Gwynne found Isabel just stepping out of her launch, after a business morning in Rosewater, and was hospitably invited to dismount and remain for luncheon.
"Would you mind asking your Jap to make us some sandwiches and come with me up to my mountain shanty?" he asked. "I have rather a headache and want a long ride. Besides, it is high time I went. I should look over the roads, which they tell me are very bad after the heavy rains. I want to go into camp there in the early spring—have invited Hofer and one or two others for salmon-fishing. I have now sent three letters to the tenant, one Clink, by teamsters, and he has never replied. For all I know he may have burned the house down and decamped. So, altogether, this seems to me the time to go, and it would be very jolly to have you with me."
"I'd like nothing better," said Isabel, delightedly, "after talking eggs and chickens all morning. And I haven't been up to Mountain House for years. It used to belong to Uncle Hiram, you know. He always fished there in the spring, and took me with him. Then Mr. Colton bought it in—I won't be ten minutes."
"Now I know why you wear that hideous divided habit and ride astride," said Gwynne as they started. "I have been half-way up the mountain once or twice, to say nothing of the Marin hills, and I have never seen such roads. They are a disgrace to the State. Why on earth doesn't the legislature take them in hand?"
"NowIknowyouare in a bad humor," said Isabel, laughing. "You grumbled at everything when you first came to California, and now that you have become philosophical like the rest of us, you only anathematize when you are put out. I saw something was wrong the moment you arrived. What is it?"
"I'll tell you later. This is our only chance for a sharp trot."
It was quite two miles to the ascending road at the foot of the mountain range that divided the great valley. It rose gently for a time then suddenly became steep. Lumpy and slanting, already dangerously narrow in many places, for there had been a few days of hard rain, it led along the edge of cannons and chasms, creeks and little valleys as round as a bowl. Here and there was a farmhouse or a country home on a slope, set in the midst of fields just turning green. The first stretch of road—cut roughly in the mountain-side and then left to take care of itself—was on county property, but after an hour's climb along the flank of the mountain they reached the part of the great mass included in Lumalitas, where the road, although still public, had been mended now and again by tenants that had used the camp in the fishing season.
"It is even worse than I thought," grumbled Gwynne. "I wonder if Tom Colton could be induced to put in a bill at the next legislature. It would be a good opportunity for him to make a promise with some hope of fulfilment."
"The trouble is the farmers don't care," said Isabel, shrugging her shoulders. "There are only a few of them in the mountains and they have jogged up and down these bad roads so many years that they accept them as a matter of course. I don't know that I mind this, myself. It certainly is more picturesque than if it had become popular with automobilists of much influence in legislative councils."
"At present you have to ride with your eyes on the road to make sure it is there."
"We can take turns, and it certainly is beautiful."
"Oh, beautiful!"
But when the road improved for quite half a mile, he too gave himself up to the sensation of being lost in the heart of a mountain. The valley was far behind them and out of sight. There were groves of ancient oaks in the hollows, turbulent streams foaming over masses of rocks that had fallen from the cliffs above. Sometimes they looked down a thousand sheer feet into a bit of wilderness as unbroken as if on each side of the range man had not snatched the fertile lands from the savage a century before.
The air grew colder and Isabel put on her covert coat. But it was a clear sparkling day, and when they reached the summit they could see San Francisco, a smoky mirage forty miles to the south, the ferry-boats crawling like beetles across the bay, the surf of the ocean on the rocks beyond the Golden Gate, a vast sweep of gray ocean; and the bulk of Tamalpais, that from this high point looked as if it had heaved itself free of the mass of mountains and forests about it. Two thousand feet below, their own valley, with its marsh and fertile ranches, looked like a dark ribbon between the hills, Rosewater like a toy village.
They trotted their horses for a few moments on the level and then rode down into the little valley where an unsuccessful farmer of solitary habit had some time since rented the few acres of land surrounding Mountain House, with the understanding that the best rooms were to be at the disposal of the lord of Lumalitas during the fishing and hunting seasons. The log-house, or "camp," was very solid and had been built by the first James Otis, who was a mighty hunter; and the salmon-fishing in the creek, at present containing but a few feet of water, was so fine that hardly a spring had passed without a visit from the tenants of Lumalitas, who were constrained by the terms of the lease to keep the house in repair. Of late this had been the duty of the sub-lessee, and as no teams passed his isolated dwelling, and as he had not seen fit to answer his landlord's communications, even verbally, by the boy from one of the lower ranches who had carried up the missives, all Gwynne knew was that Mr. Clink was alive, and that the ranch was free of winter débris.
They found the gentleman sitting on a stump. He had a hand on either knee, and his small watery unblinking eyes were fixed on space. A beard, narrow and grizzled and stained, rested on his lean front, or stirred gently in the breeze. He neither rose, nor otherwise noticed the approach of his visitors.
Gwynne called, shouted, approached the verge of profanity, but he might as well have addressed the silent forest.
Isabel elevated her nose. "To use the vernacular, he is on a long, slow, melancholy jag. I will go in and see how he keeps the house. It needs an airing at least. Every window is closed and probably has been all winter."
She remained in-doors half an hour, putting things to rights with many mysterious touches known only to her sex. When she returned to Gwynne she found him sunning himself on the porch with his back to Mr. Clink, who stolidly regarded an old stump of geranium.
"It is clean enough," she said. "But when you come, bring new blankets—or send them, and your provisions—the day before you bring your guests. I will come up with them and see that everything is in order. I might also turn the hose on Clink, if he has chosen that occasion to drench himself inside. At all events bring a cook—you can have Chuma; these people never can cook anything but fried meat and potatoes."
Drifted leaves lay on the porch a foot deep. Isabel found a broom and swept vigorously, snubbing Gwynne's offer to do it himself. He watched her, crossly reflecting that she was never so unattractive as in that dust-colored divided habit, and wishing that he had waited for the evening hour; even if infrequently seductive, she was always lovely in a becoming gown.
Finally, her labors over, she dusted an aged rocking-chair and sat down, fanning herself with her hat. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling, but she turned to look at the beautiful creek that had torn its way through the forest, and Gwynne suddenly felt that he hated her profile. During the last few weeks he had lost that sense of a constant and secret contest of wills, perhaps because his own had proved the stronger in the final engagement; perhaps, who knew? because she possessed all the infernal subtlety of the Spaniard. But her profile suggested relentless power, and he still had a secret hankering for the old-fashioned submissive female, liberal and indulgent to the sex as he was. He had reflected that he had met so many handsome finely developed girls, with a sufficiency of animated brightness, but well within the type, during the past few weeks, that it was rather odd he had not been captured; particularly as several of the most ripping would add materially to his fortunes. But he had come to the conclusion sometime since, when he hardly knew, that he would prefer to remain unmarried, and enjoy the intimate companionship of a congenial and interesting creature like Isabel, whom he never quite understood. He cursed the stale old conventions that interfered with his desires.
Isabel turned suddenly and smiled. "How fierce you look!" she said. "What is the matter?"
"Everything. Some one, Mrs. Haight, I suppose, saw me riding home on your horse at three o'clock yesterday morning, and the whole town is by the ears. Judge Leslie undertook to break the news to me, and I told him I had gone out to propose, and then ridden about the country to calm my raging fires. I feel that I owe it to you to propose in good earnest, and such as I am you are welcome to me."
"I never heard such a graceful proposal. I wouldn't marry you if Rosewater stood on its head."
