Both Mrs. Sherwood and Sansome applied themselves to relieving whatever embarrassment Nan might feel over this unusual situation. Sansome was possessed of great charm and social experience. He could play the game of light conversation to perfection. By way of bridging the pause in events, he set himself to describing the society in which the Keiths would shortly find themselves launched. His remarks were practically a monologue, interspersed by irrepressible gurgles of laughter from Nan. Mrs. Sherwood sat quietly by. She did not laugh, but it was evident she was amused. In this congenial atmosphere Sansome outdid himself.
"They are all afraid of each other," he told her, "because they don't know anything about each other. Each ex-washerwoman thinks the other ex-washerwoman must have been at least a duchess at home. It's terribly funny. If they can get hold of six porcelain statuettes, a half-dozen antimacassars, some gilt chairs, and a glass bell of wax flowers, they imagine they're elegantly furnished. And their functions! I give you my word, I'd as soon attend a reasonably pleasant funeral! Some of them try to entertain by playing intellectual games—you know, rhyming or spelling games—seriously!" He went on to describe some of the women, mentioning no names, however. "You'll recognize them when you meet them," he assured her. "There's one we'll call the Social Agitator—she isn't happy unless she is running things. I believe she spent two weeks once in London—or else she buys her boots there—anyway, when discussions get lively she squelches them by saying, 'Of course, my dear, that may be absolutelyau faitin New York—but in London—' It corks them up every time. And 'pon honour, three quarters of the time she's quite wrong! Then there's the Lady Thug, Square jaw, square shoulder, sort of bulging out at the top—you know—in décolleté one cannot help thinking 'one more struggle and she'll be free!'"
"Oh, fie, Mr. Sansome," laughed Nan, half shocked.
Sansome rattled on. The ultimate effect was to convey an impression of San Francisco society—such as existed at all—as stodgy, stupid, pretentious, unattractive. Nan was immensely amused, but inclined to take it all with a grain of salt.
"Mrs. Sherwood doesn't bear you out," she told him, "and she's the only one I've seen yet. I think we're going to have a pretty good time."
But at this point Keith returned. He was quite sobered from his temporary exhilaration, but still most cordial and enthusiastic over his little party, Sansome noted with quiet amusement that his light curly hair was damp. Evidently he had taken his own prescription as to the pump.
"Well," he announced, "I have a room—such as it is. Can't say much for it. The baggage is all here; nothing missing for a wonder. I've spoken to the manager about dinner for five." He turned to Nan with brightening interest. "Guess what I saw on the bill of fare! Grizzly bear steak! Think of that! I ordered some."
Sansome groaned comically.
"What's the matter?" inquired Keith.
"Did you ever try it before? Tough, stringy, unfit for human consumption."
But Keith was fascinated by the name of the thing.
"There's plenty else," he urged defensively, "and I always try everything once."
It was agreed that they should all meet again after an hour. Sansome renewed his promises to be on hand.
The room Keith had engaged was on the second story, and quite a different sort of affair from that of the Sherwoods'. Indeed it was little more than a pine box, containing only the bare necessities. One window looked out on an unkempt backyard, now mercifully hidden by darkness.
"This is pretty tough," said Keith, "but it is the very best I could do. And the price is horrible. We'll have to hunt up a living place about the first thing we do."
"Oh, it's all right," said Nan indifferently. The lassitude of seasickness had left her, and the excitement of new surroundings was beginning. She felt gently stirred by the give and take of the light conversation in the Sherwoods' room; and, although she did not quite realize it, she was responding to the stimulation of having made a good impression. Her subconscious self was perfectly aware that in the silken negligée, under the pink-shaded lamp, her clear soft skin, the pure lines of her radiant childlike beauty, the shadows of her tumbled hair, had been very appealing and effective. She moved about a trifle restlessly, looking at things without seeing them. "I'm glad to see the brown trunk. Open it, will you, dear? Heavens, what a mirror!" She surveyed herself in the flawed glass, moving from side to side, fascinated at the strange distortions.
"I call it positive extortion, charging what they do for a room like this," grumbled Keith, busy at the trunk. "The Sherwoods must pay a mint of money for theirs. I wonder what he does!"
Her attention attracted by this subject, she arrested her posing before the mirror.
"They certainly are quick to take the stranger in," she commented lightly.
Something in her tone arrested Keith's attention, and he stopped fussing at his keys. Nan had meant little by the remark. It had expressed the vague instinctive recoil of the woman brought up in rather conventional circumstances and in a conservative community from too sudden intimacy, nothing more. She did not herself understand this.
"Don't you like the Sherwoods?" he instantly demanded, with the masculine insistence on dissecting every butterfly.
"Why, she's charming!" said Nan, opening her eyes in surprise. "Of course, I like her immensely!"
"I should think so," grumbled Keith. "They certainly have been mighty good to us."
But Nan had dropped her negligée about her feet, and was convulsed at the figure made of her slim young body by the distorted mirror.
"Come here, Milt," she gasped.
She clung to him, gurgling with laughter, pointing one shaking finger at the monstrosity in the glass.
"Look—look what you married!"
They dressed gayly. His optimism and enthusiasm boiled over again. It was a shame, his leaving her all that afternoon, he reiterated; but she had no idea what giant strides he had made. He told her of the city, and he enumerated some of the acquaintances he had made—Calhoun Bennett, Bert Taylor, Major Marmaduke Miles, Michael Rowlee, Judge Caldwell, and others. They had been most cordial to him, most kind; they had taken him in without delay.
"It's the spirit of the West, Nan," he cried, "hospitable, unsuspicious, free, eager to welcome! Oh, this is going to be the place for me; opportunity waits at every corner. They are not tied down by conventions, by the way somebody else has done things—"
He went on rapidly to detail to her some of the things he had been told—the contemplated public improvements, the levelling of the sand hills, the building of a city out of nothing.
"Why, Nan, do you realize that only four years ago this very Plaza had only six small buildings around it, that there were only three two-story structures in town, that the population was only about five hundred—there are thirty-five thousand now, that—" he rattled on, detailing his recently acquired statistics. Oh, potent influence of the Western spirit—already, eight hours after his landing on California's shores, Milton Keith was a "booster."
With an expansion of relief that only a woman could fully appreciate, Nan unpacked and put on a frock that had nothing whatever to do with the sea voyage, and which she had not for some time seen. In ordinary accustomed circumstances she would never have thought of donning so elaborate a toilette for a hotel dining-room, but she was yielding to reaction. In her way she was "celebrating," just as was Keith. Her hair she did low after the fashion of the time, and bound it to her brow by a bandeau of pearls. The gown itself was pale green and filmy. It lent her a flowerlike semblance that was very fresh and lovely.
