The Gray Dawn

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Gray Dawn

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But this suggestion brought to Keith a sudden realization of the lateness
of the hour, the duration of his absence, and the fact that, not only had
he not yet settled his wife in rooms of her own, but had left her on the
hands of strangers. For the first time he noticed that Sherwood was not of
the party.

"When did Sherwood leave?" he cried.

"Oh, a right sma't time ago," said Bennett.

Keith started to his feet.

"I should like to join you," said he, "but it is impossible now."

A chorus of expostulation went up at this.

"But I haven't settled down yet!" persisted Keith. "I don't know even
whether my baggage is at the hotel."

They waived aside his objections; but finding him obdurate, perhaps a
little panicky over the situation, they gave over urging the point.

"But you must join us later in the evening," said they.

The idea grew.

"I tell you what," said Rowlee, with half-drunken gravity; "he's got to
come back. We can't afford to lose him this early. And he can't afford to
lose us. The best life of this glorious commonwealth is as yet a sealed
book to him. It is our sacred duty, gentlemen, to break those seals. What
does he know of our temples of Terpsichore? Our altars to the gods of
chance? Our bowers of the Cyprians?"

He would have gone on at length, but Keith, laughingly protesting, trying
to disengage himself from the detaining hands, broke in with a promise to
return. But little Rowlee was not satisfied.

"I think we should take no chances," he stated. "How would it be to appoint
a committee to 'company him and see that he gets back?"

Keith's head was clear enough to realize with dismay that this brilliant
idea was about to take. But Ben Sansome, seizing the situation, locked his
arm firmly in Keith's.

"I'll see personally that he gets back," said he.

V

"That was mighty good of you; you saved my life!" said Keith to him,
gratefully, as they walked up the street.

"You couldn't have that tribe of wild Indians descending on your wife,"
said Sansome. He had kept pace with, the others, but showed it not at all.
Sansome was a slender, languid, bored, quiet sort of person, exceedingly
well dressed in the height of fashion, speaking with a slight, well-bred
drawl, given to looking rather superciliously from beneath his fine
eyelashes, almost too good looking. He liked, or pretended he liked, to
view life from the discriminating spectator's standpoint; and remained
unstirred by stirring events. He prided himself on the delicacy of his
social tact. In the natural course of evolution he would probably never
marry, and would become in time an "old beau," haunting ballrooms with
reminiscences of old-time belles.

Keith, meeting the open air, began to feel his exhilaration.

"What I need is my head under a pump for about ten seconds," he told
Sansome frankly. "Lord! It was just about time I got away."

Arrived at the hotel, Sansome said good-bye, but Keith would have none of
it.

"No, no!" he cried. "You must come in, now you've come so far! I want you
to meet my wife; she'll be delighted!"

And Sansome, whose celebrated social tact had been slightly obscured by his
potations, finally consented. Truth to tell, it would have been a little
difficult for him to have got away. Poising his light stick and gloves in
his left hand, giving his drooping moustache a last twirl, and settling his
heavy cravat in place, he followed Keith down the little hall to the
Sherwoods' apartments.

At the knock Keith was at once invited to enter. The men threw open the
door. Sansome stared with all his might.

Nan Keith had made the usual miraculous recovery from seasickness once she
felt the solid ground beneath, her. The beautiful baby-textured skin had
come alive with soft colour, her dark, wide, liquid eyes had brightened.
She had assumed a soft, silken, wrapperlike garment with, a wide sash,
borrowed from Mrs. Sherwood; and at the moment was seated in an enveloping
armchair beneath a wide-shaded lamp. The firm, soft lines of her figure,
uncorseted in this negligee, were suggested beneath the silk. Sansome
stopped short, staring, his eyes kindling with, interest. Here was
something not only new but different--a distinct addition. Sansome, like
most dilettantes, was something of a phrase maker, and prided himself on
the apt word. He found it here, to his own satisfaction, at least.

"Her beauty is positively creamy!" he murmured to himself.

At sight of her Keith crossed directly to her, full of a sudden, engaging,
tender solicitude.

"How are you feeling now, honey?" he inquired. "Quite recovered? All right
now?"

