Gwynne, between the fog and the story, felt congealed to the marrow. He leaned his elbows on his knees and stared at the bottom of the boat. It was the second time that the dark and carefully guarded recesses of the human soul had been opened to him, but Zeal's at least were a man's, and he had listened to him with a certain passive acceptance cut with lightning-like visions of his own ruined future. He had never been invited into a woman's crypts before, and he hardly knew whether he were gratified or repelled. She had been as brutally truthful as he would have expected her to be if she spoke at all, but he doubted if he understood her as well as he had expected. He had been assured that she had once at least possessed the capacity for intense feeling, but what was the result? And were the depths frozen solid? Or merely buried alive?
He remarked after a moment: "I cannot think of anything appropriate to say, so perhaps it is as well to say nothing. I certainly do not feel that you are in any need of my sympathies, for you are quite terribly strong. When did all this happen?"
"About eight months before I went to England."
"What did you do with yourself in the interval?"
"I climbed in the Alps a bit, then went to Rome and studied the Campagna, then travelled somewhat in Spain. By that time the desire for California had grown insistent. The novelty of Europe had worn thin. I was tired of playing at doing things, and only at home could I really accomplish anything. I suddenly made up my mind to pay the long-delayed visit to England, stopping in Paris by the way for frocks. I doubt if I ever enjoyed anything more than those three weeks in Paris, where I completely forgot every unpleasant association. It was my first fine wardrobe, my first opportunity to experience to the full the delight of clothes. I have felt quite happy here. California is so far from every other place that it is almost like living on a detached planet. You forget the rest of the world for months at a time. For days after I returned I wandered about out-of-doors in a gay irresponsible mood, and carolled all over the house. Of course it was nothing but the electricity of the climate and that I was in my own State once more and took an insane pride in it. You do not even need to be born here for that; it comes with the inevitable sense of isolation. You will feel it in time. If I had not known that so certainly I should never have dared to urge you to come."
Gwynne smiled with a pardonable cynicism; but while he was not unwilling the conversation should turn upon himself, his curiosity was not satisfied. The fog had gone and the moon had risen. He could see Isabel quite plainly. She had turned her head and was gazing out over the great expanse desolated by the moonlight, and he studied her profile for the first time, often as he had observed it. To-night with the moonlight on it and against the dark hills it was almost repellently unmodern in its sharply cut regularity, the classic modelling of the eye-socket and chin, the nose with its slight arch. Her hair had fallen from its pins and hung in a braid, its length concealed by her position, and making the effect of a queue. She had long since taken off her hat and wrapped its veil about her head. The veil had slipped and might easily have been mistaken for a ribbon confining the queue at the base of the head. For an instant Gwynne's senses swam. He recalled the portraits of their Revolutionary ancestors in the house on Russian Hill. It might have been a medallion suspended before him. He drew in his breath; then his eye fell to the short thin sensitive upper lip, rarely quiet for all her extraordinary repose; to the full enticing under lip, and the little black moles. Then his gaze wandered down to the rough shooting-jacket, to the rubber boots reaching to her waist, and he only restrained himself from laughing aloud because he feared to rush down the curtain before that secretive nature.
"Then you have no faith in love as the best thing in the world?" he asked.
She turned upon him her clear dreaming eyes. "I have faith enough in love, as I have faith in death, or any other of the uncontrovertible facts, as well as in its mission. But not as the best thing in life; not for my sort at least. Not for even the domestic, for that matter, unless they are utterly brainless. I believe that from the beginning of time the misery of the world has been caused by the superstition that love was all. It must continue to be the fate of the child-bearing woman, I suppose—for a while at least; but others have blundered upon the fact that it is a mere incident, and are far happier in consequence. To women like Anabel freedom means an indulgent husband and plenty of money. To others it means something of which the Anabels know the bare nomenclature: an absolute freedom of the soul, of which the outer independence is but the symbol. As I said, we only find it when we have finished with the bogie of love. It is a modern enough discovery. Think of the poor old maids of the generations behind us, who, failing to marry, collapsed into insignificance instead of revelling in their deliverance. And what humiliation to know that in your youth you are really wooed for the sake of the race alone, no matter what the delusions. If any one doubts it let him compare the matrimonial opportunities of the ugly maternal girl and the ugly clever girl. When clever women realize that they are a sex apart and wait until their first youth at least is over before selecting a companion of the sex that I am quite willing to concede must always interest us more than our own, and no doubt is necessary to our completion, then will the world have taken its first step towards real happiness."
Gwynne repressed his gorge and answered practically: "Not a bad idea if two were really suited, for no doubt companionship isoneof the best things in life, and a woman is more useful in many ways to a man than a partner of his own sex. It is even apparent that she does equally well in certain varieties of sport. I suppose the more experience a man has had of life the more he hesitates to define what love really is. One has attacks of such a severity and one recovers so completely! Doubtless Schopenhauer was right: it is merely the furious determination of the race to persist. Spencer tells us that it is 'absolutely antecedent to all relative experience whatever.' Companionship—yes—perhaps——"
"It is necessary to a man; but by no means to all women——"
"Not for yourself, you mean. You are still blunted and somewhat disgusted—"
"I have dismissed the question. You cannot imagine how happy I feel every morning when I wake up, and every night when I go, always rather tired, into my comfortable little bed, knowing that I shall sleep like an infant. I love work. I love out-door life. I love the long evenings with my books and my thoughts, and my plans for the future—all my own. I revel in the thought that I can never be unhappy again, because now I love no one. I loved my poor father, and suffered with him in his fits of repentance and shame. I loved, of course, that man. I have absolutely nothing in common with Paula, and my mother is merely a pretty memory. I am fond of Anabel and perhaps several other friends—Mr. and Mrs. Leslie; but that sort of affection does not go very deep. Love is synonymous with selfishness and slavery—slavery because you no longer own yourself. My brother-in-law adores my sister, makes a great point of his fidelity, because before his marriage he was always flaunting some painted female, without which possession, a few years ago, a San Franciscan felt that he would lose the respect of his fellow-citizens. But Lyster's reform makes him as exacting as a Turk. If my poor silly little sister smiles at some fugitive thought he demands to know what it is, and if she cannot remember he sulks for a day. He would possess her very thoughts. She dares not have a man friend, talk to a man for half an hour at a time. He won't let her belong to a club—clubs are all very well for other women, but his wife is not as other women. On the other hand, he has long since let her persuade him that he is the most marvellous of men, and, in consequence, permits her to make every sort of mean little sacrifice while he spends his money on himself. Her eyes are in a measure open now, but it is too late, and she rebels in the usual futile feminine way. There are millions like them. You will meet Anne Montgomery. She is thirty-five now, quite plain, and makes a living as a sort of itinerant housekeeper and caterer. She was a most lovely girl, with a wild-rose complexion and starlike eyes, and full of life and buoyant hope. Her great talent was for the violin, and she dreamed of conquering the world. Teachers told her that with the proper study she could at least become a professional of the first rank, although she lacked the genius of creation. Her parents and an older sister—one of the plain, domestic, unselfish kind, whose pleasure is in living for others—were horrified at the bare suggestion. Not only because they were old-fashioned—some of the most old-fashioned people on earth are in San Francisco—but because it would mean separation from their idol. They surrounded her like a flaming belt, not even a man could get at her. They worshipped her as if she was a being of another world, devoured her; all the treasures of life were centred in her. That there might be the less temptation, they never took her to Europe; and gradually induced her to lay aside the instrument altogether. She was very sweet and gentle, and she loved them and submitted (I would have throttled them all). But she faded rapidly, lost her lovely coloring and animation, and she had no other beauty. Then her father speculated and failed. While they were undergoing real privations the influenza swooped down upon them and carried off the three older members of the family in a week. Anne Montgomery is the most conspicuous victim of what are generally supposed to be the higher affections that I know. They were just commonplace animals—those three—nothing more."
