Will Irwin

“ And somehow this is so like Billy Gray! It was just this way in her mother’s case. When Billy came around—you remember how bonny a boy he was then, Edward—I, her own sister, could never tell how she felt toward him. I’ve always told you that Eleanor has slipped a generation. She’s her grandmother, not her mother, in mind. But she’s just like her mother in one thing. You can’t ever tell what she’s thinking about, and the deeper her thoughts go the harder it is to tell! ”

“ Kate, in fact, had rested the tray on a hall table, drawn out the photographs, and run over them, looking at them with all her eyes. The profile was at the bottom of the package. When she reached that, she hesitated a moment; then, with a quivering motion that ran from her fingers over her whole body, she tore it in two. Short as this explosion was, her recovery was quicker. She glanced with apprehension over her shoulder at the door of Eleanor’s room, tucked the photographs back in her bosom, and took up the tray again. ”

“ When Bertram left, Mrs. Tiffany did not follow him to the door, as was her old-fashioned custom. He waited a moment, as though expecting something. His eyes were on Eleanor. She did not move. She only bade him a simple and easy good night over her shoulder.
The old couple sat for a long time before the fire. Eleanor was gone—not to bed, could they but have known it, but to sit by her window and breathe bay-fragrance and drink the foggy night air off the Gate. ”

“ That was her best attitude of head. Bertram swung up the trail, making progress by main force—not walking so much as lifting himself on those sturdy, saddle-sprung legs of his. He was making wide, sweeping gestures; and Kate, as he talked, leaned a little toward him now and then, like a woman absorbed.
Momentarily, she had him on the subject of football. He was touching upon the subject of one Bill Graham, Stanford tackle and opponent in two varsity games, whom she knew and whom he was teaching her to know better. ”

“ Tiffany, from her nasturtium bower in the shadow of the great oak.
“Just when we are getting comfortable,” her husband growled pleasantly; and he made no move to rise. The women sat at ease about the tea-table. Their talk, beginning with the marvelous Ruggles babies, had run lightly past clothes and help, and fallen into the hands of Mrs. Goodyear. She, too, was full of San Francisco. Apart, under the grape arbor, Teresa Morse and her brother were snaring lizards—playing like two well-behaved babies miraculously grown tall.
“There’s Eleanor,” suddenly spoke Teresa. ”

“ Up from one side came Mrs. Tiffany; and from the other, where ran a road dividing the Tiffany orchard from the next, approached a buckboard driven by a lolling Portuguese. Beside him sat a girl all in brown, dust-resistant khaki, who curtained her face with a parasol. Mrs. Tiffany ran, light as an elderly fairy, down the rows.
“Eleanor!” she called.
“Dear, dear Aunt Mattie!” cried the girl. Judge Tiffany, too, was hurrying forward to the road. The youth had his hand on the ladder, prepared to mount, when the parasol dropped. ”

“ The Ferry, doorway to San Francisco, wore its holiday Sunday aspect as Bertram Chester approached it. A Schuetzen Park picnic was gathering itself under the arches, to the syncopated tune of a brass band. The crowd blazed with bright color. The young men, in white caps, yellow sashes of their mysterious fraternity, and tinted neckties like the flowers of spring, lolled and larked and smoked about the pillars. Fat mothers and stodgy fathers fussed over baskets and progeny. Young girls, in white dresses and much trimming of ribbons, coquetted in groups as yet unbroken by the larking young men. ”

“ The youth, stepping aside with a quickness marvelous considering the size of his frame, avoided the charge. As Dynamo tore past him, he struck out—a mighty lash—with the halter. The bull tore on until he smashed into a prune tree. The green fruit flew like water splashing from a stone; and Dynamo checked his course, turned again, began to paw and challenge as the preliminary to another charge.
“Oh, let him go—please!” cried Eleanor. Whether he heard her or not made little difference to the youth. ”

