My dear Mr. Thorpe,—I should like to see you this afternoon, if you are disengaged. If not, at your earliest convenience. I hope you will understand that this is not an idle request, but that I particularly wish to see you.Sincerely,Nina Randolph.
My dear Mr. Thorpe,—I should like to see you this afternoon, if you are disengaged. If not, at your earliest convenience. I hope you will understand that this is not an idle request, but that I particularly wish to see you.
Sincerely,Nina Randolph.
“Tell Miss Randolph that I will call at three,” said Thorpe, promptly.
He had no wish to avoid the interview; he was quite willing that she should turn the scorpions of her wrath upon him. He deserved it. He did not pretend to understand Nina Randolph, deeply as he had puzzled over her since their memorable interview; but that he had helped her to violate her own self-respect, there could be little doubt, and he longed to give her what satisfaction he could. He had lived his inner life very fully, and knew all that the sacrifice of an ideal meant to the higher parts of the mind. Whether Miss Randolph had everkissed a man before or not, he would not pretend to guess; but he would have been willing to swear that she had never kissed another in the same circumstances; and he burned to think that he had been the man to cast her at the foot of her girlish pedestal. Whatever possibilities for evil there might be in her, instinct prompted him to believe that they were undeveloped. Her strong sudden magnetism for him had passed with her presence, and, looking back, he attributed it entirely to the momentary passion of which he was ashamed; but he felt something of the curious tie which binds thinking people who have helped each other a step down the moral ladder.
After luncheon, he informed Hastings that he was going to the city, and asked for a horse.
“I’ll go with you—”
“I don’t want you,” said Thorpe, bluntly. “I have a particular reason for wishing to go alone.”
“Oh, very well,” said Hastings, amiably. “The savage loves his solitude, I know.”
The road between the army posts andSan Francisco was well beaten. Thorpe could not have lost his way, even if the horse had not known every inch of it.
He reached the city within an hour. It was less picturesque by day than by night. The board sidewalks were broken and uneven, the streets muddy. The tall frame buildings of the business section looked as if they had been pieced together in intervals between gambling and lynching. Dwelling-houses with gardens about them were scattered on the heights.
Two miles south of the swarming, hurrying, swearing brain of the city was the aristocratic quarter,—South Park and Rincon Hill. The square wooden houses, painted a dark brown, had a solid and substantial air, and looked as if they might endure through several generations.
The man, Cochrane, admitted Thorpe, and conducted him to the library. The room was unoccupied, and, as the door closed behind the butler, Thorpe for the first time experienced a flutter. He was about to have a serious interview with a girl of whose type he knew nothing. Would she expect him to apologise?He had always held that the man who kissed and apologised was an ass. But he had done Miss Randolph something more than a minor wrong.
He shrugged his shoulders and took his stand before the fireplace. She had sent for him; let her take the initiative. He knew woman well enough to follow her cues, be the type new or old. Then he looked about him with approval. One would know it was an Englishman’s library, he thought. Book-shelves, closely furnished, lined two sides of the large and lofty room. One end opened into the conservatory—where palms did shelter and the lights were dim. The rugs and curtains were red, the furniture very comfortable. On a long table were the periodicals of the world.
Miss Randolph kept him waiting but a few moments. She opened the door abruptly and entered. Her face was pale, and her eyes were shadowed; but she held her head very high. Her carriage and her long dark gown made her appear almost tall. As she advanced down the room, she looked at Thorpe steadily, without access of colour, her lips pressed together.He met her half way. His first impression was that her figure was the most beautiful he had ever seen, his next the keenest impulse of pity he had felt for any woman.
She extended her hand mechanically, and he took it and held it.
“Is it true that I kissed you the other night?” she asked, peremptorily.
“Yes,” he said, ungracefully.
“And I had drunk too much champagne?”
“It was my fault,” he said, eagerly. “You told me that you had a bad head. I had no business to press it on you.”
“You must think I am a poor weak creature indeed, if my friends are obliged to take care of me,” she said drily. “I was a fool to touch it—that is the long and the short of it. I have given you a charming impression of the girls of San Francisco—sit down: we look idiotic standing in the middle of the room holding each other’s hand—I can assure you that there was not another girl in the house who would have done what I did, or whom you would have dared to kiss. In a new country, you know, the social lines aredrawn very tight, and the best people are particular to prudery. It is necessary: there are so many dreadful women out here. I am positive that in the set to which Captain Hastings has introduced you, you will meet a larger number of well-conducted people than you have ever met in any one place before.”
“It is very good of you to put on armour for your city,” he said, smiling. “I shall always think of it as your city, by the way. But I thought you did not like California.”
“It is my country. I feel great pride in it. You will find that it is a country with a peculiar influence. Some few natures it leaves untouched—but they are precious few. In the others, it quickens all the good and evil they were born with.”
Thorpe looked at her with a profound interest. He was eager to hear all that she had to say.
“I have never before had occasion to speak like this to any man,” she went on. “If I had had, I should not have done so. I should have carried it off with a high hand, ignored it, assumed that I was above criticism.I only speak to you so frankly because you are an Englishman. People of the same blood are clannish when away from their own land. I say this without coquetry: I care more for your good opinion than for that of any of the others—I am so tired of them!”
“Thank you—even if you did rather spoil it. You have it, if it really matters to you. Surely, you don’t think I misunderstand. I insist upon assuming all the blame—and—upon apologising.”
“Well, I am glad you apologised. Although you were not the most to blame, just for the moment it made me feel that you were. I have already forgiven you.” She dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked at him again with her square, almost defiant regard. “There is something I have been trying to lead up to. It is this—it is not very easy to say—I want you to make a promise. There is a skeleton in this house. Some people know. I don’t want you to ask them about it. My father will ask you here constantly. I shall want you to come, too. I ask you to promise to keep your eyes shut. Will you?”
