"And--and you are young."
Her interest and curiosity overcame her reserve. She wanted to know all
of this man that he would tell her. She had once seen a picture of a
death-mask. His face reminded her of it. _What_ lay behind?
"I am forty and some months."
She rose suddenly, her hand seeking her heart. "They are coming," she
faltered. "I hear wheels. And mamma is not here to introduce you."
"Well," he said, smiling down on her. "Cannot you introduce me?"
"I--I cannot. I have never introduced anyone. I must seem very ignorant
and _gauche_ to you."
"You are delightful. And I am sure you are quite equal to anything. Am I
to be introduced out here, or in the drawing-room after they have come
downstairs?"
"Oh, I am not sure."
"Then perhaps you will let me advise you. When they are all here, I will
appear in the drawing-room; and if your mother is not down by that time,
we will help each other out. They will all be talking and will hardly
notice me. But I must run."
The Geary phaeton drove up. It held Rose and her brother. After they had
gone upstairs Magdaléna went into the parlour to wait for them. The
large room was very dim--the gasoline was misbehaving--and silent; she
shivered with apprehension. There was no sign of her mother. But
Trennahan's words and sympathy had given her courage, and she burned
with ambition to acquit herself creditably in his eyes.
The guests arrived rapidly. In ten minutes they were all in the parlour,
sixteen in number, the men in full dress, the women in organdies or
foulards showing little of arm and neck. Mrs. Washington was in pink;
Tiny in white and a seraphic expression; Rose wore black net and red
slippers, a bunch of red geraniums at her belt, her eyes slanting at the
men about her. With the exception of Ned Geary and Charley Rollins, a
friend of Helena's, with both of whom she had perhaps exchanged three
sentences in the course of her life, Magdaléna knew none of the young
men: they had been brought, at Mrs. Yorba's suggestion, by the other
guests.
She could find nothing to say to them; she was watching the door. Would
her mother never come? Her father was on the front verandah talking to
Mr. Washington and her uncle.
Trennahan entered the room.
Magdaléna drew herself up and went forward. She looked very dignified
and very Spanish. No one guessed, with the exception of Trennahan, that
it was the ordeal of her life.
"Mr. Trennahan," she said in a harsh even voice: "Mrs. Washington, Miss
Brannan, Miss Montgomery."
He flashed her a glance of admiration which sent the chill from her
veins, and began talking at once to the three women that she might feel
excused from further duty. A few moments later Mrs. Yorba entered. She
received Trennahan without a smile or a superfluous word. Mrs. Yorba was
never deliberately rude; but were she the wife of an ambassador for
forty years, her chill nipped New England nature would never even
artificially expand; the cast-iron traditions of her youth, when neither
she nor any of her acquaintance knew aught of socialities beyond church
festivals, could never be torn from the sterile but tenacious soil which
had received them.
Dinner was announced almost immediately. Mrs. Yorba signified to
Trennahan that he was to have the honour of taking her in; and as she
had not intimated how the rest were to be coupled, the women arranged
the matter to suit themselves. Mrs. Cartright went in with Don Roberto,
Mrs. Washington with Polk; there were no other married women present. As
Charley Rollins was standing by Magdaléna, she took the arm he offered
her.
The function was not as melancholy as the Yorba dinners were wont to be.
Young people in or approaching their first season are not easily
affected by atmosphere; and those present to-night, with the exception
of Magdaléna and Tiny Montgomery, chattered incessantly. Tiny had a
faculty for making her temporary partner do the talking while she
enjoyed her dinner; but she listened sweetly and her superlatives were
happily chosen.
Mrs. Cartright always talked incessantly whether anyone listened or not.
Mrs. Washington, who sat on Don Roberto's left, amused him with the
audacity of her slang. Where she learned the greater number of her
discords was an abiding mystery; the rest of Menlo Park relegated slang
to the unknown millions who said "mommer" and "popper," got divorces,
and used cosmetics. When remonstrated with, she airily responded that
her tongue was "made that way," and rattled off her latest acquisition.
As she was an especial pet of Mrs. Yorba's--if that august dame could be
said to pet anyone--and of distinguished Southern connections, the
remonstrances were not serious.
