that same evening, at the hour when bill cannon and his daughter were setting out from rocky bar, dominick ryan was walking up van ness avenue toward his mother’s house.
dominick did not know at what hours balls of the kind mrs. ryan was giving that evening were supposed to begin. it was nearly three years since he had been a participant in such festal gatherings. he had not been at a dance, or a dinner, or a theater party since his marriage. he had heard that these “functions,” as people now called them, began later than they did in his day. stopping by a lamp he drew out his watch—ten o’clock. it was later than he expected. in truth, as he had seen the house looming massively from its less imposing neighbors, his foot had lagged, his approach had grown slower and slower. it was his mother’s home, once his own, and as he drew nearer to it his reluctance to enter grew stronger, more overpoweringly oppressive.
in the clear, lamp-dotted night it looked much larger and more splendid than by day. when cornelius ryan had built it he had wanted to have the finest house in san francisco, and he certainly had achieved the most spacious and ornate. its florid ornamentation was now hidden by the beautifying dark, and on its vast façade numerous windows broke the blackness with squares of light. in the lower ones the curtains were drawn, but slivers and cracks of radiance slipped out and penetrated the dusk of a garden, where they encountered the glossy surfaces of leaves and struck into whispering darknesses of shrubbery.
the stimulating unquiet of festival was in the air. round the mouth of the canvas tunnel that stretched from the door a dingy crowd was assembled, staring in at nothing more inspiring than the blank visage of the closed portal. at every passing footstep each face turned to the street, hopefully expectant of the first guest. the whining of catgut strings, swept by tentative bows, struck on dominick’s ear as he pushed his way through the throng and passed up the tunnel. before he touched the bell the door swung back and a man-servant he had never seen before murmured in politely low tones,
“gentlemen’s dressing-room first floor to the right.”
dominick stood uncertain. he was only a rare, occasional visitor at his mother’s house, and to-night the hall stripped for revelry looked strangely unfamiliar. the unexpectedness of a great, new mirror, surmounted by gold heraldic devices, confused him. the hall chairs were different. the music, loud now and beginning to develop from broken chords and phrases into the languorous rhythm of a waltz measure, came from behind a grove of palms that stood back under the stairs, where the organ was built into the wall. both to the right and left, wide, unencumbered rooms opened, brilliantly lighted, with flowers banked in masses on the mantels and in the corners. the scent of these blossoms was rich on the air and seemed to blend naturally—like another expression of the same sensuous delightfulness—with the dreamy sweetness of the music.
“gentlemen’s dressing-room first floor to the right,” repeated the servant, and dominick became aware of the man’s eyes, fixed on him with a gleam of uneasy scrutiny shining through cultivated obsequiousness.
“where is my——” he was going to say “mother,” but checked himself, amending it with, “where is mrs. ryan?”
the servant indicated the open doorway to the right and dominick passed in. through the vista of two rooms, their connecting archways uncurtained, he saw the shining spaciousness of the ball-room, the room his mother had added to the house when cornelia, his sister, had “come out.” it seemed empty and he walked toward it, stepping softly on rugs of tiger skin and polar bear. he noticed the ice-like polish of the oak floor, the lines of gilt chairs, and a thick, fat garland of roses—leaves and blossoms combined—that was festooned along the wall and caught up at each sconce.
as he entered he saw his mother and cornelia. they had been standing in one corner, cornelia adjusting the shade of an electric light. one white arm was raised, and her skirt of lace was reflected clearly in the parquet. the light shone along her bare shoulders, having a gloss like old marble. from the nape of her neck her hair, a bright, coarse red, was drawn up. she seemed all melting shades of cream color and ivory, but for this flaming crest of copper color.
her mother was standing beside her watching the arranging hand. she was sixty-eight years of age and very stout, but her great wealth made it possible for her to employ dressmakers who were artists and experts, and her parisian costume made her look almost shapely. it fell about her in dignified black folds, sparkling discreetly with some jetted garnishings. with their shifting gleam the glint of diamonds mingled. she also wore pearls round her neck and some diamond ornaments in her elaborately-dressed gray hair.
the coarseness of her early beginnings could not be hidden by the most proficient artificers in millinery or jewels. delia ryan had come from what are vulgarly called “the lower orders,” having, in her ragged childhood, crossed the plains at the tail-board of an ox cart, and in her girlhood been a general servant in a miners’ boarding-house at sonora. now, as she stood watching her daughter’s moving hand, her face, set in a frowning rigidity of observation, was strong but unbeautiful. her small eyes, shrewd and sharp, were set high in her head under brows almost rubbed away. the nose was short, with an undeveloped bridge and keen, open nostrils. her mouth had grown thinner with years; the lips shut with a significant firmness. they had never been full, but what redness and ripeness they had had in youth were now entirely gone. they were pale, strong lips, the under one a little more prominent than the upper.
“there!” said cornelia. “now they’re all even,” and she wheeled slowly, her glance slipping along the veiled lights of the sconces. in its circuit it encountered dominick’s figure in the doorway.
“dominick!” she cried, and stood staring, naïvely astonished and dismayed.
mrs. ryan turned with a start, her face suffused with color. the one word seemed to have an electrifying effect upon her, joyous, perturbing—unquestionably exciting.
