“Poor Georgie!” Susan smiled, and still kneeling, leaned on her aunt’s knees, as Mrs. Lancaster sat back in the rocking chair.

“Poor Georgie indeed!” said her mother vexedly.  “It’s more serious than you think, dear.  Joe was here last night.  It seems that he’s going to that doctor’s convention, at Del Monte a week from next Saturday, and he was talking to Georgie about her going, too.”

Susan was thunderstruck.

“But, Auntie, aren’t they going to be divorced?”

Mrs. Lancaster rubbed her nose violently.

“They are if I have anything to say!” she said, angrily.  “But, of course, Georgie has gotten herself into this thing, and now Mama isn’t going to get any help in trying to get her out!  Joe was extremely rude and inconsiderate about it, and got the poor child crying—!”

“But, Auntie, she certainly doesn’t want to go!”

“Certainly she doesn’t.  And to come home to that dreadful woman, his mother?  Use your senses, Susan!”

“Why don’t you forbid Joe O’Connor the house, Auntie?”

“Because I don’t want any little whipper-snapper of a medical graduate from the Mission to dare to think he can come here, in my own home, and threaten me with a lawsuit, for alienating his wife’s affections!” Mrs. Lancaster said forcibly.  “I never in my life heard such impudence!”

“Is he mad!” exclaimed Susan, in a low, horrified tone.

“Well, I honestly think he is!” Mrs. Lancaster, gratified by this show of indignation, softened.  “But I didn’t mean to distress you with this, dear,” said she.  “It will all work out, somehow.  We mustn’t have any scandal in the family just now, whatever happens, for your sake!”

Pursuant to her new-formed resolutions, Susan was maintaining what dignity she could in her friendship with Peter nowadays.  And when, in November, Peter stopped her on the “deck” one day to ask her, “How about Sunday, Sue?  I have a date, but I think I can get out of it?” she disgusted him by answering briskly, “Not for me, Peter.  I’m positively engaged for Sunday.”

“Oh, no, you’re not!” he assured her, firmly.

“Oh, truly I am!” Susan nodded a good-by, and went humming into the office, and that night made William Oliver promise to take her to the Carrolls’ in Sausalito for the holiday.

So on a hazy, soft November morning they found themselves on the cable-car that in those days slipped down the steep streets of Nob Hill, through the odorous, filthy gaiety of the Chinese quarter, through the warehouse district, and out across the great crescent of the water-front.  Billy, well-brushed and clean-shaven, looked his best to-day, and Susan, in a wide, dashing hat, with fresh linen at wrists and collar, enjoyed the innocent tribute of many a passing glance from the ceaseless current of men crossing and recrossing the ferry place.

“If they try to keep us for dinner, we’ll bashfully remain,” said Billy, openly enchanted by the prospect of a day with his adored Josephine.