Ralph Holt ran down the steps of a famous night restaurant in north
Montgomery Street on the edge of Chinatown. It was a disreputable place
but it had a certain air of brilliancy, although below the sidewalk,
and was favored by men that worked late on newspapers, not only for its
excellent cuisine but because there was likely to be some garish bit of
drama to refresh the jaded mind.
The large room was handsomely furnished with mahogany and lit by three
large crystal chandeliers and many side brackets. It was about two
thirds full. A band was playing and on a platform a woman in a Spanish
costume of sorts was dancing the can-can, to the noisy appreciation of
the male guests. Along one side of the room was a bar with a large
painting above it of bathing nymphs. The waiters were Chinese.
Holt found an unoccupied table and ordered an oyster stew, then glanced
about him for possible centres of interest. There were many women
present, gaudily attired, but they were not the elite of the
half-world. Neither did the gentlemen who made life gay and care-free
for the haughty ladies of the lower ten thousand patronize anything so
blatant. They were far too high-toned themselves. Their standards were
elevated, all things considered.
But the women of commerce, of whatever status, had no interest for
young Holt save as possible heroines of living drama. He had a lively
news sense, and although an editor, and of a highly respectable sheet
at that, he could become as keen on the track of a "story" as if he
were still a reporter.
But although the night birds were eating little and drinking a great
deal, at this hour of two in the morning, the only excitement was the
marvellous high kicking of the black-eyed scantily clad young woman on
the stage and the ribald applause of her admirers.
His eye was arrested by the slender back of a woman who sat at a table
alone drinking champagne. She was so simply dressed that she was far
more noticeable than if she had crowned herself with jewels. His lunch
arrived at the moment, and it was not until he had satisfied his usual
morning appetite that he remembered the woman and glanced her way
again. Two men were sitting at her table, apparently endeavoring to
engage her in conversation. They belonged to the type loosely known as
men about town, of no definite position, but with money to spend and a
turn for adventure.
It was equally apparent that they received no response to their amiable
overtures, for they shrugged their shoulders in a moment, laughed, and
went elsewhere. More than one woman sat alone and these were amenable
enough. They came for no other purpose.
Holt paid his account and strolled over to the table. When he took one
of the chairs he was shocked but not particularly surprised to see that
the woman was Mrs. Talbot. The town had rung with her story all winter,
and he had heard several months since that she had obtained money in
some way and left her husband. The report was that Dr. Talbot had
traced her to lodgings on the Plaza, but she had not only refused to
return to him but to tell him where she had obtained her funds. She had
informed him that she had sufficient money to keep her "long enough,"
but the doctor had his misgivings and directed his lawyers to pay the
rent of the room and make an arrangement with a neighboring restaurant
to send in her meals. Then he had gone off on a sea voyage. Holt had
seen him driving his double team the day before, evidently on a round
of visits. The sea, apparently, had done him little good. Nothing but
age, no doubt, would shatter that superb constitution, but he had lost
his ruddy color and his face was drawn and lined.
Madeleine had not raised her eyes. She looked like an effigy of
well-bred contempt, and Holt did not wonder that she suffered briefly
from the attentions of predatory males in search of amusement.
Moreover, she was very thin, and the sirens of that day were
voluptuous. They fed on cream and sweets until the proper curves of
bust and hips were achieved, and those that appeared in the wrong place
were held flat with a broad "wooden whalebone."
Holt was surprised to find her so little changed. It was evident she
was one of those drinkers whom liquor made pallid not red; her skin was
still smooth and her face had not lost its fine oval. But it was only a
matter of time!
"Mrs. Talbot."
She raised her eyes with a faint start and with an expression of
haughty disdain. But as she recognized him the expression faded and she
regarded him sadly.
"You see," she said.
"It's a crime, you know."
"Have you any news of him?"
"Nothing new. It takes time to kill a man like that."
"I hope he is more fortunate than I am! It hasn't the effect that it
did. It keeps my nerves sodden, but my brain is horribly clear. I no
longer forget! And death is a long time coming. I am tired always, but
I don't break."
"You shouldn't come to such places as this. If a man was drunk enough
you couldn't discourage him."
"Oh, I have been spoken to in places like this and on the street by men
in every stage of intoxication and by men who were quite sober. But I
am able to take care of myself. This sort of man--the only sort I meet
now--likes gay clothes and gay women."
