Chapter XVIII: Part II (12)

They went up to Rincon Hill, once the haughty elder sister of South Park, now looking like a lonely island in a dirty sea covered with wreckage. There still remained several handsome old ivy-covered mansions, and many beautiful as well as picturesquely dilapidated gardens. Rincon Hill had contributed two peeresses to England, Lee Tarlton and Tiny Montgomery, and Gwynne not only knew them both, but was the more interested, as Cecil Maundrell's sudden elevation to the earldom of Barnstaple during his active youth had served as an object-lesson to himself. Mrs. Montgomery's old home was in good repair, but she was in Europe as usual, and Randolph Montgomery, now in the diplomatic service--too independent for the machine, he had been driven out of politics some years since--preferred the more central comforts of a hotel when he visited San Francisco. Two old family servants were sunning themselves in the garden. The window-curtains were presumably packed in camphor, and the dim panes suggested a cobwebbed and desolate interior. Gwynne glanced across the ugly shabby but teeming valley to the symbols of stupendous energies concentrated on its edge, and the variegated magnificence of the hills, piling like roughly terraced cliffs above it; then west to the mountains by the sea, green, unclaimed by man as yet, although the dead were thick on the hills just below. It was a city struggling out of chaos, but perhaps more interesting than it would be a century hence, when it had fulfilled its destiny and become a great metropolis of white marble and stone. A century? Nowhere had era succeeded era with such startling rapidity, nowhere in one short half-century had the genus American passed through so many phases. The evidences were all before him. Once again he had the impression of standing in the presence of hoary age--ugly premature age--was that the secret of the vague suggestion of an unthinkable antiquity that so often rose like a ghost in his mind?

The girls announced that they should ride back, and they walked over and took a Third Street car. It was almost empty when they entered, but was invaded at the next corner by a belated pleasure party bound for the Park, a noisy disreputable crowd of flashy men, and girls with bold tired eyes, a thick coat of the white paint which has made the fortune of the San Francisco chemist, and gaudy cheap attire. Known in the vernacular as "chippies," they bore a crude Western resemblance to the Parisian grisette, and what they lacked in style they made up in sound. They were the class that monopolized boats and trains on Sundays, screaming steadily through the tunnels, and returned late, no longer happy because no longer able to make a noise. One of the young women pointed a finger at Gwynne, screaming, "I choose you!" and plumped herself on his lap, to the suppressed delight of Isabel and Miss Montgomery. But Gwynne looked blankly at her ill-buttoned back and the immense buckle of her belt, while the rest of the party, those that sat and those that swung to and fro at the straps, mocked her for choosing so unresponsive a knight. The car stopped to accommodate another relay, and Gwynne by a deft movement transferred the lady to his own seat, and engineered the girls out of the car, before two hoodlums, who were working their way up from the lower door, could reach them.

They found a garage and a good automobile, and spent an hour or two out on the ocean boulevard. When they returned to town, Miss Montgomery alighted at one of the hotels where she was to dine; and, the chauffeur announcing that he could not "make another hill," Gwynne and Isabel started for home on foot.

The city rose in a succession of hills from the level, and they climbed slowly, talking little. Suddenly Gwynne laid his hand on Isabel's arm and stopped, directing her gaze upward. They were at the foot of one of the narrow almost perpendicular blocks that rose between Pine and California streets. On either side were brown old-fashioned houses, several of them set back from the street, and surrounded by trees and high close fences. It was almost dark, but a moon was due, so the street lamps were not lit. Crawling down from the street above, on one side only, and clinging to the upper houses, was the advance guard of the fog. It had come in stealthily and halted for a moment, taking strange shapes. It looked like the ghost of an ancient fog, and the very houses, in which not a light had appeared, might have been deserted for a century. In a moment it began to crawl down the side of the street, seeming to fill the whole city with silence. It was a scene indescribably gloomy, haunting, forbidding, and to Gwynne, who had studied the city in many lonely rambles, to whisper of the unrelieved gloom of lives behind that stage where the most famous of American Follies danced for ever in her cap and bells. The spirit of sympathy was in the fog and the brief darkness for the thousands of broken dogged men and women that rarely caught sight of the cap and bells. For them the ashes, the embittered memories, the blasted hopes, a quiet sullen hatred for the city that had devoured their hearts and left them automatons. This was a phase of the city's life of which the enthusiastic shallow tourist had never a hint. It took a man of genius like Gwynne to feel the genius of the city in all its sinister variety. He had hardly pieced his impressions together as yet, but he told Isabel a little of what his subconscious ego had formulated, and she had never liked him so well as when she took his arm and they ascended into the sudden downrush of the fog.