"I was rather brutal about it, and I must honestly confess that I'm not particularly keen on marrying you, but I think we'll have to marry, or be deuced uncomfortable—"
"Oh, nothing to what we should be if married. And Rosewater to me is a mere market for chickens and eggs. The only punishment they could inflict on me would be to burn down the hatcheries. I hate to bother with incubators."
Gwynne stood up and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "We must be serious," he said. "They are really malignant about it. I have felt it in the air for some time. Every time I pass that she-devil, Mrs. Haight, on Main Street, her eyes contract with a sort of malicious warning. 'Just you wait!' is the way she would phrase it. And I alwaysfeelher at her window when I ride home late. No woman of your age and beauty can defy public opinion alone. The world—and scandal spreads like a plague; San Francisco is only forty miles from Rosewater—the world can hurt you in a thousand ways, ruin your life. I really am only too willing to protect you, and I hope that you will marry me. I am sure we should get along—after a bit."
"That was better. But I will not be driven into matrimony by gossip, or even scandal. That is no part of my scheme of life. And I know Rosewater better than you do. Mrs. Leslie, Anabel, Mrs. Colton, many of the most powerful, would never believe a word against me."
"Not at first. But malicious tongues will wear the gloss from the best-befriended reputation in time. The kindest natures are conventional; and susceptible to all that take, or seem to take, a place in the ranks of established facts."
"I won't do it," said Isabel, stubbornly; and as she turned her profile to him he almost swore aloud. "I shall conquer, or prove the whole modern game of woman a sham, a fool's paradise. I told you that I had set myself to drag strength out of the unknown forces. Well, I propose to use it now. And in your behalf as much as mine."
"I can take care of myself.... I even think I could face the prospect of becoming your husband with a reasonable amount of equanimity." She was looking straight at him again, her face deeply flushed, her eyes shining. "It never occurred to me before, but I believe that if you would permit yourself to develop, you might become the most fascinating woman in the world. And if you did, I swear that you should be happy."
"I am happy, and in my own way. I get something out of every moment. Do you think I am going to run the risk of losing all that for anything so dubious as this old game of sex?"
"Very good game if it is played properly. I have a mind to teach you."
"Well, you will not!"
"I think I shall. It is either marry you or leave California."
"That is a threat unworthy of you."
"No threat at all. If you will not permit me to protect you in one way I must in another. I leave and throw everything over with great éclat. You have discarded me and I cannot stand the proximity."
"They might merely think that you were running away from me."
"I shall take good care they think what I choose. Women are more romantic and sentimental than malignant, the bulk. All they want is a starter."
"But you need not leave California. You can move to San Francisco."
"Now you are talking like a child. I shall return to England. As to my American career, my only chance lies here. I hate the rest of the country, and the best material is in California, anyhow. Yesterday I received a letter from my solicitor, enclosing one from Jimmy, who informed me that I was on every tongue, that the public curiosity was piqued, that the newspapers were demanding that I should return and accept my responsibilities, and that without doubt a place would be made for me in the new Liberal Cabinet. It is a propitious moment for return. If there is a time when a Liberal peer can make any running it is when his party is in power."
There was a pause for several moments. Gwynne filled and lit another pipe. Isabel stared at a ring she twisted about her finger, Mr. Clink at the geranium stump. The low dull roar in the forest tops was unceasing, but for other sound of life they might have swung off into space.
Finally Isabel spoke. "I won't marry you," she said. "But all ends will be served if we announce an engagement. We can state that we think it best not to marry until your law studies are concluded. It can be postponed once or twice on other pretexts, then fall through. By that time gossip will be forgotten, people will have lost interest in us. In San Francisco they are not likely to hear of this at all, or if they do it will not matter, and if you fall in love with any of thecotillonbeauties I will release you in due form and give you my blessing."
"I have not the least intention of undertaking life with acotillonbeauty. Your compromise will do for the present, but you will understand that my proposal is a bona fide one, should you arrive at a more rational frame of mind."
"I sha'n't fall a victim to any irrational state of mind. I won't marry. Why, even people that like me too much interfere with my sense of liberty."
Gwynne laughed. "We had better be starting," he said.
They parted at the foot of the mountain, and as Isabel approached her own house she saw Anabel Colton's trap tied to the garden gate. She set her teeth and slackened the pace of her horse, but Anabel and Miss Boutts had seen her, and leaned over the edge of the veranda, calling to her impatiently. She gave her horse a cut with the whip and rode rapidly to the stable. When she finally reached the veranda she greeted her friends courteously enough, and then, as she noted their expression of defiant loyalty, remarked, sweetly:
"Of course you have been expecting to hear that I am engaged to Mr. Gwynne, but I only really made up my mind to-day."
"Isabel!" Both fell on her neck, Dolly with tears, and she responded with what enthusiasm was in her, and gently deposited them into two of the veranda chairs. With a very fair simulation of the engaged girl she answered their rapid fire of questions, and even informed Anabel that she would prefer silver to china when the day for presents arrived, and promised that she should come to the rehearsal of the ceremony, since, unfortunately, the young matron's own happy state debarred her from officiating at the altar. But she was averse from lying, even by implication, and was glad to see them go. After they had turned for the last time to blow her a kiss, she went within, slammed all the doors on the lower floor, stamped her feet, and hurled a book across the room. Finally she swore. After that she felt better and sat down to read a letter from Mrs. Hofer that awaited her.
"... I can't do anything with your Lady Victoria" [the lively young matron ran on after a few preliminary enthusiasms]. "She went everywhere at first, but just sat round looking like a battered statue out of the Vatican with some concession in the way of clothes—not so much. Literally she made no effort whatever, and, you know,American men won't stand that. Perhaps that's the reason she suddenly called off and refused to go anywhere. But what can she expect? American women may talk too much, but at any rate they are the sort American men know like a book, and our knights have no use for inanimate beauties a good many years younger than my Lady Victoria.
"Now she appears to do nothing but walk—stalk rather. She goes over these hills as if she had on seven-league boots. One would think she was possessed by the furies; or perhaps she is afraid of getting fat.
"I am simply dying to see you again. If you don't mind—I like you better than any one I ever met. You combine everything, and although you make me feel as fresh as paint and as Irish as Paddy Murphy's pig, still you always put me in a better humor with myself than ever. How do you do it? You suggest all sorts of things that I can't define at all. Comes of living alone and making a success of it, I suppose, getting ahead of mere femininity and all the pettinesses of life. That's flying rather high for me, so I'd better come down. PleasemakeMr. Gwynne come to my party. I intend that party to be the greatest thing ever given in California—since the old Monte Cristo Ralston days, anyhow: and have all sorts of surprises that I won't tell even you. The ballroom is quite finished and is a perfect success. It istoofine to think that you will make your formal début in it. Everybody is coming. Mr. Gwynne simply must. I know of about a dozen girls who would have given him thecotillonif he had asked them, and even now, when they are all engaged, I know of at least two who would not hesitate to throw their men over. We all like him tremendously, the men as well as the women. Mr. Hofer and I—do you know, we have just a dark suspicion—whereisElton Gwynne, anyway? That would be too good to be true. He could own the town. We know anindividualwhen we see one, and wouldn't we appreciate the compliment! We'd like him all the better for having accepted him when he was plain John Gwynne, and we'd like ourselves better still. You know how we make up our own minds out here. Look at the famous actors and singers we've rejected, and the reputations we've made. Not like New York, that never expresses an opinion until a sort of consensus has sweated up to the surface. I hate New York. Can't you come down and pay me a visit of a week? I should love it. Call me up on the telephone."
Isabel pondered over this missive for a few moments and then reread parts of a long letter she had received the day before from Flora Thangue.