"By Jove, Nan, you certainly have recovered from the sea!" cried Keith, and insisted on kissing her.
"Look how you've mussed me all up!" chided Nan, but without irritation.
They found the other three waiting for them, and without delay entered the dining-room. This, as indeed all the lower story, was in marked contrast of luxury with the bare pine bedrooms upstairs. Long red velvet curtains, held back by tasselled silken cords, draped the long windows; fluted columns at regular intervals upheld the ceiling; the floor was polished and slippery; the tables shone with white and silver. An obese and tremendous darkey in swallowtail waved a white-gloved hand at them, turned ponderously, and preceded them down the aisle with the pomp of a drum major. His dignity was colossal, awe inspiring, remote. Their progress became a procession, a triumphal procession, such as few of Caesar's generals had ever known. Arrived at the predestined table, he stood one side while menials drew out the chairs. Then he marched tremendously back to the main door, his chin high, his expression haughty, his backbone rigid. This head waiter was the feature of the Bella Union Hotel, just as the glass columns were the feature of the Empire, or the clockwork mechanism of the El Dorado.
The dinner itself went well. Everybody seemed to be friendly and at ease, but by one of those strange and sudden social transitions it was rather subdued. This was for various reasons. Nan Keith, after her brief reaction, found herself again suffering from the lassitude and fatigue of a long voyage; she needed a night's rest and knew it. Keith himself was a trifle sleepy as an after affect to the earlier drinking. Sherwood was naturally reserved and coolly observing; Mrs. Sherwood was apparently somehow on guard; and Sansome, as always, took his tone from those about him. The wild spirits of the hour before had taken their flight. It was, however, a pleasant dinner—without constraint, as among old friends. After the meal they went to the public parlour, a splendid but rather dismal place. Sherwood almost immediately excused himself. After a short and somewhat awkward interval, Nan decided she would go to bed for her needed rest.
"You won't think me rude, I know." said she.
Keith, whose buoyant temper had been sadly divided between a genuine wish to do the proper and dutiful thing by his wife and a great desire to see more of this fascinating city, rose with so evident an alacrity under restraint that Mrs. Sherwood scarcely, concealed a smile. She said her adieux at the same time, and left the room, troubling herself only to the extent of that ancient platitude about "letters to write."
"I think we'll find most of the proper crowd down at the Empire," observed Sansome as the two picked their way across the Plaza. "That is one of the few old-fashioned, respectable gambling places left to us. The town is not what it used to be in a sporting way. It was certainly wide open in the good old days!"
The streets at night were ill lighted, except where a blaze of illumination poured from the bigger saloons. The interims were dark, and the side streets and alleys stygian. "None too safe, either," Sansome understated the case. Many people were abroad, but Keith noticed that there seemed to be no idlers; every one appeared to be going somewhere in particular. After a short stroll they entered the Empire, which, Sansome explained, was the most stylish and frequented gambling place in town, a sort of evening club for the well-to-do and powerful. Keith looked over a very large room or hall, at the lower end of which an alcove made a sort of raised stage with footlights. Here sat a dozen "nigger minstrels" with banjos strumming, and bawling away at top pressure. An elaborate rosewood bar ran down the whole length at one side—an impressive polished bar, perhaps sixty feet long, with a white-clad, immaculate barkeeper for every ten feet of it. Big mirrors of French plate reflected the whole room, and on the shelf in front of them glittered crystal glasses of all shapes and sizes, arranged in pyramids and cubes. The whole of the main floor was carpeted heavily. Down the centre were stationed two rows of gambling tables, where various games could be played—faro, keeno, roulette, stud poker, dice. Beyond these gambling tables, on the other side of the room from the bar, were small tables, easy chairs of ample proportions, lounges, and a fireplace. Everything was most ornate. The ceilings and walls were ivory white and much gilt. Heavy chandeliers, with the usual glass prisms and globes, revolved slowly or swayed from side to side. Huge oil paintings with shaded top and foot-lights occupied all vacant spaces in the walls. They were "valued" at from ten to thirty thousand dollars apiece, and that fact was advertised. "Leda and the Swan," "The Birth of Venus," "The Rape of the Sabines," "Cupid and Psyche" were some of the classic themes treated as having taken place in a warm climate. "Susannah and the Elders" and "Salome Dancing" gave the Biblical flavour. The "Bath of the Harem" finished the collection. No canvas was of less size than seven by ten feet.
The floor was filled with people. A haze of blue smoke hung in the air. There was no loud noise except from the minstrel stage at the end. A low hum of talk, occasionally accented, buzzed continuously. Many of the people wandering about, leaning against the bar, or integers of the compact groups around the gambling tables, were dressed in the height of fashion; but, on the other hand, certainly half were in the roughest sort of clothes—floppy old slouch hats, worn flannel shirts, top boots to which dried mud was clinging. These men were as well treated as the others.
Fascinated, Keith would, have liked to linger, but Sansome threaded his way toward the farther corner. As Keith passed near one of the close groups around a gambling table, it parted momentarily, and he looked into the eyes of the man in charge, cold, passionless, aloof, eyes neither friendly nor unfriendly. And he saw the pale skin; the weary, bored, immobile features; the meticulous neat dress; the long, deft fingers; and caught the withdrawn, deadly, exotic personality of the professional gambler on duty.
The whole place was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Whether it was primarily a bar, a gambling resort, or a sort of a public club with trimmings, he could not have determined. Many of those present, perhaps a majority, were neither gambling, nor drinking; they seemed not to be adding to the profits of the place in any way, but either wandered about or sat in the easy chairs, smoking, reading papers, or attending to the occasional outbreaks of the minstrels. It was most interesting.
They joined a group in the far corner. A white-clad negro instantly brought them chairs, and hovered discreetly near. Among those sitting about Keith recognized several he had met in the afternoon; and to several more he was introduced. Of these the one who most instantly impressed him was called Morrell. This was evidently a young Englishman, a being of a type raised quite abundantly in England, but more rarely seen in native Americans—the lean-faced, rather flat-cheeked, high-cheek-boned, aquiline-nosed, florid-complexioned, silent, clean-built sort that would seem to represent the high-bred, finely drawn product of a long social evolution. These traits when seen in the person of a native-born American generally do represent this fineness; but the English, having been longer at the production of their race, can often produce the outward semblance without necessarily the inner reality. Many of us even now do not quite realize that fact; certainly in 1852 most of us did not. Morrell was dressed in riding breeches, carried a short bamboo crop, smiled engagingly to exhibit even, strong, white teeth, and had little to say.
