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diff --git a/old/asogs10.txt b/old/asogs10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f228016 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/asogs10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6654 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext A Sappho of Green Springs, by Bret Harte +#48 in our series by Bret Harte + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS + +by + +Bret Harte + + + + +CONTENTS + + +A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS + +THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE + +THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT + +A MAECENAS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE + + + + +A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Come in," said the editor. + +The door of the editorial room of the "Excelsior Magazine" began to +creak painfully under the hesitating pressure of an uncertain and +unfamiliar hand. This continued until with a start of irritation +the editor faced directly about, throwing his leg over the arm of +his chair with a certain youthful dexterity. With one hand +gripping its back, the other still grasping a proof-slip, and his +pencil in his mouth, he stared at the intruder. + +The stranger, despite his hesitating entrance, did not seem in the +least disconcerted. He was a tall man, looking even taller by +reason of the long formless overcoat he wore, known as a "duster," +and by a long straight beard that depended from his chin, which he +combed with two reflective fingers as he contemplated the editor. +The red dust which still lay in the creases of his garment and in +the curves of his soft felt hat, and left a dusty circle like a +precipitated halo around his feet, proclaimed him, if not a +countryman, a recent inland importation by coach. "Busy?" he said, +in a grave but pleasant voice. "I kin wait. Don't mind ME. Go +on." + +The editor indicated a chair with his disengaged hand and plunged +again into his proof-slips. The stranger surveyed the scant +furniture and appointments of the office with a look of grave +curiosity, and then, taking a chair, fixed an earnest, penetrating +gaze on the editor's profile. The editor felt it, and, without +looking up, said-- + +"Well, go on." + +"But you're busy. I kin wait." + +"I shall not be less busy this morning. I can listen." + +"I want you to give me the name of a certain person who writes in +your magazine." + +The editor's eye glanced at the second right-hand drawer of his +desk. It did not contain the names of his contributors, but what +in the traditions of his office was accepted as an equivalent,--a +revolver. He had never yet presented either to an inquirer. But +he laid aside his proofs, and, with a slight darkening of his +youthful, discontented face, said, "What do you want to know for?" + +The question was so evidently unexpected that the stranger's face +colored slightly, and he hesitated. The editor meanwhile, without +taking his eyes from the man, mentally ran over the contents of the +last magazine. They had been of a singularly peaceful character. +There seemed to be nothing to justify homicide on his part or the +stranger's. Yet there was no knowing, and his questioner's bucolic +appearance by no means precluded an assault. Indeed, it had been a +legend of the office that a predecessor had suffered vicariously +from a geological hammer covertly introduced into a scientific +controversy by an irate professor. + +"As we make ourselves responsible for the conduct of the magazine," +continued the young editor, with mature severity, "we do not give +up the names of our contributors. If you do not agree with their +opinions"-- + +"But I DO," said the stranger, with his former composure, "and I +reckon that's why I want to know who wrote those verses called +'Underbrush,' signed 'White Violet,' in your last number. They're +pow'ful pretty." + +The editor flushed slightly, and glanced instinctively around for +any unexpected witness of his ludicrous mistake. The fear of +ridicule was uppermost in his mind, and he was more relieved at his +mistake not being overheard than at its groundlessness. + +"The verses ARE pretty," he said, recovering himself, with a +critical air, "and I am glad you like them. But even then, you +know, I could not give you the lady's name without her permission. +I will write to her and ask it, if you like." + +The actual fact was that the verses had been sent to him +anonymously from a remote village in the Coast Range,--the address +being the post-office and the signature initials. + +The stranger looked disturbed. "Then she ain't about here +anywhere?" he said, with a vague gesture. "She don't belong to +the office?" + +The young editor beamed with tolerant superiority: "No, I am sorry +to say." + +"I should like to have got to see her and kinder asked her a few +questions," continued the stranger, with the same reflective +seriousness. "You see, it wasn't just the rhymin' o' them verses,-- +and they kinder sing themselves to ye, don't they?--it wasn't the +chyce o' words,--and I reckon they allus hit the idee in the centre +shot every time,--it wasn't the idees and moral she sort o' drew +out o' what she was tellin',--but it was the straight thing +itself,--the truth!" + +"The truth?" repeated the editor. + +"Yes, sir. I've bin there. I've seen all that she's seen in the +brush--the little flicks and checkers o' light and shadder down in +the brown dust that you wonder how it ever got through the dark of +the woods, and that allus seems to slip away like a snake or a +lizard if you grope. I've heard all that she's heard there--the +creepin', the sighin', and the whisperin' through the bracken and +the ground-vines of all that lives there." + +"You seem to be a poet yourself," said the editor, with a +patronizing smile. + +"I'm a lumberman, up in Mendocino," returned the stranger, with +sublime naivete. "Got a mill there. You see, sightin' standin' +timber and selectin' from the gen'ral show of the trees in the +ground and the lay of roots hez sorter made me take notice." He +paused. "Then," he added, somewhat despondingly, "you don't know +who she is?" + +"No," said the editor, reflectively; "not even if it is really a +WOMAN who writes." + +"Eh?" + +"Well, you see, 'White Violet' may as well be the nom de plume of a +man as of a woman, especially if adopted for the purpose of +mystification. The handwriting, I remember, WAS more boyish than +feminine." + +"No," returned the stranger doggedly, "it wasn't no MAN. There's +ideas and words there that only come from a woman: baby-talk to the +birds, you know, and a kind of fearsome keer of bugs and creepin' +things that don't come to a man who wears boots and trousers. +Well," he added, with a return to his previous air of resigned +disappointment, "I suppose you don't even know what she's like?" + +"No," responded the editor, cheerfully. Then, following an idea +suggested by the odd mingling of sentiment and shrewd perception in +the man before him, he added: "Probably not at all like anything +you imagine. She may be a mother with three or four children; or +an old maid who keeps a boarding-house; or a wrinkled school- +mistress; or a chit of a school-girl. I've had some fair verses +from a red-haired girl of fourteen at the Seminary," he concluded +with professional coolness. + +The stranger regarded him with the naive wonder of an inexperienced +man. Having paid this tribute to his superior knowledge, he +regained his previous air of grave perception. "I reckon she ain't +none of them. But I'm keepin' you from your work. Good-by. My +name's Bowers--Jim Bowers, of Mendocino. If you're up my way, give +me a call. And if you do write to this yer 'White Violet,' and +she's willin', send me her address." + +He shook the editor's hand warmly--even in its literal significance +of imparting a good deal of his own earnest caloric to the editor's +fingers--and left the room. His footfall echoed along the passage +and died out, and with it, I fear, all impression of his visit from +the editor's mind, as he plunged again into the silent task before +him. + +Presently he was conscious of a melodious humming and a light +leisurely step at the entrance of the hall. They continued on in +an easy harmony and unaffected as the passage of a bird. Both were +pleasant and both familiar to the editor. They belonged to Jack +Hamlin, by vocation a gambler, by taste a musician, on his way from +his apartments on the upper floor, where he had just risen, to drop +into his friend's editorial room and glance over the exchanges, as +was his habit before breakfast. + +The door opened lightly. The editor was conscious of a faint odor +of scented soap, a sensation of freshness and cleanliness, the +impression of a soft hand like a woman's on his shoulder and, like +a woman's, momentarily and playfully caressing, the passage of a +graceful shadow across his desk, and the next moment Jack Hamlin +was ostentatiously dusting a chair with an open newspaper +preparatory to sitting down. + +"You ought to ship that office-boy of yours, if he can't keep +things cleaner," he said, suspending his melody to eye grimly the +dust which Mr. Bowers had shaken from his departing feet. + +The editor did not look up until he had finished revising a +difficult paragraph. By that time Mr. Hamlin had comfortably +settled himself on a cane sofa, and, possibly out of deference to +his surroundings, had subdued his song to a peculiarly low, soft, +and heartbreaking whistle as he unfolded a newspaper. Clean and +faultless in his appearance, he had the rare gift of being able to +get up at two in the afternoon with much of the dewy freshness and +all of the moral superiority of an early riser. + +"You ought to have been here just now, Jack," said the editor. + +"Not a row, old man, eh?" inquired Jack, with a faint accession of +interest. + +"No," said the editor, smiling. Then he related the incidents of +the previous interview, with a certain humorous exaggeration which +was part of his nature. But Jack did not smile. + +"You ought to have booted him out of the ranch on sight," he said. +"What right had he to come here prying into a lady's affairs?--at +least a lady as far as HE knows. Of course she's some old blowzy +with frumpled hair trying to rope in a greenhorn with a string of +words and phrases," concluded Jack, carelessly, who had an equally +cynical distrust of the sex and of literature. + +"That's about what I told him," said the editor. + +"That's just what you SHOULDN'T have told him," returned Jack. +"You ought to have stuck up for that woman as if she'd been your +own mother. Lord! you fellows don't know how to run a magazine. +You ought to let ME sit on that chair and tackle your customers." + +"What would you have done, Jack?" asked the editor, much amused to +find that his hitherto invincible hero was not above the ordinary +human weakness of offering advice as to editorial conduct. + +"Done?" reflected Jack. "Well, first, sonny, I shouldn't keep a +revolver in a drawer that I had to OPEN to get at." + +"But what would you have said?" + +"I should simply have asked him what was the price of lumber at +Mendocino," said Jack, sweetly, "and when he told me, I should have +said that the samples he was offering out of his own head wouldn't +suit. You see, you don't want any trifling in such matters. You +write well enough, my boy," continued he, turning over his paper, +"but what you're lacking in is editorial dignity. But go on with +your work. Don't mind me." + +Thus admonished, the editor again bent over his desk, and his +friend softly took up his suspended song. The editor had not +proceeded far in his corrections when Jack's voice again broke the +silence. + +"Where are those d----d verses, anyway?" + +Without looking up, the editor waved his pencil towards an uncut +copy of the "Excelsior Magazine" lying on the table. + +"You don't suppose I'm going to READ them, do you?" said Jack, +aggrievedly. "Why don't you say what they're about? That's your +business as editor." + +But that functionary, now wholly lost and wandering in the non- +sequitur of an involved passage in the proof before him, only waved +an impatient remonstrance with his pencil and knit his brows. +Jack, with a sigh, took up the magazine. + +A long silence followed, broken only by the hurried rustling of +sheets of copy and an occasional exasperated start from the editor. +The sun was already beginning to slant a dusty beam across his +desk; Jack's whistling had long since ceased. Presently, with an +exclamation of relief, the editor laid aside the last proof-sheet +and looked up. + +Jack Hamlin had closed the magazine, but with one hand thrown over +the back of the sofa he was still holding it, his slim forefinger +between its leaves to keep the place, and his handsome profile and +dark lashes lifted towards the window. The editor, smiling at this +unwonted abstraction, said quietly,-- + +"Well, what do you think of them?" + +Jack rose, laid the magazine down, settled his white waistcoat with +both hands, and lounged towards his friend with audacious but +slightly veiled and shining eyes. "They sort of sing themselves to +you," he said, quietly, leaning beside the editor's desk, and +looking down upon him. After a pause he said, "Then you don't know +what she's like?" + +"That's what Mr. Bowers asked me," remarked the editor. + +"D--n Bowers!" + +"I suppose you also wish me to write and ask for permission to give +you her address?" said the editor, with great