The Gray Dawn

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Gray Dawn

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"But that means the future--"

"It doesn't say so."

Neil paused a moment.

"This contract would not hold in law, and you know it," he asserted boldly.
"It would be held to be an illegal conspiracy."

"I would be pleased to have you point out the illegality in court," said
Keith coldly, his manner as frosty as Neil's. "And if conspiracy exists,
your name is affixed to it."

Neil pondered this point a moment, then drew his checkbook toward him with
a grim little smile.

"Young man, you win," said he.

Keith thawed to sunniness at once.

"Oh, we'll work together all right, once we understand each other," he
laughed. "Send your man out after scrip. Let him report to me."

Neil arose rather stiffly, and extended his hand.

"All right, all right!" he muttered, as though impatient. "Keep In touch.
Good-day. Good-day."

XXI

The time for the annual Firemen's Ball was now at hand. At this period the
Firemen's Ball was an institution of the first social importance. As has
been shown, the various organizations were voluntary associations, and in
their ranks birds of a feather flocked together. On the common meeting
ground of the big annual function all elements met, even--if they did not
mingle as freely as they might.

In any case, the affair was very elaborate and very gorgeous. Preparations
were in the hands of special committees months in advance. One company had
charge of the refreshments, another of the music, a third of the floor
arrangements, and so on. There was much jealous anxiety that each should do
its part thoroughly and lavishly, for the honour of its organization. The
members of each committee were distinguished by coloured ribbons, which
they wore importantly everywhere. An air of preoccupied business was the
proper thing for days before the event.

It was held this year in one of the armouries. The decoration committee had
done its most desperate. Flags of all nations and strips of coloured
bunting draped the rafters; greens from the Sausalito Hills framed the
windows and doors; huge oiled Chinese lanterns swayed from the roofs. The
floor shone like glass. At either end bowers of green half concealed the
orchestras--two of them, that the music might never cease. The side rooms
were set for refreshments. Many chairs lined the walls. Hundreds of lamps
and reflectors had been nailed up in every conceivable place. It took a
negro over an hour to light them all. Near the door stood a wide, flat
table piled high with programs for the dancers. These were elaborate
affairs, and had cost a mint of money--vellum folders, emblazoned in colour
outside, with a sort of fireman heraldry and the motto: "We strive to
save." Gilded pencils on short silken tasselled cords dangled from their
corners.

At eight o'clock the lights were all blazing, the orchestras were tuning,
and the floor fluttered with anxious labelled committeemen dashing to and
fro. There was nothing for them to do, but they were nervous. By half-past
eight the first arrivals could be seen hesitating at the outer door, as
though reluctant to make a plunge; herded finally to the right and left of
men's and women's dressing-rooms. After a long, chattering interval,
encouraged by the slow accumulation of numbers, a little group debouched on
the main, floor. Its members all talked and laughed feverishly, and tried
with varying success to assume an accustomed ease they did not feel. Most
of the women, somehow, seemed all white gloves and dancing slippers, and
bore themselves rather like affable, slightly scared rabbits. The men
suddenly became very facetious, swapping jokes in loud tones.

The orchestra at the far end immediately struck up, but nobody ventured on
the huge and empty floor. Masters of ceremonies, much bebadged, rather
conscious of white gloves, strove earnestly with hurried, ingratiating
smiles to induce the younger members to break the ice. Ben Sansome,
remarkable among them for his social ease and the unobtrusive correctness
of his appointments, responsible head of the reception committee,
masterfully seized a blushing, protesting damsel and whirled her away.
This, however, was merely an informal sort of opening. The real bail could
start only with the grand march; and the grand march was a pompous and
intricate affair, possible only after the arrival of the city's elite.
Partners for the grand march had been bespoken months before.

