Walking soberly home with Mark at half-past eleven, with her cheque in her purse, Julia decided bitterly that she washed her hands of them all; she was done with San Francisco’s smart set, she would never give another thought to a single one of them.

CHAPTER V

Days of very serious thinking followed this experience.  The face of the world was changed.  Much that had been unnoticed, or taken for granted, became insufferable to Julia now.  She winced at Connie’s stories, she looked with a coldly critical eye at Mrs. Tarbury’s gray hair showing through a yellow “front”; the sights and sounds of the boarding-house sickened her.  She was accustomed to helping Mrs. Tarbury with the housework, not in any sense as payment for her board—­for never was hospitality more generously extended—­but merely because she was there, and idle, and energetic; but she found this a real hardship now.  The hot, close bedrooms, odorous of perfume and cigarette smoke, the grayish sheets and thin blankets were odious to her; she longed to set fire to the whole, and start afresh, with clean new furnishings.

Presently Connie asked her if she would care to talk to a manager about going on an “eleven weeks’ circuit,” as assistant to a sleight-of-hand performer.

“Twenty a week,” said Connie, “and a whole week in Sacramento and another in Los Angeles.  All you have to do is wear a little suit like a page, and hand him things.  Rose says he looks like an old devil—­I haven’t seen him, but you can sit on him easy enough.  And the Nevilles are making the same trip, and she’s a real nice woman.  Not much, Ju, but it’s a start, and I think we could land it for you.”

“Yes, I know,” Julia said vaguely.

“Well, wake up!” said Connie briskly.  “Do you want it?”

“I’d rather wait until Mama gets here,” the younger girl decided uncomfortably.  And that afternoon, in vague hope of news of her mother, she took a Mission Street car and went out to call on her grandmother.

As usual, old Mrs. Cox’s cheap little house reeked of soapsuds and carbolic acid.  Julia, admitted after she had twisted the little gong set in the panels of the street door, kissed her grandmother in a stifling dark hall.  Mrs. Cox was glad of company, she limped ahead into her little kitchen, chattering eagerly of her rheumatism and of family matters.  She told Julia that May’s children, Evelyn and Marguerite, were with her, Marguerite holding a position as dipper in a nearby candy factory, and Evelyn checking in an immense steam laundry.

“How many children has Aunt May now?” Julia asked, sighing.

“She’s got too many!” Mrs. Cox said sharply.  “A feller like Ed, who never keeps a position two weeks running, has got no business to raise such a family!  For a while May had two of the boys in a home—­”

“Oh, really!” said Julia, distressed.