Gertrude Atherton

“ She wore the Gwynne pearls to-night and a shimmering white gown.
Ruyler glanced round the fine old room with the warm feeling of satisfaction he always experienced at a San Francisco function, where the women were almost as invariably pretty as they were gay and friendly. He did not like the younger men he met on these occasions as well as he did many of the older ones; the serious ones would not waste their time on society, and there were too many of the sort who were asked everywhere because they had made a cult of fashion, whether they could afford it or not. ”

“ He had asked idly: "Where was your convent?" and she had shaken her head. "Maman says I never was in a convent, that I dreamed it." She had lifted to Ruyler a puzzled face. "I remember she punished me once, when I was about seven and persisted in talking about the convent--I suppose I had forgotten it for a time in the new life, and something brought it back to me. But it is the most vivid memory of my childhood. Do you think I could have been one of those uncanny children that live in a dream world? ”

“ Ruyler, who had been absorbed in his own affairs and hated the sight of any woman during business hours, had felt like telling her that if she wanted to sink her money in a ranch, that was as good a way to get rid of it as any, but had merely nodded and left the elevator. He was not the man to give any one unasked advice and be snubbed for his pains.
If "Jim" was her husband and had "croaked" some two years since, what more natural than that she had been obliged to come to California and settle his estate? ”

“ What woman would wish her husband to know disgraceful ancestral secrets which were no fault of hers? A much older woman would not be above entombing them, if the fates were kind. But it saddened him to think that his wife should be rushed to maturity along the devious way. Poor child, he must win her confidence as quickly as his limping wits would permit and shift her burden to his own shoulders. ”

“ People still raved over Hélène Ruyler's "coloring," and Price told himself once more as she stood before him, her little head dragged back by the weight of her plaits, her slender throat crossed by a narrow line of black velvet, that he had married one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen.
He was seized with a sudden sharp pang of jealousy and caught her in his arms roughly, his gray eyes almost as black as hers.
"Tell me," he exclaimed, and the new fear almost choked him, "does any other man interest you--the least little bit?" ”

“ It was half-past eleven when Ruyler and Spaulding, masked and wearing colored silk dominoes, entered the great gates of the Thornton estate in San Mateo, the detective merely displaying something in his palm to the stern guardians that kept the county rabble at bay.
The mob stood off rather grumblingly, for they would have liked to get closer to that gorgeous mass of light they could merely glimpse through the great oaks of the lower part of the estate, and to the music so seductive in the distance. ”

“ They danced on the great platform to the strains of the invisible band, strolled along the terraces above the sunken garden, wandered through the groves and "grounds," or sat in the windows of the great house or in its courts. All wore the little black satin mask prescribed by Mrs. Thornton, and created an illusion that transported the imagination far from California. Ruyler had a whimsical sense of being on another star where the favored of the different periods of Earth had foregathered for the night. ”

“ You are not much like him yourself, darling, but I thought he was not so very unlike modern American business, as a whole."
Ruyler laughed. "Why not Machiavelli? But as no doubt it is black velvet, much puffed and slashed, I may hope it will be becoming to my nondescript fairness. You must promise not to wander off for long walks with any of your admirers. Not that I fear the admirers, but the thieves that are bound to get into that crowd one way or another. They have a way of unclasping necklaces even of the most circumspect wives in the company of not too absorbing men." ”

“ His father came out in '49 with the gold rush crowd, panned out a good pile, and then, liking the life--San Francisco was a gay little burg those days--opened one of the crack gambling houses down on the Old Plaza. Plate glass windows you could look through from outside if you thought it best to stay out, and see hundreds of men playing at tables where the gold pieces--often slugs--were piled as high as their noses, and hundreds more walking up and down the aisles either waiting for a chance to sit, or hoping to appease their hunger with the sight of so much gold. ”

“ California was replete with charming, beautiful, and superlatively healthy girls; the climate produced them as it did its superabundance of fruit, flowers, and vegetables. But they had left Price Ruyler untroubled. He had been far more interested watching San Francisco rise from its ruins, transformed almost overnight from a picturesque but ramshackle city, a patchwork of different eras, into a staid metropolis of concrete and steel, defiant alike of earthquake and fire. ”

“ Hélène's lip curled, her voice had risen. With, all her young enjoyment of wealth and position, she had been bred in a class where to idle is a crime. "Just putting in time--time that ought to be as precious as youth and high spirits and ease and popularity! But what is one to do? I have no talents, and I'd lose caste in my set if I had. I don't wonder the Socialists hate us and want to put us all to work. No doubt we should be much happier. But now--even if you retired from business, you'd spend most of your time on the links. We poor women wouldn't be much better off." ”

“ No secret order is more loyal to its initiates.
During that first year and a half of ideal happiness Ruyler, in what leisure he could command, found Hélène's rapidly expanding mind as companionable as he had hoped; and the girlish dignity she never lost, for all her naiveté and vivacity, gratified his pride and compelled, upon their second brief visit to New York, even the unqualified approval of his family. ”

“ The whole thing was beastly un-American....
But, was it, after all? If he and Hélène had been here together to-night, not married and harrowed, but engaged and quick with romance, would he have thought it absurd to conspire and maneuver to separate her from the crowd and snatch a few moments of heavenly solitude? Would he have despised himself for suffering torments if she flouted him or for wanting to murder any man who balked him? ”

“ Ruyler made a rapid calculation. Aileen Lawton was just about three years older than Hélène. She was fair like her father. There was no resemblance between her and his wife, but the intimacy between them had been spontaneous and had never lapsed. She had grown up quite unrestrained and spoilt, and broken three engagements, and was always rushing about proclaiming in one breath, that California was the greatest place on earth and in the next that she should go mad if she didn't get out and have a change. ”

