"Well, well, what's all this!" Mrs. Lancaster remarked, without alarm. William, shaking out his napkin, drawing his chair up to the table, and falling upon his dinner with vigor, demanded:
"Come on, now! Tell us all, all!"
But Susan, who had been chattering fast enough from the moment of her arrival, could not seem to get started again. It was indeed a little difficult to continue an enthusiastic conversation, unaffected by his running fire of comment. For in these days he was drifting rapidly toward a sort of altruistic socialism, and so listened to her recital with sardonic smiles, snorts of scorn, and caustic annotations.
"The Carters--ha! That whole bunch ought to be hanged," Billy remarked. "All their money comes from the rents of bad houses, and--let me tell you something, when there was a movement made to buy up that Jackson Street block, and turn it into a park, it was old Carter, yes, and his wife, too, who refused to put a price on their property!"
"Oh, Billy, you don't KNOW that!"
"I don't? All right, maybe I don't," Mr. Oliver returned growlingly to his meal, only to break out a moment later, "The Kirkwoods! Yes; that's a rare old bunch! They're still holding the city to the franchise they swindled the Government out of, right after the Civil War! Every time you pay taxes--"
"I don't pay taxes!" Susan interrupted frivolously, and resumed her glowing account. Billy made no further contribution to the conversation until he asked some moments later, "Does old Brock ever tell you about his factories, while he's taking you around his orchid-house? There's a man a week killed there, and the foremen tell the girls when they hire them that they aren't expected to take care of themselves on the wages they get!"
But the night before her return to San Rafael, Mr. Oliver, in his nicest mood, took Susan to the Orpheum, and they had fried oysters and coffee in a little Fillmore Street restaurant afterward, Billy admitting with graceful frankness that funds were rather low, and Susan really eager for the old experience and the old sensations. Susan liked the brotherly, clumsy way in which he tried to ascertain, as they sat loitering and talking over the little meal, just how much of her thoughts still went to Peter Coleman, and laughed outright, as soon as she detected his purpose, as only an absolutely heart-free girl could laugh, and laid her hand over his for a little appreciative squeeze before they dismissed the subject. After that he told her of some of his own troubles, the great burden of the laboring classes that he felt rested on his particular back, and his voice rose and he pounded the table as he talked of the other countries of the world, where even greater outrages, or where experimental solutions were in existence. Susan brought the conversation to Josephine Carroll, and watched his whole face grow tender, and heard his voice soften, as they spoke of her.
"No; but is it really and truly serious this time, Bill?" she asked, with that little thrill of pain that all good sisters know when the news comes.
"Serious? GOSH!" said the lover, simply.