_she_
wouldn't care what they'd done, she'd take them right into her home!"

"And very sweet and nice of her," Mrs. Thayer observed, with a
consolatory pat on Julia's arm, "only it isn't quite practical, me dear,
is it, Jim?"

"Julia'd like to take in every cat and dog and beggar and newsboy she
sees," said Jim, with his bright smile. But Julia knew he was not
pleased. "Do you want to come speak to Mother and the girls, dear,
before I take you home?" he added, offering his arm. Julia stood up and
said her good-nights, and crossed the room, a slender and most
captivating little figure, at his side. It was not until she was bundled
into furs and in the motor car that she could say, with an appealing
hand on his arm:

"Don't blame me, Jimmy. I didn't start that topic. Miss Saunders
happened to tell of a poor girl who--"

"I don't care to discuss it," Jim said, removing her hand by the
faintest gesture of withdrawing.

Julia sighed and was silent. The limousine ran smoothly past one lighted
corner after another; turned into Van Ness Avenue. After a while she
said, a little indignation burning through her quiet tone:

"I've said I was not responsible for the conversation, Jim. And it seems
to me merely childish in you to let a casual remark affect you in this
way!"

"All right, then, I'm childish!" Jim said grimly, folding his arms as he
leaned back in his seat.

Julia sighed again. Presently Jim burst out:

"I'm affected by a casual remark, yes, I admit it. But my God, doesn't
it mean anything to you that I have my pride, that when I think of my
wife I want to feel that she is more perfect in every way--in _every_
way--than all the other women in the world?" He stopped, breathing hard,
and resumed, a little less violently: "All I ask is, Julia, that you let
such subjects _alone_. You're not called upon to defend such girls! Surely
that's not too much to ask!"

Julia did not answer; she sat silent and sick. And as Jim did not speak
again, except to mutter "My God!" once or twice, they reached the house
in silence, and separated with a brief "Good-night." Ellie was waiting
for Julia, eager to hear what Miss Jane wore, and Miss Constance wore,
and how "Miss Teddy" looked.

"I am absolutely done, Ellie," said the mistress, when the filmy lace
gown was back in its box, and she was comfortably settled on her
pillows, "so don't come in until I ring."

"And I hope you'll get a long sleep," Ellie said approvingly, "you've
got to take care of yourself now!"

Julia's little daughter was born on a June day in the lovely Ross Valley
house the Studdifords had taken for the summer.

They had moved into the house in April, because Julia's hopes made a
later move unwise, and, delighted to get into the sweet green country so
early in the year, and to have the best of excuses for leading the quiet
life she loved, she bloomed like a rose. She was in splendid health and
in continual good spirits; her exultant confidence indeed lasted until
the very day of the baby's birth.

The day was late, and the pretty nurse, Miss Wheaton, had been in the
house for nearly two weeks before Julia herself came to her door, in the
first pearl dawning to say, still laughingly, that the hour had come. A
swift, well--ordered period of excitement ensued; the maids were silent,
awed, efficient; Miss Wheaton authoritative, crisp, ready with technical
terms; and Jim as nervous and upset as if he were absolutely ignorant of
all things physiological, utterly dependent upon the skill and knowledge
of the nurse, humbly obedient to her will. The telephone rang and rang.
Julia, the centre of this whole thrilling drama, wandered about in her
great plum-coloured silk dressing-gown, commenting cheerfully enough
upon the various rapid changes that were being made in her room. She
picked up the little pink blanket that had been hung upon a
white-enamelled clothes-horse, by the fire, and pressed it to her cheek.
But now and then she stopped walking, and put her hand out toward the
back of a chair as if she needed support, and then an expression crossed
her face that made Jim's soul sicken within him: an expression of fear
and wonderment and childish surprise. At nine o'clock Miss Toland came
in, a little pale, but very cheerful and reassuring.

"I'm afraid--my nerve--will give out, Aunt Sanna!" Julia said, beginning
her restless march again, after a hot quick kiss.

"Hear her!" said the nurse, with a laugh of bright scorn. "Don't talk
any nonsense like that, Mrs. Studdiford. Why, she's the coolest of us
all!"

"Oh, no--I'm not--oh, no--I'm not!" Julia moaned.

"Your doctor says you're doing splendidly, and that another two hours
ought to see everything well over!" Miss Toland said, trying to keep the
acute distress she felt out of her tone.

"I feel so--nauseated!" Julia complained. "So--uncertain!"

"Yes, I know," the nurse said soothingly, whisking out of the room. Miss
Toland followed her into the hall.

"She's in great pain, she won't have much of this?" asked the older
woman anxiously.

"She's not suffering much," the nurse said brightly, after a cautious
glance at Julia's closed door. "This isn't much--yet. She's a little
scared, that's all!"

Hating the nurse from the depth of her heart, Miss Toland went
downstairs to see the doctor. Jim was sitting with a newspaper on the
porch, trying to smoke. He jumped up nervously.

"Where's Doctor Lippincott?" demanded Miss Toland. "He ran in to San
Rafael. Back directly."

"Ran in to San Rafael? And you let him! Why, I don't see how he dared,
Jim!"

"Oh, I guess he knows his business, Aunt Sanna!" Jim said miserably. "Do
you suppose I can go up for a while?"

"Yes, go," said Miss Toland. "I think she wants you, God bless her!"

But Julia wanted nobody and nothing. Jim's presence, his concerned voice
and sympathetic eyes, only vaguely added to her distress. She was
frightened now, terrified at the recurring paroxysms of pain; she
recoiled from the breezy matter-of-factness of the doctor and the nurse;
the elaborate preparations for the crisis offended every delicate
instinct of her nature. She felt that the room was hot, and complained
of the fire; but a few moments later her teeth chattered with a chill,
and Miss Wheaton closed the wide windows through which a June breeze was
wandering.

The day dragged on. The doctor came back, talked to Jim and Miss Toland
during luncheon about mushroom-raising, went upstairs to send Miss
Wheaton down to her lunch, and to watch the patient a little while for
himself. Jim went up, too, but was sent down to reassure Mrs. Toland,
who had arrived, and with Miss Sanna was holding a vigil in the pretty
cretonne-hung drawing-room. He was crossing the hall to go upstairs
again, when a sound from above held him rigid and cold. A long low moan
of utter weariness and anguish drifted through the pleasant silence of
the house, died away, and rose again.

Slowly the sense of tragedy deepened about them. Mrs. Toland was white;
Miss Toland's face was streaked with tears. The moaning was almost
incessant now, but Jim in the hall could hear the nurse murmur above it,
and now and then the doctor's voice, short and sharp.

"I wonder if you could come in and give her a little chloroform, Jim?"
said Doctor Lippincott, a pleasant, middle-aged man in a white linen
suit and cap, appearing suddenly in the door of Julia's room. "I think
we can ease her along a little now, and I need Miss Wheaton."

Jim pushed his hair back with a wet hand; cleared his throat.

"Sure. D'you want me to scrub up?" he asked huskily.

"Oh, no--no, my dear boy! Everything's going splendidly." The doctor
beckoned him in, and shut the door. "Now, Mrs. Studdiford," said he,
"we'll be all right here in no time!"

Julia did not answer; she did not open her eyes even when Jim took her
moist hot hand in one of his, and brushed back the lovely tumbled hair
from her wet forehead. She was breathing deep and violently, as if she
had been running. Presently she beat upon the bed with one clenched
fist, and began to toss her head from side to side. Then the stifled
moan began to escape from her bitten lips again, her face worked
pitifully, and she began to cry.

"Now, crowd it on, Jim!" Doctor Lippincott said, nodding toward the
chloroform.

"Breathe deep, breathe it in, my darling!" Jim urged, pouring the sweet,
choking stuff upon the little mask he held above the tortured face.

"You aren't--helping me--at all!" Julia muttered, in a deep hoarse
voice. But her shrill thin cry sank to a moan again; she stammered
incoherent words.

So struggling and sobbing, now quieter under the anaesthetic, now crying
aloud, the next long hour somehow passed for the helpless, suffering
little animal that was Julia. A climax came, and the kindly chloroform
smothered the last terrible cry.

Julia awoke to a realization that something was snapping brightly, like
wood on a fire; that the cottony fumes in her head were breaking,
drifting away; that commonplace cheerful voices were saying things very
near her. She seemed to have fallen from infinite space to this
wretchedly uncomfortable bed and this wretchedly uncomfortable position.
She wanted a pillow; her head was rocking with pain, and her forehead
was sticky with moisture. Yet under and over all other sensations was
the heavenly relief from the familiar agonies of the day. She felt so
tired that the mere thought of beginning to rest distressed her; she
would not open her eyes; her lids seemed sealed. She felt faintly
worried because she could not seem to intelligently grasp the subject of
Honolulu.

"Honolulu? Honolulu?" This was the doctor's pleasant drawl. "No. I
haven't. Mrs. Lippincott's people live in New York, so our junketings
are usually in that direction."

"Ah, well, you'd like Honolulu," Miss Wheaton's voice answered. A pause.
Then she said, "I put some wood on. It's not so warm to-day as it was
yesterday."

Julia strove in vain to pierce the meaning of these cryptic words.
Presently the doctor said, "Perfectly normal?" more as a statement than
a question, and Miss Wheaton answered in a matter-of-fact voice, "Oh,
absolutely."

Julia opened her eyes, looked up into the nurse's face, and with
returning consciousness came self-pity.

"I couldn't do it, Miss Wheaton," she whispered pitifully, with
trembling lips.

"Hello, little girlie, you're beginning to feel better, aren't you?"
Miss Wheaton said. "Here she is, Doctor, as fine as silk."

Julia's languid eyes found the doctor's kindly face.

"But the baby?" she faltered, with a rush of tears.

"The baby is a very noisy young woman," said Doctor Lippincott
cheerfully. "I wrapped her in her pink thingamagig, and she's right here
in Jim's room, getting her first bath from her granny."

"Really?" Julia whispered. "You wouldn't--fool me?"

"Listen to her!" Miss Wheaton said. "Now, my dear, don't you be nervous.
You've got a perfectly lovely little girl, and you've come through
_splendidly_, and everything's fine. If you want to go look at that baby,
Doctor," she added, "ask Doctor Studdiford to send Ellie in here to me
and we'll straighten this all out. Then we can let him in here to see
this young lady!"

Presently Jim came in, to kneel beside Julia's bed, and gather her
little limp hands to his lips, and murmur incoherent praise of his brave
girl, his darling little mother, his little old sweetheart, dearer than
a thousand babies. Julia heard him dreamily, raised languid eyes, and
after a little while stroked his hair. She was spent, exhausted,
hammered by the agony of a few short hours into this pale ghost of
herself, and he was strong and well, the red blood running confident and
audacious in his veins. Their spirits could not meet to-night. But she
loved his praise, loved to feel his cheek wet against her hand, and she
began to be glad it was all over, that peace at last had found the big
pleasant room, where firelight and the last soft brightness of the June
day mingled so pleasantly on rosy wall paper and rosy curtains.

"She's a little darling," said Jim. "Mother says she's the prettiest
tiny baby she ever saw. Poor Aunt Sanna and Mother had a great old cry
together!"

"Ah!" said Julia hungrily. For Miss Toland had come stepping carefully
in, the precious pink blanket in her arms.

"I'm to bring her to say 'Good-night' to her mother!" said Miss Toland.
"How are you, dear? All forgotten now?"

The pink miracle was laid beside Julia; she shifted her sore body just a
trifle to make room, and spread weak fingers to raise the blanket from
the baby's face. A little crumpled rose leaf of a face, a shock of soft
black hair, and two tiny hands that curved warmly against Julia's
investigating finger. All the rest was delicate lawn and soft wool.

The baby wrinkled her little countenance, her tiny mouth opened, and
Julia heard for the first time her daughter's rasping, despairing,
bitter little cry. A passion of ecstasy flooded her heart; she dropped
her soft pale cheek close to the little creased one.

"Oh, my darling, my _darling_!" she breathed. "Oh, you little perfect,
helpless, innocent thing! Oh, Jim, she's crying, the angel! Oh, I do
thank God for her!" she ended softly.

"I thank God you're so well," said Miss Toland. "Here, you can't keep
her!"

"Anna, go with Aunt Sanna," Julia said weakly.

"Anna, eh?" Miss Toland said, wrapping up the pink blanket.

"Anna Toland Studdiford," Jim answered. "Julia had that all fixed up
weeks ago!"

"Well--now--you children!" Miss Toland said, looking from one to the
other, with her half-vexed and half-approving laugh. "What do you want
to name her that for?"

"_I_ know what for," Julia smiled, as she watched the pink blanket out
of sight.

A little later Mrs. Toland crept in, just for a kiss, and a whimpered,
"And now you must forget all the pain, dear, and just be happy!"

Then Julia was left to her own thoughts.

She watched Miss Wheaton come and go in the soft twilight. A shaded
light bloomed suddenly, where it would not distress her eyes. The
curtains were drawn, and Ellie came softly in with a pitcher of hot milk
on a tray. Now and then the baby's piercing little "Oo-wah-wah!" came in
from the next room, and when she heard it, Julia smiled and said
faintly, "The darling!"

And as a ship that has been blown seaward, to meet the gales and to be
battered upon rocks, might be caught at last by friendlier tides and
carried safely home, so Julia felt herself carried, a helpless little
wreck, too tired to care if the waves flung her far up on shore or drew
her out to their mad embraces again.

"All forgotten?" Miss Toland had asked, from her fifty years of
ignorance, and "Now you must forget all the pain," Mrs. Toland had said,
with her motherly smile.

Queer, drifting thoughts came and went in her active brain during these
quiet days of convalescence. She thought of girls she had known at The
Alexander, girls who had cried, and who had been blamed and ostracised,
girls who had gone to the City and County Hospital for their bitter
hour, and had afterward put the babies in the Asylum! Julia's thoughts
went by the baby in the next room, and at the picture of that tender
helplessness, wronged and abandoned, her heart seemed to close like a
closing hand.

Anna Toland Studdiford would never be abandoned, no fear of that. Never
was baby more closely surrounded with love and the means of protection.
But the other babies, just as dear to other women, what of them? What of
mother hearts that must go through life knowing that there are little
cries they will never hear, tears they may never dry, tired little
bodies that will never know the restfulness of gentle arms? The terrible
sum of unnecessary human suffering rose up like a black cloud all about
her; she seemed to see long hospital wards, with silent forms filling
them day and night, night and day, the long years through; she had
glimpses of the crowded homes of the poor, the sick and helpless
mothers, the crying babies. She suddenly knew sickness and helplessness
to be two of the greatest factors in human life.

"What if Heaven is only this earth, clean and right at last," mused
Julia, "and Hell only the realization of what we might have done, and
didn't do--for each other!" And to Jim she said, smiling, "This
experience has not only given me a baby, and given me my own motherhood,
but it seems to have given me all the mothers and the babies in the
world as well! I wish you were a baby doctor, Jim--the preservation of
babies is the most important thing in the world!"

Slowly the kindly tides brought her back to life, and against her own
belief that it would ever be so, she found herself walking again,
essaying the stairs, taking her place at the table. Miss Wheaton went
away, the capable Caroline took her place, and Julia was well.

Caroline was a silent, nice-looking, efficient woman of forty. She knew
everything there was to know about babies, and had more than one book to
consult when she forgot anything. She had been married, and had two
handsome sturdy little girls of her own, so that little Anna's rashes
and colics, her crying days and the days in which she seemed to Julia
alarmingly good, presented no problems to Caroline. There was nothing
Julia could tell her about sterilizing, or talcum powder, or keeping
light out of the baby's eyes, or turning her over in her crib from time
to time so that she shouldn't develop one-sidedly.

More than this, Anna was a good baby; she seemed to have something of
her mother's silent sweetness. She ran through her limited repertory of
eating, sleeping, bathing, and blinking at her friends with absolute
regularity.

"I'd just like you to leave the door open so that if she _should_ cry at
night--" Julia said.

"But she never _does_ cry at night!" Caroline smiled.

Julia persisted for some time that she wanted to bathe the baby every
day, but before Anna was two months old she had to give up the idea. It
became too difficult to do what nobody in the house wanted her to do,
and what Caroline was only too anxious to perform in her stead. Jim
liked to loiter over his breakfast, and showed a certain impatience when
Julia became restive.

"What is it, dear? What's Lizzie say? Caroline wants you?"

"It's just that--it's ten o'clock, Jim, and Caroline sent down to know
if I am going to give Anna her bath this morning!"

"Oh, bath--nothing! Let Caroline wait--what's the rush?"

"It's only that baby gets so cross, Jim!" Julia would plead.

"Well, let her. You know you mustn't spoil her, Julie. If there's one
thing that's awful it's a house run by a spoiled kid! Do let's have our
breakfast in peace!"

Julia might here gracefully concede the point, and send a message to
Caroline to go on without her. Or she might make the message a promise
to perform the disputed duty herself, "in just a few minutes."

She would run into the nursery breathlessly, and take the baby in her
arms. Everything would be in readiness, the water twinkling in the
little bathtub, soap and powder, fresh little clothes, and woolly bath
apron all in order.

"But _hush_, Sweetest! How cross she is this morning, Caroline!"

"Yes, Mrs. Studdiford. You see she ought to be having her bottle now,
it's nearly eleven! Dear little thing, she was _so_ good and patient."

"Well, darling, Mudder'll be as quick as she can," Julia might console
the baby, and under Caroline's cool eye, and with Anna screaming until
she was scarlet from her little black crown to the soles of her feet,
the bath would somehow proceed. Ellie might put her head in the door.

"Well--oh, the poor baby, were they 'busing Ellie's baby?" she would
croon, coming in. "Don't you care, because Ellie's going to beat 'em all
with sticks!"

Caroline anticipated Julia's every need on these occasions: the little
heap of discarded apparel was whisked away, band and powder were
promptly presented, the bath vanished, the clothes-rack with its tiny
hangers was gone, and Julia had a moment in which to hug the weary,
sleepy, hungry, fragrant little lump of girlhood in her arms.

"Bottle ready, Caroline?"

"Yes, Mrs. Studdiford. She goes out on the porch now, for her nap. Come
to Caroline, darling, and get something goody-good."

And so Julia had no choice but to go, wandering a little disconsolately
to her own room, and wishing the baby took her nap at another hour and
could be played with now.

Presently outside interests began to claim her again, dressmakers and
manicures, shopping and the essential letter writing filled the
mornings, luncheons kept her late into the afternoons, there were calls
and card playing and teas. Julia would have only a few minutes in the
nursery before it was time to dress for dinner; sometimes Jim came in to
feast his eyes on the beautiful, serene little Anna, in her beautiful
mother's arms; more often he was late, and Julia, trailing her evening
gown behind her, would fly for studs, and pull the boot-trees from Jim's
shining pumps.

In September they went to Burlingame for the polo tournament, and here,
on an unseasonably hot day, Jim had an ugly little touch of the sun, and
for two or three days was very ill. They were terrible days to Julia.
Richie came to her at once, and they took possession of the house of a
friend, where Jim had chanced to be carried, and sent to San Rafael for
Julia's servants; but two splendid nurses kept her out of the sickroom,
and the baby was in San Rafael, so that Julia wandered about utterly at
a loss to occupy heart or hands.

On the third day the fever dropped, and Julia crept in to laugh and cry
over her big boy. Jim got well very quickly, and just a week from the
day of the accident he and Julia went home to the enchanting Anna, and
began to plan for a speedy removal to the Pacific Avenue house, so that
the little episode was apparently quite forgotten by the time they were
back in the city and the season opened.

But looking back, months later, Julia knew that she could date a
definite change in their lives from that time. Whether his slight
sunstroke had really given Jim's mind a little twist, or whether the
shock left him unable to throw off oppressing thoughts with his old
buoyancy, his wife did not know. But she knew that a certain sullen,
unresponsive mood possessed him. He brooded, he looked upon her with a
heavy eye, he sighed deeply when she drew his attention to the lovely
little Anna.

Julia knew by this time that marriage was not all happiness, all
irresponsible joy. She had often wondered why the women she knew did not
settle themselves seriously to a study of its phases, when the cloudless
days inevitably gave place to something incomprehensible and disturbing.
Even lovers like Kennedy and her husband had their times of being wholly
out of sympathy with each other, she knew, and she and Jim were not
angels; they must only try to be patient and forbearing until the dark
hour went by.

With a sense of unbearable weight at her heart she resigned herself to
the hard task of endurance. Sometimes with a bitter rush would come the
memory of how they had loved each other, and then Julia surrendered
herself to long paroxysms of tears; it was so hard, so bewildering, to
have Jim cold and quiet, to live in this painful alternation of hope and
fear. But she never let Jim see her tears, and told herself bravely that
life held some secret agony for every one, and that she must bear her
share of the world's burden. How had it all come about, she wondered.
Her thoughts went back to the honeymoon, and she had an aching memory of
Central Park in its fresh green, of Jim laughing at her when she tried
to be very matronly, in her kimono, over their breakfast tray. Oh, the
exquisite happy days, the cloudless, wonderful time!

She left the thought of it for the winter that followed. That had been
happy, too. Not like the New York months, not without its grave
misgivings, not without its hours of bitter pain, yet happy on the
whole. Then Honolulu, all so bright a memory until that hour on the
ship--that first horrible premonition of so much misery that was to
follow. The San Mateo summer had somehow widened the wordless,
mysterious gap between them, and the winter! Julia shuddered as she
thought of the winter. Where was her soul while her body danced and
dressed and dined and slept through those hot hours? Where was any one's
soul in that desperate whirl of amusement?

But she had found her soul again, on the June day of Anna's coming. And
with Anna had come to her what new hopes and fears, what new
potentialities and new sensibilities! She had always been silent,
reserved, stoical by nature, accepting what life brought her
uncomprehendingly, only instinctively and steadily fighting toward that
ideal that had so long ago inspired her girlhood. Now she was awake,
quivering with exquisite emotions, trembling with eagerness to adjust
her life, and taste its full delicious savour. Now she wanted to laugh
and to talk, to sit singing to her baby in the firelight, to run to meet
her husband and fling herself into his arms for pure joy in life, and
joy that she was beautiful and young and mother of the dearest baby in
the world, and wife of the wisest and best of men. The past was blotted
out for Julia now; her place in society was undisputed, not only as the
wife of the rich young consulting surgeon, but for herself as well, and
she could make as little or as much as she pleased of society's claim.
From her sickness she felt as if she had learned that there is suffering
and sorrow enough in the world without the need of deliberately
sustaining the old and long-atoned wrongs. More than that, she had come
to regard her own fine sense of right as a safer guide than any other,
and by this she was absolved of the shadowy sin of her girlhood: the
years, the hours she had prayed, the long interval, absolved her. Julia
felt as if she had been born again.

In this mood Jim did not join her. As the weeks went by his aspect grew
darker and more dark, and life in the Pacific Avenue house became a
thing of long silences and rare and stilted phrases, and for the brief
time daily that they were alone together, husband and wife were
wretchedly unhappy, Jim watching his wife gloomily, Julia feeling that
his look could chill her happiest mood. She had sometimes suspected that
this state of affairs existed between other husbands and wives, and
marvelled that life went smoothly on; there were dinners and dances,
there were laughter and light speech. Jim might merely answer her
half-timid, half-confident "Good-morning" with only a jerk of his head;
he might eat his breakfast in silence, and accord to Julia's brief
outline of dinner or evening engagements only a scowling monosyllable.
Yet the day proceeded, there was the baby to visit, a dressmaker's
appointment to keep, luncheon and the afternoon's plans to be gotten
through, and then there was the evening again, and Jim and herself
dressing in adjoining rooms in utter silence, silently descending to
welcome their guests, or silently whirling off in the limousine.

Sometimes she fancied that when she resolutely assumed a cheerful tone,
and determined to fight this unwholesome atmosphere with honest bravery,
she merely succeeded in making Jim's mood uglier than ever. Often she
tried a shy tenderness, but with no success.

One day when Miss Toland was lunching with her Julia made some allusion
to the subject, in answer to the older woman's comment that she did not
look very well.

"I'm _not_ very well, Aunt Sanna," said Julia, pushing her plate away, and
resting both slim elbows on the table. "I'm worried."

"Not about Anna?" Miss Toland asked quickly.

"No-o! Anna, God bless her, is simply six-months-old perfection!" Julia
said, with a brief smile. "No--about myself and Jim."

Miss Toland gave her a shrewd glance.

"Quarrelled, eh?" she said simply.

"Oh, no!" Julia felt her eyes watering. "No. I almost wish we had.
Because then I could go to him, and say 'I'm sorry!'" she stammered.

"Sorry for what?" demanded Miss Toland.

"For whatever I'd done!" elucidated Julia, with her April smile.

"Yes, but suppose he'd done it, what then?" Miss Toland asked.

"Ah, well," Julia hesitated. "Jim doesn't do things!" she said vaguely.

"Jim's in one of his awful moods, I suppose?" his adopted aunt asked,
after a pause.

"Oh, in a dreadful one!" Julia confessed.

"How long--days?"

"Weeks, Aunt Sanna!"

"Weeks? For the Lord's sake, that's awful!" Miss Toland frowned and
rubbed the bridge of her nose. "What gets into the boy?" she said
impatiently. "You don't know what it's about, I suppose?"

Julia hesitated. "I think it's that he gets to thinking of my old life,
when I was a little nobody, south of Market Street," she hazarded with
as much truth as she could.

"Oh, _really_!" Miss Toland said, in a tone of cold satire. But her look
fell with infinite tenderness and pity upon the drooping little figure
opposite. "Yet there's nothing of the snob about Jim," she mused
unhappily.

"Oh, _no_!" Julia breathed earnestly.

"There isn't, eh?" Miss Toland said. "I'm not so sure. I'm not at all
sure. He isn't working too hard, is he?"

"He isn't working hard at all," Julia said. "Jim doesn't have a case, to
worry over, twice a year. You see it's either City and County cases,
that he just goes ahead and _does_, or else it's rich, rich people who
have one of the older doctors, and just call Jim in to assist or
consult. He was a little nervous over a demonstration before the
students the other day, but at the very last second," Julia's quick
smile flitted over her face, "at the very last second the assisting
nurse dropped the cold bone--as they call it--that Jim was going to
transplant. Doctor Chapman told him he'd bet Jim bribed the girl to do
it!"

"H'm!" Miss Toland said absently. "But his father was just another such
moody fellow, queer as Dick's hatband!" she added, suddenly, after a
pause.

"Jim's father? I didn't know you knew him!"

"Knew him? Indeed I did! We all lived in Honolulu in those days.
Charming, charming fellow, George Studdiford, but queer. He was very
musical, you know; he'd look daggers at you if you happened to sneeze in
the middle of one of his Beethoven sonatas. Tim's mother was very sweet,
beautiful, too, but spoiled, Julia, spoiled!"

"Too much money!" Julia said, shaking her head.

"Exactly--there you have it!" Miss Toland assented triumphantly. "I've
seen too much of it not to know it. There's a sort of dry rot about it;
even a fine fellow like Jim can't escape. But, my dear"--her tone became
reassuring--"don't let it worry you. He'll get over it. Just bide your
time!"

"Well, that's just what I _am_ doing," Julia said, with a rueful laugh.
"But it's like being in a bad dream. There is sorrow that you have to
bear, don't you know, Aunt Sanna, like crippled children, or somebody's
death, or being poor; and then there are these other unnatural trials,
that you just _rebel_ against! I say to myself that I'll just be patient
and sweet, and go on filling my time with Anna and calls and dinner
parties, until Jim comes to his senses and tells me what an angel I am,
but it's awfully hard to do it! Sometimes the house seems like a vault
to me, in the mornings, even the sunshine"--Julia's eyes watered, but
she went steadily on--"even the sunshine doesn't seem right, and I feel
as if I were eating ashes and cotton! I go about looking at other
houses, and thinking, 'I wonder what men and women are being wretchedly
unhappy behind _your_ plate-glass windows!' I watch other men and their
wives together," pursued Julia, smiling through tears, "and when women
say those casual things they are always saying, about not loving your
husband after the first few months, and being disillusioned, and meaning
less and less to each other, I feel as if it would break my heart!"

"Well," Miss Toland said, somewhat distressed, "of course, I'd rather
walk into a bull fight than advise--"

"I know you would," Julia hastened to assure her. "That's why I've been
talking," she added, "and it's been a real relief! Don't think I'm
complaining, Aunt Sanna--"

"No, my dear," Miss Toland said. "I'll never think anything that isn't
good of you, Julie," she went on. "If Jim Studdiford is so selfish as
to--to make his wife unhappy for those very facts that made him first
love her and choose her, well, I think the less of Jim, that's all! Now
give me a kiss, and we'll go and pick out something for Barbara's boy!"

