Chapter IV: Book I: I (4)

"Que! Que! Que!" the women of his party were exclaiming, and then followed a deluge of words of which he could separate only "Chonita Estenega." They, in turn, ran forward, and were received with a manner so polished that it was almost cold. Thorpe had recognised her. He had met her at a court ball in Austria, where, as the wife of the Mexican minister, she had been the most admired woman in the palace.

"Is Don Diego Estenega here?" he asked Prudencia. "I met him a number of times in Vienna, and should like to meet him again."

Prudencia drew up her small important person with an expression of conscious virtue that did not confine itself to her face, but made her very gown swell and rustle.

"Si!" she said. "He ees here--for the firs' time in mos' twenty years, senor. You never hear? He killing my husban'. But I forgive him because ees in the fight and no can help. Reinaldo attack, and Diego mus' defend, of course. Still, he _kill_ him, and I am the wife. But bime by I forgive, for that ees my religion. And I love Chonita. So she come to the old house, the firs' time in so many years, for the birfday de my son. Diego is horseback now, but come back soon. You no like go to your room? So dirt that treep, no? Reinaldo!" Her son came forward at once. "Show the Senor Torp to his room, no? and the other gentlemens."

Thorpe followed young Iturbi y Moncada down the corridor and into a small room. The floor was bare, the furniture prison-like; but he had heard of the simplicity of the adobe mansions of Californian grandees.

Reinaldo jerked open the upper drawer of the bureau, disclosing several rows of large goldpieces.

"At your service, senor," he said with a bow. "I beg that you will use it all."

Thorpe reddened to his hair. He hardly knew whether to be angry or not. Did these haughty grandees take him for a pauper? However, he merely bowed and thanked the youth somewhat drily, and at the same moment Captain Brotherton entered the room.

"The hospitality of the Californian!" he cried, taking in the situation at a glance. "Reinaldo, I see the new generation has forgotten nothing, despite the Americans."

"No, senor," said the young man, proudly. "What ours is, is our guests. That is right always, no? But perhaps the gentleman no like, perhaps he no have the custom in his country."

"We have not, I regret to say, Don Reinaldo. We are a tight-fisted practical race. But I can the more deeply appreciate your hospitality; and, believe me, I do appreciate it."

"And you will use it--all, senor?"

Thorpe hesitated the fraction of a moment, then replied with some difficulty, "Certainly, senor. I will use it with the greatest pleasure."

"Many thanks, senor. _Hasta luego!_" And he left the room.

"What an extraordinary custom!" exclaimed Thorpe. "I can't use that man's money."

"Oh, you must! He'd be terribly cut up if you did not--think you flouted him."

"Well, I'll gamble with him, and let him win it back. I suppose he gambles."

"Rather. Before he is forty the Americans will have had his last acre, and he inherits four hundred thousand. They have not even the soil in which to plant a business instinct, these Californians. I am glad you have come in time. They are worth seeing, and their like will never be seen again."

"I should think they were worth seeing. What did Dona Prudencia mean by saying that Diego Estenega killed her husband?"

"There was a fight to the death between them, and it was one or the other. Chonita, to the surprise of everybody, and to the horror of some--including the clergy--married Estenega at once, and went with him to Mexico. The old gentleman was in a towering rage, but forgave them later and visited them several times. He had large sums of money invested in Mexico which he left to Chonita. His Californian estates he left to young Reinaldo, whom he idolised. Estenega had had great hopes and plans in connection with this country which were dashed by Iturbi y Moncada's death. However, it was as well, for he is now one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the Mexican government, and has been ambassador or minister abroad several times. But my wife will tell you the whole story when you come to visit us. Perhaps she will read it to you, for she has made a novel out of it, which may or may not be published after the death of all concerned. Here is your trunk. I'll leave you to clean up."

XVIII

Thorpe dressed for dinner, pocketed a roll of the gold with a wry face, and went to the _sala_, a long room opening on the middle corridor. Prudencia, in a red-satin gown, so thick that it stood out about her as if hooped, and flashing jewels on a great deal of white skin, her hair piled high and surmounted with a diamond comb, sat in the middle of the room talking volubly to her sister-in-law, who stood by the mantel looking sadly about her. Chonita had lost little of her beauty. She had had but two children; and vanity had kept the lines of her figure, the gliding grace of her walk, unchanged. She had known, during the twenty years of her married life, the great joys and the great disappointments, the exaltation and the terrified recognition of mortal weakness and limitations, inseparable to two such natures. But, on the whole, she was happy, and she and her husband were very nearly one.