"All the same it's not safe. Do you only go out at night?"
"Yes--I--I sleep in the daytime."
"Look here--I have a plan--I won't tell you what it is now--but
meanwhile I wish you would promise me that you will not go out
alone--to hells of this sort--again. I can make an arrangement for a
while at the office to get off earlier, and I'll take you wherever you
want to go. Is it a bargain?"
"Very well," she said indifferently. Then she smiled for the first
time, and her face looked sweet and almost girlish once more. "You are
very kind. Why do you take so much interest? I am only one more
derelict. You must have seen many."
"Well, I'm just built that way. I took a shine to you the day in that
old ark we ambled about in, and then I'm as fond of Masters as ever.
D'you see? Now, let's get out of this. I'm going to see you home."
"Home!"
"Well, I'm glad the word gives you a shock, anyway. It's where you
ought to be."
They left the restaurant and although, when they reached the sidewalk,
she took his arm, he noticed that she did not stagger.
They walked up the hill past the north side of the Plaza. The gambling
houses of the fifties and early sixties had moved elsewhere, and
although there were low-browed shops on the east side with flaring gas
jets before them even at this hour, the other three sides, devoted to
offices and rooming-houses, were respectable. There were a few drunken
sailors on the grass, who had wandered too far from Barbary Coast, but
they were asleep.
"I never am molested here," she said. "I don't think I have ever met
any one. Sometimes I have stood in the shadow up there and looked down
Dupont Street. What a sight! Respectable Montgomery Street is never so
crowded at four in the afternoon. And the women! Sometimes I have
envied them, for life has never meant anything to them but just that. I
never saw one of those painted harlots who looked as if she had even
the remnants of a mind."
"Well, for heaven's sake keep your distance from Dupont Street. If some
drunken brute caught you lurking in the shadows it might appeal to his
sense of humor to toss you on his shoulder and run the length of the
street with you--possibly fling you through one of the windows of those
awful cottages into some harlot's lap, if she happened to be soliciting
at the moment. Then she'd scratch your eyes out.... You know a lot
about taking care of yourself," he fumed.
"Oh, I never go there any more," she said indifferently. "I'm tired of
it."
"I can understand you leaving your husband and wishing to live
alone--natural enough!--but what I cannot understand is that you, the
quintessence of delicate breeding, should walk the streets at night and
sit in dives. I wonder you can stand being in the room with such women,
to say nothing of the men."
"It has been my hope to forget all I represented before, and danger
means nothing to me. Moreover, there are other reasons. I must have
exercise and air. I do not care to risk meeting any of my old friends.
I must get away from myself--from solitude--during some part of the
twenty-four hours. And--well--the die was cast. I was publicly
disgraced. It doesn't matter what I do now, and when I sit in that sort
of place I can imagine that he is in similar ones on the other side of
the continent. I told you that I intended to be no better than he--and
of course as I am a woman I am worse."
"I suppose you would not be half so charming if you were not so
completely feminine. But just how many of these night hells have you
been to?"
"I can't tell. I've been to far worse dives than that. I've even been
in saloons over on Barbary Coast. But although I've been hurt
accidentally several times in scuffles, and a bullet nearly hit me
once, I seem to bear a charmed life. I suppose those do that want to
die. And although they treat me with no respect they seem to regard me
as a harmless lunatic, and--and--I take very little when I am out. I
have just enough pride left not to care to be taken to the calaboose by
a policeman."
"Good God! How can you even talk of such things? Some day you will
regret all this horribly."
"I'll never regret anything except that I was born."
"Well, here we are. I'll not take you up to your rooms. Don't give them
a chance at that sort of scandal whatever you do. It's lucky for you
that alcohol doesn't send you along a still livelier road to perdition.
It does most women."
"I see him every moment. Even if I did not, I do not think--well, of
course if things were different I should not be an outcast of any sort.
And don't imagine that my refinement suffers in these new contacts. The
underworld interests me; I had never even tried to imagine it before. I
am permitted to remain aloof and a spectator. At times it is all as
unreal as I seem to myself, sitting there. But I never feel so close to
vice as to complete honesty. I have often had glimpses of blacker sins
in Society."
"Well, I'm glad it's no worse. To tell you the truth, I've avoided
looking you up, for I didn't know--well, I didn't want to see you again
if you were too different. Good-night. I'll meet you at this door
tonight at twelve sharp."