Chapter III: Book I: I (3)

On the last day but one the party went down the coast to attend Don Tiburcio's _merienda_. It was to be given in a valley about a half-mile inland, which the guests must approach through a narrow canyon fronting the sea.

The walk along the beach and inland trail was easy and pleasant, but the canyon was sown with rocks and sweet-brier; and the way was picked with some discomfort.

"If I stub my toe, you can carry me," said Nina.

"I will," said Thorpe, gallantly. He was feeling particularly light of heart. The week was almost over. Delightful in many ways as it had been, he was eager to take the reins into his own hands.

"Look! look!" exclaimed Nina, and the party paused simultaneously.

Don Tiburcio Castro had suddenly appeared at the head of the canyon. He was mounted on a large horse of a breed peculiar to the Californias, golden bronze in colour with silver mane and tail. The trappings of the horse were of embossed leather, heavily mounted with silver. His own attire was magnificent. He wore the costume of the grandees of his time,--a time which had fallen helplessly into the past during the fourteen years of American possession; indeed, Don Tiburcio, who, like many of his brethren, had for every day use adopted the garb of modern civilisation, had the effect, as he sat motionless on his burnished steed at the head of the canyon, of a symbolic figure at the end of a perspective.

He wore short clothes of red silk, the jacket open over a lace shirt clasped with jewels. His long botas of yellow leather were wound about with red and blue ribbons; his broad sombrero was heavy with silver eagles.

"I begin to feel the unreality of California," said Thorpe. "It is like a scene out of a picture-book."

"After all, it is but one phase," replied Nina.

Don Tiburcio lifted his sombrero and rode down the canyon, the horse stepping daintily over the rocks. The women waved their handkerchiefs, the men their caps. Then the end of the perspective was closed once more, this time by a group of women. And they wore full flowered gowns with pointed bodice, rebosos draped about their dark graceful heads. Two tinkled the guitar. The others wielded large black fans.

"Ay!" exclaimed Mrs. Earle. "Why did I not bring my reboso? 'Lupie, we shall be forgotten."

"There are men," replied Miss Hathaway, as several dark beribboned heads appeared above the rebosos. "They, too, may want a change. You can desert me, Captain Hastings. I shall amuse myself."

"I don't doubt it," said Hastings, gloomily. "I don't flatter myself that I could make you jealous."

"I welcome you," said Don Tiburcio, choosing his English very slowly, and reining in. "The day ees yours, my friends. I am your slave. I have prepare a little entertainment, but if it no is to your taste, but say the word, and all shall be change."

Mr. Randolph made a terse and suitable reply. Don Tiburcio stood aside that all might pass him, bowing repeatedly; and the party made its way as quickly as possible to the entrance.

Dona Eustaquia Carillo de Brotherton, one of the most famous women of the old regime, stood there, the girls making way for her, and for Dona Jacoba Duncan, Mrs. Polk,--she who was beautiful Magdalena Yorba,--and Dona Prudencia Iturbi y Moncada. The first was happy with her American husband; the second was not; Dona Jacoba's lines were as stern as when she had beaten her beloved children with a green hide reata, her smile as brilliant; and Dona Prudencia, who still (presumably) lamented the late Reinaldo, had found mitigation in her great social importance, and in her maternal devotion to the heir of her father-in-law's vast estates.

The women all kissed each other, and those that could talk Spanish made a soft pretty babel of sound that suggested perpetuity. The men were presented, and those of the Randolph party taken prompt possession of by the coquettish Californian girls. The men of the South were inclined to be haughty at first, but shortly succumbed to the novel charm of the American women.

"One can hardly realise the life they suggest," said Mr. Randolph to Thorpe. "Not fifty miles from San Francisco, they are still living in much of their primitive simplicity and state. In the south they are still farther removed from all that we have done. Dona Prudencia lives the life of a dowager empress."

They were in an open valley, shaded here and there with large oaks, carpeted with flowers. The women seated themselves on the warm dry ground, the caballeros,--as resplendent as Don Tiburcio,--and the more modest Americans lying at their feet, smoking the cigarito. The Californian girls tinkled their guitars and sang, with accompaniment of lash and brow. The older women smoked daintily, and talked of the gay old times. Thorpe, who was in no mood to parry coquetry,--and Nina was receiving the court of no less than three caballeros,--bestowed himself between Dona Eustaquia and Dona Prudencia, and charmed them with his unfeigned interest.

In the middle of the valley was a deep excavation. From stout poles hung two bullocks. In the course of an hour, the high beds of coals beneath the beasts were ignited, and the smell of roast meat mingled with the drowsy scent of the poppy and the salt of the sea.

When the bullocks were cooked, and the repast was spread some yards away, the guests found on the table every delicacy known to the old time. It was a very lively and a very picturesque feast, and no one felt the exhilaration of it more than Thorpe. He could not see Nina. She was on his side of the table, and eight or ten people were between; but it was enough to know that she was there, and that before the day was over they should find an hour together.

The wines until after the dessert were American; but as luncheon was concluding a servant brought a great tray covered with small glasses containing a colourless liquid.

"You must all dreenk with me to the glory and prosperity of California in my native wine, the fierce mescal," said Don Tiburcio, rising. "Every one--ah, yes, ladies, it ees strong: I would not advise you that you take mooch; but one seep, just for the toast--ah, _muchas gracias_."

