Chapter XIII: Part II (7)

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.