Chapter III: Book I: I (3)

"Well, this is the point: The world might be prosaic without sin, but it is right positive that women would suffer less. And if it could be pounded into every woman's head that she was a fool to think twice about any man she could not marry, and that she threatened the whole social structure every time she brought a fatherless child into the world; that she made possible such creatures as you saw in Dupont Street, and a long and still more hideous sequelæ, every time she deliberately violated her own instinct for good,--we'd all begin to develop into what the Almighty intended us to be when He started us off on our long march. Don't misunderstand me! Even if I were not such a sinner myself, I'd be deuced charitable where love was concerned, marriage or no marriage--O Lord! I didn't mean to say that. Forget it until you're thirty; then remember it if you like, for your brain is a good one. Look, promise me something, 'Léna;" he leaned forward eagerly and took her hand. "Promise me, swear it, that until you are thirty you'll never do anything your instincts and your intelligence don't assure you is right,--really right without any sophistry. Of course I mean in regard to men. I don't want you to make yourself into a prig--but I am sure you understand."

"I think I do," said Magdaléna. "I promise."

"Thank goodness, for you'll never break your word. You may be tempted more than once to kick the whole stupid game of life to the deuce and go out on a bat like a man, but console yourself with this: you'd be a long sight worse off when you got through than when you started, and you'd either go to smash altogether or spend the rest of your life trying to get back where you were before; and sackcloth hurts. There isn't one bit of joy to be got out of it. If you can't get the very best in this world, take nothing. That's the only religion for a woman to cling to, and if she does cling to it she can do without any other."

Magdaléna rose. "Good-night," she said. "I'll never forget a word of it, and I'm very much obliged."

She kissed him and had half crossed the room before he sprang to his feet and went hastily forward to open the door. He went to her father's house with her, then returned to his library fire. To the surprise of his servants, he spent the evening quietly at home.

XII

A year from the following June, and two days after her arrival in Menlo, Magdaléna went into the middle woods. The great oaks were dusty already, their brilliant greens were dimming: but the depths of the woods were full of the warm shimmer of summer, of the mysterious noises produced by creatures never seen, by the very heat itself, perchance by the riotous sap in the young trees which had sprung to life from the roots of their mighty parents.

Magdaléna left the driveway and pushed in among the brush. Poison oak did not affect her; and she separated the beautiful creeper fearlessly until she reached a spot where she was as sure of being alone and unseen as if she had entered the bowels of the earth. She sat down on the warm dry ground and looked about her for a moment, glad in the sense of absolute freedom. Above the fragrant brush of many greens rose the old twisted oaks, a light breeze rustling their brittle leaves, their arms lifted eagerly to the warm yellow bath from above. Near her was a high pile of branches and leaves, the home of a wood-rat. No sound came from it, and mortal had nothing to fear from him. A few birds moved among the leaves, but the heat made them lazy, and they did not sing.

After a few moments, Magdaléna's glance swept the wall of leaves that surrounded her; then she took a pencil and a roll of foolscap from her pocket. She had made up her mind that the time had come for her first essay in fiction. For two years and a half she had studied and thought to this end; too reverent to criticise, but taking the creators' structures to pieces as best she could and giving all attention to parts and details.

She had had a nebulous idea in her mind for some time. It had troubled her that it did not assume definite form, but she trusted to that inspiration of the pen of which she had read much.

Her hand trembled so that she could not write for a few moments. She put the pencil down, not covering her face with her hands as a more demonstrative girl would have done, but biting her lips. Her heart beat suffocatingly. For the first time she fully realised what the power to write would mean to her. Her religion had gone, that dear companion of many years; she had practised faithfully until six months ago, when she had asked her teacher to tell her father that she could never become even a third-rate musician; and Don Roberto had, after a caustic hour, concluded that he would "throw no more good money after bad;" she had had long and meaning conferences with her mirror, conjuring up phantasms of the beautiful dead women of her race, and decided sadly that the worship of man was not for her. She had never talked for ten consecutive minutes with a young man; but she had a woman's instincts, she had read, she had listened to the tales of her aunt, and she knew that what man most valued in woman she did not possess. Her great position and the graces she hoped to cultivate might gratify her ambitions in a measure, but they would not companion her soul. Books were left; but books are too heterogeneous an interest to furnish a vital one in life, a reason for being alive. She had read of the jealous absorption of art, of the intense exclusive love with which it inspired its votaries. She had read of the joys of creation, and her whole being had responded; she felt that did her brain obey her will and shape itself to achievement, she too would know ecstasy and ask nothing more of life.

Her nerves settled, and she began to write. Her reading had been confined to the classics of the old world: not only had she not read a modern novel, but of the regnant lights of her own country, Mr. Howells and Mr. James, she had never heard. She may have seen their names in the "Literary Bulletin" her bookseller sent her, but had probably gathered that they were biologists. There was no one to tell her that the actors and happenings within her horizon were the proper substance for her creative faculty. California had whispered to her, but she had not understood. Her intention was to write a story of England in the reigns of Oliver Cromwell and Charles the Second. The romance of England appealed to her irresistibly. The mass of virgin ore which lay at her hand did not provoke a flash of magnetism from her brain.