"... I almost wish Jack would return, although at first I approved of his going. His case seemed so desperate. But since the elections there has been so much talk of him, so many prophecies as to what he will do when he returns—they believe him to be travelling in South America—so much seems to be expected of him, especially now that the Liberals are in, and there is so much dissatisfaction with the Cabinet—I really believe he would be the one to keep the party in power and that his becoming prime-minister would be a question of only a few years. Not such a bad outlook! But I don't care to say all this to Jack—or even to Vicky. You are responsible for the present state of affairs, and I am sure you realize what a tremendous responsibility it is. Besides, you know every side of the question over there as I do not. Think it over, dear Isabel.... Julia Kaye, I happen to know, has been trying to get his address. So far, she has not landed another big fish, and no doubt thinks that Jack's disgust and enthusiasm have both worn themselves out by this time. Don't send him back, but bring him. Of course he has fallen in love with you. Besides, you could accomplish any mortal thing you put your will to. Do, please, think it all over. A few years' delay, and he might return and find it too late. The public memory is short. There are rivals. The one he had most to fear from has an Under-secretaryship, and lets no one forget him. There will be deep resentment at too long an absence, especially if he should become an American citizen meanwhile. They would never forgive that.
"... About Vicky. I wish I could have gone with her, but she did not feel that she could afford to take me, and Vicky's spasms of economy are not to be discouraged. But, thank heaven, she has you and Jack. Perhaps all she really needed was a change: she was always an individual, but she got to be distinctly peculiar after you left—nerves, I suppose: only instead of being merely irritable like other women she sealed herself up like a Mahatma preparing for astral flight. I only wish she was one. Women of her class no longer take to religion, when the fires are dead, but they certainly need a substitute, and I should think theosophy would be as good as any. It is such a delightful mixture of vagueness and cock-sureness, and even more picturesque than Romanism. It is time for me to follow the fashion and write a book, and I think I'll paint the mysterious delights of India as a late autumn resort. I am so sick of all these public mausoleums for youth! It would be a positive relief to think of all our erstwhile beauties stretched out in some frescoed cave with their ears and eyes and noses sealed up with wax, while their ever-youthful spirits sallied forth for new conquests on the astral plane. But Vicky never 'made up': one must say that much for her. Only this terrible fetish of youth! Heavens! the tragedies my sympathetic soul has endeavored to see as tragedies only. Not that growing old seems to be the worst of it. The underlying tragedy is that they can't care enough, and this they take to be the real end of youth, and patter up and down the old worn-out track of device, trying to fool themselves as well as others. But Vicky, as I said, is an individual: a touch or two more and she might have been a genius. She is like the mass of women in many things, heaven knows, but her divergences are the more startling; and the point of divergence lies down in the roots of her pride. She suddenly felt the complete loss, the final departure of youth, and she accepted it like a fallen goddess, and refused even the sudden and startling renewal of Sir Cadge Vanneck's devotions. She had nothing left to give him, and although her pride may have urged her to show the world that she still could capture a man like that, I think he really bored her to death, and she was satisfied to parade him for a time and then publicly throw him over. And she once loved him, I am certain of it. That is tragedy, if you like. I fancy she has desperate moments, but she will pull through in her own way. Don't delude yourself with the notion that she is sitting down in sackcloth and ashes with her past! Those women don't repent, for they never admit that the laws of common mortals apply to them. What is their royal pleasure to do they do, and when it is over a square inch of their memory might have gone with it. To mull themselves, commit some flagrant error that lands them in the divorce court, or high and dry in the outskirts—that is another matter. They repent then,sans doute; and get no mercy. We overlook everything at this apex of civilization but stupidity. We respect the high-handed but not the light-headed. That is one reason those long-winded novels of sin and repentance—generally over one slip and when the man has wearied—leave us cold. We know too much. It seems such a lot of fuss about so little. If some of these good, painstaking, and—let us whisper it—bourgeoise novelists had seen one-tenth of the pagan disregard for all they cherish most highly, that I have seen, and if they could only be made to comprehend—which they never could—how absolutely admirable these same women are in many other respects—such capacity for deep undying friendship, such uncalculating loyalty, such racial possibilities of heroism—well, they would do a good deal harder thinking than they have had to do yet, if they attempted to readjust their traditions to the actual facts of life. But the old traditions get back at our women all the same, although they don't suspect it. They pay the penalty in that late—sometimes not so late—intolerable maddening ennui. Heavens! how many women I have heard wish they were dead. Thank God I am a virgin!
"Of course, dear Isabel, I would not write like this about Vicky to any one on earth but yourself. But she is on your hands, so to speak, and I feel you should have some sort of comprehension of her. To understand her fully is impossible. She is unhappy, that is the main thing—what with all I have intimated, and the great change in her fortunes—I can hardly imagine Vicky without Capheaton and the reflected glory of 'Elton Gwynne'; and, no doubt, she finds California an exile and has realized by this time that she can be of little use to Jack. Better make a fortune for her in your wonderful American way and bring them both home."
Isabel called up Mrs. Hofer on the telephone, and after being switched off and on half a dozen times, and crossed wires and all the other mishaps peculiar to the California telephone service had reduced both to a state of furious indifference, Mrs. Hofer accepted Miss Otis's inability to go down to San Francisco until the day of the party, and her promise to pay the visit during Christmas week, with equal philosophy.
The party was to be on the night of the 24th, and Isabel did not see Gwynne again until the evening of the same day. Judge Leslie went to Santa Barbara to spend the holidays with his son, and his pupil to Burlingame and Menlo Park for a week. After the polo and various other sports at the former resort, with a set that bore an outline resemblance to the leisure class of his own country, the gay life at the Club and the multitude of pretty girls always flitting amid compact masses of flowers, he found the now unfashionable borough of Menlo Park somewhat dull; although he had good snipe-shooting on the marsh with his host, Mr. Trennahan. The whole valley, however, had a peculiar charm for him; when riding alone past the fields of ancient oaks with the great mountains on either side, almost a sense of possession. For all this magnificent and richly varied sweep of land, now cut up into a few large estates and an infinite number of small ones, into towns, and villages, hamlets, and even cities, had once been the Rancho El Pilar, and the property of his Mexican ancestor, Don José Argüello. He knew that in those old days it must have looked like a vast English park, and he felt some resentment that his ancestors had not had the wit to hold fast to it until his time came to inherit.
Mrs. Trennahan's father, Don Roberto Yorba, had bought a square mile from one of the Argüello heirs, and a few rich men of his time had followed his example; and slept in their country-houses during six months of the year while their women yawned the days away, deriving their principal solace in contemplation of their unchallenged exclusiveness. Stray members of those old families were left, and were, if anything, more exclusive than their parents, disdaining the light-hearted people of Burlingame, unburdened with traditions. This was still the set that never even powdered, faithful to the ancient code that it was not respectable, and who spent the greater part of the year in the country, finding their pleasures in the climate—soporific—excellent old Chinese or Spanish cooks, and in reminiscences of the time when the fine estates had not been cut up into little suburban homesteads for heaven only knew whom.
