Chapter XXI: Part III (3)

"That's as good a place as any for a deed of sale in this here town," he remarked. "For no shake will ever budge them concrete pillars. They're down to bed-rock. And no fire'll ever crack them, neither. We'll begin on the steel frame to-morrow, and you must come down occasionally and cheer us up. It'll be worth it. The Otis's goin' to be the cock o' the walk. Better make up your mind to have them terra-cotta facings."

"Oh, they would not raise the rents, and would hardly be appreciated by their present neighbors," said Isabel, lightly. "I am going to send you a bottle of champagne to-night, and you must drink to the health of The Otis."

The man promised fervently that he would, and then after ordering beer from a neighboring saloon for the workmen, Isabel and her party motored out to the beach beyond the Cliff House, where a number of old street-cars had been converted into bath-houses, and disported themselves in the waves until it was time to rush home and make ready for the Mardi Gras ball.

This yearly function was given in the Institute of Art on Nob Hill, the wooden Gothic mansion with bow-windows, erected in the Eighties by a railroad millionaire who had barely survived his nimble victorious assault upon Fortune. His widow had presented his "monument" to Art, and now its graceful flimsy walls housed much that was valuable in canvas and marble, and more that was worthless. Once a year, on the eve of Lent, Society gave a Mardi Gras ball, and such of the artists as were known to the elect decorated the rooms, and contributed certain surprises. This year, partly out of compliment to the Leader and Miss Otis, partly because the old Spanish spirit had been roaming through its ancient haunts of late, the interior of the mansion was hung with red and yellow. Isabel, in full Spanish costume, led the grand march with young Hofer, who was dressed as a toreador, and supported the jeers of his friends in the gallery with what fortitude he could summon: he was plump and pink and golden. The great room, surrounded with boxes draped with the colors of Spain and filled with women splendidly dressed and jewelled, was very gay and inspiring, and the masques flung confetti and had a squib for everybody with a salient characteristic. When the march finished, Isabel, who wore a half-mask of black satin, and her hair in two long braids plaited with gold tinsel, danced a Spanish dance by herself, alternating tambourine and castanets. She had practised it during the past week with a professional, and she gave it with all the graceful sexless abandon of those California girls, who, a hundred years before that night, were dancing out at the Presidio and Mission. She was the success of the evening as she had purposed to be, and went home with two proposals to her credit, and as gratified a vanity as ever titillated the nerves of an ambitious and heartless young flirt. It was not the first time that Isabel had deliberately elected to play a role and achieved so signal a triumph that she was beset with the doubt if she had not but just discovered herself. As she fell asleep in the dawn of Lent it was with the somewhat cynical reflection that perhaps she could make quite as great a success of the role of the statesman's wife were she to essay it.

The roads were still in too muddy and broken a condition for the long-projected automobile trip, and the Trennahans had decided to hire a special car and journey to Mexico, spending some time in Southern California. They urged Isabel to go with them, but she was sure that she had had all the respite she needed, nor would she neglect her chickens any longer. In truth she said good-bye to the party, which included not only Lady Victoria, but several other congenial spirits, with a considerable equanimity. She was suddenly tired of them all and glad to go back to her solitudes.

Although she did not return with that exuberance of joy, which, upon former occasions had made her feel like a long-prisoned nymph restored to her native woodland, still she was more than content to be at home again, and sat on her veranda until darkness closed the long evening. Every trace of the winter's madness had vanished. The marsh was high and red above the fallen waters, the hills were green, the trees budding, wild flowers were beginning to show their heads. The scene, until the last ray of twilight had gone, leaving that dark formlessness of a California night with its horrid suggestion, was almost as peaceful as England.

For several days Isabel, from reaction after weeks of incessant gayety, and the heaviness of early spring, was too languid to find even her Leghorns interesting. She slept late, yawned through the day; and never had her hammock--swung on the porch at the beginning of spring--possessed so recurrent an attraction. At the same time she was conscious, under the physical inertia which had brought her mind to a standstill, that she avoided Rosewater lest she should be forced to talk of Gwynne. He was still in Santa Barbara, and it was likely that he would be persuaded to go with the Trennahans to Mexico. There was time enough to seek his passport, and Isabel could well imagine that his impatience was not uncontrollable. No doubt he understood by this time that he could expect no change in her, if indeed he had not dismissed the matter from his mind.

She was rudely shaken out of her apathy by a long telegram from him, dated at El Paso:

"I have come this far with the Trennahans. Go on to Washington
to-day. Expect me any time now. But should I be detained will you
go over to the ranch occasionally? Use old power of attorney should
occasion arise. Glad you made the running you wanted at last.
Better order terra-cotta facings for The Otis. Am told that two
other buildings will go up shortly in neighborhood. Quite fit
again. E. G."

