VIII
IDA walked to the gate with him. She was quite a head taller than he, but subtly made him feel that the advantage was his, as it enabled her to pour the light of her eyes downward. He picked his way up the uneven surface of East Granite Street, slippery with a recent fall of snow, not only disturbed, but filled with a new conceit; in other words thrilling with his first full sense of manhood.
Ida looked after him, smiling broadly. But the smile fled abruptly, her lips trembled, then contracted. Advancing down the street was Mrs. Mark Blake. Ida had known her enterprising young husband before he changed his name from Mike to Mark, but she knew his lady wife by sight only; Mrs. Blake had not patronized Madame O’Reilley. Ruby and Pearl pronounced her “all right”, although a trifle “proud to look at.” Ida assumed that she was to receive the promised call, and wished she could “get out of it.” Not only did she long for her rocker, gum and magazine, after the intellectual strain of the past hour, but she had no desire to meet Mrs. Blake or any of “that crowd” until she could take her place as their equal. She had her full share of what is known as class-consciousness, and its peculiar form of snobbery. To be patronized by “swells”, even to be asked to their parties, would give her none of that subtle joy peculiar to the climbing snob. When the inevitable moment came she would burst upon them, dazzle them, bulldoze and lead them, but she wanted none of their crumbs.
But she was “in for it.” She hastily felt the back of her shirtwaist to ascertain if it still were properly adjusted, and sauntered towards the cottage humming a tune, pretending not to have seen the lady who stopped to have a word with Professor Whalen. “Anyhow, she’s not a bonanzerine,” thought Ida. “I guess she did considerable scrapin’ at one time; and Mark, for all he could make shoe-blackin’ look like molasses, ain’t a millionaire yet.”
She might indeed, further reflected Ida, watching the smartly tailored figure out of the corner of her eye, be pitied, for she had been “brought up rich, expecting to marry a duke, and then come down kaplunk before she’d much more’n a chance to grow up.” Her father, Judge Stratton, a graduate of Columbia University, had been one of the most brilliant and unscrupulous lawyers of the Northwest. He had drawn enormous fees from railroads and corporations, and in the historic Clark-Daly duels for supremacy in the State of Montana, and in the more picturesque battle between F. Augustus Heinze and “Amalgamated” (that lusty offspring of the great Standard Oil Trust), when the number of estimable citizens bought and sold demonstrated the faint impress of time on original sin, his legal acumen and persuasive tongue, his vitriolic pen, ever had been at the disposal of the highest bidder.
He had been a distinguished resident of Butte but a few years when he built himself a spacious if hideous residence on the West Side. But this must have been out of pure loyalty to his adopted state, for it was seldom occupied, although furnished in the worst style of the late seventies and early eighties. Mrs. Stratton and her daughter spent the greater part of their time in Europe. As Judge Stratton disliked his wife, was intensely ambitious for his only child, and preferred the comforts of his smaller home on The Flat, he rarely recalled his legitimate family, and made them a lavish allowance. He died abruptly of apoplexy, and left nothing but a life insurance of five thousand dollars; he had neglected to take out any until his blood vessels were too brittle for a higher risk.
Mrs. Stratton promptly became an invalid, and Ora brought her home to Butte, hoping to save something from the wreck. There was nothing to save. As she had not known of the life insurance when they received the curt cablegram in Paris, she had sold all of her mother’s jewels save a string of pearls, and, when what was left of this irrelative sum after the luxurious journey over sea and land, was added to the policy, the capital of these two still bewildered women represented little more than they had been accustomed to spend in six months. When Mark Blake, who had studied law in Judge Stratton’s office after graduating from the High School, and now seemed to be in a fair way to inherit the business, besides being County Attorney at the moment, implored Ora to marry him, and manifested an almost equal devotion to her mother, whom he had ranked with the queens of history books since boyhood, she accepted him as the obvious solution of her problem.
She was lonely, disappointed, mortified, a bit frightened. She had lived the life of the average American princess, and although accomplished had specialised in nothing; nor given a thought to the future. As she had cared little for the society for which her mother lived, and much for books, music, and other arts, and had talked eagerly with the few highly specialised men she was fortunate enough to meet, she had assumed that she was clever. She also believed that when she had assuaged somewhat her appetite for the intellectual and artistic banquet the gifted of the ages had provided, she might develop a character and personality, possibly a gift of her own. But she was only twenty when her indulgent father died, and, still gorging herself, was barely interested in her capacities other than receptive, less still in the young men that sought her, unterrified by her reputation for brains. She fancied that she should marry when she was about twenty-eight, and have a salon somewhere; and the fact that love had played so little a part in her dreams made it easier to contemplate marriage with this old friend of her childhood. His mother had been Mrs. Stratton’s seamstress, to be sure, but as he was a good boy,—he called for the frail little woman every evening to protect her from roughs on her long walk east to the cottage her husband had built shortly before he was blown to pieces somewhere inside of Butte—he had been permitted to hold the dainty Ora on his knee, or toss her, gurgling with delight, into the air until he puffed.
Mark had been a fat boy, and was now a fat young man with a round rosy face and a rolling lazy gait. He possessed an eye of remarkable shrewdness, however, was making money rapidly, never lost sight of the main chance, and was not in the least surprised when his marriage lifted him to the pinnacle of Butte society. In spite of his amiable weaknesses, he was honest if sharp, an inalienable friend, and he made a good husband according to his lights. Being a man’s man, and naturally elated at his election to the exclusive Silver Bow Club soon after his marriage to the snow maiden of his youthful dreams, he formed the habit of dropping in for a game of billiards every afternoon on his way home, and returning for another after dinner. But within three years he was able to present the wife of whom he was inordinately proud with a comfortable home on the West Side, and he made her an allowance of ever increasing proportions.
Ora, who had her own idea of a bargain, had never complained of neglect nor intimated that she found anything in him that savoured of imperfection. She had accepted him as a provider, and as he filled this part of the contract brilliantly, she felt that to treat him to scenes whose only excuse was outraged love or jealousy, would be both unjust and absurd. Moreover, his growing passion for his club was an immense relief after his somewhat prolonged term of marital uxoriousness, and as her mother died almost coincidentally with the abridgment of Mr. Blake’s home life, Ora returned to her studies, rode or walked for hours, and, after her double period of mourning was over, danced two or three times a week in the season, or sat out dances when she met a man that had cultivated his intellect. For women she cared little.