out to Lumalitas he suggested that Gwynne should read at home until he
had mastered the laws governing the State of California, and the student
was far better satisfied out there in the quiet and the fresh air of his
veranda. When a point needed expounding, a horseback ride into Rosewater
was not an unwelcome diversion. His will had triumphed in its first bout
with memory, so subtly liberated by the written word, and before three
days of close study had passed he had the sensation of having found a
new and individual patch upon which squarely to plant his feet. The
future seemed more definite, more assured; moreover, his avid brain, its
energies too long in abeyance, settled upon the new and absorbing
study--it was eight years since he had opened a law-book, although he
had forgotten little he had read at that plastic time--like a swarm of
locusts. He recalled that a clever woman had once said in his hearing
that whenever she felt blasee she took up a new language, and at once
felt young and eager again. The remark had passed him by at the time,
but he recalled it as he devoured and stored away the statutes that in
many ways differentiated California from the other States of the Union.
The mere fact that his was not the order of brain that took kindly to
monotonous application, but inspired him with the more ardent desire to
conquer; the sense of being on any sort of a battle-field again gave a
color to life. He realized that in six months more of inaction he should
have fallen into a constant and morbid habit of self-analysis, and
although his soul-sickness could not be healed in a moment, the sense of
danger gave an added zest to the impersonal nature of his studies. He
subscribed for all the San Francisco newspapers and for those of his own
and the adjoining counties. He was not conscious of any mounting love
for California, but here his lines were cast, and California was as good
a stepping-stone as another. If her politics were hideous he had not
made them, and his reviving faith in his star suggested that he may have
been born to redeem them. With the polishing up of the rustier parts of
his mind even his eyes grew brighter, he moved more quickly, he began to
feel all intellect once more, propelled by a body that was daily gaining
in red and vigorous blood. Judge Leslie was so delighted with his rapid
progress and his exceptionally retentive and classifying memory that he
assured everybody he met in Rosewater and St. Peter that he was training
a second Alexander Hamilton for the bar of the United States.
XVII
It was four days after the party that Isabel, walking over the low hills
among her chickens, in deep converse with her Abraham, was informed by
Chuma that Mrs. Thomas Colton had driven out to call upon her. She found
Anabel not in the house but seated before the front door in a smart new
basket trap, and as smart herself in coat and hat and gloves uniformly
dust-colored. She made a wry face at Isabel's overalls, but kissed her
affectionately.
"This is my birthday," she announced, "and this is a surprise from
Tom--horse, harness, and all. I only had to give him three broad hints.
I wanted to show it to you first, and besides there is something I must
talk to you about--very important!"
She assumed a matronly and mysterious air and dropped her voice. "I
suppose Mr. Gwynne does not call so early?"
"Rarely. Won't you get out and stay to lunch?"
"Tom would never forgive me. He is sure to bring me another surprise at
noon--it will arrive on the 11.30--a long chain made of every variety of
tourmalines set in silver. But I couldn't wait any longer to have a talk
with you about Mr. Gwynne. Until I saw you two together the other night
I had all sorts of romantic plans in my head. It seemed just the right
thing--_you_ are so different from everybody else; and then having met
him in England among all those old castles, and everything! I was sure
he would have enough of California in a year and then I should visit you
in England, and after a while you would marry Frances to a duke. But I
see that was all nonsense. You don't care a bit about each other and are
not in the least suited. I couldn't get up any sentiment for him myself;
he is much too cold-blooded and, well--_English_. They never can be like
us, no matter how hard they try. But in a way I like him, and Tom says
he is worth any ten men he ever met. I feel awfully sorry for him, out
there all alone--and it's a magnificent ranch--to say nothing of the
fact that he must be worth a lot of money besides. It would be perfectly
shameful if some San Francisco girl snapped him up--_and you know what
they are_. He belongs by right to us, and I for one shall see to it that
none of those man-eaters in San Francisco gets him. Did you notice how
attentive he was to Dolly the other night? Well, he actually called the
next day--she was out--and sent her flowers. Mrs. Haight saw him. She
says he looked dreadfully disappointed as he rode off. I take that with
a grain of salt, knowing Mrs. Haight; besides, he wouldn't break his
heart if a girl was out for good. But the fact remains that he did call,
and he hasn't called on another girl in Rosewater, much less sent her
flowers. Serena Wheaton and one or two others were at my house
yesterday. We are immensely excited over it. I am sure that if we
managed them both properly there would be a wedding in the spring. It
would be too delightful, for there hasn't been a bang-up wedding in
Rosewater since mine. And think of Dolly's trousseau! Every stitch would
come from New York. The San Francisco papers would be full of that
wedding, and St. Peter would be green with envy. And she would make him
such a good wife; such a beauty she is and such a dear good girl--just
the kind that wouldn't mind a man being haughty and overbearing. You two
would murder each other--but Dolly! The more I think of it the more
enthusiastic I am. We formed a plot last night, but as in a way he
belongs to you, I maintained that you should be consulted. But tell me
first--what do you think of it?"
"Of the match? I cannot imagine a better. What is your plan?"
"Last night Mrs. Colton had a bridge party, and I went over just as they
were finishing hissing at one another over a spoon that cost
seventy-five cents. After some of them had gone, the rest began to talk
about Dolly and Mr. Gwynne--I don't think the town has talked about
anything else since your party--except those everlasting cards, of
course. Well, the upshot was that I suggested we should revive the old
weekly dancing club. Otherwise they might not meet again for months, now
that Mr. Gwynne has settled down to his studies and hasn't been near
Rosewater since Monday. They agreed, but of course no one would offer
her house; they are all too mean, and mine is too small. But we can hire
the old hall, and all the men will be glad to subscribe--a few of us can
make up the deficit. Dolly always looks her best at night--she has the
loveliest neck!--and she would be glad of an excuse to get more party
dresses. Well--you see! You can always sleep at my house."
"What fun it will be to have a weekly dance! I am going out to Lumalitas
this afternoon, and I will demand Mr. Gwynne's subscription."
"Isabel! You are a jewel! Mrs. Haight was nasty, but I told her she did
not know you the least little bit, that you were no dog in the manger.
But, dear Isabel, do you think you ought to go out there alone? I don't
mind; you know that I never bother my head about other people's affairs,
but Mrs. Haight is such a gossip, and she never did like you, and all
small places are so gossipy. She has been telling everybody that Mr.
Gwynne rides past her house quite late at night from duck-shooting, and
of course she assumes that you shoot with him."
"I generally do. You may tell Mrs. Haight, with my compliments, to go to
the devil! Still, dear Anabel, if you think it improper for me to call
alone on a bachelor cousin, I will pick up somebody on my way out."
"Do, that's a dear. And I shall tell Mrs. Haight that old Mac always
goes shooting with you. I am sure that he does. Good-bye. I'll see about
the hall this afternoon."
She drove off with lifted reins and a little flourish of her whip, and
Isabel went into the house and telephoned first to Gwynne, who had
installed a private wire between his house and hers, and then to Miss
Boutts. At two o'clock she drew rein before a large brown shingle house
on the highest point of Rosewater. Mr. Boutts had begun life in one of
the little old peaked cottages down by the central square; later he had
built an "artistic" cottage, and then a "residence"; symbolizing his
increase not only by the more pretentious structures but by mounting the
hill; the second cottage had been half-way up, the residence was on its
apex, and could be seen by the envious traveller on boat and train.
There was nothing left before him now but San Francisco or a balloon;
heaven being out of the question.
Miss Boutts awaited the buggy, in the tiny porch, and had obeyed
Isabel's behest to look her prettiest. She wore a large red hat covered
with feathers shading into pink, and a claret-colored frock that fitted
her superb figure in a fashion that caused Isabel to draw her brows
together and suggest a dust-coat.
"It is too sweet of you," said Miss Boutts, as she sprang into the
buggy. "I feel so flattered when you take any notice of insignificant
little me. Do tell me where we are going and why you told me to look my
prettiest!"
"I must go out to Lumalitas to consult certain farmer's books in my
cousin's library, and I thought it only fair to provide him with
entertainment while I am busy. It seems the gossips do not approve of my
going out there alone, and as I was obliged to go I did not think it
worth while to make a martyr of Mr. Gwynne."
Miss Boutts blushed and tossed her head. "He called on me and sent me
flowers," she said, in innocent triumph. "I was so sorry to miss him.
All the girls are fearfully jealous."
"Do you like him?" asked Isabel, absently.
"Well--a little. He is new, and English, and different. There's not much
to choose from here, and I don't know any of the swells in San
Francisco. I can't say he is my ideal--that has always been an immensely
tall man with big blue eyes and a tawny moustache; and Mr. Gwynne is
just a sort of blond, no color in his hair at all, and I never did care
much for gray eyes. He's tall enough, and the girls think him
'distinguished,' but nobody could call him big. Besides, he doesn't know
how to say sweet things one little bit. I went out on the veranda with
him at your party, and it was a heavenly night, and all he asked me was
if I wasn't afraid of catching cold, and then he wandered on about
American girls exposing themselves foolishly and wearing too thin shoes
and eating too many sweets. Fancy a man talking like that to a girl at
night on a veranda! I never felt so flat."
Isabel glanced curiously at the beautiful empty creature. Her black eyes
looked like wells of sentiment, and her body a mould for a new race of
men.
"Tell me," she exclaimed, impulsively. "What do you expect a man to do
under such circumstances--to--a--kiss you?" She brought out the last
with some effort, her old-fashioned training suddenly suggesting that
she could better understand the downfall of the girl she had befriended
in Paris than the vulgarities of the shallow.
Miss Boutts laughed amusedly. "Well, most men would have tried it. I
never was one to make myself common, but once in a while--well! I
haven't much opinion of a man who wouldn't snatch a kiss from a girl he
admired to death, when he got a chance." She turned upon Isabel, curious
in her turn. "Of course you are lots older than I am--twenty-five or
six, aren't you? And I am only just eighteen. But I always used to watch
and wonder about you before you went away. I knew you were not the least
bit like the other girls. I wonder what it is like to be different from
other people. I always feel just like everybody else."
"So do I," said Isabel, encouragingly. "It was only circumstances that
made me appear different."
"But you know so much!" sighed Miss Boutts. "You speak a lot of
languages, and you took all the honors at the High School--and then all
those years in Europe! I wonder Mr. Gwynne will even look at any of
us."
"Men like your sort much better," said Isabel, dryly. "Do be nice to him
to-day, and entertain him in your own style while I dig through those
tiresome books. I sha'n't be long."
Gwynne looked more than hospitable as he ran down the veranda steps to
assist his guests out of the high buggy. When they had taken off their
dust-cloaks and stood side by side he reflected that he had seldom seen
two such handsome girls together. Isabel was far more simply dressed
than Miss Boutts, but her little black jacket fitted perfectly, and
there was a touch of pale blue at the neck, and in the lining of her
large black hat, that deepened the blue of her eyes under their heavy
black brows and lashes. Gwynne had never seen her look so girlish and
ingenuous. She kept her profile from him and he saw only her smiling
eyes and red half-opened mouth.
"I had to telephone to make sure you would be at home," she said. "They
say I mustn't come out here alone, and I didn't want Miss Boutts to be
bored while I was at work. I'll leave you two here on the porch. That
will be quite proper."
As she nodded and went into the living-room she saw Gwynne turn to the
lovely glowing girl left on his hands, with more intensity than she had
seen him display since Mrs. Kaye took her black eyes and fine bust out
of his life. As she made herself comfortable in his deepest chair she
heard the girlish shallow voice launch out into a eulogy of the scenery.
Gwynne responded with some enthusiasm; for a time there was a broken
duet, and then the feminine voice settled down to a steady monologue.
Miss Boutts knew that it was an American girl's business to be animated,
entertaining, amusing, especially with Englishmen, who hated effort.
Occasionally there was a masculine rumble, with a growing accent of
desperation, and the indulgent little bursts of laughter diminished in
frequence and spontaneity. Isabel lifted down volume after volume of the
books on farming her uncle had collected, letting one fall, rattling
leaves when leaves would rattle. An hour passed. She appropriated
Gwynne's writing materials and took what appeared to be copious notes.
