“Do hurry, Barbara!  Sally and Ted may be on that five-fifty, and if Dad went home earlier they’ll have to make the trip alone!”

At the doorway they found that the street was almost dark, and foggy.  Much discussion of cars and carriages marked the breaking-up.  Enid Hazzard, a rather noisy girl, who played Noel Belturbet, elected to go home with the Babcocks.  This freed from all responsibility her brother Carter, who had suddenly appeared to act as escort.  Julia, slipping up the darkening street, after a few moments spent in watching this crowd of curious young people, found him at her side.

“No coat, Miss Page?” said the easy tones.

“I didn’t know it would be so foggy!” said Julia, her heart beginning to thump.

“And where are you going?”

“Home to get a coat.”

“I see.  Where is it?  I’ll take you.”

“Oh, it’s just a few blocks,” Julia said.  She knew nothing of the reputation of San Francisco’s neighbourhoods, but Carter gave her a surprised look.  When Julia, quite unembarrassed, stopped at the door beside the saloon, he was the more confused of the two, although the accident of seeing him again had set the blood to racing in Julia’s veins and made speech difficult.  She had been longing for just this; she was trembling with eagerness and nervousness.

“Father and Mother live here?” asked Carter.

“Just Mama—­she rents rooms.”

“Oh, I see!” He had stepped into the deep doorway, and catching her by the shoulders he said now, inconsequently:  “Do you know you’re the prettiest girl that ever was?”

“Am I?” said Julia, in a whisper.

“You know you are—­you—­you little flirt!” Hazzard said, his eyes three inches from hers.  For a tense second neither stirred, then the man straightened up suddenly:  “Well!” he said loudly.  “That’ll be about all of that.  Good-night, my dear!”

He turned abruptly away, and Julia, smiling her little inscrutable smile, went slowly upstairs.  The bedroom was dark, unaired, and in disorder.  Julia looked about it dreamily, picked her library book from the floor and read a few pages of “Aunt Johnnie,” sitting meanwhile on the edge of the unmade bed, and chewing a piece of gum that had been pressed, a neat bead, upon the back of a chair.  After a while she got up, powdered her nose, and rubbed her finger-nails with a buffer—­a buffer lifeless and hard, and deeply stained with dirt and red grease.  Emeline had left a note, “Gone up to Min’s—­come up there for supper,” but Julia felt that there was no hurry; meals at Mrs. Tarbury’s were usually late.