The Gray Dawn

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Gray Dawn

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"It is only when angels like yourself condescend to reach me a helping hand
that I have even a chance to right myself," he added. He thought this
rather a good touch.

Mrs. Sherwood stood before him easily, in perfect repose of manner, the
half smile still sketching her lips. She said just nothing at all in
response to his glib excuses; but when he had quite finished she laid her
hand in his arm. Mrs. Morrell, her colour high, continued to stare straight
ahead, immobile except for the tapping of one foot. To Keith's request to
be excused she vouchsafed a stiff half nod, partly in his direction.

They danced. Mrs. Sherwood, like most people who have command enough of
their muscles to be able to keep them in graceful repose, danced
marvellously well. When she stopped after a single turn of the room, Keith
expostulated vigorously.

"You are a perfect partner," he told her.

"Take me in here and get me a sherbet," she commanded, without replying to
his protests. "That's good," she said, when she had tasted it. "Now sit
down and listen to me. You are making a perfect spectacle of yourself.
Don't you know it?"

Keith stiffened to an extreme formality.

"I beg your pardon!" said he freezingly.

"That may be your personal individual right"--went on Mrs. Sherwood's low,
rich voice evenly. She was not even looking at him, but rather idly toward
the open door into the ballroom. Her fan swung from one finger; every line
of her body was relaxed. She might have been tossing him ordinary
commonplaces from the surface of a detached mind--"making a spectacle of
yourself," she explained; "but you're making a perfect spectacle of your
wife as well--and in public. That is not your right at all."

Keith sprang to his feet, furious.

"You are meddling with what is really my own business, madam," said he.

For the first time she looked up at him, dearly and steadily. In the eyes.

"Very well. That is true. Stop a moment and think. Are you attending to
your business yourself, even decently? Yes, I understand; you are angry
with me. If I were a man, you would challenge me to a duel and all that
sort of thing." She smiled indifferently. "Let's take that for granted and
get on. Sweep it aside. You are man enough to do it, or I mistake you
greatly. Look down into yourself for even one second. Are you playing fair
all around? _Aren't you a little ashamed?_"

She held him with, her clear, level gaze. His own did not fall before it,
and his head went back, but slowly his face and neck turned red. Thus they
stared at each other for a full half minute, she smiling slightly,
perfectly cool; he seething with a suppressed emotion of some sort. Then
she turned indolently away.

"You're too fine to do things like that," she said, with a new softness in
her voice; "we all have too much faith in you. The common tricks would not
appeal to you, except in idleness; is it not so?"

She smiled up at him, a little sidewise. Keith caught his breath. For a
fleeting instant this extraordinary woman deigned to exert her feminine
charms for the first time the coquette looked from her eyes; for the first
time he saw mysteriously deep in her veiled nature a depth of possibility,
of rich possibility--he could not grasp it--it was gone. But in spite of
himself his pulses leaped like a flame. But now she was gazing again at the
ballroom door, cool, indolent, aloof, unapproachable. Yet just at that
instant, somehow, the other woman looked shallow, superficial, cold. His
glance fell on Mrs. Morrell still sitting where he had left her. Something
was wrong with her effect----

Analysis was submerged in a blaze of anger. This anger was not now against
the woman before him; his instinct prevented that. Nor against Mrs. Morrell
nor his wife; reluctant justice prevented that. Nor against himself--where
it really belonged. Things were out of joint; he felt cross-grained and
ugly. Mrs. Sherwood rose.

"You may take me back now," said she.

As they glided across the floor together, her small sleek head came just
above his shoulder. No embarrassment disturbed her manner. Keith could not
find in him a spark of resentment against her. She moved by his side with
an air of poise and detachment as a woman whose mind had long since weighed
and settled the affairs of her own cosmos so that trifles could not disturb
her.

Leaving her in her accustomed chair, where Sherwood waited, Keith loyally
returned to Mrs. Morrell, who still sat alone. Subconsciously he noticed
something wrong with Mrs. Morrell. Her gowning was indeed rather a
conspicuous effort than an artistic success. She had badly torn her dress--
perhaps that was it.

Mrs. Morrell received him with every appearance of sympathy.

"You poor thing!" she cried. "What a fearful situation! Of course I know
you couldn't help it."