“my boy!” she said, and she rustled across the room with her hands out.
dominick walked toward her. he was grave, pale, and looked thoroughly miserable. he had his cane in one hand, his hat in the other. as he approached her he moved the hat to his left hand and took hers.
“you’ve come!” she said fondly, “i knew you would. that’s my boy. i knew you’d come when your mother asked you.”
“yes, i’ve come,” he said slowly, and looking down as if desiring to avoid her eyes. “yes, i’ve come, but——”
he stopped.
his mother’s glance fell from his face to his figure and saw under the loose fronts of his overcoat that he wore his business suit. her countenance instantly, with almost electric suddenness, stiffened into antagonism. her eye lost its love, and hardened into a stony look of defiant indignation. she pulled her hand from his and jerked back the front of his coat with it.
“what’s this mean?” she said sharply. “why aren’t you dressed? the people will be here in a minute. you can’t come this way.”
“i was going home to dress,” he said. “i am not sure yet that i can come.”
“why?” she demanded.
his face grew red. the mission on which he had come was more difficult, more detestable, than he had supposed it would be. he looked down at the shining strip of floor between them and said, trying to make his voice sound easy and plausible:
“i came to ask you for an invitation for berny.”
“hah!” said his mother, expelling her breath in an angry ejaculation of confirmed suspicion. “that’s it, is it? i thought as much!”
“mama!” said the girl who had been standing by, uneasily listening. “mama dear——”
her voice was soft and sweet, a placating woman’s voice. and as she drew nearer to them, her figure seeming to float over the shining parquet in its pale spread of gauzy draperies, her tone, her face, and her bearing were instinct with a pleading, feminine desire to soothe.
“keep quiet, cornie,” said her mother, “you’re not in this”—turning to dominick. “and so your wife sent you up here to beg for an invitation? she’s got you under her thumb to that extent? well, go back to her and tell her that she can send you forty times and you’ll not get it. she can make you crawl here and you’ll not get it—not while this is my house. when i’m dead you can do what you like.”
she turned away from him, her face dark with stirred blood, her body quivering. anger was not the only passion that shook her. deeper than this went outraged pride, love turned to gall, impotent fury that the woman her son had married had power over him so to reduce his pride and humble his manhood—her only son, the joy and glory of her old age, her benjamin.
he looked after her, uncertain, frowning, desperate.
“it’s not right,” he protested. “it’s not fair. you’re unjust to her and to me.”
the old woman moved across the room to the corner where she had been standing when he entered. she did not turn, and he continued:
“you’re asking people to this ball that you hardly know. everybody in san francisco’s going. what harm has berny done that you should leave her out this way?”
“i don’t want women with that kind of record in my house. i don’t ask decent people here to meet that sort,” said his mother over her shoulder.
he gave a suppressed exclamation, the meaning of which it was difficult to read, then said,
“are you never going to forget the past, mother?”
she wheeled round toward him almost shouting,
“no—no—no! never! never! make your mind up to that.”
they looked at each other across the open space, the angry defiance in their faces not hiding the love and appeal that spoke in their eyes. the mother longed to take her son in her arms; the son longed to lay his head on her shoulder and forget the wretchedness and humiliations of the last two years. but they were held apart, not only by the specter of the absent woman, but on the one side by a fierce, unbendable pride, and on the other by an unforgettable sense of obligation and duty.
“oh, mother!” he exclaimed, half-turning away with a movement of despair.
his mother looked at him from under her lowered brows, her under lip thrust out, her face unrelenting.
“come here whenever you like,” she said, “as often as you want. it’s your home, dominick, mine and yours. but it’s not your wife’s. understand that.”
she turned away and again moved slowly toward the corner, her rich skirts trailing fanwise over the parquet. he stood, sick at heart, looking at the tip of his cane as it rested on the floor.
“dominick,” said his sister’s voice beside him, “go; that’s the only thing to do. you see it’s no use.” she made a backward jerk of her head toward their mother, and then, struck by the misery of the eyes he lifted to her face, said tenderly, “i’m so sorry. you know i’d have sent it if i could. but it’s no use. it’s just the same old fight over again and nothing gained. tell your wife it’s hopeless. make her give it up.”
he turned slowly, his head hanging.
“all right,” he said, “i’ll tell her. good-night, mother.”
“good-night, dominick,” came the answer.
“good-night, cornie,” he said in a muffled voice and left the room.
he passed through the brilliantly bright, flower-scented parlors and was shown out by the strange man-servant. the crowd at the mouth of the canvas tunnel had increased. clumps of staring white faces edged the opening and presented themselves to his eye, not like reality, but like a painting of pale visages executed on the background of the night. they drew away as he approached them, making a lane of egress for him, then turned and eyed him—a deserter from the realms of joy—as he stopped by a lamp-post to look at his watch. a quarter past ten. he had been in the house only fifteen minutes. he did not need to go home for a while yet. he could walk about and think and arrange how he would tell berny.
he was a man in the full vigor of his youth, strong and brave, yet at this moment he feared, feared as a child or a timid woman might fear, the thought of his wife. he dreaded to meet her; he shrank from it, and to put it off he wandered[27] about the familiar streets, up one and down the other, trying to overcome his sick reluctance, trying to make up his mind to go to her, trying to conquer his fear.