But Nan was inclined to be a little vexed and reproachful. She had been
left alone, with strangers, altogether too long. Keith excused himself
volubly and convincingly--she had been asleep--she was much better off not
being disturbed--that this was true was proven by results--she was
blooming, positively blooming--as fresh as a rose leaf--of course it was
rather an imposition on the Sherwoods, but the baggage hadn't come up yet,
and they were kind people, our sort, the sort for whom the word obligation
did not exist--he, personally, had not intended being gone so long, but by
the rarest of chances he had run across some of the men to whom, he had
introductions, and they had been most kind in making him acquainted--
nothing was more important to a young lawyer than to "establish
connections"--it did not do to overlook a chance.

He urged all this, and more, with all his usual, vital, enthusiastic force.
In spite of herself, she was overborne to a reproachful forgiveness.

In the meantime Mrs. Sherwood had gone over to where Ben Sansome was still
standing by the door. Sansome did not like Mrs. Sherwood. He considered
that she had no social tact at all. This was mainly--though he did not
analyze it--because she was quite apt to speak the direct and literal truth
to him; because she had a disquieting self-confidence and competence in
place of appropriate, graceful, feminine dependence; but especially because
she had never and would never play up to his game.

"Are you making a formal afternoon call, Ben?" she asked in her cool,
mocking voice. "Aren't you really a little _de trop?_"

"I did not come of my own volition at this time, I assure you," he replied
a trifle stiffly. The thought that he was suspected of a blunder in social
custom stung him; as, in a rather lazily amused way, she knew it would.

At this reply she glanced keenly toward Keith, then nodded; slowly.

"I see," she conceded.

Sansome moved to go. But at this Keith's attention was attracted. He sprang
forward, seized Sansome's arm, insisted on introducing him to Nan, was
over-effusive, over-cordial, buoyant. Both Sansome and Mrs. Sherwood were
experienced enough to yield entirely to his mood. They understood perfectly
that at the least opposition Keith was in just the condition to reveal
himself, perhaps, to break over the frail barrier that separates
exhilaration from loss of self-control. They saw also that Nan had no
suspicion of the state of affairs. Indeed, following the reaction from her
long voyage and her illness, she responded and played up to Keith's high
spirits. Neither wanted her to grasp the situation if it could be avoided:
Mrs. Sherwood from genuine good feeling, Sansome because of the social
awkwardness and bad taste. Besides, he felt that his presence at such a
scene would be a very bad beginning for himself.

"No, you're not going," Keith was insisting; "you don't realize what a
celebration this is! Here we've pulled up all our roots, haven't we, Nan?
and come thousands of miles to a new country, a wonderful country; and the
very first day of our landing you want us to act as though nothing had
happened!"

Nan nodded a vigorous assent to his implied reference to her.

"And what we're going to do is to celebrate," insisted Keith. "You're all
going to dine with us. No, I insist! You're the only friends we have out
here, and you aren't going to desert us the very first day we need you."

"I wish you would!" cried Nan, sitting forward eagerly.

They tried to expostulate, to get out of it, but without avail. It seemed
easier to promise. Keith rushed out to look for his baggage, to arrange for
rooms, leaving the three together to await his return.

VI

Both Mrs. Sherwood and Sansome applied themselves to relieving whatever
embarrassment Nan might feel over this unusual situation. Sansome was
possessed of great charm and social experience. He could play the game of
light conversation to perfection. By way of bridging the pause in events,
he set himself to describing the society in which the Keiths would shortly
find themselves launched. His remarks were practically a monologue,
interspersed by irrepressible gurgles of laughter from Nan. Mrs. Sherwood
sat quietly by. She did not laugh, but it was evident she was amused. In
this congenial atmosphere Sansome outdid himself.

"They are all afraid of each other," he told her, "because they don't know
anything about each other. Each ex-washerwoman thinks the other ex-
washerwoman must have been at least a duchess at home. It's terribly funny.
If they can get hold of six porcelain statuettes, a half-dozen
antimacassars, some gilt chairs, and a glass bell of wax flowers, they
imagine they're elegantly furnished. And their functions! I give you my
word, I'd as soon attend a reasonably pleasant funeral! Some of them try to
entertain by playing intellectual games--you know, rhyming or spelling
games--seriously!" He went on to describe some of the women, mentioning no
names, however. "You'll recognize them when you meet them," he assured her.
"There's one we'll call the Social Agitator--she isn't happy unless she is
running things. I believe she spent two weeks once in London--or else she
buys her boots there--anyway, when discussions get lively she squelches
them by saying, 'Of course, my dear, that may be absolutely _au fait_ in
New York--but in London--' It corks them up every time. And 'pon honour,
three quarters of the time she's quite wrong! Then there's the Lady Thug,
Square jaw, square shoulder, sort of bulging out at the top--you know--in
decollete one cannot help thinking 'one more struggle and she'll be free!'"

