"No, madam!" Gwynne turned upon her the glittering eye of an animal at

bay. Then he laughed. "I have heard that proposition from every man I

have met and daily from my superintendent until I managed to suppress

him. I won't have a chicken on the ranch. The sight of them not only

fills me with ennui, but I have no intention of presenting your comic

papers with material. I could write their jokes myself--'_Gwynne before

and after_': Westminster in the background and a hayseed figure in front

addressing a constituency of chickens. Stumping the country with eggs in

my pockets for the children. Dining the eminent members of my

constituency on horse-meat, under the delusion that what is good for

chickens is good for votes. 'Leghorn Gwynne.' 'The Member from

Chickenville.' No thanks. No weapons that I can withhold."

IX

"This is all on my ranch," said Isabel; "so there is no danger of being

peppered. The rest of the marsh is owned by clubs, and as there was no

shooting here last year the ducks should be thicker than anywhere else.

We should get our fifty apiece in no time."

They were entering a narrow slough, hardly wider than the boat. It cut

its zigzag way through the marsh for many miles, and they could follow

its course with the eye but a few feet at a time. Gwynne shipped the

oars and began to scull, his gun across his knee. Isabel, in front and

with her back to him, sat with her own gun ready for a shot. On one side

of them was a large piece of marsh-land, on the left, smaller patches,

and little islands caught in the long grasping fingers of the tide.

Gwynne had attired himself with an ill grace in a pair of his cousin

Hiram's rubber boots that completely covered his body below the waist,

and an old shooting-coat with capacious pockets. Isabel wore a similar

costume, and but for her hair might have been mistaken for a lad. She

possessed no interest for Gwynne whatever at the moment. Nor did

anything else but the prospect of a new and exciting sport. The October

evening was mellow and full of color, the entire reach of the marsh

steeped in a golden haze shed from the glory in the west. Even the

forests and the lower ridges rising to Tamalpais had something aqueous

in their vague outlines, swayed gently in the golden tide. Only the tide

lands were green; the very water was yellow. Here and there, but far

away, a mast or sail rose above the level surface of the marsh. From the

distance came the sound of constant shooting.

Gwynne sculled silently, but with some impatience. They had left the

open creek far behind and had not seen a duck. Suddenly Isabel's gun

leaped to her shoulder. They rounded a sharp point and the whole surface

of the narrow slough between them and the next bend was black with

sleeping ducks. Gwynne's knee moved automatically to the seat in front

of him, and as the startled birds rose he and Isabel fired to right and

left. The scattering shot played havoc, and the second charge brought

down at least half as many on the higher wing. Isabel reloaded the guns

while Gwynne went for the ducks that had fallen on the land. He fell

into several holes himself, and returned covered with mud, but waving

his birds in triumph; and once more they stole softly along their

winding way. The shot had roused neighboring flocks; several dark clouds

had risen simultaneously, but in a few moments they settled again.

"You had better use both guns," whispered Isabel, "and I will do the

reloading. We can't do much with these old-fashioned things at best."

Gwynne accepted this act of sacrifice with a matter-of-fact nod, and it

was but a moment later that they came upon another flock. He fired with

an accuracy of aim that won him an admiring mutter, although to miss

would have been almost as noteworthy. But after repeating this

experience several times, he shrugged his shoulders and announced

himself blase.

"I'd like something a little more difficult," he said. "Ten minutes of

this and we can glut the market."

"All men are children," said Isabel, indulgently. "Tie up the boat and

we'll go after widgeon."

They landed and stole softly over the larger reach of marsh-land, Isabel

in the lead as she knew every hole. It was ten minutes before she raised

her hand and pointed to a wilted but still effective screen. Under cover

of this they crawled towards a large pond on which ducks were resting

but by no means asleep. Before the guns were shouldered they had taken

flight; so few were brought down on the wing that Gwynne's interest

revived, and he followed Isabel eagerly towards another pond with a

better blind. Here they were more wary and more fortunate, and Isabel

took a curious pleasure in watching the manifest bliss of her companion.

She had never seen him look really happy before. Upon his return to

Capheaton from his triumphant battle on the hustings he had been as

impassive as his traditions demanded. On the morning of his engagement

he had looked rather silly to her detached eye; and immediately after,

tragedy and trouble and infinite vexation had claimed him. But this

evening, with his cap pushed back, his nostrils distended, his eyes

sparkling, he looked like any other young fellow to whom the present was

all. Isabel reflected somewhat cynically that it was the opportunity to

kill something that had effected this momentary reconciliation with

life. But she was too good a sportswoman not to understand his mood, and

when he had waded into the lake and returned flushed and triumphant with

his bag, she complimented him so warmly that he laughed aloud in sheer

delight.

"We have enough for once," she began, but he would not hear of returning

to the boat even for the refreshment of tea, and they went on and on

until their feet were as weary as their shoulders under the burden that

was Isabel's part to string while her partner enjoyed himself.

"But we must really go," she announced, finally. "We have a long stretch

out in the open creek after we leave the slough, and it is not so easy

to keep the channel after dark. I have lost track of things and don't

remember what time the moon rises. You can come every day if you like;

and four in the morning is the best time if you are energetic enough--"

"I would get up at midnight--stay up all night. But I am quite willing

to return now--and not for tea. I should like several of these ducks for

supper, if your Jap is less haughty than mine."

Their way lay through the middle of the marsh-land. It was not until

they reached the slough that she uttered a loud sharp cry. The boat was

at least three feet below them and there was nothing at either end but

mud.

Isabel stamped both feet in succession and flung her burden to the

ground. "Why, _why_ did I take Mac's word?" she exclaimed, furiously.

"He always makes mistakes about the tide--he hasn't an inch of memory

left. Why didn't I look at the calendar? Or think? This comes of going

off for three weeks instead of staying at home and attending to

business. I had a confused idea that this was the 'good week.' Great

heavens!"

Gwynne had watched her with considerable interest and curiosity. But he

answered, soothingly: "Well, what of it? The tide turns, doesn't it." It

happened that he had had no experience of marsh-lands.

"Yes--in six hours."

"Six hours! Well, what of it? It is all in the day's work. Look at it as

a jolly adventure." It was his first opportunity to console and he

hastened to take advantage of it. "We have tea and sandwiches, warm

enough clothing, and the weather is perfection. If we get stiff and

chilly we can walk--"

"Walk? In these rubber boots? I am nearly dead already." She had a wild

impulse to drop her head on his shoulder and weep; but her pride flew to

the front and she shrugged her shoulders and remarked, airily: "I don't

really mind anything much except being an idiot. However, I'll make it

up to you. I can cook ducks better than Chuma. You make the tea."

Gwynne made a fire out of decayed tule weed and driftwood, then climbed

down into the boat and brought up the provisions and utensils intended

for an earlier interlude. The tea warmed and stimulated both, and they

knelt by the fire and toasted the ducks at the end of the boat-hook,

scowling with a preternatural earnestness both were too hungry to

observe. Then they fell to, and it is doubtful if either had ever eaten

with a keener relish. They were obliged to use their fingers, and, as

they had no salt, to shred the ham and wrap it about the morsels of

duck, but to such minor matters they gave not a thought, and consumed

four teals and every scrap they had brought from home, as well as

another pot of tea. Isabel, recalling the injured air of her father,

uncle, and brother-in-law when their comfort was rudely disturbed,

warmed to Gwynne, who was good-humored and amused. Even the reflection

that he had roughed it in far worse straits than this, or that had he

the legal right to grumble he might possibly use it, did not alter the

pleasant impression he made as he tramped out the fire, washed his hands

in the marsh grass, and then stretched himself full length with his

pipe. She lit a cigarette, but had not smoked half its length when she

sprang to her feet.

"Look!" she said. "We must get into the boat. It is getting damper every

moment, and the fog will make us feel as if we were in our graves if we

don't sit on something dry."

She had pointed northward, and Gwynne saw a phantom mountain moving

along the level surface of the marsh with the quiet plodding motion of a

ship under full sail in a light breeze. The curious combination of

images fascinated him, and he watched the stealthy silent progress of

this night visitor from the tule lands of the north, that looked as if

it might have obliterated the world. As he jumped down into the boat he

saw before him, on three sides of him, the sparkling night. Then as

Isabel laid her hands on his shoulders and he lifted her down, the fog

swept over them, and there was nothing to do but sit and watch the glow

of pipe and cigarette; even their own outlines were barely visible.

"I fancy it will go home when the moon rises," said Isabel, with a

little shiver. "Are you cold?" she asked, solicitously.

"No," replied a tart voice. "Why didn't you let me ask that? You are not

my mother. We can make tea at intervals. How long do you suppose the

tide has been out?"

"About two hours."

"I am quite comfortable and have never resented any adventure. And this

is the appropriate time and place for a certain story. As I remarked

before I shall not know you until I have heard it. Pasts are dead

walls."

"It is not necessary that you should know me."

"I think otherwise. You are my one friend among eighty millions of

aliens, or ought to be. I shall continue to feel a superior sort of

acquaintance until you have taken me into your confidence."

There was a movement of the fog that he inferred was a shrug. "Very

well," she replied, without a break in her cool even voice. "I suppose I

shall enjoy talking about myself. It is not often I have had the

opportunity to indulge in a monologue in my family, and you certainly

are at my mercy. If you attempt to flee you will be mired like the boat,

and I could not pull you out."

He had never felt the least curiosity about the past history or the

inner life of a mortal before, and in normal circumstances Isabel's

would not have appealed to him. But her instrumentality in changing the

whole current of his life had alarmed his masculinity into a resolve to

demonstrate his superiority if it came to a contest of wills; given

birth to a subtle assumption of proprietorship, indifferent in material

things, but pressing towards the guarded chambers of the spirit. Isabel,

vaguely uneasy earlier in the day, began to appreciate the advance of an

outer and powerful force upon her precious freedom, and resented it. And

while she made up her mind that if it came to a silent contest of wills,

hers at least should not be conquered, she reflected that the deeper

intimacy, certain to ensue if she gave him her confidence, would insure

her a firmer and subtler hold upon his destinies.

X

"Of course I lived two lives before my father's death. My days were

sufficiently filled with him, to say nothing of making both ends meet;

for even after my uncle's death, I had only a small income until the day

of my complete liberty came. I slept soundly enough when I was not

following my father about the house with a candle, or about the hills

with a lantern. But such a life preyed upon my spirits. I imagined

myself both melancholy and bitter and grew unhealthily romantic. But

from the conditions of my life I had two escapes--in books and in

dreams. My father hated company more and more and I rarely left him for

a dance or one of those church festivities where all the young people of

my set were sure to meet. I knew that I was regarded as rather a tragic

figure, and this enhanced my morbid egoism. I wonder if I shall ever be

as really happy again!

"During the year following my father's death I lived out here alone, but

with my hands tied by the executors of my uncle's will. I felt myself

quite the enchanted princess and put in most of my time dreaming about

the prince. I suppose no girl ever had such wild and impossible notions

of love. That is to say most girls have, but I had peculiar

opportunities for indulgence and elaboration. At the same time I

despised or disliked every man I knew or ever had known--with the

possible exception of Judge Leslie. Not only had I found all the men of

my little personal world weak, or selfish, or tyrannical, but those I

knew almost as well were narrow, or commonplace, or uninterested in

anything but local politics or making money, or both combined. Not but

that Rosewater is the world in little. You never read of any old Italian

duchy where there was more jealousy and intrigue; more silent and tense,

or open and gnashing struggle for supremacy than is centered in these

three banks. They have prevented the town from increasing in size and

importance, in spite of its prosperity, through their machinations

against one another. If a stranger comes to the town intending to invest

his money in some one of the flourishing industries, or to introduce

another, the banker to whom he brings a letter, or whom he happens to

meet first, terrifies him with tales of the rapacity and dishonorable

methods of his rivals; and the other two, who fear that the first will

get the stranger's business, warn him that Mr. Colton, for instance,

never gave an hour's mercy. The three have made slow, sure, dogged

fortunes, but each has prevented the others from becoming millionaires,

and Rosewater from taking its proper place as county seat. And they are

all afraid of new-comers, new capital, of authority passing out of their

hands. They are careful not to charge exorbitant rates of interest, and

every farmer and merchant in the county borrows from them; partly from

habit, partly because the banks are uncommonly sound. They foreclose

without mercy, but that does not frighten their old patrons, who have

the perennial optimism of the country. The only capital they have not

succeeded in frightening off is that controlled by the great

corporations. One or two have wedged their way in and others will follow

in time. Doubtless when the younger men get the reins in their hands

they will trim with the times, but the older seem to be Biblical if not

Christian, and the consequence is that most of the younger have left for

a wider field.

