The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 11, 1906, Page 2

/7 o TR slightly embarrassed. “Really—really!” She peuged, Her face full of smiles, that in some way or other showed disquietude beneath thém. “They’re down from Foleys and going on to Virginia in a day or two. Queer they came around this way, wasn't it?” Again the colonel could not keep from attempts 1o plumb hidden depths. Again his inspecting eye noticed a fiuctuation of color. June was unquestionably surprised by news, but he could not be sure ther she pleased. have to have them up to din- ntinued. “You saw so much st summer before you left that wh o n youwli have to offer them some kind of hospitality . “Of course,” she said hastily, flasning an st indignant look at him. ‘“‘They'll ke dinner with us, or breakfast, or thing they like. I'd love to i hear about everything up ant to hear mow Barney Sulli- on with Mitty. I thought y this time.” must be con- t the colonel's interest in the rs of his friend Mitty sounded ‘I wish Rion was, too.” Yes,” in a small, precise volice, “wouldn’t it be nice “It would ke me e colonel gravely, see tk there. van's getting happy,” said happy, June. very ‘very into his and d negrer to him talk solemnly,” she said, in a ce. “Don’t make me feel as ance at her, caught her ¥ both laughed. You aggravating girl!” he said. “It's all for your own good that I'm talking solemn] t you to be happy.” ppy, very happy. Don't ok llke a person who's er, and she raised king him by the two ears ce toward he * she said politely, “but as t look at me I had to make would you. Don't I look happy?” . nough now,” he answered. *I ng of future. future!”—she made a sweeping scorn—"the future's so far one knows anything about it. Let's not bother with it. enough s she held it up in front of caught her eye and fixed “They’re > and ladylike. They're r look of honest tofl, aren’t ated it! s big palm and she placed which was nearest him, in the past in a blunting )t the The the little one lying in t see that there's anything the r with them,” he said. “This one 'l_\ wants c .e Wh “ r at’s th ndsome one. I mean one; just a band and June the third finger. ity too valuable to be trifled with. Rion Gracey to put it on,” he almost angrily as she face ad the colonel ed it back into As she began a her hand. Sh aying nothing. 3arclay when you you did this after- who are timid by nature, and ed with that weakness, have an overmastering desire to be loved and approved of, are of the stuff of which the most proficient liars can be made. Had in childhood, been intimidated or treated she would have grown J roughly up a fluent and facile perverter of the truth The tender influences of a home wher: love and confidence dwelt had never; made it necessary for her to wish to cohceal her actions or protect herself, and she had grown to womanhood frank, cendidl and truthful. Now, however, she found herself drawn into a situation w it she were to continue in the course that gave her the happiness she had spoken of. she must certainly cease to be open, even begin to indulge in small duplicates. It was with a sensation of shamed guilt that she answered care- lessly: No, not often. Now and then I have.” “Rosamund says he doesn’t come to the house as much as he used.” This was in the form of a question, too. “Doesnt he? I haven’t noticed much.” Her heart accelerated its beats and she felt suddenly unhappy as she realized that she was misleading a person espe- clally dear to her. “In: glad of that, Junie, dear. I don't like him to be hanging round you. He's @ot the man to be your friend.” June began to experience a sense of mis- ery. “What are you down on him for?” she sald. “I llkke him. I like him a great deal.” It seemed to her that by thus openly voicing her predilection for Barclay she, in some way or other atoned for her pre- vious prevarications. “Like him a great deal?” repeated the colonel, staring somberly at her. “What does that mean?” She was instantly alarmed and sought to obliterate the effect of her words. “Oh, I llke him very much. I think he's Interesting and handsome, and—and— apd—very nice. Just that way.” Nothing could have sounded more inno- cently tame. The simple man beside her, who had loved but one woman and known the honest friendship of others as uncom- plex s himself, was relieved. “Barclay’s not the man for a good girl to be friends with,” he continued, with more‘assurance of tone. “He's all that you say—handsome and well educated and a smooth talker and all that. But his record is mot the kind a man likes. He's done things that are not what a decent man does. I can’t tell you. I can’t talk to you about it. But rely on me.