“Look in my face, my name is—Might Have Been!
I am also called, No More, Too Late, Farewell.”
—Rosetti.
Had Essex realized that Mrs. Willers was an adverse agent in his pursuit of Mariposa, he would not have greeted her with the urbane courteousness that marked their meetings. He was a man of many manners, and he never would have wasted one of his best on the newspaper woman, to him essentially uninteresting and unattractive, unless he had intended thereby to further his own ends. Mrs. Willers he knew to be a friend of Mariposa’s, and he thought it a wise policy to keep in her good graces. He made that mistake, so often the undoing of those who are unscrupulous and clever, of not crediting Mrs. Willers with her full amount of brains. He had seen her foolish side, and he knew that she was a good journalist of the hustling, energetic, unintellectual type, but he saw no deeper.
Since their meeting in the park and her unequivocal rejection of him his feeling for Mariposa had augmented in force and fire until it had full possession of him. He was of the order of men whom easy conquests cool. Now added to the girl’s own change of front was the overwhelming inducement of the wealth she represented. His original idea of Mariposa as a handsome mistress that he would take to France and there put on the operatic stage, of whom he would be the proud owner, while they toured Europe together, her voice and beauty charming kings, had been abandoned since the night of his talk with Harney. He would marry her, and, with her completely under his dominion, he would turn upon the Shackleton estate and make her claim. He supposed her to be in entire ignorance of her parentage, and his first idea had been to marry her and not lighten this ignorance till she was safely in his power. He had a fear of her shrinking before the hazards of the enterprise, but he was confident that, once his, all scruples, timidity and will would give way before him.
But her refusal of him had upset these calculations, and her coldness and repugnance had been as oil to the flame of his passion. He was enraged with himself and with her. He thought of the night in the cottage and cursed himself for his precipitation, and his gods for the ill luck that, too late, had revealed to him her relationship to the dead millionaire. At first he had thought the offer of marriage would obliterate all unpleasant memories. But her manner that day in the park had frightened him. It was not the haughty manner, adopted to conceal hidden fires, of the woman who still loves. There had been a chill poise about her that suggested complete withdrawal from his influence.
Since then he had cogitated much. He foresaw that it was going to be very difficult to see and have speech of her. An occasional walk up Third Street to Sutter with Mrs. Willers kept him informed of her movements and doings. Had he guessed that Mrs. Willers, with her rouge higher up on one cheek than the other, the black curls of her bang sprawlingly pressed against her brow by a spotted veil, was quite conversant with his pretensions and their non-success, he would have been more guarded in his exhibition of interest. As it was, Mrs. Willers wrote to Mariposa after one of these walks in which Essex’s questions had been carelessly numerous and frank, and told her that he was still “camped on her trail, and for goodness’ sake not to weaken.” Mariposa tore up the letter with an angry ejaculation.
“Not to weaken!” she said to herself. If she had only dared to tell Mrs. Willers the whole instead of half the truth!
The difficulty of seeing Mariposa was further intensified by the fullness of his own days. He had little time to spare. The new proprietor worked his people for all there was in them and paid them well. Several times on the regular weekly holiday the superior men on The Trumpet were given, he loitered along streets where she had been wont to pass. But he never saw her. The chance that had favored him that once in the park was not repeated. Mrs. Willers said she was very busy. Essex began to wonder if she suspected him of lying in wait for her and was taking her walks along unfrequented byways.
Finally, after Christmas had passed and he had still not caught a glimpse of her, he determined to see her in the only way that seemed possible. He had inherited certain traditions of good breeding from his mother, and it offended this streak of delicacy and decency that was still faintly discernible in his character to intrude upon a lady who had so obviously shown a distaste for his society. But there was nothing else for it. Interests that were vital were at stake. Moreover, his desire, for love’s sake, to see her again was overmastering. Her face came between him and his work. There were nights when he stood opposite the Garcia house watching for her shadow on the blind.