Half an hour behind the others they came slowly down the home trail. Susan had grown shy now and, although she held his hand childishly, she would not allow him to kiss her again. The rapid march of events had confused her, and she amused him by a plea for time "to think."
"Please, please don't let them suspect anything tonight, Bill!" she begged. "Not for months! For we shall probably have to wait a long, long time!"
"I have a nerve to ask any girl to do it!" Billy said gloomily.
"You're not asking any girl. You're asking me, you know!"
"But, darling, you honestly aren't afraid? We'll have to count every cent for awhile, you know!"
"It isn't as if I had been a rich girl," Susan reminded him.
"But you've been a lot with rich people. And we'll have to live in some place in the Mission, like Georgie, Sue!"
"In the Mission perhaps, but not like Georgie! Wait until you eat my dinners, and see my darling little drawing-room! And we'll go to dinner at Coppa's and Sanguinetti's, and come over to Sausalito for picnics,--we'll have wonderful times! You'll see!"
"I adore you," said Billy, irrevelantly.
"Well," Susan said, "I hope you do! But I'll tell you something I've been thinking, Billy," she resumed dreamily, after a silence.
"And pwhats dthat, me dar-r-rlin'?"
"Why, I was thinking that I'd rather---" Susan began hesitatingly, "rather have my work cut out for me in this life! That is, I'd rather begin at the bottom of the ladder, and work up to the top, than be at the top, through no merit of my own, and live in terror of falling to the bottom! I believe, from what I've seen of other people, that we'll succeed, and I think we'll have lots of fun doing it!"
"But, Sue, you may get awfully tired of it!"
"Everybody gets awfully tired of everything!" sang Susan, and caught his hand for a last breathless run into camp.
At supper they avoided each other's eyes, and assumed an air of innocence and gaiety. But in spite of this, or because of it, the meal moved in an unnatural atmosphere, and everyone present was conscious of a sense of suspense, of impending news.
"Betts dear, do listen!--the SALT," said Mrs. Carroll. "You've given me the spoons and the butter twice! Tell me about to-day," she added, in a desperate effort to start conversation. "What happened?"