She wrote very slowly. An hour passed, and she had only covered a page. Her head ached a little from the intense concentration of mind. Her fingers were stiff. Finally, she laid her pencil aside and read what she had written. It was a laboured introduction to the story, an attempt to give a picture of the times. She was only nineteen and a novice, but she knew that what she had written was rubbish. It was a trite synopsis of what she had read, of what everybody knew; and the English, although correct, was commonplace, the vocabulary cheap. She set her lips, tore it up, and began again. At the end of another hour she destroyed the second result.

Then she determined to skip the prologue for the present and begin the story. For many long moments she sat staring into the brush, her brain plodding toward an opening scene, an opening sentence. At last she began to write. She described the hero. He was walking down the great staircase of a baronial hall,--in which he had lain concealed,--and the company below were struck dumb with terror and amazement at the apparition. She got him to the middle of the stair; she described his costume with fidelity; she wrote of the temper of the people in the great hall. Then she dropped the pencil. What was to happen thereafter was a blank.

She read what she had written. It was lifeless. It was not fiction. The least of Helena's letters was more virile and objective than this.

Again that mysterious indefinable presentiment assailed her. It was the first time that it had come since that night she had stood on the balcony and opened her brain to literary desire. Had that presentiment meant anything since compassed? Her father's cruel treatment? Her terrible experience in the street of painted women? Her illness? The loss of her religion? It was none of these things. So far, it had not been fulfilled; and it had struck its warning note again. She shivered, then discovered that the yellow light was no longer about her, and that her head ached. She rose stiffly and put the torn scraps of paper in her pocket. As she left, she cast a curious glance about her retreat, not knowing what prompted it. The scent of newly upturned earth came to her nostrils; a bird flew down on the rat's nest, starting along the sides a shower of loose earth; the frogs were chanting hoarsely.

XIII

The next morning the natural buoyancy of youth asserted itself; she reasoned that a long hard apprenticeship had been the lot of many authors, and determined that she would write a page a day for years, if need be, until her tardy faculty had been coaxed from its hard soil and trained to use.

She could not go to the woods that day: her mother expected callers.

"Your birthday is a week from Wednesday," Mrs. Yorba said as they sat on the verandah. "Your father and I have decided to give a dinner. You will not come out formally, of course, until winter; but a little society during the summer will take off the stiffness."

Magdaléna turned cold. "But, mamma! I cannot talk to young men."

"You expect to begin sometime, do you not? I shall also take you to any little entertainment that is given in Menlo this summer; and as the Brannans and Montgomerys are back from Europe,--they arrived last Thursday,--there may be several. The older girls gave little parties before they married; but there have not been any grown girls in Menlo for some years now. Rose Geary and Caro Folsom, who spent last summer in the East, will spend this in Menlo, so that there will be five of you, besides Nelly Washington."

Magdaléna knew that the matter was settled. She had given a good deal of imagination to the time when she should be a young lady, but the immediate prospect filled her with dismay. Then, out of the knowledge that her lines had been chosen for her, she adapted herself, as mortals do, and experienced some of the pleasures of anticipation.

"I believe I did not tell you," her mother resumed, "that I wrote to Helena some time ago asking her to bring back four dresses for you,--a ball dress for your début, an English walking suit, a calling dress, and a dinner dress."

Magdaléna had never given a thought to dress; but this sudden announcement that she was to have four gowns from Paris and London pricked her with an intimation that the interests of life were more varied than she had suspected. She wondered vividly what they would be like, and recalled several of Nelly Washington's notable gowns.

"You are to have forty dollars a month after your birthday, and your father will permit me to get you three dresses a year; everything else must come out of your allowance. You will keep an account-book and show it to your father every month, as I do. Oh--and there is another thing: a Mr. Trennahan of New York has brought letters to your father. He is a man of some importance,--is wealthy and has been Secretary of Legation twice, and comes of a distinguished family; we must do something for him, and have decided to ask him down to your dinner. That will kill two birds with one stone. He can also stay a day or two, and we will show him the different places."

"A strange man in the house for two days," gasped Magdaléna, forgetting that she was to have forty dollars a month.

"He can take care of himself most of the time. Here come Nelly."

Mrs. Washington's ponies were rounding the deer park. Magdaléna craned her neck.

"She has some one with her," she said. And in another half-moment: "Tiny Montgomery and Ila Brannan."

Magdaléna clasped her hands tightly to keep them from trembling. What would they think of her? She saw that they were smartly dressed. Doubtless they were very grand and clever indeed, and would think her more trying than ever. But although all her shyness threatened for a moment, it was summarily routed by her Spanish pride.

She rose as the phaeton drew up, and went to the head of the steps, smiling. They might find her uninteresting, but not _gauche_.

The girls came gracefully forward and kissed her warmly.

"_Dear_ 'Léna," said Miss Montgomery. "We wouldn't wait: we wanted so much to see you again. And besides, you know," with a mischievous smile, "we owe you a great many luncheon calls."

Miss Brannan exclaimed almost simultaneously, "How you have improved, 'Léna! I should never have known you." And if her tone was conventional, it fell upon ears untuned to conventions.

