The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 6, 1904, Page 3

v just how much it would restige. fluttered about in a wrap- e of black net tied ad. Through this circular curls out- ilhouettes. Mrs. on, and e warm, was appearance 2 th her pink and " s i her spotted vell. was a of twelve. n her mother s bright and ped in her a had not spoiled f arming yet that th a pie ssed ars and f the and lever e i N temptation, had e < to cling to the sacrificlal ing on the rouge did e did ap- ma f hour ttes had rphosis and ess curle A vas the man - S ¢ 3 The ladies aps in e the bonanza ates lived after were men who an finish, 4. But they did not ard yuses nor paid after- was in stag form of headgear t n its mind teeth and the sand lots would have a hand- tall smooth- years, dark ability and the work he was Jake Shack- was obvi- become ellent i music in exc a quick, was looking His & thing elaborate and Willers' mind, some esoteric connec- th h p Mrs is he now safe with put i the door Jers, red- felt that this ent for her ng an amused econd guest. He, too, with a quick, in- This time Mrs. consciousness, & oo hasn’t come yet put up with me difficult for the ffection to see in naire the emigrant rs before. A mother e deceived. The lean hunky and heavy now not full—it that would never £ in the seams rowed it. The hair hin the temples, and well- Perhaps the past was that me hard, fine- still shone in red eyes, and stiu is lean, muscular at was frequently used in ges- & lack on 1ange wis coll equally tal his f the coarse illit- His r.anner was tural, and not lack- the dignity of f digni as won his -face among was dressed with the utmost 7 soft felt wide-awake his black Prince Albert $it him with anything like " with which Barry Essex’s fine sha A littl: purple a bow appeared from ned-down collar. Tt was from the brushing of sort whe pose T'm anxious to 4 he sadd, “after e about r.” Essex if I've exagger- Mrs. Willers. “F: knows know what you'v. said,” he but I don’t think anything ; ary that was bett and better said the ‘ I didn't know you knew her, Essex? He turned his gray eyes, absolutely cold and non-committal, on Essex, who ‘nswered them with an equally expres- for three met her “I've known Miss Moreau months,” he replied. “I here.” Shackleton turned back to lers. “I understand from you, Mrs. Willers, that these ladies are left extremely badly off. Are they absolutely without means?” “No-0,” she answered, “not exactly that. Mr. Moreau left a life insurance policy of $5000. Mariposa tells me that $3000 of that went to pay his doctors’ bills and funeral expenses. He was sick a long time. They are now living on their capital, and they've been here four months, and Mrs. Moreau has con- stant medical attendance.” / The millionaire gave a little click of his tongue significant of annoyance. “Moreau had a dozen chénces of making his pile, as every man did in those day he said. “He was the sort of man who is predestined to leave his family poor.” “Yet they worship his memory,” said Mrs. Willers. “He must have been very good to them.” Shackleton made no answer. She was used to reading his expression, and the odd thought crossed her mind that this remark of hers was unpleasant to him. Before she had time to reply a knock at the door announced the arrival of Mariposa. As she entered the two men stood up, both looking at her with veiled eagerness. To Essex his feeling Mrs. Wil- for her was making her every appear-’ ance an event. To Shackleton it was a moment of quivering interest in a ca- reer full of tumultuous moments. A slight flush mounted to his face as he met her eyes. She instinctively looked at him first, with a charming look, girlish, shy and deprecating. Her likeness to her mother struck him like a blow, but she was an Amazonian Lucy, with all that Lucy had lacked. He saw himself in the stronger jaw and the firm lips. Physically she was molded of them both. His heart swelled with a passionate pride. This, indeed, was his own child, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. The introductions over, they resettled themselves, and Mariposa found herself beside this quiet, gray-haired man, talking quite volubly. She was not shy nor nervous, as she had expected to be, but felt peculiarly at her ease. Looking at her with intent eyes, he spoke to her of the early days in California, when he and her parents had come across. “You know, I knew your father in the Sierras, long ago,” he said. . “Yes,” she answered rather hurriedly, fearful lest he should ask her if her father had not spoken of him, “so Mrs. ‘Willers said. It must have been a long time ago. Was 1 there”™ she added with a smile. He was taken aback by the question and said, stammeringly: “Well, really now, I—I—don't