But Keith was grumpy and monosyllabic. He refused to discuss the situation
or Mrs. Sherwood, returning with an obvious effort to commonplaces. Mrs.
Morrell exerted all her fascination to get him back to the former level. A
little cold imp sat in the back of Keith's brain and criticised
sardonically; Why will big women persist in being kittenish? Why doesn't
she mend that awful rent, it's fairly sloppy! Suppose she thinks that kind
of talk is funny! I _do_ wish she wouldn't laugh in that shrill, cackling
fashion! In short, the very tricks that an hour ago were jolly and amusing
were now tiresome. Having been distrait, ungallant, masculinely put out for
another fifteen minutes, he abruptly excused himself, sought out Nan, and
went home.

From her point of observation, Mrs. Sherwood watched them go. Nan looked
very tired, and every line of Keith's figure expressed a grumpy moroseness.

"Congratulations," said Sherwood.

"He certainly is a child of nature," returned his wife. "Look at him! He is
cross, so he _looks_ cross. That this is a ballroom and that all San
Francisco is present is a mere detail."

"How did you break it up?" asked Sherwood curiously.

"Men are so utterly ridiculous! He had built up a lot of illusions for
himself, but his instincts are true and good. It needed only a touch. It
was absurdly simple."

"He'll go back to the Morrell to-morrow," asserted Sherwood confidently.

She shook her head.

"Not to her. He _sees_ her now. And not to-morrow. But eventually to
somebody, perhaps. He has curly hair."

Sherwood laughed.

"Shear him, like Sampson," he suggested. "But it strikes me he has about
the most attractive woman--bar one--in town right at home."

"She'd have no trouble in holding him if she were only _awake_. But she's
only a dear little child--and about as helpless. She has very little
subtlety. I'm afraid she'll follow the instincts of her training. She'll be
too proud to do anything herself to attract her husband, once his
attentions to her seem to drop off. She'll just become cold and proud--and
perhaps eventually turn elsewhere."

"I don't believe she's a bit that kind," asserted Sherwood positively.

"Nor do I. But, Jack, a woman lonely enough has fancies, that in the long
run may become convictions."

XXII

Mrs. Sherwood was completely right. Keith had _seen_ Mrs. Morrell. The
glamour had fallen from her at a touch. He did not in the least understand
how this had happened, and considered that it was his own fault. Mrs.
Morrell had not changed in the least, but he had, somehow. He looked upon
himself as fickle, disloyal, altogether despicable. Yet for the life of him
he could not get up the slightest spark of enthusiasm for musical evenings,
Sunday night suppers, or week-end excursions into the country. They had
fallen dead to his taste; and with the sudden revolt to which such
temperaments as his are subject, he could not bear even the thought of them
without a feeling of incipient boredom. The blow administered to his self-
respect put him quite out of conceit with himself and the world in general.
If he had followed his natural instinct, he would instanter have thrown,
overboard all the Morrell episode, bag and baggage.

But that was, of course, impossible. Keith felt his obligations; he was a
man of honour; he had respect for the feelings of others; he could not make
friendly people the victims of his own outrageous freaks. That was out of
the question!

Mrs. Morrell sent for him. She had been puzzled by the episode of the
evening before. It would have been absolutely incredible to her that a
hundred words from a woman who was not her rival could have destroyed her
influence over this man. She had considerable knowledge of men, and she had
played her cards carefully. But she realized that something was the matter;
and she thought that the time had come to use the power she had gained. A
note dispatched by the Chinaman would do.

Keith obeyed the summons. He knew himself well enough to realize that the
intimacy, such as it was, must come to a pretty abrupt termination.
Otherwise, he would shortly get very bored; and when he got very bored he
became, in spite of himself, reserved and self-contained to the point of
rudeness. For the exact reason that he saw thus clearly, his conscience was
smiting him hard. Mrs. Morrell had done nothing to deserve this treatment.
He was a dastard, a coward, ashamed of himself. If she wanted to see him,
it was her due that he obey her summons promptly. He went with the vague
idea of making amends by doing whatever she seemed to require--for this
once.

She entered the dim sitting-room clad in a flowing silken negligee, which
she excused on the ground of laziness.

"I'm still a little tired from last night," she said, with a laugh.

The soft material and informal cut clung to and defined the lines of her
figure, showing to especial advantage the long sweep of her hips, the
pliancy of her waist, the swell of her fine bust. A soft lilac colour set
off the glint of her fair hair. She was, in fact, feeling a little languid
from the reaction of the ball and in a sudden rush of emotion she admired
Keith's crisp freshness. Her eyes swam a little and her breast heaved.

