Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/172

160 and the rock-bound coast. Monterey village was still quaint and old fashioned. People drove in basket phaetons with fringed, square tops.

The hotel society was very lively. It was the day of bonanza kings. The Floods, the O'Briens, the Stanfords, the Fairs, and many others were there. It was a very dashing life, with a good deal of champagne, a good many diamonds, high coloured complexions, startlingly blonde hair. One of the bonanza kings, a little gorilla-like Irishman, had bought him a tall, stately, glorious creature for wife. She had a regal carriage, and a proud, unhappy look in her blue eyes. She never complained, nor appeared to abate her pride, but she had evidently been tamed by her master. Lanagan was short and square and hairy and terribly strong both in physique and in will power. He wore a massive watch chain of nuggets strung together, with which his thick blunt ringers were always toying. Mrs. Lanagan was willowy and fair and stately and cold. She was always magnificently dressed and carried herself haughtily like a queen. Hers was the marble type of beauty. She spoke rarely. Never by word or faintest indication did she show annoyance or mortification at her husband's gaucheries. He was always calling for spittoons, or cracking bad jokes in worse taste, or eating with bis knife, or performing other shuddery atrocities. And to Mrs. Lanagan his lightest word commanded an instant obedience. It seemed often as though he enjoyed testing his power; as though he commanded merely to be obeyed. Once in the crowded ball room he hailed her, passing:

"Cum here!"

She turned aside and swept to him, waiting impassively. He thrust his leg at her.

"Me foot hurts. Pull off me boot," he commanded.

And in her silks and jewels, without a word, before her partner could forestall her, she dropped on her knees and pulled off this man's boot. Ben Sansome, the old beau, veteran of social changes since the days of 'Forty-nine, cynical, surprised at nothing, often caught himself wondering what mysteries of pride, venality, contempt, will, brutality lay back of this astonishing proud acquiescence.