Mrs. Trennahan had sold her father's place, and bought a superb estate in the foothills, where she entertained in the simple fashion of the Eighties. Trennahan still took the haughty spirit of his chosen borough with all his old humor, but he liked no place so well, even in California. A New-Yorker is always a New-Yorker, however long he may live in California, but he becomes more and more attached to the independent life, the even climate, above all to the cooking; and Trennahan was no exception. He had found Magdaléna the most comfortable of companions, she had presented him with two fine boys—who were preparing for college, at present—and a lovely daughter; and he was, in a leisurely way, collecting earthquake data, for future publication, and amused himself with a seismograph; which worried Magdaléna, who thought the instrument much too intimate with earthquakes to be a safe piece of household furniture. Gwynne liked them both as well as any people he had met in California, and engaged the beautiful Inez—who would seem to have embodied all her mother's old passionate longing for physical loveliness—to dance several times with him at the great ball which was to be the medium of her introduction to society.
"I am still old-fashioned," Mrs. Trennahan confided to Gwynne, with a sigh. "I never have liked new people and I never shall; Mr. Trennahan has not laughed it out of me. But what will you? They are seven-eighths strong in San Francisco, I have a daughter who naturally demands the rights of her youth—so I make the best of a bad bargain. But I protest."
When Gwynne arrived at the house on Russian Hill late in the evening it occurred to him to tap on Isabel's door and tell her that he had obeyed her orders, recalled all the traditions down in their common ancestor's old domain, and "got the feel" of the place. He had never crossed the threshold of this room although he had brushed his hair many times in the spotless bower by the marsh, and he was surprised, after a moment's colloquy through the panels, by an invitation to enter. He was still more surprised to find Isabel sitting before her dressing-table in full regalia, although they were not to start for the party until eleven o'clock. She wore the white tulle gown with the dark-blue lilies in which she had created a sensation at Arcot, and looked more radiant than he had ever seen her. Her eyes were like stars, her cheeks were pink; her red lips were parted, the upper trembling with excitement.
"Come! Look!" she cried. "See what your mother has given me. I had to dress at once to see the whole effect."
She lifted and fingered rapturously a row of splendid pearls that lay on her neck.
"Did you ever see anything so beautiful? All my life I have wanted a string of pearls—real pearls that you read about, although I thought myself fortunate to have that old string of Baha California pearls, and never expected anything better. At first I wouldn't take them, but Cousin Victoria said they were her mother's, a gift fromherfather when she married, so that I ought to inherit them, anyhow; and might as well have them while I was young. She vowed she should never wear them again, as her skin was no longer white enough for pearls. I can't believe it!"
Gwynne looked at her curiously. "I had no idea you cared for those things. I could have given you pearls. Your pose has always been to scorn the common weaknesses of your sex."
"You are just a dense man! I have all my sex's love of personal adornment, if you like to call that a weakness. Do you suppose I admire myself in that riding-habit or those overalls? Don't I always dress for supper even when alone? Have I not a lot of lovely gowns? Look at this one! I am so glad I never wore it again until to-night. As for jewels, I adore them, and when I am a millionaire I shall have little shovels full like those you see in jewellers' windows, just to handle; and the most lovely combinations to wear. But I don't ruin my complexion pining for what I can't have—or have lost. Of course poor mamma had beautiful jewels, but they went the way of all things."
Gwynne looked at his watch. "I shall get a bite in town," he said. "The shops will be open till midnight. Hofer will endorse a check for me; I have sold three farms in the past week and have a pot of money in the bank. There is something else I want you to wear to-night—"
"I won't take jewels from you—"
"You are not only my fiancée but my cousin—"
"Nonsense!"
"I shall be back in about two hours. Mind you are sitting just there when I arrive."
As he went swiftly out and closed the door, she shrugged her shoulders, and her eyes danced with anticipation. After all, she could return his present when the farce was over, and she was in a mood to have the world poured into her lap.
She dined alone with her Puritan and Spanish ancestors, and when the brief meal was over, went up and exhibited herself to Lady Victoria, who was in a state of silent fury at being the victim of a headache. She complimented Isabel upon her appearance, however, and added:
"I hope this pretended engagement will end in reality. You are of our blood. I recognize it more and more. I am thankful he escaped Julia Kaye. You are—could be—all I am afraid I compelled myself to believe she was."
"Do you want him to go back to England?" asked Isabel. "I had a letter from Flora the other day, and she thinks it is my mission to restore him to his country."
"I don't care. What difference does it make? I want him to be happy, and he can have a career anywhere. In your case beauty is not a curse, and I should be glad to see you concentrate your gifts where you can find and give real happiness. Now, enjoy yourself like a girl to-night and don't bother about Jack or any one else—certainly not about me," as Isabel stood looking down upon her with a puckered brow.
Lady Victoria, in a négligée of salmon pink under a red light, and reclining on her divan with a box of cigarettes beside her, and a French novel in her hand, looked little less handsome than when she had captivated Isabel's girlish fancy a year ago. It was only the utter weariness of the eyes, and a subtle hardening of the whole mask of the always immobile face, that betrayed the sudden rupture with a long complacent youth. But she looked at Isabel's glorious youth without a pang of envy in her cynical, if not yet philosophical, soul, and said again, with emphasis:
"Marry him. You can do it. Any woman can marry any man she wants. That is the reason we are never really happy. We never love men, as we imagine that we could love. We have fevers for them that last a few weeks, and then we become maternal and endure them. We might love a demi-god, never man as we know him. Perhaps in some other world—who knows?"
Isabel pricked up her ears. Was Lady Victoria meditating the consolations of the Church—or of Flora's more modern substitute? What a solution! But she dared not ask. She was still a little afraid of her complicated relative. She begged her not to read too late, and went out, promising to conciliate the offended Mrs. Hofer.
As she walked down the hall she stooped absently and picked up a scrap of paper, hardly aware that she held it in her hand until she sat down once more before her mirror. Then she glanced at it. To her surprise it was an advertisement of a prize-fight, cut from a newspaper; and on the margin an illiterate hand had scrawled, "Nine o'clock sharp." She wondered which of the servants was indulging in the distractions of the ring. All except Lady Victoria's maid were Japs. Could the Frenchwoman have found a lover who had introduced her to the forbidden pleasures of the town? Obviously it was not Gwynne's for the date was two days old, and he had been in Menlo Park at the time. But she had more interesting things to ponder over. Being a good housekeeper, she folded the scrap and hid it under one of the little silver trays, intending to give it in the morning to Lady Victoria, who was the temporary mistress of the mansion. Then she fell to counting her pearls, wound them twice about her throat, decided that she preferred the single long ellipse falling among the blue flowers on her bosom, marvelled, in an abandon of femininity, at the dazzling whiteness of her skin. She was beautiful, no doubt of that; it might be as Lady Victoria and Flora Thangue asserted, that any future she chose was hers to command; and, as the latter had intimated, to be an English peeress, with her husband at the head of the state, was no mean destiny. To-night, her almost fanatical love of California was dormant. She felt wholly personal. Whatever the future, she wanted to be the most admired girl at this party to-night, to dominate its long-heralded splendors as a great soprano rises high and triumphant above the orchestral thunders of a Wagner opera. Old instincts were stirring subtly. She had the rest of her life for great ideals. To-night she would be an old-time belle: as Concha Argüello had been just a century ago, as Guadalupe Hathaway, Mrs. Hunt McLane, Nina Randolph, and "The Three Macs," had been in the city's youth; as Helena Belmont had been but twenty years before. She recalled the oft-told story of the night of Mrs. Yorba's great ball, in the house next to the one which was to be the theatre of her own début, when Magdaléna Yorba, Tiny Montgomery, Ila Brannan, and the wonderful Helena had been introduced to San Francisco, and the most distracting belle the town had ever known had turned the heads of fifty men. It was far easier to be a belle in that simpler time than to-day, when the San Franciscan vied with the New-Yorker in the magnificence of furnishing and attire, and a mere million was no longer a fortune. And the city more than maintained its old standard of beauty, for its population had nearly doubled; the handsome girls of the upper class had learned the art of dress, and even among the shop-girls there was a surfeit of pretty faces and fine busts. As to the demi-monde it was the pick of America, for obvious reason.
