and pack her things at once. She went to the desk to ask for the check.
But there was nothing for her. No, the clerk assured her after much
fumbling, Mr. Blair hadn't left anything, either in her box or his own.
But,--the man stole a covert glance at her downcast face,--he was still
holding his rooms. Probably he meant to attend to it when he returned.
That he might not see the wild joy that leaped to her eyes, Miss
Hastings turned with startling suddenness and fled upstairs. Safe in her
own room she flung herself with tears and laughter on the bed. So that
was the hand he was playing, was it?--the dear, wicked, unmanageable--!
Of course he would have to be punished,--well punished! but--she laughed
aloud for pure joy--the world was a radiant place once more, and nothing
of any sort really mattered, because he was coming back.
But the next day went by, and the next, and he had not come. Day after
day passed in an empty procession, yet no one of them brought that for
which she waited. And there was nothing else to do. Work was out of the
question. She could not sit still long enough. It became, instead, her
sole occupation to linger each morning and afternoon on the verandah
until the steamer from Los Angeles had rounded the point and crossed the
bay in front of the hotel. Then, hidden behind the palms she would watch
until the last straggling tourist had left the pier. But still he did
not come.
Doubt in every tormenting guise assailed her. Perhaps he had changed his
mind and decided later not to return. Yet the clerk had said he meant to
come back! Perhaps her check, sent by mail, was even now in her box.
But she had not the courage to go again to the desk. Driven by alternate
hope and fear she lost color, and she could not sleep. During seven
miserable nights she planned to go back to Pasadena by the morning boat,
and as many times she put it off. Yet, if he did return to find her
waiting, what, then, would she have given him the right to think? But,
on the other hand, if she went she might never see him again!
On the eighth day she took herself grimly in hand. No longer would she
humiliate herself by any further delay. Wildenai had not waited, and
even a school teacher can be as proud as an Indian princess! That very
afternoon she would finish her sketch of the cavern. Then tomorrow she
would go back to Pasadena and the long gray round of work. Desolately
she wandered up the secret trail to Wildenai's bower. Never had her
sympathy for the deserted princess been so keen. Perhaps, she mournfully
considered, if the spirit of the Indian maiden still lingered there
it might feel sympathy for her as well. Perhaps she, too, would find
comfort in the spot where that other woman had paid an equal price for
her impulsiveness.
The shadows in the little cavern were dark and cool and, laying aside
her box of colors, for a long time she sat quite motionless, staring out
to where the gulls drifted and glinted against the blue. She heard after
a while the whistle of the approaching steamer but gave no heed. Lying
back against the moss she had almost dropped asleep when something in
the corner opposite attracted her attention. She sat up nervously and
stared into the shadows. Was it only that the darkness was deeper over
there, or was that really something propped against the wall? And had it
moved?
In the years that followed she never knew how long she sat there after
the stones had been lifted away, holding in her lap those shreds of torn
white doeskin. Still caught together, though in tatters, by long strings
of shells and beads, they shone, a ghostly film of white from out the
dimness. A breath, and the whole would have crumbled into dust. Yet
the beads, she noticed, were still perfect as when strung by slim brown
fingers centuries before. Only half believing it was not all of it a
dream, she lifted them strand after strand. Then, suddenly, she gave
a little cry. Somewhere from out the torn folds a slender chain had
slipped. Trembling with a curiosity that bordered close on terror,
she carried it to the light, and there it glowed, a glancing stream of
crimson, in her hand.
“Wildenai's necklace!” she breathed, and hid her face.
There came the sound of a step outside. The manzanita branches were
pushed impatiently aside and he stood before her.
The journey across the channel from Los Angeles had seemed twice as long
as when he made it a few weeks before, and he had hurried all the way
from the hotel straight to the little cavern. But now that he had found
her again, there seemed to be plenty of time for everything, and he
stood quite silent looking down at her. He was glad he had found her
there, glad, in a curious, unreasoning way, for the quiet of the late
afternoon, for the faint fragrance of the Mariposa lilies blooming just
beyond the ledge. Yet he let her know nothing of this in what he said.
“So here you are, after all! I thought I should find you here.”
She had not heard him come and was startled into a cry.
“You!” she gasped, and lifted eyes in which the telltale signs of tears
were still quite evident, so evident that, with a woman's instinct to
hide them, she caught up the necklace and held it toward him.
“See what I've found!” she exclaimed.
But he paid no heed. Instead, manlike, he proceeded, quite
unconsciously, to say the one thing that could hurt her most.
“I looked for you at the hotel first, then I came on up here. I knew you
wouldn't go till I came!”
The color that had flooded her face at the sound of his voice faded
again. She was quite white as she asked quietly:
“How could you know I would stay?”
He laughed easily, settling himself confidently on the moss at her side.
“Because I hadn't paid you yet,” he answered gaily. “Don't you think
that was clever of me, Wildenai?”
“I would rather you did not call me that,” she told him coldly, “It
sounds irreverent.” And she dropped her eyes, which had filled again
miserably, to the film of white in her lap. Then, with a pitiful attempt
to hurt him in return: “Of course you realize that I really don't
know much about you. I don't want you to think that I distrusted you
exactly--” she marvelled at herself that she could say such things to
him, but went recklessly on. “The check wasn't there,--and so, well, it
seemed wisest to wait. They said you were coming back, and I couldn't
afford to lose it; so I stayed. Just a matter of business, you see!”
