Although the rays of an unclouded sun were hot in the Santa Clara roads
and byways, and the dry, bleached dust had become an impalpable powder,
the perspiring and parched pedestrian who rashly sought relief in the
shade of the wayside oak was speedily chilled to the bone by the
northwest trade-winds that on those August afternoons swept through the
defiles of the Coast Range, and even penetrated the pastoral valley of
San Jose. The anomaly of straw hats and overcoats with the occupants
of buggies and station wagons was thus accounted for, and even in the
sheltered garden of "El Rosario" two young girls in light summer
dresses had thrown wraps over their shoulders as they lounged down a
broad rose-alley at right angles with the deep, long veranda of the
casa. Yet, in spite of the chill, the old Spanish house and gardens
presented a luxurious, almost tropical, picture from the roadside.
Banks, beds, and bowers of roses lent their name and color to the
grounds; tree-like clusters of hanging fuchsias, mound-like masses of
variegated verbena, and tangled thickets of ceanothus and spreading
heliotrope were set in boundaries of venerable olive, fig, and pear
trees. The old house itself, a picturesque relief to the glaring
newness of the painted villas along the road, had been tastefully
modified to suit the needs and habits of a later civilization; the
galleries of the inner courtyard, or patio, had been transferred to the
outside walls in the form of deep verandas, while the old adobe walls
themselves were hidden beneath flowing Cape jessamine or bestarred
passion vines, and topped by roofs of cylindrical red tiles.
"Miss Yerba!" said a dry, masculine voice from the veranda.
The taller young girl started, and drew herself suddenly behind a large
Castilian rose-tree, dragging her companion with her, and putting her
finger imperatively upon a pretty but somewhat passionate mouth. The
other girl checked a laugh, and remained watching her friend's wickedly
leveled brows in amused surprise.
The call was repeated from the veranda. After a moment's pause there
was the sound of retreating footsteps, and all was quiet again.
"Why, for goodness' sake, didn't you answer, Yerba?" asked the shorter
girl.
"Oh, I hate him!" responded Yerba. "He only wanted to bore me with his
stupid, formal, sham-parental talk. Because he's my official guardian
he thinks it necessary to assume this manner towards me when we meet,
and treats me as if I were something between his stepdaughter and an
almshouse orphan or a police board. It's perfectly ridiculous, for
it's only put on while he is in office, and he knows it, and I know it,
and I'm tired of making believe. Why, my dear, they change every
election; I've had seven of them, all more or less of this kind, since
I can remember."
"But I thought there were two others, dear, that were not official,"
said her companion, coaxingly.
Yerba sighed. "No; there was another, who was president of a bank, but
that was also to be official if he died. I used to like him, he seemed
to be the only gentleman among them; but it appears that he is
dreadfully improper; shoots people now and then for nothing at all, and
burst up his bank--and, of course, he's impossible, and, as there's no
more bank, when he dies there'll be no more trustee."
"And there's the third, you know--a stranger, who never appears?"
suggested the younger girl.
"And who do you suppose HE turns out to be? Do you remember that
conceited little wretch--that 'Baby Senator,' I think they called
him--who was in the parlor of the Golden Gate the other morning
surrounded by his idiotic worshipers and toadies and ballot-box
stuffers? Well, if you please, THAT'S Mr. Paul Hathaway--the Honorable
Paul Hathaway, who washed his hands of me, my dear, at the beginning!"
"But really, Yerba, I thought that he looked and acted"--
"You thought of nothing at all, Milly," returned Yerba, with authority.
"I tell you he's a mass of conceit. What else can you expect of a
Man--toadied and fawned upon to that extent? It made me sick! I could
have just shaken them!"
As if to emphasize her statement, she grasped one of the long willowy
branches of the enormous rose-bush where she stood, and shook it
lightly. The action detached a few of the maturer blossoms, and sent
down a shower of faded pink petals on her dark hair and yellow dress.
"I can't bear conceit," she added.
"Oh, Yerba, just stand as you are! I do wish the girls could see you.
You make the LOVELIEST picture!"
She certainly did look very pretty as she stood there--a few leaves
lodged in her hair, clinging to her dress, and suggesting by reflection
the color that her delicate satin skin would have resented in its own
texture. But she turned impatiently away--perhaps not before she had
allowed this passing vision to impress the mind of her devoted
adherent--and said, "Come along, or that dreadful man will be out on
the veranda again."
"But, if you dislike him so, why did you accept the invitation to meet
him here at luncheon?" said the curious Milly.
"I didn't accept; the Mother Superior did for me, because he's the
Mayor of San Francisco visiting your uncle, and she's always anxious to
placate the powers that be. And I thought he might have some
information that I could get out of him. And it was better than being
in the convent all day. And I thought I could stand HIM if you were
here."
Milly gratefully accepted this doubtful proof of affection by squeezing
her companion's arm. "And you didn't get any information, dear?"
"Of course not! The idiot knows only the old tradition of his
office--that I was a mysterious Trust left in Mayor Hammersley's hands.
He actually informed me that 'Buena' meant 'Good'; that it was likely
the name of the captain of some whaler, that put into San Francisco in
the early days, whose child I was, and that, if I chose to call myself
'Miss Good,' he would allow it, and get a bill passed in the
Legislature to legalize it. Think of it, my dear! 'Miss Good,' like
one of Mrs. Barbauld's stories, or a moral governess in the 'Primary
Reader.'"
"'Miss Good,'" repeated Milly, innocently. "Yes, you might put an e at
the end--G-double-o-d-e. There are Goodes in Philadelphia. And then
you won't have to sacrifice that sweet pretty 'Yerba,' that's so
stylish and musical, for you'd still be 'Yerba Good.' But," she added,
as Yerba made an impatient gesture, "why do you worry yourself about
THAT? You wouldn't keep your own name long, whatever it was. An
heiress like you, dear,--lovely and accomplished,--would have the best
names as well as the best men in America to choose from."
"Now please don't repeat that idiot's words. That's what HE says;
that's what they ALL say!" returned Yerba, pettishly. "One would
really think it was necessary for me to get married to become anybody
at all, or have any standing whatever. And, whatever you do, don't go
talking of me as if I were named after a vegetable. 'Yerba Buena' is
the name of an island in the bay just off San Francisco. I'm named
after that."
"But I don't see the difference, dear. The island was named after the
vine that grows on it."
"YOU don't see the difference?" said Yerba, darkly. "Well, I do. But
what are you looking at?"
Her companion had caught her arm, and was gazing intently at the house.
"Yerba," she said quickly, "there's the Mayor, and uncle, and a strange
gentleman coming down the walk. They're looking for us. And, as I
live, Yerb! the strange gentleman is that young senator, Mr. Hathaway!"
"Mr. Hathaway? Nonsense!"
"Look for yourself."
Yerba glanced at the three gentlemen, who, a hundred yards distant,
were slowly advancing in the direction of the ceanothus-hedge, behind
which the girls had instinctively strayed during their conversation.
"What are you going to do?" said Milly, eagerly. "They're coming
straight this way. Shall we stay here and let them pass, or make a run
for the house?"
"No," said Yerba, to Milly's great surprise. "That would look as if we
cared. Besides, I don't know that Mr. Hathaway has come to see ME.
We'll stroll out and meet them accidentally."