"No, no, my Chonita!" Prudencia was exclaiming in her own tongue. "Why shouldst thou be sad? It is nearly twenty years; one cannot remember so long. Thou hast thine own house, far more elegant than this, I am told: why shouldst thou feel sad to come back? Thou art wealthy, and hast a devoted husband,--_ay de mi_, my Reinaldo! (but I could have had others),--and art as beautiful as ever, although I do not agree with some that thou hast not grown a day older. Thou hast the expression of years, if not its lines and grey hairs. I need not have grown stout; but I have no vanity, and walking is such trouble, and I love _dulces_. Besides, we do not carry our flesh into the next world; so Reinaldo, who hated fat women--Ay, Senor Torp, pardon me, no? I not did see you. I wish mooch to present you to my sister-in-law--Dona Chonita Iturbi y Moncada de Estenega, Senor Torp of Eengland, _mijita_."

Chonita came forward and held out her hand, smiling. "I remember meeting you in Austria," she said. "It was so warm that night in the palace, I remember, it made me talk of California to you. My husband is very glad to think that he shall meet you again."

"I am glad you come to cheer her up, Senor Torp," said Prudencia. "She feel blue because coming to the old house once more."

Thorpe looked at Chonita with the quick sympathy of the Englishman for terra ego, and Chonita flashed her acknowledgment. "Yes, I am a little sad," she said; "not only because it is the first time in so many years, but because it is probably for the last time in my life. My husband does not care for California. Here he is."

Estenega entered with several other men, and, recognising Thorpe at once, greeted him with a warmth that was more cosmopolitan than Californian, but none the less sincere. He showed the wear and tear of years. Ambitions, scheming, hard work had left their furrows, and the grey was in his hair. But his nervous vitality was undiminished, and his air of command even more pronounced than in the old days. He carried Thorpe off to discuss the growing complications between the North and South; and the conversation was resumed after dinner, despite the attractions of the _sala_; for news of the great world came infrequently to California, and the stranger who had recently lived in the midst of affairs was a welcome acquisition. Thorpe spent the greater part of the night in the billiard-room with Reinaldo, and got rid of his gold.

XIX

At sunrise he was awakened by the booming of cannon and the ringing of bells. He sprang out of bed, thinking that the United States was firing on the Mexican flag, then remembered that it was the birthday of the young heir, and turned in again.

Two hours later, he was shaken out of his morning nap by Estenega.

"How would you like a dip before breakfast? They are all up at mass, and Brotherton and I are going down to a very good cove I know of."

"Get out, and I'll be with you in ten minutes."

Santa Barbara looked like a necropolis when he emerged. Every soul in the town, with the exception of himself, Estenega, Brotherton, and the servants preparing the birthday breakfast, was on his knees in the Mission mumbling aves for young Reinaldo. The three men walked down to the bright-blue channel motionless under a bright-blue sky. The air was warm; the waves were warm; the fruit was ripening on the walls. The poppies were opening their deep yellow lips, breathing forth the languor of the land. The palms were tall and green. The spiked cactus had burst into blood-red flower.

"This is not America," said Thorpe. "It is Italy or Spain or Greece. It is another atmosphere, physical as well as mental. One could lie on the sands all day and think of nothing."

"California has a physical quality which the Americans and all the other races that will eventually pour into her can never change," said Estenega. "She will never cease to protest that she was made for love and wine and to enfold with content in the mere fact of existence, to delight the eye, the soul, and the body, to inspire poetry and romance, and that the introduction of the commercial element is an indignity. I used to think differently when California and my own ambitions seemed identical; but San Francisco gave me a nightmare."

"On the ranches it is much the same as ever," said Captain Brotherton, "and will remain so long beyond our time. You will return with us, Mr. Thorpe? Estenega and Chonita go too."

And Thorpe gratefully accepted.

As they returned, they saw the great company streaming down from the Mission, a mass of colour. Few were on foot. No Californian walked a mile, if he had a horse to ride.

Thorpe hastened to his room to make his morning toilet. When he left it, the court and corridors were crowded with the brilliantly plumaged men and women. Reinaldo, in blue silk, was strutting about among the girls, as proud and happy as a girl dressed for her first party. There was no question in his mind who was the most important young man in California that morning. He was the head and front of California's wealthiest and haughtiest family, the scion of the only aristocracy that great territory would ever know. The Americans he regarded as a mere incident,--a brusque unpolished breed whose existence he rarely recalled. The Jews, up in the town, he considered with more favour; his fond mamma was inclined to be close-fisted with growing sons.

The tables had been set about the three corridors, as not only the neighbours were bidden to the breakfast, but many from distant ranchos. The poor were fed in the open beyond, on pigs roasted whole, and many dulces. The Presidio band played the patriotic and sentimental airs of Mexico.

Thorpe sat between Prudencia (who appeared to have marked him for her own) and Dona Eustaquia. Chonita was opposite, between two of her old admirers.

"It is the same, yet not the same--like the old time," said Dona Eustaquia, with a sigh.