"A beverage seems called for," remarked Judge Caldwell, a gross, explosive, tobacco-chewing man, with a merry, reckless eye. The order given, the conversation swung back to the topic that had occupied it before Keith and Sansome had arrived.
It seemed that an individual there present, Markle by name—a tall, histrionic, dark man with a tossing mane—conceived himself to have been insulted by some one whose name Keith did not catch, and had that very afternoon issued warning that he would "shoot on sight." Some of the older men were advising him to go slow.
"But, gentlemen," cried Markle heatedly, "none of you would stand such conduct from anybody! What are we coming to? I'll get that——as sure as God made little apples."
"That's all right; I don't blame yo'," argued Calhoun. Bennett. "Do not misunderstand me, suh. I agree with yo', lock, stock, an' barrel. My point is that yo' must be circumspect. Challenge him, that's the way."
"He isn't worth my challenge, sir, nor the challenge of any decent man.You know that, sir."
"Well, street shootings have got to be a little, a little——"
He fell silent, and Keith, looked up in surprise to see why. A man was slowly passing the table. He was a thick, tall, strong man, moving with a freedom that bespoke smoothly working muscles. His complexion was florid; and this, in conjunction with a sweeping blue-black moustache, gave him exactly the appearance of a gambler or bartender. Only as he passed the table and responded gravely to the formal salutes, Keith caught a flash of his eye. It was gray, hard as steel, forceful, but so far from being cold it seemed to glow and change with an inner fire, The bartender impression was swept into limbo forever.
"That's one good reason why," said Calhoun Bennett, when this man had gone on.
But Markle overflowed with a torrent of vituperative profanity. His face was congested and purple with the violence of his emotions. Keith stared in astonishment at the depth of hatred stirred. He turned for explanation to the man next him, Judge Girvin, a gentleman of the old school, weighty, authoritative, a little pompous.
"That is Coleman," Judge Girvin told him. "W.T. Coleman, the leader of the vigilance movement of last year."
"That's why," repeated Calhoun Bennett, with quiet vindictiveness, "lawlessness, disrespect foh law and order, mob rule. Since this strangler business, no man can predict what the lawless element may do!"
This speech was the signal for an outburst against the VigilanceCommittee, so unanimous and hearty that Keith was rather taken aback.He voiced his bewilderment.
"Why, gentlemen, I am, of course, only in the most distant touch with these events; but the impression East is certainly very general that the Vigilantes did rather a good piece of work in clearing the city of crime."
They turned on him with a savagery that took his breath. Keith, laughing, held up both hands.
"Don't shoot, don't shoot! I'll come down!" he cried. "I told you I didn't know anything about it!"
They checked themselves, suddenly ashamed of their heat. CalhounBennett voiced their feeling of apology.
"Yo' must accept our excuses, Mr. Keith, but this is a mattah on which we feel strongly. Our indignation was naturally not directed against yo', suh."
But Judge Girvin, ponderous, formal, dignified, was making a pronouncement.
"Undoubtedly, young sir," he rolled forth at Keith, "undoubtedly a great many scoundrels were cleared from the city at that time. That no one would have the temerity to deny. But you, sir, as a lawyer, realize with us that even pure and equitable justice without due process of law is against the interests of society as a coherent whole. Infringement of law, even for a good purpose, invariably brings about ultimate contempt, for all law. In the absence of regularly constituted tribunals, as in a primitive society—such as that prior to the Constitutional Convention of September, 1849—it may become necessary that informal plebiscites be countenanced. But in the presence of regularly constituted and appointed tribunals, extra-legal functions are not to be undertaken by the chance comer. If defects occur in the administration of the law, the remedy is in the hand of the public. The voter——" he went on at length, elaborating the legal view. Everybody listened with respect and approval until he had finished. But then up spoke Judge Caldwell, the round, shining, perspiring, untidy, jovial, Silenus-like jurist with the blunt fingers.
"We all agree with you theoretically, Judge," said he. "What these other fellows object to, I imagine, is that the law has such a hell of a hang fire to it."
Judge Girvin's eyes flashed, and he tossed back his white mane. "The due forms of the law are our heritage from the ages!" he thundered back. "The so-called delays and technicalities are the checks devised by human experience against the rash judgments and rasher actions by the volatile element of society! They are the safeguards, the bulwarks of society! It is better that a hundred guilty men escape than that one innocent man should suffer!"
The old judge was magnificent, his eyes alight, his nostrils expanded, his head reared back defiantly, all the great power of his magnetism and his authority brought to bear. Keith was thrilled. He considered that the discussion had been lifted to a high moral plane.
By rights Judge Caldwell should have been crushed, but he seemed undisturbed.
"Well," he remarked comfortably, "on that low average we must have quite a few innocent men among us after all."
"What do you mean, sir?" demanded Judge Girvin, halted in mid career and not catching the allusion.
"Surely, Judge, you don't mean to imply that you endorse Coleman and his gang?" put in Calhoun Bennett courteously but incredulously.
"Endorse them? Certainly not!" disclaimed Caldwell. "I need my job," he added with a chuckle.
Bennett tossed back his hair, and a faint disgust appeared in his dark eyes, but he said nothing more. Caldwell lit a cigar with pudgy fingers.
"My advice to you," he said to Markle, "is that if you think you're going to have to kill this man in self-defence"—he rolled an unabashed and comical eye at the company—"you be sure to see our old friend, Sheriff Webb, gets you to jail promptly." He heaved to his feet, "Might even send him advance word," he suggested, and waddled away toward the bar.
A dead silence succeeded his departure. None of the younger men ventured a word. Finally Judge Girvin, with a belated idea of upholding the honour of the bench, turned to Keith.
"Judge Caldwell's humour is a little trying at times, but he is essentially sound."
The young Englishman, Morrell, uttered a high cackle.
"Quite right," he observed; "he'll fix it all right for you, Markle."
At the bad taste of what they thought an example of English stupidity every one sat aghast. Keith managed to cover the situation by ordering another round of drinks. Morrell seemed quite pleased with himself.
"Got a rise out of the old Johnny, what?" he remarked to Keith aside.
Judge Caldwell returned. The conversation became general. Vast projects were discussed with the light touch—public works, the purchase of a theatre for the town hall, the sale by auction of city or state lands, the extension of wharves, the granting of franchises, and many other affairs, involving, apparently, millions of money. All these things were spoken of as from the inside. Keith, sipping his drinks quietly, sat apart and listened. He felt himself in the current of big affairs. Occasionally, men sauntered by, paused a moment. Keith noticed that they greeted his companions with respect and deference. He experienced a feeling of being at the centre of things. The evening drifted by pleasantly.