"Finally the day came when I could turn my back on California, and I

felt sure that I should remain away for ten years at least. I thought

that the liberty I had longed for all my life was mine at last. In a

conducted tour, I soon discovered, there was little liberty, to say

nothing of privacy. Before I had been two days in the train I was made

to feel that there was something wrong with a person that showed a

disposition to retire into herself. She was either aristocratic, or had

something to hide, unless she responded to the confidences natural to

people of that class. As there were just eighteen in the party, of

course I always had a room partner, and there was not a woman in the

entire company that I would have known from choice. However, it was

excellent discipline, not unenlightening, and the end came in six weeks.

They sailed from Naples and I wandered about by myself. In a way the

liberty was intoxicating, but of course the sum of it was lessened by

the daily irritations of travel in Europe: the rapacity of the Italians

and French, the wretched trains, the hordes of vulgar tourists, mostly

of my own nation, the absurd primness, quite foreign to my nature, I was

forced to assume when alone with a man who was neither English nor

American, the awful fatigues, the ennuis of long rainy days in the

second-rate hotels and pensions I had to frequent. Still, I was too

young for any unpleasant impression to take root and discourage me, and

there was much that was wholly delightful. I spent weeks in a city or

even village that took my fancy. But even so it was not long before I

realized that my liberty was as far off as ever, because my soul at

least was possessed by the image of the prince, the more tormenting and

insistent as his outlines were so remarkably vague. In the intervals

when novelty ceased to appeal, when my very eyes refused to look at

things, I pictured inexpressibly thrilling and romantic futures. Then I

would fall into a panic at the passing of youth, for a woman never feels

so old again as between eighteen and twenty-five--her first

quarter-century.

"And I did not lack opportunities. I met many people, some of them quite

charming. But they left me cold.

"Then I lived the student life in Paris, studying art just enough to

give me the raison d'etre. It was very gay, very irresponsible, very

educating to a provincial miss. The restaurants with their sanded

floors, and the cosmopolitan mixture of students, generally eccentric to

look at, brandishing temperament until the poor thing must have been

worn out before its harness of technique was ready--all was a perpetual

source of delight to me, and I used to let my mind dwell on Rosewater

for the sake of enjoying myself with the more wonder and gratitude.

"But of course in such a life I had to have a companion, I could not

long go to students' restaurants alone. I had taken a tiny flat in the

Latin Quarter at the top of a house, and overlooking a convent where the

nuns were always walking in the garden. A _femme de menage_ cooked my

breakfast and kept my rooms in order; but although I was quite

comfortable and never lonely, I had not been established a fortnight

before certain experiences at the restaurants and on the street, which

you can imagine for yourself, convinced me that I could not live alone.

So I looked hurriedly over the field, and decided that an American girl

in my class suggested fewest complications. Moreover, she interested me.

She had a pale tense face, rarely spoke to anybody, and worked as if her

life depended upon every stroke, although her talent was not

conspicuous. It was not easy to approach her, but one day, after I had

dined alone in my flat five times in succession, I noticed that she was

paler than usual, and that her hands were trembling. Then I felt certain

she was in trouble, and it would have been my instinct to help her in

any case. I joined her as we left the atelier, and asked her to walk a

bit. It was not long before she admitted that her money was practically

gone, and that her family would not send her any more; they had never

approved of her coming to Paris to study art. They were not at all well

off, and as she had a facility in trimming hats they had thought it her

duty to contribute more immediately to the support of the family. She

had not advanced as rapidly as she had hoped to do, and it would be

insupportable humiliation to return.

"Here was my opportunity. I exultingly invited her to share my

apartment, told her that my income was quite enough for two, that I was

merely studying life, and that her protection would more than compensate

me for the little extra outlay. She declined at first, hesitated for a

week; but in the end she came. I grew very fond of her, and she

interested me more and more. Her real bitterness taught me what a purely

youthful symptom mine had been, and she was rather a clever girl, often

entertaining. She was about twenty-six, I fancy, and had received a good

education at the academy of the Western town in which she had been born.

Her grandparents were Italian emigrants, and she had fine black eyes

and a beautiful mouth.

"Well, before many months had passed I knew that she was in desperate

straits, and she offered to go away, reiterating that she had only

intended to take advantage of the temporary haven while she fed her

courage and painted something that might sell. I knew that if she left

me she would throw herself into the Seine, and I persuaded her to stay.

It is not difficult to persuade a stricken woman to remain under a

friendly roof. I was full of sympathy for the poor little thing, but I

don't deny that I was immensely interested, and fairly palpitated with

the thought that I was actually seeing life at first hand. Who the hero

of her romance was I never discovered, except that he was of her own

race, and married, a fact he had concealed until ready to leave Paris.

She told me enough to make me hate all men so violently that the prince

took himself off and left me in peace. But I had trouble enough in my

household. As time went on Veronica's alternate attacks of melancholy

and hysteria were terrible. I sat up night after night to keep her from

throwing herself out of the window; at times she seemed to be quite off

her head. And then she still loved the wretch, and would maunder by the

hour. But it ended, as everything does; and the poor girl died. I have

no desire to linger over the climax. If anything was needed to set the

final seal upon my disgust with life at first hand it was the mean and

sordid details that attend death and burial in Paris. The landlord

behaved like the mercenary fiends they all are; I was obliged to call in

the assistance of the American consul before I could get the body out of

the house, and between all the trouble and fuss poor Veronica's story

was published from the house-tops.

"As soon as it was over I left Paris and started to travel slowly

through Germany, feeling now a real sense of liberty, inasmuch as I was

sure I could be all intellect henceforth, dependent upon nothing so

unsatisfactory as human happiness. I never wanted another real contact

with life. I would travel, and study, and develop my mind, possibly some

latent talent. Many talents are manufactured anyhow, and the world is

always hailing them as genius.

"But, of course, in time, and with constant change of scene, to say

nothing of youth, the impression faded; the painful experience hovered

faintly in the background of the past; the romantic imp in my brain, a

little pale and emaciated from its long sojourn in the cellar, resumed

the throne. Once more I began to realize that I was human, and to cast

about for the mate that must surely be roaming in search of me. It was

then that I arrived in Munich.

"I saw him first in the Englischergarten. You remember it, that

wonderful imitation of a great stretch of open country, with fields

where they make hay, and bits of wild woods, and crooked pathways, and

bridges over a branch of the Isar, greenest and loveliest of rivers. And

then the little beer-gardens, where the people are always sitting and

listening to the band--and beyond the tree-tops, the spires and domes of

the beautiful city.

"I was standing by the lake watching the swans when he rode by, and I am

bound to say that he made no great impression. I hardly should have

noticed him had it not been for his excessively English appearance, and

a certain piercing quality in the glance with which he favored me. I

should never have given him another thought, but a week later I met him

formally. It came about oddly enough.

"That evening in looking through my trunk for a business paper I came

upon a letter of introduction given me by a friend I had made in Italy.

It was to a Baroness L., of Munich. I had quite forgotten it, and the

sight of it inspired me with no desire for the social curiosities. I was

infatuated with Munich, and its exteriors satisfied me. It has a large

courteous grandly-hospitable air, as if it were the private property of

a king, to which, however, all strangers are royally welcome. It is the

ideal king's city: life but no bustle; neither business, as we

understand the word, nor poverty; a city of infinite leisure and

infinite interest, a superb living picture-book, where one is ever

amused, interested, both stimulated and soothed. I had been in it three

weeks and had almost made up my mind to live there, and dream away the

rest of my life. Knote and Morena, Feinhals and Bender were singing at

the Hof Theatre. Mottl was conducting. Lili Marberg's Salome was

something to be seen again and again. You forgot the play itself. And

Bardou-Mueller's Mrs. Alving! I did not sleep for two nights.

"Well, I left the letter on my table, instead of returning it to the

portfolio of my trunk, and it exercised a certain insistence. What are

letters of introduction for? And should I not see the social life of

Europe when the opportunity offered? So I left a card on the baroness.

She returned it in the course of a day or two, then wrote, asking me to

drink tea with her. I went. There were perhaps fifty people there. I

have not the faintest idea who they were or what they looked like.

Prestage--that was only one of his names, but it will do--asked

immediately to be introduced to me, and we talked in a corner for an

hour. Before we had talked for ten minutes I knew that the great gates

were swinging open. It is not possible for a woman to define one man's

fascination to another, and I hardly know myself why this man so

completely turned my head. He was not exactly good-looking, but he had

remarkable eyes and a singular tensity of manner, which made me almost

breathless at times. He was, moreover, brilliantly educated and

accomplished, and the most finished specimen of the man of the world I

had met. He was an American of inherited fortune who had spent the

greater part of his life in Europe, alternating between Paris and

London, although he knew the society of other cities well enough. His

contempt for the vulgarity of the huge modern fortunes, and his

admiration for Munich, were the first subjects to discover to us the

similarity of our tastes.

"We soon discovered others. I think he fell as deeply in love with me as

he was capable of doing. He was forty-one and had fairly exhausted his

capacity, for he had lived the life of pleasure only; but no doubt I was

something new in his experience, and penetrated the ashes like a strong

western breeze. I have seen him turn quite white when I suddenly

appeared at one of our trysts.

"Of course I lived in a pension. I had no private sitting-room, and he

positively refused to sit in the salon a second time. So we used to take

interminable walks about Munich, lingering in all the quaint old Gothic

corners, along the magnificent stretches of Renaissance; lunching on the

terraces of the restaurants under the shade of the green trees, or in

quaint little back gardens set in the angle of buildings as mediaeval as

Rothenburg; the people looking down at us from the narrow windows or the

little balconies. We spent hours in the Englischergarten, sitting on the

banks of the Isar; often took the train to the beautiful Isarthal and

spent the day in the woods; or sailed on one of the lakes with the

tumbled glittering peaks of the Alps always in sight. We visited

Ludwig's castles together, attended peasants' festivals in the

mountains, lunching in some dilapidated old garden of a Gasthaus. And of

course we went constantly to the opera. It was positive heaven for a

time, and as romantic as the heart of any romantic idiot could wish. I

was so happy I could not even think, even when I was alone. I simply sat

like one in a trance and gazed into space, vague rose-colored dreams

turning the slow wheel of my brain. No one paid any attention to us.

Everybody in the pension was studying something; we avoided the American

church and consulate and even the Baroness L. We were determined to have

our blissful dream unvulgarized by gossip.

"There is no doubt that for a time my young enthusiasm gave him back a

flicker of the romance of his own youth, but of course it couldn't last.

I hardly know when it was I began to realize that the whole base of his

nature was honeycombed with ennui, and that any structure reared upon it

might topple at a moment's notice. I had been steeped to the eyes in the

present. I had no wish to marry. Marriage was prosaic. Life was a fairy

tale, why materialize it? I soon discovered that man's capacity for

living on air is limited, and I had almost yielded to his entreaties to

cross to England where we could marry without tiresome formalities, when

one day--this was perhaps a month after we had met--he was late at a

tryst. I lived a lifetime in five minutes. When he arrived he was so

apologetic and so charming that if I had been an older woman I should

have known that something was wrong. The next day, as it happened, I had

to go to bed with influenza, and wrote him that I might not get out for

a week. He wrote twice a day and sent me flowers. On the fourth morning

I felt so much better that I sent him a note by a _dinstmann_ telling

him that I should lunch on the terrace of the Neue Buerse restaurant. He

was not awaiting me; nor did he come at all. Later I saw him driving

with an astonishingly handsome woman; who looked as if she had been born

without crudities or illusions.

"There are no words to express the tortures of jealousy and disgust that

I endured that afternoon. But at five came a note stating that he had

been out of town on a lonely voyage of discovery, and begging me to come

for a cup of chocolate at the Cafe Luitpold--where we had gone so often

to watch the motley crowd. I went, wrath and horror struggling in my

heart with the sanguineness of woman. He had never been so charming and

so plausible. I let him go on, exulting in the discovery that he was a

liar, for I knew that it pushed me a step towards recovery. When he had

finished I told him that I had seen him in the Hofgarten. I never shall

forget how white he turned. But if he had been an adventurer his mind

could not have been more nimble. He recovered himself instantly,

admitted the impeachment, insisted that he had just returned when I saw

him, had accepted a seat in the lady's carriage as he was entering his

hotel--before he had time to go to his room and find my note. I knew

that he was lying, but when he changed the subject to impassioned

pleading that I would cross to England at once, I was forced to believe

that he loved me.

