Mr. Baxter's office, and saw him there, spreading kodak pictures over the old man's desk, laughing and talking. Presently he left, and she did not see him again that day. The next morning, however, she found him waiting for her at her desk, and they had ten minutes of inconsequential banter before Miss Cashell came in.

"How about a trip to the Chutes Thursday 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 Thursday came, slipped away from the office a little earlier than usual, and went home planning just the gown and hat most suitable. Auntie, thinking of pan-gravy and hot biscuits, was being visibly driven to madness by visitors in the parlor. 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. A moment later Susan closed the hall door upon the callers with a sigh of relief, and ran downstairs.

Susan hung up the receiver. She sat quite still in the darkness for a while, 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 tonight!" 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 myself 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 glass 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. "You're dead, aren't you?" he said repentantly.

"Oh, all in!" It was a relief to ascribe it to that.

"Too tired to go to church with Mary Lou and me, dear?" asked Virginia, coming in. “Holy Thursday, you know. We're going to St. Ignatius'. But if you're

dead-?"

"Oh, I am. I'm going straight to bed," Susan said. But after dinner, when Mary Lou was dressing, she suddenly changed her mind, dragged herself up from the couch where she was lying and, being Susan, brushed her hair, pinned a rose on her coat lapel, and powdered her nose. Walking down the street with her two cousins, Susan, storm-shaken and subdued, still felt good, and liked the feeling. Spring was in the air; the early darkness was sweet with the odors of grass and flowers.

When they reached the church, Virginia led the way up-up-up-in the darkness, nearer and nearer the altar, with its winking red light, and genuflected before one of the very first pews. Susan followed her into it with a sigh of satisfaction; she liked to see and hear, and all the pews were open tonight. They knelt for a while, then sat back, silent, reverential, but not praying, and interested in the arriving congregation. The hour began to have its effect on her; she felt herself a little girl again, yielding to the spell of the devotion all about her.

And now the organ broke softly, miraculously, into enchanting and enveloping sound that seemed to shake the church bodily with its great trembling touch, as it thundered the "Stabat Mater." When priest and boys had returned to the altar, a wavering high soprano voice floated across the church in an intricate "Veni Creator." Susan and Mary Lou sat back in their seats, but Virginia knelt, rapt in prayer, her face buried in her hands, her hat forcing the woman in front of her to sit well forward in her place. The preacher mounted the pulpit, shook his lace cuffs into place, and composedly studied his audience. Ask and ye shall receive-" suddenly the clear voice rang out.

Susan lost the sermon. But she got the text, and pondered it with new interest. It was not new to her. She had "asked" all her life long; for patience, for truthfulness, for "final perseverance,' for help for Virginia's eyes and auntie's business and Alfie's intemperance; for the protection of this needy one, the conversion of that friend, "the speedy recovery or happy death" of some person dangerously ill. Susan had never slipped into church at night with Mary Lou without finding some special request to incorporate in her prayers.

Tonight, in the solemn pause of benediction, she asked for Peter Coleman's love. Here was a temporal favor indeed, indicating a lesser spiritual degree than utter resignation to the Divine Will. Susan was not sure of her right to ask it. But, as she stood to sing the "Laudate," there came a sudden rush of confidence and hope to her heart. She was praying for this gift now, and that fact alone seemed to lift it above the level of ordinary earthly desires. Not entirely unworthy was any hope that she could bring to this tribunal and beg for on her knees.

A week later she and Peter Coleman had their evening at the Chutes, and a wonder

ful evening it was; then came a theater trip, and a Sunday afternoon that they spent in idly drifting about Golden Gate Park, enjoying the spring sunshine and the holiday crowd, feeding the animals and eating peanuts. Susan bowed to Thorny and the faithful Wally on this last occasion, and was teased by Thorny about Peter Coleman the next day, to her secret pleasure.

Tangible proof of his affection there was indeed, to display to the eyes of her world. But it was for intangible proof that Susan's heart longed day after day. In spite of comment and of envy from the office, in spite of the flowers and messages and calls upon which auntie and the girls were placing such flattering significance, Susan was far too honest with life not to realize that she had not even a thread by which to hold Peter Coleman, that he had not given an instant's thought and did not wish to give an instant's thought to her, or to any woman, as a possible sweetheart and wife.