Milly was still more astonished. However, she said, "Wait a moment,
dear!" and, with the instinctive deftness of her sex, in three small
tugs and a gentle hitch, shook Yerba's gown into perfect folds, passed
her fingers across her forehead and over her ears, securing, however,
with a hairpin on their passage three of the rose petals where they had
fallen. Then, discharging their faces of any previous expression,
these two charming hypocrites sallied out innocently into the walk.
Nothing could be more natural than their manner: if a criticism might
be ventured upon, it was that their elbows were slightly drawn inwards
and before them, leaving their hands gracefully advanced in the line of
their figures, an attitude accepted throughout the civilized world of
deportment as indicating fastidious refinement not unmingled with
permissible hauteur.
The three gentlemen lifted their hats at this ravishing apparition, and
halted. The Mayor advanced with great politeness.
"I feared you didn't hear me call you, Miss Yerba, so we ventured to
seek you." As the two girls exchanged almost infantile glances of
surprise, he continued: "Mr. Paul Hathaway has done us the honor of
seeking you here, as he did not find you at the convent. You may have
forgotten that Mr. Hathaway is the third one of your trustees."
"And so inefficient and worthless that I fear he doesn't count," said
Paul, "but," raising his eyes to Yerba's, "I fancy that I have already
had the pleasure of seeing you, and, I fear, the mortification of
having disturbed you and your friends in the parlor of the Golden Gate
Hotel yesterday."
The two girls looked at each other with the same childlike surprise.
Yerba broke the silence by suddenly turning to Milly. "Certainly, you
remember how greatly interested we were in the conversation of a party
of gentlemen who were there when we came in. I am afraid our foolish
prattle must have disturbed YOU. I know that we were struck with the
intelligent and eloquent devotion of your friends."
"Oh, perfectly," chimed in the loyal but somewhat infelix Milly, "and
it was so kind and thoughtful of Mr. Hathaway to take them away as he
did."
"I felt the more embarrassed," continued Hathaway, smiling, but still
critically examining Yerba for an indication of something
characteristic, beyond this palpable conventionality, "as I
unfortunately must present my credentials from a gentleman as much of a
stranger as myself--Colonel Pendleton."
The trade-wind was evidently making itself felt even in this pastoral
retreat, for the two gentlemen appeared to shrink slightly within
themselves, and a chill seemed to have passed over the group. The
Mayor coughed. The avuncular Woods gazed abstractedly at a large
cactus. Even Paul, prepared by previous experience, stopped short.
"Colonel Pendleton! Oh, do tell me all about him!" flashed out Yerba,
suddenly, with clasped hands and eager girlish breath.
Paul cast a quick grateful glance at the girl. Whether assumed or not,
her enthusiastic outburst was effective. The Mayor looked uneasily at
Woods, and turned to Paul.
"Ah, yes! You and he are original co-trustees. I believe Pendleton is
in reduced circumstances. Never quite got over that bank trouble."
"That is only a question of legislative investigation and relief," said
Paul lightly, yet with purposely vague official mystery of manner.
Then, turning quickly to Yerba, as if replying to the only real
question at issue, he continued pointedly, "I am sorry to say the
colonel's health is so poor that it keeps him quite a recluse. I have a
letter from him and a message for you." His bright eyes added
plainly--"as soon as we can get rid of those people."
"Then you think that a bill"--began the Mayor, eagerly.
"I think, my dear sir," said Paul plaintively, "that I and my friends
have already tried the patience of these two young ladies quite enough
yesterday with politics and law-making. I have to catch the
six-o'clock train to San Francisco this evening, and have already lost
the time I hoped to spend with Miss Yerba by missing her at the
convent. Let me stroll on here, if you like, and if I venture to
monopolize the attention of this young lady for half an hour, you, my
dear Mr. Mayor, who have more frequent access to her, I know, will not
begrudge it to me."
He placed himself beside Yerba and Milly, and began an entertaining,
although, I fear, slightly exaggerated, account of his reception by the
Lady Superior, and her evident doubts of his identity with the trustee
mentioned in Pendleton's letter of introduction. "I confess she
frightened me," he continued, "when she remarked that, according to my
statement, I could have been only eighteen years old when I became your
guardian, and as much in want of one as you were. I think that only
her belief that Mr. Woods and the Mayor would detect me as an impostor
provoked her at last to tell me your whereabouts."
"But why DID they ever make you a trustee, for goodness' sake?" said
Milly, naively. "Was there no one grown up at that time that they
could have called upon?"
"Those were the EARLY days of California," responded Paul, with great
gravity, although he was conscious that Yerba was regarding him
narrowly, "and I probably looked older and more intelligent than I
really was. For, candidly," with the consciousness of Yerba's eyes
still upon him, "I remember very little about it. I dare say I was
selected, as you kindly suggest, 'for goodness' sake.'"
"After all," said the volatile Milly, who seemed inclined, as
chaperone, to direct the conversation, "there was something pretty and
romantic about it. You two poor young things taking care of each
other, for of course there were no women here in those days."
"Of course there WERE women here" interrupted Yerba, quickly, with a
half-meaning, half-interrogative glance at Paul that made him
instinctively uneasy. "You later comers"--to Milly--"always seem to
think that there was nothing here before you!" She paused, and then
added, with a naive mixture of reproach and coquetry that was as
charming as it was unexpected, "As to taking care of each other, Mr.
Hathaway very quickly got rid of me, I believe."
"But I left you in better hands, Miss Yerba; and let me thank you now,"
he added in a lower tone, "for recognizing it as you did a moment ago.
I'm glad that you instinctively liked Colonel Pendleton. Had you known
him better, you would have seen how truthful that instinct was. His
chief fault in the eyes of our worthy friends is that he reminds them
of a great deal they can't perpetuate and much they would like to
forget." He checked himself abruptly. "But here is your letter," he
resumed, drawing Colonel Pendleton's missive from his pocket, "perhaps
you would like to read it now, in case you have any message to return
by me. Miss Woods and I will excuse you."
They had reached the end of the rose-alley, where a summer-house that
was in itself a rose-bower partly disclosed itself. The other
gentlemen had lagged behind. "I will amuse MYSELF, and console your
other guardian, dear," said the vivacious Milly, with a rapid exchange
of glances with Yerba, "until this horrid business is over. Besides,"
she added with cheerful vagueness, "after so long a separation you must
have a great deal to say to each other."
Paul smiled as she rustled away, and Yerba, entering the summer-house,
sat down and opened the letter. The young man remained leaning against
the rustic archway, occasionally glancing at her and at the moving
figures in the gardens. He was conscious of an odd excitement which he
could trace to no particular cause. It was true that he had been
annoyed at not finding the young girl at the convent, and at having to
justify himself to the Lady Superior for what he conceived to be an act
of gratuitous kindness; nor was he blind to the fact that his
persistence in following her was more an act of aggression against the
enemies of Pendleton than of concern for Yerba. She was certainly
pretty, he could not remember her mother sufficiently to trace any
likeness, and he had never admired the mother's pronounced beauty. She
had flashed out for an instant into what seemed originality and
feeling. But it had passed, and she had asked no further questions in
regard to the colonel.
She had hurriedly skimmed through the letter, which seemed to be
composed of certain figures and accounts. "I suppose it's all right,"
she said; "at least you can say so if he asks you. It's only an
explanation why he has transferred my money from the bank to
Rothschild's agent years ago. I don't see why it should interest me
NOW."