"Well, it may be a pretty safe general rule not to discuss your husband
with your women friends," Julia said gayly. "But I feel as if this talk
had taken a load off my heart! In books, of course," she went on, "the
little governess can marry the young earl, and step right into noble,
not to say royal, circles, with perfect calm. But in real life, she has
an occasional misgiving. I never can quite forget that Jim was a
ten-year-old princeling, with a pony and a tutor and little velvet
suits, and brushes with his little initials on them, when I was born in
an O'Farrell Street flat!"

"Well, if you remember it," said Miss Toland, in affectionate
disapproval, "you're the only person who does!"

Either the confidential chat with Miss Toland had favourably affected
Julia's point of view, or the state of affairs between Jim and herself
actually brightened from that day. Julia noticed in his manner that
night a certain awkward hint of reconciliation, and with it a flood of
tenderness and generosity rose in her own heart, and she knew that,
deeply as he had hurt her, she was ready to forgive him and to be
friends again.

So a not unhappy week passed, and Julia, with more zest than she had
shown in some months, began to plan a real family reunion for
Thanksgiving, now only some ten days off. She wrote to the Doctor and
Mrs. Toland, to the Carletons and Aunt Sanna, and to Richie, who had
established himself in a little cottage on Mount Tamalpais, and who was
somewhat philanthropically practising his profession there. She very
carefully ordered special favours for the occasion, and selected two
eligible and homeless young men from her list of acquaintances to fill
out the table and to amuse Constance and Jane. Jim had to go to
Sacramento on the Saturday before Thanksgiving for an important
operation, but would be home again on Tuesday or Wednesday to take the
head of his own table on the holiday.

Julia offered, when the Friday night before his departure came, to help
him with packing. They had dined very quietly with friends that night,
and found themselves at home again not very long after ten o'clock. But
Jim, sinking into a chair beside the library fire, with an assortment of
new magazines at his elbow, politely declined.

"Oh, no, thank you! Plenty of time for that in the morning. I don't go
until nine."

"Let Chadwick do it, anyway, Jim. Shall I tell Ellie to send him up at
eight?"

"If you will. Thank you! Good-night!"

"Good-night!" And Julia trailed her satins and laces slowly upstairs,
unfastening her jewels as she went. A little sense of discouragement was
fighting for possession; she fought it consciously as she had fought
such waves of despondency a hundred times before. She propped herself
comfortably in pillows, turned on a light, and began to read.

Ellie fussed about the room for a few minutes, and then was gone. The
big house was very still. Eleven o'clock struck from the little mahogany
clock on her mantel, midnight struck, and still Jim's footstep did not
come up the stairs, and there was no welcome sound of occupancy in the
room adjoining her own.

Suddenly terror smote Julia; she flung her book aside and sat up erect
in bed. Her heart was thundering with fear; the silence of the house was
like that that follows an explosion.

For a few dreadful seconds she sat motionless; then she thrust her bare
feet in the slippers of warm white fox that Ellie had put out, and
caught up a Japanese robe of black crepe, in which her figure was quite
lost. Fastening the wide obi with trembling fingers, she slipped out
into the hall, dimly lighted and very still. Then she ran quickly
downstairs.

What sight of horror she expected to find in the library she did not
know, but the shock of revulsion, when the opened door showed her
nothing more terrible than Jim, musing in the firelight, was almost as
bad as a fright could have been.

"Oh, Jim!" she panted, coming in, one hand pressed against her heart, "I
thought something--I got frightened!"

Jim looked up with his old, tender, whimsical smile, the smile for which
she had hungered so long, and held out a reassuring hand.

"Why, no, you poor kid!" he said. "I've been sitting right here!"

"I thought--and it was so still--and you didn't come up!" Julia said,
beginning to sob. And in a moment she was in his arms, clinging to him
in an ecstasy of love and relief. For a long blissful time they remained
so, the soft curve of Julia's cheek against Jim's face, her heart
beating quick above his own, her warm little figure, in its loose, soft
robe, gathered closely to him.

"Feeling better now, old lady?"

"Oh, fine!" But Julia's face quivered with tears again at the tone.

"Well, then, what's this for?" He showed her a drop on the back of his
hand.

"Be--because I love you so, Jim!"

"Well, you needn't cry over it!" said Jim gently. "I'm the one that
ought to do the crying, Judy," he added, with a significant glance at
her lovely flushed face and tear-bright blue eyes.

Julia leaned against him with a long, happy sigh.

"Oh, I'm so glad I came down!" she breathed contentedly.

"'Glad!'" Jim echoed soberly. "God! You don't know what it meant to me
to look up and see my little Geisha coming in. I was going crazy, I
think!"

"Ah, Jimmy, why do you?" she coaxed, one slender arm about his neck.

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "Made that way, I guess!"

For a while they were silent again, then Julia said softly:

"After all, nothing matters as long as we love each other!"

"No, no! You're right, Julie," he agreed seriously. "That's the only
thing that counts. And you do love me, don't you?"

"Love you!" Julia said, with a shaky laugh.

"I get crazy notions. I nearly go mad, sometimes," Jim confessed. "I get
to brooding--I know how rotten it is!" He fell silent, staring into the
fire. "Happy?" he asked presently, glancing down at her as she rested
quietly in his arms.

"Oh, _happy_!" Julia said, a break in her voice. "I wish I could die here,
Jim. I wish I could go to sleep here and never wake up!"

"Like me as much as that baby, eh?" he asked, in a peculiar tone.

Julia sat up to face him, her cheeks bright under loosening films of
hair, her eyes starry in the firelight.

"Jimmy, you couldn't be jealous of your own baby?"

"Oh, couldn't I? I can be jealous of anything and everything,
sometimes." He fixed troubled eyes on the fire. "I've been unhappy,
Julie," he confessed.

"Unhappy? I've just been _sick_ about it," Julia said. "I can't believe
that we're talking about it, and it's all over!" She sighed luxuriously.
"There's no use of _my_ doing anything when you're this way, Jim--I can't
even remember that you love me," she went on after a silence.
"Everything seems changed and queer. Sometimes I think you hate me,
sometimes you give me such cold looks--oh, you _do_, Jimmy!--they just
make me feel sick and queer all over, if you know what I mean! And oh,"
she sank back again with her head on his shoulder, "oh, if _only_ then I
could dare just come down to you here like this, and make you take me in
your arms, and talk to me this way!"

"Don't!" Jim said briefly, kissing the top of her hair.

"It just seems to _smoulder_ in my heart!" Julia said. "I can't bear it!';

"Don't!" he said again.

"Ah, but what makes you do it, Jim?" she asked, sitting erect to rest
both wrists on his shoulders, and bring her blue eyes very near his own.
Jim's glance did not meet hers, he looked sombrely past her at the fire.
Suddenly she felt his arms tighten about her with a force that almost
hurt her.

"Oh, it's this!" he said harshly, "I love you--you're mine! You're the
thing I live for, the thing I'm proudest of! I can't bear to think there
was a time when I didn't know you, my little innocent girl! I can't
bear--my God!--to think that you cared for some one else--!"

And with swift force he got to his feet, and put her in his chair. Julia
sat motionless while he took a restless brief turn about the room. He
snatched a little jade god from the table, examined it closely, and put
it down again, to come and stand with his back to the fire, one arm
flung across the mantel, and his gloomy eyes fixed on her. Julia met the
rushing, engulfing wave of her own emotion bravely.

"Jim," she said bravely, "does it mean nothing to you that there were
other women in _your_ life before you knew me?"

"Dearest," he answered seriously and quickly, "God knows that I would
cut my hand off to be able to blot that all out of my boyhood. Those
things mean nothing to a man, Ju, and they meant less to me than to most
men. Women can't understand that, but if you knew how men regard it, you
would realize that very few can bring their wives as clean a record as
mine!"

He had said this much before, never anything more. Julia, looking at him
now with all the tragic sorrow of her life in her magnificent eyes, felt
the utter impossibility of convincing him that this accusation on her
part, and bravely boyish and honest confession on his, had any logical
or possible connection with the momentous conversation that they were
having to-night. Her heart recoiled in sick terror from any word that
would hurt or estrange him now, but she might have found that word, and
might have said it, could she have hoped that it would convey her
meaning to him. But Jim's standard of morals, for himself, was, like
that of most men, still the college standard. It was too bad to have
clouded the bright mirror, but it was inevitable, given youth and red
blood. And it was admirable to regret it all now. Any fresh attempt on
Julia's part to bring to his realization the parallel in their
situations, would have elicited from him only fresh, youthful
acknowledgments, until that second when anger and astonishment at her
bold effort to reduce the two distinct codes to one would end this
talk--like so many others!--with new coldnesses and silences. Julia
abandoned this line of argument once and for all.

"I never cared for any one but you in my life, Jim," she said, with dry
lips.

"I know," he muttered, brushing his hair back with an impatient hand. A
second later he came to kneel penitently before her. "I'm sorry,
sweetheart," he said pleadingly. "You're a little angel of forgiveness
to me--I don't deserve it! I know how I make you suffer!"

"Jim," she said, feeling old, and tired, and cold to her heart's core,
"do you think you do?"

"I know how _I_ suffer!" he answered bitterly.

"Jim, suppose it was something you had done long ago that _I_ couldn't
forgive?"

"It isn't a question of forgiveness," he answered quickly.
"Forgiveness--when you are the sweetest and best wife a man ever had!
No, darling," he caught both her hands in his own, "you must never think
that, it's never that! It's only my mad, crazy jealousy. I tell you I'm
ashamed of it, and I _am_! Just be patient with me, Julia!"

Julia stared at him a few moments silently, her hands locked about his
neck.

"Ah, but you _worry_ me so when you're like this, Jim," she said
presently, in the gentle, troubled tone a mother might use. "There seems
to be nothing I can do. I can only worry and wait!"

"I know, I know," he said hastily. "Don't remind me of it! My father was
like that, you know. My father shot at a man once because he was rude to
my mother when he was drunk--shot him right through the shoulder! It
raised the very deuce of a scandal down there in Honolulu! He took
Mother to Europe to get away from the fuss, and paid the man the Lord
knows what to quiet the thing!"

"Yes, but life isn't like that, Jim," Julia protested. "Life isn't so
simple! Shooting at somebody, and buying his silence, and rushing off to
Europe! Why can't you just say to yourself reasonably--"

"'Reasonably,' dearest!" he echoed cheerfully, with a kiss. "When was a
jealous man ever reasonable!"

"But think how wonderfully happy we are, Jim," she persisted wistfully.
"Suppose there _is_ one part trouble, one part of your life that you don't
like, why can't you be happy because ninety-nine parts of it are
perfect?"

"I don't know; talking with you here, I can't understand it," he said.
"But I get thinking--I get thinking, and my heart begins to hammer, and
I lie awake nights, and I'd like to get up and strangle someone--"

His vehemence died into abashed silence before her grave eyes.

"I ought to be the one to stamp and rave over this," Julia said. "I
ought to remind you that you knew my history when you married me; and
you know life, too--you were ten years older than I, and how much more
experienced! All I knew was learned at the settlement house, or from
books. And the reason I _don't_ rave and stamp, Jim," she went on, "is
because I am different from you. I realize that that doesn't help
matters. We must make the best of it now, we must help each other! You
see I have no pride about it. I know I am better than many--than
most--of these society women all about us, but I don't force you to
admit that. They break every other commandment of God, yes, and that
one, too, and they commit every one of the deadly sins! It seems to me
sometimes as if 'gluttony, envy, and sloth' were the very foundation on
which the lives of some of these people rest, and as for pride and anger
and lust, why, we take them for granted! Yet, whoever thinks seriously
of saying so?"

"You make me ashamed, Julie," Jim said, after a pause, during which his
eyes had not moved from her face. "I can only say I'm sorry. I'm very
sorry! Sometimes I think you're a good deal bigger man than I am; but I
can't help it. However, I'm going to try. From to-night on I'm going to
try."

"We'll both try," Julia said, and they kissed each other.




CHAPTER V

Miss Toland, who had accepted Julia's invitation for Thanksgiving,
arrived unexpectedly on the afternoon before the holiday, to spend the
night with the Studdifords. It was a wild, wet day, settling down to
heavy rain as the early darkness closed in, and the Pacific Avenue house
presented a gloomy if magnificent aspect to the guest as she came in.
But Ellie beamingly directed her to the nursery, and here she found
enough brightness to flood the house.

Caroline, it appeared, had gone to her own family for the afternoon, and
Julia, looking like a child in her short white dress and buckled
slippers, was sitting in a low chair with little Anna in her arms. The
room was bright with firelight and the soft light from the subdued
nursery lamps, and warm russet curtains shut out the dull and dying
afternoon. Dolls and blocks were scattered on the hearth rug, and Julia
sat her daughter down among them, and jumped up with a radiant face to
greet the newcomer.

"Aunt Sanna--you darling! And you're going to spend the night?" Julia
cried out joyfully, with her first kisses. "What a dear thing for you to
do! But you're wet?"

"No, I dropped everything in my room," Miss Toland said. "Things were
very quiet at The Alexander--that new woman isn't going to do at all, by
the way, too fussy--so I suddenly thought of coming into town!"

"Oh, I'm _so_ glad you did!" Julia exulted. Miss Toland rested firm hands
on her shoulders, and looked at her keenly.

"How goes it?"

"Oh, splendidly!" The younger woman's bright eyes shone.

"No more blues, eh?"

"Oh, _no_!"

"Ah, well, that's a good thing!" Miss Toland sat down by the fire, and
stretched sturdy shoes to the blaze. "Hello, Beautiful!" she said to the
baby.

Julia dropped to the rug, and smothered the soft whiteness and fragrance
of little Anna in a wild hug.

"She has her good days and her bad days," said Julia, biting ecstatic
little kisses from the top of the downy little head, "and to-day she has
simply been an _angel_! Wait--see if she'll do it! See, Bunny," Julia
caught up a white woolly doll. "Oh, see poor dolly--Mother's going to
put her in the fire!"

"Da!" said Anna agitatedly, and Julia tumbled her in another mad
embrace.

"Isn't that _darling_, not six months old yet?" demanded the mother.
"Here, take her, Aunt Sanna, and see if you ever got hold of anything
nicer than that! Come, baby, give Aunt Sanna a little butterfly kiss!"
And Julia swept the soft little face and unresponsive mouth across the
older woman's face before she deposited the baby in her lap.

"She's like you, Julie," Miss Toland said, extending a ringed finger for
her namesake's amusement.

"Yes, I think she is; every one says so. You see her hair's coming to be
the same ashy yaller as mine. And see the fat sweet little knees, and
don't miss our new slippers with wosettes on 'em!"

"She's really exquisite," Miss Toland said, kissing the tawny little
crown as Julia had done, and watching the deep-lashed blue eyes that
were so much absorbed by the rings. "Watching her, Ju, we'll see just
what sort of a little girl you were."

"Oh, heavens, Aunt Sanna," Julia protested, with a rather sad little
smile, "I was an awful little person with stringy hair, and colds in my
nose, and no hankies! I never had baths, and never had regular meal
hours, or regular diet, for that matter! Anna'll be very different from
what I was."

"Your mother was to blame, Ju," Miss Toland said, gravely shaking her
head.

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps _her_ mother was," Julia suggested. "Yet my
Grandmother Cox is a sweet little old woman," she went on, smiling,
"always afraid we're hungry, and anxious to feed us, tremendously loyal
to us all. I went out there to-day, to take Mama some special little
things for Thanksgiving, and see if their turkey had gotten there, and
so on, and my heart quite ached for Grandma--Mama's very exacting now,
and the girls--my aunt, Mrs. Torney's girls--seemed so apathetic and
dull. The house was very dirty, as it always is, and the halls icy, and
the kitchen hot--I just wanted to pitch in and _clean_! Mama was cross at
me for not bringing Anna, in this rain, and staying to dinner to-morrow;
but Grandmother was so pleased to have the things, and she got to
telling me of old times, poor thing, and how she had to work and scheme
to get up a Thanksgiving dinner, and how my grandfather would worry her
by promising that he'd only have one drink, and then disappearing for
hours--"

"Does it ever occur to you that you are an unusual woman, Julia?" Miss
Toland asked, holding her watch to the baby's ear. Julia flushed and
laughed.

"Well, no, I don't believe it ever did!"

"Not so much in climbing up in the world as you have," pursued the older
woman, "but in not despising the people you left behind you! That's very
fine, Julie. I can't tell you how fine it seems to me!"

"There's nothing fine about it," Julia said simply. "It's just that I
like that sort of people as well as I do--Jim's sort. I used to think
that to work my way into a world where everything was fine and fragrant
and costly would mean to be happy, but of course it doesn't, and I've
come more and more to feel that I like the class where joys are real,
and sorrows are real, and the goodness means more, and there's more
excuse for the badness!"

"Did you ever think of writing, Julia?" Miss Toland asked. "Stories, I
mean?"

"Everybody does nowadays, I suppose," Julia laughed. "Sometimes I think
what good material The Alexander stuff would be, Aunt Sanna. But the
truth is, Jim doesn't like the idea."

"Doesn't? Bless us all, why not?"

"Oh!" Julia dimpled demurely. "The great Mrs. Studdiford writing, like a
mere ordinary person?" she asked.

"Oh, that's it? Where is Jim, by the way?"

"Sacramento. But the operation was on Sunday, so he should have been
here yesterday, at latest," Julia said. "However, he'll rush in to-night
or to-morrow; he knows you're all going to be here. Give her to me, Aunt
Sanna, she's getting hungry, bless her little old heart! Ah, here's
Ellie with something for Mother's girl!"

"And tea for you in the library," Ellie said in an aside, receiving the
baby into her arms with a rapturous look.

"Tea, doesn't tea sound good!" Julia caught Miss Toland by the hand.
"Come and have some tea, Aunt Sanna!" said she. "I'm starving!"

They were loitering over their teacups half an hour later when Lizzie
came into the library with a special delivery letter.

"For me?" Julia smiled, reaching for it. "It's Jimmy!" she added
ruefully, for Miss Toland's benefit, as she took it. "This means he
can't get here!"

"Drat the lad!" his aunt said mildly. "What has he got to say?"

Julia pulled out a hairpin to open the letter, her face a little
puzzled. She unfolded three pages of large paper closely written.

"Why, I don't understand this," said she. "Jimmy writes such short
letters!"

And immediately fear, like cold iron, entered her heart, and she felt a
chill of distaste for the letter; she did not want to read it, she
wished she might fling it on the ere, and rid her hands of the horrible
thing.

"It _is_ Jim, isn't it?" Miss Toland said, with a sharp look. "Is he
coming?"

"I don't know," Julia said, hardly above a whisper.

"Anything wrong?" Miss Toland asked, instantly alert.

"No, I don't suppose so!" Julia said, trying to laugh. "But--but I hate
him to just send a letter when I expected _him_!" she added childishly.

She picked it up, and began slowly to read it. Miss Toland, watching
her, saw the muscles of her face harden, and her eyes turn to steel. The
blood rushed to her face, and then receded quickly. She read to the last
word, and then looked up to meet the other woman's eyes.

"What _is_ it?" Miss Toland demanded, aghast at Julia's look.

"It's Jim," said Julia. Her face was blazing again, and she seemed to be
choking. "He's going to Europe," she went on, in a bewildered tone,
"he's not coming back."

"_What_!" said Miss Toland sharply. "D'you mean to tell me he's simply
walked off--"

Julia's colour was ghastly; her eyes looked sick and heavy.

"No, no, he can't mean that!" she said quickly. She crushed the pages of
the letter together convulsively. "I can't--" she began, and stopped.
Suddenly she rose to her feet, muttered something about coming back, and
was gone.

She ran up to her room, and alone there, it seemed for a few moments as
if she must suffocate. She put the letter on her desk, where its folded
sheets instantly looked hideously familiar. She went into the bathroom,
and found herself holding her fingers under the hot-water tap, vaguely
waiting for hot water. Like a hunted creature she went through the
luxurious rooms, the mortal wound in her heart widening every instant;
finally she came back to her desk, and sat down, and read the letter
again.

"Dear Julia," wrote Jim, "I have been thinking and thinking about this
affair, and I cannot stand it. I am going away. Atkins is going to
Berlin for a three months' course under Hofner and Braun, and I am going
with him. I only made up my mind to-night, but I have thought of
something like this a long, long time. I cannot bear it any longer. I
think and think about things--that another man loved you and you loved
him--and I nearly go mad. Even when people meet me and ask how you are,
I am reminded of it; for weeks now I haven't thought of anything else;
it just seems to rise up wherever I go.

"I think it will be better when I don't see you.

"I have been sitting here with my head in my hands, wondering if there
is any way in which I can spare you the pain of reading this letter, but
it's no use, it's impossible to go back and bluff about it.

"Collins spoke to me about the change in me; he said he thought it was
that touch of the sun in September. I wish to God it was!

"I will take the course with Atkins, and then let you know. He wants to
go to Benares for some reason or another, and perhaps I will go with
him, or perhaps come home to you. But I don't think I will come back
under a year.

"You hear of men all your life who do this, but I feel as if it was
killing me, and you, too. I wish there was some other way.

"I have written Harry at the Crocker; my account there is to be
transferred to your name. I don't know exactly what it is, but the money
from the San Mateo lots went in there, and so there is plenty. For God's
sake spend it, don't hesitate about getting anything you want. Why
shouldn't you keep the house, until April anyway; some one would stay
with you, and then you could go to San Rafael.

"I'm not going to try to tell you how I feel about all this, because you
know. It all seems to me a bad dream. Every little while I try to make
myself think that after a while it will all come right, but it seemed to
me all dead and buried after that time on the steamer, and of course it
wasn't!

"Tell people what you please, I leave all that to you.

"Chadwick will sell the car, and send you the bill of sale and the
money. He knows what I want sent; he'll do all that.

"I've written and rewritten this ten times; my head is splitting. It
seems strange to think it is you and me.

"God bless you always, and our little girl.

"_Jim_."

Julia finished it with a little grinding sound, like a groan, heard
herself make a dramatic exclamation, an "Ah!" of agonized unbelief. She
sat down, got up again to take a few irresolute steps toward her desk,
and finally went to her bedside telephone, and took down the receiver.

There was a delay; Julia rapped an impatient slipper on the floor, and
rattled the hook.

"Western Union, please," she said, a moment later; "I want to send a
telegram."

An interval of silence followed. Julia sat staring blankly at the wall.
Then she rattled the hook again.

"No matter about that number, Central; I've changed my mind," she said.
She walked irresolutely into the middle of the room, stood there a
moment frowning, and then turned, to go back and fling herself on her
bed, staring up into the dark, the letter crackling as it dropped beside
her.

After a while she began to say, "Oh, oh, oh!" quietly and quickly under
her breath. The cry grew too much for her, she twisted on her face to
stifle it, and after a few moments it stopped. Then she turned on her
back again, and said something sharply to herself in a whisper once or
twice, and after that the moaning "Oh, oh, oh!" began again.

So Miss Toland found her, when she came into the room without knocking,
a little later.

"Julia," Miss Toland said sharply, sitting down on the edge of the bed
and possessing herself of one of Julia's limp, cold hands, "Ellie told
me you--she came to the door and heard you! My child, this won't do! You
mustn't make mountains out of molehills. If Jim Studdiford has had the
senseless cruelty to go off to Europe in this fashion, why, he ought to
be horsewhipped, that's all! But I don't believe he'll get any farther
than New York, myself; I don't believe he'll get that far!" She paused,
but Julia was silent. After a moment the older woman spoke again. "What
does he say in the letter?" she asked. "One would really like to know
just how this delightful piece of work is explained."

"Aunt Sanna!" Julia said, in a difficult half whisper. She took Miss
Toland's hand and pressed it against her heart. Her lips were shut
tight, and against the white pillow there was a little negative movement
of her head.

"Well, of course you don't want to talk about it," Miss Toland said
soothingly. "But was there a quarrel?"

"Oh, no--no!" Julia said quickly, briefly, with another convulsive
pressure of Miss Toland's hand, and another jerk of her head. "It was
something--that distressed Jim--something I couldn't change," she added
with difficulty.

"H'm!" said the other, and the evidence for both sides was in, as far as
Miss Toland was concerned, and the case closed. She sat beside Julia in
the dark for a long time, patting her hand without speaking. After a
while Ellie brought a glass of hot milk, and Julia docilely drank it,
and submitted to being put to bed, raising a face as sweet as a child's
for Miss Toland's good-night kiss, and promising to sleep well.

The pleasant winter sunlight was streaming into the older woman's room
when Julia came in the next morning, although all San Francisco echoed
to the sombre constant call of the foghorn, and the air was cool enough
to make Miss Toland's fire delightful. Julia had Anna with her, a
delightful little armful in her tumbled nightwear, and she smiled at the
picture of Miss Toland, comfortably enjoying her breakfast in bed. But
it was evident that she had not slept: deep shadows lay under her blue
eyes, and she was very pale. She put the baby down on the bed with a
silver buttonhook and a bracelet, and sat down.

"Sleep any?" Miss Toland asked.

"Yes, I think I did!" Julia said, with an effort at brightness. She
seemed nervous and restless, but showed no tendency to break down. "I've
just been talking to Caroline," she went on. "I told her that Doctor
Studdiford had been called away, and implied that there would be
changes. Then I spoke to Foo Ting at breakfast--Mrs. Pope is crazy to
get him--so that will be all right--"

"Julia--of course I've not read Jim's letter," Miss Toland said
earnestly, "but aren't you taking this too much to heart--aren't you
acting rather quickly?"

Julia looked down at her laced fingers for a few moments without
speaking.

"Jim isn't coming back," she said soberly.

"But what makes you _say_ so, dear? How do you know?"

"Well, I just know it," Julia said, raising heavy-lidded eyes. They
looked at each other.

"But you aren't telling me seriously, my child, that you two--the most
devoted couple I ever _saw_--why, Julia, show a little courage, child! Jim
must be brought to his senses, that's all. We must think what's wisest
to do, and do it. But, my dear, there'd be no marriages left in the
world if people flew off the handle--"

"I _have_ been thinking, all night," Julia said patiently, "and this is
what I thought. I want"--she glanced restlessly about the room--"I want
to get away from here! That'll take some little while."

"Go away by all means, dear, if you want to, but don't dismantle your
house--don't make it impossible for the whole thing to blow over----"

"He won't come back," Julia repeated quietly.

"You don't think so?" Miss Toland said uncomfortably. "H'm!"

"No one must know, not even Doctor and Mother," pursued Julia. "No
newspapers, _nobody_!"

"Well, in any case, that's wise!" the older woman assented. "And where
will you go--to Sally?"

"No!" Julia said with a quick shudder. "Not anywhere near here! No, I
should rather like to give the impression that I will be with Jim, or
near Jim," she added slowly.

"Following him abroad with the baby, that's quite natural!" Miss Toland
approved. "But why not stay a week or two in Sausalito, just to keep
them from guessing?"

"Oh, I couldn't!" Julia said, in a quick breath.

"And where'll you go--New York?"

"Oh, no!" Julia leaned back and shut her eyes. The muscles of her throat
worked. "We were so happy in New York," she said, with a sudden
quivering of her lips. But a moment's struggle brought back her
composure. "I thought--some little French village, or England," she
hazarded.

"England," Miss Toland said promptly. "This is no time of the year to
take a child to France; besides, you get better milk in England, and if
Anna was sick, there's London, full of doctors who speak your own
language."

"So long as it's quiet," Julia said, "and we see nobody--that's all I
care about. Then if Jim should--But I couldn't wait here, with everybody
asking, and inviting me places, and spying on me!"

"We'll take some sort of little place in Oxfordshire," Miss Toland said,
"and then we can run up to London--"

"'We?'" Julia echoed. She gazed bewilderedly at the other woman for a
moment, then put her hands over her face and burst into tears.

A month like a nightmare followed. Julia had never grown to care for the
Pacific Avenue house; now it came to have an absolute horror for her.
She seemed to see it through a veil of darkness; she seemed to move
under the burden of an intolerable weight. Sometimes she found herself
panting as if for air, as she went from silent room to silent room, and
sometimes a memory unbearably poignant and dear smote her as with
physical violence, and her face worked for a few moments, and she fought
with tears.

There were other times, when life seemed less sad than dull. Julia grew
sick of loneliness, sick of silence; she stared at her face in the
mirror, when she was slowly dressing in the morning; stared at herself
again at night--as if marvelling at this woman who was a wife, and a
mother, and deserted in her young bloom. Deserted--her husband had gone
away from her, and she knew no way to bring him back. A weary flatness
of spirit descended upon her; it seemed a part of the howling winter
storms, the dark and heavy weather.

For the servants other positions were quickly found, the furniture was
stored, the motor car sold. On the last day on which the last was at her
disposal, Julia, with Ellie and the baby, drove about downtown, and
disposed of several odds and ends of business. She left the keys of the
Pacific Avenue house at the agent's office, not without an agonized
memory of the day she had first called for them, more than two years
ago. She went to the bank, and was instantly invited into the manager's
office and given a luxurious chair.

