Saturday's Child Part 19

"I know--I know," Susan answered, smiling with an effort. She went to bed a little while later profoundly depressed.

It was all true, it was all true! But, now that she had it, it seemed so little! She was beginning to be popular in the Saunders set,--her unspoiled freshness appealed to more than one new friend, as it had appealed to Peter Coleman and to Emily and Ella Saunders. She was carried off for Sat.u.r.day matinees, she was in demand for one Sunday after another. She was always gay, always talkative, she had her value, as she herself was beginning to perceive. And, although she met very few society men, just now, being called upon to amuse feminine luncheons or stay overnight with Emily when n.o.body else was at home, still her social progress seemed miraculously swift to Th.o.r.n.y, to Billy and Georgie and Virginia, even sometimes to herself. But she wanted more--more--more! She wanted to be one of this group herself, to patronize instead of accepting patronage.

Slowly her whole nature changed to meet this new hope. She made use of every hour now, discarded certain questionable expressions, read good books, struggled gallantly with her natural inclination to procrastinate. Her speech improved, the tones of her voice, her carriage, she wore quiet colors how, and became fastidious in the matter of belts and cuffs, b.u.t.tons and collars and corsets. She diverted Mary Lou by faithfully practicing certain beautifying calisthenics at night.

Susan was not deceived by the glittering, prismatic thing known as Society. She knew that Peter Coleman's and Emily Saunders' reverence for it was quite the weakest thing in their respective characters. She knew that Ella's boasted family was no better than her own, and that Peter's undeniable egoism was the natural result of Peter's up-bringing, and that Emily's bright unselfish interest in her, whatever it had now become, had commenced with Emily's simple desire to know Peter through Susan, and have an excuse to come frequently to Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's when Peter was there.

Still, she could not divest these three of the old glory of her first impressions. She liked Emily and Ella none the less because she understood them better, and felt that, if Peter had his human weaknesses, he was all the nearer her for that.

Mrs. Lancaster would not allow her to dine down-town with him alone.

Susan laughed at the idea that she could possibly do anything questionable, but kept the rule faithfully, and, if she went to the theater alone with Peter, never let him take her to supper afterward.

But they had many a happy tea-hour together, and on Sundays lunched in Sausalito, roamed over the lovely country roads, perhaps stopped for tea at the Carrolls', or came back to the city and had it at the quiet Palace. Twice Peter was asked to dine at Mrs. Lancaster's, but on the first occasion he and Susan were begged by old Mrs. Baxter to come and amuse her loneliness instead, and on the second Susan telephoned at the last moment to say that Alfie was at home and that Auntie wanted to ask Peter to come some other time.

Alfie was at home for a dreadful week, during which the devoted women suffered agonies of shame and terror. After that he secured, in the miraculous way that Alfie always did secure, another position and went away again.

"I can stand Alfie," said Susan to Billy in strong disgust. "But it does make me sick to have Auntie blaming his employers for firing him, and calling him a dear unfortunate boy! She said to me to-day that the other clerks were always jealous of Alfie, and tried to lead him astray! Did you ever hear such blindness!"

"She's always talked that way," Billy answered, surprised at her vehemence. "You used to talk that way yourself. You're the one that has changed."

Winter came on rapidly. The mornings were dark and cold now when Susan dressed, the office did not grow comfortably warm until ten o'clock, and the girls wore their coats loose across their shoulders as they worked.

Sometimes at noon Miss Thornton and Susan fared forth into the cold, sunny streets, and spent the last half of the lunch-hour in a brisk walk. They went into the high-vaulted old Post Street Library for books, threaded their way along Kearney Street, where the noontide crowd was gaily ebbing and flowing, and loitered at the Flower Market, at Lotta's Fountain, drinking in the glory of violets and daffodils, under the winter sun. Now and then they lunched uptown at some inexpensive restaurant that was still quiet and refined. The big hotels were far too costly but there were several pretty lunchrooms, "The Bird of Paradise," "The London Tearoom," and, most popular of all, "The Ladies Exchange."

The girls always divided a twenty-five-cent entree between them, and each selected a ten-cent dessert, leaving a tip for the waitress out of their stipulated half-dollar. It was among the unwritten laws that the meal must appear to more than satisfy both.

