A MAN AND HIS PRICE
The ball given by Mrs. Davenport, to introduce to San Francisco society
the fiancée of her son Stanley, was long remembered as one of the most
brilliant entertainments ever given in California.
The exhilaration of prosperity was in the air. Stocks were mounting,
everybody was making money. More new dresses were ordered for Mrs.
Davenport’s ball than ever before for any one function. The jewelers
were selling diamonds to men and women who five years before had lived
in two-room cabins and worn overalls and calicos. Black Dan Gracey had
come down from Virginia to see his daughter and bought her a diamond
tiara which it was said eclipsed anything of the kind ever sold in San
Francisco or even New York. The bonanza times were beginning, and the
fiery wine of life they distilled mounting to the heads of men.
To Rosamund’s surprise June announced her intention of going to the
ball. She had gone out little lately, since the death of Mrs. Newbury,
now six weeks past, not at all. Every evening she had sat in the parlor
in Folsom Street, waiting. But the visitor she expected never came.
It was typical of her ineradicable optimism that she should still
have expected him. Rosamund had heard and seen enough to feel certain
that he would never come, that every leisure hour he had was spent
with the daughter of Black Dan Gracey. All Mercedes’ other charms were
now enhanced by the luster of great wealth, and the Colonel had told
Rosamund that Jerry’s business was practically nil, his private fortune
gone. It was necessary to say no more.
June dressed herself for the ball that night as for a crisis. She had
ordered a new gown, and sheathed in its glimmering whiteness, with
filmy skirts falling from her hips to the floor in vaporous layers, was
an ethereally fairy-like figure. Like many women who are not handsome
but possess a delicate charm of appearance, she varied singularly in
looks. To-night the evanescent beauty, that was now and then hers,
revisited her. She was not the blushing, soft-eyed girl that Barclay
had kissed in the woods at San Mateo, but a graceful woman in whose
fragile elegance there was something spiritual and poetic. She noticed
her pallor and accentuated it with powder, rubbing it along her
shoulders till they looked like marble. In all this luminous whiteness
of skin and raiment her lips were unusually red, her eyes dark and
brilliant. She scrutinized herself in the mirror, drew down tendrils
of hair from the coil that now crowned her head, studied her profile
and coiffure in the hand glass and tried different jeweled pendants
round her neck. She was like a general before battle who reviews his
resources and tries to display them to the best advantage.
Owing to a delay in the arrival of the carriage they were late. It was
half-past ten--an unwonted hour for those days--when they entered the
house. At its wide-flung portals currents of revelry and joy seemed
to meet them. There was the suggestion of festival in the air; the
rhythm of dance music swelled and faded over the hum of voices. Room
opened from room with glimpses of polished floors between long trains,
reflections of bare shoulders in mirrors, gleams of diamonds, sharp
and sudden under the even flood of light from the chandeliers. Over
all hung the perfume of flowers, great masses of which stood banked in
corners, or hung in thick festoons along the walls.
The Colonel escorted his charges to the end of the drawing-room where
Stanley Davenport’s fiancée stood beside the hostess receiving guests
and congratulations. Their few sentences of greeting accomplished, they
moved aside toward the wide door of entrance. From this vantage point
their eyes were instantly attracted by the figure of Mercedes Gracey
surrounded by a little group of admirers.
In the full panoply of ball dress the young woman was truly
magnificent. Black Dan’s last gift was a fitting crown for such a head.
She was profusely bejeweled, exceedingly bare as to neck and shoulders,
and robed in a sparkling splendor of lace traced out and weighted with
silver which looked like a symbolic incarnation of the riches she
represented. She was brilliantly animated, turning her head this way
and that as the members of the little court pressed on her notice.
Rosamund, who was very quick to notice significant details, was struck
by the fact that there were nearly as many women as men about her.
She was about to mention this to June, when the various young men, who
had detached themselves from other groups at the appearance of the
Misses Allen, bore down upon them, fluttering programs. A wall of black
coats formed about the girls, and the Colonel, seeing the intricate
rites of program comparing fairly inaugurated, backed away from them
and leaned against the door frame, idly surveying the scene.
A hand on his shoulder made him start and turn, and then break into the
broad smile of fellowship he reserved for just a few people.
“Rion, old son!” he exclaimed grasping the hand of his friend, “what
brings you here, floundering round among all these trains and frills?”
The other laughed. He had not been in San Francisco for nearly a year.