The Keiths arrived about half-past nine. Nan was looking particularly well
in her girlish fashion. Her usual delicate colour was heightened by
anticipation, for she intended ardently to "have a good time." For this
occasion, too, she had put on the best of her new Eastern clothes, and was
confident of the sensation they would create in the feminine breast. The
gown was of silk the colour of pomegranate blossoms, light and filmy, with
the wide skirts of the day, the short sleeves, the low neck. Over bodice
and skirt had been gracefully trailed long sprays of blossoms. Similar
flowers wreathed her head, on which the hair was done low and smooth, with
a golden arrow securing it. A fine golden chain spanned her waist. From it
dangled smaller chains at the ends of which depended little golden hands.
These held up the front of the skirt artistically, at just the right height
for dancing and to show flounces and ravishing petticoats beneath. It was
an innovation of the sort the feminine heart delights in, a brand-new thing
straight from Paris. Nan's gloves were of half length, the backs of the
hands embroidered and displaying each several small sparkling jewels. The
broad golden bracelets had been clasped outside the gloves. Around her
little finger was a ring from which depended, on the end of a chain, a
larger ring, and through this larger ring hung her dainty lace
handkerchief. This was innovation number two. The men all stared at her
proud, delicate, flowerlike effect of fresh beauty; but every woman
present, and Nan knew it, noted first, the cut of her gown, second, the
dangling little golden hands, and third, the handkerchief ring. She knew
that not later than to-morrow at least a half-dozen urgent orders would be
booked at Palmerston's; but she knew, also, that at least six months must
elapse before those orders could be filled. As for the rest, her stockings
were white, her slippers ribboned with cross-ties up the ankles, she
carried a stiff and formal bouquet, as big around as a plate, composed of
wired flowers ornamented with a "cape" of lace paper; but those things were
common.

Altogether, Nan looked extraordinarily well, made a sensation. Keith was
pleased and proud of her. He picked one of the blazoned vellum cards from
the table and scrawled his initials opposite half a dozen dances.

"I'm going to hold you to those, you know," he said.

They proceeded, leisurely across the floor, and Keith established her in
one of the chairs.

"I'll go get some of the men I want you to meet," said he. When he returned
with Bernard Black he found Nan already surrounded, Ben Sansome was there,
and Calhoun Bennett, and a half-dozen others, either acquaintances made on
some of the Sundays, or young men brought up by Sansome in his capacity of
Master of Ceremonies. She was having a good time laughing, her colour high,
Keith looked about him with the intention of filling his own card.

Mrs, Morrell, surrounded by a hilarious group of the younger fry, was just
entering the room. She was dressed in flame colour, and her gown was cut
very low, plainly to reveal the swell of her ample bosom. Her evening
gloves and slippers were golden, as was a broad metallic woven band around
her waist. Altogether, striking, rather a conspicuous effort than an
artistic success, any woman would have said; but there could be no doubt
that she had provided a glittering bait for the attentions of the men.

Keith immediately made his way across to her.

"You are ravishing this evening," he said, reaching for her card. It was
full. Keith was chopfallen.

"Take me to Mrs. Keith," asked Mrs. Morrell, taking the card again, "She
looks charming to-night; that simple style just suits her wide-eyed
innocence."

She placed her fingers lightly on Keith's arm and moved away, nodding over
her shoulder at the rather nonplussed young men who had come in with her.
Thus rid of them, she turned again to Keith.

"You didn't think I'd forget you!" she said, as though, reproachfully.
"See, I kept you four dances. I put down those initials myself. Now don't
you think I'm a pretty good sort?"

"Indeed I do! Which ones are they?" asked Keith, opening his own card.

"The third, seventh, ninth, and eleventh."

Keith hesitated for an appreciable instant. The seventh and eleventh he had
put down for Nan. But somehow in the face of this smiling, cynical-looking,
vivid creature, he rather shrank from saying that he had them with his
wife. He swiftly reflected that, after all, he had four others with Nan,
that she was so surrounded with admirers that she could not go partnerless,
and that he would explain.

"Delightful!" he cried, pencilling his program.

Mrs. Morrell fluttered down alongside Mrs. Keith with much small talk.
After a moment the music started for the grand march. Everybody took the
floor.

"Where can Charley be!" cried Mrs. Morrell in apparent distress. "Don't
wait here with me. I assure you I do not in the least mind sitting alone."

But she said it in a fashion that made it impossible, and in this manner
Nan lost her first engagement with her husband. Not that it mattered
particularly, she told herself, grand marches were rather silly things, and
yet she could not avoid a feeling of thwarted pique at being so tied to the
wall.

At the close of the march, and after the couples had pretty well resumed
their seats, Mrs. Sherwood entered, unattended and very leisurely. She
made, in her quieter manner, a greater sensation than had Mrs. Morrell.
Quite self-possessed, carrying herself with her customary poise, dressed
unobtrusively in black and gold, but with the distinction of an indubitable
Parisian model, moving without self-consciousness in contrast to many of
the other women, her small head high, her direct gaze a-smoulder with lazy
amusement, she glided across the middle of the floor. The eyes of every
woman in the ballroom were upon her. The "respectable" element stared
shamelessly, making comments aside. Those a little _declasse_, on the
fringe of society, or the "faster" women like Mrs. Morrell--who might in a
way be considered her rivals--were apparently quite unaware of her. She
made her unhasting way to a vacant chair, sat down, and looked calmly about
her.