"Th.o.r.n.y, you've got to have the rest of this rice!" Susan would urge, gathering the slender remains of "Curried chicken family style" in her serving spoon.

"Honestly, Susan, I couldn't! I've got more than I want here," was the orthodox response.

"It'll simply go to waste here," Susan always said, but somehow it never did. The girls loitered over these meals, watching the other tables, and the women who came to the counters to buy embroidered baby-sacques, and home-made cakes and jellies.

"Wouldn't you honestly like another piece of plum pie, Sue?" Th.o.r.n.y would ask.

"I? Oh, I couldn't! But YOU have one, Th.o.r.n.y--"

"I simply couldn't!" So it was time to ask for the check.

They were better satisfied, if less elegantly surrounded, when they went to one of the downtown markets, and had fried oysters for lunch.

Susan loved the big, echoing places, cool on the hottest day, never too cold, lined with long rows of dangling, picked fowls, bright with boxes of apples and oranges. The air was pleasantly odorous of cheeses and cooked meats, c.o.c.ks crowed unseen in crates and cages, bare-headed boys pushed loaded trucks through the narrow aisles. Susan and Miss Thornton would climb a short flight of whitewashed stairs to a little lunch-room over one of the oyster stalls. Here they could sit at a small table, and look down at the market, the shoppers coming and going, stout matrons sampling sausages and cheeses, and Chinese cooks, bareheaded, bare-ankled, dressed in dark blue duck, selecting broilers and roasts.

Their tablecloth here was coa.r.s.e, but clean, and a generous management supplied several sauces, a thick china bowl of crackers, a plate heaped with bread, salty yellow b.u.t.ter, and saucers of boiled shrimps with which guests might occupy themselves until the arrival of the oysters.

Presently the main dish arrived, some forty small, brown, b.u.t.tery oysters on each smoking hot plate. No pretense was necessary at this meal, there was enough, and more than enough. Susan's cheeks would burn rosily all afternoon. She and Th.o.r.n.y departing never tailed to remark, "How can they do it for twenty-five cents?" and sometimes spent the walk back to the office in a careful calculation of exactly what the meal had cost the proprietor.

"Did he send you a Christmas present?" asked Th.o.r.n.y one January day, when an irregular bill had brought her to Susan's desk.

"Who? Oh, Mr. Coleman?" Susan looked up innocently. "Yes, yes indeed he did. A lovely silver bureau set. Auntie was in two minds about letting me keep it." She studied the bill. "Well, that's the regular H. B. & H.

Talc.u.m Powder," she said, "only he's made them a price on a dozen gross. Send it back, and have Mr. Phil O. K. it!"

"A silver set! You lucky kid! How many pieces?"

"Oh, everything. Even toilet-water bottles, and a hatpin holder.

Gorgeous." Susan wrote "Mr. P. Hunter will please O. K." in the margin against the questioned sale.

"You take it pretty coolly, Sue," Miss Thornton said, curiously.

"It's cool weather, Th.o.r.n.y dear." Susan smiled, locked her firm young hands idly on her ledger, eyed Miss Thornton honestly. "How should I take it?" said she.

The silver set had filled all Mrs. Lancaster's house with awed admiration on Christmas Day, but Susan could not forget that Peter had been out of town on both holidays, and that she had gained her only knowledge of his whereabouts from the newspapers. A handsome present had been more than enough to satisfy her wildest dreams, the year before. It was not enough now.

"S'listen, Susan. You're engaged to him?"

"Honestly,--cross my heart!--I'm not."

"But you will be when he asks you?"

"Th.o.r.n.y, aren't you awful!" Susan laughed; colored brilliantly.

"Well, WOULDN'T you?" the other persisted.

"I don't suppose one thinks of those things until they actually happen," Susan said slowly, wrinkling a thoughtful forehead. Th.o.r.n.y watched her for a moment with keen interest, then her own face softened suddenly.

"No, of course you don't!" she agreed kindly. "Do you mind my asking, Sue?"

"No-o-o!" Susan rea.s.sured her. As a matter of fact, she was glad when any casual onlooker confirmed her own secret hopes as to the seriousness of Peter Coleman's intention.

