r
attitude was of passive if confused endurance.

Julia pored over the society columns of the Sunday papers, in these
days, and when she came across the name of Barbara Toland or Enid
Hazzard, it was as if a blow had been struck at her heart. Barbara's
face, smiling out at her from a copy of the News Letter, made Julia
wretched for a whole day, and the mere sight of the magazine that
contained it was obnoxious to her for days to come. Walking with Mark,
she saw in some Kearney Street window an enlarged photograph of a little
yacht cutting against a stiff breeze, and felt a rush of unwelcome
memories suddenly assail her.

Mark was very much the devoted lover just now, but the contemplation of
marriage with Mark never for a moment entered Julia's head. She had
really liked him much better when he was only Hannah's big brother, who
ignored all small girls in kindly, big-boy fashion. His adoring devotion
embarrassed her, and his demand for a definite answer to his suggestion
of marriage worried and perhaps a little frightened her.

One summer Sunday Mark asked her to go to the Park with him, and the two
made the trip on a Geary Street dummy front, and wandered through wide,
sunny stretches of lawn and white roadway to the amphitheatre, where
several thousand persons of all ages and conditions were already
listening to the band. Benches were set in rows under a grove of young
maple and locust trees, and Julia and Mark, sauntering well up to the
front, found seats, and settled themselves to listen.

Julia, enjoying the sunshine and the good hour, looked lazily at the
curiously variegated types about them: young men who lay almost
horizontally in their seats, their eyes shut, newspapers blowing about
their feet; toddling babies in Sunday white; young fathers and mothers
with tiny coats laid across their laps; groups of middle-aged Teutons
critically alert, and, everywhere, lovers and lovers and lovers. Mark
was pleasantly aware that his companion's beauty made her conspicuous,
even though Julia was plainly, almost soberly, dressed to-day, and
showed none of her usual sparkle and flash. She wore a trim little gown
of blue serge, with a tiny white ruffle about its high collar for its
only relief, her gloves were black, her small hat black, and she wore no
rings, no chains, and no bangles, a startling innovation for Julia. The
change in her appearance, and some more subtle change in face and voice
and manner, affected Mark li