XXXVI

Gwynne returned to Lumalitas on the following day and Isabel moved down to Mrs. Hofer's. This had seemed a rather superfluous proceeding to Miss Otis, but Mrs. Hofer would take no denial, and lodged her guest in a suite the luxury of which at first delighted and then stifled her. She liked splendor and luxury in the abstract, but some lingering shade of Puritanism in her resented the enthralment of the higher faculties. Her rooms were upholstered with satin from floor to ceiling, the toilet-table was bedecked with gold, and the furniture had been made for some favorite of Napoleon during the First Empire. Isabel was haunted by a vague sense of impropriety, which she ridiculed but could not stifle.

And for the first time in her life she became weary of flowers. When she arrived there was an abundance of the more costly in her boudoir--those that were raised in hot-houses that the rich might not be balked in their laudable desire to spend--and before the week was over, her rooms, as she wrote to Gwynne--chuckling on his veranda--looked like a florist's shop and smelt like a funeral. Everybody she met, and several that she did not, sent her the floral tribute. The bell rang every hour. When the imperturbable footman finally appeared with a box that looked like a child's coffin, Isabel told him pettishly to throw it into the back yard. All Americans send flowers to a pretty girl as a matter of course, but the San Franciscan indulges in an avalanche where his more economical Eastern brother is content with good measure, pressed down, but not running over.

But the offerings were by no means confined to the young men that Isabel met at the functions of the week. "Old friends of the family" were interested to welcome to their midst the beautiful daughter (albeit somewhat eccentric) of Jim Otis and Mary Belmont. Enthusiastic maidens, and others--anxious to proclaim their delight in this sudden invasion of their preserves--sent roses with stems four feet long and chrysanthemums that looked like painted cauliflowers. After a tea at the Presidio, given in the open square, and in honor of the descendant of its most historic Commandante, Don Jose Argueello, that reclaimed precinct being singularly prolific in flowers, the offerings arrived on the following day in an ambulance.

It was an energetic week. When Mrs. Hofer was not herself entertaining, she and her guest lunched and dined out daily, attended several teas every afternoon, a _cotillon_, a skating masque, and five balls. Two of the luncheons were at Burlingame and Menlo Park, whence they motored as valiantly as if the roads were European. How so much was crowded into one short week Isabel never understood, but finally came to the conclusion that the rush at its worst was better than remaining for two consecutive waking hours in the Hofer mansion. Mrs. Hofer was always amiable and charming, but she was overwhelming. Her energies demanded the safety-valve of constant speech, and she was one of those American hostesses that hold that to neglect a guest is an unpardonable breach of hospitality. She even gave up bridge for the week. Moreover, Isabel was not long discovering that she contributed her part towards the sustenance of that wondrous buoyancy, those eternal high spirits, that glorious _joie de vivre_. The woman was an unconscious vampire. Men did not feel it, and saw only her irresistible youth, but she squeezed women as she did her morning sponge, and had no real intimates; although few, herself least of all, understood the secret. If she had liked Isabel less, it would have been more endurable, but she had never liked any one more, to say nothing of the fact that she was determined to give her "the time of her life." She descended upon her helpless guest with a rush of silken skirts--that sounded like wings--and a torrent of bright chatter, during every unoccupied hour or moment. Isabel's only experience of hospitality heretofore had been in England, where a guest might die and be resurrected between the formal hours of reunion and the hostess be none the wiser. It had never occurred to her that visiting might become hard labor, and as she had met few people whom she had liked as spontaneously as Ada Hofer, she had come to her without a misgiving. But she was soon hiding behind the curtains of the big rooms down-stairs, and, upon one memorable occasion, took refuge under the library table, while the sweet rapid voice of the hostess clarioned throughout the house. She was drawn guiltily forth by a deep chuckle from the arm-chair in the window. Mr. Toole regarded her with a twinkle in his bright old eyes, and no resentment.

"I won't tell on ye," he said. "I feel like it meself, at times. Ada's a good child, as good as a born egoist can be, but--well--we are not all made on the same plan. And this life don't suit you. You're a dreamer. I know one when I see one, for I've that side to meself, and now that life is easy it's most the only side I've got left. Sit down in that corner behind the bookcase and I'll read to you from one of the old poets, Byron, belike. If Ada finds us, I'll send her kiting. She didn't bring me up."

When Isabel, in the solitude of her bed, found time to think, she concluded that if she could eliminate all men from her week except Mr. Hofer and those of his particular set, she might still enjoy herself. The San Francisco society youth has always been a failure. Except in rare instances he has not been outside his native State, has read nothing, and is casual of manner. Although more young men of the favored class attend the home universities than formerly, the students that derive the full benefit of these institutions are rarely those that intend to make a business of dancing, and calling on Sunday afternoons. It is yet too soon to weld cultivation with leisure, and, for the matter of that, most of the society youth have their living to make, combining business and fashion with a moderate success. Like Wellington's puppies, they have proved themselves of sound metal when put to the crucial test, but as an intellectual diversion they might as well be mechanical toys. The leader has not yet arisen that can permanently combine the older and younger sets. They mingle at great functions, but the dancing set monopolizes the season's stage.

