I
During the retreat from Mons and again in those black days of March,
nineteen-eighteen, Gathbroke's tormented mind snapped from the present
and flashed on its screen so startling a resurrection of himself during
those last dreadful days in San Francisco that for the moment he was
unconscious of the world crashing about him.
He saw himself in long days and nights of anguish and despair, of
embittered love and baffled passion: youth enjoying one of its divine
prerogatives and the fullness thereof!
Pacing the floor of his room on Russian Hill, tramping over the
mountains across the Bay, doggedly awaiting that sole alleviation of
mental suffering in its early stages, a change of scene.
Finally the Hofer car was placed at his disposal and he started on his
four days' journey to New York; and this brief chapter, that his
friends thought so gruesome, was the least of his afflictions. The
memory of his twenty-four hours or more of close physical association
with his sister's corpse made any subsequent adventure with the dead
seem tame. And at least he was leaving behind him a State which seemed
to have magnetized him across six thousand miles to experience the
horror and misery she had in pickle for him. He reveled in the audible
rush of the train that was carrying him farther every moment from the
girl who had cut down into the core of his heart and left her indelible
image on a remarkably good memory.
II
He had asked himself one day--it was his last in California and he had
taken his courage in his teeth and was on his way to call on Gora
Dwight at last, picking his steps through, the still smoking ruins down
to Van Ness Avenue--whether it would be possible for any man to suffer
twice in a lifetime as he had suffered since that hideous moment at
Rincona, coming as it did on top of an uncommon and terrible experience
that had racked his nerves and soul as it might not have done had he
been seasoned by war or even a few years older. At all events it had
left him with no reserves even in his pride to fight his failure and
his loss.
In that shrieking hell of August twenty-sixth, or again when lying
abandoned and gassed in a way-side hut during that ominous retreat of
the Fifth Army, when he had a sudden close vision of himself, trousers
tucked into a pair of Gwynne's hunting boots, swearing now and again as
he stepped on a hot brick; and heard his groping ego whisper the
question through his prostrate mind, he was tempted to answer aloud, to
shout "No" above the shrieking of shells and the groans of men fallen
about him.
He might no longer love Alexina Groome after twelve or even eight years
of complete severance; and, indeed, save in flashing moments like these
he had seldom thought of her after the first two or three years; but at
least she had taken the edge from his power to suffer.
He had lost his mother soon after his return with the body of her
youngest child, his father had died three years later, and he had
accepted these griefs with the composure of maturity. Although he had
had some agreeable adventures (not that he had had much time for either
women or society) he had taken devilish good care not to get in too
deep--even if he still possessed the power to love at all, which he
doubted.
He remembered also, what he had almost forgotten, that during that walk
it had come to him with the sharpness of surprise that the image of the
girl who clung to his mind with the tentacles of a devil-fish, was as
he had seen her standing under the oak tree while unaware of his
presence: older, a more dignified and thoughtful figure, a woman old
enough to be his mate in something more than youthful passion, the
ideal woman of vague sweet dreams; not as the thoughtless little
coquette who had tempted him to ruin his chances by acting like a cave
brute.
Given a fortnight longer, during which he remained master of himself
instead of a young fool with a smashed temperament, and the unfledged
woman in her, whose subtle projection he had witnessed during that
moment of his capitulation, would have recognized him as her mate; as
for the moment she had in his arms.
Not the least of his ordeals during those last days was the inevitable
call on Gora Dwight. He felt like a cad, after what she had been to him
at the end of an appalling experience, to have let, nearly three weeks
go by with no apparent recognition of her existence. But he had been
unable to find a messenger, there was no post; and then, after his
ill-starred visit to Rincona, he had forgotten her until his final
visit to the undertaker; when she had seemed to stand, an indignant and
reproachful figure, at the head of the casket.
III
He had a note in his pocket and hoped she would be out. But she opened
the door herself, and her dark face, thinner than he recalled it,
flushed and then turned pale. But she said calmly as she extended her
hand: "Come in. I wondered what had become of you." "I'm sorry.
But--perhaps--you can understand--it was not easy for me to come here!"
"Of course. Come up to my diggings."
He followed her up to the attic studio, where as before he took the
easy chair and accepted one of her cigarettes; which he professed to be
grateful for as his were exhausted and every decent brand in town had
gone up in smoke.
Gora was deeply disappointed that she had received no warning of his
call, for she possessed an extremely becoming and richly embroidered
silk Chinese costume, as red as the flames that had devoured Chinatown
a few days after she had bought it at a bankrupt sale. She had put it
on every afternoon for a week, hoping and expecting that he would call;
and now that she had on her second-best tailored suit, and a darned if
immaculate shirtwaist, he had chosen to turn, up! ... But at least the
lapels of the jacket had recently been faced with red, and it curved
closely over her beautiful bust. Moreover, she had just finished
rearranging the masses of her rich brown hair when the bell rang.
And she had him for a time, perhaps for an hour! She set out the tea
things as an intimation of the refreshment he would get at the proper
time....
She too had suffered during this past interminable fortnight, but Gora
was far more mature than the young Englishman, upon whom life until the
last few weeks had smiled so persistently. She was too complex, she had
suffered in too many ways, from too many causes, not all of them
elevating, to be capable upon so short a notice, even after a night of
unique companionship, of such whole-souled agony and despair. In her
imagination, her sense of drama, her vanity, in the fading of vague
dazzling hopes of a future to which he held the key, and perhaps a
little in her stormy heart, she had felt a degree of harsh
disappointment, but she had already half-recovered; and as she sat
looking at his ravaged face she wondered that the death of a sister, no
matter how harrowing the conditions, could make such a wreck of any man.
He told her of his difficulties in finding some one to remove the body
from the vault to the undertaker's, of the delay in obtaining a private
car, gave her some idea of his disorganized life since they had parted,
but made no mention of Alexina Groome or Rincona. Then he politely
asked her if she had any new plans for the future. Nobody seemed to
look forward to the same old life.
Gora shrugged her shoulders with a movement expressive of irritation.
"My brother, who is engaged to Alexina Groome, insists that I give up
this lodging house."
"Oh, so they are engaged?" Gathbroke lit another cigarette, and his
hand did not tremble; he felt as if his nerves had been immersed in ice
water and frozen.
"Yes--marvelously. The family, as might be expected, is furious. But
the girl is mad about him and of age. She is just a foolish child and
should be locked up. My brother is not in the least what she imagines
him. She wrote me a letter. Good heaven! One would think she had
captured the prince of a fairy tale, or the hero of an old romantic
novel. There should be a law prohibiting girls from marrying before
they are twenty-two at least.... However, the thing is done. And my
brother is terribly afraid they'll find out that I keep a lodging
house. He's given them to understand we both board here. They are prime
snobs and so is he. I never dreamed it was in him until he began to go
about in society, but then you never know what is in anybody.
Otherwise, he is harmless enough, and a good industrious boy, but he'll
never make the money to keep up with that set, and she won't have much.
It's a stupid affair all round...."
"I've refused to budge until he finds me a job. He certainly cannot
support me, even if I were willing to be supported by any one. As far
as I am concerned they could know I kept a lodging house and welcome.
It is honest and it gives me a good living; and, what I value more,
many hours of freedom. But Mortimer is not only positively terrified
they'll find it out, but he is as obstinate over it as--well, as that
kind of man always is. He's looking about, and I fancy my fate is
stenography or bookkeeping: I took a course at a business college
shortly before my mother died. I don't know that he'd like that much
better; he hinted that I might be a librarian in a small town. But I'll
be hanged if I fall for that."
Gathbroke smiled. "Not that. You don't belong to the country town. But
I fancy you'll have to give up the lodging house. Elton Gwynne took me
down the Peninsula one day, and--well--I don't fancy they would stand
for it. Aristocracies are aristocracies the world over. They may talk
democracy, and really modify themselves a bit, but there are certain
things they'd choke on if they tried to swallow them, and they won't
even try. Better give it up before they find it out and tackle you. I
don't fancy you'd stand for that. It would be devilish disagreeable.
You've got to know and be more or less intimate with them all--"
"I'll not be patronized by them. I don't know that I'll go near them.
For years I've resented that I was not one of them, but I don't fancy
tagging in after my brother, treated with pleasant courteous
resignation, invited once a year to a family dinner, and quite
forgotten on smart occasions."
"Quite so. I like your spunk. Have you thought of being a nurse? All
work is hard and I should think that would be interesting. Must meet a
jolly lot of people. You should see the becoming uniforms the London
nurses wear. Prettiest women on the street, by Jove."
Her heart sank but she replied evenly: "Not a bad idea. I've quite
enough saved to take the course comfortably--"
He had a flash of memory. "And that would give you time to win your
reputation as a writer. Then the nursing would be merely one more
resource."
"It was nice of you to remember that. I'll consider the nursing
proposition, and when you have your next war I'll go over and nurse
you. That part of it--a war nurse--would be mighty interesting."
The words were spoken idly, merely to avert a pause, and forgotten as
soon as uttered. But as a matter of fact the next time they met was
when he looked up from his cot in the hospital after he had been
retrieved from the hut by two of his devoted Tommies, and saw the odd
pale eyes of Gora Dwight close above his own.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
I
Gora closed the door of Mrs. Groome's room as the clock struck two, the
old Ballinger clock that had seemed to toll the hours on a deep note of
solemn acquiescence for the past six weeks.
She crossed the hall and entered Alexina's room without knocking.
Mortimer, during the past fortnight, had moved from the room adjoining
his wife's to one at the back of the house, lest it should be necessary
to call Alexina in the night. He worked very hard.
Alexina still occupied her old room in the front of the house where the
creaking eucalyptus trees sometimes brushed the window pane. It had
been refurnished and fitted in various elusive shades of pink by Mrs.
Abbott as her wedding present. There was a dim point of light above a
gas jet and Gora saw that Alexina was asleep. The pillows were on the
floor. She was lying flat, her arms thrown out, the dusky fine mass of
her hair spread over the low head board. Her clear olive cheeks were
pale with sleep and her eyelashes looked like two little black clouds.
Gora watched her for a moment. Why awaken the poor child? She was
sleeping as peacefully as if that tall old clock of her forefathers had
not tolled out the last of another generation of Ballingers. Her soft
red lips were half parted.
It was now three years since her marriage but she still looked like a
very young girl. Gora always felt vaguely sorry for her although she
seemed happy enough. At all events it was quite obvious that she did
little thinking except when she remembered to wish for a baby.
Gora wore the white uniform of a nurse, and a little cap with wings on
the coronet of her heavy hair. It was a becoming costume and made her
eyes in their dark setting look less pale and cold.
She had a secret contempt for most of the old conventions but she had
given her word to awaken Alexina the moment any change occurred, and
she reluctantly shook her sister-in-law's shoulder.
II
Alexina sprang out of bed on the instant.
"Mother?" she cried. "Is she worse?"
Gora nodded.
Alexina made a dart for the door, but Gora threw a strong arm about
her. Those arms had held more than one violent man in his bed. "Better
wait," she said softly.
Alexina's body grew rigid as she slowly drew back on Gora's arm and
stared up at her. In a moment she asked in a hard steady voice: "Is my
mother dead?"
"Yes. It was very sudden. I had no time to telephone for the doctor; to
call you. She was sleeping. I was sitting beside her. Suddenly I knew
that she had stopped breathing--"
"Would you mind telephoning to Maria and Sally? Maria will never
forgive herself--but mother seemed so much better--"
"I will telephone at once. Shall I call Mortimer?"
