Keith then enlivened the company with what quaint parlor tricks he knew, or dared, from making of a napkin a ballet dancer pirouetting upon one toe, to limericks that were suppressed by Sully Maxwell, Mrs. Page laughed prodigiously, showing all her teeth, staring with her great eyes, vivid in her every expression, flamboyant, sleek and glossy, abounding in temperament. Frankie Dean smiled maliciously and plied the performers with her acrid wit. The girl from Santa Rosa listened, her cheeks burning. At six they went outside for fresh air and promenaded the glazed veranda until the sun rose. In front of them was the broad Pacific, stretching out to the Farralones, even to Japan. To the north, across the bar, yellowed with alluvium from the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, a mountainous coast stretched to far, misty Bolinas. Southward ran the broad, wide beach exposed by the ebb tide. It was damp and cool; the last spasm of summer had given way to the brisk, stimulating weather that was San Francisco’s usual habit. Granthope buttoned his light overcoat tightly over his rumpled evening dress and walked with the girl from Santa Rosa, enjoying the scene quietly, speaking in monosyllables. The others had a new burst of effervescence, still more desperate than ever; their hilarity was indefatigable. Keith walked along the tops of the tables, leading Mrs. Page. Frankie Dean and Fernigan two-stepped the length and breadth of the wide platform, joking incessantly. A walk up the beach was then suggested, and, after a preliminary furbishing of faces and hair, they went down the steep rocky road to the wide strand, and proceeded along the shore. Granthope, falling behind, saw that the girl from Santa Rosa alone had waited for him. She gazed at him steadily with grave eyes. "Well," he said kindly, "what d’you think of San Francisco?" She looked down at the sand and drew a circle with her toe before she answered. "It’s pretty gay here, isn’t it?" "Oh, well, if you call this sort of thing gay!" The girl looked immensely relieved, gave him a quick, searching glance, and said shyly: "Do you know, Mr. Granthope, I have an idea that you didn’t enjoy it any more than I did!" He smiled at her, then silently grasped her hand. She blushed and turned away. "I thought it was going to be great fun," she said, as they walked on. "I never was up all night before. It’s awfully exciting. But people do look awful in the morning, don’t they?" She herself was like a blossom wet with dew, but Granthope knew what she meant, well enough. He had watched the lines come into Mrs. Page’s face and her mouth droop at the corners; he had noticed the glitter fade from Frankie Dean’s black eyes, and her lids grow heavy. "You ought never to have come," he said. "I think you’d better go home and get to bed. Suppose we leave them and walk across to the almshouse and take the Haight Street cars?" "Oh, d’you think they’d mind, if we did?"