It was Magdaléna's first compliment, and she thrilled with pleasure. "My face looks very much the same in the glass," she said. "But I am glad to see you back. Let us sit on this side."

She led the girls a little distance down the verandah; she was trembling inwardly, but felt that she should get along better if relieved of her mother's ear. Tiny began at once to talk of her delight in being home again, and Magdaléna had time to recover herself.

Tiny Montgomery was an exquisitely pretty little creature, very small but admirably proportioned, although thin. Her brown eyes were very sweet under well-pencilled brows, her nose aquiline and fine. The mouth was barely rubbed in, but the teeth were beautiful, the smile as sweet as the eyes. She had the smallest feet and hands in California, and to-day they were clad in white _suède_ with no detriment to their fame. She wore a frock of white embroidered nainsook and a leghorn covered with white feathers. She talked rather slowly, in language carefully chosen, although plentifully laden with superlatives. Her voice was very sweet, and highly cultivated.

Ila Brannan was taller, with a slender full figure, and very smart. She wore a closely fitting frock of tan-coloured cloth, a small toque, and a veil covered with large velvet dots. She was very olive, and her cheeks were deeply coloured. Her black eyes had a slanting expression. Young as she was, there was a vague suggestion of maturity about her. She smiled pleasantly and echoed Tiny's little enthusiasms, which had an air of elaborate rehearsal, but she seemed to have brought something of Paris with her, and to adapt herself but ill to her old surroundings. Magdaléna did not feel at ease with either of them, but concluded that she liked Tiny best.

"Tell me something of Helena," she said finally. "Of course you saw her in Paris."

"Oh, constantly," replied Tiny. "She's perfectly beautiful, 'Léna, _perfectly_. Mamma took her with us one night to the opera, and so many people asked her who the beautiful American was. She has grown _quite_ tall, and is wonderfully stylish. Colonel Belmont has simply showered money on her since he went over, and she will have beautiful clothes, and cut us _all_ out when she comes back." But Tiny did not look in the least disturbed, and peeped surreptitiously into the polished glass of the window.

"She'll have all the men wild about her," announced Ila; she spoke with a slight French accent, which was not affected, as she had spent the greater part of the last five years in Paris. "And she is going to be a very dashing belle. She informed me that she shall run to fires and do whatever she chooses, and make people like it whether they want to or not. But I doubt if she will ever be fast."

"Fast!" echoed Magdaléna, a street of painted women flashing into memory; she knew of no degrees. "Helena! How can you think of such a thing in connection with her!"

Ila laughed softly. "You baby!" she said.

Tiny frowned. "You know, Ila," she said coldly, "that I do not like to talk of such things."

"Well, you need not," said Ila, coolly.

Tiny lifted her brows. "I think you know you cannot talk to me of what I do not wish to hear," she said with great dignity.

Magdaléna turned to her, the warm light of approval in her eyes; and Ila, unabashed, rose and said, "I think I'll go over and talk scandal for awhile," and joined the older women, whose numbers had been reinforced.

Magdaléna longed to ask Tiny if she really had improved, but was too shy. Tiny said almost directly,--

"You look _so_ intellectual, 'Léna. Are you? I feel quite afraid."

"Oh, no, no!" replied Magdaléna, hastily, "I really know very little; I wish I knew more." She hesitated a moment; it was difficult for her to expand even to the playmate of her childhood, but an alluring prospect had suddenly opened. "Of course you will have a great deal of leisure this summer," she added. "Shall we read together?"

Tiny rose with a sweet but rather forced smile. "I am not going to let you see how ignorant I am," she said. "But I feel very rude: I should go over and talk to Mrs. Yorba."

When they had gone, Magdaléna sat for a time staring straight before her, unheeding her mother's comments. The snub had been prettily administered, but it had cut deep into her sensitiveness. She realised that she was quite unlike these other girls of her own age, had never been like them; it was not Europe that had made the difference. "I would not care," she thought, "if they would keep away from me altogether. I have what I care much more for. But I must see them nearly every day and try to interest them. And I know they will find me as dull as when I gave those dreadful luncheons."

She was recalled by a direct observation of her mother's.

"Your washed cross-barred muslin looked very plain beside their French things, but I do not think it worth while to get you any new clothes at present. But do not let it worry you. Remember that what _we_ do seems right to every one. We can afford to dress exactly as we choose."

"It does not worry me," replied Magdaléna.

XIV

Whether or not to tell her parents of her determination to write had been a matter of momentous consideration to Magdaléna. After the resignation of her faith and her conversation with Colonel Belmont, she had determined to adhere rigidly to the truth and to the right way of living, to conquer the indolence of her moral nature and jealously train her conscience. The result, she felt, would be a religion of her own, from which she could derive strength as well as consolation for what she had lost. She knew, by reading and instinct, that life was full of pitfalls, but her intelligence would dictate what was right, and to its mandates she would conform, if it cost her her life. And she knew that the religion she had formulated for herself in rough outline was far more exacting than the one she had surrendered.

She had finally decided that it was not her duty to tell her parents that she was trying to write. When she was ready to publish she would ask their consent. That would be their right; but so long as they could in no way be affected, the secret might remain her own. And this secret was her most precious possession; it would have been firing her soul at the stake to reveal it to anyone less sympathetic than Helena; she was not sure that she could even speak of it to her.