She surprised him; she amused him; she was the company he liked best, the easiest to entertain, the most entertaining in turn-this she knew. He liked her raptures over pleasures that would only have bored the other girls of his acquaintance; he liked the ready nonsense that inspired answering nonsense in him, the occasional flashes of real wit, the inexhaustible originality of Susan's point of view. They had their own vocabulary, phrases remembered from plays, good and bad, that they had seen together, or overheard in the car; they laughed and laughed together at a thousand things that Susan could not remember when she was alone, or remembering, found no longer amusing. This was all wonderful; but it was not love.

But perhaps, she consoled herself, courtship in his class was not the serious affair she had always known it to be in hers. Rich men took nothing very seriously, yet they married and made good husbands, for all that. Susan would blame herself for daring to criticize, even in the tiniest particular, the great gift that the gods laid at her feet.

One June day, when Susan felt rather ill and was sitting huddled at her desk, with chilled feet and burning cheeks, she was sent for by old Mr. Baxter, and found Miss Emily Saunders in his office. The visitor was chatting with Peter and the old mar and gaily carried Susan off to luncheon, afte

Peter had regretted his inability to come too. They went to the Palace Hotel, and Susan thought everything, Miss Emily especially, very wonderful and delightful, and, warmed and sustained by a delicious luncheon, congratulated herself all during the afternoon that she herself had risen to the demand of the occasion, had been funny and nice, had really made good. She knew that Emily had been amused and attracted; and she suspected that she would hear from that fascinating young person again.

A few weeks later a letter came from Miss Saunders asking Susan to lunch with the family in their San Rafael home. Susan admired the handsome stationery, the monogram, the bold, dashing hand. Something in Mary Lou's and Georgianna's pleasure in this pleasure for her made her heart ache as she wrote her acceptance. She was far enough from the world of ease and beauty and luxury, but how much far

were these sweet, uncomplaining, beauty-starved cousins of hers!

The Saunders home, set in emerald lawns, brightened by gay-striped awnings, fragrant with flowers indoors and out, was quite the most beautiful she had ever seen. Emily's family was all cordiality; the frail, nervous, richly dressed little mother made a visible effort to be gracious to this stranger, and Emily's big sister, Ella, in whom Susan recognized the very fat young woman of the Zinkand party, was won by Susan's irrepressible merriment to abandon her attitude of forced, good-natured silence. Peter Coleman was a second guest. The party was completed by Mrs. Saunders's trained nurse, Miss Baker-a placid young woman who did not seem, to Susan, to appreciate her advantages in this wonderful place--and the son of the house, Kenneth, a silent, handsome, pale young man who confined his remarks during luncheon to the single observation, made to Peter, that he was "on the wagon."

Susan delighted in the sparkling glass, the heavy linen and silver, the exquisite flowers. Together they seemed to form a lulling draft for her senses; she felt as if undue cold, undue heat, haste and worry and work, the office with its pencil-dust and ink-stains, and her aunt's house, odorous, dreary, and dark, were alike a half-forgotten dream.

After luncheon they drove to a bright, wide tennis-court, set in glowing gardens, and here Susan was introduced to a score of

noisy, white-clad young people, and established herself comfortably on a bench near the older women to watch the games. This second social experience was far happier than her first. perhaps because Susan resolutely put her thoughts on something else than herself today, watched and laughed, talked when she could, was happily silent when she could not, and battled successfully with the thought of neglect whenever it raised its head.

Peter, very lithe, very big, gloriously happy, played in one set, and winning, came to throw himself on the grass at Susan's feet. This made Susan the very nucleus of the gathering group; the girls strolled up under their lazily twirling parasols, the men ranged themselves beside Peter on the lawn. Susan said very little; again she found the conversation a difficult one to enter, but today she did not care.

There was a bright insincerity about everything they said, a languid assumption that nothing in the world was worth an instant's seriousness, whether it was life or death, tragedy or pathos. Susan had seen this before in Peter. She saw him in his element now. He jested incessantly, as they all did. The conversation called for no particular effort; it consisted of one or two phrases, repeated constantly and with varying inflections and interspersed by the most trivial and casual of statements. Today the phrase "Would a nice girl do that?" seemed to have caught the general fancy. Susan also heard the verb to love curiously abused.

"Look out, George your racket!" some girl said vigorously.

"Would a nice girl do that? I nearly put your eye out, didn't I? I tell you all I'm a dangerous character," her neighbor answered laughingly.

"Oh, I love that!" another girl's voice said, adding presently: "Look at Louise's coat. Don't you love it?"

"I'm crazy about it," the wearer said modestly. "Aunt Fanny sent it."

"I'm crazy about your aunt," some girl asserted, "you know she told mother that I was a perfect little lady-honestly she did! Don't you love that?”

