The Blood Red Dawn

by Charles Caldwell Dobie

Later, in the refuge of his own four walls and under the brooding solace of an after-dinner cigar, he lost some of the intensiveness of his former humor. But the force of the vehemence which had shaken him filled him with much wonder and some apprehension. He was too much a man of experience to deny questions when they were put to him squarely by circumstances.

"You're not her brother ... you're surely not her husband. And I didn't know it was the fashion for a...."

Lily Condor's clipped question struck him squarely now. Just what were his expectations concerning Claire Robson? The thought turned him cold. Essentially he was of Puritan mold, but he had always had a theory that love of illicit pleasures must have been uncommonly strong in a people who found it necessary to fight the flesh so uncompromisingly. Battling with the elements upon the bleak shores of New England contributed, no doubt, to the gray and chastened spirits that these grim folks had won for themselves; spirits that colored and sometimes seeded swiftly under the softer skies of California. San Francisco was full of these forced blooms consumed and withered by the sudden heat of a free and traditionless life. He knew scores of old-timers—his father's friends—who had been gloriously wrecked by the passion with which they met freedom's kiss. They had pursued pleasure with an energy overtrained in wrestling with the devil and had paid the penalty of all ardent souls lacking the prudence of weakness. There was at once something fine and unlawful about the spirit of adventure: it implied courage, impatience of restraint, wilfulness—in short, all the virtues and vices of strength. He had felt at times the heritage of this strength, shorn of its power by the softness of a wilderness that had been wooed instead of conquered. His forefathers had found California a waiting, gracious bride, but there had been almost a suggestion of the courtezan in the lavishness of this land's response to the caresses of the invaders.

There was something fantastic in the memory of his father, fresh from the austere dawns of the little fishing village of Gloucester, transplanted suddenly to the wine-red sunsets of the Golden Gate. He felt that his father must have had the courage for substance-wasting without the temptation. Most men in those early days had plunged unyoked into the race—Ezra Stillman brought his bride, and therefore his household goods, with him, and unconsciously custom drew its restraining rein tight. Ezra Stillman came from a long line of salt-seasoned tempters of the sea; their virtues had been rugged and their vices equally robust; sin with them had been gaunt, sinewy, unlovely; there was nothing insinuating and soft about the lure of pleasure in that silver-nooned environment. Ezra had been the first of this long line to turn his back upon the sea, and the land had rewarded him lavishly as if determined to make his capture complete. Yet, he was not landsman enough to wrest a living direct from the soil; instead, he set up his booth in the market-place of the town and trafficked in spoils of the field, in full view of the impatient ships tugging at their anchor-chains. While others dug for gold, or garnered the yellowing grain, or built railroads, Ezra Stillman sat in his modest office and sold beans and potatoes and onions, playing the rôle of merchant, husband, and father with genial and unsensational success—a man of potential lawlessness, robbed of all wolfish tendencies by the sobering influence of domestic responsibility, after the manner of a shepherd-dog broken to guard the flock.

Ned Stillman used to wonder how much of this smoldering lawlessness had been transmitted to him; for was not there an added heritage from his thin-lipped mother who came of as hardy and masterful a stock as her husband?

Smoldering lawlessness—to-night the phrase struck him sharply. He had failed at many points, but he had held uncompromisingly to his duty, almost with a fury of self-conscious puritanical fanaticism. His wife ... yes, he had always done his duty by her—more than his duty. Then, what was to prevent him from gathering such flowers as he might.... Up to a point he could still play the game squarely. Up to a point!

He turned in futile anger and weariness from such thoughts to the tinkling refuge of the evening paper.... Ah, the Russian Ballet was opening at the Valencia Theater on Friday night! A fragrant memory of Paris blew in upon the breath of this announcement—Paris, eternally young and as eternally glamorous! And glancing swiftly at the next column, he chanced upon a full account of this tiresome Café Chantant business that had occasioned so much bother ... for the benefit of the French Tobacco Fund—France again!

Suddenly he grew thoughtful.

"A box for the Ballet and a table for the Café Chantant.... I'll ask Edington and his sister ... that ought to make things look right.... Gad! how the old ladies will stare!"

He threw the paper down and, as he chuckled, little malicious gleams darted from his eyes. He would show them, all of them! And as for her.... What did he expect?... He wanted her, wanted her, wanted her! And yet.... Smoldering lawlessness.... Yes ... he would chance everything now, even that.