The delight and relief this telegram induced, the subtle sensation of hope and flattery, not only routed torpidity, but lashed her into such a state of fury that she ran up to her bedroom and indulged in an attack of nerves. When it was over she faced the truth with the unshrinking clarity of vision she could summon at will. But if she was not as astonished as she thought she ought to be, she was no less angry, not only with herself, but with life for playing her such a trick. Less than ever did she want to marry, and cease to be wholly herself, to run the risk of disillusionment and weariness, and that ultimate philosophy which was no compensation for the atrophy and death of imagination. But no less did she turn appalled from the thought of a future without Gwynne. All her old vague plans were suddenly formless, and she felt that if she even faced the prospect of regarding the shifting beauties of the Rosewater marsh for the rest of her life, she would hate nature as much as she now hated her treacherous self. And none could divine better than she, that, present or dismissed, when a man has conquered a woman's invisible and indefensible part she might as well give him the rest. He is in control. She has lost her freedom for ever. So strong was the feeling of mental possession that Isabel glanced uneasily about the room, half-expecting to see the soul of Gwynne; wondering inconsequently if it would descend to notice that her eyes were red. But she vowed passionately that she would not marry him. If she had to be unhappy, far better unhappy alone and free, with some of her illusions undispelled. She had seen no married happiness that she envied, even where there was a fine measure of love and philosophy. Even Anabel had come to her one day in town, looking rather strained and worn, and, in the seclusion of Isabel's bedroom, had confessed that the constant exactions of a husband, three children, and migratory servants "got on her nerves," and made her long for a change of any sort. "And there are so many little odd jobs, in a house full of children," she had added, with a sigh. "And they recur every day. You can no more get away from them than from your three meals; I never really have a moment I can call my own. Of course I am perfectly happy, but I do wish Tom were not in politics and would take me to Europe for a few years."

And if Anabel was not happy--wholly happy--with her supreme capacity for the domestic life, how could she hope to endure the yoke? She with her impossible ideals and theories? Not that they were impossible; but to anticipate, in this world, the plane upon which the more highly endowed natures dared to hope they were to dwell in the next, absolute freedom was necessary. Isabel's theory of life--for women of her make--had not altered a whit, but the beckoning finger had lost its vigor. That left her with no material out of which to model a future for this plane--which, of course, was another triumph to the credit of the race.

She knew that Gwynne had conquered, that she had really loved him, as soon as he had ceased to play upon her maternal instincts. She had casually assumed at the time that her interest in him was decreasing, but in this day of retrospect, she realized keenly that it had marked the opening of a new chapter. This was, perhaps, the most signal of Gwynne's victories, for the maternal tenderness for man means maternal dominance, a cool sense of superiority. Isabel was so conscious of Gwynne's mastery that she longed to kick him as she blushed to recall she had done once before. She rubbed her arms instinctively, as if she still felt the furious pressure of his fingers, and when the memory of another sort of pressure abruptly presented itself she hurriedly bathed her eyes and went out on her horse.

VII

For a week she was so moody and irascible that Abraham twice gave warning, Old Mac artfully took to his bed with rheumatism, and only the inexcitable Chuma was unconcerned. She rode her horse nearly to death, snubbed Anabel--whose children were down with the measles--over the telephone, and even boxed the ears of a dilatory hen. At the end of the week a sudden appreciation of her likeness to a cross old maid frightened her, and time and the weather completed the cure. Her ill-humor, which had scourged through every avenue of her being, took itself off so completely that it seemed to announce it had had enough of her and would return no more.

And the spring came with a rush. The hills burst into buttercups, "blue eyes," yellow and purple lupins, the heavy pungent gold-red poppy. The young green of weeping willows and pepper-trees looked indescribably delicate against the hard blue sky. Rosewater was a great park, all her little squares and gardens, and long rambling streets, set thick with camellias, roses, orange-trees heavy with fruit, immense acacia-trees loaded with fragrant yellow powdery blossoms. Main Street was clean again, and so were the farmers and their teams at the hitching-rails; the girls were beginning to wear white at church on Sunday, and to walk about without their hats. The great valley was as green as the hills, save where the earth had been turned, and one or two almond orchards were so pink they could be seen a mile away. It was spring in all its glory, without a taint of summer's heat, or a lingering chill of winter.

In Isabel's garden were many old Castilian rose bushes, that for fifty years had covered themselves pink with the uninterrupted lustiness of youth; and their penetrating, yet chaste and elusive fragrance, combined with the rich heavy perfume of the acacia-tree beside the house, would have inspired a distiller and blender of scents. The birds sang as if possessed of a new message; and several of Isabel's prize roosters, tired of their old harems, flew over the wire-fences and strutted off in search of adventure, proclaiming their route by loud and boastful clamor. When they were captured by the unsympathetic Abe and restored to their excited ladies, they flew at and smacked them soundly, then tossed back their red combs and crowed with all their might: a paean to the ever conquering male.