The host suddenly excused himself and came within.
"Won't you have tea?" he demanded. "It is rather early, but after that
drive--"
"Much too early," said Isabel, absently. Her chin was on her hand, her
eyes were on a spotted page. "Mariana is sure to be asleep. Do go back
to Dolly. She is one of those girls that can't bear to be left alone. I
didn't bring her out here to be bored."
"Didn't you? What on earth do you want of all those notes? Are you going
to write a treatise?"
"Of course not. Do go back."
Gwynne returned to the veranda. For more than another hour that sweet
nasal monotonous voice trilled on. Then it began to flag. Then a silence
ensued, broken at first by sporadic and staccato remarks, then becoming
as dense as the silences of the night. Again Gwynne invaded his
living-room.
"Isabel!" he said, in a low tense tone.
Isabel looked up dreamily and encountered a haggard face and a pair of
blazing eyes. "I'll never forgive you!" he whispered.
"For what?"
"For what! Do you want to drive me mad? Take her home!"
"Do you mean to say that you have not been enjoying yourself?"
"Enjoying myself! I have been on the rack."
"You are the rudest--most unsatisfactory--I thought I knew your taste."
"Oh, _please_!"
"What do you mean?"
They confronted each other, Gwynne flushed and angry, Isabel coldly
interrogative. Gwynne, who had been on the verge of an explosion, felt
suddenly helpless. It was assuming a great deal to tell a woman that he
saw through her plot to disenchant him with a rival. He could hear the
descending whip of Isabel's scorn. Besides, it would mean a quarrel, and
much as he resented her interference in his destinies, especially this
last and most notable success, he had no desire to break up the even
surface of their relation. So he merely shrugged his shoulders and said,
with what calmness he could muster:
"Be kind enough to take her home. I will return the entire library if
you need it."
"Oh, I have finished. I am sorry you have been bored." And she carefully
gathered up her papers and went to the rescue of the weary Miss Boutts,
while Gwynne ordered the buggy. During the drive towards the paternal
roof Miss Boutts remarked casually that she didn't care about
Englishmen, but otherwise had little to say.
So ended the social regeneration of Rosewater.
XVIII
Gwynne awoke one morning with an irresistible desire for The Town in
every fibre of his being. Barring London he would have liked three
crowded days in New York, but as nothing better was available he felt
that he was open to the attractions of San Francisco. He had not visited
it since his departure on that brilliant Sunday after his arrival; he
had promised to wait for Isabel, and his interest in it was
intermittent. This morning he found his indifference culpable, inasmuch
as he had had three letters from his mother imploring him to increase
her income, and Mr. Colton had not only strongly advised him to tear
down the block of old structures south of Market Street, and put up a
great office building, but had offered to raise the money--selling half
the land and mortgaging the rest. And if Gwynne had not revisited San
Francisco he had a very accurate idea of its present conditions. It was
uncommonly rich, and its citizens, always sanguine of its future, had
been seized with a very fever of faith; they were selling out their
interests everywhere else and buying and building, tearing down and
rebuilding, until San Francisco threatened to lose its oddly patched and
wholly individual appearance and become the Western city of
sky-scrapers.
As Gwynne dressed he recalled his first impression of the city as he
crossed the bay: its singularly desolate appearance, in spite of what
at first looked to be a compact mass of buildings covering some thirty
thousand acres on hill and plain, and later as if a comet had rained
down pickings from every architectural quarter of the universe. He had
walked once to the back of the boat and looked at the line of little
towns and cities lying at the base of the eastern hills. They did
nothing to dispel the impression of loneliness. Whatever their
individual names they were mere annexes of the great-little city
opposite. When he returned to the forward deck the dust was blowing its
brown volumes through every street that converged to the water-front.
Those dust wracks, broken and narrowed by the buildings, lifted from the
outlying sand-dunes, and following a law that had driven them eastward
since California had risen from the deeps, had a curiously baffled,
stolidly persistent expression, as if the old sand-dunes knew their
rights and were determined to assert themselves so long as man left a
yard of them free.
Gwynne, in his solitary moments, when even his law-books were closed,
had recalled the stories of San Francisco, past and present, told him by
Isabel, and they had given rise to many whimsies. California, he still
all but disliked, but he wondered at the haunting memory of the city he
had seen so briefly, and the odd almost pathetic appeal it had made to
his sympathies. He had concluded that it was the pioneer taint in his
English blood, and had blinked in sudden wonder before the fact of his
close kinship, not only to that old romantic Spanish element, but to the
brilliant adventurous lawless race of men that had made the city great
and famous, then passed on into the kingdom of darkness leaving their
moral rottenness in its foundations, and, pulsing above, all their old
brave indomitable and progressive spirit. Although he had found it no
rival to his studies and his ranch, still he had given it more thought
than he was aware, and not only to its picturesque psychology, but as
the seat of a possible business adventure. To raise a large sum of money
on the San Francisco real estate--the common property of his mother and
himself--and erect a great office building of steel and reinforced
concrete, would add enormously to his own and his mother's incomes, but
on the other hand it would stand in the midst of acres of wooden
buildings and shanties, and the risk of a great fire--whose momentum
would sweep through any fireproof building--was one forgotten neither by
the insurance agents nor the chief of the fire department, who was said
to keep thousands of tons of dynamite in the city with which to
segregate the always expected conflagration. It was possible that no
insurance company would take the risk on an expensive building in such a
quarter. On the other hand it was as certain as the present wealth of
the city, that such a building would have hundreds of companions in the
next ten years, and the undesirable, immoral, and generally drunken
element, so largely responsible for the continual fires of the district,
would be gradually pressed to the outskirts of the city. He felt
inclined to take the risk, even a sense of exhilaration in it, as if
indeed the dead and gone Otises had invaded his soul and demanded one
more bout on earth.
There was another matter that claimed his thoughts when the law was at
rest. He was suspicious and resentful of Isabel's desire to manage him;
and that she had succeeded more than once, through her superior feminine
subtlety, made him aware that two strong natures were slowly bracing
themselves against each other, and that on some future battle-ground
there might be a heavy and final encounter. This morning, as he ordered
his portmanteau to be packed and placed in the buggy, his impulse was to
take the tram, and cavalierly announce, upon their next meeting, that he
had "been to town." After he had had his coffee, however, he decided not
to be an ass, and unpardonably rude as well. She had talked of this
visit every time they had met, although one thing and another had
detained her, and he could hardly explain to her an impetuous and
solitary flight. He colored as he invoked her assumption that he feared
and was running away from her, asserting his independence like any
school-boy. Besides there was the launch. The idea of three hours on the
water instead of one and a half on a slow and dirty train so exhilarated
him that he forgot his self-communings and ordered the buggy at once. It
was but half-past five. They would catch the tide; nor did the train
leave until half-past eight. He presented Imura Kisaburo Hinamoto with a
box of cigarettes, gave him the run of the library, and drove off
whistling.
He found Isabel among the chickens. She had just opened the doors of all
the little colony houses, and the hills were white with excited
scratching Leghorns. She wore overalls and high boots, and the night
braid of her hair was twisted several times round her throat. Gwynne
smiled as he recalled the heroines of poesy that had fed so many doves
and garden birds. No heroine could look picturesque in bloomers, and
feeding chickens, but as Isabel came towards him waving her hand
hospitably, her white clear-cut face resting on its black _goita_ of
hair might have suggested Stuck's Suende, in the Neue Pinakothek of
Munich, had there been an evil glint in her light cool blue eyes. The
fleeting query crossed his mind as to what she might have been if born
in one of the generations before the pioneers of her sex had opened so
many gates for the irruption of overburdened femininity. But he merely
remarked:
"I am suddenly inspired With a desire to see San Francisco. Are you too
busy? Are we too late for the tide?"
"Just in time," said Isabel, promptly; "and I shall be ready as soon as
the launch is. Do you know that it is Saturday? You could not have
chosen a better day."
* * * * *
As they pushed off, all the marsh and its creek was covered with a low
white mist that gave it the appearance of a great lake, a ghost lake
through which the little steamer just leaving Rosewater two miles above
coiled its way like a monstrous white bird feeling uneasily for a
foothold. Overhead the sky was covered with the pink fleece of dawn. The
mass of mountains in Marin County looked black and formless, but above
them rose the granite crest of Tamalpais, like an angular lifted
shoulder.
"That mountain has marched north five feet in the last forty years,"
said Isabel, as she carefully steered through the mist. "Either that, or
the earthquake of 1868 moved her off her base."
"For heaven's sake don't tell me any more weird tales about this
country; it gives me the horrors often enough as it is. This morning the
hills and mountain on the other side of the valley looked like
antediluvian monsters just ready to turn over."
"Well, they have turned over a few times, and may again. One reason we
all love California is because we never know what she will do next, and
because she is still primeval under this thin coat of civilization that
is too tight for her. I admire England, but I could not live in it. It
is too peaceful, too done. It is impossible to imagine any further
change, for civilization can go no further. But out here--the whole
country may stand on its head any day; and we may yet have cities as
great as Babylon and Nineveh."
"Well, we'll not be here to see. This fog is just high enough to filter
into one's very marrow--even your picturesque pioneer days are over; I
will confess they might have made me feel that life on the edge of the
world was worth while. I should have liked to lay the foundations of a
great isolated city like San Francisco; but I don't see any sign of
another big city. Los Angeles is a little Chicago and may live to be a
big one, but nothing would induce me to live in the south. However, no
man is ever conscious of the fact that he is in at the birth of a great
city; our pioneer forefathers were just a parcel of adventurers crazed
with the lust of gold, and with no sense of any future beyond the
present."
Isabel leaned forward eagerly. "You have been thinking about San
Francisco!" she exclaimed, triumphantly. "The old Otis blood is
beginning to wake up! Hooray!"
Gwynne laughed outright, and for the first time without resentment; he
was tired of having California "rammed down his throat." Isabel's eyes
were dancing with so purely youthful and feminine a triumph that he
could not but feel indulgent.
"I am growing reconciled to my lot. Here I am and here I remain."
"Yes, you are much happier," said Isabel, softly. She half closed her
eyes and looked a trifle older. "It worried me dreadfully at first to
know that you were unhappy, and that it was my fault."
"Unhappy!" exclaimed Gwynne, reddening haughtily. "I have not been
mooning about like a homesick ass--"
"Oh, your outside was as tranquil as your pride demanded--and it was
splendid! But I couldn't help knowing--feeling. A thousand little things
appeal so directly to a woman's intuitions."
"Indeed! I am delighted to learn that you possess the common intuitions
of a woman."
"Am I unwomanly? Masculine?" asked Isabel, anxiously.
"Not in the ordinary sense; but you are much too strong. No woman should
be as strong--as, well--as psychically independent as you are. It is as
flagrant a usurpation of prerogative as a pretty complexion on a man."
"I only say one prayer: 'Give me strength. Give me strength.'"
"For what, in heaven's name? What use have you for so much strength? You
have forsworn matrimony. You disclaim the intention of going forth and
entering the great battle of the intellects--having, as you say, no
talents. You have isolated yourself from love, so you need no uncommon
supply of strength to meet suffering. You will always have money enough,
and you appear to have been born with the gift of making it. Even if you
elect to be the leader of fashion in San Francisco, your equipment need
not be of unadulterated steel. But I cannot fancy why you entertain any
such ambition."
"That is the least of my ambition--although I intend to become the most
notable woman in San Francisco, not only because I must gratify a
healthy natural ambition in some way, and because I want my life to have
a sufficiency of incident in it, but because it is a part of my general
scheme."
"What is this precious scheme?"
"You would not understand if I should tell you. Men have no time for
subjectivities--except poets, psychological fictionists, and the like,
who do not seem to me men at all. Now, one reason I have liked you from
the first, in spite of many things that made my American blood boil, is
that you are a man, a real masculine arrogant dense man, with no
feminine morbid tendency to analyze your ego, in spite of your Celtic
blood. I met too many of that sort in Europe."
