And even though she renounced all rights in him because she must, she did not in the least relish that any one so close to her as Gora Dwight should have him. She might have heard of his marriage to a girl of his own land and cla.s.s with only a pa.s.sing spasm, but his continued and possibly tender friendship with her sister-in-law shook her out of the last of her jejunity and its illusions.... She was not exactly a dog in the manger ... she was a maturing woman looking back with anger and dismay not only upon the fatal mistake of her youth, but upon the inexorable realities of her present life....
The reaction was a more intense feeling of loyalty to Mortimer than ever. She was entirely to blame. He not only had been innocent of conscious rivalry, even of pursuit--for she could quite easily have discouraged him in the earlier stages of his courtship--but he was dependent upon her in every way: for his happiness, for the secure social position that meant so much to him, for the greater number of his valuable connections, for even his comfort and ease of living.
Something of this had pa.s.sed through her stunned mind on the morning of her mother"s death. Now it was all as sharply outlined as the etching at which she was raptly gazing, and she vowed anew that she would never desert him, never deny him the a.s.sistance of the true partner. She had signed a life contract with her eyes open and she would keep it to the letter.
Only she hoped to heaven that Gathbroke was not serious about Gora. She wished never to be reminded of his existence again.
And, as Aileen talked of Santa Barbara, she wondered vaguely why there was not a law forbidding girls to marry until they were well into their twenties.... until they had had a certain amount of experience.... knew their own minds.... Maria had been right....
CHAPTER VI
I
The darkness had come early with the high rolling fog that shut out the stars. The fog horn and the bells were silent but the wind had a thin anxious note as if lost, and the long creaking eucalyptus trees angrily repelled it as if irritated beyond endurance by its eternal visitations.
Alexina, who had been reading in her bedroom, realized that it must be quite half an hour since she had turned a page. She lifted her shoulders impatiently. She was in no humor for reading.
It was only eight o"clock. Far too early for bed. Mortimer had gone to Los Angeles on business. He had been gone a week, and she admitted to herself with the new frankness she had determined to cultivate--that she might meet, with the clearest possible vision, whatever three-cornered deals Life might have in store for her--that she had not missed him at all. His absence had been a heavenly interlude. She and Aileen had gone to the moving pictures unescorted every night (a performance of which he would have disapproved profoundly), and they had lunched downtown every day until Alexina had suddenly discovered that she had no more money in her purse; and, knowing nothing whatever even of minor finance, was under the impression that having given Mortimer her power of attorney she would not be able to draw from the bank.
Aileen had gone down to Burlingame to visit Sibyl Bascom for a few days. Alexina had declined to go, although it was a quiet party; it would be embarra.s.sing not to tip the servants.
The wind gave a long angry shriek as it flew round the corner of the house and fastened its teeth in its enemies, the eucalyptus trees; who shook it off with a loud furious rattle of their leaves and slapped the window severely for good measure.
Alexina was used to San Francisco in all her many moods, but to-night, the wind and the high gray fog shutting out the stars, the silent house--silent that is but for the mice playing innocently between the walls--her complete solitude, made her restless and a little nervous.
What could she do?
She knew quite well that she had wanted to go to see Gora for a week.
She had not indulged in any silly dreams about Gathbroke but she was curious to see his photograph. She remembered that it had crossed her mind that April day under the oak tree that if he had been older, if he had outgrown his hopelessly youthful curve of cheek, his fresh color, and the inability to conceal the asinine condition to which she had immediately reduced him, she might have given him an equal chance with Morty.
Aileen had said that he looked older. She had a quite natural curiosity to decide for herself if, had he been born several years earlier, he would have proved the successful rival in that foundational period of their youth.... Or perhaps she was the reason of his rather sudden maturity. After all there was no great chasm between twenty-three and twenty-six and three-quarters. She looked little if any older. Neither did Morty, nor any one she knew.
This idea thrilled her, and, grimly determined upon no compromise or evasion, she admitted it.
Moreover, she wanted to sound out Gora.
Somehow she had no real belief that he had transferred his affections to her dissimilar sister-in-law, but her interest in Gora was growing.
She wanted to know her better.
Besides, although she had often invited her to tea on her free afternoons, and to dinner whenever possible, and had occasionally dropped in to see her while she was still in the hospital, she had never called on her in her home. As Gora only slept there after a killing day"s or night"s work, visitors were anything but welcome; nevertheless she felt that she had been negligent, rude--three years!--and as Gora was not on a case for a day or two, now was the time to atone.
Moreover, she had never been out quite alone at night, except to run down the avenue and across the street to Aileen"s. It was a long way down to Geary Street, and Fillmore Street at night was "tough."