But Isabel was an ardent dreamer, and as she sat in her silent old home, high above the city's unresting life, she imagined herself into a blissful picture where she should realize to the full all the desires dear to the heart of a girl. It was true that she had created afurorethat night at Arcot, but her triumph had been extinguished by fright and the tragedies that came in its train. And no triumph abroad ever quite equals the conquest of your own territory. Isabel concluded that if it were a matter of a single season, she would rather reign in San Francisco than in London—but her dreams were cut short by Gwynne's rapid step on the plank walk, and a moment later he was tapping on her door.
She looked up at him with undisguised expectancy.
"I am going to enjoy it," she said. "I shall accept it. I don't care!"
"I should hope so, after all the trouble I have had." He sat down in a low chair beside the dressing-table and facing her. "Hofer had been turned out of the house and had taken refuge at the Mission. I took an automobile and rushed out there, only to find that he and his friends had concluded to come in and dine at one of the restaurants. Definite, but I know their tastes pretty well, and finally tracked them down. By that time I was starved, but when the dinner was over Hofer went with me himself to the jeweller's—"
"What is it?" asked Isabel, impatiently, her eyes on a long box Gwynne had taken from his pocket.
But Gwynne seldom had an opportunity to tease her. He drew his finger along the heavy coil of hair that rose from the very nape of her neck and pushed forward a soft little mass on to the brow. "I have always wanted to see something here," he said. "I remember once seeing a lovely print of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who wore her hair somewhat as you do—"
"Not a bit of it. Her hair was generally half-way down her back—"
"Well the effect was the same—and in this print she had a row of daisies or stars; I never could remember which—"
"You haven't brought me daisies?" said Isabel, in disgust.
Gwynne pressed the little gilt nob, and as the lid flew up Isabel cried out, with delight.
"You shouldn't! But I don't care! I said I wouldn't. I never expected anything so gorgeous, though—"
She caught the box from his hand and fastened the diamond stars in the line he had indicated. There were five, graduated in size, and they gave her beauty its final touch of poetry and light. Isabel gazed at her dazzling reflection with parted lips and dancing eyes, then turned impulsively, flung her arms about Gwynne's neck, and kissed him. He pushed her away roughly.
"Don't do that again!" he said. "I am not your brother, nor one of your girl friends. Can I look about? I have always had a curiosity to see this room. I had an idea that it was different from the one at the ranch."
"You can look at what you like," said Isabel, indifferently. "I shall look at my stars.Madre de Dios!as our Spanish ancestors would have said.Ay yi! Valgame Dios! Dios de mi alma! Dios de mi vida!I never was so happy in my life."
Gwynne walked about the large old-fashioned room with its bow-window, and alcove for the bed. He had half expected that the room he had so often passed with reluctant steps would be furnished in blue or pink, but it was as red as that of the traditional queen. Isabel had brought up all the old crimson damask curtains that had been fashionable in her grandmother's time, and covered the windows and walls of her bedroom, even the head of the mahogany four-poster in which her mother and herself had been born. The carpet was new, but a dull crimson, like the faded hangings, and the dressing-table with its quantity of chased silver—one of the few inheritances she had managed to retain—was the only spot of light in the rather sombre room: it was all white muslin and bright crimson silk. There was an old-fashioned settle against the wall and three stiff chairs. Gwynne liked the room, and had a vague feeling that he knew Isabel a little better. Certainly it expressed a side of her of which he had caught but an occasional glimpse.
He pulled the curtains apart and shading his eyes from the light of the room looked down towards the city. It had vanished under a sea of white fog that broke against the ledge of Nob Hill. A cable-car might have been a comet flashing along the edge of a void.
"I wonder," he said, "I wonder—should San Francisco disappear—be burned by that fire you are always expecting—or if the bay should shoal, or the Golden Gate rush together, so that she would have no reason for existence, and gradually be devoured by time—I suppose the fog and the winds would still be faithful. I can imagine the fogs rolling in and embracing her, and the winds raging about every forgotten corner, centuries after there was anybody left to curse either."
"Was it Mrs. Kaye or Lady Cecilia Spence that said you just missed being a poet? I hope some slumbering ancestor is not struggling for resurrection out here. I much prefer that you should be a statesman."
"I intend to be, nor have I any desire to turn poet. I have seen too many in London. But this city, ugly as it is, appeals in its own way to the imagination—more, for some unknown reason, than the most poetic I ever saw in the old worlds. There is something almost uncanny about it. While it is raw, and crude, and practically in its infancy, it at the same time suggests an unthinkable antiquity. Perhaps—who knows?—it had a civilization contemporary with the Montezumas—or with Atlantis; and it is the ghosts of old unrecorded peoples that linger and give one a fairly haunted feeling when one climbs these hills alone at night."
"Much better you keep your hand on your pistol and your eye out for foot-pads—and one dreamer in the family is enough. I hope I have not infected you."
She forsook her glowing image and looked at him inquisitively. He wandered about the room again and paused to look at a row of daguerreotypes on a shelf, dead and forgotten Belmonts.
"You do dream a good deal," he said. "Judging by your varying styles of beauty as well as other things, you must be possessed by a dozen different sorts of old Johnnies trying to mutter something up out of the dark."
"I'm going to be nothing but a dreamer for a whole week."
"If that means that you will forget chickens, and dress yourself decently, I shall do what I can to heighten the illusion. Should you like me to make love to you?" he asked, turning to her with a quickening interest.
"That might wake me up," said Isabel, politely. "This week is crowded with parties and things. I am to visit Mrs. Hofer and go to all of them. You won't see much of me until New Year's eve, when I come home and we dine at a Bohemian restaurant with Lyster and Paula, and watch the street crowds after. But I do not look so far ahead. If I am a success to-night I am going to make believe that I am an old-time belle like Helena Belmont, or my poor little mother, for that matter. And I shall feel just like her when I start, for Angélique will pin up my skirts under a long cloak, and pull carriage boots over my slippers so that nothing will be spoiled going down those steps. I suppose I can't hope to be quite such a belle as if I had lived in those less-sophisticated days, but who knows? And I can forget Rosewater—and Bohemia; I sha'n't even think of the Stones until New Year's eve; I sent them their Christmas presents this morning, on purpose. I am going to be frivolous, coquette, and imagine myself a girl of the old Southern Set, when there were no new people. And I'm going to make themthinkI am a great beauty, whether I am or not. I remember mamma used to say to me: 'Cultivate the beauty air. That often is more effective than beauty itself. Tiny Montgomery was a beauty according to every known standard, but she had no dash, and was never looked at when Helena Belmont was in the room.' So to-night, you'll see me sail into that ballroom as if I already had the town at my feet. By-the-way—the last time I began to feel like a real girl again was that night at Arcot—and I did feel eighteen—triumphant—happy—until I got back and saw Lord Zeal in the library. I have never forgotten his face."
"Nor have I," said Gwynne, dryly; but he turned pale. "I suppose you haven't had the least suspicion what he came to tell me that night?"
"I thought to say good-bye without letting you know—it isn't possible that he told you he intended to kill himself?"
"He told me a good deal more. He had shot Brathland. Murdered him, in plain English. You may fancy the night I had with him."
Isabel stared up at him, the radiance gone from her face.