Her time was her own in the country. Her father and uncle came down three times a week, but rarely before evening; her mother's mornings were taken up with household matters, her afternoons with siesta, calling, and driving; frequently she lunched informally with her friends. How Magdaléna spent her time did not concern her parents, so long as she did not leave the grounds and was within call when visitors came.

Don Roberto would not keep a horse in town for Magdaléna, but in the country she rode through the woods unattended every morning. The exhilaration of these early rides filled Magdaléna's soul with content. The freshness of the golden morning, the drowsy summer sounds, the deep vistas of the woods,--not an outline changed since unhistoried races had possessed them,--the glimpses of mountain and redwood forests beyond, the embracing solitude, laid somnolent fingers on the scars of her inner life, letting free the sweet troubled thoughts of a girl, carried her back to the days when she had dreamed of caballeros serenading beneath her casement. For two years she had dreamed that dream, and then it had curled up and fallen to dust under Helena's ridicule. Magdaléna was fatally clear of vision, and her reason had accepted the facts at once.

Sometimes during those rides she dreamed of a lover in the vague fashion of a girl whose acquaintance of man is confined to a few elderly men and to the creations of masters; but only then. She rarely deluded herself. She was plain; she could not even interest women. She felt that she was wholly without that magnetism which, she had read, made many plain women irresistible to man.

XV

Don Roberto was to bring his guest with him on the train which arrived a few minutes after five. Magdaléna was told to dress early and be in the parlour when Mr. Trennahan came downstairs. She was cold at the thought of talking alone with a man and a stranger; but Mrs. Yorba had neuralgia, and announced her intention to lie down until the last minute.

Magdaléna had received a number of pretty presents from her aunt and friends, a cablegram from Colonel Belmont and Helena, and from her father a small gold watch and fob. Her father's gift was very magnificent to her, and her pleasure was as great in the thought of his generosity as in the beauty of the gift itself. His usual gift was ten dollars; and as it had been decided that she was not to be a young lady until she was nineteen, her eighteenth birthday had been passed over.

Her mother's present was the dress she was to wear to-night, a white organdie of the pearly tint high in favour with blondes of matchless complexion, a white sash, and a white ribbon to be knotted about the throat. The neck of the gown was cut in a small V.

Magdaléna had no natural taste in dress, nor did she know the first principle of the law of colour; but when she had finished her toilette she stood for many moments before the mirror, regarding herself with disapproval. The radiant whiteness of the frock and of the ribbon about her neck made her look as dark as an Indian. She saw no beauty in the noble head with its parted, closely banded hair, in the fine dark eyes. She saw only the wide mouth and indefinite nose, the complexionless skin, the long thin figure and ugly neck. The only thing about her that possessed any claim to beauty, according to her own standards, was her foot. She thrust it out and strove to find encouragement in its pulchritude. It was thin and small and arched, and altogether perfect. She wore her first pair of slippers and silk stockings,--a present from her aunt. Her mother thought silk stockings a sinful waste of money.

Magdaléna sighed and turned to the door. "Feet don't talk," she thought. "What am I to say to Mr. Trennahan?"

She walked slowly down the stair. He was before her, standing on the verandah directly in front of the doors. His back was to her. She saw that he was very tall and thin, not unlike her uncle in build, but with a distinction that gentleman did not possess. Her father was strutting up and down the drive, taking his ante-dinner constitutional.

She went along the hall as slowly as she could, her hands clenched, her mind in travail for a few words of appropriate greeting. When she had nearly reached the door, Trennahan turned suddenly and saw her. He came forward at once, his hand extended.

"This is Miss Yorba, of course," he said. "How good of you to come down so soon!"

He had a large warm hand. It closed firmly over Magdaléna's, and gave her confidence. She could hardly see his face in the gloom of the hall, but she felt his cordial grace, his magnetism.

"I am glad you have come down to my birthday dinner," she said, thankful to be able to say anything.

"I am highly honoured, I am sure. Shall we go outside? I hope you prefer it out there. I never stay in the house if I can help it."

"Oh, I much prefer to be out."

They sat facing each other in two of the wicker chairs. He was a man skilled in woman, and he divined her shyness and apprehension. He talked lightly for some time, making her feel that politeness compelled her to be silent and listen. She raised her eyes after a time and looked at him. He was, perhaps, thirty-five, possibly more. He looked older and at the same time younger. His shaven chin and lips were sternly cut. His face was thin, his nose arched and fine, his skin and hair neutral in tint. The only colouring about him was in his eyes. They were very blue and deeply set under rather scraggy brows. Magdaléna noted that they had a peculiarly penetrating regard, and that they did not smile with the lips. The latter, when not smiling, looked grim and forbidding, and there was a deep line on either side of the mouth. Her memory turned to Colonel Belmont, and the night she had studied his profile. There was an indefinable resemblance between the two men. Then she realised how old-fashioned and worn Belmont was beside this trim elegant man, who, with no exaggeration of manner, treated her with a deference and attention which had no doubt been his habitual manner with the greatest ladies in Europe.