"No. Why disturb him?"
Gora, watching Alexina, saw a curious remoteness enter the depths of
her eyes, and her own narrowed with something of her old angry
resentment. In this hour of profound sorrow, when the human heart is
quite honest, Alexina, however her conscious mind might be averted from
the fact, regarded Mortimer Dwight as an outsider, an agreeable alien
who had no permanent place in the immense permanency of the
Ballinger-Groomes. She wanted only her own family, her own inherent
sort. Sally had hastened to California as soon as her mother's illness
had been pronounced dangerous, and had stayed in the house until a week
ago when she had been ordered by the doctor to Santa Barbara to get rid
of a heavy cold on her chest. She had telegraphed the day before that
she was threatened with pneumonia, and Maria, assured that her mother
was in no immediate danger, had gone down to spend two days with her.
Possibly Alexina caught a flash from the mind of this strange and
interesting sister-in-law, for she added hastily:
"You know how hard Mortimer works, poor dear. And I do not feel in the
least like crying. I shall write telegrams to Ballinger and Geary: my
brothers, you know." (Gora ground her teeth.) "It was too sad they
could not get here, but Ballinger is in South America and Geary on a
diet. I must also write a cablegram to an old friend of mine who has
married a Frenchman, Olive de Morsigny. She was always so fond of
mother. Would you also mind telephoning to Rincona about seven?"
"I'll do all the telephoning. Go back to bed as soon as possible. It is
only a little after two." As Gora turned to leave the room Alexina put
her hand on her arm and summoned a faint sweet smile.
"I cannot tell you how grateful I am, Gora dear, how grateful we all
are. You have been simply wonderful--"
"I am a good nurse if I do say it myself," said Gora lightly. "But you
must remember there are others quite as good; and that I--".
"I know you would do your duty as devotedly by any stranger." Alexina
interrupted her with sweet insistence. "But it has been wonderful to be
able to have you, all the same. It has also given me the chance to know
you at last, and I shall never quite let you go again."
Gora, to her secret anger, had never accustomed herself to the
unswerving graciousness of these people, and all that it implied, but
her sharp mind had long since warned her that as she had neither the
position nor the training to emulate it, at least she must not betray a
sense of social inferiority by open resentment.
Her voice was deep and naturally abrupt but she achieved a fair
imitation of Alexina's sweet cordiality. "It has meant quite as much to
me, Alexina, I can assure you. And now that I am on my own and shall
have a day or two between cases I know where I shall spend them. I am
only too thankful that I graduated in time to take care of dear Mrs.
Groome. Write your telegrams and I will give them to the doctor when he
comes. I must telephone to him at once."
III
After she had gone Alexina wrote not only her telegrams and cablegrams,
but the "letters to follow." It was nearly four o'clock when she
finished. Old Dr. Maitland had not yet come and she put her bulletins
on the table in the hall.
She heard Gora moving about her mother's room and retreated into her
own. She did not want to go to her mother yet nor did she care
particularly to see Gora again, although she had certainly been very
nice and a great comfort to them all.
Alexina was quite unaware that her attitude to her sister-in-law was
one of unconsicous condescension, of a well-bred determination never to
wound the pride of a social inferior. She found Gora an "interesting
personality" and quite extraordinarily efficient.
It had been the greatest relief to all the family when that very
capable Miss Dwight--Gora, that is; one must remember--had been brought
by Dr. Maitland to take charge of the case after Mrs. Groome's cardiac
trouble became acute and she demanded constant attention.
Gora had slept in Mrs. Groome's bedroom for six weeks, relieved for
several hours of the afternoon by a member of the family or one of Mrs.
Groome's many anxious friends. It was her first case and it interested
her profoundly. Moreover, her personal devotion placed her for the
moment on a certain basis of equality with a family whose mental
processes were quite transparent to her contemptuous mind. She was
excessively annoyed with herself for still caring, but the roots were
too deep, and there had been nothing in her life during the past three
years to diminish her fierce sense of democracy as she interpreted it.
Alexina had never given a thought to her sister-in-law's psychology,
although the sensitive plates of her brain received an impression now
and again of a violent inner life behind that business-like exterior.
But she had seen little of her until lately, and during the past six
weeks her mind had been too concentrated upon her mother's sufferings
and possible danger to have any disposition for analysis.
She certainly did not feel the least need of her now. She wished,
indeed, that she had asked Aileen to remain in the house last night.
Aileen was her own age, they had been intimate since childhood, often
without the slightest regard for each other's feelings, and was more
like a sister than even dear Sally and Maria.
Suddenly she determined to go to her. She had her own latch key and
would disturb no one but Aileen. She dressed herself warmly and slipped
down stairs and out of the house.
CHAPTER II
I
The city below--the new solid city--was obliterated under a heavy fog,
pierced here and there by steeples and towers that looked like jagged
dark rocks in that white and tranquil sea.
On Angel Island and on the north shore of the bay the deep sad bells
were tolling their warning to moving craft; and from out at sea, beyond
the Golden Gate, the fog horn sent forth its long lugubrious groans.
The bells sounded muffled, so dense was the fog, and there was no other
sound in the sleeping city.
Alexina wrapped her long cloak more closely about her and pulled the
hood over her head.
As she walked slowly down the steep avenue it came to her with
something of a shock that she had not thought of her husband since she
had expressed to Gora her reluctance to disturb him.
She was doing the least conventional thing possible in leaving the
house at four o'clock in the morning to seek the sympathy of a girl
friend when any other young wife she knew (unless getting a divorce)
would have flown to her husband and wept out her sorrow in his arms.
And she had been married only three years, and found Mortimer quite as
irreproachable as ever, always kind, thoughtful, and considerate. He
assuredly would have said just the right things to her and not have
resented in the least being deprived of a few hours of rest.
On the contrary, he would no doubt resent being ignored, for not only
was he devoted to his lovely young wife but such behavior was
unorthodox, and he disliked the unorthodox exceedingly.
Well, she didn't want him and that was the end of it. He didn't fill
the present bill. She had never regretted her marriage, for he had
quite measured up to the best feats of her maiden imagination. He made
love charmingly, he was manly chivalrous and honorable, and his eager
spontaneity of manner when he arrived home at six o'clock every evening
never varied; to whatever level of flatness he might drop immediately
afterward. When they entered a ballroom or a restaurant she knew that
they made a "stunning couple" and that people commented upon their good
looks, their harmonious slenderness and inches, and contrasts in
nature's coloring.
II
Alexina, almost unconsciously, sat down on a bench under the trees. Her
mind sought the pleasant past as a brief respite from the present; she
knew that that part of her mind called heart was frozen by the
suddenness of her mother's death, and that her emotions would be fluid
a few hours hence.
They had had a simply heavenly time together until her mother's
illness. As a clerk in the family was unthinkable Mrs. Groome had lent
him the insurance on one of her burned buildings and he had started a
modest exporting and importing house, that being the only business of
which he had any knowledge. Judge Lawton and Tom Abbott had suggested
that he open an insurance office, or start himself in any business
where little capital besides office furniture was needed; as Mrs.
Groome's advisors they were averse to launching any of her moderate
fortune on a doubtful venture. But Dwight had insisted that he was more
likely to succeed in a business he understood than in one of which he
knew nothing, and Mrs. Groome had agreed with him. Judge Lawton and
Abbott paid over the insurance money with the worst grace possible.
And then Mortimer had a piece of the most astounding good luck. His
aunt Eliza Goring had left stock in a mine which had run out of pay ore
soon after her investment, and shut down. It had recently been
recapitalized and a new vein discovered. Mrs. Goring's executor had
sold her stock for something under twenty thousand dollars, delivering
the proceeds, as directed in her will, to two of her amazed heirs,
Mortimer and Gora Dwight.
Gora had been opposed to her brother leaving the firm of Cheever
Harrison and Cheever, where, beyond question, he would be head of a
department in time and safely anchored for life; but he had taken the
step, and she reasoned that he must have a considerable knowledge of a
business with which he had been associated for fourteen years, she knew
his energy and powers of application, and she resented the attitude of
"the family." Appreciating what his triumph would mean to him she had
consented to invest her inheritance in his business and enable him to
make immediate restitution to Mrs. Groome. As a matter of fact his
"stock did go up" with the family, particularly as he seemed to be
doing well and had the reputation of working harder than any young man
on the street. As he had anticipated, a good deal of business was
thrown his way.
He had accepted as a matter of course Mrs. Groome's invitation to live
with her, paying, as he insisted upon it, a stipulated sum toward the
current expenses. He thought her offer quite natural; not only would
she be lonely without the child of her old age, but she must desire
that Alexina continue to live in the conditions to which she was
accustomed; the sum Mrs. Groome consented to accept would not have kept
them in a fashionable family hotel, much less an apartment with several
servants.
Moreover, housing room was scarce; they might have been obliged to live
across the Bay; and, in his opinion, the duty of parents to their
offspring never ceased.
Alexina at that time thought every sentiment he expressed "simply
great," and had continued to feed from her mother's hand even in the
matter of pin money. Mortimer felt it to be right, so he told her, to
put his surplus profits back in his business; all he could spare he
needed for "front," to say nothing of pleasant little dinners at
restaurants to their hospitable young friends; who thought it no
adequate return to be asked to dine on Ballinger Hill.
Moreover, he often gave her a far handsomer present than he should have
done, considering the "hard times;" or at least she would have
preferred that he give her the combined values in the form of a monthly
allowance; she would have enjoyed the sensation of being in a measure
supported by her husband.
However, she and her mother assured each other that he was bound to
make a fortune in time, and then she would have an allowance as large
as that of Sibyl Thorndyke, who had married Frank Bascom.
It had been like playing at marriage. Alexina put it into concrete
words. Subconsciously she had always known it. She had had no cares, no
responsibilities. She had merely continued to play, to keep her
imagination on that plane sometimes called the fool's paradise.
III
She realized abruptly that here was the secret of her longing for
children. They would have been the real thing, given a serious
translation to life.
But she had enjoyed the gay life of her little world, nevertheless, and
with all the abandon of a youth which had just closed its first long
chapter in that silent room on top of the hill. And no one could have
asked for a more delightful companion to play with than Morty, when his
working hours were over.
Mortimer loved society. It had been simply delicious, poor darling, to
watch his secret delight, under his perfect repose, the first time they
spent a week-end in Mrs. Hunter's magnificent "villa" at Burlingame.
Even Aileen had treated his initiation as a matter of course; and they
had spent the afternoon at the club, where he drank whiskey and soda on
equal terms with many millionaires.
IV
It was doubtful if he enjoyed similarly his first visit to Rincona
during their engagement: after all the powwow was over and the family
had grimly surrendered to avoid the scandal of an elopement.
Alexina recalled that dreadful day. They had all sat on the verandah on
the shady side of the house: her mother, Aunt Clara Groome, Maria,
Susan Belling and Grace Montgomery, Tom Abbott's sisters, whose homes
were in Alta, and Coralie Geary, born Brannan, of Fair Oaks (now
Atherton) who had married a nephew of Mrs. Groome. All these were as
one united family. They met every day, wandering in and out at all
hours, and although they had many healthy disagreements they agreed on
all the fine old fundamentals, and they stood by one another through
thick and thin.
The hair of all looked freshly washed. Their complexions had perished
asking no quarter. Mrs. Montgomery and Mrs. Geary were as slim and
smart as Mrs. Abbott, but the others were expanding rapidly, and Aunt
Clara, who was only a year older than Mrs. Groome, was shamelessly fat,
and her face was so weather-beaten that the freckled skin hung as
loosely as her old wrapper.