Of this set Mrs. Hofer was an enthusiastic member, and even at dinner rarely entertained any other. Occasionally, and once during Isabel's visit, she invited some friends of her husband, who never went to parties, and often entertained when his wife was elsewhere; but these men did as much talking as listening, and that was no part of Mrs. Hofer's system. Isabel had flashing vistas of small groups of men and women, distinguished socially as well as mentally, that entertained each other, or met at a new club through which Mrs. Hofer whisked her one night,--a club where the best of Bohemia met the more intellectual members of society; and she knew that in these groups she might find also the higher class business and professional men, and a few of leisure that enjoyed life without either dancing or drinking. But Mrs. Hofer, although far too well satisfied with life and herself to be a snob, loved brilliancy, splendor, constant excitement, dancing, chatter; and only her chosen set could provide the banquet. She could dance every night from ten until two, and awaken in mid-morning as fresh as a rose. She had the wardrobe of the storied princess, and her guests and friends must contribute their share to the brilliancy of all gatherings. She detested shabbiness; it was the only thing that depressed her spirits. Proud as she was of her husband, his aims, and his position in the community, his friends and their themes frankly bored her. She liked talk, not conversation. She really loved him, however, and was far too clever to let him feel neglected. He was inordinately proud of her, and grateful that she permitted him to give his time to his own interests, instead of dragging him about to groan against the wall. She had her little crosses and disappointments, for she had many servants and dressmakers; but, on the whole, Isabel had never seen any one so persistently happy, nor with more reason. Even her three children were as sturdy as young calves, and although they yelled like demons for an hour every morning--reawaking to the sense of a vague something life still denied them, and infuriated at the thought--Mrs. Hofer merely turned over on her pillow with an indulgent smile. It never occurred to her that the rest of the household might be less indulgent; and the nursery above Isabel's room was not the least of the causes that contributed to a frantic longing for the thirty-first of December.

XXXVII

But it was not until four o'clock on the day of release that she found herself actually alone in her chilly and chaste boudoir on the higher hill; Mrs. Hofer escorted her home and remained for many last words. Then Isabel fell into a chair before the mounting fire and shut her eyes. Lady Victoria was out. Gwynne was not expected until the evening train. She wished that she had not promised to dine with the Stones at seven. The house was as silent as a tomb; but while she was still rejoicing in the sudden cessation of sound and motion, the door opened and Gwynne entered. She gave him a surly nod, and he explained that he had come down in the morning, in order to be at hand to welcome her; had even meditated going to her rescue. Isabel deigned no reply, and he took possession of a deep chair, settled himself on his backbone, and regarded her attentively.

"I am sorry you have not enjoyed your week as much as I have done," he observed. "The weather has been magnificent, and I have spent all the days out-of-doors, riding, walking, duck-shooting--taking liberties with your boat, and even your launch. I never enjoyed myself more--after such close study, and all the rest of it, I suppose. I must say you don't look very fit. You are pale instead of white, and--well--cross. Judging from those models of literary elegance and Christian charity, the San Francisco weekly society sheets--with which I whiled away that infernal train journey--you have been feted like visiting royalty, photographed by the foremost in his art--which would appear to be the equivalent of painted for the Academy--and your family history seems to have been written up from old files, with even more picturesqueness than accuracy--"

"I wish you would keep still. You didn't talk half so much in England. I shall hate you if you become wholly American."

"I am a born egotist. Ask my mother. Or my long-suffering friends and constituents. You did all the talking at Capheaton--or gave me a wide berth. But here my mother neither talks nor listens--" He paused suddenly and lowered his voice. "Is anything the matter with my mother, do you think? I never saw any one so changed. Do you suppose she hates California and is staying here only on my account?--I have offered more than once to pay her bills; and she is used to them, anyway. For heaven's sake persuade her to go back and enjoy herself in her own fashion. I really don't need her--haven't time. And in spite of your liberal thorns and maddening incomprehensibilities, you can always put homesickness to flight. Sometimes I think she is ill, and then again she looks as fit as ever."

"She has developed nerves. All women get them sometime or other. And there is a certain order of women with whom beauty and fascination are a vocation. When those pass they hate life."

"What rot. No doubt she's a bit off her feed and restless. Probably the climate doesn't suit her. Heaven knows it is nervous enough. But I don't pretend to understand women. What's up with you? Didn't you enjoy being a belle, after all?"

"I was not a belle. I was a distinct failure."

"What?" Gwynne sat up and forward. "If you want to psychologize, fire away. It always interests me."

"I have no intention of psychologizing. I haven't had time to think. But I do know that a life lived all on the surface--and at lightning speed--doesn't suit me a bit." She gave him a rapid sketch of her week. "I was with them, but not of them; no doubt of that. Old Mr. Toole told me one day that I was a dreamer, and I am afraid that is the solution. I like to imagine myself doing things, but I don't like actually doing them. I found that out over and over again in Europe. I can't tell you how I have longed for a girl's good time here in San Francisco--denied all these years, and my birthright. I was bored everywhere. I cannot make talk; I can only talk spontaneously when I am interested. I couldn't even enjoy the dancing--for the prospect of entertaining those brats between times. And they were all afraid of me. I never could be a belle like either the old ones or the new ones; the fault lies wholly in myself, not in circumstances or materials. _I don't really want it._ No girl can be a social success unless she cares tremendously for it. Merely pretty girls are often popular, simply because popularity is the breath of life to them. I wouldn't try it again for anything on earth. I long to be at home watching the marsh, and not a soul to talk to. That was all I was made for. A dreamer! I am terribly disappointed."

