BOOK I

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A DAUGHTER OF THE VINE

by

GERTRUDE ATHERTON

Author of

"Senator North," "The Californians," etc.

New York

Dodd, Mead and Company

1923

Copyright, 1899

By Dodd, Mead and Company

Printed in U. S. A.

A Daughter of the Vine

BOOK I

I

Two horses were laboriously pulling a carriage through the dense

thickets and over the sandhills which in the early Sixties still made an

ugly breach between San Francisco and its Presidio. The difficulties of

the course were not abridged by the temper of the night, which was torn

with wind and muffled in black. During the rare moments when the flying

clouds above opened raggedly to discharge a shaft of silver a broad and

dreary expanse leapt into form. Hills of sand, bare and shifting, huge

boulders, tangles of scrub oak and chaparral, were the distorted

features of the landscape between the high far-away peaks of the city

and the military posts on the water's edge. On the other side of the

bay cliffs and mountains jutted, a mere suggestion of outline. The ocean

beyond the Golden Gate roared over the bar. The wind whistled and

shrilled through the rigging of the craft on the bay; occasionally it

lifted a loose drift and whirled it about the carriage, creating a

little cyclone with two angry eyes, and wrenching loud curses from the

man on the box.

"It's an unusually bad night, Thorpe, really," said one of the two

occupants of the carriage. "Of course the winters here are more or less

stormy, but we have many fine days, I assure you; and they're better

than the summer with its fogs and trade winds--I am speaking of San

Francisco," he added hastily, with newly acquired Californian pride. "Of

course it is usually fine in the country at any time. I believe there

are sixteen different climates in California."

"As any one of them might be better than England's, it is not for me to

complain," said the other, good-naturedly. "But I feel sorry for the

horses and the man. I don't think we should have missed much if we had

cut this ball."

"Oh, I wouldn't miss it for the world. Life would be suicidal in this

God-forsaken country if it were not for the hospitality of the San

Franciscans. Some months ago two officers whose names I won't mention

met in a lonely spot on the coast near Benicia Fort, on the other side

of the bay, with the deliberate intention of shooting one another to

death. They were discovered in time, and have since been transferred

East. It is better for us on account of San Francisco--Whew! how

this confounded thing does jolt!--and the Randolph parties are always

the gayest of the season. Mr. Randolph is an Englishman with the

uncalculating hospitality of the Californian. He has made a pot of money

and entertains lavishly. Every pretty girl in San Francisco is a belle,

but Nina Randolph is the belle _par excellence_."

"Is she a great beauty?" asked Thorpe, indifferently. He was wondering

if the driver had lost his way. The wheels were zigzagging through

drifts so deep that the sand shot against the panes.

"No, I don't know that she is beautiful at all. Miss Hathaway is that,

and Mrs. McLane, and two of the 'three Macs'. But she has it all her

own way. It's charm, I suppose, and then--well, she's an only child and

will come in for a fortune--a right big one if this place grows as

people predict. She's a deuced lucky girl, is Miss Nina Randolph, and

it will be a deuced lucky fellow that gets her. Only no one does. She's

twenty-three and heart-whole."

"Are you in love with her?"

"I'm in love with her and Guadalupe Hathaway and the 'three Macs' and

Mrs. McLane. I never met so many attractive women in one place."

"Would it be Mrs. Hunt McLane--a Creole? I met her once in Paris--got to

know her very well."

"You don't say. She'll make things hum for you. There's something else I

wanted to say. I thought I'd wait and see if you discovered it yourself,

but I believe I won't. It's this: there's something queer about the

Randolphs in spite of the fact that they're more to the front than any

people in San Francisco. I never leave that house that I don't carry

away a vague impression that there's something behind the scenes I

don't know anything about. I've never spoken of it to anyone else; it

would be rather disloyal, after all the kindness they've shown me; but

I'm too curious to know how they will impress you. I've only been here

six months, and only know what everybody else knows about them--"

"Do you know, Hastings," said the Englishman abruptly, "I think

something is wrong outside. I don't believe anyone is guiding those

horses."

Hastings lowered the window beside him and thrust out his head.

"Hi, there, Tim!" he shouted. "What are you about?"

There was no reply.

"Hello!" he cried, thinking the wind might have miscarried his voice.

Again there was no reply; but the horses, gratefully construing the

final syllable to their own needs, came to a full stop.

Hastings opened the door and sprang on to the hub of the wheel,

expostulating angrily. He returned in a moment to his companion.

"Here's the devil to pay," he cried. "Tim's down against the dashboard

as drunk as a lord. There's nothing to do but put him inside and

drive, myself. I'd chuck him into a drift if I were not under certain

obligations of a similar sort. Will you come outside with me, or stay

in with him?"

"Why not go back to the Presidio?"

"We are about half-way between, and may as well go on."

"I'll go outside, by all means."

He stepped out. The two men dragged the coachman off the box and huddled

him inside.

"We're off the road," said Hastings, "but I think I can find my way.

I'll cut across to the Mission road, and then we'll be on level ground,

at least."

They mounted the box. Hastings gathered the reins and Thorpe lit a

cigar. The horses, well ordered brutes of the livery stable, did their

weary best to respond to the peremptory order to speed.

"We'll be two hours late," the young officer grumbled, as they

floundered out of the sandhills and entered the Mission Valley.

"Damn the idiot. Why couldn't he have waited till we got there?"

They were now somewhat sheltered from the wind, and as the road was

level, although rutty, made fair progress.

"I didn't mean to treat you to a nasty adventure the very night of your

arrival," continued Hastings apologetically.

"Oh, one rather looks for adventures in California. If I hadn't so much

sand in my eyes I'd be rather entertained than otherwise. I only hope

our faces are not dirty."

"They probably are. Still, if we are not held up, I suppose we can

afford to overlook the minor ills."

"Held up?"

"Stopped by road-agents, garroters, highway robbers--whatever you like

to call 'em. I've never been held up myself; as a rule I go in the

ambulance at night, but it's no uncommon experience. I've got a revolver

in my overcoat pocket--on this side. Reach over and get it, and keep it

cocked. I _couldn't_ throw up my hands. I'd feel as if the whole United

States army were disgraced."

Thorpe abstracted the pistol, but although the long lonely road was

favourable to crime, no road-agents appeared, and Hastings drove into

the outskirts of the town with audibly expressed relief.

"We're not far now," he added. "South Park is the place we're bound for;

and, by the way, Mr. Randolph projected and owns most of it."

A quarter of an hour later he drove into an oval enclosure trimmed with

tall dark houses, so sombre in appearance that to the old Californian

they must now, in their desertion and decay, seem to have been grimly

prescient of their destiny.

As the carriage drew up before a brilliantly lighted house the door

opened, and a man-servant ran down the steps.

"Keep quiet," whispered Hastings.

The man opened the door of the carriage, waited a moment, then put his

head inside. He drew it back with a violent oath.

"It's a damned insult!" he cried furiously.

"Why, Cochrane!" exclaimed Hastings, "what on earth is the matter with

you?"

"Captain Hastings!" stammered the man. "Oh I--I--beg pardon. I

thought--Oh, of course, I see. Tim had taken a drop too much. A most

deplorable habit. Can I help you down, sir?"

"No, thanks."

He sprang lightly to the sidewalk, followed with less agility by the

Englishman, who still held the cocked pistol.

"I forgot about this thing," said Thorpe. "Here--take it. I suppose we

don't enter the houses of peaceable citizens, even in California,

carrying loaded firearms?"

Cochrane led the horses into the little park which prinked the centre of

the enclosure, and the young men ascended the steps.

"I'd give a good deal to know what set him off like that," said

Hastings. "Hitherto he's been the one thoroughly impassive creature I've

met in California; has a face about as expressionless as a sentinel on

duty."

He pushed open the door and they entered a large hall lavishly decorated

with flowers and flags. Many people were dancing in a room at the right,

others were strolling about the hall or seated on the stair. These made

way rather ungraciously for the late comers, who went hurriedly up to

the dressing-room and regarded themselves in the mirror.

"We're not dirty, after all," said the Englishman in a tone of profound

relief. He was a tall thin man of thirty or less with a dark face lean

enough to show hard ungraceful lines of chin and jaw. The mouth would

have been sensual had it been less determined, the grey eyes cold had

they been less responsive to humour. Mrs. McLane had told him once that

he was the type of man for whom civilization had done most: that an

educated will and humour, combined with high breeding, had saved him

from slavery to the primal impulses. His voice was harsh in tone but

well modulated. He held himself very erectly but without

self-consciousness.

Hastings' legs were his pride, and there were those who averred that

they were the pride of the Presidio. His face was fair and round, his

eyes were as talkative as his tongue. A past master of the noble art of

flirting, no one took him more seriously than he took himself. He spoke

with the soft rich brogue of the South; to-day it is hardened by years

of command, and his legs are larger, but he is a doughty general, eager

as ever for the hot high pulse of battle.

"Come on, Dud," he said, "time is getting short."

As they walked down the stair a man who was crossing the hall looked up,

smiled charmingly, then paused, awaiting them. He was a small man of

dignified presence with a head and face nobly modelled. His skin was

faded and worn, it was cut with three or four deep lines, and his hair

was turning grey, but his black eyes were brilliant.

"Don't turn us out, Mr. Randolph," cried Hastings. "It was not

indifference that made us late; it was an ill-timed combination of

Tim and rum. This is the English friend you were kind enough to say

I could bring," he added as he reached the hall. "Did I tell you his

name?--Thorpe, Dudley Thorpe, of Hampshire. That may interest you.

You English are almost as sectional as we are."

Mr. Randolph had already grasped Thorpe's hand warmly and was bidding

him welcome. "My home was further north--Yorkshire," he said. "Come into

the parlour and meet my wife and daughter." As they pushed their way

through the crowd he "sized up" the stranger with the rapid scrutiny of

that period. "You must make yourself at home in my house," he said

abruptly. "There are few English here and I am more glad than I can

express to meet you."

"Ah--thanks!" Thorpe was somewhat taken aback, then remembered that he

was in the newest section of the new world. And he had heard of the

hospitality of the Californian.

They had entered a large room, canvassed for the evening and denuded of

all furniture except the long rows of chairs against the walls. The

musicians were resting. Men were fanning girls flushed and panting after

the arduous labours of the waltz of that day. At one end of the room

were some twenty or thirty older women.

