met as boys and later had been classmates for the brief period Bannister had remained at the Leland Stanford University.  Martie wrapped her beauty-starved young soul in the perfect past, when men wore ruffles and buckles and capes, and were all gallantry and courage, and when women were beautiful and desired.  Between the acts the delicious exchange of confidences between herself and Rodney went on; they nibbled Bonestell’s chocolates from a striped paper bag as they talked, and when the final curtain fell on a ringing line there were real tears of pleasure in Martie’s eyes.

“Oh, Rodney—­this is living!” she whispered, as they filed slowly out.

Sally and Lydia had considerately disappeared.  Mrs. Clifford Frost was waiting for them at the door, and Martie, with quick tact, fell into conversation with the kindly matron, walking at her side down the crowded street, and leaving Rodney to follow with the others.  Little Ruth Frost had had some trouble fearfully resembling diphtheria, and Martie’s first interested question was enough to enlist the mother’s attention.  The girl did not really notice the others in the party.

They crossed muddy Main Street, passed Wilkins’s Furniture and Coffin Parlours, and went into the shabby French restaurant known as Mussoo’s.  The little eating house, with its cheap, white-painted shop window, looking directly upon the sidewalk, its pyramid of oyster shells cascading from a box set by the entrance, its jangling bell that the opening door set to clanging, its dingy cash register, damp tablecloths, and bottles of red catsup, was not a place to which Monroe residents pointed with pride.  Martie would ordinarily have passed it as one unaware of its existence.

But it seemed a thoroughly daring and exciting thing to come here to-night; quite another thing from going to the hotel for vanilla ice cream and chocolate—­even supposing the hotel had kept its dining room open for a change, after the six o’clock supper—­or to Bonestell’s for banana specials.  This—­this was living!  Martie established herself comfortably in the corner, slipped off her coat, smiled lazily at Rodney’s obvious manipulation of the party so that he should be next her, played with her hot, damp, blackened knife and fork, and was in paradise.

Ida Parker was in the party, and Florence Frost.  The men were Clifford Frost, a pleasant young man getting stout and bald at forty; Billy Frost, a gentle little lad of fifteen who was lame; Rodney, and a rosy-cheeked, black-moustached Dr. Ellis from San Francisco, whose occasional rather simple and stupid remarks were received with great enthusiasm by Ida and Florence.

In this group Martie shone.  She had her own gift for ready nonsense, and she was the radiant element that blended the varied types into a happy whole.  She skilfully ignored Rodney; Billy, Mary, Cliff, and even Dr. Ellis were drawn into her fun.  Rodney glowed.  “Isn’t she great?” he said to Mary Frost in an aside.