There were other flowers besides Castilian roses in Isabel's garden, haphazardly set out and cared for, but the more riotous and luxuriant for that. And all around her, save on the Leghorns' hills, was the gay delicate tapestry of the wild flowers. The marsh glittered like bronze in the sunlight. In the late afternoon it was as violet as the hills. In the evening afterglows it swam in as many colors as the Roman Campagna. At this hour the sky was often as pink as the almond orchards, melting above into a blue light but intense; while everything in its glow, the tall trees on the distant mountains, and the picturesque irregularities of the marsh-lands, seemed to lift up their heads and drink in the beauty until Isabel expected to see them reel.

And the pagan intoxication of spring took as complete a possession of her. She sat under the long drooping yellow sprays of her acacia-tree, her lap full of the pink Castilian roses, and dreamed. No one could help being in love in the spring, she concluded, given a concrete inspiration; and far be it from any creature so close to nature as herself to attempt to stem that insidious musical scented tide. It was possible that Gwynne would not return, or returning, would flout her; she hardly cared. In fact so steeped was she in the pleasures of merely loving, in a sweet if somewhat halcyon passion, that she had no wish that the mood should be dispelled; and felt that she could ask nothing more than to spend the rest of her mortal life with a beautiful memory--like the aunt whose dust lay over the mountain in the convent yard. She knew that if Gwynne returned and demanded her, she should be tempted to marry him--she never went so far as to promise either him or herself the rounded chapter; but one of the strongest instincts of her nature was to squeeze the passing moment dry, jealously drink every drop of its juice. She had no intention of tormenting herself with problematical futures. Futures took care of themselves, anyhow.

She was subconciously aware that she could conceive and portray a more extreme phase of emotion than this present evolution, but she deliberately avoided the phantasm. She was utterly, ideally, absurdly happy. Not for a moment did she desire the raw material, the concrete substance, to which all dreams owe their being. The wild pagan gladness of the wood-nymph, rejoicing in her freedom from the worries of common mortals, and in the vision of an undefined but absolute happiness, was enough for her. Sometimes, when walking in the early morning, far into the hills, and away from human eyes, she let the light electric breezes intoxicate her, and danced as she walked, or sang; nor, indeed, was she above whistling. She often spent the evening hours on the marsh, those long twilights that are so like England's; remaining, sometimes, as late into the night as the tide would permit, enjoying the contrast of the lonely desolate menacing landscape with the utter beauty of the day. She avoided San Francisco and Rosewater, but the extraordinary effervescence within her demanded an outlet of a sort, and she was so radiant to her small staff that they looked upon her with awe. She had actually a fortnight of bliss, and hoped that nothing might happen to disturb it for ever and ever. But no one's world has ever yet stood still.

One day Tom Colton's hoarse voice over the telephone begged her to "come at once." She was on her horse in ten minutes, in Rosewater in half an hour. There were groups of people in the street near the younger Coltons' house, the front door was open, several members of the family were passing in and out. As she entered the garden she saw one of them tie a knot of white ribbon to the bell knob.

Her first impulse was to run. She felt that rather would she hear of Gwynne's death than face Anabel in her maternal agony. But she set her teeth and went on, far more frightened than sympathetic. The people that overflowed the hall and parlor were all crying, but nodded to her, and Tom Colton, haggard and white, appeared at the head of the stair and beckoned. He pointed to the door of his wife's bedroom, as she ascended, and she went forward hastily and entered without knocking. Anabel was standing on the threshold of the door that led into the nursery. Her face was white and wild, but she had not been crying.

"Isabel!" she exclaimed, in loud astonished voice, "my baby is dead! My baby is dead!"

Then Isabel, greatly to her own surprise, dropped into a chair and burst into vehement tears. For the moment the child was hers, she suffered pangs of maternal bereavement that seemed to tear her breast and twist her heart. But there was a terrible silence in those two rooms, and in a few moments it chilled and calmed her. She looked up to see Anabel staring at her with blank expanded eyes.

"What are you crying for? You?" demanded the young mother. "I never saw you cry before. And it's not your baby."

"I know it," said Isabel, humbly. "I suppose it is because I am so sorry for you. I am--terribly."

"I never thought you had that much feeling," said Anabel, dully. "You were always the strong one. Come and see my baby."

Isabel rose, trembling and unnerved, but no longer shrinking, and followed Anabel into the nursery, where the child, looking like a little wax-work, lay in its crib.

"She is dead!" said Anabel, in the same astonished indignant voice. "My baby!" She caught Isabel's arm and shook it violently. "It isn't true," she commanded. "Say it is not. How can it be? She spoke and laughed only two hours ago. The relapse was nothing. The doctor said so. That is not my baby." And then her brain stopped for a moment, and Isabel carried her into the other room.