"Well, Mrs. Studdiford," said Mr. Perry pleasantly, "what brings you out
in this dreadful weather?"

"Good-byes," Julia said, flinging back her veil, and laying her muff
aside. "Miss Toland and I will probably leave for New York on the
seventh, and sail as soon as we can after we get there. I want to take a
letter of credit, and I want to know just how I stand here."

Mr. Perry touched a button, the letter of credit was duly made out, a
clerk came in with a little slip, which he handed to Mr. Perry.

"Ah, yes, yes, indeed! And where is Doctor Studdiford now? In Berlin?
Lovely city. You'll like Berlin," said Mr. Perry. He glanced at the
slip. "Thirty-seven thousand, two hundred and twenty dollars, Mrs.
Studdiford," said he. "Transferred to your name a month ago.

"I had no idea it was so much!" Julia said, her heart turning to lead.
Why had he given her so much?

Mr. Perry, bowing her out, laughed that that was a fault on the right
side, and Julia left the bank, with its brightly lighted warm atmosphere
tinged with the odour of ink and polished wood and rubber flooring, and
its windows streaming with rain. She got into the motor car again, and
took little Anna on her lap.

"Now I think we'll drop you at the hotel, Ellie," said she, "and I'll
take the baby out to say good-bye to my mother."

"Oh, Mrs. Studdiford, it's raining something terrible!" protested the
maid.

"Yes, I know," Julia agreed, looking a little vaguely out of the blurred
window. "But you see to-morrow may be just as bad, and we've got her all
dressed and out now. So you go home and pack, and I'll just fly out
there and fly back. Day after to-morrow I've promised to take her to
Sausalito, and the day after that we start!"

The city streets looked dark and gloomy under the steady onslaught of
the rain, as the car rolled along. Julia stared sombrely through the
drenched glass, now and then kissing the perfumed top of the little silk
cap that covered the drowsy head on her breast. It was a long trip to
Shotwell Street; for all her family's peculiarities, it was rather a sad
trip to-day. She let her thoughts drift on to the coming changes in her
life. She thought of New York, of the great unknown ocean, of
London--London to Julia meant fog, hansom cabs, and crossings that must
be swept. It was not, she felt, with a certain baffled resentment, what
she wanted to do. London was full of Miss Toland's friends, and Julia
was too sick in spirit to wish to meet them now. To be alone--to be
alone--to be alone--some gasping inner spirit prayed continually. They
would go to Oxfordshire, of course. But Miss Toland would be miserable
in the country, she was always miserable in the country.

They were passing Eighteenth Street, passing St. Charles's shabby little
church. Julia stopped the motor. She got out and carried the baby up the
stairs, and went up the echoing aisle to a front pew, where Anna could
sit and stare about her. Julia, panting, dropped on her knees. The big
edifice was empty, and smelled of damp plaster, rain rattled the high
windows. The afternoon was so dark that the sanctuary light sent a
little pool of quivering red to the floor below.

After a while a very plain young woman came out of the vestry, and
walking up the steps to the main altar, carried away one of the great
candlesticks. She was presently joined by a little nun; the two
whispered unsmilingly together, came and went fifty times with flowers,
with candles, with fresh altar linen.

Julia could not pray. Her thoughts would not settle themselves; they
drifted back and forth like rippling breezes over grass. She felt that
if she might kneel here an hour she could begin to pray. Now a thousand
little things distracted her: the odour of the church, the crisping feet
of some one entering the church far behind her, the odour of the damp
glove upon which she rested her cheek.

Life troubled her; she was afraid. She had thought it lay plain and
straight before her; now all her guide posts were gone, and all her
pathways led into deeper and deeper uncertainty. The utter confusion
into which she had been thrown made even her own identity indefinite to
her; she suffered less for this bewilderment. If by the mere raising of
her hand she might have brought Jim back to her, she would not have
raised that hand; not now, not until some rule that would adjust their
relationship was found. Her marriage seemed a dream, their love as
strange and remote as their separation.

Only Anna seemed real, and as much a sorrow as a joy just now. To what
heritage would the beautiful, mysterious little personality unfold? What
of the swiftly coming time when she would ask questions?

Julia turned to the little white-capped, white-coated figure. Anna had
chewed a bonnet string to damp limpness; now she was saying "Da!" in an
alluring and provocative tone to a lady praying nearby. The lady
regarded her with an unmoved eye, however, and Julia gathered her small
daughter in her arms and went down to the motor car.

At her mother's door she dismissed Chadwick for an hour or two of warmth
and shelter, and, sighing, went into the unaired dark hallway that
smelled to-day of wet woollens and of a smoky kerosene wick, and
retained as well its old faint odour of carbolic acid.




CHAPTER VI

Julia found the family as usual in the kitchen, and the kitchen as usual
dirty and close. Her old grandmother, a little bent figure in a loose
calico wrapper, was rocking in a chair by the stove. Julia's mother was
helpless in a great wheeled chair, with blankets and pillows carelessly
disposed about her, and her eager eyes bright in a face chiselled by
pain. Sitting at the table was a heavy, sad-faced woman, with several
front teeth missing, in whom Julia recognized her aunt, Mrs. Torney. A
girl of thirteen, with her somewhat colourless hair in untidy braids,
and a flannel bandage high about her throat, came downstairs at the
sound of Julia's entrance. This was Regina Torney.

"Well, it's Julia!" Mrs. Cox said. "And the darlin' sweetie--you
oughtn't to bring her out such weather, Julie! How's them little hands?"

She took the baby, and Julia kissed her mother and aunt, expecting to
draw from the former the usual long complaints when she said:

"How are you, dear? How does the chair go?"

But Mrs. Page surprised her by some new quality in her look and tone,
something poignantly touching and admirable. She was a thin little
shadow of her former self now, the skin drawn tight and shining over her
cheek bones, her almost useless hands resting on a pillow in her lap.
She wore a soiled dark wrapper, her dark hair, still without a touch of
gray, was in disorder, and her blankets and pillows were not clean. She
smiled at her daughter.

"I declare, Ju, you do seem to bring the good fresh air in with you
whenever you come! Don't her cheeks look pretty, Regina? Why, I'm just
about the same, Ju. To-day's a real bad day, on account of the rain, but
I had a good night."

"She's had an awful week, Julia. She don't seem to get no better," Mrs.
Torney said heavily. "I was just saying that it almost seems like she
isn't going to get well; it just seems like it had got hold of her!"

Julia sat down next to her mother, and laid her own warm young hand over
the hand on the pillow.

"What does the doctor say?" she asked, looking from one discouraging
face to another.

"Oh, I don't know!" Mrs. Page said, sighing, and old Mrs. Cox cackled
out a shrill "Doctors don't know nothing, anyway!"

"Emeline sent for me," Mrs. Torney said in a sad, droning voice. "Mamma
just couldn't manage it, Julia; she's getting on; she can't do
everything. So me and Regina gave up the Oakland house, and we've been
here three weeks. We didn't want to do it, Julia, but you couldn't blame
us if you'd read your Mamma's letter. Regina's going to work as soon as
she can, and help out!"

Julia understood a certain deprecatory and apologetic note in her aunt's
voice to refer to the fact that the Shotwell Street house was largely
supported by Jim's generous monthly cheque, and that in establishing
herself and her youngest daughter there she more or less avowedly added
one more burden to Julia's shoulders.

"I'm glad you did, Auntie," she answered cheerfully. "How's Muriel? And
where's Geraldine?"

"Geraldine's at school," Mrs. Torney said mournfully. "But Regina's not
going to start in here. She done awfully well in school, too, Julia,
but, as I say, she feels she ought to get to work now. She's got an
awful sore throat, too. Muriel's started the nursing course, but I don't
believe she can go on with it, it's something fierce. All my children
have weak stomachs; she says the smell in the hospital makes her awfully
sick. I don't feel real well myself; every time I stand up--my God! I
feel as if my back was going to split in two, and yet with poor Em this
way I felt as if I had ter come. Not that I can do anything for Emeline,
but I was losing money on my boarders. I wish't you'd come out Sunday,
Julia, I cooked a real good dinner, didn't I, Ma?"

Mrs. Cox did not hear, and Julia turned to her mother.

"Made up your mind really to go, Ju?" Mrs. Page asked.

"Oh, really! We leave on the seventh."

"I've always wanted to go somewheres on a ship," Emeline said. "Didn't
care so much what it was when I got there, but wanted to go!"

"So have I," contributed Mrs. Torney. "I was real like you at your age,
Julia, and I used to think I'd do this and that when the children was
big. Well, some of us are lucky and some of us aren't--ain't that it,
Ma? I was talking to a priest about it once," she pursued, "and he said,
'Well, Mrs. Torney, if there was no sorrow and suffering in the world,
there wouldn't be no saints!' 'Oh, Father,' I says, 'there isn't much of
the saint in me! But,' I says, 'I've been a faithful wife and mother, if
I say it; seven children I've raised and two I've buried; I've worked my
hands to the bone,' I says, 'and the Lord has sent me nothing but
trouble!'"

"Ma, ain't you going to put your clothes on and go to the store?" Regina
said.

"I was going to," Mrs. Torney said, sighing, "but I think maybe now I'll
wait, and let Geraldine go--she'll have her things on."

"I suppose you haven't got any milk?" Mrs. Page said. "I declare I get
to feeling awfully gone about this time!"

"We haven't a drop, Em," Mrs. Torney said, after investigating a small
back porch, from which Julia got a strong whiff of wet ashes and
decaying cabbage leaves.

"How much milk do you get regularly?" Julia asked, looking worried.

"Oh, my dear," Mrs. Torney said, from the sink, where she was attacking
a greasy frying pan with cold water and a gray rag worn into holes, "you
forget we ain't rich people here. We don't have him leave milk, but if
we want it we put a bottle out on the back steps."

"You ought to have plenty of milk, Mama, taking those strong, depressing
medicines!" Julia said.

"Well, I ain't got much appetite, Julie," her mother answered, with that
new and touching smile. "Now, last night the girls had cabbage and corn
beef cooking--I used to be real fond of that dinner, but it almost made
me sick, just smelling it! So Geraldine fried me an egg, yet that didn't
taste good, either! Gettin' old and fussy, I guess!"

Julia felt the tears press suddenly behind her eyes as she answered the
patient smile. "Mama, I think you are terribly patient!" said she.

"I guess you can get used to anything!" Emeline said.

Regina coughed, and huddled herself in her chair.

"But I thought since we had the air-tight stove put in the other room
you were going to use it more?" said Julia, as Mrs. Torney shook down
the cooking stove with a violence that filled the air with the acrid
taste of ashes.

"Well, we do sometimes. I meant to clean it to-day and get it started
again," her aunt said. "I'm sure I don't know what we're going to do for
dinner, Ma," she added. "Here it is getting round to five, and Geraldine
hasn't come in. I don't know what on earth she does with
herself--weather like this!"

Mrs. Cox made no response; she was nodding in the twilight over the
little relaxed figure of the baby; a fat little white-clad leg rolled on
her knee as she rocked. A moment later Geraldine, a heavy, highly
coloured girl, much what her sister Marguerite had been ten years
before, burst in, cold, wet, and tired, with a strapful of wet books
which she flung on the table.

"My Lord, what do you keep this place so dark for, Ma!" said Geraldine.
"It's something awful! Hello, Julia!" She kissed her cousin, picked
Julia's big muff from a chair, and pressed the soft sables for a moment
to her face. "Well, the little old darling, she's asleep, isn't she?"
she murmured over the baby. "Say, Mamma," she went on more briskly,
"I've got company coming to-night--"

"_You_!" said Julia, smiling, and laying an affectionate hand on her young
cousin's shoulder, as she stood beside her. "Why, how old are you,
child?"

"I'm sixteen--nearly," Geraldine said stoutly. "Didn't you have beaus
when you were sixteen?"

"I suppose I did!" Julia admitted, smiling. "But you seem awfully
young!"

"I thought--maybe you'd go to the store for me," said Mrs. Torney.
Geraldine glared at her.

"Oh, my God! haven't the things come?" she demanded, in shrill disgust.
"I can't, Mamma, I'm sopping wet, and I've got to clean the parlour.
It's all over ashes, and mud, and the Lord knows what!"

"Well, I couldn't get out to-day, that's all there is to that," Mrs.
Torney defended herself sharply. "My back's been like it was on fire.
I've jest been resting all day. And when you go upstairs you won't find
a thing straightened, so don't get mad about that--I haven't been able
to do one thing! Regina's been real sick, too; she may have made the
beds--she was upstairs a while--"

"She didn't!" supplied Regina herself, speaking over her shoulder as she
lighted the gas. They all blinked in the harsh sudden light.

"Oh, Lord!" Geraldine was beginning, when Julia interrupted soothingly:

"See here, I have the car here; Chadwick was to come back at five. Let
me send him for the things! What do we want?"

"Well, we don't want to keep you, lovey," her mother began. But Julia
was already writing a list.

"Indeed I'm going to stay and have some with you, Mrs. Page," she said
cheerfully. "Chops for the family--aren't those quickest? And a quart of
oysters for Mama, and cake and cheese and jam and eggs--tell me
anything you think of, Aunt May, because he might as well do it
thoroughly!

"Mama and Regina are going to have oyster soup and toast because they
are the invalids!" she announced cheerfully, coming back from the door a
little later, "You like oysters, don't you, Mama?"

"Oh, Julia, I like 'em _so_ much!" Mrs. Page said, with grateful fervour.

"You can have other things, too, you know, Madam," Julia assured her
playfully. "And why don't you let me push you, so--" She wheeled the
chair across the kitchen as she spoke. "Over here, you see, you're out
of the crowd," she said. She presently put a coaxing arm about Regina.
"Do go up and brush your hair and change, dear, you'll feel so much
better," she urged.

"I feel rotten," Regina said, dragging herself stairward nevertheless.

Poor Mrs. Page cried when the moment for parting came. It was still
early in the evening when Julia bundled up the sleeping Anna, and sent
her to the motor car by Chester, a gentle gray-haired man, who had been
extremely appreciative of a good dinner, and who had been sitting with
his wet socks in the oven, and his stupid kindly eyes contentedly fixed
upon Julia and her mother.

"I may not see you again, Julie," Mrs. Page said with trembling lips.
"Mama ain't strong like she once was, dear. And I declare I don't know
what I _shall_ do, when day after day goes by and you don't come
in--always so sweet!" The tears began to flow, and she twisted her head,
and slowly and painfully raised her handkerchief in a crippled hand to
dry her eyes. Julia knelt down to kiss her, her young face very sober.

"Listen, Mama--don't cry! Please don't cry!" said she. "Listen! I'll
_promise_ you to see you again before I go!"

Her mother brightened visibly at this, and Julia kissed her again, and
ran out in the dripping rain to her car. She took the baby into her
arms, and settled back in the darkness for the long trip to her hotel.
And for the first time in many months her thoughts were not of her own
troubles.

She thought of the Shotwell Street house, and wondered what had
attracted her grandfather and grandmother to it, forty years ago. She
tried to see her mother there, a slender, dark-haired child; tried to
imagine her aunt as young and fresh and hopeful. Had the rooms been dark
and dirty even then? Julia feared so; in none of her mother's
reminiscences was there ever any tenderness or affection for early
memories of Shotwell Street. Four young people had gone out from that
house, nearly thirty years ago, how badly equipped to meet life!

Julia's own earliest recollections centred in it. She remembered herself
as an elaborately dressed little child, shaking out her little flounces
for her grandmother's admiration, and having large hats tied over her
flushed sticky face and tumbled curls. She remembered that, instead of
the row of cheap two-story flats that now faced it, there had been a
vacant lot across the street then, where horses sometimes galloped. She
remembered the Chester of those days, a pimply, constantly smoking
youth, who gave her little pictures of actresses from his cigarette
boxes, and other little pictures that, being held to a strong light,
developed additional figures and lettering. He called her "Miss
O'Farrell of Page Street" sometimes, and liked to poke her plump little
person until she giggled herself almost into hysterics.

Still dreaming of the old times, she reached her hotel, and while Ellie
settled the baby into her waiting crib, Julia sat down before a fire,
her slippered feet to the comfortable coals, her loose mandarin robe
deliciously warm and restful after the tiring day.

"You want the lights, Mrs. Studdiford?" asked Ellie, tiptoeing in from
the next room.

"Oh, no, thank you!" Julia said. "I'll just sit here for a while, and
then go to bed."

Ellie went softly out; the clock struck nine--ten--eleven. Against the
closely curtained windows the rain still fell with a softened hiss, the
coals broke, flamed up, died down to a rosy glow. Still Julia sat, sunk
in her deep chair, musing.

She saw the Shotwell Street house changed, and made, for the first time
in its years of tenancy, into a home. There must be paint outside, clean
paint, there must be a garden, with a brick path and rose bushes, where
a little girl might take her first stumbling steps, and where spring
would make a brave showing in green and white for the eyes of tired
homegoers.

Indoors there should be a cool little orderly dining-room, with blue
china on its shelves, and a blue rug under the round table, and there
should be a drawing-room papered in clean tans and curtained in cream
colour, with an upright piano and comfortable chairs. The ugly old
storeroom off the kitchen must be her mother's; it must have new windows
cut, and nothing but what was new and pretty must go in there. And the
kitchen should have blue-and-white linoleum, with curtains and shining
tinware; there must be the gleam of scrubbed white woodwork, the shine
of polished metal. It was a big kitchen, the invalid might still like to
have her chair there.

The basement's big, unused front room must be finished in durable
burlaps and grass matting for Uncle Chester; there must be a bath
upstairs; two rooms for Aunt May and the girls, one for Grandma, one for
Julia and little Anna.

So much for externals. But what of changing the tenants to suit the
house? Would time and patience ever transform Mrs. Torney into a busy,
useful woman? Would Geraldine and Regina develop into hopeless
incompetents like Marguerite, or pay Julia for all her trouble by
becoming happy and helpful and contented?

Time must show. Only the days and the years would answer the question
that Julia asked of the fire. There must be patience, there must be
endless effort, there would be times of bitterest discouragement and
depression. And in the end?

In the end there would only be, at best, one family, out of millions of
other families, saved from unnecessary suffering. There would be only
one household lifted from the weight of incompetence and wretchedness
that burdened the world. There would be no miracle, no appreciation, no
gratitude.

"But--who knows?" mused Julia. "It may save Geraldine and Regina from
lives like Rita's, and bitterness like Muriel's and Evelyn's. It may
save them from clouding their lives as I did mine. Rita's children, too,
who knows what a clean and sweet ideal--held before them, may do for
them? And poor Chess, who has been wronged all his life, and my poor
little grandmother, and Mama--"

It was the thought of her mother that turned the scale. Julia thought of
the dirty blankets and the soggy pillow that furnished the invalid's
chair, of the treat that a simple bowl of oyster soup seemed to the
failing appetite.

"And I can do it!" she said to herself. "It will be hard for months and
months, and it will be hard now to make Aunt Sanna see that I am right;
but I can do it!" She looked about the luxurious room, and smiled a
little sadly. "No more of this!" she thought. And then longing for her
husband came with a sick rush. "Oh, Jimmy!" she whispered, with filling
eyes. "If it was only you and me, my darling! If we were going _anywhere_
together, to the poorest neighbourhood and the meanest cabin in the
world--how blessed I would be! How we could work and laugh and plan
together, for Anna and the others!" But presently the tears dried on her
cheeks. "Never mind, it will keep me from thinking too hard," she
thought. "I shall be needed, I shall be busy, and nothing else matters
much!"

She got up, and went to one of the great windows that looked down across
the city. The rain was over, dark masses of cloud were breaking and
stirring overhead; through their rifts she caught the silver glimmer of
the troubled moon. Across the shadowy band that was the bay a ferryboat,
pricked with hundreds of tiny lights, was moving toward the glittering
chain of Oakland. There was a light on Alcatraz, and other nearer lights
scattered through the dark masts and dim hulks of the vessels in the
harbour below her.

"It will be bright to-morrow!" Julia thought, resting her forehead
against the glass. She was weary and spent; a measureless exhaustion
seemed to enfold her. Yet under it all there glowed some new spark of
warm reassurance and certainty. "Thank God, I see my way clear at last!"
she said softly.




CHAPTER VII

The kitchen in the old Cox house formed a sort of one-story annex behind
the building, and had windows on three sides, so that on a certain
exquisite morning in March, four years later, sunlight flooded the two
eastern windows and fell in clear squares of brightness on the checkered
blue-and-white linoleum on the floor. There were thin muslin sash
curtains at these windows, and white shades had been drawn down to meet
them. Some trailing English ivy made a delicate tracery in dark green
beside one window, and two or three potted begonias on the sill lifted
transparent trembling blooms to the sun. The rest of the large room was
in keeping with this cheerful bit of detail. There was a shining gas
stove beside the shining coal range, and a picturesque bit of colour in
the blue kettles and copper casseroles that stood in a row on the
shelves above the range. A pine cupboard had been painted white, and
held orderly rows of blue plates and cups; there were several
white-painted chairs, and two tables. One of these was pushed against
the west wall, and was of pine wood white from scrubbing; the other
stood on a blue rag rug by the eastern windows, and was covered by a
fringed tablecloth in white and blue. Near the outer door, with a window
above it, was a white-enamelled sink in a bright frame of hanging small
utensils.

The sunlight twinkled here and there on a polished surface, and flung a
trembling bright reflection on the ceiling from the brass faucets of the
sink. A clock on the wall struck seven.

As the last stroke sounded, Julia Studdiford quietly opened the hall
door and stepped into the kitchen. She softly closed the door behind
her, and went to another door, at which she paused for a few seconds
with her head bent as if listening. Evidently satisfied that no one
stirred in the bedroom beyond the door, she set briskly if noiselessly
about her preparations for breakfast.

These involved the tying on of a crisp checked apron, and various
negotiations with a large enamelled coffee pot, an egg, and the dark
grounds that sent a heartening odour of coffee through the room. Bread
was sliced and trimmed for toast with delightful evenness and swiftness,
a double boiler of oatmeal was lifted from the fireless cooker, and the
ice box made to furnish more eggs and a jar of damp, firm butter.

It was while making a little journey to the back porch for milk and
cream that the housekeeper first wavered in her swift routine. Below the
back steps lay a little city garden, so lovely in the strengthening
March sunlight that she must set her bottles down on the step, and run
down for a whiff of the fragrance of climbing roses, just beginning to
bloom, of bridal-wreath and white lilac. Cobwebs, caught from bush to
wet bush, sparkled with jewels; a band of brown sparrows flew away from
a dripping faucet, and a black cat, crouching on the crosspieces of the
low fence, rose, yawned, and vanished silently. The wall was almost
entirely hidden by vines, principally rose vines, which flung long arms
in the air. Presently a woman in the next yard parted these vines, to
look over and say pleasantly:

"Good-mornin', Mis' Studdiford! I's just looking over an' _dee_-spairin'
of ever gettin' my backyard to look like yours! It does smell like one
big bo'quet mornin's like this!"

"Oh, well, there are so many of us to fuss with it," said the young
woman addressed, cheerfully. "My aunt and my cousins are nearly as crazy
about flowers as I am, and the other day--that warm day, you know, when
we had my mother out here--she was just as absorbed as the rest of us!"
She put a friendly head over the wall. "But I don't see what you've got
to complain of, Mrs. Calhoun," said she, "especially as you're just
beginning! I see your geraniums all took hold!"

"Every one but the white Lady Washington," the woman said. "How is your
mother?" she added.

"Pretty comfortable, thank you!" said the other. "I imagine she may have
had a restless night, for both she and my aunt seem to be asleep, so I'm
getting breakfast for my cousins and uncle myself! And I'm not supposed
to be out here at all!" she added, with a farewell laugh and nod, as she
turned back to the steps. "But I just couldn't resist the garden!"

She picked up the milk bottles and reentered the kitchen just as a
trimly dressed young woman came into it from the hall. The newcomer was
tall, and if not quite pretty was at least a fresh-looking,
pleasant-faced girl. She wore a tailor-made skirt and white shirt waist,
and a round hat covered with flowers, and laid her jacket over the back
of a chair.

"Julie, where's Ma?" said she, in surprise. "Have you been doing
everything?"

"Not everything!" Julia smiled. "But Aunt May must have overslept
herself; there hasn't been a sound from their room this morning. Your
suit looks lovely," she added admiringly.

"Oh, do you think so?" asked the younger woman eagerly. She interrupted
her task of putting plates and cups on the table, to come close and turn
toward Julia the back of her head for inspection. "Like it?" asked she.

Julia seriously inspected the rhinestone comb that glittered there.

"Why, I don't utterly dislike it," she said, in her pleasant voice.

"But you don't think it's in good taste, Julie?"

"Well no, not exactly. Not for the office, anyway."

"All right, then--that settles it!" the young woman assured her. "I'll
run upstairs after breakfast and change. We had a glorious time last
night!" she went on, putting her head on one side to give the table a
critical glance. "I'll tell you about it. This has boiled up, hasn't
it--it can be settled?"

"Yes, settle it." said Julia, buttering toast, "and tell me!"

But at this moment the hall door opened again, and a little girl of four
and a half appeared in the doorway. She was so lovely a vision, with her
trailing wrapper and white nightgown bunched up to be out of her way,
curls tumbled about her face, and eyes big with reproach, that both
women laughed with pleasure at the sight of her.

"Mother," said she, with that lingering on the last consonant that marks
the hurt pride of a child, "why diddunt you wake me?"

"Because you were sleeping so nicely, Pussy!" Julia laughed, on her
knees by this time, with both arms about the little figure. "Give me a
thousand kisses and say 'I love my mother!'"

"I love my mother!" said Anna, her eyes roving the room over her
mother's shoulder. "I guess you don't know how hard you're squeezing me,
Mother!" she added. "Can I come out here in my wrapper, and have
breakfast with Regina?"

"Yes, let her, Julia!" Regina urged. "Come on, darling! Bring your bowl
up here to my end. Do sit down and eat something yourself, Julia."

"This is the way to enjoy breakfast; not twenty feet from the stove!"
Julia said, pouring the cream into her coffee. "Was Geraldine stirring
when you got up, Regina?"

"Not a stir!" Regina said cheerfully. "She and Morgan were talking last
night until two--I looked at the clock when she came upstairs! What they
have to talk about gets me!"

"Oh, my dear, engaged people could talk forever," Julia said leniently.
"They were househunting yesterday, there's always so much to talk
about!"

"It seems to me that the people who don't marry have the most fun,"
Regina said. "Look at Muriel and Evvy, the money they make! Evvy going
East for the firm every year, and Muriel getting her little twenty-five
a week. And then look at Rita, with four children to slave for--"

"Ah, well, Rita's husband doesn't work steadily, and she hates
housework--she admits it!" Julia protested swiftly. "Rita could do a
good deal, if she would."

"Rita gives me a great big pain," said her younger sister absently.

"A boy named Willis had a sword, and he hit a little boy with it, and
Mrs. Calhoun said it was a wonder he wasn't killed!" contributed Anna
suddenly, her eyes luminous from some thrilling recollection.

"Fancy!" Julia said. "Eat your oatmeal, Baby, and run upstairs and get
some clothes on!" she added briskly. "You'll catch cold!"

But there was no severity in the glance she turned upon her daughter.
Indeed, it would have been a stern heart that little Anna Studdiford's
first friendly glance did not melt. She had been exquisite from her
babyhood, she was so lovely now, as she emerged from irresponsible
infancy to thoughtful little girlhood, that Julia sometimes wondered how
she could preserve so much charm and beauty unspoiled. Anna had her
mother's ash-gold hair, but where Julia's rose firm and winglike from
her forehead, and was held in place by its own smooth, thick braids, the
little girl's fell in rich, shining waves, sprayed in fine mist across
her eyes, glittered, a golden mop in the sunlight, and even in the shade
threw out an occasional gleam of gold. Anna's eyes were blue, with
curled thick lashes like her mother's, but in the firm little mouth and
the poise of her head, in the quick smile and quicker frown, Julia saw
her father a hundred times a day. Her skin had the transparent porcelain
beauty of babyhood, there was a suggestion of violet shadow about her
eyes, and on her cheeks there glowed the warm colour of a ripe apricot.
Even the gingham aprons and sturdy little shoes which she customarily
wore did not disguise Anna's beauty. Julia trusted more to the child's
wise little head than to the faint hope that her own precautions could
ward off flattery and adulation. The two had been constant companions
for more than four years: Anna's little bed close to her mother's at
night, Anna's bright head never out of Julia's sight by day. If Anna
showed any interest in what her mother was reading, Julia gave her a
grave review of the story; if Julia went to market, Anna trotted beside
her, deeply concerned as to cuts of meat and choices among vegetables;
and when baking was afoot, Anna had a tiny moulding board on a chair,
and cut cookies or scalloped tarts with the deep enjoyment of the born
cook.