"Real happiness may lie in forgetting that love is selfish, and in overlooking the bitter in the sweet."
Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "If one can be happy without love why run the risks?"
They felt that they had exhausted the subject for the present and there was a long silence. Gwynne's eyes wandered over the inexpressibly desolate and sinister landscape. The intense brilliancy of the moon seemed to press darkness down upon the earth. It was true that every object was as sharp of outline as if cut against crystal, but they were a hard dark brown: the hills that jutted out into the windings of the marsh, the marsh itself, the more distant mountains. It looked like a landscape upon which the sun had set for ever, smitten with death—or not yet born into the solar system; some terrible formless menacing globe on the edge of the Universe. As he had approached San Francisco on the afternoon of his arrival, standing on the forward deck of the boat in a high wind, he had thought it the most stranded lonely city he had ever seen. He recalled the impression now, and in a flash he appreciated the Californian's attitude to the rest of the world, the effect of such isolation upon the character of a people that had created a great and important city out of the wilderness, and in half a century. In spite of the obstinate aloofness of his ego he felt an involuntary thrill of pride in his connection with such a people; and hoped it might be premonitory. But again the eerie landscape claimed him and he became aware of the weird night sounds that broke out with violent abruptness after intervals of throbbing quiet: the loud honk-honk of geese, the shriek of loons, the noisy capricious serenade of the frogs. He experienced a feeling of such utter isolation that he almost started when Isabel spoke.
"These waste places in California are almost terrifying by moonlight," said she. "They always look as if they were brooding, crouching, concentrating their energies for a convulsion. No earthquake country can be quite normal in any of its aspects, nor quite beautiful. Here comes the tide. How Mac will grumble at us! But he is sure to have kept the fire going, and you shall have a cup of hot coffee before you start for home."
Gwynne, on the following day, was making a late toilet, and in anything but a good-humor, for he had grown accustomed to early rising, when he received a note from Isabel.
It ran:
Dear Partner,—Anabel has just told me over the telephone that Tom and Mr. Leslie and two other representative citizens are going out to see you this afternoon. I have the ghost of an idea that a friendly call is not their only object.Dobe plastic—it is better in the beginning—until you know your ground. Above all, don't be too English. You are vastly improved, but you have lapses.I send you your share of the ducks. Mariana's roasting will explain our pride in one of the two most native of our products—the next time we go to San Francisco I'll take you to the market and we will sit in a grimy little balcony restaurant and you will be introduced to fried California oysters.Please consider the marsh your own; and whenever you come, remember that you are to have breakfast or supper with me. Are you quite comfortable? If anything is wrong I will go over and interview Mariana and the Jap. Of course the latter will appropriate your cigarettes and books; he is probably a prince, and far from condescending to steal, he will take them as his right; and his hauteur may match your own at times. Moreover, he may decamp any morning without giving notice—Lafcadio Hearn dwells upon theimpermanencyof the Japanese, and we can all bear him out. But on the other hand the Jap will keep your house cleaner than any other sort of servant, and he can be both amiable and alert when he chooses. I merely warn you, for I know nothing of your presenthomme de chambrebeyond the recommendation of my Chuma, who is amiable to the verge of imbecility. If he disappears, let me know at once, for I really want to make you comfortable and contented in what I know must seem to you little more than a beautiful wilderness peopled by ambitious barbarians. But wait till you know San Francisco!Isabel.
Dear Partner,—Anabel has just told me over the telephone that Tom and Mr. Leslie and two other representative citizens are going out to see you this afternoon. I have the ghost of an idea that a friendly call is not their only object.Dobe plastic—it is better in the beginning—until you know your ground. Above all, don't be too English. You are vastly improved, but you have lapses.
I send you your share of the ducks. Mariana's roasting will explain our pride in one of the two most native of our products—the next time we go to San Francisco I'll take you to the market and we will sit in a grimy little balcony restaurant and you will be introduced to fried California oysters.
Please consider the marsh your own; and whenever you come, remember that you are to have breakfast or supper with me. Are you quite comfortable? If anything is wrong I will go over and interview Mariana and the Jap. Of course the latter will appropriate your cigarettes and books; he is probably a prince, and far from condescending to steal, he will take them as his right; and his hauteur may match your own at times. Moreover, he may decamp any morning without giving notice—Lafcadio Hearn dwells upon theimpermanencyof the Japanese, and we can all bear him out. But on the other hand the Jap will keep your house cleaner than any other sort of servant, and he can be both amiable and alert when he chooses. I merely warn you, for I know nothing of your presenthomme de chambrebeyond the recommendation of my Chuma, who is amiable to the verge of imbecility. If he disappears, let me know at once, for I really want to make you comfortable and contented in what I know must seem to you little more than a beautiful wilderness peopled by ambitious barbarians. But wait till you know San Francisco!
Isabel.
Gwynne smiled at the form of address and the expressions of concern in his welfare; but he scowled twice over the admonition to be plastic and American.
"I'll be what I damn please," he announced, aloud, much to the surprise of Imura Kisaburo Hinomoto who entered at the moment with his shaving water.
Nevertheless, when his visitors arrived, late in the afternoon, his natural courtesy, and the reflection that he had not come to America to fail, induced him to receive the four with something like warmth, and to place his cigars and whiskey—he already knew better than to offer them tea—at their immediate disposal. They sat on the porch facing the mountain, and for a few moments the conversation was confined to the weather and the scenery, giving Gwynne an opportunity to observe his guests with some minuteness. Judge Leslie and young Colton he had already met, and he liked the former, a pleasant shrewd tactful man, who was one of the chief ornaments of the northern bar, and universally admitted to be "dead straight." So "straight," indeed, was he that his term of judgeship had been brief. He had been carried to the bench on an independent ticket, but the reform movement subsiding, he could obtain re-election only by bargaining with political bosses, and this he refused to do; but after the fashion of the country he retained his title. He had a loose hairy benignant face with a humorous but penetrating eye and the usual domelike brow. His body had grown unwieldy from years and lack of exercise, and his clothes were old-fashioned and, generally, dusty. He voted the Republican ticket and was not too well pleased with his son-in-law who was a red Democrat and rising daily in the good graces of the party bosses.
This young man who was sipping his plain soda and commenting on neither the scenery nor the weather, had inspired Gwynne with a certain interest and curiosity. He was thirty but looked little over twenty, and his large limpid blue eyes were as guileless as a child's. He had a long pale face with an indifferent complexion and the common American lantern jaw. His hair and brows and lashes were paler than straw, and his long lank figure was without either distinction or muscularity. Nevertheless, there was a curious suggestion of cynical power in his impassive face and lolling inches, and Gwynne had made up his mind that he would be useful as a study in politics.
Mr. Wheaton, one of the present "City Fathers," a position he had occupied with brief intermittences for many years, had hard china-blue eyes and a straight mouth, in a large square smoothly-shaven face. He had crossed the plains in the Fifties from the inhospitable State of Maine, sought fortune in the gold diggings with moderate success, avoided San Francisco with a farmer's dread of "sharpers," and drifting to the hamlet at the head of Rosewater Creek had opened a small store for general merchandise. Frugality and a shrewd knowledge of what men wanted and women thought they wanted had increased his capital so rapidly that in five years he had converted a wing of the store into a bank. To-day he was a power. His wife was the leader of Rosewater society and attended first nights in San Francisco.