"But I was miserably undecided. Moreover, I could not leave Munich. My

quarterly remittance was unaccountably delayed. I told him this. He knew

that I would not move without my own money, but he sent off several

cables. The reply came that the drafts had gone and must have been lost

in the mails. Duplicates would be sent. There was nothing to do but

wait.

"I suppose that money enters into all things. It certainly ruled my

destiny. The fortnight that ensued I never think of if I can help it. He

was desperately bored with Munich, but too polite to leave me alone. I

saw him with the woman three or four times. She was an Austrian who did

not visit the Baroness L., and she was staying at his hotel. There was

no doubt that he still wished to marry me, but I was in even less doubt

that his ruined nature would yield more and more to this sort of

fascination when my novelty had worn thin. Before my money arrived my

mind was made up. I dared not trust myself to the seduction of his

manner and voice--he was a past-master in the art of making love. I

wrote him that I would not marry a man I could not trust, and fled to

Vienna, telling my Munich bankers to keep my letters until I sent for

them. For two weeks I travelled madly through Austria and Hungary. Never

for a moment was I free of torments. Never before had I actually

comprehended what love meant. I hardly ate or slept. I arrived at a

place only to leave it. The hotel-keepers thought I was the American

tourist overtaken by that final madness they had always anticipated.

When the fortnight finished I looked back upon an eternity in purgatory.

I surrendered; at least he loved me in his way. He had never ceased to

urge our marriage. Who could say that I might not be fascinating enough

to hold him? It was worth the trial, and I despised myself for laying

down my arms without a struggle.

"I took the Oriental express from Budapest, but during the journey,

swift as it was, I underwent certain reactions. I knew that he must have

left Munich, that all I could do was to take a letter to his bank and

ask that it be forwarded. I wrote the letter as soon as I arrived, but

decided to post it; my pride revolted at facing the sharp eye of the

person that handled the letters of credit. I had gone to the bank with

Prestage more than once.

"As soon as the letter was posted I experienced a certain measure of

peace, having done all I could. Nevertheless, to sit still was

impossible, and I set out for a walk. It was one of those brilliant

clear crisp days with which that high plateau can put even California to

the blush. I saw that all the tram-cars were crowded, and that carriage

loads of people had flower pieces. I asked if it were a Feiertag and was

reminded that it was the 1st of November, All Saints' Day; Munich was on

its way to the several cemeteries to decorate the graves. I had seen All

Saints' Day in Venice and felt a mild curiosity to compare the Bavarian

festival with the Italian. So I walked out to the great Alt Sud Friedhof

where so many celebrities are buried, and where I fancied the scene

would be most complete. When I arrived at the entrance the frames that

had been set up in the outer court were almost denuded of the flower

pieces the countrywomen had brought in to sell, but I bought a wreath at

the solicitation of a peasant in a picturesque head-dress, and followed

the crowd. The cemetery is on three sides of the entrance and enclosed

by a high brick wall. I stood a moment at the inner official entrance,

hardly knowing which way to turn; but seeing a number of staring people

in a corridor on my right that faced one great division of the cemetery,

I was turning into it mechanically when a policeman waved me back with

the information that the entrance was at the other end. But not until I

had seen, stared, and gasped. In an alcove was a figure, almost upright,

that, in the first dazed seconds I took to be a wax-work, but

immediately knew to be a dead woman. As I almost ran out I recalled that

in Bavaria the dead are taken from the house within six hours, and are

kept in a public mortuary for three days, or until all danger of

premature interment is over.

"I do not think I should mind, particularly, seeing a ghost; I am sure

my mental curiosity would get the better of my unwilling flesh; but I

have a real horror of the corpse. I tried to forget the grotesque

exhibition I had stumbled upon, in the novel and interesting scene about

me. The long aisles of the cemetery were filled with well-dressed

people, some strolling, others decorating, all apparently enjoying

themselves. Almost all of the graves and monuments were bedecked, and

presented a most Elysian appearance with the masses of bright flowers,

the streamers of wide ribbon, the lighted lanterns, many of them antique

and beautiful, above all the tall flambeaux, whose flames looked white

and unearthly against the bright atmosphere. Above was a deep-blue sky

with those thick low masses of snow-white clouds one sees only in

Bavaria.

"But that grotesque little figure with its shrunken yellow face under

the pitiless sun glare, its bony old hands, attached I knew, to the

string of a distant bell, did not leave my mind for an instant. I walked

down every path, I examined every interesting monument, I even went into

the other divisions where there are so many statues in the alcove tombs;

but all in vain. I felt that I should see that old woman to the end of

my days. I could recall the very pattern of the cheap black lace of her

cap. There was but one way to rid my mind of the obsession, and that

was to return to the corridor, stand in front of every earthen figure,

remain there until my mind was satiated, in consequence delivered.

"I set my teeth and went back to the Leichenhalle. Of course there were

many to keep me company. I looked long and unflinchingly at two

gentlemen in evening clothes, an old maid dressed for once on earth as a

bride, a young woman and her infant. The coffins lay on an inclined

plane and the edges were so concealed by a mass of flowers and greenery

that the ghastly company looked as if half rising to hold a reception.

"And then I stood for I do not know how long before the alcove next to

the old woman beside the exit, not knowing whether I were turned to

stone or sitting by the Rosewater marsh indulging in some wild morbid

flight of imagination.

"For there he was. For a second I did not fully recognize him, he was so

yellow, his lower jaw had so hideously retreated, completely altering

the slightly cynical expression of the mouth. The bright gay sunlight

searched out every line carved by too much living, the little wrinkles

about the eyes, the weakness of the handsome polished hands. He looked

unspeakably aged and hideous. I had never dreamed that a brilliant mind

could leave so miserable a shell behind it, that the body was such a

mean poverty-stricken thing, a thing to be thrust out of sight as soon

as it had fulfilled its work of balking and ruining the soul. I had

never looked at Veronica after her death, and only once at my father,

who had not horrified me, for here the undertaker has arts unknown,

apparently, in Bavaria.

"My love died without a gasp. I shrank and curdled with horror that I

had loved that hideous clay. What he had aroused in me was merely the

response of youth to the masculine magnet, a trifle more specialized

than I had heretofore encountered; the inevitable fever when infection

appears. All personal feeling vanished out of me so completely that even

while I stood there I felt the same pity for him that I had for the

others, the helpless dead so mercilessly exposed to the vulgar

indifferent crowd. If I could have hurried him into the privacy of the

grave I would have exerted every effort, but before the laws of the

country I was powerless. As I was leaving the cemetery I discovered that

I still carried the wreath. I went back and added it to the bank of

greenery which his valet no doubt had provided.

"When I returned to my pension I sent for the man and learned that he

and the Consul-General of the United States had done all that the

authorities had left in their hands. The body was to be shipped to New

York within the month. He had died of Bright's disease. It had declared

itself a day or two after I left. After ten days of intermittent

suffering, during which the valet had felt no apprehension, he had died

suddenly.

"I left Munich the same day. If I have failed to give you any adequate

impression of my agonies, it will be next to impossible to describe my

subsequent states of mind. Indeed I have little remembrance of my mental

condition during the weeks of travel in Switzerland and Italy that

followed. I was deliberately living up on the surface of my nature,

indifferent to what was awaiting recognition below, although I knew it

to be nothing unwelcome. Then, finally, I felt the time had come when I

could draw aside the black curtain which I had hung for decency's sake

between my consciousness and my depths, and tell the new guest to come

forth. The guest was the liberty I had waited for all my life. I felt

indescribably free, light, strong. The tyranny of love, even while it

was but the love idea, that had shackled me for so many years, narrowing

my interests, warping my imagination, clouding the future, was

dissipated at last. I had paid the tribute to my youth and sex. I felt

really alive for the first time, existing in the actual not in the dream

world. There are women and women; and quite enough of the fine old

domestic order to keep the world going; but there is a vast and

increasing number that are never really alive and worth anything to

themselves or life until they have worked through that necessary

madness, buried it, and settled down to those infinite interests upon

which matrimony, happy or otherwise, bolts a thousand doors. Some day I

will tell you my theory of what such women are really born for, but you

have had enough for one night and the story is finished."

XI

Gwynne, between the fog and the story, felt congealed to the marrow. He

leaned his elbows on his knees and stared at the bottom of the boat. It

was the second time that the dark and carefully guarded recesses of the

human soul had been opened to him, but Zeal's at least were a man's, and

he had listened to him with a certain passive acceptance cut with

lightning-like visions of his own ruined future. He had never been

invited into a woman's crypts before, and he hardly knew whether he were

gratified or repelled. She had been as brutally truthful as he would

have expected her to be if she spoke at all, but he doubted if he

understood her as well as he had expected. He had been assured that she

had once at least possessed the capacity for intense feeling, but what

was the result? And were the depths frozen solid? Or merely buried

alive?

He remarked after a moment: "I cannot think of anything appropriate to

say, so perhaps it is as well to say nothing. I certainly do not feel

that you are in any need of my sympathies, for you are quite terribly

strong. When did all this happen?"

"About eight months before I went to England."

"What did you do with yourself in the interval?"

"I climbed in the Alps a bit, then went to Rome and studied the

Campagna, then travelled somewhat in Spain. By that time the desire for

California had grown insistent. The novelty of Europe had worn thin. I

was tired of playing at doing things, and only at home could I really

accomplish anything. I suddenly made up my mind to pay the long-delayed

visit to England, stopping in Paris by the way for frocks. I doubt if I

ever enjoyed anything more than those three weeks in Paris, where I

completely forgot every unpleasant association. It was my first fine

wardrobe, my first opportunity to experience to the full the delight of

clothes. I have felt quite happy here. California is so far from every

other place that it is almost like living on a detached planet. You

forget the rest of the world for months at a time. For days after I

returned I wandered about out-of-doors in a gay irresponsible mood, and

carolled all over the house. Of course it was nothing but the

electricity of the climate and that I was in my own State once more and

took an insane pride in it. You do not even need to be born here for

that; it comes with the inevitable sense of isolation. You will feel it

in time. If I had not known that so certainly I should never have dared

to urge you to come."

Gwynne smiled with a pardonable cynicism; but while he was not unwilling

the conversation should turn upon himself, his curiosity was not

satisfied. The fog had gone and the moon had risen. He could see Isabel

quite plainly. She had turned her head and was gazing out over the great

expanse desolated by the moonlight, and he studied her profile for the

first time, often as he had observed it. To-night with the moonlight on

it and against the dark hills it was almost repellently unmodern in its

sharply cut regularity, the classic modelling of the eye-socket and

chin, the nose with its slight arch. Her hair had fallen from its pins

and hung in a braid, its length concealed by her position, and making

the effect of a queue. She had long since taken off her hat and wrapped

its veil about her head. The veil had slipped and might easily have been

mistaken for a ribbon confining the queue at the base of the head. For

an instant Gwynne's senses swam. He recalled the portraits of their

Revolutionary ancestors in the house on Russian Hill. It might have been

a medallion suspended before him. He drew in his breath; then his eye

fell to the short thin sensitive upper lip, rarely quiet for all her

extraordinary repose; to the full enticing under lip, and the little

black moles. Then his gaze wandered down to the rough shooting-jacket,

to the rubber boots reaching to her waist, and he only restrained

himself from laughing aloud because he feared to rush down the curtain

before that secretive nature.

"Then you have no faith in love as the best thing in the world?" he

asked.