Once or twice the child had asked for her father, accepting quietly
enough the explanation that he was in Germany, and very busy.

"Aren't we going to see him some time, Mother?"

"Not while Grandma needs Mother so much, dear!" Julia would answer
easily.

Easily, because the busy months with their pain and joy, their problems
and their successes, had seemed to seal away in a deep crypt her
memories of her husband. Julia had been afraid to think of him at first;
she could not make herself think of him now; his image drifted vaguely
away from her, as unreal as a dream. He was as much a name as if she had
never seen him, never loved him, never suffered those exquisite agonies
of grief and shame with which the first year of their separation was
full. Jim's child had taken his place; the purity and sweetness of the
child's love filled Julia's heart; she wanted only Anna, and Anna was
her interpreter for all the relationships of life. Anna first made her
draw close to her own mother; Anna was at once her spur and her reward
during the first hard years at Shotwell Street.

Anna had gone upstairs, and Regina was finishing her breakfast when
Chester came downstairs, followed by the still sleepy yet shining-eyed
Geraldine. Geraldine was to be married in a few weeks now, and had given
up her position in an office, to devote all her time to house-furnishing
and sewing.

"I'm awfully sorry to be so late," smiled Geraldine, "but we talked
until I don't know when last night!" She poured herself a cup of coffee;
the meal went cheerfully on. Presently the bedroom door opened, and a
stout, handsome, middle-aged woman came into the kitchen.

Julia was used, by now, to the transformation that had come to house and
garden, that had affected every member of her mother's family in the
past four years. But to the change in her aunt, Mrs. Torney, she never
became quite accustomed. It had been slow in coming; it had come all at
once. There had been weeks when Julia felt that nothing would ever
silence the whining voice, or make useful the idle hands. There had been
a wretched time when the young woman had warned the older that matters
could not continue as they were. There had been agitated decisions on
Mrs. Torney's part to go away, with Regina, to starve and struggle
again; there had been a scene when Regina coolly refused to leave the
new comforts of Julia's rule.

And then, suddenly, there was a new woman in the family, in Aunt May's
place. Julia always dated the change from a certain Thanksgiving Day,
when Mrs. Torney, who was an excellent cook, had prepared a really fine
dinner. Julia and the girls put the dining-room in order, a wood fire
roared in the air-tight stove, another in the sitting-room grate. Julia
dressed prettily; she put a late rose in her mother's hair, draped the
invalid's prettiest shawl about the thin shoulders, arrayed the toddling
baby in her daintiest finery. She coaxed her aunt to go upstairs to make
herself fresh and neat just before dinner, and during the whole evening
Mrs. Torney's sons and daughters, Julia and Evelyn, Chester and Mrs.
Page and little old Mrs. Cox united to praise the dinner and the cook.

It was as if poor Aunt May had come into her own, had been given at last
the role to which she had always been suited. Handsome in her fresh
shirt waist and black skirt, with her gray hair coiled above a shining
face, she beamed over turkey dressing and cranberry sauce; she laughed
until she cried, when Elmer, who had come from Oakland for the feast,
solemnly prefaced a request for more mince pie with a reckless: "Come
on, Lloyd, let's die together; it's worth it!"

From that day hers was the happy part of the bustling housewife. No New
England matron ever took more pride in cup cakes or apple pies, no
kitchen in the world gave forth more savoury odours of roast meats and
new-baked bread. Mrs. Torney's heavy tread on the kitchen floor was
usually the first thing Julia heard in the morning, and late at night
the infatuated housekeeper would slip out to the warm, clean, fragrant
place for a last peep at rising dough or simmering soup. Aunt May read
the magazines now only to seek out new combinations of meats and
vegetables. Julia would smile, to glance across the dining-room to her
aunt's chair beneath the lamp, and see the big, kindly face pucker over
some startling discovery.

"Em!" Mrs. Torney would remove her glasses, she would address her sister
in shocked tones. "Here they've got a sour-cream salad dressing. Did you
ever hear of such a thing!"

"For heaven's sake!" Mrs. Page would look up from her absorbed watching
of Chester's solitaire, drop her emaciated little head back against the
waiting pillow.

"Try it some time, Aunt May, you could make anything taste good!" Julia
might suggest. But Mrs. Torney would shake a doubtful head and, with a
muttered "Sour cream!" resume her glasses and her magazine.

Now she was tying a crisp apron over her blue cotton dress, and ready
with a smiling explanation for Julia.

"I declare, Ju, I don't know what's got into my alarm. I never woke up
at all until quarter to eight o'clock! Don't start those dishes, lovey,
there's no hurry!"

"I was afraid that Mama'd had a bad night," Julia said, smiling a
good-morning from the sink. "Sit. down, Aunt May, I'll bring you your
coffee!"

"No, Emeline had a real good night. She was reading a while, about
three, but she's sound asleep now."

"I lighted a fire in the dining-room," said Chester, "just to take the
chill off, if Em wants to go in there!"

"Then I'll bring my sewing down, after the beds are made," Geraldine
said. "You go to market if you want to, Julie; I'll do your room."

"Well," Julia agreed, "perhaps I can get back before Mama wakes. I'll go
up and see what Anna is doing."

Regina and Chester presently went off to their work, Mrs. Torney and
Geraldine fell upon the breakfast dishes, and Julia went upstairs. She
found the little Anna dreaming by a sunny window, one stocking on, one
leg still bare, and her little petticoat hanging unbuttoned.

"Come, Infant, this won't do!" Julia's practised hands made quick work
of the small girl's dressing. A stiff blue gingham garment went on over
Anna's head, the tumbled curls were subjugated by a blue ribbon. When it
was left to Anna merely to lace her shoes, Julia began to go about the
room, humming as she busied herself with bureau and bed. She presently
paused at the mirror to pin on a wide hat, and her eye fell upon the
oval-framed picture of Jim that she had carried away with her from the
Pacific Avenue house. It had been taken by some clever amateur; had
always been a favourite with her. She studied it dispassionately for a
moment.

Jim had been taken in tennis clothes; his racket was still in his hand,
his thin shirt opened to show the splendid line of throat and chin. His
thick hair was rumpled, the sunlight struck across his smiling face.
Julia's memory could supply the twinkle in his eye; she could hear him
call to Alan Gregory: "For the Lord's sake, cut this short, Greg! It's
roasting out here!"

Beside this picture hung another, smaller, and also a snapshot. This was
of a man, too, a tall, thin, ungainly man, sitting on a roadside rock,
with a battered old hat in his hand. Behind him rose a sharp spur of
rough mountainside, and so sharply did the ground fall away at his feet
that far below him was a glimpse of the level surface of the Pacific.
Julia smiled at this picture, and the picture smiled back.

"Come, Mouse!" said she, rousing herself from a reverie a moment later.
"Get on your hat! You and I have to go to market!"

The morning wore on; it was like a thousand other happy mornings. Julia
and Anna loitered in the cool odorous fish stalls at the market,
welcomed asparagus back to its place in the pleasant cycle of the year's
events, inspected glowing oranges and damp crisp heads of lettuce;
stopped at the hardware store for Aunt May's new meat chopper, stopped
at the stationer's for Anna's St. Nicholas, stopped at the florist's to
breathe deep breaths of the damp fragrant air, and to get some
buttercups for Grandma.

Julia's mother was in the kitchen when she and Anna got home, her dark
hair still damp from brushing, her thin wrists no whiter than her snowy
ruffles. Presently they all moved into the dining-room, where
Geraldine's sewing machine was temporarily established, and where Anna's
blocks had a corner to themselves. The invalid, between intervals of
knitting, watched them all with her luminous and sympathetic smile.

"A letter for you, Julie, and four for me," said the bride-elect, coming
back from the door after the postman's ring.

"_Four_ for you--Gerry! You lucky thing!"

"Well--two are from Morgan," admitted Geraldine, smiling, and there was
a laugh as Julia opened her own letter.

"It's from Dr. Richard Toland," she announced a moment later. "He says
Mill Valley is too beautiful for words just now. How'd you like to go
over and see Uncle Richie to-morrow, Anna?"

"I'd love it," said Anna unhesitatingly.

"We've not been for weeks," Julia said, "I'd love it, too, if my Marmer
doesn't mind?" She turned her bright smile to her mother. "Regina says
she has an engagement with the O'Briens for Sunday," said she, "and if
Gerry goes off with Morgan, will that leave things too quiet?"

"Indeed it won't!" said Mrs. Torney, looking up from the tissue-paper
pattern over which she had hung in profound bewilderment for almost half
an hour. "Rita may bring some of the children in, or Lloyd and Elmer may
come over. Go along with you!"

Richie, much stronger in these days, and without his crutch, though
still limping a little, met Julia and the dancing Anna on the following
afternoon, and the three crossed the ferry together. It was a day
bursting with summer's promise, the air was pure and warm, and the sky
cloudless. Getting out of the train at Mill Valley, Julia drew an
ecstatic breath.

"Oh, Richie, what heavenly freshness! Doesn't it just smooth your
forehead down like a cool hand!"

There was a poignant sweetness to the mountain air, washed clear by the
late rains, and warmed and invigorated by the sunshine of the
lengthening March day. The country roads were dark and muddy and churned
by wheel tracks, but fringed with emerald grass. Even at four o'clock
the little valley was plunged in early shadow, but sunshine lay still
upon the hills that framed it, and long lines of light threw the grim
heights of Tamalpais into bold relief. The watching tiers of the
redwoods looked refreshed, their spreading dark fans were tipped with
the jade-green sprays of the year's new growth. The first pale smoke of
wild lilac bloom lay over the hills.

"It makes you think of delicious words," said Julia, as Richie's rusty
white mare plodded up and up the mountain road. "Ozone--and
aromatic--and exhilarating! In town it was a little oppressive
to-day--Anna and I were quite wilted!"

"You don't look wilted!" Richie smiled at his goddaughter, who was in
her mother's arms. "Look, Ju--there's columbine! Loads of it up near my
place!" "And the wild currant, with that delicious pungent smell!"
sighed Julia blissfully. "What's new with you, Richie?" she asked
presently.

"Oh, nothing much! Cable from Bab yesterday, but you must have had one,
too?"

"Yes, I did. A third boy!" Julia laughed. "Poor Bab--when she wanted a
girl so badly!"

"I suppose she did," grinned Richard.

"Oh, of course she did! Who wouldn't?" Julia hugged her own girl. "And
isn't it glorious about Keith?" she added, with sudden enthusiasm.

"Is it? I suppose it is," Richie said. "But then those old guys in
Germany called him a genius long before New York did, and you girls
didn't make so much fuss!"

"Oh, but Richie, there's so much money in this American tour; three
concerts in New York alone, think of it!" Julia protested eagerly. "And
Sally's letter sounded so gay; they were having a perfectly glorious
time. I hope they come to San Francisco!"

"Well, she deserves it," Richie observed, flicking the rusty mare with a
whip she superbly ignored. "Sally's had a pretty rotten time of it for
seven or eight years--paying his lesson bills when she didn't have
enough to eat or shoes to wear--and losing the baby----"

"I don't believe all that meant as much to Sally as you think," Julia
said sagely. "Her entire heart was set upon Keith's success, and that
has come along pretty steadily. Her letter to me about the baby wasn't
the sort I should have written; indeed, I couldn't have written at all!
And then that was four years ago, Richie, and four years is a long
time!"

"It is!" Richie agreed. "Keith's about all the baby she'll ever want;
those fellows take an awful lot of spoiling. But I get more pleasure
from Mother's and Dad's pleasure than for Sally herself," he added.
"Mother saves up newspaper accounts, and has this translated from the
German and that from the French--it's sort of pathetic to see! Dad and
Janey are in New York now; something was said last night about their
going over to see Bab."

"Ted and your mother are alone, then? How's Ted?"

"Oh, driving Mother crazy, as usual. She'd flirt with the Portuguese
milkman if she had a chance. She can't seem to understand that because
she wants to be free she _isn't_ free! Talks about 'if I marry again,' and
so on. Of course Carleton's marrying again has made her wild."

"But, good heavens, Richie, Ted ought to have some _sense_!"

"Well, she hasn't. She stretched a point to marry him, d'you see?
Carleton had been baptized as a child, and his first wife hadn't, and
they were married by a Justice of the Peace, or something of that sort.
So Ted claimed that in the eyes of the Church he hadn't been married at
all, and she married him. Then----"

"But if she loved him, Richie--and Ted was so young!"

"All true, of course, only if you're going to push things to the point
of taking advantage of a quibble like that, your chance of happiness is
more or less slim! So three years ago Carleton proved that he hadn't
cared a whoop about the legal or religious aspects of the case, and left
Ted. And now Ted can't see herself, at twenty-seven, tied to another
woman's husband!"

"She has her boy," Julia said severely.

"Yep, but that doesn't seem to count."

"Well, it's funny, Richie, take us all in all, what a mess we've made of
marrying!" Julia mused. "Ned gives me the impression, every time I see
him, of being a sulky martyr in his own home; Sally's managed to drag
happiness out of a most hopeless situation; Ted, of course, will never
be happy again, like Jim and me; and Connie, although she made an
exemplary marriage, either has to leave her husband or bring her baby up
in Manila, which she says positively isn't safe! Bab is the only shining
success among us all!"

"Oh, I don't know," Richie said, stopping the horse, and flinging the
reins to the Portuguese who came out of a small barn to meet them. "Here
we are, Ju--take your time! I've always considered you rather
successful," he resumed.

"Oh, me!" Julia laughed as she jumped down like a girl. She followed
Anna across a little hollow filled with buttercups and long grasses, and
they mounted the little rise to Richie's tiny cabin. The little house
had Mount Tamalpais for a background, and its wide unroofed porch faced
across the valley, and commanded a view of the wooded ridges, and the
marshes, and the distant bay, and of San Francisco twelve miles away.
Scrub oaks and bay trees grew in a tangle all about it, even a few young
redwoods and an occasional bronze and white madrona tree. Wild roses and
field flowers crowded against its very walls, and under the trees there
were iris and brown lilies, and a dense undergrowth of manzanita and
hazelnut bushes, wild currant and wild lilac trees.

The big room that Julia entered first was dim with pleasant twilight,
and full of the sweet odours of a dying wood fire. It had nothing of
distinction in it: a few shabby chairs, an old square piano, an
unpainted floor crossed here and there by rugs, books in cases and out
of them, candlesticks along the brick mantel, a green-shaded student's
lamp on a long table, and several wide windows, dim and opaque now in
the fast-gathering darkness, but usually framing each a picture of
matchless mountain scenery.

A door at one side of the fireplace led into a tiny kitchen whose
windows looked out into oak branches; and another door, on the other
side, gave access to a little cement-floored bathroom with a shower, and
two small bedrooms, each with two beds built in tiers like bunks. This
was Richie's whole domain, and whether it was really saturated with the
care-free atmosphere of childhood, and fragrant with the good breath of
the countryside all about it, or whether Julia only imagined it to be
so, she found it perfect, and was never so happy in these days as when
she and Anna were there. She was always busy, and satisfied in her work,
but there were needs of heart and mind that her own people could not
meet, and when these rose strong within her she found no company as
bracing and as welcome as Richard's.

"No Aunt Sanna?" said she cheerfully, when she had taken off her hat and
the small girl's, and was in her favourite chair by the fire.

"No, darn it!" said Richie, struggling with a refractory lamp wick.

"Oh, don't be so blue, Rich! She'll be here on the seven."

"No, she won't--she said the four--I expected to find her here," Richie
said, settling the glass chimney into place, as the light crept round
the wick. A little odour of hot kerosene floated on the air, and was
lost in other odours from the kitchen, where a Chinese boy was padding
about in the poor light of one lamp. He began to come and go, setting
the table, the ecstatic Anna at his heels. Whenever the outer door was
opened, a cool rush of sweet country air came in. Richie began to stamp
back and forth with great logs for the fireplace.

"Wonderful what millions of miles away from every one we seem, Rich!"
Julia said contentedly. "Was there ever anything like the quiet of this
mountain?"

"I'm terribly sorry about Aunt Sanna," Richie said. "I feel like an
ass--getting you way up here!"

"Why, my dear boy, it's not _your_ fault!" Julia said, round eyed.

"She said she would positively be here," Richie pursued. "I suppose
there's no earthly reason--" he added uncomfortably.

"Why you and I shouldn't stay here alone? I should hope not!" Julia
reassured him roundly. "And she may come on the seven, anyway!"

"These are the times I wish I had a telephone," said Richie.

"Aw leddy," contributed the Chinese boy. They took their places at the
table, and dinner was eaten by the light of the lamp. But after dinner,
when Julia had tucked Anna into bed, she came back and put out the lamp.
She lighted two candles on the mantelpiece that sent a brave flicker
over the dull walls and up to the ceiling.

"There!" said she, with an energetic stirring of the fire, as she took
her chair again, "that's the way I like this room to look!"

Richard disposed of his awkward length in an opposite chair, his big
bony hands interlocked. In the fire and candlelight Julia looked very
young, her loosened hair glimmering against the back of her chair, her
thin white skirts spreading in a soft circle above her slipper buckles.
The man noticed the serene rise and fall of her breast under her thin
blouse, the content in her half-shut blue eyes. He let his thoughts
play for a moment with the perilous dream that she belonged here at his
hearth, that her sweetness, her demure happiness, her earnest interest
in everything that concerned him, were all his by right.

"I don't quite know what to do about this!" he said gruffly.

"What--our being here?" Julia looked surprised. "Why, Richie, what can
we do? Do you think it matters, one night? After all, we're brother and
sister-in-law!"

"Almost," said Richie, with a laugh.

"Why, Rich, I would never give it one moment's thought; not if I stayed
here a month!" Julia assured him. "And neither would any one else. Don't
be so silly!"

"It's not me; but it isn't fair to you!" Richard said.

Julia had grown a little red. Now she stared into the fire.

"This sort of fuss isn't like you, Rich," she said presently, with an
uncomfortable laugh. "You--you don't usually talk about such things!"

"No, I know I don't," Richard admitted, untouched by her reproach. "I
could go up to Porter's and try to get Aunt Sanna by telephone!" he
muttered.

Julia was displeased, and made no answer, and presently he got up and
went out. She sat there listening to the rattle of dishes in the
kitchen, until a splash announced the dishpan emptied under the oak
trees, and the Chinese through with his work for the night. After a
while she went to the doorway, and stared out at the starry sky and the
dark on darkness that marked masses of trees and long spurs of the
mountain. The air was sweet and chilly, frogs were peeping, from
somewhere near came the steady rush of a swollen creek.

While Julia stood on the porch a livery hack from the village creaked
up, and stopped ten feet away. The horses were blowing on the steep
grade, and a strong odour from the animals and their sweated harness
smote the pure night air. The carriage lanterns sent a wavering
brightness across the muddy road, the grass looked artificial in the
yellow light. Miss Toland, vociferating apology and explanation, emerged
from the carriage.

When Richard came back from his fruitless errand he found both women
enjoying the fire, Miss Toland's skirt folded over her knees, her veil
pushed up on her forehead. In his enormous relief, Richie felt that he
could have danced and sung. He busied himself brewing a hot drink for
the older woman.

"Richie," said Julia, with a pleasant childish note of triumphant
reproach in her voice, "was worried to _death_ because I was here alone
with Anna! Don't you think he's crazy, Aunt Sanna?"

"Why, you two have been here alone?" Miss Toland asked, stirring her
chocolate.

"No, we haven't!" Julia answered cheerfully. "I never thought of it
before; but this dear old maid either has you here, or Janey, or Doctor
Brice's Mary from the village--isn't he queer?"

"It isn't as if you weren't practically brother and sister, Richie,"
Miss Toland said moderately. "Not too much butter, dear!" she
interpolated, in reference to the toast her nephew was making, adding a
moment later, "Still, I don't know--a pretty woman in your position
can't be too careful, Julia!"

"Oh, Lord, you're an appreciative pair!" Richard said disgustedly, going
out to the kitchen for more bread.

Presently Miss Toland complained of fatigue, and left them to the fire.
And sitting there, almost silent, Julia thought that she had never found
her host so charming before. His rambling discourse amused her, touched
her; she loved his occasional shy introduction of a line of poetry, his
eager snatching of a book now and then to illuminate some point with
half a page of prose.

"Pleasant, isn't this, Rich?" she asked lazily, in a quiet interval.

"Oh, _pleasant_!" He cleared his throat. "Yes--it's very pleasant!"

"And why couldn't you and I have done this just as well without Aunt
Sanna?" Julia asked triumphantly.

Richard gave her a look full of all-dignified endurance, a look that
wondered a little that she could like to give him pain.

"No reason at all," said he. And a sudden suspicion flamed in Julia's
heart with all the surety of an inspiration.

The revelation came in absolute completeness; she had never even
suspected Richie's little tragedy before. For a few moments Julia sat
stunned, then she said seriously:

"I always feel myself so much Jim's wife, Rich; I suppose it's a sort of
protection to me. It never occurs to me that any one could think me less
bound than I think myself."

"Sure you do!" Richard said, struggling with the back log. "But other
people might not! And it would be rotten to have him come back and hear
anything."

"I suppose he'll come back," Julia said, dreamily, almost in a whisper.
"I don't think of it much, now! I used to think of it a good deal at
first; I used to cry all night long sometimes, and write him long
letters that I never sent. It seemed as if the longing for him was
burning me up, like a fire!"

"Damn him!" Richard muttered.

"Oh, no, Richie, don't say that!" Julia protested. Richard, still on one
knee, with the poker in his hand, turned to her almost roughly.

"For God's sake, Julie, don't defend him! I'll hold my tongue about him,
I suppose, as I always have done, but don't pretend he has any excuse
for treating you this way! You--the best and sweetest and bravest woman
that ever lived, bringing happiness and decency wherever you go--"

"Richie, Richie, stop!" Julia protested, between laughter and tears.
"Don't talk so! I _will_ defend Jim," she added gravely, "and he _did_ have
an excuse. It seems unfair to me that he should have all the blame." She
held her hand out, fingers spread to the reviving flame, rosy and
transparent in the glow.

"Rich, no one knows this but Jim and me; not Aunt Sanna, not my own
mother," she presently resumed. "But it makes what he did a little
clearer, and I'm going to tell you."

"Don't tell me anything," said Richard gruffly, eyes on the fire.

"Yes, I want to," Julia answered. But she was silent for a while, a look
of infinite sadness on her musing face. "I made a serious mistake when I
was a girl, Rich," she went on, after an interval. "I had no reason for
it--not great love, or great need. I had no excuse. Or, yes, I did have
this excuse: I had been spoiled; I had been told that I was unusual,
independent, responsible to nobody. I knew that this thing existed all
about me, and if I thought of it at all, I suppose I thought that there
could be nothing so very dreadful about what men did as a matter of
course! Perhaps that's the best explanation; my mind was like a young
boy's. I didn't particularly seek out this thing, or want this thing;
but I was curious, and it came my way--

"Don't misunderstand me, Richie. I wasn't 'betrayed.' I'd had, I
suppose, as little good instruction, as little example, and watching and
guarding as any girl in the world. But I knew better! Just as every boy
knows better, and is taken, sooner or later, unawares. Of course, if I'd
been a boy--all this would be only a memory now, hardly shameful or
regrettable even, dim and far away! Especially as it lasted only a few
weeks, before I was sixteen!

"And, of course, people would say that I haven't paid the full penalty,
being a girl instead of a boy! Look at poor Tess, and Trilby, and Hetty
in 'Adam Bede!' I never let any one know it; even your aunt never would
have overlooked _that_, whatever she might say now. No; even Jim protected
me--and yet," Julia put her head back, shut her eyes, "and yet I've paid
a thousand times!" said she.

There was a long silence, and then Richard said:

"I've thought sometimes this might be it, Ju. Being alone so much, and
reading and thinking--I've worked it out in my own mind. Aunt Sanna saw
Jim in Berlin two years ago, you know, and gave him a horrible raking
over the coals, and just from what she quoted, it seemed as if there was
some secret about it, and that it lay with you. Then, of course," Richie
eased his lame leg by stretching it at full length before him, sinking
down in his chair, finger tips meeting, "of course I knew Jim," he
resumed. "Jim's pride is his weak point. He's like a boy in that: he
wants everything or nothing. He's like all my mother's children," said
Richie, comfortably analytical, "undisciplined. Chill penury never
repressed our noble rages; we never knew the sweet uses of adversity. I
did, of course, but here I am, a childless getting on in years, not apt
to leave a deep impression on the coming generation. It's a funny world,
Julie! It's a strange sort of civilization to pose under the name of
Christ. Christ had no double standard of morals; Christ forgave. Law is
all very well, society has its uses, I have no doubt, but there are
higher standards than either!" "Well, that has come to me forcibly
during the past few years," Julia said thoughtfully. "I wasn't a praying
small girl; how could I be? But after I went to The Alexander, being
physically clean and respectable made me long to be clean all over, I
suppose, and I began to go to church, and after a while I went to
confession, Rich, and I felt made over, as if all the stain of it had
slipped away! And then Jim came, and I told him all about it--"

"Before you were married?"

"Oh, Richie, of course!"

"Well, then, what--if he knew--"

"Oh, Richie, that's the terrible part. For I thought it was all dead and
gone, and it _was_ all dead and gone as far as I was concerned! But we
couldn't forget it--it suddenly seemed a live issue all over again; it
just rose and stood between us, and I felt so helpless, and poor Jim, I
think he was helpless, too!"

Richard made no comment, and there was a silence.

"You know Jim wasn't a--wasn't exactly a saint, Ju," Richard said
awkwardly after a while.

"I know," she answered with a quick nod.

"I believe he was an exceptionally decent fellow, as fellows go,"
pursued Richie. "But, of course, it is the accepted thing. On Jim's
first vacation, after he entered college, he told me he didn't care much
for that sort of thing--we had a long talk about it. But a year or two
later there was a young woman--he used to call her 'the little girl'--I
don't know exactly--Anyway, Dad went East, there was some sort of a
fuss, and I know Jim treated her awfully well--there never was any
question of that--she never felt anything but gratitude to him, whatever
grievances she had about any one else--"

His voice dropped.

"But it's not the same thing," Julia said with a sigh.

"No, I suppose not," Richard agreed.

"Life has been too violent and too swift with me," Julia resumed, after
a while. "If I had the past fifteen years to live over again, I would
live them very differently. I made an idol of Jim; he could do no wrong.
He wanted more bracing treatment than that; he should have been boldly
faced down. If I had been wiser, I would have treated all my marriage
differently. If I had been very wise, I should not have married at all,
should have kept my own secret. Perhaps, marrying, I should not have
told him the truth; I don't know. Anyway, I have mixed things up
hopelessly, given other people and myself an enormous amount of pain,
and wrecked my life and Jim's. And now, when I am thirty, I feel as if I
could begin to see light, begin to live--as if now, when nothing on
earth seems really important, I knew how to meet life!"

"Well, that's been my attitude for some years," Richie said, shifting
his lame leg again. "Of course I started in handicapped, which is a
great advantage--"

"Advantage? Oh, Richie!" Julia protested.

"Yes, it is, from one point of view," he insisted whimsically. "'Who
loses his life,' you know. Most boys and girls start off into life like
kites in a high wind without tails. There's a glorious dipping and
plunging and sailing for a little while, and then down they come in a
tangle of string and paper and broken wood. I had a tail to start with,
some humiliating deficiency to keep me balanced. No football and tennis
for me, no flirting and dancing and private theatricals. When Bab and
Ned were in one whirl of good times, I was working out chess problems to
make myself forget my hip, and reading Carlyle and Thoreau and Emerson.
Nobody is born content, Ju, and nobody has it thrust upon him; just a
few achieve it. I worked over the secret of happiness as if it was the
multiplication table. Happiness is the best thing in the world. It's
only a habit, and I've got it."

"_Is_ happiness the best thing in the world, Rich?" Julia asked wistfully.

"I think it is; real happiness, which doesn't necessarily mean a box at
the Metropolitan and a touring car," Richie said, smiling. "It seems to
me, to have a little house up here on the mountain, and to have people
here like me, and let me take care of them--"

"For nothing?" interposed Julia.

"Don't you believe it! I didn't write a cheque last month! Anyway, it
suits me. I have books, and letters, and a fire, and now and then a
friend or two--and now and then Julia and Anna to amuse me!"

"I'm happy, too," Julia said thoughtfully. "I realized it some time
ago--oh, a year ago! I feel just as you might feel, Rich, if you had
left some critical operation unfinished, or done in a wrong way, and
then gone back to do it over. I feel as if, in going back to first
principles, and doing what I could for my own people, I had 'trued' a
part of my life, if you can understand that! I had gone climbing and
blundering on, and reached a point where I couldn't help myself, but
they were just where they started, and I _could_ help them!"

