Marriage -- Fiction; Runaway husbands -- Fiction; Social settlements -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
She had come noiselessly in at the glass doorway behind him, and was
standing there, laughing, a picture of fresh and demure beauty, despite
the varied colours in hat and waist and gown and gloves.
"I had to see you!" said Julia, in a rush. "And nobody answered your
telephone--there's a rehearsal of that play at the theatre to-day, so I
can't meet you--and the janitor let me in----"
Mark found her incoherence delicious; her being here, in his own
familiar stamping-ground, one of the thrilling and exciting episodes of
his life. He could have shouted--have danced for pure joy as he jumped
up to welcome her. Julia declared that she had to "fly," but Mark
insisted--and she found his insistence curiously pleasant--upon showing
her about, leading her from office to office, beaming at her whenever
their eyes met. And he _must_ play her the little Schumann, he said, but
no--for that Julia positively would _not_ wait; she jerked him by one hand
toward the door. Mark had his second kiss before they emerged laughing
and radiant into the gaiety of Kearney Street on a Saturday afternoon.
And Julia was not late for her rehearsal, or, if late, she was at least
earlier by a full quarter hour than the rest of the caste. She took an
orchestra seat in the empty auditorium at the doorkeeper's suggestion,
and yawned, and stared at the coatless back of a man who was tuning the
orchestra piano.
Presently two distinguished looking girls, beautifully dressed, came in,
and sat down near her in a rather uncertain way, and began to laugh and
talk in low tones. Neither cast a glance at Julia, who promptly decided
that they were hateful snobs, and began to regard them with burning
resentment. They had been there only a few moments when two young men
sauntered down the aisle, unmistakably gentlemen, and genuine enough to
express their enjoyment of this glimpse of a theatre between
performances. Two of them carried little paper copies of "The Amazons,"
so Julia knew them for fellow-performers.
Then a third young woman came in and walked down the aisle as the others
had done. This was an extremely pretty girl of perhaps eighteen, with
dark hair and dark bright eyes, and a very fresh bright colour. Her gown
was plain but beautifully fitting, and her wide hat was crowned with a
single long ostrich plume. She peered at the young men.
"Hello, Bobby--hello, Gray!" she said gayly, and then, catching sight of
the two other girls across the aisle, she added: "Oh, hello, Helen--how
do you do, Miss Carson? Come over here and meet Mr. Sumner and Mr.
Babcock!"
Babel ensued. Three or four waiting young people said, "Oh, Barbara!" in
tones of great delight, and the fourth no less eagerly substituted, "Oh,
Miss Toland!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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