Thorpe looked about him curiously. The women were refined and elegant,

many of them with beauty or its approximate; three or four were Spanish,

black-eyed, magnetic with coquetry and grace. The men, even the younger

men, had a certain alertness of expression, a cool watchful glance; and

they were all gentlemen. This fact impressed Thorpe at once, and as

they walked down the long room something he said betrayed his thoughts.

"Yes," said Mr. Randolph, quickly. "They are all from the upper walks of

life--men who thought there would be a better chance for them in the new

community than in even the older American ones. And they keep together

because, naturally, they are the law-abiding class and responsible for

the future of the country. That also accounts for what you find in their

faces. This sort of life develops character very quickly. There is

another element in California. You will see it--Ah! here is my wife."

A tall raw-boned woman with weak blue eyes and abundant softly piled

hair had arisen from the group of matrons and was advancing toward them.

She was handsomely dressed in black velvet, her neck covered with point

lace confined under the loose chin by a collar of diamonds.

She looked cold and listless, but spoke pleasantly to the young men.

"We are glad to welcome an Englishman," she said to Thorpe; and to

Hastings: "You are not usually so late, and I have heard a round dozen

inquiring for you."

Thorpe, as he exchanged commonplaces with her, reflected that no woman

had ever attracted him less. As he looked into the face he saw that it

was cold, evil, and would have appeared coarse but for the hair and

quiet elegance of attire. Despite her careful articulation, he detected

the broad o and a of the Yorkshire people. The woman was playing the

part of a gentlewoman and playing it fairly well. When the thin lips

moved apart in an infrequent smile they displayed sharp scattered teeth.

The jaw was aggressive. The hands in their well-adjusted gloves were

large even for her unusual height. As Thorpe remarked that he was

prepared to admire and enjoy California, one side of her upper lip

lifted in an ugly sneer.

"Probably," she replied coldly. "Most people catch it. It's like the

measles. I wish Jim Randolph liked it less."

Thorpe, for the first time, experienced a desire to meet Nina Randolph.

Hastings disengaged him. "Come," he said, "I'll introduce you to Miss

Randolph and one or two others, and then you can look out for yourself.

I want to dance. Mrs. McLane is not here. There are the 'three Macs,'"

indicating a trio surrounded by a group of men,--"Miss McDermott,

classic and cold; Miss McAllister, languid and slight; Miss McCullum,

stocky and matter-of-fact. But it will take you a week to straighten

them out. Here--look--what do you think of this?"

Thorpe directed his glance over the shoulders of a knot of men who

surrounded a tall Spanish-looking girl with large haughty blue eyes and

brown hair untidily arranged. She wore an old black silk frock with

muslin bertha. Her face interested Thorpe at once, but in a moment he

had much ado to keep from laughing outright. For she spoke never a word.

She merely _looked_; taking each eager admirer in turn, and by some

mysterious manipulation of eyelash, sweeping a different expression

into those profound obedient orbs every time. As she saw Hastings she

nodded carelessly, and, when he presented Thorpe, spoke for the first

time. She merely said "Good-evening," but her voice, Spanish, low,

sweet--accompanied by a look--made the stranger feel what a blessed

thing hospitality was.

"So that is your Miss Hathaway," he said, as Hastings once more led him

onward. "What a pity that such a beautiful girl should be so poor. But

she'll probably marry any one of these incipient millionaires she

wants."

"Poor?" cried Hastings. "Oh, her get-up. She affects to despise

dress--or does. God forbid that I should presume to understand what goes

on behind those blue masks. Her father is a wealthy and distinguished

citizen. Her mother inherited a hundred thousand acres from one of the

old grandees. What do you think of her?"

"Her methods are original and entertaining, to say the least. Does she

never--converse?"

"When she has something to say; she's a remarkable woman. That must be

Miss Randolph. Her crowd is always the densest."

As Thorpe was presented to Nina Randolph he forgot that he was a student

of heredity. He had never seen so radiant and triumphant a being. She

seemed to him, in that first moment, to symbolize the hope and joy

and individualism of the New World. Small, like her father, she was

perfectly modelled, from her round pulsing throat to the tips of her

tiny feet: ignoring the fashion, her yellow gown fitted her figure

instead of a hoop-skirt. Her black hair was coiled low on her head, but,

although unconfined in a net, did not, like Miss Hathaway's "waterfall,"

suggest having been arranged in the dark. Her black eyes, well set and

wide apart, sparkled with mirth. The head was thrown back, the chin

uplifted, the large sweet human mouth, parted, showed small even teeth.

The eyebrows were heavy, the nose straight and tilted, the complexion

ivory-white, luminous, and sufficiently coloured.

As she saw Hastings, she rose at once and motioned her group aside.

"Whatever made you so late?" she exclaimed. "And this is Mr. Thorpe? I

am so relieved that you have not been garotted, or blown into the bay.

Captain Hastings is always the first to arrive and the last to leave--I

was sure something had happened."

"You look remarkably worried," murmured Hastings.

"I cannot depress my other guests. They also have their rights." She

gave Thorpe a gracious smile. "I have saved the fifth dance from this

for you, and you are also to take me in to supper. Now I must go. _Hasta

luego!_ Captain Hastings, as it's all your fault, I shall not give you a

dance till after supper."

She spun down the room in the clasp of an army officer little taller

than herself. Thorpe's eyes followed the fluent pair darting through the

mob of dancers with the skill and energy of that time. Miss Randolph's

eyes glittered, her little feet twinkled. She looked the integer of

happy youth; and Thorpe turned away with a sigh, feeling old for the

moment under the pressure of his large experience of the great world

beyond California. He became aware that Hastings was introducing him to

several men, and a moment later was guided to the library to have a

drink. When he returned, it was time to claim Miss Randolph.

"Do you care to dance?" he asked as he plied her fan awkwardly. "I am

rather rusty. To tell the truth, it's eight years since I last danced,

and I never was very keen on it. I should say that I've been travelling

a lot, and when I'm home I go in for sport rather more than for the

social taxes."

"What a relief to find a man who doesn't dance! Let us go into the

conservatory. Have you been much in America? How is it that you and

Captain Hastings are such great friends?"

"He came over when a lad to visit some English relatives whose place

adjoins ours, and we hit it off. Since then I have visited him in

Louisiana, and we have travelled in Europe together."

"I suppose he amuses you--you are certainly unlike enough."

"Not in the least--he's the prince of good fellows. What a jolly place!"

They had passed through the library and entered the conservatory: a

small forest of palms, great ferns, and young orange-trees; brought,

Miss Randolph explained, from Southern California. Chinese lanterns

swung overhead. Rustic chairs and sofas, covered with the skins of

panthers, wild cats, and coyotes, were grouped with much discretion.

Miss Randolph threw herself into a chair and let her head drop against

the yellow skin on the back. Thorpe drew his chair close in front of

her. In a moment he discovered that her lids were inclined to droop, and

that there were lines about her mouth.

"You are tired," he said abruptly. "Shall I fetch you a glass of

champagne?"

"Oh, no; it wouldn't do me a bit of good. Hot rooms and dancing always

tire me. I'm glad when the season is over. In another month or so

we shall be going to Redwoods, our country home--about thirty miles

south of San Francisco. You must come down with us; we have good

shooting,--deer and quail in the mountains, and snipe and duck in the

marshes."

"You are very kind," he said, and his reply was as mechanical as her

invitation. He knew that all but the edge of her mind was turned from

him, and was sufficiently interested to wish to get down into her

thought. He went on gropingly: "I will confide to you that army life

bores me a good deal, and as I intend to spend six months in California,

I shall travel about somewhat." Then he added abruptly: "You are

utterly unlike an English girl."

"I am a Californian. Blood does not go for much in this climate. You'll

understand why, if you stay here long enough."

"In what way is it so unlike other places? I feel the difference, but

cannot define it."

"It's the wickedest place on earth! I suppose there are wicked people

everywhere, but California is a sort of headquarters. It seems to be a

magnet for that element in human nature. I wish I had been born and

brought up in England."

"Why?" he asked, smiling but puzzled, and recalling Hastings'

imaginings. "I never saw any one look less wicked than yourself. Are you

wicked?" he added, audaciously.

She flirted her fan at him, and her eyes danced so coquettishly that he

no longer saw the drooping lids. "_Our_ wickedness takes the form of

flirtation,--heartless and unprincipled. Ask Captain Hastings. We are

all refusing him in turn. Talk to me about England, while I study you

and determine which line to take. I haven't typed you yet--I never make

the fatal mistake of generalising."

As he answered the questions she put to him in rapid succession, his own

impressions changed several times. He was charmed by her intelligence,

occasionally by a flash of something deeper. Again, he saw only the

thrilling beauty of her figure, and once something vibrated across his

brain so fleeting that he barely realised it was an echo of the

repulsion her mother had inspired.

"Well? What are your conclusions?" she demanded suddenly.

"I--what?"

"You have been sizing me up. I want to know the result."

"You shall not," he said stubbornly. "I--I beg pardon; I have lost the

knack of polite fencing."

"I had read that Englishmen were blunt and truthful beings--either

through conscious superiority or lack of complexity, I forget which. My

father and the few others out here are almost denationalised."

"Well, I did beg pardon. And when a man is talking and receiving

impressions at the same time, the impressions are not very well

defined."

"But you think quickly and jump at conclusions. And minds of that sort

sometimes make mistakes."

"I frequently make mistakes. Among the few things I have learned is

not to judge people at sight--nor in a lifetime, for that matter. I

certainly don't pretend to size up women, particularly women like

yourself."

"That was very neat. Why myself? I am a very transparent young person."

She flirted her lashes at him, but he fancied he saw a gleam of defiance

shoot between them.

"You are not transparent. If you are kind enough to let me see a good

deal of you, I fancy I shall know something of twenty Miss Randolphs by

the time I leave California."

"Some you will like, and some you will not," she replied, with calm

disregard of her previous assertion. "Well, I shall know what you think

of me before long--don't make any mistake about that. Shall we flirt,

by the way, or shall we merely be friends?"

"The last condition would give greater range to your inherent

wickedness."

She laughed, apparently with much amusement. "I have a good many

friends, nevertheless,--real friends. I have made it my particular art,

and have rules and regulations. When they transgress, I fine them."