"It was probably the best thing you could have done for yourself, at the
same time," Richard interpolated, with a swift glance.

"Oh, absolutely!" Julia laughed a little sadly. "I was like an animal
that goes out and eats a weed: I had a wild instinct that if I rushed
into my grandmother's house, and bullied everybody there, and simply
shrieked and stamped on the dirt and laziness and complaining, on the
whole wretched system that I grew up under, in short, that it would be a
heavenly relief! My dear Richie," and Julia laughed again, and more
naturally, "I wonder they didn't tar and feather me, and throw me out of
the house! I scoured and burned and scolded and bossed them all like a
madwoman. I told them that we had enough money to keep the house
decently, and always had had, but, my dear! I never dreamed the whole
crowd would fall in line so soon!"

"But, my Lord, Julie, what else could they do? You were paying all the
expenses, I suppose?"

"No, indeed I wasn't! Chester has a pretty fair salary now, and my
aunt's boys are awfully good about helping out. And then Muriel has a
position, and Evelyn is in a fair way to be a rich woman. Besides, the
mere question of where money is coming from never worried my people!
They managed as well with almost nothing at all, as with a really
adequate amount--which is to say that they don't know in the least what
the word manage means! Jim left me an immense sum, Rich, but I've never
touched anything but the interest. When we shingled or carpeted or
gardened out there, we paid for it by degrees, and it cost, I must
admit, only about one third of what it would have been on the other side
of town. I look back now at those first months, more than four years
ago," went on Julia, smiling as she leaned forward in her low chair, her
hands locked about her knees, her thoughtful eyes on the flickering
logs, "and I wonder we didn't all rise up in the night and kill each
other. I was like a person with a death wound, struggling madly through
the little time left me, absolutely indifferent to what any one thought.
I simply wanted to die fighting, to register one furious protest against
all the things I'd hated, and suffered, too! I remember reporters
coming, at first, wild with curiosity to know what took Doctor
Studdiford abroad, and why Mrs. Studdiford was living in a labourer's
house in the Mission. What impression they got I haven't the faintest
idea. Once or twice women called, just curious of course, Mrs. Hunter
and Miss Saunders--but that soon stopped. I was better hidden on
Shotwell Street than I would have been in the heart of India! Miss
Saunders came in, and met Mama and Grandma; we were having the kitchen
calcimined, the place was pretty well upset, I remember. Dear me, how
little what they thought or did or said seemed to count, when my whole
life was one blazing, agonizing cry for Jim!"

"That got better?" Richard asked huskily, after a pause.

"Rich, I think the past two, well, three years, have been the happiest
in my life," Julia said soberly. "My feet have been on solid ground. I
not only seem to understand my life better as it is, but all the past
seems clearer, too. I thought Jim was like myself, Richie, but he
wasn't; his whole viewpoint was different; perhaps that's why we loved
each other so!"

"And suppose he comes back?" Richard asked.

Julia frowned thoughtfully.

"Oh, Richie, how do I know! It's all so mixed up. Everybody, even Aunt
Sanna, thinks that he will! Everybody thinks I am a patient,
much-enduring wife, waiting for the end of an inexplicable situation.
Aunt Sanna thinks it's temporary aberration. Your father thinks there's
another woman in it. Your mother confided to Aunt Sanna that it is her
opinion that Bab refused Jim, and Jim married from pique."

"That sounds like Mother!" Richie said with a dry laugh.

"Doesn't it?" Julia smiled. "But the truth is," she added, "Jim has no
preconcerted plan. He's made a very close man friend or two in Germany,
belongs to a doctors' club. I know him so well! He lets the days, and
the weeks, and the years go by, forgetting me and everything that
concerns me as much as he can, and getting into a slow, dull rage
whenever he remembers that fate hit him, of all men in the world, such a
blow!"

"And the baby?" said Richie. "Don't you suppose she counts? Oh, Lord, to
have a kid of one's own," he added slowly, with the half-smiling sigh
Julia knew so well.

"I imagine she would count if he had seen her lately," Julia suggested.
"But she was such a tiny scrap! And Jim, as men go, isn't a lover of
children."

"You wouldn't divorce him, Julie?" Richard asked, after a silence.

"Oh, never!" she answered quickly. "No, I won't do that." She smiled.
"Yet, Rich," she added presently, "it's a strange thing to me that
really my one dread is that he will come back. I _think_ he means nothing
to me, yet, if I saw him--I don't know! Sometimes I worry for fear that
he might want Anna, and of course I wouldn't give her up if it meant a
dozen divorces."

Richard sat staring into the fire for a few moments; then he roused
himself to ask smilingly:

"How'd we get started on this little heart to heart, anyway?"

"Well, I don't know," Julia said, smiling, too. "I couldn't talk of it
for a long while. I can't now, to any one but you. But it all means less
to me than it did. Jim never could hurt me now as he did then." She
straightened up in her chair. "It's been a wonderful talk!" she said,
with shining eyes. "And you're a friend in a million, Richie, dear! And
now," very practically, "where are you going to sleep, my dear? Aunt
Sanna has your room."

"This couch out here is made up!" Richard said, with a backward jerk of
his head toward the room behind him.

"Ah, then you're all right!" Julia rose, and stopped behind his chair
for a moment, to lay a light kiss on his hair. "Good-night, Little
Brother!" she said affectionately.

Instantly one of the bony hands shot out, and Julia felt her wrist
caught as in a vise. Richard swiftly twisted about and got on his own
feet, and for a minute their eyes glittered not many inches apart. Julia
tried to laugh, but she was breathing fast.

"_Richard_!" she said in a sharp whisper. "What is it?"

"Julia!" he choked, breathing hard.

For a long moment they remained motionless, staring at each other. Then
Richard's grip on her wrists relaxed, and he sank into his deep chair,
dropped his elbows on his knees, and put his hands over his face. Julia
stood watching him for a second.

"Good-night, Richie!" she said then, almost inaudibly.

"Good-night!" he whispered through his shut fingers. Julia slipped
softly away, closing the door of her bedroom noiselessly behind her.

Anna was asleep in the upper bed, lying flat on her back, with her
lovely hair falling loosely about her flushed little face. The little
cabin bedroom was as sweet as the surrounding woodland, wide-open
windows admitted the fragrant coolness of the spring night. There was no
moon, but the sky that arched high above the little valley was thickly
spattered with stars. Richie's cat, a shadow among paler shadows, leaped
swiftly over the new grass. Julia got the milky odour of buttercups, the
breath of the little Persian lilac that flanked one end of the porch.

Her heart was beating thickly and excitedly, she did not want to think
why. Through her brain swept a confusion of thoughts, thoughts
disconnected and chaotic. She tried to remember just what words on her
part--on Richard's--had led to that strange mad moment of revelation,
but the memory of the moment itself overleaped all those preceding it.
Julia knelt, her elbows on the window sill, and felt merely that she
never wanted to move again. She wanted just to kneel here, hugging to
her heart the thrilling emotion of the moment, realizing afresh that
life was not dead in her; youth and love were not dead in her; she could
still tremble and laugh and cry in the exquisite joy of being beloved.

And it was Richie, so weak in body, so powerful in spirit; so humble in
little things, so bold and sure in the things that are great; not rich
in money, but rich in wisdom and goodness; Richie, who knew all her
pitiful history now, and had long suspected it, who loved her! Julia
knew even now that it was an ill-fated love; she knew that deep under
this first strangely thrilling current of pride and joy ran the cold
waters of renunciation. But cool reason had little to do with this mood;
she was as mad as any girl whose senses are suddenly, blindly, set free
by a lover's first kiss.

After a while she began mechanically to undress, brushed her hair, moved
about softly in the uncertain candlelight. And as she did so she became
more and more unable to resist the temptation to say "Good-night" to
Richie again. Neither brain nor heart was deeply involved in this
desire, but some influence, stronger than either, urged her irresistibly
toward its fulfilment.

She would not do it, of course! Not that there was harm in it; what
possible harm could there be in her putting her head into the
sitting-room and simply saying "Good-night?" Still, she would not do it.

A glance at herself in the dimly lighted mirror set her pulses to
leaping again. Surely candlelight had never fallen on a more exquisite
face, framed in so shining and soft an aureole of bright hair. The long
loose braid fell over her shoulder, a fine ruffle of thin linen lay at
the round firm base of her throat. She was still young--still
beautiful--

Anna stirred, sighed in her sleep. And instantly Julia had extinguished
the candle, and was bending tenderly over the child.

"It's only Mother, Sweet! Are you warm enough, dear? You _feel_
beautifully warm! Let Mother turn you over--so!"

"Is it morning, Mother?" murmured Anna.

"No, my heart! Mother's just going to bed." And ten minutes later Julia
was asleep, her face as serene as the child's own.

The morning brought her only a shamed memory of the night before and its
moods, and as Richie was quite his natural self, Julia determined to
dismiss the matter as a passing moment of misinterpreted sentiment on
both their parts. To-day was a Sunday, so perfect that they had
breakfast on the porch, and in the afternoon took a long climb on the
mountainside, across patches of blossoming manzanita, and through
meadows sweet with the liquid note of rising larks. They came back in
the twilight: Anna limp and drowsy on Richard's shoulders, Miss Toland
admitting to fatigue, but all three ready to agree with Julia's estimate
that it had been a wonderful Sunday.

But night brought to two of them that new and strange self-consciousness
that each had been secretly dreading all day. Julia fought it as she
might have fought the oncoming of a physical ill, yet inexorably it
arrived. Supper was an ordeal, she found speech difficult, she could
hardly raise her eyes.

"Julie, you're as rosy as a little gipsy," said Miss Toland approvingly.
"Doesn't colour become her, Rich?"

"She looks fine," Richard muttered, almost inarticulately. Julia looked
up only long enough to give Miss Toland a pained and fluttering smile.
She was glad of an excuse to disappear with Anna, when the little girl's
bedtime arrived, and lingered so long in the bedroom that Miss Toland
came and rapped on the door.

"Julia! What _are_ you doing?" called the older woman impatiently. Julia
came to the door.

"Why, I'm so tired, Aunt Sanna," she began smilingly.

"Tired, nonsense!" Miss Toland said roundly. "Come sit on the porch with
Richie and me. It's like summer out of doors, and there'll be a moon!"

So Julia went to take her place on the porch steps, with a great curved
branch of the white rose arching over her head, and the fragrant stretch
of the grassy hilltop sloping away, at her feet, to the valley far
below. Miss Toland dozed, and the younger people talked a little, and
were silent for long spaces between the little casual sentences that
to-night seemed so full of meaning.

The next day Julia went home, to Miss Toland's disgust and to little
Anna's sorrow. Richie drove Julia and the little girl to the train;
there was no explanation needed between them; at parting they looked
straight into each other's eyes.

"Ask us to come again some day," Julia said. "Not too soon, but as soon
as you can. And don't let us ever feel that we've done anything that
will hurt or distress you, Richie."

"You and Anna are both angels," Richard answered. "Only tell me that you
forgive me, Julie; that things after this will be just as they were
before?"

Julia smiled, and bit a thoughtful under lip.

"This is March," she said. "We'll come and see you, let me see--in July,
and everything shall be just as it was before! Perhaps I am really
getting old," she said to herself, half laughing and half sad, when she
was in her own kitchen an hour or two later. "But, while home is not
exciting, somehow I'd rather be here than philandering on the mountain
in the moonlight with Richie!"

"What you smiling about, Julie?" her mother asked, from the peaceful
east side of the kitchen where her chair frequently stood while Julia
and Mrs. Torney were busy in that cheerful apartment.

"Just thinking it was nice to be home again, Mama!"

"I don't hold much with visiting, myself," said Mrs. Torney, who was
becoming something of a philosopher as she went into old age. "But you
can't get that through a young one's skull!" she added, trimming the
dangling pastry from a pie with masterly strokes of her knife. "Either
you have such a good time that your own home is spoiled for you, for
dear knows how long, or else you set around wondering why on earth you
ever come. And then you've got to have the folks back to visit you, and
wear yourself all out talking like all possessed while you cook for 'em
and make their beds. I don't never feel clean when I've washed my face
away from home anyway, and I like my own bed under me. You couldn't get
me to visit anywheres now, if it was the Queen of Spain ast me!"

Julia laughed out merrily, and agreed with her aunt, glad to have left
the episode with Richie behind her. But it haunted her for many days,
nevertheless, rising like a disturbing mist between her and her calm
self-confidence, and shaking her contented conviction that the
renunciations necessary to her peace of mind had all been made. She
found fresh reason to gird herself in circumspection and silence, and
brooded, a little in discouragement, upon the incessantly recurring
problems of her life.

She went to visit the cabin on Tamalpais earlier even than she had
promised, however, for in June Barbara came home for a visit, bringing
two splendid little boys, with whom Anna fell instantly in love, and a
tiny baby in the care of a nurse. Julia spent a good deal of her time in
Sausalito during the visit, and more than once she and Barbara took the
four children to Mill Valley, and spent a few days with Richie, quite as
happy as the boys and Anna were in the free country life.

Five years of marriage had somewhat changed Barbara; she was thinner,
and freckled rather than rosy, and she wore her thick dark hair in a
fashion Julia did not very much admire. Also she seemed to care less for
dress than she once had done, even though what she wore was always the
handsomest of its kind. But she was an eagerly admiring and most devoted
wife, calmly assuming that the bronzed and silent "Francis" could do no
wrong, and Julia thought she had never seen a more charming and
conscientious mother. Barbara, whose husband's uncle was a lord, who had
been presented at the English court, and whose mail was peppered with
coats-of-arms, nursed her infant proudly and publicly, and was heard to
mention to old friends--not always women either--social events that had
occurred "just before Geordie came" or "when I was expecting Arthur."
Her rather thin face would brighten to its old beauty when Geordie and
Arthur, stamping in, bare kneed and glowing, recounted to her the joys
of Sausalito, and in evening dress she was quite magnificent, and
somehow seemed more at ease than American women ever do. Her efficiency
left even the capable Julia gasping and outdistanced. Barbara was equal
to every claim husband, children, family, and friends could make. She
came down to an eight o'clock breakfast, a chattering little son on each
side of her, announcing briskly that the tiny Malcolm had already had
his bath. She started the little people on the day's orderly round of
work and play while opening letters and chatting with her father; earned
the housemaid's eternal affection by personally dusting the big
drawing-room and replacing the flowers; answered the telephone in her
pleasantly modulated voice; faced her husband during his ten o'clock
breakfast, and discussed the foreign news with him in a manner Julia
thought extraordinarily clever; and at eleven came with the baby into
her mother's sunny morning-room for a little feminine gossip over
Malcolm's second breakfast. Barbara never left a note unanswered, no old
friend was neglected; tea hour always found the shady side porch full of
callers, children strayed from the candy on the centre table to the
cakes near the teapot, the doctor's collie lay panting in the doorway.
Barbara's rich soft laugh, the new tones that her voice had gained in
the past years, somehow dominated everything. Julia felt a vague new
restlessness and discontent assail her at this contact with Barbara's
full and happy life. Perhaps Barbara suspected it, for her generous
inclusion of Julia, when plans of any sort were afoot, knew no limit.
She won Anna's little heart with a thousand affectionate advances; loved
to have the glowing beauty of the little girl as a foil for her own
dark-haired boys.

"You're so busy--and necessary--and unself-conscious, Barbara," Julia
said, "you make other women seem such fools!"

It was a heavenly July afternoon, and the two were following Richie and
the children down one of the mountain roads above Mill Valley. Barbara,
who had acquired an Englishwoman's love of nursery picnics, had lured
her husband to join them to-day, and Julia had been pleasantly surprised
to see how fatherly the Captain was with his small boys, how willing to
go for water and tie dragging little shoe laces. But presently the
soldier grew restless, stared about him for a few moments, and finally
decided to leave the ladies and children to Richie's escort, and walk to
the summit of the mountain and back, as a means of working off some
excess of energy and gaining an appetite for dinner. He apparently did
not hear Barbara's warning not to be late, and her entreaty to be
careful, merely giving her a stolid glance in answer to these eager
suggestions, and remarking to the boys, who begged to accompany him a
little way: "Naow, naow, I tell you you carn't, so don't make little
arsses of yourselves blabbering abaout it!"

This, however, was taken in good part by his family; there was much
waving of hands and many shouted good wishes as he walked rapidly out of
hearing.

"Poor Francis, I hope he's going to enjoy his walk," Barbara said, as
they started homeward. "He gets so bored out here in California!"

"I wonder why?" Julia said, hiding a Californian's resentment.

"Oh, well, it _is_ different, Ju--you can't deny it! One wants to be
loyal, and all that," Barbara said, "but in England there's a
_purpose_--there's a recognized order to life! They're not eternally
experimenting; they don't want to be idle and ignorant like our
women--they've got better things to do. There's a finish and a
pleasantness about life in London; men have more leisure to take an
interest in women's work; why, you've no idea how many interesting,
clever, charming men I know in London! How many does one know here? And
as for the _women_--"

It was then Julia said:

"Ah, well, you're different from other women. You're so busy--and
necessary--and unself-conscious, Barbara. You make other women seem such
fools!"

"Not necessarily," said Barbara, smiling. "And don't think I'm horribly
conceited, Julia, talking this way. It's only to you!" They walked a
little way without speaking, and then Barbara sat down on a low bank,
some quarter of a mile above Richie's cabin, and added: "Do sit down,
Ju. You and I are never alone, and I want to talk to you. Julie, don't
be angry--it's about Jim."

Julia's eyes immediately widened, her lips met firmly, she grew a little
pale.

"Go ahead," she said steadily. "Have you seen him?"

Barbara answered the question with another.

"You knew he was in London?"

"No," said Julia, "I didn't know it."

She had remained standing, and now Barbara urged her again to sit down.
But Julia would not, pleading that she would rather walk, and in the end
Barbara got up, and they began slowly to walk down the road together.

"Tell me," Julia commanded then.

"Now, dearest girl," Barbara pleaded, "_Please_ don't get excited over
nothing. Jim's been in London nearly a year; in fact, he's settled
there. He's associated with one of the biggest consulting surgeons we
have, old Sir Peveril McCann. They met in Berlin. I didn't know it until
this spring--March it was. We'd just come up from the country to meet
Francis, home on a year's leave; it was just before Malcolm arrived.
Somebody spoke of this Doctor Studdiford, and I said at once that it
must be my foster brother. I explained as well as I could that since
Francis and I had been travelling so much, Jim and I had fallen out of
touch, and so on."

"Who told you about him?" Julia asked.

"A Mrs. Chancellor. She's quite a character," Barbara said. "Some people
like her; some don't. I don't--much. She's rich, and a widow; she
studies art, and she loves to get hold of interesting people."

Julia winced at the vision of a plump, forty-year-old siren sending
coquettish side glances at an admiring Jim. Anger stirred dully within
her.

"Pretty?" she asked, in as nonchalant a voice as she could command.

"Ivy Chancellor? No--she's really plain," Barbara said, "a sandy,
excitable little chatterbox, that's what _she_ is! She's Lady Violet
Dray's daughter; Lady Violet's quite lovely. How much Jim admires Ivy I
can't say; she took him about with her everywhere; he was always at the
house."

This was too much. Julia felt the friendly earth sway under her, a dry
salty taste was in her mouth, a very hurricane of resentment shook her
heart.

"Oh, Barbara, do you see how he _can_?" she asked, in a stricken voice.

"No, I don't!" Barbara answered, with a concerned glance at Julia's
white face. "Well, as I know him, I can't believe it's the same Jim!"

"I wish you had seen him," Julia said, after an interval of thought.
Barbara said nothing for a few moments, then she confessed suddenly:

"I _did_ see him, Julie."

"You did? Oh, Bab, and you never told me all this time!"

"Well, Mother and Aunt Sanna begged me not to, Ju, and Francis was most
emphatic about it," Barbara pleaded.

"Aunt Sanna--and Francis! But--" Julia's keen eyes read Barbara's face
like an open page. "Then there was more to it!" she declared. "For they
couldn't have minded my knowing just this!"

"I wish I had never mentioned Jim," Barbara said heartily. "It's none of
my business, anyway, only--only--it makes me so unhappy I just can't
bear it! I simply can't bear it!" And to Julia's astonishment, Barbara,
who rarely showed emotion, fumbled for her handkerchief and began to
cry. "I love Jim," pursued Barbara, with that refreshed vehemence that
follows a brief interval of tears. "And you're just as dear to me as my
own sisters--dearer! And I can't _bear_ to have you and that _darling_ baby
here alone, and Jim off in trailing around after a little _fool_ like Ivy
Chancellor! I can't bear it," said Barbara, drying her eyes, which
threatened to overflow again. "It's monstrous! You're--you're wonderful,
of course, Julie, but you can't make me think you're happy! And Jim is
_wretched_. I've known him since I was a baby, and he can't fool _me_! He
can bluff about his work and his club and all that as long as he
pleases! But he can't fool _me_; I know he's utterly miserable."

"And you saw him?" Julia asked.

They were in a little strip of woods just above Richard's cabin now, and
Julia seated herself on the low-hanging branch of an oak. Her face, as
she turned to Barbara, was full of resolute command.

"Sit down, Bab," she said, indicating a thick fallen log a few feet
away. "Tell me all about it."

"Francis would strangle me," Barbara murmured, seating herself
nevertheless. "And there isn't very much to it, anyway," she added, with
a bright air of candour. "I wrote Jim a line, and he came to our house
in Ludbroke Road, and we had a little talk. He's fatter. He was awfully
interested in some knee-cap operation--"

"Babbie!" Julia reproached her.

"And we talked about everything," Barbara hastened to say.

"Me?" Julia asked flatly.

"A little," Barbara admitted. "I had nurse bring the boys in--"

"Oh, Barbara, for God's sake tell me!" Julia said, in an agonized burst.

"Oh, Julie--if only I'm doing the right thing!" Barbara answered in
distress.

"This _is_ the right thing," Julia assured her. "This is my affair."

"Francis and Mother--" Barbara began again, hesitatingly. But
immediately she dismissed the doubts with a shake of her head, and
suddenly assuming a confident air, she began: "I'll tell you exactly
what happened, Ju. Jim came one afternoon; I was all alone, and we had
tea. He's very much changed, Ju. He's harder, in some way, and--well,
changed. Jim never used to be able to conceal his feelings, you know,
but now--why, one feels that he's dissembling all the time! He was so
friendly, and cheerful, and interested--and yet--There was something
all wrong. He didn't exactly _evade_ the subject of you and Anna, but he
just said 'Yes?' or 'No?' when I talked of you--"

"I know exactly how," Julia said, wincing at some memory.

"I touched him on the quick finally," Barbara pursued; "something I said
about you made him colour up, that brick-red colour of his--"

"I know!" Julia said quickly again.

"But, Julia," Barbara added earnestly, "you've no _idea_ how hard it was!
I told him how grieved and troubled we all were by this silence between
you, and I went and got that snapshot Rich took of Anna, you know, the
one with the collies. Well, way in the back of that picture you were
snapped, too, the tiniest little figure, for you were way down by the
road, and Anna close to the porch. But, my dear, he hardly glanced at
Anna; he said in a quick, hushed sort of voice, 'What's she in black
for?' Then I saw your picture for the first time, and said, 'Why, that
must be Julia!' 'Certainly, it's Julia,' he said. I told him your
grandmother had died, and he said, 'But she's still needed there, is
she?' That was the first sign of _anything_ like naturalness. And, oh, Ju,
if only it had happened that Francis didn't come in then! But he did,
starving for his tea, and wondering who on earth the man that I was
sitting in the dark with was--it was so unfortunate! You know Francis
thinks we've all spoiled Jim, always, and he looked right over him. I
said, 'Francis, you remember my brother?' and Francis said, with a
really insulting accent, 'Perfectly!' Jim said something about liking
London and hoping to settle there, and Francis said, 'Studdiford, I'm
glad you've come to see my wife, and I hope the affection you two have
felt for years won't be hurt by what I say. But I admire your own wife
very deeply, and you've put her in a most equivocal and humiliating
position. I can't pretend that I hope you'll settle here; you've caused
the people who love you sufficient distress as it is. I don't see that
your staying here is going to make anything any easier, while things are
as they are in California!' My dear," said Barbara with a sigh, "Francis
gets that way sometimes; English people do--there seems to be a sort of
moral obligation upon them to say what's true, no matter how
outrageously rude it sounds!"

"I had no idea Captain Fox felt that way," Julia said, touched.

"Oh, my dear! He's one of your warmest admirers. Well," Barbara went on,
"of course Jim ruffled up like a turkey cock. I didn't dare say
anything, and Francis, having done his worst, was really pretty fair.
Luckily, some other people came in, and later I went with Jim to the
nursery. Then he said to me, 'Do you think Julia's position is
equivocal, Bab?' And I said, 'Jim, I never knew any one to care so
little for public opinion as Julia. But all the rumour and gossip, the
unexplained mystery of it, are very, very hard for her.' I said, 'Jim,
aren't you going back?' and he said, 'Never.' Then he said, 'I think
Francis is right. This way is neither one thing nor the other. It ought
to be settled. Not,' he said, 'that I want to marry again!' I said,
'Jim, you _couldn't_ marry again, don't talk that way!' He said something
about my clinging to old ideas, and I said, 'Jim, don't tell me you have
given up your faith?' He said, very airily, 'I'm not telling you
anything, my dear girl, but if the law will set me free, perhaps that's
the best way of silencing Francis's remarks about Julia's equivocal
position!'"

Julia was silent for a while, staring beyond Barbara, her eyes like
those of a sick person, her face ashen. Barbara began to feel
frightened.

"So that's it," Julia said finally, in a tired, cold voice.

"Ju--it's too dreadful to hurt you this way!" Barbara said. "But that's
not all. The only reason I told you all this was because Jim may be
coming home; he may come on in October, and want to see you. Francis
thinks--But it seems too cruel to let him come on and take you by
surprise!"

"Oh, my God!" said Julia, in a low, tense tone, "what utter wreck I have
made of my life! Why is it," she said, springing up and beginning to
walk again, "why is it that I am so helpless, why must I sit still and
let the soul be torn out of my body! My child must grow up
fatherless--under a cloud--"

"Julie! Julie!" Barbara begged, wild with anxiety, as she kept pace
beside Julia on the dry brown grass. "Dearest, don't, or you'll make me
feel terribly for having told you!"

"Oh, no--no," Julia said, suddenly calm and weary. "You had to tell me!"
The two walked slowly on for a moment, in silence, then Julia added
passionately: "Oh, what a wretched, miserable business! Oh, Bab, why do
I simply have to go from one agony to another? I'm so tired of being
unhappy; I'm so wretched!" Her voice fell, the fire went out of her
tone. "I'm tired," she said, in a voice that seemed to Barbara curiously
in keeping with the flat, toneless summer twilight, the dull brown
hills, the darkening sky, the dry slippery grass over which a cool swift
breeze was beginning to wander. "If Anna and I could only run away from
it all!" said Julia sombrely.

"Julie, just one thing." Barbara hesitated. "Shall you see Jim?"

Julia paused, and their eyes met in the gloom. Barbara thought she had
never seen anything more marked than the tragic intensity of the other
woman's face. Julia might have been a young priestess, the problems of
the world on her shoulders.

"That I can't say, Bab," she answered thoughtfully. And a moment later
they reached the cabin, and were welcomed by Richie and the children.




CHAPTER VIII

It was in late September that the mail brought her a note from Jim.
Julia's heart felt a second of paralyzing cramp as she put her hand on
the letter; she read its dozen lines in a haze of dancing light; the
letters seemed to swim together.

Jim wrote that he was at home for a few days, and was most anxious to
see her, and to have a talk that would be of advantage to them both. For
obvious reasons, her home was not suitable; would she suggest a time and
place? He was always hers faithfully, James Studdiford.

Anna, glowing and delicious, was leaning against Julia's shoulder as
Julia read and reread the little document. The mother looked down
obliquely at the little rose-leaf face, the blue, blue eyes, the fresh,
firm, baby mouth.

"When I am a grown-up girl," Anna said, with her sweet, mysterious
smile, "I shall have letters, and I will write answers, and write the
envelopes, too! And I'll write you letters, Mother, when you go 'way and
leave me with Grandma!"

"Will you?" asked Julia, rubbing the child's soft cheek with her own.

"Every day!" Anna said. "Who's writing you with that cunning little owl
on the paper, Mother?"

"That's the Bohemian Club owl," Julia evaded, giving Anna only one fair
look at him before she closed the letter. She went to her desk, and
swiftly, unhesitatingly, wrote her reply. Jim must excuse her, she could
not see the advantage of their meeting, she would much prefer not to see
him. Briskly rubbing her blotter over the flap of the sealed envelope,
she had a vision of him, interrupting his evening of talk with old
friends to scratch off the note to her, and felt that she detested him.