All wore white, the simplest white, and all sewed quietly for the new
refugee babies; all except Alexina who talked feverishly to cover the
awful pauses, and young Joan, who had crawled under the table and
stuffed an infant's flannel petticoat into her mouth to muffle her
giggles.
Tom had escaped to the golf links. Mortimer sat in the midst of the
Irregular circle and smoked three cigars. He smiled when he spoke,
which was seldom, and appeared appreciative of the determined efforts
to be "nice" of these ladies who had called him Mortimer as soon as he
arrived, and who made him fed more like a poor relation whose feelings
must be spared, every moment.
Finally Alexina, who was on the verge of hysteria, dragged Joan from
under the table, and the two carried him off to the tennis court.
In subsequent visits, now covering a period of three years, their
gracious civil "kind" attitude had never varied, save only when their
consciences hurt them for disliking him more than usual, and then they
were not only heroic but fairly effusive in their efforts to be nice.
Nevertheless, it was quite patent to Alexina that he enjoyed smoking
his after-dinner cigar on that old verandah whose sweet-scented vines
had been planted in the historic sixties; or under the ancient oaks of
the park where he dreamed aloud to her of sitting under similar oaks of
England, the guest of Lady Barnstable or Lady Arrowmount, belles of the
eighties who faithfully exchanged letters once a year with Maria Abbott
and Coralie Geary.
From the family there was always the refuge of the tennis court and he
played an excellent game. He also seemed to enjoy those dinners given
them in certain other old Peninsula mansions, and if they were dull he
was duller.
V
Alexina had admitted to herself some time since (never to that wretch,
Aileen Lawton) that he _was_ rather dull, poor darling.
For a long time the aftermath of the earthquake and fire had supplied
topics for conversation. For quite two years there had been an acutely
painful interest in the Graft Prosecution, which, beginning with an
attempt merely to bring to justice the political boss, his henchman the
mayor, and his ignorant obedient board of supervisors, had unthinkably
resolved itself into a declaration of war, with State's Prison as its
goal, upon some of the most prominent capitalists in San Francisco.
The prosecution had been started by a small group of eminent citizens,
bent upon cleaning up their city, notorious for graft, misgovernment,
and the basest abuses of political power. They had assumed as a matter
of course that those of their own class, who for years had expressed in
private their bitter resentment against paying out small fortunes to
the board of supervisors every time they wanted a franchise, would be
only too glad to expose the malefactors.
But it immediately transpired that they had no intention whatever of
admitting to the world that they had been guilty of corruption and
bribery. They might have been "held up," forced to "come through," or
renounce their great enterprises; helpless, in other words; but the law
had technical terms for their part in the shameful transactions, and so
had the public.
All solemnly vowed that they had neither been approached by the city
administration for bribe money, nor paid a cent for franchises, some of
which the prosecution knew had cost them no less than two hundred
thousand dollars. Therefore did the prosecutors change their tactics.
Supervisors, by various means, were induced to confess, and the Grand
Jury indicted not only the boss and the mayor, but a large number of
eminent citizens.
Society was riven in twain. Life-long friends cut one another, and now
and again they burst into hysteria as they did it. Mrs. Ferdinand
Thornton, at a dinner party, left the room as Mrs. Hofer entered it,
and Mrs. Hofer gave a magnificent exhibition of Celtic temperament.
The editor who supported the prosecution with the full strength of his
historic sheet was kidnapped. The prosecuting attorney was shot in the
court room by a former convict who afterward was found dead in his
cell. There were moments when it looked as if excited mobs would
reinstitute the lynch law of the fifties.
Nothing came of it all but such a prolonged exposure of general
vileness that it was possible to effect a certain number of reforms
later by popular vote. The system remained inviolate, even during the
mayorship of a fine old citizen too estimable to build up a rival
machine; and the men of the prosecution, after many bitter harassed
months, when they walked and slept with their lives in their hands,
resigned themselves to the fact that no San Francisco jury would ever
convict a man who had the money to bribe it.
All this had given Mortimer abundant material for conversation and he
had entertained Mrs. Groome and Alexina night after night with a report
of the day's events and the gossip of the street. Mrs. Groome had been
intensely interested, for this upheaval reminded her of personal
episodes in the life of her husband and father, the latter having been
a member of the vigilance committees of the fifties.
She had been so delighted with the efforts of the prosecuting group to
bring the boss and the mayor to justice that she had permitted Alexina
to invite the Hofers to dinner; but when men of her own proud circle
were accused of crimes against society and threatened with San Quentin,
nothing could convince her of their guilt; and she asked Alexina to
follow the example of Maria and cut that Mrs. Hofer.
Alexina had never been interested in the details of the prosecution;
the large moments of the drama and the social convulsions were enough
for her. She refused to cut Mrs. Hofer, although she ceased to call on
her, as her mother and her husband made such a point of it; but she
gave little thought to the sorrows of that ambitious young matron. She
had other fish to fry.
Two great hotels whose interiors had been swept by the fire were
renovated and furnished and their restaurants and ballrooms eagerly
patronized. The Assembly balls were resumed. There were dinners and
dances in the Western Addition, where many of the finest homes in the
city had been built during the past ten or twenty years; and
entertaining Down the Peninsula had not paused for more than two months
after the disaster.
Nevertheless, she had exulted in the fact that the husband of her
choice was able to please and entertain her mother-no easy feat.
Moreover, as time went on and interest in the Graft Prosecution wore
thin, it was evident that Mortimer had established himself firmly in
his mother-in-law's graces. He was not only the perfect husband but the
son of her old age.
She had lost Ballinger and Geary in her comparative youth, and Tom was
rarely in the house when she visited Rincona. But Mortimer was as
devoted to her in the little ways so appreciated by women of any age as
he was to his wife, and he was noiseless in the house and as prompt as
the clock. During her illness his devotion touched even Mrs. Abbott,
although Mrs. Groome was the only member of the family he ever won over.
VI
Poor Morty. In a way he was a failure, after all. The men of her set
did not seem to care any more for him than they did before her
marriage, although they were always polite and amiable; and the promise
of those old family friends to throw business in his way seemed to be
forgotten as time went on.
No doubt they had thought he was able to stand on his own feet after a
while, but he had often looked depressed during the panic of
nineteen-seven and the long period of business drought that had
followed. Still, he had managed to hold his own, and his constitutional
optimism was unshaken. He _knew_ that when times changed he would soon
be a rich man, and Alexina shared his faith. Not that she had ever
cared particularly for great wealth, but he talked so much about it
that he had excited her imagination; after all money was the thing
these days, no doubt of that, and she had heard "poor talk" all her
life and was tired of it.
Moreover, nothing could be more positive than that if Morty's father
had made a fortune in his own day, and the son inherited and
administered it with the canny vigilance which distinguished the sons
of rich men to-day from the mad spendthrifts of a former generation, he
would be as logically intimate with those young capitalists who were
the renewed pillars of San Francisco society, as she was with the most
aloof and important of her own sex.
She had heard Judge Lawton and other men say that if a man were still a
clerk at thirty he was hopeless. The ruts were packed with the mediocre
whose destiny was the routine work of the world, whatever might be
their secret opinions of their unrecognized abilities and their
resentment against a system that anchored them.
The young man of brains and initiative, of energy, ambition, vision and
balance, provided he were honorable as well, and temperate in his
pleasures, was the man the eager world was always waiting for.
Alexina knew that the United States was almost as prolific in this fine
breed of young men as she still was in opportunities for the
exceptional of every class.
And it was possible that Mortimer was not one of them.
Once more she put a fact into bald words. She knew that her butterfly
youth had come to an end with her mother's death, and for a year she
should be very much alone, to say nothing of her new burden of
responsibilities. Thinking during that period was inevitable. She might
as well begin now.
Mortimer had some of those gifts. He worked like a dog, he was
ambitious and temperate and he was the soul of honor. But although his
brain was clear enough, the blindest love would, perceive in time that
it lacked originality.
Did it also lack initiative, resource, that peculiar alertness and
quick pouncing quality of which she had heard? She wished she knew, but
she had never discussed her husband with any one. Certainly he had
stood still. Or was that merely the fault of the hard times? She had
heard other men complain as bitterly.
"Fate handed you a lemon, old girl."
Alexina could almost hear Aileen's mocking voice. She even gave a
startled glance down the quiet avenue. Well, she would never discuss
him with Aileen or any one else.
Did she love him any longer? Had she ever loved him? What was love? She
had been quite happy with him in her own little way. What did girls of
eighteen know of love? Deliberately in her youthful arrogance and
unlicensed imagination she had manufactured a fool's paradise; and, a
hero being indispensable, had dragged him in after her.
Perhaps she still loved him. She had read and seen enough to know that
love changed its character as the years went on. She respected his many
admirable qualities and she would never forget his devotion to her
mother.
She certainly liked him. And the family attitude roused her obstinate
championship as much as ever. At least she would always remain his good
friend, helping him as far as lay in her power. She had deliberately
selected her life partner and she would keep her part of the contract.
He filled his to the letter, or as far as in him lay. If he were not
the masterful superman of her dreams, at least he was quite obstinate
enough to have his own way in many things, in spite of his unswerving
devotion to her charming self. He was whitely angry when she received
Bob Cheever one afternoon when she was alone, and had forbidden her
ever to receive a man in the daytime again. If men wanted to call on a
married woman they could do so in the evening. She no longer danced
more than twice with any man at a party, and he refused to read her
favorite books, new or old, and chilled any attempt to discuss them in
his presence.
VII
Well, after all, what did it matter? She had dreamed her dream and he
was better than most. She sprang to her feet and ran down the hill and
across the street to the house of Judge Lawton.
CHAPTER III
I
Gora waited until her brother had finished his bath and returned to his
room. When she was admitted he had a brush in either hand polishing his
pale brown immaculately cut hair. He turned to her, startled, his good
American gray eyes showing no trace of sleep. He always awoke with
alert mind and refreshed body.
"What is it? Not--"
Gora nodded. "At two this morning. Alexina wouldn't let me call you--"
His wide masculine eyebrows met. It was correct to be angry and he was.
"I never heard of such a thing--"
"She was not a bit overcome and wrote letters to her brothers and
friends for at least two hours. It really wouldn't have been worth
while to disturb you--I must say I was astonished; thought she'd go to
pieces--but you never know."
"I'll go to her at once."
"I'd dress first. Aileen Lawton is with her."
Gora knew that Alexina had gone out at four in the morning and returned
half an hour since, but the cat in her was of the tiger variety and
never descended to small game.
"Oh, of course!" Mortimer gave a groan of resignation as he hunted out
a pair of black socks. "I like Aileen well enough, but she has
altogether too much influence over Alexina. She'd have more than myself
if I didn't keep a close watch."
"I have an idea that no one will have much influence over Alexina as
time goes on. She hasn't that jaw and chin for nothing. They mean
things in some people."
He gave her a quick suspicious glance, but her pale gray eyes were
fixed on the windmill beyond the window, that odd old landmark in a now
fashionable quarter of San Francisco.
"I shall always control her," he said, setting his large finely cut
lips. "I wish her to remain a child as long as possible, for she is
quite perfect as she is. She is bright and all that, but of course she
has no intellect--"
Gora forgot her message of death and laughed outright.
"Men--American men, anyhow--are really the funniest things in the
world. Even intellectual men are absurd in their patronizing attitude
toward the cleverest of women; but when it conies to mere masculine
arrogance ... don't you really respect any woman's brains?"
