PART ONE - CHAPTER III

by Kathleen Norris

　　By just what mental processes Emeline Page had come to feel herself adignified martyr in a world full of oppressed women, it would bedifficult to say: Emeline herself would have been the last person fromwhom a reasonable explanation might have been expected. But it was afact that she never missed an opportunity to belittle the male sex; shehad never had much charm for men, she had none now, and consequently sheassociated chiefly with women: with widows and grass widows of her owntype, and with the young actresses and would-be actresses of the curioussocial level upon which she lived. Emeline's lack of charm was the mostvaluable moral asset she had. Had she attracted men she would not longhave remained virtuous, for she was violently opposed to any restrictionupon her own desires, no matter how well established a restriction orhow generally accepted it might be. For a little while after George'sgoing, Emeline had indeed frequently used the term "if I marry again,"but of late years she had rather softened to his memory, and enjoyedabusing other men while she revelled in a fond recollection of George'sgoodness.

　　"God knows I was only a foolish girl," Emeline would say, resting coldwet feet against the open oven door while Julia pressed a frill. "Butyour papa never was anything but a perfect ge'man, never! I'll neverforget one night when he took me to Grant's Cafe for dinner! I was alldressed 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 morethan 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 agood 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 aselaborately as possible, and went out into the Mission to see herparents. With the singular readiness to change the known discomfort forthe unknown, characteristic of their class, the various young members ofthe family had all gone away now, and lonely old Mrs. Cox, a shrivelledlittle shell of a woman at sixty-five, always had a warm welcome for heroldest daughter and her beautiful grandchild. She would limp about herbare, uninviting little rooms, complaining of her husband's increasingmeanness and of her own physical ills, while with gnarled, twisted oldhands she filled a "Rebecca" teapot of cheap brown glaze, or cut into afresh loaf of "milk bread."

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

　　"Not to speak to, Mom. But"—and Emeline would lay down the littlemirror in which she was studying her face—"but the Rosenthal childrensay that there's a man who's always hanging about the lower doorway, andthat 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 Emelinewould be to really believe even one tenth of these flatteringsuspicions.

　　A few weeks after Julia's long day of events with Artheris, with CarterHazzard, and young Rosenthal, she chanced to awaken one Saturday morningto a pleasant, undefined sensation that life was sweet. She thought ofMr. Hazzard, whom she had seen twice since their first meeting, but notalone again. And she reflected with satisfaction that she knew her partof "The Amazons" perfectly, and so was ready for the first rehearsalto-day. This led to a little dream of the leading lady failing to appearon the great night, and of Julia herself in Lady Noel's part; of Juliasubsequently adored and envied by the entire cast; of Carter Hazzard——

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

　　He knew that his father was not so clever as he was, and why. He sawthat his mother was worn out with housework and child-bearing. He didnot idealize their home, where father, mother, and seven children werecrowded into four rooms, and where of an evening the smell of cabbagesoup and herrings, of soap-suds and hot irons on woollen, of inky schoolbooks and perspiring humanity, mingled with the hot, oily breath of thelamp.

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

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

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

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

　　Julia often had dinner with the Rosenthals; she loved every separatemember of the family and she knew they all loved her. She used to runupstairs and pop her pretty head into the Rosenthal kitchen perhapstwice a week, sure of a welcome and a good meal. On the occasion sosignificant to Mark she had been there when he got in from work, helpinghis sisters Sophy and Hannah with that careless disposition of ironknives, great china sugar bowl, oddly assorted plates, and thick cupsthat was known as "setting the table."

　　Mark had noticed then that Julia's figure was getting very pretty, andhe watched her coming and going with a real pleasure. She sat next himat table, and, conscious as he was of her nearness and of himself, hefound her unconsciousness very charming. Julia had burned her armserving 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 ofanything but Julia. It made him angry and self-contemptuous, but he wasno 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 withdisappointment at the mere thought of bondage so soon, and especiallythis bondage. But the sweetness of her stole upon his sensesnevertheless, tangling about him like a drifting bit of vaporous mist;he had no sooner detached one section of it than another blew across hiseyes, set pulses to beating in his temples, and shook his whole bodywith a delicious weakness.