She turned upon him her clear dreaming eyes. "I have faith enough in

love, as I have faith in death, or any other of the uncontrovertible

facts, as well as in its mission. But not as the best thing in life; not

for my sort at least. Not for even the domestic, for that matter, unless

they are utterly brainless. I believe that from the beginning of time

the misery of the world has been caused by the superstition that love

was all. It must continue to be the fate of the child-bearing woman, I

suppose--for a while at least; but others have blundered upon the fact

that it is a mere incident, and are far happier in consequence. To women

like Anabel freedom means an indulgent husband and plenty of money. To

others it means something of which the Anabels know the bare

nomenclature: an absolute freedom of the soul, of which the outer

independence is but the symbol. As I said, we only find it when we have

finished with the bogie of love. It is a modern enough discovery. Think

of the poor old maids of the generations behind us, who, failing to

marry, collapsed into insignificance instead of revelling in their

deliverance. And what humiliation to know that in your youth you are

really wooed for the sake of the race alone, no matter what the

delusions. If any one doubts it let him compare the matrimonial

opportunities of the ugly maternal girl and the ugly clever girl. When

clever women realize that they are a sex apart and wait until their

first youth at least is over before selecting a companion of the sex

that I am quite willing to concede must always interest us more than our

own, and no doubt is necessary to our completion, then will the world

have taken its first step towards real happiness."

Gwynne repressed his gorge and answered practically: "Not a bad idea if

two were really suited, for no doubt companionship is _one_ of the best

things in life, and a woman is more useful in many ways to a man than a

partner of his own sex. It is even apparent that she does equally well

in certain varieties of sport. I suppose the more experience a man has

had of life the more he hesitates to define what love really is. One has

attacks of such a severity and one recovers so completely! Doubtless

Schopenhauer was right: it is merely the furious determination of the

race to persist. Spencer tells us that it is 'absolutely antecedent to

all relative experience whatever.' Companionship--yes--perhaps----"

"It is necessary to a man; but by no means to all women----"

"Not for yourself, you mean. You are still blunted and somewhat

disgusted--"

"I have dismissed the question. You cannot imagine how happy I feel

every morning when I wake up, and every night when I go, always rather

tired, into my comfortable little bed, knowing that I shall sleep like

an infant. I love work. I love out-door life. I love the long evenings

with my books and my thoughts, and my plans for the future--all my own.

I revel in the thought that I can never be unhappy again, because now I

love no one. I loved my poor father, and suffered with him in his fits

of repentance and shame. I loved, of course, that man. I have absolutely

nothing in common with Paula, and my mother is merely a pretty memory. I

am fond of Anabel and perhaps several other friends--Mr. and Mrs.

Leslie; but that sort of affection does not go very deep. Love is

synonymous with selfishness and slavery--slavery because you no longer

own yourself. My brother-in-law adores my sister, makes a great point of

his fidelity, because before his marriage he was always flaunting some

painted female, without which possession, a few years ago, a San

Franciscan felt that he would lose the respect of his fellow-citizens.

But Lyster's reform makes him as exacting as a Turk. If my poor silly

little sister smiles at some fugitive thought he demands to know what it

is, and if she cannot remember he sulks for a day. He would possess her

very thoughts. She dares not have a man friend, talk to a man for half

an hour at a time. He won't let her belong to a club--clubs are all very

well for other women, but his wife is not as other women. On the other

hand, he has long since let her persuade him that he is the most

marvellous of men, and, in consequence, permits her to make every sort

of mean little sacrifice while he spends his money on himself. Her eyes

are in a measure open now, but it is too late, and she rebels in the

usual futile feminine way. There are millions like them. You will meet

Anne Montgomery. She is thirty-five now, quite plain, and makes a living

as a sort of itinerant housekeeper and caterer. She was a most lovely

girl, with a wild-rose complexion and starlike eyes, and full of life

and buoyant hope. Her great talent was for the violin, and she dreamed

of conquering the world. Teachers told her that with the proper study

she could at least become a professional of the first rank, although she

lacked the genius of creation. Her parents and an older sister--one of

the plain, domestic, unselfish kind, whose pleasure is in living for

others--were horrified at the bare suggestion. Not only because they

were old-fashioned--some of the most old-fashioned people on earth are

in San Francisco--but because it would mean separation from their idol.

They surrounded her like a flaming belt, not even a man could get at

her. They worshipped her as if she was a being of another world,

devoured her; all the treasures of life were centred in her. That there

might be the less temptation, they never took her to Europe; and

gradually induced her to lay aside the instrument altogether. She was

very sweet and gentle, and she loved them and submitted (I would have

throttled them all). But she faded rapidly, lost her lovely coloring and

animation, and she had no other beauty. Then her father speculated and

failed. While they were undergoing real privations the influenza swooped

down upon them and carried off the three older members of the family in

a week. Anne Montgomery is the most conspicuous victim of what are

generally supposed to be the higher affections that I know. They were

just commonplace animals--those three--nothing more."

"Real happiness may lie in forgetting that love is selfish, and in

overlooking the bitter in the sweet."

Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "If one can be happy without love why run

the risks?"

They felt that they had exhausted the subject for the present and there

was a long silence. Gwynne's eyes wandered over the inexpressibly

desolate and sinister landscape. The intense brilliancy of the moon

seemed to press darkness down upon the earth. It was true that every

object was as sharp of outline as if cut against crystal, but they were

a hard dark brown: the hills that jutted out into the windings of the

marsh, the marsh itself, the more distant mountains. It looked like a

landscape upon which the sun had set for ever, smitten with death--or

not yet born into the solar system; some terrible formless menacing

globe on the edge of the Universe. As he had approached San Francisco on

the afternoon of his arrival, standing on the forward deck of the boat

in a high wind, he had thought it the most stranded lonely city he had

ever seen. He recalled the impression now, and in a flash he appreciated

the Californian's attitude to the rest of the world, the effect of such

isolation upon the character of a people that had created a great and

important city out of the wilderness, and in half a century. In spite of

the obstinate aloofness of his ego he felt an involuntary thrill of

pride in his connection with such a people; and hoped it might be

premonitory. But again the eerie landscape claimed him and he became

aware of the weird night sounds that broke out with violent abruptness

after intervals of throbbing quiet: the loud honk-honk of geese, the

shriek of loons, the noisy capricious serenade of the frogs. He

experienced a feeling of such utter isolation that he almost started

when Isabel spoke.

"These waste places in California are almost terrifying by moonlight,"

said she. "They always look as if they were brooding, crouching,

concentrating their energies for a convulsion. No earthquake country can

be quite normal in any of its aspects, nor quite beautiful. Here comes

the tide. How Mac will grumble at us! But he is sure to have kept the

fire going, and you shall have a cup of hot coffee before you start for

home."

XII

Gwynne, on the following day, was making a late toilet, and in anything

but a good-humor, for he had grown accustomed to early rising, when he

received a note from Isabel.

It ran:

DEAR PARTNER,--Anabel has just told me over the telephone that Tom

and Mr. Leslie and two other representative citizens are going out

to see you this afternoon. I have the ghost of an idea that a

friendly call is not their only object. _Do_ be plastic--it is

better in the beginning--until you know your ground. Above all,

don't be too English. You are vastly improved, but you have lapses.

I send you your share of the ducks. Mariana's roasting will explain

our pride in one of the two most native of our products--the next

time we go to San Francisco I'll take you to the market and we will

sit in a grimy little balcony restaurant and you will be introduced

to fried California oysters.

Please consider the marsh your own; and whenever you come, remember

that you are to have breakfast or supper with me. Are you quite

comfortable? If anything is wrong I will go over and interview

Mariana and the Jap. Of course the latter will appropriate your

cigarettes and books; he is probably a prince, and far from

condescending to steal, he will take them as his right; and his

hauteur may match your own at times. Moreover, he may decamp any

morning without giving notice--Lafcadio Hearn dwells upon the

_impermanency_ of the Japanese, and we can all bear him out. But on

the other hand the Jap will keep your house cleaner than any other

sort of servant, and he can be both amiable and alert when he

chooses. I merely warn you, for I know nothing of your present

_homme de chambre_ beyond the recommendation of my Chuma, who is

amiable to the verge of imbecility. If he disappears, let me know

at once, for I really want to make you comfortable and contented in

what I know must seem to you little more than a beautiful

wilderness peopled by ambitious barbarians. But wait till you know

San Francisco!

ISABEL.

Gwynne smiled at the form of address and the expressions of concern in

his welfare; but he scowled twice over the admonition to be plastic and

American.

"I'll be what I damn please," he announced, aloud, much to the surprise

of Imura Kisaburo Hinomoto who entered at the moment with his shaving

water.

Nevertheless, when his visitors arrived, late in the afternoon, his

natural courtesy, and the reflection that he had not come to America to

fail, induced him to receive the four with something like warmth, and to

place his cigars and whiskey--he already knew better than to offer them

tea--at their immediate disposal. They sat on the porch facing the

mountain, and for a few moments the conversation was confined to the

weather and the scenery, giving Gwynne an opportunity to observe his

guests with some minuteness. Judge Leslie and young Colton he had

already met, and he liked the former, a pleasant shrewd tactful man, who

was one of the chief ornaments of the northern bar, and universally

admitted to be "dead straight." So "straight," indeed, was he that his

term of judgeship had been brief. He had been carried to the bench on an

independent ticket, but the reform movement subsiding, he could obtain

re-election only by bargaining with political bosses, and this he

refused to do; but after the fashion of the country he retained his

title. He had a loose hairy benignant face with a humorous but

penetrating eye and the usual domelike brow. His body had grown unwieldy

from years and lack of exercise, and his clothes were old-fashioned and,

generally, dusty. He voted the Republican ticket and was not too well

pleased with his son-in-law who was a red Democrat and rising daily in

the good graces of the party bosses.

This young man who was sipping his plain soda and commenting on neither

the scenery nor the weather, had inspired Gwynne with a certain interest

and curiosity. He was thirty but looked little over twenty, and his

large limpid blue eyes were as guileless as a child's. He had a long

pale face with an indifferent complexion and the common American lantern

jaw. His hair and brows and lashes were paler than straw, and his long

lank figure was without either distinction or muscularity. Nevertheless,

there was a curious suggestion of cynical power in his impassive face

and lolling inches, and Gwynne had made up his mind that he would be

useful as a study in politics.

Mr. Wheaton, one of the present "City Fathers," a position he had

occupied with brief intermittences for many years, had hard china-blue

eyes and a straight mouth, in a large square smoothly-shaven face. He

had crossed the plains in the Fifties from the inhospitable State of

Maine, sought fortune in the gold diggings with moderate success,

avoided San Francisco with a farmer's dread of "sharpers," and drifting

to the hamlet at the head of Rosewater Creek had opened a small store

for general merchandise. Frugality and a shrewd knowledge of what men

wanted and women thought they wanted had increased his capital so

rapidly that in five years he had converted a wing of the store into a

bank. To-day he was a power. His wife was the leader of Rosewater

society and attended first nights in San Francisco.

Mr. Larkin T. Boutts was new to Gwynne, although his status was easily

to be inferred from the constant references in the local press. He was a

fat little man who sat habitually with a hand on either knee, which he

clawed absently both in conversation and thought. Otherwise his attitude

was one of extreme repose, even watchfulness. He was excessively neat,

almost fashionable in his dress, which--Gwynne was to observe in the

course of time--was invariably brown. He had a small pointed beard and a

sharp direct dishonest eye. He was the leading hardware merchant of

Rosewater and owned the hotel and the opera-house. His business methods

had never been above criticism, and his politics drove the San Francisco

correspondent, during legislative sittings, into a display of caustic

virtue which gave the newspaper he represented just the necessary smack

of reform and did not hurt its inspiration in the least. For Mr. Boutts

was too sharp for the law, and all his sins were forgiven him on account

of his genuine devotion to Rosewater. Far from battening on her, after

the fashion of the San Francisco cormorant, he had never taken a dollar

out of her that he had not returned a hundred-fold, and he was the

author of much of her wealth.

This gentleman was the first to indicate that they had not driven out

to Lumalitas to discuss the weather and the scenery.

"Best come to business," he said, abruptly. "Judge, will you do the

talking?"

But Judge Leslie, who was a modest man, waved his hand deprecatingly.

"The idea is yours, sir, and yours is the right to state the case."

The host hastily poured whiskey-and-soda lest he should look haughtily

expectant.