The company rose. The American women made a doubtful little peck at the innocent-looking beverage, and shivered. The men consumed it heroically, repressing their tears. Thorpe felt as if he were swallowing live hornets; but, as he placed his glass on the table and bowed to the host, his face was quite stolid.

The company drove home, and retired at once to siesta. The strawberry picking was belated, and Nina gathered hers with the help of Mr. McLane. At dinner she sat between Mr. McLane and Hastings, and did not look at Thorpe. He racked his brain to remember what he could have done to offend her.

XI

They did not walk on the beach that evening, but sat about the fire, somewhat fatigued, but still in high spirits. Nina alone was quiet. After a time she stole away, and went down to the water. Thorpe was forced to infer that she wished to be alone, and did not follow her at once. When at the end of a half-hour she had not returned, his ill-carried impatience mastered him.

His feet made no sound on the sandy slope, nor on the beach. It was a night of perfect peace and calm and beauty. The ocean was quiet. The stars were thick; a thin young moon rode past them. But Nina was not within the flood of light about him. He turned the corner of a jutting rock, and came upon her.

She was sitting on a high stone, her hands pressed hard on her knees, staring out to sea. Thorpe had seen her face bitter, tragic, passionate; but he had never seen it look as it looked to-night. It might have been the face of a woman cast up by the ocean, out of its depths, or a face of stone for forty years. All the youth and life were out of it. It was fixed, awful. Thorpe stood appalled. The sweet intercourse of the past week seemed annihilated, the woman removed from him by a sudden breach in time, or some tremendous crash in Circumstance. He dared not speak, offer her sympathy. He felt that whether she had loved him or not in this hour of abandonment to her despair, he must be an insignificant feature in her life.

He stole away and sat down, dropping his face in his hands. His brain, usually clear and precise, whirled disobediently. He felt helpless, his manhood worthless. Nothing but a jut of rock stood between himself and Nina Randolph, and it might have been the grave of one of them. Chaos was in him, a troop of hideous imaginings. He wondered vaguely if the mescal had affected him. It was cursed stuff, and the blood had been in his head ever since he had drunk it.

He knelt down, and dashed the cold sea-water over his face and head, not once, but several times. When he stood up, his brain was cool and steady.

"I must either go to her," he thought, "or despise myself. It is not an intrusion; I certainly have my rights."

He went rapidly round the bend, and lifted her from the stone before she was aware of his presence, then held her at arm's length, a hand on each shoulder.

The fixity left the muscles of her face. They relaxed in terror.

"What is your secret?" he demanded, peremptorily. "Have you had a lover--a child? Is that it?"

"No."

"On your word of honour?"

"Yes."

"Are your parents unmarried?"

"Not that I know of."

"Have you loved some man that is dead?"

"I have never loved any man but you."

"Have you committed a crime? Are you in constant terror of discovery?"

"I have never injured any one but myself."

"Is there insanity in the family, cancer, consumption?"

"No."

"Then, in God's name, what is it? I have the right to know, and I demand it; and the right to share your trouble and help you to bear it. I give you my word of honour that, no matter what it is, it shall make no difference to me."

She hung her head, and he felt her quiver from head to foot. Then she fell to weeping silently, without passion, but shaking painfully. He took her in his arms, and did what he could to comfort her, and he could be very tender when he chose. Later, he coaxed and implored and threatened, but she would not speak. Once she made as if to cling to him, then put her arms behind her and clasped her hands together. The act was significant; but Thorpe took no notice of it. He knew now that it was going to be more difficult to marry her than he had anticipated, that infinite tact and patience would be necessary. After a time, he dried her eyes and led her up the hill to the door of her tent. The others were still about the fire, and she went in unseen.

XII

Thorpe slept little that night. He wandered about the sand hills until nearly dawn. It seemed to him that he had exhausted the category of possible ills; he could think of nothing else. After all, it did not matter. The woman alone mattered. He knew that when he had persuaded her to marry him (he never used the word "if"), he could control her imagination and make her happy; and no other man alive could do it. In twenty different ways he could make her forget everything but the fact that she was his wife.

The next day Nina did not appear until the party was gathered about the table for luncheon. She explained that she had slept late in order to be in good trim for the party that night, and had spent the rest of the morning making an alteration in her evening frock.

She nodded gaily to Thorpe, and took a seat some distance from him. She looked very pretty. Her spirits, like her colour, were high, her eyes brilliant. Nevertheless, there was a change in her, indefinable at first; then Thorpe decided that she had acquired a shade of defiance, of hardness.

But he had no time for thought. Mrs. Earle's flashing eyes were challenging him on one side, Miss Hathaway's fathomless orbs on the other. Opposite, Miss Shropshire, for the first time, displayed an almost feverish desire to engage his attention, and made herself uncommonly agreeable.

The afternoon was spent in packing and resting for the dance. The only woman to be seen without the tents was Miss Shropshire, who took Thorpe for a long walk and entertained him with many anecdotes of Nina's eccentricities.

"She is very mutable," said Thorpe, at length; "but I should not have called her eccentric."

"Should not you?" demanded Miss Shropshire. "Now, I should. But then you have seen so much of the world, so many varieties of women. Nina seems very original to us out here. I often wonder, well as I know her, what she will say and do next. Oh, Mr. Thorpe, does not that ship look beautiful?"