Paul made no doubt that it was the same transfer that had shipwrecked
the colonel's fortune and alienated his friends, and could not help
replying somewhat pointedly, "But I think it should, Miss Yerba. I
don't know what the colonel explained to you--doubtless, not the whole
truth, for he is not a man to praise himself; but, the fact is, the
bank was in difficulties at the time of that transfer, and, to make it,
he sacrificed his personal fortune, and, I think, awakened some of that
ill-feeling you have just noticed." He checked himself too late: he
had again lost not only his tact and self-control, but had nearly
betrayed himself. He was surprised that the girl's justifiable
ignorance should have irritated him. Yet she had evidently not
noticed, or misunderstood it, for she said, with a certain precision
that was almost studied:--
"Yes, I suppose it would have been a terrible thing to him to have been
suspected of misappropriating a Trust confided to him by parties who
had already paid him the high compliment of confiding to his care a
secret and a fortune."
Paul glanced at her quickly with astonishment. Was this ignorance, or
suspicion? Her manner, however, suddenly changed, with the charming
capriciousness of youth and conscious beauty. "He speaks of you in
this letter," she said, letting her dark eyes rest on him provokingly.
"That accounts for your lack of interest then," said Paul gayly,
relieved to turn a conversation fraught with so much danger.
"But he speaks very flatteringly," she went on. "He seems to be
another one of your admirers. I'm sure, Mr. Hathaway, after that scene
in the hotel parlor yesterday, YOU, at least, cannot complain of having
been misrepresented before ME. To tell you the truth, I think I hated
you a little for it."
"You were quite right," returned Paul. "I must have been insufferable!
And I admit that I was slightly piqued against YOU for the idolatries
showered upon you at the same moment by your friends."
Usually, when two young people have reached the point of confidingly
exchanging their first impressions of each other, some progress has
been made in first acquaintance. But it did not strike Paul in that
way, and Yerba's next remark was discouraging.
"But I'm rather disappointed, for all that. Colonel Pendleton tells me
you know nothing of my family or of the secret."
Paul was this time quite prepared, and withstood the girl's scrutiny
calmly. "Do you think," he asked lightly, "that even HE knows?"
"Of course he does," she returned quickly. "Do you suppose he would
have taken all that trouble you have just talked about if he didn't
know it? And feared the consequences, perhaps?" she added, with a
slight return of her previous expressive manner.
Again Paul was puzzled and irritated, he knew not why. But he only
said pleasantly, "I differ from you there. I am afraid that such a
thing as fear never entered into Colonel Pendleton's calculations on
any subject. I think he would act the same towards the highest and the
lowest, the powerful or the most weak." As she glanced at him quickly
and mischievously, he added, "I am quite willing to believe that his
knowledge of you made his duty pleasanter."
He was again quite sincere, and his slight sympathy had that
irresistible quality of tone and look which made him so dangerous. For
he was struck with the pretty, soothed self-complacency that had shone
in her face since he had spoken of Pendleton's equal disinterestedness.
It seemed, too, as if what he had taken for passion or petulance in her
manner had been only a resistance to some continual aggression of
condition. With that remainder held in check, a certain latent
nobility was apparent, as of her true self. In this moment of pleased
abstraction she had drawn through the lattice-work of one of the
windows a spray of roses clinging to the vine, and with her graceful
head a little on one side, was softly caressing her cheek with it. She
certainly was very pretty. From the crown of her dark little head to
the narrow rosetted slippers that had been idly tapping the ground, but
now seemed to press it more proudly, with arched insteps and small
ankles, she was pleasant to look upon.
"But you surely have something else to think about, Miss Yerba?" said
the young man, with conviction. "In a few months you will be of age,
and rid of those dreadfully stupid guardians; with your"--
The loosened rose-spray flew from her hand out of the window as she
made a gesture, half real, half assumed, of imploring supplication.
"Oh, please, Mr. Hathaway, for Heaven's sake don't YOU begin too! You
are going to say that, with my wealth, my accomplishments, my beauty,
my friends, what more can I want? What do I care about a secret that
can neither add to them nor take them away? Yes, you were! It's the
regular thing to say--everybody says it. Why, I should have thought
'the youngest senator' could afford to have been more original."
"I plead guilty to ALL the weaknesses of humanity," said Paul, warmly,
again beginning to believe that he had been most unjust to her
independence.
"Well, I forgive you, because you have forgotten to say that, if I
don't like the name of Yerba Buena, I could SO easily change that too."
"But you DO like it," said Paul, touched with this first hearing of her
name in her own musical accents, "or would like it if you heard
yourself pronounce it." It suddenly recurred to him, with a strange
thrill of pleasure, that he himself had given it to her. It was as if
he had created some musical instrument to which she had just given
voice. In his enthusiasm he had thrown himself on the bench beside her
in an attitude that, I fear, was not as dignified as became his elderly
office.
"But you don't think that is my NAME," said the girl, quickly.
"I beg your pardon?" said Paul, hesitatingly.
"You don't think that anybody would have been so utterly idiotic as to
call me after a ground-vine--a vegetable?" she continued petulantly.
"Eh?" stammered Paul.
"A name that could be so easily translated," she went on, half
scornfully, "and when translated, was no possible title for anybody?
Think of it--Miss Good Herb! It is too ridiculous for anything."
Paul was not usually wanting in self-possession in an emergency, or in
skill to meet attack. But he was so convinced of the truth of the
girl's accusation, and now recalled so vividly his own consternation on
hearing the result of his youthful and romantic sponsorship for the
first time from Pendleton, that he was struck with confusion.
"But what do you suppose it was intended for?" he said at last,
vaguely. "It was certainly 'Yerba Buena' in the Trust. At least, I
suppose so," he corrected himself hurriedly.
"It is only a supposition," she said quietly, "for you know it cannot
be proved. The Trust was never recorded, and the only copy could not
be found among Mr. Hammersley's papers. It is only part of the name,
of which the first is lost."
"Part of the name?" repeated Paul, uneasily.
"Part of it. It is a corruption of de la Yerba Buena,--of the Yerba
Buena,--and refers to the island of Yerba Buena in the bay, and not to
the plant. That island was part of the property of my family--the
Arguellos--you will find it so recorded in the Spanish grants. My name
is Arguello de la Yerba Buena."
It is impossible to describe the timid yet triumphant, the
half-appealing yet complacent, conviction of the girl's utterance. A
moment before, Paul would have believed it impossible for him to have
kept his gravity and his respect for his companion under this egregious
illusion. But he kept both. For a sudden conviction that she
suspected the truth, and had taken this audacious and original plan of
crushing it, overpowered all other sense. The Arguellos, it flashed
upon him, were an old Spanish family, former owners of Yerba Buena
Island, who had in the last years become extinct. There had been a
story that one of them had eloped with an American ship captain's wife
at Monterey. The legendary history of early Spanish California was
filled with more remarkable incidents, corroborated with little
difficulty from Spanish authorities, who, it was alleged, lent
themselves readily to any fabrication or forgery. There was no racial
pride: on the contrary, they had shown an eager alacrity to ally
themselves with their conquerors. The friends of the Arguellos would
be proud to recognize and remember in the American heiress the
descendant of their countrymen. All this passed rapidly through his
mind after the first moment of surprise; all this must have been the
deliberate reasoning of this girl of seventeen, whose dark eyes were
bent upon him. Whether she was seeking corroboration or complicity he
could not tell.
"Have you found this out yourself?" he asked, after a pause.
"Yes. One of my friends at the convent was Josita Castro; she knew all
the history of the Arguellos. She is perfectly satisfied."