gravity. + +"No," said Jack, coolly. "I propose to give it to YOU within a +week, and you will pay me with a breakfast. I should like to have +it said that I was once a paid contributor to literature. If I +don't give it to you, I'll stand you a dinner, that's all." + +"Done!" said the editor. "And you know nothing of her now?" + +"No," said Jack, promptly. "Nor you?" + +"No more than I have told you." + +"That'll do. So long!" And Jack, carefully adjusting his glossy +hat over his curls at an ominously wicked angle, sauntered lightly +from the room. The editor, glancing after his handsome figure and +hearing him take up his pretermitted whistle as he passed out, +began to think that the contingent dinner was by no means an +inevitable prospect. + +Howbeit, he plunged once more into his monotonous duties. But the +freshness of the day seemed to have departed with Jack, and the +later interruptions of foreman and publisher were of a more +practical character. It was not until the post arrived that the +superscription on one of the letters caught his eye, and revived +his former interest. It was the same hand as that of his unknown +contributor's manuscript--ill-formed and boyish. He opened the +envelope. It contained another poem with the same signature, but +also a note--much longer than the brief lines that accompanied the +first contribution--was scrawled upon a separate piece of paper. +This the editor opened first, and read the following, with an +amazement that for the moment dominated all other sense:-- + + +MR. EDITOR,--I see you have got my poetry in. But I don't see the +spondulix that oughter follow. Perhaps you don't know where to +send it. Then I'll tell you. Send the money to Lock Box 47, Green +Springs P. O., per Wells Fargo's Express, and I'll get it there, on +account of my parents not knowing. We're very high-toned, and they +would think it's low making poetry for papers. Send amount usually +paid for poetry in your papers. Or may be you think I make poetry +for nothing? That's where you slip up! + + Yours truly, WHITE VIOLET. + +P. S.--If you don't pay for poetry, send this back. It's as good +as what you did put in, and is just as hard to make. You hear me? +that's me--all the time. + + WHITE VIOLET. + + +The editor turned quickly to the new contribution for some +corroboration of what he felt must be an extraordinary blunder. +But no! The few lines that he hurriedly read breathed the same +atmosphere of intellectual repose, gentleness, and imagination as +the first contribution. And yet they were in the same handwriting +as the singular missive, and both were identical with the previous +manuscript. + +Had he been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original? +No; they were distinctly original, local in color, and even local +in the use of certain old English words that were common in the +Southwest. He had before noticed the apparent incongruity of the +handwriting and the text, and it was possible that for the purposes +of disguise the poet might have employed an amanuensis. But how +could he reconcile the incongruity of the mercenary and slangy +purport of the missive itself with the mental habit of its author? +Was it possible that these inconsistent qualities existed in the +one individual? He smiled grimly as he thought of his visitor +Bowers and his friend Jack. He was startled as he remembered the +purely imaginative picture he had himself given to the seriously +interested Bowers of the possible incongruous personality of the +poetess. + +Was he quite fair in keeping this from Jack? Was it really +honorable, in view of their wager? It is to be feared that a very +human enjoyment of Jack's possible discomfiture quite as much as +any chivalrous friendship impelled the editor to ring eventually +for the office-boy. + +"See if Mr. Hamlin is in his rooms." + +The editor then sat down, and wrote rapidly as follows:-- + + +DEAR MADAM,--You are as right as you are generous in supposing that +only ignorance of your address prevented the manager from +previously remitting the honorarium for your beautiful verses. He +now begs to send it to you in the manner you have indicated. As +the verses have attracted deserved attention, I have been applied +to for your address. Should you care to submit it to me to be used +at my discretion, I shall feel honored by your confidence. But +this is a matter left entirely to your own kindness and better +judgment. Meantime, I take pleasure in accepting "White Violet's" +present contribution, and remain, dear madam, your obedient servant, + + THE EDITOR. + + +The boy returned as he was folding the letter. Mr. Hamlin was not +only NOT in his rooms, but, according to his negro servant Pete, +had left town an hour ago for a few days in the country. + +"Did he say where?" asked the editor, quickly. + +"No, sir: he didn't know." + +"Very well. Take this to the manager." He addressed the letter, +and, scrawling a few hieroglyphics on a memorandum-tag, tore it +off, and handed it with the letter to the boy. + +An hour later he stood in the manager's office. "The next number +is pretty well made up," he said, carelessly, "and I think of +taking a day or two off." + +"Certainly," said the manager. "It will do you good. Where do you +think you'll go?" + +"I haven't quite made up my mind." + + +CHAPTER II + + +"Hullo!" said Jack Hamlin. + +He had halted his mare at the edge of an abrupt chasm. It did not +appear to be fifty feet across, yet its depth must have been nearly +two hundred to where the hidden mountain-stream, of which it was +the banks, alternately slipped, tumbled, and fell with murmuring +and monotonous regularity. One or two pine-trees growing on the +opposite edge, loosened at the roots, had tilted their straight +shafts like spears over the abyss, and the top of one, resting on +the upper branches of a sycamore a few yards from him, served as an +aerial bridge for the passage of a boy of fourteen to whom Mr. +Hamlin's challenge was addressed. + +The boy stopped midway in his perilous transit, and, looking down +upon the horseman, responded, coolly, "Hullo, yourself!" + +"Is that the only way across this infernal hole, or the one you +prefer for exercise?" continued Hamlin, gravely. + +The boy sat down on a bough, allowing his bare feet to dangle over +the dizzy depths, and critically examined his questioner. Jack had +on this occasion modified his usual correct conventional attire by +a tasteful combination of a vaquero's costume, and, in loose white +bullion-fringed trousers, red sash, jacket, and sombrero, looked +infinitely more dashing and picturesque than his original. +Nevertheless, the boy did not reply. Mr. Hamlin's pride in his +usual ascendency over women, children, horses, and all unreasoning +animals was deeply nettled. He smiled, however, and said, quietly,-- + +"Come here, George Washington. I want to talk to you." + +Without rejecting this august yet impossible title, the boy +presently lifted his feet, and carelessly resumed his passage +across the chasm until, reaching the sycamore, he began to let +himself down squirrel-wise, leap by leap, with an occasional +trapeze swinging from bough to bough, dropping at last easily to +the ground. Here he appeared to be rather good-looking, albeit the +sun and air had worked a miracle of brown tan and freckles on his +exposed surfaces, until the mottling of his oval cheeks looked like +a polished bird's egg. Indeed, it struck Mr. Hamlin that he was as +intensely a part of that sylvan seclusion as the hidden brook that +murmured, the brown velvet shadows that lay like trappings on the +white flanks of his horse, the quivering heat, and the stinging +spice of bay. Mr. Hamlin had vague ideas of dryads and fauns, but +at that moment would have bet something on the chances of their +survival. + +"I did not hear what you said just now, general," he remarked, with +great elegance of manner, "but I know from your reputation that it +could not be a lie. I therefore gather that there IS another way +across." + +The boy smiled; rather, his very short upper lip apparently +vanished completely over his white teeth, and his very black eyes, +which showed a great deal of the white around them, danced in their +orbits. + +"But YOU couldn't find it," he said, slyly. + +"No more could you find the half-dollar I dropped just now, unless +I helped you." + +Mr. Hamlin, by way of illustration, leaned deeply over his left +stirrup, and pointed to the ground. At the same moment a bright +half-dollar absolutely appeared to glitter in the herbage at the +point of his finger. It was a trick that had always brought great +pleasure and profit to his young friends, and some loss and +discomfiture of wager to his older ones. + +The boy picked up the coin: "There's a dip and a level crossing +about a mile over yer,"--he pointed,--"but it's through the woods, +and they're that high with thick bresh." + +"With what?" + +"Bresh," repeated the boy; "THAT,"--pointing to a few fronds of +bracken growing in the shadow of the sycamore. + +"Oh! underbrush?" + +"Yes; I said 'bresh,'" returned the boy, doggedly. "YOU might get +through, ef you war spry, but not your hoss. Where do you want to +go, anyway?" + +"Do you know, George," said Mr. Hamlin, lazily throwing his right +leg over the horn of his saddle for greater ease and deliberation +in replying, "it's very odd, but that's just what I'D like to know. +Now, what would YOU, in your broad statesmanlike views of things +generally, advise?" + +Quite convinced of the stranger's mental unsoundness, the boy +glanced again at his half-dollar, as if to make sure of its +integrity, pocketed it doubtfully, and turned away. + +"Where are you going?" said Hamlin, resuming his seat with the +agility of a circus-rider, and spurring forward. + +"To Green Springs, where I live, two miles over the ridge on the +far slope,"--indicating the direction. + +"Ah!" said Jack, with thoughtful gravity. "Well, kindly give my +love to your sister, will you?" + +"George Washington didn't have no sister," said the boy, cunningly. + +"Can I have been mistaken?" said Hamlin, lifting his hand to his +forehead with grieved accents. "Then it seems YOU have. Kindly +give her my love." + +"Which one?" asked the boy, with a swift glance of mischief. "I've +got four." + +"The one that's like you," returned Hamlin, with prompt exactitude. +"Now, where's the 'bresh' you spoke of?" + +"Keep along the edge until you come to the log-slide. Foller that, +and it'll lead you into the woods. But ye won't go far, I tell ye. +When you have to turn back, instead o' comin' back here, you kin +take the trail that goes round the woods, and that'll bring ye out +into the stage road ag'in near the post-office at the Green Springs +crossin' and the new hotel. That'll be war ye'll turn up, I +reckon," he added, reflectively. "Fellers that come yer gunnin' +and fishin' gin'rally do," he concluded, with a half-inquisitive +air. + +"Ah?" said Mr. Hamlin, quietly shedding the inquiry. "Green +Springs Hotel is where the stage stops, eh?" + +"Yes, and at the post-office," said the boy. "She'll be along here +soon," he added. + +"If you mean the Santa Cruz stage," said Hamlin, "she's here +already. I passed her on the ridge half an hour ago." + +The boy gave a sudden start, and a quick uneasy expression passed +over his face. "Go 'long with ye!" he said, with a forced smile: +"it ain't her time yet." + +"But I SAW her," repeated Hamlin, much amused. "Are you expecting +company? Hullo! Where are you off to? Come back." + +But his companion had already vanished in the thicket with the +undeliberate and impulsive act of an animal. There was a momentary +rustle in the alders fifty feet away, and then all was silent. The +hidden brook took up its monotonous murmur, the tapping of a +distant woodpecker became suddenly audible, and Mr. Hamlin was +again alone. + +"Wonder whether he's got parents in the stage, and has been playing +truant here," he mused, lazily. "Looked as if he'd been up to some +devilment, or more like as if he was primed for it. If he'd been a +little older, I'd have bet he was in league with some road-agents +to watch the coach. Just my luck to have him light out as I was +beginning to get some talk out of him." He paused, looked at his +watch, and straightened himself in his stirrups. "Four o'clock. I +reckon I might as well try the woods and what that imp calls the +'bresh;' I may strike a shanty or a native by the way." + +With this determination, Mr. Hamlin urged his horse along the faint +trail by the brink of the watercourse which the boy had just +indicated. He had no definite end in view beyond the one that had +brought him the day before to that locality--his quest of the +unknown poetess. His clue would have seemed to ordinary humanity +the faintest. He had merely noted the provincial name of a certain +plant mentioned in the poem, and learned that its habitat was +limited to the southern local range; while its peculiar nomenclature +was clearly of French Creole or Gulf State origin. This gave him a +large though sparsely-populated area for locality, while it +suggested a settlement of Louisianians or Mississippians near the +Summit, of whom, through their native gambling proclivities, he was +professionally cognizant. But he mainly trusted Fortune. Secure in +his faith in the feminine character of that goddess, he relied a +great deal on her well-known weakness for scamps of his quality. + +It was not long before he came to the "slide"--a lightly-cut or +shallow ditch. It descended slightly in a course that