"And you have been carrying that about in addition to everything else?"
"It was brutal to tell you this to-night! I can't imagine why I did, particularly as I have never told even my mother—who, like everybody else not necessarily in the secret, thinks that Zeal killed himself in despair over his failing health. But—yes, I remember that dress now—I rarely notice the details of women's clothes—but I remember admiring those blue lilies on that airy white stuff—I suppose you suddenly brought the whole thing back as vividly as if we were at Capheaton instead of out here on the edge of creation. You must forgive me and forget it."
"Yes I will! I'll forget everything for a week." She wheeled about and rubbed her cheeks. Gwynne stooped suddenly and kissed the little black mole on her shoulder.
"This is all I ask in return for the baubles," he murmured; and then as he met a blazing eye: "Could I do less than restore your lovely color? But I must fly and get into my togs."
The old-fashioned interior of the Polk House, with, on the lower floor, its double parlors connected by sliding doors, its narrow central hall, and its many shapeless rooms of varying size, had been entirely remodelled by the essentially modern Mrs. Hofer. Her husband had wished to build an imposing mass of shingles and stones, but Mrs. Hofer was far too impatient to wait a year—perhaps two, if there were strikes—to take up her abode on Nob Hill, and the Polk House was in the market. Perhaps something in the stolid uncompromising exterior of the old barrack appealed to her irresistibly, mausoleum that it was of an aristocratic past. But upon the interior she wasted no sentiment, and some half a million of her husband's dollars. There were now three great rooms on the lower floor and four small ones, besides a circular hall with a spiral marble stair. The drawing-room, which ran from east to west, was one of the most notable rooms in the country, had been the subject of violent controversy, newspaper and verbal, and was a perpetual delight to the dramatic soul of its mistress. The most original artist the State had produced had painted a deep frieze which was a series of the strange moonlight scenes that had made his fame: the deep sulphurous blue of the California night sky, the long black shadows, the wind-driven trees, the low desolate adobe houses abandoned in the towns settled by Spain. Now and again a cluster of lights indicated a window-pane and a belated tenant, but the garden walls were in ruins, the tiled roofs sagging, the ancient whitewash was peeling; all blended and lifted into a harmony of color and pathos by the genius of the artist. The expanse of dull green-blue walls of rough plaster below the frieze was unbroken; on the marble floor there were blue velvet rugs. The furniture was of ebony and dull-blue brocade. There was not even a picture on an easel, but there were several Rodins and Meuniers. At the lower or west end of the room the wall had been removed and replaced by a single immense pane of plate glass. From this window, always curtainless, there was a startling view of the steep drop of the hill, beetling with houses and steeples, Telegraph Hill beyond and a little to the north; then the bay, and the towns on its opposite rim. At night the scene, with its blue above and black below, picked out with a thousand lights—massed into a diadem beyond the bay—looked like a sublimation of the painter's work. Within, the cunningly arranged lights saved the room at all times from being too sombre, and were set to reveal every detail of paintings far too precious to have been recklessly lavished upon a wooden house in the most recklessly built of all great cities.
The dining-room—which had the proportions of a banqueting-hall, with an alcove for family use—was hung with tapestries and furnished with chairs lifted bodily from a castle in Spain; and it was a room in which no one would remember to look for ancestors. The library also commanded a view of the bay and had been decorated by native artists with imitations of the Giorgione frescoes, charmingly pink and smudgy. The hangings and furniture were of royal crimson brocade, and the walls were covered with books. Mr. Toole, who was a scholar of the old-fashioned sort, of which California still holds so many, had selected the books; and the contents were as noteworthy as the bindings. In a special alcove was a large number of priceless Fourteenth and Sixteenth Century editions. From this sumptuous room curved an iron balcony, where the old gentleman might be seen sunning himself any fine day, his steel spectacles half-way down his nose, and a volume propped on the shelf of an easy-chair furnished with all the modern improvements.
On the white satin panels of the large round hall were a few of the most valuable old masters as yet brought to the country, but Mrs. Hofer, who was a patriot or nothing, did not hesitate to mix them with the best efforts of her fellow-citizens, nor to proclaim her preference for the native product. It was all very well to have old masters, and modern Europeans, if it was the thing, but she never felt quite at home with them, and liked her California inside as well as out.
The four little reception-rooms, or boudoirs, were so many cabinets for treasures, and on the night of the ball, like the rest of the rooms on this floor, were entirely without further adornment; only the white marble of the spiral stair was festooned with crimson roses; and the narrow hall that led from the rotunda to the new ballroom was dressed in imitation of a long arbor of grape-vines, and hung with clusters of hot-house grapes and Chinese lanterns. The ballroom had been built out from the back of the house upon the steep drop of the hill, and as even its graduated foundation did not lift it to the level of the first floor, it was reached by a short flight of steps. For three months Mrs. Hofer's judicious hints had excited the curiosity of the town, and all that were not bedridden had presented themselves at as early an hour as self-respect would permit. Mrs. Hofer, to use her own phrase, had "turned herself loose," on this room, and even her husband, who had gasped at the sum total, indulgent as he was, admitted to-night that "she knew what she was about." The immense room was built to simulate a patio in Spain. The domed roof, in the blaze of light below, looked to be the dim blue vault of the night sky. The gallery that encircled the room was divided into balconies, and from them depended Gobelin tapestries, Eastern rugs, silken shawls—yellow embroidered with red, blue embroidered with white—after the manner of Spain on festa days. The background of the gallery was a mass of tropical plants alternating with latticed windows and long glass doors. Sitting with an arm or elbow on the railing, was every California woman of Mrs. Hofer's acquaintance that had the inherited right to wear a mantilla, a rose over her ear, and wield a large black fan; that is to say, those that were too old or too indifferent to dance. How Ada Hofer induced them to form a part of her decorations nobody ever knew, themselves least of all; but there, to the amazement and delight of the hundreds below, they were, and it was many years since the majority of them had looked so handsome. Beneath the balcony was an arcade where many seats were disposed among palms and pampas grass. The inevitable fountain was at the end of the room; it was of white stone, and colored lights played upon its foaming column. The musicians were in the gallery above it.
When Gwynne and Isabel descended the steps and stood looking down upon the scene for a moment, the younger people were dancing. Every woman seemed to have been fired with the ambition to contribute her own part to the brilliancy of the night. There were tiaras by the score in these days, and the gowns had journeyed half-way round the world. There had been imported gowns in the immortal Eighties, when Mrs. Yorba reigned, but never a tiara; and Isabel for the first time fully realized the significant changes worked by the vast modern fortunes and their ambitious owners. Blood might have been enough for their predecessors, but the outward and visible sign for them.