She remained with her until after the funeral. Anabel, when she recovered her senses, cried hopelessly for hours, but gradually controlled herself and rose and went about her affairs with a stern calm. It was her first trouble, but not for nothing had she been given a square jaw and a sturdy little figure. She was filled with dumb protest, and laid away her bright careless youth in the child's coffin, but she accepted the inevitable.

Mr. and Mrs. Leslie were in the south when the baby died, but arrived for the funeral. Until then Anabel clung to her friend, and so did young Colton, who was far more demoralized than his wife. He did not brush his hair, nor go to bed, but wandered about the house like a bewildered spirit, occasionally smiting his hands together, or embracing the other two children convulsively. He had no support to offer his wife, and Isabel was glad to stay with the brave stricken little creature; but when Mrs. Leslie arrived she felt herself superfluous and returned home.

She had had little time to think of Gwynne, but it had crossed her mind that she would accept this heartrending episode, in which she had been called upon to play an intimate part, as but another warning; one, moreover, that would stand its ground did she attempt to force it aside. But Gwynne entered and filled her dispossessed mind the moment she sat down under her acacia-tree, which was perhaps an hour after her return home. But this time her dreams did not flow upon a smooth golden scented tide. She searched the accumulated newspapers for mention of him in the despatches, wept stormily at his neglect, tormented herself with the belief that Julia Kaye was in Washington; at all events that he had discovered that his love for herself was but one more passing fancy, born of propinquity.

She saw mention of him. Twice he had dined at the White House, and his name was frequently in the list of guests at other dinners and functions. He was not visiting at the British Embassy, and Isabel drew her only comfort from the fact: he might be enjoying himself too much to think of her, but his purpose was unaltered, or he certainly would be the guest of a man whom she knew to be his friend: Gwynne was the last man to embarrass anybody, and if the ambassador had enemies they would find his connivance at the Americanization of a useful British peer vastly to his own discredit.

Isabel enjoyed no further peace of mind. The flames of uncertainty devoured her. The worst she could endure, but suspense spurred her always ardent imagination to such appalling feats that she barely ate or slept. But she was far too high-handed to suffer actively for long. She buried her pride in one of her many crypts, summoned her feminine craft, and wrote Gwynne a letter. It began in the brief and business-like manner the iniquities of their builders demanded--they were on strike--and her facile pen flowed on with various other items of information, more or less unpleasant. Mr. Clink, the lessee of Mountain House, had absconded with all the furniture, including the doors and windows, and she hesitated to refurnish, not knowing if Gwynne would return in time for the salmon-fishing. Nor had she been able to find another tenant, although she had spent two days in the mountains. She thought it might be a good place for a sanitarium, if he were inclined to form a company. Some sulphur springs had recently bubbled out of the ground near the house, which would add to the value of the property; but she must confess that they ruined the place for her. She distrusted the sudden advent of mineral waters; one never knew what was coming next. Then, after more cheering, but equally practical information, she rambled off into gossip, told the sad story of the Coltons' bereavement, and asked him a few friendly questions about himself. Of course he had not succeeded in getting his passport or he would be home--unless, to be sure, the Britisher was too strong in him after all, and he would not return. This alternative she contemplated with a lively regret, for she had had no one to talk to since he left, and so much business sat heavily on her shoulders. Then she announced herself his affectionate cousin; and it was not until the letter was gone, and quite a day of self-gratulation at her own adroitness, that it suddenly occurred to her that Gwynne had made up his mind that the first letter should come from her. For a few moments she was furious, then concluded that she did not care; she wanted to hear from him on any terms. She counted the days, intending finally to count the hours and minutes; but this agreeably breathless task came to an abrupt end at the close of the sixth day. Gwynne answered by telegraph. He thanked her for her interesting and more than welcome letter. He was well, and bored, and hoping daily to settle his affairs and start for home. In any case he should have returned to California: he was surprised at her doubts. She was not to bother further about his affairs out there. He had telegraphed to the contractor that he could wait as long as the strikers. He added that he longed for California.

Isabel wondered if he had not dared to trust himself in a letter, finally concluded that this was the secret of the long telegram, dismissed her apprehensions, and, with a soothed but by no means tranquil imagination, yielded herself up again to dreams and the spring.