　　And then came the night when she had not kept her appointment, and hehad followed her to the Alcazar Theatre, and later kissed her in thedark hallway. Then Mark knew. From the instant her fresh lips touchedhis, and he felt the soft yielding as he drew her to him, Mark knew thathe was of the world's lovers. He wanted her with all the deep passion offirst love—first love in an ardent and romantic and forceful nature.His dreams did not change; Julia changed to fit them. She was everythingfor which he had ever longed, she was perfection absolute. She becamehis music, his business, his life. Every little girl, every old womanthat he passed in the street, made him think of Julia, and when hepassed 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 sweptMark from head to foot.

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

　　He ate his lunch, of butterless bread and sausage, and an entirefive-cent pie, in a piano wareroom, taking great bites, with dreamystudying of the walls and long delays between. Then he wandered downthrough the empty offices—it was Saturday afternoon and Pomeroy andParke closed promptly at twelve—had a brief chat with the Japanesejanitor, and washed his hands and combed his hair very conscientiouslyin the president's own lavatory.

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

　　The big flexible fingers still needed training, but they showed theresult of hours and hours of patient practice, too. Through his sevenyears in the music house, Mark had been faithful to his gift. He made nosecret of it, his associates knew that he came back after dinner to thevery 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 occasionto which the boy still looked back with hot shame. For when his obligingold employer had settled himself to listen after hours on an appointedafternoon, and Mark had opened the piano, the performer suddenly foundhis spine icy, his hands wet and clumsy. He felt as if he had nevertouched 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. Butjust 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 tooambitious a choice, eh? We must all be ambitious, but we must know ourlimitations, 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 verysensibly went at his practicing again. On this particular Saturdayafternoon he attacked a certain phrase in the bass, and for almost anhour 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 familiarlittle pain sprang into his left wrist.

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

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

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

　　Mark found her incoherence delicious; her being here, in his ownfamiliar stamping-ground, one of the thrilling and exciting episodes ofhis life. He could have shouted—have danced for pure joy as he jumpedup to welcome her. Julia declared that she had to "fly," but Markinsisted—and she found his insistence curiously pleasant—upon showingher about, leading her from office to office, beaming at her whenevertheir eyes met. And he must play her the little Schumann, he said, butno—for that Julia positively would not wait; she jerked him by one handtoward the door. Mark had his second kiss before they emerged laughingand 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 leastearlier by a full quarter hour than the rest of the caste. She took anorchestra seat in the empty auditorium at the doorkeeper's suggestion,and yawned, and stared at the coatless back of a man who was tuning theorchestra piano.

　　Presently two distinguished looking girls, beautifully dressed, came in,and sat down near her in a rather uncertain way, and began to laugh andtalk in low tones. Neither cast a glance at Julia, who promptly decidedthat they were hateful snobs, and began to regard them with burningresentment. They had been there only a few moments when two young mensauntered down the aisle, unmistakably gentlemen, and genuine enough toexpress their enjoyment of this glimpse of a theatre betweenperformances. 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 othershad done. This was an extremely pretty girl of perhaps eighteen, withdark hair and dark bright eyes, and a very fresh bright colour. Her gownwas plain but beautifully fitting, and her wide hat was crowned with asingle long ostrich plume. She peered at the young men.

　　"Hello, Bobby—hello, Gray!" she said gayly, and then, catching sight ofthe two other girls across the aisle, she added: "Oh, hello, Helen—howdo 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!" intones 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 Juliafound instantly enviable. "Why, we're all out in the foyer—Mother'shere, chaperoning away like mad, and nearly all the others! And"—shewhisked a little gold watch into sight—"my dears, it's twenty minutesto four!"

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

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

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

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

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

　　"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 saidlanguidly:

　　"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 otherladies of the caste dubiously. The girl called Barbara Toland now cameforward with her ready graciousness, and the two girls looked fairlyinto each other's eyes.

