Sleeping Fires: A Novel | Page 7

like--but if any of those young bucks
talks companionship to you put up your guard or come and tell me. I'll
settle his hash."
"I don't want the companionship of any other man, but I'd like yours."
"You don't know how lucky you are. You have all of me you could
stand. Three or four long evenings--well, we'd yawn in each other's
faces and go to bed. A bull but true enough."
"Then I think I'll have the books unpacked, not only those I brought,
but the new case papa sent to me. I have lost the resource of Society for
several months, and I do not care to have men here after you have gone.
That would mean gossip."
"You are above gossip and I prefer the men to the books. You'll ruin
your pretty eyes, and you had the makings of a fine bluestocking when
I rescued you. A successful woman--with her husband and with
Society-- has only sparkling shallows in her pretty little head. Now, I
must run. I really shouldn't have come all the way up here for lunch."
Madeleine wandered aimlessly to the window and looked down at the
scurrying throngs on Montgomery Street. There were few women. The
men bent against the wind, clutching at their hats, or chasing them
along the uneven wooden sidewalks, tripping perhaps on a loose board.
There were tiny whirlwinds of dust in the unpaved streets. The bustling
little city that Madeleine had thought so picturesque in its novelty
suddenly lost its glamour. It looked as if parts of it had been flung
together in a night between solid blocks imported from the older

communities; so furious was the desire to achieve immediate wealth
there were only three or four buildings of architectural beauty in the
city. The shop windows on Montgomery Street were attractive with the
wares of Paris, but Madeleine coveted nothing in San Francisco.
She thought of Boston, New York, Washington, Europe, and for a
moment nostalgia overwhelmed her. If Howard would only take her
home for a visit! Alas! he was as little likely to do that as to give her
the companionship she craved.
But she had no intention of taking refuge in tears. Nor would she stay
at home and mope. Her friends were out of town. She made up her
mind to go for a walk, although she hardly knew where to go. Between
mud and dust and hills, walking was not popular in San Francisco.
However, there might be some excitement in exploring.
She looped her brown cloth skirt over her balmoral petticoat, tied a veil
round her small hat and set forth. Although the dust was flying she
dared not lower her veil until she reached the environs, knowing that if
she did she would be followed; or if recognized, accused of the
unpardonable sin. The heavy veil in the San Francisco of that day, save
when driving in aggressively respectable company, was almost an
interchangeable term for assignation. It was as inconvenient for the
virtuous as indiscreet for the carnal.
Madeleine reached the streets of straggling homes and those long
impersonal rows depressing in their middle-class respectability, and
lowered the veil over her smarting eyes. She also squared her shoulders
and strode along with an independent swing that must convince the
most investigating mind she was walking for exercise only.
Almost unconsciously she directed her steps toward the Cliff House
Road where she had driven occasionally behind the doctor's spanking
team. It was four o'clock when she entered it and the wind had fallen.
The road was thronged with buggies, tandems, hacks, phaetons, and
four-in-hands. Society might be out of town but the still gayer world
was not. Madeleine, skirting the edge of the road to avoid disaster
stared eagerly behind her veil. Here were the reckless and brilliant

women of the demi-monde of whom she had heard so much, but to
whom she had barely thrown a glance when driving with her husband.
They were painted and dyed and kohled and their plumage would have
excited the envy of birds in Paradise. San Francisco had lured these
ladies "round the Horn" since the early Fifties: a different breed from
the camp followers of the late Forties. Some had fallen from a high
estate, others had been the mistresses of rich men in the East, or belles
in the half world of New York or Paris. Never had they found life so
free or pickings so easy as in San Francisco.
Madeleine knew that many of the eminent citizens she met in Society
kept their mistresses and flaunted them openly. It was, in fact, almost a
convention. She was not surprised to see several men who had taken
her in to dinner tooling these gorgeous cyprians and looking far
prouder than