"It is not the same at all," said Chonita. "It is a theatre, and we are performing--for Mr. Thorpe's benefit."

"No is theatre at all," said Prudencia, disapprovingly. "All is exactamente the same. Few years older, no more; but no one detail differente. And next year the same, and every year,--one, two, three hundred years what coming."

Chonita shrugged her shoulders, and did not condescend to answer, although every Californian within earshot, except Dona Eustaquia, assured her that Prudencia was right.

To Thorpe, who had no fond reminiscences, it all seemed natural and surpassingly picturesque. The highly seasoned dishes held hot controversy with his English stomach; and he found it hard to catch the meaning of the pretty broken-English wafted to him from prettier lips; but he was deeply thankful that for the moment his personal life could have no voice in so incongruous a setting.

After breakfast, the party went at once to a large arena near the pleasure-grounds of Casa Grande, and sat upon the raised seats about the ring, while Reinaldo and other young caballeros exhibited their skill and prowess against the pugnacious bull.

After siesta the people danced their national jigs in the court of Casa Grande, while the men and women of the aristocracy lounged over the railing of the corridors and encouraged them with handfuls of silver coins.

Thorpe, Estenega, and Captain Brotherton, in the ugly garb of a wider civilisation, stood apart.

"They are an anachronism," said the Englishman, "and will never be able to hold their own, namely, their vast possessions, against the sharp-witted American."

"Not ten years," said Estenega. "The sharpers are crouching like buzzards on the edge of every town. Up there in the village they have wares to tempt the Californians,--fashions and ornaments that cannot be bought otherwise without a trip to San Francisco. As there is little ready money, the Californians--who make their purchases by the wholesale, and would disdain to buy less than a 'piece' of silk or satin--mortgage small ranchos at an incredible rate of interest, against the next hide yield. Then the squatters have come, imperturbable and patient, knowing that when their case is tried, it will be before an American judge. When my father-in-law asked me whether I would prefer at his death his Mexican investments or half of his Californian leagues, I chose the former unhesitatingly: although he reckoned his landed estates at twice the value of the other. But I had no wish to come back here to live, and could trust no one else to look after my interests. Eustaquia is all right, for she has Brotherton. I notice the Californian women are marrying Americans wherever they can."

"And the matches are rather successful," said Brotherton, laughing. "Unfortunately, the American girls won't marry Californians, or the problem would be easily solved."

The day finished with a dance in the sala; and later, in Reinaldo's room, Thorpe lost the last of his host's gold and a roll of his own. The game was monte, and the young Californians grew so excited that Thorpe momentarily expected to see the flash of knives. They shouted and swore; and Reinaldo even wept with rage, and vowed that Thorpe was his only friend on earth. However, the night ended peacefully. When the young men had become so laden with mescal that they could no longer see their cards, they embraced affectionately and went to bed.

XX

The next day there were races, and in the evening another dance, on the day following a _rodeo_ and _merienda_.

"How long do they keep this thing up without breaking down?" asked Thorpe, on the evening of the sixth day, and after another race where the women had screamed themselves hoarse, and one man had stabbed another. All were now fraternal and enthusiastic in a _cascarone_ frolic.

"They are made of elastic, as far as pleasure is concerned," replied Estenega. "If they had to work six hours out of twenty-four, they would be haggard, and weak in the knees."

Thorpe entered the sala. The furniture, with the exception of the tables, had been removed; and men and women, with the abandon of children, were breaking eggshells, filled with cologne, tinsel, and flour, on the back of each other's heads. Black hair was flowing to the floor; white teeth were set behind arch tense lips; black eyes were snapping; nostrils were dilating. Even Dona Eustaquia and Chonita had joined in the romp. Prudencia, alone, ever mindful of her dignity, stood in a corner, the back of her head protected by the wall. She raised her fan to Thorpe, and he made his way to her under a shower of _cascarones_. The cologne ran down his neck, and made a paste of flour and tinsel on his head.

"Ay, senor!" exclaimed the chatelaine of Casa Grande, as he bowed before her. "No is unbecome at all. How you like the way we make the fun?"

Thorpe assured her that life was unmitigated amusement for the first time.

"No? You no laughing at us, senor?"

"It has been my good fortune to laugh with you for six days."

"Si: I theenk you like. I watching you." Prudencia gave her head a coquettish toss. She was still a very pretty woman, despite her flesh.

"Oh, now you flatter me awfully. Why should you watch your most insignificant guest?"

"You no are the more--how you call him?--eens--_bueno! no importa_. You are the more honour guest I have. Si you like California, Senor Torp, why you no living here?"

"Oh--I--" He had heard that question before, in different circumstances. He was standing with his back to the wall. The brilliant picture before him became the mise-en-scene of an opera, the babble of voices its chorus. To his reversed vision, it crowded backward and cohered. And upon its shifting front, upon the wall of light and laughter and beauty, was projected the tragic figure of Nina Randolph.

