She sat up, her elbow in the cushions, her head on her hand, the fingers in her loosened hair. Her eyes on the fire were melancholy and contemplative.
“You remember what I said to you about not being able to live here any longer? How I couldn’t stand it? Well, father’s going to Virginia City.”
“What difference does that make? He’s been going there for years.”
“Yes, but to live I mean. To take us and make our home there. That’s the reason I’ve changed my mind. I needn’t go so far as Europe. We’re all going to leave California and live in Nevada.”
The Colonel was astonished. He was prepared for strange actions on Allen’s part, but a bodily family removal to Virginia when his affairs were in so complicated a condition was unlooked for, and incomprehensible. And why had not Allen spoken to him of it? When in town they saw each other almost daily on Pine and Montgomery Streets.
“Isn’t it a very sudden decision of your father’s?” he asked. “He had no idea of it last week. You didn’t know it when you came to see me that day, did you?”
“I didn’t know of it till two days ago. It’s all happened in a minute. Father himself didn’t know it. I was still thinking about going away and arguing with Rosamund about it, when he came and told us he’d decided to move to Nevada, that he had more business there than here, and it would be much cheaper having one house in Virginia than for him to be up there, with us down here in San Francisco. What made it particularly easy and convenient was that some one wants to buy the house.”
This was a second shock, but there was illumination in it. The listener felt now that he was getting to the heart of the matter.
“Buy the house!” he ejaculated. “This house?”
“Yes, this house. I’ve forgotten the man’s name. Some one from Sacramento wants to buy it just as it stands, with the furniture and everything. It’s not a very good offer, but property’s gone down here, as it has all over this side of town, and father says it’s not bad, considering that it makes it so much easier for us to go.”