Along toward midnight, John Sherwood, without a hat, stopped long enough to exchange a few joking remarks, then sauntered on.
"I know him," Keith told Calhoun Bennett. "That's John Sherwood. He's at our hotel. What doeshedo?"
"Oh, don't you know who he is?" replied Bennett. "He's the owner of this place."
"A gambler?" cried Keith, a trifle dashed.
"Biggest in town. But square."
Keith for a moment was a little nonplussed. The sudden intimacy rose up to confront him. They were kind people, and Mrs. Sherwood was apparently everything she should be—but a public gambler! Of course he had no prejudices—but Nan—
Keith returned to the hotel very late, and somewhat exalted. He was bubbling over with good stories, interesting information, and ideas; so he awakened Nan, and sat on the edge of the bed, and proceeded enthusiastically to tell her all about it. She was very sleepy. Also an exasperated inhabitant of the next room pounded on the thin partition. Reluctantly Keith desisted. It took him some time to get to sleep, as the excitement was seething in his veins.
He came to consciousness after a restless night. The sun was streaming in at the window. He felt dull and heavy, with a slight headache and a weariness in all his muscles. Worst of all, Nan, in a ravishing pink fluffy affair, was bending over him, her eyes dancing with amusement and mischief.
"And how is my little madcap this morning?" she inquired with mock solicitude. This stung Keith to some show of energy, and he got up.
The sun was really very bright. A dash of cold water made him feel better. Enthusiasm began to flow back like a tide. The importance of the evening before reasserted its claims on his imagination. As he dressed he told Nan all about it. In the midst of a glowing eulogy of their prospects, he checked himself with a chuckle.
"Guess what the Sherwoods are," said he.
Nan, who had been half listening up to this time, gave him her whole attention.
"A gambler! A common gambler!" she repeated after him, a little dismayed.
"I felt the same way for a minute or so," he answered her tone cheerfully. "But after all I remembered—you must remember—that society here is very mixed. And anyway, Sherwood is no 'common gambler'; I should say he was a most _un_common gambler!" He chuckled at his little joke. "All sorts of people are received here. We've got to get used to that. And certainly no one could hope anywhere to find nicer—more presentable—people."
She nodded, but with a reservation.
"Surely nowhere would you find kinder people," went on Keith. "See how they took us in!"
"Look out they don't take you in, Milton," she interjected suddenly.
Keith, brought up short, sobered at this.
"That is unjust, Nan," he said gravely.
She said nothing, but showed no signs of having been convinced. After her first need had passed, Nan Keith's natural reserve had asserted itself. This was the result of heredity and training, as part of herself, something she could not help. Its tendency was always to draw back from too great or too sudden intimacies. There was nothing snobbish in this; it was a sort of instinct, a natural reaction. She liked Mrs. Sherwood, admired her slow, complete poise, approved her air of breeding and the things by which she had surrounded herself. The older woman's kindness had struck in her a deep chord of appreciation. But somehow circumstances had hurried her too much. Her defensive antagonism, not to Mrs. Sherwood as a person, but to sudden intimacy as such, had been aroused. It had had, in her own mind, no excuse. She knew she ought to be grateful and cordial; she felt that she was not quite ready. The fact that the Sherwoods had proved to be "common gamblers" gave just the little excuse her conscience needed to draw back a trifle. This, it should be added, was also quite instinctive, not at all a formulated thought.
She said nothing for some time; then remarked mysteriously:
"Perhaps that's why they go to meet boats."
Keith, who was miles beyond the Sherwoods by now, looked bewildered.
Keith had letters of business introduction to Palmer, Cook & Co., a banking firm powerful and respected at the time, but destined to become involved in scandal. The most pressing need, both he and Nan had determined, was a house of their own; the hotel was at once uncomfortable and expensive. Accordingly a callow, chipper, self-confident, blond little clerk was assigned to show them about. He had arrived from the East only six months ago; but this was six months earlier than the Keiths, so he put on all the airs of an old-timer. In a two-seated calash, furnished by the bankers, they drove to the westerly part of the town. The plank streets soon ran out into sand or rutty earth roads. These bored their way relentlessly between sand hills in the process of removal. Steam paddies coughed and clanked in all directions. Many houses had, by these operations, been left perched high and dry far above the grade of the new streets. Often the sand was crumbling away from beneath their outer corners. All sorts of nondescript ramshackle and temporary stairs had been improvised to get their inhabitants in or out. The latter seemed to be clinging to their tenements as long as possible.
"They often cave in," explained the clerk, "and the whole kit and kaboodle comes sailing down into the street. Sometimes it happens at night," he added darkly.
"But isn't anybody hurt?" cried Nan.
"Lots of 'em," replied the clerk cheerfully "Git dap!"
They now executed a flank attack on the "fashionable" quarter of the town.
"They're grading the street down below," the clerk justified his roundabout course.
Here were a number of isolated, scattered wooden houses, of some size and of much scroll and jigsaw work. Some of them had little ornamental iron fencelets running along their ridgepoles, or lightning rods on the chimneys or at the corners, although thunderstorms were practically unknown. The clerk at once began to talk of these as "mansions." He drew up before one of them, hitched the horse, and invited his clients to descend. Nan looked at the exterior a trifle doubtfully. It was a high-peaked, slender house, drawn together as though it felt cold; with carved wooden panels over each window, miniature balconies with elaborate spindly columns beneath, and a haughty, high, narrow porch partially clothing a varnished front door flanked with narrow strips of coloured glass.
The clerk produced a key. The interior also was high and narrow. Much glistening varnish characterized the front hall. They inspected one after another the various rooms. The house was partly furnished. In the showrooms hung heavy red curtains held back by cords with gilt tassels. Each fireplace was framed by a mantel of white marble. But the glory was the drawing-room. This had been frescoed in pale blue, and all about the wall and even across part of the ceiling had been draped festoon after festoon of fishnet. Only this was not real fishnet, as a closer inspection showed. It had been cunningly painted! In the dim light, and to a person with an optimistic imagination, the illusion was almost perfect. Nan choked suddenly at the sight of this; then her eyes widened to a baby stare, and she become preternaturally solemn.
They looked it all over from top to bottom; the clerk fairly tiptoeing about with the bent-backed air of one who handles a precious jade vase. From the front windows he showed them a really magnificent view, with the blue waters of the bay shining, and the Contra Costa shore shimmering in the haze.
