The forest had ended abruptly. They had come upon a large low adobe
house on a plateau, looking down over a shelving table-land upon the
ocean, a mile below.
“It’s about eighty years old,” said Rollins, “which is antique in this
country. It belonged to one of the grandees of the old time, and Miss
Belmont bought it shortly after her father’s death. She has several
houses, but this is her favorite. It has about thirty rooms, and there
have been some jolly good times up here, I can tell you. Those are the
original tiles and the original walls, but everything else has been
pretty well modernized, except that old orchard you see on the other
side and the vineyard and rose-garden.”
They dismounted at an open gateway in a high adobe wall, and entered a
large orderless garden. The air was sweet with the delicate perfume of
Castilian roses, whose green, thorny bushes, thick with pink, rioted
over the walls, up the oaks, across the paths, and looked as if no hand
had cut or trimmed them since the old Spaniard had coaxed them from the
soil, nearly a century ago.
“She hates modern gardens,” said Rollins, “and has never had a gardener
in this. We’d prefer to walk without leaving ourselves in shreds and
patches on the thorns, but if it suits her I suppose it’s all right.”
They entered the house opposite a courtyard filled with palm-trees and
rustic chairs. A large curiously modelled fountain, which Rollins told
Clive was the work of the old Franciscans, splashed lazily. Several
young men were swinging in hammocks on the corridor which traversed the
four sides of the court. A Chinese servant, in blouse and pendant cue,
was passing cocktails.
Rollins conducted Clive into a small drawing-room, fitted in
copper-colored silken stuffs, and overlooking the ocean. Neither Miss
Belmont nor her aunt was present, and Rollins introduced Clive to the
assembled guests, with running footnotes not intended for the ear of
the subject.
“Miss Lord”--presenting Clive to a tall handsome, scornful-looking
girl. “She tears out reputations with her teeth. Miss Carter--a clever
little snob, who is a joy to flirt with because you know she is too
selfish to fall in love with you. Mrs. Lent--an army flirt, who has
done much to educate the youth of San Francisco. Mrs. Volney--a widow
with a commanding talent for marrying and burying rich husbands. Miss
Leonard--who plays better than any woman in San Francisco, which is
saying a good deal; a lovely girl, if a trifle cold. Mrs. Tower--a
really charming young widow, with a voice as fiery as her eyes.
Miss West--who is half Spanish, a good deal of a prude, and a most
accomplished flirt. Here comes Mrs. Cartright, who has the honor of
being Miss Belmont’s aunt, chaperon, and slave.”
A middle-aged lady--small, stout, but with much dignity of bearing, her
dark face refined and gentle--entered, and greeted Clive with the rich
Southern brogue which twenty years of California had not tempered. As
he exchanged platitudes with her she reminded him of a gentle breeze
which had wandered aimlessly in, barely touching his cheek. She talked
incessantly, and wholly without consequence.
Clive had created a perceptible flutter among the women. Being a shy
man, he was painfully aware that every eye in the room was upon him,
and that he was being discussed behind more than one fan. The other
men--society youths--had entered, and looked crude and new beside him.
He had the straight figure of the athlete, and carried his clothes in
a manner which made Rollins feel, as he confided to Miss Carter, like
hitching up his trousers. His closely cut hair was almost black; his
moustache the color of straw, and as uneven as frequent conflagrations
could make it, fell over a delicately-cut, strong, mobile mouth. It had
taken many generations to breed his profile--so delicate and sensitive
was it, yet so strong. His eyes were grey and well set, full of humour
and fire. The chin and neck were a trifle heavy. There was something
very splendid about the whole appearance of the man, and he filled the
eye whenever he stood in a room.
Mrs. Cartwright’s fluttering attention having been deflected elsewhere,
he plunged his hands into his pockets and talked to Mrs. Volney, whose
_crêpe_ set off a pair of shoulders of which he approved. She was a
remarkably pretty woman, with large innocent-looking green eyes and
golden hair, and conversed with a babyish inflection which he thought
very fetching. In a moment he forgot her, and went toward the door with
Rollins. Miss Belmont had entered.
The pink color in her face flamed for a moment, but her eyes lit with
an admiration so unmistakable that Clive, too, colored and laughed
nervously. He wondered if his eyes were as frank as hers. Her tall slim
figure was very round; the delicate neck carried no superfluous flesh,
but was apparently boneless. The small proud head was poised well
back. Clive knew her features; but the rich mahogany-brown hair, crisp
and electric, and curling unmanageably, the dark blue eyes, the warm
whiteness of skin, the pink of cheek and lips, were the splendid finish
of a hasty sketch. Her white gown was of some silken stuff embroidered
with silver, and pearls were in her hair and about her throat. She
looked as proud and calm and well-conducted as a young empress.
“Of course this is Mr. Clive,” she said. “You are not at all
necessary, Charley. I am so sorry Miss Gordon is ill. Give me your
arm; dinner is ready. I know that you have not told anyone,” she
murmured, as they walked down the corridor.
“How do you know? It is a good story, and I may have told it all over
the place.”
