It was late, almost dark, that evening when Cannon1 left his office. He had sat on after Berny’s departure, sunk in a reverie, which was not compounded of those gentle thoughts that are usually associated with that state of being. In the past, when he had been struggling up from poverty, he had had his fierce fights, and his mortifying2 defeats. He had risen from them tougher and more combative3 than ever, filled with the lust4 of vengeance5 which in the course of time was assuaged6. But of late years few (and these antagonists7 of his own measure) had had the temerity8 to cross swords with him.
Now he had been defied in his stronghold and by the sort of person that he looked upon as a worm in the path—the kind of worm a man did not even tread on but simply brushed aside. It was incredible in its audacity9, its bold insolence10. As he walked down Montgomery Street to the car, he pondered on Berny, wonderingly and with a sort of begrudging11, astonished admission of a[377] courage that he could not but admire. What a nerve the woman had to dare to threaten him! To threaten Bill Cannon! There was something wild, uncanny, preposterous12 in it that was almost sublime13, had the large, elemental quality of a lofty indifference14 to danger, that seemed to belong more to heroic legend than to modern life in the West. But his admiration15 was tempered by his alarm at the thought of his daughter’s learning of the sordid16 intrigue17. The bare idea of Rose’s censuring18 him—and he knew she would if she ever learned of his part in the plot—was enough to make him decide that some particularly heavy punishment would be meted19 out to the woman who dared shatter the only ideal of him known to exist.
But he did not for a moment believe that Berny would tell. She was angry and was talking blusteringly, as angry women talk. He did not know why she was in such a state of ill temper, but at this stage of the proceedings21 he did not bother his head about that. For the third time she had refused the money—that was the only thing that concerned him. If she refused three hundred thousand dollars, she would refuse anything. It was as much to her as a million would be. She would know it was as large a sum as she could expect. If that would not buy her, nothing would. Her threats were nonsense, bluff22 and bluster20; the important thing was, she[378] had determined23, for some reason of her own, to stick to Dominick Ryan.
How she had found out about Rose he could not imagine, only it was very enraging24 that she should have done so. It was the last, and most detestable fact in the whole disagreeable business. Brooding on the subject as the car swept him up the hill, he decided25 that she had guessed it. She was as sharp as a needle and she had put this and that together, the way women do, and had guessed the rest. Pure ugliness might be actuating her present line of conduct, and that state of mind was rarely of long duration. The jealous passions of women soon burn themselves out. Those shallow vessels26 could not long contain feelings of such a fiery27 potency28, especially when harboring the feeling was so inconvenient29 and expensive. No one knew better than Berny how well worth her while it would be to cultivate a sweet reasonableness. This was the only gleam of hope left. Her power to endure the present conditions of her life might give out.
That was all the consolation30 the Bonanza31 King could extract from the situation, and it did not greatly mitigate33 his uneasiness and bad humor. This latter condition of being had other matter to feed it, matter which in the interview of the afternoon had been pushed into the background, but which now once again obtruded34 itself upon his attention. It was the first of May. By the[379] morning’s mail he had received a letter from Gene35 announcing, with the playful blitheness36 which marked all the young man’s allusions37 to the transfer of the Santa Trinidad Ranch38, that the year of probation39 was up and he would shortly arrive in San Francisco to claim his own.
Gene’s father had read this missive in grim-visaged silence. The sense of self-approval that he might have experienced was not his; he only felt that he had been “done”. Two months before, thinking that the ranch was slipping too easily from his grasp, that he was making too little effort to retain his own, he had hired a detective to go to San Luis Obispo and watch the career of Gene for signs of his old waywardness. On the thirtieth of April the man had reported that Gene’s course had been marked by an abstinence as genuine and complete as the most exacting40 father could wish.
The old man crumpled41 up the letter and threw it into the waste-paper basket, muttering balefully, like a cloud charged with thunder. It was not that he wished Gene to drink again; it was that he hated most bitterly giving him the finest piece of ranch land in California. It was not that he did not wish his son to be prosperous and respectable, only he wished that this happy condition had been achieved at some one else’s expense.
His mood was unusually black when he entered the house. The servant, who came forward to[380] help him off with his coat, knew it the moment he saw the heavy, scowling42 face. The piece of intelligence the man had to convey—that Mr. Gene Cannon had arrived half an hour earlier from San Luis Obispo—was not calculated to abate43 the Bonanza King’s irritation44. He received it with the expressionless grunt45 he reserved for displeasing46 information, and, without further comment or inquiry47, went up the stairs to his own rooms. From these he did not emerge till dinner was announced, when he greeted Gene with a bovine48 glance of inspection49 and the briefest sentence of welcome.
Gene, however, was not at all abashed50 by any lack of cordiality. At the best of times, he was not a sensitive person, and as this had been his portion since his early manhood, he was now used to it. Moreover, to-night he was in high spirits. In his year of exile he had learned to love the outdoor life for which he was fitted, and had conceived a passionate51 desire to own the splendid tract32 of land for which he felt the love and pride of a proprietor52. Now it was his without let or hindrance53. He was the owner of a principality, the lord of thousands of teeming54 acres, watered by crystal streams and shadowed by ancient oaks. He glowed with the joy of possession, and if anything was needed to complete his father’s discomfiture55, it was Gene’s naïve and bridling56 triumph.
Always a loquacious57 person, a stream of talk[381] flowed from him to which the old man offered no interruption, and in which even Rose found it difficult to insert an occasional, arresting question. Gene had any number of new plans. His head was fuller than it had been for years with ideas for the improvement of his land, the development of his irrigating58 system, the planting of new orchards59, the erecting60 of necessary buildings. He used the possessive pronoun continually, rolled it unctuously61 on his tongue with a new, rich delight. He directed most of his conversation toward Rose, but every now and then he turned on his father, enthusiastically dilating62 on a projected improvement certain to increase the ranch’s revenues by many thousands per annum.
The old man listened without speaking, his chin on his collar, his eyes fixed63 in a wide, dull stare on his happy boy. At intervals—Gene almost clamoring for a response—he emitted one of those inarticulate sounds with which it was his custom to greet information that he did not like or the exact purport64 of which he did not fathom65.
The only thing which would have sweetened his mood would have been a conversation, peaceful and uninterrupted, with his daughter. He had not seen as much of her as usual during the last few days, as she had been confined to her room with a cold. This was the first evening she had been at dinner for four days, and the old man[382] had looked forward to one of their slow, enjoyable meals together, with a long, comfortable chat over the black coffee, as was their wont66. Even if Rose did not know of his distractions67 and schemes, she soothed68 him. She never, like this chattering69 jackass from San Luis Obispo—and he looked sulkily at his son—rubbed him the wrong way. And he had hardly had a word with her, hardly, in fact, had heard her voice during the whole meal.
When it was over, and she rose from her seat, he asked her to play on the piano in the sitting-room70 near by.
“Give us some music,” he said, “I want to hear something pleasant. The whole day I’ve been listening to jays and knaves71 and fools, and I want to hear something different that doesn’t make me mad or make me sick.”
Rose left the room and presently the sound of her playing came softly from the sitting-room across the hall. Neither of the men spoke72 for a space, and the old man, casting a side look at Gene,............