"Oh, fie, Mr. Sansome," laughed Nan, half shocked.

Sansome rattled on. The ultimate effect was to convey an impression of San
Francisco society--such as existed at all--as stodgy, stupid, pretentious,
unattractive. Nan was immensely amused, but inclined to take it all with a
grain of salt.

"Mrs. Sherwood doesn't bear you out," she told him, "and she's the only one
I've seen yet. I think we're going to have a pretty good time."

But at this point Keith returned. He was quite sobered from his temporary
exhilaration, but still most cordial and enthusiastic over his little
party, Sansome noted with quiet amusement that his light curly hair was
damp. Evidently he had taken his own prescription as to the pump.

"Well," he announced, "I have a room--such as it is. Can't say much for it.
The baggage is all here; nothing missing for a wonder. I've spoken to the
manager about dinner for five." He turned to Nan with brightening interest.
"Guess what I saw on the bill of fare! Grizzly bear steak! Think of that! I
ordered some."

Sansome groaned comically.

"What's the matter?" inquired Keith.

"Did you ever try it before? Tough, stringy, unfit for human consumption."

But Keith was fascinated by the name of the thing.

"There's plenty else," he urged defensively, "and I always try everything
once."

It was agreed that they should all meet again after an hour. Sansome
renewed his promises to be on hand.

The room Keith had engaged was on the second story, and quite a different
sort of affair from that of the Sherwoods'. Indeed it was little more than
a pine box, containing only the bare necessities. One window looked out on
an unkempt backyard, now mercifully hidden by darkness.

"This is pretty tough," said Keith, "but it is the very best I could do.
And the price is horrible. We'll have to hunt up a living place about the
first thing we do."

"Oh, it's all right," said Nan indifferently. The lassitude of seasickness
had left her, and the excitement of new surroundings was beginning. She
felt gently stirred by the give and take of the light conversation in the
Sherwoods' room; and, although she did not quite realize it, she was
responding to the stimulation of having made a good impression. Her
subconscious self was perfectly aware that in the silken negligee, under
the pink-shaded lamp, her clear soft skin, the pure lines of her radiant
childlike beauty, the shadows of her tumbled hair, had been very appealing
and effective. She moved about a trifle restlessly, looking at things
without seeing them. "I'm glad to see the brown trunk. Open it, will you,
dear? Heavens, what a mirror!" She surveyed herself in the flawed glass,
moving from side to side, fascinated at the strange distortions.

"I call it positive extortion, charging what they do for a room like this,"
grumbled Keith, busy at the trunk. "The Sherwoods must pay a mint of money
for theirs. I wonder what he does!"

Her attention attracted by this subject, she arrested her posing before the
mirror.

"They certainly are quick to take the stranger in," she commented lightly.

Something in her tone arrested Keith's attention, and he stopped fussing at
his keys. Nan had meant little by the remark. It had expressed the vague
instinctive recoil of the woman brought up in rather conventional
circumstances and in a conservative community from too sudden intimacy,
nothing more. She did not herself understand this.

"Don't you like the Sherwoods?" he instantly demanded, with the masculine
insistence on dissecting every butterfly.

"Why, she's charming!" said Nan, opening her eyes in surprise. "Of course,
I like her immensely!"

"I should think so," grumbled Keith. "They certainly have been mighty good
to us."

But Nan had dropped her negligee about her feet, and was convulsed at the
figure made of her slim young body by the distorted mirror.

"Come here, Milt," she gasped.

She clung to him, gurgling with laughter, pointing one shaking finger at
the monstrosity in the glass.

"Look--look what you married!"

They dressed gayly. His optimism and enthusiasm boiled over again. It was a
shame, his leaving her all that afternoon, he reiterated; but she had no
idea what giant strides he had made. He told her of the city, and he
enumerated some of the acquaintances he had made--Calhoun Bennett, Bert
Taylor, Major Marmaduke Miles, Michael Rowlee, Judge Caldwell, and others.
They had been most cordial to him, most kind; they had taken him in without
delay.