“ If I had died without a will you would have got it.
"Of course--I know what you mean--but men have always driven women into a corner, and they have had to get out by methods of their own. I wish now I had given you the twenty thousand. I prefer you should accept my decision that it was all my fault. Give me the chain."
She drew it from her bosom and handed it to him. He fastened the ruby in its place and threw the chain over her neck. The great jewel lit up the front of her somber gown like a sudden torch in a cavern. ”

“ She is an old cynic. If she had any snobbery in her she'd be here to-night, rubbing elbows with the women who never knew of her existence twenty years ago, although their husbands did. It has satisfied her ironic French soul to sit in the court of the Palace Hotel day after day and defy San Francisco to recognize Marie Garnett in the obese Madame Delano, whose daughter is one of the great ladies of the city to whose underworld she once belonged, and from whose filthy profits she derives her income. ”

“ There was a faint amusement mixed with Doremus' habitual air of amiable deference, and somewhat more of assurance, but he was as absorbed as Hélène and had no eyes for Janet Maynard, on his left, whose fortune ran into millions.
For a moment Ruyler, who had kept his nerve through several years of racking strain which, even an American is seldom called upon to survive, wondered if he were losing his mind. To business and all its fluctuations and even abnormalities, he had been bred ”

“ Ruyler, who was still standing, looked down at his mother-in-law with profound interest. He had never heard her express herself at such length before. "Do you think I fail as a husband?" he asked humbly. "God knows I'd like to give my wife about two-thirds of my time, but at least I have perfect confidence in her. I should soon cease to care for a wife I was obliged to watch."
"Young things are young things." Madame Delano looked at Hélène, who had turned very white and had lowered her own lids to hide the consternation in her eyes. ”

“ I can tell you it is demoralizing, disintegrating, to wake up morning after morning--about ten o'clock!--and know that you have nothing worth while to do for another day--for all the days!--that you have no place in the world except as an ornament! Women of limited incomes and a family of growing children have enough, to do, of course--too much--they never can feel superfluous and demoralized--except by envy--but as for us! ”

“ The surface of the pool in the sunken garden reflected the green or red masses of light that shot up every few moments from the four corners of the terrace surrounding it. On the lawn just above and to the right of the house, a platform had been built for dancing; it was enclosed on three sides with an arbor of many alcoves, lined with flowers, soft lights concealed in depending clusters of oranges.
And everywhere there were people dressed in costumes, gorgeous, picturesque, impressive, historic, or recklessly invented, but suggesting every era when dress counted at all. ”

“ One drops everything for want of stimulus, and when one begins to flutter again one is lost.
"But I heard and read and thought enough to deduce that the only vital interest in life after one's secret happiness--which one would not dare spread out too thin if one could in this American life--is necessary work well done. And that is quite different from those fussy interests and fads we create or take up for the sake of thinking we are busy and interested. ”

“ He had never regretted his marriage for a moment, not even since this avalanche of mystery and portending scandal had descended upon him; if possible he loved his troubled young wife more than ever--with a sudden instinct that worse was to come he vowed that nothing should ever make him love her less. ”

“ She would not be the first person to be the victim of a secret but furious passion for jewels. He recalled a novel of Hichens; not the matter but the central idea. Authors of other races had used the same motive. Well, if his wife had an abnormal streak in her the sooner he found out the truth the better.
He closed the door of the safe, swung the bookcase into place, slipped the ruby with its curious gold chain that looked massive but hardly weighed an ounce, into his pocket, rang for a servant and told him to ask Mrs. Ruyler to come down to the library as soon as she was dressed. ”

“ Madame Delano looked squarely at her son-in-law.
"That's all right--so far," she said grimly. "Hélène is devoted to you. But so have many other young wives been to busy American husbands. Now, take my advice, and give her more of your companionship before it is too late. _Watch over her_. There always comes a time--a turning-point--European husbands understand, but American husbands are fools. Woman's loyalty, fed on hope only, turns to resentment; and then her separate life begins. ”

“ There were longer intervals between the old style of warfare when men were always plugging one another full of holes in the name of religion or disputed territory, merely to amuse themselves with a tryout of Right against Might, or to gratify the insane ambition of some upstart like Napoleon. To-day the business world was the battlefield, and it was his capital a man was always healing, his poor brain that collapsed nightly after the strain and nervous worry of the day. ”

“ When you're thirty maybe he won't feel that it's his whole duty to protect you. You'll never be hard and seasoned like me, nor able to take care of yourself. I like danger, and excitement, and uncertainty, and mystery, and intrigue, and lying, and wriggling out of tight places. I'd have gone mad in this hole long ago, if I hadn't, for I don't care for sport. But you were intended to develop into what is called a 'fine woman,' surrounded by the right sort of man meanwhile. And Price Ruyler is the right sort. ”

“ Hélène talked frankly of her life. Her mother had been visiting relatives in a small New England town--Holbrook Centre, she believed it was called, but hard American names did not cling to her memory--she loved the soft Latin and Indian names in California--and there she had met and married her father, James Delano. They were on their way to Japan when business detained him in San Francisco much longer than he had expected and she was born. She believed that he had owned a ranch that he wanted to sell. ”

“ Well, don't add to the tragedy by cultivating jealousy. I've told you that I am perfectly willing to give up Society and sit like Dora holding your pens--or filling your fountain pen--no, you dictate. What chance has a woman in a business man's life? ”