“ Kate would help him to the kind of success he wanted. Her tact, her diplomacies, her flair for engrafting herself, would be the very best support to his direct methods of assault. They belonged to each other; and since now Kate’s desires in the matter had become manifest, only one thing remained.
All this allowed, what should her own line of conduct be? How should she bear herself in the days and weeks when pure human kindness must inhibit her from delivering a shock? Would it be necessary to commit the inner treason of posing to him as a secret fiancée? ”

“ Eleanor said nothing, but her expression was an invitation.
“Sure!” responded Bertram.
The Hotel Marseillaise had familiar customs of its own. For one thing, guests bothered the waiters as little as possible. Masters smiled when the two unconscious youths went back to their table, picked up the big soup tureen, their knives and forks, their plates, and transported them to the larger table.
They were dragging the lees of a rather squalid Bohemia, these two boys; a Bohemia the more real because they were unconscious in it. ”

“ To stand on such evenings at the Powell Street terminus, to watch those tripping, gaily-dressed, laughing Californian women thronging the belt of city light from the theatre canopy to the restaurant canopy—ah, that was 182 San Francisco! Not Paris, not Buenos Ayres—they say who have travelled far—could show such a procession of Dianaides, such a Greek festival of joy in the smooth, vigorous body and the things which feed and clothe it. ”

“ Twenty women and girls, their lips going as rapidly as their knives, sat on fruit crates at long tables, slicing the red-and-gold balls apart, flicking out the stones, laying the halves to dry in wooden trays. A wagon had just arrived from the orchard. Olsen, the Swedish foreman, was heaving the boxes to his Portuguese assistant, who passed them on into the cutting shed. Further on stood the bleaching kilns; still further, the bright green trees with no artistic irregularities of outline—trees born, like a coolie, to bear burdens. ”

“ Hither the peasant French of San Francisco, menials most of them, came for luncheons and dinners of thick, heavy vegetable soup, coarse fish, boiled joint, third-class fruit and home-made claret, vinted by Louis himself in a hand press during those September days when the Latin quarter ran purple—and all for fifteen cents! Thither, too, came young apprentices of the professions, working at wages to shame a laborer, who had learned how much more one got for his money at Louis’s than at the white-tiled American places further down town. ”

“ When you consider marriage, you have to remember that a girl like Eleanor can’t live on a trifle. I’d follow my own career. It isn’t, you see, as though there were anyone else in the field. Other men come to the house, of course—men she’s met at the Masters, old friends of the family—but I don’t consider any of them as rivals. I did think for a time that Ned Greene was attracted, but he’s crazy now over Katherine Herbert. So it isn’t a case for immediate action.”
“Do you think—have you ever heard her speak of me?”
Kate’s answer came readily. ”

“ He ran a restaurant as a social institution as well as a business venture. Madame Loisel, with her eye on the cash register, longed ardently for slummers who would give large tips to Louis the younger, order expensive wines, and put the Marseillaise on the way to a twenty-five cent table d’hote dinner. From that kitchen squabble, recurrent whenever slummers visited them, Madame Loisel swept in haughty determination, leaving Louis to take it out on the pots. As she approached the table, all the charm of France illuminated her smile. ”

“ The victory of his smile on the staircase he followed up that evening to a general conquest. For Masters, when dinner was over, brewed a hot punch. They drank it about the driftwood fire, and even the severe Marion Slater relaxed and made merry. The essence of the gods strips self-control and delicacy first, so that the finer wit goes by without tribute of a laugh and the wit of poked fingers—especially if it be sauced by personality—rules at the board. ”

“ Kate was addressing Judge Tiffany again. “He’s entirely too eager. Who would be a good rival anyway, Judge adored? Let’s create one, like the picture of your future husband in a nickel vaudeville!”
“Eleanor,” spoke Mrs. Tiffany, “suppose you show Mr. Chester your end of the house and our garden—or would you like it, Mr. Chester? We’re rather proud of the garden.”
“I’d like it,” answered Bertram; and he rose instantly. Mrs. Tiffany made no move to accompany them; she sat bent over her yarns, her ears open. ”