"Shall you be in California long?" she asked suddenly.

"That is what I am trying to decide. I had heard so much of your California that I came out with a half-formed idea of buying a little place and settling down for the rest of my days."

"The Mark Smith place is for sale," she answered quickly. "It has only two acres, but they are cultivated, and the house is very pretty."

"Your father told me about it; but although Menlo is very beautiful, it seems to have one drawback. I am very fond of rowing, sailing, and fishing, and there is no water."

"There is if you go far enough. The bay is not so very far away, and I have heard that there is salmon-fishing back in the mountains. And Mr. Washington and Uncle Jack Belmont often go duck and snipe shooting down on the marsh." She stopped with a shortening of the breath. She had not made such a long speech since Helena left.

He sat forward eagerly. "You interest me deeply," he said. "I am very much inclined to buy the place. I shall certainly think of it."

"But you--surely--you would rather be--live--in Europe. We are very old-fashioned out here."

The expression about his mouth deepened. "I should like to think that I might spend the rest of my days with a fishing-rod or a gun."

"But you have been at courts!"

He laughed. "I have, and I hope I may never see another."

"And--and you are young."

Her interest and curiosity overcame her reserve. She wanted to know all of this man that he would tell her. She had once seen a picture of a death-mask. His face reminded her of it. _What_ lay behind?

"I am forty and some months."

She rose suddenly, her hand seeking her heart. "They are coming," she faltered. "I hear wheels. And mamma is not here to introduce you."

"Well," he said, smiling down on her. "Cannot you introduce me?"

"I--I cannot. I have never introduced anyone. I must seem very ignorant and _gauche_ to you."

"You are delightful. And I am sure you are quite equal to anything. Am I to be introduced out here, or in the drawing-room after they have come downstairs?"

"Oh, I am not sure."

"Then perhaps you will let me advise you. When they are all here, I will appear in the drawing-room; and if your mother is not down by that time, we will help each other out. They will all be talking and will hardly notice me. But I must run."

The Geary phaeton drove up. It held Rose and her brother. After they had gone upstairs Magdaléna went into the parlour to wait for them. The large room was very dim--the gasoline was misbehaving--and silent; she shivered with apprehension. There was no sign of her mother. But Trennahan's words and sympathy had given her courage, and she burned with ambition to acquit herself creditably in his eyes.

The guests arrived rapidly. In ten minutes they were all in the parlour, sixteen in number, the men in full dress, the women in organdies or foulards showing little of arm and neck. Mrs. Washington was in pink; Tiny in white and a seraphic expression; Rose wore black net and red slippers, a bunch of red geraniums at her belt, her eyes slanting at the men about her. With the exception of Ned Geary and Charley Rollins, a friend of Helena's, with both of whom she had perhaps exchanged three sentences in the course of her life, Magdaléna knew none of the young men: they had been brought, at Mrs. Yorba's suggestion, by the other guests.

She could find nothing to say to them; she was watching the door. Would her mother never come? Her father was on the front verandah talking to Mr. Washington and her uncle.

Trennahan entered the room.

Magdaléna drew herself up and went forward. She looked very dignified and very Spanish. No one guessed, with the exception of Trennahan, that it was the ordeal of her life.

"Mr. Trennahan," she said in a harsh even voice: "Mrs. Washington, Miss Brannan, Miss Montgomery."

He flashed her a glance of admiration which sent the chill from her veins, and began talking at once to the three women that she might feel excused from further duty. A few moments later Mrs. Yorba entered. She received Trennahan without a smile or a superfluous word. Mrs. Yorba was never deliberately rude; but were she the wife of an ambassador for forty years, her chill nipped New England nature would never even artificially expand; the cast-iron traditions of her youth, when neither she nor any of her acquaintance knew aught of socialities beyond church festivals, could never be torn from the sterile but tenacious soil which had received them.

Dinner was announced almost immediately. Mrs. Yorba signified to Trennahan that he was to have the honour of taking her in; and as she had not intimated how the rest were to be coupled, the women arranged the matter to suit themselves. Mrs. Cartright went in with Don Roberto, Mrs. Washington with Polk; there were no other married women present. As Charley Rollins was standing by Magdaléna, she took the arm he offered her.

The function was not as melancholy as the Yorba dinners were wont to be. Young people in or approaching their first season are not easily affected by atmosphere; and those present to-night, with the exception of Magdaléna and Tiny Montgomery, chattered incessantly. Tiny had a faculty for making her temporary partner do the talking while she enjoyed her dinner; but she listened sweetly and her superlatives were happily chosen.

Mrs. Cartright always talked incessantly whether anyone listened or not. Mrs. Washington, who sat on Don Roberto's left, amused him with the audacity of her slang. Where she learned the greater number of her discords was an abiding mystery; the rest of Menlo Park relegated slang to the unknown millions who said "mommer" and "popper," got divorces, and used cosmetics. When remonstrated with, she airily responded that her tongue was "made that way," and rattled off her latest acquisition. As she was an especial pet of Mrs. Yorba's--if that august dame could be said to pet anyone--and of distinguished Southern connections, the remonstrances were not serious.

