Geraldine Bonner

“ A shade passed over Miss Ryan's open countenance.
"You know, Mr. Faraday," she said, explanatorily, "I'm not exactly in society."
"No?" murmured Faraday, mightily surprised, and wondering what she was going to say next.
"Not exactly," continued Miss Ryan, moistening her red under lip in a pondering moment—"not exactly in fash'nable society. Of course we have our friends. But gentlemen from the East that I've met have always been so surprised when I told them that I didn't go out in the most fash'nable circles. They always thought any one with money could get right in it here." ”

“ Faraday, with his power of listening interminably and his intelligent comments, was a favorite of old Ryan's. He greeted him with a growling welcome; and then, civilities being interchanged, called to the Chinaman for another glass. This menial, rubbing off the long mirrors that decorated the walls, would not obey the mandate till it had been roared at him by the wounded lion in a tone which made the chandelier rattle.
"I never can make those infernal idiots understand me," said old Ryan, plaintively. "They won't do a thing I tell them. It takes the old lady to manage 'em. ”

“ She made no reply, but turned her head sharply away, as if in sudden embarrassment. Then, in answer to his conventionally murmured good-byes, she looked back, and he saw her face radiant, alight, with the most beautiful smile trembling on the lips. The splendor of this look seemed to him a mute expression of her happiness—of love reciprocated, ambition realized—and in it he read his own doom. He turned blindly round to pick up his hat; the door behind him was opened, and there, handsome, debonair, fresh as a May morning, stood Lord Hastings, hat in hand. ”

“ This simple comment, however, appeared to surprise the enigmatic Miss Ryan.
"Proud of it?" she queried, looking in suspended doubt at Faraday. "Oh, of course I'm proud that he was brave, and didn't run away or get wounded; but if he'd been a Southerner we would have been in society now." She looked pensively at Faraday. "All the fash'nable people are Southerners, you know. We would have been, too, if we'd been Southerners. It's being Northerners that really has been such a drawback." ”

“ Faraday squeezed in, as Mrs. Ryan drew a breath.
"Indeed, Mr. Faraday, everybody has remarked her talents. It isn't you alone. All the Eastern gentlemen we have met have said that the musical talents of the Californian young ladies were astonishing. They all agree that Genevieve's musical genius is remarkable. Everybody declares that there is no one—not among the Spaniards themselves—who sings 'La Paloma' as Gen does. ”

“ Ryan like him so much?" said the visitor, still coldly.
"All women like a lord, and Mrs. Ryan ain't different from the rest of her sex. She's dead-stuck on Gen marrying him. I'm not myself, Jack. I'm no Anglomaniac; an American's good enough for me. I'm not spoiling to see my money going to patch up the roof of the ancestral castle of the Courtneys or pay their ancestral debts—not by a long chalk."
"Do you think he's coming back to borrow money from you to pay off the ancestral debts?" asked Faraday.
"Not to borrow, Jack. Oh no, not to borrow—to get it for keeps—it and Genevieve with it. ”

“ If you've been in society, you've perhaps noticed, Mr. Faraday, that gentlemen are somewhat scarce."
Faraday said he had not been in society, therefore had not observed the deficiency. Mrs. Ryan, barely allowing him time to complete his sentence, continued, vivaciously:
"Well, Mr. Faraday, you'll see it later. We entertainers don't know what we're going to do for the lack of gentlemen. When we give parties we ask the young gentlemen, and they all come; but they won't dance, they won't talk, they won't do anything but eat and drink, and they never think of paying their party calls. ”

“ Even the endurance of New England human nature has its limits, and Faraday could stand no more. So he refused an invitation to a tea from Mrs. Ryan, and one to a dinner and another to a small musical from Miss Ryan, and, alone in his Pine Street lodgings, for the first time in his life, read the "social columns" with a throbbing heart.
One Saturday afternoon, two weeks from the day that he had last seen Genevieve, he sat in his room trying to read. ”

