he walked for nearly an hour, along quiet, lamp-lit streets where large houses fronted on gardens that exhaled moist earth scents and the breaths of sweet, unseen blossoms, up hills so steep that it seemed as if an earthquake might have heaved up the city’s crust and bent it crisply like a piece of cardboard. from these high places he looked down on the expanse of the bay, a stretch of ink surrounded by black hills, here and there spangled with the clustered sparklings of little towns. in the hollows below him he saw the lights of the city swimming on its darkness, winking and trembling on receding depths of blackness, like golden bubbles seething on the surface of thick, dense wine.
he looked down unseeing, thinking of the last three years.
when he had first met bernice iverson, she had been a typewriter and stenographer in the office of the merchants and mechanics trust company. he was twenty-four at the time, the only son of cornelius ryan, one of the financial magnates of the far west. the career of con ryan, as he was familiarly called, had been as varied as the heart of a public, who loves to dwell on the sensational fortunes of its great men, could have wished. in the early days of virginia city, con ryan had been a miner there, had a claim of his own and lost all he had in it before the first crown point excitement, had run a grocery store in shasta, moved to sacramento, speculated successfully in mining stock and real estate, and in the bonanza days had had money to play the great game which made millionaires of the few and beggars of the many. he had played it daringly and with profit. when he died he left his widow complete control of a fortune of ten millions.
she had been a sturdy helpmeet—it was generally said that she was the best man of the two—and would keep the fortune safe for the two children, dominick and cornelia. neither she nor con believed in young men having control of large fortunes. they had seen what came of it in the sons of their bonanza friends. dominick was sent to the east to college, and on his return, being then twenty-three years of age, was placed in the oregon and california bank, of which his father had been one of the founders. he was soon promoted to a position where he earned a salary of three thousand a year. this was all he had when he met bernice iverson.
she was seven years older than he, but told him they were the same age. it was not a wasted lie, as she undoubtedly looked much younger than she was, being a slight, trimly-made woman who had retained a girlish elasticity of figure and sprightliness of manner. she came of respectable, hard-working people, her father, danny iverson, having been a contractor in a small way of business, and her two sisters being, one a teacher in the primary school department, the other a saleswoman in a fashionable millinery. she herself was an expert in her work, in office hours quiet, capable and businesslike, afterward lively, easy-going and companionable. the entrapping of young ryan was a simple matter. he had never loved and knew little of women. he did not love her, but she made him think he did, threw herself at him, led him quickly to the point she wished to reach, and secretly, without a suspicion on the part of her family, became his mistress. six months later, having driven him to the step by her upbraidings and her apparent sufferings of conscience under the sense of wrong-doing, she persuaded him to marry her.
the marriage was a bombshell to the world in which young ryan was a planet of magnitude. his previous connection with her—though afterward discovered by his mother—was at the time unknown. bernice had induced him to keep the marriage secret till its hour of accomplishment, for she knew mrs. ryan would try to break it off and feared that she might succeed. once dominick’s wife she thought that the objections and resentment of the elder woman could be overcome. but she underrated the force and obstinacy of her adversary and the depth of the wound that had been given her. old mrs. ryan had been stricken in her tenderest spot. her son was her idol, born in her middle-age, the last of four boys, three of whom had died in childhood. in his babyhood she had hoarded money and worked late and early that he might be rich. now she held the great estate of her husband in trust for him, and dreamed of the time when he should marry some sweet and virtuous girl and she would have grandchildren to love and spoil and plan for. when the news of his marriage reached her and she saw the woman he had made his wife, she understood everything. she knew her boy through and through and she knew just how he had been duped and entangled.
she was of that race of pioneer californians who had entered an uninhabited country, swept aside indian and spaniard, and made it their own. they were isolated figures in a huge landscape, their characters, uncramped and bold, developing unrestricted in an atmosphere of physical and moral liberty. they grew as their instincts dictated; the bough was not bent into convenient forms by expediency or pressure from without. public opinion had little or no weight with them, for there was none. it was the pleasure of this remote group in this rich and exuberant land to do away with tradition and be a law and precept unto themselves. what other people thought and did did not influence them. they had one fixed, dominating idea in a fluctuating code of morals—they knew what they wanted and they were determined to get it. they were powerful individualities whether for good or evil, and they resented with a passion any thwarting of their plans or desires, whether by the interposition of man or the hand of god.