VIII

It was close upon the middle of April when Gwynne left the train a mile from Lumalitas, and, being unheralded, walked across the fields to his house. He had intended to get off at Rosewater, hire the fastest horse in town, and ride out to Old Inn; but he had been seized with doubt and diffidence, and while he was still turning hot and cold the train moved out of the station. It was now nearly ten weeks since he had seen Isabel, and during that time he had received one letter from her. This letter he had read and reread until its contents were meaningless; and he was still in doubt as to what might lurk between the lines. He was reasonably sure that he had forced her to write, but whether mere pique and curiosity had been his aides, he was far from being able to determine. She had been right in assuming that he dared not trust himself to the tempting privacy of the letter. He had no idea how he stood, and would not run the risk of making a fool of himself; not until he was face to face with her could he pretend to decide upon any course of action. But he had been tormented for ten weeks as he had never expected to be tormented by any woman. Although he still assured himself that he intended to marry her, the riot in his mind and blood bred distrust of himself and evoked terrible images of Isabel at the altar with another. He should hate to the day of his death the beautiful old town of Santa Barbara, where he had been without any sort of refuge from his thoughts; and in Washington, although he had managed to occupy his mind and time profitably, there were still hours which he must spend alone, and he had dreaded them.

And he was beset by other doubts than those of the mere lover. He was conscious that in these weeks of absence and longing, he had idealized Isabel, until the being he dwelt with in fancy was more goddess than woman. He knew many sides of her, but much had eluded him, even after he began to study her. That she was gifted in large measure with what the Americans so aptly termed cussedness he had good reason to know; and whether this very definite characteristic so far controlled her nature as to hold her nobler qualities in durance----or were there nobler qualities? She had brain and common-sense; both attributes had compelled his respect long since. And she had character and pride--loyalty and independence. He had had glimpses of what he would unhesitatingly have accepted as heart and passion had he not known himself to be dazzled by her beauty and wilful powers of fascination. That she was wholly feminine, at least, he was convinced; she was too often absurdly so to keep up, with any one that saw her constantly, the fiction of the sexless philosopher. The very devil in her was of the unmistakable feminine kidney. All this gave him hope, and he knew, that when caprice permitted, she would be unrivalled as a companion. Intellectually, at least, there was no thought of his she could not share and appreciate; and her sense of humor and her feminine perversities would always delight him. If only there were depths beneath. The longings of the spirit are always formless, vaguely worded, a little shamefaced. Gwynne hardly knew what was the great extreme he wanted in his wife, but he knew that if he did not find it he should be miserable. He was by no means the young man that had fallen blindly in love with Julia Kaye. He had had little time for introspection, for intimate knowledge of himself, in those days.

The spring was invented to remind men what mere mortals they are. Gwynne would have felt restless and disinclined for law and politics this morning had he never seen Isabel Otis. Every lark in the great valley was singing madly. Blue birds, yellow birds, sat on the fences and carolled at each other as if the world were always May. The very earth seemed to have sprouted into color. He had never imagined wild flowers by the billion, nor such a harmonious variety of color. The fields were green, the cherries, black and red and white, glistening and luscious, were ready for picking in his orchards. As he approached his house, he saw that all the white oaks, bare in winter, were in leaf; large soft young green leaves, that almost hid the pendent sad green moss. The air was warm and light, the sky so blue it seemed to laugh with a promise of eternal good things. The whole land breathed hope, and youth, and allurement to every delight, of which she alone possessed the store. He was soon to learn what a liar she was, but although it was many a long day before he took note of any phase of nature again, save her weather, he had an elusive presentiment that he should never cease to be grateful for that moment of quick unreasoning exultation in his youth and manhood, and in the mere joy of life.

He was not surprised, as he turned the corner of the veranda, to find Imura Kisaburo Hinamoto sitting with his feet on the railing, a cigarette in his mouth, and a volume, issued by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, on his knee. But as the servant saw the master he rose promptly to his feet, extinguished the cigarette with his fingers, and stood in an attitude of extreme respect. He even smiled, but not propitiatingly; it was almost patent that the return of his chance superior was welcome.

Gwynne nodded. "Glad to see that you still improve your mind," he observed. "Tell Carlos to hitch up and go for my luggage: I left it at the station." He looked at his watch. It was half-past eleven. He hesitated a moment, then decided to postpone his visit to Isabel again. He did not feel in the mood to sit down and eat with her. "My horse at two o'clock," he added. And the Jap disappeared.

Gwynne went into the kitchen, and Mariana, who was peeling onions for an _olla podrida_, screamed and embraced him.

"No could help," she said, philosophically. "Very glad, senor, very glad."

Gwynne was not in the humor to repulse anybody, and assured her that she really made him feel that he had returned to his home. Several of her tribe were in the kitchen and looked expectant. He informed them that he had a box of New York sweets in his trunk, and retreated.

On the veranda he sat down facing his mountain, which like the rest of the world was a mass of delicate color, where it was not merely green, and seemed to move gently under the pink shimmering haze. Beyond was the blue crouching mass of the old volcano. "The eternal hills" was a phrase that never occurred to him when he watched these mountains, always veiled under a colored and moving haze. They looked far more likely to pull up their feet and walk off. But Gwynne, although the border beneath his veranda was full of sweet scents, and the roses on the pillars hung about him, and the air was a soft caressing tide, was no longer concerned with nature. He was nervous and full of doubt, of uneasy anticipation that he would not appear to advantage at three o'clock that afternoon. He knew that if he were really panic-stricken and attempted to carry it off in the masterful manner, she would laugh in his face. If he could work himself up to the attitude, well and good. At the same time he was vaguely conscious that this period of alternate hope and fear, of cold fits and hot, would one day be sweet in the retrospect, and regretted with some sadness; an episode in the lover's progress gone beyond recall.

