The sun slipped down and down the sky, and the air rose chilly and sweet from the damp earth. It began to grow dark. Susan began to feel a nervous apprehension that somehow, in leaving the field, she and Th.o.r.n.y would become awkwardly involved in Mrs. Fox's party, would seem to be trying to include themselves in this distinguished group.

"We've got to rush," she muttered, b.u.t.toning up her coat.

"Oh, what's your hurry?" asked Th.o.r.n.y, who would not have objected to the very thing Susan dreaded.

"It's so dark!" Susan said, pushing ahead. They were carried by the crowd through the big gates, out to the street. Lights were beginning to p.r.i.c.k through the dusk, a long line of street cars was waiting, empty and brightly lighted. Suddenly Susan felt a touch on her shoulder.

"Lord, you're in a rush!" said Peter Coleman, pushing through the crowd to join them. He was somehow dragging Mrs. Fox with him, the lady seemed outraged and was breathless. Peter brought her triumphantly up to Susan.

"Now what is it that you want me to do, you ridiculous boy!" gasped Mrs. Fox,--"ask Miss Brown to come and have tea with us, is that it?

I'm chaperoning a few of the girls down to the Palace for a cup of tea, Miss Brown,--perhaps you will waive all formality, and come too?"

Susan didn't like it, the "waive all formality" showed her exactly how Mrs. Fox regarded the matter. Her pride was instantly touched. But she longed desperately to go. A sudden thought of the politely interested Th.o.r.n.y decided her.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you, Mr. Coleman," she smiled, "but I can't, to-night. Miss Thornton and I are just--"

"Don't decline on MY account, Miss Brown," said Th.o.r.n.y, mincingly, "for I have an engagement this evening, and I have to go straight home--"

"No, don't decline on any account!" Peter said masterfully, "and don't tell wicked lies, or you'll get your mouth washed out with soap! Now, I'll put Miss Thornton on her car, and you talk to Hart here--Miss Brown, this is Mr. Hart--Gordon, Miss Brown--until I come back!"

He disappeared with Th.o.r.n.y, and Susan, half terrified, half delighted, talked to Mr. Hart at quite a desperate rate, as the whole party got on the dummy of a car. Just as they started, Peter Coleman joined them, and during the trip downtown Susan kept both young men laughing, and was her gayest, happiest self.

The Palace Hotel, grimy and dull in a light rainfall, was nevertheless the most enchanting place in the world to go for tea, as Susan knew by instinct, or hearsay, or tradition, and as all these other young people had proved a hundred times. A covered arcade from the street led through a row of small, bright shops into the very center of the hotel, where there was an enormous court called the "Palm-garden," walled by eight rising tiers of windows, and roofed, far above, with gla.s.s. At one side of this was the little waiting-room called the "Turkish Room,"

full of Oriental inlay and draperies, and embroideries of daggers and crescents.

To Susan the place was enchanting beyond words. The coming and going of strange people, the arriving carriages with their slipping horses, the luggage plastered with labels, the little shops,--so full of delightful, unnecessary things, candy and glace fruits, and orchids and exquisite Chinese embroideries, and postal cards, and theater tickets, and oranges, and paper-covered novels, and alligator pears! The very sight of these things aroused in her heart a longing that was as keen as pain. Oh, to push her way, somehow, into the world, to have a right to enjoy these things, to be a part of this brilliant, moving show, to play her part in this wonderful game!

Mrs. Fox led the girls of her party to the Turkish Room to-night, where, with much laughter and chatter, they busied themselves with small combs, mirrors powder boxes, hairpins and veils. One girl, a Miss Emily Saunders, even loosened her long, thin, silky hair, and let it fall about her shoulders, and another took off her collar while she rubbed and powdered her face.

Susan sat rather stiffly on a small, uncomfortable wooden chair, entirely ignored, and utterly miserable. She smiled, as she looked pleasantly from one face to another, but her heart was sick within her.

No one spoke to her, or seemed to realize that she was in the room. A steady stream of talk--such gay, confidential talk!--went on.

"Let me get there, Connie, you old pig, I'm next. Listen, girls, did you hear Ward to-day? Wasn't that the richest ever, after last night!

Ward makes me tired, anyway. Did Margaret tell you about Richard and Ward, last Sunday? Isn't that rich! I don't believe it, but to hear Margaret tell it, you'd think--Wait a minute, Louise, while I pin this up! Whom are you going with to-night? Are you going to dinner there?

Why don't you let us call for you? That's all right, bring him along.

Will you? All right. That's fine. No, and I don't care. If it comes I'll wear it, and if it doesn't come I'll wear that old white rag,--it's filthy, but I don't care. Telephone your aunt, Con, and then we can all go together. Love to, darling, but I've got a suitor. You have not! I have TOO! Who is it? Who is it, I like that! Isn't she awful, Margaret? Mother has an awful crush on you, Mary, she said--Wait a minute! I'm just going to powder my nose. Who said Joe Chickering belonged to you? What nerve! He's mine. Isn't Joe my property? Don't come in here, Alice, we're just talking about you--"

"Oh, if I could only slip out somehow!" thought Susan desperately. "Oh, if only I hadn't come!"

Their loosened wraps were displaying all sorts of pretty little costumes now. Susan knew that the simplest of blue linen shirtwaists was under her own coat. She had not courage to ask to borrow a comb, to borrow powder. She knew her hair was mussed, she knew her nose was shiny--

Her heart was beating so fast, with angry resentment of their serene rudeness, and shame that she had so readily accepted the casual invitation that gave them this chance to be rude, that she could hardly think. But it seemed to be best, at any cost, to leave the party now, before things grew any worse. She would make some brief excuse to Mrs.