"Suppose we begin that way. I'd like to know the rules."

"N-o, I don't think I want to. You see, the rule I most strictly

enforce is that when the party of the other part transgresses, I never

sit with him in a conservatory again."

"Let us cut the rules by all means. I feel a poor helpless male, quite

at your mercy: I haven't been in a conservatory for years. Although I've

made a point of seeing something of the society of every capital I've

visited, I've forgotten the very formula of flirtation. I might take a

few lessons of Hastings--"

"Oh, don't! What a combination that would be! I will teach you all that

it is necessary for you to know."

"Heaven help me. I shall be wise and sad when I leave California.

However, I face my fate like a man; whatever happens, I shall not run.

Just now it is my duty to wait on you. Shall I bring your supper here?"

"Yes--do. You will find a table behind that palm. Draw it up. There. Now

bring what you like for yourself, but only a few oysters for me."

He returned in a few moments followed by a man, who spread the table

with delicate fare.

Miss Randolph nibbled her oysters prettily. Thorpe was about to fill her

glass with champagne, when she shook her head.

"I cannot," she said. "It goes to my head--one drop."

"Then don't, by all means. I hope you like it, and are resisting a

temptation."

"I detest it, as it happens. If you want to see me in the high heroic

role, which I infer you admire, you must devise a temptation of another

sort."

"I think your dear little sex should be protected from all temptation. I

rather like the Oriental way of doing things."

"Don't you flatter yourself that a wall fifteen feet high, and covered

with broken glass, would protect a woman from temptations, if she wanted

them. A man, to keep a woman inside that wall, must embody all the

temptations himself."

Thorpe looked at her, and drew his brows together.

"That was a curious remark for a girl to make," he said, coldly.

"You mean it would be if I were English. But I am not only American, but

Californian, born and brought up in a city where they are trying to be

civilised and succeeding indifferently well. Do you suppose I can help

seeing what life is? I should be next door to an idiot if I could."

"I hardly know whether you would be more interesting if you had been

brought up in England. No," he added, reflectively, after a moment, "I

don't think you would be."

"What you really think is, that I should not be half so interesting, but

much more ideal."

"If I thought anything of the sort, it was by a purely mechanical

process," he said, reddening. "I have lived out of England too much to

be insular in all my notions."

"I don't believe an Englishman ever changes on certain points, of which

woman is one; heredity is too strong. If you sat down and thought it all

over, you'd find that although you could generalise on a more liberal

scale than some of your countrymen, your own personal ideals were much

the same as theirs."

"Possibly, but as I don't intend to marry till I'm forty,--when I intend

to stand for Parliament,--I'm not bothering about ideals at present."

"That was a more insular remark than you evidently imagine.

However--speaking of ideals, I should say that California generated them

more liberally than any other country--through sheer force of contrast.

I have grown rather morbid on the subject of good people, myself. I grow

more exacting every month of my life; and the first thing I look for in

a new man's face is to see, first, whether he has a mind, and then,

whether it controls all the rest of him. I've seen too much of practical

life to have indulged much in dreams and heroes; but I've let my

imagination go somewhat, and I picture a man with all the virtues that

you don't see in combination out here, and living with him in some old

European city where there are narrow crooked streets, and beautiful

architecture, and the most exquisite music in the cathedrals."

Her voice had rattled on lightly, and she smiled more than once during

her long speech. But her eyes did not smile; they had a curious, almost

hard, intentness which forced Thorpe to believe that her brain was

casting up something more than the froth of a passing mood.

"I am afraid you won't meet your hero of all the virtues," he said,

"even in a picturesque old continental town. But I think I understand

your feeling. It is the principle of good in you demanding its proper

companionship and setting."

"Yes, that is it," she said, softly. "That is it. I am no worse than

other girls; but I flirt and waste my time abominably. It would be all

right if I did no more thinking than they do; but I do so much that, if

I were inclined to be religious, I believe I'd run, one of these days,

into a convent. However, I can always look forward to the old European

town."

"Alone?"

"I suppose when your left eyebrow goes up like that you're trying to

flirt. I don't know that I'd mind being alone, particularly. It would

be several thousand times better than the society of some of the

people I've been forced to associate with. I love art,--particularly

architecture and music,--and I'm sure I could weave a romance round

myself. Yes, I'm sure I should love it as much as I hate this country,"

she added with such vehemence that Thorpe set down his fork abruptly.

"You are very pale," he said; "I think you had better take a little

champagne. Indeed, you must be utterly worn out. I can imagine what a

lot you have had to do and think of to-day."

He filled her glass, and she drank the champagne quickly.

"I have a shocking head," she said; "but I _need_ this. I have been out

eight nights in succession, and have been on the go all day besides.

Mother never attends to anything; and father, of course, is too busy to

bother with parties. Cochrane and I have to do everything."

"Tell me some more of your ideals," said Thorpe. He was not sure that he

liked her, but she piqued his curiosity.

"Ideals? Who ever had an ideal after a glass of champagne--except to be

in the wildest spirits for the rest of one's life? There will be no

champagne in Bruges--that's the city I've settled on; but I can't even

think of Bruges. Champagne suggests Paris, and they tell me Paris is

even more wicked than San Francisco. Is it?"

Her eyes were sparkling with merriment; but although she refilled her

glass, there was no suggestion as yet of the bacchante about her. The

colour had come back to her face, and she looked very charming.

Nevertheless Thorpe frowned and shook his head.

"I should prefer to talk about Bruges," he said. "I've been there, and

can tell you all you'd like to know. When I go back, I'll send you some

photographs."

"Thanks--but I have a whole portfolio full. I want to hear about Paris.

I'm afraid you're a bit of a prig."

"No man could be less of a prig. I hope you are above the silly idea

that, because we English have a slightly higher standard than other

nations, it follows that we are prigs. You were entirely delightful a

few moments ago; but I don't like to see a woman drink when it affects

her as it does you."

The colour flew from her cheeks to her hair, and her eyes flashed

angrily. "You _are_ a prig, and you are extremely impertinent," she

said.

Thorpe sprang to his feet, plunging his hands into his pockets.

"Oh--don't--don't--" he exclaimed. "I'm afraid I was rude. I assure you,

I did not intend to criticise you. Please say you forgive me."

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "You look so really penitent,"

she said gaily. "Sit down and fill my glass, and drink to

our--friendship."

He was about to remonstrate; but reflecting that it would be a bore to

apologise twice in succession, and also that what she did was none of

his affair, he filled her glass. She touched it to his, and threw

herself back against the skins, sipping the wine slowly and chattering

nonsense. He refilled her glass absently the fourth time; but when she

pushed it across the table again, he said, with some decision:

"Be careful. This champagne is very heady. I feel it myself."

She drained the glass. For a moment they stared hard at each other in

silence, Thorpe wondering at the sudden maturity in the face before him.

All the triumphant young womanhood had gone out of it; the diabolical

spirit of some ancestor entombed in the depths of her brain might have

possessed her for the moment, smothering her own groping soul. The

distant music filled the conservatory with a low humming sound, such as

one hears in a tropical forest at noon. Suddenly Thorpe realised that

the evil which is in all human souls was having its moment of absolute

liberty, and that the two dissevered particles, his and hers, recognised

each other. He had knocked his senseless many times in his life, but he

felt no inclination to do so to-night; for so much more than what little

was evil in this girl attracted and magnetised him. His brain was not

clear, and it was reckless with its abrupt possession by the idea that

this woman was his mate, and that, for good or for evil, there was no

escaping her. He sprang to his feet, pushed the table violently aside,

took her in his arms and kissed her. For a moment she was quiescent;

then she slipped from his embrace and ran down the conservatory,

thrusting the ferns aside. One fell, its jar crashing on the stone

floor. He saw no more of her that night.

II

Two days later Thorpe was strolling up and down the beach before the

Presidio. The plaza was deserted; here and there, on the verandahs of

the low adobe houses surrounding it, officers lay at full length in

hammocks, smoking or reading, occasionally flirting with some one in

white.

Every trace of the storm had fled. The warmth and fragrance and

restlessness of spring were in the air. The bay, as calm as a mountain

lake, reflected a deep blue sky with no wandering white to give it

motion. Outside the Golden Gate, the spray leaped high, and the ocean

gave forth its patient roar. The white sails on the bay hung limply.

Opposite was a line of steep cliffs, bare and green; beyond was a

stupendous peak, dense and dark with redwoods. Farther down, facing the

young city, hills jutted, romantic with sweeping willows. Between was

the solitary rock, Alcatraz, with its ugly fort of many eyes. Far to the

east was a line of pink mountains dabbled with blue, tiny villages

clinging to their knees.

Thorpe's keen eye took in every detail. It pleased him more than

anything he had seen for some time. After a long rainy day in quarters,

trying to talk nonsense to the Presidio women in their cramped parlours,

and giving his opinion of California some thirty times, he felt that he

could hail the prospect of a week of fresh air and solitude with the

enthusiasm of a schoolboy. He kept the tail of his eye on the square,

ready to hasten his steps and disappear round the sand dunes, did any

one threaten to intrude upon his musings.

He saw a man ride into the plaza, dismount at the barracks, and a moment

later head for the beach. Thorpe's first impulse was to flee. But he

stopped short; he had recognised Mr. Randolph's butler.

The man touched his hat as he approached.

"A note from Miss Randolph, sir."

Thorpe opened the note. It read:

MY DEAR MR. THORPE,--I should like to see you this afternoon, if

you are disengaged. If not, at your earliest convenience. I hope

you will understand that this is not an idle request, but that I

particularly wish to see you.

Sincerely,

NINA RANDOLPH.

"Tell Miss Randolph that I will call at three," said Thorpe, promptly.

He had no wish to avoid the interview; he was quite willing that she

should turn the scorpions of her wrath upon him. He deserved it. He did

not pretend to understand Nina Randolph, deeply as he had puzzled over

her since their memorable interview; but that he had helped her to

violate her own self-respect, there could be little doubt, and he longed

to give her what satisfaction he could. He had lived his inner life very

fully, and knew all that the sacrifice of an ideal meant to the higher

parts of the mind. Whether Miss Randolph had ever kissed a man before

or not, he would not pretend to guess; but he would have been willing to

swear that she had never kissed another in the same circumstances; and

he burned to think that he had been the man to cast her at the foot of

her girlish pedestal. Whatever possibilities for evil there might be in

her, instinct prompted him to believe that they were undeveloped. Her

strong sudden magnetism for him had passed with her presence, and,

looking back, he attributed it entirely to the momentary passion of

which he was ashamed; but he felt something of the curious tie which

binds thinking people who have helped each other a step down the moral

ladder.