There was a sound of wheels on the county road, then on his own property. He wondered at the unusual dispatch of his Carlos, but realized in a moment that a buggy was approaching, not a wagon. Then there was a light slouching step on the veranda, and he rose to greet Tom Colton.

"By Jove, old chap, I'm glad to see you," he began, and thankful that he had written his condolences; but he paused abruptly. Colton ignored the outstretched hand.

"So you've got your passport?" he said. And his ingenuous blue eyes were full of a hard antagonism.

"Yes," said Gwynne. "I should have told you in a day or two. How did you find out?" he added, curiously. "I took my oath before the passport clerk in the innermost recess of the State Department."

"There's not much I don't find out. Only, I got wind of this a little too late. So did some others, or you might have hung round Washington for the next four years. Do you call it square not to have told me of this before you left?"

"I saw no obligation to take you into my confidence. In the first place the result of my pilgrimage was very doubtful, and in the second you would have done all you could to balk me. When have I given you reason to write me down an ass?"

"You are too damned clever," muttered Colton. "Too clever by half. Much better for you if you had stayed where you were. You had no enemies when you left, but now, let me tell you, you've got a bunch that it will take more than your cleverness to handle."

"They can do their worst. I thought that all I needed was hard work, but I fancy that what I missed most was the stimulus of enemies."

"Well, you've got it all right."

Somewhat to the host's surprise he suddenly seated himself and tipped back his chair. Gwynne remained standing, leaning against a pillar, his hands in his pockets. Colton surveyed him frankly. His eyes were still hard and he was very angry, but he saw no reason why he should be uncomfortable, and although he could disguise his feelings when he chose, he knew that here it was safe to allow himself the luxury of frankness. He was the more annoyed, as what friendship he was capable of he had given to Gwynne. That would not have stayed hand or foot a moment, were his path in the least obstructed, but he regretted that they had come to an issue so early in the game. Indeed, he had hoped to manipulate Gwynne's destinies so subtly that they would be politically bound for life, with himself always a length ahead. It was true that once or twice he had felt a misgiving that the Englishman, with all his aristocratic disdain for devious ways, might match him and win, but the shock of this early outwitting had been none the less severe.

"Did you have a hard time getting it?" he demanded.

"Rather. Never heard so much palaver in my life."

"Well, I wish there had been more. I think I have at least the right to ask what you intend to do next."

"Return to Judge Leslie's office to-morrow--for the matter of that, I have read a good deal since I left. In September I shall have been a year in the State, and of course I can vote. I am not so sure that I shall."

"Yes! That is all, I suppose?"

"For the present. You are too good a politician to fancy that American citizenship has invested me with a halo. Except to a hundred odd farmers, Rosewater, a small group in San Francisco, and a party boss or two, I am unknown. No doubt I shall be several years achieving sufficient prominence either to run for office, or to accomplish anything whatever--outside of Rosewater. So far as I can see, this immediate citizenship has effected two results only: I am now in a position to take advantage of any political change that may develop, instead of sowing for another to reap--and--"

He hesitated, and Colton shot him a keen glance. "It has made a change in you, I guess. I noticed that the minute I laid eyes on you. If anything was needed to make me madder, it was that."

"Yes--I am changed. That is to say, I am poised. In spite of the determination to absorb Americanism with every pore, there was always the lurking doubt that it wouldn't do; that some day I should make a bolt for England. Now the matter is settled forever. I not only am an American but always have been. The highest legal opinion in the country was called in, and that was what finally decided the question. I accepted it as literally as the others did, and in so doing I relegated my English life to the episodical backwaters: among my adventures in India and Africa. I fancy that if England came to a death struggle in my time, and every man counted, I should fight for her. I certainly never should fight against her. But it is a profound relief to me that I am not throwing her over, that we have no legitimate right to each other. I fancy that that, too, demoralized me a bit."

"How did you feel when you took that oath?" asked Colton, more and more curious, almost forgetting his grievance. "It's a kind of solemn oath. I've had a sort of chill when I've heard it taken once or twice."

"There could hardly be a more solemn oath. I don't know that it gave me a chill, but I certainly read it over several times before I took it. And I took it without any reservations."

"Did you feel an American the moment you took it?"

"Yes--I did. That is to say I felt a certain buoyancy. The die was cast. There could be no more hesitation and doubt. My new life had actually begun."

"It's begun, all right. Jiminy, but you'll have a tough time. They're onto you now. You haven't the ghost of a chance to make a move they won't see before your hand is off the board."