- I'm right.” “I know all about it,” she answered, turnirg round and looking calmly at him. “All gbout it!—about what?” he stam- mered, completely taken aback. » “About that hateful story of Mrs. New- bury.* The colonel's face reddened slightly, He had the traditional masculine idea of the young girl as a being of transparent ig- norance, off which the wickedness of the world glanced as birdshot off the surface of a crystal ball. Now he was pained and shocked, not only that June should have heard the story, but that she should thus coolly allude to it. “Then if you've heard it,” he said al- most coldly, “you should know without my telling you that Jerry Barclay’s no man for you to know or walk with or have any acquaintance with."” “You don’t suppose I believe it, do you?" ghe said with the same almost hard composure. This, indeed, was a new view of the situation. For six years the colonel had heard the affair between young Barclay and Mrs. Newbury talked of and specu- lated upon. It had now passed to the stage of shelved acceptance. People no longer speculated. Their condemnation savored even of the indifference of famili- arity. The only thing that nobody did was to doubt. And here was a girl, 100k- ing' him in the face and calmly assuring him of her disbelief. Had he known more of women he would.have realized how dangerous a portent it was. “But—but—why don’t you believe it?" he asked, stil} in the stage of stammering surprise. “Because I know Mr. Barclay,” she answered triumphantly, fixing him with a kindling. eve. “Well, that may be a reason,” said the colonel, then stopped and drew himself to an upright position on the bench. He did not know what to say. Her belief in the man he knew to be zullty had in it a trustfulness of youth that was to him exceedingly pathetic. “You can belleve just what you like, dear,” he said after a moment's pause, ‘it's the privilege of your sex. But this time you'd better quit belleving and be guided by me.” “Why, Uncle Jim,” she said, leaning eagerly toward him, “I'm not a fool or a child any more. Can’t I come to con- clusions about people that may be right? 1 know Mr. Barclay well, not for as long as you have, but I shouldn’t Dbe surprised if I knew him a great deal better. We saw him so often and so intimately up at Foleys, and he couldn’t be the kind of a man he is and be mixed up in such horrible scandals. It's impossible. He's a gentleman, he's a man of honor.” “Yes,” nodded the colonel, looking at the shrubs in front of him, “that's just what he'd say he was if you asked him.” “And it would be right. He's not capable of doing dishonorable things. He's above it. Rosamund thinks so, t00.” “‘Oh, does she?” said the colonel. If he had not been so suddenly stricken with worry and foreboding he could not have forborne a smile at this citing of Kosamund as a court of last resort. “Yes, Rosamund said she couldn’t be- lieve it either. if you knew him as we do you'd understand better. It's all lies. People are always talking scandal in this place—I've heard more since I came here than I heard in the whole of my life before. It's a dreadful thing, 1 think, to take away a man's charac- ter just for the fun of talking.” She had spoken rapidly and now paused with an air of suspended inter- est, which was intensified by her ex- pression of ecager questioning. The colonel looked at her. In a dim way she wes struck, as she had been before, by the intense melancholy of his eyes— sad old cyes—that told of a life unful- filled, devastatéd, at its highest point of promise. “June, dear,” he said in a low voice, ‘you're not in love with this man?” The color ran over her face to the hair on her forehead. The directness of the question had shocked her young girl's delicacy and prii She tried to laugh, and then with her eyes down- drooped, said in a volce of hurried em- barrassment: “No, of course not.” He smiled In a sudden expansion of relief. All was well again. In his sim- plicity of heart it did not occur to him to doubt her. CHAPTER IV. Danger Signals. Jerome Barclay lived with his mother in a new house on Taylor street, near Jackson. They had only been there a short time. Before that South Park had been their home. But within the last year or two the fortunes of South Park had shown symptoms of decline, and when this happened Mrs. Simeon Barclay had felt that she must move. Since her arrival in San Francisco in the early fiftles, Mrs. Barclay had made many moves. These were not undertaken because her habitats had been uncom- fortable, but because the fashionable ele- ment