Thorpe felt that his dark face was visibly paling. A small angry fist seemed to strike his heart, and all his being ached with sudden pity and longing.

A soft hand brushed his. He turned with a start and looked down into the coquettish eyes of his hostess. He noted mechanically that she had a very determined mouth, and that her colour was higher than usual.

"I beg pardon?" he stammered.

"Why you no stay here?" whispered Prudencia.

"Well, I may, you know; my plans are very unsettled."

"You ever been marry, senor?"

"No, senora."

"I have; and I love the husband, before; but so many years that ees now. You think ees possiblee keep on love when the other have been dead twenty years?"

"I think so."

"Ay! So I theenk once. But no was intend, I theenk, to live 'lone alway."

"Then why have you never married again, dear senora!" Thorpe found the conversation very tiresome.

"Ay! The men here--all are alike the one to the other. Never I marry another Californian."

"Ah!"

"No!"

His restless eyes suddenly encountered hers. He felt the blood climb to his hair, his breath come short. His hands desperately sought his pockets.

"I am sure, if you went to San Francisco, you would be overwhelmed with offers--from Americans. This room is frightfully warm, don't you think so, senora? Shall I open the door? Ah, what a nuisance! here comes Don Adan Menendez to talk to you, and two other admirers are in his wake. I must release you for the moment. _Hasta luego_, dear senora!"

He made his way rapidly down the room, and out of the house.

"Great heaven!" he thought. "It is well the week is over. Good God, what a travesty!" and he laughed aloud.

He passed through the screaming crowd, which also had its _cascarones_, and walked rapidly and aimlessly up the valley until the white placid walls of the Mission were so close that he could count its arches. He sat down on a rock, and pressed his hands against his head.

He resented the quiet and beauty of the night, the repose of the Mission, the dark-blue spangled sky, the soft sobbing of the ocean. If Queen Mab and her train had come down to dance on the brink of hell, the antithesis could not have jarred more hatefully than the night upon his thoughts. He felt a desire to strike something, and hit the rock with his fist. He dug his heel into the ground, then thought of the flour and tinsel on his hair, and laughed aloud. After a time he put his face into his hands and wept. The sobs convulsed him, straining his muscles; the tears seemed wrung from some inner frozen fountain.

The storm passed. Calmer, he sat and thought. His love for Nina Randolph, during this interval of quiescence, had lost nothing of its iron. Idealised, she came back to him. Or, rather, he told himself he looked through the husk that the hideous circumstances of her life had bundled into shape, to the soul which spoke to his own. He worshipped her courage. He forgot himself and suffered with her. He hated himself for not having guessed the truth at once, and borne her burden. True, she had lied to him; but the lie was pardonable, and he attached no significance to it. If she had loved him less, she would have confessed the truth, indifferently. Others knew.

Her moods passed in review, with keen allurement. He wondered that he had ever wished her a woman of even and tangible temperament. The thought of her variety intoxicated him. The very equilibrium of the world might be disturbed, but he would have her.

The horror of her impending fate jibbered at him. He set his teeth, and compelled his mind to practical deduction. Her mother was only insane at intervals; there was no reason why the daughter should be affected in a dissimilar manner. Why, indeed, should not her attacks be far less frequent, if she were happy and her life were alternately peaceful and diversified? He would have the best advice in Europe, and guard her unremittingly.

His impulse was to return to her at once. He cogitated until dawn, then concluded to take her father's advice in part; he would remain away a month, then come down upon her unexpectedly. But he went to his room and wrote her a letter, begging for a word in return.

XXI

Early in the forenoon he started northward with the Brothertons and Estenegas. Reinaldo kissed him on both cheeks, much to his embarrassment; but Prudencia accepted his farewells with chilling dignity, and did not invite him to return.

The Rancho de los Pinos was some ten miles from Monterey. Behind the house was a pine forest whose outposts were scattered along the edge of the Pacific; facing it were some eight thousand acres of rolling land, cut with willowed creeks, studded with groves of oaks, dazzling, at this season, with the gold of June. Thousands of cattle wandered about in languid content; the air lay soft and heavy on unquiet pulses.

The Brothertons and their guests "horse-backed" in the morning, but spent the greater part of the day in the hammocks swung across the long cool corridors. After supper, they rambled through the woods, sometimes as far as the ocean, where they sat on the rocks until midnight. The conversation rarely wandered from politics; for it was the summer of 1860, and the approaching national earthquake rumbled loudly. Nevertheless, life on the Rancho de los Pinos was less in touch with the world than any part of the strange new land which Thorpe had visited; and he hardly felt an impulse to speed the lagging moments. Dona Eustaquia, who had been one of the very pulses of the old regime, still beat with loud and undiminished vigour; but Chonita was very restful, and the country enfolded one with a large sleepy content. He received nothing from Nina Randolph, but her father wrote once or twice saying that she was well, but taking little interest in the summer gaieties.

