Susan pondered over the letter.  How answer it most effectively?  If she admitted that she really did miss him terribly—­but Susan was afraid of the statement, in cold black-and-white.  Suppose that she hinted at herself as consoled by some newer admirer?  The admirer did not exist, but Peter would not know that.  She discarded this subterfuge as “cheap.”

But how did other girls manage it?  The papers were full of engagements, men were proposing matrimony, girls were announcing themselves as promised, in all happy certainty.  Susan decided that, when Peter came home, she would allow their friendship to proceed just a little further and then suddenly discourage every overture, refuse invitations, and generally make herself as unpleasant as possible, on the ground that Auntie “didn’t like it.”  This would do one of two things, either stop their friendship off short,—­it wouldn’t do that, she was happily confident,—­or commence things upon a new and more definite basis.

But when Peter came back he dragged his little aunt all the way up to Mr. Brauer’s office especially to ask Miss Brown if she would dine with them informally that very evening.  This was definite enough!  Susan accepted and planned a flying trip home for a fresh shirtwaist at five o’clock.  But at five a troublesome bill delayed her, and Susan, resisting an impulse to shut it into a desk drawer and run away from it, settled down soberly to master it.  She was conscious, as she shook hands with her hostess two hours later, of soiled cuffs, but old Mr. Baxter, hearing her apologies, brought her downstairs a beautifully embroidered Turkish robe, in dull pinks and blues, and Susan, feeling that virtue sometimes was rewarded, had the satisfaction of knowing that she looked like a pretty gipsy during the whole evening, and was immensely gratifying her old host as well.  To Peter, it was just a quiet, happy evening at home, with the pianola and flashlight photographs, and a rarebit that wouldn’t grow creamy in spite of his and Susan’s combined efforts.  But to Susan it was a glimpse of Paradise.

“Peter loves to have his girl friends dine here,” smiled old Mrs. Baxter in parting.  “You must come again.  He has company two or three times a week.”  Susan smiled in response, but the little speech was the one blot on a happy evening.

Every happy time seemed to have its one blot.  Susan would have her hour, would try to keep the tenderness out of her “When do I see you again, Peter?” to be met by his cheerful “Well, I don’t know.  I’m going up to the Yellands’ for a week, you know.  Do you know Clare Yelland?  She’s the dandiest girl you ever saw—­nineteen, and a raving beauty!” Or, wearing one of Peter’s roses on her black office-dress, she would have to smile through Thorny’s interested speculations as to his friendship for this society girl or that.  “The Chronicle said yesterday that he was supposed to be terribly crushed on that Washington girl,” Thorny would report.  “Of course, no names, but you could tell who they meant!”