“ I like men that are their own masters. But I suppose I would have married him. You see, he would have been a lord when his grandfather died. It was genuine—we saw it in the peerage."
She looked into Faraday's eyes. Her own were as clear and deep as mountain springs. Was Miss Genevieve Ryan the most absolutely honest and outspoken young woman that had ever lived, or was she some subtle and unusual form of Pacific slope coquette?
"Popper was quite mad about it," she continued. "He thought Mr. Courtney was an ordinary sort of person, anyway. ”

“ Nearly two months after the dinner, when rumors of Genevieve Ryan's engagement to Lord Hastings were in lively circulation, Faraday called at the lion-guarded mansion on California Street, and, in answer to his regulation request for the ladies, received the usual unintelligible Chinese rejoinder, and was shown into the gold drawing-room. There, standing in front of a long mirror, looking at her skirts with an eye of pondering criticism, was Miss Genevieve, dressed to go out. ”

“ The round table, glowing beneath the lights of the long crystal chandeliers, sparkled with cut glass, shone with antique silver-ware, while in the centre a mass of pale purple orchids spread their fragile crêpelike petals from a fringe of fern. Opposite him, still unfaded, superbly dressed, and admirably self-possessed, was his smiling consort, toward whom, whatever his pride in her might have been, his feelings this evening were somewhat hostile, as the ambitious and determined lady had forced him to don regulation evening dress, arrayed in which, Barney's peace of mind and body both fled. ”

“ Ryan doesn't seem to think so. Genevieve felt rather put out about it for a time. She thought he hadn't been quite upright to see her so constantly and not say anything definite. But she doesn't understand the subserviency of Englishmen to their elders. You know, we have none of that in this country. If my son Eddie wanted to marry a type-writer, Mr. Ryan could never prevent it. I fully expect to see Mr. Courtney again. I'd like you to meet him, Mr. Faraday. I think you'd agree very well. He's just such a quiet, reserved young man as you. ”

“ Bidden to open the door, the Mongolian reluctantly did so, and Faraday was admitted.
"Sing didn't want to let you in," said Mrs. Ryan when they had gained the long gold drawing-room, "because Genevieve was out. He never lets any gentlemen in when she's not at home. He thinks I'm too old to have them come to see me."
Then they sat down, and after a little preliminary chat on the Chinese character and the Californian climate, Mrs. Ryan launched forth into her favorite themes of discourse.
"Genevieve will be so sorry to miss you," she said; "she's always so taken by Eastern gentlemen. ”

“ Miss Ryan silently eyed him for a speculating moment; then, averting her glance, said, pensively: "Perhaps so; but I don't think it's so stylish to be a goddess as it is to be very slim. And then, you know—" Here she suddenly broke off, her eyes fixed upon the crowd of ladies that blocked an opposite doorway in general exeunt. "There's mommer. I guess she must be going home, and I suppose I'd better go too, and not keep her waiting."
She rose as she spoke, and with a pat of her hand adjusted her glimmering skirts. ”

“ Peck for next Sunday's Trumpet. If I hadn't come, you see, I wouldn't have met you. You needn't escort me to Madame Delmonti. I'd rather go by myself. I'm not a bit a ceremonious person. Good-by. Be sure and come and see me."
She rustled away, exchanged farewells with Madame Delmonti, and, by a movement of her head in his direction, appeared to be speaking of Faraday; then joining a fur-muffled female figure near the doorway, swept like a princess out of the room. ”

“ Toward the end of the feast he conversed in urgent whispers with his mother—a conversation which ended in her surreptitiously giving him her keys under the edge of the table. Before coffee Eddie left, on the plea of an important engagement, retiring through the drawing-room, softly jingling the keys. ”

“ With all popper's money, we've never been able to get a real good footing. It seems funny to outsiders, especially as popper and mommer have never been divorced or anything. We've just lived quietly right here in the city always. But," she said, looking tentatively at Faraday to see how he was going to take the statement, "my father's a Northerner. ”