of the city had shown from the first a migratory tendency which was ex- ceedingly inconvenient for those who fol- lowed it. Mrs. Barclay had followed it assiduously from the day she had landed from the steamer, and had in conse- quence lived in many localitles, ranging from what was now Chinatown and in the fiftles had been the most perfectly genteel and exclusive region, to the quiet- ly dignified purlieus of Taylor street. Simeon Barclay had crossed the plains in an emigrant train in forty-nine, and between that and sixty-four, when he died, had made a fair fortune, first as a pontractor and afterward as a spec- ulator in real estate. In St. Louis, his native place, he had begun life as a car- penter, seen but little prosperity, and married a pretty servant girl, whose mind was full of distinctly formed ambi- tions. When he went to California in the first gold rush he left his wife and son behind bim, and when, from the car- pentering that he did with his own hands n Mitt,” he sald with had had of THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. = S Barclay died in the South Park house. ‘When it came to settling up the estate it was found that he had left much less than had been expected. The house and the income of A prudently invested $50,000 was all the widow and son had to their credit when the outlying debts were paid. It was not a mean fortune for the nlace and the time, but both were querulous and felt themselves aggrieved by this sudden lightening of what had been for fifteen years a well-filled purse Jerry, to whom a pecuniary stringency was one of the greatest of trials, at- tempted to relicve the Situation by spec- ulatinz in ‘“‘feet on the lode” in Vir- ginia City, and quickly lost the major part of his inheritance. Even then there was no need for worry, as the son had been taten into the business the father had built up, which still flourished. But Jerry showed none of the devotion to commercial life that had distinguished the elder man. In his hands the fortunes of Barclay & Son, real estate brokers, rapidly declined. He neglected the office. as he did hie home, his mother, his friends. A devotion, more urgently en- grossing and intoxicatinz than business could ever be, had monopolized his thoughts, his intergsts and his time. He was 24 when he returned from Eu- rope, handsome, warm-blooded, soft- tongued, a youth framed for the love of women. It sneedily found him. He had not been home six months when his in- fatuation for the wife of Willlam New- bury was common talk. She was three years his senior, mi: mated to a man nearly double her a dry, hard and preclse. She wus a woma of tragedy and passion, suffering In ner downfall. She had at first struzgled fiercely against it, sunk to her fall in anguish, and after it, known contending confligts of flesh and svirit. when she had tried to break from its bondage and ever sunk again with bowed head and sickened heart. Peovle had wondered to see’ the figure of Lupe Newbury bent in prayer before the altars of her church. In her girlhood she had not beéen noted for her piety. Waking at night, her hus- band often heard her soft padding foot- fall as she paced back and forth through the suite of rooms she occupied. ffe had never understood her, but he loved her in a sober, admiring way, showered money on her, belleved in her implicitly. This fond and unquestioning belief was the salt that her conscience rubbed oftenest and most deeply into the wound. In those first years Jerry had given her his promise never to marry. He told her repeatedly that he regarded her as his wife; if she were ever free it would be his first care to make her so before the eyes of the world. But six years had passed since then, years during which the man’s love had slowly cooled, while the woman’s burned deeper with an ever- increasing fervid glow. The promise which had been given in the heat of a passion that sought extravagant terms in which ;to express itself, was now her chief hold upon him. In the scenes of recrimination that constantly took place between them she beat it about his ears and flourished it in his eyes. As she had no cunning to deceive him in the begin- ning, she had no subtilities to reawake old tenderness, rekindle old fires. She was as tempestuously dark in her despair as she was furfous in her up- braldings, melting in her love. He was sorry for her and he was also afraid of her. He tried to please her, to keep her in a good temper, and he refrained from looking into the future where his promise and his fear of her were writ large across his life. 1t was for his protection from