How sure of themselves they were, how unembarrassed and how marvelously poised! Nothing to prevent them from going where they wanted to go, doing as they pleased! Susan felt that an impassable barrier stood between their lives and hers.

Later in the afternoon Miss Ella, driving in with a gray-haired young man in a very smart trap, paid a visit to the tennis-court, and was rapturously hailed. She was evidently a great favorite.

"See here, Miss Brown," she called out after a few moments, noticing Susan, "don't you want to come for a little spin with me?"

"I'd love to," Susan said, a little shyly.

"Get down, Jerry," Miss Saunders said, giving her companion a little shove with her elbow.

"Look here, who you pushing?" demanded the gray-haired young man, with

out venom.

"I'm pushing you."

"It's a habit-I keep right on loving her!" quoted Mr. Phillips to the bystand

ers. But he got lazily down, and Susan got up, and they were presently spinning away into the quiet of the lovely summer after

noon.

Miss Saunders talked rapidly, constantly, and well. Susan was amused and interested, and took pains to show it. In great harmony they spent perhaps an hour in driving, and were homeward-bound when they encountered two loaded buckboards, the first of which was driven by Peter Coleman.

Miss Saunders stopped the second to question her sister, who, seated on the laps of a girl and young man on the front seat, was evidently in wild spirits.

"We're only going up to Cameron Court!" Miss Emily shouted cheerfully. "Keep Miss Brown to dinner! Miss Brown, I'll never speak to you again if you don't stay!" And Susan heard a jovial echo of “Can a nice girl do that?" as they drove away. "A noisy, horrid crowd," said Miss Saunders. Mamma hates Emily to go with them, and what my cousins-the Bridges and the Eastenbys, of Maryland, are our cousins, I've just been visiting them -would say to a crowd like that I hate to think! That's why I wanted Emily to come out in Washington. You know we really You know we really have no connections here, and no old friends. My uncle, General Hargrove, has a widowed daughter living with him in Baltimore, Mrs. Stephen Kay she is nowwell, I suppose she's really in the most exclusive little set you could find anywhere "

Susan listened attentively. But when they were home again and Ella was dressing for some dinner-party, she very firmly declined the old lady's eager invitation to remain. She was a little more touched by Emily's leaving than she would admit, a little afraid to trust herself any further to so uncertain a hostess.

She went soberly home in the summer twilight, soothed in spite of herself by the beauty of the quiet bay, and pondering deeply. Had she deserved this slight in any way, she wondered? Should she have come away directly after luncheon? No, for they had asked her, with great warmth, for dinner! Was it something that she should, in all dignity, resent? Should Peter be treated a little coolly-Emily's next overture declined?

She decided against any display of resentment. It was only the strange way of these people. They would think it absurd,

even delightfully amusing, in her to show the least feeling.

Arriving late, she gave her cousins a glowing account of the day, and laughed with Georgie over the account of a call from Loretta's Dr. O'Connor. "Loretta's beau having the nerve to call on me!" Georgie said, with great amusement.

CHAPTER VIII

The World that Glitters

ALMOST hourly, in these days when she

saw him constantly, Susan tried to convince herself that her heart was not quite committed yet to Peter Coleman's keeping. But always without success. The big, sweet-tempered, laughing fellow, with his generosity, his wealth, his position, had become all her world, or rather he had become the reigning personage in that other world at whose doorway Susan stood, longing and enraptured.

A year ago, at the prospect of seeing him so often, of feeling so sure of his admiration and affection, of calling him "Peter," Susan would have felt herself only too fortunate. But these privileges, fully realized now, brought her more pain than joy. A restless unhappiness clouded their gay times together, and when she was alone Susan spent troubled hours in analysis of his tones, his looks, his words. If a chance, careless phrase of his seemed to indicate a deepening of the feeling between them, Susan hugged that phrase to her heart. If Peter, on the other hand, eagerly sketched to her plans for a future that had no place for her, Susan drooped, and lay wakeful and heartsick long into the night. She cared for him truly and deeply, although she never said so, even to herself, and she longed with all her ardent young soul for the place in the world that awaited his wife. Susan knew that she could fill it, that he would never be anything but proud of her; she only awaited the word-less than a word!-that should give her the right to enter into her kingdom.

Of course-Susan could imagine him as disposing of the thought comfortably— she didn't complain! She took things just as Peter wanted her to, had a glorious time whenever she was with him, and was just as happy doing other things when he wasn't about. Peter went for a month to Tahoe this unmer, and wrote Susan that there wasn't a fellow at the hotel that was half