it was near eleven o’clock on that same sunday morning, when berny, wrappered and heavy-eyed, emerged from her room. she shuffled down the passage to the dining-room, sending her voice before her in a shrill summons to the chinaman. the morning papers were scattered over the table as dominick had left them and she gathered them up, sitting sidewise in her chair and running her eye down their columns, while the servant set out her breakfast. she was still sleepy, and frequent yawns interrupted her perusal of the lines of print which interested her above all written matter. a kimono clothed her slim form and from beneath its hem her foot protruded, thrust bare into a furred slipper. she folded the paper over to bring the society column into a prominence easy of access, and, propping it up against a bowl of fruit, read as she ate her breakfast.
toward the end of the meal she inquired of the servant at what time her husband had gone out, and received the reply that mr. ryan had had his breakfast and left the flat two hours earlier. there was nothing disconcerting or unusual about this, as dominick always went for a walk on fine sunday mornings, but her mind was far from easy and she immediately fell to wondering why he had departed so early, and the slight ferment of disquietude that was always with her stirred again and made her forget the society column and let her spanish omelet grow cold.
there was something strange about dominick since he had come back, something that intrigued her, that she could not satisfactorily explain. she assured herself that he was still angry, but in the deeper places of her understanding the voice that whispers the truth and will not be gainsaid told her it was not that. neither was it exactly antagonism. in a way he had been studiously kind and polite to her, a sort of consciously-guarded politeness, such as one might practise to a guest with whom one was intimate without being friendly. she tried to explain to herself just what this change was, and when it came to putting the matter in words she could not find the right ones. it was a coldness, a coldness that was not harsh and did not express itself in actions or phrases. it went deeper; it was exhaled from the inner places of his being.
sometimes as she talked to him she would meet his eyes fixed on her with a deep, vacant glance, which she suddenly realized was unseeing and unheeding. in the evening as he sat reading in the cramped confines of the den she surreptitiously watched him and saw that a moment often came when he dropped his book, and with his long body limp in the arm-chair, his chin sunk on his breast, would sit with a brooding gaze fixed on nothing. once, as he was dreaming this way, she said suddenly,
“what are you thinking of, dominick? antelope?”
he started and turned upon her a face that had reddened consciously.
“why should i think of antelope?” he said, and she was aware that her remark had startled him and made him uncomfortable.
“for no particular reason,” she answered lightly; “you just looked as if you were thinking of something a long way off.”
she tried to reassure herself that it all rose from the quarrel. to believe that comforted her and gave her confidence, but it was hard to think it, for not only did her own instinct proclaim against it, but dominick’s manner and attitude were in distinct refutation of any such theory. he was not sullen, he was absent; he was not resentful, he was indifferent. and in small outward ways he tried to please her, which was not after the manner of a sore and angry man. on this very sunday he had agreed to meet her and her family in the park at the band stand at four. she always dined with her sisters on sunday and if the weather was fine they went to the park and listened to the music. it was nearly a year now since dominick had joined these family parties, preferring to walk on the presidio hills and the cliff house beach with a friend from the bank. but on the evening before he had promised to meet them; been quite agreeable about it, berny had thought, when her pleadings and importunities had finally extorted from him a promise to join them there.
she left the dining-room and walked up the hallway to the parlor, her head drooped, anxieties gnawing at her. the little room was flooded with sunshine, and she parted the lace curtains and, throwing up the window, leaned out. the rich, enveloping warmth surrounded her, clasped her, seemed to sink deep into her and thaw the apprehensions that were so cold at her heart. she drew in the sweet, still air, that did not stimulate but that had in it something of a crystalline youth and freshness, like the air of an untainted world, concerned with nothing but the joy of living. the scents of flowers were in it; the mellowness of the earth and its fruits. peace was the message of this tranquil sunday morning, peace was in the sunshine, in the sound of bells with which the air was full, in the fall of feet—light, joyous feet—on the pavement, in the voices of passers-by and the laughter, sweet and broken, of children. it was not right for any one to harbor cankering cares on such a day. the earth was happy, abandoned to the sunshine, irresponsible, care free, rejoicing in the perfect moment. the woman felt the restoring processes that nature, in its tireless generosity, offers to all who will take them. she felt eased of her troubles, soothed and cheered, as though the enwrapping radiance that bathed her held an opiate for jangled nerves. blinking in the brightness she leaned on the window-sill, immovable, quieted, feeling the warmth suffuse her and dissipate those alarms that half an hour earlier had been so chill and heavy.
