In the full panoply of ball dress the young woman was truly magnificent. Black Dan’s last gift was a fitting crown for such a head. She was profusely bejeweled, exceedingly bare as to neck and shoulders, and robed in a sparkling splendor of lace traced out and weighted with silver which looked like a symbolic incarnation of the riches she represented. She was brilliantly animated, turning her head this way and that as the members of the little court pressed on her notice. Rosamund, who was very quick to notice significant details, was struck by the fact that there were nearly as many women as men about her.
She was about to mention this to June, when the various young men, who had detached themselves from other groups at the appearance of the Misses Allen, bore down upon them, fluttering programs. A wall of black coats formed about the girls, and the Colonel, seeing the intricate rites of program comparing fairly inaugurated, backed away from them and leaned against the door frame, idly surveying the scene.
A hand on his shoulder made him start and turn, and then break into the broad smile of fellowship he reserved for just a few people.
“Rion, old son!” he exclaimed grasping the hand of his friend, “what brings you here, floundering round among all these trains and frills?”
The other laughed. He had not been in San Francisco for nearly a year. He was a little leaner, harder and tougher than he had been on his last visit, when the Colonel had only seen him once or twice and he had refused an invitation to dine in Folsom Street.
“I’m down to escort my niece. Dan couldn’t come, so I was offered up. Mercedes had a notion she had to have the males of her family grouped round her to-night and telegraphed up for one of us. Dan would rather shut down the Cresta Plata than disappoint her, so as he couldn’t come I had to.”
“You’re being broken in early. At my age it’s about all a fellow’s good for. I take the girls wherever they go, and what’s more, I enjoy it. Have you seen them yet?”
Mercedes
He indicated the white-robed figures of June and Rosamund in front of him. Rion nodded. Before he had spoken to the Colonel he had stood just behind him watching June. Her back was toward him but as she turned he caught glimpses of her profile. He had not dared to speak to her. His stop with the Colonel was a half-way halt, a pause to gain courage, cheered by a hope that the older man might break the ice of their meeting.