The San Francisco call., 1909-08-29

garden hat The moment she had
dreaded was upon her In spite of her
warning reason. in spite of everything,
she was going with him.
Beyond the looming roofs as they de-
scended the hill she saw white sails
sink out of sight. All the little pano-
rama upon which she had looked down
sprang up around her. large and living.
He whistled to the car as he helped
her down the last steep pitch, whis-
tied and waved, and they ran for it.
No time for back looking no time now
for faint heart. Before she knew they
were fairly crowded into the narrow
front seat and the long street was run
ming up to them and streaming by
This was never the car one went out
the front door TO take. This creaked
and crawled low, taking the corners
comfortably. past houses with all their
windows blinking recognition. Hadn't
it passed them so for 20 years? Old
houses In long gardens, and little
houses creeping back behind their
yards, not yet encroached upon by
fresher ties of living. Past all these
and gliding down under high. ragged
banks, green grass above with wooden
stairways struggling up their naked
faces; past these again; past lower
levels; past little gray and cluttered
houses; past loaded vegetable carts; past
children playing shrilly, bearing down
always on the green square of the
plaza wide, worn and foreign and the
Greek church "domed" with blue and
yellow, bearing down as If it had fairly
determined to make its course straight
through this stable center Then in
the very shadow it swerved aside to
clatter off I'm quite another direction
along wider street with whittier shops
and more glittering windows with
gilded letters flashing foreign names.
with more marked and brilliant colors
moving in the crowd, with a clearer
stamp on all of Latin living.
Then suddenly for them the sliding
panorama ceased. The car had stopped
and they had left 1T and were standing
upon the corner of a still street that
came down from the high hills behind
them and crossed the car track and
climbed again a little way to curve over
into the sky. Dingy houses two blocks
above them stood silhouetted against
the blue. They were walking upward
toward this horizon, leaving color and
motion behind them. With every step
the street grew more empty, lonely and
colorless. Many of the windows that
glimmered at them, passing. were the
blank windows of empty houses Were
they taking this way, this curious
dropping over into the shipping which
lay under the hill? For all she knew
this might really be his notion, for
since they had left the garden gate,
though they had looked together at the
light and color of the pictures moving
past their eyes, they had not exchanged
word.
But all at once he stopped at the in
tersectfon of two dusty streets. and his
u
like voyageur taking his soundings.
Elegant as ever and odd enough. yet
he wasn't any odder here at the jump
ing off place of nowhere than he had
appeared in the box at the theater, or
in the picture gallery. She had the
clear impression all at once that he
wasn't too odd for anything.
Here we are" he said. and indicated
with his glittering stick straight be-
fore them a little house. 1t was low,
as II 1t crouched against the wind.
the drab of the rock itself, and
made so secret with tight drawn
curtains that 1t seemed to have
shut itself up against the world for
ever. She wavered. She wasn't afraid
Of herself out here, out of doors under
the sky, but she was afraid that those
four walls might shut out her new un-
reasoning joy. might steal away his
new tenderness, and bring her back
face to face with the same ugly fact
that had confronted her in her draw
ing room.
"Oh. no." she said. and put her
hands behind her with determina-
tion that she wasn't going to move
"Oh, yes" he said. but he didn't
smile. He looked at her quite gravely,
reproachfully, and the touch Of his
fingers on her arm was nne. was deli
cate, as II to say "I wouldn't harm
you for the world"
She blushed a slow. painful crimson
She hadn't meant that She hadn't
even thought OF It; but. since he had,
there was nothing for it but to go in
The door shut behind her sharn1v