"It's the spirit of the West, Nan," he cried, "hospitable, unsuspicious,
free, eager to welcome! Oh, this is going to be the place for me;
opportunity waits at every corner. They are not tied down by conventions,
by the way somebody else has done things--"

He went on rapidly to detail to her some of the things he had been told--
the contemplated public improvements, the levelling of the sand hills, the
building of a city out of nothing.

"Why, Nan, do you realize that only four years ago this very Plaza had only
six small buildings around it, that there were only three two-story
structures in town, that the population was only about five hundred--there
are thirty-five thousand now, that--" he rattled on, detailing his recently
acquired statistics. Oh, potent influence of the Western spirit--already,
eight hours after his landing on California's shores, Milton Keith was a
"booster."

With an expansion of relief that only a woman could fully appreciate, Nan
unpacked and put on a frock that had nothing whatever to do with the sea
voyage, and which she had not for some time seen. In ordinary accustomed
circumstances she would never have thought of donning so elaborate a
toilette for a hotel dining-room, but she was yielding to reaction. In her
way she was "celebrating," just as was Keith. Her hair she did low after
the fashion of the time, and bound it to her brow by a bandeau of pearls.
The gown itself was pale green and filmy. It lent her a flowerlike
semblance that was very fresh and lovely.

"By Jove, Nan, you certainly have recovered from the sea!" cried Keith, and
insisted on kissing her.

"Look how you've mussed me all up!" chided Nan, but without irritation.

They found the other three waiting for them, and without delay entered the
dining-room. This, as indeed all the lower story, was in marked contrast of
luxury with the bare pine bedrooms upstairs. Long red velvet curtains, held
back by tasselled silken cords, draped the long windows; fluted columns at
regular intervals upheld the ceiling; the floor was polished and slippery;
the tables shone with white and silver. An obese and tremendous darkey in
swallowtail waved a white-gloved hand at them, turned ponderously, and
preceded them down the aisle with the pomp of a drum major. His dignity was
colossal, awe inspiring, remote. Their progress became a procession, a
triumphal procession, such as few of Caesar's generals had ever known.
Arrived at the predestined table, he stood one side while menials drew out
the chairs. Then he marched tremendously back to the main door, his chin
high, his expression haughty, his backbone rigid. This head waiter was the
feature of the Bella Union Hotel, just as the glass columns were the
feature of the Empire, or the clockwork mechanism of the El Dorado.

The dinner itself went well. Everybody seemed to be friendly and at ease,
but by one of those strange and sudden social transitions it was rather
subdued. This was for various reasons. Nan Keith, after her brief reaction,
found herself again suffering from the lassitude and fatigue of a long
voyage; she needed a night's rest and knew it. Keith himself was a trifle
sleepy as an after affect to the earlier drinking. Sherwood was naturally
reserved and coolly observing; Mrs. Sherwood was apparently somehow on
guard; and Sansome, as always, took his tone from those about him. The wild
spirits of the hour before had taken their flight. It was, however, a
pleasant dinner--without constraint, as among old friends. After the meal
they went to the public parlour, a splendid but rather dismal place.
Sherwood almost immediately excused himself. After a short and somewhat
awkward interval, Nan decided she would go to bed for her needed rest.

"You won't think me rude, I know." said she.

Keith, whose buoyant temper had been sadly divided between a genuine wish
to do the proper and dutiful thing by his wife and a great desire to see
more of this fascinating city, rose with so evident an alacrity under
restraint that Mrs. Sherwood scarcely, concealed a smile. She said her
adieux at the same time, and left the room, troubling herself only to the
extent of that ancient platitude about "letters to write."

VII

"I think we'll find most of the proper crowd down at the Empire," observed
Sansome as the two picked their way across the Plaza. "That is one of the
few old-fashioned, respectable gambling places left to us. The town is not
what it used to be in a sporting way. It was certainly wide open in the
good old days!"