“I shall see nothing. Thanks, thanks.” He got up and moved nervously about. “We will be friends, the best of friends, promise me that. No flirtation. No nonsense. There may be something I can do to help you while I am here. I hope there will be.”
“There will not, but I like you better for saying that—I know you are not demonstrative.” She threw herself back in her chair and smiled charmingly. “As to the other part—yes, we shall be the best of friends. It was hard to speak, but I am glad that I did. I knew it was either that or a nodding acquaintance, and I had made up my mind that it should be something quite different. When we are alone and serious, we will not flirt; but I have moods, irrepressible ones. If, when we meet in society, I happen to be in a highly flirtatious humour, you are to flirt with me. Do you understand?”
“Certainly, certainly, I agree—to keep you from flirting with other men.”
“Now fetch that portfolio over there,—it has Bruges in it,—and tell me something about every stone.”
They talked for two hours, and of much beside Bruges. Haphazardly as she had been educated in this new land, her natural intelligence had found nutrition in her father’s mind and library. Thorpe noted that when talking on subjects which appealed to the intellect alone, her face changed strikingly: the heavy lids lifted, the eyes sparkled coldly, the mouth lost its full curves. Even her voice, so warm and soft, became, more than once, harsh and sharp.
“There are several women in her,” he thought. “She certainly is very interesting. I should like to meet her again ten years hence.”
He did.
“Why don’t you travel?” he asked. “It would mean so much more to you than to most women. Even if Mr. Randolph cannot leave this fair young city he is building up, and your mother won’t leave him, you could go with some one else—”
“I never expect to leave California,” she said shortly. Then, as she met his look of surprise, she added: “I told you a fib when I said that I did not dream, or only a little.I get out of my own life for hours at a time by imagining myself in Europe, cultivating my mind, my taste for art, to their utmost limit, living a sort of impersonal life—Of course there are times when I imagine myself with some one who would care for it all as much as I, and know more—and all that. But I try to keep to the other. I have suffered enough to know that in the impersonal life is the surest content. And as for the other—it could not be, even if I ever met such a man. But dreams help one enormously, and I am the richer for all I have indulged in.”
Thorpe stood up again. Under a rather impassive exterior, he was a restless man, and his acquaintance with Nina Randolph had tried his nerves.
“I wish you had not given me half confidences, or that you would refrain from rousing my curiosity—my interest, as you do. It is hardly fair. I don’t wish to know what the family skeleton is, but I do want to knowyoubetter. If you want the truth, I have never been sointriguéby a woman in my life. And I have never so wanted to help one. I have been so drawn to you that I have had a senseof having done you a personal wrong ever since the other night. A man does not usually feel that way when he kisses a girl. I see it is no use to ask your confidence now; but, mind, I don’t say I sha’n’t demand it later on.”
At this moment the butler entered with the lamps. He was followed immediately by Mr. Randolph, who exclaimed delightedly:
“Is it really you, Mr. Thorpe? I have just sent you a note asking you to dine with us on Sunday. And you’ll stay to dinner to-night—no, I won’t listen to any excuses. If you knew what a pleasure it is to meet an Englishman once more!”
“Hastings will think I am lost—”
“I’ll send him a note, and ask him to come in for the evening, and I’ll get in a dozen of our neighbours. We’ll have some music and fun.”
“Very well—I am rather keen on staying, to tell you the truth. Many thanks.”
“Sit down. You must see something of sport here. It is very interesting in this wild country.”
“I should like it above all things.” Thorpe sat forward eagerly, forgetting Miss Randolph.“What have you that’s new? I’ve killed pretty nearly everything.”
“We will have an elk hunt.”
“I want to go, too,” said Nina, authoritatively.
Thorpe turned, and smiled, as he saw the hasty retreat of an angry sparkle.
“I am afraid you would be a disturbing influence,” he said gallantly.
“I shouldn’t disturb you,” she said, with the pertness of a spoilt child. “I am a good shot myself. I can go—can’t I, papa?”
Mr. Randolph smiled indulgently. “You can do anything you like, my darling,” he said. “I wonder you condescend to ask.”
Nina ran over and kissed him, then propped her chin on top of his head and looked defiantly at Thorpe.
“If you don’t take me,” she remarked, drily, “there will be no hunt.”
“On the whole, I think my mind would concentrate better if you were not absent,” he said.
She blew him a kiss. “Youareimproving.Hasta luego!I must go and smooth my feathers.” And she ran out of the room.
The two men talked of the threatened civil upheaval in the United States until dinner was announced, a half hour later.
Mrs. Randolph did not appear until the soup had been removed. She entered the dining-room hurriedly, muttering an apology. Her toilette had evidently been made in haste: her brooch was awry; and her hair, banded down the face after the fashion of the time, hung an inch below one ear and exposed the lobe of the other, dealing detrimentally with her dignity, despite her fine physique.
She took no part in the conversation for some time. It was very lively. Mr. Randolph was full of anecdote and information, and enjoyed scintillating. He frequently referred to Nina, as if proud of her cleverness and anxious to exhibit it; but the guest noticed that he never addressed a word—nor a glance—to his wife.
Suddenly Thorpe’s eyes rested on a small dark painting in oils, the head of an old man.
“That is rather good,” he said, “and a very interesting face.”
“You have probably never heard of the artist, unless you have read the life of hissister. I was so fond of the man that I resent his rescue from oblivion by the fame of a woman. His name was Branwell Brontë, and that is a portrait of my grandfather.”
“If Branwell ’ad a-conducted hisself,” said a heavy voice opposite, “’ee’d a-been the wonder of the family. Mony a time a ’ve seen ’im coom into tha Lord Rodney Inn, ’is sharp little face as red as tha scoollery maid’s ’ands, and rockin’ from one side of tha ’all to tha hother, and sit doon at tha table, and make a caricachureof ivvery mon thot coom in. And once when ’ee was station-master at Luddondon Foote a ’ve ’eard as ’ow a mon coom runnin’ oop just as tha train went oot, and said as ’ow ’ee was horful anxious to know if a certain mon went hoff. ’Ee tried describin’ ’im, and couldn’t, so Branwell drew pictures of all the persons as ’ad left, and ’ee recognisedthe one as ’ee wanted.”