For an instant Paul wondered if it was a joint conception of the two
schoolgirls. But, on reflection, he was persuaded that Yerba would
commit herself to no accomplice--of her own sex. She might have
dominated the girl, and would make her a firm partisan, while the girl
would be convinced of it herself, and believe herself a free agent. He
had had such experience with men himself.
"But why have you not spoken of it before--and to Colonel Pendleton?"
"He did not choose to tell ME," said Yerba, with feminine dexterity.
"I have preferred to keep it myself a secret till I am of age."
"When Colonel Pendleton and some of the other trustees have no right to
say anything," thought Paul quickly. She had evidently trusted him.
Yet, fascinated as he had been by her audacity, he did not know whether
to be pleased, or the reverse. He would have preferred to be placed on
an equal footing with Josita Castro. She anticipated his thoughts by
saying, with half-raised eyelids:--
"What do YOU think of it?"
"It seems to be so natural and obvious an explanation of the mystery
that I only wonder it was not thought of before," said Paul, with that
perfect sincerity that made his sympathy so effective.
"You see,"--still under her pretty eyelids, and the tender promise of a
smile parting her little mouth,--"I'm believing that you tell the truth
when you say you don't know anything about it."
It was a desperate moment with Paul, but his sympathetic instincts, and
possibly his luck, triumphed. His momentary hesitation easily
simulated the caution of a conscientious man; his knit eyebrows and
bright eyes, lowered in an effort of memory, did the rest. "I remember
it all so indistinctly," he said, with literal truthfulness; "there was
a veiled lady present, tall and dark, to whom Mayor Hammersley and the
colonel showed a singular, and, it struck me, as an almost
superstitious, respect. I remember now, distinctly, I was impressed
with the reverential way they both accompanied her to the door at the
end of the interview." He raised his eyes slightly; the young girl's
red lips were parted; that illumination of the skin, which was her
nearest approach to color, had quite transfigured her face. He felt,
suddenly, that she believed it, yet he had no sense of remorse. He
half believed it himself; at least, he remembered the nobility of the
mother's self-renunciation and its effect upon the two men. Why should
not the daughter preserve this truthful picture of her mother's
momentary exaltation? Which was the most truthful--that, or the
degrading facts? "You speak of a secret," he added. "I can remember
little more than that the Mayor asked me to forget from that moment the
whole occurrence. I did not know at the time how completely I should
fulfill his request. You must remember, Miss Yerba, as your Lady
Superior has, that I was absurdly young at the time. I don't know but
that I may have thought, in my youthful inexperience, that this sort of
thing was of common occurrence. And then, I had my own future to
make--and youth is brutally selfish. I was quite friendless and
unknown when I left San Francisco for the mines, at the time you
entered the convent as Yerba Buena."
She smiled, and made a slight impulsive gesture, as if she would have
drawn nearer to him, but checked herself, still smiling, and without
embarrassment. It may have been a movement of youthful camaraderie,
and that occasional maternal rather than sisterly instinct which
sometimes influences a young girl's masculine friendship, and elevates
the favored friend to the plane of the doll she has outgrown. As he
turned towards her, however, she rose, shook out her yellow dress, and
said with pretty petulance:--
"Then you must go so soon--and this your first and last visit as my
guardian?"
"No one could regret that more than I," looking at her with undefined
meaning.
"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing coquetry that might have suggested
an underlying seriousness. "I think you HAVE lost a good deal.
Perhaps, so have I. We might have been good friends in all these
years. But that is past."
"Why? Surely, I hope, my shortcomings with Miss Yerba Buena will not
be remembered by Miss Arguello?" sail Paul, earnestly.
"Ah! SHE may be a very different person."
"I hope not," said the young man, warmly. "But HOW different?"
"Well, she may not put herself in the way of receiving such point-blank
compliments as that," said the young girl, demurely.
"Not from her guardian?"
"She will have no guardian then." She said this gravely, but almost at
the same moment turned and sat down again, throwing her linked hands
over her knee, and looked at him mischievously. "You see what you have
lost, sir."
"I see," said Paul, but with all the gravity that she had dropped.
"No; but you don't see all. I had no brother--no friend. You might
have been both. You might have made me what you liked. You might have
educated me far better than these teachers, or, at least given me some
pride in my studies. There were so many things I wanted to know that
they couldn't teach me; so many times I wanted advice from some one
that I could trust. Colonel Pendleton was very good to me when he
came; he always treated me like a princess even when I wore short
frocks. It was his manner that first made me think he knew my family;
but I never felt as if I could tell him anything, and I don't think,
with all his chivalrous respect, he ever understood me. As to the
others--the Mayors--well, you may judge from Mr. Henderson. It is a
wonder that I did not run away or do something desperate. Now, are you
not a LITTLE sorry?"
Her voice, which had as many capricious changes as her manner, had been
alternately coquettish, petulant, and serious, had now become playful
again. But, like the rest of her sex, she was evidently more alert to
her surroundings at such a moment than her companion, for before he
could make any reply, she said, without apparently looking, "But there
is a deputation coming for you, Mr. Hathaway. You see, the case is
hopeless. You never would be able to give to one what is claimed by
the many."
Paul glanced down the rose-alley, and saw that the deputation in
question was composed of the Mayor, Mr. Woods, a thin, delicate-looking
woman,--evidently Mrs. Woods,--and Milly. The latter managed to reach
the summer-house first, with apparently youthful alacrity, but really
to exchange, in a single glance, some mysterious feminine signal with
Yerba. Then she said with breathless infelicity:--
"Before you two get bored with each other now, I must tell you there's
a chance of you having more time. Aunty has promised to send off a
note excusing you to the Reverend Mother, if she can persuade Mr.
Hathaway to stay over to-night. But here they are. [To Yerba] Aunty
is most anxious, and won't hear of his going."
Indeed, it seemed as if Mrs. Woods was, after a refined fashion, most
concerned that a distinguished visitor like Mr. Hathaway should have to
use her house as a mere accidental meeting-place with his ward, without
deigning to accept her hospitality. She was reinforced by Mr. Woods,
who enunciated the same idea with more masculine vigor; and by the
Mayor, who expressed his conviction that a slight of this kind to
Rosario would be felt in the Santa Clara valley. "After dinner, my
dear Hathaway," concluded Mr. Woods, "a few of our neighbors may drop
in, who would be glad to shake you by the hand--no formal meeting, my
boy--but, hang it! THEY expect it."
Paul looked around for Yerba. There was really no reason why he
shouldn't accept, although an hour ago the idea had never entered his
mind. Yet, if he did, he would like the girl to know that it was for
HER sake. Unfortunately, far from exhibiting any concern in the
matter, she seemed to be preoccupied with Milly, and only the charming
back of her head was visible behind Mrs. Woods. He accepted, however,
with a hesitation that took some of the graciousness from his yielding,
and a sense that he was giving a strange importance to a trivial
circumstance.
The necessity of attaching himself to his hostess, and making a more
extended tour of the grounds, for a while diverted him from an uneasy
consideration of his past interview. Mrs. Woods had known Yerba
through the school friendship of Milly, and, as far as the religious
rules of the convent would allow, had always been delighted to show her
any hospitality. She was a beautiful girl--did not Mr. Hathaway think
so?--and a girl of great character. It was a pity, of course, that she
had never known a mother's care, and that the present routine of a
boarding-school had usurped the tender influences of home. She
believed, too, that the singular rotation of guardianship had left the
girl practically without a counseling friend to rely upon, except,
perhaps, Colonel Pendleton; and while she, Mrs. Woods, did not for a
moment doubt that the colonel might be a good friend and a pleasant
companion of MEN, really he, Mr. Hathaway, must admit that, with his
reputation and habits, he was hardly a fit associate for a young lady.