An unhappy week followed, in which Julia had time to feel that almost
any consequences would have been easier to bear than the unassailable
wall of silence and misgiving and doubt that hemmed her in. Constant
nervous terrors weakened her spiritually and bodily, and she could not
bear to have Anna for one moment out of her sight. Mrs. Page and Mrs.
Torney saw notice in the papers of Jim's return, and suspected the cause
of this new agitation in Julia, but neither dared attempt to force her
confidence.

"Men are the limit!" said Mrs. Torney to her sister, one day when they
were sitting together in the kitchen. "As I've said before, it's a great
pity there ain't nothing else to do but marry, and nothing to marry but
men! It's awful to think of the hundreds of women who spend their
happiest hours going about doing the housework, and planning just what
they'd do if their husbands was to be taken off suddenly! Some girls can
set around until they're blue moulded, and never a feller to ask 'em,
and others the boys'll fret and pleg until they're fit to be tied, with
nerves! Evvy you couldn't marry off if she was Cleopatra on the Nile,
and poor Julia could hang smallpox flags all over her, and every man in
the place'd want her jest the same! He wants her back, you see if he
doesn't!"

"I don't know that he does," said Emeline, knitting needles flashing
slowly in her crippled fingers. "Maybe that's the trouble."

"What'd he come on for, then?" demanded Mrs. Torney. "Jest showing off,
is he? Or is it another woman? The only difference between men reely
seems to be that some wear baggy pants and own up to being sultans, and
others don't!" She spread her fingers inside the stocking she was
darning, and eyed it severely. "The idea of a man with a five-year-old
girl sashaying round the country this way is ridiculous, to begin with,"
said she indignantly.

"Has Ju seen him?" asked Mrs. Page.

"No, I'm pretty sure she hasn't," Mrs. Torney answered. "She acks more
like she was afraid to, than like she ackshally had. She'd be real
relieved to start fighting, but just now she's like a hen that gets its
chickens under its wings, and looks up and round and about, and don't
know whether it's a hawk or a fox or a man with a knife that's after
her!"

"I don't believe Julie hates him," said her mother. "I think she'd go
back to him, if only for Anna's sake--if it seemed best for Anna."

"For that matter, she'd go keep house for the gorilla at the Chutes if
it seemed best for Anna!" Mrs. Torney concluded sagely.

It was only a day or two later that the telephone rang, and Julia,
answering it, as she always did now, with chill foreboding in her heart,
heard Barbara's voice.

"Julie, dear, is it you? Darling, we want you right away. It's Dad,
Julie--he's terribly ill!" Barbara's voice broke. "He's terribly ill!"

"What is it?" Julia asked, tense and pale.

"Oh, we don't know!" Barbara gasped. "Julie--we--and Mother's quite
wonderful! Con's coming right away, Janey's here, and we've wired Ted."

"Barbara, is it as bad as that?"

"I'm afraid so!" And again tears choked Barbara. "Of course we don't
know. He fell, right here in the garden. Think if he'd been on the road,
Julie, or in the street. That was the first thing Mother said. Mother's
too wonderful! Richie was here, they carried him in. And he wrote Con's
and Ted's and your name on a piece of paper. We saw he was trying to say
something, and gave him the paper, and that's what he wrote! And Aunt
Sanna in New York!"

Stricken, and beginning to realize for the first time what an empty
place would be left in the Sausalito group when the kindly old doctor
was gone, Julia hastily dressed herself for the hurried trip. She must
see Jim now; there was a sort of dramatic satisfaction in the thought
that he must know the accident of their meeting at last to be none of
her contriving. And she would see Richie, too; her heart fluttered at
the thought. She sat on the boat, dreamily watching the gray water rush
by, dreamily ready for whatever might come. The day was dull and soft;
boat whistles droned all about them on the bay; from Alcatraz,
shouldering through an enveloping fog, came the steady ringing of a
brass gong.

Long drifts of fog had crept under the trees in the Toland garden, the
rose bushes were beaded with fine mist, the eaves dripped steadily.
Julia began to be shaken with nervous anticipation of the moment when
she must meet Jim. Would he meet her at the door, or would they
deliberately arrange--these loyal brothers and sisters--that the dreaded
moment should not come until they were all about her? She gave a quick
nervous glance about the big hallway when a tearful maid admitted her.
But it was only Barbara who came forward, and Barbara's first word was
that Jim and Richie were not there; Dad had sent both on errands. "His
mind is absolutely clear," said Barbara shakenly. She herself was
waiting for an important telephone call, and occasionally pressing a
folded handkerchief to her eyes. The two women kissed, with sudden tears
on both sides, before Julia went noiselessly upstairs. Constance and
Theodora were in their mother's room, Mrs. Toland with them. The mother
had been crying, and was now only trying to muster sufficient
self-control to reenter the sickroom without giving the beloved patient
alarm. Julia's entrance was the signal for fresh tears; but they all
presently brightened a little, too, and Julia persuaded Mrs. Toland to
drink a cup of hot soup, "the very first thing she's touched all day!"
said all the girls fondly.

Only Janey was with the invalid when Julia went into the sickroom, a
silent, white-faced Janey, who stared at Julia with sombre eyes. The
doctor lay high in pillows, looking oddly boyish in his white nightgown
in spite of his gray hair. A fire flickered in the old-fashioned
polished iron grate; outside the window twilight and the fog were
mingling. The room had some unfamiliar quality of ordered emptiness
already, as if life's highway must be cleared for the coming of the
great Destroyer.

Julia knelt down by the bed and laid her hand over the old man's hand.
To her surprise he opened his eyes. They moved from her face to the
clock on the mantel, as if he had lost count of time, and had not
expected her so soon.

"How are you, Dad?" she said, with infinite tenderness.

"He's better," Janey answered. "Aren't you, darling? You _look_ better!"

The doctor's look, with its old benevolent twinkle, went from one girl's
face to the other.

"Know--too--much!" he said, with difficulty, in his eyes the innocent
triumph of the child who will not be deceived. Quite unexpectedly, Julia
felt her lip tremble, tears brimmed her eyes. The invalid saw them, felt
one drop hot on his hand.

"No--no--no!" he said, with pitying gentleness. And, with great effort,
he added, "Seen--Jimmy?"

"Not yet," stammered Julia, shaken to her very soul.

The doctor shut his eyes, his fingers still clinging to Julia's. After
perhaps two full minutes of silence, he whispered:

"Be good to Jimmy, Julia! Be good to him."

Julia could not answer. Barbara found her, in her own room, half an hour
later, crying bitterly. It was then quite dark. The two had a long talk,
ended only when Constance came flying in. Dad seemed better, much
brighter, was asking for Richie, wanted to know if Ned had come.

Constance and Barbara went back to the sickroom, and Julia went
downstairs to find them. She entered the almost dark library, where
Richie and Ned were sitting before the fire. There was some one with
them; Julia knew in an instant who it was. Her heart began to hammer,
her breath failed her. A murmur of friendly low voices ended with her
entrance; the three dim forms rose in the gloom.

"Con?" asked Richie. Julia touched a wall switch, and the great lamp on
the centre table bloomed into sudden light.

"No, it's Julia--they want you, Rich," she said, "and you, too, Ned. Con
says he's much brighter. He asked for you both."

"Hello, dear, I didn't know you were here," Richie said affectionately,
kindly eyes on her face. "But you mustn't cry, Ju!" he added gently.

"I--I saw him," Julia said, mingled emotions making speech almost
impossible. "Isn't there _any_ hope, Richie?"

"None at all," Jim said, leaving the fireplace to quietly join Julia and
Richie at the centre table.

The unforgotten voice! Every fibre in Julia's body thrilled to mortal
shock. She rallied her courage and endurance sternly; she must not
betray herself. Anger helped her, for she knew him well enough to know
that the situation for him was not devoid of a certain artistic
enjoyment.

"Yes, it may come to-night, it may come to-morrow," Richie assented
sorrowfully. "But it's the end, I'm afraid!"

Julia clung to his arm; never had Richie seemed so dear and good to her.

"Your mother will die of it, Rich," she said, to say something. The room
seemed to her shouting with Jim's presence; she kept her eyes on
Richie's face. Ned, never more than an overgrown boy, put his face in
his hands and began to sob.

"Sh--h!" Jim warned them. Mrs. Toland came in.

"He's better--he wants to see you boys!" she said, tremulously happy.
Her eyes went from face to face. "Why, what's the matter?" she demanded.
"You don't think it's--do you, Richie? Do you, Jim?"

Richie merely flung up his head and set his lips. Jim put one arm around
her.

"He's pretty ill, dear," he said gently, and Julia found his smooth
tenderness infinitely less bearable than Richie's bluntness.

"Why, but what are you talking about--what do you mean--I don't know
what you mean!" Mrs. Toland said bewilderedly. "Doctor Barr has gone
home, Richie; he said he wouldn't come back unless we sent for him!" No
one answered her, and as her pitiful look went from Julia's grave face
to Richard's sorrowful one, from Ned's despairing figure by the fire to
Jim's troubled look, terror seemed to seize her. Her pretty middle-aged
face wrinkled; she began to cry bitterly.

Julia put her in a deep chair, knelt before her, trying rather to calm
than to comfort her, and after a while so far succeeded that she could
take the poor shaken old lady upstairs. She did not glance again at Jim,
although he opened the door for them, and tried his best to catch her
eye.

Between five and six o'clock he was summoned to the sickroom. They were
all there: the girls on their knees, Richard kneeling by his father, his
fingers on the failing pulse. Mrs. Toland was seated, Julia kneeling
beside her, holding both her cold hands. A sound of subdued sobbing
filled the air; no sound came from the dying man except when a
fluttering breath raised his chest. His eyes were shut; he appeared to
be sleeping.

The clock on the mantel struck six, and as if roused, Doctor Toland
stirred a little, and whispered, "Janey!" Poor Janey's head went down
against the white counterpane; she never dreamed that the little-girl
aunt, dead fifty years ago, with apple cheeks under a slatted
sun-bonnet, and more apples in her lunch bag, had come in a vision of
old orchard and sun-bathed river, to put her warm little hand in her
brother's again, and lead him home. And before the clock struck again,
Robert Toland, with not even a twitch of his kind old face, went smiling
away from earth in a dream of childhood, and Richie, with a finger on
the silent pulse, and Jim, with a hand on the silent heart, had said
together: "Gone!"

An hour later Jim, standing thoughtful at an upper window, looked down
to see Richie bring the runabout to the front door. Down the steps came
Barbara, bare headed, and Julia, in her wide black hat and flying veil.
The three talked for a few moments together, the light from the open
hall door falling on their faces; then Julia got into the car. She
leaned out to say some last word to Barbara, her face composed and
sweetly grave, then turned to Richie, and they were gone.

Jim would have found it difficult to analyze his own emotion. Something
in that look toward Barbara, so brave and quiet, so bright with some
inward serenity, stirred his heart. He went downstairs to meet Barbara
in the hall.

"Where's Rich?" asked Jim, in the hushed voice that had supplanted all
the usual noise and gayety of the house.

"He'll be right back," Barbara said apathetically. "He's driving Julie
to the boat."

For some reason Jim's heart sank. He had supposed them as performing
only some village errand, at the florist's, the drug store, or the post
office. A certain blank fell upon his spirits; Julia had her grievance,
of course, but she seemed singularly indifferent to the--well, the
appearances of things!

But Julia, alone on the boat, could have laughed in the joy of escape,
in the new sense of freedom on which she seemed to float. Above all her
sympathy for the family she so deeply loved, and above the sorrow of her
own very real personal loss, rose the intoxicating conviction that Jim's
sway over heart and soul was gone; he was no longer godlike; no longer
mysteriously powerful to hurt or to enchant her; he was just a handsome
man nearing forty, not particularly interesting, not noticeably
magnetic, not remarkable in any way.

She caught the welcoming Anna to her heart when she reached the Shotwell
Street house, telling her sad news to the others over the child's little
shoulder. But the kisses she gave her daughter were inspired by joy
instead of sorrow, and Julia lay down to sleep that night with a new
content, and slept as she had not slept for months. With a confidence
amounting almost to indifference she faced Jim on the day of the old
doctor's funeral, her beauty absolutely startling in its setting of
demure black veil and trailing sombre garments.

Jim watched her, some curious emotion that was compounded of resentment
and jealousy and astonishment darkening his face. So dignified, so
poised, so strangely, hauntingly lovely she seemed, so much in demand
and so quietly equal to all demands. Jim flattered his vanity for a
while with the assurance that she was trying to impress as well as evade
him, but could not long preserve the illusion; there was no acting
there.

"Julia," he said, when they were all at home again after the funeral, "I
want to see you alone for a few moments, if I may?"

Julia was in the dining-room, busy with a great sheaf of letters. She
gave a quick glance at the chair which Barbara had filled only a moment
ago, as if realizing for the first time that she had been left alone.

"What is it?" she asked, dryly and unencouragingly.

Jim sat down, leaned back, folded his arms, and looked at her steadily,
in a manner that might have been confusing. But Julia went on serenely
opening, reading, and listing her letters.

"I want to ask how you are getting on, Julie," said Jim at last, in a
hurt tone. "I want to know if there is anything in the world I can do
for you?"

"Nothing, thank you!" Julia said pleasantly. "Financially, I am very
comfortable. You left me I don't know how many thousands in the Crocker.
I've never had one second's worry on that score, even though I've never
touched the capital--as you can easily find out."

"My dear girl, do you think for one second I doubt you!" Jim said
uncomfortably. "You've been perfectly wonderful to do it, only you must
have scrimped yourself! But it wasn't about that. Surely, Julia, you and
I have things more important to say to each other," he added
reproachfully.

"I don't know what's more important than money," she assured him
whimsically. "Of course I didn't want to use it at all; I should have
preferred to be self-supporting at any cost," she went on. "But there
was Anna and Mama to consider. And more than that, there was your name,
Jim; I didn't want to start every one talking of the straits to which
your wife had been reduced."

"Oh, for God's sake!" Jim growled. "Don't let's talk of money." "That
was all I meant to say," Julia said politely. "Is Mother lying down?"
she added naturally. Jim jerked his whole body impatiently.

"I think she is!" he snapped. Julia opened a letter.

"Isn't that a pretty hand?" she asked. "English--it's Mrs. Lawrence, the
Consul's wife. What pretty hands English people write!"

"You've changed very much," Jim observed, after a sulphurous silence.

"I have?" Julia asked naively. "In what way?"

"Why didn't you want to see me?"

"Oh--" Julia laid the letter down, and for the first time gave him her
full attention. "I've changed my mind about that, Jim," she said
frankly. "I thought at first that it was an unwise thing, but I feel
differently now. Of course you know," continued Julia, with pretty
childish gravity, "that for me there can be no consideration of divorce;
I shall never be any other man's wife, and never be free. But if, as Bab
says, you have come to feel that you want something different, and if
you have drifted so far from your religion as to feel that a legal
document can undo what was solemnly done in the name of God, why then I
shan't oppose it. You can call it desertion or incompatibility, I don't
care."

"Who said I wanted a divorce?" Jim demanded, in his ugliest tone. His
face was a dull, heavy red, and veins swelled on his forehead.

"My life is full and happy," Julia pursued contentedly, paying no
attention to his question. "I'm not very exacting, as you know. Mama
needs me, and I have everything I want."

"You talk very easily of divorce," Jim said, in an injured tone, after a
pause. "But is it fair to have it all arranged before I say a word?"

Julia's answer was only a look--a full, clear, level look that scorched
him like a flame; her cheeks above the black of her gown burned scarlet;
she was growing angry.

Jim played with an empty envelope for a few minutes, fitting a ringer
tip to each corner and lifting it stiffly. Presently he dropped it,
folded his arms, and rested them on the table.

"This is a serious matter," he said gravely. "And we must think about
it. But you must forgive me for saying that it is a great shock to come
home and find you talking that way, Julie. I--God knows I'm bad enough,
but I _don't_ think I deserve quite this!" added Jim gently.

A long interval of silence, for Julia a busy interval, followed.

"When am I going to see Anna?" Jim asked, ending it.

"Whenever you want to," Julia said pleasantly. "I've familiarized her
with your picture; she'll be friendly at once; she always is. Some day,
when you are going to be here, I'll send her over for the day. She loves
Sausalito, and I really believe she'd do poor Mother good."

"And when shall I come and see you--to talk about things?" Jim asked
humbly.

"My dear Jim," Julia answered briskly, "I cannot see the need of our
meeting again; I think it is most unwise--just a nervous strain on both
sides. What have we to discuss? I tell you that I am perfectly willing
to let you have your way. It's too bad, it's a thing I detest--divorce;
but the whole situation is unfortunate, and we must make the best of
it!"

Jim's stunned amazement showed in a return of his sullen colour and the
fixed glassy look in his eyes.

"What will people think of this, Ju? Every one will have to know it--it
will make a deuce of a lot of talk!" he said, trying to scare her.

Julia shook her head, with just a suggestion of a smile.

"Much less than you think, Jim," she answered sensibly. "Society long
ago suspected that something was wrong; the announcement of a divorce
will only confirm it."

"We'll have the whole crowd of them buzzing about our heads," Jim said,
determined to touch her serenity by one phase or another.

"Oh, no, we won't!" Julia returned placidly. "The only circumstances
under which there would have been buzzing would have been if I had tried
to keep my place in society. I dropped out, and they let me go without a
murmur. No buzzing from San Francisco society ever reaches Shotwell
Street, and as for you, you'll be in London."

"How do you know I'll be in London?" Jim growled, utterly nonplussed.

Julia gave him a bright look over a letter, but did not answer, and the
man fell to worrying an envelope again. Moments passed, the autumn
twilight fell, Julia began to stack her letters in neat piles.

Presently she quietly rose, and quietly left the room, without a word,
without a backward glance. Jim sat on in the dusk, staring moodily ahead
of him, his eyes half shut, the fingers of one big hand drumming gently
on the table.

A few days later he went out to Shotwell Street to see her. Julia met
him very quietly, and presented the little Anna with the solicitous
interest in the child's manner that she would have shown had Jim been
any casual friend. Anna, who was lovely in a pale pink cotton garment a
little too small for her, looked seriously at her father, submitted to
his kisses, her wondering eyes never moving from his face, and wriggled
out of his arms as soon as she could.

"My God! She's beautiful, isn't she?" said Jim, under his breath.

"She looks very nice when she's clean and good," Julia agreed
practically, kissing Anna herself.

"'My God's' a bad word," Anna said gravely to her father, "isn't it,
Mother?"

"I wouldn't like to hear you say it," Julia answered. "Now trot out to
Aunt Regina, dear, and ask her to give you your lunch. Mother'll be
there immediately.

"She's exquisite," Jim said, when the child was gone. "You all over
again, Ju!"

"She's smarter than I was." Julia smiled dispassionately. "I've taught
her to read--simple things, of course; she writes a little, and does
wonders with her numerical chart. She's very cunning, she has an unusual
little mind, and occasionally says something that proves she thinks!"

A silence followed. Sunshine was streaming into the sitting-room;
nasturtiums bloomed in Julia's window boxes; the net curtains fanned
softly to and fro in the soft autumn air. In the city, a hundred
whistles shrilled for noon.

"I hardly knew the place," Jim said, searching for something to say.
"You've made it over--the whole block looks better!"

"Gardens have come into fashion," Julia explained; "the Mission is a
wonderful place for gardens. And the change in my mother is more
marked," she went on, with perfunctory pleasantness; "you would hardly
know her. She is much thinner, of course, but so bright and contented,
and so brave!"

"I am going to meet her, I hope?" Jim suggested. Julia looked troubled.

"I hardly see how," she said regretfully. "As things are I can't exactly
ask you to lunch, Jim. It would be most unnatural, and they--they look
to me for a certain principle," she went on. "They know what these four
years have meant for me; I couldn't begin now to treat the whole thing
casually and cheerfully."

"I don't expect you to," Jim said quickly. "I'm not taking this lightly.
I only want to think the thing well over before any step is taken that
we might regret."

Again Julia answered him with only a tolerant, bright look. She stood up
and busied herself with the potted fern that stood on the centre table,
breaking off dead leaves and gathering them into the palm of her hand.
Jim, feeling clumsy and helpless, stood up, too. And as he watched her,
a sudden agony of admiration broke out in his heart. Her head was bent a
little to one side, as if the weight of the glorious braids bowed it;
her thick lashes hid her eyes; her sweet, firm mouth moved a little as
she broke and straightened the fern. Where the wide collar of her
checked gown was turned back at her throat, a triangle of her soft skin
showed, as white and pure as the white of daisy petals; her firm young
breast moved regularly under the fresh crisp gingham; the folds of her
skirt were short enough to show her slender ankles and square-toed
sensible low shoes tied with wide bows.

"You used not to be so cold, Julie," Jim said, baffled and
uncomfortable.

"I am not cold," she answered mildly. "I never was a very
demonstrative--never a very emotional person, I think. Three years
ago--two years ago, even--I would have gone on my knees to you, Jim,
begged you to come back, for Anna's sake as well as my own. But that
time has gone by. This life, I've come to see, is far better for Anna
than any child in our old set leads, and for me--well, I'm happy. I
never was so happy, or busy, or necessary, in my life, as I am now."

"Do you mean that there's _no_ chance of a reconciliation?" Jim asked
huskily. Julia gave him a glance of honest surprise.

"Jim," she asked crisply, "do you mean that you came on with the hope of
a reconciliation? I thought you told Barbara something very different
from that!"

"I don't know what I came on for. I wish Barbara would mind her own
business," said Jim, feeling himself at a disadvantage.

"My dear Jim," Julia said with motherly kindness, "I know you so well!
You came on here determined to get a divorce, you want to be free, you
may already have in mind some other woman! But I've hurt your feelings
by making it all easy for you--by coming over to your side. You wanted a
fuss, tears, protests, a convulsion among your old friends. And you
find, instead, that all San Francisco takes the situation for granted,
and that I do, too. I've made my own life, I have Anna, and more than
enough money to live on; you have your freedom; every one's satisfied."

"That's nonsense and you know it!" Jim exclaimed angrily. "There's not
one word of truth in it!" He began to pull on his gloves, a handsome
figure in his irreproachable trim black sack suit with low oxfords
showing a glimpse of gray hose, and an opal winking in his gray silk
scarf. "There's absolutely no reason in the world why you should
consider yourself as more or less than my wife," he said. "There's no
object in this sort of reckless talk. We've been separated for a few
years; it's no one's business but our own to know why!"

"Oh, Jim--Jim!" Julia said, shaking her head.

"Don't talk that way to me!" he said fiercely. "I tell you I'm serious!
It's all nonsense--this talk of divorce! Why," he came so near, and
spoke in so menacing a tone, that Julia perforce lifted her eyes to his,
"this situation isn't all of my making," he said. "I've not been
ungenerous to you! Can't you be generous in your turn, and talk the
whole thing over reasonably?"

"I can't see the advantage of _talking_!" Julia answered in faint
impatience.

"No, because you want it your own way," said Jim. "You expect me to give
up my child completely, you refuse me even a hearing, you won't discuss
it!"

"But what do you want to discuss?" protested Julia. "The whole situation
is perfectly clear--we shall only quarrel!"

How well she knew the look he gave her, the hurt look of one whose
sentiment is dashed by cool reason! He suddenly caught her by the
shoulders.

"Look here, Julia!"

"Ah, Jim, please don't!" She twisted in a vain attempt to escape his
grip.

"Please don't what?"

"Don't--touch me!"

Jim dropped his hands at once, stepped back, with a look of one mortally
hurt.

"Certainly not--I beg your pardon!" he said punctiliously. He took up
his hat. "When do I see you again, Julia? Will you dine with me
to-morrow? Then we can talk."

"No, I don't think so," Julia said, after reflection.

"Have you another engagement?"

"Certainly not!" There was almost a flash of amusement in her face; her
glance toward the kitchen spoke volumes for the nature of her
engagements.

"Why do you say no, then?" asked Jim.

"Because I prefer not to do so," Julia answered, with sudden spirit. "We
look at this thing very differently, Jim," she added roundly. "To me it
is a tragedy--the saddest thing that ever happened in my life; that you
and I should have loved each other, and should be less than nothing to
each other now! It's like a sorrow, something shameful, to hide and to
forget. For years I was haunted by the horror of a divorce, Jim; I never
wrote to you, I never begged you to come back, just because I was afraid
of it! I used to say to myself in the first awful weeks in this house:
'Never mind--it isn't as if we were divorced; we may be separated, we
may be estranged, but we are still man and wife!'" Tears came to Julia's
eyes, she shook her head as if to shake them away. "I've hungered for
you, Jim, until it seemed as if I must go mad!" she went on, looking far
beyond him now, and speaking in a low, rapt voice as if to herself.
"I've felt," she said, "as if I'd die for just one more kiss from you,
die just to have you take my big coat off once more, and catch me in
your arms, as you used to do when we came back from dinner or the
theatre! But one can't go on suffering that way," said Julia, giving him
a swift, uncertain smile, "and gradually the pain goes, and the fever
dies away, and nothing is left but the cold, white scar!"

Jim had been staring at her like a man in a trance. Now he took a step
toward her, lightly caught her in one big arm.

"Ah, but Julia, wouldn't the love come back?" he asked tenderly, his
face close to her own. "Couldn't it all be forgotten and forgiven?
You've suffered, dear, but I've suffered, too. Can't we comfort each
other?"

"Please don't do that," Julia said coldly, wrenching herself free. "This
is no whim with me; I'm not following a certain line of conduct because
it's most effective. I've changed. I don't want to analyze and dissect
and discuss it; as I say, it seems to me too sacred, too sad, to enjoy
talking about!"

"You've not changed!" Jim asserted. "Women don't change that way."

"Then I'm not like other women," Julia said hotly. "Do believe me, Jim.
It's all just gone out of my life. You don't seem like the man I loved,
who was so sweet and generous to me. I've not forgotten that old
wonderful time; I just don't connect you with it. You could kiss me a
thousand times now, and it would only seem like--well, like any one
else! I look at you as one might look on some old school friend, and
wonder if I ever really loved you!"

She stopped, looking at him almost in appeal. Jim stood quite still,
staring fixedly at her; they remained so for a long minute.

"I see," he said then, very quietly. "I'm sorry."

And without another word he turned to the hall door and was gone. Julia
stood still in the hall for a few minutes, curiously numb. All this was
very terrible, very far reaching in its results, very important, but she
could not feel it now. She did feel very tired, exhausted in every fibre
of her body, confused and weary in mind. She put her head in the kitchen
door only long enough to say that she was not hungry, and went upstairs
to fling herself on her bed, grateful for silence and solitude at last.

To Jim the world was turned upside down. He could hardly credit his
senses. His was not a quick brain; processes of thought with him were
slow and ruminative; he liked to be alone while he was thinking. When he
left Julia he went down to his club, found a chair by a library window,
and brooded over this unexpected and unwelcome turn of events, viewing
from all angles this new blow to his pride. He did not believe her
protestations of a change of heart, nothing in his life tended to make
such a belief easy. But her coldness and stubbornness hurt him and upset
the plans he had been allowing to form of late in his mind.

All his life he had been following, with sunny adaptability, the line of
the least resistance. Thrown out of his groove by the jealousy and
resentment of the dark time in his married life, Jim had realized
himself as fairly cornered by Fate, and had run away from the whole
situation rather than own himself beaten. Rather than admit that he must
patiently accept what was so galling to his pride, he had seized upon
any alternative, paid any price.

And Germany had not been at all unpleasant. There was novelty in every
phase of his home and public life; there was his work; and, for at least
the first year, there was the balm for his conscience that he would soon
be going home to Julia. He had allowed himself the luxury of moods, was
angry with her, was scornful, was forgiving. He showed new friends her
beautiful pictures--told them that she was prettier than that, no
picture could do justice to her colour.

Among the new friends there had been two sweet plain Englishwomen: the
widowed Lady Eileen Hungerford, and her sister, the Honourable Phyllis.
These had found the rich young American doctor charming, and without a
definite word or look had managed to convey to him the assurance of
their warmest sympathy. They could only guess at his domestic troubles,
but a hundred little half allusions and significant looks lent spice to
the friendship, and Jim became a great favourite in the delightful
circle the Englishwomen had drawn about them.

The midsummer vacation was spent, with another doctor, in Norway, and in
September Jim went for a week or two to London, where Eileen and
Phyllis, delicately considerate of the possible claims of the unknown
wife, nevertheless persuaded him that he would be mad to decline the
offer of the big German hospital. So back to Berlin he went, and in this
second winter met old Professor Sturmer, and Senta, his wife.