After luncheon, he informed Hastings that he was going to the city, and

asked for a horse.

"I'll go with you--"

"I don't want you," said Thorpe, bluntly. "I have a particular reason

for wishing to go alone."

"Oh, very well," said Hastings, amiably. "The savage loves his solitude,

I know."

The road between the army posts and San Francisco was well beaten.

Thorpe could not have lost his way, even if the horse had not known

every inch of it.

He reached the city within an hour. It was less picturesque by day than

by night. The board sidewalks were broken and uneven, the streets muddy.

The tall frame buildings of the business section looked as if they had

been pieced together in intervals between gambling and lynching.

Dwelling-houses with gardens about them were scattered on the heights.

Two miles south of the swarming, hurrying, swearing brain of the city

was the aristocratic quarter,--South Park and Rincon Hill. The square

wooden houses, painted a dark brown, had a solid and substantial air,

and looked as if they might endure through several generations.

The man, Cochrane, admitted Thorpe, and conducted him to the library.

The room was unoccupied, and, as the door closed behind the butler,

Thorpe for the first time experienced a flutter. He was about to have a

serious interview with a girl of whose type he knew nothing. Would she

expect him to apologise? He had always held that the man who kissed and

apologised was an ass. But he had done Miss Randolph something more than

a minor wrong.

He shrugged his shoulders and took his stand before the fireplace. She

had sent for him; let her take the initiative. He knew woman well enough

to follow her cues, be the type new or old. Then he looked about him

with approval. One would know it was an Englishman's library, he

thought. Book-shelves, closely furnished, lined two sides of the large

and lofty room. One end opened into the conservatory--where palms did

shelter and the lights were dim. The rugs and curtains were red, the

furniture very comfortable. On a long table were the periodicals of the

world.

Miss Randolph kept him waiting but a few moments. She opened the door

abruptly and entered. Her face was pale, and her eyes were shadowed; but

she held her head very high. Her carriage and her long dark gown made

her appear almost tall. As she advanced down the room, she looked at

Thorpe steadily, without access of colour, her lips pressed together.

He met her half way. His first impression was that her figure was the

most beautiful he had ever seen, his next the keenest impulse of pity he

had felt for any woman.

She extended her hand mechanically, and he took it and held it.

"Is it true that I kissed you the other night?" she asked, peremptorily.

"Yes," he said, ungracefully.

"And I had drunk too much champagne?"

"It was my fault," he said, eagerly. "You told me that you had a bad

head. I had no business to press it on you."

"You must think I am a poor weak creature indeed, if my friends are

obliged to take care of me," she said drily. "I was a fool to touch

it--that is the long and the short of it. I have given you a charming

impression of the girls of San Francisco--sit down: we look idiotic

standing in the middle of the room holding each other's hand--I can

assure you that there was not another girl in the house who would have

done what I did, or whom you would have dared to kiss. In a new country,

you know, the social lines are drawn very tight, and the best people

are particular to prudery. It is necessary: there are so many dreadful

women out here. I am positive that in the set to which Captain Hastings

has introduced you, you will meet a larger number of well-conducted

people than you have ever met in any one place before."

"It is very good of you to put on armour for your city," he said,

smiling. "I shall always think of it as your city, by the way. But I

thought you did not like California."

"It is my country. I feel great pride in it. You will find that it

is a country with a peculiar influence. Some few natures it leaves

untouched--but they are precious few. In the others, it quickens all

the good and evil they were born with."

Thorpe looked at her with a profound interest. He was eager to hear all

that she had to say.

"I have never before had occasion to speak like this to any man," she

went on. "If I had had, I should not have done so. I should have carried

it off with a high hand, ignored it, assumed that I was above criticism.

I only speak to you so frankly because you are an Englishman. People of

the same blood are clannish when away from their own land. I say this

without coquetry: I care more for your good opinion than for that of any

of the others--I am so tired of them!"

"Thank you--even if you did rather spoil it. You have it, if it really

matters to you. Surely, you don't think I misunderstand. I insist upon

assuming all the blame--and--upon apologising."

"Well, I am glad you apologised. Although you were not the most to

blame, just for the moment it made me feel that you were. I have already

forgiven you." She dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked at him

again with her square, almost defiant regard. "There is something I have

been trying to lead up to. It is this--it is not very easy to say--I

want you to make a promise. There is a skeleton in this house. Some

people know. I don't want you to ask them about it. My father will ask

you here constantly. I shall want you to come, too. I ask you to promise

to keep your eyes shut. Will you?"

"I shall see nothing. Thanks, thanks." He got up and moved nervously

about. "We will be friends, the best of friends, promise me that. No

flirtation. No nonsense. There may be something I can do to help you

while I am here. I hope there will be."

"There will not, but I like you better for saying that--I know you are

not demonstrative." She threw herself back in her chair and smiled

charmingly. "As to the other part--yes, we shall be the best of friends.

It was hard to speak, but I am glad that I did. I knew it was either

that or a nodding acquaintance, and I had made up my mind that it should

be something quite different. When we are alone and serious, we will

not flirt; but I have moods, irrepressible ones. If, when we meet in

society, I happen to be in a highly flirtatious humour, you are to flirt

with me. Do you understand?"

"Certainly, certainly, I agree--to keep you from flirting with other

men."

"Now fetch that portfolio over there,--it has Bruges in it,--and tell me

something about every stone."

They talked for two hours, and of much beside Bruges. Haphazardly as she

had been educated in this new land, her natural intelligence had found

nutrition in her father's mind and library. Thorpe noted that when

talking on subjects which appealed to the intellect alone, her face

changed strikingly: the heavy lids lifted, the eyes sparkled coldly, the

mouth lost its full curves. Even her voice, so warm and soft, became,

more than once, harsh and sharp.

"There are several women in her," he thought. "She certainly is very

interesting. I should like to meet her again ten years hence."

He did.

"Why don't you travel?" he asked. "It would mean so much more to you

than to most women. Even if Mr. Randolph cannot leave this fair young

city he is building up, and your mother won't leave him, you could go

with some one else--"

"I never expect to leave California," she said shortly. Then, as she met

his look of surprise, she added: "I told you a fib when I said that I

did not dream, or only a little. I get out of my own life for hours at

a time by imagining myself in Europe, cultivating my mind, my taste for

art, to their utmost limit, living a sort of impersonal life--Of course

there are times when I imagine myself with some one who would care for

it all as much as I, and know more--and all that. But I try to keep to

the other. I have suffered enough to know that in the impersonal life is

the surest content. And as for the other--it could not be, even if I

ever met such a man. But dreams help one enormously, and I am the richer

for all I have indulged in."

Thorpe stood up again. Under a rather impassive exterior, he was a

restless man, and his acquaintance with Nina Randolph had tried his

nerves.

"I wish you had not given me half confidences, or that you would refrain

from rousing my curiosity--my interest, as you do. It is hardly fair. I

don't wish to know what the family skeleton is, but I do want to know

_you_ better. If you want the truth, I have never been so _intrigue_ by

a woman in my life. And I have never so wanted to help one. I have been

so drawn to you that I have had a sense of having done you a personal

wrong ever since the other night. A man does not usually feel that way

when he kisses a girl. I see it is no use to ask your confidence now;

but, mind, I don't say I sha'n't demand it later on."

At this moment the butler entered with the lamps. He was followed

immediately by Mr. Randolph, who exclaimed delightedly:

"Is it really you, Mr. Thorpe? I have just sent you a note asking you to

dine with us on Sunday. And you'll stay to dinner to-night--no, I won't

listen to any excuses. If you knew what a pleasure it is to meet an

Englishman once more!"

"Hastings will think I am lost--"

"I'll send him a note, and ask him to come in for the evening, and I'll

get in a dozen of our neighbours. We'll have some music and fun."

"Very well--I am rather keen on staying, to tell you the truth. Many

thanks."

"Sit down. You must see something of sport here. It is very interesting

in this wild country."

"I should like it above all things." Thorpe sat forward eagerly,

forgetting Miss Randolph. "What have you that's new? I've killed pretty

nearly everything."

"We will have an elk hunt."

"I want to go, too," said Nina, authoritatively.

Thorpe turned, and smiled, as he saw the hasty retreat of an angry

sparkle.

"I am afraid you would be a disturbing influence," he said gallantly.

"I shouldn't disturb you," she said, with the pertness of a spoilt

child. "I am a good shot myself. I can go--can't I, papa?"

Mr. Randolph smiled indulgently. "You can do anything you like, my

darling," he said. "I wonder you condescend to ask."

Nina ran over and kissed him, then propped her chin on top of his head

and looked defiantly at Thorpe.

"If you don't take me," she remarked, drily, "there will be no hunt."

"On the whole, I think my mind would concentrate better if you were not

absent," he said.

She blew him a kiss. "You _are_ improving. _Hasta luego!_ I must go and

smooth my feathers." And she ran out of the room.

The two men talked of the threatened civil upheaval in the United States

until dinner was announced, a half hour later.

Mrs. Randolph did not appear until the soup had been removed. She

entered the dining-room hurriedly, muttering an apology. Her toilette

had evidently been made in haste: her brooch was awry; and her hair,

banded down the face after the fashion of the time, hung an inch below

one ear and exposed the lobe of the other, dealing detrimentally with

her dignity, despite her fine physique.

She took no part in the conversation for some time. It was very lively.

Mr. Randolph was full of anecdote and information, and enjoyed

scintillating. He frequently referred to Nina, as if proud of her

cleverness and anxious to exhibit it; but the guest noticed that he

never addressed a word--nor a glance--to his wife.

Suddenly Thorpe's eyes rested on a small dark painting in oils, the head

of an old man.

"That is rather good," he said, "and a very interesting face."

"You have probably never heard of the artist, unless you have read the

life of his sister. I was so fond of the man that I resent his rescue

from oblivion by the fame of a woman. His name was Branwell Bronte, and

that is a portrait of my grandfather."