scenes of jealousy and tears that he had conducted his friendship with June in a surreptitious manner. He had the caution of selfish mnatures, and the underhand course that his intrigue necessitated had further de- veloped it. He wanted to please himself always and to hurt no, one, because peo- ple, when they are hurt, disturb the joy- ous tenor of life. Now, where June was concerned, he was not doing any harm. He saw the girl in & perfectly open man- ner except that he did not see her in her own house. He had a right to spare him- seif the railings to which he knew Lupe ‘would subject him, and which he dreaded as only a man can who hears them from the lips of a woman he has ruined and no longer loves. That it was unfair to June he would not permit himself to think. He-liked seeing her too much to give it up, so he as- sured himself that it was a harmless pleasure for both of them. Of course he could not marry her. Even if he were free to do so he had no such feeling for her. They were only friends. Their con- versation had never passed the nicely des- ignated limits of friendship. He had never touched her hand save in the perfunctogy pressure of greeting and farewell. His re- spect for June was genuine, only it was not as strong as his regard for his own pleasure and amusement. Yet, despite the assurances of the platonic coolness of his sentiments, his desire for her society grew with what it fed on. When by some engagement, im- possible to be evaded, they could not take their accustomed walk together, he was filled with an unreasonable disappoint- ment, and was almost angry with her till she should appear again. ‘ On the last occasion the colonel had in- terrupted them only a few minutes after they had met. Jerry, cheated of the hour he had intended spending on the park bench with her, left them in a rage. And so imperative was his wish to see her that the next evening, indifferent to the fact that he would probably find the colenel there, he made up his mind to go to the house on Folsom street and pay one of his rare calls. Rion Gracey and Barney Sullivan were dining with the Allens that night. There ‘was much to talk about and the party sat long over the end of dinner, the smoke of the men's lying in light layers across the glit expanse of the table. There were champagne -glasses beside h plate, the bubbles rising in “the slender to cluster along the rim. ‘l'hu;% appeared mid- way in the dinner, when, with much stumbling and after repeated prompt- ings and urgings from Rion, Barney Sullivan had announced his engagement? to Summit Bruce. ‘With glasses held aloft the party pledged Mitty and her lover. The en- comiums of his flancee which followed made Bsrln& redder the e “Oh, there's nothin’ the matter with a lover's modesty, I aln’t gone it blind choosin’ her.” ity Bruss is ik et =it i N 14 Q.Iémh xmm-r'm vilp 'fl“ guess Barney nks just that way,” Rion answered, jt:m:-hfg‘: to Stare at the blushing face of his su- P Oh, Mitta all there” Barney “Oh, '8 ere,”” B: g:.:mnowmq‘&mu’l! a slight .,,g slasm. e's just about atly . ia rwidt e b real to his the conversation left te rs and rxllk daugh- ork w! she had been sent I:‘ tlhe autumn uthl?:: rls asked anxious- ly after her. The few glimpses they the spolled beauty had fn- tion, with beyond that a pelishing year or two of Buropean travel. ¥ “How wonderful she’ll be when she ' comes back,” Rosamund had said with an unenvieus sigh. ‘Pe beauti- ful and Xnewing erything like the heroiné 8f a novel, A slight trace of bitterness was no- ticeable in Rion’s answer. “I think she'd have been a good deal more wonderful if she'd stayed here, She’s just the apple of her father's eve, the thing he lives for. An# now, unless he goes Bast, and that's almost impos- sible with things waking up this way in Virginia, he mayv not see'her for a year or two.” The mention of Virginia broke the spell ef gossip and small talk and the conversation settled down to the dis- cussion of the business which, in dif- ferent degrees, absorbed the four men. 1t was curious to notice the change wrought in them by this congenial theme. Sullivan’s uncouthness and em- barrassment feli from him with the first words. His whole bearing was trans- formed; it became infused with alert- ness and gained in poise and weight. The heaviness of his visage gave place to a look of sharpened concentration. His very voice took on different tones, quick, sure and decisive. But it was to Rion Gracey that the others deferred. June, sitting silent in her chair, 'neticed that when he spoke they listened, Sullivan with fox- like keenness of face, the colonel