Gwynne, with his elbows on his knees, regarded the bottom of the boat
and colored guiltily, while congratulating himself that for all her
insight and cleverness she had barely penetrated his outer envelope. She
had thought him merely homesick, when his ego had been tottering, his
soul racked with doubt and terror; when he had spent long hours in
self-analysis; until the law had come to his rescue and reinvigorated
his brain. At the same time a wave of sadness swept over him. How little
human beings knew one another, no matter how intimate. As he raised his
eyes he seemed to see Isabel across a chasm as vast as the Atlantic; and
he was reminded that he knew her as little as she him. She had confessed
to the throes of what she believed to have been a great passion, but
when he had rehearsed the story away from the influence of her curious
cold magnetism and the sinister setting of its recital, he had
recognized it for what it was, the first violent embrace of an ardent
unshackled imagination with positive experience, in which the ego had
played an insignificant part. Her immediate recovery upon beholding the
disintegrating clay, without one regret for the vanished soul, or even
for the magnetic warmth of the living shell, suggested to his groping
masculine intelligence, totally unaccustomed to analysis of woman, that
her attack had been little more personal than if the man had infected
her with the microbe of influenza. Surely a woman that had loved a man
well enough to kiss him must have been stabbed with pity for the ardent
vigorous life thrust out into the dark. Then he felt a quick resentment
that anything so stainlessly statuesque as this girl--for all her trim
tailoring and large black hat--should have been even superficially
possessed by any man.
"Did that Johnny ever kiss you?" he asked, abruptly.
"Of course," replied Isabel. "Did I not have to, being engaged to him?
Not that there was much chance, for I never saw him alone between four
walls. Perhaps that was one reason that side of love seemed to me much
overrated. I was happiest when sitting alone in a sort of trance and
thinking about him."
"Humph!" said Gwynne.
The mist was gone. The east was a vast alcove of gold in which the hills
were set like hard dark jewels. The creek was narrowing. On either side,
and far on all sides, stretched the marsh. The guileless duck disported
himself on the ponds, but Gwynne, for once, was insensible to its
subversive charms, felt no regret that he had forgotten his gun. He came
and sat closer to Isabel, wondering if she felt as young as he did in
the wonderful freshness and beauty of the dawn. She certainly looked
very young and fresh and girlish, not in the least fateful, as when she
turned her profile against a hard background and forgot his presence.
"I think I could quite understand anything you cared to tell me," he
said, smiling into her eyes. "Please give me your reasons for
cultivating the character of a Toledo blade. Is it your intention
to marshal all the clans of all the advanced women and lead them
against the more occupied and disunited sex? I am told that it is
a standing grievance in Rosewater that you will not join that
Literary--Political--Improvement--and all the rest of it Club. I should
think with your ambitions and--well--masterful disposition, you would
assume its leadership as a sort of preliminary course."
"I intend to be a whole club in myself."
"Appalling! But what _do_ you mean by that cryptic assertion? I told you
that I could understand anything you chose to explain, but, as they say
out here, I am not good at guessing."
"I am working out a theory of my own. It has been demonstrated that
labor, capital, all the known forces, are far stronger when concentrated
and organized. I believe in concentrating all the faculties about a will
strong enough not only to conquer life but all the inherited weaknesses
that beset one daily within. That is a minor matter, however. I believe
that our higher faculties were given to us for no purpose but to create
within ourselves an individual strength that will add to the sum of
strength in the world. It is not necessary to proclaim this strength
from the house-tops, nor to search for windmills--a positive enemy it
would leap at automatically--nor even to seek to improve the world by
all the tried and generally futile devices. It is enough to be. I alone
may not add greatly to this subjective strength of the world; but think
what life would be did each individual succeed in making himself but one
degree less strong than God himself! It may be my destiny to make
propaganda without noise; but if not, the achievement of absolute
strength in myself will move the world forward to its millennium
one-millionth part of a degree at least. For that will be the real
millennium--when there shall be no despicable weakness in the world, no
moral rottenness, when each individual shall rely upon himself alone,
independent of the environment from which the majority to-day draw
everything good and bad, their happiness or misery. Nothing will ever
purge human nature but the triumph of the higher faculties, a triumph
accomplished by an unswervingly cultivated and jealously maintained
strength."
"I don't deny that your millennium has its points, but would that not be
rather a hard world? What of love, the interdependence of the sexes, and
all the other human relations?"
"It is love and interdependence that cause all the misery of the world;
they would be the very first things I should relegate among the minor
influences, did I wield the sceptre for an hour. To women, at least, all
unhappiness comes from the superstition that love--any sort--is all. Of
course there would be marriage, but of deliberate choice, and after a
long and purely platonic friendship, in which all the horrid little
failings that do most to dissever could be recognized and weighed. Free
love and experimental matrimony are mere excuses for the sort of
sensuality that is shallow and inconstant."
"Ah! Then you would permit love to your married pair after they had
probed each other's minds and mannerisms for a year or two? That is a
concession I hardly expected."
Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "I am neither an idiot nor blind. Heaven
knows I have seen enough of reckless passion and its consequences. The
equipment of the mortal proves him to be the slave of the race, but at
least he need not remain the blind and ridiculous slave he is at
present. If I had married that man no doubt I should have loved him more
frantically than ever for a time. But that would have passed, left me
resentful of bondage, of the surrender of self. There, above all, is the
reason I shall never marry. Impersonally, I believe in marriage, or
rather accept it, but I purpose to stand apart as a complete individual,
and subtly to teach others to drag strength out of the great body of
force in which we move, until they realize that in time mankind may feed
those creative fires, becoming, who knows, stronger than the great first
cause itself."
"And I have been called an egoist," murmured Gwynne. "I feel a
mere--well--Leghorn--beside this sublime determination to sit upon the
throne of God and administer to both kingdoms. All the same, my fair
cousin, I believe that it takes a man and a woman to complete the ego. I
incline to the picturesque belief that they were originally united, and
halved in some--well, say when Earth and its atmosphere became two
distinct parts. No doubt it was a judgment for having accomplished too
much evil in that formidable combination. Who knows but that may be the
secret of the fall of man; the uneven progress of human nature may be
towards the resumption of that state, only to be attained when we have
conquered the worst in ourselves and become pure spirit."
"That fits my own theory, for I believe that the two parts of what
should have been a perfect whole were cut in two for their sins, and
that reunion will come only when each has absolutely mastered the human
evil in him and freed the spiritual, but this he can only accomplish
alone--"
"Don't quote Tolstoi to me! He waited until he was old and cold to hurl
anathema against the human passions. Theories upon love by a man long
past his prime are as valueless as those of a girl."
"It was a theory I had no intention of advancing. I think for myself and
pay no more attention to the excessive virtue bred by the years than to
that equally illogical repentance or awakening of a woman's moral nature
when the man has ceased to charm or has disappeared. That is a mere
process, and no augury of future behavior. But you are always at your
best when you go off at half-cock like that! What I meant was that woman
has degenerated, not through passion but through ages of the exercise of
her pettier and meaner qualities. In some, these qualities lead to
malignancy, in the majority, no doubt, to frivolity--still worse, to my
puritanical inheritance--and they are utterly commonplace of outlook.
Matrimony keeps these qualities in constant exercise, because the ego
loses its independent life, its habit of meditation, and is pin-pricked
twenty times a day. It is by these qualities that woman chains man to
the earth, not by her human passions. I am quite willing to concede that
passion is magnificent."
Gwynne ground his teeth. He had never encountered anything so
incongruous as this beautiful vital superbly fashioned girl talking of
passion in precisely the same tone as she would have talked of chickens.
He felt the primitive man's impulse to beat her black and blue and then
make her his creature. As Isabel turned her eyes she was astonished at
what she saw in his. Gwynne's eyes were blazing. There was a dark color
in his face, and even his mouth, somewhat heavy, and generally set, was
half open. She fancied that so he looked when on a platform facing the
enemy, and thoroughly awake.
"What are you angry about?" she asked, calmly. "That I devote myself to
my sex instead of to yours? They need me more than any leader they have
evolved so far. There are millions of women of your sort. I want nothing
that your sex has left to offer. I will find a happiness unimaginable to
you, in living absolutely within myself and independent of all that
life, so far, has to give."
Then Gwynne exploded, and forgot himself. He flung himself forward, and
catching her upper arms in the grip of a vise shook her until her teeth
clacked together. "Damn you! Damn you!" he stammered. "What you want is
to be the squaw of one of your own Indians!"
"Let me go!" gasped Isabel, furious, and in sharp physical pain. "Do you
want to turn the boat over? Have you gone mad? I'll _kick_ you!"
"Good!" said Gwynne, releasing her, and sitting back. "That is the only
feminine speech you have made since I have known you. I make no apology.
You need never speak to me again. Set me ashore over there. I can take
the train when it comes along."
"You pinched me! You hurt me!" cried, Isabel in wrath and dismay. "I
hate you!"
"And your sentiments are cordially returned. Will you put me on shore?"
"I don't care what you do. You hurt me! You hurt me!" And Isabel dropped
her head into her arms and burst into a wild tempest of tears, like a
child that has had its first whipping.
Gwynne laughed aloud. "We are running into a mud bank," he said, "and
the tide is going out."
Isabel made a wild clutch at the tiller ropes, and brought the boat back
into the channel. But she could scarcely see, and Gwynne with a
contrition he had no intention of displaying offered to control the
launch. She vouchsafed him no reply, and as she did not steer for the
land, he retired to the extreme end of the boat and studied the scenery.
He was determined not to go through even the form of an apology, but he
was equally determined upon a reconciliation. In his first attempt to
match his wits with a woman's his face became so stony and intense that
Isabel recovered in a bound the serenity she had been struggling for,
and laughed with a gayety that would have deceived any man.
"We are a couple of naughty children," she said, sweetly. "Or maybe
people are not quite civilized so early in the morning. You may smoke,
if you like, and then I shouldn't mind if you came here and let me teach
you to run this launch--it is probably more old-fashioned than any you
have undertaken. But as we no doubt shall make many journeys it is only
fair that you should do half the work."
XIX
When they docked at the foot of Russian Hill, Isabel suggested that
Gwynne should leave his portmanteau with Mr. Clatt, the wharfinger that
lived at the edge of the sea-wall and looked after such launches and
yachts as came his way.
"I want you to stay with me if Lyster and Paula will come too," she
said, hospitably. "They like that sort of thing when they happen to have
a nurse. If they cannot come you will have to go to one of the hotels.
In either case you can send here for your suit-case. You had better take
the Jones Street car--"
"The track is bust," said Mr. Clatt, who was a laconic person.
"Walk along the docks to Polk Street and then south until you find a
car--I think it turns in at Pacific Avenue. The conductor will tell you
where to transfer--"
"Are there no cabs?"
"There are hacks and coupes at the livery-stables, if you care to expend
ten or fifteen dollars for being less comfortable than in the cars.
Remember our hills are little off the perpendicular."
She did not see fit to inform him that his business would not take him
into the hilly district, and watched him wend his way along the noisy,
dirty, evil-smelling docks with some satisfaction. Then she climbed the
steep hill to her house, over the crest. There were many cottages on
this side of Russian Hill and one or two fine residences, but beyond one
cable-car line little or nothing had been done to make life easy for the
inhabitants. It was a bit of pioneer San Francisco. One day, no doubt,
there would be a boulevard at its foot, the rough inhospitable cliff
would be terraced, and set with the country-like villas of people that
appreciated the beauties of the bay and Tamalpais, but at present a
carriage could not mount it, and it made no appeal to the luxurious.
An elderly couple lived in the "Belmont House" and did all that was
necessary in the present stage of Isabel's fortunes. She found the woman
house-cleaning and the old man weeding among the abundant crysanthemums
and asters in the half acre which still surrounded the old mansion. She
gave her orders and started for the home of her sister. A belated
trade-wind was screaming through the city driving the dust before it.