delia ryan’s life had been a long, ascending series of hardly-won triumphs. she had surmounted what would have seemed to a less bold spirit unsurmountable obstacles; gone over them, not around them. she had acquired the habit of success, of getting what she wanted. failure or defiance of her plans amazed her as they might have amazed the confident, all-conquering, pagan gods. the center of her life was her family; for them she had labored, for them she would have died. right and wrong in her mind were clearly defined till it came to her husband or children, and then they were transmuted into what benefited the ryans and what did not. rigidly fair and honorable in her dealings with the outside world, let a member of that world menace the happiness of one of her own, and she would sacrifice it, grind the ax without qualms, like a priestess grimly doing her duty.
the marriage of her son was the bitterest blow of her life. it came when she was old, stiffened into habits of dominance and dictatorship, when her ambitions for her boy were gaining daily in scope and splendor. a blind rage and determination to crush the woman were her first feelings, and remained with her but slightly mitigated by the softening passage of time. she was a partizan, a fighter, and she instituted a war against her daughter-in-law which she conducted with all the malignant bitterness that marks the quarrels of women.
dominick had not been married a month when she discovered the previous connection between him and his wife, and published it to the winds. a social power, feared and obeyed, she let it be known that to any one who received mrs. dominick ryan her doors would be for ever closed. without withdrawing her friendship from her son she refused ever to meet or to receive his wife. in this attitude she was absolutely implacable. she imposed her will upon the less strong spirits about her, and young mrs. ryan was as completely shut off from her husband’s world as though her skirts carried contamination. with masculine largeness of view in other matters, in this one the elder woman exhibited a singular, unworthy smallness. the carelessly large checks she had previously given dominick on his birthday and anniversaries ceased to appear, and masculine gifts, such as pipes, walking-sticks, and cigar-cases, in which his wife could have no participating enjoyment, took their place. she had established a policy of exclusion, and maintained it rigidly.
young mrs. ryan had at first believed that this rancor would melt away with the flight of time. but she did not know the elder woman. she was as unmeltable as a granite rock. the separation from her son, now with age growing on her, ate like an acid into the mother’s heart. she saw him at intervals, and the change in him, the growth of discouragement, the dejection of spirit that he hid from all the world, but that her eye, clairvoyant from love, detected, tore her with helpless wrath and grief. she punished herself and punished him, sacrificed them both, in permitting herself the indulgence of her implacable indignation.
bernice, who had expected to gain all from her connection with the all-powerful ryans, at the end of two years found that she was an ostracized outsider from the world she had hoped to enter, and that the riches she had expected to enjoy were represented by the three thousand a year her husband earned in the bank. her attempts to force her way into the life and surroundings where she had hoped her marriage would place her had invariably failed. if her feelings were not of the same nature as those of the elder mrs. ryan, they were fully as poignant and bitter.
the effort to get an invitation to the ball had been the most daring the young woman had yet made. neither she nor dominick had thought it possible that mrs. ryan would leave her out. so confident was she that she would be asked that she had ordered a dress for the occasion. but when dominick’s invitation came without her name on the envelope, then fear that she was to be excluded rose clamorous in her. for days she talked and complained to her husband as to the injustice of this course and his power to secure the invitation for her if he would. by the evening of the ball she had brought him to the point where he had agreed to go forth and demand it.
it was a hateful mission. he had never in his life done anything so humiliating. in his shame and distress he had hoped that his mother would give it to him without urging, and bernice, placated, would be restored to good humor and leave him at peace. she could not have gained such power over him, or so bent him to her bidding, had she not had in him a fulcrum of guilty obligation to work on. she continually reminded him of “the wrong” he had done her, and how, through him, she had lost the respect of herfellows and her place among them. all these slights, snubs and insults were his fault, and he felt that this was true. to-night he had gone forth in dogged desperation. now in fear, frank fear of her, he went home, slowly, with reluctant feet, his heart getting heavier, his dread colder as he neared the house.