　　"Miss Page," said Barbara, and then impatiently to the manager, "Do goahead 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. Thewavering 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; thegirls fluttered nervously over cues, could not repeat the simplest linewithout a half-giggling "Let's see—yes, I come in here," and were onlyfairly 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 thatshe 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 rushof triumph that she had "shown those girls!" She had an exhilaratingafternoon, for the men buzzed about her on every possible occasion, andshe knew that the other girls, for all their lofty indifference, werekeenly conscious of it.

　　She went out through the theatre with the others, at an early six. Theyoung people straggled along the aisle in great confusion, laughing andchattering. Mrs. Toland, a plump, merry, handsomely dressed woman, wasanxious 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 Dadwent 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. EnidHazzard, a rather noisy girl, who played Noel Belturbet, elected to gohome with the Babcocks. This freed from all responsibility her brotherCarter, who had suddenly appeared to act as escort. Julia, slipping upthe darkening street, after a few moments spent in watching this crowdof 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 tothump.

　　"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 thereputation of San Francisco's neighbourhoods, but Carter gave her asurprised look. When Julia, quite unembarrassed, stopped at the doorbeside the saloon, he was the more confused of the two, although theaccident of seeing him again had set the blood to racing in Julia'sveins and made speech difficult. She had been longing for just this; shewas 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 bythe shoulders he said now, inconsequently: "Do you know you're theprettiest girl that ever was?"

　　"Am I?" said Julia, in a whisper.

　　"You know you are—you—you little flirt!" Hazzard said, his eyes threeinches from hers. For a tense second neither stirred, then the manstraightened up suddenly: "Well!" he said loudly. "That'll be about allof that. Good-night, my dear!"

　　He turned abruptly away, and Julia, smiling her little inscrutablesmile, went slowly upstairs. The bedroom was dark, unaired, and indisorder. Julia looked about it dreamily, picked her library book fromthe floor and read a few pages of "Aunt Johnnie," sitting meanwhile onthe edge of the unmade bed, and chewing a piece of gum that had beenpressed, a neat bead, upon the back of a chair. After a while she gotup, powdered her nose, and rubbed her finger-nails with a buffer—abuffer 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 wereusually late.

　　During the ensuing fortnight there were two or three more rehearsals of"The Amazons" at the Grand Opera House, which only confirmed Julia'sfirst impression of her fellow-players. The men she liked, and flirtedwith; for the girls she had a supreme contempt. She found herselfyounger, prettier, and a better actress than the youngest, prettiest,and cleverest among them. While these pampered daughters of wealth wentawkwardly through their parts, and chatted in subdued tones amongthemselves, Julia rattled her speeches off easily, laughed and talkedwith all the young men in turn, posed and pirouetted as one born to thefootlights. If Julia fancied that any girl was betraying a preferencefor any particular man, against that man she directed the full batteryof her charms. Carter Hazzard came to every rehearsal, and was quiteopenly her slave. He did not offer to walk home with her again, butJulia knew that he was conscious of her presence whenever she was nearhim, and spun a mad little dream about a future in which she queened itover 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 andpleasures. Mark was assuming more and more the attitude of a lover, andJulia was too much of a coquette to discourage him utterly. She reallyliked him, and loved the stolen hours in Pomeroy and Parke's big pianohouse, when Mark, flinging his hair out of his eyes, played like anangel, and Julia nibbled caramels and sat curled up on the davenport,watching him. And through the casual attentions of other men, theoccasional flattering half-hours with Carter Hazzard, the evenings ofgossip at Mrs. Tarbury's, and round the long table at Montiverte's,Julia liked to sometimes think of Mark; his admiration was a littlewarm, reassuring background for all the other thoughts of the day.

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

　　"Oh, Miss Page," said Barbara nervously, "I wanted to—but were yougoing somewhere?"

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

　　"Well, I—I hope you won't think this is funny, but, well, I'll tellyou," stammered Barbara, very red. "I know you don't know us all verywell, you know—it's different with us—we've all been brought uptogether—but I didn't know whether you knew—perhaps you did—thatCarter Hazzard is married?"

