“Some day perhaps we can be happy,” he murmured, not knowing what he meant, but anxious to alleviate the very genuine suffering he experienced. She framed some low words over which her lips quivered, and in his pain he insisted:
“But you will wait for me, no matter what time passes? You won’t grow tired of waiting, or cease to care? You’ll always feel that you’re mine?”
“I’m yours for ever,” she answered.
These were the only words of love that passed between them, but at the time they were uttered they were to both as the words of a solemn pact. For the rest of the winter Jerry avoided her. His passion was at its height. Between it and his fear of Lupé he was more wretched and unhappy than he had ever been in his life.
During the spring, with its tumult of excitement and final catastrophe, and the long summer of dreary recuperation, June walked apart, upheld by the memory of the vows she had plighted. Money was made and lost, the little world about her seethed in angry discouragement while she looked on absently, absorbed in her dream. What delighted or vexed people was of insignificant moment to her. In the midst of surroundings to which she had once given a sparkling and intimate attention she was now a cool, indifferent spectator. Her interest in life was concentrated in the thought that Jerry had pledged himself to her.
CHAPTER VIII
NEW PLANETS
The year after the Crown Point collapse was a sad and chastened one. Money was tight on all sides. Large houses were closed, servants discharged, dressmakers’ bills cut down. Many families hitherto prominent dropped out of sight, preferring to hide their poverty in remote corners of the city, whence, in some cases, they never again emerged. The winter, shorn of its accustomed gaieties, was dull and quiet.
With the spring there came a revival of life and energy. The volatile spirit of the Californians began to rise. One of the chief causes of this was a new series of disturbing rumors from Virginia City. In February a strike was reported in the recently consolidated group of claims known as the California and Consolidated Virginia. A vein of ore seven feet wide and assaying sixty dollars to the ton had been uncovered. Talk of the Nevada camp was in the air. The San Franciscans were incredulous, as fearful of mining stock as the singed cat of the fire, but they listened and watched, feeling the first faint unrest of hope and temptation.
Socially too, the city showed signs of returning cheerfulness. This was due not only to the natural rebound after a period of depression, but to two new arrivals of the sort which those small segregated groups known as “society” delight to welcome and entertain.
The first of these was Mercedes Gracey. Glamour of many sorts clung about the name of this favorite of fortune. To her natural attractions were added those supposed to be acquired by a sojourn in older and more sophisticated localities. Mercedes had passed from her New York boarding-school to the finishing influences of a year “abroad.” She had traveled in Europe with a chaperone and taken on the polish of accomplishment under the guidance of experienced teachers. Such news of her as had drifted back to San Francisco was eagerly seized upon by the less fortunate home dwellers. From time to time the newspapers printed items about Miss Gracey’s triumphant career. Before her arrival San Francisco had already developed a possessive pride in her as a native daughter who would add to the glory of the Golden State.