“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.