as she dressed, the sense of well-being and confidence increased. she looked very well this morning. since dominick’s return she had looked haggard and thin. sometimes she had seemed to see, showing shadowy through her reflected face in the mirror, the lines and hollows of that face when time should have put a stamp on it that neither massage nor pigments would efface. a sudden moment of revelation showed her herself as an old woman, her nose pointed, her mouth a thin, tight line. this morning the glass gave her back none of these disconcerting hints. she was at her best, and as she dressed carefully and slowly, she had the satisfaction of seeing that each added article of apparel increased her good looks. when she finally put on her new hat—the one she had bought in celebration of dominick’s return—and over it tied a white and black dotted veil, she was so gratified with the picture she presented that she was reluctant to leave it and pirouetted slowly before the glass, surveying her back and side views, and finally lifting her skirt that she might see the full effect of her lilac petticoat as it burst into sight in an ebullition of pleats and frills.
walking up the avenue she was bridlingly conscious that her brilliant appearance drew its tribute of glances. many people looked at her, and their sidelong admiration was an even more exhilarating tonic than the sunshine. she walked with a light, elastic step, spreading perfume on the air, her progress accompanied by a rich, seductive rustle. once or twice she passed members of that exclusive world from which she had stolen dominick. she swept by them, languidly indifferent, her eyes looking with glacial hauteur over their heads. the sound made by her brushing silk petticoats was gratifyingly aggressive. she imparted to them a slight disdainful swing, and lifted her dress skirt daintily higher, conscious of the impeccable amplitude of her emerging lilac frills.
the habit of dining with her own people on sunday had been one she had never abandoned, even in the first aspiring days of her marriage. it was a sort of family reunion and at first dominick had been a not unwilling participant in its domestic festivities. the solid bourgeois respectability of his wife’s relations appealed to him. for all his advantages in money and education he was of the same class himself, and while berny was, if not a beloved spouse, a yet endurable one, he had found the sunday gatherings and subsequent hejira to the park not entirely objectionable. for over a year now he had escaped from it, pleading the need of open air and exercise, and his sisters-in-law, who had at first protested, had grown used to his absence and accepted it as something to bear uncomplainingly.
the day was so fine that they hurried through their dinner, a hearty and lavish meal, the chef-d’œuvre of hannah’s housekeeping, and, loath to lose a moment of the sunshine, determined to walk down to van ness avenue and there catch an outgoing car to the park. it was the middle of the afternoon and the great thoroughfare lay still and idle in the slanting light. there was something foreign, almost tropical in its vista, in the scene that hung like a drop curtain at the limit of sight—pale blue hills dotted with ochre-colored houses—in the background of sky deep in tint, the foliage dark against it as if printed upon its intense glaring blue, in the sharp lines of palms and spiky leaves crossing stuccoed walls. the people that moved slowly along the sidewalks fitted into this high-colored exotic setting. there was no hurry or crowding among them. they progressed with an un-american deliberation, tasting the delicate sweetness of the air, rejoicing in the sky and the sun, pausing to look at the dark bushiness of a dracæna against a wash of blue, the skeleton blossom of a century plant, the pool of thick scarlet made by a parterre of geranium.
the three sisters—hannah and pearl leading, berny and hazel walking behind with josh—fared buoyantly down the street. as they passed, they commented on the houses and their inmates. they had plenty of stories of the dwellers in those solemn palaces, many of whom were people whose humble beginnings they knew by heart, and whose rapid rise had been watched almost awe-stricken by an admiring and envious community.
as the ryan house loomed into view their chatter ceased and their eyes, serious with staring attention, were fixed on the mansion which had so stubbornly closed its doors on one of them. sensations of varying degrees of animosity stirred in each of them, except the child, still too young to be tainted by the corroding sense of worldly injustice. she skipped along sidewise, her warm, soft hand clasped in her aunt hannah’s decently-gloved palm. some wave or vibration of the intense feelings of her elders passed to her, and as they drew nearer the house she, too, began to grow grave, and her skipping quieted down into a sober walk.
“that’s uncle dominick’s house, isn’t it?” she said to hannah.
hannah nodded. by far the most amiable and wide-minded of the sisters, she could not rise above the sense of rankling indignation that she felt against the ryans for their treatment of berny.
“that’s the biggest house in san francisco,” said pearl over her shoulder to her parents. “ain’t it, popper?”
“i guess it is,” answered josh, giving his head a confirmatory wag, “and even if it ain’t, it’s big enough, the lord knows!”
“i can’t see what a private family wants with all that room,” said hannah with a condemnatory air. “there must be whole sootes of rooms on that upper floor that nobody lives in.”