Mortimer would be furious.
She hastily changed her dinner gown to a plain walking suit of black tweed and pinned on a close hat firmly, prepared to defy the wind and thoroughly to enjoy her little adventure. Not since she had stolen out to go to forbidden parties with Aileen had she felt such a sense of altogether reprehensible elation.
CHAPTER VI
I
Fillmore Street, its low-browed shops dark, but with great arcs of white lights spanning the streets that ran east and west, long shafts of yellow light shining across the sidewalk from the restaurants, the candy stores and the nicolodeons--where the pianola tinkled plaintively--was thronged with saunterers. Alexina darted quick curious glances at them as she walked rapidly along. In front of every saloon was a group of young men almost fascinatingly common to Alexina"s cloistered eyes, their hats tilted over their foreheads at an indescribable angle, rank black cigars in the corners of their mouths, or cigarettes hanging from their loose lips, leering at "bunches" of girls that pa.s.sed unattended, appraising them cynically, making strident or stage-whispered comments.
A great many girls had cavaliers, and these walked with their heads tossed, unless drooping toward a padded, shoulder; and they wore perhaps a coat or two less of make-up than their still neglected sisters. These were vividly earmined, although most of them were young enough to have relied on cold water and a rough towel; their hair was arranged in enormous pompadours and topped with "lingerie" or beflowered hats. Their blouses were "peek-a-boo" and cut low, their skirts high; slender or plump, they wore exaggerated straight front corsets, high heels and ventilated stockings. They practiced the debutante slouch and their jaws worked automatically.
Not all of them were "bad" by any means. Fillmore Street was a promenade at night for girls who were confined by day: waitresses, shop girls of the humbler sort, servants, clerks, or younger daughters of poor parents, who would see nothing of life at all if they sat virtuously in the kitchen every night.
The best of them were not averse to being picked up and treated to ice-cream-soda or the more delectable sundae. A few there were, and they were not always to be distinguished by the kohl round their eyes, the dead white of their cheeks, the magenta of their lips, who, ignoring the "b.u.ms" and "cadets" lounging at the corners or before the saloons, directed intent long glances at every pa.s.sing man who looked as if he had the "roll" to treat them handsomely in the back parlor of a saloon, or possibly stake them at a gaming table. The town, still in its brief period of insufferable virtue, was "closed," but the lid was not on as irremovably as the police led the good mayor to believe; and these girls, who traveled not in "bunches" but in pairs, if they had not already begun a career of profitable vice, were anxious to start but did not exactly know how. Fillmore Street was not the hunting ground of rich men; but men with a night"s money came there, and many "b.o.o.bs" from the country.
Alexina had heard of Fillmore Street from Aileen, who investigated everything, escorted by her uxorious parent, and had been informed that many of these girls were "decent enough"; "much more decent than I would be in the circ.u.mstances: work all day, coa.r.s.e underclothes, no place to see a beau but the street. I"d go straight to the devil and play the only game I had for all it was worth."
But to Alexina they all looked appalling, abandoned, the last cry in "badness." She was not afraid. The street was too brilliant and the great juggernauts of trolley cars lumbered by every few moments.
Moreover, she could make herself look as cold and remote as the stars above the fog, and she had drawn herself up to her full five feet seven, thrown her shoulders back, lifted her chin and lowered her eyelids the merest trifle. She fancied that the patrician-beauty type would have little or no attraction for the men who frequented Fillmore Street. Certainly the bluntest of these males could see that she was not painted, blackened, dyed, nor chewing gum.
Moreover she was in mourning.
But she had reckoned without her youth.
II
"Say, kid, what you doin" all alone?"
A hand pa.s.sed familiarly through her arm.
Her brain turned somersaults, raced. Should she burst into tears? Turn upon him with a frozen stare? Appeal for help?
Then she discovered that although astonished she was not at all terrified; nor very much insulted. Why should she be? A casual remark of the sophisticated Aileen flashed through her rallying mind: "When a man is even half way drunk he doesn"t know a lady from a trollop, and ten to one the lady"s a trollop anyhow."
She heartily wished that Aileen were in her predicament at the present moment. What on earth was she to do with the creature?
She had accelerated her steps without speaking or making any foolish attempts to shake him off; but she knew that her face was crimson, and one girl t.i.ttered as they pa.s.sed, while another, appreciating the situation, laughed aloud and cried after her: "Don"t be frightened, kid. He"s not a slaver."
Irrepressible curiosity made her send him a swift glance from the corner of her eye. He was a young man, thick set, with an aggressive nose set in a round hard face. His small, hard, black eyes were steady, and so were his feet. He did not look in the least drunk.