"Suppose it is," Susan said, satisfied that he should think so. "That doesn't give YOU any right to interfere with my affairs!"

"You're just like Georgie and Mary Lou," he told her, "always bluffing yourself. But you've got more brains than they have, Sue, and it'd give the whole crowd of them a hand up if you made a marriage like that.

Don't think I'm trying to b.u.t.t in," he gave her his winning, apologetic smile, "you know I'm as interested as your own brother could be, Sue!

If you like him, don't keep the matter hanging fire. There's no question that he's crazy about you--everybody knows that!"

"No, there's no question about THAT," Susan said, softly.

But what would she not have given for the joy of knowing, in her secret heart, that it was true!

Two weeks later, Miss Brown, summoned to Mr. Brauer's office, was asked if she thought that she could do the crediting, at forty dollars a month. Susan a.s.sented gravely, and entered that day upon her new work, and upon a new era. She worked hard and silently, now, with only occasional flashes of her old silliness. She printed upon a card, and hung above her desk, these words:

"I hold it true, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves, to higher things."

On stepping-stones of her dead selves, Susan mounted. She wore a preoccupied, a responsible air, her voice softened, her manner was almost too sweet, too bright and gentle. She began to take cold, or almost cold, baths daily, to brush her hair and mend her gloves. She began to say "Not really?" instead of "Sat-so?" and "It's of no consequence," instead of "Don't matter." She called her long woolen coat, familiarly known as her "sweater," her "field-jacket," and p.r.o.nounced her own name "Syusan." Th.o.r.n.y, Georgianna, and Billy had separately the pleasure of laughing at Susan in these days.

"They should really have a lift, to take the girls up to the lunch room," said Susan to Billy.

"Of course they should," said Billy, "and a sink to bring you down again!"

Peter Coleman did not return to San Francisco until the middle of March, but Susan had two of the long, ill-written and ill-spelled letters that are characteristic of the college graduate. It was a wet afternoon in the week before Holy Week when she saw him again. Front Office was very busy at three o'clock, and Miss Garvey had been telling a story.

"'Don't whistle, Mary, there's a good girl,' the priest says," related Miss Garvey. "'I never like to hear a girl whistle,' he says. Well, so that night Aggie,"--Aggie was Miss Kelly--"Aggie wrote a question, and she put it in the question-box they had at church for questions during the Mission. 'Is it a sin to whistle?' she wrote. And that night, when he was readin' the questions out from the pulpit, he come to this one, and he looked right down at our pew over his gla.s.ses, and he says, 'The girl that asks this question is here,' he says, 'and I would say to her, 'tis no sin to do anything that injures neither G.o.d nor your neighbor!' Well, I thought Aggie and me would go through the floor!"

And Miss Kelly and Miss Garvey put their heads down on their desks, and laughed until they cried.

Susan, looking up to laugh too, felt a thrill weaken her whole body, and her spine grow cold. Peter Coleman, in his gloves and big overcoat, with his hat on the back of his head, was in Mr. Brauer's office, and the electric light, turned on early this dark afternoon, shone full in his handsome, clean-shaven face.

Susan had some bills that she had planned to show to Mr. Brauer this afternoon. Six months ago she would have taken them in to him at once, and been glad of the excuse. But now she dropped her eyes, and busied herself with her work. Her heart beat high, she attacked a particularly difficult bill, one she had been avoiding for days, and disposed of it in ten minutes.

A little later she glanced at Mr. Brauer's office. Peter was gone, and Susan felt a sensation of sickness. She looked down at Mr. Baxter's office, and saw him there, spreading kodak pictures over the old man's desk, laughing and talking. Presently he was gone again, and she saw him no more that day.

The next day, however, she found him at her desk when she came in. They had ten minutes of inconsequential banter before Miss Cash.e.l.l came in.

"How about a fool trip to the Chutes to-morrow night?" Peter asked in a low tone, just before departing.

"Lent," Susan said reluctantly.

"Oh, so it is. I suppose Auntie wouldn't stand for a dinner?"

"Pos-i-to-ri-ly NOT!" Susan was hedged with convention.

"Positorily not? Well, let's walk the pup? What? All right, I'll come at eight."

"At eight," said Susan, with a dancing heart.

She thought of nothing else until Friday came, slipped away from the office a little earlier than usual, and went home planning just the gown and hat most suitable. Visitors were in the parlor; Auntie, thinking of pan-gravy and hot biscuits, was being visibly driven to madness by them. Susan charitably took Mrs. Cobb and Annie and Daisy off Mrs. Lancaster's hands, and listened sympathetically to a dissertation upon the thanklessness of sons. Mrs. Cobb's sons, leaving their mother and their unmarried sisters in a comfortable home, had married the women of their own choice, and were not yet forgiven.

"And how's Alfie doing?" Mrs. Cobb asked heavily, departing.

"Pretty well. He's in Portland now, he has another job," Susan said cautiously. Alfred was never criticized in his mother's hearing. A moment later she closed the hall door upon the callers with a sigh of relief, and ran downstairs.

The telephone bell was ringing. Susan answered it.

"h.e.l.lo Miss Brown! You see I know you in any disguise!" It was Peter Coleman's voice.

"h.e.l.lo!" said Susan, with a chill premonition.

"I'm calling off that party to-night," said Peter. "I'm awfully sorry.

We'll do it some other night. I'm in Berkeley."

"Oh, very well!" Susan agreed, brightly.

"Can you HEAR me? I say I'm---"

"Yes, I hear perfectly."

"What?"

"I say I can hear!"

"And it's all right? I'm awfully sorry!"

"Oh, certainly!"

"All right. These fellows are making such a racket I can't hear you.

See you to-morrow!"

Susan hung up the receiver. She sat quite still in the darkness for awhile, staring straight ahead of her. When she went into the dining-room she was very sober. Mr. Oliver was there; he had taken one of his men to a hospital, with a burned arm, too late in the afternoon to make a return to the foundry worth while.

"Harkee, Susan wench!" said he, "do 'ee smell asparagus?"

"Aye. It'll be asparagus, Gaffer," said Susan dispiritedly, dropping into her chair.

"And I nearly got my dinner out to-night!" Billy said, with a shudder.

"Say, listen, Susan, can you come over to the Carrolls, Sunday? Going to be a bully walk!"

"I don't know, Billy," she said quietly.

"Well, listen what we're all going to do, some Thursday. We're going to the theater, and then dawdle over supper at some cheap place, you know, and then go down on the docks, at about three, to see the fishing fleet come in? Are you on? It's great. They pile the fish up to their waists, you know--"

"That sounds lovely!" said Susan, eying him scornfully. "I see Jo and Anna Carroll enjoying THAT!"

"Lord, what a grouch you've got!" Billy said, with a sort of awed admiration.

Susan began to mold the damp salt in an open gla.s.s salt-cellar with the handle of a fork. Her eyes blurred with sudden tears.

"What's the matter?" Billy asked in a lowered voice.

She gulped, merely shook her head.