Indeed, Mr. Woods would have never allowed Milly to invite Yerba here
if Colonel Pendleton was to have been her escort. Of course, the poor
girl could not choose her own guardian, but Mr. Woods said HE had a
right to choose who should be his niece's company. Perhaps Mr. Woods
was prejudiced,--most men were,--yet surely Mr. Hathaway, although a
loyal friend of Colonel Pendleton's, must admit that when it was an
open scandal that the colonel had fought a duel about a notoriously
common woman, and even blasphemously defended her before a party of
gentlemen, it was high time, as Mr. Woods said, that he should be
remanded to their company exclusively. No; Mrs. Woods could not admit
that this was owing to the injustice of her own sex! Men are really
the ones who make the fuss over those things, just as they, as Mr.
Hathaway well knew, made the laws! No; it was a great pity, as she and
her husband had just agreed, that Mr. Hathaway, of all the guardians,
could not have been always the help and counselor--in fact, the elder
brother--of poor Yerba! Paul was conscious that he winced slightly,
consistently and conscientiously, at the recollection of certain
passages of his youth; inconsistently and meanly, at this suggestion of
a joint relationship with Yerba's mother.
"I think, too," continued Mrs. Woods, "she has worried foolishly about
this ridiculous mystery of her parentage--as if it could make the
slightest difference to a girl with a quarter of a million, or as if
that didn't show quite conclusively that she WAS somebody!"
"Certainly," said Paul, quickly, with a relief that he nevertheless
felt was ridiculous.
"And, of course, I dare say it will all come out when she is of age. I
suppose you know if any of the family are still living?"
"I really do not."
"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Woods, with a smile. "I forgot it's a
profound secret until then. But here we are at the house; I see the
girls have walked over to our neighbors'. Perhaps you would like to
have a few moments to yourself before you dress for dinner, and your
portmanteau, which has been sent for, comes from your hotel. You must
be tired of seeing so many people."
Paul was glad to accept any excuse for being alone, and, thanking his
hostess, followed a servant to his room--a low-ceilinged but
luxuriously furnished apartment on the first floor. Here he threw
himself on a cushioned lounge that filled the angle of the deep
embrasure--the thickness of the old adobe walls--that formed a part of
the wooden-latticed window. A Cape jessamine climbing beside it filled
the room with its subtle, intoxicating perfume. It was so strong, and
he felt himself so irresistibly overpowered and impelled towards a
merely idle reverie, that, in order to think more clearly and shut out
some strange and unreasoning enthrallment of his senses, he rose and
sharply closed the window. Then he sat down and reflected.
What was he doing here? and what was the meaning of all this? He had
come simply to fulfill a duty to his past, and please a helpless and
misunderstood old acquaintance. He had performed that duty. But he
had incidentally learned a certain fact that might be important to this
friend, and clearly his duty was simply to go back and report it. He
would gain nothing more in the way of corroboration of it by staying
now, if further corroboration were required. Colonel Pendleton had
already been uselessly and absurdly perplexed about the possible
discovery of the girl's parentage, and its effect upon her fortunes and
herself. She had just settled that of her own accord, and, without
committing herself or others, had suggested a really sensible plan by
which all trouble would be avoided in future. That was the
common-sense way of looking at it. He would lay the plan before the
colonel, have him judge of its expediency and its ethics--and even the
question whether she already knew the real truth, or was self-deceived.
That done, he would return to his own affairs in Sacramento. There was
nothing difficult in this, or that need worry him, only he could have
done it just as well an hour ago.
He opened the window again. The scent of the jessamine came in as
before, but mingled with the cooler breath of the roses. There was
nothing intoxicating or unreal in it now; rather it seemed a gentle
aromatic stimulant--of thought. Long shadows of unseen poplars beyond
barred the garden lanes and alleys with bands of black and yellow. A
slanting pencil of sunshine through the trees was for a moment focussed
on a bed of waxen callas before a hedge of ceanothus, and struck into
dazzling relief the cold white chalices of the flowers and the vivid
shining green of their background. Presently it slid beyond to a tiny
fountain, before invisible, and wrought a blinding miracle out of its
flashing and leaping spray. Yet even as he gazed the fountain seemed to
vanish slowly, the sunbeam slipped on, and beyond it moved the shimmer
of white and yellow dresses. It was Yerba and Milly returning to the
house. Well, he would not interrupt his reflections by idly watching
them; he would, probably, see a great deal of Yerba that evening, and
by that time he would have come to some conclusion in regard to her.
But he had not taken into consideration her voice, which, always
musical in its Southern intonation and quite audible in the quiet
garden, struck him now as being full of joyous sweetness. Well, she
was certainly very happy--or very thoughtless. She was actually
romping with Milly, and was now evidently being chased down the
rose-alley by that volatile young woman. Then these swift Camillas
apparently neared the house, there was the rapid rustle of skirts, the
skurrying of little feet on the veranda, a stumble, a mouse-like shriek
from Milly, and HER voice, exhausted, dying, happy, broken with
half-hushed laughter, rose to him on the breath of the jessamine and
rose.
Surely she WAS a child, and, if a child, how he had misjudged her! What
if all that he had believed was mature deliberation was only the
innocent imaginings of a romantic girl, all that he had taken seriously
only a school-girl's foolish dream! Instead of combating it, instead
of reasoning with her, instead of trying to interest her in other
things, he had even helped on her illusions. He had treated her as if
the taint of her mother's worldliness and knowledge of evil was in her
pure young flesh. He had recognized her as the daughter of an
adventuress, and not as his ward, appealing to his chivalry through her
very ignorance--it might be her very childish vanity. He had brought
to a question of tender and pathetic interest only his selfish opinion
of the world and the weaknesses of mankind. The blood came to his
cheeks--with all his experienced self-control, he had not lost the
youthful trick of blushing--and he turned away from the window as if it
had breathed a reproach.
But ought he have even contented himself with destroying her
illusions--ought he not have gone farther and told her the whole truth?
Ought he not first have won her confidence--he remembered bitterly,
now, how she had intimated that she had no one to confide in--and,
after revealing her mother's history, have still pledged himself to
keep the secret from all others, and assisted her in her plan? It
would not have altered the state of affairs, except so far as she was
concerned; they could have combined together; his ready wit would have
helped him; and his sympathy would have sustained her; but--
How and in what way could he have told her? Leaving out the delicate
and difficult periphrase by which her mother's shame would have to be
explained to an innocent school-girl--what right could he have assumed
to tell it? As the guardian who had never counseled or protected her?
As an acquaintance of hardly an hour ago? Who would have such a right?
A lover--on whose lips it would only seem a tacit appeal to her
gratitude or her fears, and whom no sensitive girl could accept
thereafter? No. A husband? Yes! He remembered, with a sudden start,
what Pendleton had said to him. Good Heavens! Had Pendleton that idea
in his mind? And yet--it seemed the only solution.
A knock at his door was followed by the appearance of Mr. Woods. Mr.