“ Before it was over, he had entered, by the special privilege accorded such characters, the club about which man-society in San Francisco revolved; he had broken into a half a dozen circles of women society; he had become hail-fellow-well-met with the younger sons of the cocktail route, the loud characters of flashy Latin quarter 148 studios, the returned Arctic millionaires of the hour and day who kept the Palace Hotel prosperous, the patrons and heroes of the prize-fight games, the small theatrical sets of that small metropolis. ”

“ Heath, speaking with a little diffidence and lack of assurance, had twice the wit, twice the eye for things, twice the illumination of Bertram Chester; yet it was the latter who brought laughter and attention. His personality, which surrounded him like an aroma, his smile, his trick of the eyes—one listened to Bertram Chester. ”

“ Stallard declared always that a final gift of fate and the gods preserved them to harmony: their tastes in men differed. They had choice enough, God wot—poets and novelists struggling on the verge of fame; attractive, irresponsible, magnetic journalists, destined never to arrive anywhere, but following a flowery path along which a woman might smile; sons of new-rich millionaires who followed and backed and corrupted the artists of that budding Paris which never blossomed; two painters, among many, who got both fame and wealth before they were done. ”

“ You’re one of the biggest and strongest gentlemen I ever knew. Anyone need only see you for five minutes to know you’re that. But some people have certain things which they attribute to a gentleman—notions, as I’ve said. And Eleanor from her European experiences has some of these notions. Don’t you see?”
The smile, which always broke so suddenly, came back to Bert Chester’s face.
“Well, of course that’s why I broke loose from the ranch and went to college in the first place. I wanted to be as good, every way, as the best there is!” ”

“ Eleanor is always thinking up clever things to say,” Kate came in. Her voice was rather flat.
At the edge of the gutter where they stood, a Chinese shoemaker had set out on a lacquer tray his offering to the gods. Red candles 166 bordered it, surrounding little bowls of rice and sweetmeats, a slice of roast pig, a Chinese lily. As the banners approached, certain devout coolies found room on the sidewalk to prostrate themselves. Eleanor, absorbed now in a poetic appreciation of all this glory of color and spirit, felt a movement beside her. She looked down. ”

“ Now they were in Broadway, skirting the small bake-shops, the dark alleys, all the picture scenes of the Latin quarter. At that very moment, Miss Waddington drew a little apart from the group clustering about Masters and Mark Heath. An Italian baby of three, too late out of bed, stood by a cellar rail surveying 95 them with the liquid fire which was his eyes. Kate Waddington stooped to pat his head. As she raised herself, she was beside Bertram. Nothing more natural than that she should fall in, step by step, beside him. He caught step with her, but he still looked toward Eleanor. ”

“ That social phenomenon of the picking season, grown accustomed by six years of passing summers 68 and winters, drew no special attention from her. But the noise continued; it became plain that these reveling laborers were making in her direction. Doubtless, they came from the women’s camp at Judge Tiffany’s. The night was bringing her peace and sleep of the soul after a disturbing day; alone, that raucous noise marred the calm. ”

“ Well, a boy isn’t born with honor, any more than he’s born with courage; he grows to it. And God only knows just when the boy strikes the divide which will turn his course one way or the other.”
“But Edward, you ought to warn him!”
“In the first place, it would do no good to warn one of his age and temperament. In the second place, it would spoil the experiment—but I had commanded you to talk, and here I am doing it all. How looked she; what said he?”
“To-day—just before church—I was hooking up Kate and Eleanor, and he telephoned.” ”

“ Harlots, or those who might well pass as such, beside the best morale there is in women; daughters of washerwomen beside daughters of such proud blood as we have; bookmakers’ wives, blazing with the jewels which will be pawned to-morrow, beside German housewives on a Saturday night revel; jockies and touts from the race tracks beside roistering students from Stanford and Berkeley; soldiers of fortune blown in by the Pacific winds, taking their first intoxicating taste of civilization after their play with death and wealth, beside stodgy burghers grown rich in real estate ”