"In the residence next door to the west dwell most desirable neighbours," he urged, "the Morrells. They are English, or at least he is."
"I met him last night," said Keith to Nan; "he looked like a good sort."
"Who is in the big house over there?" asked Nan, indicating a very elaborate structure diagonally opposite.
"That—oh, that—well, that is in rather a state of transition, as it were," stammered the little clerk, and at once rattled on about something else. This magnificent mansion, he explained, was the only one Palmer, Cook & Co. had on their lists for the moment.
Therefore he drove them back to the Bella Union. Keith departed with him to look up a suitable office downtown.
Nan bowed solemnly to his solemn salutation in farewell, and turned as quickly as she could to the interior of the hotel. Sherwood sat in his accustomed place, his big steel spectacles on his nose, his paper spread out before him. He arose and bowed. She nodded, but did not pause. Once inside the hall, she picked up her skirts and fairly flew up the stairs to her room. Slamming the door shut, she locked it, then sank on the edge of the bed and laughed—laughed until she wiped the tears from her cheeks, rocking back and forth and hugging herself in an ecstasy. Every few moments she would pull up; then some unconsidered enormity would strike her afresh and she would go off into another paroxysm. After a while, much relieved, she wiped her eyes and arose.
"This place will be the death of me yet," she told her distorted image in the mirror.
She rummaged in one of her trunks, produced writing materials, and started a letter to an Eastern friend. This occupied her fully for two hours. At that period it was customary to "indite epistles" with a "literary flavour," a practice that immensely tickled those who did the inditing. Nan became wholly interested and quite pleased with herself. Her first impressions, she found when she came to write them down, were stimulating and interesting. She was full of enthusiasm; but had she been capable of a real analysis she would have found it quite different from Keith's enthusiasm. She looked on this strange, uncouth, vital city from the outside, from the superior standpoint. She appreciated it as she would have appreciated the "quaintness" of the villagers in some foreign town.
About noon Keith returned.
"I've looked into every possibility," he told her. "Honest, Nan, I don't see exactly what we are to do unless we build for ourselves. That Boyle house is the only house in town for rent—that is of any size and in a respectable quarter. You see they are too new out here to have built houses for rent yet; and if you find any vacant at all, it is sheer good fortune. Of course to stay in this little box is impossible, and—"
She had been contemplating him, her eyes dancing with amusement.
"You've taken it!" she accused him.
"Well—I—yes," he admitted, a little red.
She laughed.
"I knew it," she said. "When can we move in? I want to get started."
Keith's first plunge into the teeming life of the place had to suffice him for all the rest of that week. There seemed so many pressing things to do at home. The Boyle house was only partly furnished. Each morning he and Nan went downtown and prospected for things needed. This was Nan's first experience of the sort; and she confessed to a ludicrous surprise over the fact that pots, pans, brooms, kitchen utensils, and such homely matters had to be thought of and bought.
"I had a sort of notion they grew on the premises," she said.
Mrs. Sherwood gave them much valuable advice, particularly as to auctions. In the Keiths limited experience auctions generally had meant cheap or second-hand articles, but out here the reverse was the case. A madness possessed otherwise conservative Eastern merchants—especially of the staid city of Boston—to send out on speculation immense cargoes of all sorts of goods. These were the despair of consignees. Heavy freights, high interest charges, tremendous warehouse rates, speedily ate up whatever chance of profits a fresh consignment might have. The only solution was to sell out as promptly as possible; and the quickest method was the auction. Therefore, auctions were everywhere in progress, and the professional auctioneers were a large, influential, and skilful class of people. Their advertisements made the bulk of the newspapers. They dressed well, carried an air of consequence, furnished refreshments, brass bands, or other entertainments to their patrons. The era of fabulous prices was at an end, but the era of wild speculation as to what the public was going to want was in full tide. Keith and Nan found these auctions great fun, and piece by piece they accumulated the items of their house furnishing. It was slow work, but amusing. At times Mrs. Sherwood accompanied them, but not often. Her advice was always good.
As to Mrs. Sherwood, Nan Keith found her attitude very vague. There was no doubt that she liked her personally, admired her slow, purposeful, half-indolent movements, the poise of her small, patrician head, the unconscious, easy grace of her body, the direct commonsense quality of her mind. One met her face to face; there were no frills and furbelows of the spirit. Also, Nan was grateful for the other woman's first kindness and real sympathy, and she wanted to "play the game." But, on the other hand, all her social training and her instinct of formalism tended to hold her aloof. She blamed herself intellectually for this feeling; but since it was a feeling, and had nothing to do with intellect, it persisted.
In the auction rooms, also, she seemed to meet—be formally introduced to—a bewildering number of people, most of whom she could not place at all. There seemed to be no reason for meeting them; certainly she would not have met them in the East. Nevertheless, they all shook her by the hand, and bowed to her whenever subsequently they passed her on the street. Keith told her this was all usual and proper in this new and mixed social order; and she was perfectly willing to make the effort. She was really charming to everybody. The consciousness that she was successfully adapting herself to their primitive provincial scope, and her very gracious condescension to all types, filled her with respect for her democracy and breadth of mind.
The afternoon they spent at the house receiving boxes and packages. Keith worked busily, happily, feverishly, in his shirt sleeves. He attacked the job on the principle of a whirlwind campaign, hammering, ripping, throwing papers down, deciding instantly where this or that chair or table was to stand, tearing on to the next, enjoying himself dustily and hugely.
Nan was more leisurely. She found time to gossip with the drayman who brought up the goods, actually came to a liking and a warm friendly feeling for him as a person. This was a new experience for Nan, and she explored it curiously.
John McGlynn was a teamster, but likewise a thoroughly independent and capable citizen. He was of the lank, hewn, lean-faced, hawk-nosed type, deliberate in movement and speech, with a twinkling, contemplative, appraising eye, and an unhurried drawl. He told Nan he had come out in '49.
"No, ma'am," he disclaimed vigorously, "I didn't go to the mines. I am a teamster, and I always did teaming." He did not add, as he might have done, that in those days of the individual he had been an important influence.
His great pride was his team and wagon, and that pride was justified. The wagon was a heavy flat affair, gayly decorated, and on the sides of the box were paintings of landscapes. The horses were great, magnificent creatures, with arching thick necks, long wavy manes and forelocks, soft, intelligent eyes, and with great hoofs and hairy fetlocks. They carried themselves in conscious pride, Their harness was heavy with silver and with many white and coloured rings. In colour they were dapple gray.