"I never denied that some women were clever and all that, but the best
of them cannot compare with men. You must admit that."
"I admit nothing of the sort, but I know your type too well to waste
any time in argument--"
"My type?"
She longed to reply: "The smaller a man's brain the more enveloping his
mere male arrogance. Instinct of self-defense like the turtle's shell
or the porcupine's quills or the mephitic weasel's extravasations." But
she never quarreled with Morty, and to have shared with him her opinion
of his endowments would have been to deprive herself of a good deal of
secret amusement.
"Oh, you're all alike," she said lightly, and added: "Don't be too sure
that Alexina hasn't intellect-the real thing. When she emerges from
this beatific dream of youth she has almost hugged to death for fear it
might escape her, and begins to think--"
"I'll do her thinking."
"All right, dear. You have my best wishes. But keep on the job.... I'll
clear out; you want to dress--"
"Wait a moment." He sat down to draw on his socks. "I'm really cut up
over Mrs. Groome's death. She was my only friend in this damn family,
and I coveted her money so little that I wish she could have lived on
for twenty years."
"I wondered how you liked them as time went on."
He brought his teeth together and thrust out his jaw. "I hate the whole
pack of superior patronizing condescending snobs, and it is all I can
do to keep it from Alexina, who thinks her tribe perfection. But, by
God!"--he brought down his fist on his knee--"I'll beat them at their
own game yet. I simply live to make a million and build a house at
Burlingame. They really respect money as much as they think they don't;
I've got oil to that. When I'm a rich roan they'll think of me as their
equal and forget I was ever anything' else."
"Well, don't speculate," said Gora uneasily. "Remember that luck was
left out of our family."
"My luck changed with that legacy. I am certain of it. I have only to
wait until this period of dry rot passes--"
"But you're not speculating?"
He looked at her with eyes as cold as her own.
"I answer questions about my private affairs to no one."
"They are my affairs to the extent of half your capital."
"You have received your interest regularly, have you not?"
"Yes."
"Then you have nothing to worry about. I understand business, as well
as the man's opportunities, and you do not."
"I did not ask out of curiosity, but because I shall be glad when you
are doing well enough to let me have my eight thousand--"
"What do you want of it? Where could you get more interest?"
"Nowhere, possibly. But some day I shall want to take a vacation, a
fling. I shall want to go to New York and Europe."
"And you would throw away your capital!"
"Why not? I have other capital in my profession; and, although you will
find this difficult to grasp, in my head. I have practiced fiction
writing for years. It is just ten months since I tried to get anything
published, and I have recently had three stories accepted by New York
magazines: one of the old group and two of the best of the popular
magazines."
He looked at her with cold distaste, which deepened in a moment to
alarm. "I hope you will not use your own name. These people who think
themselves so much above us anyhow, look upon authors and artists and
all that as about on a level with the working class--"
"I shall use my own name and ram it down their throats. They worship
success like all the rest of the world. Their fancied distaste for
people engaged in any of the art careers--with whom they practically
never come in contact, by the way--is partly an instinctive distrust of
anything they cannot do themselves and partly because they have an
Elizabethan idea that all artists are common and have offensive
manners."
"I don't like the idea of your using your own name. Ladies may
unfortunately be obliged to earn their own living--and that you shall
never do when I am rich--but they have no business putting their names
up before the public like men."
Gora looked at his rigid indomitable face; the face of the Pilgrim
fathers, of the revolutionary statesmen, which he had inherited intact
from old John Dwight who had sat in the first congress; the American
classic face that is passing but still crops out as unexpectedly as the
last drop from a long forgotten "tar brush," or the sly recurrent
Biblical profile.
"We will make a bargain," she said calmly. "I will ask you no more
questions about your business for a year--when, if convenient, I should
like my money--and you will kindly ignore the literary career I mean to
have. It won't do you the least good in the world to formulate opinions
about anything I choose to do. Now, better concentrate on Alexina.
You've got your hands full there. See you at breakfast." And she shut
the door on an indignant worried and disgusted brother.
CHAPTER IV
I
When Mortimer, after tapping on his wife's door, was bidden to enter he
found her sitting with Aileen over a breakfast tray, the belated tears
running down into her coffee. Aileen, promising to return after she had
given her father his breakfast, made a hasty retreat; and Dwight took
his wife in his arms and soothed the grief which grew almost hysterical
in its reaction from the insensibility of the morning.
"You won't leave me for a moment?" she sobbed, in this mood finding his
sympathy exquisite and necessary. "You'll stay home--until--until--"
"Of course. I'll telephone Wicksam after breakfast. He can run the
office for a day or two. By the way Maria will be here this evening;
Sally is better. Joan and Tom and the rest will be here in about an
hour. Tom and I will attend to everything. You are not to bother, not
to think."
"Oh, you are too wonderful--always so strong--so strong--how I love it.
But I'll never get over this--poor old mommy!"
But the paroxysm passed, and just as Mortimer was on the verge of
morning starvation and too polite to mention it, she grew calm by
degrees and sent him down to breakfast. The emotional phase of her
grief was over.
CHAPTER V
I
It was three months later that Aileen, once more sitting in Alexina's
bedroom, after her return from Santa Barbara, where she had gone with
her father for the summer, said abruptly: "Dad is terribly cut up, dear
old thing. He'd known your mother since they were both children, in the
days when there were wooden sidewalks on Montgomery Street, and Laurel
Hill was called Lone Mountain, and they had picnics in it. Odd they
both should have had young daughters. Another link--what? as the
English say. Well--anyhow--he told me to tell you that he was just as
fond of your father as of your mother, and that you must try to imagine
that he is your father from this time forth, and come to him when you
are in doubt about anything."
Alexina looked her straight in the eyes. "I have sometimes thought
uncle daddy didn't like Mortimer."
"On the contrary, he rather likes him. He respects a capacity for hard
work, and persistence, and a reputation for uncompromising honesty. But
of course Mortimer is young--in business, that is; and father
thinks--but you had better talk with him."
"No. Why should I? But I don't mind you. At least I could not discuss
Mortimer with any one else. I am furious with Tom Abbott. He wants me
to put my money in trust, with himself and uncle daddy as
trustees--ignoring Mortimer, whom he pretends to like. He says Maria's
fortune has been kept intact, that he has never touched a cent of it,
but that men in business are likely to get into tight places and use
their wife's money. Nothing would induce Mortimer to touch my money,
but he would feel pretty badly cut up if I let any one else look after
my affairs. Of course I wouldn't even discuss the matter with Tom. And
if Morty does need money at any time I'll lend it to him. Why not? What
else would any one expect me to do?"
"Of course Tom Abbott went to work the wrong way, the blundering idiot.
No one doubts Mortimer's good faith, but the times are awful, money has
paresis; and when you are obliged to take any of your own out of the
stocking in order to keep business going, it is easily lost. Dad hopes
you will hang on like grim death to your inheritance. You see--the
times are so abnormal, Mortimer hasn't had time to prove his abilities
yet; he's just been able to hold on; and if things don't mend and he
should lose out, why--if you still have your own little fortune, at
least you'll not be any worse off than, you are now. Don't you see?"
"Yes, I see. But Mortimer has told me of other panics and bad times.
They always pass, and better times come again. And if he has been able
to hold on, that at least shows ability, for others have gone under. Of
course we shall live here and run the house--as mother did. I couldn't
bear to live anywhere else, and Morty adores it too."
"Oh, rather. I couldn't imagine you anywhere else."
"Geary and Ballinger sent me ten thousand dollars for a wedding present
and Morty bought some bonds for me, but I'm going to sell a few and
refurnish the lower rooms. I love the old house but I like cheerful
modern things. The poor old parlors and dining-room do look like
sarcophagi."
"Good. I'll help. We'll have no end of fun."
II
There was a pause and then Alexina said: "Mortimer is so determined to
be a rich man and thinks of so little else and works so hard, that he
is bound to be. Otherwise, such gifts would be meaningless."
She made the statements with an unconscious rising inflection. Aileen
did not answer and turned her sharp revealing green eyes on the
eucalyptus grove which concealed Ballinger House from the vulgar gaze,
and incidentally shut off a magnificent view.
"I don't know whether I like Gora Dwight or not," she remarked.
"Neither do I. But I admire her. She is a wonder."
"Oh, yes, I admire her, and I've a notion she's got something big in
her, some sort of destiny. But those light eyes in that dark face give
me the creeps. It isn't that I don't trust her. I believe her to be
insolently honest and honorable--and just, if you like. But--perhaps
it's only the accident of her queer coloring--she gives me the
impression that while she might go to the stake for her pride, she'd
murder you in cold blood if you got in her way."
"Poor Gora! You make her all the more interesting."
"Did she ever tell you that she corresponds with that Englishman who
was out here at the time of the earthquake and fire and had that
ghastly adventure with his sister? We all met him at the Hofer
ball--Gathbroke his name was."
Alexina was staring at her with an amazed frown. "Correspond--Gora? ...
I remember now he told me she helped him to carry his sister's body out
to the old cemetery. Is he interested in her?"
"I shouldn't wonder. They've corresponded off and on ever since. I
walked, home with her one afternoon before I went south--she interests
me frantically--and she invited me up to her quite artistic attic in
Geary Street, where she still lives, and gave me the most vivid
description of that night. It made me crawl. She stared straight before
her as she told it. Her eyes were just like gray oval mirrors in which
it seemed to me I saw the whole thing pass....
"Then she showed me a photograph he had recently sent her--stunning
thing he is, all right, and looks years older than when he was here.
She also alluded to things he had said in a letter or two. So my
phenomenally quick wits inferred that they correspond. Perhaps they are
engaged. Pretty good deal for her."
III
Alexina, to her surprise, felt intensely angry, although she had the
presence of mind to cast up her eyes until the white showed below the
large brilliant iris and she looked like a saint in a niche.
She had kept Gathbroke out of her thoughts for nearly four years,
deliberately. For a time she had hated him. Mortimer's love-making had
seemed tame in comparison with that primitive outburst, and never had
she felt any such fiery response to the man she had loved and chosen as
during those few moments when she had been in that impertinent,
outrageous, loathsome young Englishman's arms. At first she had
wondered and resented, loyally concluding that it was her own fault, or
that of fate for endowing her with such a slender emotional equipment
that she used it all up at once on the wrong man. Finally, she found it
wise not to think about it at all and to dismiss the intruder from her
thoughts.
Now she felt outraged in her sense of possession.... Unconsciously she
had enshrined him as the secret mate of her inmost secret self ... a
self she was barely conscious of even yet ... lurking in her
subconsciousness, the personal and peculiar blend of many and diverse
ancestors.... Sometimes she had glimpsed it ... wondered a little with
a not unpleasant sense of apprehension....
But for the most part Circumstance had decreed that she abide on the
abundant surface of her nature and enjoy a highly enjoyable life as it
came. Now, she had experienced her first grief, which at the same time
was her first set-back. She did not go out at all. She saw much of
Mortimer and little of any one else. It was the summer season and all
her friends were in the country or in Europe.
She had given Mortimer her power of attorney (largely a gesture of
defiance, this) and he had attended to all details connected with her
new fortune. Between the inheritance tax, small legacies, and
depreciations, she would have a little over six thousand dollars a
year; which, however, with Mortimer's contribution, would run the old
house, and keep her wardrobe up to mark after she went out of mourning.