it was one of those wooden structures on sacramento street not far from van ness avenue where the well-to-do and socially-aspiring crowd themselves into a floor of seven rooms, and derive satisfaction from the proximity of their distinguished neighbors who refuse to know them. it contained four flats, each with a parlor bay-window and a front door, all four doors in neighborly juxtaposition at the top of a flight of six marble steps.
dominick’s was the top flat; he had to ascend a long, carpeted stairway with a turn half-way up to get to it. now, looking at the bay-window, he saw lights gleaming from below the drawn blinds. berny was still up. a lingering hope that she might have gone to bed died, and his sense of reluctance gained in force and made him feel slightly sick. he was there, however, and he had to go up. fitting his key into the lock he opened the hall door.
it was very quiet as he mounted the long stairs, but, as he drew near the top, he became aware of a windy, whistling noise and looking into the room near the stair-head saw that all the gas-jets were lit and turned on full cock, and that the gas, rushing out from the burner in a ragged banner of flame, made the sound. he was about to enter and lower it when he heard his wife’s voice coming from the open door of her room.
“is that you, dominick?” she called.
her voice was steady and high. though it was hard, with a sort of precise clearness of utterance, it was not conspicuously wrathful.
“yes,” he answered, “it’s i,” and he forgot the gas-jets and walked up the hall. he did not notice that in the other rooms he passed the gas was turned on in the same manner. the whistling rush of its escape made a noise like an excited, unresting wind in the confined limits of the little flat.
the door of berny’s room was open, and under a blaze of light from the chandelier and the side lights by the bureau she was sitting in a rocking-chair facing the foot of the bed. she held in her hand a walking-stick of dominick’s and with this she had been making long scratches across the foot-board, which was of walnut and was seamed back and forth, like a rock scraped by the passage of a glacier. as dominick entered, she desisted, ceased rocking, and turned to look at him. she had an air of taut, sprightly impudence, and was smiling a little.
“well, dominick,” she said jauntily, “you’re late.”
“yes, i believe i am,” he answered. “i did not come straight back. i walked about for a while.”
he slowly crossed the room to the fireplace and stood there looking down. there were some silk draperies on the mantel matched by those which were festooned over the room’s single window. he fastened his eyes on the pattern stamped on the looped-up folds, and was silent. he thought berny would realize from the fact that he had not come directly home that the invitation had been denied. this was his bungling, masculine way of breaking the news.
“took a walk,” she said, turning to the bed and beginning to rock. “it’s a queer sort of hour to choose for walking,” and lifting the cane she recommenced her occupation of scratching the foot-board with it, tracing long, parabolic curves across the entire expanse, watching the cane’s tip with her head tilted to one side. dominick, who was not looking at her, did not notice the noise.
“i thought,” she said, tracing a great arc from one side to the other, “that you were with your loving family—opening the ball, probably.”
he did not move, but said quietly,
“it was impossible to get the invitation, berny. i tried to do it and was refused. i want you to understand that as long as i live i’ll never do a thing like that again.”
“oh, yes, you will,” she said, laughing and shaking her head like an amused child. “oh, yes, you will.” she threw her head back and, looking at the ceiling, laughed still louder with a note of fierceness in the sound. “you’ll do it and lots more things like it. you’ll do it if i want you to, dominick ryan.”
he did not answer. she hitched her chair closer to the bed as if to return to an engrossing pastime, and, leaning back luxuriously, resumed her play with the cane. this time dominick noticed the noise and turned. she was conscious that he was looking at her, and began to scratch with an appearance of charmed absorption, such as an artist might display in his work. he watched her for a moment in silent astonishment and then broke out sharply,
“what are you doing?”
“scratching the bed,” she responded calmly.
“you must be mad,” he said, striding angrily toward her and stretching a hand for the cane. “you’re ruining it.”
she whipped the cane to the other side, out of his reach.
“am i?” she said, turning an eye of fiery menace on him. “maybe i am, and what’s that matter?” then, turning back to the bed, “too bad, isn’t it, and the set not paid for yet.”
“not paid for!” he exclaimed, so amazed by the statement that he forgot everything else. “why, i’ve given you the money for it twice!”