Mr. Larkin T. Boutts was new to Gwynne, although his status was easily to be inferred from the constant references in the local press. He was a fat little man who sat habitually with a hand on either knee, which he clawed absently both in conversation and thought. Otherwise his attitude was one of extreme repose, even watchfulness. He was excessively neat, almost fashionable in his dress, which—Gwynne was to observe in the course of time—was invariably brown. He had a small pointed beard and a sharp direct dishonest eye. He was the leading hardware merchant of Rosewater and owned the hotel and the opera-house. His business methods had never been above criticism, and his politics drove the San Francisco correspondent, during legislative sittings, into a display of caustic virtue which gave the newspaper he represented just the necessary smack of reform and did not hurt its inspiration in the least. For Mr. Boutts was too sharp for the law, and all his sins were forgiven him on account of his genuine devotion to Rosewater. Far from battening on her, after the fashion of the San Francisco cormorant, he had never taken a dollar out of her that he had not returned a hundred-fold, and he was the author of much of her wealth.
This gentleman was the first to indicate that they had not driven out to Lumalitas to discuss the weather and the scenery.
"Best come to business," he said, abruptly. "Judge, will you do the talking?"
But Judge Leslie, who was a modest man, waved his hand deprecatingly. "The idea is yours, sir, and yours is the right to state the case."
The host hastily poured whiskey-and-soda lest he should look haughtily expectant.
"It's just this, Mr. Gwynne," began Boutts, in his suave even tones. "We have seen your ads. We know that you contemplate selling off a good part of your ranch—Well, there was a buzz round town when those ads were read, and I was not long passing the word that there would be a mass-meeting that night in Armory Hall. That's where we thresh things out, and in this case there was no time to lose. We had a pretty full meeting. Judge Leslie took the chair, and I opened with some of the most pointed remarks I ever made. I was followed with more unanimity than usually falls to my lot. The upshot was that resolutions were passed before nine o'clock, and a committee of four was appointed to wait upon you to-day—and endeavor to win you to our point of view," he continued, suddenly lame, for by this time Gwynne, forgetting Isabel and his good resolutions, was staring at the common little man with all the arrogance of his nature in arms, and the color rising in his cheeks. Mr. Boutts's hands gripped his knees as if for anchorage, and he proceeded, firmly: "No offence, sir, I assure you. This is a free country. The man who tells another man what he'd orter do should be called down good and hard. Nothing could be further from our intention. The meeting was called only in the cause of what you might call both self-defence and patriotic local sentiment, although it's a sentiment that's local to about two-thirds of California—only we do more acting and less talking than most. It's now some weeks since we adopted resolutions in a still bigger mass-meeting and got the best part of the county to subscribe to them; on the ground that an ounce of prevention and so forth. So we just hoped that as you have come to live among us you could be brought to see things from our point of view."
He scraped his chair forward and dropped his voice confidentially, at the same time darting a sharp glance through the open window beside him. "It's this Japanese business. The Chinese, back in the Seventies, was not a patch on it, because the Chinee never aspired to be anything but house servants, fruit pickers, vegetable raisers and vendors on a small scale, and the like. The agitation against them which led to the exclusion bill was wholly Irish; that is to say it was entirely a working-class political agitation, because the Chinee was doing better work for less money than the white man. The better class liked the Chinee and have always regretted the loss of them; and to-day those who are left, particularly cooks and workers on those big reclaimed islands of the San Joaquin River, where they raise the best asparagus in the world—yes, in the world, sir—get higher wages than any white man or woman in the State.
"But these Japs are a different proposition. They're slack servants, unless they happen to be a better sort than the majority, and that unreliable you never know where you are with them. And being servants is about the last ambition they've come for to this great and glorious country. They're buyin' farms all up and down the rivers, the most fertile land in the State, to say nothing of some of the interior valleys. You see, there were big grants like Lumalitas at first over a good part of California. Then the ranches of thousands of acres were cut up and sold into farms of three or four hundred acres that paid like the mischief so long as the old man stuck to business himself. This he generally did; but times have changed, and now all the young men want to go to town; and most of the big farms have been cut up into little ones and sold off to immigrants and the like. Well, that's the Japs' lay. They like things on a small scale and know how to wring a dollar out of every five-cent piece. No one's denying they're smart. They slid in and got a good grip before we thought them worth looking at. Now we're saddled with about thirty thousand of them, and more coming on every steamer from Honolulu and Japan. Some years ago when they began to find themselves as a nation, and to rebel at the foreigners that were ruling things through the open ports, they let it be pretty well known that it was going to be Japan for the Japanese. Well, now the sooner they know that it's California for the Californians the better it will be for all hands. We don't go round lookin' for trouble, but if it comes our way we don't mind it one little bit. We'll tolerate the Japs just in so far as we find them useful, and useful they are as servants; for if they don't hold a candle to the old Chinee, they're a long sight better than our lazy high-toned hired girls, who are good for just exactly nothing; and we need a certain amount of them for hire in other fields; but as citizens, not much. We've put a stop to that right here, in this county at least; and so, Mr. Gwynne, that's the milk in the cocoanut, and we hope that you'll see things our way, and not sell any of your land to the Japs."
"You see," interposed Judge Leslie, that Gwynne might not feel himself rushed to a decision. "These little men, while possessing so many admirable traits that I am quite willing to take off my hat to them, are not desirable citizens in a white man's country. Not only is their whole view of life and religion, every antecedent and tradition, exactly opposed to the Occidental, so that we never could assimilate them, never even contemplate their taking a part in our legislation nor marrying our daughters, but—and for the majority of the people this is the crux of the whole matter—commercially and industrially they are a menace. With their excessive frugality they can undersell the most thrifty white man, both as farmers and merchants; and the contempt they excite, particularly in this state of extravagant traditions, is as detrimental in its effects as their business methods; the more a man exercises his faculty for contempt the more must his general standards sink toward pessimism, and pessimism is neither more nor less than a confession of failure in the struggle with life. I never was much of a fighter, so I believe in eliminating the foe whenever it is possible. At all events we have made up our minds to eliminate the Jap, what with one motive and another, and I think we will. It may come to war in time—when the United States are ready—but we Californians have a way of taking matters into our own hands, and as war is a remote possibility, and we have little prospects of legislation—what with the treaty and the unpreparedness of the country for war—we just do what we can to freeze the Japs out. If we must have small farmers and our own young men have other ambitions, there are plenty of good European immigrants, and it is our business to encourage them. We assimilate anything white so quickly it is a wonder an immigrant remembers the native way of pronouncing his own name. But the Oriental we can't assimilate, for all our ostrich-like digestion, and what we can't assimilate we won't have. It is also true that we don't like the Jap. He antagonizes us with his ill-concealed impertinence under a thin veneer of servility; and superior as he is, still he has a colored skin. Now, right or wrong, Christian or merely natural, we despise and dislike colored blood, every decent man of us in this United States of America. Your sentimentalists can come over and wonder and write about us, reproach us and do their honest ingenuous best to convert us, it never will makeone damned bit of difference. We are as we are and that is the end of it. The antagonism, of course, only leaps to life when the colored man wants equal rights and recognition, something he will never get in the United States of America, as long as the stripes and the stars wave over it; and the sooner the sentimentalists quit holding out false hopes the better. As to the Chinese, it is quite true that there was no objection to them outside of politics. And the reason was, they kept their place. The antipathy to the Japanese extends throughout all classes. Every thinking man in the State is concerned with the question. California will be overrun with them before we know where we are; and we are hoping that other counties will give an ear to the wisdom and farsightedness Mr. Boutts has displayed, in proposing that no more land shall be sold—or rented—to the Japanese. They can work for us if we have need of them, for a while, but they cannot settle."