　　Julia felt stunned, and a little sick. She got only the meaning of thewords, their value would come later. But with a desperate effort shepulled 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. "Buthe—he has a teasing sort of way, you know. His wife is in San Diegonow, with her own people."

　　"Yes, he told me that," Julia said, only longing to escape before amaddening impulse to cry overpowered her. Barbara saw the truth, andlaid 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 wristsin her eyes. Barbara, very much distressed, shielded her as well as shecould from the eyes of possible passers-by, and patted her shoulder witha gloved hand.

　　"I don't know why—perfectly crazy—" gulped Julia, desperately fightingthe sobs that shook her. "And I've had a dreadful headache all day," shebroke out, pitifully, beginning to mop her eyes with a foldedhandkerchief, her face still turned away from Barbara.

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

　　"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 abeast, and that there was something very pitiful about common littleignorant Miss Page, and that she wouldn't tell the girls about this, andgive them one more cause to laugh at the little actress. For BarbaraToland was a conscientious girl, and very seriously impressed with thegravity of her own responsibility toward other people.

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

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

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

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

　　"I'm going to Santa Rosa on important business, deary," Emeline hadscribbled, "and you'd better go to Min's for a few days. I'll write andleave you know if there is anything in it, otherwise there's no usegetting Min and the girls started talking. There's ten dollars in thehairpin 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, andthe lady and Julia were in the room shared by Miss Connie Girard andMiss Rose Ransome. Both the young actresses had previously appeared in askit at a local vaudeville house, but had come home to prepare for asupper to be given by friends in their own profession, after thetheatres had closed. Each girl had a bureau of her own, hopelesslycluttered and crowded, and over each bureau an unshielded gas jetflared.

　　"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 mirroras she carefully rouged her lips. "Don't you get any silly notions inyour 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 fora josh with the boys, but she's as straight as a string! You'll findthat she's got some good reason for this!"

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

　　But she really gave less thought to her mother than to the stingingmemory of Barbara Toland's generosity and Carter Hazzard's deception.She settled down contentedly enough, sharing the room with Connie andRose, and sharing their secrets, and her visit to old Mrs. Cox wasindefinitely postponed. The girls drifted about together, in and out oftheatres, in and out of restaurants and hotels, reading cheap theatricalmagazines, talking of nothing but their profession. The days were longand dull, the evenings feverish; Julia liked it all. She had no veryhigh 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 acomfortable, irresponsible, diverting existence, at its worst.

　　Emeline did not write her daughter for nearly two weeks, but Julia wasnot left in doubt of her mother's moral and physical safety for thattime. Only two or three days after Emeline's disappearance Julia wascalled upon by a flashily dressed, coarse-featured man of perhaps fortywho introduced himself—in a hoarse voice heavy with liquor—as DickPalmer.

　　"I used to know your Pop when you's only a kid," said the caller, "and Iknow 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 dreadfuldrawing-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'ssick. 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 withhis air of secrecy, "there's a party there that runs theboarding-house—her name's Lottie Clute, she's had it for years, andshe's got on to the fact that George is insured for nine thousanddollars, d'ye see? Well, she's got him to promise to make the policyover to her."

　　"Ha!" said Julia, interested at last.

　　"Well, d'ye see?" said Mr. Palmer triumphantly. "So I come up to townlast week, and I thought I'd drop in on your Mamma! No good letting thisother 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 ahoarse tribute to the beauty of his old friend's daughter, and Juliadismissed 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 hadended somewhat flatly, was nevertheless very sanguine about Julia'ssuccess. She took Julia to see various managers, who were invariablyinterested and urbane, and Julia, deciding bitterly that she would haveno 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 asort of sullen hauteur.

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

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

　　Julia shook her head.

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

　　"Oh, you must," said Barbara brightly. "Do try! You take the one-forty-fivefrom the Sausalito ferry, and somebody'll meet you! And if weshould be kept later than we expect, somebody'll bring you home!"

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

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

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