CHAPTER II

When the Hilmers left, about half past eleven, Starratt went down to the curb with them, on the pretext of looking at Hilmer's new car. It proved to be a very late and very luxurious model.

"Is it insured?" asked Starratt, as he lifted Mrs. Hilmer in.

"What a hungry bunch you insurance men are!" Hilmer returned. "You're the fiftieth man that's asked me that."

Starratt flushed. The business end of his suggestion had been the last thing in his mind. He managed to voice a commonplace protest, and Hilmer, taking his place at the wheel, said:

"Come in and talk it over sometime... Perhaps _you_ can persuade me."

Starratt smiled pallidly and the car shot forward. He watched it out of sight. Instead of going back into the house he walked aimlessly down the block. He had no objective beyond a desire to kill the time and give Helen a chance to retire before he returned. He wasn't in a mood for talking.

It was not an unusual thing for him to take a stroll before turning in, and habit led him along a beaten path. He always found it fascinating to dip down the Hyde Street hill toward Lombard Street, where he could glimpse both the bay and the opposite sh.o.r.e. Then, he liked to pa.s.s the old-fashioned gardens spilling the mingled scent of heliotrope and crimson sage into the lap of night. There was something fascinating and melancholy about this venerable quarter that had been spared the ravages of fire ... overlooked, as it were, by the relentless flames, either in pity or contempt. There had been marvelous tales concerning this section's escape from the holocaust of 1906, when San Francisco had been shaken by earthquake and shriveled by flames. One house had been saved by a crimson flood of wine siphoned from its fragrant cellar, another by pluck and a garden hose, a third by quickly hewn branches of eucalyptus and cypress piled against the outside walls as a screen to the blistering heat. Trees and hedges and climbing honeysuckle had contributed, no doubt, to the defense of these relics of a more genial day, but the dogged determination of their owners to save their old homes at any cost must have been the determining factor, Starratt had often thought, as he lingered before the old picket fences, in an attempt to revive his memories of other days. He could not remember, of course, quite back to the time when the Hyde Street hill had been in an opulent heyday, but the flavor of its quality had trickled through to his generation.

This was the section where his mother had languished in the prim gloom of her lamp-shaded parlor before his father's discreet advances. The house was gone ... replaced by a bay-windowed, jig-sawed horror of the '80s, but the garden still smiled, its quaint fragrance reenforced at the proper season by the belated blossoms of a homesick and wind-bitten magnolia. He was sure, judged by present-day standards, that his mother's old home must have been a very modest, genial sort of place ... without doubt a clapboard, two-storied affair with a single wide gable and a porch running the full length of the front.

But, in a day when young and pretty women were at a premium, one did not have to live in a mansion to attract desirable suitors, and Fred Starratt had often heard his mother remind his father without bitterness of the catches that had been thrown her way. Not that Starratt, senior, had been a bad prospect matrimonially. Quite the contrary. He had come from Boston in the early '70s, of good substantial family, and with fair looks and a capacity for getting on.

Likewise, a chance for inside tips on the stock market, since he had elected to go in with a brokerage firm. And so they were married, with all of conservative San Francisco at the First Unitarian Church to see the wedding, leavened by a sprinkling of the very rich and a dash of the ultrafashionable. Unfortunately, the inside tips didn't pan out ... absurd and dazzling fortune was succeeded by appalling and irretrievable failure. Starratt, senior, was too young a man to succ.u.mb to the scurvy trick of fate, but he never quite recovered.

Gradually the Starratt family fell back a pace. To the last there were certain of the old guard who still remembered them with bits of coveted pasteboard for receptions or marriages or anniversary celebrations ... but the Starratts became more and more a memory revived by sentiment and less and less a vital reality.

Fred Starratt used to speculate, during his nocturnal wandering among the shadows of his parents' youthful haunts, just what his position would have been had these stock-market tips proved gilt edged. He tried to imagine himself the master of a splendid estate down the peninsula--preferably at Hillsboro--possessed of high-power cars and a string of polo ponies ... perhaps even a steam yacht... But these dazzling visions were not always in the ascendant. There were times when a philanthropic dream moved him more completely and he had nave and varied speculations concerning the help that he could have placed in the way of the less fortunate had he been possessed of unlimited means. Or, again, his hypothetical wealth put him in the way of the education that placed him easily at the top of a stirring profession.

"If I'd only had half a chance!" would escape him.

This was a phrase borrowed unconsciously from his mother. She was never bitter nor resentful at their profitless tilt with fortune except as it had reacted on her son.

"You should have gone to college," she used to insist, regretfully, summing up by implication his lack of advancement. At first he took a measure of comfort in her excuse; later he came to be irritated by it.