“three times,” she amended coolly, “and i spent it on things i liked better. i bought clothes, and jewelry with it, and little fixings i wanted. yes, the bedroom set isn’t all paid for yet and we’ve had it nearly two years. who would have thought that the son of con ryan didn’t pay his bills!”
she rose, threw the cane into the corner, and, turning toward him, leaned back, half-sitting on the foot-board, her hands, palm downward, pressed on its rounded top. the chandelier was directly over her head and cast a powerful light on her face. this was small, pointed, and of that sallow hue which is often noticeable in the skins of brunette women who are no longer in their first youth. she had a nose that drooped a little at the tip and an upper lip which was long and closed firmly and secretively on the lower one. her dark eyes, large and brilliant, had the slightest tendency toward a slanting setting, the outer corners being higher than the inner ones. under the shower of light from above, her thick hair, bleached to a reddish auburn and worn in a loose knot on top of her head, cast a shadow over her forehead, and below this her eyes blazed on her husband. many men would have thought her an unusually pretty woman, but no man, save one of her own sort, could have faced her at this moment without quailing.
dominick and she had had many quarrels, ignominious and repulsive, but he had never before seen her in so savage a mood. even yet he had not lost the feeling of responsibility and remorse he felt toward her. as he moved from the mantelpiece his eye had fallen on the ball-dress that lay, a sweep of lace and silver, across the bed, and on the bureau he had seen jewels and hair ornaments laid out among the powder boxes and scent bottles. the pathos of these futile preparations appealed to him and he made an effort to be patient and just.
“it’s been a disappointment,” he said, “and i’m sorry about it. but i’ve done all i could and there’s no use doing any more. you’ve got to give it up. there’s no use trying to make my mother give in. she won’t.”
“won’t she?” she cried, her voice suddenly loud and shaken with rage. “we’ll see! we’ll see! we’ll see if i’ve married into the ryan family for nothing.”
her wrath at last loosened, her control was instantly swept away. in a moment she was that appalling sight, a violent and vulgar woman in a raging passion. she ran round the bed and, seizing the dress, threw it on the floor and stamped on it, grinding the delicate fabric into the carpet with her heels.
“there!” she cried. “that’s what i feel about it! that’s the way i’ll treat the things and the people i don’t like! that dress—it isn’t paid for, but i don’t want it. i’ll get another when i do. have i married con ryan’s son to need money and bother about bills? not on your life! did you notice the gas? every burner turned on. well, i did it just to have a nice bright house for you when you came home without the invitation. we haven’t paid the bill for two months—but what does that matter? we’re related to the ryans. we don’t have to trouble about bills.”
he saw that she was beyond arguing with and turned to leave the room. she sprang after him and caught him by the arm, pouring out only too coherent streams of rage and abuse. it was the old story of the “wrongs” she had suffered at his hands, and his “ruin” of her. to-night it had no power to move him and he shook her off and left the room. she ran to the door behind him and leaning out, cried it after him.
he literally fled from her, down the hallway, with the open doorways sending their lurid light and hissing noise across his passage. as he reached the dining-room he heard her bang the door and with aggressive noise turn the key in the lock and shoot the bolt. even at that moment the lack of necessity for such a precaution caused a bitter smile to move his lips.
he entered the dining-room and sat down by the table, his head on his hands. it was very quiet; no noise came from the street outside, sinking into the deep restfulness of midnight, and from within there was only the tearing sound of the flaring gases and an occasional cool dropping from the filter in the pantry. he sat thus for some hours, trying to think what he should do. he found it impossible to come to any definite conclusion for the future; all he could decide upon now was the necessity of leaving his wife, getting a respite from her, withdrawing himself from the sight of her. he had never loved her, but to-night the pity and responsibility he had felt seemed to be torn from his life as a morning wind tears a cobweb from the grass.
the dawn was whitening the window-panes when he finally got pen and paper and wrote a few lines. these, without prefix or signature, stated that he would leave the city for a short time and not to make any effort to find where he had gone or communicate with him. he wrote her name on the folded paper and placed it in front of the clock. then he stole into his bedroom—they had occupied separate rooms for over six months—and packed a valise with his oldest and roughest clothes. after this he waited in the dining-room till the light was bright and the traffic of the day loud on the pavement, before he crept down the long stairway and went out into the crystal freshness of the morning.