Isabel looked down at the towers and the domes, the steeples and walls
of the great modern buildings, the low city built in the days when San
Franciscans still feared earthquakes, all looming through the torn brown
veil like the mirage of a city infinitely distant. But San Francisco was
rarely more beautiful than in a dust-storm, which recombined her
outlines and the patchwork of her crowded generations into something
like harmony. She looked dreaming, proud, detached, an houri veiled to
allure, to inspire a new race of poets. Gwynne holding his hat on his
head with both hands, in the valley, cursed the climate, but Isabel
picking her way down the crazy old staircase, although in anything but a
poetical mood, paused a moment with that sudden outrush and uplift that
was the only passion she had ever known. Such moments were not frequent
and brought with them a sense of impersonality, as if she were but the
vehicle of aspiring passionate souls long gone from their own clay, that
rushed back through familiar conduits like volcanic fires, eager for the
arch of the visible world.
But ancestral rights had short shrift this morning. Isabel's spirit was
a very caldron. She not only still raged at the fact that for a few
seconds she had been as helpless in the grip of mere brute strength as
any peasant woman, but she was keenly disappointed that Gwynne had not
understood her. That he might have understood her too well, his whole
sex precipitating itself upon the new enemy, she would not admit for a
moment; women, with a sort of dishonest mental confusion, invariably
substituting the word misunderstood for failure to accept their own
point of view. Above all, was she furious with herself. Instead of
annihilating him with the dignity of which she possessed an uncommon
share, she had been surprised into behaving as if she were the crudest
of mere human creatures.
Moreover, her arms still pained, and she knew that they were black and
blue.
At the foot of the bluff she ran into a basement doorway to pin on her
veil more securely, and dismissed psychology as incompatible with
trade-winds and dust. A block or two farther on she took a cable car
which slipped rapidly down the western slope, across the narrow valley,
then up another and steeper hill, all blooming with flowers in the
narrow gardens. She alighted at a corner half-way to the summit, and
walked back to one of those curious San Francisco "Flat Houses" with
three doors in a row. It was perched high above the sidewalk, for the
street but a few years since was a gully, and the grading had deepened
it. It was reached by some sixty winding but solid steps, and the little
terrace, off at a right angle, was full of color.
As she had expected, Mrs. Paula was sitting in the bow-window of her
bedroom, gazing at the passers-by with a sort of idle eagerness. But so
were a hundred others in sight, there being no idler creature than the
American woman of small means, who neither belongs to clubs nor does her
own work. The shallow philosophers harp upon the boredom of the idle
rich whose every wish is gratified; but as a matter of fact the rich are
seldom idle, and in highly organized societies are models of system and
energy; whether misdirected or not, is beyond the question. It is the
idle woman in a flat whose imagination riots along the highways of the
great world, who keeps an avid eye for change of any sort, and finds a
fictitious existence in the sentimental, the immoral, and the society
novel.
Paula, who lived in the top flat, ran down the two flights of stairs and
opened the door for Isabel.
"Well! you are a stranger!" she exclaimed. "I was wondering if your
chickens had tuberculosis. Lots have in California. I read it in a
Sunday newspaper."
"My chickens are quite healthy. How are the children?"
"As well as can be expected in this dusty windy city where they have to
stay in the house half the day." Mrs. Stone's children were notoriously
healthy, but she was of the stuff of which the modern martyr is made.
Isabel followed her up the stairs and into the large sunny front
bedroom. The children being invisible and also inarticulate, were
doubtless in the back yard. The room was vaguely untidy without being
dirty. A basket of socks and stockings in various stages of repair stood
on a table by the window, but pushed aside to accommodate the Saturday
society papers and a novel from the circulating library. An opera-cloak
lay across a chair, flung there, no doubt, the night before, and on the
floor close by was a pair of pink worn slippers very narrow at the toes
but bulging backward like a toy boat. On the sofa was a freshly
laundried pile of shirts with detached collars and cuffs, which Mrs.
Stone immediately began ostentatiously to snip along the frayed edges.
The room itself was full of sunshine, which gave it a cheerful air in
spite of the faded Brussels carpet and the old-fashioned walnut
furniture, a contribution from the house on Russian Hill. Mrs. Paula
wore a vastly becoming wrapper of red nun's veiling trimmed with a
yellowish lace that by no means looked as cheap as it was. She was
pretty to excess, one of those little brown women that men admire and
often trust. Had she been thin she would have been bird-like with her
bright darting brown glance, but her cheeks, like her tightly laced
little figure, were very round, and so crimson that they excited less
suspicion than the more delicate and favorite pink. And the brilliant
color suited her peasant style of prettiness, her full red lips, her
bright crisp bronze hair. She had a fashion of absently sweeping the
loose sleeves of her wrapper and "artistic" house-gowns up to her
shoulder and revealing a plump and charming arm; and the pointed toe of
shoe or slipper was always visible. Her arts were lost on Isabel, who
understood and despised her, but who regarded her as a sacred legacy
from her mother; Mrs. Belmont had been devoted to the pretty child she
had adopted just after burying three of her own, and who had waited on
her hand and foot to the day of her death. Isabel was always conscious
of putting on a curb the moment she entered her sister's presence, but
thought it good discipline, and only spoke her mind when goaded beyond
endurance.
"I tried to telephone," she began, but was interrupted by a deep sigh.
"The telephone is cut off--we owe for three months. Hateful
things!--they know we always pay some time or other."
"If you are so badly off would it not be more economical to make the
children's clothes--"
"Isabel! Much you know about children! One can buy ready-made things for
just half."
Isabel subsided, for she felt herself at a disadvantage before this
experienced young matron; although she vaguely recalled that whenever
she had presented the children with little frocks and sailor suits she
had expended a considerable sum. But doubtless she had gone to the wrong
shops. Mrs. Paula was one of those women that haunted the cheap shops
and bargain-counters, and was always in debt.
"What a heavenly suit!" she exclaimed, her eyes roving covetously over
Isabel's smart black costume. "Paris, I suppose. Fancy being able to
walk into a store and order a new dress whenever you feel like it. I
have never done that in all my life--"
"It was for that I settled an income upon you before I left for Europe,
but if it is not enough to buy a new frock occasionally--"
"Oh, it would be enough if I could use it for that purpose, but you know
what my life is! If Lyster would only live economically--but it is
dining out at a restaurant five nights a week--champagne half the time,
especially if we have a guest, and we generally have--a Californian
thinks himself disgraced if he doesn't give invited company champagne.
It's all very well to brag about the magnificence and generosity of this
town--when you can afford to. But most everybody _I_ know, at least,
can't, and when the first of the month comes, I guess the women all wish
that San Francisco was more like New York, where they say every
Californian in time avoids every other Californian for fear he'll want
to borrow five dollars, and all the men let themselves go wild over Emma
Eames because she's proper and doesn't cost anything. It's time we
reformed instead of flinging money about like European princes--spending
four times as much as you've got for fear of being called stingy. A San
Franciscan would rather be called a murderer than mean. I talk and talk,
and it's no use. A terrible thing has happened to us," she ended,
abruptly.
"What?" asked Isabel, startled; she had lent an indifferent ear to the
familiar harangue.
"Lyster has gone on a newspaper--the _Ventilator_. Fancy--Lyster a
newspaper artist--making pictures of prize-fights, actresses, murderers,
and society women at the opera. It was that or the street, and Lyster
was frightened for once in his life. We owe for every mortal thing as
well as the telephone."
"That is the best thing I have ever heard of Lyster," said Isabel,
imperturbably. "But when he gets a respectable sum of money for a
picture, as he did a little while ago, why on earth doesn't he pay his
bills, and make a fresh start? I thought he had when I was down."
"Those two weeks cost a good deal," said Paula, softly.
Isabel colored but controlled her anger as she had many times before. "I
was under the impression that the check I gave you when I left--"
"Oh yes, but then you really don't know much about the cost of things,
in spite of the fact that you run a farm. We always had an extra man for
you--"
"I could well have dispensed with the dissipated fad-ridden specimens
you produced for my entertainment. I did not meet a sober man during the
entire fortnight. What is the amount of your indebtedness? I will pay
half, but no more."
She knew that it would be wiser to demand the bills and herself pay
something on account to the desperate creditors, but she revolted from
playing the mentor to that extent. When Paula, after a frowning bout
with a pencil and a sheet of paper, announced the sum that would tide
them over, Isabel was quite aware that she was facing the entire amount.
However, she wrote a check, merely extracting a facile promise that it
should be devoted to its legitimate purpose, and not to champagne or
frills.
"I will also send you down one or two tailor suits I have little use
for," she added. "Things are so cheap in Europe that I was often
betrayed into buying more than I wanted. They can easily be altered."
"Thanks!" said Paula. "I am not the style for tailor-made things, but
goodness knows I am glad enough to get anything."
Isabel glanced doubtfully at the slippers. "I have so many boots. They
are rather an extravagance with me--but I am afraid my foot is longer
than yours."
"Yes," said Paula, complacently, as she threaded a darning-needle. "My
foot is quite _fearfully_ small."
Isabel, who knew her foot to be far more slender and elegant than the
plebeian member that never dared expose itself beyond the instep, nearly
overflowed with feminine wrath; but she swallowed it, and remarked in a
moment:
"I had quite forgotten why I tried to telephone. Mr. Gwynne came down
with me and I should like to show him about a bit. Of course I cannot do
it alone; what is more, I want him to stay in my house. Nothing could
exceed his hospitality to me in England, and I should hate the idea of
sending him to a hotel when I have a house with eight bedrooms. Couldn't
you and Lyster come up and stay for a couple of days? And if Lyster will
show Mr. Gwynne the town, as indeed he has suggested more than once, it
must be understood that the expense is mine."
"Lyster would never permit it," said Paula, grandly. "You know what he
is--he even lends more than he borrows; that is one reason why we are
always so hard up. He is simply dying to show Mr. Gwynne about. And that
means that he'll spend a month's salary before he gets it."
"Then I will pay the month's bills. You must manage it as I wish or I
return to-day."
Isabel knew that Stone, if not generous in the higher sense, was
delighted to play the extravagant host, and never failed to assume the
role when he had money or credit. And if he was the freest and most
debonair of borrowers at least he repaid when unusually prosperous; and
he prided himself upon never having borrowed from a woman. Once when
Isabel, who could not help liking him, had offered to pay his debts, he
had promptly ascended from the depths of depression in which she had
discovered him before his easel, and replied, gayly:
"Not yet! The sort of man that borrows money from a woman is the sort of
man that has no intention of paying it back. I am not that sort."
With a wife who was or had been an adoring slave, it was little wonder
that Stone's original selfishness had become abnormally enhanced, and
Isabel took into account the feminine silliness of which he had been a
victim since birth. His mother, well-born, southern, indolent, had
indulged him in every whim during his boyhood; then when the familiar
San Francisco crash came, he had turned to actual work with an exceeding
ill grace. The easy ladies of the lower slopes, with whom he had tastes
more than Bohemian in common, had admired him extravagantly, and when he
finally met a girl that suited his tastes as exactly, and was
respectable to boot, he became a devoted if somewhat erratic husband. He
was now thirty-eight and all hope of graduation from perpetual
irresponsible boyhood had been destroyed long since by a woman abjectly
in love with him and too shrewd to antagonize him. With a strong brain
and character a wife might have kept him on the upward artistic path and
converted him to a measure of domesticity. But Paula had neither, was,
moreover, quite satisfied with her mental equipment and blooming little
person; so much so indeed that of late she was beginning to think
herself thrown away, a matrimonial offering; to weary of being the mere
annex of her brilliant husband. She was very clever in her fashion,
however, and Stone still thought her his willing slave, although curtain
lectures were less infrequent than of yore. And she had learned to
manage him in many ways he would have thought it a waste of time to
suspect.
"It will be all right," she said to Isabel. "He always thinks I have
more money than I have, for he never could do arithmetic at school and
still believes that two and two make five. I shall be delighted to get
out of this skyscraper for a few days." And then she asked,
insinuatingly, if she could not take the children.