was far from +straight, at times diverging to avoid the obstacles of trees or +boulders, at times shaving them so closely as to leave smooth +abrasions along their sides made by the grinding passage of long +logs down the incline. The track itself was slippery from this, +and preoccupied all Hamlin's skill as a horseman, even to the point +of stopping his usual careless whistle. At the end of half an hour +the track became level again, and he was confronted with a singular +phenomenon. + +He had entered the wood, and the trail seemed to cleave through a +far-stretching, motionless sea of ferns that flowed on either side +to the height of his horse's flanks. The straight shafts of the +trees rose like columns from their hidden bases and were lost again +in a roof of impenetrable leafage, leaving a clear space of fifty +feet between, through which the surrounding horizon of sky was +perfectly visible. All the light that entered this vast sylvan +hall came from the sides; nothing permeated from above; nothing +radiated from below; the height of the crest on which the wood was +placed gave it this lateral illumination, but gave it also the +profound isolation of some temple raised by long-forgotten hands. +In spite of the height of these clear shafts, they seemed dwarfed +by the expanse of the wood, and in the farthest perspective the +base of ferns and the capital of foliage appeared almost to meet. +As the boy had warned him, the slide had turned aside, skirting the +wood to follow the incline, and presently the little trail he now +followed vanished utterly, leaving him and his horse adrift breast- +high in this green and yellow sea of fronds. But Mr. Hamlin, +imperious of obstacles, and touched by some curiosity, continued to +advance lazily, taking the bearings of a larger red-wood in the +centre of the grove for his objective point. The elastic mass gave +way before him, brushing his knees or combing his horse's flanks +with wide-spread elfin fingers, and closing up behind him as he +passed, as if to obliterate any track by which he might return. +Yet his usual luck did not desert him here. Being on horseback, he +found that he could detect what had been invisible to the boy and +probably to all pedestrians, namely, that the growth was not +equally dense, that there were certain thinner and more open spaces +that he could take advantage of by more circuitous progression, +always, however, keeping the bearings of the central tree. This he +at last reached, and halted his panting horse. Here a new idea +which had been haunting him since he entered the wood took fuller +possession of him. He had seen or known all this before! There +was a strange familiarity either in these objects or in the +impression or spell they left upon him. He remembered the verses! +Yes, this was the "underbrush" which the poetess had described: the +gloom above and below, the light that seemed blown through it like +the wind, the suggestion of hidden life beneath this tangled +luxuriance, which she alone had penetrated,--all this was here. +But, more than that, here was the atmosphere that she had breathed +into the plaintive melody of her verse. It did not necessarily +follow that Mr. Hamlin's translation of her sentiment was the +correct one, or that the ideas her verses had provoked in his mind +were at all what had been hers: in his easy susceptibility he was +simply thrown into a corresponding mood of emotion and relieved +himself with song. One of the verses he had already associated in +his mind with the rhythm of an old plantation melody, and it struck +his fancy to take advantage of the solitude to try its effect. +Humming to himself, at first softly, he at last grew bolder, and +let his voice drift away through the stark pillars of the sylvan +colonnade till it seemed to suffuse and fill it with no more effort +than the light which strayed in on either side. Sitting thus, his +hat thrown a little back from his clustering curls, the white neck +and shoulders of his horse uplifting him above the crested mass of +fern, his red sash the one fleck of color in their olive depths, I +am afraid he looked much more like the real minstrel of the grove +than the unknown poetess who transfigured it. But this, as has +been already indicated, was Jack Hamlin's peculiar gift. Even as +he had previously outshone the vaquero in his borrowed dress, he +now silenced and supplanted a few fluttering blue-jays--rightful +tenants of the wood--with a more graceful and airy presence and a +far sweeter voice. + +The open horizon towards the west had taken a warmer color from the +already slanting sun when Mr. Hamlin, having rested his horse, +turned to that direction. He had noticed that the wood was thinner +there, and, pushing forward, he was presently rewarded by the sound +of far-off wheels, and knew he must be near the high-road that the +boy had spoken of. Having given up his previous intention of +crossing the stream, there seemed nothing better for him to do than +to follow the truant's advice and take the road back to Green +Springs. Yet he was loath to leave the wood, halting on its verge, +and turning to look back into its charmed recesses. Once or twice-- +perhaps because he recalled the words of the poem--that yellowish +sea of ferns had seemed instinct with hidden life, and he had even +fancied, here and there, a swaying of its plumed crests. Howbeit, +he still lingered long enough for the open sunlight into which he +had obtruded to point out the bravery of his handsome figure. Then +he wheeled his horse, the light glanced from polished double bit +and bridle-fripperies, caught his red sash and bullion buttons, +struck a parting flash from his silver spurs, and he was gone! + +For a moment the light streamed unbrokenly through the wood. And +then it could be seen that the yellow mass of undergrowth HAD moved +with the passage of another figure than his own. For ever since he +had entered the shade, a woman, shawled in a vague, shapeless +fashion, had watched him wonderingly, eagerly, excitedly, gliding +from tree to tree as he advanced, or else dropping breathlessly +below the fronds of fern whence she gazed at him as between parted +fingers. When he wheeled she had run openly to the west, albeit +with hidden face and still clinging shawl, and taken a last look at +his retreating figure. And then, with a faint but lingering sigh, +she drew back into the shadow of the wood again and vanished also. + + +CHAPTER III + + +At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Hamlin reined in his mare. He had +just observed in the distant shadows of a by-lane that intersected +his road the vanishing flutter of two light print dresses. Without +a moment's hesitation he lightly swerved out of the high-road and +followed the retreating figures. + +As he neared them, they seemed to be two slim young girls, +evidently so preoccupied with the rustic amusement of edging each +other off the grassy border into the dust of the track that they +did not perceive his approach. Little shrieks, slight scufflings, +and interjections of "Cynthy! you limb!" "Quit that, Eunice, now!" +and "I just call that real mean!" apparently drowned the sound of +his canter in the soft dust. Checking his speed to a gentle trot, +and pressing his horse close beside the opposite fence, he passed +them with gravely uplifted hat and a serious, preoccupied air. But +in that single, seemingly conventional glance, Mr. Hamlin had seen +that they were both pretty, and that one had the short upper lip of +his errant little guide. A hundred yards farther on he halted, as +if irresolutely, gazed doubtfully ahead of him, and then turned +back. An expression of innocent--almost childlike--concern was +clouding the rascal's face. It was well, as the two girls had +drawn closely together, having been apparently surprised in the +midst of a glowing eulogium of this glorious passing vision by its +sudden return. At his nearer approach, the one with the short +upper lip hid that piquant feature and the rest of her rosy face +behind the other's shoulder, which was suddenly and significantly +opposed to the advance of this handsome intruder, with a certain +dignity, half real, half affected, but wholly charming. The +protectress appeared--possibly from her defensive attitude--the +superior of her companion. + +Audacious as Jack was to his own sex, he had early learned that +such rare but discomposing graces as he possessed required a +certain apologetic attitude when presented to women, and that it +was only a plain man who could be always complacently self- +confident in their presence. There was, consequently, a hesitating +lowering of this hypocrite's brown eyelashes as he said, in almost +pained accents,-- + +"Excuse me, but I fear I've taken the wrong road. I'm going to +Green Springs." + +"I reckon you've taken the wrong road, wherever you're going," +returned the young lady, having apparently made up her mind to +resent each of Jack's perfections as a separate impertinence: "this +is a PRIVATE road." She drew herself fairly up here, although +gurgled at in the ear and pinched in the arm by her companion. + +"I beg your pardon," said Jack, meekly. "I see I'm trespassing on +your grounds. I'm very sorry. Thank you for telling me. I should +have gone on a mile or two farther, I suppose, until I came to your +house," he added, innocently. + +"A mile or two! You'd have run chock ag'in' our gate in another +minit," said the short-lipped one, eagerly. But a sharp nudge from +her companion sent her back again into cover, where she waited +expectantly for another crushing retort from her protector. + +But, alas! it did not come. One cannot be always witty, and Jack +looked distressed. Nevertheless, he took advantage of the pause. + +"It was so stupid in me, as I think your brother"--looking at +Short-lip--"very carefully told me the road." + +The two girls darted quick glances at each other. "Oh, Bawb!" said +the first speaker, in wearied accents,--"THAT limb! He don't +keer." + +"But he DID care," said Hamlin, quietly, "and gave me a good deal +of information. Thanks to him, I was able to see that ferny wood +that's so famous--about two miles up the road. You know--the one +that there's a poem written about!" + +The shot told! Short-lip burst into a display of dazzling little +teeth and caught the other girl convulsively by the shoulders. The +superior girl bent her pretty brows, and said, "Eunice, what's gone +of ye? Quit that!" but, as Hamlin thought, paled slightly. + +"Of course," said Hamlin, quickly, "you know--the poem everybody's +talking about. Dear me! let me see! how does it go?" The rascal +knit his brows, said, "Ah, yes," and then murmured the verse he had +lately sung quite as musically. + +Short-lip was shamelessly exalted and excited. Really she could +scarcely believe it! She already heard herself relating the whole +occurrence. Here was the most beautiful young man she had ever +seen--an entire stranger--talking to them in the most beautiful and +natural way, right in the lane, and reciting poetry to her sister! +It was like a novel--only more so. She thought that Cynthia, on +the other hand, looked distressed, and--she must say it--"silly." + +All of which Jack noted, and was wise. He had got all he wanted-- +at present. He gathered up his reins. + +"Thank you so much, and your brother, too, Miss Cynthia," he said, +without looking up. Then, adding, with a parting glance and smile, +"But don't tell Bob how stupid I was," he swiftly departed. + +In half an hour he was at the Green Springs Hotel. As he rode into +the stable yard, he noticed that the coach had only just arrived, +having been detained by a land-slip on the Summit road. With the +recollection of Bob fresh in his mind, he glanced at the loungers +at the stage office. The boy was not there, but a moment later +Jack detected him among the waiting crowd at the post-office +opposite. With a view of following up his inquiries, he crossed +the road as the boy entered the vestibule of the post-office. He +arrived in time to see him unlock one of a row of numbered letter- +boxes rented by subscribers, which occupied a partition by the +window, and take out a small package and a letter. But in that +brief glance Mr. Hamlin detected the printed address of the +"Excelsior Magazine" on the wrapper. It was enough. Luck was +certainly with him. + +He had time to get rid of the wicked sparkle that had lit his dark +eyes, and to lounge carelessly towards the boy as the latter broke +open the package, and then hurriedly concealed it in his jacket- +pocket, and started for the door. Mr. Hamlin quickly followed him, +unperceived, and, as he stepped into the street, gently tapped him +on the shoulder. The boy turned and faced him quickly. But Mr. +Hamlin's eyes showed nothing but lazy good-humor. + +"Hullo, Bob. Where are you going?" + +The boy again looked up suspiciously at this revelation of his +name. + +"Home," he said, briefly. + +"Oh, over yonder," said Hamlin, calmly. "I don't mind walking with +you as far as the lane." + +He saw the boy's eyes glance furtively towards an alley that ran +beside the blacksmith's shop a few rods ahead, and was convinced +that he intended to evade him there. Slipping his arm carelessly +in the youth's, he concluded to open fire at once. + +"Bob," he said, with irresistible gravity, "I did not know when I +met you this morning that I had the honor of addressing a poet-- +none other than the famous author of 'Underbrush.'" + +The boy started back, and endeavored to withdraw his arm, but Mr. +Hamlin