On the first of July, he took the boat from Monterey to San Jose. There he was the guest of Don Tiburcio Castro for a few days, and attended a bull fight, a race at which the men bet the very clothes off their backs, a religious festival, and three balls; then took the stage which passed Redwoods on its way to San Francisco. It was a ride of thirty miles under a blistering sun, through dust twelve inches deep which the heavy hoofs of the horses and the wheels of the lumbering coach tossed ten feet in the air, half smothering the inside passengers, and coating those on top within and without. Thorpe had secured the seat by the driver, thinking to forget the physical discomforts in the scenery. But the tame prettiness of the valley was obliterated by the shifting wall of dust about the stage; and Thorpe closed his eyes, and resigned himself to misery. Even the driver would not talk, beyond observing that it was "the goldarndest hottest day he'd ever knowed, and that was saying a darned sight, _you_ bet!" It was late in the afternoon when the stage pulled up at the "hotel" of a little village.

"That there's Redwoods," said the driver, pointing with his whip toward a mass of trees on rising ground. "Evenin'. I wish I wuz you."

The hotel seemed principally saloon; but the proprietor, who was chewing vigorously, told Thorpe he guessed he could accommodate him, and led him to a small room whose very walls were crackling with the heat. Thorpe distinctly saw the fleas jumping on the bare boards, and shuddered.

"Can I have a bath?" he asked.

"A what?"

"A bath."

"Oh!--we don't pronounce it that way in these parts. And bath-tubs is a luxury you'll have to go to 'Frisco for, I guess."

"Hav'n't you any sort of a tub you could bring me? I have a call to pay, and I must clean up."

"Perhaps the ole woman'd let you have one of her wash-tubs. I'll ask her."

"Do. And I should like supper as soon after as possible."

The old woman contributed the tub. It leaked, and it was redolent of coarse soap and the indigo that escapes from overalls. Thorpe got rid of his dust; but the smells, and the hot room, and the cloud of dust that sprang back from his clothes as he shook them out of the window, improved neither his aching head nor his temper. To make matters worse, the steak for his supper was fried, the potatoes were swimming in grease, the butter was rancid, and the piecrust hung down with its own weight. He ate what little of this typical repast he could in a close low room, crowded with men in their shirt-sleeves, who expectorated freely, mopped their faces and necks with their napkins, and smelt. The flies swarmed, a million strong, and invaded the very plates; a previous battalion lay, gasping or dead, on the tables, some overcome by the heat, others by the sharp assaults of angry napkins. When Thorpe left the room, he had half made up his mind not to call on Nina Randolph that evening; he felt in anything but a loverlike mood. Moreover, such an introduction to a reunion was grotesque; but after he had smoked his cigar in the open air, he felt better, concluded not to be a romantic ass, and started for the house.

He climbed the dusty road toward the two tall redwoods (the only ones in the valley) that gave her home its name, then turned into a long cool avenue. Beside it ran a creek, dry already, its sides thick with fragrant shrubs. So closely planted was the avenue that he did not catch a glimpse of the house until he came suddenly upon it; then he paused a moment, regarding it with pleasure. It looked like a fairy castle, so light and delicate and mediaeval of structure was it. The yellow plaster of its walls, the vivid bloom of the terrace on which it stood, were plainly visible in the moonlight. The dark mountains, covered with their redwood forests, seemed almost directly behind, although they were twenty miles away. Thorpe was glad he had come. The hideous afternoon and evening slipped out of his thought.

The front doors were open. Cochrane was walking up and down the hall, his hands clasped behind him, his head bent. He looked like a man who was listlessly awaiting a summons.

Light streamed from open windows to the verandah on the right of the house. Thorpe, conceiving that Nina was there, determined to look upon her for a moment unobserved. He skirted the house, and heard Nina's voice. To command a view of the interior, he must reach the verandah. He mounted the steps softly, but other sounds rose high above his footfalls as he walked toward the window. A peal of coarse laughter burst forth. The light swept obliquely across the verandah; he stood in the shadows just beyond it, and looked into the room.

Nina sat in a corner, her elbows on her knees, her eyes fixed on the floor. Her black dress was destitute of any feminine device. Mrs. Randolph and Mrs. Reinhardt sat on opposite sides of a table. Between them was a steaming bowl of punch. There were two unopened brandy-bottles on the table. The faces of both women were flushed, and their hair was disordered.

"Tha't a fool, Nina," remarked Mrs. Randolph, in a remarkably steady tone. "Coom and 'ave a glass. My word! it's good."

Nina made no reply.