Hathaway's portmanteau had come, and Mrs. Woods had sent a message,
saying that in view of the limited time that Mr. Hathaway would have
with his ward, Mrs. Woods would forego her right to keep him at her
side at dinner, and yield her place to Yerba. Paul thanked him with a
grave inward smile. What if he made his dramatic disclosure to her
confidentially over the soup and fish? Yet, in his constantly recurring
conviction of the girl's independence, he made no doubt she would have
met his brutality with unflinching pride and self-possession. He began
to dress slowly, at times almost forgetting himself in a new kind of
pleasant apathy, which he attributed to the odor of the flowers, and
the softer hush of twilight that had come on with the dying away of the
trade winds, and the restful spice of the bay-trees near his window.
He presently found himself not so much thinking of Yerba as of SEEING
her. A picture of her in the summer-house caressing her cheek with the
roses seemed to stand out from the shadows of the blank wall opposite
him. When he passed into the dressing-room beyond, it was not his own
face he saw in the glass, but hers. It was with a start, as if he had
heard HER voice, that he found upon his dressing-table a small vase
containing a flower for his coat, with the penciled words on a card in
a school-girl's hand, "From Yerba, with thanks for staying." It must
have been placed there by a servant while he was musing at the window.
Half a dozen people were already in the drawing-room when Paul
descended. It appeared that Mr. Woods had invited certain of his
neighbors--among them a Judge Baker and his wife, and Don Caesar
Briones, of the adjacent Rancho of Los Pajaros, and his sister, the
Dona Anna. Milly and Yerba had not yet appeared. Don Caesar, a young
man of a toreador build, roundly bland in face and murky in eye, seemed
to notice their absence, and kept his glances towards the door, while
Paul engaged in conversation with Dona Anna--if that word could convey
an impression of a conventionality which that good-humored young lady
converted into an animated flirtation at the second sentence with a
single glance and two shakes of her fan. And then Milly fluttered
in--a vision of school-girl freshness and white tulle, and a moment
later--with a pause of expectation--a tall, graceful figure, that at
first Paul scarcely recognized.
It is a popular conceit of our sex that we are superior to any effect
of feminine adornment, and that a pretty girl is equally pretty in the
simplest frock. Yet there was not a man in the room who did not
believe that Yerba in her present attire was not only far prettier than
before, but that she indicated a new and more delicate form of beauty.
It was not the mere revelation of contour and color of an ordinary
decollete dress, it was a perfect presentment of pure symmetry and
carriage. In this black grenadine dress, trimmed with jet, not only
was the delicate satin sheen of her skin made clearer by contrast, but
she looked every inch her full height, with an ideal exaltation of
breeding and culture. She wore no jewelry except a small necklace of
pearls--so small it might have been a child's--that fitted her slender
throat so tightly that it could scarcely be told from the flesh that it
clasped. Paul did not know that it was the gift of the mother to the
child that she had forsworn only a few weeks before she parted from her
forever; but he had a vague feeling that, in that sable dress that
seemed like mourning, she walked at the funeral of her mother's past.
A few white flowers in her corsage, the companions of the solitary one
in his button-hole, were the only relief.
Their eyes met for a single moment, the look of admiration in Paul's
being answered by the naive consciousness in Yerba's of a woman looking
her best; but the next moment she appeared preoccupied with the others,
and the eager advances of Don Caesar.
"Your brother seems to admire Miss Yerba," said Paul.
"Ah, ye--es," returned Dona Anna. "And you?"
"Oh!" said Paul, gayly, "I? I am her guardian--with me it is simple
egotism, you know."
"Ah!" returned the arch Dona Anna, "you are then already SO certain of
her? Good! I shall warn him."
A precaution that did seem necessary; as later, when Paul, at a signal
from his hostess, offered his arm to Yerba, the young Spaniard regarded
him with a look of startled curiosity.
"I thank you for selecting me to wear your colors," said Paul with a
glance at the flowers in her corsage, as they sat at table, "and I
think I deserve them, since, but for you, I should have been on my way
to San Francisco at this moment. Shall I have an opportunity of
talking to you a few minutes later in the evening?" he added, in a
lower tone.
"Why not now?" returned Yerba, mischievously. "We are set here
expressly for that purpose."
"Surely not to talk of our own business--I should say, of our FAMILY
affairs," said Paul, looking at her with equal playfulness; "though I
believe your friend Don Caesar, opposite, would be more pleased if he
were sure that was all we did."
"And you think his sister would share in that pleasure?" retorted
Yerba. "I warn you, Mr. Hathaway, that you have been quite justifying
the Reverend Mother's doubts about your venerable pretensions.
Everybody is staring at you now."
Paul looked up mechanically. It was true. Whether from some occult
sympathy, from a human tendency to admire obvious fitness and symmetry,
or the innocent love with which the world regards innocent lovers, they
were all observing Yerba and himself with undisguised attention. A
good talker, he quickly led the conversation to other topics. It was
then that he discovered that Yerba was not only accomplished, but that
this convent-bred girl had acquired a singular breadth of knowledge
apart from the ordinary routine of the school curriculum. She spoke
and thought with independent perceptions and clearness, yet without the
tactlessness and masculine abruptness that is apt to detract from
feminine originality of reflection. By some tacit understanding that
had the charm of mutual confidence, they both exerted themselves to
please the company rather than each other, and Paul, in the interchange
of sallies with Dona Anna, had a certain pleasure in hearing Yerba
converse in Spanish with Don Caesar. But in a few moments he observed,
with some uneasiness, that they were talking of the old Spanish
occupation, and presently of the old Spanish families. Would she
prematurely expose an ignorance that might be hereafter remembered
against her, or invite some dreadful genealogical reminiscence that
would destroy her hopes and raze her Spanish castles? Or was she
simply collecting information? He admired the dexterity with which,
without committing herself, she made Don Caesar openly and even
confidentially communicative. And yet he was on thorns; at times it
seemed as if he himself were playing a part in this imposture of
Yerba's. He was aware that his wandering attention was noticed by the
quick-witted Dona Anna, when he regained his self-possession by what
appeared to be a happy diversion. It was the voice of Mrs. Judge Baker
calling across the table to Yerba. By one of the peculiar accidents of
general conversation, it was the one apparently trivial remark that in
a pause challenged the ears of all.
"We were admiring your necklace, Miss Yerba."
Every eye was turned upon the slender throat of the handsome girl. The
excuse was so natural.
Yerba put her hand to her neck with a smile. "You are joking, Mrs.
Baker. I know it is ridiculously small, but it is a child's necklace,
and I wear it because it was a gift from my mother."
Paul's heart sank again with consternation. It was the first time he
had heard the girl distinctly connect herself with her actual mother,
and for an instant he felt as startled as if the forgotten Outcast
herself had returned and taken a seat at the board.
"I told you it couldn't be so?" remarked Mrs. Baker, to her husband.
Everybody naturally looked inquiringly upon the couple, and Mrs. Baker
explained with a smile: "Bob thinks he's seen it before; men are so
obstinate."
"Pardon me, Miss Yerba," said the Judge, blandly, "would you mind
showing it to me, if it is not too much trouble?"
"Not at all," said Yerba, smiling, and detaching the circlet from her
neck. "I'm afraid you'll find it rather old-fashioned."
"That's just what I hope to find it," said Judge Baker, with a
triumphant glance at his wife. "It was eight years ago when I saw it
in Tucker's jewelry shop. I wanted to buy it for my little Minnie, but
as the price was steep I hesitated, and when I did make up my mind he
had disposed of it to another customer. Yes," he added, examining the
necklace which Yerba had handed to him. "I am certain it is the same:
it was unique, like this. Odd, isn't it?"
