"Good heavens, sweetheart, you are as familiar to them as Lotta's fountain. You are an old story—and always beautiful," he added, gallantly. "But Isabel! We raise the voluptuous by the score, Gwynne, houris to beat the band. Climate's a regular Venus factory; but somehow we don't get the classic very often. Too mixed, probably. Will have to wait another generation or two. Eyes, complexions, figures—ye gods! But noses—somehow they run to snub. Still! Look over there. Ever see anything more fetching than those great Irish eyes in a regular little Dago mug? She's worth three cold millions and I pine to paint her. The price would be a mere detail. But to return to Isabel. She has only to raise her finger to become the rage, and I want her to raise it."
"I wonder how much they would care for her if she hadn't been born into one of the sacred old families, and hadn't money to boot!" cried Mrs. Stone, exasperated beyond endurance by this triumph of marital tactlessness. "I'd like to know what chance a poor girl has to turn people's heads—"
"Tut! tut! Brownie, you're jealous. You know there never was a town where people cared less about money—"
"It's just like any other old town, only you have silly legends about it that you stick to in the face of facts. That day Isabel took me to the St. Francis for lunch I never saw so many stuck-up-looking girls in my life, and they all looked as if they had just sailed out of New York fashion-plates. There are only about six really fashionable women here to-night, and they only come because they think it's spicy to get so close to real vice without actually touching it. For my part I'm sick of the whole Bohemian game, and I'd like to dine at The St. Francis or The Palace every night." She turned to Gwynne, her eyes flashing dramatically; she was tired of being chorus to her popular husband's leading rôles, and was determined to hold the centre of the stage for Gwynne's edification at least. "They pretend to come here because the dinner is so good!" she exclaimed. "Good and cheap! But it isn't that a bit with the swells—the women, that is. They just love the idea of doing something almost naughty, once in a while in their virtuous lives—when a San Francisco woman is proper she'd make you really tired with her superior airs and censorious tongue; but there isn't much she doesn't know, all the same, and she just revels in venturing this far."
"I don't understand," said the bewildered Englishman. "Are we dining in a dive?"
"Not quite, but almost!" cried Stone, refilling his glass from the large bottle in ice. "There is only one San Francisco! We have about six of these French restaurants—ever taste anything like these frogs in Paris? You scarcely ever see anybody in them at this hour with an 'all-night' reputation. There are plenty of other resorts, a good many of them under the sidewalks, where the dinner is almost as good but where a man doesn't take his wife. And up-stairs—here—and in a few others—well, if a woman is seen entering by the side door she is done for. But then she isn't usually seen. Lord! if these walls could speak! The divorce-mills would explode. The waiters all invest in real estate. Policemen send their daughters to Europe, and the boss politicians get rich so fast they spend money almost like a gentleman. In the hotels you are all but asked for your marriage license, but in what is euphemistically known as the French restaurants—well, high-toned vice comes high, but the town is fairly bursting with accommodations for every purse. No town like this!" he exclaimed, gazing into his lifted glass and with the accent of deep feeling. "No town on God's footstool. Nothing like it. Wouldn't live anywhere else if you gave me the planet. Of course I've reformed, but then it's the atmosphere—not a taint of American Puritanism—European and something more—the wild flavor of a new and unique civilization. Precious few California men that go to New York to live but are too glad to come back; and Eastern men, like Trennahan, who have had a long taste of it, couldn't be paid to live anywhere else."
"So all the legends of San Francisco are true?" said Gwynne, who preferred Stone to his wife.
"Couldn't exaggerate if you tried. Wait till I show it to you. No blazed trail nor special policeman detailed to protect our precious skulls. I know the ropes and am not afraid to go anywhere."
"How do you like your new work?" asked Isabel, hastily, not knowing what he might say next. "I should fancy that newspaper life would suit you."
"Does! Never hit a job I liked as well. Jolly set of fellows. Up all night. What more could a fellow ask? No more aristocracy of art for me. I'm neither a Peters nor a Keith, and I wish I'd found it out ten years ago. If a man can make a good living, what in—ah, what on earth more can he want in a town that gives him the best things in the world to eat, the jolliest all-night life, the finest fellows in the world, the prettiest women to look at, a climate that puts new life into old horses—life's a dead easy game out here—when you don't develop too much ambition. Ambition? Nothing in that. Fellows are ingrates and idiots that go off to a cold-blooded place like New York, with a beastly climate, the moment they have made a little mark here. No philosophy in ambition. Only one life. Why not enjoy it—when your creditors will let you? And the money always comes somehow—comes easy, goes easy, and if we can't all be great, we can be happier here than anywhere else on earth. Here's to San Francisco—and perdition to him that calls it 'Frisco!"