Ancestors: A Novel

  XXXIV

  The hour was four, and after they had said their last good-night to theguests whose homes lay between the Hofer mansion and their own, they metbut one foot passenger as belated as themselves. This was a big man thatloomed suddenly out of the fog. Isabel screamed and ran into the middleof the street, and Gwynne, who had obediently taken out his pistol, halfraised it. But the man laughed.

  "I'm on the lookout for thim meself," he said, in a rich brogue. "Goodluck to yees."

  As they let themselves into the house, Gwynne threw his hat and coat onthe settle in the vestibule, and then ran his hand through his hair andrubbed the back of his head, a habit of his when he had a suggestion tomake.

  "I remember we were going to sit up the rest of that night--ormorning--after Arcot," he said. "Are you very tired?"

  "Tired? I shall not sleep a wink for hours. The fire is sure to be laidin the tower-room."

  They went into the small circular room, furnished in several shades ofgreen, that Isabel had retained for her own use, and while she shookdown her skirts Gwynne applied a match to the coals. The raw morning airhad penetrated the house, too old-fashioned to have a furnace, butwooden walls are quickly heated. When Gwynne had removed the blowerseveral times and satisfied himself that the hard coals would burn, heresumed the perpendicular.

  He looked doubtfully at Isabel, who was still wrapped in her cloak, andhad elevated her feet, covered with the long carriage-boots, to thefender. "Sha'n't you take off those things?" he asked. "You don't lookas if you meant to stay."

  "You can take off the boots, but I'll keep on my coat for a fewmoments."

  He laughed as he knelt again. "I certainly am getting broken in. I haveknown Englishwomen to pull off their husband's hunting-boots after ahard day's work--"

  "The idea!"

  "Very good idea. Do you mean that you would not?"

  "Well, I might, as a return favor. You need not take all night to pulloff mine."

  "You might, at least, let virtue be its own reward. It's not often ithas the chance."

  "Well, get up and don't be an idiot. I suppose you have been flirting inthe conservatory all the evening and haven't had time to readjust yourmood."

  "Mrs. Hofer has no conservatory. Great oversight. But I did sit out adance or two in that room with the immense window--"

  "With whom?"

  "I have forgotten her name. Will you have a cigarette?"

  "No, but you may smoke if you like."

  He had settled himself in a deep chair on the opposite side of thehearth. There was a silence of nearly ten minutes, until Isabel,suddenly removing her coat, brought Gwynne out of his reverie.

  "I cannot say that to-night was in any sense a repetition of my ownexperience at Arcot," he said, abruptly. "That night--I have tried toforget it--I had enough adulation to turn any man's head. I fancy it_was_ pretty well turned, and that made the wrench during the smallhours the more severe. Still, it has been an interesting evening, andone or two things happened."

  "What?" Isabel was full of her own experiences, but too much of a womanto betray the fact when a man wanted to talk about himself.

  "I danced for a while, but I had had exercise enough during the day, anddidn't care particularly about it. Besides, all the girls I danced with,and that one I sat up-stairs with for a few minutes, not only talked myhead off, but quizzed me, and I did not understand it. To my amazement,I learned not long after that they know who I am. Can you imagine how itgot out?"

  "They know everything. It is an old saying that the San Francisco girlsscent a stranger the moment he leaves the tram at the Oakland mole, andknow all about him before he has registered. The obscurest knight couldnot hide himself in this town. Rosewater alone saved you so long. Howdid they quiz you?"

  "Each began at once to talk about my 'distinguished relative, EltonGwynne.' I may be more dense than most, or perhaps I was merely bored,but I assumed that they thought I was his brother and knew hiswhereabouts. When supper was half over, and I was congratulating myselfthat I had got out of the _cotillon_, even with you, for it meantdancing with a lot of others, my host took me firmly by the arm andmarched me up-stairs. He informed me that he was 'bored stiff,' couldsee that I was, and had 'coralled' a few more choice spirits. We went,not to the smoking or billiard-room, but to his own bedroom, and here Ifound four or five more of your strenuous millionaires, the reformeditor, and the lawyer that looks like a bull-dog waiting for the wordto spring at the throat of the Boss and his whole vile crew.