But the preliminary conversation went by jerks. Keith answered her advances
with an effort toward ease and cordiality, but with a guarded, unnatural
manner that sent a sudden premonitory chill to the woman's heart. Her
instinct warned her. As the minutes passed, her uneasiness grew to the
point of fear. Was she losing him? Why? This was no time for ordinary
methods.

She arose and went to sit by his side.

"What's the matter, dear?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Why are you acting in this manner? What have I done?"

"I'm not; you haven't done anything--of course."

She suddenly leaned forward, looking into his eyes, projecting all the
force of her magnetism. She had before seen him respond, felt him quiver to
her tentative, mischievous advances,

"Kiss me," she breathed.

Poor Keith was having a miserable enough time. He clung to his first
thought--that this evening was her due, that he was in some way bound, in
ending everything, to pay whatever coin he had left. He obeyed her,
touching her lips lightly and coldly with his own. Never was chaster caress
bestowed on melting mood!

She flung him violently aside, her face writhing and contorted with fury.
She was enlightened, completely, as she could have been enlightened in no
other manner.

"You can go!" she cried hoarsely. "Get out! Don't dare enter this house
again!"

He made some sort of spiritless, feeble protest, trying his best to put
some convincing quality into it. But she did not even listen. The
ungoverned tiger-cat part of her nature was in the ascendant, the fierce
pride of the woman living near the edge of the half-world. She would gladly
have killed him. At length he went, very confused, bewildered, miserable--
and relieved! He left behind him a bitter enemy.

XXIII

In complete revulsion, Keith scuttled the frivolous world of women. As he
expressed it, he was sick of women. They made him tired. Too much fuss
trying to keep even with their vagaries. A man liked something he could
bite on. He plunged with all the enthusiasm and energy of his vivid
personality into his business deal of the water lots and into the
fascinating downtown life of the pioneer city. The mere fact that he had
ended that asinine Morrell affair somehow made him think he had made it all
up to Nan, and he settled back tacitly and without further preliminaries
into what his mood considered a most satisfactory domestic basis. That is,
he took his home and his home life for granted. It was there when he needed
it. He admired Nan greatly, and supplied her with plenty of money, and took
her to places when he could get the time. Some day, when things were not
quite so lively, they would go somewhere together. In the meantime he never
failed to ask her every evening if she had enjoyed herself that day; and
she never failed to reply that she had. Everything was most comfortable.

After the Firemen's Ball Nan, somehow relieved of any definite uneasiness,
felt that she should be made much of, should be a little wooed, that Keith
should make up a little for having been somewhat of a naughty boy. When,
instead, she was left more alone than before, she was hurt and depressed.
Of course, Milton did not realize--but what was there for her? Wing Sam ran
the house; she worked a good deal in the garden, assisted by Gringo.
Probably at no time in modern history have wives been left so much alone
and so free as during this period. The man's world was so absorbing; the
woman's so empty.

Ben Sansome dropped in quite often. He was always amusing, always
agreeable, interested in all sorts of things, ready to give his undivided
attention to any sort of a problem, no matter how trivial, to consider it
attentively, and to find for it a fair and square deliberate solution. This
is exceedingly comforting to the feminine mind. He taught Gringo not to
"jump up"; he found out what was the matter with the _Gold of Ophir_
cutting; he discovered and took her to see just the shade of hangings she
had long sought for the blue room. Within a very short time he had
established himself on the footing of the casual old-time caller, happening
by, dropping in, commenting and advising detachedly, drifting on again
before his little visit had assumed rememberable proportions. He had always
the air of just leaning over the fence for a moment's chat; yet he
contrived to spend the most of an afternoon. He spoke of Keith often,
always in affectionate terms, as of a sort of pal, much as though he and
Nan _both_ owned him, he, of course, in a lesser degree.

One afternoon, after he had actually been digging away at a bulb bed for
half an hour, Nan suggested that he come in for refreshment. Gradually this
became a habit. Sansome and Nan sat cozily either side the little Chinese
tea table. He visibly luxuriated.

"You don't know what a privilege this is for me--for any lonesome bachelor
in this crude city--to have a home like this to come to occasionally."

He hinted at his situation, but made of its details a dark mystery. The
final impression was one of surface lightness and gayety, but of inner
sadness.

"It is a terrible city for a man without an anchor!" he said. "Keith is a
lucky fellow! If I only had some one, as he has, I might amount to
something." A gesture implied what a discouraged butterfly sort of person
he really was.