There was a moment’s silence, so painful that Thorpe felt his nerves jumping and the colour rising to his face. He recalled his promise, and looked meditatively at the strange concoction which had been placed before him as Mrs. Randolph finished. But his thoughtwas arbitrary. An ignorant woman of the people, possibly an ex-servant, who could only play the gentlewoman through a half-dozen rehearsed sentences, and forget the rôle completely at times! He had not expected to find the skeleton so soon.
“That iscarne con agi, a Chile dish,” said Mr. Randolph, suavely. “I’m very fond of Spanish cooking, myself, and you had better begin your education in it at once: you will get a good deal out here.”
“I am jolly glad to hear it. I’m rather keen on new dishes.” He glanced up. Mr. Randolph was yellow. The lines in his face had deepened. Thorpe dared not look at Nina.
Some eight or ten people, including Hastings, came in after dinner. Mrs. Randolph had gone upstairs from the dining-room, and did not appear again. Her dampening influence removed, Mr. Randolph and Nina recovered their high light spirits; and there was much music and more conversation. Miss Randolphhad a soprano voice of piercing sweetness, which flirted effectively with Captain Hastings’ tenor. Thorpe thought Hastings an ass for rolling his eyes out of his head, and finally turned his back on the piano to meet the large amused glance of Miss Hathaway. He sat down beside her, and, being undisturbed for ten minutes, found her willing to converse, or rather to express a number of decided opinions. She told him whom he was to know, what parts of California he was to visit, how long he was to stay, and after what interval he was to return. Thorpe listened with much entertainment, for her voice was not tuned to friendly advice, but to command. Her great eyes were as cold as icicles under a blue light; but there was a certain cordiality in their invitation to flirt. Thorpe did not respond. If he had known her first, he reflected, he should doubtless have made an attempt to dispossess her court; but the warm magnetic influence of Nina Randolph held him, strengthened by her demand upon his sympathy. Still he felt that Miss Hathaway was a person to like, and remained at her side until he was dismissed in favour of Hastings; when he talked for atime to the intellectual Miss McDermott, the sweet and slangy Miss McAllister, who looked like an angel and talked like a gamin, to Don Roberto Yorba, a handsome and exquisitely attired little grandee who was trying to look as much like an American as his friend Hiram Polk, with his lantern jaws and angular figure. It was the first city Thorpe had visited where there was no type: everybody suggested being the father or mother of one, and was of an individuality so pronounced that the stranger marvelled they were not all at one another’s throats. But he had never seen people more amiable and fraternal.
He did not see Nina alone again until a few moments before he left. He drew her out into the hall while Hastings was saying good-night to Mr. Randolph.
“May I come often?” he asked.
“Willyou?”
“I certainly shall.”
“Will you talk to me about things that men scarcely ever talk to girls about,—books and art—and—what one thinks about more than what one does.”
“I’ll talk about anything under heaven thatyou want to talk about—particularly yourself.”
“I don’t want to talk about myself.”
Her face was sparkling with coquetry, but it flushed under the intensity of his gaze. His brown skin was paler than when he had entered the house, his hard features were softened by the shaded lamp of the hall, and his grey eyes had kindled as he took her hand. She looked very lovely in a white gown touched up with red velvet bows.
“I believe you’ll be a tremendous flirt by the time you leave here,” she said, trying to draw her hand away. “And don’t tell me this is your first experience in eight years.”
“I’ve known a good many women,” he said, bluntly. “At present I am only following your cues—and there are a bewildering lot of them. When you are serious, I shall be serious. When you are not—I shall endeavour to be frivolous. To be honest, however, I have no intention of flirting with you, fascinating and provocative as you are. I’d like awfully to be your intimate friend, but nothing more. Good-night.”
South Park in the Fifties and Sixties was the gayest quarter of respectable San Francisco, with not a hint of the gloom which now presses about it like a pall. The two concave rows of houses were the proudest achievements of Western masonry, and had a somewhat haughty air, as if conscious of the importance they sheltered. The inner park was green and flowered; the flag of the United States floated proudly above. The whole precinct had that atmosphere of happy informality peculiar to the brief honeymoon of a great city. People ran, hatless, in and out of each other’s houses, and sat on the doorsteps when the weather was fine. The present aristocracy of San Francisco, the landed gentry of California whose coat-of-arms should be a cocktail, a side of mutton, or a dishonest contract, would give not a few of their dollars for personal memories of that crumbling enclosure at the foot of the hill: memories that would be welcome even with the skeleton which, rambling through these defaced abandonedhouses, they might expect to see grinning in dark spidery corners or in rat-claimed cupboards. Poor old houses! They have kept silent and faithful guard over the dark tales and tragic secrets of their youth; curiosity has been forced to satisfy itself with little more than vague and ugly rumour. The memories that throng them tell little to any but the dead.
There lived, in those days, the Randolphs, the Hathaways, the Dom Pedro Earles, the Hunt McLanes, the three families to which the famous “Macs” belonged, and others that have no place in this story. Before his second week in California was finished, Thorpe knew them all, and was petted and made much of; for San Francisco, then as now, dearly loved the aristocratic stranger. He rode into the city every day, either alone or with Hastings, and rarely returned without spending several moments or hours with Nina Randolph. Sometimes she was alone, sometimes companioned by her intimate friend, Molly Shropshire,—a large masculine girl of combative temper and imbued with disapproval of man. She made no exception in favour of Thorpe, andwhen he did not find her in the way, he rather enjoyed quarrelling with her. Mrs. Randolph made no more abrupt incursions into the table talk and spent most of her time in her room. Occasionally Thorpe met in the hall a coarse-looking woman whom he knew to be a Mrs. Reinhardt and the favoured friend of Mrs. Randolph. Mr. Randolph was often in brilliant spirits; at other times he looked harassed and sad; but he always made Thorpe feel the welcome guest.