“don’t you fret. they’re all occupied,” said berny. “each one of them has their own particular soote. cornie has three rooms all of her own, and even the housekeeper has a private bath!”
“and there’s twelve indoor servants,” said hazel. “they want a lot of space for them. twelve servants, just think of it!”
“twelve servants!” ejaculated hannah almost with a groan. “well, that don’t seem to me right.”
they were close to the house now and silence fell on them, as though the antagonism of its owners was exhaled upon them from the mansion’s aggressive bulk, like an unspoken curse. they felt overawed, and at the same time proud that one of their number should have even the most distant affiliations with a family too exclusive to know her. the women with their more responsive and sensitive natures felt it more delicately than josh, who blunderingly expressed one of the thoughts of the moment by remarking,
“some day you’ll live in there, berny, and boss the twelve servants.”
“rats!” said berny, giving her head an angry toss. “i’d rather live in my flat and boss sing.”
josh’s whistle of facetious incredulity died away incomplete, for at that moment the hall door opened and a portly masculine shape emerged upon the porch. berny, at the first glance, was not sure of its identity, but her doubts were dispelled by her brother-in-law’s quick sentence, delivered on the rise of a surprised breath.
“bill cannon, by gum! what’s he doing there?”
this name, as powerful to conjure with in the city as in the mining-camps, cast its instantaneous spell upon the sisters, who stared avid-eyed upon the great man. he for his part seemed oblivious to their glances and to their presence. he stood on the top step for a musing moment, looking down with that sort of filmy fixity of gaze which is noticeable in the glance of the resting eagle. his appearance was a last crowning touch to the proud, unapproachable distinction of the ryans.
“don’t he look as if he was thinking?” said hazel in a whisper. “i wonder what’s on his mind.”
“probably that monday’s pay-day and he don’t know whether he can scratch through,” said the jocose josh.
berny did not say anything. she felt the interest in cannon that she did in all conquering, successful people, and in her heart it gave her a sense of added importance to think that the family she had married into and who refused to know her was on friendly terms with the bonanza king.
a half-hour later they had found seats in front of the band stand in the park, and, settling themselves with a great rustling and preening of plumage, prepared to enjoy the music. hannah and pearl were given two chairs at the end of a row, and hazel and berny, with josh as escort, secured four on the line immediately behind. dominick had not yet appeared, so the sisters spread their skirts over a vacant seat between them, and berny, in the intervals of inspecting the people around her, sent exploring glances about for the tall figure of her husband.
she was very fond of the park and band stand on such sunday afternoons. to go there had been one of the great diversions of her girlhood. she loved to look at this holiday gathering of all types, among which her own class was largely represented. the outdoor amphitheater of filled benches was to her what the ball-room and the glittering horseshoe at the opera are to the woman of society. she saw many old friends among the throng, girls who had been contemporaries of hers when she had first “gone to work,” and had long since married in their own world and now dragged children by the hand. she looked them over with an almost passionate curiosity, discomfited to see the fresh youth of some, and pleased to note that others looked weighed down with maternal cares. berny regarded women who had children as fools, and the children grouped about these mothers of her own age—three and four sometimes, with the husband carrying a baby—were to her only annoying, burdensome creatures that made the party seem a little ridiculous, and had not half the impressiveness or style of her elegant costume and lilac frills.
the magnificent afternoon had brought out a throng of people. every seat in the lines of benches was full and foot passengers kept constantly coming up, standing for a few measures,and then moving on. they were of all kinds. the beauty of the day had even tempted the more fashionable element out, and the two sisters saw many elegantly-dressed ladies of the sort on whom hazel fitted hats all day, and that evoked in berny a deep and respectful curiosity. both women, sitting high in their chairs, craned their necks this way and that, spying through breaks in the crowd, and following attractive figures with dodging movements of their heads. when either one saw anything she liked or thought interesting she laid a hand on the other’s knee, giving it a slight dig, and designated the object of her attention in a few broken words, detached and disconnected like notes for a sentence.
they were thus engaged when hazel saw dominick and, rising, hailed him with a beckoning hand. he made his way toward them, moving deliberately, once or twice pausing to greet acquaintances. he was taller than any man in the surrounding throng and berny, watching him, felt a sense of proprietary pride swelling in her when she noted his superiority. the son of an irish laborer and a girl who had begun life as the general servant in a miner’s boarding-house, he looked as if his forebears might have been the flower of the nation. he wore a loose-fitting suit of gray tweed, a wide, gray felt sombrero, and round his waist a belt of yellow leather. his collar turning back from his neck exposed the brown strength of his throat, and on lifting his hat in a passing salutation, his head with its cropped curly hair, the ears growing close against it, showed golden brown in the sunlight.