Gwynne had been thinking rapidly as Judge Leslie drawled out his homily. In his new apprehension of latent weaknesses in his character he was indisposed to yield to pressure, but he was equally desirous not to let the turmoil into which his inner life had been thrown lead him to any ridiculous extremes; not only interfering with his prospects, but converting himself into chaos. He was extremely anxious to make no mistakes at the outset of his new career, beset with difficulties enough. Their words had every appearance of being a just presentment of a just cause. He didn't care a hang about the "Jap." For the matter of that, he reflected with some bitterness, he didn't care a hang about California. At this point in his reflections he became aware that Colton was turning his head with a sort of slow significance. He looked up and watched a pale eyelash drop over a deep gleam of intelligence. Mr. Leslie finished speaking, and Gwynne replied with an elaborate politeness, which might be his vehicle for spontaneous sympathy or utter indifference.
"Thank you all very much for your confidence in me, and also for preventing me from making what no doubt would have been a serious mistake. I have no desire whatever for the Japanese as a neighbor. I was one of the few to recognize the menace of Japan to Occidental civilization when all the world was sympathizing with it during its war with Russia, and they will get no encouragement from me. So the matter is settled as far as I am concerned."
"Shake!" said Mr. Wheaton, in a deep rumbling voice.
The four shook hands solemnly with their new neighbor, then, with even a greater gusto, drank his health. Gwynne suddenly remembering the California tradition, and the ducks, invited them to remain for supper; but all declined except Colton, who sent his wife a message by his father-in-law. The other three climbed into Judge Leslie's surrey and departed, Colton remarking, apologetically, and somewhat wistfully:
"She's dining at the judge's and won't miss me: I never leave her alone. I'll get back in time to take her home."
Mariana cooked the ducks with the skill of the unsungchefshe was, and enhanced them with other delicacies for which she alone had a name. Gwynne, faithless to Isabel's crude though honest effort, rose to gayety and wondered whether California was practising the insidious methods of the wife. Colton, absent of eye, disposed of his share of the repast as negatively as he did most things, and as soon as they had retired to the veranda produced a bag of peanuts from his pocket, without which, he remarked, no meal was complete. Gwynne declined the national delicacy, feeling that diplomacy had its limits, and lit a pipe, wondering how he should lead his new friend to give him some practical political information. He detected the guile under that bland, almost vacant exterior, and Colton's prattle about duck-shooting and deer-hunting, although apparently endless, did not divert him for a moment. But he had less trouble than he had anticipated. Colton's mind seldom roved far from politics, and it required little tact to lead him to the trough.
"As I am necessarily in your confidence I will take you voluntarily into mine," he announced, in his clear high pipe. "I don't in my heart care a hang more for the Democratic party than I do for the Republican. But the Republicans own the State at present, and there's no chance to get your name up and really do things in that party. They're out for graft, every last one of them. The chance is on the other side. It's a big chance; for the laboring class, what with unions, and being rotten spoilt with easy living in this State, is becoming more and more dissatisfied every day. If they were let alone it would never occur to them they weren't the chosen of the Lord; but we—the Democratic party—can't afford to let them alone, unless we want to go out of business altogether. They are just about the only dough we've got to work on, and for the last few years we've been systematically sowing the seeds of discontent by means of the press, metropolitan and local, abusing the rich, the trusts, harping on the segregation of capital by a favored few, to the unjust and illegal impoverishment of the many, painting gaudy pictures of what the working-man's lot will be when he gets his rights, emphasizing that in this State, of all others, man was intended to be happy and share equally in her abundance. We sail pretty close to anarchy; but they are an ignorant foolish lot, and we keep a tight hand on the reins and will drive them in a straight line when the time comes. I am qualifying for the position of district leader hereabouts, although I'm not announcing it from the house-tops. But the present one is getting old, and I'm on the inside track. I dress in these battered old clothes, that make my little wife weep—she'll never have any other cause from me—just to impress the farmers what a good Democrat I am; not a bit like Hyliard Wheaton, who is a dude. All he is waiting for is his father's death so that he can move to San Francisco. But I drive round in a dusty old buggy, with candy for the children in my pocket, and chin with the farmers about the crops and any old thing. When this county turns Democratic, as it shall in the next five years—likely as not sooner, we have so much raw material to work on in these immigrants—I intend to go to Congress, hold on in the House until there is a vacancy in the Senate, and there I'll be for life, and the boss of this State to boot. I can't say I care about the Presidency. It's only a chance that there may be anything doing while you're in—it's largely luck—and then when you're out, if you survive the White House—which most Presidents don't—you're as good as dead. I don't care about going abroad as a Consul-General, or even Ambassador, for I wouldn't hold any office under the United States government that was dependent upon the favor of a small group in Washington. You're no better than a servant, and you never know where you are. Political enemies at home, liars abroad, somebody with a little more influence, or any low political business, and you're fired without being heard in your own defence. You've got no redress, and may be disgraced for life without ever knowing where you were hit. None of that for me, although I'd like a big position of that sort for my wife. But she can cut all the dash she wants as a senator's wife, and I'll wield the big stick. That's where the fun comes in. I have a natural turn for politics, and then it's the only road out of Rosewater. The old gentleman is dead set upon my succeeding him in the bank, and he'd never give me a lift, although if I made a hit at anything he'd be so proud it would be easy sailing after. He's not a bit displeased that I've turned over a few thousands an aunt left me. But I'm after bigger game than that. She also left me two thousand acres of land, that look hopeless because there's not so much as a spring on them, and they're in one of the droughtiest sections in the State—she got them as a bad debt. Now, just over the border of that ranch is a big lake, and the owner of it won't sell or rent me water rights, thinking I'll sell out for a song. But he don't know Tom Colton. I'm a member of the present legislature—and that isn't the least of the reasons why. A few hundreds in a few hungry pockets, and we run a snake through the legislature declaring that lake state property. Then I ditch from the lake, and I am the proud owner of a large tract of valuable irrigated land. I sell off in small farms, and clean up a hundred thousand dollars. That I'll invest in a Class A building in San Francisco. I'm also in this projected electric railway of Boutts's—would advise you to buy a block of that stock—I can let you in on the ground floor. Money and political power, boss of this State—that's what I'm after—and no idle dream either. I know the ropes, and all I have to do is to hang on. I'll build a house on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, and my wife shall have dresses four times a year from Paris." He turned to Gwynne with glowing eyes. "You've barely seen her—and you haven't had a sight of the kids. She's Isabel's great friend. I wonder you haven't been round. I've got the nicest little shanty you ever saw, and we'd always be glad to see you."
Gwynne thanked him absently; then, while his guest, dismissing politics, indulged in domestic rhapsodies, relating several anecdotes the while he consumed another bag of peanuts, Gwynne's brain worked rapidly. He boiled with discouragement and disgust. The cynical frankness of this young provincial, with his serene confidence in his star, and in his power to handle the millions he despised, bore a primitive and humiliating likeness to his younger self: Americanized by the lower standards of his country perhaps, but painfully like in its elements. All he could claim, it seemed to him at the moment, was a higher personal sense of honesty and honor; and how long would he keep it in this country? While he was hesitating between taking a possible rival into his confidence, and an arrogant desire to announce his reason for coming to California, without regard to consequences, Colton dropped the subject of his family, scattered the mass of shells on the floor with a sudden sweep of his foot, and tipping his chair back against the wall, produced a large red apple and his pocket-knife.