tightened his hold, without, however, changing his careless +expression. + +"You see," he continued, "the editor is a friend of mine, and, +being afraid this package might not get into the right hands--as +you didn't give your name--he deputized me to come here and see +that it was all square. As you're rather young, for all you're so +gifted, I reckon I'd better go home with you, and take a receipt +from your parents. That's about square, I think?" + +The consternation of the boy was so evident and so far beyond Mr. +Hamlin's expectation that he instantly halted him, gazed into his +shifting eyes, and gave a long whistle. + +"Who said it was for ME? Wot you talkin' about? Lemme go!" gasped +the boy, with the short intermittent breath of mingled fear and +passion. + +"Bob," said Mr. Hamlin, in a singularly colorless voice which was +very rare with him, and an expression quite unlike his own, "what +is your little game?" + +The boy looked down in dogged silence. + +"Out with it! Who are you playing this on?" + +"It's all among my own folks; it's nothin' to YOU," said the boy, +suddenly beginning to struggle violently, as if inspired by this +extenuating fact. + +"Among your own folks, eh? White Violet and the rest, eh? But +SHE'S not in it?" + +No reply. + +"Hand me over that package. I'll give it back to you again." + +The boy handed it to Mr. Hamlin. He read the letter, and found the +inclosure contained a twenty-dollar gold-piece. A half- +supercilious smile passed over his face at this revelation of the +inadequate emoluments of literature and the trifling inducements to +crime. Indeed, I fear the affair began to take a less serious +moral complexion in his eyes. + +"Then White Violet--your sister Cynthia, you know," continued Mr. +Hamlin, in easy parenthesis--"wrote for this?" holding the coin +contemplatively in his fingers, "and you calculated to nab it +yourself?" + +The quick searching glance with which Bob received the name of his +sister, Mr. Hamlin attributed only to his natural surprise that +this stranger should be on such familiar terms with her; but the +boy responded immediately and bluntly:-- + +"No! SHE didn't write for it. She didn't want nobody to know who +she was. Nobody wrote for it but me. Nobody KNEW FOLKS WAS PAID +FOR PO'TRY BUT ME. I found it out from a feller. I wrote for it. +I wasn't goin' to let that skunk of an editor have it himself!" + +"And you thought YOU would take it," said Hamlin, his voice +resuming its old tone. "Well, George--I mean Bob, your conduct was +praiseworthy, although your intentions were bad. Still, twenty +dollars is rather too much for your trouble. Suppose we say five +and call it square?" He handed the astonished boy five dollars. +"Now, George Washington," he continued, taking four other twenty- +dollar pieces from his pocket, and adding them to the inclosure, +which he carefully refolded, "I'm going to give you another chance +to live up to your reputation. You'll take that package, and hand +it to White Violet, and say you found it, just as it is, in the +lock-box. I'll keep the letter, for it would knock you endways if +it was seen, and I'll make it all right with the editor. But, as +I've got to tell him that I've seen White Violet myself, and know +she's got it, I expect YOU to manage in some way to have me see +her. I'll manage the rest of it; and I won't blow on you, either. +You'll come back to the hotel, and tell me what you've done. And +now, George " concluded Mr. Hamlin, succeeding at last in fixing +the boy's evasive eye with a peculiar look, "it may be just as well +for you to understand that I know every nook and corner of this +place, that I've already been through that underbrush you spoke of +once this morning, and that I've got a mare that can go wherever +YOU can, and a d----d sight quicker!" + +"I'll give the package to White Violet," said the boy, doggedly. + +"And you'll come back to the hotel?" + +The boy hesitated, and then said, "I'll come back." + +"All right, then. Adios, general." + +Bob disappeared around the corner of a cross-road at a rapid trot, +and Mr. Hamlin turned into the hotel. + +"Smart little chap that!" he said to the barkeeper. + +"You bet!" returned the man, who, having recognized Mr. Hamlin, was +delighted at the prospect of conversing with a gentleman of such +decidedly dangerous reputation. "But he's been allowed to run a +little wild since old man Delatour died, and the widder's got +enough to do, I reckon, lookin' arter her four gals, and takin' +keer of old Delatour's ranch over yonder. I guess it's pretty hard +sleddin' for her sometimes to get clo'es and grub for the famerly, +without follerin' Bob around." + +"Sharp girls, too, I reckon; one of them writes things for the +magazines, doesn't she?--Cynthia, eh?" said Mr. Hamlin, carelessly. + +Evidently this fact was not a notorious one to the barkeeper. He, +however, said, "Dunno; mabbee; her father was eddicated, and the +widder Delatour, too, though she's sorter queer, I've heard tell. +Lord! Mr. Hamlin, YOU oughter remember old man Delatour! From +Opelousas, Louisiany, you know! High old sport French style, +frilled bosom--open-handed, and us'ter buck ag'in' faro awful! +Why, he dropped a heap o' money to YOU over in San Jose two years +ago at poker! You must remember him!" + +The slightest possible flush passed over Mr. Hamlin's brow under +the shadow of his hat, but did not get lower than his eyes. He +suddenly HAD recalled the spendthrift Delatour perfectly, and as +quickly regretted now that he had not doubled the honorarium he had +just sent to his portionless daughter. But he only said, coolly, +"No," and then, raising his pale face and audacious eyes, continued +in his laziest and most insulting manner, "no: the fact is, my mind +is just now preoccupied in wondering if the gas is leaking +anywhere, and if anything is ever served over this bar except +elegant conversation. When the gentleman who mixes drinks comes +back, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell him to send a whisky +sour to Mr. Jack Hamlin in the parlor. Meantime, you can turn off +your soda fountain: I don't want any fizz in mine." + +Having thus quite recovered himself, Mr. Hamlin lounged gracefully +across the hall into the parlor. As he did so, a darkish young +man, with a slim boyish figure, a thin face, and a discontented +expression, rose from an armchair, held out his hand, and, with a +saturnine smile, said:-- + +"Jack!" + +"Fred!" + +The two men remained gazing at each other with a half-amused, half- +guarded expression. Mr. Hamlin was first to begin. "I didn't +think YOU'D be such a fool as to try on this kind of thing, Fred," +he said, half seriously. + +"Yes, but it was to keep you from being a much bigger one that I +hunted you up," said the editor, mischievously. "Read that. I got +it an hour after you left." And he placed a little triumphantly in +Jack's hand the letter he had received from White Violet. + +Mr. Hamlin read it with an unmoved face, and then laid his two +hands on the editor's shoulders. "Yes, my young friend, and you +sat down and wrote her a pretty letter and sent her twenty dollars-- +which, permit me to say, was d----d poor pay! But that isn't your +fault, I reckon: it's the meanness of your proprietors." + +"But it isn't the question, either, just now, Jack, however you +have been able to answer it. Do you mean to say seriously that you +want to know anything more of a woman who could write such a +letter?" + +"I don't know," said Jack, cheerfully. "She might be a devilish +sight funnier than if she hadn't written it--which is the fact." + +"You mean to say SHE didn't write it?" + +"Yes." + +"Who did, then?" + +"Her brother Bob." + +After a moment's scrutiny of his friend's bewildered face, Mr. +Hamlin briefly related his adventures, from the moment of his +meeting Bob at the mountain-stream to the barkeeper's gossiping +comment and sequel. "Therefore," he concluded, "the author of +'Underbrush' is Miss Cynthia Delatour, one of four daughters of a +widow who lives two miles from here at the crossing. I shall see +her this evening and make sure; but to-morrow morning you will pay +me the breakfast you owe me. She's good-looking, but I can't say I +fancy the poetic style: it's a little too high-toned for me. +However, I love my love with a C, because she is your Contributor; +I hate her with a C, because of her Connections; I met her by +Chance and treated her with Civility; her name is Cynthia, and she +lives on a Cross-road." + +"But you surely don't expect you will ever see Bob, again!" said +the editor, impatiently. "You have trusted him with enough to +start him for the Sandwich Islands, to say nothing of the ruinous +precedent you have established in his mind of the value of poetry. +I am surprised that a man of your knowledge of the world would have +faith in that imp the second time." + +"My knowledge of the world," returned Mr. Hamlin, sententiously, +"tells me that's the only way you can trust anybody. ONCE doesn't +make a habit, nor show a character. I could see by his bungling +that he had never tried this on before. Just now the temptation to +wipe out his punishment by doing the square thing, and coming back +a sort of hero, is stronger than any other. 'Tisn't everybody that +gets that chance," he added, with an odd laugh. + +Nevertheless, three hours passed without bringing Bob. The two men +had gone to the billiard-room, when a waiter brought a note, which +he handed to Mr. Hamlin with some apologetic hesitation. It bore +no superscription, but had been brought by a boy who described Mr. +Hamlin perfectly, and requested that the note should be handed to +him with the remark that "Bob had come back." + +"And is he there now?" asked Mr. Hamlin, holding the letter +unopened in his hand. + +"No, sir; he run right off." + +The editor laughed, but Mr. Hamlin, having perused the note, put +away his cue. "Come into my room," he said. + +The editor followed, and Mr. Hamlin laid the note before him on the +table. "Bob's all right," he said, "for I'll bet a thousand +dollars that note is genuine." + +It was delicately written, in a cultivated feminine hand, utterly +unlike the scrawl that had first excited the editor's curiosity, +and ran as follows:-- + + +He who brought me the bounty of your friend--for I cannot call a +recompense so far above my deserts by any other name--gives me also +to understand that you wished for an interview. I cannot believe +that this is mere idle curiosity, or that you have any motive that +is not kindly and honorable, but I feel that I must beg and pray +you not to seek to remove the veil behind which I have chosen to +hide myself and my poor efforts from identification. I THINK I +know you--I KNOW I know myself--well enough to believe it would +give neither of us any happiness. You will say to your generous +friend that he has already given the Unknown more comfort and hope +than could come from any personal compliment or publicity, and you +will yourself believe that you have all unconsciously brightened a +sad woman's fancy with a Dream and a Vision that before today had +been unknown to + + WHITE VIOLET. + + +"Have you read it?" asked Mr. Hamlin. + +"Yes." + +"Then you don't want to see it any more, or even remember you ever +saw it," said Mr. Hamlin, carefully tearing the note into small +pieces and letting them drift from the windows like blown blossoms. + +"But, I say, Jack! look here; I don't understand! You say you have +already seen this woman, and yet"-- + +"I HAVEN'T seen her," said Jack, composedly, turning from the +window. + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean that you and I, Fred, are going to drop this fooling right +here and leave this place for Frisco by first stage to-morrow, and-- +that I owe you that dinner." + + +CHAPTER IV + + +When the stage for San Francisco rolled away the next morning with +Mr. Hamlin and the editor, the latter might have recognized in the +occupant of a dust-covered buggy that was coming leisurely towards +them the tall figure, long beard, and straight duster of his late +visitor, Mr. James Bowers. For Mr. Bowers was on the same quest +that the others had just abandoned. Like Mr. Hamlin, he had been +left to his own resources, but Mr. Bowers's resources were a life- +long experience and technical skill; he too had noted the +topographical indications of the poem, and his knowledge of the +sylva of Upper California pointed as unerringly as Mr. Hamlin's +luck to the cryptogamous haunts of the Summit. Such abnormal +growths were indicative of certain localities only, but, as they +were not remunerative from a pecuniary point of view, were to be +avoided by the sagacious woodman. It was clear, therefore, that +Mr. Bowers's visit to Green Springs was not professional, and that +he did not even figuratively accept the omen. + +He baited and rested his horse at the hotel, where his bucolic +exterior, however, did not elicit that attention which had been +accorded to Mr. Hamlin's charming insolence or the editor's +cultivated manner. But he glanced over a township map on the walls +of the reading-room, and took note of the names of the owners of +different lots, farms, and ranches, passing that of Delatour with +the others. Then he drove leisurely in the direction of the woods, +and, reaching them, tied his horse to a young sapling in the shade, +and entered their domain with a shambling but familiar woodman's +step. + +It is not the purpose of this brief chronicle to follow Mr. Bowers +in his professional diagnosis of the locality. He