Immediately she was surrounded by a swarm of the unattached men. The
attached men became very attentive to their partners.

"Hullo," remarked Keith cheerfully. "There's Mrs. Sherwood. I must go over
and say good-evening to her."

On sudden impulse Nan rose with him. She instinctively disliked her present
company and the situation; and a sudden pang of conscience had told her
that not once since she had left the Bella Union had she laid eyes on the
woman who had received her with so much kindness.

"Take me with you," she said to Keith.

"My dear!" cried Mrs. Morrell. "You wouldn't! Take my advice--you're young
and innocent!"

She sought one of those exclusive, private-joke glances at Keith, but
failed to catch his eye.

"She was very kind to me when I arrived," said Nan serenely. Keith,
hesitated; then his impulsive, warm-hearted loyalty spoke.

"Good for you, Nan!" he cried.

They moved away, leaving Mrs. Morrell alone, biting her lip and planning
revenges.

The group around Mrs. Sherwood fell away at their approach. Nan sat down
next her, leaning forward with a pretty and girlish, impulsiveness.

"It's ages since I have seen you, and I have no excuse to offer," she said.
"The days slip by."

"I know," said Mrs. Sherwood. "New house, new Chinaman, even new dog--
enough to drive the most important thoughts out of one's head. But you've
come out to-night like a flower, my dear. Your gown is charming, and it
suits you so well!"

She chatted on, speaking of the floor, the music, the decorations, the
crowd.

"I love this sort of thing," she remarked. "People in the mass amuse me.
Jack couldn't get away until midnight, but I wouldn't wait for him. I told
him it didn't worry me a bit to come without an escort," smoothing away
what little embarrassment might linger. The music started up again. The
Keiths arose and made their adieux. Mrs, Sherwood looked after them, her
bright eyes tender. Mrs. Keith was the only woman who had yet spoken to
her.

"Isn't she simply stunning?" cried Keith. "She has something about her that
makes most of these others look cheap."

"She's really wonderfully attractive and distinguished looking," agreed
Nan.

"If she were only a little less practical--a little softer; more feminine--
she'd be a sure-enough man killer. As it is, she needs a little more--you
know what I mean--"

"More after Mrs. Morrell's fashion," suggested Nan a trifle wickedly. It
popped out on the impulse, and the next instant Nan would have given
anything if the words had not been said. Keith was arrested in mid-
enthusiasm as though by cold water. He checked himself, looked at her
sharply, then accepted the pseudo-challenge.

"Well, Mrs. Morrell, for all her little vulgarities, impresses you as being
a very human sort of person."

He felt a sudden and unreasoning anger, possibly because the shot had hit a
tender place.

"Shall we dance?" he suggested formally.

"I'm sorry," replied Nan, "I have this with Mr. Sansome; there he comes."

For the first time Keith felt a little irritated at the ubiquitous Sansome;
but his sense of justice, while it could not smooth his ruffled feelings,
nevertheless made itself heard.

"What I need is a drink," he told himself.

At the buffet he found a crowd of the non-dancing men, or those who had
failed to get the early numbers. Here were many of his acquaintances; among
them, to his surprise, he recognized the grim features of Malcolm Neil. All
were drinking champagne. Keith joined them. They chaffed him unmercifully
about his purchases of clouded titles in water lots, and he answered them
in kind, aware of Neil's sardonically humorous eye fixed on him. But at the
first bars of the next dance he bolted in search of Mrs. Morrell, with
whom, he remembered, he had this number.

Mrs. Morrell danced smoothly and lightly for a woman of her size, but was
inclined to snuggle up too close, to permit undistracted guidance to her
partner. It was almost impossible to avoid collisions with other couples,
unless one possessed a Spartan mind and an iron will. In spite of himself,
Keith became increasingly aware of her breast pressing against his chest;
her smooth arm against his shoulder; the occasional passing contact of her,
scarcely veiled from the sense of touch by the thin flame-coloured silk;
the perfume she affected; the faint odour of her bright blond hair. In an
attempt to break the spell he made some banal remark, but she shook her
head impatiently. She danced with her eyes half closed. When the music
stopped she drew a deep sighing breath.