  "Here we sat and smoked until the air inside was as thick as the fogthat blotted out the lights of the city and towns opposite. Of coursethe talk was of the rotten state of San Francisco. I never heard thewhole story before, and it made my hair stand on end. I knew that viceflaunted itself more openly here than elsewhere, but I did not guessthat the thousand and one establishments of every sort, from the lowestnegro dive under the sidewalk, and the snares for the very young of bothsexes, straight up to the most gaudy 'French restaurants,' as well asChinatown, Barbary coast, and all the rest, paid tribute to the gang ofpolitical ruffians that have got control of the city. No wonder the lasthave developed a preternatural sharpness that makes it next toimpossible to bring the charges home, for they will all be rich enoughin time to move to Europe and buy up such salable scions ofimproverished houses as happen to be on the market. The thing is as wellknown as I know that you are my third cousin, but, although thesecond-rate grafters are brazen enough, it is not worth while to attackthem until the Boss is done for, and so far he has proved much tooclever to be caught. A college man, although of low origin, and anaccomplished lawyer of a sort, he pockets huge sums from thesedisreputable establishments, for himself and his minion, the mayor, andcalls them attorney's fees. Naturally the panderers to vice won't admitthey are blackmailed: they are between the devil and the deep sea; ifthe fight came on in earnest, and they gave evidence against the Boss,and the Boss won, he would clean them all out and put others in. TheReformers, if they won, would clean them out too; so, naturally, theyhold their tongues and hope this reform movement will peter out as somany others have done. So do the Board of Supervisors whom the Boss alsoowns and through whom he blackmails the great corporations. But--andwhen they had got to this point in the talk there was an abrupt pause,and then Hofer turned to me and said: 'Even if you don't come in andjoin us, which I always hope you will do, I know a man that can keep hismouth shut when I see him. So fire away.'

  "And then they discussed the fact that one of their number had recentlygone to Washington to ask the President to send out an able man of theGovernment Secret Service; they have every reason to believe that thisrequest will be complied with. With sufficient evidence they would thenmake a quiet crusade in the hope of rousing public spirit to the extentof forcing in a grand jury that could not be bought by the Boss.Needless to say he has controlled every grand jury that has met duringhis reign, and one might as well hope to convict a wind for unroofing ahouse, even were he not master of every legal trick himself, and had hetaken less pains to cover up his tracks. In this detective lies theirchief hope at present; but what a slender hope it is, when you considerthe devil-may-care character of these San Franciscans, who would danceon the edge of hell, with equal nonchalance, if only there were a screenbetween. There is not an outstanding excuse for forming a vigilancecommittee, as there was during the Dennis Kearney-Anti-Chinese riots of1879, and there is no such aroused public spirit and indignation assustained the Vigilantes of the Fifties. These rascals take good care tobe non-sensational in their methods, and what the San Franciscan doesn'tsee doesn't worry him. The city is rich, prosperous, famous, touristsare pouring in, the best in drama and opera comes yearly--to bepresented in fire-traps whose owners pay toll to the Boss; they alreadyhave the handsomest hotels in the world, the finest cooking, climate;even earthquakes--severe ones--have moved elsewhere. What can you dowith a people like that? They are fairly insolent in their sense ofsecurity. Let the political gang make their share. There is e
nough forall. But don't bother us. Let us be happy. _Vive la bagatelle._ Thereyou have the motto of San Francisco.

  "By the time they had threshed the subject out, explaining details andplans to me, as if I were already one of them, I was feeling prettyuncomfortable. Naturally, I blurted out that I could no longer accepttheir hospitality and confidence on false pretences, and told them who Iwas. Each got up in turn, solemnly held out his hand, and said, 'Shake.'Then Hofer informed me that they had all been practically certain forsome time that I was myself; being good enough to add: 'We knew therecouldn't be more than one of you; and we are also able to put two andtwo together, occasionally. Before we thought of it, however, you struckus all as being a man accustomed to homage. Later we discovered that youwere choke full of seven different kinds of ability, and it was thenthat the twos began to move towards each other on the board; and wedecided that we must have you here, right here in San Francisco. Whatcan a man like you find in a God-forsaken place like Rosewater, anyhow?The Eggopolis! You can't afford to hail from there; it would stick toyou for the rest of your life. And we have just got to have you. We mayhave some of the ablest lawyers in the country in San Francisco, and afew honest ones, but we can accommodate one more; and a man that willthrow over a great title and an already won name for the sake ofstanding on his own legs--that's the sort of stuff the old pioneers weremade of. So, here you must come, and stand shoulder to shoulder withus.'