The streets at night were ill lighted, except where a blaze of illumination
poured from the bigger saloons. The interims were dark, and the side
streets and alleys stygian. "None too safe, either," Sansome understated
the case. Many people were abroad, but Keith noticed that there seemed to
be no idlers; every one appeared to be going somewhere in particular. After
a short stroll they entered the Empire, which, Sansome explained, was the
most stylish and frequented gambling place in town, a sort of evening club
for the well-to-do and powerful. Keith looked over a very large room or
hall, at the lower end of which an alcove made a sort of raised stage with
footlights. Here sat a dozen "nigger minstrels" with banjos strumming, and
bawling away at top pressure. An elaborate rosewood bar ran down the whole
length at one side--an impressive polished bar, perhaps sixty feet long,
with a white-clad, immaculate barkeeper for every ten feet of it. Big
mirrors of French plate reflected the whole room, and on the shelf in front
of them glittered crystal glasses of all shapes and sizes, arranged in
pyramids and cubes. The whole of the main floor was carpeted heavily. Down
the centre were stationed two rows of gambling tables, where various games
could be played--faro, keeno, roulette, stud poker, dice. Beyond these
gambling tables, on the other side of the room from the bar, were small
tables, easy chairs of ample proportions, lounges, and a fireplace.
Everything was most ornate. The ceilings and walls were ivory white and
much gilt. Heavy chandeliers, with the usual glass prisms and globes,
revolved slowly or swayed from side to side. Huge oil paintings with shaded
top and foot-lights occupied all vacant spaces in the walls. They were
"valued" at from ten to thirty thousand dollars apiece, and that fact was
advertised. "Leda and the Swan," "The Birth of Venus," "The Rape of the
Sabines," "Cupid and Psyche" were some of the classic themes treated as
having taken place in a warm climate. "Susannah and the Elders" and "Salome
Dancing" gave the Biblical flavour. The "Bath of the Harem" finished the
collection. No canvas was of less size than seven by ten feet.

The floor was filled with people. A haze of blue smoke hung in the air.
There was no loud noise except from the minstrel stage at the end. A low
hum of talk, occasionally accented, buzzed continuously. Many of the people
wandering about, leaning against the bar, or integers of the compact groups
around the gambling tables, were dressed in the height of fashion; but, on
the other hand, certainly half were in the roughest sort of clothes--floppy
old slouch hats, worn flannel shirts, top boots to which dried mud was
clinging. These men were as well treated as the others.

Fascinated, Keith would, have liked to linger, but Sansome threaded his way
toward the farther corner. As Keith passed near one of the close groups
around a gambling table, it parted momentarily, and he looked into the eyes
of the man in charge, cold, passionless, aloof, eyes neither friendly nor
unfriendly. And he saw the pale skin; the weary, bored, immobile features;
the meticulous neat dress; the long, deft fingers; and caught the
withdrawn, deadly, exotic personality of the professional gambler on duty.

The whole place was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Whether it was
primarily a bar, a gambling resort, or a sort of a public club with
trimmings, he could not have determined. Many of those present, perhaps a
majority, were neither gambling, nor drinking; they seemed not to be adding
to the profits of the place in any way, but either wandered about or sat in
the easy chairs, smoking, reading papers, or attending to the occasional
outbreaks of the minstrels. It was most interesting.

They joined a group in the far corner. A white-clad negro instantly brought
them chairs, and hovered discreetly near. Among those sitting about Keith
recognized several he had met in the afternoon; and to several more he was
introduced. Of these the one who most instantly impressed him was called
Morrell. This was evidently a young Englishman, a being of a type raised
quite abundantly in England, but more rarely seen in native Americans--the
lean-faced, rather flat-cheeked, high-cheek-boned, aquiline-nosed, florid-
complexioned, silent, clean-built sort that would seem to represent the
high-bred, finely drawn product of a long social evolution. These traits
when seen in the person of a native-born American generally do represent
this fineness; but the English, having been longer at the production of
their race, can often produce the outward semblance without necessarily the
inner reality. Many of us even now do not quite realize that fact;
certainly in 1852 most of us did not. Morrell was dressed in riding
breeches, carried a short bamboo crop, smiled engagingly to exhibit even,
strong, white teeth, and had little to say.

"A beverage seems called for," remarked Judge Caldwell, a gross, explosive,
tobacco-chewing man, with a merry, reckless eye. The order given, the
conversation swung back to the topic that had occupied it before Keith and
Sansome had arrived.

It seemed that an individual there present, Markle by name--a tall,
histrionic, dark man with a tossing mane--conceived himself to have been
insulted by some one whose name Keith did not catch, and had that very
afternoon issued warning that he would "shoot on sight." Some of the older
men were advising him to go slow.

"But, gentlemen," cried Markle heatedly, "none of you would stand such
conduct from anybody! What are we coming to? I'll get that----as sure as
God made little apples."

"That's all right; I don't blame yo'," argued Calhoun. Bennett. "Do not
misunderstand me, suh. I agree with yo', lock, stock, an' barrel. My point
is that yo' must be circumspect. Challenge him, that's the way."

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