On the second Sunday after their return from Antelope², Bill Cannon³ resolved to dedicate the afternoon to paying calls. This, at least, was what he told his daughter at luncheon⁴ as he, she, and Gene⁵ sat over the end of the meal. To pay calls was not one of the Bonanza⁶ King’s customs, and in answer to Rose’s query⁷ as to whom he was going to honor thus, he responded that he thought he’d “start in with Delia Ryan.”  
Rose made no comment on this intelligence. The sharp glance he cast at her discovered no suggestion of consciousness in the peach-like placidity⁸ of her face. It gratified him to see her thus unsuspecting, and in the mellowing⁹ warmth of his satisfaction he turned and addressed a polite query to Gene as to how he intended spending the afternoon. Gene and Rose, it appeared, were going to the park to hear the band. Gene loved a good band, and the one that played in the park Sunday afternoons was especially good. The Sunday before, Gene had heard it play Poet and Peasant and the Overture¹⁰ of William Tell, and it was great! That was one of the worst things about living on a ranch¹¹, Gene complained, you didn’t have any music except at the men’s house at night when one of the Mexicans played on an accordion¹².
 
The old man, with his elbow on the table, and a short, blunt-fingered hand stroking his beard, looked at his son with narrowed eyes full of veiled amusement. When he did not find Gene disagreeably aggravating¹³ as his only failure, he could, as it were, stand away from him and realize how humorous he was if you took him in a certain way.
 
“What’s the Mexican play?” he growled¹⁴ without removing his hand.
 
“La Paloma,” answered Gene, pleased to be questioned thus amicably¹⁵ by his autocratic sire, “generally La Paloma, but he can play The Heart Bowed Down and the Toreador song from Carmen. I want him to learn the Miserere from Trovatore. It’s nice to sit on the porch after dinner and listen while you smoke.”
 
“Sort of Court Minstrel,” said his father, thumping¹⁶ down his napkin with his hand spread flat on it. “Don Eugenio Cannon, with his minstrel playing to him in the gloaming! It’s very picturesque¹⁷. Did you ever think of having a Court Fool too, or perhaps you don’t feel as if you needed one?”
 
He arose from his chair before Gene, who never quite understood the somewhat ferocious¹⁸ humor of his parent, had time to reply.
 
“Well, so long,” said the old man; “be good children and don’t get into mischief¹⁹, and Rose, see that your brother doesn’t get lost or so carried away by the Poet and the Peasant that he forgets the dinner hour. Adios, girlie.”
 
A half-hour later he walked down the flight of marble steps that led in dignified²⁰ sweep from the front door to the street. It was a wonderful day and for a moment he paused, looking with observing eyes at the prospect²¹ of hill and bay which seemed to glitter in the extreme clearness of the atmosphere. Like all Californians he had a strong, natural appreciation²² of scenic²³ and climatic beauty. Preoccupied²⁴ with thoughts and schemes which were anything but uplifting, he yet was sensitively responsive to the splendors²⁵ of the view before him, to the unclouded, pure blue of the vault²⁶ above, to the balmy softness of the air against his face. Some one had once asked him why he did not live in Paris as the ideal home of the man of great wealth and small scruples²⁷. His answer had been that he preferred San Francisco because there were more fine days in the year there than anywhere else he knew of.
 
Now he paused, sniffing²⁸ the air with distended²⁹ nostril³⁰ and inhaling³¹ it in deep, grateful inspirations. His eye moved slowly over the noble prospect, noted³² the deep sapphire³³ tint³⁴ of the bay, the horizon, violet dark against a pale sky, and the gem-like blues³⁵ and amethysts³⁶ of the distant hills. He turned his glance in the other direction and looked down the gray expanse of the street, the wide, clear, stately street, with its air of clean spaciousness³⁷, sun-bathed, silent, almost empty, in the calm quietude of the Sabbath afternoon. The bustling³⁸ thoroughfares of greater cities, with their dark, sordid³⁹ crowds, their unlovely, vulgar hurry, their distracting noise, were offensive to him. The wonder crossed his mind, as it had done before, how men who could escape from such surroundings chose to remain in them.
 
He walked forward slowly, a thick-set, powerful figure, his frock-coat buttoned tight about the barrel-like roundness of his torso, a soft, black felt hat pulled well down on his head. His feet were broad and blunt like his hands, and in their square-toed shoes he planted them firmly on the pavement with a tread of solid, deliberate authority. His forward progress had something in it of an invincible⁴⁰, resistless march. He was thinking deeply as he walked, arranging and planning, and there was nothing in his figure, or movements, or the expression of his face, which suggested the sauntering aimlessness of an afternoon stroll.
 
When he turned into Van Ness Avenue the Ryan house was one block beyond him, a conglomerate⁴¹ white mass, like a crumbling⁴² wedding cake slowly settling on a green lawn. He surveyed it as he approached, noting its ugliness with a musing⁴³ satisfaction. Its size and the bright summery perfection of surrounding grass and flower beds lent it impressiveness and redeemed⁴⁴ it from the position of a colossal⁴⁵ blight⁴⁶ on the prospect to which architect and builder had done their best to relegate⁴⁷ it. Prosperity, a complacent⁴⁸, overwhelming prosperity, was suggested not only by its bulk but by the state of studied finish and neatness that marked mansion⁴⁹ and grounds. There did not seem to be a wilting⁵⁰ flower bed or withered⁵¹ leaf left on a single stalk in the garden borders. Every window-pane gleamed like a mirror innocent of dust or blemishing⁵² spot. The marble steps up which Cannon mounted were as snowily unsullied as though no foot had passed over them since their last ablution.
 