"It's just this, Mr. Gwynne," began Boutts, in his suave even tones. "We

have seen your ads. We know that you contemplate selling off a good part

of your ranch--Well, there was a buzz round town when those ads were

read, and I was not long passing the word that there would be a

mass-meeting that night in Armory Hall. That's where we thresh things

out, and in this case there was no time to lose. We had a pretty full

meeting. Judge Leslie took the chair, and I opened with some of the most

pointed remarks I ever made. I was followed with more unanimity than

usually falls to my lot. The upshot was that resolutions were passed

before nine o'clock, and a committee of four was appointed to wait upon

you to-day--and endeavor to win you to our point of view," he continued,

suddenly lame, for by this time Gwynne, forgetting Isabel and his good

resolutions, was staring at the common little man with all the arrogance

of his nature in arms, and the color rising in his cheeks. Mr. Boutts's

hands gripped his knees as if for anchorage, and he proceeded, firmly:

"No offence, sir, I assure you. This is a free country. The man who

tells another man what he'd orter do should be called down good and

hard. Nothing could be further from our intention. The meeting was

called only in the cause of what you might call both self-defence and

patriotic local sentiment, although it's a sentiment that's local to

about two-thirds of California--only we do more acting and less talking

than most. It's now some weeks since we adopted resolutions in a still

bigger mass-meeting and got the best part of the county to subscribe to

them; on the ground that an ounce of prevention and so forth. So we just

hoped that as you have come to live among us you could be brought to see

things from our point of view."

He scraped his chair forward and dropped his voice confidentially, at

the same time darting a sharp glance through the open window beside him.

"It's this Japanese business. The Chinese, back in the Seventies, was

not a patch on it, because the Chinee never aspired to be anything but

house servants, fruit pickers, vegetable raisers and vendors on a small

scale, and the like. The agitation against them which led to the

exclusion bill was wholly Irish; that is to say it was entirely a

working-class political agitation, because the Chinee was doing better

work for less money than the white man. The better class liked the

Chinee and have always regretted the loss of them; and to-day those who

are left, particularly cooks and workers on those big reclaimed islands

of the San Joaquin River, where they raise the best asparagus in the

world--yes, in the world, sir--get higher wages than any white man or

woman in the State.

"But these Japs are a different proposition. They're slack servants,

unless they happen to be a better sort than the majority, and that

unreliable you never know where you are with them. And being servants is

about the last ambition they've come for to this great and glorious

country. They're buyin' farms all up and down the rivers, the most

fertile land in the State, to say nothing of some of the interior

valleys. You see, there were big grants like Lumalitas at first over a

good part of California. Then the ranches of thousands of acres were cut

up and sold into farms of three or four hundred acres that paid like the

mischief so long as the old man stuck to business himself. This he

generally did; but times have changed, and now all the young men want to

go to town; and most of the big farms have been cut up into little ones

and sold off to immigrants and the like. Well, that's the Japs' lay.

They like things on a small scale and know how to wring a dollar out of

every five-cent piece. No one's denying they're smart. They slid in and

got a good grip before we thought them worth looking at. Now we're

saddled with about thirty thousand of them, and more coming on every

steamer from Honolulu and Japan. Some years ago when they began to find

themselves as a nation, and to rebel at the foreigners that were ruling

things through the open ports, they let it be pretty well known that it

was going to be Japan for the Japanese. Well, now the sooner they know

that it's California for the Californians the better it will be for all

hands. We don't go round lookin' for trouble, but if it comes our way we

don't mind it one little bit. We'll tolerate the Japs just in so far as

we find them useful, and useful they are as servants; for if they don't

hold a candle to the old Chinee, they're a long sight better than our

lazy high-toned hired girls, who are good for just exactly nothing; and

we need a certain amount of them for hire in other fields; but as

citizens, not much. We've put a stop to that right here, in this county

at least; and so, Mr. Gwynne, that's the milk in the cocoanut, and we

hope that you'll see things our way, and not sell any of your land to

the Japs."

"You see," interposed Judge Leslie, that Gwynne might not feel himself

rushed to a decision. "These little men, while possessing so many

admirable traits that I am quite willing to take off my hat to them, are

not desirable citizens in a white man's country. Not only is their whole

view of life and religion, every antecedent and tradition, exactly

opposed to the Occidental, so that we never could assimilate them, never

even contemplate their taking a part in our legislation nor marrying our

daughters, but--and for the majority of the people this is the crux of

the whole matter--commercially and industrially they are a menace. With

their excessive frugality they can undersell the most thrifty white man,

both as farmers and merchants; and the contempt they excite,

particularly in this state of extravagant traditions, is as detrimental

in its effects as their business methods; the more a man exercises his

faculty for contempt the more must his general standards sink toward

pessimism, and pessimism is neither more nor less than a confession of

failure in the struggle with life. I never was much of a fighter, so I

believe in eliminating the foe whenever it is possible. At all events we

have made up our minds to eliminate the Jap, what with one motive and

another, and I think we will. It may come to war in time--when the

United States are ready--but we Californians have a way of taking

matters into our own hands, and as war is a remote possibility, and we

have little prospects of legislation--what with the treaty and the

unpreparedness of the country for war--we just do what we can to freeze

the Japs out. If we must have small farmers and our own young men have

other ambitions, there are plenty of good European immigrants, and it

is our business to encourage them. We assimilate anything white so

quickly it is a wonder an immigrant remembers the native way of

pronouncing his own name. But the Oriental we can't assimilate, for all

our ostrich-like digestion, and what we can't assimilate we won't have.

It is also true that we don't like the Jap. He antagonizes us with his

ill-concealed impertinence under a thin veneer of servility; and

superior as he is, still he has a colored skin. Now, right or wrong,

Christian or merely natural, we despise and dislike colored blood, every

decent man of us in this United States of America. Your sentimentalists

can come over and wonder and write about us, reproach us and do their

honest ingenuous best to convert us, it never will make _one damned bit

of difference_. We are as we are and that is the end of it. The

antagonism, of course, only leaps to life when the colored man wants

equal rights and recognition, something he will never get in the United

States of America, as long as the stripes and the stars wave over it;

and the sooner the sentimentalists quit holding out false hopes the

better. As to the Chinese, it is quite true that there was no objection

to them outside of politics. And the reason was, they kept their place.

The antipathy to the Japanese extends throughout all classes. Every

thinking man in the State is concerned with the question. California

will be overrun with them before we know where we are; and we are hoping

that other counties will give an ear to the wisdom and farsightedness

Mr. Boutts has displayed, in proposing that no more land shall be

sold--or rented--to the Japanese. They can work for us if we have need

of them, for a while, but they cannot settle."

Gwynne had been thinking rapidly as Judge Leslie drawled out his

homily. In his new apprehension of latent weaknesses in his character he

was indisposed to yield to pressure, but he was equally desirous not to

let the turmoil into which his inner life had been thrown lead him to

any ridiculous extremes; not only interfering with his prospects, but

converting himself into chaos. He was extremely anxious to make no

mistakes at the outset of his new career, beset with difficulties

enough. Their words had every appearance of being a just presentment of

a just cause. He didn't care a hang about the "Jap." For the matter of

that, he reflected with some bitterness, he didn't care a hang about

California. At this point in his reflections he became aware that Colton

was turning his head with a sort of slow significance. He looked up and

watched a pale eyelash drop over a deep gleam of intelligence. Mr.

Leslie finished speaking, and Gwynne replied with an elaborate

politeness, which might be his vehicle for spontaneous sympathy or utter

indifference.

"Thank you all very much for your confidence in me, and also for

preventing me from making what no doubt would have been a serious

mistake. I have no desire whatever for the Japanese as a neighbor. I was

one of the few to recognize the menace of Japan to Occidental

civilization when all the world was sympathizing with it during its war

with Russia, and they will get no encouragement from me. So the matter

is settled as far as I am concerned."

"Shake!" said Mr. Wheaton, in a deep rumbling voice.

The four shook hands solemnly with their new neighbor, then, with even a

greater gusto, drank his health. Gwynne suddenly remembering the

California tradition, and the ducks, invited them to remain for supper;

but all declined except Colton, who sent his wife a message by his

father-in-law. The other three climbed into Judge Leslie's surrey and

departed, Colton remarking, apologetically, and somewhat wistfully:

"She's dining at the judge's and won't miss me: I never leave her alone.

I'll get back in time to take her home."

XIII

Mariana cooked the ducks with the skill of the unsung _chef_ she was,

and enhanced them with other delicacies for which she alone had a name.

Gwynne, faithless to Isabel's crude though honest effort, rose to gayety

and wondered whether California was practising the insidious methods of

the wife. Colton, absent of eye, disposed of his share of the repast as

negatively as he did most things, and as soon as they had retired to the

veranda produced a bag of peanuts from his pocket, without which, he

remarked, no meal was complete. Gwynne declined the national delicacy,

feeling that diplomacy had its limits, and lit a pipe, wondering how he

should lead his new friend to give him some practical political

information. He detected the guile under that bland, almost vacant

exterior, and Colton's prattle about duck-shooting and deer-hunting,

although apparently endless, did not divert him for a moment. But he had

less trouble than he had anticipated. Colton's mind seldom roved far

from politics, and it required little tact to lead him to the trough.

"As I am necessarily in your confidence I will take you voluntarily into

mine," he announced, in his clear high pipe. "I don't in my heart care a

hang more for the Democratic party than I do for the Republican. But the

Republicans own the State at present, and there's no chance to get your

name up and really do things in that party. They're out for graft, every

last one of them. The chance is on the other side. It's a big chance;

for the laboring class, what with unions, and being rotten spoilt with

easy living in this State, is becoming more and more dissatisfied every

day. If they were let alone it would never occur to them they weren't

the chosen of the Lord; but we--the Democratic party--can't afford to

let them alone, unless we want to go out of business altogether. They

are just about the only dough we've got to work on, and for the last few

years we've been systematically sowing the seeds of discontent by means

of the press, metropolitan and local, abusing the rich, the trusts,

harping on the segregation of capital by a favored few, to the unjust

and illegal impoverishment of the many, painting gaudy pictures of what

the working-man's lot will be when he gets his rights, emphasizing that

in this State, of all others, man was intended to be happy and share

equally in her abundance. We sail pretty close to anarchy; but they are

an ignorant foolish lot, and we keep a tight hand on the reins and will

drive them in a straight line when the time comes. I am qualifying for

the position of district leader hereabouts, although I'm not announcing

it from the house-tops. But the present one is getting old, and I'm on

the inside track. I dress in these battered old clothes, that make my

little wife weep--she'll never have any other cause from me--just to

impress the farmers what a good Democrat I am; not a bit like Hyliard

Wheaton, who is a dude. All he is waiting for is his father's death so

that he can move to San Francisco. But I drive round in a dusty old

buggy, with candy for the children in my pocket, and chin with the

farmers about the crops and any old thing. When this county turns

Democratic, as it shall in the next five years--likely as not sooner, we

have so much raw material to work on in these immigrants--I intend to go

to Congress, hold on in the House until there is a vacancy in the

Senate, and there I'll be for life, and the boss of this State to boot.

I can't say I care about the Presidency. It's only a chance that there

may be anything doing while you're in--it's largely luck--and then when

you're out, if you survive the White House--which most Presidents

don't--you're as good as dead. I don't care about going abroad as a

Consul-General, or even Ambassador, for I wouldn't hold any office under

the United States government that was dependent upon the favor of a

small group in Washington. You're no better than a servant, and you

never know where you are. Political enemies at home, liars abroad,

somebody with a little more influence, or any low political business,

and you're fired without being heard in your own defence. You've got no

redress, and may be disgraced for life without ever knowing where you

were hit. None of that for me, although I'd like a big position of that

sort for my wife. But she can cut all the dash she wants as a senator's

wife, and I'll wield the big stick. That's where the fun comes in. I

have a natural turn for politics, and then it's the only road out of

Rosewater. The old gentleman is dead set upon my succeeding him in the

bank, and he'd never give me a lift, although if I made a hit at

anything he'd be so proud it would be easy sailing after. He's not a bit

displeased that I've turned over a few thousands an aunt left me. But

I'm after bigger game than that. She also left me two thousand acres of

land, that look hopeless because there's not so much as a spring on

them, and they're in one of the droughtiest sections in the State--she

got them as a bad debt. Now, just over the border of that ranch is a big

lake, and the owner of it won't sell or rent me water rights, thinking

I'll sell out for a song. But he don't know Tom Colton. I'm a member of

the present legislature--and that isn't the least of the reasons why. A

few hundreds in a few hungry pockets, and we run a snake through the

legislature declaring that lake state property. Then I ditch from the

lake, and I am the proud owner of a large tract of valuable irrigated

land. I sell off in small farms, and clean up a hundred thousand

dollars. That I'll invest in a Class A building in San Francisco. I'm

also in this projected electric railway of Boutts's--would advise you to

buy a block of that stock--I can let you in on the ground floor. Money

and political power, boss of this State--that's what I'm after--and no

idle dream either. I know the ropes, and all I have to do is to hang on.