And all sets were represented to-night. It is doubtful if any woman had done as much to entice them to a common focus as the surmounting Mrs. Hofer. She was not the leader of San Francisco society, for that office was practically an elective one, and meant an infinite amount of trouble with corresponding perquisites; it must be held by a woman of supreme tact, experience, executive ability, and practically nothing else to do. The present incumbent, to the infinite credit of San Francisco, was a member of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in California; or in America, for that matter; and although still young, and with less to spend in a year than the Hofers wasted in a week, she had been chosen, after the death of the old leader, and some acrimonious discussion, to rule; and rule she did with a rod of iron. But she took her good where she found it, and was grateful for what Mrs. Hofer, with her beautiful house and irresistible energy had already accomplished. For Mrs. Hofer was by no means too democratic. If she had drawn all factions to her house she had taken care that only the best of her own kind came too, and this best was very good indeed; for it was educated and accomplished, more often than not had mingled in society abroad; an honor to which many of the ancient aristocracy had never aspired. No one recognized this fact, and the irresistible law of progress, better than the Leader, in spite of her Spanish blood; and to-night she sat in the very centre of the north gallery, her charming dark face draped in a mantilla some two centuries old. Beside her sat Anne Montgomery who had not a drop of Spanish in her, but whom Mrs. Hofer had done up with a brand-new mantilla of white lace and an immense black fan. Miss Montgomery had a lingering sense of humor, but it suited her to look young and pretty once more, if only for a night. Mrs. Trennahan, who was really fond of Mrs. Hofer, particularly as she had been adroitly persuaded that this party was to be a mere setting for her lovely young daughter, also decorated the gallery in one of the old Yorba mantillas—it had belonged to the beautiful aunt for whom this house had been built by the husband she scorned—and wore it for the first time in her life. Trennahan had shaken with a fit of inward laughter, but had compelled his eyes to express only admiration and approval.
Other dowagers sat below, some bediamonded and others not: the "old Southern Set" lived on diminishing incomes; new industries were decreasing the values of the old. They had lost none of their pride, but philosophy had mellowed them, and they were honestly grateful for such splendid diversion; and Mrs. Hofer's suppers cost a small fortune, even in San Francisco. Their offspring cared as little for traditions as for supper, and had married or were marrying into the newer sets, rapidly obliterating what lines were left. As for the new, they were legion, and not to be distinguished by the casual eye from those that traced their descent to the crumbling mansions of South Park and Rincon Hill; and they had the earnest co-operation of the best of the world's milliners. The pick of Bohemia was also present, those that were distinguishing themselves in art and letters, or even on the stage, for Mrs. Hofer had learned some of her lessons in London. All that were now looked upon as county families, spending as they did but one or two months of the year in the city, had come to town for this ball, but the country towns were represented only by Gwynne and Isabel and the Tom Coltons. The group of men so desperately interested in the municipal affairs of the city disliked and distrusted Colton; but Mrs. Leslie had been born on Rincon Hill, and all doors, old and new, were open to her daughter. Isabel caught a glimpse of Anabel among the dancers, in a gown of primrose satin almost the color of her hair, and a little diamond tiara made from some old stones of her mother's.
"Well!" exclaimed Isabel. "What do you think of us? Is it not a wonderful scene?"
Gwynne nodded. "All that is wanting is a background of caballeros in the gallery, silk and ruffles, and hair tied with ribbons. But I suppose the old gentlemen objected. There must be some limit to Mrs. Hofer's powers of persuasion. But—yes—it is a wonderful scene, and you are a wonderful people to take so much trouble."
The waltz finished and Mrs. Hofer bore down upon them. She wore white brocade, the flowers outlined with jewels, shimmering under a cloud of tulle, and her neck and her fashionably dressed head were hardly to be seen for the rubies and diamonds that bound them. She was fairly palpitating with youth and triumph, and delight in the dance, and although without beauty or a patrician outline, there was no more radiant vision in the room. She reproached Isabel for being late, informed her that she had ordered all the best men to keep dances for her, summoned several, and then bore off Gwynne to introduce him to the prettiest of the girls. In a few moments Isabel was engaged for every dance before supper; she had given thecotillonto Gwynne.
She had realized immediately, that upon such a scene, with such a background, she could hope to make no such overwhelming impression as had fallen to the lot of Helena Belmont; surrounded by buff-colored walls and a small exclusive society—for the most part disdainful of dress. Nevertheless, she was soon pleasurably aware that she was the subject of much comment, not only in the gallery, but among the hundreds of smart young girls and women on the floor, the men that danced, and those that supported the walls. The old beaux, left over from the days when Nina Randolph and Guadalupe Hathaway had reigned, who had put the stamp of an almost incoherent approval upon the dazzling Helena, that famous night of her début, were dead and dust; but another group, including the quartet that had as promptly declared themselves the suitors and slaves of the exacting beauty, were present to-night, critically regarding the débutantes. Their comparisons were less impassioned than those of their old mentors, for they were tired; they had disposed of much of their superfluous enthusiasm in the increased difficulties of making an income, since the brief reign of a heartless witch, whom they still remembered with an occasional pang of sentiment, but more gratitude that they had not had her as well as fortune to subdue. None had prospered exceedingly, but all had done well. They were still in their forties, but as gray as their fathers had been at sixty; indeed, looked older than Trennahan, who had disdained to add to his own and his wife's fortunes, and lived merely to enjoy life; and they would far rather have been in bed. But three of them were indulgent family men. Eugene Fort had clung to the single state, but the others were contributing one or more daughters to the evening's entertainment; and they had all drifted naturally together to discuss the new beauties before retreating to the haven at the top of the house where there was a billiard-table and much good whiskey and tobacco. They were disputing over the respective claims of Inez Trennahan, who was a replica of the CaliforniaFavoritasof a century ago, and Catalina Over with the Indian blood on her high cheek-bones, and her mouth like an Indian's bow, when Isabel descended the stairs. They promptly gave her the palm, although they did not turn pale, nor lose their breath.
"The grand style," said Trennahan. "I wonder will the home-bred youth appreciate it? In your day she would have had a better chance, but most of these worthy young men, when they have been to college at all, have patronized Stanford or Berkeley; in other words, never been out of the State, and, no doubt, prefer the more vivid, frivolous, and essentially modern product."
"If it lay with us," said Alan Rush, sadly. "But it is as you say. She will frighten most of the young fellows. By Jove, she looks as if she had danced at Washington's first ball. But that's it. Nothing free and easy, there. It's no longer the fashion to be too aristocratic."
But Isabel, if she did not create afuroreamong the young men, who would have thought such a performance beneath their dignity, was, at least, generally admitted to be "Pretty well as stunning a girl as you might see in a long day's journey," "a regular ripper," "the handsomest of the bunch," and as far as "mere looks went" the "pick of the lot." The girls viewed her with no great favor, but the majority of the women, especially those in the galleries, sustained the verdict of the men; and the Leader, in the course of the evening, descended and introduced herself, claimed relationship, and graciously intimated that if Isabel cared to join thecotillonclubs and the skating-rink—Theskating-rink—an exclusive yet hospitable wing would be lifted. A younger brother of Mr. Hofer, who had also multiplied his paternal million, devoted himself to her seriously, and Gwynne, who soon had enough of dancing, gracefully renounced his claims to the german. They had one waltz together and then he did not see her again until the hour of departure, when he stood in the hall and watched her descend the winding white stair between the roses. He thought her a charming picture in her long white coat, with a lace scarf over her head, and her arms full of costly toys. When she reached his side she ordered him to put her favors into the pockets of his overcoat, and keep his hand on his pistol, as she would not risk losing one of them, much less her jewels. Her eyes were very bright, and her cheeks deeply flushed, but were the cause a fully satisfied ambition, he could only guess.
The hour was four, and after they had said their last good-night to the guests whose homes lay between the Hofer mansion and their own, they met but one foot passenger as belated as themselves. This was a big man that loomed suddenly out of the fog. Isabel screamed and ran into the middle of the street, and Gwynne, who had obediently taken out his pistol, half raised it. But the man laughed.
"I'm on the lookout for thim meself," he said, in a rich brogue. "Good luck to yees."
As they let themselves into the house, Gwynne threw his hat and coat on the settle in the vestibule, and then ran his hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his head, a habit of his when he had a suggestion to make.
"I remember we were going to sit up the rest of that night—or morning—after Arcot," he said. "Are you very tired?"