with narrowed eyes, ponderingly attentive over his clgar, her father with a motion- less interest showing In knit brows and dehating glance. Leaning back in an at- titude of careless ease, Rion spoke sim- ply brt with o natural dominance. for here he was master. A thrill of surprised admiration passed through the girl. He was a man among men, a leader by weight of authority, to whom the others unconscicusly yielded the foremost place. The roggn was dim with smoke when they finally rose from the table. The mining discussion was stll in progress, but Rion dropped out of it to turn to his hostess and draw back her chair. As he did so he leaned over her shoulder and said in a lowered voice: “It's too bad I've got to go on to-mor- row. 1 wanted to see you again. I want- ed to talk to you.” The woeds were simple enough. The voung girl, however, looking uneasy, turned to glance at him. She met his eves, keen, deep-set, quiet, the eyes of the outdoor man accustomed to range over airy distances. In them she saw a look which caused her to drop her own. Mur- muring a word or two of reply she turned and passed through the doorway into the ¢itting - room just behind Rosamund. That young woman suddenly felt her arm pres ear heard a whisper: “Don’t leave me alone this evening with Rion Gracey. Please don't.” Rosamund turned and shot an inquiring side-glance at her sister’s perturbed face. She strolled toward the sitting-room bay- window 2nd began to arrange the cur- tains, June at her heels. - “Why not?” she said in a whisper, pull- ing the heavy folds together. “I'a_afraid of what he's going to say. Oh, pieasc”’—with as much urgency as the low tone employed permitted—“if he suggests that we go into the drawing- room to look at phatographs or albums or anything, you come along, too.” “But why?" “Rosle, don’t be such a fool!” angry whisper. Rosamund was about to retort with some spirit when the click of the iron gate caught her ear. She drew back the curtains and peeped out. A step sounded on the flagged walk and a tall, masculine figure took shape through the density of the fog-thickened atmosphere. She closed the curtains and looked at June with an unsmliling eye. #You needn’t be afrald of being left aione with anybody,” she sald. ‘“‘Here's Jerry Barclay.” June drew back, her eyebrows raised into exclamatory semi-circles, an irre- pressible amile on her lips. “Rosamund,” called Allen from the ta- ble, “where’'s the ash receiver? Gracey's got nothing to put his ashes in but the blue satin candy box one of June's young men gave her fcr Christmas.” The entrance of Jerry Barclay a mo- ment later had a marked effect upon the company. He was known to the four men and not especlally liked by any one of them. The colonel had begun |to feel for him a sharp, disqufeted repugnance. The one person in the room to whom his en- trance afforded pleasure was June, and this sne made an effort to hide under a manner of cold polileness. An immediate constraint fell on the par- ty which the passage of the evening did not dispel. Gracey was angry that the advent of this man whom he men- tally characterized as ‘“a damned BEuro- pean dandy” had deprived him of a tete- a-tete with June. He had not intended, as the young girl feared, to ask her to marry him. He had the humility of a true lover and he felt that he dared not (broach that subject yet. But he had hoped for an hour’s converse with her'to take with him on his journey as a sweet, comforting memory. Sullivan detested Jerry, whose manner le found con- descending, turned from him, and began talking with an aggressive indifference to his host. But the colonel was thé most disturbed of all. What worried him was the difference between June's manner to Jerry to-day, when others were present, and June's manner to Jerry yesterday, when they had been walking alone on Van Ness avenue. iy By 11 o'clock they had gone and Allen having stolen to bed, the sisters were left together in the sitting-room. They were silent for a space, Rosamund about to put out lights, give depressed cushions a pat, and sweep the in an ashes of the fire into a careful heap be-- neath the grate, while June idlly watched her from the depths of an arm-chair. “Aren't le funny?"” sald the yo A “They seem ent in different places. “How do you mean?” said June absent- ly. “Who's different in a different place?” “Well, Barney is. He's all right and looks just as good as anybody up at the mines. And down here he’s entirely dif- ferent, he looks so red, and his feet are so big, and his hands never seem to know where to go unless he's talking about mining things. His clothes never looked so queer up at Foley’s, did they? They seemed just like everybody else's clothes up there.” #0h, Barney’s all right,” returned the other, evidently taking scant interest in “I'm glad he and Mitty are going to be married.” “But Rlon Gracey’s not like that,” con- tinued Rosamund, pursuing her own line of t, ‘“He's just the. same every- - where. 