"You ought to marry," said Nan gently.

"Marry!" he cried. "Dear lady, whom? Where in this awful mixture they call
society could one find a woman to marry?"

"There are plenty of nice women here," chided Nan.

"Yes--and all of them taken by luckier fellows! You wouldn't have me marry
Sally Warner, would you--or any of the other half-dozen Sally Warners? I
might as well marry a gas chandelier, a grand piano, and a code of
immorals--but the standard of such women is so different from the standard
of women like yourself."

Nan might pertinently have inquired what Ben Sansome did in this gallery,
anyhow; but so cold-blooded and direct an attack would have required a cool
detachment incompatible with his dark, good looks, his winning, appealing
manners, his thoughtfulness in little things, his almost helpless reliance
on her sympathy; in other words, it presupposed a rather cynical, elderly
person. And Nan was young, romantic, easily stirred.

"All you need is to believe in yourself a little more," she said earnestly
and prettily. "Why don't you undertake something instead of drifting? Some
of the people you go with are not especially good for you--do you think
so?"

"Good for me?" he laughed bitterly. "Who cares if I go to the dogs? They'd
rather like me to; it would keep them company! And I don't know that I care
much myself!" he muttered in a lower tone.

She leaned forward, distressed, her eyes shining with expostulation.

"You mustn't hold yourself so low," she told him vehemently. "You mustn't!
There are a great many people who believe in you. For their sake you should
try. If you would only be just a little bit serious--in regard to yourself,
I mean. A gay life is all very well----"

"Gay?" he interrupted, then caught himself. "Yes, I suppose I do seem gay--
God knows I try not to cry out--but, really, sometimes I'm near to ending
it all----"

She was excited to a panic of negation.

"Oh, no! no!" she expostulated vehemently. ("Egad, she's stunning when
she's aroused!" thought Sansome.) "You mustn't talk like that! It isn't
fair to yourself; it isn't fair to your manhood! Oh, how you do need some
one to pull you up! If I could only help!"

He raised his head and looked directly at her, his dark, melancholy eyes
lighting slowly.

"You have helped; you are helping," he murmured. "I suppose I have been
weak and a coward, I will try."

"That's right. I am so glad," she said, glowing with sweetness and a desire
to aid. "Now you must turn over a new leaf," she hesitated. "Every way, I
mean," she added with a little blush.

"I know I drink more than I ought," he supplied in accents of regret.

"Don't you suppose you could do without?" she begged very gently.

"Will you help me?" He turned on her quickly; then, his delicate instincts
perceiving a faint, instinctive recoil at his advance, he added: "Just let
me come here occasionally, into this quiet atmosphere, when it gets too
hard and I can see no light; just to get your help, the strength I shall
need to tide me over."

He looked very handsome and romantic and young. He was apparently very,
deeply in earnest. Nan experienced a rash of pity, of protective maternal
emotion.

"Yes, do come," she assented softly.

XXIV

All this time Keith was busy every minute of the day. The water-lot matter
was absorbing all his attention. Through skilful and secret agents Neil had
acquired a great deal of scrip issued by the city for various public works
and services which the holders had not yet exchanged for the new bonds.
These he turned over to Keith. Very quietly, by prearrangement, the latter
sued and obtained judgments. When all this had been fully accomplished--and
not before then--the veil of secrecy was rent. Rowlee's paper advertised a
forthcoming sale of water lots to satisfy the judgments.

Then followed, for Keith, an anxious period of three days. But at the end
of that time the commissioners issued a signed warning that the titles
conveyed by this sale would not be considered legal. On seeing this, Keith
at once rushed around to Neil's office.

"Here it is," he announced jubilantly. "They held off so long that I began
to be afraid they did not intend to play our game for us. But it's all
right."

The matter was widely discussed; but next morning placards, bearing the
text of the commissioners' warning, were posted on every blank wall in town
and distributed as dodgers. These were attributed by the public to zeal on
the part of those officials; but the commissioners knew nothing about it.

"Some anonymous friend of the city must have done it," Hooper told his
friends, and added, "We are delighted!"

The unknown friend was Malcolm Neil himself.

This warning had its effect. As Keith had predicted, nobody cared to put
good money into what was officially and authoritatively announced as a bad
title. At the sheriff's sale there were no bona fide bidders except the
secret agents of Malcolm Neil. The sheriff's titles--such as they were--
went for a song. Immediately the ostensible purchasers were personally
warned by the commission; but they seemed satisfied.