quite remember,” *T guess [ wasn't,” she said laughing. You must have known father before that. He came ovc. in forty-nine, you know. I was born twenty-four years ago up in the mountains, in El Dorado County, in a little cabin miles. from Placerville. Mother's often . described the place to me. They left soon after.” He lowered his eyes. He was a man of no sentiment or tenderness, yet something In this false statement, ut- tered so innocently by these fresh young lips, and taught with all the licitude of love to this simple nature, plerced like an arrow to the live spot in his deadened con::’ence. “It was more than twenty-five years ago that I was there,” he said. “You evidently were not born then. “But my mother was there then. Do you think I look like her? My father thought I was wonderfully like her.” He looked into the.candid face. Mem- ories of Lucy before his own, harsh treatment and the hardships of her life had broken her, stirred in him. “Yes,” he said slowly, ‘“you're very like her. But you're like your father, t00.” 3 “Am I?" she cried, evidently de- lighted. “Do you really think so? . I do want to look like my fath .. “Why?"” he could mot help asking. She stared at him surprised. “Wouldn't you like to look like both your parents; if. they” were the two -fin- est people in the world?” Here Mrs.- Willers cut short the con- o8] 4 vE ' gz versation by asking Mariposa to sing. The girl rose and went directly to the piano. For days this moment had been. looming before her in nightmare pro- portions. She was feverishly anxious to do her best and sickeningly fearful of failure. Now her confidence was un- shaken. Something—impossible to say just what—had reassured her. Her hands were trembling a little as she struck the keys, and her first notes showed the oscillation of nervousness, but soon the powerful voice began to come more under her control, and she poured it out exultantly. She mnever sang better. Her voice, much too large for the small space, was almost painful in its resonant force. Of the two men the elder was with- out musical knowledge of any kind. He was amazed and delignted at what seemed to him an astonishing perform- ance. But Essex knew that with proper training and guidance there were possibilities of a brilliant future for this handsome and penniless young woman. “He had lived much among professional singers, and he knew that Mariposa MdPeau possessed an un- usual voice. For reasons of his own he did vot desire her to know her own power, and he was secretly irritated that she sang so well. 3 She continued, Shackleton request- ing another, and yet another song. Only the clock chiming four roused him to the fact that he must go. He was living at his country place at Menio Park and had to catch a train. He left them with assurances of his delight in the performance. To Mariposa, as he pressed her hand in farewell, he said: “I'll see you again. You've a wonder- ful veice, there’s no mistake about that. It's a gift, a great gift, and it must have its chance.” The’ girl, carried away with the tri- umph of the afterncon, said gayly: “I'll sing for you whenever vou like. Could you never come up to our cottage on Pine street and meet my mother? I know she would like to see you.” The slightest possible lcok of surprise passed over his face, gone almost as soon as it had come, Mariposa saw it, however, and felt embarrassed. She evidently had been too forward, and looked down, blushing and uncomforta- ble. He recovered himself immediately, and said: “Not now, much as I should like to, Moreau. I am living at Menlo and all my spare time when busi- ness is over is spent in catching trains But give your mother my compliments on the possession of such a daughter.” Mariposa and Essex stayed chatting with Mrs. Willers for some time after Shackleton’s departure. The clock had chimed more than once, when finally they left, and their hostess, exhaasted, but® exultant, threw herself back in a chair, and watched Edna gather up the remains of the lunch. “Put the cakes in the tin, dearie. They'll do for to-morrow, and be sure and cork the bottle tight. There's enough for another time.” “Several other times,” said Edna, holding the bottle 5t port wineup to the light and squinting at it with ®er head on one side. “It was a cheap party— they hardly drank anything.” Mariposa and her companion walked up Sutter street with the lagging step of people who find each other excellent . company. It was the end of a warm afternoon in September, one of those still, deeply flushed evenings . en the air is tepid and. smells of distant fires, and the winged ants come out of the rotten sidewalks by the thousand. The west was a clear, thin red smudged with brown smcke. The houses grew