But Thorpe, who found a certain satisfaction in talking of the beloved object, gently led her back to her former theme, and learned much of Nina's childhood and school-girl pranks. There was no hint of the mystery, nor did he wish that there should be.

Shortly after supper they started on horseback for the Mission, the evening gear following in a wagon. Horses and conveyance had been sent by Don Tiburcio.

Nina rode between Mr. McLane and Captain Hastings, and kept them laughing heartily. The day had passed and Thorpe had not had a word with her. He rode last, with Miss Hathaway, glad of her society; for she never expected a man to talk when he was not in the mood. Scarcely a word passed between them; once or twice he had an uncomfortable impression that her large cold inscrutable eyes were watching him intently.

They rode through the heavy dusk of a Californian night, perfume and the odd abrupt sounds of the New World about them. The landscape took new form in the shadows. The stunted brush seemed to crouch and quiver, ready to spring. The owl hooted across the sandy waste; and coyotes yapped dismally. Many of the party were silent; but Nina's fresh spontaneous laugh rang out every few moments, striking an incongruous note. California itself was a mystery in that hour and did not consort with the lighter mood of woman.

Suddenly they looked down upon the Mission. The church was dark, but the long wing beside it flared with light. They rode rapidly down the hill and across the valley. As they approached, they saw Don Tiburcio standing on the corridor before one of the open doors. He wore black silk short clothes and a lace shirt, his hair tied back with a ribbon. Diamonds blazed among his ruffles and on his long white hands.

As he was making one of his long and stately speeches, Miss Hathaway laid her hand on Thorpe's arm.

"Take my advice," she said, in her cool even tones. "Do not go near Nina to-night. Let her alone. I think she wishes it."

Thorpe made no reply. Miss Hathaway might as well have asked him to hold his breath until the entertainment was over.

The ladies went at once to a large room set aside for their use and donned their evening frocks. These frocks were very simple for the most part, organdie or swiss, and they were adjusted casually before the solitary mirror.

Nina's gown was of white nainsook ruffled to the waist with lace, and very full. The low cut bodice was gathered into the belt like a child's. Sometime since a local goldsmith of much cunning had, out of a bar of native gold, fashioned for her three flexible serpents. She wore one through her hair, one on her left arm, and a heavier one about her waist.

"_Dios de mi alma_, Nina," exclaimed Mrs. Earle; "you look like an imp to-night. What is the matter with you? Your eyes look--look--I hardly know what you do look like."

"Are you well, Nina?" asked Miss Hathaway, turning and smiting the girl with her polaric stare. "Have not you a headache? Why not lie down and not bother with this ball?"

For a moment Nina did not reply. She brought her small teeth together, and looked into Miss Hathaway's eyes with passionate resentment.

"Just mind your own business, will you?" she said, pitching her voice for the other woman's ear alone. "And you'd oblige me by transfixing some one else for the rest of the evening. I've had enough of your attentions for one day."

Then she shook out her skirts as only an angry woman can, and left the room.

"Nina is in one of her unpleasant moods to-night," said Mrs. McLane, attempting a glimpse of herself over Miss McDermott's shoulder, that she might adjust a hairpin. "I have not seen her like this for some time--seven weeks," and she smiled.

"She looks like a little devil," said Mrs. Earle. "I have not been here long enough to become intimate with her moods, and I must say I prefer her without them. What are you scowling about, 'Lupie? Is your sash crooked? Can I fix it? But I forgot: you are above such trifles--Holy Mary! Guadalupe Hathaway! what on earth is the matter with your back?"

"What?" asked Miss Hathaway, presenting her back squarely. There was a simultaneous chorus of shrieks.

"Guadalupe, for Heaven's sake, what have you been doing?" cried Mrs. McLane. "Your back is striped--dark brown and white."

"Oh, is that all?" asked Miss Hathaway, gathering up her fan and gloves. "I suppose it got sunburned this morning at croquet. I had on a blouse with alternate thick and thin stripes. _Hasta luego!_" and she moved out, not with any marked grace, but with a certain dignity which saved the stripes from absurdity.

"_Bueno!_" exclaimed Mrs. Earle, "I'd like to have as little vanity as that. How peaceful, and how cheap!"

"I suspect that it is her vanity to have no vanity," said Mrs. McLane, who was the wisest of women. "And if she did not happen to be a remarkably handsome girl, I fancy her vanity would take another form. But come, come, _mes enfants_, let us go. I feel half dressed; but as this is a picnic I suppose it does not matter."

The guests were assembled in the large hall of the Mission: Mr. Randolph's party, Don Tiburcio's, and several priests. The musicians were on the corridor beyond the open window. Dona Eustaquia, Dona Jacoba, Dona Prudencia, Mrs. Polk, and the priests sat on a dais at the end of the room; behind them was draped a large Mexican flag. The rest of the room was hung with the colours of the United States. The older women of the late regime wore the heavy red and yellow satins of their time, the younger flowered silks, their hair massed high and surmounted by a comb. The caballeros were attired like their host.

The guests were standing about in groups after the second waltz, when Don Tiburcio stepped to the middle of the room and raised his hand.

"My friends," he said, "my honoured compatriots, Don Hunt McLane and Don Jaime Randolph have request that we do have the contradanza. Therefore, if my honoured friends of America will but stand themselves against the wall, we of California will make the favourite dance of our country."