"That team," said John McGlynn, "is a perfect match. Took me two years to get them together. Wuth a mint of money. That Kate, there, is a regular character. You'd be surprised how cute she is. I often wonder who Kateis. She must be some very famous woman."
John McGlynn was a very wonderful and very accommodating person, Nan thought. He would help carry things in, and was willing to unpack or to carry out the mess Keith's mad career left behind, it. Also he cast an eye on the garden possibilities, and issued friendly, expert advice to which Nan listened, breathless. They held long intimate consultations as to the treatment of the soil.
"A few posies does sort of brighten things up; they're wuth while," quoth John.
Without previous consultation, he appeared one day accompanied by a rotund, bland, gorgeous Chinaman, perched beside him on his elevated seat.
"This is Wing Woh, a friend of mine," he announced. "You got to have a Chink, of course. You can't run that sized house without help. Wing knows all the Chinks in town, and bosses about half of them."
Wing Woh descended and without a word walked into the house. He was a very ornate person, dressed in a skull cap with a red coral button atop, a brocaded pale lavendar tunic of silk, baggy pale green trousers tied close around the ankles, snow-white socks and the typical shoe. Gravely, solemnly, methodically he went over the entire house; then returned and clambered up beside John.
"All light," he vouchsafed to the astonished Nan.
Next morning she found waiting on the veranda a smiling "china boy" dressed all in clean white. A small cloth bundle lay at his feet.
"My name Wing Sam," he announced; "I wo'k you thi'ty dolla' month.Where you keep him bloom?"
That day John McGlynn stopped after unloading his boxes to give a little advice.
"Chinks are queer," said he. "When you show this fellow how to do anything, be sure to show him right, because that's the way he's going to do it forever after. You can't change him. And show him; don't tell him. And let him do things his own way as much as you can, instead of insisting on your way."
McGlynn also advised Keith as to where he could to the best advantage hire a horse and buggy by the month.
"You want a good safe animal, so Mrs. Keith can drive him; but you don't want a cow. Jump aboard and I'll take you around. Never mind your coat," he told Keith, "it's warm."
So they "jumped aboard" and drove down the street. Nan gurgled with amusement over the episode. She sat on the high seat beside John McGlynn's lank figure, above the broad backs of the great horses; and Keith in his shirtsleeves, his hair every which way, a smudge of black across his nose, balanced in the flat dray body behind. Nan tried to imagine the sensation they would create in Baltimore, and laughed aloud.
"Is sort of funny," commented John McGlynn sympathetically. "But everything goes out here."
Nan, aghast at the uncanny perspicacity of the man, choked silently. In her world there had always been a sort of vague, unexpressed feeling that the "lower classes" were dull.
They used the horse and buggy a great deal. It was delivered at the hotel door every morning and taken from the same place every evening. Innumerable errands downtown for things forgotten kept it busy. At night they returned to the hotel pretty well tired out. It was a tremendous task, much as they might be enjoying it.
"Seems to me the more we do the worse it gets," said Keith. "Let's dig some sort of a hole and move in anyway."
"In a few days," agreed Nan, who as general-in-chief had a much clearer idea of the actual state of affairs than the dusty private.
One morning the accumulated fatigue had its way, and they overslept scandalously. It was after ten o'clock before they were ready to drive up the street. As they turned the corner from Kearney Street they were saluted by the ringing of numerous bells.
"Why, it's Sunday!" cried Keith, after a moment's calculation. In the unexpectedness of this discovery he reined in the horse.
"It will never do to work to-day," she answered his unspoken thought."I suppose we ought to go to church."
But Keith turned the horse's head to the left.
"Church?" he returned with great decision. "We're going on a spree.This is a day of rest, and we've earned it."
"Where?" asked Nan, a trifle shocked at his implication as to church.
"I haven't the remotest idea," said Keith.
They drove along a plank road leading out of town. It proved to be thronged with people, all going in the same direction. The shuffle of their feet on the planks and the murmur of their many voices were punctuated by theklop, klopof hoofs and occasional shouts of laughter. All races of the earth seemed to be represented. It was like a Congress of the Nations at some great exposition. French, Germans, Italians, Russians, Dutchmen, British, were to be recognized and to be expected. But also were strange peoples—Turks, Arabs, Negroes, Chinese, Kanakas, East Indians, the gorgeous members of the Spanish races, and nondescript queer people to whom neither Nan nor Keith could assign a native habitat. At every step one or the other called delighted attention to some new exhibit. Most extraordinary were, possibly, the men from the gold mines of the Sierras, These were mostly young, but long haired, bearded, rough, wilder than any mortal man need be. They walked with a wide swagger. Their clothes were exaggeratedly coarse, but they ornamented themselves with bright silk handkerchiefs; with feathers, flowers; with squirrel or buck-tails In their hats; with long heavy chains of nuggets; with glittering and prominently displayed pistols, revolvers, stilettos, knives, or dirks. Some had plaited their beards in three tails; others had tied their long hair under their chins. But even the most bizarre seemed to attract no attention. San Francisco was accustomed to it.
Indeed, the few fashionable strollers were much more stared at. Most of the well dressed were in some sort of vehicle. The Keiths saw many buggies like their own. A few very smart, or rather very ornamental, double rigs dashed by. In these sat generally good-looking but rather loud young women, who stared straight ahead with an assumption of supreme indifference. Hacks or omnibuses careered along. In these the company was generally merry but mixed, though occasionally a good-looking couple had hired an ordinary public conveyance. Horsemen and horsewomen were numerous. Some of these were very dashing indeed, the women with long trailing skirts and high hats from which floated veils; the men with skin-tight trousers strapped under varnished boots, and long split-skirted coats. Others were simply plain a-horseback. The native Californians with their heavy, silver-mounted saddles, braided rawhide reins and bridles, their sombreros, their picturesque costumes, and their magnificent fiery horses made a fine appearance. Occasionally screaming, bouncing Chinese, hanging on with both hands, would dash by at full speed, their horses quite uncontrolled, their garments flying, ecstatically scared and happy, causing great confusion, and pursued by curses.
"Evidently we're headed in the right direction," remarked Keith.
After a drive of two or three miles, never far from the bay they arrived at what had evidently been a sleepy little village. The original low, picturesque, red-tiled adobe buildings still clustered about the Mission. But much had been added. The Keiths found themselves in an immense confusion. Screaming signs cried everywhere for attention—advertising bear pits, cock fights, theatrical attractions, side shows, and the like. Innumerable hotels and restaurants, small, cheap, and tawdry, offered their hospitality, the liquid part of which was already being widely accepted. Men were striking pegs with hammers, throwing balls at negroes' heads thrust through canvas, shooting at targets. A racecourse was surrounded. Dust rose in choking clouds, and the sun beat down heavily.