recognized +Nature in one of her moods of wasteful extravagance,--a waste that +his experienced eye could tell was also sapping the vitality of +those outwardly robust shafts that rose around him. He knew, +without testing them, that half of these fair-seeming columns were +hollow and rotten at the core; he could detect the chill odor of +decay through the hot balsamic spices stirred by the wind that +streamed through their long aisles,--like incense mingling with the +exhalations of a crypt. He stopped now and then to part the heavy +fronds down to their roots in the dank moss, seeing again, as he +had told the editor, the weird SECOND twilight through their +miniature stems, and the microcosm of life that filled it. But, +even while paying this tribute to the accuracy of the unknown +poetess, he was, like his predecessor, haunted more strongly by the +atmosphere and melody of her verse. Its spell was upon him, too. +Unlike Mr. Hamlin, he did not sing. He only halted once or twice, +silently combing his straight narrow beard with his three fingers, +until the action seemed to draw down the lines of his face into +limitless dejection, and an inscrutable melancholy filled his small +gray eyes. The few birds which had hailed Mr. Hamlin as their +successful rival fled away before the grotesque and angular half- +length of Mr. Bowers, as if the wind had blown in a scarecrow from +the distant farms. + +Suddenly he observed the figure of a woman, with her back towards +him, leaning motionless against a tree, and apparently gazing +intently in the direction of Green Springs. He had approached so +near to her that it was singular she had not heard him. Mr. Bowers +was a bashful man in the presence of the other sex. He felt +exceedingly embarrassed; if he could have gone away without +attracting her attention he would have done so. Neither could he +remain silent, a tacit spy of her meditation. He had recourse to a +polite but singularly artificial cough. + +To his surprise, she gave a faint cry, turned quickly towards him, +and then shrank back and lapsed quite helpless against the tree. +Her evident distress overcame his bashfulness. He ran towards her. + +"I'm sorry I frighted ye, ma'am, but I was afraid I might skeer ye +more if I lay low, and said nothin'." + +Even then, if she had been some fair young country girl, he would +have relapsed after this speech into his former bashfulness. But +the face and figure she turned towards him were neither young nor +fair: a woman past forty, with gray threads and splashes in her +brushed-back hair, which was turned over her ears in two curls like +frayed strands of rope. Her forehead was rather high than broad, +her nose large but well-shaped, and her eyes full but so singularly +light in color as to seem almost sightless. The short upper lip of +her large mouth displayed her teeth in an habitual smile, which was +in turn so flatly contradicted by every other line of her careworn +face that it seemed gratuitously artificial. Her figure was hidden +by a shapeless garment that partook equally of the shawl, cloak, +and wrapper. + +"I am very foolish," she began, in a voice and accent that at once +asserted a cultivated woman, "but I so seldom meet anybody here +that a voice quite startled me. That, and the heat," she went on, +wiping her face, into which the color was returning violently--"for +I seldom go out as early as this--I suppose affected me." + +Mr. Bowers had that innate Far-Western reverence for womanhood +which I fancy challenges the most polished politeness. He remained +patient, undemonstrative, self-effacing, and respectful before her, +his angular arm slightly but not obtrusively advanced, the offer of +protection being in the act rather than in any spoken word, and +requiring no response. + +"Like as not, ma'am," he said, cheerfully looking everywhere but in +her burning face. "The sun IS pow'ful hot at this time o' day; I +felt it myself comin' yer, and, though the damp of this timber +kinder sets it back, it's likely to come out ag'in. Ye can't check +it no more than the sap in that choked limb thar"--he pointed +ostentatiously where a fallen pine had been caught in the bent and +twisted arm of another, but which still put out a few green tassels +beyond the point of impact. "Do you live far from here, ma'am?" he +added. + +"Only as far as the first turning below the hill." + +"I've got my buggy here, and I'm goin' that way, and I can jist set +ye down thar cool and comfortable. Ef," he continued, in the same +assuring tone, without waiting for a reply, "ye'll jist take a good +grip of my arm thar," curving his wrist and hand behind him like a +shepherd's crook, "I'll go first, and break away the brush for ye." + +She obeyed mechanically, and they fared on through the thick ferns +in this fashion for some moments, he looking ahead, occasionally +dropping a word of caution or encouragement, but never glancing at +her face. When they reached the buggy he lifted her into it +carefully,--and perpendicularly, it struck her afterwards, very +much as if she had been a transplanted sapling with bared and +sensitive roots,--and then gravely took his place beside her. + +"Bein' in the timber trade myself, ma'am," he said, gathering up +the reins, "I chanced to sight these woods, and took a look around. +My name is Bowers, of Mendocino; I reckon there ain't much that +grows in the way o' standin' timber on the Pacific Slope that I +don't know and can't locate, though I DO say it. I've got ez big a +mill, and ez big a run in my district, ez there is anywhere. Ef +you're ever up my way, you ask for Bowers--Jim Bowers--and that's +ME." + +There is probably nothing more conducive to conversation between +strangers than a wholesome and early recognition of each other's +foibles. Mr. Bowers, believing his chance acquaintance a superior +woman, naively spoke of himself in a way that he hoped would +reassure her that she was not compromising herself in accepting his +civility, and so satisfy what must be her inevitable pride. On the +other hand, the woman regained her self-possession by this +exhibition of Mr. Bowers's vanity, and, revived by the refreshing +breeze caused by the rapid motion of the buggy along the road, +thanked him graciously. + +"I suppose there are many strangers at the Green Springs Hotel," +she said, after a pause. + +"I didn't get to see 'em, as I only put up my hoss there," he +replied. "But I know the stage took some away this mornin': it +seemed pretty well loaded up when I passed it." + +The woman drew a deep sigh. The act struck Mr. Bowers as a +possible return of her former nervous weakness. Her attention must +at once be distracted at any cost--even conversation. + +"Perhaps," he began, with sudden and appalling lightness, "I'm +a-talkin' to Mrs. McFadden?" + +"No," said the woman, abstractedly. + +"Then it must be Mrs. Delatour? There are only two township lots +on that crossroad." + +"My name IS Delatour," she said, somewhat wearily. + +Mr. Bowers was conversationally stranded. He was not at all +anxious to know her name, yet, knowing it now, it seemed to suggest +that there was nothing more to say. He would, of course, have +preferred to ask her if she had read the poetry about the +Underbrush, and if she knew the poetess, and what she thought of +it; but the fact that she appeared to be an "eddicated" woman made +him sensitive of displaying technical ignorance in his manner of +talking about it. She might ask him if it was "subjective or +"objective"--two words he had heard used at the Debating Society at +Mendocino on the question, "Is poetry morally beneficial?" For a +few moments he was silent. But presently she took the initiative +in conversation, at first slowly and abstractedly, and then, as if +appreciating his sympathetic reticence, or mayhap finding some +relief in monotonous expression, talked mechanically, deliberately, +but unostentatiously about herself. So colorless was her +intonation that at times it did not seem as if she was talking to +him, but repeating some conversation she had held with another. + +She had lived there ever since she had been in California. Her +husband had bought the Spanish title to the property when they +first married. The property at his death was found to be greatly +involved; she had been obliged to part with much of it to support +her children--four girls and a boy. She had been compelled to +withdraw the girls from the convent at Santa Clara to help about +the house; the boy was too young--she feared, too shiftless--to do +anything. The farm did not pay; the land was poor; she knew +nothing about farming; she had been brought up in New Orleans, +where her father had been a judge, and she didn't understand +country life. Of course she had been married too young--as all +girls were. Lately she had thought of selling off and moving to +San Francisco, where she would open a boarding-house or a school +for young ladies. He could advise her, perhaps, of some good +opportunity. Her own girls were far enough advanced to assist her +in teaching; one particularly, Cynthia, was quite clever, and spoke +French and Spanish fluently. + +As Mr. Bowers was familiar with many of these counts in the +feminine American indictment of life generally, he was not perhaps +greatly moved. But in the last sentence he thought he saw an +opening to return to his main object, and, looking up cautiously, +said:-- + +"And mebbe write po'try now and then?" To his great discomfiture, +the only effect of this suggestion was to check his companion's +speech for some moments and apparently throw her back into her +former abstraction. Yet, after a long pause, as they were turning +into the lane, she said, as if continuing the subject:-- + +"I only hope that, whatever my daughters may do, they won't marry +young." + +The yawning breaches in the Delatour gates and fences presently +came in view. They were supposed to be reinforced by half a dozen +dogs, who, however, did their duty with what would seem to be the +prevailing inefficiency, retiring after a single perfunctory yelp +to shameless stretching, scratching, and slumber. Their places +were taken on the veranda by two negro servants, two girls +respectively of eight and eleven, and a boy of fourteen, who +remained silently staring. As Mr. Bowers had accepted the widow's +polite invitation to enter, she was compelled, albeit in an equally +dazed and helpless way, to issue some preliminary orders:-- + +"Now, Chloe--I mean aunt Dinah--do take Eunice--I mean Victorine +and Una--away, and--you know--tidy them; and you, Sarah--it's +Sarah, isn't it?--lay some refreshment in the parlor for this +gentleman. And, Bob, tell your sister Cynthia to come here with +Eunice." As Bob still remained staring at Mr. Bowers, she added, +in weary explanation, "Mr. Bowers brought me over from the Summit +woods in his buggy--it was so hot. There--shake hands and thank +him, and run away--do!" + +They crossed a broad but scantily-furnished hall. Everywhere the +same look of hopeless incompleteness, temporary utility, and +premature decay; most of the furniture was mismatched and +misplaced; many of the rooms had changed their original functions +or doubled them; a smell of cooking came from the library, on whose +shelves, mingled with books, were dresses and household linen, and +through the door of a room into which Mrs. Delatour retired to +remove her duster Mr. Bowers caught a glimpse of a bed, and of a +table covered with books and papers, at which a tall, fair girl was +writing. In a few moments Mrs. Delatour returned, accompanied by +this girl, and Eunice, her short-lipped sister. Bob, who joined +the party seated around Mr. Bowers and a table set with cake, a +decanter, and glasses, completed the group. Emboldened by the +presence of the tall Cynthia and his glimpse of her previous +literary attitude, Mr. Bowers resolved to make one more attempt. + +"I suppose these yer young ladies sometimes go to the wood, too?" +As his eye rested on Cynthia, she replied:-- + +"Oh, yes." + +"I reckon on account of the purty shadows down in the brush, and +the soft light, eh? and all that?" he continued, with a playful +manner but a serious accession of color. + +"Why, the woods belong to us. It's mar's property!" broke in +Eunice with a flash of teeth. + +"Well, Lordy, I wanter know!" said Mr. Bowers, in some astonishment. +"Why, that's right in my line, too! I've been sightin' timber all +along here, and that's how I dropped in on yer mar." Then, seeing a +look of eagerness light up the faces of Bob and Eunice, he was +encouraged to make the most of his opportunity. "Why, ma'am," he +went on, cheerfully, "I reckon you're holdin' that wood at a pretty +stiff figger, now." + +"Why?" asked Mrs. Delatour, simply. + +Mr. Bowers delivered a wink at Bob and Eunice, who were still +watching him with anxiety. "Well, not on account of the actool +timber, for the best of it ain't sound," he said, "but on account +of its bein' famous! Everybody that reads that pow'ful pretty poem +about it in the 'Excelsior Magazine' wants to see it. Why, it +would pay the Green Springs hotel-keeper to buy it up for his +customers. But I s'pose you reckon to keep it--along with the +poetess--in your famerly?" + +Although Mr. Bowers long considered this speech as the happiest and +most brilliant effort of his life, its immediate effect was not, +perhaps, all that could be desired. The widow turned upon him a +restrained and darkening face. Cynthia half rose with an appealing +"Oh, mar!" and Bob and Eunice, having apparently pinched each