The Americans clapped their hands politely. Don Tiburcio walked up to Mrs. Earle, bowed low, and held out his hand. She rattled her fan in token of triumph over her Northern sisters, and undulated to the middle of the room, her hand in her host's.

The swaying, writhing, gliding dance--the dance in which the backbone of men and women seems transformed into the flexible length of the serpent--was half over, the American men were standing on tiptoe, occasionally giving vent to their admiration, when Nina, her eyes sparkling with jealously and excitement, moved along the wall behind a group of people and stood beside Thorpe. He did not notice her approach. His hands were thrust into his pockets, his eyes eagerly fixed on the most graceful feminine convolutions he had ever seen.

"Dudley!" whispered Nina. He turned with a jump, and forgot the dancers.

"Well?" he whispered. "Nina! Nina!"

She slipped her hand into his. He held it in a hard grip, his eyes burning down into hers. "Why--why?--I must respect your moods if you wish to avoid me at times--but--"

"Do you admire that?"

"I did--a moment ago."

"Tell me how much."

"More than any dancing I have ever seen, I think," his eyes wandering back to the swaying colorous groups of dancers. "It is the perfection of grace--"

"Would you like to see something far, _far_ more beautiful?"

"I fear I should go off my head--"

"Answer my question."

"I should."

"You say you respect my moods. I don't want--I particularly don't want to kiss you to-night. Will you promise not to kiss me if we should happen to be alone?"

Thorpe set his lips. He dropped her hand. "You are capricious--and unfair," he said; "I have not seen you alone for two days."

"It is not because I love you less," she said, softly. "Promise me."

"Very well."

"It is now ten. We shall have supper at twelve. At one, go down the corridor behind this line of rooms to the end. Wait there for me. Ask no questions, or I won't be there. This waltz is Captain Hastings'. I am engaged for every dance. _Au revoir._"

Thorpe got through the intervening hours. He spent the greater part of them with the four donas of the dais, and was warmly invited to visit them on their ranchos and in the old towns; and he accepted, although he knew as much of the weather of the coming month as of his future movements.

XIII

In the supper-room he sat far from Nina; but promptly at one he stole forth to the tryst. The windows looking upon the back corridor were closed. No one was moving among the mass of outbuildings. Not far away he could see the rolling surface and stark outlines of the Mission cemetery. A fine mist was flying before the stars; and a fierce wind, the first of the trades, was screaming in from the ocean.

Nina kept him waiting ten or fifteen minutes. Her white figure appeared at the end of the corridor and advanced rapidly. Thorpe met her half way, and she struck him lightly with her fan.

"Remember your promise," she said. "And also understand that you are not to move from the place where I put you until I give you permission. Do you take that in?"

"Yes," he said, sullenly; "but I am tired of farces and promises."

"Shh, don't be cross. This has been a charming evening. I won't have it spoiled."

"Are you quite well? Your colour is so high, and your eyes are unnaturally bright."

"Don't suggest that I am getting anything," she cried, in mock terror. "Small-pox? How dreadful! That is our little recreation, you know. When a San Franciscan has nothing else to do he goes off to the pest-house and has small-pox. But come, come."

He followed her into the room at the end of the corridor, and she lit a taper and conducted him up a steep flight of stairs which was little more than a ladder. At the top was a narrow door. It yielded to the knob, and Thorpe found himself in what was evidently the attic of the Mission.

"I was up here a month or two ago with the girls," said Nina. Her voice shook slightly. "I know there are candles somewhere--there were, at least. Stand where you are until I look."

She flitted about with the taper, a ghostly figure in the black mass of shadows; and in a few moments had thrust a half-dozen candles into the necks of empty bottles. These she lit and ordered Thorpe to range at intervals about the room. He saw that he was in a long low garret, at one end of which was a pile of boxes, at the other a heap of carpeting.

To the latter Nina pointed with her lighted taper. "Sit down there," she said, and disappeared behind the boxes.

Thorpe did as he was bidden. His hands shook a little as he adjusted the carpet to his comfort. The windows were closed. A tree scraped against the pane, jogged by the angry wind. The candles shed a fitful light, their flames bending between several draughts. The floor was thick with dust. Rafters yawned overhead, black and festooned with cobwebs. It was an uncanny place, and the sudden apparition of a large and whiskered rat scuttling across the floor in terrified anger at having his night's rest disturbed was not its most enlivening feature.

"Dudley!" said Nina, sharply.

"Yes?"

"Was that a rat?"

"It was."

"Oh, dear! dear! I never thought of rats. However," firmly, "I'm going to do it. I told you that you were not to move; but if you should happen to see a rat making for me, you go for him just as quickly as you can."

"The rats are much more afraid of you. The only danger you need worry about is pneumonia. I expect to sneeze throughout your entire performance--whatever it is to be."

"You press your finger on the bridge of your nose: if you sneeze, it will spoil the effect of--of--a poem. Now, keep quiet."

For a moment he heard no further sound. Then something appealed to his ear which made him draw a quick breath. It was a low sweet vibrant humming, and the air, though unfamiliar, indicated what he had to expect. Sinking deeper into his dusty couch, he propped his chin on his hand; and, simultaneously, a vision emerged and filled the middle distance.