"You dance--oh, divinely!" she cried. "I might have known it."

She moved away, and Keith followed her, a trifle intoxicated.

"Let me see your card," she demanded abruptly. "Why, you haven't done your
duty; this is hardly a third filled!"

"I hadn't started to fill it--and then you came in," breathed Keith.

They were opposite the door leading into one of the numerous small rooms
off the main floor of the armoury.

"Let's sit here--and you can get me a punch," she suggested.

He brought the punch, and she drank it slowly, leaning back in an easy
chair. The place was dimly lighted, and her blond, full beauty was more
effective than in the more brilliantly lighted ballroom. Mrs. Morrell
exerted all her fascination. The next dance was half over before either
Keith or--apparently--Mrs. Morrell became aware of the fact.

"Oh, you must run!" she cried, apparently greatly exercised. "Don't mind
me; go and find your partner."

Keith replied, that he had this dance free, a fact of which her inspection
of his card had perfectly informed her. In answer to his return
solicitation as to her own partner, she shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, he'll find me," she said indifferently. "This is very cozy here."

They resumed what had become an ardent flirtation. Toward the end of the
dance Mrs. Morrell's partner came in, looking very flurried. Before he
could say a word, Mrs. Morrell began reproachfully to chide him with lack
of diligence.

"I've been waiting just _rooted_ to this spot!" she said truthfully.

"Shall we dance?" suggested the unfortunate young man.

"It's nearly over," replied Mrs. Morrell carelessly. "Do sit down with us.
Get yourself something to drink. _Don't go!_" she commanded Keith fiercely
under her breath.

At the beginning of the fourth dance, however, her next partner found her
and led her away. She "made a face" over her shoulder at Keith.

When a woman makes up her mind to monopolize a man who has not acquired the
fine arts of rudeness and escape she generally succeeds. Keith's cordial
nature was incapable of rudeness. Besides, being a perfectly normal man,
and Mrs. Morrell experienced and attractive, he liked being monopolized. It
crossed his mind once or twice that he might be in for a scolding when he
got home. Nan might be absurd. But he was so secure in his essential
loyalty to Nan that his present conduct was more in the nature of a
delightfully naughty escapade than anything else. He stole the apples now,
and later would go dutifully for his licking. Men of Keith's nature are
easily held and managed by a wise woman, but the woman must be very wise.
Keith loved celebrations. On the wings of an occasion he rose joyfully and
readily to incredible altitudes of high-spirited but harmless recklessness.
Birthdays, anniversaries, New Years, Christmas, arrivals, departures, he
seized upon with rapture. Each had its appropriate ceremonial, its
traditional drink, the painstaking brewing of which was a sacred rite. On
such occasions he tossed aside the cloak of the everyday. A "celebration"
meant that you were different. Humdrum life and habits must be relegated to
the background. It was permitted that, unabashed, you be as silly, as
frivolous, as inconsequential, as boisterous, as lighthearted, as
delightfully irresponsible as your ordinary concealed boyishness pleased.
Customary repressions had nothing to do here. This was a celebration! And
in the aforementioned our very wise woman would have seen--a safety valve.

Keith was off on a celebration to-night: an unpremeditated, freakish,
impish, essentially harmless celebration, with a faint flavour of mischief
in it because he had Nan in the back of his head all the time. He played up
to Mrs. Morrell with exuberance, with honestly no thought except that he
was having a whacking good time, and that old Nan was being teased. It was
characteristic that for the time being he fell completely under Mrs.
Morrell's fascination. They were together fully half the time, appearing on
the floor only occasionally, then disappearing in one or the other of the
many nooks. Mrs. Morrell "bolted" her dances shamelessly. Keith thought her
awfully amusing and ingenious in the way she managed this. Sometimes they
hid in out-of-the-way places. Sometimes she pretended to have mistaken the
dance. "The sixth, are you very _sure_? I'm convinced it is only the
fifth." Keith's conscience troubled him a little concerning the few names
on his own card.

"I have this with Mrs. Wilkins," said he. "I really ought to go and look
her up."

She took his card from him and deliberately tore it to small bits which she
blew from the palm of her gloved hand. He protested in real dismay, but she
looked him challengingly, recklessly, in the eye, until he laughed, too.