I'll build a house on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, and my wife

shall have dresses four times a year from Paris." He turned to Gwynne

with glowing eyes. "You've barely seen her--and you haven't had a sight

of the kids. She's Isabel's great friend. I wonder you haven't been

round. I've got the nicest little shanty you ever saw, and we'd always

be glad to see you."

Gwynne thanked him absently; then, while his guest, dismissing politics,

indulged in domestic rhapsodies, relating several anecdotes the while he

consumed another bag of peanuts, Gwynne's brain worked rapidly. He

boiled with discouragement and disgust. The cynical frankness of this

young provincial, with his serene confidence in his star, and in his

power to handle the millions he despised, bore a primitive and

humiliating likeness to his younger self: Americanized by the lower

standards of his country perhaps, but painfully like in its elements.

All he could claim, it seemed to him at the moment, was a higher

personal sense of honesty and honor; and how long would he keep it in

this country? While he was hesitating between taking a possible rival

into his confidence, and an arrogant desire to announce his reason for

coming to California, without regard to consequences, Colton dropped the

subject of his family, scattered the mass of shells on the floor with a

sudden sweep of his foot, and tipping his chair back against the wall,

produced a large red apple and his pocket-knife.

"I can't say that I like the seamy side of politics," he remarked,

absently, as he performed a delicate operation without breaking the

skin. "My wife always maintains that I'm the most honest man alive, and

I shouldn't wonder if that was the way I really was made. Anyhow, I know

I'd a heap sight rather do a man a good turn than an ill one; but when

he gets in your way what are you going to do in a country where politics

are machine-made and every cog has to be oiled with graft? I'm thankful

I'll never be forced to accept a bribe--there's a lot of difference

between giving and taking, and I guess I'll have to do a lot of the

first. But it's politics or nothing with me, aside from having a natural

genius for them. I'll never get out of Rosewater otherwise. My father is

likely to live for twenty years yet, and I hope to God he will; but I

want the big game while I'm young. If the country was better I'd be,

too, and like my job. But you've got to play the game in your

shirt-sleeves. Kid gloves, and you sit on the fence and watch somebody

else wallow in after the prizes."

"It seems to me that the best chance for fame and power lies in that

superior strength which is allied with honesty. A man who is at the same

time a clever manipulator of men, and whose aim is statesmanship, should

be able to reach his goal by a clean road."

Gwynne had been long enough in the United States to blush uneasily as he

delivered these sentiments, and his color deepened as Colton gave a

little snort.

"Can't be done. Not in this State, anyhow. You've been talking to

Isabel. She looks like the Pilgrim Fathers and has inherited all their

antiquated notions. Honest, now--_are_ your politics so much better than

ours?"

"A long sight. And they are by no means perfect. We have our machine and

our compromises, and all the rest of it; and even a few wholly rotten

boroughs. Fifty years ago we were blatantly worse than you are to-day.

As long as the game lasts, and there are two parties, there must be more

or less chicanery, but we are snow-white compared with the mire of this

country. And it is an anomaly I cannot understand. I have now been a

year in the United States, have talked with hundreds of Americans,

studied them and their institutions. Few have struck me as personally

dishonest--as we interpret the word in England. Human nature in this

country, indeed, has at times appeared to me almost elemental, utterly

without the subtlety that makes for crooked dealing. There is a thousand

times more petty trickery in Europe; and, with us, more hypocrisy,

certainly; but politics we have at least elevated. Here, the best man in

private life seems to become transformed the moment he enters the

political atmosphere, and if he is not a scoundrel, he sails pretty

close to the wind."

"H--m! All you say may be true. I don't agitate my gray matter over

problems. I know what we are, and the work cut out for me if I want to

stay on top. I have known reformers. We have lots of spasmodic attempts

at reform right here in this district. When the reform is directed at

some glaring evil, something that makes us uncomfortable, then it goes

through. When it's directed against politics in general, then the

reformer falls so hard he never gets up--unless, to be sure, he

scrambles up p. d. q. and trims with the wind. And that, I'm bound to

say, he generally does. We've had our idealists--talk till your mouth

waters. One session in Sacramento generally cures them. When it doesn't,

we have no more idea what becomes of them than of an ant that butts in

on a procession of other ants. Ever watch ants?"

It was Gwynne's turn to snort.

"I take my boy up on the hills every Sunday afternoon when it is fine,

and we watch ants and grasshoppers and birds and all the rest of it. Why

don't you get married? There's nothing like it. I may have some hard

hoeing ahead of me, but I always have that cosy pretty home at the end

of the day, and the sweetest wife in the world--who doesn't know the

Republican party from the Democrat, and never opens a newspaper. Isabel

is too high and mighty. She's a wonderful girl all right, but the last

woman I'd want for a wife. I know a girl that would just suit you--Dolly

Boutts. She's as pretty as a peach, and as domestic as Anabel. I'll have

you both in to supper, as soon as we get a new cook. We've had four this

month, and my wife warned me I was not to ask you to anything until she

was perfectly satisfied. She's the best housekeeper you ever saw."

Gwynne maintained an infuriated silence. It was some moments before he

could trust himself to articulate. Colton, munching his apple, and

twirling the long spiral of skin he had peeled off without a break,

detected nothing unusual in the atmosphere. It was characteristic of him

that he took no interest in his new friend's future. Isabel had told him

that Gwynne had not sufficient income to maintain his rank in England,

and had resolved not only to drop his titles, but the name by which he

had so long been known; being averse from notoriety. Colton, who had

barely recalled the name of Elton Gwynne--he usually skipped the

telegrams unless a war with picturesque details monopolized the foreign

columns--had been somewhat amused at the precaution, but respected it;

he would never have thought of betraying a confidence reposed in the

bank. He assumed that Gwynne intended to become a rancher, like so many

other Englishmen, and that he purposed reading law merely as a secondary

occupation. He could have thought of several more interesting methods of

putting in time; but every one to his taste.

Gwynne spoke finally, and when he did, Colton, whose chair was still

tipped against the wall, sat forward with a square planting of his feet.

"I came to California with one intention only," said Gwynne: "to have

the political career that my elevation to the peerage deprived me of in

England. I had intended to work with the Democratic party, but I am free

to state that your account of it has turned my stomach. My reasons for

selecting it were, partly, that in principle at least it more nearly

approached the Liberal party in England; partly because of its weakness

in strong men. But if it is as rotten as you say I am afraid it would be

a waste of time to qualify for it; I certainly could not work in

harmony with it. However, there is an abundance of time for close

observation. I cannot vote for four years, and if I finally decide in

favor of the Republican party, at least we shall not be rivals."

"_Jiminy!_" exclaimed young Colton, ingenuously; but Gwynne could see

the glitter of his eye. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Not much you don't

go over to the Republicans! There isn't five cents' worth of choice

between the two parties when it comes to a square deal on any measure

ever put up, and this slow wave of reform that's trying to crawl over

the country--against trusts, graft, and the like--is just strong enough

to swamp the Republicans and give us our chance. Rivals! Not a bit of

it. There's room for all, and you're just the man we want. Isabel told

me you were a wonderful speaker--I'd forgotten. That's _just_ what we

want. I can't speak for a cent. There's no one in the district that can

carry a crowd. The boss was wailing over it the other day. You can do a

lot in the next four years. You'll go to all the conventions and county

meetings with me and make my speeches. I'll introduce you to everybody

that can put you _on_. You've fallen into clover with the judge, because

his only son, who was practising with him, has had to go to southern

California to live--nerves all broken up. He'll push you all right, and

as soon as you have swallowed the California codes you can practise in

the courts by courtesy. Then I'll take you to Sacramento with me next

year--I'm a senator this term--as my private secretary, and you'll learn

a lot. Your hair will stand up straight, but never mind. All that will

pave the way for whatever office you want to begin with when your papers

are ripe. I'll see that it's a good conspicuous town or county office,

and the legislature will follow as a matter of course. That will fill in

while you are waiting a chance for Congress--you must be seven years in

the country for that--nine for the Senate. Only, you must swallow us

whole. You can't make us over. We Democrats are determined to get on top

again and have our chance at the pickings. We'll talk reform, of course.

That's where your eloquence will come in, and the more you believe in it

while you're holding forth about the Republican party robbing the widow

and orphan--more particularly the farmer and the laborer--the better.

We'll promise the working-man a sort of sugar-coated socialism, but we

won't inspire him with any higher ideals than pecuniary profits, _if you

please_. That would mean content, and the end of the Democratic party.

Well, think it over. I must go. My little old woman doesn't like to sit

up late. Mind you drop in and see her the next time you are in town."

Gwynne rang for his guest's buggy, thanked him for his advice; then

ordered his horse and rode about the ranch half the night.

XIV

A fortnight later Isabel announced to Gwynne that she intended to give a

party and introduce him to the young people of Rosewater.

"All the girls want to know you, Anabel tells me, and as it is a relief

to hear that they are interested in something besides cards, and as

nobody else seems disposed to take the initiative, I have concluded to

play the _grande dame_ for a night. In a way it is my duty to introduce

you formally, although it would be more so if they had done anything for

me since my return. However--I will ask them for next Saturday evening

if you have nothing better to do."

"One day is quite the same as another to me," said Gwynne, dryly. "What

do you fancy are my evening engagements? I have not even begun to read

law with Mr. Leslie; he has gone off to southern California to see his

son. He says he is always restless in the autumn, as young people are in

the spring, but has promised me his attention before the middle of this

month."

They were rowing down the channel of the wider portion of the creek

towards Isabel's landing, their boat filled with spoil. The little

steamboat was winding proudly through the marsh, there were a dozen

sails in sight; from the south came an incessant sound of firing. The

distant mountains looked as hard as metal and there was a new crispness

in the air. Little rain had fallen, but it was no longer summer. Gwynne

had exchanged his khaki riding-clothes for corduroy; and Isabel's habit,

although still dust-colored, was made of cloth instead of pongee. To-day

they wore light covert coats over their canvas and rubber.

With the passing of the heat and the advent of the daily electric

breezes sweeping up the valleys from the sea, Gwynne felt a slow lifting

of the dead weight on his spirits, although he was only happy when he

had his gun in his hand. California seemed less like a voluptuous

leviathan blowing poppy-dust that blunted the memory of all things

beyond her borders. At first he had been vaguely uneasy at the insidious

suggestion that he had transferred himself to another planet, but he was

beginning to suspect that California, true to her sex, might have

surprises in store that would quicken his blood at least. He still

disliked her at night: the high unfriendly arch of her sky, the sinister

atmosphere that brooded over her spaces, suggesting illimitable reaches

where no man dwelt, or would long be tolerated. But her days seemed full

of promise, and they certainly were full of beauty.

He still fought with a longing to confide in Isabel: his apprehensions

and doubts, his haunting interrogation of inherent greatness. But he

turned from the temptation in a panic of spirit, sure that he would fail

unless he fought his battle alone. He had pondered more and more upon

his possible debt to his mother; and the doubt that she might have been

the foundation of his courage and self-confidence was as bitter as that

he might have owed the extraordinary rapidity of his career to the

influence of his family and name. And Isabel's very strength alarmed

him, the more so as he felt her subtle fingers among the leaves of his

new destiny. So he merely smiled into her eyes and made a gallant

remark, a purely masculine method of emphasizing that woman is charming

in her proper place.

"I shall be delighted to dance again; particularly--it seems odd--as I

have never danced with you. And it is a year since I have seen you in an

evening gown. I have a vivid remembrance of how you looked that night at

Arcot, when you turned so many heads."

Isabel colored, and whether with pleasure or resentment, she had not the

least idea. But she answered, hastily:

"I feel that I have been very selfish to do nothing before. But really,

it seemed hopeless until Anabel told me yesterday that there was a vast

amount of interest in the young English rancher. I am afraid the girls

here will not interest you; only you should have the opportunity of

deciding that question for yourself. But what will be really delightful

will be to show you San Francisco. I have not been able to leave the

ranch for a day since that three weeks' outing I had no business to

take. But I have had half a dozen resentful letters from Paula, who has

persuaded herself that you are her cousin too, and asserts her right to

know you. But neither she nor Lyster has the remotest suspicion of your

identity. Elton Gwynne might have a dozen brothers; nor is it likely

they ever heard the name. If you were an artist or actor or litterateur

or composer you might be as well known in San Francisco as in London.