Fox,--headache or the memory of an engagement--

"Do you know where Mrs. Fox is?" she asked the girl nearest her. For Mrs. Fox had sauntered out into the corridor with some idea of summoning the men.

The girl did not answer, perhaps did not hear. Susan tried again.

"Do you know where Mrs. Fox went to?"

Now the girl looked at her for a brief instant, and rose, crossing the little room to the side of another girl.

"No, I really don't," she said lightly, civilly, as she went.

Susan's face burned. She got up, and went to the door. But she was too late. The young men were just gathering there in a noisy group. It appeared that there was sudden need of haste. The "rooters" were to gather in the court presently, for more cheering, and n.o.body wanted to miss the sight.

"Come, girls! Be quick!" called Mrs. Fox. "Come, Louise, dear! Connie,"

this to her own daughter, "you and Peter run ahead, and ask for my table. Peter, will you take Connie? Come, everybody!"

Somehow, they had all paired off, in a flash, without her. Susan needed no further spur. With more a.s.surance than she had yet shown, she touched the last girl, as she pa.s.sed, on the arm. It chanced to be Miss Emily Saunders. She and her escort both stopped, laughing with that nervous apprehension that seizes their cla.s.s at the appearance of the unexpected.

"Miss Saunders," said Susan quickly, "will you tell Mrs. Fox that my headache is much worse. I'm afraid I'd better go straight home--"

"Oh, too bad!" Miss Saunders said, her round, pale, rather unwholesome face, expressing proper regret. "Perhaps tea will help it?" she added sweetly.

It was the first personal word Susan had won. She felt suddenly, horrifyingly--near to tears.

"Oh, thank you, I'm afraid not!" she smiled bravely. "Thank you so much. And tell her I'm sorry. Good-night."

"Good-night!" said Miss Saunders. And Susan went, with a sense of escape and relief, up the long pa.s.sageway, and into the cool, friendly darkness of the streets. She had an unreasoning fear that they might follow her, somehow bring her back, and walked a swift block or two, rather than wait for the car where she might be found.

Half an hour later she rushed into the house, just as the Thanksgiving dinner was announced, half-mad with excitement, her cheeks ablaze, and her eyes unnaturally bright. The scene in the dining-room was not of the gayest; Mrs. Lancaster and Virginia were tired and depressed, Mary Lou nervously concerned for the dinner, Georgie and almost all of the few boarders who had no alternative to dining in a boarding-house to-day were cross and silent.

But the dinner was delicious, and Susan, arriving at the crucial moment, had a more definite effect on the party than a case of champagne would have had. She chattered recklessly and incessantly, and when Mrs. Lancaster's mild "Sue, dear!" challenged one remark, she capped it with another still less conventional.

Her spirits were infectious, the gaiety became general. Mrs. Parker laughed until the tears streamed down her fat cheeks, and Mary Lord, the bony, sallow-faced, crippled sister who was the light and joy of Lydia Lord's drudging life, and who had been brought downstairs to-day as a special event, at a notable cost to her sister's and William Oliver's muscles, nearly choked over her cranberry sauce. Susan insisted that everyone should wear the paper caps that came in the bonbons, and looked like a pretty witch herself, under a cone-shaped hat of pink and blue. When, as was usual on all such occasions, a limited supply of claret came on with the dessert, she brought the whole company from laughter very close to tears, as she proposed, with pretty dignify, a toast to her aunt, "who makes this house such a happy home for us all." The toast was drunk standing, and Mrs. Lancaster cried into her napkin, with pride and tender emotion.

After dinner the diminished group trailed, still laughing and talking, upstairs to the little drawing-room, where perhaps seven or eight of them settled about the coal fire. Mrs. Lancaster, looking her best in a low-necked black silk, if rather breathless after the hearty dinner, eaten in too-tight corsets, had her big chair, Georgia curled girlishly on a footstool at her feet. Miss Lydia Lord stealthily ate a soda mint tablet now and then; her sister, propped with a dozen pillows on the sofa, fairly glowed with the unusual pleasure and excitement. Little Mrs. Cortelyou rocked back and forth; always loquacious, she was especially talkative after to-night's gla.s.s of wine.

Virginia, who played certain simple melodies very prettily, went to the piano and gave them "Maryland" and "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,"

and was heartily applauded. Mary Lou was finally persuaded to sing Tosti's "Farewell to Summer," in a high, sweet, self-conscious soprano.

Susan had disappeared. Just after dinner she had waylaid William Oliver, with a tense, "Will you walk around the block with me, Billy? I want to talk to you," and William, giving her a startled glance, had quietly followed her through the dark lower hall, and into the deserted, moonlighted, wind-swept street. The wind had fallen: stars were shining.

"Billy," said Susan, taking his arm and walking him along very rapidly, "I'm going away--"

"Going away?" he said sympathetically. This statement always meant that something had gone very wrong with Susan.

"Absolutely!" Susan said pa.s.sionately. "I want to go where n.o.body knows me, where I can make a fresh start. I'm going to Chicago."

"What the DEUCE are you raving about?" Mr. Oliver asked, stopping short in the street. "What have you been doing now?"

"Nothing!" Susan said, with suddenly br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes. "But I hate this place, and I hate everyone in it, and I'm simply sick of being treated as if, just because I'm poor--"

"You sound like a b.u.m second act, with somebody throwing a handful of torn paper down from the wings!" Billy observed. But his tone was kinder than his words, and Susan, laying a hand on his coat sleeve, told him the story of the afternoon; of Mrs. Fox, with her supercilious smile; of the girls, so bitterly insulting; of Peter, involving her in these embarra.s.sments and then forgetting to stand by her.

"If one of those girls came to us a stranger," Susan declared, with a heaving breast, "do you suppose we'd treat her like that?"

"Well, that only proves we have better manners than they have!"