"If Branwell 'ad a-conducted hisself," said a heavy voice opposite,

"'ee'd a-been the wonder of the family. Mony a time a 've seen 'im coom

into tha Lord Rodney Inn, 'is sharp little face as red as tha scoollery

maid's 'ands, and rockin' from one side of tha 'all to tha hother, and

sit doon at tha table, and make a carica_chure_ of ivvery mon thot coom

in. And once when 'ee was station-master at Luddondon Foote a 've 'eard

as 'ow a mon coom runnin' oop just as tha train went oot, and said as

'ow 'ee was horful anxious to know if a certain mon went hoff. 'Ee tried

describin' 'im, and couldn't, so Branwell drew pictures of all the

persons as 'ad left, and 'ee recog_nised_ the one as 'ee wanted."

There was a moment's silence, so painful that Thorpe felt his nerves

jumping and the colour rising to his face. He recalled his promise, and

looked meditatively at the strange concoction which had been placed

before him as Mrs. Randolph finished. But his thought was arbitrary. An

ignorant woman of the people, possibly an ex-servant, who could only

play the gentlewoman through a half-dozen rehearsed sentences, and

forget the role completely at times! He had not expected to find the

skeleton so soon.

"That is _carne con agi_, a Chile dish," said Mr. Randolph, suavely.

"I'm very fond of Spanish cooking, myself, and you had better begin your

education in it at once: you will get a good deal out here."

"I am jolly glad to hear it. I'm rather keen on new dishes." He glanced

up. Mr. Randolph was yellow. The lines in his face had deepened. Thorpe

dared not look at Nina.

III

Some eight or ten people, including Hastings, came in after dinner.

Mrs. Randolph had gone upstairs from the dining-room, and did not

appear again. Her dampening influence removed, Mr. Randolph and Nina

recovered their high light spirits; and there was much music and more

conversation. Miss Randolph had a soprano voice of piercing sweetness,

which flirted effectively with Captain Hastings' tenor. Thorpe thought

Hastings an ass for rolling his eyes out of his head, and finally turned

his back on the piano to meet the large amused glance of Miss Hathaway.

He sat down beside her, and, being undisturbed for ten minutes, found

her willing to converse, or rather to express a number of decided

opinions. She told him whom he was to know, what parts of California he

was to visit, how long he was to stay, and after what interval he was to

return. Thorpe listened with much entertainment, for her voice was not

tuned to friendly advice, but to command. Her great eyes were as cold as

icicles under a blue light; but there was a certain cordiality in their

invitation to flirt. Thorpe did not respond. If he had known her first,

he reflected, he should doubtless have made an attempt to dispossess

her court; but the warm magnetic influence of Nina Randolph held him,

strengthened by her demand upon his sympathy. Still he felt that Miss

Hathaway was a person to like, and remained at her side until he was

dismissed in favour of Hastings; when he talked for a time to the

intellectual Miss McDermott, the sweet and slangy Miss McAllister, who

looked like an angel and talked like a gamin, to Don Roberto Yorba, a

handsome and exquisitely attired little grandee who was trying to look

as much like an American as his friend Hiram Polk, with his lantern jaws

and angular figure. It was the first city Thorpe had visited where there

was no type: everybody suggested being the father or mother of one, and

was of an individuality so pronounced that the stranger marvelled they

were not all at one another's throats. But he had never seen people more

amiable and fraternal.

He did not see Nina alone again until a few moments before he left. He

drew her out into the hall while Hastings was saying good-night to Mr.

Randolph.

"May I come often?" he asked.

"_Will_ you?"

"I certainly shall."

"Will you talk to me about things that men scarcely ever talk to girls

about,--books and art--and--what one thinks about more than what one

does."

"I'll talk about anything under heaven that you want to talk

about--particularly yourself."

"I don't want to talk about myself."

Her face was sparkling with coquetry, but it flushed under the intensity

of his gaze. His brown skin was paler than when he had entered the

house, his hard features were softened by the shaded lamp of the hall,

and his grey eyes had kindled as he took her hand. She looked very

lovely in a white gown touched up with red velvet bows.

"I believe you'll be a tremendous flirt by the time you leave here," she

said, trying to draw her hand away. "And don't tell me this is your

first experience in eight years."

"I've known a good many women," he said, bluntly. "At present I am only

following your cues--and there are a bewildering lot of them. When you

are serious, I shall be serious. When you are not--I shall endeavour to

be frivolous. To be honest, however, I have no intention of flirting

with you, fascinating and provocative as you are. I'd like awfully to be

your intimate friend, but nothing more. Good-night."

IV

South Park in the Fifties and Sixties was the gayest quarter of

respectable San Francisco, with not a hint of the gloom which now

presses about it like a pall. The two concave rows of houses were the

proudest achievements of Western masonry, and had a somewhat haughty

air, as if conscious of the importance they sheltered. The inner park

was green and flowered; the flag of the United States floated proudly

above. The whole precinct had that atmosphere of happy informality

peculiar to the brief honeymoon of a great city. People ran, hatless,

in and out of each other's houses, and sat on the doorsteps when the

weather was fine. The present aristocracy of San Francisco, the landed

gentry of California whose coat-of-arms should be a cocktail, a side of

mutton, or a dishonest contract, would give not a few of their dollars

for personal memories of that crumbling enclosure at the foot of the

hill: memories that would be welcome even with the skeleton which,

rambling through these defaced abandoned houses, they might expect to

see grinning in dark spidery corners or in rat-claimed cupboards. Poor

old houses! They have kept silent and faithful guard over the dark tales

and tragic secrets of their youth; curiosity has been forced to satisfy

itself with little more than vague and ugly rumour. The memories that

throng them tell little to any but the dead.

There lived, in those days, the Randolphs, the Hathaways, the Dom Pedro

Earles, the Hunt McLanes, the three families to which the famous "Macs"

belonged, and others that have no place in this story. Before his second

week in California was finished, Thorpe knew them all, and was petted

and made much of; for San Francisco, then as now, dearly loved the

aristocratic stranger. He rode into the city every day, either alone or

with Hastings, and rarely returned without spending several moments or

hours with Nina Randolph. Sometimes she was alone, sometimes companioned

by her intimate friend, Molly Shropshire,--a large masculine girl of

combative temper and imbued with disapproval of man. She made no

exception in favour of Thorpe, and when he did not find her in the way,

he rather enjoyed quarrelling with her. Mrs. Randolph made no more

abrupt incursions into the table talk and spent most of her time in her

room. Occasionally Thorpe met in the hall a coarse-looking woman whom he

knew to be a Mrs. Reinhardt and the favoured friend of Mrs. Randolph.

Mr. Randolph was often in brilliant spirits; at other times he looked

harassed and sad; but he always made Thorpe feel the welcome guest.

Thorpe, during the first fortnight of their acquaintance, snubbed his

maiden attempt to understand Nina Randolph; it was so evident that she

did not wish to be understood that he could but respect her reserve.

Besides, she was the most charming woman in the place, and that was

enough to satisfy any visitor. Just after that he began to see her alone

every day; Miss Shropshire had retired to the obscurity of her chamber

with a cold, and socialities rarely began before night. They took long

walks together in the wild environs of the city, once or twice as far as

the sea. Both had a high fine taste in literature, and she was eager for

the books of travel he had lived. He sounded her, to discover if she

had ambition, for she was an imperious little queen in society; but she

convinced him that, when alone or with him, she rose high above the

petty strata of life. With a talent, she could have been one of the most

rapt and impersonal slaves of Art the world had ever known; and, as it

was, her perception for beauty was extraordinary. Thorpe wished that she

could carry out her imaginings and live a life of study in Europe; it

seemed a great pity that she should marry and settle down into a mere

leader of society.

Toward the end of the second fortnight, he began to wonder whether he

should care to marry her, were he ready for domesticity, and were there

no disquieting mystery about her. He concluded that he should not, as he

should doubtless be insanely in love with her if he loved her at all,

and she was too various of mood for a man's peace of mind. But in the

wake of these reflections came the impulse to analyse her, and he made

no further attempt to snub it.

He went one evening to the house of Mrs. Hunt McLane, a beautiful young

Creole who held the reins of the infant city's society in her small

determined hands. Born into the aristocracy of Louisiana, she had grown

up in the salon. Her husband had arrived in San Francisco at the period

when a class of rowdies known as "The Hounds" were terrorising the city,

and, when they were finally arrested and brought to trial, conducted the

prosecution. The brilliant legal talent he displayed, the tremendous

personal force which carried every jury he addressed, established

his position at the head of the bar at once. His wife, with her wide

knowledge of the world, her tact, magnetism, and ambition, found no one

to dispute her social leadership.

As Thorpe entered, she was standing at the head of the long parlour; and

with her high-piled hair, _poudre_, her gown of dark-red velvet, and her

haughty carriage, she looked as if she had just stepped from an old

French canvas.

She smiled brilliantly as Thorpe approached her, and he was made to feel

himself the guest of the evening,--a sensation he shared with every one

in the room.

"I have not seen you for three days and seven hours," she said. "How

are all your flirtations getting on?"

"All my what?"

"Dominga Earle is making frantic eyes at you," indicating, with a rapid

motion of her pupils, a tall slender Mexican who undulated like a snake

and whose large black fan and eyes were never idle. "'Lupie Hathaway is

looking coldly expectant; and Nina Randolph, who was wholly animated a

moment ago, is now quite listless. Not that you are to feel particularly

flattered; you are merely something new. Turn over the pages,--Dominga

is going to sing,--and I am convinced that she will surpass herself."

Mrs. Earle was swaying on the piano stool. Her black eyes flashed a

welcome to Thorpe, as he moved obediently to her side. Then she threw

back her head, raised her eyebrows, dilated her nostrils, and in a

ringing contralto sang a Spanish love-song. Thorpe could not understand

a word of it, but inferred that it was passionate from the accompaniment

of glance which played between himself and a tall blonde man leaning

over the piano.

When the song and its encore finished, she was immediately surrounded,

and Thorpe slipped away. Miss Randolph was barricaded. He went over to

Miss Hathaway, who sat between Hastings and another officer, _looking_

impartially at each. They were dismissed in a manner which made them

feel the honour of her caprice.

"That was good of you," said Thorpe, sinking into a chair opposite her.

"It is rarely that one can get a word with you, merely a glance over

three feet of shoulder."