But upon this point Isabel was obdurate, knowing that if Paula once
planted her entire family in the Belmont House the police could not
uproot them. Moreover, although she liked children, she detested
Paula's. They were pert and spoiled, untidy and noisy, although handsome
and highly bred of feature. She never saw them that she did not fall
into a sort of panic at the thought that similar little creatures full
of present and potential nuisance might have been her own, and then felt
extraordinarily light of spirit in the reflection that she had escaped a
lot she had as yet seen no reason to envy.
"Have you no nurse?" she asked.
"Oh yes. She has been threatening to leave--has been _fearfully_
disagreeable--but I suppose she will stay, now that I can pay her." Mrs.
Paula wisely gave up the point and invited her visitor to remain for
luncheon. But Isabel rose hastily.
"I must go home and see that everything is in order--the beds aired, and
lunch prepared for Mr. Gwynne in case he should turn up. Then you will
come about four? And we will dine out somewhere?"
"I'll pack all the decent things I possess and send them up right away.
Fortunately the dress Lyster gave me last month is quite fresh, so I
shall not feel too small beside your magnificence, and I am sure that
Mr. Gwynne, even if he is an Englishman, does not dress any better than
Lyster."
"Not a bit. We shall have some jolly times together. Mr. Gwynne is very
anxious to meet you."
"Well, he has not been in any particular hurry. Still, it will be
fearfully nice, and I am so glad you have come down at last."
XX
It was characteristic of Mrs. Paula that she was not in the least
jealous of Isabel's beauty. She was quite positive that no man would
hesitate between her own exuberant prettiness and a face and form that
looked as if it had stepped down from a dingy old canvas. It was true
that Stone admired Isabel--with reservations to his wife--and had openly
avowed his intention to paint her when he emerged from the tyranny of
the pot-boiler. He had hoped that Isabel would take the graceful hint
and order a portrait, but Isabel had succumbed to the pleadings of too
many students of indifferent talent, and had no intention of undergoing
the ordeal of sittings again to any but a master. To-night, as the party
of four entered The Poodle Dog--the socially successful offspring of the
still enterprising and disreputable parent on the dark slope
above--Paula deliberately outstripped her companions and appropriated
the seat, at the corner table reserved for them, that faced the room.
Isabel was only too delighted to turn her back upon the staring people,
for it had occurred to her to-night, for the first time, to be uneasily
ashamed of her adopted relative. She had gone about with her several
times since her return from Europe, and absently disapproved of a
somewhat eccentric tendency in dress, but to all sorts of odd costuming
she had grown accustomed during her experience of art circles abroad.
This evening, as she stood in her living-room with Gwynne and watched
Paula sail down the broad staircase, she had a sudden vision of the
shanty at the northern base of Russian Hill where Mrs. Belmont had found
her little Mexican seamstress, deserted by her American husband, wailing
over the child she was about to leave. This story had always inspired
Isabel with the profoundest pity, tempering her frequent impatience and
disgust towards the family alien, but to-night she wished for a few
moments that her mother had sent Paula to a foundling asylum. She
glanced uneasily at Gwynne and fancied she could hear him slam the lid
of his breeding upon a supercilious sputter. Mrs. Paula's skirt and the
jacket on her arm were a respectable brown, but there was something in
the screaming red blouse, the immense cheap red hat, the blazing cheeks,
the pinched waist between swelling bust and hips, the already lifted
skirt--Paula always wore a train that she might at the same time achieve
longer lines and more subtle opportunities--exhibiting the pointed
bronze slipper with a large red bow and much open work above, that
suggested, if not the French cocotte, at least that San Francisco
variety known in local parlance as "South of Market Street Chippy." She
did not bear the remotest likeness to a lady. She looked common, fast.
Isabel wondered that she had never faced the truth before. It was as if
a wave of final criticism heaved from the brain of the man whose life
had been passed in the best societies of the world across to hers. But
Gwynne was imperturbable and polite, and as they rode down-town in the
bright cars Paula thought him "fearfully nice" and was quite sure that
he admired her.
"We are fearfully late," she remarked, complacently, as she seated
herself and looked slowly around the big room with its ornate frescoes
and heavy chandeliers, its crowded tables and strange assortment of
types. "But it is much nicer--to see them all at once, I mean," she
added, untruthfully.
Gwynne, whose seat also commanded a view of the room, looked about him
with much interest. He had a vague association of impropriety with the
name of the restaurant, but he saw only a few painted females and
queer-looking men. The majority looked as if they belonged to the higher
walks of Bohemia, and quite a fourth were indubitably fashionable. But
his more vivid impression was that they all looked gay and care-free,
and that their personalities were not wholly obscured by clothes. After
lunching or dining at one of the great New York restaurants he had
carried away the impression of a tremendously fashionable school in
uniform--the women distinguished in appearance beyond those of any other
American city, but utterly unindividual. The social bodies of the United
States had interested him little, but to-night he glanced about with
something of the curiosity of a Columbus discovering the land of his
fathers. No doubt his Otis great-grandfather had been intimate with the
great-grandfathers of more than one man present; in this remote bit of
civilization he almost felt as if he were sitting down with a company of
relatives, at the least to a gathering of the clans. And he had rarely
seen so many handsome women together, nor such a variety of types.
Paula, who knew every one by sight and assiduously read the society
papers, volunteered much information while Isabel ordered the dinner;
Stone had been detained half-way down the room by a party of friends.
"That is Mrs. Masten," she whispered, with a respectful accent on the
name and in the significant tone she always employed when addressing a
person of social importance. "The youngish tall woman with white hair
and distinguished profile. She is one of the old set--the one Mrs.
Belmont belonged to--and fearfully haughty. Some people call her a
beauty, but how can a woman be a beauty with white hair? Lots get it
here and lose their complexions before they are twenty-five. It is the
wind and nerves and too many good times. I wonder I have not gone off
too, but I take a nap every day no matter what happens. Just beyond is
Mrs. Trennahan. She never did have any beauty with that sallow skin and
no feature except her eyes; but her husband, who was a great swell in
New York, and often takes her there, is quite devoted to her, and they
have a house on Nob Hill and another in Menlo Park. She is so exclusive
that it is a wonder she ever condescends to dine in a restaurant; but
Mr. Trennahan is a fearfully high liver, and this kitchen is famous.
Mrs. Trennahan's mother, Mrs. Yorba, who led society in the Eighties,
had only ninety people on her visiting list, and they say that her
parties were the dullest ever given in San Francisco. Of course that was
before I was born. The glory of that prehistoric crowd has departed, in
spite of the fact that a few of them--not many--have kept their
fortunes--and they are nothing to the new ones. The Irish and Germans
are on top now and are just ruling things--people whose very names our
mothers never heard, although they were making their piles without
saying much about it. They have come forward in the last five or six
years with a rush. All the old leaders are dead, and their children
don't seem to care much--just stand aside and put on airs. One of the
new leaders has a brogue. And as for Mrs. Hofer--take a good look at
her."
Paula indicated a tall superbly proportioned young woman in a simple
Parisian black gown and an immense black hat with a cascade of white
feathers rolling over the brim; she had a round laughing face and an air
of indescribable buoyancy. "She was born and brought up south of Market
Street, in the respectable part, but a dead give away in her generation:
she's only twenty-six. I forget what her old peasant grandfather started
life as, a peddler, probably, but afterwards he had a dry-goods store,
or shoes or something, and he bought real estate, and his son improved
it, so now they are rich. She was educated at the public schools, went
to the University for a year, had two more in Europe, and came back with
what they call presence and style, but is just cheek dressed up. She
hadn't much show socially, but she didn't lose any time capturing
Nicolas Hofer, the son of a German emigrant, who made money in the
commission business which his sons have turned into millions. All the
men like him, and as he was a great catch, of course he went everywhere;
and when he married they had to accept his wife. She did the rest, and
no one can deny that she is smart--in our sense and yours! She is a
leader already, and has a perfectly wonderful house, that all the old
aristocrats fall over themselves to get invited to. I'd like to go there
myself, but of course I'm nobody. Hofer poses as a reformer, but I guess
this old town's too much for him--"
"Nicolas Hofer?" asked Gwynne, with interest. "I fancy that is the man
my mother met at Homburg and asked me to call on."
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Paula, with a toss of her head. "If you are going
in for fine society you will soon have no use for us."
Gwynne, being unaccustomed to crudities of this sort, applied himself to
his oysters, while Isabel made a fierce resolution that she would find
another chaperon or remain in the country. She was disagreeably
conscious of craning necks, and although she knew that she was beginning
to excite interest in San Francisco, and was looking her best in a white
cloth frock and large white hat, she made no doubt that her
juxtaposition to the exotic Paula was the theme of more than one
unpleasant comment. While she liked Bohemia and was entirely indifferent
to shabbiness, she had never grown accustomed to vulgarities, and that
they should be embodied in her adopted sister filled her with a futile
wrath.
Stone hurried to his neglected party, waving his hand genially. He was a
very tall loosely built man, with a sensuous laughing mouth and an eye
that was seldom sober. He carried wine in his spirit as well as in his
skin, and if the latter had bagged a trifle under its burden, the spirit
was only depressed by the morning headache, and few men were more
popular.
"Know what kept me?" he demanded, as he doubled a huge Eastern
oyster--for the others Isabel had ordered the more delicate Californian,
but Stone's interior demanded a sterner nourishment. "Isabel, you are
famous. At first it was the men. Now it is the women too. It was like
you, dearie, to put Isabel opposite that mirror where everybody can see
her, but in which she looks just one decree further removed from common
mortals. Takes an artist's wife! No use, my sister. The Eggopolis must
take care of itself, the chickens be left to roost alone. San Francisco
wants you, and what she wants she gets--what is the matter, darling?"
The corners of his little wife's mouth were down and her chin was
trembling.
"You might have paid _me one_ compliment!" she enunciated, between anger
and tears.
"Good heavens, sweetheart, you are as familiar to them as Lotta's
fountain. You are an old story--and always beautiful," he added,
gallantly. "But Isabel! We raise the voluptuous by the score, Gwynne,
houris to beat the band. Climate's a regular Venus factory; but somehow
we don't get the classic very often. Too mixed, probably. Will have to
wait another generation or two. Eyes, complexions, figures--ye gods! But
noses--somehow they run to snub. Still! Look over there. Ever see
anything more fetching than those great Irish eyes in a regular little
Dago mug? She's worth three cold millions and I pine to paint her. The
price would be a mere detail. But to return to Isabel. She has only to
raise her finger to become the rage, and I want her to raise it."
"I wonder how much they would care for her if she hadn't been born into
one of the sacred old families, and hadn't money to boot!" cried Mrs.
Stone, exasperated beyond endurance by this triumph of marital
tactlessness. "I'd like to know what chance a poor girl has to turn
people's heads--"
"Tut! tut! Brownie, you're jealous. You know there never was a town
where people cared less about money--"
"It's just like any other old town, only you have silly legends about it
that you stick to in the face of facts. That day Isabel took me to the
St. Francis for lunch I never saw so many stuck-up-looking girls in my
life, and they all looked as if they had just sailed out of New York
fashion-plates. There are only about six really fashionable women here
to-night, and they only come because they think it's spicy to get so
close to real vice without actually touching it. For my part I'm sick of
the whole Bohemian game, and I'd like to dine at The St. Francis or The
Palace every night." She turned to Gwynne, her eyes flashing
dramatically; she was tired of being chorus to her popular husband's
leading roles, and was determined to hold the centre of the stage for
Gwynne's edification at least. "They pretend to come here because the
dinner is so good!" she exclaimed. "Good and cheap! But it isn't that a
bit with the swells--the women, that is. They just love the idea of
doing something almost naughty, once in a while in their virtuous
lives--when a San Francisco woman _is_ proper she'd make you really
tired with her superior airs and censorious tongue; but there isn't much
she doesn't know, all the same, and she just revels in venturing this
far."
"I don't understand," said the bewildered Englishman. "Are we dining in
a dive?"
"Not quite, but almost!" cried Stone, refilling his glass from the large
bottle in ice. "There is only one San Francisco! We have about six of
these French restaurants--ever taste anything like these frogs in Paris?