He was a little leaner, harder and tougher than he had been on his last
visit, when the Colonel had only seen him once or twice and he had
refused an invitation to dine in Folsom Street.
“I’m down to escort my niece. Dan couldn’t come, so I was offered up.
Mercedes had a notion she had to have the males of her family grouped
round her to-night and telegraphed up for one of us. Dan would rather
shut down the Cresta Plata than disappoint her, so as he couldn’t come
I had to.”
“You’re being broken in early. At my age it’s about all a fellow’s good
for. I take the girls wherever they go, and what’s more, I enjoy it.
Have you seen them yet?”
[Illustration: MERCEDES]
He indicated the white-robed figures of June and Rosamund in front of
him. Rion nodded. Before he had spoken to the Colonel he had stood just
behind him watching June. Her back was toward him but as she turned he
caught glimpses of her profile. He had not dared to speak to her. His
stop with the Colonel was a half-way halt, a pause to gain courage,
cheered by a hope that the older man might break the ice of their
meeting.
“How are they?” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, while his heart
pounded with mingled hope and dread of June’s turning and seeing him.
“Well, very well,” said the other briskly. “Rosamund’s a perfect
picture of health and happiness. And June--well, perhaps she’s a little
thin and not quite up to her usual spirits. But she looks very pretty
to-night.”
He waited to see what Rion would say to this. The Colonel had wondered
of late if his friend had heard any gossip of June and Barclay. He knew
the mining man led a simple life of engrossing work among men, far
from the circles where the meaner spirits of the world seek to unveil
the hidden wounds of their fellows. Rion’s answer struck upon his
complacency with an impact of disturbing surprise.
“Do you know if Barclay’s here yet? Have you seen him? Mercedes sent me
to find out if he’d come. He said he’d be late, and she seems to think
it’s about time for him to illuminate the place by his presence. But I
can’t find him.”
“Barclay!” exclaimed the older man in a disgusted tone. “What’s
Mercedes want with him? A handsome girl like that oughtn’t to bother
her head about a skunk like Barclay.”
“Go slow, Jim, go slow now,” said Rion, laughing; and placing his big
hand on the Colonel’s shoulder he pressed it hard. “Mustn’t talk that
way to me about Jerry any more. He’s going to become a member of the
family. He and Mercedes are engaged. It’s announced to-night. That’s
why I’m here. That’s why Mercedes wanted the men of the family to rally
round her, and lend the weight of their approval to something they
don’t approve of at all.”
For the first moment the Colonel was too staggered to speak. He had
expected it--as Rosamund had--but not so soon, not so indecently soon.
His mind leaped forward to the certainty of June’s hearing it suddenly
from a partner and something distressing happening.
“Stay here, Rion, for a moment,” he said quietly. “I want to speak to
Rosamund.”
Even as he stepped forward, Rosamund, a few yards in front of them,
wheeled suddenly from the two men before her, and came toward him. One
glance at her face told him that she too had heard.
“Uncle Jim,” she whispered, as they came together and she made a
desperate clutch at him, “quick! something dreadful’s happened.
Mercedes and Jerry are engaged and it’s announced to-night. Everybody’s
talking of it. Jack Griscom’s just told me. What’ll we do? June may
hear it at any moment. We’ve got to get her away before she does.”
June stood just beyond them. Breaking into Rosamund’s last words came
the little blow of her fan striking the floor. Her program fluttered
down beside it.
“Why, Miss Allen,” said her companion, a youth who had been the first
to impart the news of the evening, “what is it? You’re dropping
everything.”
As he bent on his knees to pick up the fallen properties, the Colonel
roughly pushed him aside. June’s stricken face appalled him. He drew
one of her hands through his arm, and said in a low authoritative voice:
“Come. We’re going home. Walk to the door and I’ll get the carriage in
a minute.”
She made an effort and turning moved toward the door. In the passing
in and out of laughing people, flushed with exercise and pleasure, no
one noticed her except Rion, who suddenly saw her approach and sweep
by, her eyes staring before her, her face set like a stone. Rosamund
had taken the fan and program from the astonished boy, and with a rapid
sentence to the effect that her sister felt faint, followed them. Rion
dared to touch her arm as she passed through the doorway.
“What’s the matter with June?” he said bruskly. “She looks as if she
were dying.”
“She’s sick. She--she--feels faint. It’s--it’s--a sort of an attack.”