All this was, of course, well noticed. Keith, again characteristically, had
not taken into consideration the great public. Nan might have remained
comparatively indifferent to Keith's philandering about for an evening with
the Morrell creature--she had by now a dim but growing understanding of
"celebrations"--but that he should deliberately neglect and insult her in
the face of all San Francisco was too much. Her high, young enjoyment of
the evening fell to ashes. She was furiously angry, but she was a
thoroughbred. Only a heightened colour and a sparkling eye might have
betrayed her to an astute woman. Observing her, Ben Sansome took heart. It
was evident to him that the Keiths had long since reached an absolute
indifference in their relations, that they lived the conventional,
tolerant, separate lives of the majority of married couples in Ben
Sansome's smart acquaintance. He ventured to apply himself more
assiduously, and was by no means badly received.

Keith remembered the next dance with his wife. He could not find her,
although, a trifle conscience stricken, he searched everywhere. After the
music had finished, she emerged from the dressing-room; the next time she
could not be found at all. Evidently she was avoiding him with intention.

Mrs. Sherwood, after each dance, returned invariably to the same chair near
the middle of one wall. There, owing to the fact that the "respectables"
withdrew from the chairs on either side, withdrew gradually and without
open rudeness, she held centre of a little court of her own. This made of
it a sort of post of observation from which she could review all that was
going on. She had no lack of partners, for she danced wonderfully, and in
looks was quite the most distinguished woman there. Keith's dance with her
came and went, but no Keith appeared to claim it. Mrs. Sherwood smiled a
little grimly, and her glance strayed down the wall opposite until it
rested on Nan. She examined the girl speculatively. Nan was apparently
completely absorbed in Ben Sansome; but there was in her manner something
feverish, hectic, a mere nothing, which did not escape Mrs. Sherwood's keen
eye.

About midnight Sherwood appeared, and at once made his way to his wife's
side. He was punctiliously dressed in the mode: a "swallowtail," bright,
soft silk tie of ample proportions, frilled linen, and sparkling studs. He
bent with an old-world formality over his wife's hand. She swept away her
skirts from the chair at her side, her eyes sparkling softly with pleasure.

"You won't mind," she said carelessly to the young men surrounding her, "I
want to talk to Jack for a minute."

They arose, laughing a little.

"That is your one fault, Mrs. Sherwood," said one, "you are altogether too
fond of your husband."

"Well, how are things going?" asked Sherwood, as they moved away.

"I'm having a good time. But you're very late, Jack,"

"I know--I wanted to come earlier. Everything all right?"

At the question a little frown sketched itself on her clear brow.

"In general, yes," she said. "But they've got that Lewis boy out in the bar
filling him up on champagne."

"That's a pity."

"It's a burning shame!" said she, "And I'd like to shake young Keith. He's
dangled after the Morrell woman from start to finish in a manner scandalous
to behold."

Sherwood laughed.

"The 'Morrell woman' will do his education good," he remarked.

"Well, she isn't doing that poor little Mrs. Keith's education any good,"
returned Mrs. Sherwood rather tartly.

Sherwood surveyed Nan and Ben Sansome leisurely.

"I must say she doesn't look crushed," he said, after a moment.

"Do you expect her to weep violently?" asked Mrs. Sherwood.

He accepted good naturedly the customary feminine scorn for the customary
masculine obtuseness.

"Well, I don't know that we can help it," said he, philosophically.

Mrs. Sherwood appeared to come to a sudden resolution. She arose.

"You go get that Lewis boy away from the bar," she commanded.

Deliberately she shook and arranged her full skirts. The man with whom she
had this dance, and who had been waiting dutifully for the conference to
close, darted forward. She shook her head at him smilingly.

"I'm going to let you off," she told him. "You won't mind. I have something
extra special to do."

She swept quite alone across the middle of the ballroom, serene, self-
possessed; and walked directly toward Keith and Mrs.

Morrell, who were seated together at the other end. A perceptible pause
seemed to descend. The music kept on playing, couples kept on dancing, but,
nevertheless, suddenly the air was charged with attention. Sherwood looked
after her with mingled astonishment and fond pride.

"A frontal attack, egad!" said he to himself.

Keith and Mrs. Morrell pretended, as long as they decently could, not to
see her. She swam leisurely toward them. Finally Keith arose hastily; Mrs.
Morrell stared straight ahead.

"Young man," accused Mrs. Sherwood, with a faint amusement in her rich, low
voice, "do you know that this is our dance?"

Keith excused his apparent lapse volubly, telling several times over that
his program had been destroyed, that he was abject when he thought of the
light this put him in.

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