She knew nothing of the value of money, and was accustomed to having
little to spend and everything provided. But her mind regarding
finances was quite at rest. Even if Mortimer remained a victim of the
hard times, they would be quite comfortable.
The cares of housekeeping were very light. She discussed the daily
menus with James, but he had run Ballinger House for years, little as
Mrs. Groome had suspected it. Mortimer, shortly after his
mother-in-law's death, and while Alexina was passing a fortnight at
Rincona, had given James orders to collect all bills on the first of
every month and hand them to him, together with a statement of the
servants' wages. Mrs. Dwight was not to be bothered.
Alexina, when she returned, had made no protest. The details of
housekeeping did not appeal to her. But the arrangement left her
without occupation, and much time for thought. After a long walk
morning and afternoon she had little to do but read. She was an early
riser and her mind was active.
IV
Dwight had not the least intention of using his wife's money, for he
had perfect confidence in his change of luck, and in his ability to do
great things with his business as soon as the period of depression had
passed. But he had no faith in any woman's ability to invest and take
care of money, he had fixed ideas in regard to a man being master in
his own house, and he had asked Alexina for her power of attorney more
to flaunt her confidence in him and to annoy her damnable relatives
than because there might possibly be a moment when he should have need
of immediate resources. Like many Americans he chose to keep his wife
in ignorance of his business life, and it would have annoyed him
excessively to go to her with an explanation of temporary difficulties
and ask for a loan.
Moreover, he wished to keep Alexina young and superficial, ignorant of
money matters, indifferent to the sordid responsibilities of life. Not
only was the present Alexina no embarrassment whatever to a man full of
schemes, aside from the slow march of business, for getting rich, but
she was infinitely alluring.
He detested business women, intellectual women, women with careers;
they tipped the even balance of the man's world; moreover, they had no
accepted place in the higher social scheme. For women wage-earners he
had no antipathy and much sympathy and consideration, although he
underpaid them cheerfully when circumstances would permit. It was an
abiding canker that his sister was obliged to support herself; he was
not ashamed of it, for nursing was an honorable (and altruistic)
profession, and several young women in his new circle bad taken it up;
but he hated it as a man and a brother. As for her turning herself into
an authoress, however, he only hoped he would make his million before
she got herself talked about.
As for Alexina she was the perfect flower of a system lie worshiped and
nothing should mar or change her if his fond surveillance could prevent
it.
On the whole he was quite happy at this time, despite his passionate
desire for wealth and his natural resentment, at the attitude of the
Abbotts and their intimate circle of old friends who were so like them
that he always included them in his mind when speaking of "the family."
Although he was making barely enough to pay his sister the monthly
interest on her money, the salaries of his employees, and, until
recently, a monthly contribution to the household expenses, he had a
comfortable and delightful home with not a few of the minor luxuries,
an undisputed position in the best society, an honorable one in the
business world, and a beautiful wife. Now that the conventions forced
them to live the retired life, they could economize without attracting
attention; as he paid the bills Alexina would not know whether he still
contributed his share or not; (in time he meant to pay the whole and
give his wife, with the grand gesture, her entire income for pin money)
and, with Alexina's cordial assent, he had sold the old carriage, and
the horses, which were eating their heads off, dismissed the
coachman-gardener, and found a young Swede to take care of the garden
and outbuildings.
Later, they would have their car like other people, but there was no
need for it at present, and it was neither the time nor the occasion to
exhibit a tendency to extravagance. In the matter of "front" he knew
precisely where to leave off.
In a certain small anxious bag-of-tricks way he was clever. But not
clever enough. He knew nothing of Alexina beneath her shining surface.
If he had he would have sought to crowd her mind with the details of
the home, encouraged her to join in the frantic activities of some one
of the women's clubs he held in scorn, persuaded her to play golf daily
at the fashionable club of which they were members, even though she ran
the risk of talking, unchaperoned by himself, with other men.
He never would have left her to long hours of idleness, with only books
for companions (and Alexina cared little for novels lacking in
psychology, or in revelations of the many phases of life of which she
was personally so ignorant); and only his own companionship evening
after evening.
But he had known all the Alexina he was ever to know. Such flashing
glimpses as he was destined to have later so bewildered him that he
reacted obstinately to his original estimate of her, ... just a child
under the influence of her family or some of those friends of hers who
had always hated him ... erratic and irresponsible like all women ... a
man never could understand women because there was nothing to
understand ... merely a bundle of contradictions....
In some ways his mental equipment was an enviable one.
VI
Some of all this Alexina guessed, and although she was nettled at times
that he took no note of her maturing mind and character, she was, on
the whole, more amused.
Indulgent by nature, and somewhat indolent, she had been more than
willing that Morty should enjoy his new authority, should even delude
himself that he was footing all the bills, poor dear; and she listened
raptly to his evening visions of their future life in Burlingame,
alternated with visits to New York and England, the while she puzzled
over the intricacies of some character portrayed by a master analyst.
Sometimes he did not talk at all, utterly fagged by a strenuous day in
which he had accomplished precisely nothing. But the more transparent
and truncated and dull he grew the more spontaneous the "niceness" and
almost effusive courtesy of his wife. Insensibly she was veering to the
family attitude, but he had tagged her once for all and never saw it.
Until this moment, however, when Gathbroke had been jerked from his
deep seclusion within her ivory tower by Aileen's unwelcome news, she
had never had a moment of complete self-revelation.... She knew
instantly that she had never loved her husband: he was not her mate and
Gathbroke was. She had had three years of rippling content and light
enjoyment with Mortimer, they had never quarreled seriously, and they
had never taken their parts in one moment of real drama.
If she had married Gathbroke they would have quarreled furiously, they
would have thrown courtesy and behavior to the winds often enough,
particularly while they were young, for neither would have been in the
least apprehensive of wounding the rank-pride of the other, and such
mutual and passionate love as theirs naturally gave birth to a high
state of irritability; they would have loved and hated and made
constant discoveries about each other ... there would have been depths
never to be fully explored but always luring them on ... and the
perfect companionship ... the complete fusion....
How Alexina knew all this after less than three hours' association with
Gathbroke, let any woman answer. She was not so foolish as to imagine
herself the victim of a secret passion, or that she had ever loved the
man, or ever would. She had merely had her chance for the great
duodrama, and thrown it away for a callow dream. She had no passing
wish, even in that moment of visualizing him interlocked with her own
wraith in that sacred inner temple where even she had never intruded
before, to meet him again. She had no intention of passing any of her
abundant leisure in dreaming dreams of him and the perfect bliss. But
he had been hers ... and utterly ... he had loved her ... he had wanted
her ... he had precipitately begged her to marry him ... he had offered
her the homage of complete brutality.
Something of him would always be hers.
And even though she renounced all rights in him because she must, she
did not in the least relish that any one so close to her as Gora Dwight
should have him. She might have heard of his marriage to a girl of his
own land and class with only a passing spasm, but his continued and
possibly tender friendship with her sister-in-law shook her out of the
last of her jejunity and its illusions.... She was not exactly a dog in
the manger ... she was a maturing woman looking back with anger and
dismay not only upon the fatal mistake of her youth, but upon the
inexorable realities of her present life....
The reaction was a more intense feeling of loyalty to Mortimer than
ever. She was entirely to blame. He not only had been innocent of
conscious rivalry, even of pursuit--for she could quite easily have
discouraged him in the earlier stages of his courtship--but he was
dependent upon her in every way: for his happiness, for the secure
social position that meant so much to him, for the greater number of
his valuable connections, for even his comfort and ease of living.
Something of this had passed through her stunned mind on the morning of
her mother's death. Now it was all as sharply outlined as the etching
at which she was raptly gazing, and she vowed anew that she would never
desert him, never deny him the assistance of the true partner. She had
signed a life contract with her eyes open and she would keep it to the
letter.
Only she hoped to heaven that Gathbroke was not serious about Gora. She
wished never to be reminded of his existence again.
And, as Aileen talked of Santa Barbara, she wondered vaguely why there
was not a law forbidding girls to marry until they were well into their
twenties.... until they had had a certain amount of experience.... knew
their own minds.... Maria had been right....
CHAPTER VI
I
The darkness had come early with the high rolling fog that shut out the
stars. The fog horn and the bells were silent but the wind had a thin
anxious note as if lost, and the long creaking eucalyptus trees angrily
repelled it as if irritated beyond endurance by its eternal visitations.
Alexina, who had been reading in her bedroom, realized that it must be
quite half an hour since she had turned a page. She lifted her
shoulders impatiently. She was in no humor for reading.
It was only eight o'clock. Far too early for bed. Mortimer had gone to
Los Angeles on business. He had been gone a week, and she admitted to
herself with the new frankness she had determined to cultivate--that
she might meet, with the clearest possible vision, whatever
three-cornered deals Life might have in store for her--that she had not
missed him at all. His absence had been a heavenly interlude. She and
Aileen had gone to the moving pictures unescorted every night (a
performance of which he would have disapproved profoundly), and they
had lunched downtown every day until Alexina had suddenly discovered
that she had no more money in her purse; and, knowing nothing whatever
even of minor finance, was under the impression that having given
Mortimer her power of attorney she would not be able to draw from the
bank.
Aileen had gone down to Burlingame to visit Sibyl Bascom for a few
days. Alexina had declined to go, although it was a quiet party; it
would be embarrassing not to tip the servants.
The wind gave a long angry shriek as it flew round the corner of the
house and fastened its teeth in its enemies, the eucalyptus trees; who
shook it off with a loud furious rattle of their leaves and slapped the
window severely for good measure.
Alexina was used to San Francisco in all her many moods, but to-night,
the wind and the high gray fog shutting out the stars, the silent
house--silent that is but for the mice playing innocently between the
walls--her complete solitude, made her restless and a little nervous.
What could she do?
She knew quite well that she had wanted to go to see Gora for a week.
She had not indulged in any silly dreams about Gathbroke but she was
curious to see his photograph. She remembered that it had crossed her
mind that April day under the oak tree that if he had been older, if he
had outgrown his hopelessly youthful curve of cheek, his fresh color,
and the inability to conceal the asinine condition to which she had
immediately reduced him, she might have given him an equal chance with
Morty.
Aileen had said that he looked older. She had a quite natural curiosity
to decide for herself if, had he been born several years earlier, he
would have proved the successful rival in that foundational period of
their youth.... Or perhaps she was the reason of his rather sudden
maturity. After all there was no great chasm between twenty-three and
twenty-six and three-quarters. She looked little if any older. Neither
did Morty, nor any one she knew.
This idea thrilled her, and, grimly determined upon no compromise or
evasion, she admitted it.
Moreover, she wanted to sound out Gora.
Somehow she had no real belief that he had transferred his affections
to her dissimilar sister-in-law, but her interest in Gora was growing.
She wanted to know her better.
Besides, although she had often invited her to tea on her free
afternoons, and to dinner whenever possible, and had occasionally
dropped in to see her while she was still in the hospital, she had
never called on her in her home. As Gora only slept there after a
killing day's or night's work, visitors were anything but welcome;
nevertheless she felt that she had been negligent, rude--three
years!--and as Gora was not on a case for a day or two, now was the
time to atone.
Moreover, she had never been out quite alone at night, except to run
down the avenue and across the street to Aileen's. It was a long way
down to Geary Street, and Fillmore Street at night was "tough."
Mortimer would be furious.
She hastily changed her dinner gown to a plain walking suit of black
tweed and pinned on a close hat firmly, prepared to defy the wind and
thoroughly to enjoy her little adventure. Not since she had stolen out
to go to forbidden parties with Aileen had she felt such a sense of
altogether reprehensible elation.