  "I replied that I must finish my law studies with Judge Leslie first,and have some little practice under his direction; that I intended to goin for politics, but that for some years all the power over men I couldacquire would be through the law--and I had remarkable chances forcontact in and about Rosewater; where, moreover, if they learned who Iwas it would not matter much. It might be quite otherwise in the city.To this they agreed: that is to say, that I should remain in Rosewaterfor six months or a year longer; but they asked me to promise that ifany great emergency arose, in which they believed I could be of use, Iwould come at their call. And I promised."

  He rose and moved restlessly about the room. "Upon my word!" heexclaimed; and Isabel, who had not taken her eyes off him, although hehad addressed the greater part of his talk to the fire, noted that hewas paler than usual--and that his eyes were very bright; "upon my word,I really do feel more elated than on that night at Arcot. That smalldevoted band of men!--most of them with millions they might take to themost civilized capitals of the world and spend in splendid enjoyment--Inever have met such patriotism! It is magnificent! And to find it outhere in this stranded city--that fascinates the very heart out of you,by-the-way--I don't know that I wonder so much--I believe I shallsuccumb myself in time--it is like being on another planet. At any rateI hated myself to-night for any sickness of spirit I may have permittedto linger--for a while my very personality seemed to melt into what mayprove an even greater cause than all that appears on the surface. Thepresent California may be merely the nucleus of a great future Westerncivilization, so unlike the Eastern that no doubt it will disseveritself in time and breed still wider divergences; until the oldgeneric term American will no longer apply to both. Moreover, italready feels that it owns the Pacific, and faces the Orient alone.And to rebuild this city--you have seen the Burnham plans--transformit into the most beautiful city of the modern world--to give it agreat, instead of a merely brilliant and erratic civilization--a perfectadministration--what dreamers! What imagination! It is an inspiration tocome into contact with an idealism that money, and power, and dailycontact with the mean and base in human nature--"

  "I could love you!" cried Isabel. "If you say any more, I believe Ishall kiss you again."

  "If you do," said Gwynne, deliberately, "I shall neither pinch you norpush you away. But you may regret it, nevertheless."

  He threw himself once more into his chair and clasped his hands behindhis head. "It is an astonishing fact," he said--"This--I was reading thehistory of the Kearney riots, only the other day. The commentator wasvery severe on the Irish and German element that imperilled the city forpurely personal reasons; that was responsible for the most remarkableand reprehensible of all the State Constitutions. That was not quitethirty years ago. Whether any of these men, who are mainly of Irish orGerman descent, are the sons or grandsons of any of those old Sand-lotagitators I have no means of knowing; probably not, their fortunes wereno doubt already in the making, and the founders had graduated from theclass that went to sand-lot meetings and shouted, 'The Chinese must go.'But it is certainly one of the oddest evolutions in history that itshould be the descendants of that foreign element alone that take anyreal interest in this city; that are ardent to reform it, beautify it;that are willing to devote their time and a good part of their fortunesto that end. So far, although I have met in the clubs many old gentlemenof charming manners and prehistoric descent--that is from '49, or eventhe more pretentious East and South; and, at all sorts of places, theirsons--who are either building up new fortunes or spending oldones--there is not one, so far as my observation serves me, that haslifted a finger to fling off this octopus. Hofer says they have evenceased to grumble. Their incomes are assured. Some are merely well off,others immensely wealthy--with a sufficiency invested elsewhere. All cancommand about the same amount of luxury, however their establishmentsmay vary in splendor. And nothing can exceed the luxury of their Clubs.The older men at least--and they are not so old--have subsided into aslothful content that makes them a cross between a higher sort ofcarnivorous animal and the tacit supporters of the criminals in power.These friends of mine, whose fathers may or may not have listened toKearney in the Sand-lots, are worth the whole lot of your ancientaristocracy--hybrid, anyhow--and if I do 'hang out my shingle' here inSan Francisco, they are the only ones I care anything about knowing.They are the only real Americans I have met, for that matter--accordingto your own standards--" He broke off abruptly and leaned forward,smiling at his companion. "I meant to ask you as soon as we got home totell me all about your first great party in your beloved city, but Ihave been led away by my natural egotism. You were, by general acclaim,I fancy, the beauty of the evening. Did you enjoy it all as much as youexpected?"