"But Society is a mere phase. So is Stone's Bohemia. The town is full of clever people. You can select and form your own set--when you are ready."

"I am afraid I don't care about it. I dislike the actual effort. So long as Mr. Hofer and those men are talking I am interested, but even so I have enjoyed--far more--thinking about and planning to know them. I am nothing but a dreamer."

"And you have just discovered that?" asked Gwynne, curiously. "I may not have made an exhaustive study of woman, but up to a certain point I know you; and I have not waited for Father O'Toole to enlighten me. I could have told you that you would hate all this sort of thing. You had a mere taste of it in English country-houses, where entertaining has reached such a point of perfection that a man never feels so much at home as when in some one's else house. If you had waited for a London season you would have been as quickly disillusioned. You have the most impossible ideals--"

"I can realize them when I am alone," said Isabel, defiantly. "I shall be as happy as ever on the ranch, the day after to-morrow."

"That sort of happiness will do very well for a while--living in your imagination and all that. But what is it going to lead to?"

"Lead to? It is enough in itself."

"You can't live on moonshine for ever. I told you before that I understood your particular form of idealism; but although I believe that man will certainly be happier when he lives more within that structure of infinite variety, himself, less and less dependent upon the aggregations Life has devised for amusing and tormenting him, still we must reach that condition by very slow degrees; if we take it with a leap the result will be an ugly and disastrous selfishness. If you can prove to the world that you have found happiness in the cultivation of the higher faculties, you will serve a purpose in life, for you will encourage a certain class of women born with such serious lacks, in the health or the affections, or even in the power to endure the mere monotonies of married life, that they are better off alone; but who often feel themselves a failure and drop into morbidity and decay. That means contact for your highness, however. If you sit down by your marsh for the rest of your life and dream, you miss the whole point. And when time forced you to realize the uncompromising selfishness of such a life--where would your happiness be then?"

"Now you are talking by the book. Why are we so sure that it is a part of our duty to make others happy? That may be but one more superstition to rout. If we manage to be happy ourselves, and through the exercise of the higher faculties alone, we may be serving an end decreed from the beginning; by some subtle process, as incomprehensible as even the commonplaces of life, add to the sum of happiness, and so serve life far better than by scattering ourselves all over the surface. But I told you something of this before and have not forgotten the result."

"Neither have I, but one can get accustomed to any idea. What I want to know is--do you leave youth entirely out of your calculations?"

"Oh--youth! Well--it is possible I might not if I had not lived through its tragedy already--for which I am thankful."

"You have had romance and tragedy, and you are a very experienced young woman, but you have not had happiness," said Gwynne, shrewdly. "That, too, is a birthright, and sooner or later you will demand it. Social conquests have palled in seven days. In time chickens also will cease to satisfy, and books, and dreams, and sunsets, and liberty. The peculiar conditions and events of your first quarter-century demanded an interval before beginning again; and filled with all you have deliberately chosen--all, that is, but chickens, which are a work not of God but of supererogation. But intervals come to an end like other things. When this finishes you will suddenly demand happiness--the real thing."

"You mean that I will fall in love again, I suppose."

"I mean that you will love."

"Now you are hair-splitting. Are you qualifying to contribute fictionized essays to the American magazines?"

"I am stating facts and don't care a hang about sarcasm. Just now you have spasms when some aspect of nature exalts you. I have watched you with considerable amusement. But it is natural enough--merely a sort of forerunner of what will happen when nature establishes her currents with your own interior landscapes. Then there will be earthquakes and hurricanes--your cultivated realism and inherent romanticism will become hopelessly mixed, and you will be really happy."

"More likely, such moments are the forerunners of a state which shall be an eternal exaltation. Personal immortality is only to be desired if it insures the lifting of our faculties to their highest power of expression. Anything else would mean a boundless ennui. As for my present inertia, is it not the duty of some few to pass their lives in appreciation of the past? Heaven knows there are enough looking out for the present. And I am sick of the superstition that love is all. I told you before that the happiness of women, at least, depended upon relegating it to its proper place. Once I regretted that Prestage did not die while I still believed in him, so that I could have lived my life with his memory, as Concha Argueello did with Rezanov's. But even that would have been a species of slavery, and I should have chafed at the bond; never had this divine sense of freedom."

"I pass over the majority of your arguments--I must sleep on them. But when have I maintained that love was all? If that were my doctrine should I be reading my head off, investing in Class A buildings, talking politics to farmers, and revolving plans for the conquest of California? I should be making love to you. That is what I should like to do, however, and what I propose to do when I am ready."