"Goodness, what a place!" cried Nan in dismay.
Had they known it, there were many quiet, attractive, outlying resorts catering to and frequented by the fashionables, for "the Mission" was at that time in its heyday as a Sunday amusement for all classes. As it was, Keith drove on through the village, and so out to a winding country road.
"This is heavenly," said Nan, and laid aside her veil.
The road wound and meandered through the low hills of the peninsula. The sun beat down on them in a flood, only its heat, no longer oppressive, had become grateful.
"Doesn't it feel good on your back!" exclaimed Nan, recognizing this quality. "One seems to soak it in—just the way a thirsty plant soaks water."
The rounded hills were turning a ripe soft brown. Across their crests the sky looked very blue. High in the heavens some buzzards were sailing. Innumerable quail called. On tree tops perched yellow-breasted meadow larks with golden voices. In the bottom of the narrow valley where the road wound were green willow trees and a little trickle of water. From the ground came upward waves of heat and a pungent clean odour of some weed. Nan was excited and keenly receptive to impressions.
"It's a hot day!" she cried, "and the road is dusty. By rights it ought to be disagreeable. But it isn't! Why is that?"
The little valley widened into a pocket. Back from the road stood a low white much house. Its veranda was smothered in the gorgeousness of bougainvillaea. A grave, elderly, bearded Spaniard, on horseback, passed them at a smooth shuffling little trot, and gave them a sonorousbuenas dias, The road mounted rapidly. Once when Keith had reined in to breathe the horse, they heard the droning crescendo hum of a new swarm of bees passing overhead.
"Isn't this nice!" cried Nan, snuggling against Keith's arm.
Suddenly, over the crest and down the other side, they came on sand hills. The horse plodded along at a walk. Nan hung far out watching, fascinated, the smooth, clean sand dividing before the wheels and flowing back over the rim, and so over a little rise, and the sea was before them.
"Oh, the Pacific!" exclaimed she, sitting up very straight.
The horse broke into a trot along the smooth hard shore. The wind was coming in from the wide spaces. A taste of salt was in the air. Foam wreaths advanced and receded with the edge of the wash, or occasionally blew in a mass across the flat, until gradually they scattered and dissipated. The horse pricked up his ears, breathed deep of the fresh cool air, expanded his nostrils snorting softly, pretended to shy at the foam wreaths. The wash advanced and drew back with a soft hissing sound; the wind blew flat and low, so that even on the wet parts a fine, white, dried mist of sand was always scurrying and hurrying along close to the ground. Outside the surges reared and fell with a crash.
After the tepid or heated atmosphere of the hills the air was unexpectedly cool and vital. A flock of sickle-billed curlews stood motionless until they were within fifty yards; then rose and flew just inside the line of the breakers, uttering indescribably weird and lonely cries. A long file of pelicans, their wings outspread, sailed close to the surface of the ocean, undulating over the waves and into the hollows exactly paralleling, at a height of only a few feet, the restless contour of the sea. Occasionally they would all flop their wings two or three times in unison.
"I believe it's a sort of game—they're having fun!" stated Nan with conviction.
Everything seemed to be having fun. Close to the wash were forty or fifty tiny white sanderlings in a compact band. When the wash receded they followed it with an incredibly rapid twinkling of little legs; and when again the wave rushed, shoreward,scuttle, scuttle, scuttlewent they, keeping always just at the edge of the water. Never were they forced to wing; yet never did they permit the distance to widen between themselves and the inrushing or outrushing wave. There were also sundry ducks. These swam just inside the breakers, and were carried backward and forward by the surges. Always they faced seaward. At the very last instant, as a great curler bent over them, they dipped their heads and dived. If the wave did not break, however, they rode over its top. Their accuracy of eye was uncanny. Time after time they gauged the wave so closely that they just flipped over the crest as it crashed with a roar beneath them. A tenth of a second later would have destroyed them. Keith reined up the horse to watch them and the sanderlings.
"Itisa game," he agreed after a while, "just like the pelicans. It isn't considered sporting for sanderlings to get more than three inches away from the edge of the wash; or for a duck to dive unless he actually has to. It must be a game; for they certainly aren't catching anything."
At this moment the sanderlings as though at a signal sprang into the air, wheeled back and forth with instantaneous precision, and departed. The ducks, too, dove, and came up only outside the surf.
"Good little sportsmen," laughed Keith; "they play the game for its own sake. They don't like an audience."
After a few miles they came to a cliff reaching down to the beach and completely barring the way. Off shore were rocky islets covered with seals and sea lions. A lone blue heron stood atop a sand dune, absolutely motionless.
"I don't know where we are, or how we get out," said Keith, "but I'm going to take that chap there as a sign post," and he turned his horse directly toward the heron.
Sure enough, a track led them through the sand, and by a zigzag route to the top of the knoll that had barred their way along the shore. They came to an edge. Before them lay an arm of the sea, sweeping and eddying with a strong incoming tide. Over the way stood a great mountain, like a sentinel. Far to their right the arm widened. There was a glimpse of sparkling blue, and of the pearl of far-off hills, and the haze of a distant dim peak.
"It's the Golden Gate!" cried Keith in sudden enlightenment.
He told her that the mountain over the way must be Tamalpais; that the pearl-gray, far-off hills must be Contra Costa; that the distant dim peak was undoubtedly Mount Diabolo. She repeated the syllables after him softly, charmed by their music.
Simultaneously they discovered that they were hungry. The wind whipped in from the sea. An outpost tent or so marked the distant invisible city over the hills. Keith turned his horse's head toward them. They drove back across what are now the Presidio hills.
But in a hollow they came upon another ranch house, like the first—low, white, red roofed, covered with vines. Keith insisted on driving to it. A number of saddled horses dozed before the door, a half-dozen dogs sprawled in the dust, fowls picked their way between the horses' legs or over the dogs' recumbent forms. At the sound of wheels several people came from the shadow of the porch into the open. They proved to be Spanish Californians dressed in the flat sombreros, the short velvet jackets, the slashed trousers, and soft leatherzapatos. The men, handsome, lithe, indolent, pressed around the wheels of the buggy, showing their white teeth in pleasant smiles.
"Can we get anything to eat here?" asked Keith.
They all smiled again most amiably. The elder swept off his hat with a free gesture.
"A piedes ouestros, señora," he said, "pero no hablo Inglés. Habla usted Español?"