"Such nonsense," wheedlingly. "It's the best a iver made, and the Lord knows a've made mony. Coom and try just one glass."

"I am sitting here to test my strength. I shall not touch it."

Mrs. Randolph laughed, coarsely and loudly. "Tha't a fool. Tha doon't knoo what tha't talking aboot. It strikes me a 've 'eard thot before. Coom. Tha mought as well give in, fust as last."

Nina made no reply.

Mrs. Randolph's evil eyes sparkled. She filled an empty glass with the punch, and walked steadily over to where her daughter sat. Nina sprang from her chair, overturning it, thrusting out her hands in a gesture eloquent with terror, and attempted to reach the door. Mrs. Randolph was too quick for her; with a dexterous swoop, she possessed herself of the girl's small hands and pressed the goblet to her nostrils. Nina gave a quick gasp, and, throwing back her head, staggered slightly, the glass still against her face. Outside Thorpe reeled for a moment as if he too were drunk. The blood pounded in his ears; his fingers drew inward, rigid, in their desire to get about the throat of some one, he did not much care whom.

Nina wrenched one hand free, snatched the goblet and held it with crooked elbow, staring at her mother. Mrs. Randolph laughed. Mrs. Reinhardt held her breath in drunken awe at the tragedy in the girl's face. Nina brought the goblet half way to her lips, her eyes moving to its warm brown surface with devouring greed. Then she flung it at her mother's breast, and sank once more to her chair, covering her face with her hands.

Mrs. Randolph, cursing, returned to the table and consoled herself with a brimming glass. Outside, the man's imagination played him an ugly trick. A picture flashed upon it, vivid as one snatched from the dark by the blaze of lightning. A struggling distorted foaming thing was on the floor, held down by the strong arms of two men, and the face of the thing was not the face of Mrs. Randolph. She stood apart, looking down upon her perfected work with a low continuous ripple of contented laughter. The vision passed. Thorpe leaped from the verandah and wandered aimlessly about the grounds. He cursed audibly and repeatedly, not caring whether he might be overheard or not. He felt as if every nerve in his body were a separate devil. He hated the thought of the next day's sunlight, and wondered if it would shine on a murderer or a suicide; he felt capable of crime of the blackest variety.

Fascinated, he returned to the verandah. Mrs. Randolph had fallen forward on the table. The man Cochrane entered and took her by the shoulders. She flung out her arm and struck him.

"Give oop! Give oop!" she muttered. But he jerked her backward, and half dragged, half carried her from the room. Mrs. Reinhardt staggered after, slamming the door behind her. Then Nina rose and came forward, and leaned her finger-tips heavily on the table.

"Come in," she said; and Thorpe entered.

They faced each other in silence. For a moment Thorpe was conscious only of the change in her. Her cheeks were sunken and without colour; her eyes patched about with black. The features were so controlled that they were almost expressionless.

"Sit down," she said. "I will tell you the story."

He took the chair Mrs. Reinhardt had occupied, Nina her mother's. She pressed her knuckles against her cheeks, and began speaking rapidly, but without excitement.

"My father's home in Yorkshire was near the town of Keighley, which is a few miles from Haworth, the village where the Brontes lived. He and Branwell Bronte were great friends, and used to meet at the Lord Rodney Inn in Keighley, as Haworth is an almost inaccessible place. They were both very brilliant young men; and many other young men used to drop in on Saturday evenings to hear them talk politics. Of course the night ended in a bout, which usually lasted over Sunday. My mother was bar-maid at that inn. She made up her mind to marry my father. It is said that at that time she was handsome. She had an insatiable thirst for liquor, but was clever enough to keep my father from suspecting it. Once my father--who cared little for drink, beyond the conviviality of it--and Bronte went on a prolonged spree, the result of a bet. When he came to himself, he found that he had married her before the registrar. He belonged to one of the oldest families in the county. He had married a woman who could neither read nor write, and who talked at all times as she does now when she is drunk. Nevertheless, he determined to stand by her, because he thought he deserved his fate, and because he thought she loved him. But he left the country. To introduce her to his people and friends was more than he was equal to. To bury himself with her on his estate, denying himself all society but hers, was equally unthinkable, to say nothing of the fact that he was ashamed to introduce her to the servants. He wished to go away and be forgotten, begin life over in a new land where social conditions were as the builders made them. He came to California. She was furious. She had married him for the position she had fancied such a marriage would give her: she wanted to be a lady. Her mind was somewhat diverted by travel, and she kept her peace until she reached San Francisco--Yerba Buena, it was called then. It was a tiny place: a few adobe houses about the plaza, and a warehouse or two at the docks. Then there was a frightful scene between the two. My father learned why she had married him, and that she had instigated the wager which led to the spree which enabled her to accomplish her purpose. She ordered him to take her back to England at once, threatening to punish him if he did not. He refused, and she went on a prolonged drinking bout. This was shortly before my birth. They were the guests of Mr. Leese, a German who had married a native Californian and settled in the country. These people were very kind; but it was horribly mortifying for my father. He built her a house as quickly as possible, in order to hide her in it. I forgot to say that he had brought over Cochrane, who took charge of his household affairs. At the end of a year there was another scene, in which my father made her understand that he would never return to England; and that, were it not for me, he would turn her out of the house and let her go to the devil as fast as she liked. It was the mistake of his life that he did not, both for himself and for me. He should have taken or sent me back to England, and left her with a subsistence in the new country. But he is a very proud man. He feared that she would follow him home, and publish the story. There is no getting away from a woman like that.