"I can't say that I like the seamy side of politics," he remarked, absently, as he performed a delicate operation without breaking the skin. "My wife always maintains that I'm the most honest man alive, and I shouldn't wonder if that was the way I really was made. Anyhow, I know I'd a heap sight rather do a man a good turn than an ill one; but when he gets in your way what are you going to do in a country where politics are machine-made and every cog has to be oiled with graft? I'm thankful I'll never be forced to accept a bribe—there's a lot of difference between giving and taking, and I guess I'll have to do a lot of the first. But it's politics or nothing with me, aside from having a natural genius for them. I'll never get out of Rosewater otherwise. My father is likely to live for twenty years yet, and I hope to God he will; but I want the big game while I'm young. If the country was better I'd be, too, and like my job. But you've got to play the game in your shirt-sleeves. Kid gloves, and you sit on the fence and watch somebody else wallow in after the prizes."
"It seems to me that the best chance for fame and power lies in that superior strength which is allied with honesty. A man who is at the same time a clever manipulator of men, and whose aim is statesmanship, should be able to reach his goal by a clean road."
Gwynne had been long enough in the United States to blush uneasily as he delivered these sentiments, and his color deepened as Colton gave a little snort.
"Can't be done. Not in this State, anyhow. You've been talking to Isabel. She looks like the Pilgrim Fathers and has inherited all their antiquated notions. Honest, now—areyour politics so much better than ours?"
"A long sight. And they are by no means perfect. We have our machine and our compromises, and all the rest of it; and even a few wholly rotten boroughs. Fifty years ago we were blatantly worse than you are to-day. As long as the game lasts, and there are two parties, there must be more or less chicanery, but we are snow-white compared with the mire of this country. And it is an anomaly I cannot understand. I have now been a year in the United States, have talked with hundreds of Americans, studied them and their institutions. Few have struck me as personally dishonest—as we interpret the word in England. Human nature in this country, indeed, has at times appeared to me almost elemental, utterly without the subtlety that makes for crooked dealing. There is a thousand times more petty trickery in Europe; and, with us, more hypocrisy, certainly; but politics we have at least elevated. Here, the best man in private life seems to become transformed the moment he enters the political atmosphere, and if he is not a scoundrel, he sails pretty close to the wind."
"H—m! All you say may be true. I don't agitate my gray matter over problems. I know what we are, and the work cut out for me if I want to stay on top. I have known reformers. We have lots of spasmodic attempts at reform right here in this district. When the reform is directed at some glaring evil, something that makes us uncomfortable, then it goes through. When it's directed against politics in general, then the reformer falls so hard he never gets up—unless, to be sure, he scrambles up p. d. q. and trims with the wind. And that, I'm bound to say, he generally does. We've had our idealists—talk till your mouth waters. One session in Sacramento generally cures them. When it doesn't, we have no more idea what becomes of them than of an ant that butts in on a procession of other ants. Ever watch ants?"
It was Gwynne's turn to snort.
"I take my boy up on the hills every Sunday afternoon when it is fine, and we watch ants and grasshoppers and birds and all the rest of it. Why don't you get married? There's nothing like it. I may have some hard hoeing ahead of me, but I always have that cosy pretty home at the end of the day, and the sweetest wife in the world—who doesn't know the Republican party from the Democrat, and never opens a newspaper. Isabel is too high and mighty. She's a wonderful girl all right, but the last woman I'd want for a wife. I know a girl that would just suit you—Dolly Boutts. She's as pretty as a peach, and as domestic as Anabel. I'll have you both in to supper, as soon as we get a new cook. We've had four this month, and my wife warned me I was not to ask you to anything until she was perfectly satisfied. She's the best housekeeper you ever saw."
Gwynne maintained an infuriated silence. It was some moments before he could trust himself to articulate. Colton, munching his apple, and twirling the long spiral of skin he had peeled off without a break, detected nothing unusual in the atmosphere. It was characteristic of him that he took no interest in his new friend's future. Isabel had told him that Gwynne had not sufficient income to maintain his rank in England, and had resolved not only to drop his titles, but the name by which he had so long been known; being averse from notoriety. Colton, who had barely recalled the name of Elton Gwynne—he usually skipped the telegrams unless a war with picturesque details monopolized the foreign columns—had been somewhat amused at the precaution, but respected it; he would never have thought of betraying a confidence reposed in the bank. He assumed that Gwynne intended to become a rancher, like so many other Englishmen, and that he purposed reading law merely as a secondary occupation. He could have thought of several more interesting methods of putting in time; but every one to his taste.
Gwynne spoke finally, and when he did, Colton, whose chair was still tipped against the wall, sat forward with a square planting of his feet.
"I came to California with one intention only," said Gwynne: "to have the political career that my elevation to the peerage deprived me of in England. I had intended to work with the Democratic party, but I am free to state that your account of it has turned my stomach. My reasons for selecting it were, partly, that in principle at least it more nearly approached the Liberal party in England; partly because of its weakness in strong men. But if it is as rotten as you say I am afraid it would be a waste of time to qualify for it; I certainly could not work in harmony with it. However, there is an abundance of time for close observation. I cannot vote for four years, and if I finally decide in favor of the Republican party, at least we shall not be rivals."
"Jiminy!" exclaimed young Colton, ingenuously; but Gwynne could see the glitter of his eye. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Not much you don't go over to the Republicans! There isn't five cents' worth of choice between the two parties when it comes to a square deal on any measure ever put up, and this slow wave of reform that's trying to crawl over the country—against trusts, graft, and the like—is just strong enough to swamp the Republicans and give us our chance. Rivals! Not a bit of it. There's room for all, and you're just the man we want. Isabel told me you were a wonderful speaker—I'd forgotten. That'sjustwhat we want. I can't speak for a cent. There's no one in the district that can carry a crowd. The boss was wailing over it the other day. You can do a lot in the next four years. You'll go to all the conventions and county meetings with me and make my speeches. I'll introduce you to everybody that can put youon. You've fallen into clover with the judge, because his only son, who was practising with him, has had to go to southern California to live—nerves all broken up. He'll push you all right, and as soon as you have swallowed the California codes you can practise in the courts by courtesy. Then I'll take you to Sacramento with me next year—I'm a senator this term—as my private secretary, and you'll learn a lot. Your hair will stand up straight, but never mind. All that will pave the way for whatever office you want to begin with when your papers are ripe. I'll see that it's a good conspicuous town or county office, and the legislature will follow as a matter of course. That will fill in while you are waiting a chance for Congress—you must be seven years in the country for that—nine for the Senate. Only, you must swallow us whole. You can't make us over. We Democrats are determined to get on top again and have our chance at the pickings. We'll talk reform, of course. That's where your eloquence will come in, and the more you believe in it while you're holding forth about the Republican party robbing the widow and orphan—more particularly the farmer and the laborer—the better. We'll promise the working-man a sort of sugar-coated socialism, but we won't inspire him with any higher ideals than pecuniary profits,if you please. That would mean content, and the end of the Democratic party. Well, think it over. I must go. My little old woman doesn't like to sit up late. Mind you drop in and see her the next time you are in town."
Gwynne rang for his guest's buggy, thanked him for his advice; then ordered his horse and rode about the ranch half the night.
A fortnight later Isabel announced to Gwynne that she intended to give a party and introduce him to the young people of Rosewater.
"All the girls want to know you, Anabel tells me, and as it is a relief to hear that they are interested in something besides cards, and as nobody else seems disposed to take the initiative, I have concluded to play thegrande damefor a night. In a way it is my duty to introduce you formally, although it would be more so if they had done anything for me since my return. However—I will ask them for next Saturday evening if you have nothing better to do."
