Tiny invited Don Roberto to open the dance with her, and that platonically enamoured gentleman consented with a grand flourish. Ila exercised her blandishments upon Mr. Polk, but to no purpose. No one could understand his constant attendance at these dances, for he merely stood about with unrelaxing visage, scarcely exchanging a word with even the older men. He wore the suit of evening clothes which had done duty at men's dinners these fifteen years, and had bought a pair of evening shoes and a white necktie. Eugene Fort remarked that he looked like a man whose vital organs had turned to gold and were giving him trouble. Mr. Washington replied that the tight skin which had done such good service was certainly beginning to bag, and that if he didn't knock off and take a vacation in Europe he'd find himself breaking.
"To my knowledge," he added, "he hasn't taken a vacation in thirty years; hasn't even been to Yosemite or the Big Trees. He has always said that work was his tonic; but the truth was that he feared to come home and find a dollar unaccounted for,—neither more nor less. And there comes a time, my dear young man, there comes a time—"
"It comes early in this State."
"It does," Mr. Washington replied, with a sigh and a glance at his young wife. "But the fevers have raged themselves out here, or I am much mistaken. We're in for quiet times. The next generation will live longer, perhaps."
"How old is Polk?"
"Nearly sixty. He's worn better than many, because he's let whiskey alone; never took a drop more than was good for him when Con. Virginia was tumbling from seven hundred to nothing. Neither did Yorba, who is several years older; but he's got the longevity of his race. Jack Belmont is under fifty, and looks older than either,—when you get him in a good light. California is all right, and whiskey is all right, but the two together play the devil and no mistake."
"It is the last place where I should want whiskey," said Trennahan, who had joined them.
"You weren't here half a dozen years ago. While the Virginia City mines were booming, your backbone felt like a streak of lightning; you hadn't a comma in your very thoughts; you woke up every morning in a cold sweat, and your teeth chattered as you opened your newspaper. You believed every man a liar and dreamt that your veins ran liquid gold. The Stock Exchange was Hell let loose. Men went insane. Men committed suicide. No one stopped to remark. Do you wonder that men watered the roots of their nerves with alcohol? I did not, but the fever of that time burnt me out, all the same. I've never been the same man since. Nor has any other San Franciscan. Even Polk and Yorba, although they sold out at the right moment in nine cases out of ten, felt the strain. As for Jack Belmont, he was on one glorious drunk all the time,—and never more of a gentleman. How he pulled through and doubled his pile to boot, the Lord only knows; but he did."
"Miss Belmont will be a great prize," observed Fort, thoughtfully. "The greatest beauty in the State, if she has fulfilled her promise; any amount of go, and one or two cold millions,—the Californian heiress sublimated."
"And mistress of herself and her millions in a few years. I hear that Belmont has not drunk a drop since he has been in Europe with her; he's been gone a year now. That is fatal at his age,—after having been in pickle some thirty years. Poor Jack,—the best fellow that ever lived! I suppose his love for the girl brought him up with a round turn. Doubtless he suddenly realised that she was old enough to understand, and that he must pull himself up if he would keep her respect. There's a good deal of tragedy in California, Mr. Trennahan, and it's not of the sentimental young folks' sort, neither."