Virginia, who played certain simple melodies very prettily, went to the piano and gave them “Maryland” and “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes,” and was heartily applauded.  Mary Lou was finally persuaded to sing Tosti’s “Farewell to Summer,” in a high, sweet, self-conscious soprano.

Susan had disappeared.  Just after dinner she had waylaid William Oliver, with a tense, “Will you walk around the block with me, Billy?  I want to talk to you,” and William, giving her a startled glance, had quietly followed her through the dark lower hall, and into the deserted, moonlighted, wind-swept street.  The wind had fallen:  stars were shining.

“Billy,” said Susan, taking his arm and walking him along very rapidly, “I’m going away—­”

“Going away?” he said sympathetically.  This statement always meant that something had gone very wrong with Susan.

“Absolutely!” Susan said passionately.  “I want to go where nobody knows me, where I can make a fresh start.  I’m going to Chicago.”

“What the deuce are you raving about?” Mr. Oliver asked, stopping short in the street.  “What have you been doing now?”

“Nothing!” Susan said, with suddenly brimming eyes.  “But I hate this place, and I hate everyone in it, and I’m simply sick of being treated as if, just because I’m poor—­”

“You sound like a bum second act, with somebody throwing a handful of torn paper down from the wings!” Billy observed.  But his tone was kinder than his words, and Susan, laying a hand on his coat sleeve, told him the story of the afternoon; of Mrs. Fox, with her supercilious smile; of the girls, so bitterly insulting; of Peter, involving her in these embarrassments and then forgetting to stand by her.

“If one of those girls came to us a stranger,” Susan declared, with a heaving breast, “do you suppose we’d treat her like that?”

“Well, that only proves we have better manners than they have!”

“Oh, Bill, what rot!  If there’s one thing society people have, it’s manners!” Susan said impatiently.  “Do you wonder people go crazy to get hold of money?” she added vigorously.

“Nope.  You’ve got to have it.  There are lots of other things in the world,” he agreed, “but money’s first and foremost.  The only reason I want it,” said Billy, “is because I want to show other rich people where they make their mistakes.”

“Do you really think you’ll be rich some day, Billy?”

“Sure.”

Susan walked on thoughtfully.

“There’s where a man has the advantage,” she said.  “He can really work toward the thing he wants.”

“Well, girls ought to have the same chance,” Billy said generously.  “Now I was talking to Mrs. Carroll Sunday—­”

“Oh, how are the Carrolls?” asked Susan, diverted for an instant.

“Fine.  They were awfully disappointed you weren’t along.—­And she was talking about that very thing.  And she said her three girls were going to work just as Phil and Jim do.”