'I think he looks better down here. Ho looks as if he were somebody, some- body of importance. He even makes other people, that look all right when he’s not by, seem sort of small and insigni- ficant.” “Whom did he make look small and in- ed by a small, cold hand, and in her, ‘moving in ing out to dinner through less didn’t amount to much beside Rion. The he sald seemed snappish and some- silly, like what a girl says when shhfio;'- cross and is trying to pretend she “I dom’t think it very Rosa- mund,” said June in a coldly superior long, *“‘to criticise people and. talk them over when they've hardly got out of the i i ““Well, perhaps it isn't,” sald Rosamund cantritely, returning to her hearth-brush- ing, “but like lots of other things that aren’t just right it's awfully hard not to —do it sometimes.” The girls went upstairs and June was silent. Rosamund thought she was still annoyeq by the criticism of her friend, and so she was. For deep in her own heart the thought that Rosamund had given voice to had entered, paining and shocking her by its disloyalty, and mak- ing her feel a sense of resentment against Rion Gracey. CHAPTER V. The Great God Pan. In thespring in S8an Francisco the trade winds come and all wise Californfans move inland. In the early seventies the exodus to the country was not noticeably large. Rural hotels were still small and primitive. To be able to evade the fog- laden breath of the trades was the luxury of the well-to-do, and the well-to-do evad- ed them by retiring to country houses which dotted the teeming reaches of the Santa Clara Valley, or sought the sheiter of the live oaks where the golden floor of the valley slopes up into the undulations of the hills. The Allens moved down early fn April. Their father, after an afternoon’s excur- sion In a buggy with a real estate agent, came back one evening and told them he had rented the De Soto house, back of San Mateo, for three years, and they must be ready to meve into it in a week. He was full of business and hurry in these days, and said he could not help them much. Neither would he be with them a great deal, as he would spend most of his summer in town with ocea- slonal trips to Virginia City. Crown Point was steadily rising and the rumors of a mnew bonanza were OR every tongue. Rion Gracey had not returned, and Black Dan had ridden over the mountains into the Nevada camp on his own horse, a dislike for modern modes of locomotion being one of his peculiar- ities. Allen had bought heavily of the rising stock gnd seen himself on the road to even more dazzling fortune. He had rented the De Soto place for the highest price any real estate agent had yet dared to ask. People who knew of tne rate of his expenditure talked of a beggar on horseback. But the Bar- ranca was paying well and the twenty- stamp mill was up and going. The De Soto estate was part of the princely grant that the Senorita Esper- anza de Soto brought as a marriage portion to her husband, Peter Kelley, a sallor from a New England clipper which touched at Yerba Buena in thir- ty-eight. At the time the Allens rented it part of the great tract had been par- celed out and sold to householders. The central portion, where Peter and the Senora Kelley had bulilt a stately home, was practically as it had been when the Yankee seaman first ranged over it and realized the riches of his bride. Now both ilor and senora were dead, and their only son, ' Tiburcio Keiley, pre- ferred a life in Paris on the large for- tune accumulated by his thrifty father, to the dolce far niente of empty, golden days in the Santa Clara Valley. This central strip of the tract, which ran from the valley up Into the first spurs of the hills. was still a virgin wilderness. Huge live-oaks, silvered with a hoar of lichen, stretched their boughs in fantastic frenzies, Gray fringes of moss hung from them, and tangled screens of clematis and wild grape caught the sun- light in their flickering meshes or lay over mounds of foliage like a torn green veil. The silence of an undese- crated nature dreamed over all. Wood- land life seldom stirred the dry under- growth, the rustle Pl nesting birds was rare in the secret'leafy depths of the oaks. Here and there the murmurous dome of the stone pine soared