Gwynne replied with even more than his usual fluency.

"Yes," replied Colton, with a sigh. "I guess that's where we'll all bring up. But meanwhile? Are you going to throw me over?"

"It will depend upon yourself. I have no objection to confide to you such plans as I have been able to formulate. Judge Leslie advised me to play about in society, in Washington, but I was in no humor for anything of the sort. I had uncommon opportunities to study men and conditions, and I took full advantage of them. I doubt if I shall vote until the next Presidential election. Then, if an independent party of consequence has not been formed, and I see no prospect of working up one in this State, I shall vote the Democratic ticket. As things stand at present, it is the less of two evils, and would at least accomplish a reduction of the tariff, and something towards a redistribution of wealth. I haven't the least doubt that the Democrats, if they get in--unless they have a really good man up their sleeve--will abuse their power quite as much as the Republicans have done; but that will take some time; and meanwhile a new party is sure to grow up, for the best men in the country are thoroughly roused. There's no doubt on that point--and it is a point you would do well to remember. There have been chapters before in the world's history when right has paid."

"For a while," said Colton, dubiously. "The point is now that you are likely to join the Democrats."

"To vote with them. Theirs are the soundest principles. I stick to that point."

"I don't question it. I only wish elections weren't two years off; I'd like to get to work." He took a bag of peanuts from his pocket and began to munch thoughtfully. "But you are turning me off. What do you mean exactly?"

"I shall have nothing to do with the machine. I shall speak and make propaganda, that is all. My object is not so much to get the Democrats in as the Republicans out. I shall do nothing to split the Democratic party--and play a losing game--unless a really great movement should rise, gather strength, and sweep the country. It is on the cards that there will be such a movement, and I throw myself into it the moment I am persuaded the split will not work to the advantage of the Republicans."

"How much enthusiasm have you pumped up?"

"Enthusiasm!" Gwynne's eyes roved over his "fair domain." Isabel, at least, was not far from its borders! "I cannot say that I am at boiling-point, but I don't fancy that matters much. I have my work cut out and I shall do it. Perhaps I shall work more disinterestedly without enthusiasm. Certainly I shall be more clear-sighted. If ever there was a time in the history of a country to sink individual ambition, it is now."

"Gwynne!" said Colton, abruptly. "What in thunder does it all amount to, anyhow? What difference does it make--will it make a thousand years hence--that you and I are sitting here on the very edge of creation, solemnly discussing the rottenest subject of our little time--American politics? What's the use of the socialists frothing, and nations trying to overturn one another? I had rather die on the spot than that the United States should be conquered for five minutes by Japan or any other Asiatic power, although I could endure the victory of a people that I recognized as our equals. Why are instincts planted so strongly? There may be a reason for a few years; but that's just it, a few mean little years and it is all over. What difference does anything really make, so long as we are comfortable? Everything else, every other instinct, is artificial. My wife is a religious little body and believes in reward and punishment hereafter, that we must spend at least a certain part of our time in this life preparing for the next. I'd like to believe the same, not only to please her, but because I could look forward to meeting my child again; but, somehow, I can't. The present has always been about as much as I could tackle. And I fancy that when I'm through with it, I won't want any more. But although the present whirls so fast that I don't have time for the sort of thinking intellectual people like you and Isabel do, still it does sometimes dash across my mind--that question: 'What is it all for? And why do we sweat through life for what amounts to exactly nothing in the end?'"

"You cannot be sure it amounts to nothing. Sometimes I have the fancy that the entire round globe has just one inhabitant, of which we merely appear to be individual manifestations: that we are, in fact, a part of the earth herself, and she absorbs and casts us forth again, as she rushes along to her own destiny as sentient as ourselves. All the planets are alive in the same way, and they are all racing to see which will make the greatest showing on what we call down here the Judgment Day--that is to say, which shall have produced the most balanced and perfected being; which shall have whirled away the most original sin and sifted out a man, great and good without self-righteousness--to my mind the worst of mortal failings because its correlative, injustice, is the source of most of the unhappiness. That will be the millennium, and having no windmills and evils left to fight, we minute visibilities will welcome deindividualization. Then, no doubt, there will be a grand final battle between the great body of good thus formed, and the evil cast out, but roaming space and joining forces. If we do our best here we shall win, and be happy ever after. There is no question, that if you follow your higher instincts you are happier in the long run than if you fall a slave to your base and mean; and that, to my mind, is the proof that the highest instincts are meant to be followed to some greater end."

"Hm. I have heard a good many theories, first and last, and that sounds as plausible as any."