Everybody said it WAS odd, and looked upon the occurrence with that
unreasoning satisfaction with which average humanity receives the most
trivial and unmeaning coincidences. It was left to Don Caesar to give
it a gallant application.
"I have not-a the pleasure of knowing-a the Miss Minnie, but the
jewelry, when she arrives, to the throat-a of Miss Yerba, she has not
lost the value--the beauty--the charm."
"No," said Woods, cheerily. "The fact is, Baker, you were too slow.
Miss Yerba's folks gobbled up the necklace while you were thinking.
You were a new-comer. Old 'forty-niners' did not hesitate over a thing
they wanted."
"You never knew who was your successful rival, eh?" said Dona Anna,
turning to Judge Baker with a curious glance at Paul's pale face in
passing.
"No," said Baker, "but"--he stopped with a hesitating laugh and some
little confusion. "No, I've mixed it up with something else. It's so
long ago. I never knew, or if I did I've forgotten. But the necklace
I remember." He handed it back to Yerba with a bow, and the incident
ended.
Paul had not looked at Yerba during this conversation, an unreasoning
instinct that he might confuse her, an equally unreasoning dread that
he might see her confused by others, possessing him. And when he did
glance at her calm, untroubled face, that seemed only a little
surprised at his own singular coldness, he was by no means relieved.
He was only convinced of one thing. In the last five minutes he had
settled upon the irrevocable determination that his present relations
with the girl could exist no longer. He must either tell her
everything, or see her no more. There was no middle course. She was
on the brink of an exposure at any moment, either through her ignorance
or her unhappy pretension. In his intolerable position, he was equally
unable to contemplate her peril, accept her defense, or himself defend
her.
As if, with some feminine instinct, she had attributed his silence to
some jealousy of Don Caesar's attentions, she more than once turned
from the Spaniard to Paul with an assuring smile. In his anxiety, he
half accepted the rather humiliating suggestion, and managed to say to
her, in a lower tone:--
"On this last visit of your American guardian, one would think, you
need not already anticipate your Spanish relations."
He was thrilled with the mischievous yet faintly tender pleasure that
sparkled in her eyes as she said,--
"You forget it is my American guardian's FIRST visit, as well as his
last."
"And as your guardian," he went on, with half-veiled seriousness, "I
protest against your allowing your treasures, the property of the
Trust," he gazed directly into her beautiful eyes, "being handled and
commented upon by everybody."
When the ladies had left the table, he was, for a moment, relieved. But
only for a moment. Judge Baker drew his chair beside Paul's, and,
taking his cigar from his lips, said, with a perfunctory laugh:--
"I say, Hathaway, I pulled up just in time to save myself from making
an awful speech, just now, to your ward."
Paul looked at him with cold curiosity.
"Yes. Gad! Do you know WHO was my rival in that necklace transaction?"
"No," said Paul, with frigid carelessness.
"Why, Kate Howard! Fact, sir. She bought it right under my nose--and
overbid me, too."
Paul did not lose his self-possession. Thanks to the fact that Yerba
was not present, and that Don Caesar, who had overheard the speech,
moved forward with a suggestive and unpleasant smile, his agitation
congealed into a coldly placid fury.
"And I suppose," he returned, with perfect calmness, "that, after the
usual habit of this class of women, the necklace very soon found its
way back, through the pawnbroker, to the jeweler again. It's a common
fate."
"Yes, of course," said Judge Baker, cheerfully. "You're quite right.
That's undoubtedly the solution of it. But," with a laugh, "I had a
narrow escape from saying something--eh?"
"A very narrow escape from an apparently gratuitous insult," said Paul,
gravely, but fixing his eyes, now more luminous than ever with anger,
not on the speakers but on the face of Don Caesar, who was standing at
his side. "You were about to say,"--
"Eh--oh--ah! this Kate Howard? So! I have heard of her--yees! And
Miss Yerba--ah--she is of my country--I think. Yes--we shall claim
her--of a truth--yes."
"Your countrymen, I believe, are in the habit of making claims that are
more often founded on profit than verity," said Paul, with smileless
and insulting deliberation. He knew perfectly what he was saying, and
the result he expected. Only twenty-four hours before he had smiled at
Pendleton's idea of averting scandal and discovery by fighting, yet he
was endeavoring to pick a quarrel with a man, merely on suspicion, for
the same purpose, and he saw nothing strange in it. A vague idea, too,
that this would irrevocably confirm him in opposition to Yerba's
illusions probably determined him.
But Don Caesar, albeit smiling lividly, did not seem inclined to pick
up the gauntlet, and Woods interfered hastily. "Don Caesar means that
your ward has some idea herself that she is of Spanish origin--at
least, Milly says so. But of course, as one of the oldest trustees,
YOU know the facts."
In another moment Paul would have committed himself. "I think we'll
leave Miss Yerba out of the question," he said, coldly. "My remark was
a general one, although, of course, I am responsible for any personal
application of it."
"Spoken like a politician, Hathaway," said Judge Baker, with an
effusive enthusiasm, which he hoped would atone for the alarming
results of his infelicitous speech. "That's right, gentlemen! You
can't get the facts from him before he is ready to give them. Keep
your secret, Mr. Hathaway, the court is with you."
Nevertheless, as they passed out of the room to join the ladies, the
Mayor lingered a little behind with Woods. "It's easy to see the
influence of that Pendleton on our young friend," he said,
significantly. "Somebody ought to tell him that it's played out down
here--as Pendleton is. It's quite enough to ruin his career."
Paul was too observant not to notice this, but it brought him no sense
of remorse; and his youthful belief in himself and his power kept him
from concern. He felt as if he had done something, if only to show Don
Caesar that the girl's weakness or ignorance could not be traded upon
with impunity. But he was still undecided as to the course he should
pursue. But he should determine that to-night. At present there
seemed no chance of talking to her alone--she was unconcernedly
conversing with Milly and Mrs. Woods, and already the visitors who had
been invited to this hurried levee in his honor were arriving. In view
of his late indiscretion, he nervously exerted his fullest powers, and
in a very few minutes was surrounded by a breathless and admiring group
of worshipers. A ludicrous resemblance to the scene in the Golden Gate
Hotel passed through his mind; he involuntarily turned his eyes to seek
Yerba in the half-fear, half-expectation of meeting her mischievous
smile. Their glances met; to his surprise hers was smileless, and
instantly withdrawn, but not until he had been thrilled by an
unconscious prepossession in its luminous depths that he scarcely dared
to dwell upon. What mattered now this passage with Don Caesar or the
plaudits of his friends? SHE was proud of him!
Yet, after that glance, she was shy, preoccupying herself with Milly,
or even listening sweetly to Judge Baker's somewhat practical and
unromantic reminiscences of the deprivations and the hardships of
California early days, as if to condone his past infelicity. She was
pleasantly unaffected with Don Caesar, although she managed to draw
Dona Anna into the conversation; she was unconventional, Paul fancied,
to all but himself. Once or twice, when he had artfully drawn her
towards the open French window that led to the moonlit garden and
shadowed veranda, she had managed to link Milly's arm in her own, and
he was confident that a suggestion to stroll with him in the open air
would be followed by her invitation to Milly to accompany them.
Disappointed and mortified as he was, he found some solace in her
manner, which he still believed suggested the hope that she might be
made accessible to his persuasions. Persuasions to what? He did not
know.