Magdaléna, although she ordered her brain to action, could think of
nothing to say to Rollins; but he was a budding lawyer and asked no more
of providence than a listener. He talked volubly about Helena's childish
pranks, the last Bohemian Club Midsummer Jinks, the epigrams of his
rivals at the bar. He appeared very raw and uninteresting to Magdaléna,
and she found herself trying to overhear the remarks of Trennahan, who
was doing his laborious duty by his hostess. After a time Trennahan
allowed his attention to be diverted by Ila, who sat on his right. That
he was grateful for the change there could be no doubt. His expression
up to this point had been one of grim amusement, which at any moment
might become careworn. The lines of his face relaxed under Ila's curved
smiles and slanting glances. They laughed gaily, but pitched their
voices very low.
Magdaléna wondered if all dinners were as wearisome as this. Rollins
finally followed Trennahan's example and devoted himself to Caro Folsom,
a yellow-haired girl with babyish green eyes, a lisp, and an astute
brain. On Magdaléna's left was a blond and babbling youth named Ellis,
who made no secret of the fact that he was afraid of his intellectual
neighbour; he stammered and blushed every time she spoke to him. He had
gone in with Rose Geary, a blonde fairy-like little creature, as light
of foot as of wit, and an accomplished flirt; who regarded men with the
eye of the philosopher. They occupied each other admirably.
Opposite, another young lawyer, Eugene Fort, was saying preternaturally
bright things to Tiny, who lifted her sweet orbs at intervals and
remarked: "How _dreadfully_ clever you are, Mr. Fort; I am _so_ afraid
of you!" or "How _sweet_ of you to think I am worth all those _real_
epigrams! You ought to keep them for a great law-book." Once she stifled
a yawn, but Mr. Fort did not see it.
Little notice was taken of Magdaléna, and she felt superfluous and
miserable. Even Trennahan, who had seemed so sympathetic, had barely
glanced at her. She wondered, with a little inner laugh, if she were
growing conceited. Why should he, with one of the prettiest girls in
California beside him? Ila was very young, but she belonged by instinct
to his own world.
The dinner came to an end. The older men went to the billiard-room, the
younger men followed the girls to the parlour. Trennahan talked to Tiny
for a time, then again to Ila, who lay back in a chair with her little
red slippers on a footstool. She had carefully disposed herself in an
alcove beyond the range of Mrs. Yorba's vision.
Tiny, whose train added to the remarkable dignity of her diminutive
person, crossed the room to Magdaléna, who was sitting alone on the
window-seat.
"You have done so _well_, 'Léna dear," she said, as she sat down beside
her discouraged hostess. "I feel I must tell you that _immediately_. You
are not a _bit_ shy and nervous, as I should be if I were giving my
first dinner."
Magdaléna smiled gratefully. Tiny had always been the kindest of the
girls. "I am glad you think I am not so bad," she said. "But I fear that
I have bored everybody."
"_Indeed_, you have not. You are so calm and full of natural repose. The
rest of us seem _dreadfully_ American by contrast."
"You are never fussy."
"I know, but it is _quite_ different. I've been very carefully brought
up. You would be exactly as you are if you had brought yourself up. The
Spanish are the most dignified--What are they going to do, I wonder?"
Mr. Fort approached. "We are going to walk about the grounds and step on
the frogs," he said. "I don't know a line of poetry, but I can count
stars, and I'll tell you of my aspirations in life. Will you come?"
"I _so_ want to hear your aspirations, Mr. Fort," said Tiny. "I did not
know that California men had aspirations."
The girls went with him to the verandah, and all started down the
driveway together, then paired. To her surprise, Magdaléna found
Trennahan beside her.
"I am so glad to be with you again," he said petulantly. "I am tired of
types."
"Types?"
"Yes; women that a man has been used to for many long weary years,--to
put it in another way."
"But surely you find Ila very fascinating?"
"Oh, yes; but one understands the fascination so well; and it gives so
much pleasure to--twenty-two, that it is almost immoral for an old fogy
like myself to monopolise it. I don't understand you in the least, so I
am here."
Magdaléna trembled a little. The nineteen years of her life suddenly
assumed a glad complexion, lifting her spirit to the level of her mates.