other +to the last stage of endurance, retired precipitately from the room +in a prolonged giggle. + +"I have not yet thought of disposing of the Summit woods, Mr. +Bowers," said Mrs. Delatour, coldly, "but if I should do so, I will +consult you. You must excuse the children, who see so little +company, they are quite unmanageable when strangers are present. +Cynthia, WILL you see if the servants have looked after Mr. +Bowers's horse? You know Bob is not to be trusted." + +There was clearly nothing else for Mr. Bowers to do but to take his +leave, which he did respectfully, if not altogether hopefully. But +when he had reached the lane, his horse shied from the unwonted +spectacle of Bob, swinging his hat, and apparently awaiting him, +from the fork of a wayside sapling. + +"Hol' up, mister. Look here!" + +Mr. Bowers pulled up. Bob dropped into the road, and, after a +backward glance over his shoulder, said:-- + +"Drive 'longside the fence in the shadder." As Mr. Bowers obeyed, +Bob approached the wheels of the buggy in a manner half shy, half +mysterious. "You wanter buy them Summit woods, mister?" + +"Well, per'aps, sonny. Why?" smiled Mr. Bowers. + +"Coz I'll tell ye suthin'. Don't you be fooled into allowin' that +Cynthia wrote that po'try. She didn't--no more'n Eunice nor me. +Mar kinder let ye think it, 'cos she don't want folks to think SHE +did it. But mar wrote that po'try herself; wrote it out o' them +thar woods--all by herself. Thar's a heap more po'try thar, you +bet, and jist as good. And she's the one that kin write it--you +hear me? That's my mar, every time! You buy that thar wood, and +get mar to run it for po'try, and you'll make your pile, sure! I +ain't lyin'. You'd better look spry: thar's another feller +snoopin' 'round yere--only he barked up the wrong tree, and thought +it was Cynthia, jist as you did." + +"Another feller?" repeated the astonished Bowers. + +"Yes; a rig'lar sport. He was orful keen on that po'try, too, you +bet. So you'd better hump yourself afore somebody else cuts in. +Mar got a hundred dollars for that pome, from that editor feller +and his pardner. I reckon that's the rig'lar price, eh?" he added, +with a sudden suspicious caution. + +"I reckon so," replied Mr. Bowers, blankly. "But--look here, Bob! +Do you mean to say it was your mother--your MOTHER, Bob, who wrote +that poem? Are you sure?" + +"D'ye think I'm lyin'?" said Bob, scornfully. "Don't I know? +Don't I copy 'em out plain for her, so as folks won't know her +handwrite? Go 'way! you're loony!" Then, possibly doubting if +this latter expression were strictly diplomatic with the business +in hand, he added, in half-reproach, half-apology, "Don't ye see I +don't want ye to be fooled into losin' yer chance o' buying up that +Summit wood? It's the cold truth I'm tellin' ye." + +Mr. Bowers no longer doubted it. Disappointed as he undoubtedly +was at first,--and even self-deceived,--he recognized in a flash +the grim fact that the boy had stated. He recalled the apparition +of the sad-faced woman in the wood--her distressed manner, that to +his inexperienced mind now took upon itself the agitated trembling +of disturbed mystic inspiration. A sense of sadness and remorse +succeeded his first shock of disappointment. + +"Well, are ye going to buy the woods?" said Bob, eying him grimly. +"Ye'd better say." + +Mr. Bowers started. "I shouldn't wonder, Bob," he said, with a +smile, gathering up his reins. "Anyhow, I'm comin' back to see +your mother this afternoon. And meantime, Bob, you keep the first +chance for me." + +He drove away, leaving the youthful diplomatist standing with his +bare feet in the dust. For a minute or two the young gentleman +amused himself by a few light saltatory steps in the road. Then a +smile of scornful superiority, mingled perhaps with a sense of +previous slights and unappreciation, drew back his little upper +lip, and brightened his mottled cheek. + +"I'd like ter know," he said, darkly, "what this yer God-forsaken +famerly would do without ME!" + + +CHAPTER V + + +It is to be presumed that the editor and Mr. Hamlin mutually kept +to their tacit agreement to respect the impersonality of the +poetess, for during the next three months the subject was seldom +alluded to by either. Yet in that period White Violet had sent two +other contributions, and on each occasion Mr. Hamlin had insisted +upon increasing the honorarium to the amount of his former gift. +In vain the editor pointed out the danger of this form of +munificence; Mr. Hamlin retorted by saying that if he refused he +would appeal to the proprietor, who certainly would not object to +taking the credit of this liberality. "As to the risks," concluded +Jack, sententiously, "I'll take them; and as far as you're +concerned, you certainly get the worth of your money." + +Indeed, if popularity was an indiction, this had become suddenly +true. For the poetess's third contribution, without changing its +strong local color and individuality, had been an unexpected +outburst of human passion--a love-song, that touched those to whom +the subtler meditative graces of the poetess had been unknown. +Many people had listened to this impassioned but despairing cry +from some remote and charmed solitude, who had never read poetry +before, who translated it into their own limited vocabulary and +more limited experience, and were inexpressibly affected to find +that they, too, understood it; it was caught up and echoed by the +feverish, adventurous, and unsatisfied life that filled that day +and time. Even the editor was surprised and frightened. Like most +cultivated men, he distrusted popularity: like all men who believe +in their own individual judgment, he doubted collective wisdom. +Yet now that his protegee had been accepted by others, he +questioned that judgment and became her critic. It struck him that +her sudden outburst was strained; it seemed to him that in this +mere contortion of passion the sibyl's robe had become rudely +disarranged. He spoke to Hamlin, and even approached the tabooed +subject. + +"Did you see anything that suggested this sort of business in--in-- +that woman--I mean in--your pilgrimage, Jack?" + +"No," responded Jack, gravely. "But it's easy to see she's got +hold of some hay-footed fellow up there in the mountains with +straws in his hair, and is playing him for all he's worth. You +won't get much more poetry out of her, I reckon." + +Is was not long after this conversation that one afternoon, when +the editor was alone, Mr. James Bowers entered the editorial room +with much of the hesitation and irresolution of his previous visit. +As the editor had not only forgotten him, but even, dissociated him +with the poetess, Mr. Bowers was fain to meet his unresponsive eye +and manner with some explanation. + +"Ye disremember my comin' here, Mr. Editor, to ask you the name o' +the lady who called herself 'White Violet,' and how you allowed you +couldn't give it, but would write and ask for it?" + +Mr. Editor, leaning back in his chair, now remembered the +occurrence, but was distressed to add that the situation remained +unchanged, and that he had received no such permission. + +"Never mind THAT, my lad," said Mr. Bowers, gravely, waving his +hand. "I understand all that; but, ez I've known the lady ever +since, and am now visiting her at her house on the Summit, I reckon +it don't make much matter." + +It was quite characteristic of Mr. Bowers's smileless earnestness +that he made no ostentation of this dramatic retort, nor of the +undisguised stupefaction of the editor. + +"Do you mean to say that you have met White Violet, the author of +these poems?" repeated the editor. + +"Which her name is Delatour,--the widder Delatour,--ez she has +herself give me permission to tell you," continued Mr. Bowers, with +a certain abstracted and automatic precision that dissipated any +suggestion of malice in the reversed situation. + +"Delatour!--a widow!" repeated the editor. + +"With five children," continued Mr. Bowers. Then, with unalterable +gravity, he briefly gave an outline of her condition and the +circumstances of his acquaintance with her. + +"But I reckoned YOU might have known suthin' o' this; though she +never let on you did," he concluded, eying the editor with troubled +curiosity. + +The editor did not think it necessary to implicate Mr. Hamlin. He +said, briefly, "I? Oh, no!" + +"Of course, YOU might not have seen her?" said Mr. Bowers, keeping +the same grave, troubled gaze on the editor. + +"Of course not," said the editor, somewhat impatient under the +singular scrutiny of Mr. Bowers; "and I'm very anxious to know how +she looks. Tell me, what is she like?" + +"She is a fine, pow'ful, eddicated woman," said Mr. Bowers, with +slow deliberation. "Yes, sir,--a pow'ful woman, havin' grand ideas +of her own, and holdin' to 'em." He had withdrawn his eyes from +the editor, and apparently addressed the ceiling in confidence. + +"But what does she look like, Mr. Bowers?" said the editor, +smiling. + +"Well, sir, she looks--LIKE--IT! Yes,"--with deliberate caution,-- +"I should say, just like it." + +After a pause, apparently to allow the editor to materialize this +ravishing description, he said, gently, "Are you busy just now?" + +"Not very. What can I do for you?" + +"Well, not much for ME, I reckon," he returned, with a deeper +respiration, that was his nearest approach to a sigh, "but suthin' +perhaps for yourself and--another. Are you married?" + +"No," said the editor, promptly. + +"Nor engaged to any--young lady?"--with great politeness. + +"No." + +"Well, mebbe you think it a queer thing for me to say,--mebbe you +reckon you KNOW it ez well ez anybody,--but it's my opinion that +White Violet is in love with you." + +"With me?" ejaculated the editor, in a hopeless astonishment that +at last gave way to an incredulous and irresistible laugh. + +A slight touch of pain passed over Mr. Bowers's dejected face, but +left the deep outlines set with a rude dignity. "It's SO," he +said, slowly, "though, as a young man and a gay feller, ye may +think it's funny." + +"No, not funny, but a terrible blunder, Mr. Bowers, for I give you +my word I know nothing of the lady and have never set eyes upon +her." + +"No, but she has on YOU. I can't say," continued Mr. Bowers, with +sublime naivete, "that I'd ever recognize you from her description, +but a woman o' that kind don't see with her eyes like you and me, +but with all her senses to onct, and a heap more that ain't senses +as we know 'em. The same eyes that seed down through the brush and +ferns in the Summit woods, the same ears that heerd the music of +the wind trailin' through the pines, don't see you with my eyes or +hear you with my ears. And when she paints you, it's nat'ril for a +woman with that pow'ful mind and grand idees to dip her brush into +her heart's blood for warmth and color. Yer smilin', young man. +Well, go on and smile at me, my lad, but not at her. For you don't +know her. When you know her story as I do, when you know she was +made a wife afore she ever knew what it was to be a young woman, +when you know that the man she married never understood the kind o' +critter he was tied to no more than ef he'd been a steer yoked to a +Morgan colt, when ye know she had children growin' up around her +afore she had given over bein' a sort of child herself, when ye +know she worked and slaved for that man and those children about +the house--her heart, her soul, and all her pow'ful mind bein' all +the time in the woods along with the flickering leaves and the +shadders,--when ye mind she couldn't get the small ways o' the +ranch because she had the big ways o' Natur' that made it,--then +you'll understand her." + +Impressed by the sincerity of his visitor's manner, touched by the +unexpected poetry of his appeal, and yet keenly alive to the +absurdity of an incomprehensible blunder somewhere committed, the +editor gasped almost hysterically,-- + +"But why should all this make her in love with ME?" + +"Because ye are both gifted," returned Mr. Bowers, with sad but +unconquerable conviction; "because ye're both, so to speak, in a +line o' idees and business that draws ye together,--to lean on each +other and trust each other ez pardners. Not that YE are ezakly her +ekal," he went on, with a return to his previous exasperating +naivete, "though I've heerd promisin' things of ye, and ye're still +young, but in matters o' this kind there is allers one ez hez to be +looked up to by the other,--and gin'rally the wrong one. She looks +up to you, Mr. Editor,--it's part of her po'try,--ez she looks down +inter the brush and sees more than is plain to you and me. Not," +he continued, with a courteously deprecating wave of the hand, "ez +you hain't bin kind to her--mebbe TOO kind. For thar's the purty +letter you writ her, thar's the perlite, easy, captivatin' way you +had with her gals and that boy--hold on!"