Benito's health had not of recent months been
robust, and Robert found upon his shoulders more and more of the
business of the office, which acted as trustee for several large
estates. Robert now had his private carriage, but Maizie would not
permit his calling thus, in state, for her at the Mineral Cafe.
"It would not look well," she said, half whimsically, yet with a touch
of gravity, "to have a famous lawyer in his splendid coach call for a
poor little Cinderella of a cashier." And so Robert came afoot each
night to take her home. When it was fine they walked up the steep Powell
street hill, gazing back at the scintillant lights of the town or down
on the moonlit bay, with its black silhouetted islands, the spars of
great ships and the moving lights of tugboats or ferries.
If it were wet they rode up on the funny little cable cars, finding a
place, whenever possible, on the forward end, which Maizie called the
"observation platform." As they passed the Nob Hill mansions of Hopkins,
Stanford and Crocker, and the more modest adobe of the Fairs, Maizie
sometimes fancied herself the chatelaine of such a castle, giving an
almost imperceptible sigh as the car dipped over the crest of Powell
street toward the meaner levels just below where she and her mother
lived.
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