She tried to recall the sad and bitter experiences of her brief past,
but they scampered down into the roots of memory.
He did not speak again for a time, beyond asking if he might smoke. He
was quite sincere for the moment; but he understood the much of her that
was salient to his trained eye. Her parents, her timid reserve, so
unlike that of other American girls favoured by fortune, her ignorance
of certain conventionalities, the very fashion of her hair, the very
incompatibility of her costume and colouring, told him two thirds of her
short history. Of the history of her inner life he guessed little, but
believed that she had both depth of mind and intensity of feeling. To
get her confidence would be next to impossible; it was therefore well
worth the effort. If she proved as interesting as he suspected, he
believed that he should feel disposed to marry her did she only have a
complexion. He was weary straight down into the depths of his weary soul
of the women and the girls of the world; but he also abhorred a sallow
skin. He had worshipped beauty in his day, and was by no means
impervious to it yet; but he felt that he could overlook Magdaléna's
nose and mouth and elementary figure for the sake of her eyes and
originality, did she only possess the primary essential of beauty. A man
regards a woman's lack of complexion as a personal grievance.
If the American habit of monologue had been a part of Trennahan's
inheritance, his foreign training had long since lifted it up by the
roots; but he saw that if he was to make progress with this silent girl,
he must do the talking. He could be both brilliant and amusing when he
chose, and he exerted himself as he had not done for some time. He was
rewarded by a rapt attention, a humble and profound admiration that
would have flattered a demi-god. And in truth he was a demi-god to this
girl, with her experience of elderly old-fashioned men and an occasional
callow youth encountered on a verandah in summer.
They followed the driveway that curved between one of the two larger
lawns and the deer park. The lawn was set thickly along its edge and
sparsely on its sweep with fragrant trees and shrubs. Beyond the deer
park was the black mass of the woods. The air was sweet with the mingled
breath of June roses, orange blossoms, and the pepper-tree. After a time
their way lay through a dark avenue of immense oaks, and the perfumes
came from the Mariposa lilies in the fields beyond.
If Trennahan had been with Ila, he would have conducted himself as his
surroundings and his companion demanded: he would have made love. But he
was a man who rarely made a mistake; he talked to Magdaléna of the
difference between California and the many other countries he had
visited, and answered her eager questions about life in the great
capitals. As they were returning, he said to her,--
"You say you ride before breakfast. Do you think I might join you
to-morrow? Your father has been kind enough to place his stable at my
disposal."
"Oh--I--I don't know. My father is very--Spanish, although he doesn't
like you to call it that."
"May I ask him?"
"Oh, yes, you could ask him."
When they reached the house he sought his host in the billiard-room. The
game was over, and Don Roberto, Mr. Polk, and Mr. Washington were seated
in front of the mantel-piece with their feet on the shelf. It was Don
Roberto's favourite attitude; he felt that it completed the structure of
his Americanism. He could only reach the tip of the shelf with the
points of his little elegant feet, but he was just as comfortable as Mr.
Polk, whose feet, large and booted, were planted against the wall. Mr.
Washington, who was a most correct gentleman, with the illustrious
forbears his name suggested, had never lifted his feet to one of his own
mantels in his life; but Don Roberto's guests always humoured this
little hobby, among many others.
"Ay, the Mr. Trennahan," said Don Roberto, graciously. "We make room for
you."
The others moved along, and Trennahan, seeing what was expected of him,
brought a chair and elevated his feet among the Chinese bric-à-brac. He
accepted a choice cigar--there were certain luxuries in which Don
Roberto never economised--and added his quota to the anecdotes of the
hearthstone. As his were fresh and the others as worn as an old
wedding-ring, it was not long before he had an audience which would
brook no interruption but applause.
A Chinaman brought a peremptory message from Mrs. Washington, and the
feet on the mantel were reduced to six. When these came down, two hours
later, Trennahan said to Don Roberto,--
"May I ride with Miss Yorba to-morrow before breakfast?"
"Yes; I no mind," said the don, beaming with approval of his new friend.
"But the boy, he go too. My daughter, no must ride alone with the
gentleman. And you no leave the grounds, remember."