Thorpe, during the first fortnight of their acquaintance, snubbed his maiden attempt to understand Nina Randolph; it was so evident that she did not wish to be understood that he could but respect her reserve. Besides, she was the most charming woman in the place, and that was enough to satisfy any visitor. Just after that he began to see her alone every day; Miss Shropshire had retired to the obscurity of her chamber with a cold, and socialities rarely began before night. They took long walks together in the wild environs of the city, once or twice as far as the sea. Both had a high fine taste in literature, and she was eager for the books oftravel he had lived. He sounded her, to discover if she had ambition, for she was an imperious little queen in society; but she convinced him that, when alone or with him, she rose high above the petty strata of life. With a talent, she could have been one of the most rapt and impersonal slaves of Art the world had ever known; and, as it was, her perception for beauty was extraordinary. Thorpe wished that she could carry out her imaginings and live a life of study in Europe; it seemed a great pity that she should marry and settle down into a mere leader of society.
Toward the end of the second fortnight, he began to wonder whether he should care to marry her, were he ready for domesticity, and were there no disquieting mystery about her. He concluded that he should not, as he should doubtless be insanely in love with her if he loved her at all, and she was too various of mood for a man’s peace of mind. But in the wake of these reflections came the impulse to analyse her, and he made no further attempt to snub it.
He went one evening to the house of Mrs. Hunt McLane, a beautiful young Creole whoheld the reins of the infant city’s society in her small determined hands. Born into the aristocracy of Louisiana, she had grown up in the salon. Her husband had arrived in San Francisco at the period when a class of rowdies known as “The Hounds” were terrorising the city, and, when they were finally arrested and brought to trial, conducted the prosecution. The brilliant legal talent he displayed, the tremendous personal force which carried every jury he addressed, established his position at the head of the bar at once. His wife, with her wide knowledge of the world, her tact, magnetism, and ambition, found no one to dispute her social leadership.
As Thorpe entered, she was standing at the head of the long parlour; and with her high-piled hair,poudré, her gown of dark-red velvet, and her haughty carriage, she looked as if she had just stepped from an old French canvas.
She smiled brilliantly as Thorpe approached her, and he was made to feel himself the guest of the evening,—a sensation he shared with every one in the room.
“I have not seen you for three days andseven hours,” she said. “How are all your flirtations getting on?”
“All my what?”
“Dominga Earle is making frantic eyes at you,” indicating, with a rapid motion of her pupils, a tall slender Mexican who undulated like a snake and whose large black fan and eyes were never idle. “’Lupie Hathaway is looking coldly expectant; and Nina Randolph, who was wholly animated a moment ago, is now quite listless. Not that you are to feel particularly flattered; you are merely something new. Turn over the pages,—Dominga is going to sing,—and I am convinced that she will surpass herself.”
Mrs. Earle was swaying on the piano stool. Her black eyes flashed a welcome to Thorpe, as he moved obediently to her side. Then she threw back her head, raised her eyebrows, dilated her nostrils, and in a ringing contralto sang a Spanish love-song. Thorpe could not understand a word of it, but inferred that it was passionate from the accompaniment of glance which played between himself and a tall blonde man leaning over the piano.
When the song and its encore finished, shewas immediately surrounded, and Thorpe slipped away. Miss Randolph was barricaded. He went over to Miss Hathaway, who sat between Hastings and another officer,lookingimpartially at each. They were dismissed in a manner which made them feel the honour of her caprice.
“That was good of you,” said Thorpe, sinking into a chair opposite her. “It is rarely that one can get a word with you, merely a glance over three feet of shoulder.”
Miss Hathaway made no reply. It was one of her idiosyncrasies never to take the slightest notice of a compliment. She was looking very handsome, although her attire, as ever, suggested a cold disregard of the looking-glass. Thorpe, who was beginning to understand her, did not feel snubbed, but fell to wondering what sort of a time Hastings would have of it when he proposed.
She regarded him meditatively for a moment, then remarked; “You are absent-minded to-night, and that makes you look rather stupid.”
Again Thorpe was not disconcerted. Speeches of this sort from Miss Hathawaywere to be hailed as signs of favour. If she did not like a man, she did not talk to him at all. He might sit opposite her throughout the night, and she would not part her lips.
“I am stupid,” he replied. “I have been all day.”
“What is the matter?” Her voice did not soften as another woman’s might have done, but it betrayed interest. “Are you puzzling?”
He coloured, nettled at her insight; but he answered, coldly:—
“Yes; I am puzzling.”
“Do not,” said Miss Hathaway, significantly. “Puzzle about any one else in California, but not about Nina Randolph.”
“What is this mystery?” he exclaimed impatiently, then added hastily, “oh, bother! I am too much of a wanderer to puzzle over any one.”
Miss Hathaway fixed her large cold blue regard upon him. “Do you love Nina Randolph?” she asked.
“I am afraid I love all women too much to trust to my own selection of one.”
“Now you are stupid. Go and talk to Nina.” She turned her back upon him, and smiled indulgently to a new-comer.
He crossed the room; a group of men parted with indifferent grace, and he leaned over Nina’s chair.
She was looking gay and free of care, and her eyes flashed a frank welcome to Thorpe. “I thought you were not coming to talk to me,” she said, with a little pout.
“Duty first,” he murmured. “Come over into the little reception-room and talk to me.”
“What am I to do with all these men?”
“Nothing.”
“You are very exacting—for a friend.”
“If you are a good friend, you will come. I am tired and bored.”
She rose, shook out her pretty pink skirts, nodded to her admirers, and walked off with Thorpe.
He laughed. “Perhaps they will console themselves with the reflection that as they have spoiled you, they should stand the consequences.”