For a moment it stood motionless, poised, then floated lightly toward him, scarcely touching the floor, with a lazy rhythmic undulation which was music in itself. The full soft gown with its ruffles of lace rose and fell like billows of cloud, and in and out of a strip of crimson silk she twined and twisted herself to the slow scarce-audible vibration of her voice. She did not approach him closely, but danced in the middle and lower part of the room, sometimes in the full light of the candles, such as it was, at others retreating into the shadows beyond; where all outline was lost, and she looked like a waving line of mist, or a wraith writhing in an unwilling embrace.

And Thorpe? Outside, the storm howled about the corner of the Mission, or whistled a discord like a devil's chorus; but in the brain of the man was a hot mist, and it clouded his vision and played him many a trick. The dust of the floor, the grime of the walls, the unsightly rafters were gone. He lay on a couch as imponderable as ether. Overhead were strangely carven beams, barely visible in the dusk of the room's great arch. A gossamer veil of many tints, stirring faintly as if breathed upon, hung before walls of unimaginable beauty. The floor trembled and exhaled a delicious perfume. Flame sprang from opal bowls. But nothing was definite but the floating undulating shape which had wrought this enchantment. Its full voluptuous beauty, he recalled confusedly; dimmed by the shadows which clung to it even in the light, it looked vaporous, evanescent, the phantasm of a lorelei riding the sea-foam. Its swaying arms gleamed on the dark; the gold-scaled sea-serpents glided and twisted from elbow to wrist. Only the eyes were those of a woman, and they burned with a languid fire; but they never met his for a moment.

Suddenly, with abrupt transition, she changed the air, which had been almost a chant, and began dancing fast and furiously. Flinging aside the scarf, she clasped her hands under rigid arms, as if leaning on them the full weight of her tiny body. She danced with a headlong whirl that deprived her of her wraith-like appearance, but was no less graceful. With a motion so swift and light that her feet seemed continually twinkling in space, she sped up and down the garret like a mad thing; then, unlocking her hands, she flung them outward and spun from one end of the room to the other in a whirl so dizzy that she looked like a cloud blown before the wind, streaming with a woman's hair and cut with yellow lightning.

She flew directly up to where Thorpe lay, and paused abruptly before him. For the first time their eyes met. He forgot his promise. He stumbled to his feet, grasping at her gown even before he was risen. For a second she stood irresolute; then her supple body leaped backward, and a moment later had flashed down the room and through the door. Thorpe reached the door in three bounds. She was scrambling backward down the stair, her white frightened excited face dropping through the heavy dark. Thorpe got down as swiftly as he could; but she was far ahead, and he could not chase her into the Mission. When he re-entered the ball-room some time after, the guests were on the corridor waiting for their char-a-bancs. He returned to the Presidio in the ambulance.

XIV

The next day Thorpe called at the Randolphs'. The man, Cochrane, who, himself, looked yellow and haggard, informed him that the ladies were indisposed with severe colds. Thorpe went home and wrote Nina a letter, making no allusion to the performance at the Mission, but insisting that she recognise his rights, and let him know when he could see her and come to a definite understanding. A week passed without a reply. Then Thorpe, tormented by every doubt and fear which can assail a lover, called again. The ladies were still indisposed. It was Sunday. Thorpe demanded to see Mr. Randolph, and was shown into the library.

Mr. Randolph entered in a few moments, and did not greet Thorpe with his customary warmth. There were black circles about his eyes. His cheeks looked thinner and his hand trembled.

"Have you been ill, too?" asked Thorpe, wondering if South Park were a healthy locality.

"No; not ill. I have been much harassed--business."

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"It will right in time--but--in a new city--and with no telegraphic communication with the rest of the world--nor quick postal service--there is much to impede business and try the patience."

Thorpe was a man of quick intuitions. He knew that Mr. Randolph was lying. However, that was not his business. He rose and stood before the fire, nervously flicking his trousers with his riding-whip.

"Has it occurred to you that I love your daughter?" he asked, abruptly. "Or--perhaps--she has told you?"

"She has not spoken to me on the subject; but I inferred as much."

"I wish, of course, to marry her. You know little about me. My bankers--and Hastings--will tell you that I am well able to take care of your daughter. In fact, I am a fairly rich man. This sort of thing has to be said, I suppose--"

"I have not misunderstood your motives. I misjudge few men; I have lived here too long."

"Oh--thanks. Then you have no objection to raise?"

"No; I have none."

"Your daughter loves me." Thorpe had detected a slight accent on the pronoun.

"I am sure of that."

"Do you mean that Mrs. Randolph might object?"

"She would not be consulted."

Thorpe shifted his position uneasily. The hardest part was to come.

"Nina has intimated to me," he said, haltingly, "that there is a--some mysterious reason which would prevent her marrying. I have utterly disregarded that reason, and shall continue to do so. I purpose to marry her, and I hope you will--will you?--help me."

Mr. Randolph leaned forward and twisted his nervous pale hands together. It was at least three minutes before he spoke, and by that time Thorpe's ear-drums were pounding.

"I must leave it to her," he said, "utterly to her. That is a question which only she can decide--and you. Of course she will tell you--she is too honest not to; but I am afraid she will stave it off as long as possible. I cannot tell you; it would not be just to her."

"But you will do nothing to dissuade her?"