“ Eleanor’s deeper and higher self—the self that lay like a filmy, impalpable wrapper about her conscious mind, so that at times she appeared to herself as two persons—that consciousness stood aloof in expectation of disgust, revulsion, horror. ”

“ Kate was back in ten minutes with table and tray. Whatever she did had an individuality, a touch. That tray, for example—nothing could have been better conceived to tempt the appetite. She set out the breakfast and remained to pour coffee and to talk.
“And isn’t it good—mustn’t you be thankful—that it won’t leave him lame or disfigured or anything like that! His shoulder may be weak, but what does a man need of shoulders after he’s quit football?”
Eleanor just glanced over her coffee-cup, but she made no answer. Kate turned her course. ”

“ Why, it’s really a part of you. You’re only two 186 years out of college, hardly that; and you’re still studying law; but think how people have taken you up! It is simply that Eleanor looks at it in a different way. It’s a pretty peculiarity in one of the sweetest girls I know.”
Kate paused. Bert made no move to answer. She went on:
“Now about the thing you can’t grasp in Eleanor. It’s this way. You can’t see her nature as another girl can. She’s just as sweet and tender and delicate as she can be, and she has high ideals—that’s one result of her living away from the world. ”

“ The Tiffany house—I spare you full description—rambled with many a balcony and addition over that hill which rose like a citadel above San Francisco. From its Southern windows, one looked clean over the city, lying outspread below. Even the Call building, highest eminence piled up by man in that vista, presented its roof to the eye. ”

“ The Judge had dropped the book now; his senses were alert to the game which never grew old to him—“Mattie-baiting” he had named it.
“Mattie,” he said, “with a pretty and marriageable, dowered and maiden niece on your hands, a new era is opening in your life of passionate self-sacrifice. It used to be orphan children and neglected wives of farm hands. Now it is presentable but neglected bachelors. Your darling match for Eleanor, I suppose, would be some young soul snatched from evil courses, pruned, trimmed, and delivered at the altar with ‘Made by Mattie Tiffany’ branded on his wings. ”

“ Had she obeyed her impulse, she should have run. She forced herself to turn at the door and smile back, forced herself to bridle her emotions and go quietly to breakfast and to her ordeal with the lightning thrusts of Kate Waddington.
Two days later, Eleanor followed Judge Tiffany to the ranch. A perplexing fruit season brought her fair excuse. The year before, the Japanese, adventurers in minor labors, had begun to flood the Santa Lucia tract. They drove out the Chinese; when that spring brought picking contracts, no Oriental was to be had save a Japanese. ”

“ Also, they never called their circle Bohemian, yet it was tinged with an easy view on the conventionalities, a leaning toward art and the things of art, which meant Bohemia in the time when that word was of good repute. Spain, perpetual spring, the flare of adventure in the blood, the impulse of men who packed 45 Virgil with their bean-bags on the Overland journey, conspired already to make San Francisco a city of artists. She had developed her two poets, singers whose notes had sounded round the world; the painters had followed. ”

“ That is the thing I could admire most in a man; more even than kindness. To have him succeed from nothing because his strength was in it. I don’t care how unfinished he might be—that would show he was a man!”
Bertram was still pausing on this, when Kate touched his arm.
“I’m afraid,” she said, “that we must join the others. They’ll be talking about us if we don’t, and we mustn’t have that—for Eleanor’s sake if for no other!” They hurried ahead, therefore, and walked beside Mr. and Mrs. Masters all the way in.
At the studio door, Kate declined a half-accepted invitation to remain for the night. ”

“ Kate appeared to be considering. In fact, she was considering a great many more things than Bertram knew.
“I’m pretty sure Eleanor wouldn’t care,” she said at length. “Hers isn’t a very practical mind. It’s impossible to say about Judge Tiffany. He’s crotchety. The right’s on your side, for a man has a right to change his employment, hasn’t he? And I’m sure you have more than returned your little salary. On the whole, I don’t know but it would be better for you with Eleanor if the Judge did get angry with you. A girl with ideals like hers rather likes to have a man persecuted. ”