She hurried on down the long flagged hall, at one side of which was
the dressing-room. Rion followed and saw the three enter it. He stood
outside, irresolute, not liking to look in through the open doorway
and unable to go away. Presently the Colonel emerged, saw him, and
hurrying toward him, said in quick, low-toned urgency:
“You’re just the man I want. June’s sick. I’m going to get the carriage
and I don’t want any of these fools of people round here to see her.
You bring her down as soon as she’s ready.”
“What’s the matter with her?” Rion asked again. “Is it serious?”
“It’s--it’s--the heart,” said the Colonel, bent on shielding his
darling even to her lover and his own friend. “She’s--she’s--had
attacks before. Yes, it’s damned serious.”
He was gone with the words, and Rion, standing by the dressing-room
door, looked in and caught a glimpse of June standing between Rosamund,
who was fastening her cloak, and a white-capped negress who was draping
a lace scarf over her head. She looked like a sleep-walker, wide-eyed
and pallid under their arranging hands. He did not move away this time,
but instead walked to the door and said to Rosamund:
“The Colonel wants me to take you to the carriage.”
As they moved toward him he entered, drew June’s hand inside his arm
and walked down the hall to the door. There were several short flights
of marble steps leading from the porch to the street. When he came to
these he threw her cloak aside, pushing it out of his way, put his arm
around her and half carried her down. Her body in the grasp of his arm
seemed pitifully small and frail. She said nothing, but he felt that
she trembled like a person in a chill.
At the foot of the steps the carriage stood, the Colonel at the door.
The hour was an auspicious one for an unseen exit. It was too late
for the most dilatory guest to be arriving, and too early for the
most unfestal to be leaving. The street was devoid of pedestrians and
vehicles, and lit by the diminishing dots of lamps and the gushes
of light from the illuminated house, presented a vista of echoing
desertion.
The Colonel opened the carriage door, helped Rosamund in first and
lifted June in after her. He was standing with the handle in his hand
when a footstep he had vaguely heard advancing through the silence
struck loud on his ear. He turned quickly and saw a man come into view
from the angle of the side street, walk rapidly toward the house, and
then stop with that air of alertly poised hesitancy which suggests
a suddenly-caught and concentrated attention. The object of this
attention was the Colonel’s figure, and as the new-comer stood in that
one arrested moment of motionless scrutiny, the Colonel saw by the
light of an adjacent lamp that it was Jerry Barclay. They recognized
each other, and the advancing man drew back quickly into the shadow of
the house.
“Rion,” said the Colonel, turning to his friend, “would you mind taking
the girls home? I’ve just remembered something I have to do that will
detain me for a few minutes. I’ll go round the other way and be at
Folsom Street almost as soon as you are.”
He waited to see Rion enter and then slammed the door on him, and drew
back from the curb.
As the carriage disappeared around the corner he walked forward to
the spot where Jerry was concealed. He could see his figure pressed
back against the fence, faintly discernible as a darker bulk amid the
darkness about it, a pale line of shirt bosom showing between the
straight blackness of the loosened coat fronts.
“I knew that was you, Jerry,” he said. “It’s no good hiding.”
Jerry stepped forward into the light of the lamp. He was enraged and
chagrined at the encounter.
“Hiding?” he exclaimed haughtily. “Why should I be hiding?”
The Colonel came close to him and said with low-toned emphasis:
“Because you’re a liar and a coward, Jerry Barclay; and you were afraid
to meet me.”
Jerry drew back crying with amazed rage:
“Colonel Parrish!”
“And you tried to hide from me to-night when I know what you are and
what you’ve done. You scrub--you--”
Barclay hit furiously at him, but the older man evaded the blow, and
seizing him by the loosened fronts of his coat, with his open hand
struck him on both sides of the face and then flung him against the
fence. He squared himself to meet an onslaught but Jerry struck heavily
and fell, a dark, sprawling mass on the sidewalk. The oath that he
shouted as he reeled back was bitten in two by an ejaculation of pain
and he lay motionless, groaning in the dark.
“Stay there and howl,” said the Colonel. “If I stayed another moment
I’d kick you as you lie.”
And he turned and ran down the street. The rattle of a carriage struck
his ear and a coupé turned the corner, its lamps glaring like two round
yellow eyes. He hailed it, thrust a handful of silver into the driver’s
hand, and gave him the Allen address on Folsom Street.
As the carriage rattled across town he lay back, his blood singing in
his ears, his heart racked with rage and pain. He had done no good,
probably been very foolish. But as June’s face rose on his memory,
he wished he had hit harder, and the recollection of Jerry groaning
against the fence soothed his pain.