They took possession of a little sofa in thereception-room. Another couple was in the window curve, and yet another opposite.
“We have not had our hunt,” said Nina; “the country has been a mud-hole. But we are to have it on Monday, if all goes well.”
“Who else is to be of the party?”
“Molly, Guadalupe, and Captain Hastings. Don’t speak of it to any one else. I don’t want a crowd.”
She lay back, her skirts sweeping his feet. A pink ribbon was twisted in her hair. The colour in her cheeks was pink. The pose of her head, as she absently regarded the stupid frescoes on the ceiling, strained her beautiful throat, making it look as hard as ivory, accentuating the softer loveliness of the neck. Thorpe looked at her steadily. He rarely touched her hand.
“I have something else in store for you,” she said, after a moment. “Just beyond the army posts are great beds of wild strawberries. It was a custom in the Spanish days to get up large parties every spring and camp there, gather strawberries, wander on the beach and over the hills, and picnic generally. We havekept it up; and if this weather lasts, if spring is really here, a crowd of us are going in a couple of weeks—you included. You have no idea what fun it is!”
“I shall not try to imagine it.” He spoke absently. He was staring at a curling lock that had strayed over her temple. He wanted to blow it.
“I am tired,” she said. “Talk to me. I have been gabbling for an hour.”
“I’m not in the mood for talking,” he said, shortly. “But keep quiet, if you want to. I suppose we know each other well enough for that.”
The other people left the room. Nina arranged herself more comfortably, and closed her eyes. Her mouth relaxed slightly, and Thorpe saw the lines about it. She looked older when the animation was out of her face, but none the less attractive. His eyes fell on her neck. He moved closer. She opened her eyes, and he raised his. The colour left her face, and she rose.
“Take me to papa,” she said; “I am going home.”
The party for the elk-hunt assembled at Mr. Randolph’s door at four o’clock on Monday morning. Miss Hathaway’s large Spanish eyes were heavy with the languor of her race. Miss Shropshire looked cross. Even the men were not wholly animate. Nina alone was as widely awake as the retreating stars. She rode ahead with Thorpe.
They made for the open country beyond the city. What is now a large and populous suburb, was then a succession of sand dunes, in whose valleys were thickets of scrub oak, chaparral, and willows. A large flat lying between Rincon Hill and Mission Bay was the favourite resort of elk, deer, antelope, and the less aristocratic coyote and wild cat. It was to this flat that Mr. Randolph’s party took their way, accompanied by vaqueros leading horses upon which to bring back the spoils of the morning.
The hour was grey and cold. The landscape looked inexpressibly bleak. A blustering wind travelled between the sea and thebay. From the crests of the hills they had an occasional glimpse of water and of the delapidated Mission, solitary on its cheerless plain. In the little valleys, the thickets were so dense they were obliged to bend their heads. The morning was intensely still, but for the soft pounding of the horses’ hoofs on the yielding earth, the long despairing cry of the coyote, the sudden flight of a startled wild cat.
“We are all so modern, we seem out of place in this wilderness,” said Thorpe. “I can hardly accept the prophecy of your father and other prominent men here, that San Francisco will one day be the great financial and commercial centre of Western America. It seems to me as hopeless as making cake out of bran.”
“Just you wait,” said Nina, tossing her head. “It will come in our time, in my father’s time. You haven’t got the feel of the place yet, haven’t got it into your bones. And you don’t know what we Californians can do, when we put our minds to it.”
“I hope I shall see it,” he replied, smiling; “I hope to see California at many stages ofher growth. I am a nomad, you know, and I shall make it the objective point of my travels hereafter. The changes—I don’t doubt if they come at all they will ride the lightning—will interest me deeply. May there be none in you,” he added, gallantly. “I cannot imagine any.”
Her eyes drooped, and her underlids pressed upward,—a repellant trick that had made Thorpe uncomfortable more than once. “That is where you will find the changes upon which the city will not pride itself,” she said. “Fortunately, there won’t be many of them.”
“You are unfair,” he said, angrily. “You told me to ask you no questions, and this is not the first time you have deliberately pricked my curiosity—that is not the word, either. The first night I dined at your house—” he stopped, biting his lip. He had said more than he intended.
“I know. You thought you had discovered the secret—I know exactly what you thought. But you have come to the conclusion since that there is more behind. Well, you are right.”
“What is your secret? I have had opportunities to discover. I hope I need not tell you that I have shut my ears; but I wish you would tell me. I don’t like mystery. It is sensational and old-fashioned. Between such friends as ourselves, it is entirely without excuse. It is more than possible that, girl-like, you have exaggerated its importance, and you are in danger of becoming morbid. But, whether it is real or imaginary, let me help you. Every woman needs a man’s help, and you can have all of mine that you want. Only don’t keep prodding my imagination, and telling me not to think. I am close upon thinking of nothing else.”
“Well, just fancy that that is my way of making myself interesting; that I cannot help flirting a little, even with friends.” She laughed lightly; but her face, which was not always under her control, had changed: it looked dull and heavy.
“That is pure nonsense,” he said, shortly. “Do you suppose you make yourself more interesting by hinting that your city will one day be ashamed of you?”
“Ah, perhapsthatwas an exaggeration.”
“I should hope so.”
“I meant one’s city need not know everything.”
“You are unpleasantly perverse this morning. I choose to take what you said as an exaggeration; but there is something behind, and I feel strongly impelled to say that if you don’t tell me I shall leave.”
“If I did, you would take the next steamer.”
“I am the one to decide that. At least give me the opportunity to reduce your mountain to a mole-hill.”
“Even you could not. And look—I see no reason why friends should wish to get at one another’s inner life. The companionship of friends is mental only. I have given you my mind freely. You have no right to ask for my soul. You are not my lover, and you don’t wish to be, although I don’t doubt that at times you imagine you do.”