"One day is quite the same as another to me," said Gwynne, dryly. "What do you fancy are my evening engagements? I have not even begun to read law with Mr. Leslie; he has gone off to southern California to see his son. He says he is always restless in the autumn, as young people are in the spring, but has promised me his attention before the middle of this month."
They were rowing down the channel of the wider portion of the creek towards Isabel's landing, their boat filled with spoil. The little steamboat was winding proudly through the marsh, there were a dozen sails in sight; from the south came an incessant sound of firing. The distant mountains looked as hard as metal and there was a new crispness in the air. Little rain had fallen, but it was no longer summer. Gwynne had exchanged his khaki riding-clothes for corduroy; and Isabel's habit, although still dust-colored, was made of cloth instead of pongee. To-day they wore light covert coats over their canvas and rubber.
With the passing of the heat and the advent of the daily electric breezes sweeping up the valleys from the sea, Gwynne felt a slow lifting of the dead weight on his spirits, although he was only happy when he had his gun in his hand. California seemed less like a voluptuous leviathan blowing poppy-dust that blunted the memory of all things beyond her borders. At first he had been vaguely uneasy at the insidious suggestion that he had transferred himself to another planet, but he was beginning to suspect that California, true to her sex, might have surprises in store that would quicken his blood at least. He still disliked her at night: the high unfriendly arch of her sky, the sinister atmosphere that brooded over her spaces, suggesting illimitable reaches where no man dwelt, or would long be tolerated. But her days seemed full of promise, and they certainly were full of beauty.
He still fought with a longing to confide in Isabel: his apprehensions and doubts, his haunting interrogation of inherent greatness. But he turned from the temptation in a panic of spirit, sure that he would fail unless he fought his battle alone. He had pondered more and more upon his possible debt to his mother; and the doubt that she might have been the foundation of his courage and self-confidence was as bitter as that he might have owed the extraordinary rapidity of his career to the influence of his family and name. And Isabel's very strength alarmed him, the more so as he felt her subtle fingers among the leaves of his new destiny. So he merely smiled into her eyes and made a gallant remark, a purely masculine method of emphasizing that woman is charming in her proper place.
"I shall be delighted to dance again; particularly—it seems odd—as I have never danced with you. And it is a year since I have seen you in an evening gown. I have a vivid remembrance of how you looked that night at Arcot, when you turned so many heads."
Isabel colored, and whether with pleasure or resentment, she had not the least idea. But she answered, hastily:
"I feel that I have been very selfish to do nothing before. But really, it seemed hopeless until Anabel told me yesterday that there was a vast amount of interest in the young English rancher. I am afraid the girls here will not interest you; only you should have the opportunity of deciding that question for yourself. But what will be really delightful will be to show you San Francisco. I have not been able to leave the ranch for a day since that three weeks' outing I had no business to take. But I have had half a dozen resentful letters from Paula, who has persuaded herself that you are her cousin too, and asserts her right to know you. But neither she nor Lyster has the remotest suspicion of your identity. Elton Gwynne might have a dozen brothers; nor is it likely they ever heard the name. If you were an artist or actor or littérateur or composer you might be as well known in San Francisco as in London. There is no city in the United States one-half so artistic—nor so given to fads. But in European politics, the young people, at least, take as much interest as they do in the canals of the moon. So you are quite safe, and Lyster is the man of all others to show you Bohemian San Francisco and give you a thoroughly good time. We might go down a few days after the party."
"That will be very jolly. I will confess that although San Francisco did not inspire me with enthusiasm, it has occurred to me that it might be an improvement on Rosewater.... Oh, by-the-way, I had a letter from my mother not long ago, in which she said she had met some San Franciscans at Homburg—Hofer, I believe the name was—and had promised I should call on them, mentioning me, of course, as John Gwynne. I have wondered if the risk would be worth while. The amusement to be derived from provincial society is very doubtful."
"Provincial! What arrogance! Do please call on the Hofers. They have the old Polk house, whose history I have told you, and entertain like princes. Besides, Mr. Hofer is one of that small millionaire group that is trying to clean up San Francisco municipally. He is quite worth knowing. And I want you to know San Francisco. It is my ambition to be a great figure in San Francisco—and I have seen other cities, and might be enjoying myself in England this moment."
"Yes, I know," said Gwynne, smiling, and admiring her pink cheeks and flashing eyes. "And of course I don't forget that you have spurned a great position for the sake of your beloved city. That is really at the root of my desire to know the place. If it has a fascination I should like to feel it. Fascination is a strong word and means a considerable amount of enjoyment, up to a certain point. But I am glad to have heard the declaration of your ambition. Is it the final one?"
"It is the pedestal," said Isabel, enigmatically. "Sometime, when you give me your confidence, I will give you mine."
"I have no confidences to make—none, at least, that can compare with the rich experiences of your past. I told you all about Mrs. Kaye before I left England, and, so far, America has left me—well, unfascinated. By-the-way, Colton informs me that he and his wife have picked out some one to cheer my loneliness and—"
"Who?"
"I do not remember her name. Doubtless she will be at the party. I am curious to see all your friends together. I have seen an astonishing number of pretty girls in the street, and I am wondering how they will stand the test of lighting up; the great test to my mind. I don't know which I like least, the manufactured animation of the European woman of the world, or the too natural animation which makes the American girl's features dance all over her face. You, if you don't mind my saying so, are one of the very few Americans I have met that has something of the Englishwoman's faculty of looking, at the same time, statuesque and glowingly alive."
"You excite my suspicion: I see no indication that you are out of practice. It is quite true that American women's faces, like their voices, lack cultivation. Well, you will see a good many pretty girls on Saturday night, and with no particular advantage of dress. Money has nothing to do with social position in these country towns. Perhaps twenty families besides the bankers and Mr. Boutts, and the Leslies, are well off. But many girls who are in the best society earn their living: typewriters, clerks, book-keepers, and the like. One has carried on her father's drug-store since his death. Most of the young men that could get away have gone, and there are not half a dozen left with any money behind them. The majority of beaux are either clerks, or in some small business, although there are always the doctors and clergymen—very few young lawyers. Snobbery barely exists. There are lines, but purely theological. All social groups centre about the churches. The first here has always been the Episcopalian."
"It had occurred to me that society of any sort had ceased. Of the famous California hospitality I have seen nothing. A number of men have driven out and called upon me, and I have returned their calls, and found their houses very well appointed—although some member of the family usually answered the bell; and one morning I saw Miss Wheaton sweeping off the porch, her head tied up in a towel. All I meet appear to be very cordial and friendly, but I have not been asked to take so much as a cup of tea in a house in the county, and I have now been here something like five weeks."
"California hospitality is a mere legend except in San Francisco. In the small communities it has never existed in my time, although they used to dance a good deal before cards turned their heads. You will find just as much haggling over a five-cent piece here as in any small New England town. These rich men have made their money by hoarding and wary investments, rarely speculating; and that tells immensely on the character. I doubt if the State itself has ever known the meaning of hospitality since the old ranch days, when, of course, it was prodigal. It is the San Franciscans that have kept the tradition alive; they are as reckless, as extravagant, as royally indifferent to mere money as in the famous Fifties. If you happen to call too close to a meal-time in one of these towns, the meal will be postponed until you leave. In San Francisco they would give you two-thirds of their last crust. At the old Rosewater dances we never had anything but cake and lemonade—ice-cream in very hot weather. I think it would be a good idea to give them a shock and have a supper from town."
