The Avalanche

The Avalanche

Project Gutenberg's The Avalanche, by Gertrude Franklin Horn
Atherton This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: The Avalanche
Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
Release Date: June 30, 2004 [EBook #7863]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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AVALANCHE ***

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THE AVALANCHE
A MYSTERY STORY

BY GERTRUDE ATHERTON
1919

TO CHARLES HANSON TOWNE


CHAPTER I
I
Price Ruyler knew that many secrets had been inhumed by the
earthquake and fire of San Francisco and wondered if his wife's had
been one of them. After all, she had been born in this city of odd and
whispered pasts, and there were moments when his silent
mother-in-law suggested a past of her own.
That there was a secret of some sort he had been progressively
convinced for quite six months. Moreover, he felt equally sure that this
impalpable gray cloud had not drifted even transiently between himself
and his wife during the first year and a half of their marriage. They had
been uncommonly happy; they were happy yet ... the difference lay not
in the quality of Hélène's devotion, enhanced always by an outspoken
admiration for himself and his achievements, but in subtle changes of
temperament and spirits.
She had been a gay and irresponsible young creature when he married
her, so much so that he had found it expedient to put her on an
allowance and ask her not to ran up staggering bills in the fashionable
shops; which she visited daily, as much for the pleasure of the informal
encounter with other lively and irresponsible young luminaries of San
Francisco society as for the excitement of buying what she did not
want.

He had broached the subject with some trepidation, for they had never
had a quarrel; but she had shown no resentment whatever, merely an
eager desire to please him. She even went directly down to the Palace
Hotel and reproached her august parent for failing to warn her that a
dollar was not capable of infinite expansion.
But no wonder she had been extravagant, she told Ruyler plaintively. It
had been like a fairy tale, this sudden release from the rigid economies
of her girlhood, when she had rarely had a franc in her pocket, and they
had lived in a suite of the old family villa on one of the hills of Rouen,
Madame Delano paying her brother for their lodging, and dressing
herself and Hélène with the aid of a half paralyzed seamstress with a
fiery red nose. Ma foi! It was the nightmare of her youth, that nose and
that croaking voice. But the woman had fingers, and a taste! And her
mother could have concocted a smart evening frock out of an old
window curtain.
But the petted little daughter was never asked to go out and buy a spool
of thread, much less was she consulted in the household economies. All
she noticed was that her clothes were smarter than Cousin Marthe's,
who had a real dressmaker, and was subject to fits of jealous sulks. No
wonder that when money was poured into her lap out in this wonderful
California she had assumed that it was made only to spend.
But she would learn! She would learn! She would ask her mother that
very day to initiate her into the fascinating secrets of personal
economies, teach her how to portion out her quarterly allowance
between her wardrobe, club dues, charities, even her private
automobile.
This last heroic suggestion was her own, and although her husband
protested he finally agreed; it was well she should learn just what it
cost to be a woman of fashion in San Francisco, and the allowance was
very generous. His old steward, Mannings, ran the household, although
as he went through the form of laying the bills before his little mistress
on the third of every month, she knew that the upkeep of the San
Francisco house and the Burlingame villa ran into a small fortune a
year.

"It is not that I am threatened with financial disaster," Ruyler had said
to her. "But San Francisco has not recovered yet, and it is impossible to
say just when she will recover. I want to be absolutely sure of my
expenditures."
She had promised vehemently, and, as far as he knew, she had kept her
promise. He had received no more bills, and it was obvious that her
haughty chauffeur was paid on schedule time, until, seized with another