--as the editor made a +gesture of despairing renunciation,--"I ain't sayin' you ain't +right in keepin' it to yourself,--and thar's the extry money you +sent her every time. Stop! she knows it was EXTRY, for she made a +p'int o' gettin' me to find out the market price o' po'try in +papers and magazines, and she reckons you've bin payin' her four +hundred per cent. above them figgers--hold on! I ain't sayin' it +ain't free and liberal in you, and I'd have done the same thing; +yet SHE thinks"-- + +But the editor had risen hastily to his feet with flushing cheeks. + +"One moment, Mr. Bowers," he said, hurriedly. "This is the most +dreadful blunder of all. The gift is not mine. It was the +spontaneous offering of another who really admired our friend's +work,--a gentleman who"-- He stopped suddenly. + +The sound of a familiar voice, lightly humming, was borne along the +passage; the light tread of a familiar foot was approaching. The +editor turned quickly towards the open door,--so quickly that Mr. +Bowers was fain to turn also. + +For a charming instant the figure of Jack Hamlin, handsome, +careless, and confident, was framed in the doorway. His dark eyes, +with their habitual scorn of his average fellow-man, swept +superciliously over Mr. Bowers, and rested for an instant with +caressing familiarity on the editor. + +"Well, sonny, any news from the old girl at the Summit?" + +"No-o," hastily stammered the editor, with a half-hysterical laugh. +"No, Jack. Excuse me a moment." + +"All right; busy, I see. Hasta manana." + +The picture vanished, the frame was empty. + +"You see," continued the editor, turning to Mr. Bowers, "there has +been a mistake. I"--but he stopped suddenly at the ashen face of +Mr. Bowers, still fixed in the direction of the vanished figure. + +"Are you ill?" + +Mr. Bowers did not reply, but slowly withdrew his eyes, and turned +them heavily on the editor. Then, drawing a longer, deeper breath, +he picked up his soft felt hat, and, moulding it into shape in his +hands as if preparing to put it on, he moistened his dry, grayish +lips, and said, gently:-- + +"Friend o' yours?" + +"Yes," said the editor--"Jack Hamlin. Of course, you know him?" + +"Yes." + +Mr. Bowers here put his hat on his head, and, after a pause, turned +round slowly once or twice, as if he had forgotten it, and was +still seeking it. Finally he succeeded in finding the editor's +hand, and shook it, albeit his own trembled slightly. Then he +said:-- + +"I reckon you're right. There's bin a mistake. I see it now. +Good-by. If you're ever up my way, drop in and see me." He then +walked to the doorway, passed out, and seemed to melt into the +afternoon shadows of the hall. + +He never again entered the office of the "Excelsior Magazine," +neither was any further contribution ever received from White +Violet. To a polite entreaty from the editor, addressed first to +"White Violet" and then to Mrs. Delatour, there was no response. +The thought of Mr. Hamlin's cynical prophecy disturbed him, but +that gentleman, preoccupied in filling some professional +engagements in Sacramento, gave him no chance to acquire further +explanations as to the past or the future. The youthful editor was +at first in despair and filled with a vague remorse of some +unfulfilled duty. But, to his surprise, the readers of the +magazine seemed to survive their talented contributor, and the +feverish life that had been thrilled by her song, in two months had +apparently forgotten her. Nor was her voice lifted from any alien +quarter; the domestic and foreign press that had echoed her lays +seemed to respond no longer to her utterance. + +It is possible that some readers of these pages may remember a +previous chronicle by the same historian wherein it was recorded +that the volatile spirit of Mr. Hamlin, slightly assisted by +circumstances, passed beyond these voices at the Ranch of the +Blessed Fisherman, some two years later. As the editor stood +beside the body of his friend on the morning of the funeral, he +noticed among the flowers laid upon his bier by loving hands a +wreath of white violets. Touched and disturbed by a memory long +since forgotten, he was further embarrassed, as the cortege +dispersed in the Mission graveyard, by the apparition of the tall +figure of Mr. James Bowers from behind a monumental column. The +editor turned to him quickly. + +"I am glad to see you here," he said, awkwardly, and he knew not +why; then, after a pause, "I trust you can give me some news of +Mrs. Delatour. I wrote to her nearly two years ago, but had no +response." + +"Thar's bin no Mrs. Delatour for two years," said Mr. Bowers, +contemplatively stroking his beard; "and mebbe that's why. She's +bin for two years Mrs. Bowers." + +"I congratulate you," said the editor; "but I hope there still +remains a White Violet, and that, for the sake of literature, she +has not given up"-- + +"Mrs. Bowers," interrupted Mr. Bowers, with singular deliberation, +"found that makin' po'try and tendin' to the cares of a growin'-up +famerly was irritatin' to the narves. They didn't jibe, so to +speak. What Mrs. Bowers wanted--and what, po'try or no po'try, +I've bin tryin' to give her--was Rest! She's bin havin' it +comfor'bly up at my ranch at Mendocino, with her children and me. +Yes, sir"--his eye wandered accidentally to the new-made grave-- +"you'll excuse my sayin' it to a man in your profession, but it's +what most folks will find is a heap better than readin' or writin' +or actin' po'try--and that's Rest!" + + + + +THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE + + +CHAPTER I + + +It had grown dark on Burnt Ridge. Seen from below, the whole +serrated crest that had glittered in the sunset as if its +interstices were eaten by consuming fires, now, closed up its ranks +of blackened shafts and became again harsh and sombre chevaux de +frise against the sky. A faint glow still lingered over the red +valley road, as if it were its own reflection, rather than any +light from beyond the darkened ridge. Night was already creeping +up out of remote canyons and along the furrowed flanks of the +mountain, or settling on the nearer woods with the sound of home- +coming and innumerable wings. At a point where the road began to +encroach upon the mountain-side in its slow winding ascent the +darkness had become so real that a young girl cantering along the +rising terrace found difficulty in guiding her horse, with eyes +still dazzled by the sunset fires. + +In spite of her precautions, the animal suddenly shied at some +object in the obscured roadway, and nearly unseated her. The +accident disclosed not only the fact that she was riding in a man's +saddle, but also a foot and ankle that her ordinary walking-dress +was too short to hide. It was evident that her equestrian exercise +was extempore, and that at that hour and on that road she had not +expected to meet company. But she was apparently a good horsewoman, +for the mischance which might have thrown a less practical or more +timid rider seemed of little moment to her. With a strong hand and +determined gesture she wheeled her frightened horse back into the +track, and rode him directly at the object. But here she herself +slightly recoiled, for it was the body of a man lying in the road. + +As she leaned forward over her horse's shoulder, she could see by +the dim light that he was a miner, and that, though motionless, he +was breathing stertorously. Drunk, no doubt!--an accident of the +locality alarming only to her horse. But although she cantered +impatiently forward, she had not proceeded a hundred yards before +she stopped reflectively, and trotted back again. He had not +moved. She could now see that his head and shoulders were covered +with broken clods of earth and gravel, and smaller fragments lay at +his side. A dozen feet above him on the hillside there was a foot +trail which ran parallel with the bridle-road, and occasionally +overhung it. It seemed possible that he might have fallen from the +trail and been stunned. + +Dismounting, she succeeded in dragging him to a safer position by +the bank. The act discovered his face, which was young, and +unknown to her. Wiping it with the silk handkerchief which was +loosely slung around his neck after the fashion of his class, she +gave a quick feminine glance around her and then approached her own +and rather handsome face near his lips. There was no odor of +alcohol in the thick and heavy respiration. Mounting again, she +rode forward at an accelerated pace, and in twenty minutes had +reached a higher tableland of the mountain, a cleared opening in +the forest that showed signs of careful cultivation, and a large, +rambling, yet picturesque-looking dwelling, whose unpainted red- +wood walls were hidden in roses and creepers. Pushing open a +swinging gate, she entered the inclosure as a brown-faced man, +dressed as a vaquero, came towards her as if to assist her to +alight. But she had already leaped to the ground and thrown him +the reins. + +"Miguel," she said, with a mistress's quiet authority in her boyish +contralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive down +the road as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying near +the right bank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by a +fall. Bring him up here, unless somebody has found him already, or +you happen to know who he is and where to take him." + +The vaquero raised his shoulders, half in disappointed expectation +of some other command. "And your brother, senora, he has not +himself arrived." + +A light shadow of impatience crossed her face. "No," she said, +bluntly. "Come, be quick." + +She turned towards the house as the man moved away. Already a +gaunt-looking old man had appeared in the porch, and was awaiting +her with his hand shadowing his angry, suspicious eyes, and his +lips moving querulously. + +"Of course, you've got to stand out there and give orders and 'tend +to your own business afore you think o' speaking to your own flesh +and blood," he said aggrievedly. "That's all YOU care!" + +"There was a sick man lying in the road, and I've sent Miguel to +look after him," returned the girl, with a certain contemptuous +resignation. + +"Oh, yes!" struck in another voice, which seemed to belong to the +female of the first speaker's species, and to be its equal in age +and temper, "and I reckon you saw a jay bird on a tree, or a +squirrel on the fence, and either of 'em was more important to you +than your own brother." + +"Steve didn't come by the stage, and didn't send any message," +continued the young girl, with the same coldly resigned manner. +"No one had any news of him, and, as I told you before, I didn't +expect any." + +"Why don't you say right out you didn't WANT any?" said the old +man, sneeringly. "Much you inquired! No; I orter hev gone myself, +and I would if I was master here, instead of me and your mother +bein' the dust of the yearth beneath your feet." + +The young girl entered the house, followed by the old man, passing +an old woman seated by the window, who seemed to be nursing her +resentment and a large Bible which she held clasped against her +shawled bosom at the same moment. Going to the wall, she hung up +her large hat and slightly shook the red dust from her skirts as +she continued her explanation, in the same deep voice, with a +certain monotony of logic and possibly of purpose and practice +also. + +"You and mother know as well as I do, father, that Stephen is no +more to be depended upon than the wind that blows. It's three +years since he has been promising to come, and even getting money +to come, and yet he has never showed his face, though he has been a +dozen times within five miles of this house. He doesn't come +because he doesn't want to come. As to YOUR going over to the +stage-office, I went there myself at the last moment to save you +the mortification of asking questions of strangers that they know +have been a dozen times answered already." + +There was such a ring of absolute truthfulness, albeit worn by +repetition, in the young girl's deep honest voice that for one +instant her two more emotional relatives quailed before it; but +only for a moment. + +"That's right!" shrilled the old woman. "Go on and abuse your own +brother. It's only the fear you have that he'll make his fortune +yet and shame you before the father and mother you despise." + +The young girl remained standing by the window, motionless and +apparently passive, as if receiving an accepted and usual +punishment. But here the elder woman gave way to sobs and some +incoherent snuffling, at which the younger went away. Whether she +recognized in her mother's tears the ordinary deliquescence of +emotion, or whether, as a woman herself, she knew that this mere +feminine conventionality could not possibly be directed at her, and +that the actual conflict between them had ceased, she passed slowly +on to an inner hall, leaving the male victim, her unfortunate +father, to succumb, as he always did sooner or later, to their +influence. Crossing the hall, which was decorated with a few elk +horns, Indian trophies, and mountain pelts, she entered another +room, and closed the door behind her with a gesture of relief. + +The room, which looked upon a porch, presented a singular +combination of masculine business occupations and feminine taste +and adornment. A desk covered with papers, a shelf displaying a +ledger and account-books, another containing works of reference, a +table with a vase of flowers and a lady's riding-whip upon it, a +map of California flanked on either side by an embroidered silken +workbag and an oval mirror decked with grasses, a calendar and +interest-table hanging below two school-girl crayons of classic +heads with the legend, "Josephine Forsyth fecit,"--were part of its +incongruous accessories. The young girl went to her desk, but +presently moved and turned towards the window thoughtfully. The +last gleam had died from the steel-blue sky; a few lights like star +points began to prick out the lower valley. The expression of +monotonous restraint and endurance had not yet faded from her face. + +Yet she had been accustomed to scenes like the one she had just +passed though since her girlhood. Five