"Are you in love with me?"

"I hardly know, but I suspect that I shall be. If I deliberately choose you now as my life partner, you cannot complain that I am the mere slave of passion. I don't fancy I look it at this moment. I have had those fevers, and am willing to admit their brevity. No doubt if I had not been so occupied of late I should have had another. As it is, I am blessedly permitted to foresee it; and to keep my brain clear enough meanwhile to think for both of us."

"Very cousinly, but I can think for myself."

She had risen, but he stood with his back against the door for a moment.

"Another thing--" he said. "You need a buffer. You have remarkable powers, and you might realize some of your dreams if the prospect of initiatives did not alarm your secretly feminine soul. The two of us together could conquer the world. Now go ahead and dream until dreams pall and I have more time."

XXXVIII

"Ibsen will live, not as a dramaturgist, but as the greatest professor of dramaturgy the world has ever known." "Only one way left to be original--never write about Italy." "When we say that a man is a high type what we really mean is that he is the great exception to the type." "That progressive type of bore--the man with a grievance." "San Francisco is the cradle and the grave of more genius than ever was packed into any city, ancient or modern. It is like our money, 'easy come, easy go.'" "And more Hell." "An epigram is only to be forgiven when a memorable thought is packed into a phrase that sticks."

As Isabel and Gwynne escaped from the little Italian restaurant into the blare and glare of the street, their heads were ringing with much brilliant if somewhat affected talk. They had sat with their hosts at the "newspaper table." It was the fashion at the moment to express life in paradoxes, and with a nice adjustment of commas and colons. There had been no talk of politics in this Bohemia, nor of society; nor yet of other subjects that commanded its attention when the long day gave place to the shorter night: the women present were respectable, many of them wives, and not a few went into society when they chose. There was much talk of the fads with which the world was ridden, never a reference to the literature or art of the past; and there was something almost pathetic in the prostration of these brilliant young men, who had never crossed the boundaries of their State, to European groups, some of whose members were already passe, but still loomed gigantic from the far edge of the Pacific. Few American writers are popular in California, however they may be read; and the reason, no doubt, lies in the mixed blood to which all Europe has contributed, and which is full of affinities little experienced by the rest of the country. Even the famous cooking is un-American. The French, Italian, and Spanish restaurants are exactly what they claim to be; their very atmosphere might have been imported. The many that prefer restaurant life even to the excellent cooking to be found in the average home, give their highest preference to the legacy of the Spaniard; they eat hot sauces and Chile peppers with every dish; and _tamales_ are sold on the street corners. This is enough to make the San Franciscan an exotic, and it contributes in a great measure to his fatal content. These young men had no real knowledge of the world, but they had their own world, and were by no means provincial in the accepted sense. But the majority were satisfied to coruscate to an ever applauding audience--for a few years; with money easily got and delightfully spent; to regard Life as a game, not as a business. Afterwards the rut, the friendly pocket--nowhere so open as in San Francisco--a job now and then, more than one way of forgetting that in times gone by a fellow was one of those "coming men" the wanton heedless city turns out with the same profusion that gorges her markets and flaunts her sun for eight months of the year.

To Gwynne they seemed like some primitive race flourishing before its time. He no longer argued with them, for he had the disadvantage of being a scholar, and it interfered with his tolerance of fads on the rampage; but they saddened him, made him feel almost elderly--and abominably healthy. To-night, although some of the complexions of these young men were green, and others red, they had been brilliant without undue hilarity. They intended to get very drunk later on--if only as a compliment to the New Year--but they were far too accomplished for precipitancy. Stone, alone, refilled his glass so often that Gwynne announced abruptly that they were missing the fun in the street, and Paula promptly took possession of his arm. Stone followed, rumbling disapproval, with Isabel. This arrangement was not to Gwynne's taste, but he had developed subtlety in such matters and bided his time.

Kearney Street from Telegraph Hill to Market Street, a mile or more, was a blaze of light, and crowded with people. It was a very orderly throng, for it was composed of the respectable element of the city, and if they had laid dignity aside for the moment, they were not distractingly noisy. All were throwing confetti, and many had tin horns. Isabel saw the Hofers, arm in arm, tooting vigorously. Half of society was there; and many staid and strenuous business men were promenading with their wives and daughters, more than one with his neck encircled by paper ribbons of many hues. The street-cars had stopped, but there were a number of automobiles filled with masques, singling out their friends on the pavement and hurling confetti.