You scarcely ever see anybody in them at this hour with an 'all-night'
reputation. There are plenty of other resorts, a good many of them under
the sidewalks, where the dinner is almost as good but where a man
doesn't take his wife. And up-stairs--here--and in a few others--well,
if a woman is seen entering by the side door she is done for. But then
she isn't usually seen. Lord! if these walls could speak! The
divorce-mills would explode. The waiters all invest in real estate.
Policemen send their daughters to Europe, and the boss politicians get
rich so fast they spend money almost like a gentleman. In the hotels you
are all but asked for your marriage license, but in what is
euphemistically known as the French restaurants--well, high-toned vice
comes high, but the town is fairly bursting with accommodations for
every purse. No town like this!" he exclaimed, gazing into his lifted
glass and with the accent of deep feeling. "No town on God's footstool.
Nothing like it. Wouldn't live anywhere else if you gave me the planet.
Of course I've reformed, but then it's the _atmosphere_--not a taint of
American Puritanism--European and something more--the wild flavor of a
new and unique civilization. Precious few California men that go to New
York to live but are too glad to come back; and Eastern men, like
Trennahan, who have had a long taste of it, couldn't be paid to live
anywhere else."
"So all the legends of San Francisco are true?" said Gwynne, who
preferred Stone to his wife.
"Couldn't exaggerate if you tried. Wait till I show it to you. No blazed
trail nor special policeman detailed to protect our precious skulls. I
know the ropes and am not afraid to go anywhere."
"How do you like your new work?" asked Isabel, hastily, not knowing what
he might say next. "I should fancy that newspaper life would suit you."
"Does! Never hit a job I liked as well. Jolly set of fellows. Up all
night. What more could a fellow ask? No more aristocracy of art for me.
I'm neither a Peters nor a Keith, and I wish I'd found it out ten years
ago. If a man can make a good living, what in--ah, what on earth more
can he want in a town that gives him the best things in the world to
eat, the jolliest all-night life, the finest fellows in the world, the
prettiest women to look at, a climate that puts new life into old
horses--life's a dead easy game out here--when you don't develop too
much ambition. Ambition? Nothing in that. Fellows are ingrates and
idiots that go off to a cold-blooded place like New York, with a beastly
climate, the moment they have made a little mark here. No philosophy in
ambition. Only one life. Why not enjoy it--when your creditors will let
you? And the money always comes somehow--comes easy, goes easy, and if
we can't all be great, we can be happier here than anywhere else on
earth. Here's to San Francisco--and perdition to him that calls it
'Frisco!"
"So you have said good-bye to ambition?" asked Isabel, curiously. "I
used to think you had a good deal."
"So I had. Once I was younger and knew less. Perhaps if I had ever done
anything cleverer than a few dashing skits for the Bohemian Club, and
somebody had patted me hard enough on the back, I might have made an ass
of myself and crossed the continent in the wake of so many that have
never been heard of since."
"I don't think you ever gave your creativeness a real chance. If you had
shut yourself up in the country for a year--"
"I should have stayed a week. Scenery on a drop curtain is all I want of
nature. No, Isabel." He relapsed into sadness for a moment. "I have
travelled the logical road and simmered down into my place. It's just
this: San Francisco breeds all sorts. A few are born with a drop of
iron in their souls. They resist the climate, and the enchantment of the
easy luxurious semi-idle life you can command out here on next to
nothing, and clear out, and work hard, and make little old California
famous. Where they get the iron from God knows. It's all electricity
with the rest of us. There are hundreds of my sort. You've seen them at
the real Bohemian restaurants; young men mad with life and the sense of
their own powers; all of them writing, painting, composing,
editing--mostly talking. Then at other tables the old-young men who
have shrugged their shoulders and simmered down like myself; lucky if
they haven't taken to drink or drugs to drown regrets. Still other
tables--the young-old men, quite happy, and generally drunk. Business
men and some professional are the only ones that forge steadily ahead;
with precious few exceptions. But you don't see them often in the cheap
Bohemian restaurants, which have a glamour for the young, and are a
financial necessity for the failures. Never was such a high percentage
of brains in any one city. But they must get out. And if they don't go
young they don't go at all. San Francisco is a disease. You can't shake
it off. And you don't want to. To Hades with ambition anyhow," he cried,
gayly. "We can admire one another--and we've learned to, instead of
knocking the life out of everybody else as we did a few years ago. Now
we present the unique spectacle of a city packed to the brim with
cleverness and always ready for more. We know how to appreciate. _Vive
la bagatelle._ New York? Why, the spirit and brains would be drained out
of nine-tenths of us trying to keep a roof over our heads, and nobody
knowing we were there. No, _sir_. No, _madam_! The men in this town
realize more and more when they are well off, and here is one of them."
And he refilled his glass.
Isabel, not knowing that she had been listening to the litany of wasted
lives, turned in disgust and cast about for an excuse to leave before
Stone ordered another bottle of champagne. She encountered a gleam of
amusement in Gwynne's eyes, and it seemed to transfer her to an empty
auditorium, while mankind performed its little tricks on the stage for
her sole benefit. It was a subtle tribute, and she blushed under it. She
was also gratified to observe that Paula was boring him. But she glanced
away, lest he should think she had forgiven him. At the same moment she
saw a young man that had sat with his back to them, and opposite the
famous Mrs. Hofer, suddenly push back his chair, rise to his feet, and
look sharply at Gwynne. Then he came rapidly down the room, and Gwynne
rose and met him as if lifted to his feet by the hospitality beaming
from the large bright shrewd capable face of the Californian.
"This is Mr. Gwynne! Is it really?" he exclaimed, taking the stranger's
hand in a large warm grasp. "I am Nicolas Hofer. Your mother wrote you?
We have only been back a short time--I had intended running up to see
you. I knew you for a Britisher the minute you entered the room, but the
word was only just passed about who you were. Do--please--waive
formality and lunch with me at my house to-morrow. Then we'll motor
about a bit and I'll show you something of the city. Glad the fine
weather holds out. No denial. I expect you." And he skilfully took
himself off, before Gwynne should feel obliged to introduce him to his
party.
"Now, what do you think of that for California manners, and the
arrogance of the rich?" demanded Paula, triumphantly.
"Not a bit of it," replied Stone, amiably. "Man was in a hurry. Can't
you see his wife waiting for him? Never knew a Californian to put on
airs in my life." By this time his optimism was complete. "Only women
imagine such things. There are as many poor as rich in San Francisco
society. Only some of us are too poor, and Bohemia is better anyway.
Well, let's hit the pike. This room is too hot for my head."
XXI
The Poodle Dog, a high new ugly building, stood on the corner of Eddy
and Mason Streets in the very centre of the Tenderloin, or "all night
district." For two or three blocks on every side there was a blaze of
light, electric signs, illuminated windows, sudden flashes from swinging
doors. There was much movement, life, laughter, carriages in the street
driving from restaurant to theatre. And all beyond, east and west, south
and north, was a city as dark and quiet as the grave. The hill tops were
picked out with a few lights, but one could barely see them from this
region that never slept. Nor could one see Chinatown and Barbary coast,
nor other sections more picturesque than creditable, where the cheaper
gas blazed late, and not even a policeman was sure of his morrow if he
ventured too far. But here was the sound of music and decorous laughter,
the clang of street-cars and the constant rattle of carriages: the
restaurants were beginning to empty; there would be an hour or two of
comparative quiet, and then another crowd would fill the streets, the
restaurants, even the saloons; a crowd that rarely saw daylight mixing
amiably with respectable but undomestic citizens that could afford to
sleep late.
At present the scene was brilliant. "The San Franciscan loves the
outside life as much as the Londoner," said Isabel to Gwynne, as they
stood a moment almost blinded by the lower signs. "In many ways you
will find them not unlike--especially as regards fads. Wait until you
have been really initiated into intellectual Bohemia--the clever young
newspaper men and budding authors. I already hate the names of Ibsen,
Shaw, Wilde, Symons, Maeterlinck, and Gorky. I am only waiting for them
to discover Max Klinger and Manet--"
"Klinger?" asked Stone. "Where have I heard that name?"
"He is the great unconscious humorist of modern art, also a great
etcher," said Isabel, dryly. "Have you ever heard of the
_Secessionists_?"
"Of course," replied Stone, huffily. "You imagine that because you have
been to Europe--"
"Well, _have_ you ever heard of the _Scholles_?"
Gwynne laughed aloud. "If he has not, I should champion the octopus
proclivities of California."
"They are the very best draughtsmen in the world--"
But Paula had no intention that the conversation should be general. It
had been agreed that they should visit Chinatown, and she took Gwynne's
arm and led him up the hill; she found his cool impersonal manner almost
fascinating after a lifetime in a nest of horned egos. They walked up
through the semi-darkness to Clay Street and down to Portsmouth Square,
passing through an entirely disreputable region, but quiet at this hour.
As they crossed the Old Plaza--now Portsmouth Square--Isabel explained
that it had been the nucleus of the San Francisco of the Fifties, and
that people had crowded nightly against the great plate-glass windows on
one of the corners to watch the gamblers and the hillocks of gold on
every table; and that no doubt their common ancestor, who was a
convivial adventurous soul, had brawled here many a night. Mrs. Paula,
who knew absolutely nothing of the history of either California or San
Francisco, hastened her steps, and in consequence excited the always
smouldering jealousy of her husband. Stone had an exaggerated idea of
her beauty and youth, and felt his own power waning, moreover had all
the average American's Oriental instinct for exclusive possession.
Consequently, as they entered the flaming bit of Hong-Kong on the
opposite side of the square, Gwynne, infinitely to his satisfaction,
found that there had been a deft exchange of partners.
He had been in China, and the sudden entrance into an illusion more
complete than even the stage could achieve almost took his breath away.
There were the same crowds of stolid faces and dark-blue blouses,
relieved here and there with the rich garments of the merchants and the
women; the hundreds of tiny high balconies; the gorgeous windows filled
with embroideries and porcelain, Satsuma and bronzes. He was glad to
stroll with Isabel through a scene so like a picture-book, and to
exclaim with her over the novel sensation of passing from the
quintessence of the Western world into a bit of ancient civilization.
She realized the psychology of every violent contrast as no companion he
had ever known, and when she told him of the adjacent Spanish Town,
Little Italy, Nigger Town, Sailor Town, where representatives of the
scum of every clime were no doubt qualifying for purgatory at the
moment, he experienced a lively regret that there were places he must
explore without her comment.
It was a gala night in Chinatown. Even the provision shops were
festooned with sausages ornamented with bits of colored paper, and
decorated paper or silken lanterns hung before every house. Painted
women with stolid faces, often deeply imprinted with misery, rolled
along, and there were many pretty children in the street, painted too,
and dressed in the gayest and richest of garments. On the balconies of
the upper and greater restaurants were valuable jars and vases full of
plants and flowers. They ascended to the finest of these restaurants and
found a merchant's party eating at round tables from dolls' plates. In a
room opening upon a veranda, their creatures chanted what sounded to
Occidental ears like the dirge of the lost souls of all the Flowery
Empire, and the expression of the relaxed haunted faces confirmed the
impression. In large alcoves well-dressed Chinamen reclined on tables of
marble and teakwood, filling and refilling the opium pipe with an
infinity of patience that if otherwise applied might have led to
greatness instead of dreams.
"These men are just on exhibition," said Stone, contemptuously. "Wait
till I show you the real thing down in the slime. Lots of tall stories
about Chinatown, but the reality is bad enough."
They took a Jackson Street car and rode up through humbler Chinatown,
then through quarters of varying respectability until they reached the
sacred precinct of Nob Hill. Here there was an aristocratic calm, but
much light, and faint strains of music. The season was in full swing,
and society was either dining, or dressing for the dance.
As they climbed the hill-stair Stone artfully trimmed the ragged edges
of his wife's discontent. Subservient as she was to him, there were
times when her temper flew straight and sharp like a blade too long
hooped, and he had his reasons for conciliating her.