  "I fancy I should have enjoyed it more if I had been up-stairs with you.I found it more of an effort than I had imagined to make conversationwith those young men. Of course I enjoyed being openly admired andbesought for dances. Who wouldn't? But I never deluded myself for amoment that I was anything approaching those old-time belles. As theconditions have passed away, however, my vanity doesn't suffer. At allevents I am going to carry out my program and rush about to everythingthat is given this week, to forget Rosewater, every aspiration, all thatever happened to me. Every girl should have one girl's good time, andalthough mine is belated, it would be silly to let it pass. Besides, Iam curious to see if I really can--well, delude myself."

  "So am I! I have an idea you won't. You are quite different from allthose girls, who are at the same time the brightest and the mostfrivolous, the most feminine and the most modern, the most daring andthe most indifferent, I have ever met. Those that have been as carefullybrought up as our ninetieth cousin, Inez Trennahan, are simply mouldsfor the future to run into. There were several young persons that lookedas if they might go pretty far in a conservatory--perhaps that is thereason Mrs. Hofer has none. She appears to have Irish virtue in excess,and I expect the larky would get short shrift from her. But you--you arequite unlike them all."

  "I am a Californian," said Isabel, defiantly.

  "Yes, but of a very exclusive sort--to say nothing of the peculiarcircumstances that were bound to breed seriousness of mind. And you havequite a distinguished collection of real ancestors, and intellectinstead of mere cleverness. It is only once in a while that your--let mewhisper it--Western frankness and ingenuousness leap out--theimpulsiveness, the electric passion. When a certain amount ofreadjustment has gone on inside of you and your more natural elementswork their way up and take possession, I really believe I shall fall inlove with you, and marr
y you out of hand--if you remain as beautiful asyou are to-night."

  "All right," said Isabel, pretending to stifle a yawn. "That would beinteresting. All the clocks are booming something. Let us go out and seeif the sun is rising."

  She wrapped herself in her cloak once more, and they climbed to thecrest of the hill and watched the sun rise behind the Berkeley mountainsand bathe San Francisco in trembling fire. It routed what was left ofthe fog, although for a time the walls and waters of the Golden Gatelooked darker than before, and Tamalpais was a mountain of onyx. In afew moments the smoke that wrapped the San Francisco day in a brownperpetual haze began to ascend first from the little chimneys and thenfrom the great stacks. But until then every steeple, every tower, thegreat piles of stone and brick in the valley, the old gardens full ofeucalyptus-trees and weeping willows, the strange assortment ofarchitectures on Nob Hill, even the rows of houses on the taperinghalf-circle of hills beyond the valley, miles away, stood out as brightand sharp and shadowless as if caught and imprisoned in a crystal ball.It was the drifting smoke that seemed to bind all together and make thecity fit for humanity.

  Gwynne pointed to a spot far to the southeast, in the valley betweenMarket Street--the wide diagonal highway that cut the city in two, andran from the ferries almost to the foot of Twin Peaks--and the highmound known as Rincon Hill. "There," he said, "are the hovels and shopsthat cover the block belonging to my mother and myself, and that is tomake us rich. Half is practically sold, and the proceeds, and the moneyraised on the other half, will erect a building that is to cost some twohundred thousand dollars. The insurance rates will be enormous, but evenso the income should be really a great one. If all goes well, thefoundations--of reinforced concrete, although they still laugh atearthquakes--but Mr. Colton is a monster of caution--will be laid inabout six weeks, and then I shall watch the steel framework rise with avery considerable interest."

  "That means the beginnings of a millionaire. Do you really care so muchto be rich?"

  "I know the value of money," said Gwynne, dryly. "I have no intention ofbuying men after the fashion of your friend Tom Colton, but it is amighty good background for personality. Now you had better go in and getsome beauty sleep."