And in moments of truant self-candor he admitted he could have made the grade with concessions to pride. There were plenty of youths who worked their way through. But he always had moved close to the edge of affluent circles, where he had caught the cold but disturbing glow of their standards. He left high school with pallid ideals of gentility, ideals that expressed themselves in his reasons for deciding to enter an insurance office. Insurance, he argued, was a _nice_ business, one met _nice_ people, one had _nice_ hours, one was placed in _nice_ surroundings. He had discovered later that one drew a _nice_ salary, too. Well, at least, he had had the virtue of choosing without a very keen eye for the financial returns.

Ten years of being married to a woman who demanded a _nice_ home and _nice_ clothes and a circle of _nice_ friends had done a great deal toward making him a little skeptical about the soundness of his standards. But his moments of uncertainty were few and fleeting, called into life by such uncomfortable circ.u.mstances as touching old Wetherbee for money or putting his tailor off when the date for his monthly dole fell due. He had never been introspective enough to quite place himself in the social scale, but when, in his thought or conversation, he referred to people of the _better cla.s.s_ he unconsciously included himself. He was not a drunken, disorderly, or radical member of society, and he didn't black boots, or man a ship, or sell people groceries, or do any of the things that were done in overalls and a soft shirt, therefore it went without saying that he belonged to the better cla.s.s. That was synonymous with admitting that one kept one's ringer nails clean and used a pocket handkerchief.

Suddenly, with the force of a surprise slap in the face, it had been borne in upon him that he was not any of the fine things he imagined.

He was sure that his insolent guest, Hilmer, had not meant to be disagreeable at the moment when he had said:

"Stiffening the backbone of the _middle cla.s.s_ is next to impossible!"

"The middle cla.s.s"! The phrase had brought up even Helen Starratt with a round turn. One might have called them both peasants with equal temerity. No, Hilmer had not made _that_ point consciously, and therein lay its sting.

To-night, as he accomplished his accustomed pilgrimage to the tangible shrine of his ancestors, and stood leaning against the gate which opened upon the garden that had smiled upon his mother's wooing, he determined once and for all to establish his position in life... _Did_ he belong to the middle cla.s.s, and, granting the premises, was it a condition from which one could escape or a fixed heritage that could neither be abandoned nor denied? In a country that made flamboyant motions toward democracy, he knew that the term was used in contempt, if not reproach. Had the cla.s.s itself brought on this disesteem? Did it really exist and what defined it? Was it a matter of scant worldly possessions, or commonplace brain force, or breeding, or just an att.i.tude of mind? Was it a term invented by the crafty to dash cold water upon the potential unity of a scattered force? Was it a scarecrow for frightening greedy and resourceful flocks from a concerted a.s.sault upon the golden harvests of privilege?... The questions submerged him in a swift flood. He did not know ... he could not tell. Unaccustomed as he was to thinking in the terms of group consciousness, he fell back, naturally, upon the personal aspects of the case. He was sure of one thing--Hilmer's contempt and scorn. In what cla.s.s did Hilmer place himself? Above or below?... But the answer came almost before it was framed--Hilmer looked _down_ upon him. That almost told the story, but not quite. Had Hilmer climbed personally to upper circles or had the strata in which he found himself embedded been pushed up by the slow process of time? Had the term "middle cla.s.s" become a misnomer? Was it really on the lowest level now?

Perhaps it was ... perhaps it always had been... But so was the foundation of any structure. Foundation?... The thought intrigued him, but only momentarily. Who wanted to bear the crushing weight of arrogant and far-flung battlements?

He retraced his steps, his thoughts still busy with Hilmer. Here was a typical case of what America could yield to the nature that had the insolence to ravish her. America was still the tawny, primitive, elemental jade who gave herself more readily to a rough embrace than a soft caress. She reserved her favors for those who wrested them from her...she had no patience with the soft delights of persuasion. It was strange how much rough-hewn vitality had poured into her embrace from the moth-eaten civilization of the Old World. Starratt was only a generation removed from a people who had subdued a wilderness ... he was not many generations removed from a people who wrestled naked with G.o.d for a whole continent--that is, they had begun to wrestle; the years that had succeeded found them still eager and shut-lipped for the conflict. They had abandoned the struggle only when they had found their victory complete. Naturally, soft days had followed. Was eternal conflict the price of strength? Starratt found himself wondering. And was he a product of these soft days, the rushing whirlwinds of Heaven stilled, the land drowsy with the humid heat of a slothful noonday? He had never thought of these things before. Even when he had thrilled to the vision of line upon line of his comrades marching away to the blood-soaked fields of France he had surrendered to a primitive emotion untouched by the poetry of deep understanding. He thrilled not because he knew that these people were doing the magnificent, the decent thing ... but because he merely felt it. He had his faiths, but he had not troubled to prove them ... he had not troubled even to _doubt_ them.