"Tired? I shall not sleep a wink for hours. The fire is sure to be laid in the tower-room."
They went into the small circular room, furnished in several shades of green, that Isabel had retained for her own use, and while she shook down her skirts Gwynne applied a match to the coals. The raw morning air had penetrated the house, too old-fashioned to have a furnace, but wooden walls are quickly heated. When Gwynne had removed the blower several times and satisfied himself that the hard coals would burn, he resumed the perpendicular.
He looked doubtfully at Isabel, who was still wrapped in her cloak, and had elevated her feet, covered with the long carriage-boots, to the fender. "Sha'n't you take off those things?" he asked. "You don't look as if you meant to stay."
"You can take off the boots, but I'll keep on my coat for a few moments."
He laughed as he knelt again. "I certainly am getting broken in. I have known Englishwomen to pull off their husband's hunting-boots after a hard day's work—"
"The idea!"
"Very good idea. Do you mean that you would not?"
"Well, I might, as a return favor. You need not take all night to pull off mine."
"You might, at least, let virtue be its own reward. It's not often it has the chance."
"Well, get up and don't be an idiot. I suppose you have been flirting in the conservatory all the evening and haven't had time to readjust your mood."
"Mrs. Hofer has no conservatory. Great oversight. But I did sit out a dance or two in that room with the immense window—"
"With whom?"
"I have forgotten her name. Will you have a cigarette?"
"No, but you may smoke if you like."
He had settled himself in a deep chair on the opposite side of the hearth. There was a silence of nearly ten minutes, until Isabel, suddenly removing her coat, brought Gwynne out of his reverie.
"I cannot say that to-night was in any sense a repetition of my own experience at Arcot," he said, abruptly. "That night—I have tried to forget it—I had enough adulation to turn any man's head. I fancy itwaspretty well turned, and that made the wrench during the small hours the more severe. Still, it has been an interesting evening, and one or two things happened."
"What?" Isabel was full of her own experiences, but too much of a woman to betray the fact when a man wanted to talk about himself.
"I danced for a while, but I had had exercise enough during the day, and didn't care particularly about it. Besides, all the girls I danced with, and that one I sat up-stairs with for a few minutes, not only talked my head off, but quizzed me, and I did not understand it. To my amazement, I learned not long after that they know who I am. Can you imagine how it got out?"
"They know everything. It is an old saying that the San Francisco girls scent a stranger the moment he leaves the tram at the Oakland mole, and know all about him before he has registered. The obscurest knight could not hide himself in this town. Rosewater alone saved you so long. How did they quiz you?"
"Each began at once to talk about my 'distinguished relative, Elton Gwynne.' I may be more dense than most, or perhaps I was merely bored, but I assumed that they thought I was his brother and knew his whereabouts. When supper was half over, and I was congratulating myself that I had got out of thecotillon, even with you, for it meant dancing with a lot of others, my host took me firmly by the arm and marched me up-stairs. He informed me that he was 'bored stiff,' could see that I was, and had 'coralled' a few more choice spirits. We went, not to the smoking or billiard-room, but to his own bedroom, and here I found four or five more of your strenuous millionaires, the reform editor, and the lawyer that looks like a bull-dog waiting for the word to spring at the throat of the Boss and his whole vile crew.
"Here we sat and smoked until the air inside was as thick as the fog that blotted out the lights of the city and towns opposite. Of course the talk was of the rotten state of San Francisco. I never heard the whole story before, and it made my hair stand on end. I knew that vice flaunted itself more openly here than elsewhere, but I did not guess that the thousand and one establishments of every sort, from the lowest negro dive under the sidewalk, and the snares for the very young of both sexes, straight up to the most gaudy 'French restaurants,' as well as Chinatown, Barbary coast, and all the rest, paid tribute to the gang of political ruffians that have got control of the city. No wonder the last have developed a preternatural sharpness that makes it next to impossible to bring the charges home, for they will all be rich enough in time to move to Europe and buy up such salable scions of improverished houses as happen to be on the market. The thing is as well known as I know that you are my third cousin, but, although the second-rate grafters are brazen enough, it is not worth while to attack them until the Boss is done for, and so far he has proved much too clever to be caught. A college man, although of low origin, and an accomplished lawyer of a sort, he pockets huge sums from these disreputable establishments, for himself and his minion, the mayor, and calls them attorney's fees. Naturally the panderers to vice won't admit they are blackmailed: they are between the devil and the deep sea; if the fight came on in earnest, and they gave evidence against the Boss, and the Boss won, he would clean them all out and put others in. The Reformers, if they won, would clean them out too; so, naturally, they hold their tongues and hope this reform movement will peter out as so many others have done. So do the Board of Supervisors whom the Boss also owns and through whom he blackmails the great corporations. But—and when they had got to this point in the talk there was an abrupt pause, and then Hofer turned to me and said: 'Even if you don't come in and join us, which I always hope you will do, I know a man that can keep his mouth shut when I see him. So fire away.'
"And then they discussed the fact that one of their number had recently gone to Washington to ask the President to send out an able man of the Government Secret Service; they have every reason to believe that this request will be complied with. With sufficient evidence they would then make a quiet crusade in the hope of rousing public spirit to the extent of forcing in a grand jury that could not be bought by the Boss. Needless to say he has controlled every grand jury that has met during his reign, and one might as well hope to convict a wind for unroofing a house, even were he not master of every legal trick himself, and had he taken less pains to cover up his tracks. In this detective lies their chief hope at present; but what a slender hope it is, when you consider the devil-may-care character of these San Franciscans, who would dance on the edge of hell, with equal nonchalance, if only there were a screen between. There is not an outstanding excuse for forming a vigilance committee, as there was during the Dennis Kearney-Anti-Chinese riots of 1879, and there is no such aroused public spirit and indignation as sustained the Vigilantes of the Fifties. These rascals take good care to be non-sensational in their methods, and what the San Franciscan doesn't see doesn't worry him. The city is rich, prosperous, famous, tourists are pouring in, the best in drama and opera comes yearly—to be presented in fire-traps whose owners pay toll to the Boss; they already have the handsomest hotels in the world, the finest cooking, climate; even earthquakes—severe ones—have moved elsewhere. What can you do with a people like that? They are fairly insolent in their sense of security. Let the political gang make their share. There is enough for all. But don't bother us. Let us be happy.Vive la bagatelle.There you have the motto of San Francisco.
"By the time they had threshed the subject out, explaining details and plans to me, as if I were already one of them, I was feeling pretty uncomfortable. Naturally, I blurted out that I could no longer accept their hospitality and confidence on false pretences, and told them who I was. Each got up in turn, solemnly held out his hand, and said, 'Shake.' Then Hofer informed me that they had all been practically certain for some time that I was myself; being good enough to add: 'We knew there couldn't be more than one of you; and we are also able to put two and two together, occasionally. Before we thought of it, however, you struck us all as being a man accustomed to homage. Later we discovered that you were choke full of seven different kinds of ability, and it was then that the twos began to move towards each other on the board; and we decided that we must have you here, right here in San Francisco. What can a man like you find in a God-forsaken place like Rosewater, anyhow? The Eggopolis! You can't afford to hail from there; it would stick to you for the rest of your life. And we have just got to have you. We may have some of the ablest lawyers in the country in San Francisco, and a few honest ones, but we can accommodate one more; and a man that will throw over a great title and an already won name for the sake of standing on his own legs—that's the sort of stuff the old pioneers were made of. So, here you must come, and stand shoulder to shoulder with us.'