Said Gwynne in a low tone as they felt their way up the dark and
precarious flight: "Shall you think me rude if I accept Hofer's
invitation for to-morrow? And Stone wants me to do the town a bit
to-night. I am most curious--but I am your guest--and I can come down
another time--"
"I feel almost cross with you. This house is your hotel. If you ever go
to another--whether I am in town or not--there will be trouble."
So it was that as they reached the steps leading up to the door of the
house, Stone dropped his wife's arm, which had lain somewhat rigidly in
his, and catching Gwynne firmly by the elbow, beat a rapid retreat.
"Good-night, darling!" he cried. "We're off to do the town." Throwing up
first one leg then the other in black silhouette against the stars, he
sang: "And we won't be home till morning, till morning--"
The voice drifted up from the corner of Taylor and Broadway, where the
two men waited for a car. "Till daylight doth appear."
Mrs. Paula was gasping. "Well, I never--never--" she exclaimed, as
Isabel hastily marshalled her up the stair and into the house. "I hope
they'll be garroted! That's all! But it's just like the selfish beasts
of men--"
"What difference does it make? Didn't Lyster agree to be host? It would
be too dismal for Gwynne to roam through the purlieus with a
policeman--and he cannot come down often. It's bedtime, anyhow."
"Bedtime?" cried Mrs. Paula. "Why, it's only ten o'clock. But I forgot
that you go to bed and get up with chickens."
"I should think you would be grateful to go to bed early, once in a
while."
"Oh, I often retire early enough, if it comes to that. It's listening
half the night--all, is more like it--for the last car, and then for a
hack galloping from side to side up that hill, as if the driver and the
very horses were drunk themselves. I tell you it's a life!"
"And don't you get used to it?" asked Isabel with curiosity. "You've
been married thirteen years, and I suppose Lyster has always been what
he calls an all-nighter."
"There are some things a wife never gets used to," replied Paula with
injured dignity, as she held out a doubting hand for the candle Isabel
had lighted. "Haven't you gas or electricity?"
"There is gas, but why take the trouble to light it? And the candle
recalls so many delightful evenings in England. I know no prettier
picture than a procession of long-trained women, with bare shoulders,
and jewels in their hair, each carrying a candle up a long stair beside
the central hall."
"Ah! I have no such charming reminiscences of the English aristocracy,
and I am only afraid of spilling candle grease on my one decent dress."
XXII
At four o'clock Isabel was awakened by suspicious sounds at the key-hole
of the front door. She reached out for her pistol, but withdrew her hand
as she heard the careless laugh of her brother-in-law. A few moments
later the two explorers, after an instant's hesitation at the head of
the stair--which they had climbed like cats--walked past her door with a
brisk swaggering preternaturally steady gait that invoked the memory of
former occupants of the mansion. Then Gwynne's door opened and shut as
if by sleight of hand. Stone's was at the end of the hall. Isabel
inferred that he went through it, and a sound between a hiss and a
smothered roar shot down the hall as he would seem to pick up the door
and bang it into place.
Mr. Hofer had mentioned his luncheon hour as half-past one. Isabel had
Gwynne called an hour before. She was sitting on the veranda, as he
emerged. He was as well groomed as usual, but he was unmistakably pale
beneath his new coat of tan. She laughed wickedly.
"Oh yes," he said, imperturbably, "I was drunk. If I had not been I
never could have got through it, not being a seasoned San Franciscan. I
thought I knew vice. I have seen a good many variations, and in places
where protection was necessary. But I had not guessed at the
combination of ancient civilization and the crudities of the mining-camp
in the heart of a modern city. Stone is not a tank, but a camel. I
befuddled myself successfully in those dives under the pavements--and we
had by no means begun there: I should say we had patronized at least
half the saloons in San Francisco before we started for the underworld.
As we finally supported each other up the hill--we hadn't the price of a
cab left between us--it seemed to me that I was ascending from a jungle
of antediluvian men and women and beasts for ever and ever on the
rampage. San Francisco is the most wonderful city in the world inasmuch
as she not only exists but thrives on the top of such outrageous
rottenness. And no wonder that the men like Hofer are desperate. We were
escorted by a policeman after all, and he seemed to enjoy himself. The
flash of knives--I saw two men stuck--made as little impression upon him
as the awful abandonment of--well, of the females. Good God!--Well, I
hope another variety is in store to-day. Hofer, at least, does not
appear to be dissipated."
"Oh no, it is the fashion in that set to be domestic and good citizens.
All you'll hear of the underworld to-day will be its relation to
politics. They have been making a desperate fight to defeat the present
mayor's reelection and have been overwhelmingly defeated. The mayor is
popularly supposed to be a criminal at large, and the party that
supports him call themselves socialists, and are labor unions more
greedy and tyrannical than any Trust in the country. Nice town. But we
are optimists. No doubt Mr. Hofer and his party are already planning for
the next campaign. If I were a man, I'd go back to the tactics of the
Fifties and lynch. The city had good government for twenty years after
the operations of that Vigilance Committee. You might suggest it."
"I cannot say that I am in a suggesting mood. Shall you be here to
dinner?"
"Probably. But you are to accept whatever offers. No doubt Mr. Hofer
will motor you out to the Country Club or down to Burlingame, where he
has a house."
Gwynne nodded gratefully and left her. As he reached the top of the
steps leading down the hill, Isabel saw him pause and speak to a very
tall very smart young woman, whom she recognized in a moment as Mrs.
Hofer. Then the young matron advanced along the board walk with a sort
of trembling stride. It was evident from her charming blushing face that
she was as embarrassed as any one so young and buoyant, so successful
and so Irish, could be. Isabel ran down the steps to meet her.
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Hofer, in a light, high, cultivated, but nasal voice,
with a slightly English accent. "You _are_ sweet! I had intended to call
in state the first time I could think of a decent excuse, for I have
simply been mad--_mad_--to know you. But last night I told Mr. Hofer
that my slender stock of patience had gone--flown--evaporated. I could
hardly wait till this afternoon! Do you think I'm unconventional? I'm
not really, except when I'm abroad--never here. Nobody is so
conventional as the San Franciscan at home."
Isabel was smiling and trying to guide her up the steps. "I am more glad
than I can say to know you, at last," she said. "Do come into my house."
"Let me rest a bit. The breath is out of me with the climb and the
fright. Yes, fright, and it takes a good deal to phaze me. But you're
the sensation of the town, my dear. There have been all sorts of plans
to get hold of you. People are simply mad--_mad_! I was just bound I'd
be the first. Not petty social ambition, not a bit of it. I wanted to
know you. And I stayed in a country-house in England just after you,
last year. To think that you could have married Lord Hexam. Oh, what a
jewel of a house! I went simply mad over those white rooms in London."
Isabel had firmly piloted her up the steps and into the house, and Mrs.
Hofer sat on the edge of a chair like a bird on a bough, her merry
shrewd sweet eyes devouring Isabel's face.
"Oh, but I've wanted to know you! You don't know what this means to me!"
"But why?" asked Isabel, much amused. "I am nobody."
"Oh, just aren't you, though? Why, you're almost the last of the old San
Francisco Knickerbockers, so to speak. That is, the last that has
inherited any of the beauty one is always hearing about from the old
beaux. And most of them have gone under anyhow--in the cheerful
California fashion: three generations from shirt sleeves to shirt
sleeves. Of course there are some left, but the most interesting thing
about them is that they have been forced to open their houses to the
likes of us--or sit down and talk to empty chairs. But the old Spanish
blood is what interests us most. It was quite forgotten--all that old
life--for about two generations; but now it's the fashion to remember
it, and everything else early Californian. To think that you are a
niece, so to speak, of the first nun in California, who had that
romantic love affair with that Russian--I never could pronounce his
name. That's not what interests _me_ most, though. It's _you_. To think
what you've done! Those chickens! My man in the market has orders to
send me Old Inn chickens and eggs, on penalty of losing my custom. All
the _blasee_ girls--the San Francisco girls _do_ get so _blasee_, poor
things--are threatening to go in for chickens. It would be a lot better
for them than bridge. It is quite shocking the way they do gamble. Talk
about early times!"
"Fancy chickens becoming a fad!" Mrs. Hofer had paused for breath. "Poor
chickens! Tell your friends that they will have to get up at all hours
of the night, and at six o'clock in winter, and five in summer, and
spend a large part of their time in overalls and rubber boots. I fancy
that will cure them."
"It would! No more flirtations! No more Paris gowns! No more paint! I'll
tell them. But they admire you, all the same. And we are all dying to
see you _en grande tenue_. I am giving a ball the night before
Christmas. Say you will come--right here, on the spot."
"I shall love to come. I had intended to reopen this house as soon as I
could afford it, and had hardly expected to pick up my mother's old
threads until then. But a ball! I haven't danced for a year."
"It is simply fine to hear you say things just like other girls, when
you look the concentrated essence of all our bewigged and bepowdered
ancestors. To think that you've got that old colonial blood in you too,
and are related to a lot of those old duffers one sees in the public
parks. The next time I go East I'll look at them with more interest."
Then she sat still farther forward, and her bright face took on an
expression of coaxing eagerness.
"If it hadn't been a man's luncheon to-day I should have asked you to
join us. But won't you come down to The St. Francis with me? My
automobile is at the foot of the bluff. We can motor afterward through
the park a bit, and out on the boulevard. It is a simply heavenly day."
Isabel hesitated, and lifted an ear to the floor above. There was not a
sound, nor was it likely that Lyster would make his appearance before
dinner. Paula had announced her intention of visiting her children in
the course of the afternoon; she would hardly awaken for luncheon. While
she hesitated Mrs. Hofer began to coax in her eager commanding fashion.
"Oh, do come! Please come! I'm mad, _mad_ to have you all to myself for
one day. Chloroform them--"
"You wouldn't lunch with me?"
"I _will_ entertain you first. Please, please, come!"
"Very well," said Isabel, laughing. "I doubt if they ever know the
difference. I won't be a minute getting ready."
She ran up-stairs, and during the half-hour of her toilette Mrs. Hofer
examined everything in the down-stairs rooms and nodded an emphatic
approval.
XXIII
It was nearly midnight. Isabel, her head still buzzing after a
kaleidoscopic day, which included much motoring and many words, felt no
inclination for bed, moreover was not only curious to hear Gwynne's
impressions, but felt a pleasant sense of anticipation in talking the
day over with him. He had telephoned that he was going down to
Burlingame for dinner, but should manage to return to the house in the
neighborhood of midnight. She wondered if he had met as many people and
received as many bewildering impressions as she had done.
If she had cherished a lingering delusion that aught remained of the old
proud reserved character of the society of her mother's time, it had
vanished before the chatter of her hostess and the experiences of the
day. They had not lunched at The St. Francis, after all. As they reached
the entrance Mrs. Hofer capriciously changed her mind, and decided to
make a dramatic descent with Isabel upon the house of a friend whom she
knew to be entertaining informally, and where she was always sure of a
welcome. The house was out at The Mission, a generic term in these days
for the valley under the shadow of Twin Peaks, so sparsely populated by
the _padres_. There were still a few large wooden houses, surrounded by
grounds, that looked like country seats in the midst of that wilderness
of cheap and hideous streets; built perhaps thirty or forty years
before, when "The Mission" was a suburb, and for old affection's sake
still inhabited in spite of a thousand drawbacks. Isabel approached this
place in a fever of anticipation, for it was none other than the old
estate of Juan Moraga, and through a grille in its vanished adobe wall
Concha Argueello had held tryst with her Russian lover, Rezanov.
