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.




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