Magdaléna, although she ordered her brain to action, could think of nothing to say to Rollins; but he was a budding lawyer and asked no more of providence than a listener. He talked volubly about Helena's childish pranks, the last Bohemian Club Midsummer Jinks, the epigrams of his rivals at the bar. He appeared very raw and uninteresting to Magdaléna, and she found herself trying to overhear the remarks of Trennahan, who was doing his laborious duty by his hostess. After a time Trennahan allowed his attention to be diverted by Ila, who sat on his right. That he was grateful for the change there could be no doubt. His expression up to this point had been one of grim amusement, which at any moment might become careworn. The lines of his face relaxed under Ila's curved smiles and slanting glances. They laughed gaily, but pitched their voices very low.

Magdaléna wondered if all dinners were as wearisome as this. Rollins finally followed Trennahan's example and devoted himself to Caro Folsom, a yellow-haired girl with babyish green eyes, a lisp, and an astute brain. On Magdaléna's left was a blond and babbling youth named Ellis, who made no secret of the fact that he was afraid of his intellectual neighbour; he stammered and blushed every time she spoke to him. He had gone in with Rose Geary, a blonde fairy-like little creature, as light of foot as of wit, and an accomplished flirt; who regarded men with the eye of the philosopher. They occupied each other admirably.

Opposite, another young lawyer, Eugene Fort, was saying preternaturally bright things to Tiny, who lifted her sweet orbs at intervals and remarked: "How _dreadfully_ clever you are, Mr. Fort; I am _so_ afraid of you!" or "How _sweet_ of you to think I am worth all those _real_ epigrams! You ought to keep them for a great law-book." Once she stifled a yawn, but Mr. Fort did not see it.

Little notice was taken of Magdaléna, and she felt superfluous and miserable. Even Trennahan, who had seemed so sympathetic, had barely glanced at her. She wondered, with a little inner laugh, if she were growing conceited. Why should he, with one of the prettiest girls in California beside him? Ila was very young, but she belonged by instinct to his own world.

The dinner came to an end. The older men went to the billiard-room, the younger men followed the girls to the parlour. Trennahan talked to Tiny for a time, then again to Ila, who lay back in a chair with her little red slippers on a footstool. She had carefully disposed herself in an alcove beyond the range of Mrs. Yorba's vision.

Tiny, whose train added to the remarkable dignity of her diminutive person, crossed the room to Magdaléna, who was sitting alone on the window-seat.

"You have done so _well_, 'Léna dear," she said, as she sat down beside her discouraged hostess. "I feel I must tell you that _immediately_. You are not a _bit_ shy and nervous, as I should be if I were giving my first dinner."

Magdaléna smiled gratefully. Tiny had always been the kindest of the girls. "I am glad you think I am not so bad," she said. "But I fear that I have bored everybody."

"_Indeed_, you have not. You are so calm and full of natural repose. The rest of us seem _dreadfully_ American by contrast."

"You are never fussy."

"I know, but it is _quite_ different. I've been very carefully brought up. You would be exactly as you are if you had brought yourself up. The Spanish are the most dignified--What are they going to do, I wonder?"

Mr. Fort approached. "We are going to walk about the grounds and step on the frogs," he said. "I don't know a line of poetry, but I can count stars, and I'll tell you of my aspirations in life. Will you come?"

"I _so_ want to hear your aspirations, Mr. Fort," said Tiny. "I did not know that California men had aspirations."

The girls went with him to the verandah, and all started down the driveway together, then paired. To her surprise, Magdaléna found Trennahan beside her.

"I am so glad to be with you again," he said petulantly. "I am tired of types."

"Types?"

"Yes; women that a man has been used to for many long weary years,--to put it in another way."

"But surely you find Ila very fascinating?"

"Oh, yes; but one understands the fascination so well; and it gives so much pleasure to--twenty-two, that it is almost immoral for an old fogy like myself to monopolise it. I don't understand you in the least, so I am here."

Magdaléna trembled a little. The nineteen years of her life suddenly assumed a glad complexion, lifting her spirit to the level of her mates. She tried to recall the sad and bitter experiences of her brief past, but they scampered down into the roots of memory.

He did not speak again for a time, beyond asking if he might smoke. He was quite sincere for the moment; but he understood the much of her that was salient to his trained eye. Her parents, her timid reserve, so unlike that of other American girls favoured by fortune, her ignorance of certain conventionalities, the very fashion of her hair, the very incompatibility of her costume and colouring, told him two thirds of her short history. Of the history of her inner life he guessed little, but believed that she had both depth of mind and intensity of feeling. To get her confidence would be next to impossible; it was therefore well worth the effort. If she proved as interesting as he suspected, he believed that he should feel disposed to marry her did she only have a complexion. He was weary straight down into the depths of his weary soul of the women and the girls of the world; but he also abhorred a sallow skin. He had worshipped beauty in his day, and was by no means impervious to it yet; but he felt that he could overlook Magdaléna's nose and mouth and elementary figure for the sake of her eyes and originality, did she only possess the primary essential of beauty. A man regards a woman's lack of complexion as a personal grievance.

