In complete revulsion, Keith scuttled the frivolous world of women. As
he expressed it, he was sick of women. They made him tired. Too much
fuss trying to keep even with their vagaries. A man liked something he
could bite on. He plunged with all the enthusiasm and energy of his
vivid personality into his business deal of the water lots and into the
fascinating downtown life of the pioneer city. The mere fact that he
had ended that asinine Morrell affair somehow made him think he had
made it all up to Nan, and he settled back tacitly and without further
preliminaries into what his mood considered a most satisfactory
domestic basis. That is, he took his home and his home life for
granted. It was there when he needed it. He admired Nan greatly, and
supplied her with plenty of money, and took her to places when he could
get the time. Some day, when things were not quite so lively, they
would go somewhere together. In the meantime he never failed to ask her
every evening if she had enjoyed herself that day; and she never failed
to reply that she had. Everything was most comfortable.
After the Firemen's Ball Nan, somehow relieved of any definite
uneasiness, felt that she should be made much of, should be a little
wooed, that Keith should make up a little for having been somewhat of a
naughty boy. When, instead, she was left more alone than before, she
was hurt and depressed. Of course, Milton did not realize--but what was
there for her? Wing Sam ran the house; she worked a good deal in the
garden, assisted by Gringo. Probably at no time in modern history have
wives been left so much alone and so free as during this period. The
man's world was so absorbing; the woman's so empty.
Ben Sansome dropped in quite often. He was always amusing, always
agreeable, interested in all sorts of things, ready to give his
undivided attention to any sort of a problem, no matter how trivial, to
consider it attentively, and to find for it a fair and square
deliberate solution. This is exceedingly comforting to the feminine
mind. He taught Gringo not to "jump up"; he found out what was the
matter with the _Gold of Ophir_ cutting; he discovered and took her to
see just the shade of hangings she had long sought for the blue room.
Within a very short time he had established himself on the footing of
the casual old-time caller, happening by, dropping in, commenting and
advising detachedly, drifting on again before his little visit had
assumed rememberable proportions. He had always the air of just leaning
over the fence for a moment's chat; yet he contrived to spend the most
of an afternoon. He spoke of Keith often, always in affectionate terms,
as of a sort of pal, much as though he and Nan _both_ owned him, he, of
course, in a lesser degree.
One afternoon, after he had actually been digging away at a bulb bed
for half an hour, Nan suggested that he come in for refreshment.
Gradually this became a habit. Sansome and Nan sat cozily either side
the little Chinese tea table. He visibly luxuriated.
"You don't know what a privilege this is for me--for any lonesome
bachelor in this crude city--to have a home like this to come to
occasionally."
He hinted at his situation, but made of its details a dark mystery. The
final impression was one of surface lightness and gayety, but of inner
sadness.
"It is a terrible city for a man without an anchor!" he said. "Keith is
a lucky fellow! If I only had some one, as he has, I might amount to
something." A gesture implied what a discouraged butterfly sort of
person he really was.
"You ought to marry," said Nan gently.
"Marry!" he cried. "Dear lady, whom? Where in this awful mixture they
call society could one find a woman to marry?"
"There are plenty of nice women here," chided Nan.
"Yes--and all of them taken by luckier fellows! You wouldn't have me
marry Sally Warner, would you--or any of the other half-dozen Sally
Warners? I might as well marry a gas chandelier, a grand piano, and a
code of immorals--but the standard of such women is so different from
the standard of women like yourself."
Nan might pertinently have inquired what Ben Sansome did in this
gallery, anyhow; but so cold-blooded and direct an attack would have
required a cool detachment incompatible with his dark, good looks, his
winning, appealing manners, his thoughtfulness in little things, his
almost helpless reliance on her sympathy; in other words, it
presupposed a rather cynical, elderly person. And Nan was young,
romantic, easily stirred.
"All you need is to believe in yourself a little more," she said
earnestly and prettily. "Why don't you undertake something instead of
drifting? Some of the people you go with are not especially good for
you--do you think so?"
"Good for me?" he laughed bitterly. "Who cares if I go to the dogs?
They'd rather like me to; it would keep them company! And I don't know
that I care much myself!" he muttered in a lower tone.
She leaned forward, distressed, her eyes shining with expostulation.
"You mustn't hold yourself so low," she told him vehemently. "You
mustn't! There are a great many people who believe in you. For their
sake you should try. If you would only be just a little bit serious--in
regard to yourself, I mean. A gay life is all very well----"
"Gay?" he interrupted, then caught himself. "Yes, I suppose I do seem
gay--God knows I try not to cry out--but, really, sometimes I'm near to
ending it all----"
She was excited to a panic of negation.
"Oh, no! no!" she expostulated vehemently. ("Egad, she's stunning when
she's aroused!" thought Sansome.) "You mustn't talk like that! It isn't
fair to yourself; it isn't fair to your manhood! Oh, how you do need
some one to pull you up! If I could only help!"
He raised his head and looked directly at her, his dark, melancholy
eyes lighting slowly.
"You have helped; you are helping," he murmured. "I suppose I have been
weak and a coward, I will try."
"That's right. I am so glad," she said, glowing with sweetness and a
desire to aid. "Now you must turn over a new leaf," she hesitated.
"Every way, I mean," she added with a little blush.
"I know I drink more than I ought," he supplied in accents of regret.
"Don't you suppose you could do without?" she begged very gently.
"Will you help me?" He turned on her quickly; then, his delicate
instincts perceiving a faint, instinctive recoil at his advance, he
added: "Just let me come here occasionally, into this quiet atmosphere,
when it gets too hard and I can see no light; just to get your help,
the strength I shall need to tide me over."
He looked very handsome and romantic and young. He was apparently very,
deeply in earnest. Nan experienced a rash of pity, of protective
maternal emotion.
"Yes, do come," she assented softly.