That was ancient history now. It was twenty months since Price had
received a bill, and secret inquiries during the past two had satisfied
him that his wife's name was written in the books of no shop in San
Francisco that she would condescend to visit. Therefore, this maddening
but intangible barrier had nothing to do with a change of habit that had
not caused an hour of tears and sulks. Helene had a quick temper but a
gay and sweet disposition, normally high spirits, little apparent
selfishness, and a naive adoration of masculine superiority and strength;
altogether, with her high bred beauty and her dignity in public, an
enchanting creature and an ideal wife for a busy man of inherited social
position and no small degree of pride.
But all this lovely equipment was blurred, almost obscured at times, by
the shadow that he was beginning to liken to the San Francisco fogs that
drifted through the Golden Gate and settled down into the deep hollows of
the Marin hills; moving gently but restlessly even there, like ghostly
floating tides. He could see them from his library window, where he often
finished his afternoon's work with his secretaries.
But the fog drifted back to the Pacific, and the shadow that encompassed
his wife did not, or rarely. It chilled their ardors, even their serene
domesticity. She was often as gay and impulsive as ever, but with abrupt
reserves, an implication not only of a new maturity of spirit, but of
watchfulness, even fear. She had once gone so far as to give voice
passionately to the dogma that no two mortals had the right to be as
happy as they were; then laughed apologetically and "guessed" that the
old Puritan spirit of her father's people was coming to life in her
Gallic little soul; then, with another change of mood, added defiantly
that it was time America were rid of its baneful inheritance, and that
she would be happy to-day if the skies fell to-morrow. She had flung
herself into her husband's arms, and even while he embraced her the eyes
of his spirit searched for the girl wife who had fled and left this more
subtly fascinating but incomprehensible creature in her place.
II
The morning was Sunday and he sat in the large window of his library that
overlooked the Bay of San Francisco. The house, which stood on one of the
highest hills, he had bought and remodeled for his bride. The books that
lined these walls had belonged to his Ruyler grandfather, bought in a day
when business men had time to read and it was the fashion for a gentleman
to cultivate the intellectual tracts of his brain. The portraits that
hung above, against the dark paneling, were the work of his mother's
father, one of the celebrated portrait painters of his time, and were
replicas of the eminent and mighty he had painted. Maharajas, kings,
emperors, famous diplomats, men of letters, artists of his own small
class, statesmen and several of the famous beauties of their brief day;
these had been the favorite grandson's inheritance from Masewell Price,
and they made an impressive frieze, unique in the splendid homes of the
city of Ruyler's adoption.