If the American habit of monologue had been a part of Trennahan's inheritance, his foreign training had long since lifted it up by the roots; but he saw that if he was to make progress with this silent girl, he must do the talking. He could be both brilliant and amusing when he chose, and he exerted himself as he had not done for some time. He was rewarded by a rapt attention, a humble and profound admiration that would have flattered a demi-god. And in truth he was a demi-god to this girl, with her experience of elderly old-fashioned men and an occasional callow youth encountered on a verandah in summer.

They followed the driveway that curved between one of the two larger lawns and the deer park. The lawn was set thickly along its edge and sparsely on its sweep with fragrant trees and shrubs. Beyond the deer park was the black mass of the woods. The air was sweet with the mingled breath of June roses, orange blossoms, and the pepper-tree. After a time their way lay through a dark avenue of immense oaks, and the perfumes came from the Mariposa lilies in the fields beyond.

If Trennahan had been with Ila, he would have conducted himself as his surroundings and his companion demanded: he would have made love. But he was a man who rarely made a mistake; he talked to Magdaléna of the difference between California and the many other countries he had visited, and answered her eager questions about life in the great capitals. As they were returning, he said to her,--

"You say you ride before breakfast. Do you think I might join you to-morrow? Your father has been kind enough to place his stable at my disposal."

"Oh--I--I don't know. My father is very--Spanish, although he doesn't like you to call it that."

"May I ask him?"

"Oh, yes, you could ask him."

When they reached the house he sought his host in the billiard-room. The game was over, and Don Roberto, Mr. Polk, and Mr. Washington were seated in front of the mantel-piece with their feet on the shelf. It was Don Roberto's favourite attitude; he felt that it completed the structure of his Americanism. He could only reach the tip of the shelf with the points of his little elegant feet, but he was just as comfortable as Mr. Polk, whose feet, large and booted, were planted against the wall. Mr. Washington, who was a most correct gentleman, with the illustrious forbears his name suggested, had never lifted his feet to one of his own mantels in his life; but Don Roberto's guests always humoured this little hobby, among many others.

"Ay, the Mr. Trennahan," said Don Roberto, graciously. "We make room for you."

The others moved along, and Trennahan, seeing what was expected of him, brought a chair and elevated his feet among the Chinese bric-à-brac. He accepted a choice cigar--there were certain luxuries in which Don Roberto never economised--and added his quota to the anecdotes of the hearthstone. As his were fresh and the others as worn as an old wedding-ring, it was not long before he had an audience which would brook no interruption but applause.

A Chinaman brought a peremptory message from Mrs. Washington, and the feet on the mantel were reduced to six. When these came down, two hours later, Trennahan said to Don Roberto,--

"May I ride with Miss Yorba to-morrow before breakfast?"

"Yes; I no mind," said the don, beaming with approval of his new friend. "But the boy, he go too. My daughter, no must ride alone with the gentleman. And you no leave the grounds, remember."

XVI

When Magdaléna went up to her room, she spread all her pretty gifts on the table and asked herself if they were the secret of this novel feeling of content with herself and her world. She studied the mirror and fancied that she was not so plain as usual. Her eyes returned to her presents, and she shook her head. Her mind worked slowly, but it worked logically; nor was that imagination hers which keeps woman in a fool's paradise long after all but the husk of her Adam has gone.

"It is Mr. Trennahan," she admitted reluctantly but ruthlessly. "He is so clever and so agreeable--no, fascinating--that for the first time I forgot myself, and when I remembered was not unhappy because I am not beautiful nor clever. The world must be much nicer than I thought if there are many people like that in it."

To love she did not give a thought, but she smiled to herself after the light was out, and, still smiling, fell asleep.

The next morning she was downstairs by six o'clock, but found Trennahan before her. As he approached her,--he had been sauntering up and down the drive,--she wondered what he thought of her costume. As she was not allowed to leave the grounds, a habit had never been thought necessary for the heiress of the house of Yorba. She had worn for the past two years one of her mother's discarded black skirts and a cotton blouse. But it is doubtful if an inspired mind-reader could have made anything of such thoughts as Trennahan wished to conceal.

"You look as fresh as the morning," he said, with a gallantry which was mechanical, but true and delightful to a girl in her first experience of compliments.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked. "I hope the mosquitoes did not keep you awake. They are very bad."

"I believe they are, but I received a friendly warning from Mr. Polk and rubbed the leather which protects my skull with vinegar. I think it was superfluous, but at all events I slept undisturbed."

Magdaléna regarded his skin attentively, much to his amusement. "It is thick," she said, feeling that she could not honestly reassure him, but quite positive that he expected her to answer.

He laughed heartily. "Oh!" he said. "What a pity you must 'come out'! I am a convert to the Old-Californian system. But here are the horses."

The improvised groom, a sulky and intensely self-conscious stable-boy, led up the horses, and Magdaléna put her foot in Trennahan's hand.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, with a note of real admiration in his voice; and Magdaléna nearly fell over the other side of her horse.