with a phrase of greeting he joined them, and then as they swept their skirts off the chair they had been hiding, slipped in front of berny and sat down. hazel began to talk to him. her conversation was of a rallying, joking sort, at which she was quite proficient. berny heard him laugh and knew by the tone of his voice that he was pretending and was not really amused. she had nothing particular to say to him, feeling that she had accomplished enough in inducing him to join them, and, sitting forward on the edge of her chair, continued to watch the people. a blonde coiffure some rows in front caught her eye and she was studying its intricacies through the interstices that came and went between the moving heads, when the sudden emergence into view of an unusually striking female figure diverted her attention. the woman had come up from behind and, temporarily stopped by the crowd, had come to a standstill a few rows in front of where the sisters sat. she was accompanied by a young man dressed in the sunday dignity of frock-coat and silk hat. as he turned to survey the lines of filled chairs, berny saw that he had a pale skin, a small black mustache, and dark eyes.
but her interest in him was of the slightest. her attention was immediately riveted upon the woman, who became the object of a glance which inspected her with a piercing eagerness from her hat to the hem of her shirt. berny could not see her face, but her habiliments were of the latest mode and of an unusual and subdued elegance which bespoke an origin in a more sophisticated center than san francisco. berny, all agog with curiosity, stared at the lady’s back, noting not only her clothes but a certain carelessness in the way they were put on. her hat was not quite straight. the comb, which crossed the back of her head and kept her hair smooth, was crooked, and blonde wisps hung from it over her collar. the hand that held up her skirt in a loose perfunctory manner, as though these rich encasings were possessions of no moment, was covered by a not particularly clean white glove.
such unconsciousness added the distinction of indifference to the already marked figure. berny wondered more than ever who it was and longed to see the averted face. she was about to lean across dominick and attract hazel’s attention by a poking finger directed against her knee, when the woman, with a word to her companion, moved her head and let a slow glance sweep over the rows of faces.
“hazel,” berny hissed across dominick, “look at that girl. who is she?”
she did not divert her eyes from the woman’s face, which she now saw in profile. it was pretty, she thought, more from a rich, unmingled purity of coloring than from any particular beauty of feature. the head with its gravely-traveling glance continued to turn till berny had the satisfaction of seeing the face in three-quarters. a moment later the moving eyes lighted indifferently on hazel, then ceased to progress, suddenly, bruskly, as though checked by the imperative stoppage of regulating machinery.
only a person watching closely would have noticed it, but berny was watching with the most vigilant closeness. she saw the infusion of a new and keener interest transform the glance, concentrate its lazy, diffused attention into something that had the sharpness and suddenness of a leaping flame. the next moment a flood of color rose clearly pink over the face, and then, most surprising of all, the lady bent her head in a grave, deliberate bow.
berny turned, startled—and in a vague, undefined way, disturbed, too—to see who had been the object of this salutation. to her astonishment it was dominick. as she looked at him, he replaced his hat and she saw—to the augmentation of that vague sense of disturbance—that he was as pale as the bowing woman was pink.
“dominick,” she exclaimed, “who’s that?”
“miss cannon,” he said in a low tone.
“rose cannon?” hissed hazel on the other side of him, her face thrust forward, and tense in the interest of the moment, “bill cannon’s daughter?”
“yes. i met her at antelope.”
“berny, did you see her dress?” hazel hung over her brother-in-law in her excitement. “that’s straight from paris, i’ll bet you a dollar.”
“yes, i saw it,” said berny in a voice that did not sound particularly exhilarated; “maybe it is.”
she looked back at miss cannon who had turned away and was moving off through the crowd with her escort. then she leaned toward dominick. his voice had not sounded natural; as she placed her arm against his she could feel that he trembled.
she said nothing but settled back in her chair, dryly swallowing. in those few past moments her whole world had undergone a revolution that left her feeling dazed and a little sick. it was as if the earth had suddenly whirled around and she had come up panting and clutching among familiar things reversed and upset. in an instantaneous flash of illumination she saw everything—the look in the woman’s eyes, her rush of color, dominick’s voice, his expression, the trembling of his arm—it was all perfectly plain! this was the girl he had been shut in antelope with for three weeks. now she knew what the change was, the inexplicable, mysterious change that had so puzzled her.
she felt bewildered, and under her bewilderment a pain, a fierce, unfamiliar pain, gripped her. she did not for the moment say anything or want to speak, and she felt as a child does who is dazed and stupefied by an unexpected assault of ill treatment. the slight sensation of inward sinking, that made her feel a little sick, continued and she sat in a chilled and drooping silence, all her bridling conceit in herself and her fine clothes stricken suddenly out of her.
