Trennahan had written to Magdaléna from the Islands, acknowledging the
letter she had written him after her interview with her father, and
accepting his dismissal. He returned to San Francisco the last of May.
Almost immediately she received a letter from Helena announcing her
engagement to him.
Helena, while in Southern California, had written to Magdaléna with her
accustomed regularity. The letters were bitter with self-reproach
alternated with the very joy of being alive in that opulent southern
land. When she wrote of the engagement she assured the dearest friend
she had on earth that if things had turned out differently she should
have gone away and got over it somehow, but as Magdaléna's decision was
irrevocable she intended to be the happiest girl in the world; it
wouldn't do anybody a bit of good if she wasn't. Magdaléna felt no
bitterness toward her. She had lost Trennahan; the woman mattered
nothing. She would rather it were Helena than another; for who else
could make him so happy? But she knew that she should see less of Helena
in the future, and she hardly knew whether she were glad or sorry. She
wished that she had the courage to ask her to keep him away from Menlo
Park this summer.
The other girls moved down, bringing many guests, and she saw them
daily; habit is not broken in a moment. They passed through Fair Oaks as
usual on their afternoon drives, stopping for a chat; in their
char-à-bancs or on the verandah. It was some time before they discovered
the changes in the Yorba household, and when they did they merely
shrugged their shoulders at the old don's eccentricities. The big
parlours were certainly to be regretted; but there were other parlours
that were not half bad, and it was terribly up-hill work entertaining
Don Roberto. They were profoundly sorry for Magdaléna, and were so
insistent in their demands that she should spend much of her time with
them that she found her solitude far less complete than she had hoped.
But Helena and Trennahan were not to come down until the first of July;
they had gone with Colonel Belmont to the Yosemite, Geysers and Big
Trees.