aloft, the clouded dusk of its foliage almost black against the sky. For nearly two miles the carriage drive wound upward through this syl- van solitude. As it approached the house a background of emerald lawns shone through the interlacing of branches, and brilllant bits of flower beds were set like pleces of mosaic be- tween gray trunks. The drive took a sweep around a circular parterre plant- ed in geraniums—a billowing bank of color under a tent of oak boughs—and ended in a wide, graveled space at the balcony steps. The house was a spreading, two- story bullding of wood, each floor sur- rounded by a deep balcony upon which lines of French windows opened. Flow- ering vines overhung, climbed and clung about the balcony pifllars and balustrades. Roses drooped in heavy headed cascades from second-story railings; the wide purple flowers of the clematis climbed aloft. On one wall a heliotrope broke in Javender foam and the creamy froth of the bankshur rose, dabbled railings and pillars’ and drip- ped over on the ground. It was a big, coul, friendly looking house with a front door that in summer was always open, giving the approaching visitor a hospitable glimpse of an airy, unin- cumbered hall. The move completed, June and Rosa- mund began to taste the charm of the Californian’s summer life. There were no hotels near them. No country club had yet risen to bring the atmosphere of the city into the suave silence of the hills. It was a purely rural existence; driving and riding in the morning, read- ing in the hammock under the trees, re- ceiving callers the balcony in the ‘warm, scented the afternoon, go- the dry, dew- twilight and coming home under the light of large, pale stars in a night which looked as transparently dark as the heart of a black dlamond. They were sometimes alone, but, as a tule, the house contained guests. The colonel at first came down constantly, always from Saturday to Monday and now and then for a week-day evening. But in May the sudden leap of Crown Point to 180 upset the tranquillity of even cooler natures than Jim Parrish’s, and the Stock Exchange became the center of men's lives. The long expected bo-. nanza had been struck. The San Fran- ciscans, once more restored to confidence in the great lode, were seized with their old zest of speculation, and all the world bought Crown Point. Allen saw himselt on the road to a second fortune, and threw his money about in Virginia with an additional gusto, as it had been the scene of some of his Poorest days. Even the colonel was attacked by the fever and invested. His condi- tion had given him grounds for uneasi- ness lately, and here. was the chance to repair it. A mine In Shasta, in which he had been a large owner, shut down. He ' Under the live-oaks back of San Ma: owned property in South Park, and the real estate agents were beginning to shake their heads at the ‘mention South Park prdperty. It surprised him to realize that for the first time in years he was short of ready momey. He soll | two buildings far out among the sand dunes on upper Market stre nd with the rast of his kind bought Virginia min- ‘ ing stock with Crown Point and Eelcher at the head. the girls only faintly heard the :isir rush of the excitement. The current eir- cled away from their peaceful corne lapped now and then by a belated ripple The country life they both o them with contentment and hedlit mund took to gardening a 1 shaded by a large Mes might be seen of a with the Irish gardener, astonishing by her practical knowledge. In the eve ing she surreptitiously “hosed” the bo ders, wishing that her visitors would go back to town and leave her to the j ful pursuit of the work she delight and understood. June was not len or do much so energetic. She a@id parts of the groun & might be expected, Mrs. Barclay ways moved down to San Mateo in A} country place, but she did the bes was in her and rented a pretty ¢ outside the village. Here Jerry from town every Saturday and till Monday morning, and to her st not infrequently appeared una on weekday afternoons, saying tha iness was dull, and there was no ty walting about in town. T before she had complained gr her son’s visits to San Mateo were rar This summer she had no such gri ance. He kept a horse small able, and as soon as he it saddled and went out for i Sometimes on Sunday he rode over a called on the Allens, but there other people to visit in the ne hood and he did not go to the All so he told his mother—as often as he would have liked. The direction he took on d were the week day afternoons was always the same. California of No rain falls during the