He returned three days later, clad in immaculate grey, a trunk in his
wake containing much smart linen and four suits of clothes, which had
been ordered at the best house in San Francisco by a stockbroker who
had retired from business and his country the day before Cecil, with
similar measurements and similar needs, was presented to the tailor by
Randolph.
Mrs. Montgomery had done the one thing possible under the
circumstances--she had asked Cecil to make her house his home so long
as he remained in that part of California. Her eyes were very red on
the morning after his first appearance, but she made no comment to Lee,
who spent the greater part of those three days by herself, but appeared
quite normal when with the family. Cecil had gone at once to see and
consult Randolph, who remarked, when he came home that night, that the
Englishman seemed a very good sort, but that he should prefer not to
walk down Kearney Street with him again until he was properly rigged
out. He really didn’t know why they hadn’t been mobbed, and two imps of
newsboys had made audible remarks about “blarsted Britishers.”
“I don’t see why you can always tell an Englishman,” he added, with
some impatience. “To say nothing of his get-up to-day, look at the
difference between his figure and Coe’s. The clothes will fit Maundrell
to perfection, but his figure is no more like Coe’s than it’s like
mine. He’s a lean athletic Englishman, every inch of him; Coe was thin
and angular. It’s quite remarkable.”
“Is he very handsome?” asked Mrs. Montgomery faintly.
“I really couldn’t say. He looks like an Englishman--that’s all.”
Lee darted a swift side-glance; he was eating with his usual nervous
haste. She knew him better than in the old days, but could detect no
sign of agitation in him. In a moment he began to talk about a new pair
of carriage horses he had bought his mother; and during the evening
he asked Lee to play for him in the dark, as usual. Once she turned
her head suddenly and caught a fixed steely gleam from the depths of
his chair. She averted her eyes hastily, and gazed thoughtfully at the
keys, playing mechanically, with nothing of her usual expression.
She always wore white in summer, in accordance with an unwritten law
of Menlo Park, and for the evening of Cecil’s second appearance she
selected her softest and airiest, one, moreover, that was cut several
inches below her throat, and one or two above her elbows. Full-dress,
except at the rare dinner-parties in honour of some-one-with-letters,
was tabooed in that exclusive borough. As Cecil came from town with
Randolph she left the honours of introduction to the host, and did not
make her appearance until a few minutes before dinner. She found Mrs.
Montgomery and Cecil amiably discussing California, and Randolph gently
jeering at them for their lack of originality.
“Several volumes have been written on the ‘Resources of California,’
but the one to which she shall owe her permanent fame has never had so
much as a paragraph. It awaits its special biographer.”
“But there can be originality even on an exhausted theme,” said
Lee, who had shaken hands with Cecil, and was anxious to keep the
conversation light. “Captain Twining’s remark two days after his
arrival in California is already quite famous.” She glanced at Cecil,
and lifted her chin with defiant coquetry. “He said that he had only
heard of two things Californian before he came--Miss Tarleton and the
climate.”
“He wasn’t very polite to call you a thing,” said Cecil, laughing; he
seemed in excellent spirits.
“Perhaps he took her for a perfume or a flower,” said Randolph quickly.
The two men measured each other with a swift glance.
“That was really very neat,” remarked Lord Maundrell. “You might have
blushed, Lee.”
“She has had too many compliments; she is quite spoiled for anything
less than downright uxoriousness.”
“Ah!” observed Lord Maundrell.
They went in to dinner. Cecil was not to be laughed out of his interest
in California; the grape industry had interested him during his brief
sojourn in the South, and he wanted to know all about it, from its
incipience to its finalities. Randolph, who knew little about the
grape industry, and cared less, answered in glittering generalities,
and headed him off to the subject of mission architecture. Cecil
immediately instituted a comparison between the results of Indian
labour and the characteristic edifices of Spain--more particularly
of Granada, and then branched off to the various divergences under
native and climatic influences to be found in South America. Of all
this Randolph knew practically nothing. Like most Americans, he was a
specialist, and had studied only that branch of his art necessary to
his own interests. But his mind was very nimble, and he so successfully
concealed from the Englishman his superficial knowledge of the subject,
that Lee, who followed the conversation with rapt interest, did not
know whom to admire most. She was wondering if Cecil could make as
brilliant a showing as Randolph on next to nothing, when, in reply to
a question of his host’s regarding the gold mines of Peru, he replied
indifferently:
“I don’t know anything about them. They didn’t interest me,” and
dismissed the subject; one upon which Randolph happened to have some
knowledge. He had invested heavily in a newly-discovered mine of which
one of his friends was secretary.