Miss Hathaway made no reply. It was one of her idiosyncrasies never to

take the slightest notice of a compliment. She was looking very

handsome, although her attire, as ever, suggested a cold disregard of

the looking-glass. Thorpe, who was beginning to understand her, did not

feel snubbed, but fell to wondering what sort of a time Hastings would

have of it when he proposed.

She regarded him meditatively for a moment, then remarked; "You are

absent-minded to-night, and that makes you look rather stupid."

Again Thorpe was not disconcerted. Speeches of this sort from Miss

Hathaway were to be hailed as signs of favour. If she did not like a

man, she did not talk to him at all. He might sit opposite her

throughout the night, and she would not part her lips.

"I am stupid," he replied. "I have been all day."

"What is the matter?" Her voice did not soften as another woman's might

have done, but it betrayed interest. "Are you puzzling?"

He coloured, nettled at her insight; but he answered, coldly:--

"Yes; I am puzzling."

"Do not," said Miss Hathaway, significantly. "Puzzle about any one else

in California, but not about Nina Randolph."

"What is this mystery?" he exclaimed impatiently, then added hastily,

"oh, bother! I am too much of a wanderer to puzzle over any one."

Miss Hathaway fixed her large cold blue regard upon him. "Do you love

Nina Randolph?" she asked.

"I am afraid I love all women too much to trust to my own selection of

one."

"Now you are stupid. Go and talk to Nina." She turned her back upon him,

and smiled indulgently to a new-comer.

He crossed the room; a group of men parted with indifferent grace, and

he leaned over Nina's chair.

She was looking gay and free of care, and her eyes flashed a frank

welcome to Thorpe. "I thought you were not coming to talk to me," she

said, with a little pout.

"Duty first," he murmured. "Come over into the little reception-room and

talk to me."

"What am I to do with all these men?"

"Nothing."

"You are very exacting--for a friend."

"If you are a good friend, you will come. I am tired and bored."

She rose, shook out her pretty pink skirts, nodded to her admirers, and

walked off with Thorpe.

He laughed. "Perhaps they will console themselves with the reflection

that as they have spoiled you, they should stand the consequences."

They took possession of a little sofa in the reception-room. Another

couple was in the window curve, and yet another opposite.

"We have not had our hunt," said Nina; "the country has been a mud-hole.

But we are to have it on Monday, if all goes well."

"Who else is to be of the party?"

"Molly, Guadalupe, and Captain Hastings. Don't speak of it to any one

else. I don't want a crowd."

She lay back, her skirts sweeping his feet. A pink ribbon was twisted in

her hair. The colour in her cheeks was pink. The pose of her head, as

she absently regarded the stupid frescoes on the ceiling, strained her

beautiful throat, making it look as hard as ivory, accentuating the

softer loveliness of the neck. Thorpe looked at her steadily. He rarely

touched her hand.

"I have something else in store for you," she said, after a moment.

"Just beyond the army posts are great beds of wild strawberries. It was

a custom in the Spanish days to get up large parties every spring and

camp there, gather strawberries, wander on the beach and over the hills,

and picnic generally. We have kept it up; and if this weather lasts, if

spring is really here, a crowd of us are going in a couple of weeks--you

included. You have no idea what fun it is!"

"I shall not try to imagine it." He spoke absently. He was staring at a

curling lock that had strayed over her temple. He wanted to blow it.

"I am tired," she said. "Talk to me. I have been gabbling for an hour."

"I'm not in the mood for talking," he said, shortly. "But keep quiet, if

you want to. I suppose we know each other well enough for that."

The other people left the room. Nina arranged herself more comfortably,

and closed her eyes. Her mouth relaxed slightly, and Thorpe saw the

lines about it. She looked older when the animation was out of her face,

but none the less attractive. His eyes fell on her neck. He moved

closer. She opened her eyes, and he raised his. The colour left her

face, and she rose.

"Take me to papa," she said; "I am going home."

V

The party for the elk-hunt assembled at Mr. Randolph's door at four

o'clock on Monday morning. Miss Hathaway's large Spanish eyes were heavy

with the languor of her race. Miss Shropshire looked cross. Even the men

were not wholly animate. Nina alone was as widely awake as the

retreating stars. She rode ahead with Thorpe.

They made for the open country beyond the city. What is now a large and

populous suburb, was then a succession of sand dunes, in whose valleys

were thickets of scrub oak, chaparral, and willows. A large flat lying

between Rincon Hill and Mission Bay was the favourite resort of elk,

deer, antelope, and the less aristocratic coyote and wild cat. It was to

this flat that Mr. Randolph's party took their way, accompanied by

vaqueros leading horses upon which to bring back the spoils of the

morning.

The hour was grey and cold. The landscape looked inexpressibly bleak. A

blustering wind travelled between the sea and the bay. From the crests

of the hills they had an occasional glimpse of water and of the

delapidated Mission, solitary on its cheerless plain. In the little

valleys, the thickets were so dense they were obliged to bend their

heads. The morning was intensely still, but for the soft pounding of the

horses' hoofs on the yielding earth, the long despairing cry of the

coyote, the sudden flight of a startled wild cat.

"We are all so modern, we seem out of place in this wilderness," said

Thorpe. "I can hardly accept the prophecy of your father and other

prominent men here, that San Francisco will one day be the great

financial and commercial centre of Western America. It seems to me as

hopeless as making cake out of bran."

"Just you wait," said Nina, tossing her head. "It will come in our time,

in my father's time. You haven't got the feel of the place yet, haven't

got it into your bones. And you don't know what we Californians can do,

when we put our minds to it."

"I hope I shall see it," he replied, smiling; "I hope to see California

at many stages of her growth. I am a nomad, you know, and I shall make

it the objective point of my travels hereafter. The changes--I don't

doubt if they come at all they will ride the lightning--will interest me

deeply. May there be none in you," he added, gallantly. "I cannot

imagine any."

Her eyes drooped, and her underlids pressed upward,--a repellant trick

that had made Thorpe uncomfortable more than once. "That is where you

will find the changes upon which the city will not pride itself," she

said. "Fortunately, there won't be many of them."

"You are unfair," he said, angrily. "You told me to ask you no

questions, and this is not the first time you have deliberately pricked

my curiosity--that is not the word, either. The first night I dined at

your house--" he stopped, biting his lip. He had said more than he

intended.

"I know. You thought you had discovered the secret--I know exactly what

you thought. But you have come to the conclusion since that there is

more behind. Well, you are right."

"What is your secret? I have had opportunities to discover. I hope I

need not tell you that I have shut my ears; but I wish you would tell

me. I don't like mystery. It is sensational and old-fashioned. Between

such friends as ourselves, it is entirely without excuse. It is more

than possible that, girl-like, you have exaggerated its importance, and

you are in danger of becoming morbid. But, whether it is real or

imaginary, let me help you. Every woman needs a man's help, and you can

have all of mine that you want. Only don't keep prodding my imagination,

and telling me not to think. I am close upon thinking of nothing else."

"Well, just fancy that that is my way of making myself interesting;

that I cannot help flirting a little, even with friends." She laughed

lightly; but her face, which was not always under her control, had

changed: it looked dull and heavy.

"That is pure nonsense," he said, shortly. "Do you suppose you make

yourself more interesting by hinting that your city will one day be

ashamed of you?"

"Ah, perhaps _that_ was an exaggeration."

"I should hope so."

"I meant one's city need not know everything."

"You are unpleasantly perverse this morning. I choose to take what you

said as an exaggeration; but there is something behind, and I feel

strongly impelled to say that if you don't tell me I shall leave."

"If I did, you would take the next steamer."

"I am the one to decide that. At least give me the opportunity to reduce

your mountain to a mole-hill."

"Even you could not. And look--I see no reason why friends should wish

to get at one another's inner life. The companionship of friends is

mental only. I have given you my mind freely. You have no right to ask

for my soul. You are not my lover, and you don't wish to be, although I

don't doubt that at times you imagine you do."

"I am free to confess that I have imagined it more than once. I will

set the example by being perfectly frank with you. If I could understand

you, if I were not tormented by all sorts of dreadful possibilities,

I should have let myself go long before this. Does that sound

cold-blooded? I can only say in explanation that I was born with a good

deal of self-control, and that I have strengthened my will by exercise.

It would be either one extreme or the other with me. At first I thought

I should not want to marry you in any case. I am now sufficiently in

love with you to long to be wholly so."

Nina stole a glance at him with a woman's uncontrollable curiosity, even

in great moments. But he had turned his head from her, and was hitting

savagely at his boot.

"I will be frank to this extent, by way of return: The barrier between

us is insurmountable, and you would be the first to admit it. I will

tell you the whole truth the day before you leave; that must content

you. And, meanwhile, nip in the bud what is merely a compound of

sympathy and passion. I know the influence I exert perfectly. I have

seen more than one man go off his head. It humiliates me beyond

expression."

"It need not--although it is extremely distasteful to me that you should

have seen men go off their heads, as you express it. But passion is the

mightiest factor in love; there is no love without it, and it is bound

to predominate until it is satisfied. Then the affections claim their

part; and a dozen other factors, mental companionship for one, enter in.

But, for Heaven's sake, don't add to your morbidity by despising

yourself because you inspire passion in men. The women who do not are

not worth considering."

"Is that true? Well, I am glad you have suggested another way of looking

at it. I don't think I am morbid. At all events no one in this world

ever made a harder fight not to be."

They were riding through a thicket, and he turned and brought his face

so close to hers that she had only a flashing glimpse of its pallor and

of the flame in his eyes.

"It is your constant fight that wrings my heart," he said. "Whatever it

is against, I will make it with you, if you will let me. I am strong

enough for both. And who am I that I should judge you? I have not lived

the life of a saint. We all have our ideals. Mine has been never to give

way except when I chose, never to let my senses control my mind for an

instant. I believe, therefore, that I am strong enough to help and

protect you against everything. And, whatever it is, you shall never be

judged by me."

They left the thicket at the moment, and she pushed her horse aside,

that she might no longer feel Thorpe's touch, his breath on her neck.

"You are the most generous of men," she said; "and you can have the

satisfaction of knowing that you have made me think better of myself and

of human nature than I have ever thought before. But I cannot marry you.

Not only is the barrier insurmountable, but I don't love you. Here we

are."