She finished in a tone which, except for a suspicious tremble, was
satisfactorily disagreeable.
But Blair's armor, since his return, seemed proof against such thrusts
as she could give.
“Won't play Indian at all, then?” he retorted teasingly. “But of course
not! How could you when you happen to come from the other side of the
house? However,” he continued whimsically, “there are such things as
English roses, you know. I've always loved them, too, even when they
were thorny!”
He pulled absently at a fern growing near, while, suddenly, for no
particular reason, the color glowed again in the cheeks of the little
art teacher. She smiled, half unwillingly.
“But don't pull up the wild flowers here,” she warned him, “You'll have
the forester after you! When did you get back?” she added. “Where have
you been so long?” burned on her lips, but she scorned to ask it.
“About an hour ago,” he replied amiably. “The boat was late.”
“I was beginning to think you'd given up coming at all.” She could not
keep it back. “The duke never bothered to, you know.”
But this blow, like the first, failed to reach any vulnerable spot.
Blair did not flinch.
“No, naturally he didn't! He was English, and you can't depend upon
the English, I've discovered. But there's not the slightest reason for
linking me up with him. The princess never ran away now, did she? And
I--” He paused, then without looking at her he began again.
“Seriously, I'm sorry if I seemed to be deserting. I--well, honestly,
I didn't know what else to do. You suggested it yourself, you remember!
And I'd promised my father to look after some business for him in Los
Angeles while I was out here. You see, he--our family, have lived in
the East for a long time now, but we used to own pretty much all of Los
Angeles county some three centuries ago, when the Spanish were here,
and--” Again he broke off abruptly. “Do you want to know about me?” he
demanded.
Miss Hastings leaned breathlessly toward him. Her heart was beating
wildly.
“Oh, please!” she begged.
“Perhaps I should have told you at the first,” he began, “or at least
after you told me who you were, but--anyway, I didn't. I'd never told
anyone before and I didn't much suppose I ever would. There's a reason,
though, why I'm particularly interested in this legend, too, a reason
just as good as you've got. I'm--well, I'm one of Wildenai's great,
great grandsons!”
And then, because she sat quite silent there in the shadows, and
motionless except for fingering something white that lay in her lap, he
waited uneasily. Was she angry again, he wondered, or perhaps she was
only laughing!
She was the first to break the silence.
“Are you trying to be funny?” Her voice was very cold.
“Not at all,” he answered hotly. “It must be all of ten generations back
or even more, and of course it wasn't all Spanish afterward, but, just
the same, I'm as much a descendant of the princess as you are of the
duke,--always have been! I'm just as proud of it, too. Possibly you
will remember that the Spanish beat the English to it, at least in
California. Anyway,” he finished bitterly, “what difference does it
make? So far as I can see, it only gives us one more good subject to
quarrel about!”
Then out of the dimness came a queer little sound, whether of tears or
of laughter it was impossible to know. For the least part of a second a
hand brushed his own.
“Oh, no!” she whispered, “Let's not do that. It wouldn't be right! And
see,” she laughed tremulously, “Isn't it strange I should have found it
today, but,” she lifted the white thing in her lap, “here is Wildenai's
wedding dress--and the chain of garnets!”
The cavern was quite dark before they had finished talking about it, but
at length they laid the poor little ghost of a garment reverently back
among the stones and rose to go.
“But the necklace?” Blair asked, hesitating, “do you think we ought to
leave that here?”
The girl considered a moment.
“It's really yours,” she decided. “Nobody else could have the least
claim to it.”
“Except--” Suddenly his eyes shone with a strange expression before
which the little art teacher instinctively shrank. He took a step toward
her.
“I believe I'll give the garnets back,” he announced. “I fancy that's
what the princess would have liked to do if she'd had the chance.
Besides,” his eyes grew still darker, “they were meant in the first
place for a wedding gift, and so if you--”
He would have clasped them about her neck, but Miss Hastings backed
frantically away.
“No!--not for worlds,” she cried. “You know you're only saying it
because you think you can't get out of it!” And before he could realize
just what was happening, she was gone.
The boat for Los Angeles was unusually crowded that night. For either
this reason, or some other she would not acknowledge, Miss Hastings
found herself pushed aside by more impatient passengers every time she
attempted to enter the gangway.
“All aboard!” called a peremptory voice from somewhere on deck. She took
a step forward, hesitated, drew back. The plank was hauled irrevocably
away, and she turned to face Blair standing just behind her on the
wharf.
“I was sure you wouldn't run away,” he declared, “but if you had--!”
She let him lead her back along the broad boardwalk toward the hotel
until they stood within the shadow of the huge boulder which for
centuries has marked the outer boundary of the Bay of Moons. Beyond them
the lights of the St. Catherine glimmered down the hill and on over the
water, rimming with golden bubbles the outlines of the pier.
“Wildenai!” Out of the darkness his voice came to her, mocking, tender,
wholly insistent. “Foolish, obstinate little lady! Can't you see how
it's up to you,--up to the English to make amends? Honestly now, when
he began it I don't imagine even that rascal Drake himself would have
believed a family scrap could last the better part of four centuries.
Don't you really think it's about time for you to call it off?”
And flinging her scruples to the winds, Miss Hastings suddenly decided
that it was.