Peter took her to church on Easter Sunday, and afterward they went to lunch with his uncle and aunt, spent a delightful rainy afternoon with books and the piano, and, in the casual way that only wealth makes possible, were taken downtown to dinner by old Mr. Baxter at six o'clock. Taking her home at nine o' clock, Peter told her that he was planning a short visit to Honolulu with the Harvey Brocks. "Gee, I wish you were going along!" he said.

"Wouldn't it be fun!" Susan agreed.

"Well, say! Mrs. Brock would love it--" he began eagerly.

"Oh, Peter, don't talk nonsense!" Susan felt, at a moment like this, that she actually disliked him.

"I suppose it couldn't be worked," he said sadly. And no more of it was said.

He came into the office but once that week. Late in a summer-like afternoon Susan looked down at Mr. Baxter's office to see Peter spreading his steamer tickets on the desk. He looked up and laughed at her, and later ran up to the deck for a few minutes to say good-bye.

They said it laughingly, among the hot-water bags and surgical accessories, but when Susan went back to her desk the laughter had died from her eyes.

It was an unseasonably warm spring day, she was wearing the first shirtwaist of the year, and had come downtown that morning through the fresh early air on the dummy-front. It was hard to-day to be shut up in a stuffy office. Outside, the watercarts were making the season's first trip along Front Street and pedestrians chose the shady side to-day.

Susan thought of the big Oriental liner, the awnings that shaded the decks, the exquisitely cool and orderly little cabins, the green water rushing alongside. And for her the languorous bright afternoon had lost its charm.

She did not see Peter Coleman again for a long time. Summer came, and Susan went on quiet little Sunday picnics to the beach with Auntie and Mary Lou, or stayed at home and pressed her collars and washed her hair. Once or twice she and Billy went over to the Carrolls' Sausalito home, to spend a happy, quiet week-end. Susan gossiped with the busy, cheerful mother over the dish-pan, played "Parchesi" with fifteen-year-old Jim and seventeen-year-old Betsey, reveled in a confidential, sisterly att.i.tude with handsome Phil, the oldest of the half-dozen, and lay awake deep into the warm nights to talk, and talk, and talk with Josephine, who, at her own age, seemed to Susan a much finer, stronger and more developed character. If Anna, the lovely serious oldest daughter, happened to be at home on one of her rare absences from the training-hospital, Susan became her shadow. She loved few people in the world as she loved Anna Carroll. But, in a lesser degree, she loved them all, and found these hours in the shabby, frugal little home among the very happiest of a lonely summer.

About once a month she was carried off by the Saunders, in whose perfectly appointed guest-room she was by this time quite at home. The Fourth of July fell on a Friday this year, and Mr. Brauer, of his own volition, offered Susan the following day as a holiday, too. So that Susan, with a heart as light as sunshine itself, was free to go with Ella Saunders for a memorable visit to Del Monte and Santa Cruz.

It was one of the perfect experiences only possible to youth and irresponsibility. They swam, they went for the Seventeen-Mile Drive, they rode horseback. Ella knew every inch of the great hotels, even some of the waiters and housekeepers. She had the best rooms, she saw that Susan missed nothing. They dressed for dinner, loitered about among the roses in the long twilight, and Susan met a young Englishman who later wrote her three letters on his way home to Oxfordshire.

Ella's exquisite gowns had a chapter all to themselves when Susan was telling her cousins about it, but Susan herself alternated contentedly enough between the brown linen with the daisy-hat and the black net with the pearl band in her hair. Miss Saunders' compliments, her confidences, half-intoxicated the girl.

It was with a little effort that she came back to sober every-day living. She gave a whole evening to Mary Lord, in her eagerness to share her pleasure. The sick woman was not interested in gowns, but she went fairly wild when Susan spoke of Monterey,--the riotous gardens with their walls of white plaster topped with red pipe, the gulls wheeling over the little town, the breakers creaming in lazy, interlocking curves on the crescent of the beach, and the little old plaster church, with its hundred-year-old red altar-cloth, and its altar-step worn into grooves from the knees of the faithful.