“I am sure you have not even told it to Miss Gordon.”
“Why Miss Gordon?” he asked, smiling into her frankly curious eyes.
“Are you engaged to her?”
He laughed but made no reply.
“I don’t believe you are,” she said abruptly, after they were seated.
“You don’t look the least bit as if anyone owned you.”
“Why did you make an English room of this? It might have been taken
bodily out of some old manor house. These Chinamen in it are an
anomaly. I should have thought you would rather preserve the character
of the country.”
“The old Californians had no taste whatever about
interiors--whitewashed walls and hair cloth furniture. Besides, we have
just about as much of California out here as we can stand, and like to
import something else into it occasionally.”
There were eighteen people at table. The conversation was principally
about other people. Occasionally, a current novel or play captured a
few moments’ attention, but the talk soon swung triumphantly back to
personalities. Clive had never seen so many pretty women together.
One or two were beautiful. The dense blackness of Mrs. Tower’s hair,
the red and olive of her skin, the high, cheek bones, inadvertently
modelled features and fierce eyes suggested Indian ancestry. Miss
West’s soft Spanish eyes languished or coquetted, but there was a New
England meagreness about her mouth. Miss Leonard, with her _cendré_
hair, and cold regular features might have had all the blood of all
the Howards in her. Mrs. Lent had a dark piquant Franco-American face.
Miss Carter was very small, very dignified, with large cool intelligent
grey eyes, abundant yellow hair, and an Irish nose and upper lip. All
had the slight bust and generous development of hip and leg peculiar to
the Californian women. The men interested Clive less: they looked very
ordinary society youths, and he wondered if Rollins could not dispose
of them collectively in an epigram.
He quarrelled intermittently with Miss Belmont: they did not hit it
off. Nevertheless, he wondered if it could be the rashling he had met
in the forest. She still wore her regal air and would have looked
as cold as one of the fine marbles in her drawing-room, had it not
been for her lavish coloring. She took little part in the general
conversation, and he said to her abruptly--
“These people don’t seem to interest you.”
“I’m tired to death of them. I’ll turn them all out presently. I bought
this place to be near the redwoods, which I love better than anything
in the world, and I like to entertain by fits and starts. I spent last
winter here alone.”
“I should like to have known you then. When you get time to think about
yourself you must be a charming egoist.”
“You have the most impertinent tongue and the most flirtatious eyes I
have ever met.”
“Where is the man you are engaged to?”
“Up at Shasta and the lava beds. He will be back in a few days. You
will like him.”
“Is he a good fellow?”
“Yes,” with friendly enthusiasm; “an awfully good fellow.”
“You don’t love him, though.”
Her lashes half met--a habit they had. “No,” she said, “I don’t believe
I do.”
“Helena! Helena!” cried Rollins. “Clive, I feel it my duty to tell you
that she is engaged, and for the fifteenth time.”
“He has been telling me that I am not in love with Mr. Van Rhuys,
and intimating that he has come just in time to save me from a fatal
mistake.”
She looked charmingly impertinent, her eyes half closed, her chin
lifted, her pink lips pouting from their classic lines.
Clive was somewhat taken aback, but replied promptly, “If I disclaim,
it is from timidity, not lack of gallantry: I fear I should learn more
than I have the power to teach.”
Everybody laughed. Miss Belmont’s eyes sparkled. “You mean,” she said,
when the attention of the others was once more diverted, “that you are
not going to fall in love with me. Everybody does, you know. I never
mind surrounding myself with beautiful women, because I am much more
fascinating than any of them.”
“I am hopelessly unoriginal, but I shall make a desperate effort this
time.”
“Why do you say that? You look quite unlike anyone I have ever seen; I
mean quite a different person looks out of your eyes.” Her own eyes
had a frankly speculative regard devoid of coquetry. Clive’s masculine
vanity warmed.
“You read a great deal, I hear,” he said.
“What an extraordinary way you have of ignoring what a person says to
you. Are you absent-minded, or deaf, or merely impolite?”
“Merely an Englishman.”
Miss Belmont’s color deepened. Clive’s eyes invoked a ridiculous
picture of a stately young _châtelaine_ kicking and struggling in an
Englishman’s arms.
“Why do the people of your country take pride in being rude?”
“They don’t. They don’t bother about trifles like the men of several
other nations, that is all. I’ll open the door for you when you leave
the room, and even take off my hat in the lift and catch a cold in my
head, but don’t expect me to find a reply to all the nonsense a woman
chooses to talk, if a more interesting subject occurs to me.”
“Are you very haughty and supercilious, or are you very shy?”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean that you were flattered to death by what I said, and changed
the subject, as a girl would blush or stammer.”
“I suspect you are right.” He rose to let her pass. His eyes laughed
down into hers, and she felt the sudden content of a child when it is
noticed by a person of superior years and stature.
“That man has the most charming eyes I ever saw,” she said, as the
dining-room door closed behind the women. “I don’t believe they ever
could be sober.”
“Just observe his lower jaw,” said Mrs. Volney, with her infantile
lisp.