"I believe you are socially ambitious," said Gwynne, smiling. "No doubt it is your intention to make a fortune and lead San Francisco society."
"Perhaps, but not in the way you mean."
The long-closed bar-room of Old Inn was aired for a week, denuded of cobwebs, delivered of mice, canvassed by the invaluable Chuma. The Rosewater Hotel promised to contribute its Sunday band of four pieces, manipulated with no mean skill by worthy but unprosperous young citizens. Not one of Isabel's invitations was refused. The girls suddenly discovered that they were still young, and were as much excited at the prospect of a night's dancing as at meeting the English rancher. The men accepted as a matter of course, thankful to be asked to anything. The older people, surprised at an invitation to a dance, assured one another that Isabel Otis, being absurdly extravagant, and living two miles out in the country, was almost certain to regale her guests with fried oysters and ice-cream. One or two of her mother's old friends wrote and offered to contribute a chocolate cake, but were relieved when she refused to "trouble them." Gwynne and Isabel hung the walls of the big room with palm leaves, and branches covered thick with small yellow oranges, the first of the year. When they rested from their labors Isabel declared that it looked like an exhibit at a county fair, but Gwynne, never having attended a county fair, was proud of his handiwork and thought the effect an improvement upon the average ballroom. The day before the party Tom Colton and Hyliard Wheaton rode out to Lumalitas and demanded of Gwynne if he intended to wear a "claw-hammer." Colton was averse on principle from being too "swagger"; and they finally compromised on what the Americans called their "Tuxedos," and Gwynne his "smoker." Anabel Colton, Dolly Boutts, and Serena Wheaton, after half a day's telephoning, decided to "wear their necks," and their hostess agreed to keep them in countenance. Every team in Rosewater was bespoken for the distinguished occasion, and the reports of the weather bureau were consulted daily. But the rains held off and the night of the party was brilliant with starlight, and not too cold.
Gwynne, who had no intention of receiving with Isabel, and learning from Colton that everybody would have arrived before nine o'clock, did not make his appearance until ten. He found the big room full of young and elderly people, even the latter chattering with an extraordinary animation, induced no doubt by the surprises that had greeted them; they had forgotten the existence of the old bar-room. From the dancers Gwynne received a general impression of pink cheeks, fluffy hair, delicate features, gay simple gowns, the usual lack of background; a curious transientness, as if they had been born for the night like summer moths. The men for the most part made a good appearance, the more favored looking college-bred and irreproachable. Hyliard Wheaton, who was really handsome, with his broad shoulders and cool smooth well-cut face, wore an orchid in his button-hole and was devoting himself to Isabel.
The hostess wore a gown of black chiffon trimmed with pale blue that looked simple and was not. Her neck and arms were bare, and Gwynne noticed at once that she had another little black mole where the bodice slipped from her shoulder. She reproached the guest of honor for being late.
"You will dance this waltz with me," she commanded, royally; "and then I will introduce you to the prettiest of the girls."
For the first time in his life Gwynne felt self-conscious in putting his arm about a woman's waist for the waltz. He had seen Isabel in full evening dress many a time in England, in rubber boots to her hips, in divided skirt astride her horse, in overalls among her chickens, and in pretty little house-gowns when he had remained for supper; nevertheless, in surrendering her slim waist she seemed to descend, significantly, from her pedestal and become warm flesh and blood. He held her awkwardly, barely touching her, wondering there should be physical shrinking from such a beautiful creature, one, moreover, that had shown him more kindness and disinterested friendship than any he had ever known. He reproached himself, but even while he admired the luminous whiteness of her skin he found himself scowling at the tiny black moles that gave her an oddly artificial provocative look, as black patches may have deliberately enhanced the charms of their coquettish grandmothers.
"Humph!" said Mrs. Wheaton, raising her lorgnette, as became a leader of society. "He is not so fond of her, for all this friendship we have been hearing so much about. Well, it is natural enough. Isabel is far too independent to be really attractive to men, for all her good looks. These advanced women will have to step aside into a class by themselves, and as the men won't follow them, that will mean they will die off naturally, and the world wag its own old way once more."
She was a tall stout woman, with a pale heavy face, and a curious elevation of nose, as if sniffing an unpleasant odor; but which was really meant to express pride of carriage. She wore a somewhat old-fashioned but handsome gown of lavender satin trimmed with point lace about the bodice, and a pair of diamond ear-rings. On one side of her sat the elder Mrs. Colton, in black silk with a point-lace collar; a sweet-faced frankly elderly woman. The third member of the group was a woman who might have been any age between thirty-five and fifty, very thin and dark, with the curiously virginal look peculiar to childless women tainted by a suggestion of morbid sensuality, very difficult to locate. Sometimes it seemed to twist across her thin restless mouth, at others to gleam from her deep-set black eyes with a fleeting wildness. Ordinarily she was smiling with an affected cynicism, and it was plain to be seen that she respected her intellect. She was abominably dressed in a frock of purple merino trimmed with black velvet ribbon; but she wore a gold comb in her hair and a diamond brooch.
As the leader finished her remarks Mrs. Haight brought her teeth together with a snap and shot through them a little hiss. Mrs. Wheaton turned upon her with the gleam of the bird of prey in her little gray cold eyes. All the gossip of Rosewater was very old, scandal rare. "What is it, Minerva?" she asked, eagerly. "Are they engaged? And do you know just why he has come out here?"
"I only know what everybody says about his coming here—that his health ain't good, and he wants to make the ranch pay by running it himself; but that other—" She paused and lifted her thin shoulders significantly. "Well, all I can say is, that if they ain't engaged they ought to be."
Mrs. Wheaton leaned forward eagerly, but Mrs. Colton said, severely: "That is just your evil mind, Minerva. You are always imagining things; comes of having nothing to think about but cards and novels—six children were what you needed."
"I guess I have as much as anybody to think about, what with having no help half the time, and a husband who wants his meals on time whether or no. And I guess I worked as hard in the City Improvement Club as anybody until we got all those concrete sidewalks for the town, let alone the parks. What if I do read novels and play cards for recreation? Too much thinking ain't good for anybody."
"Oh, never mind," interrupted Mrs. Wheaton, hastily. "But what did you mean, anyhow?"
"Well, as you know, I don't sleep very well, and I often get up and sit at the window, watching for the boat 'bus, and just imagining where the people who are out late, or up early, are going to and what they are thinking about. Well, I've seen him"—jerking her shoulder at Gwynne, who was now dancing with Miss Boutts—"I've seen him riding home from here as late as ten or half-past, many a night. He may have been duck-shooting and stayed to supper. That's all right, but he could go home just after. I for one don't think it's decent—a girl living all alone like she does. If he wants to shoot ducks, anyhow, why don't he join a club? If he does all his shooting here it's to be with her, and no mistake. I've said from the very first, it's downright indecent for a girl to live alone on a farm—no chaperon, not even a woman servant. I, for one, think that Isabel Otis has done just as she pleased long enough, and ought to be called down."
"It is only natural that she should do as she pleases now that she has the chance, poor soul," said Mrs. Colton. "She never had anything but trouble and sorrow in her life until James Otis died. I wish he could have died when she was little and I could have brought her up. That life, and then her sudden liberty, have made her independent and advanced, but I can't say that I like it myself. I wish she were more like Anabel. It's odd they're not more alike, being such friends."
"I quite agree with Minerva!" announced the leader. "Isabel ought to have a chaperon. I don't doubt she's all she should be orIshouldn't be here to-night, friend of her mother's or not; but I suggested to her only yesterday—I had a little talk with her on Main Street—that she get some respectable old maid or widow to live with her."