They cantered off sharply, the boy following a good thirty yards behind, feeling uncommonly sheepish when he was not thinking angrily of his neglected chores. It was not thought good form in Menlo Park to put on the trappings of Circumstance. Mrs. Washington drove a phaeton and took a boy in the rumble to open the gates; but the coachmen when driving the usual char-à-banc or wagonette performed this office while their mistresses steered the horses through the gates. No one ever thought of wearing a jewel or a décolleté gown to a dinner or a dance. Mrs. Dillon, the Bonanza queen, having heard much of the simplicity of the worshipful Menlo Park folk, had paid her first calls in a blue silk wrapper, but, conceiving that she had done the wrong thing, sheltered her perplexities in black silk thereafter. Her daughter upon the same occasion had worn a voluminous frock of pale blue camel's hair trimmed with flounces of Valenciennes lace, that being the simplest frock in her wardrobe; but she privately thought even Mrs. Washington's apotheosised lawns and organdies very "scrubby," and could never bring herself to anything less expensive than summer silks, made at the greatest house in Paris.

"I am going to see the Mark Smith place this afternoon," said Trennahan. "Your mother has very kindly offered to drive me over. I suppose it has no woods on it. These are beautiful."

"They are the only ones in the San Mateo Valley," replied Magdaléna, experiencing the full pride of possession. "Are there such beautiful ones in Europe?"

"Those at Fontainbleau are not unlike. But in England you stand in the middle of a wood and admire the landscape on either side."

"Helena wrote me something like that. She said that she always put on a veil when she went into an English wood for fear she would get freckled."

"Who is Helena?"

"She is my great friend. She is Colonel Jack Belmont's daughter, and the most beautiful girl in California. At least I think she is, for of course I have not seen them all."

"Are you always as conscientious as that? Why have I not seen this peerless creature?"

"She is in Europe. You will see her in December. Of course I do not know if she is a 'type,' but I don't see how anybody else could be like Helena. Mr. Rollins said last night that she was the concentrated essence of California."

"Describe her to me." He was delighted at the prospect of drawing her out on any subject.

Magdaléna hesitated, wondering if she should have the courage to continue, did she begin a monologue. She recalled the sustained animation of the girls at her dinner, and moved as if to shake her head, then recollected her ambition to shine in conversation. To no one had she ever found it so easy to express herself as to this man. Why not take advantage of that fact? And that represented but the half of her present ambition. If she could only interest him!

He watched her closely, divining some cause of her hesitation, but not all. Her complexion was even less desirable by day than by gas, but her hair was tumbled, her eyes were sparkling softly; and the deep green arbours of the wood were an enchanting aid to youth.

"She has curly shining hair about the colour of mahogany, and big--long--dark blue eyes that look as if they were not afraid of anything, and make you afraid sometimes, and regular features, and a whiter skin than Tiny's, with a beautiful pink colour--" She stopped short, feeling that her attempt at description was as ineffective as the hours wasted upon her much modelled hero.

"That sounds very charming, but still--never mind her appearance. Tell me what you so much admire in her."

"She talks so much, and she isn't afraid of anybody. She says she wouldn't lie because she wouldn't pay anyone that compliment. She loves to 'cheek' and shock people. She walks all round the outside of the house--upstairs--on a narrow ledge, and she runs to fires--at least she ran to one--and she won't study when she doesn't feel like it. And--and--she even snatched off papa's skull-cap once."

Trennahan threw back his head and laughed loud and long. "And you would have me believe that all that is what moves you to admiration. Don't you know, my dear child, that you love your friend in spite of her tomboy eccentricities, not because of them? You wouldn't be or do one of those things if you could."

Again Magdaléna hesitated. The implied approval was delightful; but she would not hold it on false pretences. She answered firmly,--

"I went to the fire with her."

"You? Delightful! Tell me about it. Every detail."

She told him everything except the terrible sequel. It was lamely presented, but he cared nothing for the episode. His sympathies were immediate if temporary, and experience had eaten off the very cover of the book of seals. He followed her through every mental phase she unconsciously rehearsed; and when she brought the story to an abrupt close, lacking the art to run it off into generalities, he inferred something of the last development and did not press her to continue. He pitied her grimly. But he was an intensely practical man.

"You must never think of doing that sort of thing again," he said. "Unless a person is naturally eccentric, the attempt to be so demoralises him, because there is nothing so demoralising as failure--except on one's own particular lines. Did you, for instance, jump on a horse and career barebacked through Menlo Park like a wild Indian,--a performance which your friend would probably carry off with any amount of dash and _chic_--you would feel a hopeless fool; whereas," he gave her a keen side glance, "if you felt that you possessed a talent--for music, say--and failed forty times before achieving success, you would feel that your failures partook of the dignity of their cause, and of your own character."

She turned to him with quickening pulse. "Do you think," she faltered, hunting for phrases that would not commit her, "that if a person loved an art very much, even if he could not be sure that he had genius, that he would be right to go on and on, no matter how often he became discouraged?"

Her eyes were staring at her horse's neck; she did not see him smile. He had felt quite sure that she sought relief for the silences of her life in literary composition. When an unattractive woman has not talent she finds a double revenge in the torture of words, he thought. What shall I say to her? That she is whittling thorns for her own soul? Bah! Did I not find enjoyment once in the very imaginings of all that has scourged me since? Would I have thanked anyone for opening my eyes? And the positive is the one thing that grips the memory. It is as well to have what high lights one can.

She had raised her head and was looking at him expectantly.