But it was not until Stone and his party reached the great central highway, Market Street, that the scene was characteristic. Here the windows of the Palace Hotel, and all the other buildings, great and small, were illuminated and filled with people. And the entire city would seem to have emptied itself not only into Market Street, but into those streets on the north side that completed the "all-night district." The people in the windows wore their gayest attire, and there was often music as well as light behind them. They threw down confetti by the bushel on the masses below. And the masses! There was no polite restraint here. Largely recruited from the immense South of Market Street district, they were out for a good time, and its inevitable expression was noise. They were in the best of tempers, but the din was terrific. They hooted and yelled, and every one of the several thousand had a tin horn and blew it with all his might. Every undefended ear was victimized. Isabel pressed one of her own against Stone's shoulder and covered the other with her hand. But she stared at the crowd with all the interest of the secluded for the mass. There were painted ladies of all grades, and hundreds of shop-girls, covered with white paint or lavender powder, their figures exaggerated with the corset of the moment, and violent plumage on head and waist, although they had prudently left their best skirts at home. Many of them were astonishingly pretty, and no doubt more respectable than they looked. Mrs. Paula was in her element. She wore her red hat and blouse, waved her hands to the windows, exulted in the showers of confetti that descended in response, and shouted into Gwynne's ear that she was singled out for special attentions. In truth she received more than her escort relished. Her natural affinity with the class above which she had risen so high had never been more patent, and kindred spirits looked from many approving eyes. Suddenly both cheeks were painted black by a too fraternal hand, and then a man tried to kiss her. This was more than even Paula could stand, and she flung herself into her husband's arms, daubing his shirt with black and red. He dropped Isabel and struck out furiously. There was an immediate scuffle, during which Gwynne basely drew Isabel's arm through his and pressed forward into the thick of the crowd.

"We have had enough of them, and no doubt they have had of us," he said, comfortably. "Now we will enjoy ourselves."

"Well, if they blacken my face don't notice them. One would think Lyster would know how to play the game by this time."

"He is always ready to fight after the fifth glass of champagne. I have had lively experiences with him."

Conversation was impossible in the din. Isabel's face was smudged more than once, but no other liberty was attempted. Gwynne also looked like a chimney-sweep, and was addressed as "darling" several times, but the crowd was inoffensive until a chain-gang of hoodlums dashed irresistibly through it, pushing many off the sidewalk, and rousing a lurid accompaniment. One man, solid and stolid, stood his ground on the edge of the chain and administered a hearty kick upon each ankle as it passed. There were angry howls in response, but none could retaliate without breaking the chain, nor indeed could they control its momentum.

"That is one of those things one would like to have thought of one's self," said Gwynne, admiringly, rubbing his ribs, for he had hastily swung Isabel outward, and received much of the impact. "We might as well get out of this."

They slowly made their way into one of the cross streets that seemed to leap like a blazing meteor down from the darkness of the heights. But the crowd was still as dense, and the street but a third the width of Market Street. Not even an automobile attempted to force its way. Saloon doors were swinging. Policemen stood in front of them, but there was no further disorder. Gwynne and Isabel pressed back against the wall of a shop and watched and waited. They were to celebrate the birth of the New Year with the Hofers at a restaurant on the block above, but there was no prospect of reaching it at present.

The sky was cloudless. If the evening chill had come in from the Pacific, it was routed by the mass of humanity and the downpour of heat from the electric lights. All the great signs were blazing, many in colors. And there was music in all the saloons and restaurants; it rose and fell with the noise of the tin horn and the hoot of the happy. The people in the windows here threw down not only confetti but flowers, and stacks at each elbow added to the mass of color. Even the men had tied bright silk handkerchiefs about their necks, and they were bestrewed with bits of gold and silver paper, and festooned with colored ribbon. Gwynne and Isabel were quickly singled out and pelted with balls that opened with the impact and tangled them together with the endless paper streamers.

It was eleven o'clock before the crowd began its retreat to their restaurants, and Gwynne and Isabel were able to make their way up to the celebrated resort where the Hofers awaited them. They were shown to a dressing-room where they could wash their faces, and then to the gallery above the body of the restaurant which was divided into boxes, and occupied by all sorts and kinds of people, including many of their friends. In Hofer's box was a large bottle on ice and a table set for supper. Mrs. Hofer, looking less approving than earlier in the evening, sat half-hidden by a curtain, but her husband, in common with most of the other people in the gallery, was throwing confetti upon his friends below. He seized Gwynne and dragged him to the front of the box, and the new arrival was greeted by shouts from every man, it seemed to him, that he had met in San Francisco. The large hall with its tables of all sizes was as densely packed as the streets had been.

"Ever see anything like this before?" demanded Hofer. He paused with a gasp and dislodged a ball of confetti from his throat. "Look with all your eyes, old man. There are the best and the worst--all who can pay the price: the reformers cheek by jowl with the mayor and the Boss, by Jove! The matron and the other kind of matron, the fair young girl who hopes to buy a rich husband, and the sort that has to give more and take less; the family man and his family, not a bit afraid of contamination, enjoying himself to the limit; financiers, millionaires, corporation bosses and curb-stone brokers, newspaper men, artists, politicians big and little, society youths and girls severely chaperoned. See that crowd with the queens of the Tenderloin? Ever hear what one of our local wits said about them: 'Pity the worst of men should be named for the best of fish!'"