VI

Thorpe at this time spent few hours in his own company. There was

abundant distraction: either a social entertainment every day or

evening, or a lark in the city. The wild life about the plaza, the

gambling houses, the saloons, the fatal encounters in the dark

contiguous streets, the absolute recklessness of the men and women,

interested him profoundly. As he spent money freely, and never passed a

gaming table without tossing down a handful of coin as ardently as any

adventurer, he was popular, and free to come and go as he liked.

The scene which he most frequented, which rose most vividly when he was

living his later life in England, was El Dorado. It had three great

windows on the plaza and six in its length,--something over a hundred

and twenty feet. The brilliant and extraordinary scene within was

visible to those who shunned it but stood with a fascinated stare; for

its curtains were never drawn, its polished windows were close upon

the sidewalk. On one side, down its entire length, was a bar set with

expensive crystal, over which passed every variety of drink known to

the appetite of man. Behind the bar were mirrors from floor to ceiling,

reflecting the room, doubling the six crystal blazing chandeliers, the

forty or fifty tables piled high with gold and silver, the hard intent

faces of the gamblers, the dense throng that ever sauntered in the

narrow aisles. At the lower end was a platform on which musicians played

droning tunes on hurdy-gurdies, and Mexican girls, who looked like

devils, danced. In the middle of the platform, awaiting the counters of

the patrons of the bar, one woman sat always. She was French, and dark,

and handsome, and weighed three hundred pounds. Dressing such a person

was expensive in those days of incredible prices, and that room was very

warm; she wore but a yard or two of silk somewhere about the belt.

Thorpe often sat and watched the faces of the gamblers: the larger

number were gently born, and more than one told him that he had been a

schoolmaster, a college professor, a clergyman, a lawyer, a doctor--all

had failed, or had been ambitious for quicker betterment, and drifted

to the golden land, there to feel the full weight of their own

incompetence. They came there night after night, and when they had no

money to gamble with they sauntered with the throng, or leaned heavily

against the noble pillars which supported the ceiling. Thorpe afterward

often wondered what had become of them. It is doubtful if there is a

living soul who knows.

Occasionally Thorpe picked up a heap of woman in the street, put it in

a carriage, and saw it safely to a night's lodging. Sometimes the woman

mumbled feeble gratitude, as often cursed him because he would not give

her drink. One night, when rambling about alone, he knocked down a man

who was beating a pretty young Mexican woman, then collared and carried

him off to the calaboose. The girl died, and a few days later he went to

the court-house to testify. The small room was packed; the jurors were

huddled in a corner, where they not only listened to the testimony, but

were obliged to talk out their verdict, there being no other

accommodation.

The trial was raced through in San Francisco style, but lasted several

hours. Thorpe sat it out. There was no testimony but his and that of the

coroner; but the lawyer and the district-attorney tilted with animus and

vehemence. When they had concluded, the judge rose, stretched himself,

and turned to the jury.

"You've heard the whole case," he remarked. "So you do your level best

while I go out for a drink. He killed her or he didn't. It's swing or

quit." And, expectorating impatiently among the audience, he sauntered

out.

The jury returned a verdict of "not guilty," and the man was lynched in

the quiet and orderly manner of that time.

VII

A week later forty or fifty people were camped beside the strawberry

fields on the hills beyond the army posts and sloping to the ocean. Mr.

Randolph and Nina, the McLanes, Miss Hathaway, Miss Shropshire, the

"three Macs," the Earles, and a half-dozen young men were domiciled in a

small village of tents on the eminence nearest the city. The encampments

were a mile apart; and in the last of them a number of the Californian

grandees who had made the land Arcadia under Mexican rule enjoyed the

hospitality of Don Tiburcio Castro, a great rancher who was making an

attempt to adapt himself to the new city and its enterprising promoters.

Thorpe and Hastings walked over from the Presidio. They found the

entire party assembled before the largest tent, which flew the American

flag. As the young men approached, all of the ladies formed quickly into

line, two and two, and walked forward to meet them. The men, much

mystified, paused, raised their caps, and stood expectant. Mrs. McLane

stepped from the ranks, and, with much ceremony, unrolled several yards

of tissue paper, then shook forth the silken folds of the English flag,

and presented it to Thorpe.

"It is made from our sashes, and we all sewed on it," she announced.

"You will sleep better if the Union Jack is flying over your tent."

"How awfully jolly--what a stunning compliment," stammered Thorpe,

embarrassed and pleased. "It shall decorate some part of my surroundings

as long as I live."

Mr. Randolph himself fixed the flag, and Thorpe exclaimed impulsively to

Mrs. McLane, with whom he stood apart: "Upon my word, I believe I am

coming under the spell. I wonder if I shall ever want to leave

California?"

"Why not stay? Unless you have ambitions, and want to run for Parliament

or be a diplomat or something, or are wedded to the English on their

native heath, I don't see why you shouldn't remain here. It is rather

slow for us women: we are obliged to be twice as proper as the women of

older civilisations; but a man, I should think, especially a man of

resource like you, ought to find twenty different ways of amusing

himself. You not only can have all that is exciting in San Francisco,

watching a city trying to kick out of its long clothes, but you can

saunter about the country and see the grandees in their towns and on

their ranchos, to say nothing of the scenery, which is said to be

magnificent."

"It isn't a bad idea. My past is not oppressing me, but I believe I

should enjoy the sensation of beginning life over again. It would be

that--certainly. But then I am an Englishman, you know, and English

roots strike deep. Still, I have a half mind to buy a ranch here and

come back every year or so. And I have a favourite brother who is rather

delicate; it would be a good life for him."

"Do think of it," said Mrs. McLane, in the final tone with which she

dismissed a subject that could claim her interest so long and no longer.

She had liked Thorpe more in Paris, where he was not in love with

another woman. She moved away with her husband, a big burly man with a

face curiously like Sir Walter Scott's, and Thorpe plunged his hands in

his pockets and strolled over the hill. The slopes were covered with

strawberry vines down to the broad white beach. The large calm waves of

the Pacific rolled ponderously in and fell down. Cityward was the Golden

Gate with its white bar. Beyond it were steep cliffs, gorgeous with

colour.

"Does England really exist?" he thought. "One could do anything reckless

in this country."

He had been the only man to miss his elk at the hunt, and he had spent

the rest of the day in hard riding. When the fever wore off, his reason

was thankful that Nina Randolph had refused him, and he made up his mind

to leave California by the next steamer. He had heard of the wonders

worked by Time, and none knew better than he how to make life varied

and interesting. He persuaded himself that he was profoundly relieved

that she did not love him. Once or twice he had been nearly sure that

she did. He had not seen her alone since the morning of the hunt, and,

when they had met, her manner had been as frank and friendly as ever.

He joined Mrs. Earle, who had draped a reboso about her head, and was

fluttering an immense fan. For the first time since his arrival in San

Francisco, he plunged into a deliberate flirtation. Mrs. Earle was one

of those women who flirt from the crown of her head to the sole of her

foot, and she was so thin that Thorpe fancied he could see the springs

which kept her skeleton in such violent motion. Her eyebrows were

marvels of muscular ingenuity, and all the passions were in a pair of

great black eyes which masked a brain too shrewd to try the indulgence

of old Dom Pedro Earle, a doughty Scot, too far.

Once, as they repassed a tent, Thorpe saw a vibration of the door, and a

half moment later heard a loud crash. Mrs. Earle's eyebrows went up to

her hair, but she only said:

"Your eyes are as grey and cold as that sea, senor; but they will get

into a fine blaze some day, and then they will burn a hole in some poor

woman's heart. And your jaw! _Dios de mi alma!_ What a tyrant you must

be--over yourself most of all! I flirt with you no more. You are the

sort of man that husbands are so jealous of, because you do not know how

to trifle. _Adios, senor, adios!_"

She swayed over to her husband; and at the same moment Nina ran out of

the tent which had attracted Thorpe's attention. She wore a short white

frock and a large white hat, which made her look very young. In her hand

she carried a small tin horn, upon which she immediately gave a shrill

blast.

"That means work," she cried. "Get down to the patch."

The servants spread a long table on a level spot, and fetched water from

a spring, carrying the jugs on their shoulders. The cook, in a tent

apart, worked leisurely at a savory supper. The guests scattered among

the strawberry-beds, and plucked the large red fruit. Each had a small

Mexican basket, and culled as rapidly as possible; the positions they

were forced to assume were not comfortable. All were very gay, and now

and then fought desperately for a well-favoured vine.

Nina, who had been ousted by Mrs. Earle's long arms, which flashed round

a glowing patch like two serpents, sprang up and ran down to the foot of

the hill, where the vines were more straggling and less popular. Thorpe

followed, laughing. Her hat had been lost in the fray; her hair was down

and blown about in the evening wind, and her cheeks were crimson.

"I hate long-legged long-armed giantesses," she exclaimed, attacking a

vine spitefully. "And Spanish people are treacherous, anyhow. That patch

was mine."

Thorpe laughed heartily. Her temper was genuine. His spirits suddenly

felt lighter; she looked like a spoilt child, not like a girl with a

tragic secret.

"She upset my basket, too," continued Nina, viciously. "But she upset

half her own at the same time, and I trod on them, on purpose."

"Here, let me fill your basket while you make a mud pie." He plucked his

portion and hers, while she dug her fingers into the sand, and recovered

her temper. As Thorpe dropped the replenished basket into her lap, she

tossed her hair out of her eyes, and smiled up at him.

"Sit down and rest," she said, graciously. "Supper won't be ready for a

half hour yet, and that hill is something to climb."

The others had finished their task, and disappeared over the brow of the

hill. The west was golden; even the sea was yellow for the moment.

"We know how to enjoy ourselves out here," said Nina, contentedly,

sinking her elbow into the sand. "I should think it a good place to

pitch your tent."

She flirted her eyelashes at him, and looked so incapable of being

serious that he answered, promptly,--

"I shall, if I can find some one to make it comfortable."

"You don't need to go begging. You're quite the belle. Several that are

more or less _eprises_ are splendid housekeepers."

"I am not looking for a housekeeper."

"What are you looking for?" she asked, audaciously. Her chin was in her

hand; her unbound hair clung about her; her tiny feet moved beneath the

hem of her frock.

He also was lying on his elbow, his face close to hers. He had always

followed her cues, and if she wished to flirt at this late date he was

quite willing to respond. He made up his mind abruptly to dismiss all

plans and drift with the tide.