“I am free to confess that I have imagined it more than once. I will set the example by being perfectly frank with you. If I could understand you, if I were not tormented by all sorts of dreadful possibilities, I should havelet myself go long before this. Does that sound cold-blooded? I can only say in explanation that I was born with a good deal of self-control, and that I have strengthened my will by exercise. It would be either one extreme or the other with me. At first I thought I should not want to marry you in any case. I am now sufficiently in love with you to long to be wholly so.”
Nina stole a glance at him with a woman’s uncontrollable curiosity, even in great moments. But he had turned his head from her, and was hitting savagely at his boot.
“I will be frank to this extent, by way of return: The barrier between us is insurmountable, and you would be the first to admit it. I will tell you the whole truth the day before you leave; that must content you. And, meanwhile, nip in the bud what is merely a compound of sympathy and passion. I know the influence I exert perfectly. I have seen more than one man go off his head. It humiliates me beyond expression.”
“It need not—although it is extremely distasteful to me that you should have seen men go off their heads, as you express it.But passion is the mightiest factor in love; there is no love without it, and it is bound to predominate until it is satisfied. Then the affections claim their part; and a dozen other factors, mental companionship for one, enter in. But, for Heaven’s sake, don’t add to your morbidity by despising yourself because you inspire passion in men. The women who do not are not worth considering.”
“Is that true? Well, I am glad you have suggested another way of looking at it. I don’t think I am morbid. At all events no one in this world ever made a harder fight not to be.”
They were riding through a thicket, and he turned and brought his face so close to hers that she had only a flashing glimpse of its pallor and of the flame in his eyes.
“It is your constant fight that wrings my heart,” he said. “Whatever it is against, I will make it with you, if you will let me. I am strong enough for both. And who am I that I should judge you? I have not lived the life of a saint. We all have our ideals. Mine has been never to give way except when I chose, never to let my senses control mymind for an instant. I believe, therefore, that I am strong enough to help and protect you against everything. And, whatever it is, you shall never be judged by me.”
They left the thicket at the moment, and she pushed her horse aside, that she might no longer feel Thorpe’s touch, his breath on her neck. “You are the most generous of men,” she said; “and you can have the satisfaction of knowing that you have made me think better of myself and of human nature than I have ever thought before. But I cannot marry you. Not only is the barrier insurmountable, but I don’t love you. Here we are.”
Thorpe at this time spent few hours in his own company. There was abundant distraction: either a social entertainment every day or evening, or a lark in the city. The wild life about the plaza, the gambling houses, the saloons, the fatal encounters in the dark contiguous streets, the absolute recklessness of the men and women, interested him profoundly. As he spent money freely, and never passed agaming table without tossing down a handful of coin as ardently as any adventurer, he was popular, and free to come and go as he liked.
The scene which he most frequented, which rose most vividly when he was living his later life in England, was El Dorado. It had three great windows on the plaza and six in its length,—something over a hundred and twenty feet. The brilliant and extraordinary scene within was visible to those who shunned it but stood with a fascinated stare; for its curtains were never drawn, its polished windows were close upon the sidewalk. On one side, down its entire length, was a bar set with expensive crystal, over which passed every variety of drink known to the appetite of man. Behind the bar were mirrors from floor to ceiling, reflecting the room, doubling the six crystal blazing chandeliers, the forty or fifty tables piled high with gold and silver, the hard intent faces of the gamblers, the dense throng that ever sauntered in the narrow aisles. At the lower end was a platform on which musicians played droning tunes on hurdy-gurdies, and Mexican girls,who looked like devils, danced. In the middle of the platform, awaiting the counters of the patrons of the bar, one woman sat always. She was French, and dark, and handsome, and weighed three hundred pounds. Dressing such a person was expensive in those days of incredible prices, and that room was very warm; she wore but a yard or two of silk somewhere about the belt.
Thorpe often sat and watched the faces of the gamblers: the larger number were gently born, and more than one told him that he had been a schoolmaster, a college professor, a clergyman, a lawyer, a doctor—all had failed, or had been ambitious for quicker betterment, and drifted to the golden land, there to feel the full weight of their own incompetence. They came there night after night, and when they had no money to gamble with they sauntered with the throng, or leaned heavily against the noble pillars which supported the ceiling. Thorpe afterward often wondered what had become of them. It is doubtful if there is a living soul who knows.
Occasionally Thorpe picked up a heap ofwoman in the street, put it in a carriage, and saw it safely to a night’s lodging. Sometimes the woman mumbled feeble gratitude, as often cursed him because he would not give her drink. One night, when rambling about alone, he knocked down a man who was beating a pretty young Mexican woman, then collared and carried him off to the calaboose. The girl died, and a few days later he went to the court-house to testify. The small room was packed; the jurors were huddled in a corner, where they not only listened to the testimony, but were obliged to talk out their verdict, there being no other accommodation.
The trial was raced through in San Francisco style, but lasted several hours. Thorpe sat it out. There was no testimony but his and that of the coroner; but the lawyer and the district-attorney tilted with animus and vehemence. When they had concluded, the judge rose, stretched himself, and turned to the jury.
“You’ve heard the whole case,” he remarked. “So you do your level best while I go out for a drink. He killed her or hedidn’t. It’s swing or quit.” And, expectorating impatiently among the audience, he sauntered out.
The jury returned a verdict of “not guilty,” and the man was lynched in the quiet and orderly manner of that time.
A week later forty or fifty people were camped beside the strawberry fields on the hills beyond the army posts and sloping to the ocean. Mr. Randolph and Nina, the McLanes, Miss Hathaway, Miss Shropshire, the “three Macs,” the Earles, and a half-dozen young men were domiciled in a small village of tents on the eminence nearest the city. The encampments were a mile apart; and in the last of them a number of the Californian grandees who had made the land Arcadia under Mexican rule enjoyed the hospitality of Don Tiburcio Castro, a great rancher who was making an attempt to adapt himself to the new city and its enterprising promoters.
