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, an