"You," he said, softly.

"Are you proposing to me?"

He noted that she ignored his actual proposal, and commended her tact.

"I am not so sure that I am; I am surer that I want to."

"You are a cautious calculating Englishman."

"I believe I am--up to a certain point."

"Your face looks so hard and brown in that shadow. I've had men propose

the third time they met me."

"Probably."

"You can propose, if it will ease your mind. I shall never marry."

"Why not?"

"I think it would be heavenly to be an old maid, and make patchwork

quilts for missionaries."

"I shall take pleasure in imagining you in the role when I am digging

away at Blue Books and Reports."

"Ah, never, never more!" she chanted, lightly.

He paled slightly, then lifted a strand of her hair and drew it across

his lips. It was the first caress he had given her in their six weeks of

friendly intimacy, and her colour deepened. He shook the hair over her

face. Her eyes peered out elfishly.

"I suspect we are going to flirt this week," she said, drily.

"If you choose to call it that." Her hair was clinging about his

fingers.

"Suppose we make a compact--to regard nothing seriously that may occur

this week."

"Why are you so afraid of compromising yourself?"

"That belongs to the final explanation. But it is a recognised canon of

strawberry-week ethics that everybody flirts furiously. Friendship is

entirely too serious. Of course I shall flirt with you,--I shall let

Dominga Earle see that at once,--as I am tired of all the others. Will

you make the compact?"

"Yes."

The sun had dropped below the ocean; only a bar of paling green lay on

the horizon. Voices came faintly over the hill, and the shadows were

rapidly gathering.

Thorpe's face moved suddenly to hers. He flung her hair aside and kissed

her. She did not respond, nor move. But when he kissed her again and

again, she did not repulse him.

"I want you to understand this," he said, and his voice had softened, a

rare variation, nor was it steady. "I have not let myself go because you

proposed that compact. I am quite willing to forget it."

"But I am not. I expect you to remember it."

"Very well, we can settle that later. Meanwhile, for this week, we will

be happy. Have you ever let any man kiss you before?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? What a thing to say!"

"Some one may have found me napping, you know."

"You are very fond of being enigmatical. Why can't you give a straight

answer to a straight question?"

"Well--what I meant was that you should not ask impertinent questions.

But, if you insist,--as far as I know, only two men have kissed me,--you

and my father."

He drew a quick breath. The ugliest fear that had haunted him took

flight. He believed her to be truthful.

He stood up suddenly, and drawing her with him, held her closely until

he felt her self-control giving way. When he kissed her again, she put

up her arms and clung to him, and kissed him for the first time. He knew

then, whatever her reason for suggesting such a compact, or her ultimate

purpose, that she loved him.

The mighty blast of a horn echoed among the hills and cliffs. Nina

sprang from Thorpe's arms.

"That is one of papa's jokes," she said. "It isn't the horn of the

hunter, but of the farmer. Come, supper is ready. Oh, dear!" She

clapped her hands to her head. "I can't go up with my hair looking like

this. I can just see the polaric disgust of the Hathaway orbs; it goes

through one like blue needles. And then the malicious snap of Mrs.

Earle's, and the faint amusement of Mrs. McLane's. And I've lost my

hairpins! And I never--never--can get to my tent unseen. I'm living with

'Lupie and Molly, and they're sure to be late--on purpose; I hate

women--Here! Braid it. Don't tell me you can't! You must!"

She presented her back to Thorpe, who was clumsily endeavouring to adapt

himself to her mood. The discipline of the last six weeks stood him in

good stead.

"Upon my word!" he exclaimed, in dismay, "I never braided a woman's hair

in my life."

"Quick! Divide it in three strands--even--then one over the other--Oh,

an idiot could braid hair! Tighter. Ow! Oh, you _are_ so clumsy."

"I know it," humbly. "But it clings to my fingers. I believe you have it

charged with electricity. It doesn't look very even."

"I don't imagine it does. But it feels as if it would do. Half way down

will be enough--"

"Hallo!" came Hastings's voice from the top of the hill. "Are you two

lost in a quicksand?"

"Coming!" cried Nina. She sprang lightly up the hill, chattering as

merrily as if she and the silent man beside her had spent the last

half-hour flinging pebbles into the ocean.

They separated on the crest of the hill, and went to their respective

tents. A few moments later Nina appeared at the supper-table with her

disordered locks concealed by a network of sweet-brier. The effect was

novel and bizarre, the delicate pink and green very becoming.

"Heaven knows when I'll ever get it off," she whispered to Thorpe, as

she took the chair at his side. "It has three thousand thorns."

The girls were in their highest spirit at the supper-table. Mr. McLane

and Mr. Randolph were in their best vein, and Hastings and Molly

Shropshire talked incessantly. Thorpe heard little that was said; he was

consumed with the desire to be alone with Nina Randolph again.

But she would have no more of him that night. After supper, a huge

bonfire was built on the edge of a jutting cliff, and the entire party

sat about it and told yarns. The women stole away one by one. Nina was

almost the first to leave.

The men remained until a late hour, and received calls from hilarious

neighbours whose bonfires were also blazing. Don Tiburcio Castro dashed

up at one o'clock, and invited Mr. Randolph to bring his party to a

grand _merienda_ on the last day but one of their week, and to a ball at

the Mission Dolores on the evening following.

VIII

When the party broke up for the night Thorpe walked a half mile over the

dunes, until, for any evidence of civilisation, he was alone in the

wilderness, then lay down on the warm sand and took counsel with

himself.

He had taken the plunge, and he had no regrets. He recalled his doubts,

his certainty that the Randolph skeleton was not the figment of a

girl's morbid imagination, his analysis of a temperament which he was

only beginning to understand, and wherein lay gloomy foreshadowings, the

fact that her first appeal had been to his animalism and that the appeal

had been direct and powerful. Until the morning of the elk-hunt, he had

not admitted that he loved her; but in a flash he had realised her

tragic and desolate position, little as he guessed the cause, and

coincidently his greater love for her had taken form so definitely that

he had not hesitated a moment to ask her to marry him. Later, he had

persuaded himself that he was well out of it; but between that time and

this he had allowed himself hardly a moment for meditation.

To-night he had not a regret. The certainty that she loved him put his

last scruple to flight, and changed his attitude to her irrevocably. He

had never loved before, nor had she. She seemed indivisibly and

eternally a part of him, and he recalled the sense of ownership he had

experienced the night he had met her, when the evil alone in her claimed

him. To-night the sense was stronger still, and he no longer believed

that there was a spark of evil in her; the moment he became a lover, he

became an idealist. He exaggerated every better quality into a

perfection; and all other women seemed marionnettes beside the one who

could make him shiver with hopes and fears, affect his appetite, and

control his dreams, who made him wild to surrender his liberty before he

was thirty, and accept a woman of the people as a mother-in-law.

The full knowledge suddenly poured into his brain that he was in love,

he,--Dudley Thorpe, who had crammed his life so full of other interests

that he had rarely thought of love, believing serenely that it would

arrive when he was forty, and ready for it. He lay along the sands and

surrendered himself to the experience, the most marvellous and delicious

he had ever known. Once he caught himself up and laughed, then felt that

he had committed a sacrilege. He knew that as he felt then, as he might

continue to feel during his engagement, was an isolated experience in a

man's life. He felt like clutching at even the tremours and fears that

assailed him, and cutting them deep in his brain, that he might have

their memory sharp and vivid when he was long married and serenely

content. He was happier in those moments, lying alone on the dry warm

sand under the crowding stars which had outlived so many passions, than

when he had held her in his arms. He felt that something had escaped him

when they had been together, some thought had strayed; and he determined

to concentrate his faculties more fully and to become a master in love.

He did nothing by halves, and he would be completely happy.

Then his thoughts became practical once more. Her admission that she

loved him had given him a right to control her life, to protect her, to

think for both. He was a very high-handed man, and, having made up his

mind to marry Nina Randolph, he regarded her opposition as non-existent.

He would argue it out with her, when she was ready to speak, knowing

that the mental tide of woman, when undammed, must have its way; but he

alone would decide the issue.

He should no longer torment himself with imaginings, rehearsing every

ill that could befall a woman, whether the act of her own folly or the

cruel hatching of Circumstance. It mattered nothing; he should marry

her. His want of her was maddening. The desire to pluck her from her

present life, to make her happy, possessed him.

IX

The next morning all were up at eight and picking strawberries for

breakfast. The prolonged and vociferous music of the horn had precluded

all hope of laziness, and the late seekers after sleep were obliged to

turn out with the best grace possible. A plunge in the sea had animated

the men for the day, and the women were very fresh and amiable.

After breakfast they scattered about the hills and beach. It was a

cloudless dark-blue day. The air was warm and dry. The bleak sand dunes

were reclaimed for a brief season by the vivid green of willow and oak,

the fields of purple lupin and yellow poppy; the trade winds were

elsewhere, and the vegetation of San Francisco enjoyed its brief span of

life. A ship with all her sails spread drifted, sleepily, over the bar.

Thorpe and Nina climbed an eminence from which they could see the

Mission Dolores, far on the right, the smoke curling languidly from its

great chimneys; the square Presidio of romantic memories and prosaic

present; the distant city, whose loud feverish pulse they fancied they

could hear.

They sat down under a tree. Nina took off her hat, and threw back her

head. "I think I am the re-embodiment of some pagan ancestor," she said.

"On days like this, I care nothing for a single responsibility in life,

nor for what to-morrow will bring, nor for a religion nor a creed, nor

for the least nor greatest that civilisation has accomplished. I don't

even long for Europe and the higher intellectual life. It is enough that

I am alive, that my eyes see only beauty, and my skin feels warmth. I

worship the sun and the sky and the flowers and the trees and the sea,

above all the warm quick atmosphere. They seem to me the only things

worth loving."

"They are not the only things you love, however."

"No, I love you and my father. I hate my mother. But I always manage to

forget her existence when I am off like this, and she is out of my

sight--"

"Why do you hate your mother?"

"That is one of the things you are not to know yet. This week you are to

hear nothing that is not pleasant. I wish you to feel like a pagan,

too."

"I do. Some of your mandates are very easy to observe. We are reasonably

sympathetic on more points than one."

"We will imagine that all life is to be like this week--only no allusion

is to be made during this week to the future, and no allusion in the

future to this week."