"She was forced to accept the position; but she hated him mortally, and no less than he hated her. She had threatened again to make him rue his refusal to return to England, but refused to explain her meaning. This is what she did. He idolised me. She put whisky in my baby food until I would not drink or eat anything that was not flavoured with it. She was very cunning: she habituated my system to it gradually, so that it never upset me. She also gave it to me for every ailment. My father suspected nothing. There were depths of depravity that neither his imagination nor his observation plumbed. When I was about thirteen, he left us in charge of Cochrane--who had more influence over my mother than any one--and went off to the Crimean war, rejoining his old regiment. The necessity to get away from her for a time overrode his paternal instinct--everything. Moreover, he wanted to fight somebody. He distinguished himself. Just after his return, he discovered what my mother had made of me. His rage was awful; he beat her like a navvy. For once she was cowed. I went off my head altogether. When I came to, he was crouching in a corner as if some one had flung him there, sobbing and gasping. It was awful--awful! Then he sent me to the Hathaways to study with the girls. They knew, and promised to keep me away from her, and to see that I had nothing to drink. My mother sent me a bottle of whisky every week in my clean clothes. I did not tell him, for I wanted it. He found that out, too, and then debated whether he had not better send me away from the country. But he knew that the cry was in my blood, and that if I went to his people in England the chances were I would disgrace him. Then he made his second mistake: he did not throw her out. He ordered her to go, and she laughed in his face and asked him how he would like to read every morning in the _Golden Era_ that James Randolph's wife had spent the night in the calaboose. Now, only two or three people besides the Hathaways and Shropshires even suspected it, so carefully had Cochrane watched her.

"He sent me to boarding-school. She kept me in money, and I got what I wanted, although my father's pride was in me, and I never took enough to betray my secret. It was not until I had finished school that I really gave way to the appetite. My father, closely as he watched me, did not suspect for a long time. He was very busy,--he threw himself heart and soul into the development of the city,--and when the appetite mastered me, I either feigned illness or went to the country. At last he found it out. There have been many bitter hours in my life, but that was incomparably the bitterest. I had always loved him devotedly. When he went down on his knees and begged me to stop, of course I swore that I would. I kept my promise for six months, she doing all she could to entice me the while. Then I yielded. After that, after another interview with my father, I restrained the intolerable craving for another six months. Then it went on irregularly. I don't know that I began to think much, to look into the future, until about a year ago--it was when I first saw her as you saw her that night. Then I aged suddenly. My moral sense awakened, my sense of personal responsibility. I loathed myself. I looked upon what I had become with horror. I struggled fiercely,--but with indifferent success,--although, I must add, there were weeks at a time when I never thought of it; for I have the _joie de vivre_, and there are many distractions in society. Then you came. For a time I was happy and excited, and the thing was in abeyance. I touched nothing: that was my only chance. I fought it under,--after that first night,--and the desire did not come again until I drank the mescal at Don Tiburcio's _merienda_. But I had known that it would come back sooner or later, and was determined not to marry you, nor to let myself fall seriously in love with you. But after that first night out on the strawberry patches I knew that I loved you, and, as I am not a light-minded person, irrevocably. But I made up my mind to enjoy that week, and look no farther. You know the rest. What I have suffered since perhaps you can divine, if you love me. If you don't, it doesn't matter." Her monotonous calm left her suddenly. She brought her fist down on the table. "This room is full of the smell of it!" she cried. "And I want it! I want it!"

She pushed back her chair. "Come," she said, "let us go outside."

She ran out to the verandah. He followed, and she grasped his arm. "Let us go for a ride," she said. "I shall go off my head, if I keep still another moment. I want motion. Are you tired?"

"No, I am not tired."

She led the way to the stables. The men in charge had gone to bed. She and Thorpe saddled two strong mustangs, rode rapidly down the avenue and out into the high road. For some time they followed the stage-route, then struck into a side road leading to the mountains. Nina did not speak, nor did Thorpe. He was thankful for the respite. Once he touched his cheek mechanically, wondering if it had fallen into wrinkles.