CHAPTER VI
I
Fillmore Street, its low-browed shops dark, but with great arcs of
white lights spanning the streets that ran east and west, long shafts
of yellow light shining across the sidewalk from the restaurants, the
candy stores and the nicolodeons--where the pianola tinkled
plaintively--was thronged with saunterers. Alexina darted quick curious
glances at them as she walked rapidly along. In front of every saloon
was a group of young men almost fascinatingly common to Alexina's
cloistered eyes, their hats tilted over their foreheads at an
indescribable angle, rank black cigars in the corners of their mouths,
or cigarettes hanging from their loose lips, leering at "bunches" of
girls that passed unattended, appraising them cynically, making
strident or stage-whispered comments.
A great many girls had cavaliers, and these walked with their heads
tossed, unless drooping toward a padded, shoulder; and they wore
perhaps a coat or two less of make-up than their still neglected
sisters. These were vividly earmined, although most of them were young
enough to have relied on cold water and a rough towel; their hair was
arranged in enormous pompadours and topped with "lingerie" or
beflowered hats. Their blouses were "peek-a-boo" and cut low, their
skirts high; slender or plump, they wore exaggerated straight front
corsets, high heels and ventilated stockings. They practiced the
débutante slouch and their jaws worked automatically.
Not all of them were "bad" by any means. Fillmore Street was a
promenade at night for girls who were confined by day: waitresses, shop
girls of the humbler sort, servants, clerks, or younger daughters of
poor parents, who would see nothing of life at all if they sat
virtuously in the kitchen every night.
The best of them were not averse to being picked up and treated to
ice-cream-soda or the more delectable sundae. A few there were, and
they were not always to be distinguished by the kohl round their eyes,
the dead white of their cheeks, the magenta of their lips, who,
ignoring the "bums" and "cadets" lounging at the corners or before the
saloons, directed intent long glances at every passing man who looked
as if he had the "roll" to treat them handsomely in the back parlor of
a saloon, or possibly stake them at a gaming table. The town, still in
its brief period of insufferable virtue, was "closed," but the lid was
not on as irremovably as the police led the good mayor to believe; and
these girls, who traveled not in "bunches" but in pairs, if they had
not already begun a career of profitable vice, were anxious to start
but did not exactly know how. Fillmore Street was not the hunting
ground of rich men; but men with a night's money came there, and many
"boobs" from the country.
Alexina had heard of Fillmore Street from Aileen, who investigated
everything, escorted by her uxorious parent, and had been informed that
many of these girls were "decent enough"; "much more decent than I
would be in the circumstances: work all day, coarse underclothes, no
place to see a beau but the street. I'd go straight to the devil and
play the only game I had for all it was worth."
But to Alexina they all looked appalling, abandoned, the last cry in
"badness." She was not afraid. The street was too brilliant and the
great juggernauts of trolley cars lumbered by every few moments.
Moreover, she could make herself look as cold and remote as the stars
above the fog, and she had drawn herself up to her full five feet
seven, thrown her shoulders back, lifted her chin and lowered her
eyelids the merest trifle. She fancied that the patrician-beauty type
would have little or no attraction for the men who frequented Fillmore
Street. Certainly the bluntest of these males could see that she was
not painted, blackened, dyed, nor chewing gum.
Moreover she was in mourning.
But she had reckoned without her youth.
II
"Say, kid, what you doin' all alone?"
A hand passed familiarly through her arm.
Her brain turned somersaults, raced. Should she burst into tears? Turn
upon him with a frozen stare? Appeal for help?
Then she discovered that although astonished she was not at all
terrified; nor very much insulted. Why should she be? A casual remark
of the sophisticated Aileen flashed through her rallying mind: "When a
man is even half way drunk he doesn't know a lady from a trollop, and
ten to one the lady's a trollop anyhow."
She heartily wished that Aileen were in her predicament at the present
moment. What on earth was she to do with the creature?
She had accelerated her steps without speaking or making any foolish
attempts to shake him off; but she knew that her face was crimson, and
one girl tittered as they passed, while another, appreciating the
situation, laughed aloud and cried after her: "Don't be frightened,
kid. He's not a slaver."
Irrepressible curiosity made her send him a swift glance from the
corner of her eye. He was a young man, thick set, with an aggressive
nose set in a round hard face. His small, hard, black eyes were steady,
and so were his feet. He did not look in the least drunk.
"I think you have made a mistake," she said quietly, and with no
pretense at immense dignity (she could hear Aileen say: "Cut it out.
Nothing doing in that line here"). "I, also, have made a mistake--in
walking at night on this street. Would you mind letting go my arm? I
think I'll take a car."
"No, I think you'll stay just where you are," he said insolently. "You
don't belong here all right, but you've come and you can stand the
consequences. You're just the sort that needs a jolt and I like the
idea of handing it."
Alexina gave him a coldly speculative glance. "I wonder why?"
"You would? Well, I'll tell you. Never been out alone at night before,
I'll bet, like these other girls, that ain't got no place on earth to
have any fun but the streets. Never even rubbed against the common
herd? Generally go about in a machine, don't you?"
"It is quite true that I have never been out alone at night before. I
certainly shall not go again."
"No, you don't have to! That's the point, all right. And if you weren't
such a beauty, damn you! I'd hate you this minute as I hate your whole
parasite class."
"Oh, you are a socialist!" Alexina looked at him with frank curiosity.
"I never saw one before."
He was obviously disconcerted. Then his face flushed with anger. "Yes,
I'm a socialist all right, and you'll see more of us before you're many
years older."
"You might tell me about it if you _will_ walk with me. I am a long way
from my destination, and that would be far more interesting than
personalities."
"I've got more personalities where those came from. It makes me sick to
see the difference between you and these poor kids--ready to sell their
souls for pretty clothes and a little fun. There's nothing that has
done so much to inflame class hatred as the pampered delicate
satin-skinned women of your class, who have expensive clothes and
'grooming' to take the place of slathers of paint and cheap perfume.
Raised in a hot house for the use of the man on top. It's the crowning
offense of capitalism, and when the system goes, they'll all be like
you, or you'll be more like them. You'll come down about a thousand
pegs, and the ones down below will be shoved up to meet you."
Alexina stood still and faced him.
"Are you poor?" she asked.
"What a hell of a question. Have I been talkin' like a plutocrat?"
"Oh, there are, still, different grades. I was wondering if you would
be so inconsistent as to earn a little money from me and two friends of
mine. We have read socialism a bit, but, we don't understand it very
well. I am in mourning and it would interest me immensely."
He had dropped her arm and was staring at her.
"You are not afraid of me, then?" His voice was sulky but his eyes were
less hostile.
"Oh, not in the least. I fully appreciate that you merely wished to
humiliate me, not to be insulting, as some of these other men might
have been. My name is Mrs. Mortimer Dwight. I live on Ballinger
Hill--do you know it? That old house in the eucalyptus grove?"
"I know it, all right."
"Then you probably know, also, that I am not rich and never have been.
My husband is a struggling young business man."
"That cuts no ice. You train with that class, don't you? You're class
yourself, reek with it. You had rich ancestors or you wouldn't be what
you are now."
"Well, we can discuss that point another time. One of my friends is a
daughter of Judge Lawton--"
"Hand in glove with every rich grafter in 'Frisco."
Alexina shuddered. "Please say San Francisco. I am positive you never
heard a word against Judge Lawton's probity, nor that he ever rendered
an unjust decision."
"He's a wise old guy, all right. But it would be wastin' time tryin' to
make you understand why I have no use for him."
"Of course you would have no use for the husband of my other friend,
Mrs. Frank Bascom."
She fully expected that the young millionaire's name would be the final
red rag and that her escort would roar his opinion of him for the
benefit of all Fillmore Street. But he surprised her by saying
reluctantly:
"He's dead straight, all right. He's not a grafter. I've nothing
against him personally, but he's part of a damnable system and I'd
clean him out with the rest."
"Well, there you have three of us to your hand. Who knows but that you
might convert us? Why not give us the chance? If you will give me your
address I will write to you as soon as my friends come back to town."
"I don't know whether I want to do it or not. You may be makin' game of
me for all I know."
"I am quite sincere. You interest me immensely. And we might teach you
something too--what it means to have a sense of humor. I know enough of
socialism to know that no socialist can have it. May I ask what your
occupation is?"
"I'm just a plain working-man--housebuilding line."
"Then you could only come in the evening?"
"Not at all; I get off at five. You don't have your dinner until eight
in your set, I believe," This with a sneer that curled his upper lip
almost to the septum of his nose.
"Seven. My husband works until nearly six. He rarely has time for lunch
and comes home very hungry."
Once more he looked puzzled and disconcerted, but his small steady eyes
did not waver.
"My name's James Kirkpatrick." He found the stub of a pencil in his
pocket and wrote an address on the flap of an envelope. "I'll think it
over. Maybe I'll do it. I dunno, though."
"I do hope you will. I'm sure we can learn a good deal from each other.
Now, would you mind putting me on the next car? Or don't the socialist
tenets admit of gallantry to my sex?"
"Socialism admits the equality of the sexes, which is a long sight
better, but I guess there's nothing to prevent me seeing you onto your
car."
He even lifted his hat as she turned to him from the high platform, and
as he smiled a little she inferred that he was congratulating himself
on having had the last word.
CHAPTER VII
I
Gora, to whom she had telephoned before leaving home, was standing on
the steps of her house, looking anxiously up the street, as her young
sister-in-law left the car at the corner.
Gora walked up to meet her guest. "Where on earth have you, been?" she
demanded. "I supposed of course that you'd take a taxi. You should not
go out alone at night. Mortimer would be wild. He has the strictest
ideas; and you--"
"Haven't. Not, any more. I'm tired of being kept in a glass case--being
a parasite." She laughed gayly at Gora's look of amazement. "I've had
an adventure. Almost the first I ever had."
She related it as they walked slowly down the street and up the steps
and stairs to the attic.
Gora looked very thoughtful as she listened. "Shall you tell Mortimer?"
"Oh, I don't know. Possibly not. Why agitate him? The thing is done."
"But if you study with this man?"
"There is no necessity to explain where I met him. I look upon myself
as Morty's partner, not as his subject. We have never disputed over
anything yet, but of course as time goes on I shall wish to do many
things whether he happens to like it or not. Possibly without
consulting him."
"You've had time to think these past three months for the first time in
your life," said Gora shrewdly. "Here we are. I hope you don't hate
stairs. I do when I come home dog-tired, but somehow I can't give up
the old place.... And I've lit the candles in your honor."
II
"Oh, but it is pretty! Charming!"
Thought Gora: "I do hope she's not going to be gracious. I've never
liked her so well before."
But Alexina was too excited to have a firm grip on the Ballinger-Groome
tradition. She had had an adventure, an uncommon one, in a far from
respectable night district; she had done something that would cause the
impeccable Mortimer the acutest anguish if he knew of it; and she had
caught sight immediately of Gathbroke's picture framed and enthroned on
the mantelpiece.
She walked about the room admiring the hangings and prints, the old
Chinese lanterns that held the candles.
"I am going to refurnish our lower rooms," she said. "If you have time
do help me. Heavens! I wish I could work off some of that old furniture
on you. I like the Italian pieces well enough, but there are too many
of them. That rather low Florentine cabinet in the back parlor would
just fit in this corner...."
She gave a little girlish exclamation and ran forward.
"Isn't that young Gathbroke, who was out here at the time of the
earthquake and fire ... or an older brother, perhaps?"