she heard hazel asking dominick questions about miss cannon, and she heard dominick’s answers, brief and given with a reticent doggedness. then hazel asked him for the time and she was conscious of his elbow pressing against her arm as he felt for his watch. as he drew it out and held it toward the questioner, berny suddenly leaned forward, and, catching his hand with the watch in it, turned its face toward her. the hand beneath hers was cold, and shook. she let it go and again sank back in her chair. the feeling of sickness grew stronger and was augmented by a sense of physical feebleness, of being tremulous and cold deep down in her bones.
hazel rose to her feet, shaking her skirts into place.
“let’s go on,” she said, “it’s getting chilly. come along, josh. i suppose if you were let alone, you’d sit here till sundown listening to the music in a trance.”
dominick and josh rose and there was an adjusting and putting-on of wraps. berny still sat motionless, her hands, stiff in their tight gloves, lying open on her lap.
“come along, berny,” said hazel. “it’s too cold to sit here any longer. why, how funny you look, all pale and shriveled up! you’re as bad as josh. you and he ought to have married each other. you’d have been a prize couple.”
josh laughed loudly at this sally, leaning round the figure of his wife to present his foolish, good-humored face, creased with a grin, to berny.
“are you willing, berny?” he cried gaily. “i can get a divorce whenever you say. it will be dead easy; brutal and inhuman treatment. just say the word!”
“there’ll be brutal and inhuman treatment if you don’t move on and stop blocking the way, josh mccrae,” said hazel severely. “i want to go out that side and there you are right in the path, trying to be funny.”
the cheerful josh, still laughing, turned and moved onward between the seats, the others following him. the mass of the crowd was not yet leaving, and as the little group moved forward in a straggling line toward the drive, the exciting opening of the william tell overture boomed out from the sounding board. it was a favorite piece, and they left lingeringly, hazel and josh particularly fascinated, with heads turned and ears trained on the band. josh’s hand, passed through his wife’s arm, affectionately pressed her against his side, for despite the sharpness of their recriminations they were the most loving of couples.
berny was the last of the line. in the flurry of departure her silence had passed unnoticed, and that she should thus lag at the tail of the procession was not in any way remarkable, as, at the best of times, she was not much of a walker and in her high-heeled sunday shoes her progress was always deliberate.
looking ahead of her, she saw the landscape still as a picture under the slanting, lurid sunlight. it seemed to be painted with unnaturally glaring tints, to be soaked in color. the grass, crossed with long shadows, was of the greenness of an aniline dye. the massed foliage of tree groups showed a melting richness of shades, no one clearly defined, all fused in a thick, opaque lusciousness of greens. the air was motionless and very clear. where a passing carriage stirred the dust the powdery cloud rose, spreading a tarnishing blur on the crystalline clarity of the scene. the sun injected these dust films with gold, and they settled slowly, as if it made them heavy like ground-up particles of metal.
yet, to berny, this hectic prospect looked gray; all color seemed sucked from it. it appeared pale and alien, its comfortable intimacy gone. she was like a stranger walking in a strange place, a forlorn, remote land, where she felt miserable and homesick. the sense of being dazed was passing from her. walking forward with short, careful steps, she was slowly coming to the meaning of her discovery—adjusting herself to it, realizing its significance. she had an uncomfortable sensation of not being able to control the muscles round her mouth, so that if spoken to she would have had difficulty in answering, and would have been quite unable to smile.
an open carriage passed her, and she drew aside, then mechanically looked after it as it rolled forward. there was a single figure in it—a woman. berny could see her head over the lowered hood, and the little parasol she held, white with a black lace cover and having a joint in the handle. her eyes followed this receding head, moving so evenly against the background of trees. it soared along without sinking or rising, with the even, forward flight of a bird, passed hannah and josh and hazel, turning to drop on them quick looks, which seemed, from its elevated position and the shortness of the inspection, to have something of disdain in them.
as the carriage drew near dominick, who walked at the head of the line with pearl by the hand, berny saw the head move, lean forward, and then, as the vehicle overhauled and passed the young man, turn at right angles and bow to him. the wheel almost brushed his shoulder. he drew back from it with a start and lifted his hat. hazel, who was walking just in front of berny, turned and projecting her lips so that they stood out from her face in a red circle, hissed through them,
“old lady ryan!” and then in a slightly louder key,
“you take a hatchet and i’ll take a saw,
and we’ll cut off the head of my mother-in-law.”