The last guest had departed; he lingered on the veranda with a cigar,
begging his host and hostess not to trouble themselves to keep him
company. Milly and Yerba had retired to the former's boudoir, but, as
they had not yet formally bade him good night, there was a chance of
their returning. He still stayed on in this hope for half an hour, and
then, accepting Yerba's continued absence as a tacit refusal of his
request, he turned abruptly away. But as he glanced around the garden
before reentering the house, he was struck by a singular
circumstance--a white patch, like a forgotten shawl, which he had
observed on the distant ceanothus hedge, and which had at first
thrilled him with expectation, had certainly CHANGED ITS POSITION.
Before, it seemed to be near the summer-house; now it was, undoubtedly,
farther away. Could they, or SHE alone, have slipped from the house
and be awaiting him there? With a muttered exclamation at his
stupidity he stepped hastily from the veranda and walked towards it.
But he had scarcely proceeded a dozen yards before it disappeared. He
reached the summer-house--it was empty; he followed the line of
hedge--no one was there. It could not have been her, or she would have
waited, unless he were the victim of a practical joke. He turned
impatiently back to the house, reentered the drawing-room by the French
window, and was crossing the half-lit apartment, when he heard a slight
rustle in the shadow of the window. He looked around quickly, and saw
that it was Yerba, in a white, loose gown, for which she had already
exchanged her black evening dress, leaning back composedly on the sofa,
her hands clasped behind her shapely head.
"I am waiting for Milly," she said, with a faint smile on her lips. He
fancied, in the moonlight that streamed upon her, that her beautiful
face was pale. "She has gone to the other wing to see one of the
servants who is ill. We thought you were on the veranda smoking and I
should have company, until I saw you start off, and rush up and down
the hedge like mad."
Paul felt that he was losing his self-possession, and becoming nervous
in her presence. "I thought it was YOU," he stammered.
"Me! Out in the garden at this hour, alone, and in the broad
moonlight? What are you thinking of, Mr. Hathaway? Do you know
anything of convent rules, or is that your idea of your ward's
education?"
He fancied that, though she smiled faintly, her voice was as tremulous
as his own.
"I want to speak with you," he said, with awkward directness. "I even
thought of asking you to stroll with me in the garden."
"Why not talk here?" she returned, changing her position, pointing to
the other end of the sofa, and drawing the whole overflow of her skirt
to one side. "It is not so very late, and Milly will return in a few
moments."
Her face was in shadow now, but there was a glow-worm light in her
beautiful eyes that seemed faintly to illuminate her whole face. He
sank down on the sofa at her side, no longer the brilliant and
ambitious politician, but, it seemed to him, as hopelessly a dreaming,
inexperienced boy as when he had given her the name that now was all he
could think of, and the only word that rose to his feverish lips.
"Yerba!"
"I like to hear you say it," she said quickly, as if to gloss over his
first omission of her formal prefix, and leaning a little forward, with
her eyes on his. "One would think you had created it. You almost make
me regret to lose it."
He stopped. He felt that the last sentence had saved him. "It is of
that I want to speak," he broke out suddenly and almost rudely. "Are
you satisfied that it means nothing, and can mean nothing, to you?
Does it awaken no memory in your mind--recall nothing you care to know?
Think! I beg you, I implore you to be frank with me!"
She looked at him with surprise.
"I have told you already that my present name must be some absurd
blunder, or some intentional concealment. But why do you want to know
NOW?" she continued, adding her faint smile to the emphasis.
"To help you!" he said, eagerly. "For that alone! To do all I can to
assist you, if you really believe, and want to believe, that you have
another. To ask you to confide in me; to tell me all you have been
told, all that you know, think you know, or WANT to know about your
relationship to the Arguellos--or to--any one. And then to devote
myself entirely to proving what you shall say is your desire. You see,
I am frank with you, Yerba. I only ask you to be as frank with me; to
let me know your doubts, that I may counsel you; your fears, that I may
give you courage."
"Is that all you came here to tell me?" she asked quietly.
"No, Yerba," he said, eagerly, taking her unresisting but indifferent
hand, "not all; but all that I must say, all that I have the right to
say, all that you, Yerba, would permit me to tell you NOW. But let me
hope that the day is not far distant when I can tell you ALL, when you
will understand that this silence has been the hardest sacrifice of the
man who now speaks to you."
"And yet not unworthy of a rising politician," she added, quickly
withdrawing her hand. "I agree," she went on, looking towards the
door, yet without appearing to avoid his eager eyes, "and when I have
settled upon 'a local habitation and a name' we shall renew this
interesting conversation. Until then, as my fourth official guardian
used to say--he was a lawyer, Mr. Hathaway, like yourself--when he was
winding up his conjectures on the subject--all that has passed is to be
considered 'without prejudice.'"
"But Yerba"--began Paul, bitterly.
She slightly raised her hand as if to check him with a warning gesture.
"Yes, dear," she said suddenly, lifting her musical voice, with a
mischievous side-glance at Paul, as if to indicate her conception of
the irony of a possible application, "this way. Here we are waiting for
you." Her listening ear had detected Milly's step in the passage, and
in another moment that cheerful young woman discreetly stopped on the
threshold of the room, with every expression of apologetic indiscretion
in her face.
"We have finished our talk, and Mr. Hathaway has been so concerned
about my having no real name that he has been promising me everything,
but his own, for a suitable one. Haven't you, Mr. Hathaway?" She rose
slowly and, going over to Milly, put her arm around her waist and stood
for one instant gazing at him between the curtains of the doorway.
"Good night. My very proper chaperon is dreadfully shocked at this
midnight interview, and is taking me away. Only think of it, Milly; he
actually proposed to me to walk in the garden with him! Good night,
or, as my ancestors--don't forget, MY ANCESTORS--used to say: 'Buena
noche--hasta manana!'" She lingered over the Spanish syllables with an
imitation of Dona Anna's lisp, and with another smile, but more faint
and more ghostlike than before; vanished with her companion.
At eight o'clock the next morning Paul was standing beside his
portmanteau on the veranda.
"But this is a sudden resolution of yours, Hathaway," said Mr. Woods.
"Can you not possibly wait for the next train? The girls will be down
then, and you can breakfast comfortably."
"I have much to do--more than I imagined--in San Francisco before I
return," said Paul, quickly. "You must make my excuses to them and to
your wife."
"I hope," said Woods, with an uneasy laugh, "you have had no more words
with Don Caesar, or he with you?"
"No," said Paul, with a reassuring smile, "nothing more, I assure you."
"For you know you're a devilish quick fellow, Hathaway," continued
Woods, "quite as quick as your friend Pendleton. And, by the way,
Baker is awfully cut up about that absurd speech of his, you know. Came
to me last night and wondered if anybody could think it was
intentional. I told him it was d--d stupid, that was all. I guess his
wife had been at him. Ha! ha! You see, he remembers the old times,
when everybody talked of these things, and that woman Howard was quite
a character. I'm told she went off to the States years ago."
"Possibly," said Paul, carelessly. After a pause, as the carriage
drove up to the door, he turned to his host. "By the way, Woods, have
you a ghost here?"
"The house is old enough for one. But no. Why?"
"I'll swear I saw a figure moving yonder, in the shrubbery, late last
evening; and when I came up to it, it most unaccountably disappeared."
"One of Don Caesar's servants, I dare say. There is one of them, an
Indian, prowling about here, I've been told, at all hours. I'll put a
stop to it. Well, you must go then? Dreadfully sorry you couldn't
stop longer! Good-by!"