Hofer, who felt it his duty as a good citizen to empty his bottle with the rest of the world on New Year's eve, rattled on. Mrs. Hofer gave an occasional warning cough. Like most San Francisco women of her class there was a good deal of prudery under her gayety, and no instinct whatever for Bohemia. She had come to the restaurant because her husband had urged it, but she took no part, and threw only an occasional glance at the floor. But as Isabel was manifestly interested, she presented her arm and hat to the gaze of the crowd, that her guest might partake in the doubtful fun if she wished.

Isabel and Gwynne, still tangled in the paper streamers and vigorously pelted from below, leaned eagerly over the railing and flung handsful of gold and silver bits upon the already glittering throng. It certainly was an astonishing sight. There was little seeking after inconspicuousness, even in the boxes. All were there to celebrate the birth of the New Year, and to "play the game," however chastened they might feel on the morrow. All were drinking champagne and growing more hilarious every moment. One girl modestly dressed, and known to Mrs. Hofer as an entirely respectable young person, although not of her own class, was sitting on the knee of the man she was to marry, and drinking from his glass. The ladies of the lower ten thousand were nicely graded. Some were dressed with a severe and simple elegance, and painted as delicately as a miniature. These were very quiet, the carven smile on their crimson lips not disturbing the careful arrangement of their features; and their eyes never lost their jewel-like immobility. They were attended by what is vaguely known as "men about town," men with money to spend and no position to lose. It was no longer the fashion among conspicuous men to flaunt their mistresses, but these indefinite persons kept the old traditions alive. Still other women blazed with paint and jewels and excessive richness of attire. In attendance were the big sleek brutes, whom all other men held in contempt. But all were happy to-night and asking no man for his respect.

At a table in the very middle of the room was a young, buxom, and very naughty-looking damsel, who evidently was a belle: the circle of black coats about her round table was unbroken save by herself. What dress she wore was black, and on her golden head was an immense black hat covered with feathers. Her abundant diamonds were almost overwhelmed. Every time one of her escort raised his glass to his lips he toasted her, and she rose to respond, presumably to give the company the benefit of the tiny waist that tapered off the white acre above. She was irreverently hooted, but imperturbably rose and fell like a jack-in-the-box.

Hofer finally sat down to supper with his guests, but they had barely finished when every clock in town began to boom the midnight hour and there was a wild ringing of bells all over the city. Down-stairs one of the young men ran to the orchestra, whirled the leader from his seat, flung off his own coat, and led the crashing music with a tin horn. Hofer and Gwynne went to the front of the box, glasses in hand. All below had sprung to their feet and were waving and clicking their champagne-glasses, singing, catcalling, tooting, cheering. Even Isabel and Mrs. Hofer leaned forward. In the turmoil they did not notice that the young woman in the centre of the room was standing on her table, her befeathered head flung back, draining her glass; but they turned just in time to see one of her admirers rifle her bodice and wag his trove at the company.

"This is too much!" cried Mrs. Hofer, furiously, and running to the back of the box. "Nicolas, I insist!" But Nicolas was enjoying himself immensely and paid no attention.

Isabel had been about to follow Mrs. Hofer when she lost her breath and nearly fell over the edge of the box. Lady Victoria, accompanied by a man who was unmistakably a pugilist, had entered by a side door.

Isabel's brain seemed to eliminate every thought it had ever possessed and hurriedly to remodel down to one agonizing point. The pair were endeavoring to force their way forward to a table that evidently had been reserved for them. Gwynne was leaning over the railing drinking to Mr. and Mrs. Trennahan. In a moment his interested eyes would rove over the crowd again. Isabel suddenly fell on him, bearing him backward.

"Take me out--quick!" she gasped. "I am horribly ill!"

Gwynne, grasping his hat, was fairly borne out of the box. As Isabel was ghastly and trembling he assumed that she was really ill, and made no protest, but half-carried her down the stair. They attracted no attention and reached the sidewalk in a moment.

"If we can only find a carriage!" he said, solicitously. "You never can walk up those hills. What an atmosphere that was! I don't wonder you came a cropper. I hope the Hofers won't mind--"

"Nobody minds anything."

She took his arm and they walked up the street. The bells were still ringing, horns tooting, but the street was comparatively empty. At the corner a Salvation Army corps was singing hymns to a flabby and penitent congregation. Just beyond was a row of hacks awaiting the weary reveller, and in a moment Gwynne and Isabel were driving rapidly along a dark and deserted street.

"Do you feel better?" he asked.

She did not answer for a moment, afraid of breaking down. Gwynne was sure to offer prompt consolation, and even if he assumed the brotherly attitude, she had no wish to be taken in his arms. In spite of herself his calm reiteration that he intended to marry her had forced its seed into her brain, for ideas projected from bold determined minds are insistent things. But never had love and all connected with it been so hateful to her as at this moment. He peered into her face.

"You are not going to cry!" he exclaimed. "You!"

