ck 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 ener