Thorpe and Hastings walked over fromthe Presidio. They found the entire party assembled before the largest tent, which flew the American flag. As the young men approached, all of the ladies formed quickly into line, two and two, and walked forward to meet them. The men, much mystified, paused, raised their caps, and stood expectant. Mrs. McLane stepped from the ranks, and, with much ceremony, unrolled several yards of tissue paper, then shook forth the silken folds of the English flag, and presented it to Thorpe.
“It is made from our sashes, and we all sewed on it,” she announced. “You will sleep better if the Union Jack is flying over your tent.”
“How awfully jolly—what a stunning compliment,” stammered Thorpe, embarrassed and pleased. “It shall decorate some part of my surroundings as long as I live.”
Mr. Randolph himself fixed the flag, and Thorpe exclaimed impulsively to Mrs. McLane, with whom he stood apart: “Upon my word, I believe I am coming under the spell. I wonder if I shall ever want to leave California?”
“Why not stay? Unless you have ambitions, and want to run for Parliament or be a diplomat or something, or are wedded to the English on their native heath, I don’t see why you shouldn’t remain here. It is rather slow for us women: we are obliged to be twice as proper as the women of older civilisations; but a man, I should think, especially a man of resource like you, ought to find twenty different ways of amusing himself. You not only can have all that is exciting in San Francisco, watching a city trying to kick out of its long clothes, but you can saunter about the country and see the grandees in their towns and on their ranchos, to say nothing of the scenery, which is said to be magnificent.”
“It isn’t a bad idea. My past is not oppressing me, but I believe I should enjoy the sensation of beginning life over again. It would be that—certainly. But then I am an Englishman, you know, and English roots strike deep. Still, I have a half mind to buy a ranch here and come back every year or so. And I have a favourite brother who is rather delicate; it would be a good life for him.”
“Do think of it,” said Mrs. McLane, in the final tone with which she dismissed a subject that could claim her interest so long and no longer. She had liked Thorpe more in Paris, where he was not in love with another woman. She moved away with her husband, a big burly man with a face curiously like Sir Walter Scott’s, and Thorpe plunged his hands in his pockets and strolled over the hill. The slopes were covered with strawberry vines down to the broad white beach. The large calm waves of the Pacific rolled ponderously in and fell down. Cityward was the Golden Gate with its white bar. Beyond it were steep cliffs, gorgeous with colour.
“Does England really exist?” he thought. “One could do anything reckless in this country.”
He had been the only man to miss his elk at the hunt, and he had spent the rest of the day in hard riding. When the fever wore off, his reason was thankful that Nina Randolph had refused him, and he made up his mind to leave California by the next steamer. He had heard of the wonders worked by Time, and none knew better thanhe how to make life varied and interesting. He persuaded himself that he was profoundly relieved that she did not love him. Once or twice he had been nearly sure that she did. He had not seen her alone since the morning of the hunt, and, when they had met, her manner had been as frank and friendly as ever.
He joined Mrs. Earle, who had draped a reboso about her head, and was fluttering an immense fan. For the first time since his arrival in San Francisco, he plunged into a deliberate flirtation. Mrs. Earle was one of those women who flirt from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, and she was so thin that Thorpe fancied he could see the springs which kept her skeleton in such violent motion. Her eyebrows were marvels of muscular ingenuity, and all the passions were in a pair of great black eyes which masked a brain too shrewd to try the indulgence of old Dom Pedro Earle, a doughty Scot, too far.
Once, as they repassed a tent, Thorpe saw a vibration of the door, and a half moment later heard a loud crash. Mrs. Earle’seyebrows went up to her hair, but she only said:
“Your eyes are as grey and cold as that sea, señor; but they will get into a fine blaze some day, and then they will burn a hole in some poor woman’s heart. And your jaw!Dios de mi alma!What a tyrant you must be—over yourself most of all! I flirt with you no more. You are the sort of man that husbands are so jealous of, because you do not know how to trifle.Adios, señor, adios!”
She swayed over to her husband; and at the same moment Nina ran out of the tent which had attracted Thorpe’s attention. She wore a short white frock and a large white hat, which made her look very young. In her hand she carried a small tin horn, upon which she immediately gave a shrill blast.
“That means work,” she cried. “Get down to the patch.”
The servants spread a long table on a level spot, and fetched water from a spring, carrying the jugs on their shoulders. The cook, in a tent apart, worked leisurely at a savory supper. The guests scattered among the strawberry-beds, and plucked the large red fruit. Eachhad a small Mexican basket, and culled as rapidly as possible; the positions they were forced to assume were not comfortable. All were very gay, and now and then fought desperately for a well-favoured vine.
Nina, who had been ousted by Mrs. Earle’s long arms, which flashed round a glowing patch like two serpents, sprang up and ran down to the foot of the hill, where the vines were more straggling and less popular. Thorpe followed, laughing. Her hat had been lost in the fray; her hair was down and blown about in the evening wind, and her cheeks were crimson.
“I hate long-legged long-armed giantesses,” she exclaimed, attacking a vine spitefully. “And Spanish people are treacherous, anyhow. That patch was mine.”
Thorpe laughed heartily. Her temper was genuine. His spirits suddenly felt lighter; she looked like a spoilt child, not like a girl with a tragic secret.
“She upset my basket, too,” continued Nina, viciously. “But she upset half her own at the same time, and I trod on them, on purpose.”
“Here, let me fill your basket while you make a mud pie.” He plucked his portion and hers, while she dug her fingers into the sand, and recovered her temper. As Thorpe dropped the replenished basket into her lap, she tossed her hair out of her eyes, and smiled up at him.
“Sit down and rest,” she said, graciously. “Supper won’t be ready for a half hour yet, and that hill is something to climb.”
The others had finished their task, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. The west was golden; even the sea was yellow for the moment.
“We know how to enjoy ourselves out here,” said Nina, contentedly, sinking her elbow into the sand. “I should think it a good place to pitch your tent.”