Senta was a Russian, the tiniest of women, wild, beautiful, nineteen.
She was a most dramatic and appealing little figure, and she knew it
well. She smoked and drank just as the young men of her set did, she
danced like a madwoman, she sang and rode and skated with the fury of a
witch. She was like a child, over-dressed, overjewelled, her black hair
fantastically arranged; always talking, always unhappy, a perfect type
of the young female egotist. She liked to use reckless expressions, to
curl herself up on a couch, in a room dimly lighted, and scented with
burning pastilles, and discuss her marriage, her age, her appearance,
her effect upon other women. Senta's was an almost pathetic and very
obvious desire to be considered daring, pantherine, seductive,
dangerous.

Jim, fancying he understood her perfectly, played into her hand. He
would not flirt with her, but he took her at her own valuation, and they
saw a good deal of each other. Senta confessed to him, read him love
letters, wrote him dashing, penitent little notes, and Jim scolded her
in a brotherly way, laughed at her, and sometimes delighted her by
forbidding her to do this or that, or by masterfully flinging some
cherished note or photograph of hers into the fire. He loved to hear her
scold her maid in Russian; it seemed to him very cunning when this
stately gipsy of a child took her seat in her box at the opera, or flung
herself into the carriage, later, all the more a madcap because of three
hours of playing the lady. He exchanged smiling looks over her little
dark head with her husband, when he dined at the Sturmers'; the good
professor was far more observing than was usually supposed; he knew more
of Jim's character, it is probable, than Jim did himself; he knew that
Senta was quite safe with the young American, and he liked him. But
Senta, who was quite unscrupulous, was slow to realize it. She found
this brotherly petting and scolding very well for a time, but months
went by, a whole year went by, and there was no change in their
relationship. Senta was only precocious, she was neither clever nor well
educated; she based her campaign on the trashy novels she read, and
deliberately set herself to shake Jim from his calm pleasure in her
society.

Then, suddenly, Jim was bored. Charm dropped from her like a rich,
enveloping cloak, and left only the pitiful little nude personality, a
bundle of childish egotisms and shallow pretences. Once he had been
proud to escort her everywhere, now her complacent assumption that he
should do so annoyed him; once he had laughed out heartily at her
constant interruption of the old professor, her naive contention that
she was never to be for one second ignored; now she only worried him,
and made him impatient. Her invitations poured upon him, her affectedly
deep voice, reproachful or alluring, haunted his telephone. She
challenged him daringly, wickedly, across dinner tables, or from the
centre of a tea-table group, to say "why he didn't like her any more?"

Jim went to Italy, and Senta, chaperoned by her sister-in-law, a gaunt
woman of sixty, went, too, turning up at his hotels with the naughty
grace of a spoiled child, sure to be welcome. She eyed him obliquely,
while telling him that "people were beginning to talk." She laughed,
with a delight that Jim found maddening, when they chanced to meet some
friends from Berlin in a quiet side street in Rome. Jim cut his vacation
short, and went back to work.

This angered Senta for the first time, and perhaps began to enlighten
her. She came sulkily back to Berlin, and began to spread abroad
elaborate accounts of a quarrel between Jim and herself. Jim so dreaded
meeting her that he quite gave up everything but men's society, but he
could not quite escape from the knowledge that the affair was discussed
and criticised.

And at this most untimely moment old Professor Stunner died, leaving a
somewhat smaller fortune to his little widow than she had expected, and
naming his esteemed young friend, Herr Doctor Studdiford, as her
guardian and his executor. This again gave Senta the prominence and
picturesqueness she loved; to Jim it was a most deplorable mischance; it
was with difficulty that he acquitted himself of his bare duty in the
matter, his distaste for his young ward growing stronger every moment.
For weeks there was no hour in which he was not made exquisitely
uncomfortable by her attitude of chastened devotion; eventually the hour
came in which he had to stab her pride, and stab deep. It was an ugly,
humiliating, exasperating business, and when at last it was over, Jim
found himself sick of Berlin, and yet sullenly unready to go home to
California, as if he had failed, as if he were under even so faint a
cloud.

Just then came a letter from Eileen, another from Phyllis. Wasn't he
ever coming to London any more? London was waiting to welcome him. They
had opened their little house in Prince's Gate, the season was
beginning, it was really extraordinarily jolly. Did he know anything of
the surgeon, Sir Peveril McCann? He had said such charming things of
Doctor Studdiford. He had said--but no, one wasn't going to tell him
anything that might, untold, make him curious enough to come!

Jim went to London, revelling in clear English speech after years of
Teutonic gutturals, and rejoicing in the clean, clear-cut personalities
with which he came in contact. He loved the wonderful London
drawing-rooms, the well-ordered lives, the atmosphere of the smart clubs
and hotels, the plays and pictures and books that were discussed and
analyzed so inexhaustibly.

He found Eileen and Phyllis more charming than ever; and he very much
admired their aunt, stately Lady Violet Dray, and their bright, clever,
friendly cousin Ivy, who was as fresh and breezy as the winds that blew
over her native heather. Ivy was slender and vivacious; her face was
thin and a little freckled, and covered with a fine blond down, which
merged on her forehead into the straight rise of her carrot-coloured
hair. Her eyes were sharply blue, set in thick, short, tawny lashes. She
was an enthusiastic sportswoman, well informed on all topics of the day,
assured of her position and sure of herself, equally at home in her
riding tweeds and mud-splashed derby, and the trailing satin evening
gowns that left her bony little shoulders bare, and were embellished by
matchless diamonds or pearls. There was no sentiment in her, her best
friends were of both sexes and all ages, but she attached Jim to her
train, patronized and bullied him, and they became good friends.

Mrs. Chancellor talked well, and talked a great deal, and she stimulated
Jim to talk, too. Never in his life had so constant a demand been made
upon his conversational powers; and every hour with her increased his
admiration for Ivy and lessened his valuation of his own wisdom. She was
a thorough Englishwoman, considering everything in life desirable only
inasmuch as it was British. Toward America her attitude was one of
generous laughter touched with impatience. She never for one moment
considered seriously anything American. Mrs. Chancellor thought all of
it really too funny-"rarely too fenny," as she pronounced it. Only one
thing made her more angry than the defence of anything American, and
that was dispraise of anything British. The history of England was
sacred to her: London was the crown and flower of the world's
civilization; English children, English servants, English law, were all
alike perfect, and she also had her country's reverence for English
slang, quoting and repeating it with fondest appreciation and laughter.
Nothing pleased her more than to find Jim unfamiliar with some bit of
slang that had been used in England for twenty years; her laughter was
fresh and genuine as she explained it, and for days afterward she would
tell her friends of his unfamiliarity with what was an accepted part of
their language.

She took him to picture galleries, bewildering him with her swift
decisions. Jim might come to a stand before a portrait by Sargent.

"Isn't this wonderful, Ivy Green?" It was his own name for her, and she
liked it.

"That?" A sweeping glance would appraise it. "Yes, of course, it's quite
too extraordinary," she would concede briskly. "An impossible creature,
of course; one feels that he was laughing at her all the time--it's not
his best work, rarely!" And she would drag Jim past forty interesting
canvases to pounce upon some obscure, small painting in a dark corner.
"There!" she would say triumphantly, "isn't that astonishing! So
kyawiously frank, if you know what I mean? It's most amazing--his sense
of depth, if you know what I mean? Rarely, to splash things on in that
way, and to grasp it." A clawed little hand would illustrate grasping.
"It's astonishing!"

Jim, staring at a picture of some sky, some beach, and a face of rock,
would murmur a somewhat bewildered appreciation, looking out of the
corner of his eye, at the same time, at the attractive gondolier singing
to his pretty lady passengers, on the right, or the nice young peasant
nursing her baby in a sunny window while her mother peeled apples, on
the left.

"Of course, it's the only thing here, this year, absolutely the only
one," Mrs. Chancellor would conclude. "The rest is just one huge joke. I
know Artie Holloway--Sir Arthur, he is--quite well, and I told him so!
He's a director."

"But I don't see how you know so much about it!" Jim would say
admiringly.

"One must know about such things, my dear boy," she always answered
serenely. "One isn't an oyster, after all!"

It was this dashing lady and not Barbara who first brought Jim's mind to
a sense of his own injustice to Julia, or rather to a realization that
the situation, as it stood, was fair to neither Julia nor himself. Not
that he ever mentioned Julia to Ivy; but she knew, of course, of Julia's
existence, and being a shrewd and experienced woman she drew her own
conclusions. One day she expressed herself very frankly on the subject.

"You've taken the rooms above Sir Peveril's, eh?" she asked him.

"Well, yes," Jim answered, after a second's pause. "They're bully
rooms!"

"Oh, rather--they're quite the nicest in town," she stated. "But, I say,
my dear boy, wasn't the rent rather steep?"

"Not terrible." He mentioned it. "And I've taken 'em for five years," he
added.

"For--eh?" She brought her sandy lashes together and studied him through
them. "You're rarely going to stay then, you nice child?"

"Yes, Grandmother dear. Sir Peveril wants me. I've taken his hospital
work; people are really extraordinarily kind to me!" Jim summarized.

"Oh, you've been vetted, there's no question of that," she agreed
thoughtfully. They were at tea in her own drawing-room, which was
crowded with articles handsome and hideous, Victorian lace tidies
holding their own with really fine old furniture, and exquisite bits of
oil or water colour sharing the walls with old steel engravings in
cumbersome frames. Now Ivy leaned back in her chair, and stirred her
tea, not speaking for a few minutes.

"There's just one thing," she said presently. "Before you come here to
stay, put your house in order. Don't leave everything at haome in a
narsty mess that'll have to be straightened aout later, if you know what
I mean? Get that all straight, and have it understood, d'ye see?"

The colour came into Jim's face at so unexpected an attack, yet speech
was a relief, too.

"I don't know whether I _can_ straighten it out," he confessed, with a
nervous laugh.

"It's not a divorce, eh?"

"No--not exactly."

"The gell's gone home to her people?"

"Yes." Jim cleared his throat. "Yes, she has."

"And there's a kiddie?"

"Anna--yes."

"Well, now." Mrs. Chancellor straightened in her chair, set her cup down
on a nearby table. "I take it the gell was the injured one, eh?" said
she.

Jim was a little surprised to find himself enjoying this
cross-examination immensely.

"Well--no. She had no definite cause to feel injured," he said. "We
quarrelled, and I came away in a hurry--"

"What, after a first quarrel?"

"No--o. It had been going on a long time."

"Is the cause of it still existing?" Mrs. Chancellor asked in a
businesslike way, after a pause.

"Well--yes."

"Can't be removed, eh? It's not religion?"

"It's an old love affair of hers," Jim admitted. The lady's eyes
twinkled.

"And you're jealous?" she smiled. But immediately her face grew sober.
"I see--she still cares for him, or imagines she does," she said.

Jim felt it safest to let this guess stand.

"Of course, if she won't she won't," pursued Mrs. Chancellor
comfortably. "But the best thing you could do would be to bring her on
here!"

Jim shook his head sullenly and set his jaw.

"She won't, eh?" asked the lady, watching him thoughtfully.

"I don't want to do that," Jim persisted stubbornly.

"_You_ don't want to?" She meditated this. "Yet she's young, and
beautiful, and presentable?" she asked, nodding her own head slowly as
he nodded affirmatives. "Yes, of course. Well, it's too bad. One would
have liked to meet her, take her about a bit. And it would help you more
than any one thing, my dear boy. Oh, don't shake your head! Indeed it
would. However, you must be definite, one way or the other. You must
either admit outright that you're divorced, or you must tell an
acceptable story. As it is--one doesn't know what to say--whether she's
impossible in some way--just what the matter is, if you know what I
mean?"

"I see," Jim said heavily.

"Go have a talk with her," commanded Mrs. Chancellor brightly. "Finish
it up, one way or another. You're doing her an injustice, as it is, and
you're not just to yourself. One can't shut a marriage up in a box, you
know, and forget it. There's always leakage somewhere--much better make
a clean breast of the whole thing! You're not the first person who's
made an unfortunate early marriage, you know!"

"I loved my wife," said Jim, in vague, resentful self-defence. "I'm
naturally a domestic man. I loved my little girl--"

"Certainly you did," Mrs. Chancellor interrupted crisply. "And perhaps
she did, too! The details are all the same, you know. Some people make a
success of the thing, some people fail. I've been married. I'm a little
older than you are in years, and ages older in experience--I know all
about it. In every marriage there are the elements of success, and in
every one the makings of a perfectly justifiable divorce. Some women
couldn't live with a saint who was a king and a Rothschild into the
bargain; others marry scamps and are perfectly happy whether they're
being totally ignored or being pulled around by the hair! But if you've
made a failure, admit it. Don't sulk. You'll find that doing something
definite about it is like cleaning the poison out of a wound; you'll
feel better! There, now, you've had your scolding, and you've taken it
very nicely. Ring for some hot water, and we'll talk of something else!"

On just this casual, kindly advice Jim really did go home, prepared to
be very dignified with Julia; and to make the separation definite and
final, if not legal, or to bring her back, however formally, as his
wife, exactly as he saw fit.

And then came the meeting in the Toland library, when in one stunning
flash he saw her as she was: beautiful, dignified, and charming, a woman
to whom all eyes turned naturally and admiringly, grave, sweet, and wise
in a world full of pretence and ignorance, selfishness and shallowness.

She spoke, and her voice went through him like a sword, a mist rose
before his eyes. He tried to remember that bitter resentment upon which
his pride had fed for more than four long years; he battled with a mad
desire to catch her in his arms, and to cry to her and to all the world,
"After all, you are still mine!"

He watched her, her beauty as fresh to him as if he had never seen it
before. Had those serious eyes, turned to Richie with such sisterly
concern, and so exquisitely blue in the soft lamplight, ever met his
with love and laughter brightening them? Had the kindly arms that went
so quickly about his mother, in her trouble, ever answered the pressure
of his own? She could look at him dispassionately, entirely forgetful of
herself in the presence of death, but in the very sickroom his eyes
could not leave her little kneeling figure; whenever she spoke, he felt
his heart contract with a spasm of pain. It seemed to him that if he
could kneel before her, and feel the light pressure of her linked hands
about his neck, and have her lay that soft, sweet cheek of hers against
his, in heavenly token of forgiveness, he would be ready to die of joy.

How far Julia was from this mood he was soon to learn, and no phase of
their courtship eight years ago had roused in him such agonies of
jealousy and longing as beset him now, when Julia, quiet of pulse and
level eyed, convinced him that she could very contentedly exist without
him.

All these things went confusedly through Jim's mind, as he sat at his
club window, staring blankly down at the dreary summer twilight in the
street. The club was a temporary wooden building, roomy and comfortable
enough, but facing on all four sides the devastation of the great
earthquake. Here and there a small brick building stood in the ashy
waste, and on the top of Nob Hill the outline of the big Fairmont Hotel
rose boldly against the gloom. But, for the most part, the rising hills
showed only one ruined brick foundation after another, broken flights of
stone steps leading down to broken sidewalks, twisted, discoloured
railings smothered in rank, dry grass. Through this wreckage cable cars
moved, brightly lighted, and loaded with passengers, and to-night, in
the dusk, a steady wind was blowing, raising clouds of fine, blinding
dust.

Jim stared at it all heavily, his mind strangely attuned to the dreary
prospect. He felt puzzled and confused; he wanted to see Julia again, to
have her forgive and comfort him. When he thought of the old times, of
the devotion and tenderness he had taken so much for granted, a sort of
sickness seized him; he could have groaned aloud. Only one thought was
intolerable: that she would not forgive him, and let him make up to her
for the lost years, and show her how deeply he loved her still!

He mused upon the exactions she might make, the advantages that would
appeal to her. Not jewels--she must have more jewels now than she would
ever wear, safely stored away somewhere. He remembered giving her a
certain chain of pearls, with a blinding vision of the white young
throat they encircled, and the kiss he had set there with the gift. No,
jewels were for such as Senta, not for grave, stately Julia.

Nor would position tempt her. She was too wise to long for it; the glory
of a London season meant nothing to her; position was only a word. She
was happier in the Shotwell Street house, clipping roses on a foggy
morning; she was happier far when she scrambled over the rough trails of
the mountain with Richie than ever London could make her. Position and
wealth might have their value for Ivy, but Julia cared as little as a
bird for either.

And now it came to him that she was infinitely more fine, more
beautiful, and more clever than Senta, and that her pure and fragrant
freshness, her simple directness, her candid likes and dislikes, would
make Ivy seem no more than a jaded sophist, a quoter of mere words, a
worshipper of empty form.

To have Julia in London! To take her about, her bright face dimpling in
the shadow of a flowered hat, or framed in furs, or to see her at the
tea table, a shining slipper showing under the flowing lines of her
gown, the lovely child beside her, at once enhancing and rivalling the
mother's beauty--Jim's heart ached with the pain and rapture of the
dream.

He was roused by Richie, who came limping into the club library, and
over whose tired face came a bright smile at the sight of Jim.

"Hello!" said Richie, taking an opposite chair. His expression grew
solicitous at the sight of Jim's haggard face. "Headache, old boy?" he
asked sympathetically.

Jim shook his head. The big room was almost dark now, and they had it
quite to themselves.

"Thinking what a rotten mess I've made of everything, Rich," Jim said
desperately.

Richie took out a handkerchief and wiped the palms of his hands, but did
not answer.

"She'll never forgive me, I know that," Jim presently said. And as
Richie was again silent, he added: "Do you think she ever will?"

"I don't know," poor Richie said hesitatingly. "She's awfully
kind--Julia."

"She's an angel!" Jim agreed fervently. He sat with his head in his
hands for a few moments. Then he cleared his throat and said huskily:
"Look here, you know, Rich, I'm not such an utter damn fool as I seem in
this whole business. I can't explain, and, looking back now, it all
seems different; but I had a grievance, or thought I had--God knows it
wasn't awfully pleasant for me to go away. But I _had_ a reason."

"It wasn't anything you didn't know about before you were married, I
suppose?" asked Richie, with what Jim thought unearthly prescience.

"No," Jim answered, with a startled look.

"Nor anything you'd particularly care to have the world know or
suspect?" pursued Richie. "Not anything Julia could change?"

"No," Jim said again. Richard leaned back in his chair.

"Some scrap with her people, or some old friends she wanted to hang on
to," he mused. Jim did not speak. "Well," said Richie, "there would be
plenty of people glad to be near Julia on any terms."

"Oh, I know that," Jim said. And after a moment he burst out again:
"Richie, am I all wrong? Is it _all_ on my side?"

"Lord, don't ask me," Richie said hastily. "The older I grow the less I
think I know about anything."

There was a silence. Richard clamped the arms of his chair with big bony
fingers and frowned thoughtfully at the floor.

"I wish to God I did know what to advise you, Jim," he said presently.
"I'd die for her--she knows that. But she's rare, Julia; it's like
trying to deal with some delicate frail little lady out of Cranford,
like trying to guess what Emily Bronte might like, or Eugenie de Guerin!
Julia's got life sized up, she likes it--I don't know whether this
conveys anything to you or not!--but she likes it as much as if it was
part of a play. You don't matter to her any more; I don't; she sees
things too big. She's quite extraordinary; the most extraordinary person
I ever knew, I think. There's a completeness, a _finish_ about her. She's
not waiting for any self-defence from you, Jim. It won't do you any good
to tell her why you did this or that. You thought this was justified,
you thought that was--certainly, she isn't disputing it. You did what
you did; now she's going to abide by it. You never dreamed thus and
so--very well, the worse for you! You want to hark back to something
that's long dead and gone; all right, only abide by your decision. And
afterward, when you realize that she's a thousand times finer than the
women you compare her to, and try to make her like, then don't come
crying to _her_!"

A long silence, then Jim stood up.

"Well, I've made an utter mess of it, as I began by saying!" he said,
with a grim laugh. "Going to dine here, Rich? Let's eat together.
Here"--one big clever hand gave Richard just the help he needed--"let me
help you, old boy!"

"I thought I'd go home to Mill Valley," Richard said. "I can't catch
anything before the six-forty, but the horse is in the village, and my
boy will scare me up some soup and a salad. I'd rather go. I like to
wake in my own place."

"I wish you'd let me go with you, Rich," Jim said, with a gentleness new
to him. "I'm so sick of everything. I can't think of anything I'd like
so well."

"Sure, come along," Richard said, touched. "Everything's pretty simple,
you know, but I'll telephone Bruce and have him--"

"Cut out the telephoning," Jim interrupted. "Bread and coffee'll do. And
a fire, huh?"

"Sure," Richard said again, "there's always a fire."

"Great!" Jim approved. "We can smoke, and talk about--"

"About Ju," Richie supplied, with a gruff little laugh, as he paused.

"About Ju," Jim repeated, with a long sigh.

Two days later he went to see her, to beg her to be his wife again. He
asked her to forget and forgive the past, to trust him once more, to
give him another chance to make her happy. He spoke of the Harley Street
house, of the new friends she would find, of Barbara's nearness with the
boys that Julia loved so well. He spoke of Anna; for Anna's sake they
must be together; their little girl must not be sacrificed. Anna should
have the prettiest nursery in London, and in summer they would go down
to Barbara, and the cousins should play together.

Julia listened attentively, her head a little on one side, her eyes
following the movements of Anna herself, who was digging about under the
rose bushes in the backyard. Julia and Jim sat on the steps that ran
down from the kitchen porch. It was a soft, hazy afternoon, with filmy
streaks of white crossing the pale blue sky, and sunshine, thin and
golden, lying like a spell over Julia's garden.

"I was a fool," said Jim. "There--I can't say more than that, Ju. And
I've paid for my folly. And, dearest, I'm so bitterly sorry! I can't
explain it. I don't understand it myself--I only know that I'd give ten
years off the end of my life to have the past five to live over again.
Forgive me, Ju. It's all gone out of my heart now, all that old misery,
and I never could hurt you again on that score. It _doesn't exist_, any
more, for me. Say that you'll forgive me, and let me be the happiest and
proudest man in the world--how happy and proud--taking my wife and baby
to England!"

The hint of a frown wrinkled Julia's forehead, her eyes were sombre with
her own thoughts.

"Think what it would mean to Mother, and to Bab, and to all of us," Jim
pursued, as she did not speak. "They've been so worried about it--they
care so much!"

"Yes, I know!" Julia said quickly, and fell silent again.

"Is it your own mother's need of you?" the man asked after a pause.

"No." Julia gave a cautious glance at the kitchen door behind her.
"No--Aunt May is wonderful with her. Muriel's at home a good deal, and
Geraldine very near," she said. "And more than that, this separation
between you and me worries Mother terribly; she doesn't understand it.
She's very different in these days, Jim, so gentle and good and brave--I
never saw such a change! No, she'd love to have me go if it was the best
thing to do--it's not that--"

Her voice dropped on a note of fatigue. Her eyes continued to dwell on
the child in the garden.

"I've done all I can do," Jim said. "Don't punish me any more!"

Julia laughed in a worried fashion, not meeting his eyes.

"There you are," she said, faintly impatient, "assuming that I am
aggrieved about it, assuming that I am sitting back, sulking, and
waiting for you to humiliate yourself! My dear Jim, I'm not doing
anything of the kind. I don't hold you as wholly responsible for all
this--how could I? I know too well that I myself am--or was--to blame.
All these years, when people have been blaming you and pitying me, I've
longed to burst out with the truth, to tell them what you were too
chivalrous to tell! For your sake and Anna's I couldn't do it, of
course, but you may imagine that it's made me a silent champion of
yours, just the same! But our marriage was a mistake, Jim," she went on
slowly and thoughtfully. "It was all very well for me to try to make
myself over; I couldn't make you! I never should have tried.
Theoretically, I had made a clean breast of it, and was forgiven; but
actually, the law was too strong. It's hard and strange that it should
be so, isn't it? I don't understand it; I never shall. For still it
seems as if the punishment followed, not so much the fact, as the fact's
being made known. If I had robbed some one fifteen years ago, or taken
the name of the Lord in vain, I wonder if it would have been the same?
As for keeping holy the seventh day, and honouring your father and
mother, and not coveting your neighbour's goods, how little they seem to
count! Even the most virtuous and rigid people would forgive and forget
fast enough in _those_ cases. It's all a puzzle." Julia's voice and look,
which had grown dreamy, now brightened suddenly. "And so the best thing
to do about it," she went on, "seems to me to make your own conscience
your moral law, and feel that what you have repented truly, is truly
forgiven. So much for me." She met his eyes. "But, my dear Jim, I never
could take it for granted again that _you_ felt so about it!"

"Then you do me an injustice," said Jim, "for I swear--"

"Oh, don't swear!" she interrupted. "I know you believe that now, as you
did once before. But I know you better than you do yourself, Jim. Your
attitude to me is always generous, but it's always conventional, too.
You never would remind me of all this, I know that very well, but
always, in your own heart, the reservation would be there, the regret
and the pity! I know that I am a better woman and a stronger woman for
all this thinking and suffering; you never will believe that. Let us
suppose that we began again. Don't you know that the day would come when
my opinion would clash with that of some other woman in society, and
you, knowing what you know of me, would feel that I was not qualified to
judge in these things as other women are? Let us suppose that I wanted
to befriend a maid who had got herself into trouble, or to take some
wayward girl into my house for a trial; how patient would you be with
me, under the circumstances?"

"Of course, you can always think up perfectly hypothetical
circumstances!" Jim said impatiently.

"Marriage is difficult enough," Julia pursued. "But marriage with a
handicap is impossible! To feel that there is something you can't
change, that never will change, and that stands eternally between you!
No, marriage isn't for us, Jim, and we can only make the best of it,
having made the original mistake!"

"Don't ever say that again--it's not true!" Jim said, with a sort of
masterful anger. "Now, listen a moment. That isn't true, and you don't
believe it. I've told you what I think of myself. I was blind, I was a
fool. But that's past. Give me another chance. I'll make you the
happiest woman in the world, Julia. I love you. I'll be so proud of you!
You can have a dozen girls under your wing all the time; you can answer
the Queen back, and I'll never have even a _thought_ but what you're the
finest and sweetest woman in the world!"

The preposterous picture brought a shaky smile to Julia's lips and a
hint of tears to her eyes. She suddenly rose from her seat and went down
to the garden.

"Our talking it over does no good, Jim," she said, as he followed her,
and stood looking at her and at Anna. "It's all too fresh--it's been
too terrible for me--getting adjusted! I stand firm here, I feel the
ground under my feet. I don't want to go back to feeling all wrong, all
out of key, helpless to straighten matters!"

"But we were happy!" he said, a passionate regret in his voice. "Think
of our day in Chicago, Ju, and the day we took a hansom cab through
Central Park--and were afraid the driver wasn't sober! And do you
remember the blue hat that _would_ catch on the electric light, and the
day the elevator stuck?"

"I think of it all so often, Jim," Julia answered, with a smile as sad
as tears could have been, and in the tender voice she might have used in
speaking of the dead. "Sometimes I fit whole days together, just
thinking of those old times. 'Then what did we do after that lunch?' I
think, or 'Where were we going that night that we were in such a hurry?'
and then by degrees it all comes back." Julia drew a rose toward her on
a tall bush, studied its leaves critically. "That was the happiest time,
wasn't it, Jim?" she asked, with her April smile.

Jim felt as if a weight of inevitable sorrow were weighing him to the
ground. Julia's quiet assurance, her regretful firmness, seemed to be
breaking his heart. She was in white to-day, and in the thin September
sunlight, among the blossoming roses, she somehow suggested the calm
placidity of a nun who looks back at her days in the world with a
tender, smiling pity. The child had left her play, and stood close to
her mother's side, one of Julia's hands caught in both her own.

"Anna," Jim said desperately, "won't you ask Mother to come to London
with Dad?"

Anna regarded him gravely. She did not understand the situation, but she
answered, with a child's curious instinct for the obvious excuse:

"But Grandmother needs her!"

"I never asked you to give her up, Julie," Jim said, as if trying to
remind her that he had not been so merciless as she. Julia's eyes
widened with a quick alarm, her breast rose, but she answered
composedly:

"That I would have fought."

"And you have always had as much money--" Jim began again, trying to
rally the arguments with which he had felt sure to overwhelm her.

"I spent that as much for your sake as for mine," Julia said soberly.
"She is a Studdiford. I wanted to be fair to Anna. But I could do
without it now, Jim; there are a thousand things--"

"Yes, I know!" he said in quick shame.

A silence fell, there seemed nothing else to be said. A great space
widened between them. Jim felt at the mercy of lonely and desolate
winds; he felt as if all colour had faded out of the world, leaving it
gray and cold. With the sickness of utter defeat he dropped on one knee
and kissed the wondering child, and then turned to go.

"You won't--change your mind, Ju?" he asked huskily.