His disquiet sharpened all of his perceptions. He never remembered a time when the cool fragrance of the night had fallen upon his senses with such a personal caress. He had come out into its starlit presence flushed with narrow, sordid indignation ... smarting under the trivial lashes which insolence and circ.u.mstance had rained upon his vanity.

His walk in the dusky silence had not stilled his restlessness, but it had given his impatience a larger scope ... and as he stood for one last backward glimpse at the twinkling magnificence of this February night he felt stirred by almost heroic rancors. The city lay before him in crouched somnolence, ready to leap into life at the first flush of dawn, and, in the chilly breath of virgin spring, little truant warmths and provocative perfumes stirred the night with subtle prophecies of summer.

His exaltation persisted even after he had turned the key in his own door to find the light still blazing, betraying the fact of Helen's wakeful presence. He dallied over the triviality of hanging up his hat.

She was reading when he gained the threshold of the tiny living room.

At the sound of his footsteps she flung aside the magazine in her hand. Her thick brows were drawn together in insolent impatience.

"Oh," he exclaimed, inadequately, "I thought you'd be asleep!"

"Asleep?" she queried, in a voice that cut him with its swift stroke.

"You didn't fancy that I could compose myself that quickly ... after everything that's happened to-night ... did you? I've been humiliated more than once in my life, but never quite so badly. Uncalled for, too ... that's the silly part of it."

He stood motionless in the doorway. "I'm sorry I forgot the money," he returned, dully. "But it's all past and gone now. And I think the Hilmers understood."

"Yes ... they understood. That's another humiliating thing." She laughed tonelessly. "It must be amusing to watch people like us attempting to be somebody and do something on an income that can't be stretched far enough to pay a sloppy maid her wages."

It was not so much what she said, but her manner that chilled him to sudden cold anger. "Well ... you know our income, down to the last penny... You know just how much I've overdrawn this month, too. Why do you invite strangers to dinner under such conditions?"

She rose, drawing herself up to an arrogant height. "I invite them for _your_ sake," she said, with slow emphasis. "If you played your cards well you might get in right with Hilmer. He's a big man."

"Yes," he flung back, dryly, "and a d.a.m.ned insolent one, too."

"He has his faults," she defended. "He's not polished, but he's forceful." She turned a malevolent smile upon her husband. "When he told that drunken servant girl to go, she went!"

Starratt could feel the rush of blood dyeing his temples. "That's just in his line!" he sneered. "He's taken degrading orders, and so he knows how to give them... He may have money now, but he hasn't always been so fortunate. I've been short of funds in my day, but I never fought with a dirk for a half loaf of bread... You've heard the story of his life... What has he got to make him proud?"

"Just that ... he's pulled himself out of it. While we... Tell me, where are we? Where will we be ten years from now?... Twenty? Why aren't you doing something?... Everybody else is."

He folded his arms and leaned against the doorway. "Perhaps I am," he said, quietly. "You don't know everything."

She made a movement toward him. He stepped aside to let her pa.s.s.

"What can _you_ do?" she taunted as she swept out of the room.

He stood for a moment dazed at the sudden and unexpected budding of her scorn. He heard her slam the door of the bedroom. He went over to the chair from which she had risen and dropped into it, shading his eyes.

The clock in the hallway was chiming two when the bedroom door opened again.

"Aren't you coming to bed?" he heard his wife's voice call with sharp irritation.

"No," he answered.

CHAPTER III

It was extraordinary how wide awake Fred Starratt felt next morning.

He was full of tingling reactions to the sharp chill of disillusionment. At the breakfast table he met his wife's advances with an air of tolerant aloofness. In the past, the first moves toward adjusting a misunderstanding had come usually from him. He had an apt.i.tude for kindling the fires of domestic harmony, but he had discovered overnight the futility of fanning a hearthstone blaze when the flue was choked so completely. Before him lay the task of first correcting the draught. Temporary genialities had no place in his sudden, bleak speculations. Helen shirred his eggs to a turn, pressed the second cup of coffee on him, browned him a fresh slice of toast ... he suffered her favors, but he was unmoved by them. They did not even annoy him. When he kissed her good-by he felt the relaxation of her body against his, as she stood for a moment languishing in provocative surrender. He put her aside sharply. Her caress had a new quality which irritated him.

Outside, the morning spread its blue-gold tail in wanton splendor.

February in San Francisco! Fred Starratt drew in a deep breath and wondered where else in the whole world one could have bettered that morning at any season of the year. Like most San Franciscans, he had never flown very far afield, but he was pa.s.sionate in his belief that his native city "had it on any of them," to use his precise term. And he was resentful to a degree at any who dared in his presence to establish other claims or to even suggest another preference. He looked forward to New York as an experience, but never as a goal. No, San Francisco was good enough for him!