"No; she is old enough to judge for herself. And if she decides in your favour, and you--are still of the same mind, I do not deny that I shall be very glad. I should even be willing for you to take her to England, to resign myself never to see her again--if I could think--if you thought it was for the best."

"I wish I knew what this cursed secret was," said Thorpe, passionately. "I am half distracted with it."

"Have you no suspicion?"

"It seems to me that I have thought of everything under heaven; and she denied one question after the other. I am bound to take her word, and to believe that the truth was the one thing I did not hit upon."

"Yes; if you had guessed, I think she would have told you, whether she was ready or not. It is very strange. You are one of the sharpest men I have ever met. Still, it is often the way."

"When can I see Nina?"

"In a few days--a week, I should say. Her cold is very severe."

"I have written to her, and she has not answered. Is it possible that her illness is serious? I have put it down to caprice or some new qualm."

"There is no cause for alarm. But she has some fever, and pain in her eyes, and is irritable. When she is well I will take it upon myself to see that you have an interview."

"Thank you." Mr. Randolph had not risen, but Thorpe felt himself dismissed. He left the house in a worse humour than he had entered it. He felt balked, repulsed, and disagreeably prescient. For the first time in his life, he uneasily admitted that an iron will alone would not keep a man on the straight line of march to his goal, that there was a chain called Circumstance, and that it was forged of many metals.

XV

Thorpe determined not to go to the house again until either Nina or Mr. Randolph sent for him. He would not run after any woman, he told himself angrily; and once or twice he was in a humour to snap the affair in two where it was and leave the country. But, on the whole, the separation whetted his passion. That airy fabric of sentiment, imagination, and civilisation called spiritual affinity, occasionally dominated him, but not for long. His last experience of her had gone to his head: it was rarely that of all the Nina Randolphs he knew he could conjure any but the one that had danced his promise out of memory. There were times when he hated himself and hated her. Then he told himself that this phase was inevitable, and that later on, when the better part of their natures were free to assert themselves, they would find each other.

A week after his interview with Mr. Randolph, he found himself in South Park a little after eleven at night. He had dined on Rincon Hill, and purposed spending the night at the Oriental Hotel; he rarely returned to the Presidio after an evening's entertainment.

He had avoided the other men, and started to walk into town. Almost mechanically he turned into South Park, and halted before the tall silent house which seemed such a contemptible barrier between himself and the woman he wanted. His eyes, travelling downward, noted that a basement window had been carelessly left open. He could enter the house without let--and the opportunity availed him nothing. He wished that he were a savage, with the traditions and conventions of a savage, and that the woman he loved dwelt in a tent on the plain.

Lights glimmered here and there in the houses of South Park, but the Randolphs' was blank; everybody, apparently, was at rest. To stand there and gaze at her window was bootless; and he cursed himself for a sentimental ass.

He walked up the semi-circle and returned. This time he moved suddenly forward, lifting his head. It seemed to him that a sound--an odd sound--came from the bedroom above the parlour, a room he knew to be Mrs. Randolph's.

At first the sound, owing to the superior masonry of the walls, was muffled; but, gradually, Thorpe's hearing, naturally acute, and abnormally sensitive at the moment, distinguished the oral evidence of a scuffle, then the half-stifled notes of angry and excited voices. He listened a moment longer. The sounds increased in volume. There was a sudden sharp note, quickly hushed. Thorpe hesitated no longer. If the house of a man whose guest he had been were invaded by thieves, and perhaps murderers, it was clearly his duty to render assistance, apart from more personal reasons.

He took out his pistol, cocked it, then vaulted through the window, and groping his way to a door opened it and found himself in the kitchen entry. A taper burned in a cup of oil; and guided by the feeble light he ran rapidly up the stair.

He opened the door at the head, paused a a moment and listened intently. The house teemed with muffled sounds; but they fell from above, and through closed doors, and from one room. Suddenly the hand that held the pistol fell to his side. The colour dropped from his face, and he drew back. Was he close upon the Randolph skeleton? Had he not better steal out as he had come, refusing to consider what the strange sounds proceeding from the room of that strange woman might mean? There were no signs of burglars anywhere. A taper burned in this hall, likewise, and on the table beside it was a gold card-receiver. There had been a heavy rainfall during the evening, but there was no trace of muddy boots on the red velvet carpet.

Then, as he hesitated, there rang out a shriek, so loud, so piercing, so furious, that Thorpe, animated only by the instinct to give help where help was wanted, dashed down the hall and up the stair three steps at a time. Before he reached the top, there was another shriek, this time abrupt, as if cut short by a man's hand. He reached Mrs. Randolph's room and flung open the door. But he did not cross the threshold.

The room flared with light. The bedding was torn into strips and scattered about. Every fragile thing the room contained was in ruins and littered the carpet. And in their midst, held down by Mr. Randolph and his servant, Cochrane, was a struggling, gurgling, biting thing which Thorpe guessed rather than knew was the mother of Nina Randolph. Her weak evil face was swollen and purple, its brutality, so decently cloaked in normal conditions, bulging from every muscle. Her ragged hair hung in scant locks about her protruding eyes. Over her mouth was the broad hand of the man, Cochrane. Mrs. Rinehardt, her face flushed and her dress in disorder, stood by the mantel crying and wringing her hands.