There is no city in the United States one-half so artistic--nor so given

to fads. But in European politics, the young people, at least, take as

much interest as they do in the canals of the moon. So you are quite

safe, and Lyster is the man of all others to show you Bohemian San

Francisco and give you a thoroughly good time. We might go down a few

days after the party."

"That will be very jolly. I will confess that although San Francisco did

not inspire me with enthusiasm, it has occurred to me that it might be

an improvement on Rosewater.... Oh, by-the-way, I had a letter from my

mother not long ago, in which she said she had met some San Franciscans

at Homburg--Hofer, I believe the name was--and had promised I should

call on them, mentioning me, of course, as John Gwynne. I have wondered

if the risk would be worth while. The amusement to be derived from

provincial society is very doubtful."

"Provincial! What arrogance! Do please call on the Hofers. They have the

old Polk house, whose history I have told you, and entertain like

princes. Besides, Mr. Hofer is one of that small millionaire group that

is trying to clean up San Francisco municipally. He is quite worth

knowing. And I want you to know San Francisco. It is my ambition to be a

great figure in San Francisco--and I have seen other cities, and might

be enjoying myself in England this moment."

"Yes, I know," said Gwynne, smiling, and admiring her pink cheeks and

flashing eyes. "And of course I don't forget that you have spurned a

great position for the sake of your beloved city. That is really at the

root of my desire to know the place. If it has a fascination I should

like to feel it. Fascination is a strong word and means a considerable

amount of enjoyment, up to a certain point. But I am glad to have heard

the declaration of your ambition. Is it the final one?"

"It is the pedestal," said Isabel, enigmatically. "Sometime, when you

give me your confidence, I will give you mine."

"I have no confidences to make--none, at least, that can compare with

the rich experiences of your past. I told you all about Mrs. Kaye before

I left England, and, so far, America has left me--well, unfascinated.

By-the-way, Colton informs me that he and his wife have picked out some

one to cheer my loneliness and--"

"Who?"

"I do not remember her name. Doubtless she will be at the party. I am

curious to see all your friends together. I have seen an astonishing

number of pretty girls in the street, and I am wondering how they will

stand the test of lighting up; the great test to my mind. I don't know

which I like least, the manufactured animation of the European woman of

the world, or the too natural animation which makes the American girl's

features dance all over her face. You, if you don't mind my saying so,

are one of the very few Americans I have met that has something of the

Englishwoman's faculty of looking, at the same time, statuesque and

glowingly alive."

"You excite my suspicion: I see no indication that you are out of

practice. It is quite true that American women's faces, like their

voices, lack cultivation. Well, you will see a good many pretty girls on

Saturday night, and with no particular advantage of dress. Money has

nothing to do with social position in these country towns. Perhaps

twenty families besides the bankers and Mr. Boutts, and the Leslies, are

well off. But many girls who are in the best society earn their living:

typewriters, clerks, book-keepers, and the like. One has carried on her

father's drug-store since his death. Most of the young men that could

get away have gone, and there are not half a dozen left with any money

behind them. The majority of beaux are either clerks, or in some small

business, although there are always the doctors and clergymen--very few

young lawyers. Snobbery barely exists. There are lines, but purely

theological. All social groups centre about the churches. The first here

has always been the Episcopalian."

"It had occurred to me that society of any sort had ceased. Of the

famous California hospitality I have seen nothing. A number of men have

driven out and called upon me, and I have returned their calls, and

found their houses very well appointed--although some member of the

family usually answered the bell; and one morning I saw Miss Wheaton

sweeping off the porch, her head tied up in a towel. All I meet appear

to be very cordial and friendly, but I have not been asked to take so

much as a cup of tea in a house in the county, and I have now been here

something like five weeks."

"California hospitality is a mere legend except in San Francisco. In the

small communities it has never existed in my time, although they used to

dance a good deal before cards turned their heads. You will find just as

much haggling over a five-cent piece here as in any small New England

town. These rich men have made their money by hoarding and wary

investments, rarely speculating; and that tells immensely on the

character. I doubt if the State itself has ever known the meaning of

hospitality since the old ranch days, when, of course, it was prodigal.

It is the San Franciscans that have kept the tradition alive; they are

as reckless, as extravagant, as royally indifferent to mere money as in

the famous Fifties. If you happen to call too close to a meal-time in

one of these towns, the meal will be postponed until you leave. In San

Francisco they would give you two-thirds of their last crust. At the old

Rosewater dances we never had anything but cake and lemonade--ice-cream

in very hot weather. I think it would be a good idea to give them a

shock and have a supper from town."

"I believe you are socially ambitious," said Gwynne, smiling. "No doubt

it is your intention to make a fortune and lead San Francisco society."

"Perhaps, but not in the way you mean."

XV

The long-closed bar-room of Old Inn was aired for a week, denuded of

cobwebs, delivered of mice, canvassed by the invaluable Chuma. The

Rosewater Hotel promised to contribute its Sunday band of four pieces,

manipulated with no mean skill by worthy but unprosperous young

citizens. Not one of Isabel's invitations was refused. The girls

suddenly discovered that they were still young, and were as much excited

at the prospect of a night's dancing as at meeting the English rancher.

The men accepted as a matter of course, thankful to be asked to

anything. The older people, surprised at an invitation to a dance,

assured one another that Isabel Otis, being absurdly extravagant, and

living two miles out in the country, was almost certain to regale her

guests with fried oysters and ice-cream. One or two of her mother's old

friends wrote and offered to contribute a chocolate cake, but were

relieved when she refused to "trouble them." Gwynne and Isabel hung the

walls of the big room with palm leaves, and branches covered thick with

small yellow oranges, the first of the year. When they rested from their

labors Isabel declared that it looked like an exhibit at a county fair,

but Gwynne, never having attended a county fair, was proud of his

handiwork and thought the effect an improvement upon the average

ballroom. The day before the party Tom Colton and Hyliard Wheaton rode

out to Lumalitas and demanded of Gwynne if he intended to wear a

"claw-hammer." Colton was averse on principle from being too "swagger";

and they finally compromised on what the Americans called their

"Tuxedos," and Gwynne his "smoker." Anabel Colton, Dolly Boutts, and

Serena Wheaton, after half a day's telephoning, decided to "wear their

necks," and their hostess agreed to keep them in countenance. Every team

in Rosewater was bespoken for the distinguished occasion, and the

reports of the weather bureau were consulted daily. But the rains held

off and the night of the party was brilliant with starlight, and not too

cold.

Gwynne, who had no intention of receiving with Isabel, and learning from

Colton that everybody would have arrived before nine o'clock, did not

make his appearance until ten. He found the big room full of young and

elderly people, even the latter chattering with an extraordinary

animation, induced no doubt by the surprises that had greeted them; they

had forgotten the existence of the old bar-room. From the dancers Gwynne

received a general impression of pink cheeks, fluffy hair, delicate

features, gay simple gowns, the usual lack of background; a curious

transientness, as if they had been born for the night like summer moths.

The men for the most part made a good appearance, the more favored

looking college-bred and irreproachable. Hyliard Wheaton, who was really

handsome, with his broad shoulders and cool smooth well-cut face, wore

an orchid in his button-hole and was devoting himself to Isabel.

The hostess wore a gown of black chiffon trimmed with pale blue that

looked simple and was not. Her neck and arms were bare, and Gwynne

noticed at once that she had another little black mole where the bodice

slipped from her shoulder. She reproached the guest of honor for being

late.

"You will dance this waltz with me," she commanded, royally; "and then I

will introduce you to the prettiest of the girls."

For the first time in his life Gwynne felt self-conscious in putting his

arm about a woman's waist for the waltz. He had seen Isabel in full

evening dress many a time in England, in rubber boots to her hips, in

divided skirt astride her horse, in overalls among her chickens, and in

pretty little house-gowns when he had remained for supper; nevertheless,

in surrendering her slim waist she seemed to descend, significantly,

from her pedestal and become warm flesh and blood. He held her

awkwardly, barely touching her, wondering there should be physical

shrinking from such a beautiful creature, one, moreover, that had shown

him more kindness and disinterested friendship than any he had ever

known. He reproached himself, but even while he admired the luminous

whiteness of her skin he found himself scowling at the tiny black moles

that gave her an oddly artificial provocative look, as black patches may

have deliberately enhanced the charms of their coquettish grandmothers.

"Humph!" said Mrs. Wheaton, raising her lorgnette, as became a leader of

society. "He is not so fond of her, for all this friendship we have been

hearing so much about. Well, it is natural enough. Isabel is far too

independent to be really attractive to men, for all her good looks.

These advanced women will have to step aside into a class by themselves,

and as the men won't follow them, that will mean they will die off

naturally, and the world wag its own old way once more."

She was a tall stout woman, with a pale heavy face, and a curious

elevation of nose, as if sniffing an unpleasant odor; but which was

really meant to express pride of carriage. She wore a somewhat

old-fashioned but handsome gown of lavender satin trimmed with point

lace about the bodice, and a pair of diamond ear-rings. On one side of

her sat the elder Mrs. Colton, in black silk with a point-lace collar; a

sweet-faced frankly elderly woman. The third member of the group was a

woman who might have been any age between thirty-five and fifty, very

thin and dark, with the curiously virginal look peculiar to childless

women tainted by a suggestion of morbid sensuality, very difficult to

locate. Sometimes it seemed to twist across her thin restless mouth, at

others to gleam from her deep-set black eyes with a fleeting wildness.

Ordinarily she was smiling with an affected cynicism, and it was plain

to be seen that she respected her intellect. She was abominably dressed

in a frock of purple merino trimmed with black velvet ribbon; but she

wore a gold comb in her hair and a diamond brooch.

As the leader finished her remarks Mrs. Haight brought her teeth

together with a snap and shot through them a little hiss. Mrs. Wheaton

turned upon her with the gleam of the bird of prey in her little gray

cold eyes. All the gossip of Rosewater was very old, scandal rare. "What

is it, Minerva?" she asked, eagerly. "Are they engaged? And do you know

just why he has come out here?"

"I only know what everybody says about his coming here--that his health

ain't good, and he wants to make the ranch pay by running it himself;

but that other--" She paused and lifted her thin shoulders

significantly. "Well, all I can say is, that if they ain't engaged they

ought to be."

Mrs. Wheaton leaned forward eagerly, but Mrs. Colton said, severely:

"That is just your evil mind, Minerva. You are always imagining things;

comes of having nothing to think about but cards and novels--six

children were what you needed."

"I guess I have as much as anybody to think about, what with having no

help half the time, and a husband who wants his meals on time whether or

no. And I guess I worked as hard in the City Improvement Club as anybody

until we got all those concrete sidewalks for the town, let alone the

parks. What if I do read novels and play cards for recreation? Too much

thinking ain't good for anybody."

"Oh, never mind," interrupted Mrs. Wheaton, hastily. "But what did you

mean, anyhow?"

"Well, as you know, I don't sleep very well, and I often get up and sit

at the window, watching for the boat 'bus, and just imagining where the

people who are out late, or up early, are going to and what they are

thinking about. Well, I've seen him"--jerking her shoulder at Gwynne,

who was now dancing with Miss Boutts--"I've seen him riding home from

here as late as ten or half-past, many a night. He may have been

duck-shooting and stayed to supper. That's all right, but he could go

home just after. I for one don't think it's decent--a girl living all

alone like she does. If he wants to shoot ducks, anyhow, why don't he

join a club? If he does all his shooting here it's to be with her, and

no mistake. I've said from the very first, it's downright indecent for a

girl to live alone on a farm--no chaperon, not even a woman servant. I,

for one, think that Isabel Otis has done just as she pleased long

enough, and ought to be called down."

"It is only natural that she should do as she pleases now that she has

the chance, poor soul," said Mrs. Colton. "She never had anything but

trouble and sorrow in her life until James Otis died. I wish he could

have died when she was little and I could have brought her up. That

life, and then her sudden liberty, have made her independent and

advanced, but I can't say that I like it myself. I wish she were more

like Anabel. It's odd they're not more alike, being such friends."