"What did she say?" asked Mrs. Colton, with a smile.
"Say? The insolent young minx! She just looked at me, through me—Me—as if I had not spoken. Her mother always put on airs. That's where she gets it from. I had half a mind not to come to-night. But I wanted to see things for myself. If she does anything really imprudent,I'll make her suffer."
This last phrase was famous in Rosewater. Mrs. Wheaton employed it seldom, but when she did her friends understood that she was not far from the war-path. Her color had risen with the memory of yesterday's grievance, pushed aside by curiosity for some twenty-eight hours.
Mrs. Haight regarded the radiant young hostess with a malignant stare, prudently veiled by drooping lids. She envied Isabel with her whole small soul; she had never known the sensation of liberty in her life, and she stopped short of the courage that might snatch it. Mr. Haight, the leading druggist of Rosewater and an eminent and useful citizen, was a large stolid elderly man—he was at present in the little dining-room with other gentlemen of his standing and a punch-bowl—as regular as a clock in his habits, and devoted conscientiously to his wife, whom he took for a buggy ride every Sunday in fine weather. They had been married for twenty-two years, and for at least fifteen she had yearned to be the heroine of an illicit romance; nor ever yet had found the courage to indulge in a mild flirtation. She really loved her husband, and in many respects made him an excellent wife, but her depths were choked with the slime of a morbid eroticism which her husband was the last man to exorcise. The earlier fever in her blood had gradually dropped to the greensickness of middle-age, so that she was vaguely repellent to men, particularly the young. This she had the wit to detect, as well as the incontrovertible fact that her youth and her chances were gone. As a natural consequence her repressed but still rebellious passions diffused their poison throughout her nature. There were times when she was seized with a frantic desire to inflict injury upon some other woman, and at all times she found relief in sharp criticism, in flinging mud at mantles spotless to the casual eye. She passed for being very piquante and clever in a town where so little happened except the turning over of money, and where the conversation alternated between chickens and cards. She was sure that she scented a scandal here, and her very nostrils quivered with anticipation; the while she hated Isabel more bitterly for taking a lover instead of an eternal husband.
"Looks as if she didn't mean to introduce him to us," she remarked, with an attempt at frigid criticism. "He don't dance so well but what the girls could get on without him. Isabel might give him a chance to exhibit his conversational powers—My! if he ain't going to dance again with Dolly Boutts! I'd like to know how Isabel fancies that!"
Gwynne, who liked any sort of exercise, and had been reading the United States Statutes the greater part of the day, danced with the girls to whom Isabel introduced him, returning no less than three times to the exuberant Miss Boutts, whose step suited his, and whom he thought one of the prettiest girls he had seen in America. Mr. Boutts's mother had been the daughter of an Italian restaurant keeper in San Francisco, and his heiress inherited a fine flashing pair of black eyes, a mass of black hair, and a voluptuous but buoyant figure. She had inherited nothing of the languor and fire of the Italian race, but chattered as incessantly as any American girl, and had the mind and character of sixteen, in spite of her almost full-blown beauty. Having an instinct for dress in addition to a liberal allowance from her father, she was always a notable figure in Main Street; and when in San Francisco was pleasantly aware that she was by no means unnoticed in the fashionable throngs of the hotels and Kearny Street. To-night she wore a gown of black net revealing her superb shoulders and arms, and bunches of red carnations that emphasized the red of her full pouting lips. She danced with a graceful energy and looked unutterable things out of her great black eyes while talking of the weather. Gwynne thought her a creature of infinite possibilities, beside whom Isabel was a statue in ivory.
Just before supper he was introduced to the older women, and offered his arm to Mrs. Wheaton when two waiters, unmistakably from a San Francisco caterer, threw open the doors upon a hall that separated the ballroom from the old hotel dining-room. The startled guests filed hastily across to find a dainty but sumptuous repast served at little tables. Even the ice-cream was frozen in graceful shapes instead of being ladled out of a freezer in full view of the company, and there was such an abundance of all things, served with despatch by the professional waiters, that Mrs. Haight was permitted to consume three plates of oystersà la poulette.
"This must have cost a pretty penny!" she muttered to Mrs. Wheaton—Gwynne was dancing attendance on Miss Boutts once more. "Much money she'll save! One would think this was San Francisco, and some swell house on Nob Hill. I don't believe a thing was cooked in her own kitchen."
"I should think not! This supper is from the St. Francis, or The Palace, or The Poodle Dog—" Mrs. Wheaton ran off the names of all the famous San Francisco restaurants, to the ill-concealed spite of Mrs. Haight who did not dine in San Francisco once a year. "But as you suggest, I cannot imagine how she expects to make a fortune in chickens if she throws about money like this. No wonder Mr. Gwynne isn't good enough for her—but perhaps that's the reason he's selling off so much of his ranch. Mr. Wheaton says he thinks of putting up an office building on some land he has south of Market Street."
"To my way of thinking, Isabel Otis and matrimony don't gee. She's altogether too advanced. Just you wait."
The young people, meanwhile, were very gay, and there was little doubt in Isabel's mind that if she lived in Rosewater and chose to revive and lead the old social life she could drive cards to the wall in the first engagement. She had been much elated with her success, but, of a sudden, as her eyes roved benignantly over her chattering delighted guests, ennui descended upon her: those ancestral mutterings in the soul that stir dim memories of great moments of a greater time, inviting a vague contempt and distaste for the petty incidents and achievements that make up the sum of life. Isabel had experienced this faint sensation of futility and disgust many times before, and although she was wise enough not to let it paralyze her will, and to turn it to account in holding her to her higher ideals, still she often envied the Dolly Bouttses, with good red plebeian blood in their veins, and no voices in the subconscious brain but those that bade them eat and drink and feed the race. No, she decided, Rosewater could work out of its present inertia by itself, and she began to wish her guests would go home; she was tired of their inanities. Her disappointment in Hyliard Wheaton, whom she had admired from a distance ever since her return, but who had never succumbed to her charm until to-night, had much to do with her sense of futility. He had read nothing, seen nothing, experienced nothing. He had no ambition beyond living in San Francisco and enjoying life there. His fine well-bred face with its high brow and smiling, slightly superior, gaze, had suggested—the more particularly, perhaps, as his figure was superb—possibilities both intellectual and romantic. Isabel told him politely never to ride out without using the telephone first, and had her excuses already coined. At least ten men be sides Gwynne were hovering about Dolly Boutts, like humming-birds about the nectar of a full-blown rose. They were blind to the fact that her voluptuous suggestion was but a caprice of nature. Although, no doubt, she would make the best of wives and mothers, she was as incapable of any depth of passion as the frail fluffy creatures about her, and quite indifferent to anything in man beyond his admiration. Up to the present she had found cards far more interesting, particularly as she had known all the Rosewater men since childhood; more particularly, perhaps, as this was her first large party. She chattered, partly by instinct, partly in deference to the traditional animation of the American girl; and it was quite likely that the ultimate man would lead her to the altar under the delusion that she was a brilliant woman with a genuine temperament. Isabel wondered somewhat contemptuously at Gwynne's evident enthusiasm; she would have given him credit for more experience and perspicacity; but concluded that at a party a man could only judge a girl by her exterior charms; and certainly Dolly had all her goods in the front window.
After supper they danced the old Virginia reel with great zest, and even a few stray waltzes, then all left together at two o'clock; the older women assuring Isabel formally that they had had a very pleasant evening; but the girls and young men exclaimed that they had had a keen time, a dandy time, and that their new hostess was too fine and dandy for words.