Thorpe's brain received the picture in one enduring flash. He was dimly conscious of a cry from unseen lips, and the vanishing train of a woman's gown. And then Mr. Randolph looked up. He relaxed his hold and got to his feet. His face was ghastly, and covered with great globes of sweat.

"Thorpe!" he gasped. "You! Oh, go! go!"

Thorpe closed the door, his fascinated gaze returning for a second to the Thing on the floor. It no longer struggled. It had become suddenly quiet, and was laughing and muttering to itself.

He left the house, and walked out of the park and city, and toward the Presidio. It was a long walk, over sand drifts and rocks, and through thickets whose paths he had forgotten. The cold stars gave little light, for the wind drove a wrack aslant them; and when the colder dawn came, greying everything, the flowers that looked so brilliant in the sunlight, the heavy drooping trees, the sky above, he found himself climbing a high sand hill, with no apparent purpose but to get to the top; a cut about its base would have shortened the journey. He reached the summit, and saw the grey swinging ocean, the brown forts in their last sleep.

He sat down, and traced figures on the sand with his stick. Chaos had been in him; but the tide had fallen, and his thoughts were shaping themselves coherently. Nina Randolph was the daughter of a madwoman, and the seeds were in her. Her strange moods, her tragic despair, her hints of an approaching fate, her attitude to himself, were legible at last. And Miss Hathaway knew, and had tried to warn him. Doubtless others knew, but the secret had been well kept.

He was filled with bitterness and dull disgust, and his heart and brain were leaden. The mad are loathsome things; and the vision of Nina, foaming and hideous and shrieking, rose again and again.

That passed; but he saw her without illusion, without idealisation. She had been the one woman whose faults were entrancing, whose genuine temperament would have atoned for as many more. She seemed now a very ordinary, bright, moody, erratic, seductive young person who was making the most of life before she disappeared into a padded cell. He wondered why he had not preferred Miss Hathaway, or Mrs. Earle, or Miss McDermott. He had not, and concluded that her first influence had been her only one, and that his imagination had done the rest.

The sunrise gun boomed from the Presidio. The colours of dawn were on horizon and water. He rose and walked rapidly over the hills and levels; and when he reached his room, he went to bed and slept.

XVI

At two o'clock, just after Thorpe had breakfasted, Mr. Randolph's card was brought to him, and he went at once into the general sitting-room. No one but Mr. Randolph occupied it at the moment. He was sitting listlessly on the edge of a chair, staring out of the window. Commonly the triggest of men, his face to-day was unshaven, and he looked as if he had not been out of his clothes for forty-eight hours. And he looked as if he had been picked up in the arms of Time, and flung across the unseen gulf into the greyness and feebleness of age.

As he rose mechanically, Thorpe took his hand in a strong clasp, forgetting himself for the moment.

Mr. Randolph did not return the pressure. He withdrew his hand hurriedly, and sat down.

"An explanation is due you," he said, and even his voice was changed. "You have stumbled upon an unhappy family secret."

Thorpe explained how he had come to enter the house.

"I supposed that it was something of the sort, or rather Cochrane did; he found the window and lower door open. It was a kind and friendly act. I appreciate the motive." He paused a moment, then went on, "As I said just now, an explanation is due you, if explanation is necessary. As you know, I had recognised that as Nina's right--to speak when she saw fit. That is the reason I did not explain the other day--I usually manage to have her in the country at such times," he added, irrelevantly.

"Such attacks are always more or less unexpected, I suppose." Thorpe hardly knew what to say.

Mr. Randolph fumbled at his hat, "More or less."

"Were any other members of her family--similarly afflicted?"

"Her father and mother were well-conducted people. I know nothing of any further antecedents."

"It sometimes skips a generation," said Thorpe, musingly.

Mr. Randolph brought his hand close above his eyes, and pressed his lips together. He opened his mouth twice, as if to speak, before he articulated, "Sometimes, not always."

Thorpe rose abruptly and walked to the window, then returned, and stood before Mr. Randolph.

"And Nina?" he demanded, peremptorily. "What of her?"

Mr. Randolph pressed his hand convulsively against his face.

Thorpe turned white; his knees shook. He went out and returned with some brandy. "Here," he said. "Let us drink this and brace up and have it out. We are not children."

Mr. Randolph drank the brandy. Then he replied, "She is on the way. In a few years she will be as you saw her mother last night; no power on earth can save her. I would give my wretched failure of a life, I would burn at the stake--but I can do nothing."

"Perhaps I can. I intend to marry her."

"No! No! She, who is stronger than I, would never have permitted it. She told me that this morning. For the matter of that I am her ambassador to-day. She charged me to make it clear to you that she expected you to stand by your part of the compact. She is immovable; I know her."

"Tell her that I will take no messages at second hand, not even from you. Unless she sees and comes to an understanding with me, I shall consider myself engaged to her, and shall announce it."

"Do you mean to say that you would marry her, knowing what you do?"

"I would rather I had known it when I first came. I should have avoided her, or left the place. But I gave her my word, voluntarily, that nothing, no matter what, should interfere with my determination to marry her, and nothing shall."

"You _are_ an Englishman!" said Mr. Randolph, bitterly. "I wish I were as good a one; but I am not. My record is clean enough, I suppose; but I am a weak man in some respects, and I started out all wrong. I wish to God that everything were straight, Thorpe; I would rather you married her than any man I have ever known."

"Thank you. Will you arrange an interview for me?"