So matters rested until, a little later, the commissioners inserted in all
the papers the customary legal advertisements setting forth a sale by them,
under the State law, of these same water lots to satisfy the interest and
fill the sinking fund for the bonds. The next morning appeared a statement
signed by all the ostensible purchasers under the sheriff's sale. This
stated dearly and succinctly the intention to contest any titles given by
the commissioners, even to the highest courts. This was marked _advt_, to
indicate the newspaper's neutrality in the matter. Rowlee commented on the
situation editorially, He took the righteous and indignant attitude,
expressing extreme journalistic horror that such a hold-up should be
possible in a modern, civilized community, hurling editorial contempt on
the dastardly robbers who were thus intending to shake down the innocent
purchasers, etc. In fact, he laid it on thick, But he managed to insinuate
a doubt. Between the lines the least astute reader could read Rowlee's
belief that perhaps these first purchasers might have a case, iniquitous
but legal. He hammered away at this for a week. By the end of that time he
had, by the most effective, indirect methods--purporting all the time to be
attacking the signers of the warning--succeeded in instilling into the
public mind a substantial distrust of the stability of the titles to be
conveyed at the commissioners' sale. Malcolm Neil complimented him highly
at their final and secret interview.

Again Keith's predictions were fulfilled to the letter. Nobody wanted to
buy a lawsuit. There were a few bidders, it is true, but they were faint
hearted. Another set of Malcolm's secret agents bid all the lots in at a
nominal figure. That very afternoon they all met in Neil's stuffy little
back office. Keith had the deeds prepared. All that was necessary was to
affix the signatures. The purchasers under both sales conveyed their rights
to Neil and Keith. The latter now possessed uncontested and incontestable
title.

XXV

Having personally delivered the deeds to the recorder's office, Keith went
home. In the relief from pressure, the triumph, and the exaltation, his
instinct carried him to the actual background of his life--his genuine but
preoccupied affection for Nan. The constraint, that had been so real to
her, had never been anything but nebulous to him.

He burst into the house, capered around the room boyishly, seized her, and
waltzed her gayly about. Quite taken by surprise, Nan's first thought was
that he had been drinking too much; so naturally she failed to rise
instantly to the occasion.

"Stop it, Milton!" she cried. "What has got into you! You're tearing me to
ribbons!"

He laughed heartily.

"You must think I'm crazy," he acknowledged. "Sit down here, and learn what
a great man your husband is." He poured out the story of the transaction,
omitting no details of the clever schemes by which it had been worked. He
was, above all, proud of his legal address and acumen--there was something
in Eastern training, after all; this lay right under their noses, but none
of them saw it until he came along and picked it up. "And there are some
pretty smart men out here, too, let me tell you that," he added. "They're
from all parts of the world, and they've had a hard practical education,
their eye teeth are cut!" His egotism over being keener than the
acknowledged big men was very fresh and charming. The money gained he
mentioned as an afterthought, only when the other aspect of the situation
had been exhausted. "The cold hard dollars are pretty welcome just now," he
told her. "There's about a quarter million in those lots--and we can
realize on all or part of them at any time. All came out of here!" He
tapped his forehead, and paused in his rapid pacing to and fro to look down
at her In the easy chair, "We are well off now. We needn't scrimp and
save"--it did not for the moment occur to him that they had not been doing
so--"I'm going to get you eight new gowns, and twelve new hats, and a
bushel of diamonds----"

"I'm glad, very glad!" she cried, catching his enthusiasm, her mind for the
first time occupying itself seriously with the mechanism of the deal. At
first, when he had been explaining, she had not thrown off the impression
that he had been drinking, and so had paid little attention to his
explanations. "It sounds like magic. Tell me again--how you did it,"

Nothing loath, he went over it again, making clear the double clouding of
the titles.

But Nan, being much alone, had the habit, shared with few women of that
time, of reading the newspapers. She had followed Rowlee's campaign, and
she had taken seriously the editor's diatribes, Rowlee had been talking for
effect. The ideals of ultimate civic honesty were yet fifty years in the
future, but he had stumbled on their principle. Nan's mind, untrained in
any business ethics, caught them; and her sure natural instincts had
accepted their essential justice. In recognizing Milton's connection as
promoter with just this deal, she was suddenly called upon to make
adjustments for which there was no time. She knew Milton would do nothing
wrong, and yet--he was waiting in triumph for her response.

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