summer, there are no dark hours thunder and cloud; it is a long pre sion of blue and gold days, ste: ardent sunshine, cooled by vagran airs, drowsy with aromatic scents summer made for lovers' trys Half way up the winding drive to the De Soto house Jerry had learned there was a path through the underbrush which led to an opening, deep in the sylvan wilderness, under the hie leaved roof of an oak. It had been a favorite spot of the late Senora Kel- ley’s, and all the poison oak had been uprooted. With the canopy of the tree above—a celling of green mosaic in which the twisted limbs were im- bedded—and the screen of lightly hung, flickering leafage encircling It, it was like ? woodland room,. the bower of some/belated dryad. Sometimes Jerry had to wait for her, and lying prone on the ground, his horse tethered to a tree trunk near by, lay looking up, his senses on the alert to catch her step. Sometimes she was there first, and as he brushed through the covert he saw her dress gleaming between the leaves In a spattering of white. His heart was beginning to beat hard at the sound of her advanc- ing footfall. While he waited for her he thought of nothing, his whole being held in a hush of expectancy. When she came he found it difficult for the first moment to speak easily. On an afternoon early in June he sat thus waiting. All the morning the thought of this meeting had filled his mind, coming between him and his business. On the train conilng down the anticipation of it held him in a trance-like quietude. He talked little to his mother at lunch. e kept see- ing June as she came fato sight be- tween the small, delicately leaved branches, dots of sun dancing along her dress, her eyes, shy and full of delight, peepinig through the leaves for him. He answered his mother's questions at random and ate but little. The pictuie of the white-clad girl grew in intensity, striking him into motionless reverie, o that, his eyes fixed, he seemed scarcely to breathe. It was very warm. Lying on his back on the dried grass, his hands clasped under his head, he gazed straight before him at the long fringes of moss that hung from a gnarled bough. His senses were focused in an effort to disentangls her footstep from the drowsy noises of the afternoon. All scruples, apprehensions of danger, were swept away by the hunger of her presence. His mind had room for no other thought. Every nerve was taut, every sense quivering alert, as he lay, still as a statue, waiting for her. Suddenly he rose on his elbow, star- ing sldeways In the concentration of his attention. The subdued, regu- lar brush of her dress against the leaves came softly through the murmur- ous quietness. He sprang to his feet, strangely grave, his glance on the path she came by. In a moment her figure speckled the green with white, and she came into view, hurrying, sending sharp, exploring looks before her. She saw him, instantly fell to a slower pace, and tried to suppress the gladness of her expres- sion. But he saw it all, and the quick breath that lifted her breast. Her hand hardly touched his, and moving a little away from him, she sank down on the ground, her white skirts billowing round her. She pressed them Into folds with arranging pats, avolding his eyes, and repeating some commonplaces of greeting. Jerry returned to his reclining pesture, lying on his side, his elbow In the grass, his hand supporting his head. He, at first, made no pretense of moving his eyes from her, and answered her remarks shortly and absently. . Against the background of variegated greens she presented & harmony of clear, thin tints like a water color. Her dress of sheer, white muslin was cut away from the throat in a point, and smoothly cov- ering her arms and neck, let them be seen beneath {ts crisp transparency, ‘warmly white under the cold white of the material. The heat of the afternoon and the excitement of the meeting had called up a faint pink to her cheeks. In her belt she had thrust a branch of wistaria and the trall of blossoms hung down along her skirt. She wore a wide leghorn hat, and in this she had fastened another ‘bunch, the flowers lying scattered across the, broad rim, and one spray hangirg over its edge and mingling with the curls that touched her neck. Jerry had never seen her look as she did this afternoon. Love, that she feit assured was returned, had lent her the fleeting beauty of an hour. She did not seek to penetrate the future. The happi- ness of the present sufficed her. She said lttle, plucking at s tuft of small wild flowers that grew beside her, consclous wmlumol(flbtrolh}rmorsues. off ¥ had become dis-