"Fall?" echoed Susan studying photographs. "I head the waiting list! You grab-all! He's simply perfection--rich and stunning, and an old friend--and a yacht and a motor---"
"And a fine, hard-working fellow, Sue," added Josephine's mother.
"I begin to feel old and unmarried," mourned Susan. "What did you say, William dear?" she added, suddenly turning to Billy, with a honeyed smile.
They all shouted. But an hour or two later, in the kitchen, Mrs. Carroll suddenly asked her of her friendship with Peter Coleman.
"Oh, we've not seen each other for months, Aunt Jo!" Susan said cheerfully. "I don't even know where he is! I think he lives at the club since the crash."
"There was a crash?"
"A terrible crash. And now the firm's reorganized; it's Hunter, Hunter & Brauer. Thorny told me about it. And Miss Sherman's married, and Miss Cottle's got consumption and has to live in Arizona, or somewhere. However,---" she returned to the original theme, "Peter seems to be still enjoying life! Did you see the account of his hiring an electric delivery truck, and driving it about the city on Christmas Eve, to deliver his own Christmas presents, dressed up himself as an expressman? And at the Bachelor's dance, they said it was his idea to freeze the floor in the Mapleroom, and skate the cotillion!"
"Goose that he is!" Mrs. Carroll smiled. "How hard he works for his fun! Well, after all that's Peter--one couldn't expect him to change!"
"Does anybody change?" Susan asked, a little sadly. "Aren't we all born pretty much as we're going to be? There are so many lives---" She had tried to keep out the personal note, but suddenly it crept in, and she saw the kitchen through a blur of tears. "There are so many lives," she pursued, unsteadily, "that seem to miss their mark. I don't mean poor people. I mean strong, clever young women, who could do things, and who would love to do certain work,--yet who can't get hold of them! Some people are born to be busy and happy and prosperous, and others, like myself," said Susan bitterly, "drift about, and fail at one thing after another, and never get anywhere!"
Suddenly she put her head down on the table and burst into tears.