dark and ever darker, and seemed 0 loom more -solidly black every moment. ‘They looked dreamlike and mysterious against the flery background. “How did you like {t?” said Mariposa, as they loitered on, “my singing, I mean " “It was excellent, of course. . You've got & voice. But the rogm was too small—and such a room to sing in, all erowded with ridiculous things.” Mariposa felt hurt. She thought Es- wex was the finest, the most elegant and finished person she had ever met. He seemed to her to breathe the atmos- phere of those great sophisticated cities she had never sten. In his talks with her he and then illed her by his sugg { belonging to an- other and a wis to which she was a provincial This quality manner now, and she began how raw her poor performance must have seemed to the man whe i heard the great prima donnas of L nd Paris “It was a small re course,” she assented and I cou Shaet understand it thing about h <oldness of his yoice ne posa known more seen g somewhere, but I b eton want Mrs. W illers about the Had Mari- peated th acquaintar ton, and of the latter ¢ Mrs. Wi “Mrs. Willers i suddenly and Mariposa triend and s I don't see ) don’t think a wom : support does ugh added r to ma ‘Oh . ' he answere 1 and work ) be sented He that brought s = ment to his ace. Isn't that A 1 Mariposa felt h the v ming ean and vulgar. “He said he war she said stumk 11t ould be a g ing no money to 1it's all T have s sap- prove of it? 1?—disap do. Why not the right Maripcsa now, that she h timacy between th the first 1 and embarrassed he: to do it, Essex had baffl It amused h but to-day he was in a bad temper dnd did it from spleen, Somehow Jake Shackleton doesn’t suggest himself to me as a patron of the arts ion't think he knows ‘Yankee Dex from ‘God Save the Queen Mariposa thought c ticle on the Italian to Verdi, that the r contributed to t and Jake Shackle £ the brilliant ar- pera, from Bellini an beside her had Sunday’s Trumpet, n's enthusiastic ad- miration of her singing immediately seemed the worthless praise of sodden ignorance. “Then,” she said desperately, “you wouldn’t attach any i rtance, if you were I, to his liking singing? It was just the w people like a street organ simp cause it plays tunes.” “Oh, 1 wouldn't that. There's no reason why h ldn't know a good voice when he “Do you think I've %ot a good voice?” said Marip st street and staring moros “Of course I do, “Do you ally “Yes, really She smiled ar hide it by looking dowm. It n a man to continue bad-hum re this naive display at his com- mending word, “You n ¥ I some day become a singer, a y sing- “T really d The smile broadened “You always n —and—and—as anything,” she n It was so sw and 1 » feel s t her face. stupid to t hly candid, that it melted the la £ his bad temper “You little goose,” he said softly, “don’t you know than I do of any It's getting d. get to the ca She did so and they “Or anywhere I think more of you »ne in San Francisco? take my 1 we d forward. * murmured, = CHAPTER IIL R “Your young n old men shall d After he had put Mar Essex went with some cony living on The Trumpet, and the work he was doing s He thought he might last the winter and he had no objections to passing the winter in San Francisco. Like many of his kind, he felt the lazy Bohemian charm of the adverse, many-colored, cosmopolitan city sprawled on its sand dunes. The restaurants alone made life more worth while than anywhere else in the coun- try except New York. To-night he went to one, for dinner, that stood in Clay street, a short dis- tance below Kearn He had a word to say to the white-clothed chef, who cooked the dinner in plain sight. on a small oven and grill, beneath which the charcoal gleamed redly. He stopped for a moment’s badinage with the buxom, fresh-faced French woman who sat at the desk. She was the chef's wife, Madame Bertrand, and liked “Monsieur Esseex,” who spoke her na- tal tongue as well as she did. Thers was evidently truth in one piece of Es- sex’s autobiography. Only a childhood spent in France could teach the kind of French he spoke with Madame Ber- trand. He sat long over his dinner, pmoking and reading the evening papers. It was so late when he left that Bertrand him- self came out of his cocking corner and talked with him about Paris. “Mon- sieur Esseeex” knew Paris as well as Bertrand, some parts of it better. He had been educated there at one of the large lycees, and had g times, living now or ohe river, now on th Bertr his white cap and apron, conversing with his guest, retained a curious man- ner of deference unusual in California. “Monsieur is a gentleman of some kind or other,” he told madame. “There are many different kinds of a on her car, downtown to the paper He was making a fair ed him.