They rode at a break-neck pace. The night had become very dark: a great ocean of fog had swept in from the Pacific, blotting out mountains and stars. The mustangs moderated their pace as they began to ascend the foot-hills. The long rush through the valley had quickened Thorpe's blood without calming his brain. He did not speak. There seemed to be a thousand words struggling in his brain, but they would not combine properly. He could have cursed them free, but although he was too bitter and excited to have tenderness or pity for the woman beside him, he considered her in a half blind way; she was the one woman on earth who had ever sent him utterly beside himself. They ascended, two black spots of shifting outline in the fog, for an hour or more. Neither below nor above could an object be seen, not a sound came to them. It was unreal, and ghostly, and portentous. Then, almost abruptly, they emerged, the mustangs trotting on to the flat summit of a hill. Nina sprang to the ground.

"Tie the horses," she said; and Thorpe led them to a tree some yards away.

Nina stood with her back to him, her hands hanging listlessly at her sides, looking downward. Thorpe, after he had tethered the horses, paused also.

The world below was gone. In its place was a vast ocean of frothy milk-white fog. On each side, melting into the horizon in front, until it washed the slopes of the Contra Costa range, lay this illimitable ocean pillowed lightly on sleeping millions. Now calm and peaceful, now distorted in frozen wrath, it was so shadowy, so unreal, that a puff of wind might have blown it to the stars. Out of it rose the hill-tops, bare weather-beaten islands. Against them the sea had hurled itself, then clung, powerless to retreat. Upon some it had cast its spray half way to the crest, over others it rushed in mighty motionless torrents; here and there it but half concealed the jagged points of ugly rocks. Beating against solitary reefs were huge, still, angry breakers, sounding no roar. A terrible death-arrested storm was there in mid-ocean,--a storm which appalled by its very silent wrath. On one of the highest and barest of the crags an old building looked, in that sunless light, like a castle in ruin. Above, the cold blue sky was thickly set with shivering stars. The grinning moon hung low.

There was not a sound; not a living creature was awake but themselves. They might have been in the shadowy hereafter, with all space about them; in the twilight of eternity. Where they rested, the air was clear as a polar noon; not a stray wreath of that idle froth floated about them.

"I came here," said Nina, turning to Thorpe, "because I knew it would be like this. It will be easier to hear what you think of me, than it would have been down there."

He brought his hands down on her shoulders, gripping them as if possessed of the instinct to hurt.

"Once or twice I could have killed you as you spoke," he said. "I shall marry you and cure you, or go to hell with you. As I feel now, it does not matter much which."

And then he caught her in his arms and kissed her, with the desire which was consuming him.

"But even you cannot conquer me," she said to him an hour later. "I shall not marry you until I have conquered myself. I believe now that I can. I got your letter. I very nearly knew that you would say what you have done, after I told you the truth. I won't marry you, knowing that, in spite of your love, which I do not doubt, at the bottom of your intelligence, you despise me. I have always felt that if I could make a year's successful fight, I should never fall again. There may be no reason for this belief; but we are more or less controlled by imagination. There is no doubt in my mind on this point. If I win alone, you will respect me again, and love me better."

"I do not despise you. I hardly know what I felt for you five weeks ago. But I have only sympathy for you now--and love! You must let me do the fighting. It will knit us the more closely--"

"It would wear me out, kill me, knowing that you were watching my struggles, no matter how lovingly. Besides, I know myself; my moods are unbearable at such times. I cannot control my temper. Before the year was over, we should have bickered our love into ruins. We could not begin over again. If you will do as I wish, I believe we can be happy. It is not long to wait--we are both young. Cannot you see that I am right?"

"I don't want to leave you, not for a day again!"

"And I don't want you to go! But I know that it is our only chance. If you marry me now, you will hate me before the year is over; and, what is worse, I shall hate you. The steamer sails to-morrow. Will you go?"

He hesitated, and argued, a long while; but finally he said: "I will go."

"Don't go all the way back to England. I should like to think you were in America; that would help me."

"I will stay in New Orleans, and write by every steamer."

"Oh, do, do! And if I do not write as regularly, you will understand. There will be times when I simply cannot write. But promise that, no matter what you hear, you will not lose faith in me."

"I promise." Involuntarily his mouth curled into a grin. The ghosts of a respectable company of extorted promises capered across his brain, as small irreverent ghosts have a habit of doing in great moments. But his mouth was close upon hers, and she did not see it.

An hour later she pointed outward. Far away, above the Eastern mountains, was a line of flame. The sun rose slowly. It smiled down upon the phantom ocean and flung bubbles of a thousand hues to the very feet of the mortals on the heights.

Then slowly, softly, the ocean moved. It quivered as if a mighty hand struck it from its foundations, swayed, rose, fled back to the sea that had given it birth.

A moment more and the world was visible again, awake, and awaiting them.