She had taken the photograph from the mantel and was examining it under
one of the lanterns. Her alert ear detected the deeper and less steady
note in Gora's always hoarse voice.
"It is the same. Did you meet him? ... Oh, I remember he told me he met
you at the Hofer ball. He rather raved over you, in fact."
"Did he? How sweet of him. I met him again, I remember. Mr. Gwynne
brought him down to Rincona one day."
"Oh?"
And Alexina, knew that he had never mentioned that visit.
"But he looks much much older."
"He did before he left. That horrible experience of his seemed to prey
on him more and more.
"Oh."
He had not looked a day over twenty-three on that afternoon at Eincona,
two weeks after the fire.
Alexina replaced the picture, then turned to her sister-in-law with a
coaxing smile. "Are you engaged? It would be too romantic. Do tell me."
"No," said Gora, shortly. "We are not engaged. Good friends, that is
all, and write occasionally."
"Well, he must be very much interested--and you must be a very
interesting correspondent, Gora dear! Is he? Interesting, I mean. What
does he do, anyhow? I have a vague remembrance that he said something
about the army."
"He was in the army, the Grenadier Guards. But he has resigned and gone
into business with a cousin of his in Lancashire. He wrote me--oh, it
must be nearly two years ago--that if there should be a war he would
enlist as a matter of course, but as there was no prospect of any, and
he was sick of idleness--his good middle-class energetic blood
asserting itself, he said,--he was going to amuse himself with work,
incidentally try to make a fortune. His mother left a good deal of
money, but there are several children and I guess the present earl
needs most of it to keep up his estates, to say nothing of his
position. Fotten law, that--entail, I mean."
Alexina came and sat down on the divan beside Gora, piling the cushions
behind her. "Are you a socialist?"
"I am not. I believe in sticking to your own class, whether you have a
grudge against it or not, or even if you think it far from perfection."
She shot a quick challenging glance at her admittedly aristocratic
sister-in-law, but Alexina had lifted the lower white of her eyes just
above their soft black fringe and looked more innocent than any new
born lamb. As she did not answer Gora continued:
"I remember that night I sat out with Gathbroke on Calvary he said
something about socialism ... that it was a confession of failure. I
may feel so furious with destiny sometimes that I could go out and wave
a red flag, or even the darker red of anarchy, but what always sobers
me is the thought that if I had the good luck to inherit or make even a
reasonable fortune I'd have no more use for socialism than for a
rattlesnake in my bed. Why are you interested?"
"Only as in any subject that interests a few million people. I haven't
the least intention of being converted, but I don't want to be an
ignoramus. Aileen and Sibyl and I did start Marx's _Das Kapital_--in
German! We nearly died of it. But I felt sure that this man,
Kirkpatrick, had studied his subject, if only because his language
changed so completely when he talked about it. It was as if he were
quoting, but intelligently. Of course the poor man had little or no
education to begin with. Somehow he struck me as a pathetic figure.
Perhaps when every one is educated--and there must be many thousands of
naturally intelligent men in the working class whose brains if trained
would be mighty useful in Washington--well, all having had equal
opportunities they would surely arrive at some way to improve
conditions without struggling for anything so hopeless as socialism. I
know enough to be sure that it is hopeless, because it antagonizes
human nature."
"Rather. The trend under all the talk is more and more toward
individualism, not self-effacing communism. As for myself I like the
idea of the fight--for public recognition, I mean; and I don't think
I'd be happy at all if things were made too smooth for me; if, for
instance, in a socialized state it were decided that I could devote all
my time to writing, and that the state would take care of me, publish
my work, and distribute it exactly where it was sure to be appreciated.
I haven't any of the old California gambling blood in me, but I guess
the hardy ghost of those old days still dominates the atmosphere, and I
have not been one of those to escape."
"It's in mine! Not that I care for gambling, really, like Aileen and
Alice. But I've always been fascinated by the idea of taking long
chances, and I have had inklings that I'll be rather more than less
fascinated as I grow older.... When are your stories to be published? I
am simply expiring to read them."
"Are you?"
III
Alexina had thrust her slim index finger unerringly through Gora's
bristling armor and tickled her weakest spot. The fledgling author
smiled into the dazzling eyes opposite and a deep flush rose to her
high cheek bones.
"Rather!"
"Then..." Gora rose and took a magazine from the table beside her bed.
She spread it open on her lap, when she had resumed her seat, and
handled it as Alexina had seen young mothers fondle their first-born.
"It's here. Just out."
"Oh!" Alexina gave a little shriek of genuine anticipation. "Read it to
me. Quick. I can't wait."
Gora led a lonely life outside of her work, a lonely inner life always.
She had never had an intimate friend, and she suddenly reflected that
there had been a certain measure of sadness in her joy both when her
manuscripts were accepted and to-day when for the first time she had
gazed at herself in print.... She had had no one to rejoice with
her.... She felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to Alexina.
But she gave this young wife of her brother whom she knew as little as
Alexina knew her, another swift suspicious glance.... No, there was
nothing of Alexina's usual high and careless courtesy in that eager
almost excited face.
"I'd love to have your opinion.... I read very badly.... Make
allowances...."
"Oh, fire away. If I'd written a story and had it accepted by that
magazine I'd read it from the housetops."
Gora read the story well enough, and Alexina's mind did not wander even
to Gathbroke. It was written in a pure direct vigorous English. A
little less self-consciousness and it would have been distinguished.
The story itself was built craftily; she had been coached by a clever
instructor who was a successful writer of short stories himself; and it
worked up to a climax of genuine drama. But this was merely the
framework, the flexible technique for the real Gora. The story had not
only an original point of view but it pulsed with the insurgent
resentful passionate spirit of the writer.
Alexina gave a little gasp as Gora finished.
"Many people won't like that story," she said. "It shocks and jars and
gives one's smugness a pain in the middle. But those that do like it
will give you a great reputation, and after all there are a few
thousand intelligent readers in the United States. How on earth did
that magazine come to accept it?"
Gora was staring at Alexina with an uncommonly soft expression in her
opaque light eyes. She felt, indeed, as if her ego would leap through
them and make a fool of her.
"The editor wrote me something of what you have just said. He wanted
something new--to give his conservative old subscribers a shock.
Thought it would be good for them and for the magazine. You--you--have
said what I should have wanted you to say if I could have thought it
out.... I think I should have hated you if you had said, 'How
charming!' or 'How frantically interesting!'"
"Well, it's the last if not the first. Aileen will say that and mean
it. I'll telephone to the bookstore the first thing Monday morning and
get a copy. Now I must go. It's late."
IV
"Let me telephone for a taxi."
Alexina laughed merrily. "You'll never believe it, but I've just thirty
cents in my purse. I forgot to ask Morty for something before he
left.... You see, I happened to find quite a bit in mother's desk and
so I've never thought to ask him for an allowance. But I shall at once."
"An allowance? But you have your own money? Or is it because the estate
isn't settled? What has Morty to do with that?"
"I believe we get the income from the estate until it is settled. But I
gave my power of attorney to Morty."
"Oh! But if there is money on deposit in the bank you can draw on it."
"Could I? Well! I'll just draw a round hundred on Monday at ten A.M."
"Why did you give your power of attorney to Morty?"
"Oh ... why ... he asked me to ... I know nothing about business, and
he naturally would attend to my affairs."
"But you are not going away. No one needs your power of attorney. And
the executors are Judge Lawton and Mr. Abbott. You are here to sign
such papers as they advise.... Don't be angry, please. I am not
insinuating anything against Morty. He's never bad a dishonest thought
in his life ... has always been, the squarest ... but..."
"Well?"
Alexina's head was very high. It was quite bad enough for Tom Abbott
and Judge Lawton ... but for his sister ...
"It's this way, Alexina. People in this world, more particularly men,
are just about as honest as circumstances will permit them to be. Some
are stronger than Life in one way or another, no doubt of it; but they
make up for it by being weaker in others.... I am talking particularly
of the money question, the struggle for existence, which the vast
majority of men are forced to make....
"Men fight Life from the hour they leave their homes, when they have
any, to force success--in one way or another--out of her until the hour
they are able to lay down the burden.... Some are too strong and too
firm in their ideals ever to do wrong; they would prefer failure, and
generally they are strong enough to avoid it, even to succeed in their
way against the most overwhelming odds.... Many are too clever not to
find some way of compromising and circumventing.... Others just peg
along and barely make both ends meet.... Others go under and down and
out.
"Morty, like millions of other young Americans, had good principles and
high ideals inculcated from his earliest boyhood and took to them as a
duck takes to water. Nor is he weak. But although he is a hard and
steady worker he is also visionary. He speculated on the stock market
before he was married. Probably not now as the market is moribund. He
is frantic to get rich ... for more reasons than one."
"But he never would do anything dishonorable."
"No. Nothing he couldn't square with his conscience if it turned out
all right. But the most honest man, when in a hole, finds little
difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that what is, illogically, the
possession of the women of his family, is his if he needs it.
"Moreover, no doubt you have discovered that Morty is the sort of man
who looks upon women as man's natural inferiors, that if there is any
question of sacrifice the woman is not to be considered for a moment
... especially where no public risk is involved. That sort of man only
thinks he is too honest to refrain from taking some unrelated woman's
money, but as a matter of fact it is because she would send him to
State's Prison as readily as a man would. One's own women are safe.
"I lent Morty my small inheritance with my eyes open. But he knows a
good deal of that particular business, and I did not dream the times
were going to be so bad.... I doubt if I ever see it again.... But you
must not run the risk of losing yours. I want you to promise me that on
Monday morning you will go down to the City Hall and revoke your power
of attorney. And as much for Morty's sake as for your own. He will lose
your money if he keeps it in his hands, and then he will suffer agonies
of remorse. He will be infinitely more miserable than if he merely
failed in business. That is honorable. It would only hurt his pride.
Then he could get a position again, and you would have your own income."
"But do you mean to say that if I did revoke my power of attorney and
he asked me later for money to save his business that I should not give
it to him?"
"Yes, I mean just that. Morty will never take any of the prizes in the
business world. He may hold on and make a living, that is all. He has
plenty to start with, and tells me he is doing fairly well, in spite of
the times. But he would do better in the long run as a clerk. In time
he might get a large salary as a sort of general director of all the
routine business of some large house--"
Alexina curled her lip. "I do not want him to be a clerk."
"No, of course you don't! But you'd like it still less if he cleaned
you out. You--would have to sell or rent your old home and live on a
hundred and fifty dollars a month in a flat in some out-of-the-way
quarter. You might have to go to work yourself."
"I shouldn't mind that so much, except that I'm afraid I'd not be good
for much. Perhaps it was snobbish of me to object lo Morty's being a
clerk. But ... well, I'm not so sure that it is snobbish to prefer what
you have always been accustomed to--I mean if it is a higher standard.
And after all I married him when he was only a clerk."
"You are surprisingly little of a snob, all things considered; but you
are a hopeless aristocrat."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I think the line between the aristocratic and the snobbish attitude of
mind is almost too fine to be put into words. But they are often
confused by the undiscriminating. Will you revoke that power of
attorney on Monday?"
"Shouldn't I wait until Morty is home? ... tell him first? It seems
rather taking an advantage ... and he will be very angry."
"That doesn't matter."
"What excuse shall I give him?"
"Any one of a dozen. You are bored and want to take care of your money
... intend to learn something of business, as all women should, and
will in time.... Ring in the feminist stuff ... wife's economic
independence ... woman's new position in the world.... That will make
Morty so raving angry that he will forget about the other. Will you do
it?"