"I quite agree with Minerva!" announced the leader. "Isabel ought to

have a chaperon. I don't doubt she's all she should be or _I_ shouldn't

be here to-night, friend of her mother's or not; but I suggested to her

only yesterday--I had a little talk with her on Main Street--that she

get some respectable old maid or widow to live with her."

"What did she say?" asked Mrs. Colton, with a smile.

"Say? The insolent young minx! She just looked at me, through me--Me--as

if I had not spoken. Her mother always put on airs. That's where she

gets it from. I had half a mind not to come to-night. But I wanted to

see things for myself. If she does anything really imprudent, _I'll make

her suffer_."

This last phrase was famous in Rosewater. Mrs. Wheaton employed it

seldom, but when she did her friends understood that she was not far

from the war-path. Her color had risen with the memory of yesterday's

grievance, pushed aside by curiosity for some twenty-eight hours.

Mrs. Haight regarded the radiant young hostess with a malignant stare,

prudently veiled by drooping lids. She envied Isabel with her whole

small soul; she had never known the sensation of liberty in her life,

and she stopped short of the courage that might snatch it. Mr. Haight,

the leading druggist of Rosewater and an eminent and useful citizen, was

a large stolid elderly man--he was at present in the little dining-room

with other gentlemen of his standing and a punch-bowl--as regular as a

clock in his habits, and devoted conscientiously to his wife, whom he

took for a buggy ride every Sunday in fine weather. They had been

married for twenty-two years, and for at least fifteen she had yearned

to be the heroine of an illicit romance; nor ever yet had found the

courage to indulge in a mild flirtation. She really loved her husband,

and in many respects made him an excellent wife, but her depths were

choked with the slime of a morbid eroticism which her husband was the

last man to exorcise. The earlier fever in her blood had gradually

dropped to the greensickness of middle-age, so that she was vaguely

repellent to men, particularly the young. This she had the wit to

detect, as well as the incontrovertible fact that her youth and her

chances were gone. As a natural consequence her repressed but still

rebellious passions diffused their poison throughout her nature. There

were times when she was seized with a frantic desire to inflict injury

upon some other woman, and at all times she found relief in sharp

criticism, in flinging mud at mantles spotless to the casual eye. She

passed for being very piquante and clever in a town where so little

happened except the turning over of money, and where the conversation

alternated between chickens and cards. She was sure that she scented a

scandal here, and her very nostrils quivered with anticipation; the

while she hated Isabel more bitterly for taking a lover instead of an

eternal husband.

"Looks as if she didn't mean to introduce him to us," she remarked, with

an attempt at frigid criticism. "He don't dance so well but what the

girls could get on without him. Isabel might give him a chance to

exhibit his conversational powers--My! if he ain't going to dance again

with Dolly Boutts! I'd like to know how Isabel fancies that!"

Gwynne, who liked any sort of exercise, and had been reading the United

States Statutes the greater part of the day, danced with the girls to

whom Isabel introduced him, returning no less than three times to the

exuberant Miss Boutts, whose step suited his, and whom he thought one of

the prettiest girls he had seen in America. Mr. Boutts's mother had been

the daughter of an Italian restaurant keeper in San Francisco, and his

heiress inherited a fine flashing pair of black eyes, a mass of black

hair, and a voluptuous but buoyant figure. She had inherited nothing of

the languor and fire of the Italian race, but chattered as incessantly

as any American girl, and had the mind and character of sixteen, in

spite of her almost full-blown beauty. Having an instinct for dress in

addition to a liberal allowance from her father, she was always a

notable figure in Main Street; and when in San Francisco was pleasantly

aware that she was by no means unnoticed in the fashionable throngs of

the hotels and Kearny Street. To-night she wore a gown of black net

revealing her superb shoulders and arms, and bunches of red carnations

that emphasized the red of her full pouting lips. She danced with a

graceful energy and looked unutterable things out of her great black

eyes while talking of the weather. Gwynne thought her a creature of

infinite possibilities, beside whom Isabel was a statue in ivory.

Just before supper he was introduced to the older women, and offered his

arm to Mrs. Wheaton when two waiters, unmistakably from a San Francisco

caterer, threw open the doors upon a hall that separated the ballroom

from the old hotel dining-room. The startled guests filed hastily across

to find a dainty but sumptuous repast served at little tables. Even the

ice-cream was frozen in graceful shapes instead of being ladled out of a

freezer in full view of the company, and there was such an abundance of

all things, served with despatch by the professional waiters, that Mrs.

Haight was permitted to consume three plates of oysters _a la poulette_.

"This must have cost a pretty penny!" she muttered to Mrs.

Wheaton--Gwynne was dancing attendance on Miss Boutts once more. "Much

money she'll save! One would think this was San Francisco, and some

swell house on Nob Hill. I don't believe a thing was cooked in her own

kitchen."

"I should think not! This supper is from the St. Francis, or The Palace,

or The Poodle Dog--" Mrs. Wheaton ran off the names of all the famous

San Francisco restaurants, to the ill-concealed spite of Mrs. Haight who

did not dine in San Francisco once a year. "But as you suggest, I cannot

imagine how she expects to make a fortune in chickens if she throws

about money like this. No wonder Mr. Gwynne isn't good enough for

her--but perhaps that's the reason he's selling off so much of his

ranch. Mr. Wheaton says he thinks of putting up an office building on

some land he has south of Market Street."

"To my way of thinking, Isabel Otis and matrimony don't gee. She's

altogether too advanced. Just you wait."

The young people, meanwhile, were very gay, and there was little doubt

in Isabel's mind that if she lived in Rosewater and chose to revive and

lead the old social life she could drive cards to the wall in the first

engagement. She had been much elated with her success, but, of a sudden,

as her eyes roved benignantly over her chattering delighted guests,

ennui descended upon her: those ancestral mutterings in the soul that

stir dim memories of great moments of a greater time, inviting a vague

contempt and distaste for the petty incidents and achievements that make

up the sum of life. Isabel had experienced this faint sensation of

futility and disgust many times before, and although she was wise enough

not to let it paralyze her will, and to turn it to account in holding

her to her higher ideals, still she often envied the Dolly Bouttses,

with good red plebeian blood in their veins, and no voices in the

subconscious brain but those that bade them eat and drink and feed the

race. No, she decided, Rosewater could work out of its present inertia

by itself, and she began to wish her guests would go home; she was tired

of their inanities. Her disappointment in Hyliard Wheaton, whom she had

admired from a distance ever since her return, but who had never

succumbed to her charm until to-night, had much to do with her sense of

futility. He had read nothing, seen nothing, experienced nothing. He had

no ambition beyond living in San Francisco and enjoying life there. His

fine well-bred face with its high brow and smiling, slightly superior,

gaze, had suggested--the more particularly, perhaps, as his figure was

superb--possibilities both intellectual and romantic. Isabel told him

politely never to ride out without using the telephone first, and had

her excuses already coined. At least ten men be sides Gwynne were

hovering about Dolly Boutts, like humming-birds about the nectar of a

full-blown rose. They were blind to the fact that her voluptuous

suggestion was but a caprice of nature. Although, no doubt, she would

make the best of wives and mothers, she was as incapable of any depth of

passion as the frail fluffy creatures about her, and quite indifferent

to anything in man beyond his admiration. Up to the present she had

found cards far more interesting, particularly as she had known all the

Rosewater men since childhood; more particularly, perhaps, as this was

her first large party. She chattered, partly by instinct, partly in

deference to the traditional animation of the American girl; and it was

quite likely that the ultimate man would lead her to the altar under the

delusion that she was a brilliant woman with a genuine temperament.

Isabel wondered somewhat contemptuously at Gwynne's evident enthusiasm;

she would have given him credit for more experience and perspicacity;

but concluded that at a party a man could only judge a girl by her

exterior charms; and certainly Dolly had all her goods in the front

window.

After supper they danced the old Virginia reel with great zest, and even

a few stray waltzes, then all left together at two o'clock; the older

women assuring Isabel formally that they had had a very pleasant

evening; but the girls and young men exclaimed that they had had a keen

time, a dandy time, and that their new hostess was too fine and dandy

for words.

XVI

Judge Leslie returned on the following day, and, sending for Gwynne at

once, announced that he was ready to settle down for the winter. A

partner attended to the business of the office, and the judge shut

himself up with Gwynne in the large light room containing his fine law

library, and examined his promising pupil. Gwynne was well read in the

English Common Law, and in Comparative Jurisprudence, particularly in

the history of treaties and the comity of nations. So much he had

regarded as necessary to the education of a future cabinet minister.

Judge Leslie sketched out a course of study which embraced Cooley and

Kent on Constitutional Law, compilations of Leading Cases, Story on

Contracts, the California Codes, Civil, Penal, and Political, and

Corporation Law. "The money is in the last," he remarked, dryly, "but

even if you never succumb to these monstrous corporations, more aptly

named cormorants, the more you know about their methods and needs the

better, should you ever be called upon to fight them; and I have an idea

that that is just where you will show your strength. All the great

statesmen of this country have been great lawyers, and the great

statesman of the future is going to be the lawyer that checks the power

of unscrupulous capital, without at the same time delivering the country

over to the mercies of that equally unscrupulous tyranny the

labor-union. There is a solution somewhere and some man is going to find

it. I don't see why you should not be the man. I have followed your

career very carefully--you have always interested me. You come here with

a magnificent political training, a mind uncorrupted by a lifetime of

contact with the contemptible methods of machine politics, and a really

great ambition. Your eyes are wide open. I don't see why you should make

any mistakes, particularly as you have four good years in which to

ponder the great question before committing yourself. Four years are a

long span. No man can tell what may happen in that time, what new party

may evolve. All you can do is to watch events and be ready for the

forelock when time shakes it at you. If it so happens that you can

insidiously mould a new party meanwhile, so much the better. The wisest

and most suggestive writer on our national life is a Briton. I see no

reason why England should not send us a statesman--in the old sense. God

knows, all that we have now are a bitter disappointment to those of us

with any of the old ideals left. Should the Presidency be your ambition,

the fact of your having actually been born on American soil may be the

cause of a legal battle in the Supreme Court of the United States that

will pass into history. Meanwhile, as all apprenticeships must be

humble, you will be a sort of unofficial junior of this firm, sharing

the office business for the first year with Cresswell, and the second

year helping me with court practice in St. Peter. You can read in the

intervals and at home, and once or twice a week I should advise you to

attend lectures at the State University. I can see that your memory and

powers of assimilation are very vigorous, and the more quickly you

imbibe, and the more varied the quality, the better. All the odd types

of human nature you meet in this office won't do you any harm, either.

Study the American character above all things. Get in sympathy with it.

It is as opposite from the English as pole from pole, but you won't find

it a bad sort--the country's politics are the worst part of it, because

circumstances have forced them into the hands of a class of men that

make their living out of them, and whose natural destiny was

pocket-picking and the Rogues' Gallery--and if the best of us combine

one day to do you honor, we can carry you to places as distinguished as

any in your own country. Great and disinterested men have succeeded

against tremendous odds in times as parlous as these, and others have

the same opportunity here and now."

The judge wound up his homily with a little peroration on Abraham

Lincoln and then left Gwynne to the California codes. The large new

stone office building of which Judge Leslie was the chief tenant stood

at the corner of a street a block above Main; Gwynne glancing over the

top of his tome could see a procession of teams, men lounging in the

doorway of a grocery store, and the spars of fishing-boats waiting for

the tide. His mind played him a curious trick. Piccadilly was before him

with its great hotels, its splendid old stone houses upon which the fogs

and the grime of London had demonstrated their poetical mission, the

classic entrance to the Park, the crowds of smart men and women;

Piccadilly at eight on a summer's evening choked with broughams and

hansoms, in which the light mantles barely concealed the shoulders and

jewels of the women. He had loved the outside life of London, returning

to it from afar with an ever fresh and boyish pleasure, the keener

perhaps because he knew that all doors were open to him and that he was

one of the great lions, not of those for whom the stranger must search

"Who's Who" upon his return from a function where half the guests had

made their little mark. He saw the lofty towers with their delicate

tracery, cutting the smoke on the banks of the Thames, the little room

below where he had made men, old and bored and suspicious, listen to

him; the more confident in his power to command their attention because

he knew that they had read and discussed, agreed with and denounced, his

sound contributions to colonial literature. The scene dissolved into a

wave of homesickness that made him choke and spring to his feet. Then he

swore at himself and returned to his codes.