"All this is very casually related to American politics, except that we had better clean up when the opportunity is vouchsafed us; for nothing degrades human nature nor retards civilization so much as politics gone altogether wrong. As far as you are concerned, although it was understood that the compact was to end with my citizenship, I have no thought of ending it unless the conditions I hope for shall crystallize meanwhile. If it seems best to keep the Democratic party unsplit I shall do your canvassing and speaking, for it will make me known, and give me the opportunity to inculcate the principles I purpose to advocate. If you ignore them when you are in office, so much the worse for you, and better for me; for, as I have told you more than once, the moment I am in power I shall devote my energies to pulling you and your like down and out. But I should advise you to join the third party if it arises."

"No doubt I might, if it were strong enough," said Colton, frankly. "I don't propose to play any losing game, and if the Democratic party goes by the board, T. R. Colton doesn't follow. And if a third party came in to stay it would have to have a boss--"

"Not your sort."

"Oh, well, time enough." Colton's ill-humor was now somnolent under some two pounds of peanuts. He rose and shook hands with Gwynne. "Glad to see you looking so well--you're some heavier than when you came to California, by-the-way, and it suits you first rate. Be sure you call on my wife the first time you come to town."

He declined Gwynne's invitation to dinner, and drove off, looking slothful and amiable once more. But what went on behind that mask, within that long ill-built cranium, Gwynne had never pretended to guess. Nor, to-day, did he care.

* * * * *

At three o'clock he gave his horse to Abe, was told that the lady of the manor was out walking, and went into the house. He had a fancy to meet her again in the room that harbored the sweetest of his California memories. It was dark and cool. Only one window, looking upon the garden, was open. Beside it was a comfortable chair which he took possession of and looked out into the wild old garden so different from the excessively cultivated plots of Rosewater and his own meagre strips. There was no veranda on this side of the house, and the great acacia-tree, with its weight of fragrant gold, was but a few feet from the window. The entire garden was enclosed by a hedge of the Castilian roses of which he had heard so much, rare as they now were in California. The dull green leaves and tight little buds could hardly be seen for the mass of wide fluted roses of a deep old-fashioned pink. And there were large irregular borders covered with the luxuriant green and the blue stars of the periwinkle, beds of marguerites and violets, bushes of lilac and honeysuckles, roses and jasmine. The blended perfumes were overpowering, however delicious; Gwynne had sat up half the night before talking to his mother after a long hot journey; he fell asleep.

Perhaps it was his late conversation, perhaps something more subtle, but he felt himself transported to a void. In a moment he realized that the void was not space as he knew it, but rigid invisible substance. He slipped along through rocky strata, hearing strange echoes and inhaling the disagreeable odors of healing waters. Suddenly he found himself in a vast hollowed space, empty but for many pillars. His vision grew keener. In the very centre of the hall he saw two pillars of a colossal size, and standing between them a being almost as large. This unthinkable giant had an arm about each pillar and strained as Samson had strained at the pillars of the temple. Then a new and powerful force drew him upward once more, and he awoke.

He turned his head towards the dim interior of the room and for a dazed moment thought that he beheld Spring herself. She wore white and had dropped a mass of wild flowers at her feet; she looked as if rising out of them. Her hat was covered with poppies and wild azalea, and she had a sheaf of buttercups and "blue eyes" in her belt.

"I haven't changed my ideas one bit," she said, with a shrug, as Gwynne rose and came towards her. "But I can't help it!"

IX

Isabel rose as usual at five, but, instead of dressing at once, stood at her window idly and looked out over the marsh. Thirteen hours before she had made a decision on the instant, or so it seemed to her, and in that instant changed her life so completely that she was still a little dizzy, and the future as yet had taken on no coherent form. She had even told Gwynne she was positive she could _stand_ him for ever, and this, with her varied if incomplete knowledge of his sex, she took to be even more significant and hopeful than the uncompromising sense of loving him. No doubt there would be many interesting battles before two such developed personalities became more or less one, but at least he had none of the petty and selfish and altogether detestable qualities of her father, her uncle, and Lyster Stone; and he was entirely human. And he was young and she was young. It all seemed very wonderful; wonderful to be so happy, and yet to feel that she had relinquished nothing, or at least not the tenth of what she would have lost if she had married Prestage--or any other man. If she had not met Gwynne she knew that she never should have married at all, and, not having had the best within her ken, been happy enough.

And yet she was a little sad, and it was by no means the gentle melancholy of reaction. She had reason, and felt a disposition to box her own ears. She knew that Gwynne, triumphant and happy as he was, had ridden away vaguely dissatisfied. He had turned and given her a keen questioning glance as he mounted, and had not turned again. She had laughed, and waved her hand, and felt a new desire to tantalize him.

She had abandoned herself to sheer happiness the day before, to the mere pagan delight in an ardent lover come in her own ardent youth, to the sense of an unbroken circle of companionship, and to so wild a triumph in having brought Gwynne to her feet, made him quite mad about her, that she had fairly danced about the room, and tormented him as far as she dared.