"Yes, I will. I believe you are right. So were the others ... there
must be something in it."
She told Gora of the advice of Tom Abbott and Judge Lawton. Gora nodded.
"They meant more than they said. And merely because they are men of the
world, not because they like and trust Morty any the less."
Alexina did not hear her. She was staring hard at the floor.... A year
ago ... three months ago ... she couldn't have done this thing. She had
been still under the illusion that she loved her husband, that her
marriage was a complete success. She would have sacrificed her last
penny rather than hurt his feelings. Now she only cared that she didn't
care.... She had admitted to herself that she did not love her husband
but that was different from committing an overt act that proved it....
She felt something crumbling within her.... It was the last of the
fairy edifice of her romance ... of her first, her real, youth.... What
was to take its place? The future smugly secure on six thousand a year
and an inviolate social position ... a good dull husband ... not even
the prospect of travel....
V
She sprang to her feet and turned away her head.
"Why don't you come and live with us?" she asked abruptly. "Why should
you keep this on? There are so many vacant bedrooms up there. You could
have one for your study. I'd love to have you. You'd have the most
complete independence. Do."
Gora shook her head. "I've always this to fall back on."
"Fall back on?"
"Oh! I never meant to let that out. However.... Perhaps it is as
well.... Morty--you know his pride--everybody has his prime weakness
and that is his. Transpose it into snobbery if you like.... We did not
board down here. I kept a lodging house for business women. It paid
well, but Morty, when he became engaged to you, insisted that I give it
up. He was afraid you'd be outraged in your finest sensibilities! Well,
I did. One of my lodgers resigned from her job and took it over. I
entered the hospital, but kept on my room as I had to have one
somewhere. Eight months later she married, and I took it back. I found
I could run it as well as ever with the aid of a treasure of a Chinaman
she had discovered. But I never told Morty."
Alexina laughed. "Better not. But you could run it and live with us all
the same."
"No. I have too little time. I'd waste it coming back and forth, for I
must be here some time every day.... Besides..."
"Your own precious atmosphere?"
"You do understand!"
"Well, come to see me often. I shall need your advice."
"You bet. And now, I'll see you to your car; stay with you until you
are safely transferred to the Fillmore car. And don't assert your
independence in just this way again. All those loafers on Fillmore
Street are not spiteful socialists."
As Gora put on her hat at the distant mirror Alexina turned to
Gathbroke's picture with a scowl. She even clenched her hands into
fists.
"Oh ... you ... you.... Why weren't you.... Why didn't you...."
CHAPTER VIII
I
Mortimer arrived on Tuesday evening, looking immaculate in spite of his
day on the train, and with that air of beaming gallantry that he could
always summon at will, even when all was not well with him.
To-night, however, he was quite sincere. His visit to Los Angeles had
been a success; he had actually put through a deal that had translated
itself into a cheque for a thousand dollars. He had, through a mistaken
order, been overstocked with a certain commodity from the Orient that
the retail merchants of San Francisco bought very sparingly; but he had
found in Los Angeles a firm that did a large business with the swarming
Japanese population and was glad to take it over at a reasonable figure.
II
It was after dinner; his taut trim body was relaxed in evening luxury
before the wood fire of the back parlor, and he was half way through a
cigar when Alexina rose and extended one arm along the mantelpiece. She
looked like a long black poplar with her round narrow flexible figure
and her small head held with a lofty poise; as serene as a poplar in
France on a balmy day. But she quaked inside.
She glanced at her happy unsuspecting husband with an engaging smile.
"I'm afraid you will be rather cross with me," she said softly. "But I
went down to the City Hall yesterday and revoked my power of attorney
to you."
"You did what?" The slow blood rose to Dwight's hair. He mechanically
took the cigar from his mouth. It lost its flavor. He had a sensation
of falling through space ... out of somewhere....
Alexina repeated her statement.
He recovered himself. "Tom Abbott has been at you again, I suppose. Or
Judge Lawton."
"Neither. Really, Morty, you must give me credit for a mind of my own.
I did it for several reasons. Sibyl was here Sunday. She motored up
from Burlingame with Aileen on purpose to talk to me. She has induced
Mrs. Hunter and some other of the more intelligent women down
there--those that read the serious new books and go to lectures when
there are any worth while--to join a class in economics. One of the
professors at Stanford is going to teach us. Aileen has lost
frightfully at poker lately and wants a new interest; she put Sibyl up
to it--who was delighted with the suggestion as she hasn't been
intellectual for quite a while now, and really has a practical streak;
so that studying economics appealed to her.
"I jumped at the idea. It was a God-send. I have had so little to do. I
don't care for poker and one can't read all the time.... But after they
left I reflected that I should cut a rather ridiculous figure studying
economies in the abstract if I didn't have sense and 'go' enough to
manage my own affairs. Why, I was so ignorant I thought I couldn't draw
any money from the bank because I had given you my power of attorney.
Aileen has an allowance and the Judge makes her keep books. She usually
comes out about even at poker in the course of the month, and if she
doesn't she pawns something. I've been with her to pawn shops and it's
the greatest fun. I don't mind telling you, as I know you never betray
a confidence. The Judge would lock poor dear Aileen up on bread and
water.
"Sibyl manages those two great houses herself. Frank gives her some
stupendous sum a year and she is proud of the fact that she never runs
over it. You know how she entertains.
"I should never dare admit to them--or to the professor if he asked my
opinion on that sort of thing and it had to come out--that I was too
lazy and too incompetent to manage my own little fortune. So I went
down first thing Monday morning and revoked my power of attorney. I
simply couldn't wait. When the estate is settled and turned over to me
I shall attend to everything and not bother you, Morty dear."
III
Morty dear looked at her with a long hard suspicious stare. Alexina
thoughtfully turned up her eyes and changed promptly from a poplar into
a saint.
"I don't like it. I don't like it at all."
Words were never his strong point and he could find none now adequate
to express his feelings.
"I may be old-fashioned--"
"You are, Morty. That is your only fault. You belong to the old school
of American husbands--"
"There are plenty of old-fashioned people left in the world."
"So there are, poor dears. It's going to be so hard for them--"
"Are you trying to be one of those infernal new women?"
"Well, you see, I just naturally am a child of my times, in spite of my
old-fashioned family. I'd be much the same if I'd never taken any
interest in all these wonderful modern movements."
"It's those chums of yours--Aileen, Sibyl, Janet. I never did wholly
approve of them."
"Neither did mother and Maria, but it never made any difference."
"Do you mean to say that you intend to ignore me ... disobey me?"
"Oh, Morty, I never promised to obey you. You know the fun we all had
at the rehearsal. You haven't noticed, these three years, that I've had
my way, in pretty nearly everything, merely because it happened to be
your way too. We've been living in a sort of pleasure garden, just
playing about, with mother as the good old fairy. But everything has
changed. We must look out for ourselves now, and I cannot put the whole
burden on your shoulders--"
"I do not mind in the least. That is where it belongs."
Alexina shook her wise little head. "Oh, no. It isn't done any more. No
woman who has learned to think is so unjust as to throw the whole
burden of life on her husband's shoulders. You have your own daily
battle in the business world. I will do the rest."
"What damned emancipated talk."
"What a funny old-fashioned word. We don't even say advanced or new any
more."
"It's nonsense anyhow. You're nothing but a child."
"You may just bet your life I'm not a child. Nor have I awakened all of
a sudden. In one sense I have. But not in this particular branch of
modern science. I have read tons about it, and Aileen and I are always
discussing everything that interests the public; I have even read the
newspapers for two years."
"Much better you didn't. There is no reason whatever for a woman in
your position knowing anything about public affairs. It detracts from
your charm."
"Maybe, but we'll find more charm in Life as we grow older."
His memory ran back along a curved track and returned with something
that looked like a bogey.
"May I ask what your program is? Your household program? I had got
everything down to a fine point.... It seems too bad you should
bother...."
"Bother? I've been bored to death, and feeling like a silly little
good-for-nothing besides. The trouble is, it's too little bother. James
and I have had a long talk. Housekeeping will be reduced to its
elements with him, but at least I shall begin to feel really grown up
when I pore over monthly bills and 'slips' and sign cheques."
She hesitated. "You mustn't think for a minute that I want to make you
feel out of it, Morty. It. is only that I _must_. The time has come,
... Of course, you have been paying half the bills anyhow. We could
simply go on along those lines. I will tell you what it all amounts to,
shortly after the first of the month, and you'll give me half."
IV
Dwight stared at the end of his cigar. His was not an agile brain but
in that moment it had an illuminating flash. He realized that this
sheltered creature, with whom her mother had never discussed household
economics, and from whom he had purposely kept all knowledge of his
business, took for granted that he could pay his share of the monthly
expenses, merely because all the men she knew did twice as much,
however they might grumble. For the matter of that she never saw Tom
Abbott that he did not curse the ascending prices, but there was no
change whatever in his bountiful fashion of living. Alexina knew that
the times were bad and that her husband was having something of a
struggle, and, as a dutiful wife, was anxious to help him out for the
present, but it was simply beyond her powers of comprehension to grasp
the fact that he was in no position to pay half the expenses of their
small establishment.
If he told her ... tried to make her understand ... even if she did,
how would he appear in her eyes?
Of all people in the world he wanted to stand high with Alexina ... he
had never taken more pains to bluff the street when things were at
their worst than this girl who was the symbol of all he had aspired to
and precariously achieved. He had longed for riches, not because she
craved luxury and pomp, but because she would be forced to look up to
him with admiration and a lively gratitude. He had, in this spirit,
given her; in the most casual manner, handsome presents, or brilliant
little dinners at fashionable restaurants, in all of which she took a
fervent young pleasure. He had dipped into his slender capital, but of
this she had not even a suspicion ... he had made some airy remark
about celebrating a "good deal" ... no wonder ... he had her too well
bluffed.
For an instant he contemplated a plain and manly statement of fact. But
he did not have the courage. Anything rather than that she should curl
that short aristocratic upper lip of hers, stare at him with wide
astonished eyes that saw him a failure, even if a temporary one. He set
his teeth and vowed to go through with it, to make good. This thousand
would last several months, even if he made no more than his expenses
meanwhile.
He shrugged his shoulders and lit another cigar. The first had died a
lingering and malodorous death.
"Have your own way," he said coldly. "I only wished to keep you young
and carefree. If you choose to bother with bills and investments it is
your own look-out."
"Thank you, Morty dear."
She felt that it would be an act of wifely self-abnegation to defer the
announcement of her interest in socialism and Mr. Kirkpatrick. Aileen
and Sibyl had hailed her plan as even more exciting than the study of
economics with an exceedingly good-looking young professor (who had
been tutoring in Burlingame), and she had already dispatched a note to
him whom Aileen disreputably called her Fillmore Street mash.
CHAPTER IX
I
Kirkpatrick sat before a crescent composed of Mrs. Mortimer Dwight,
Mrs. Francis Leslie Bascom and Miss Aileen Livingston Lawton.
His reasons for coming to Ballinger House--which even he knew was
inaccessible to the common herd--were separate and tabulated. Alexina
had fascinated him against his best class principles; but he not only
jumped at the chance of meeting her again, he was excessively curious
to understand a woman of her class, to watch her in different moods and
situations. He was equally curious to meet other women of the same
breed; he had never brushed their skirts before, but he had often stood
and gazed at them hungrily as they passed in their limousines or
driving their smart little electric cars.