“I don’t pay taxes!” Susan interrupted frivolously, and resumed her glowing account.  Billy made no further contribution to the conversation until he asked some moments later, “Does old Brock ever tell you about his factories, while he’s taking you around his orchid-house?  There’s a man a week killed there, and the foremen tell the girls when they hire them that they aren’t expected to take care of themselves on the wages they get!”

But the night before her return to San Rafael, Mr. Oliver, in his nicest mood, took Susan to the Orpheum, and they had fried oysters and coffee in a little Fillmore Street restaurant afterward, Billy admitting with graceful frankness that funds were rather low, and Susan really eager for the old experience and the old sensations.  Susan liked the brotherly, clumsy way in which he tried to ascertain, as they sat loitering and talking over the little meal, just how much of her thoughts still went to Peter Coleman, and laughed outright, as soon as she detected his purpose, as only an absolutely heart-free girl could laugh, and laid her hand over his for a little appreciative squeeze before they dismissed the subject.  After that he told her of some of his own troubles, the great burden of the laboring classes that he felt rested on his particular back, and his voice rose and he pounded the table as he talked of the other countries of the world, where even greater outrages, or where experimental solutions were in existence.  Susan brought the conversation to Josephine Carroll, and watched his whole face grow tender, and heard his voice soften, as they spoke of her.

“No; but is it really and truly serious this time, Bill?” she asked, with that little thrill of pain that all good sisters know when the news comes.

“Serious?  Gosh!” said the lover, simply.

“Engaged?”

“No-o.  I couldn’t very well.  I’m in so deep at the works that I may get fired any minute.  More than that, the boys generally want me to act as spokesman, and so I’m a sort of marked card, and I mightn’t get in anywhere else, very easily.  And I couldn’t ask Jo to go with me to some Eastern factory or foundry town, without being pretty sure of a job.  No; things are just drifting.”

“Well, but Bill,” Susan said anxiously, “somebody else will step in if you don’t!  Jo’s such a beauty—­”

He turned to her almost with a snarl.

“Well, what do you want me to do?  Steal?” he asked angrily.  And then softening suddenly he added:  “She’s young,—­the little queen of queens!”

“And yet you say you don’t want money,” Susan said, drily, with a shrug of her shoulders.