“Why, hello, Mark!” Julia answered.  And with a little concern creeping into her manner she went on, “Why, what is it?”

Young Rosenthal glanced at her friends, and, formally offering her his arm, said seriously:  “You will walk with me?”

“We were going down to Haas’s for ice-cream sodas,” Julia submitted hesitatingly.

“Well, I will take you there,” Mark said.  And as the others, nodding good-naturedly at this, drifted on ahead, Julia found herself walking down O’Farrell Street on the arm of a tall and handsome man.

It was the first time that she had done just this thing—­or if not the first time, it had never seemed to have any particular significance before.  Now, however, Julia felt in her heart a little flutter of satisfaction.  Somehow Mark did not seem just a commonplace member of the “Rosenthal gang” to-night, nor did she seem “the Page kid.”  Mark was a man, and—­thrilling thought!—­was angry at Julia, and Julia, hanging on his arm, with a hundred street lights flashing on her little powdered nose and saucy hat, was at last a “young lady!”

“What’s the matter, Mark?” she asked, by way of opening the conversation.

“Oh, nothing whatever!” Mark answered, in a rich, full voice, and with elaborate irony.  “You promised to go to the Orpheum with me, and I waited—­and I waited—­and you did not come.  But that is nothing, of course!”

Julia’s anger smote her dumb for a moment.  Then she jerked her arm from his, and burst out: 

“I’ll tell you why I didn’t meet you to-night, Mark Rosenthal, and if you don’t like it, you know what you can do!  Last week you asked me would I go to Morosco’s with you, and I said yes, and then when it came right down to it—­your mother wasn’t going, and Sophy and Hannah weren’t going, and Otto wasn’t going—­and I tell you right now that Mama don’t like me to go to the theatre—­”

“Well, well, well!” Mark interrupted soothingly, half laughing, half aghast at this burst of rebuke from the usually gentle Julia.  “Don’t be so cross about it!  So—­” He put her arm in his again.  “I like to have you to myself, Julia,” he said, his boyish, handsome face suddenly flushing, his voice very low.  “Do you know why?”

“No,” said Julia after a pause, the word strangling her.

“You don’t, eh?” Mark said, with a smiling side glance.

“Nope,” said Julia, dimpling as she returned the look, and shutting her pretty lips firmly over the little word.

“Do you know you are ador-r-rable?” Mark said, in a sort of eager rush.  “Will you go to Maskey’s with me, instead of joining the others at Haas’s?” he asked, more quietly.

“Well,” Julia said.  She was her own mistress.  Her mother had gone home during the play with Mrs. Toomey, who complained of a headache.  So, grinning like conspirators, they stayed on the south side of the street until it joined Market, and then went by the fountain and the big newspaper buildings, and slipped into the confectioner’s.  Julia sent an approving side glance at herself in the mirror, as she drew a satisfied breath of the essence-laden air.  She loved lights, perfumes, voices—­and all were here.