The conversation turned to politics. Randolph was at his best analysing
and illustrating the party differences, but when Cecil questioned him
about the genesis of the two parties, the constitution of the United
States, and the historic significance of the various presidents,
even generalities failed him, and he was obliged to confess himself
nonplussed.
“Upon my word,” he exclaimed laughing, “I do believe that the only
thing I remember about United States history is its covert admonition
to grow up as fast as I could and lick the English.”
Lee and Cecil laughed simultaneously. “Have you ever told the story
of my attempt to lick the United States?” asked Cecil. “That defeat
rankled for years.”
“Never!”
Cecil told the story very well. It was evident that his bitterness had
passed, and he concluded:
“The odd part of it all is, that although you Americans beat us, it is
you who are bitter, and not ourselves. It was the same way with those
boys. They gave me sour disapproving glances every time they met me
until I left. On the other hand, I nearly thrashed the life out of a
man in Montana, and I never made such an enthusiastic friend.”
“Oh, we have to be bullied,” said Randolph frankly. “We love to brag
and boast and swagger. You see we are such an extraordinary nation that
we can’t help being a little cocky, and the only man we really respect
is the one who lays us on our back with a black eye and a nose out of
joint. We always get up--nothing can keep an American on his back--but
we go to our graves with a wondering admiration of the muscle, mental
or physical, that floored us.”
“That is very interesting,” said Cecil thoughtfully, “very.” He added
in a moment: “I fancy the bitterness would have died out by this time,
in spite of our failure to keep the finest of our colonies, but for our
diplomacy, which is a trifle too subtle and sinuous to please the rest
of the world. I don’t know that the United States stands alone in her
antagonism.” And he laughed.
Randolph knew less about English diplomacy than he did about the past
history of American politics, but he made a rapid calculation: if he
led Cecil on, the Englishman, with his exact and profound knowledge,
would distinguish himself and win the grateful admiration of the woman.
On the other hand, unless he kept him talking, he should be called
upon for information which he had always considered superfluous in
an American who had but one short life in which to “get there,” and
which was of no particular interest to himself; he had cut his college
course down to one year in order to make the most of his youthful
energies, and to run no risk of losing Lee Tarleton. Moreover, if he
drew his guest out, he should not only be doing his duty as a host,
but Lee’s approval for himself would be as large as her admiration of
his rival. There was more than a chance, clever as she was, that she
would give him full credit for generosity and for the courtesy of his
fathers. He made up his mind in an instant, threw out an observation of
epigrammatic vagueness on the diplomacy of England, and in ten minutes
had Cecil monopolising the conversation, under the impression that he
was forced into an argument.
Lee forgot her dinner, and listened intensely. She had heard men talk
more brilliantly--for Cecil had cultivated none of the graces of
oratory, and of the epigram he appeared to have a healthy scorn--but
she had never heard any one talk who knew so well what he was talking
about, and who yet suggested that he was merely skimming up the spray
of a subject whose deeps were trite to him straight down to its
skeletons and flora. His knowledge of English diplomacy suggested an
equally minute knowledge of the diplomatic history of every country
into which England had run her horns. He talked without priggishness,
rather as if he were used to discussing the subject with men who were
as well grounded as himself.
As they left the dining-room, Lee lingered behind a moment with
Randolph.
“It was awfully nice of you,” she said. “You like to do the talking
yourself, and England has never interested you much.”
“I knew that it would interest you. I was bored to extinction; but it
is time you had a little variety.”
“You _are_ good.” She hesitated a moment. “He has real intellect,
hasn’t he?” she asked.
“He knows things. He can knock the spots out of us when it comes to
solid information. But in a contest of wits I’d engage him in a match
without any qualms. He’s straight out from the shoulder, and if he were
stacked up against American nimbleness and adaptability for any great
length of time, he’d go under.”
“He’s quick enough.”
“With an answer--yes; but that’s not what I mean.”