Keith understood the last three words.
"No," he shook his head violently, "noEspañol. Hungry." He pointed to Nan, then to himself: "She, me, hungry."
This noble effort brought no results, except that the Californians looked more politely distressed and solicitous than ever.
"They don't understand us," murmured Nan; "don't you think we'd better drive on?"
But Keith, who had now descended from the buggy, resorted to sign language. He rubbed his stomach pathetically and pointed down his open mouth; as an afterthought he rubbed the horse's belly; then, with apparent intention, he advanced toward Nan. A furious red inundated her face and neck, and she held her little parasol threateningly between them. Everybody burst into laughter.
"Si! si! si!" they cried.
Several started to unharness the horse. Others held out their hands.After a moment's hesitation Nan accepted their aid and descended.Keith's performance was evidently considered a great joke.
On the low veranda were two women, one most enormously fat, the other young and lithe. They were dressed almost exactly alike, their blue—black hair parted smoothly over their foreheads but built up to a high structure behind, filmyrebosasover high combs, and skirts with many flowered flounces. They both had soft, gentle eyes, and they were both so heavily powdered that their complexions were almost blue. All the men explained to them at once. The younger answered gayly; the older listened with entire placidity. But when the account was finished, she reached out to pat Nan's hand, and to smile reassuringly.
Various foods and a flask of red wine were brought. There was no constraint, for Keith threw himself with delighted abandon into experiments with sign language.
"Esta simpatica," the Californians told each other over and again.
Their manners were elaborate, dignified, deliberate, and beautiful. Keith, ordinarily rather direct and brusque, to Nan's great amusement became exactly like them. They outvied each other. The women touched smilingly the stuff of Nan's gown, and directly admired her various feminine trappings. She, thus encouraged, begged permission to examine more closely the lace of therebosasor the beautiful embroidery on the shawls. A little feeling of intimacy drew them all together, although they understood no word of each other's language.
One of the dogs now approached and gravely laid its nose on Nan's knee, gazing up at her with searching soft eyes. The older woman cried out scandalized, but Nan shook her head, and patted the beast's nose.
"You like?" asked the woman.
"Why, you do talk English!" cried Nan.
But either these two words were all the woman had, or she was unwilling to adventure further.
"You like?" she repeated again, after a moment, and then, observing Nan's interest, she uttered a command to one of the numerous ragged small boys standing about. The urchin darted away, to return after a moment with a basket, which he emptied on the ground. Four fuzzy puppies rolled out.
"Oh, the darlings!" cried Nan.
The little animals proceeded at once to roll one another over, growling fiercely, charging uncertainly about, gazing indeterminately through their blue infantile eyes. The mother left her position at Nan's knee to hover over them; turning them over with her nose, licking them, skipping nimbly sidewise when they charged down upon her with an idea of nourishment.
Nan was enchanted. She left the bench to stoop to their level, tumbling them over on their backs; playfully boxing their ears, working them up to a wild state of yapping enthusiasm.
"The little darlings!" she cried; "just see their fat little tummies! And their teeth are just like needles. No, no, you mustn't! You'll tear my flounces! Look, Milton, see this little rascal pull at my handkerchief!"
Her cheeks were flushed, and as she looked up laughing from beneath her hat, she made a very charming picture.
"You like," stated the Californian woman with conviction.
After a while it became time to go. Vaqueros brought out the horse and harnessed it to the buggy. Keith made a movement to offer payment, but correctly interpreted the situation and refrained. They mounted the vehicle.
"Muchas gracias!" Nan enunciated slowly.
This effort was received with an admiring acclaim that flushed Nan with an inordinate pride. She had picked up the phrase from hearing it used at table. The fat woman came forward, one of the puppies tucked under her arm. In spite of her apparently unwieldy size she moved gracefully and lightly.
"You like?" she inquired, holding the squirming puppy at arm's length.
"Si, si, muchas gracias!" cried Nan eagerly, and employing at once all her Spanish vocabulary. She deposited the puppy in her lap and reached out to shake hands. Keith flicked the horse with his whip. He, too, had recollected a word of Spanish, and he used it now.
"Adios!" he shouted.
But their hosts had a better phrase.
"Vaya Con Dios!" they cried in chorus.
Nan was in raptures over the whole episode, but especially over the puppy. The latter, with the instantaneous adaptability of extreme youth, had snuggled down into a compact ball, and was blinking one hazy dark blue eye upward at his new mistress.
"Weren't they nice people," cried Nan, "and wasn't it an adventure? And isn't he just the dearest, cutest little thing? You're not a little Spanish dog any more, you know. You're a—what is it they call us?—oh, yes! You're a gringo now. Why, that's a fine idea! Your name is Gringo!"
And Gringo he became henceforth.
"What kind of a dog is he?" she asked.
Keith grinned sardonically.
"Of course I do not know his honoured father," said he, "so I cannot offer an opinion as to that half of him. But on his mother's side he is bloodhound, bulldog, collie, setter, pointer, St. Bernard, and Old English sheepdog."
"Which?"' asked Nan puzzled.
"All," asserted Keith.
Now suddenly the sun was blotted out. They looked back: a white bank of fog was rolling in from the sea. It flowed over the hills like a flood, reaching long wisps down into the hollows, setting inertly in the flats and valleys, the upper part rolling on and over in a cascade. Beneath its shadow the warmth and brightness of the world had died.
"It strikes me we're going to be cold," remarked Keith, urging forward the horse.
The roadbed became more solid, and they trotted along freely. The horse, also, was anxious to get home. Signs of habitations thickened. The wide waste hills of the ranchos had been left behind. Here and there were outlying dwellings, or road houses, the objectives of pleasure excursions of various sorts and degrees of respectability from the city. From one of the latter came a hail.
"Oh, Keith! I say, Keith!"
From a group of people preparing to enter a number of vehicles two men came running. Ben Sansome and Morrell, somewhat out of breath, came alongside. They were a little flushed and elevated, but very cordial, and full of reproaches that Keith had so entirely dropped out of sight during the past week.
"I tell you, you must come over to our house for supper," said Morrell finally. "Everybody comes."
"The Morrells' Sunday night suppers are an institution," supplementedSansome.
"I wish I could persuade you," urged Morrell. "I wonder where Mimi is. I know Mrs. Morrell ought to call, and all that sort of thing, but this is not a conventional place. We live next door, y'know. Do be delightful and neighbourly, and come!"
Nan hesitated; but the lure of the well-dressed company, so thoroughly at ease with one another, was irresistible in the reaction. She accepted.