She flirted her eyelashes at him, and looked so incapable of being serious that he answered, promptly,—
“I shall, if I can find some one to make it comfortable.”
“You don’t need to go begging. You’re quite the belle. Several that are more or lesséprisesare splendid housekeepers.”
“I am not looking for a housekeeper.”
“What are you looking for?” she asked, audaciously. Her chin was in her hand; her unbound hair clung about her; her tiny feet moved beneath the hem of her frock.
He also was lying on his elbow, his face close to hers. He had always followed her cues, and if she wished to flirt at this late date he was quite willing to respond. He made up his mind abruptly to dismiss all plans and drift with the tide.
“You,” he said, softly.
“Are you proposing to me?”
He noted that she ignored his actual proposal, and commended her tact.
“I am not so sure that I am; I am surer that I want to.”
“You are a cautious calculating Englishman.”
“I believe I am—up to a certain point.”
“Your face looks so hard and brown in that shadow. I’ve had men propose the third time they met me.”
“Probably.”
“You can propose, if it will ease your mind. I shall never marry.”
“Why not?”
“I think it would be heavenly to be an old maid, and make patchwork quilts for missionaries.”
“I shall take pleasure in imagining you in the rôle when I am digging away at Blue Books and Reports.”
“Ah, never, never more!” she chanted, lightly.
He paled slightly, then lifted a strand of her hair and drew it across his lips. It was the first caress he had given her in their six weeks of friendly intimacy, and her colour deepened. He shook the hair over her face. Her eyes peered out elfishly.
“I suspect we are going to flirt this week,” she said, drily.
“If you choose to call it that.” Her hair was clinging about his fingers.
“Suppose we make a compact—to regard nothing seriously that may occur this week.”
“Why are you so afraid of compromising yourself?”
“That belongs to the final explanation. But it is a recognised canon of strawberry-week ethics that everybody flirts furiously.Friendship is entirely too serious. Of course I shall flirt with you,—I shall let Dominga Earle see that at once,—as I am tired of all the others. Will you make the compact?”
“Yes.”
The sun had dropped below the ocean; only a bar of paling green lay on the horizon. Voices came faintly over the hill, and the shadows were rapidly gathering.
Thorpe’s face moved suddenly to hers. He flung her hair aside and kissed her. She did not respond, nor move. But when he kissed her again and again, she did not repulse him.
“I want you to understand this,” he said, and his voice had softened, a rare variation, nor was it steady. “I have not let myself go because you proposed that compact. I am quite willing to forget it.”
“But I am not. I expect you to remember it.”
“Very well, we can settle that later. Meanwhile, for this week, we will be happy. Have you ever let any man kiss you before?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What a thing to say!”
“Some one may have found me napping, you know.”
“You are very fond of being enigmatical. Why can’t you give a straight answer to a straight question?”
“Well—what I meant was that you should not ask impertinent questions. But, if you insist,—as far as I know, only two men have kissed me,—you and my father.”
He drew a quick breath. The ugliest fear that had haunted him took flight. He believed her to be truthful.
He stood up suddenly, and drawing her with him, held her closely until he felt her self-control giving way. When he kissed her again, she put up her arms and clung to him, and kissed him for the first time. He knew then, whatever her reason for suggesting such a compact, or her ultimate purpose, that she loved him.
The mighty blast of a horn echoed among the hills and cliffs. Nina sprang from Thorpe’s arms.
“That is one of papa’s jokes,” she said. “It isn’t the horn of the hunter, but of the farmer. Come, supper is ready. Oh, dear!” Sheclapped her hands to her head. “I can’t go up with my hair looking like this. I can just see the polaric disgust of the Hathaway orbs; it goes through one like blue needles. And then the malicious snap of Mrs. Earle’s, and the faint amusement of Mrs. McLane’s. And I’ve lost my hairpins! And I never—never—can get to my tent unseen. I’m living with ’Lupie and Molly, and they’re sure to be late—on purpose; I hate women—Here! Braid it. Don’t tell me you can’t! You must!”
She presented her back to Thorpe, who was clumsily endeavouring to adapt himself to her mood. The discipline of the last six weeks stood him in good stead.
“Upon my word!” he exclaimed, in dismay, “I never braided a woman’s hair in my life.”
“Quick! Divide it in three strands—even—then one over the other—Oh, an idiot could braid hair! Tighter. Ow! Oh, youareso clumsy.”
“I know it,” humbly. “But it clings to my fingers. I believe you have it charged with electricity. It doesn’t look very even.”
“I don’t imagine it does. But it feels as if it would do. Half way down will be enough—”
“Hallo!” came Hastings’s voice from the top of the hill. “Are you two lost in a quicksand?”
“Coming!” cried Nina. She sprang lightly up the hill, chattering as merrily as if she and the silent man beside her had spent the last half-hour flinging pebbles into the ocean.
They separated on the crest of the hill, and went to their respective tents. A few moments later Nina appeared at the supper-table with her disordered locks concealed by a network of sweet-brier. The effect was novel and bizarre, the delicate pink and green very becoming.
“Heaven knows when I’ll ever get it off,” she whispered to Thorpe, as she took the chair at his side. “It has three thousand thorns.”
The girls were in their highest spirit at the supper-table. Mr. McLane and Mr. Randolph were in their best vein, and Hastings and Molly Shropshire talked incessantly. Thorpe heard little that was said; he wasconsumed with the desire to be alone with Nina Randolph again.
But she would have no more of him that night. After supper, a huge bonfire was built on the edge of a jutting cliff, and the entire party sat about it and told yarns. The women stole away one by one. Nina was almost the first to leave.
The men remained until a late hour, and received calls from hilarious neighbours whose bonfires were also blazing. Don Tiburcio Castro dashed up at one o’clock, and invited Mr. Randolph to bring his party to a grandmeriendaon the last day but one of their week, and to a ball at the Mission Dolores on the evening following.