She was now fluttering about in a wrapper, and with a piece of black net tied tight over her forehead. Through this the forms of dark circular curls outlined themselves like silhouettes. Mrs. Willers had no war-paint on, and though she looked a trifle worn, was much more attractive in appearance than when decorated with her pink and white complexion and her spotted veil. Edna, who was already dressed, was a beautiful, fair-haired child of twelve. The struggles she had seen her mother pass through, with her eyes bright and her head high, had developed in her a precocity of mind that had not spoiled the sweet childishness of a charming nature. It would be many years yet before Edna would understand that she had been the sheet-anchor of the mother who was to her so clever and so brave; the mother, who, in her moments of weakness and temptation, had found her child the one rock to cling to in the welter of life.
Mrs. Willers retired to the bedroom to dress, occasionally coming to the doorway in various stages of déshabille to give instructions to the child. Her toilet was accomplished with mutilated rites, and by the time the sacrificial moment came of laying on the rouge her cheeks were too flushed with excitement to need it. When she did appear it would have been difficult to recognize her as the woman of an hour earlier. Even the black silhouettes had passed through a metamorphosis and appeared as a fluff of careless curls.
The first guest to arrive was the man she had spoken of as Essex. The ladies at the windows below had been struck into whispering surprise by his appearance. San Francisco was still enjoying its original reputation as a land of picturesque millionaires, who lived lives of lawlessness and splendor. Men of position still wore soft felt hats and buttoned themselves tight into prince-albert coats when they went down to business in the morning. Perhaps in the traveled circles, where the Bonanza kings and their associates lived after European models, there were men who bore the stamp of metropolitan finish, as Barry Essex did. But they did not visit Sutter Street boarding-houses nor wear silk hats when they paid afternoon calls. San Francisco was still in that stage when this form of headgear was principally associated in its mind with the men who drew teeth and sold patent medicines on the sand lots behind the city hall.
Barry Essex, anywhere, would have been a striking figure. He was a handsome man of some thirty years, tall and spare, and with a dark, smooth-shaven face where the nose was high and the eyes veiled and cold. He looked like a person of high birth, and there were stories that he was, though by the left hand. He spoke with an English accent, and, when asked his nationality, shrugged his shoulders and said it was hard to say what it was—his father had been a Spaniard, his mother an Englishwoman, and he had been born and reared in France.
That he was a man of ability and education, superior to the work he was doing as special writer on Jake Shackleton’s paper, The Trumpet, was obvious. But San Francisco had become so used to mysteriously interesting strangers, that come from no one knows where, and suggest an attractively unconventional history, that the particular curiosity excited by Essex soon died, and he was merely of moment as the author of some excellent articles on art, literature and music in The Sunday Trumpet.
He greeted Mrs. Willers with a friendly fellowship, then let a quick, surreptitious glance sweep the room. She saw it, knew what he was looking for, but affected unconsciousness. His manner was touched by the slightest suggestion of something elaborate and theatrical, which, in Mrs. Willers’ mind, seemed to have some esoteric connection with the silk hat. This he now—after slowly looking about for a safe place of deposit—handed to Edna with the careless remark: “Will you put this down somewhere, Edna?”
The child took it, flushing slightly. She was accustomed to being made much of by her mother’s guests, and Essex’s manner stung her little girl’s pride. But she put the hat on the piano and retired to her corner, behind the refreshment table.
A few moments later she opened the door to Jake Shackleton. Mrs. Willers, red-cheeked and triumphant, felt that this was indeed a proud moment for her. She said as much, drawing an amused laugh from her second guest. He, too, had swept the room with a quick, investigating glance. This time Mrs. Willers did not affect unconsciousness, and said briskly:
“No, our young lady hasn’t come yet. You’ll have to try and put up with me for a while.”
It would have been difficult for the eye of the deepest affection to see in the Comstock millionaire the emigrant of twenty-five years before. A mother might have been deceived. The lean figure had grown chunky and heavy. The drawn face was now not full—it was the type of face that would never be full—but was lacking in the seams that had then furrowed it. The hair was gray, worn thin on the temples, and the beard, trimmed and well-tended, was gray, too. Perhaps the strongest tie with the past was that the man suggested the same hard, fine-drawn, wiry energy. It still shone in his narrow, light-colored eyes, and still was to be seen in his lean, muscular hand, that was frequently used in gesticulation.