The door was opened by a Chinaman, who, taking the visitor’s card, left him standing⁵³ in the hall, and, deaf to his queries⁵⁴ as to where he should go, serenely⁵⁵ mounted the stairs. Cannon hesitated a moment, then hearing a sound of voices to his right, entered the anteroom that gave on that suite⁵⁶ of apartments into which Dominick had walked on the night of the ball. They were softly lit by the afternoon sun filtering through thin draperies, and extended in pale, gilt-touched[197] vista⁵⁷ to the shining emptiness of the ball-room. The old man was advancing toward the voices when he suddenly saw whence they proceeded, and stopped. In the room just beyond him Cornelia Ryan and a young man were sitting on a small, empire sofa, their figures thrown out in high relief against the background of silk-covered wall. Cornelia’s red head was in close proximity⁵⁸ to that of her companion, which the intruder saw to be clothed with a thatch⁵⁹ of sleek⁶⁰ black hair, and which he recognized as appertaining to a young man whose father had once been shift boss on the Rey del Monte, and who bore the patronymic of Duffy.
 
Cornelia and Jack⁶¹ Duffy had the appearance of being completely engrossed⁶² in each other’s society. In his moment of unobserved survey, Cannon had time to note the young woman’s air of bashful, pleased embarrassment⁶³ and the gentleman’s expression of that tense, unsmiling earnestness which attends the delivery of sentimental⁶⁴ passages. Cornelia was looking down, and her flaming hair and the rosy⁶⁵ tones of her face, shading from the faintest of pearly pinks to deepening degrees of coral, were luminously⁶⁶ vivid against the flat surface of cream-colored wall behind her, and beside the black poll and thin, dark cheek of her companion. That something very tender was afoot was quickly seen by the visitor, who softly withdrew, stepping gingerly over the fur rugs, and gaining the entrance to the hall with a sensation of flurried alarm.
 
An open door just opposite offered a refuge, and, passing through it with a forward questing glance alert for other occupants who might resent intrusion, the old man entered a small reception-room lit by the glow of a hard coal fire. The room was different in furnishings and style from those he had left. It had the austere⁶⁷ bleakness⁶⁸ of aspect resultant from a combination of bare white walls and large pieces of furniture of a black wood upon which gold lines were traced in ornamental⁶⁹ squares. An old-fashioned carpet was on the floor, and several tufted arm-chairs, begirt with dangling⁷⁰ fringes, were drawn⁷¹ up sociably⁷² before the fire. This burned cheerily, a red focus of heat barred by the stripes of a grate, and surmounted⁷³ by a chastely⁷⁴ severe white marble mantelpiece. He had been in the room often before and knew it for Mrs. Ryan’s own particular sanctum. When a celebrated⁷⁵ decorator had been sent out from New York to furnish the lower floor of the house, she had insisted on retaining in this apartment the pieces of furniture and the works of art which she approved, and which the decorator wished to banish⁷⁶ to the garret. Mrs. Ryan had her way as she always did, and the first fine “soote” of furniture which she and Con¹ had bought in the days of their early affluence⁷⁷, and various oil paintings also collected in the same era of their evolution, went to the decking of the room she used for her own and oftenest sat in.
 
Cannon approached the fire, and stood there looking up at the life-size portrait in oils of the late Cornelius Ryan, which hung over the chimneypiece. The artist had portrayed⁷⁸ him as a thickly-whiskered man with the complexion⁷⁹ of a healthy infant and eyes of baby blue. A watch chain, given him by his colleagues in the old days at Shasta, and formed of squares of quartz⁸⁰ set in native gold, was painted with a finished carefulness which had pleased Mrs. Ryan even more than the likeness⁸¹ had done. In showing the picture, she was wont⁸² to say proudly, “Just look at the watch chain! Seems as if you could almost hear the ticking of the watch.”
 
Cannon was speculating as to the merits of the likeness when he heard the silken rustling⁸³ of skirts, and turned to greet his old friend. She came in smiling, with extended hand, richly clad, the gleam of a fastening jewel at her neck. Her hair was dressed with a shining, smooth elaboration, drawn up tightly at the sides and arranged over her forehead in careful curls. As she and her visitor exchanged the first sentences of greeting he noticed that she looked much older and more worn than she had done the last time he had seen her, but her face was as full of pugnacious⁸⁴ force as ever. While Delia Ryan’s body lived her spirit would hold its dominion⁸⁵. She had ruled all her life and would do so to the end.
 
They sat down on either side of the fire and the old man said,
 
“I don’t know whether I ought to be in here. The Chinaman left me to my fate, and I had to nose about myself and find out where I belonged.”
 
“Oh, that’s Lee,” she answered with a short laugh. “He waits on the door every other Sunday. We’ve had him ten years and no one’s ever been able to make him show people into the parlor⁸⁶. He thinks it better to leave them standing in the hall till one of us sees the card. Then he’ll go down and tell them as sociably as you please ‘to go right in and sit down.’ I asked him why he didn’t do it at first, and he said ‘they might steal something.’”
 
Cannon looked into the fire with an amused eye.
 
“I guess he thought I was after the spoons. It’s a dangerous habit, for I took the first turning to the right and butted⁸⁷ into Cornelia and a young man who gave me to understand I’d come the wrong way around.”
 
“What did they say?” said the mother, her face stiffening⁸⁸ with sudden disapproving⁸⁹ surprise.
 
“They didn’t say anything. That was just it. They didn’t even see me. But they certainly led me to believe that I’d got somewhere where I wasn’t wanted. I may not be smart, but a hint doesn............