"No, I am not! But I never was so nearly overcome. Such noise! Such sights! Such heat! It was too bad to take you away, though. Shall you go back?"

"Not I! May I smoke? We shall be an hour reaching the base of our cliff at this rate. He is apparently going out to the cemeteries under pretence of avoiding the hills."

He elevated his feet to the opposite seat and lit a cigarette.

"I wish my mother had come home before we left. It was a pity for her to miss this. Even if she would not dine with us, I could have returned for her."

"I saw her in the crowd with a party of people. I might have told you, but my mind has been in as many pieces to-night as a bag full of confetti. I am sure she has seen it all."

"Good. It was what you might call a trifle variegated, but not to be missed. Great old town, this! No wonder they think California is the world, out here. It is what they say of the London flats: 'self-contained.' I like Hofer better than ever. The man whom champagne transforms into a big silly boy is the right sort. Is there really a workaday world, a city to reform, and two ranches up the valley?"

XXXIX

They reached home sooner than might have been expected, but there were many fares below, and the hackman galloped down the hill as recklessly as if a slip would not have been the death of himself and his valiant beasts.

Isabel went directly to her room and persuaded Gwynne to go to his, arguing that some one of his mother's party would be sure to bring her home. As he was to take the 7:30 train he made no protest. Even were he still awake when Lady Victoria returned, the fog was rolling in; nor was he likely to be leaning from his window.

Isabel heard her come in two hours later, and it was another hour before she slept. She had determined to ask her wayward but still awesome relative to leave San Francisco before her son found her out or she had time more fully to disgrace him. But how to approach the most unapproachable woman she had ever known with so delicate a proposition was a question that made her toss about her ancestral bed and kept the blood in her brain. She recalled the slip of paper announcing a prize-fight, and wondered at her stupidity; for she had heard something of the resources of blasee women ere this.

Finally she fell asleep. She was awakened by a sharp earthquake--grim herald of the coming year! She was too well seasoned to have felt anything more than a passing annoyance, had she not heard Lady Victoria give a piercing scream and run from her room. Whereupon she rejoiced wickedly, flung a wrapper across her shoulders, and went into the hall. Gwynne was standing in his doorway, looking more asleep than awake, and intensely disapproving. Lady Victoria was leaning against the wall, her eyes wide with terror. Isabel took her firmly by the arm, marched her into her room, helped her into a dressing-gown, and, pushing her into a chair, took one opposite.

"How dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Victoria. "I had forgotten about earthquakes--"

"Earthquake!" said Isabel, contemptuously. "That was a mere vibration. We had sixty-two of those last winter. If you only stay long enough we will show you what California really can do. Every ten years or so we have a good hard shake--enough to bring the plaster down; and every half-century or so she gets up and turns over. I have made a specialty of earthquakes, and could tell you extraordinary tales of some of the great ones of the south--"

"Please do not. I prefer to forget. But don't leave me. Fancy Angelique sleeping through such a thing!"

"Doubtless she is not in the house. All the world was out last night."

"Was it?"

"I think this as good a time as any other to tell you, Cousin Victoria, that I saw you last night--just as the clocks were striking twelve."

"Did you?"

Her trained features did not betray her, but Isabel saw the figure under the loose gown grow rigid and brace itself against the back of the chair. And as Isabel stared at her, with the desperate courage born of the sudden plunge, it seemed to her that she felt a vibration from the nausea, the disgust, the hatred of life, the death-rattle of great passions dying hard. She wondered again, if, given the same conditions, she would have differed much from the woman she had brought to bay. Her early trials and provincial upbringing had developed her Puritan inheritance, but she had had flashing and startling glimpses of her depths now and again. For a moment she felt the waters of an immemorial ennui rise high in her own soul, then drop to the grinning skulls and sparkless ashes of old pleasures. She shuddered back, and raised her eyes once more to the haughty mask opposite.

"I think I understand," she said, gently. "But you must go. I kept him from seeing you to-night. But he would find out in time. As you know how he believes in you, you can imagine the consequences. I suppose you have not done anything so public before, or I should have heard of it. I vaguely recall that women can look on at prize-fights from private boxes. Last night, it isn't likely that any one noticed. Or if they did they would question the evidence of their senses in the morning, the best of them. So please go."

She paused. Lady Victoria stared at her without the slightest change of expression. Isabel continued imperturbably. "London is so vast--if you must have that sort of liberty, for heaven's sake go where it is most likely to be overlooked--and where libel laws are operative. For all its license, San Francisco is one of the most censorious and unrelenting societies in the world, and has more old-fashioned people than New York. If you become the talk of the town, and those awful weekly papers find you out, Elton will be a long while living it down. It will make ridiculous all his efforts at reform. Perhaps he would no longer care. I fancy it would affect him that way."

She rose, and Lady Victoria rose also and walked to the door. As she opened it she smiled grimly. "You have courage," she said. "I am more than ever convinced that you are the wife for Jack. I will go."