Into this sheltered valley the trade winds and the fog came so seldom
that, although it was a November day, the host had no hesitation in
entertaining his guests on the lawn, with rugs under foot and a canopy
to protect the complexions of the women. Here, Isabel found members of
nearly every set the city had ever possessed: Mrs. Trennahan, like
herself of the old Spanish stock, and her New York husband; Anne
Montgomery and two or three others of the second regime; Catalina Shore,
with her beautiful half Indian face and English husband; these few with
a repose of manner that looked old-fashioned against the lightly poised
figures and incessant chatter of the younger girls. And there was an
even greater variety of garb. Several were dressed for the season in
velvet and furs: one wore an organdie blouse and hat; another had
hastily donned a checked travelling suit; there was no doubt that Miss
Montgomery had bought her simple brown frock already made, and perhaps
at a sale; her neighbor wore a black lace dress with a fur boa. The
majority were excessively smart, whatever their vagaries, and Mrs.
Hofer, most of all, in several shades of gray; not only becoming to her
dark hair and bright color, but suggesting the natural plumage of a
bird; she was one of those women that look so well in whatever they wear
that it is difficult to imagine them in anything else. Isabel, perhaps,
although the sharp eye of a woman would have detected the absence of the
hand of a maid in her toilette, more nearly solved the problem of a
spring day in mid-winter, with her frock of white serge and large black
hat covered with feathers.
She sat between the "Reform Mayor," whose guest she was, and the
"Militant Editor," neither in the highest spirits after their recent and
unexpected defeat; and heard much of that intimate political talk for
which she had longed, although her mind wandered occasionally to that
romantic past of caballero and dona not yet a century old, very
difficult to conjure in this swarming heterogeneous valley.
After luncheon Mrs. Hofer had invited Miss Montgomery into the
automobile, and taken her and Isabel for a long ride, chattering of
everything under the sun, but with breathing spells that enabled Isabel
to exchange a few remarks with her old friend; and between remorse for
her own neglect and pity for that desolated life, she was almost
effusive, and begged Miss Montgomery to visit her in the valley where
Anne's father too had owned a ranch in palmier days. She offered to
furnish a room immediately, and Miss Montgomery smilingly promised to
obtain surcease from dinner-parties, where her portion was to enter by
the back door--in nine cases out of ten with the ancestral silver--and
take the rest she needed. She made a good living, she assured Isabel,
but was educating a young relative for the navy, and lived in a flat
that was largely kitchen. All her fragile wild-rose beauty was gone long
since, but she still remembered how to put on her clothes, and her
position was unaffected in that devil-may-care city; she went into
society when she chose.
Mrs. Hofer, on their return from the environs, left them for a few
moments in front of a house on Van Ness Avenue where a friend lay ill,
and Isabel made an enthusiastic allusion to the gay out-door appearance
of the city. The broad avenue was crowded with men, women, and children,
promenading in the sunshine. Every street-car was filled with people on
their way to or from the Park, Presidio, or Cliff House. They had passed
hundreds of automobiles and fine turnouts of every description, and out
at the three great resorts thousands of pleasure-seekers.
Miss Montgomery set her well-cut mouth in a pale line. "I get somewhat
weary of all this pagan delight in mere externals," she remarked. "It is
all so superficial and deceptive, although sincere enough in its
ebullitions. I can tell you, my dear idealist--you have not changed a
particle, by the way--that there is another side you have never seen. I
doubt if you ever would see it, even if you came to live in the town."
The automobile stood on a corner. Miss Montgomery indicated the rise and
fall of the hill-side, east and west of the avenue. "Look at all those
shabby-genteel rows of houses, each exactly like the next, each with its
awful bow window, and all needing a new coat of paint. So are the lives
inside. And there are miles of them. There are just four sorts of people
in this town--ignoring its underworld--that get any real enjoyment out
of life: those that are wealthy enough to command constant variety; the
careless clever Bohemians with their wits always on the alert and plenty
of congenial work; the club women; the laboring class, that get the
highest wages on earth and are as happy as beasts of the field on a
bright warm winter's day like this. But oh, the thousands and thousands
of mere mortals that are mired in their ruts and no longer even plan to
climb out! There is no more chance for those people--who are in some
little business, or are clerks, or small professional men, or fractions
in the great corporations--to mention but a few examples--no more chance
for them than in any of the older cities; for San Francisco has gone at
such a pace that she has as many ruts as if centuries had plowed her,
and those in the ruts might as well be on Lone Mountain. They--the women
particularly--have the tedium vitae in an acuter form than you have seen
anywhere in Europe, for over there the centuries have mellowed and
enriched life; there is something besides this eternal climate which can
never take the place of art. Of course there was a day when every man
had an equal chance, but that day has passed long since. And then in
Europe," she went on, the minor note in her voice becoming more
plaintive, although she was too well bred to whine, "you are always near
some other place. You can save your money for a few months and command a
change of scene. Here you have to travel three thousand miles to find a
change of accent. I often have the delusion that California is on Mars.
And the climate! Day after day, when I walk down that shabby hill with
menus revolving in my head, or take the boat across that sparkling
bay--I have customers all about--I long for the extremes of seasons they
have in the East--fogs and four months of intermittent rain are only an
irritant to one's natural love of variety. I long for the excitement of
wading through snow drifts. I wish we would have a war. I should love
to hear the shells hissing overhead, to see great buildings collapse,
people rushing about in a mad state of excitement--anything,
anything, to relieve the monotony of this isolated bit of
semi-civilization--where, I can tell you, more women meditate suicide
from pure ennui than in any city on earth!"
Isabel was appalled by this outburst. The brilliant day seemed faded,
the bright faces were grinning masks. Then she experienced a powerful
rush of loyalty towards this stranded member of her own class, and
before she realized what she was saying, she had offered to send her to
Europe to finish the musical education begun in her promising youth.
"Don't be angry," she stammered, knowing the intense pride of the
impoverished American. "Why not? We are really related. I am quite
alone. My little fortune has almost doubled. I make much more than I can
spend. It would be quite shocking if I did not do something for some
one--there is Paula of course, but it is against my principle to do too
much for any woman with a husband. Do--please--"
Miss Montgomery, who had flushed deeply and averted her head, turned
suddenly with a smile and a light in her eyes that, with the color in
her cheeks, made her look young for a moment.
"That was just like you!" she exclaimed. "I remember in Rosewater, when
you were a little thing, you used to give away the clothes on your back,
and your toys never lasted a week; although you beat the children and
pulled them about by the hair when they didn't play to suit you. I saw
you on the street just after your return from Europe--you looked as if
you had wrapped yourself up in the pride of your nature--had found a
plane apart from common mortals. For that reason I did not remind you of
my existence. But I should have remembered that you had had trouble and
care enough to freeze any woman of your inheritances into a sort of
animated Revolutionary statue. But you are just the same old Isabel. It
makes me feel young again."
"And you will go?" asked Isabel, eagerly.
Miss Montgomery shook her head. "No," she said, sadly. "It is too late.
I am thirty-five. If you have made no place for yourself by that time in
America you belong by a sort of divine decree to the treadmill. And the
limberness has gone out of my fingers as out of my mind. Sometimes I
deluge my pillow; but I will confess to you that down deep there is a
consciousness of bluntness, and it makes me inconsistently satisfied to
be here in this land of climate and plenty, instead of in Boston or New
York, where both climatic and social conditions are so terribly stern
for the poor. After all, the word 'struggle' is a mere euphemism out
here, and I am still asked to nearly all of the big parties; not one of
the older set has dropped me, and I could go out constantly if I chose.
But I have neither the energy nor the money. I could have presents of
ball gowns, but of course I won't accept them." She laid her hand on
Isabel's. "Don't imagine that I do not appreciate your generosity. I
shall never forget it--nor the dear childish awkward spontaneity of its
expression. But here I stay and rot."
"I heard this same lament from Lyster the other night; only he was more
cheerful about it--possibly because he has other surcease--"
"Don't waste any sympathy on us," said Miss Montgomery, contemptuously.
"There never was such a sieve as California--San Francisco--for
separating the wheat from the chaff--for determining the survival of the
fittest. If I had been worth my salt I should have conquered every
obstacle, overcome the family will, when I was young and full of hope
and vigor. So would Lyster Stone. San Francisco is stronger than we are.
That is the truth in a nutshell. Those that are stronger than she have
gone. The rest don't matter. And as so many of those that are really
gifted enjoy themselves with only an occasional spasm of self-disgust,
they are not greatly to be pitied. By and by they will outgrow even
that, and congratulate themselves that they were not of those that fled
from the good things of life."
Mrs. Hofer ran down the steps and into her automobile. "I
simply--couldn't--get--away," she cried between the agonized thumpings
of the engine. "But perhaps you were glad to be rid of me a bit. Please
don't say so, though. It would make me simply miserable."
As the car glided off, she sat on the edge of the seat facing her
guests, lightly, and with the same backward sweep of her body as when
walking. She always seemed to be fairly bursting with youthful energy,
and no bird could rival her buoyancy. She immediately assumed the burden
of the conversation.
"Dear Miss Otis! I have been meaning all day to ask you about Lady
Victoria Gwynne, but so many things have put it out of my head. What do
you think of her? I am simply mad to know. I never met any one who
interested me half so much; I couldn't make her out the least little
bit. The only time when she seemed quite alive was when she spoke of
her Jack. In the famous Elton she didn't seem to take any interest at
all. I fancy they've fallen out, for whenever his name was
mentioned--and Mr. Hofer admires him immensely--she always became as
mute as a mummy. It put me out a bit. I'm not used to that sort of
treatment. When I want to talk about a subject, I am in the habit of
doing so. Lady Victoria is not a bit simple like so many English great
ladies. Perhaps it's the Spanish blood, or perhaps it's because she's so
_blasee_. They _do_ tell stories! I never heard any received woman
accused of having had quite so many--well, at least in this town, when a
woman is openly larky she soon finds herself on the north side of the
fence. There was my Lady Victoria hobnobbing with all the royalties at
Homburg. But what interested me most was her attitude to Sir Cadge
Vanneck--"
"What?" Isabel sat erect. "Has Sir Cadge Vanneck returned from Africa? I
thought something besides ill health was detaining her. Do you think
they will marry? I don't know whether Mr. Gwynne would like it or not.
He looks forward to her arrival--"
"I can see Lady Victoria on a California ranch! She would yawn her head
off. London is 'the world' in quotation marks. She couldn't, that
seasoned lady, stay out of it six months. But about Sir Cadge--that was
the final mystery. It actually kept me awake one night. You know the
story, how devoted he was for about two years, and then how he ran away
when her husband was killed, for fear he would have to marry her. Nobody
knew exactly how she felt about it, for one thing must be said for the
people of those effete old civilizations: their breeding carries them
through any crisis without the turn of a hair. But the report was that
she showed an inner convulsion in subtle outer vibrations, or people
imagined she did, probably because she'd got to that age where she
couldn't have many illusions left. Then, suddenly, this summer, he
returns, and follows her to Homburg. He is all devotion. She is an
iceberg. And she's gone off dreadfully. I saw her seven years ago at
Covent Garden, and she was the handsomest thing I ever looked at. She's
handsome yet, but her muscles are getting that loose look and her eyes
are bottomless pits of ennui. Save me from being a fashionable
demimondaine. Better go to the deuce and die in a garret. Something
honest in that, anyhow--and more picturesque. There may be something
behind, that we don't know anything about, but in my opinion she is not
the happiest of women; and with such a handsome and agreeable man as Sir
Cadge Vanneck at her feet, she is just an ingrate. We are not here,
already? I wish I were not invited this evening, I'd simply _make_ you
come home to dinner. And it seems so rude to leave you at the foot of
this bluff; but there is just one thing the automobile can't do--"
Isabel, her head spinning with many words, had been glad to express her
pleasure in the day's entertainment and run up the steps to her refuge
on the heights. She had found that Mr. Stone was still in bed and likely
to remain there, and a haughty note from Paula announcing that she had
returned to her children and should remain where she was wanted.
She was vaguely planning to "do something" for Anne Montgomery, and
congratulating herself that she could fly at will from people that
talked too much, when she heard Gwynne's long stride on the plank walk,
and called gayly to him out of the darkness "to stand and deliver."
"I hope you carry a pistol," she added, anxiously, as he ran up the
steps. "I scarcely ever pick up a newspaper without reading of a
hold-up, and there were four on this hill last week. We change, out
here, but we don't seem to improve much."
XXIV