Mr. Randolph fidgeted, "I tell you what I think, Thorpe; you had better wait a little. She is in no mood to listen to reason, nor for love-making--take my word for that. I have never seen her in so black a mood. But women are naturally buoyant, and she particularly so. Go and take your trip through the State. Let it last--say two months, and then appear unexpectedly at Redwoods. I do not give you any encouragement,--in all conscience you ought not to want any; but I think that under the circumstances I suggest your final interview will at least not be an unpleasant one. Nina lives an out of door life there and is with the other girls most of the time."

"Very well. I don't know but that I prefer it that way. Meanwhile, will you tell her all that I have said?--except that I would rather I had known it sooner."

Mr. Randolph rose and gathered up his hat and gloves. "I will tell her," he said. "Good-bye. You are badly broken up, but you may be thankful that you are in your shoes, not mine."

XVII

Dona Prudencia had sent Thorpe a pressing invitation to be a guest at Casa Grande during the festivities celebrating the nineteenth birthday of her son. The day after his interview with Mr. Randolph, in company with Don Tiburcio Castro, Captain Brotherton and his wife, Dona Eustaquia, Mrs. Polk, and a half-dozen other native Californians, he took passage on a steamboat bound for Santa Barbara. The journey lasted four days, and was very uncomfortable; but the happy careless Spanish people were always entertaining, and the girls demanded the constant attentions of the Englishman. Thorpe had little time for thought and wished for none. When not playing squire to the women, he listened to Don Tiburcio's anecdotes of Old California, or discussed the future of the territory with Captain Brotherton, who was living a life of peace and plenty on a rancho, but nevertheless took an unfailing interest in the country his gallantry had helped to capture and hold.

The ship rode to anchor in the Santa Barbara channel before an animated scene. The adobe walls of Casa Grande had a new coat of white, the tiles a new coat of red; so had the great towers and arches and roof of the Mission, jutting before the green of its hills, a mile beyond. The houses about the fort looked fresh and gay. Many horses, richly caparisoned, pranced in the open court of Casa Grande, or pawed the ground by neighbouring trees. Caballeros, in their rich native costumes, were sauntering about, smoking cigaritos. On the corridors of the great and lesser houses were the women, brilliantly dressed, their heads draped with the reboso or mantilla, manipulating the inevitable fan.

Indians in bright calico garments stood on the beach, awaiting the luggage of the guests. Between them and the houses was a large booth, defiantly flaunting the colours of Mexico. Far to the left was a rude street, flanked on either side by a row of cheap wooden houses, the ugly beginning of an American town.

"It is all like a scene out of a picture-book," said Thorpe. "Can San Francisco--awful San Francisco!--be in the same territory? It looks like Arcadia."

"Si, is pretty," said Mrs. Polk, with a pensive sigh. "But no all the same like before, senor. Not the same spirit, for all know that their country is gone for ever, and that by and by the Americanos live in all the towns, so that the Spanish towns will be no more--and in a few years. But they like to meet and try to think is the same, and forget."

The passengers were landed in boats. The young heir, a tall lad with a handsome indolent face, and a half-dozen of his guests, came down to the shore to welcome the newcomers.

"Very good look, that boy," said Dona Eustaquia. "I not have seen him for some years, so uncomfortable this treep. But he have the face weak, like the father. Never I like Reinaldo Iturbi y Moncada; but I wish he not have been kill by Diego Estenega. Then, how different is California!"

As the boat touched the sands young Reinaldo came forward with a charming grace to help the ladies to land, and was kissed by each, with effusion. Indeed, there was so much kissing, and such an immediate high shrill chattering, such a profusion of "_queridas_," and "_mijitas_," and "_mi amigas_," that Thorpe, after exchanging a few words with his host, made haste to the house.

Dona Prudencia, clad in the richest of black satins, with a train a yard long and a comb six inches high, came forward to the edge of the corridor to greet him. She looked very pretty and plump and consequential.

"So good you are to come, Senor Torp," she said softly, giving him her little hand with a gesture which drew down his lips at once.

"I shall never forget how good you have been to ask me," he said, enthusiastically. "This picture alone was worth coming to California for."

"Ay! You shall see more than theese, Senor Torp. It ees an honour to receive you in the _casa_ of the Iturbi y Moncadas. It ees yours, senor, burn it if you will. Command my servants like they are your own."

Thorpe, by this time, knew something of the peculiar phrasing of native Californian hospitality, and merely bowed and murmured acknowledgments.

The other guests came up at the moment, and there was another Spanish chorus, an agitated wave along the three-sided corridor. Thorpe glanced curiously about him. The black-eyed women were undulating and coquetting for the benefit of the new men, while throwing kisses and rapturous exclamations to Dona Eustaquia and the girls in her charge. Thorpe looked over more than one big fan. Suddenly his attention was attracted by a woman on the opposite corridor. She had risen, and was looking intently at Dona Eustaquia, who as yet had not glanced across the court. She was a very beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman Thorpe had seen in California, and her face was vaguely familiar. She looked very Spanish, but her hair was gold and her eyes were as green as the spring foliage. Then there was a sharp feminine shriek behind him; he was thrust aside, and Dona Eustaquia ran past him, crying, "Chonita! Chonita!" The beautiful stranger met her half way, and they embraced and kissed each other on either cheek some fifteen times.