Julia was conscious of a strange weakening and loosening of bonds
throughout her entire system. Vague chills shook her, she felt that
tears were near, she had a hideous misgiving as to her power to keep
from fainting.

"I will let you know, Jim," she heard her own voice answer, very low.

A moment later she and Anna were alone in the garden.

"What _is_ it, Mother?" Anna asked curiously, a dozen times. Julia stood
staring at the child blindly. One hand was about Anna's neck, the loose
curls falling soft and warm upon it, the other Julia had pressed tight
above her heart. She stood still as if listening.

"What _is_ it, Mother?" asked the little girl again.

"Nothing!" Julia said then, in a sort of shallow whisper, with a caught
breath.

A second later she kissed the child hastily, and went quietly out of the
green gate which had so lately closed upon Jim. She went as
unquestioningly as an automaton moved by some irresistible power; not
only was all doubt gone from her mind, but all responsibility seemed
also shed.

The street was almost deserted, but Julia saw Jim instantly, a full
block away, and walking resolutely, if slowly. She drifted silently
after him, not knowing why she followed, nor what she would say when
they met, but conscious that she must follow and that they would meet.

Jim walked to Eighteenth Street, turned north, and Julia, reaching the
corner, was in time to see him entering the shabby old church where they
had been married eight years ago. And instantly a blinding vertigo, a
suffocating rush of blood to her heart, made her feel weak and cold with
the sudden revelation that the hour of change had come.

She climbed the dreary, well-remembered stairs slowly, and slipped into
one of the last pews, in the shadow of a gallery pillar.

Jim was kneeling, far up toward the altar, his head in his hands. In all
the big church, which was bleak and bare in the cold afternoon light,
there was no one else. The red altar light flickered in its hanging
glass cup; a dozen lighted candles, in a great frame that held sockets
for five times as many, guttered and flared at the rail.

Minutes slipped by, and still the man knelt there motionless, and still
the woman sat watching him, her eyes brilliant and tender, her heart
flooded with a poignant happiness that carried before it all the
bitterness of the years. Julia felt born again. Like a person long deaf,
upon whose unsealed ears the roar of life bursts suddenly again, she
shrank away from the rush of emotion that shook her. It was
overpowering--dizzying--exhausting.

When Jim presently passed her she shrank into the shadow of her pillar,
but his face was sadder and more grave than Julia had ever seen it, and
he did not raise his eyes. She listened until his echoing footsteps died
away on the stairs; then the smile on her face faded, and she sank on
her knees and burst into tears.

But they were not tears of sorrow; instead, they seemed to Julia
infinitely soothing and refreshing. They seemed to carry her along with
the restful sweep of a river. She cried, hardly knowing that she cried,
and with no effort to stop the steady current of tears.

And when she presently sat back and dried her eyes, a delicious ease and
relaxation permeated her whole body. Like a convalescent, weak and
trembling, she drew great breaths of air, rejoicing that the devastating
fever and the burning illusions were gone, and only the quiet weeks of
getting well lay before her.

She sat in the church a long time, staring dreamily before her. Odd
thoughts and memories drifted through her mind now: she was again a
little girl of eight, slipping into the delicatessen store in O'Farrell
Street for pickles and pork sausage; now she was a bride, with Jim in
New York, moving through the dappled spring sunlight of Fifth Avenue, on
the top of a rocking omnibus. She thought of the settlement house:
winter rain streaming down its windows, and she and Miss Toland dining
on chops and apple pie, each deep in a book as she ate; and she
remembered Mark, poor Mark, who had crossed her life only to bring
himself bitter unhappiness, and to leave her the sorrow of an
ineffaceable stain!

Only thirty, yet what a long, long road already lay behind her, how much
sorrow, how much joy! What mistakes and cross purposes had been tangled
into her life and Jim's, Mark's and Richie's, Barbara's and Sally's and
Ted's--into all their lives!

"Perhaps that _is_ life," mused Julia, kneeling down to say one more
little prayer before she went away. "Perhaps my ideal of a clean-swept,
austere little cottage, and a few books, and a few friends, and sunrises
and sunsets--isn't life! It's all a tangle and a struggle, ingratitude
and poverty and dispute all mixed in with love and joy and growth, and
every one of us has to take his share! I have one sort of trouble to
bear, and Mother another, and Jim, I suppose, a third; we can't choose
them for ourselves any more than we could choose the colour of our eyes!
But loving each other--loving each other, as I love Anna, makes
everything easy; it's the cure for it all--it makes everything easier to
bear!" And in a whisper, with a new appreciation of their meaning, she
repeated the familiar words, "Love fulfils the law!"

The next evening, just as the autumn twilight was giving way to dusk,
Julia opened the lower green gate of the Tolands' garden in Sausalito,
and went quietly up the steep path. Roses made dim spots of colour here
and there; under the trees it was almost dark, though a soft light still
lingered on the surface of the bay just below. From the drawing-room
windows pale lamplight fell in clear bars across the gravel, but the
hall was unlighted, the door wide open.

Julia stepped softly inside, her heart beating fast. She had got no
farther than this minute, in her hastily made plans; now she did not
quite know what to do. She knew that Barbara and the boys had gone back
to Richie in Mill Valley. Captain Fox was duck shooting in Novato, and
Constance had returned to her own home. But Ted and her little son
should be here, Janey, Jim, and the widowed mother.

Presently she found Mrs. Toland in the study, seated alone before a
dying fire. Julia kissed the shrivelled soft old cheek, catching as she
did so the faint odour of perfumed powder and fresh crepe.

"Where are the girls, darling, that you're here all alone?" she asked
affectionately.

"Oh, Julie dear! Isn't it nice to see you," Mrs. Toland said, "and so
fresh and rosy, like a breath of fresh air! Where are the girls? Bab's
with Richie, you know, and she took her boys and Ted's Georgie with her,
and Connie had to go home again. I think Ted and Janey went out for a
little walk before dinner."

"And haven't you been out, dear?"

Ready tears came to poor Mrs. Toland's eyes at the tender tone. She
began to beat lightly on Julia's hand with her own.

"I don't seem to want to, dearie," she said with difficulty; "the girls
keep telling me to, but--I don't know! I don't seem to want to. Papa and
I used to like to walk up and down in the garden--"

Speech became too difficult, and she stopped abruptly.

"I know," Julia said sorrowfully.

"It would have been thirty-five years this November," Mrs. Toland
presently said. "We were engaged in August and married in November.
Marriage is a wonderful thing, Julia--it's a wonderful thing! Papa was
very much smarter than I am--I always knew that! But after a while
people come to love each other partly for just that--the differences
between them! And you look back so differently on the mistakes you have
made. I've always been too easy on the girls, and Ned, too, and Papa
knew it, but he never reproached me!" She wiped her eyes quietly. "You
must have had a sensible mother, Julie," she added, after a moment;
"you're such a wise little thing!"

"I don't believe she was very wise," Julia said, smiling, "any more than
I am! I may not make the mistakes with Anna that Mama made with me, but
I'll make others! It's a sort of miracle to see her now, so brave and
good and contented, after all the storms I remember."

Mrs. Toland did not speak for a few moments, then she said:

"Julie, Jim's like a son of my own to me. You'll forgive a fussy old
woman, who loves her children, if she talks frankly to you? Don't throw
away all the future, dear. Not to-day--not to-morrow, perhaps, but some
time, when you can, forgive him! He's changed; he's not what he used to
be--"

Tears were in Julia's eyes now; she slipped to her knees beside Mrs.
Toland's chair, and they cried a little together.

"I came to see him," whispered Julia. "Where is he?"

"He came in about fifteen minutes ago. He's packing. You know his
room--"

Julia mounted the stairs slowly, noiselessly. It was quite dark now
throughout the airy, fragrant big halls, but a crack of light came from
under Jim's door.

She stood outside for a few long minutes, thrilling like a bride with
the realization that she had the right to enter here; where Jim was, was
her sanctuary against the world and its storms.

She knocked, and Jim shouted "Come in!" Julia opened the door and faced
him across a room full of the disorder of packing. Jim was in his shirt
sleeves, his hair rumpled and wild. She slipped inside the door, and
shut it behind her, a most appealing figure in her black gown, with her
uncovered bright hair loosened and softly framing her April face.

"Jim," she said, her heart choking her, "will you take Anna and me with
you? I love you--"

There was time for no more. They were in each other's arms, laughing,
crying, murmuring now and then an incoherent word. Julia clung to her
husband like a storm-driven bird; it seemed to her that her heart would
burst in its ecstasy of content; if the big arms about her had crushed
breath from her body she would have died uncaring.

Jim kissed her wet cheeks, her tumbled hair, her red lips that so
willingly met his own. And when at last the tears were dry, and they
could speak and could look at each other, there was no need for words.
Jim sat on the couch, and Julia sat on his knee, with one arm laid
loosely about his neck in a fashion they had loved years ago, and what
they said depended chiefly upon their eyes and the tones of their voice.

"Oh, Jim--Jim!" Julia rested her cheek against his, "I have needed you
so!"

Jim tightened an arm about her.

"I adore you," he said simply, unashamed of his wet eyes. "Do you love
me?" To this Julia made no answer but a long sigh of utter content.

"Do you?" repeated Jim, after an interval.

"Does this _look_ as if I did?" Julia murmured, not moving.

Silence again, and then Jim said, with a great sigh:

"Oh, Petty, what a long, long time!"

"Thank God it's over!" said Julia softly.

"What made you do it, dear?" Jim asked presently, in the course of a
long rambling talk. At that Julia did straighten up, so that her eyes
might meet his.

"Just seeing you--pray about it, Jim," she said, her eyes filling again,
although her lips were smiling. "I thought that, this time, we would
both pray, and that--even if there are troubles, Jim--we'd remember
that hour in St. Charles's, and think how we longed for each other!"

And resting her cheek against his, Julia began to cry with joy, and Jim
clung to her, his own eyes brimming, and they were very happy.




CHAPTER IX

September daylight, watery and uncertain, and very different from the
golden purity of California's September sunshine, fell in pale oblongs
upon the polished floor of a certain London drawing-room, and battled
with the dancing radiance of a coal fire that sent cheering gleams and
flashes of gold into the duskiest corners of the room.

It was a beautiful room, and a part of a beautiful house, for the
American doctor and his wife, deciding to make the English capital their
home, had searched and waited patiently until in Camden Hill Road they
had discovered a house possessed of just the irresistible combination of
bigness and coziness, beauty and simplicity, for which they had hoped.
In the soft tones of the rugs, the plain and comfortable chairs, the
warm glow of a lamp shade, or the gleam of a leather-bound book, there
was at once a suggestion of discrimination and of informal ease. And
informal yet strangely exhilarating the friends of Doctor and Mrs.
Studdiford found it. Very famous folk liked to sit in these deep chairs,
and talk on and on beside this friendly fire, while London slept, and
the big clock in the hall turned night into morning. No hosts in London
were more popular than the big, genial doctor, and his clever, silent,
and most beautiful wife. Mrs. Studdiford was an essentially genuine
person; the flowers in her drawing-room, like the fruit on her table,
were sure to be sensibly in season; her clothes and her children's
clothes were extraordinarily simple, and her new English friends, simple
and domestic as they were, whatever their rank, found her to be one of
themselves in these things, and took her to their hearts.

Julia herself was sitting before the fire now, one slippered foot to the
blaze. Four years in London life had left her as lovely as ever; perhaps
there was even an increase of beauty in the lines of her closed lips, a
certain accentuation of the old spiritual sweetness in her look. Her
bright hair was still wound about her head in loose braids, and her
severely simple gown of Quaker gray was relieved at the wrists and
throat by transparent frills of white. In her arms lay a baby less than
a year old, a splendid boy, whose eyes, through half-closed lids, were
lazily studying the fire. His little smocked white frock showed sturdy
bare knees, and the fine web of his yellow hair blew like a gold mist
against his mother's breast.

The room's only other occupant, a tall, handsome woman, in a tan cloth
suit, with rich furs, presently turned from the deep curtained arch of a
window. This was Barbara Fox, Lady Curriel now, still thin, and still
with a hint of sharpness and fatigue in her browned face, yet with rare
content and satisfaction written there, too. Barbara's life was full,
and every hour brought its demand on her time, but she was a very happy
woman, devoted to her husband and her three small sons, and idolizing
her baby daughter. Her winters were devoted to the social and political
interests that played so large a part in her husband's life and her own,
but Julia knew that she was far more happy in the summers, when her
brood ran wild over the old manor house at High Darmley, and every
cottager stopped to salute the donkey cart and the shouting heirs of
"the big family."

"Not a sign of them!" said Barbara now, coming from the window to the
fire, and loosening her furs as she sat down opposite Julia. "Is he
asleep?" she added in a cautious undertone.

"Not he!" answered Julia, with a kiss for her son. "He's just lying here
and finking 'bout fings! I don't know where the others can be," she went
on, in evident reference to Barbara's vigil at the window. "Jim said
lunch, and it's nearly one o'clock now! Take your things off, Babbie,
and lunch with us?"

"Positively I mustn't, dear. I must be at home. I've to see the paperers
at two o'clock, and to-morrow morning early, you know, we go back to the
kiddies at the seaside."

"And they're all well?"

"Oh, splendid. Even Mary's out of doors all day, and digging in the
sand! We think Jim's right about Geordie's throat, by the way; it ought
to be done, I suppose, but it doesn't seem to trouble him at all, and it
can wait! Julie dear, why _don't_ you and the boy and Anna come down, if
only for four or five days? Bring nurse, and some old cottons, and a
parasol, and we'll have a lovely, comfy time!"

"But we're just home!" Julia protested laughingly. "I've hardly got
straightened out yet! However, I'll speak to Jim," she went on. "This
gentleman thinks he would like it, and Anna is frantic to see the boys."

"And we must talk!" Barbara added coaxingly. "Is California lovely?"

"Oh--" Julia raised her brows, with her grave smile. "Home is home,
Bab."

"And Mother looks well?"

"Your mother looks _very_ well. But when she and Janey come on in January
you'll see for yourself. Janey's so pretty; I wish she'd marry, but she
never sees any one but Rich! Rich is simply adorable; he had Con and her
husband and little girl with him this summer. Con's getting very
fat--she's great fun! And Ted's very much improved, Bab, very much more
gentle and sweet. She told me about Bob Carleton's death, poor fellow!
She went to see him and took George, and do you know, I don't think Ted
will marry again, although she's handsomer than ever!"

"And Sally's the perfect celebrity's wife?" Barbara asked, with a smile.

"Sally? But I wrote you that," Julia laughed. "Yes, Keith was giving a
concert in Philadelphia when we went through at Easter. So Jim and I
made a special trip down to hear it, and, my dear! The hall was packed,
the women went simply crazy over him, and he's really quite poetical
looking, long hair and all that. And Sally---I saw her at the hotel the
next morning, and such a manner! Protecting the privacy of the genius,
don't you know, and seeing reporters, and answering requests for
autographs, and declining invitations, here, there, and everywhere! I
think she has more fun than Keith does! He's quite helpless without her;
won't see a manager or answer a note, or even order a luncheon! 'Sally,'
he says, handing her a card, 'what do I like? Tell them not to ask me!'
He worships her, and, of course, she worships him; she even said to me
that it was lucky there were no children--Keith hated children!"

"Funny life!" Barbara mused, half laughing. "And your people are well,
Ju?" "Splendidly," Julia smiled. "Mama looks just the same; she was
simply wild about our Georgie--saw him nearly every day, for if I
couldn't go I sent nurse with him. My cousin Marguerite is dead, you
know, and her husband is really a very clever fellow, a tailor, making
lots of money. He and the three children have come to live with Aunt
May; Regina manages the whole crowd; it's really the happiest sort of a
home! Anna had beautiful times there; she remembered it all, and Aunt
May and Mama nearly spoiled her!"

"You couldn't spoil her," Barbara said affectionately. "She is really
the dearest and most precious! Are you going to let La Franz paint her?"

"No." Julia's motherly pride showed only in a sudden brightness in her
blue eyes. "And I hope no one will tell her that he asked! Even at ten,
Bab, they are quite sufficiently aware of admiration. She had on a sort
of greeny-yallery velvet gown the day we met him, and really she was
quite toothsome, if you ask an unprejudiced observer. But Jim and I were
wondering if it's wise to make her _quite_ so picturesque!"

"You can't help it," Barbara said. "She's just as lovely in a Holland
pinny, or a nightie, or a bathing suit! I declare she was too lovely on
the sands last year, with her straw-coloured hair, and a straw-coloured
hat, and her pink cheeks matching a pink apron! She's going to be
prettier than you are, Ju!"

"Well, at that she won't set the Thames afire!" Julia smiled.

"I don't know! You ought to be an absolutely happy woman, Julie."

Julia settled the baby's head more comfortably against her arm, and
raised earnest eyes.

"Is any one, Bab? Are you?"

"Well, yes, I think I am!" Lady Curriel said thoughtfully. "Of course
those months before Francis's uncle died were awfully hard on us all,
and then before Mary came I was wretched; but now--there's really
nothing, except that we do _not_ live within our income when we're in the
town house, and that frets Francis a good deal. Of course I try to
economize in summer, and we catch up, but it's an ever-present worry!
And then our Geordie's throat, you know, and being so far from Mother
and Rich and the girls, of course! But those things really don't count,
Ju. And in the main I'm absolutely happy and satisfied. I'm pleased with
the way my life has gone!"

"Pleased is mild," Julia agreed. "I'd be an utter ingrate to be anything
but pleased, looking back. Jim is exceptional, of course, and Anna and
this young person seem to me pretty nice in their little ways! And when
we went home this year it was really pleasant and touching, I thought;
all San Francisco was gracious; we could have had five times as long a
visit and not worn our welcome out!"

"So much for having been presented," laughed Barbara.

"Well, I suppose so. Mama was wild with interest about it; she has my
photograph, in the gown I wore to the drawing-room, framed on the wall.
But Aunt May was dubious, isn't at all sure that she admires the British
royal family. She's a most delightful person!" Julia laughed out gayly.
"If ever I happen to speak of the Duchess of This or Lady That, Mama's
eyes fairly dance, but Aunt May isn't going to be hoodwinked by any
title. 'Ha!' she says. 'Do you think they're one bit better in the sight
of God than I am?' And I like nothing better than to regale her on their
silliness, tell her how one has forty wigs, and another is so afraid of
losing her diamonds she has a man sit and watch them every night. Long
afterward I hear her exclaiming to herself, 'Wigs, indeed!' or
'Diamonds! Well, did you ever!'"

"When you come to think of it, Ju, _isn't_ it odd to think of your own
people doing their own work, 'way out there on the very edge of the
western world, and you here, in a fair way to become a London
f'yvourite!"

"Doing their own work, indeed!" laughed Julia. "My good lady, you forget
Carrie. Carrie comes in every night to do the dishes, and because she's
coloured, my Aunt May has always felt that she stole sugar and tea.
However, we all laughed at Aunt May this year, when it came to
suspecting Carrie of stealing Regina's face powder! No, but you're quite
right, Bab," she went on more seriously. "It's all very strange and
dramatic. Saturday, when the Duchess came in to welcome us, and flowers
came from all sides, and the Penniscots came to carry us off to dinner,
I really felt, 'Lawk a mussy on me, this can't be I!'"

"Well, then, where _is_ the pill in the jelly?" asked Barbara
solicitously.

Julia had flung back her head and was listening intently. Footsteps and
voices were unmistakably coming up the hall stairs.

"No pills--all jelly!" she had time to say smilingly, before the door
opened and three persons came into the room: Doctor Studdiford,
handsomer and more boyishly radiant than ever; Miss Toland, quite gray,
but erect and vigorous still; and little Anna, a splendid, glowing
ten-year-old, in the blue serge sailor suit and round straw hat made
popular by the little English princess.

Babel followed. Every one must kiss Barbara; little George must come in
for his full share of attention. Presently the beaming Ellie was
summoned, and the children went away with her; Barbara carried off her
aunt for a makeshift luncheon in the dismantled Curriel mansion, and the
Studdifords were left alone.

"We picked Aunt Sanna up at the corner," said Jim, one arm about his
wife as they stood in the window looking down at the departing visitors,
"and of course Anna must drag her along with us to see the baby lion! I
stopped at Lord Essels's, by the way, and it's a perfect knit--can't
tell where one bone stops and the other begins!"

"Oh, Jimmy, you old miracle worker! Aren't you pleased?"

"Well, rath-_er_! And young Lady Essels wants to call on you, Ju; says you
were the loveliest thing at the New Year's ball last year! Remember when
we rushed home to feed Georgie, and rushed back again?"

"Oh, perfectly. I hope she will come; she looked sweet. And every one's
coming to our Tuesday dinner, Jim, except Ivy; notes from them all. Ivy
says Lady Violet is so ill that she can't promise, but Phyllis is coming
with the new husband. She wrote such a cunning note! And--I'll see Ivy
this afternoon, and I think I'll tell her that I'm going to leave her
place open; if she can't come, why we'll just have to have a man over,
that's all! It won't be awfully formal anyway, Jimmy, at this time of
the year!"

"Whatever you say, old lady!" Jim was thinking of something else. "How
do you feel about leaving the kids and going off for a little run with
the Parkes to-morrow night?" he asked. "He's found some new place in
which he wants us to dine and sleep. Home the next morning."

"Well, I could do that," Julia said thoughtfully.

"You're terribly decent about leaving 'em," said Jim, who knew how Julia
hated to be away from Anna and George at night, "but, really, I think
this'll be fun--cards, you know, and a good dinner."

"That's to-morrow?"

"To-morrow." Jim hesitated. "I know you're not crazy about them," he
said.

"I don't _dislike_ them," Julia said brightly. "She's really lots of fun,
but of course he's the Honourable and he's a little spoiled. But I'm
really glad to go. Was Anna nice this morning?"

"Oh, she was lovely--held her little head up and trotted along, asking
_intelligent_ questions, don't you know--not like a chattering kid. She
pitched right into me on the governess question; she's all for Miss
Percival's school, won't hear of a governess for a minute!"

"And the stern parent compromised on Miss Percival?" smiled Julia.

"Well, I only promised for a year," Jim said, shamefaced. "And you were
against the governess proposition, too," he added accusingly.

"Absolutely," she assured him soothingly. "I love to have Anna with me
in the afternoons, and when Bab's in town we can send her over
there--she's no trouble!" Julia turned her face up for a kiss. "Run and
wash your hands, Doctor dear!" said she.

"Yes--and what are you going to do?" Jim asked jealously.

"I'm going to wait for you right here, and we'll go down together," she
said pacifically. Jim took another kiss.

"Happy?" he asked.

Just as he had asked her a thousand times in the past four years. And
always she had answered him, as she did now:

"Happiest woman in the world, Jim!"

The happiest woman in the world! Julia, left alone, still stood dreaming
in the curtained window, her eyes idly following the quiet life of the
sunny street below. A hansom clattered by, an open carriage in which an
old, old couple were taking an airing. Half a square away she could see
the Park, with gray-clad nurses chatting over their racing charges or
the tops of perambulators.

But Julia's thoughts were not with these. A little frown shaded her
eyes, and her mouth was curved by a smile more sad than sweet. The
happiest woman in the world! Yet, as she stood there, she felt an utter
disenchantment with life seize upon her; she felt an overwhelming
weariness in the battle that was not yet over. For Julia knew now that
life to her must be a battle; whatever the years to come might hold for
her, they could not hold more than an occasional heavenly interval of
peace. Peace for Jim, peace for her mother, peace for her children and
for all those whom she loved; but for herself there must be times of an
increasing burden, an increasing weariness, and the gnawing of an
undying fight with utter discouragement. Her secret must never be
anything but a secret; and yet, to Julia, it sometimes seemed that her
only happiness in life would be to shout it to the whole world.

Not always, for there were, of course, serene long stretches of
happiness, confident times in which she was really what she seemed to
be, only beautiful, young, exceptionally fortunate and beloved. But it
was into these very placid intervals that the word or look would enter,
to bring her house of cards crashing about her head once more.

Sometimes, not often, it was a mere casual acquaintance whose chance
remark set the old, old wound to throbbing; or sometimes it was
Barbara's or Miss Toland's praise: "You're so sweet and fine, Ju--if
only we'd all done with our opportunities as you have!" Oftener it was
Jim's voice that consciously or unconsciously on his part stabbed Julia
to the very soul. For him, the sting was gone, because, at the first
prick, Julia was there to take it and bear it. No need to conceal from
her now the bitterness of his moods; she would meet him halfway. He was
worrying about that old affair? Ah, he mustn't do that--here were
Julia's arms about him, her lovely face close to his, her sweet and
earnest sympathy ready to probe bravely into his darkest thought, and
find him some balm. Still gowned from a ball, perhaps, jewelled,
perfumed, dragging her satin train after her, she would come straight
into his arms, with: "Something's worrying you, dearest, tell me what it
is? I _love_ you so--"

No resentment on Jim's part could live for a moment in this atmosphere.
He only wanted to tell her about it, to be soothed like a small boy, to
catch his beautiful wife in his arms, and win from her lips again and
again the assurance that she loved him and him alone. What these scenes
cost Julia's own fine sense of delicacy and dignity, only Julia knew.
They left her with a vague feeling of shame, a consciousness of
compromise. For a day or two after such an episode a new hesitancy would
mark her manner, a certain lack of confidence lend pathos to the
sweetness of her voice.

But no outside influence ever could bring home to her the realization of
the shadow on her life as forcibly as did her own inner musings, the
testimony of her own soul. If she had but been innocent, how easy to
bear Jim's scorn, or the scorn of the whole world! It was the bitter
knowledge that she had taken her life in her own hands nearly twenty
years ago, and wrecked it more surely than if she had torn out her own
eyes, that made her heart sick within her now. She, who loved dignity,
who loved purity, who loved strength, must carry to her grave the
knowledge of her own detestable weakness! She must instruct her
daughter, guarding the blue eyes and the active mind from even the
knowledge of life's ugly side, she must hold the highest standard of
purity before her son, knowing, as she knew, that far back at her life's
beginning, were those few hideous weeks that, in the eyes of the world,
could utterly undo the work of twenty strong and steadfast years! She
must be silent when she longed to cry aloud, she must train herself to
cry aloud at the thing that she had been. And she must silently endure
the terrible fact that her husband knew, and that he would never forget.
Over and over again her spirit shrank at some new evidence of the fact
that, with all his love for her, his admiration, his loyalty, there was
a reservation in her husband's heart, a conviction--of which he was
perhaps not conscious himself--that Julia was not quite as other women.
Her criticism of others must be more gentle, her opinion less
confidently offered. Others might find in her exceptional charms, rare
strength, and rare wisdom--not Jim. For him she was always the exquisite
penitent, who had so royally earned a perpetually renewed forgiveness,
the little crippled playfellow whom it was his delight to carry in his
arms. His judgment for what concerned his children was the wiser, and
for her, too, when she longed to throw herself into this work of reform
or that--to expose herself, in other words, to the very element from
which a kind Providence had seen fit to remove her. Obviously, on
certain subjects there must not be two opinions, in any house, and,
whatever the usual custom, obviously he was the person to decide in his
own.

"Rich says you were not a saint yourself when you were in college, Jim!"
she had burst out once, long years ago, before their separation. But
only once. After all, the laws were not of Jim's making; whatever he had
done, he was a respecter of convention, a keeper of the law of man.
Julia had broken God's law, had repented, and had been forgiven. But she
had also broken the law of man, for which no woman ever is forgiven. And
though this exquisite and finished woman, with her well-stored brain and
ripened mind, her position and her charm, was not the little Julia Page
of the old O'Farrell Street days, she must pay the price of that other
Julia's childish pride and ignorance still.

She must go on, listening, with her wise, wistful smile, to the chatter
of other women, wincing at a thousand little pricks that even her
husband could not see, winning him from his ugly moods with that mixture
of the child and the woman that his love never could resist.

His love! After all he did love her and his children, and she loved the
three with every fibre of heart and soul. Julia ended her reverie, as
she always ended her reveries, with a new glow of hope in her heart and
a half smile on her lips. Their love would save them all--love fulfilled
the law.

"Julia!" said Jim, at the door, "where are you?"

She turned in her window recess.

"Not escaped, O Sultan!"

"Well"--he had his arm about her, his air was that of a humoured
child--"I didn't suppose you had! But I hate you to go down without me!"

"Well, the poor abused boy!" Julia laughed. "Come, we'll go down
together!"

"What were you thinking of, standing there all that time?" he asked.

"You principally, Doctor Studdiford!" Julia gave him a quick sidewise
glance.

"Glad I came out to the Mission to fix the Daley kid's arm?" Jim asked.

"Glad!" said Julia softly, with a great sigh that belied her smile. They
took each other's hands, like children, and went down the broad stairway
together.

THE END







End of Project Gutenberg's The Story Of Julia Page, by Kathleen Norris