years ago, Alexander +Forsyth, her uncle, had brought her to this spot--then a mere log +cabin on the hillside--as a refuge from the impoverished and +shiftless home of his elder brother Thomas and his ill-tempered +wife. Here Alexander Forsyth, by reason of his more dominant +character and business capacity, had prospered until he became a +rich and influential ranch owner. Notwithstanding her father's +jealousy of Alexander's fortune, and the open rupture that followed +between the brothers, Josephine retained her position in the heart +and home of her uncle without espousing the cause of either; and +her father was too prudent not to recognize the near and +prospective advantages of such a mediator. Accustomed to her +parents' extravagant denunciations, and her uncle's more repressed +but practical contempt of them, the unfortunate girl early +developed a cynical disbelief in the virtues of kinship in the +abstract, and a philosophical resignation to its effects upon her +personally. Believing that her father and uncle fairly represented +the fraternal principle, she was quite prepared for the early +defection and distrust of her vagabond and dissipated brother +Stephen, and accepted it calmly. True to an odd standard of +justice, which she had erected from the crumbling ruins of her own +domestic life, she was tolerant of everything but human perfection. +This quality, however fatal to her higher growth, had given her a +peculiar capacity for business which endeared her to her uncle. +Familiar with the strong passions and prejudices of men, she had +none of those feminine meannesses, a wholesome distrust of which +had kept her uncle a bachelor. It was not strange, therefore, that +when he died two years ago it was found that he had left her his +entire property, real and personal, limited only by a single +condition. She was to undertake the vocation of a "sole trader," +and carry on the business under the name of "J. Forsyth." If she +married, the estate and property was to be held distinct from her +husband's, inalienable under the "Married Woman's Property Act," +and subject during her life only to her own control and personal +responsibilities as a trader. + +The intense disgust and discomfiture of her parents, who had +expected to more actively participate in their brother's fortune, +may be imagined. But it was not equal to their fury when +Josephine, instead of providing for them a separate maintenance out +of her abundance, simply offered to transfer them and her brother +to her own house on a domestic but not a business equality. There +being no alternative but their former precarious shiftless life in +their "played-out" claim in the valley, they wisely consented, +reserving the sacred right of daily protest and objurgation. In +the economy of Burnt Ridge Ranch they alone took it upon themselves +to represent the shattered domestic altar and its outraged Lares +and Penates. And so conscientiously did they perform their task as +even occasionally to impede the business visitor to the ranch, and +to cause some of the more practical neighbors seriously to doubt +the young girl's commercial wisdom. But she was firm. Whether she +thought her parents a necessity of respectable domesticity, or +whether she regarded their presence in the light of a penitential +atonement for some previous disregard of them, no one knew. Public +opinion inclined to the latter. + +The black line of ridge faded out with her abstraction, and she +turned from the window and lit the lamp on her desk. The yellow +light illuminated her face and figure. In their womanly graces +there was no trace of what some people believed to be a masculine +character, except a singularly frank look of critical inquiry and +patient attention in her dark eyes. Her long brown hair was +somewhat rigidly twisted into a knot on the top of her head, as if +more for security than ornament. Brown was also the prevailing +tint of her eyebrows, thickly-set eyelashes, and eyes, and was even +suggested in the slight sallowness of her complexion. But her lips +were well-cut and fresh-colored and her hands and feet small and +finely formed. She would have passed for a pretty girl, had she +not suggested something more. + +She sat down, and began to examine a pile of papers before her with +that concentration and attention to detail which was characteristic +of her eyes, pausing at times with prettily knit brows, and her +penholder between her lips, in the semblance of a pout that was +pleasant enough to see. Suddenly the rattle of hoofs and wheels +struck her with the sense of something forgotten, and she put down +her work quickly and stood up listening. The sound of rough voices +and her father's querulous accents was broken upon by a cultivated +and more familiar utterance: "All right; I'll speak to her at once. +Wait there," and the door opened to the well-known physician of +Burnt Ridge, Dr. Duchesne. + +"Look here," he said, with an abruptness that was only saved from +being brusque by a softer intonation and a reassuring smile, "I met +Miguel helping an accident into your buggy. Your orders, eh?" + +"Oh, yes," said Josephine, quietly. "A man I saw on the road." + +"Well, it's a bad case, and wants prompt attention. And as your +house is the nearest I came with him here." + +Certainly," she said gravely. "Take him to the second room beyond-- +Steve's room--it's ready," she explained to two dusky shadows in +the hall behind the doctor. + +"And look here," said the doctor, partly closing the door behind +him and regarding her with critical eyes, "you always said you'd +like to see some of my queer cases. Well, this is one--a serious +one, too; in fact, it's just touch and go with him. There's a +piece of the bone pressing on the brain no bigger than that, but as +much as if all Burnt Ridge was atop of him! I'm going to lift it. +I want somebody here to stand by, some one who can lend a hand with +a sponge, eh?--some one who isn't going to faint or scream, or even +shake a hair's-breadth, eh?" + +The color rose quickly to the girl's cheek, and her eyes kindled. +"I'll come," she said thoughtfully. "Who is he?" + +The doctor stared slightly at the unessential query. "Don't know,-- +one of the river miners, I reckon. It's an urgent case. I'll go +and get everything ready. You'd better," he added, with an ominous +glance at her gray frock, "put something over your dress." The +suggestion made her grave, but did not alter her color. + +A moment later she entered the room. It was the one that had +always been set apart for her brother: the very bed on which the +unconscious man lay had been arranged that morning with her own +hands. Something of this passed through her mind as she saw that +the doctor had wheeled it beneath the strong light in the centre of +the room, stripped its outer coverings with professional +thoughtfulness, and rearranged the mattresses. But it did not seem +like the same room. There was a pungent odor in the air from some +freshly-opened phial; an almost feminine neatness and luxury in an +open morocco case like a jewel box on the table, shining with +spotless steel. At the head of the bed one of her own servants, +the powerful mill foreman, was assisting with the mingled curiosity +and blase experience of one accustomed to smashed and lacerated +digits. At first she did not look at the central unconscious +figure on the bed, whose sufferings seemed to her to have been +vicariously transferred to the concerned, eager, and drawn faces +that looked down upon its immunity. Then she femininely recoiled +before the bared white neck and shoulders displayed above the +quilt, until, forcing herself to look upon the face half-concealed +by bandages and the head from which the dark tangles of hair had +been ruthlessly sheared, she began to share the doctor's unconcern +in his personality. What mattered who or what HE was? It was--a +case! + +The operation began. With the same earnest intelligence that she +had previously shown, she quickly and noiselessly obeyed the +doctor's whispered orders, and even half anticipated them. She was +conscious of a singular curiosity that, far from being mean or +ignoble, seemed to lift her not only above the ordinary weaknesses +of her own sex, but made her superior to the men around her. +Almost before she knew it, the operation was over, and she regarded +with equal curiosity the ostentatious solicitude with which the +doctor seemed to be wiping his fateful instrument that bore an odd +resemblance to a silver-handled centre-bit. The stertorous +breathing below the bandages had given way to a fainter but more +natural respiration. There was a moment of suspense. The doctor's +hand left the pulse and lifted the closed eyelid of the sufferer. +A slight movement passed over the figure. The sluggish face had +cleared; life seemed to struggle back into it before even the dull +eyes participated in the glow. Dr. Duchesne with a sudden gesture +waved aside his companions, but not before Josephine had bent her +head eagerly forward. + +"He is coming to," she said. + +At the sound of that deep clear voice--the first to break the hush +of the room--the dull eyes leaped up, and the head turned in its +direction. The lips moved and uttered a single rapid sentence. +The girl recoiled. + +"You're all right now," said the doctor, cheerfully, intent only +upon the form before him. + +The lips moved again, but this time feebly and vacantly; the eyes +were staring vaguely around. + +"What's matter? What's all about?" said the man, thickly. + +"You've had a fall. Think a moment. Where do you live?" + +Again the lips moved, but this time only to emit a confused, +incoherent murmur. Dr. Duchesne looked grave, but recovered +himself quickly. + +"That will do. Leave him alone now," he said brusquely to the +others. + +But Josephine lingered. + +"He spoke well enough just now," she said eagerly. "Did you hear +what he said?" + +"Not exactly," said the doctor, abstractedly, gazing at the man. + +"He said, 'You'll have to kill me first,'" said Josephine, slowly. + +"Humph;" said the doctor, passing his hand backwards and forwards +before the man's eyes to note any change in the staring pupils. + +"Yes," continued Josephine, gravely. "I suppose," she added, +cautiously, "he was thinking of the operation--of what you had just +done to him?" + +"What I had done to him? Oh, yes!" + + +CHAPTER II + + +Before noon the next day it was known throughout Burnt Ridge Valley +that Dr. Duchesne had performed a difficult operation upon an +unknown man, who had been picked up unconscious from a fall, and +carried to Burnt Ridge Ranch. But although the unfortunate man's +life was saved by the operation, he had only momentarily recovered +consciousness--relapsing into a semi-idiotic state, which +effectively stopped the discovery of any clue to his friends or his +identity. As it was evidently an ACCIDENT, which, in that rude +community--and even in some more civilized ones--conveyed a vague +impression of some contributary incapacity on the part of the +victim, or some Providential interference of a retributive +character, Burnt Ridge gave itself little trouble about it. It is +unnecessary to say that Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth gave themselves and +Josephine much more. They had a theory and a grievance. Satisfied +from the first that the alleged victim was a drunken tramp, who +submitted to have a hole bored in his head in order to foist +himself upon the ranch, they were loud in their protests, even +hinting at a conspiracy between Josephine and the stranger to +supplant her brother in the property, as he had already in the +spare bedroom. "Didn't all that yer happen THE VERY NIGHT she +pretended to go for Stephen--eh?" said Mrs. Forsyth. "Tell me +that! And didn't she have it all arranged with the buggy to bring +him here, as that sneaking doctor let out--eh? Looks mighty +curious, don't it?" she muttered darkly to the old man. But +although that gentleman, even from his own selfish view, would +scarcely have submitted to a surgical operation and later idiocy as +the price of insuring comfortable dependency, he had no doubt +others were base enough to do it; and lent a willing ear to his +wife's suspicions. + +Josephine's personal knowledge of the stranger went little further. +Doctor Duchesne had confessed to her his professional disappointment +at the incomplete results of the operation. He had saved the man's +life, but as yet not his reason. There was still hope, however, for +the diagnosis revealed nothing that might prejudice a favorable +progress. It was a most interesting case. He would watch it +carefully, and as soon as the patient could be removed would take +him to the county hospital, where, under his own eyes, the poor +fellow would have the benefit of the latest science and the highest +specialists. Physically, he was doing remarkably well; indeed, he +must have been a fine young chap, free from blood taint or vicious +complication, whose flesh had healed like an infant's. It should be +recorded that it was at this juncture that Mrs. Forsyth first learnt +that a SILVER PLATE let into the artful stranger's skull was an +adjunct of the healing process! Convinced that this infamous +extravagance was part and parcel of the conspiracy, and was only +the beginning of other assimilations of the Forsyths' metallic +substance; that the plate was probably polished and burnished with a +fulsome inscription to the doctor's skill, and would pass into the +possession and adornment of a perfect stranger, her rage knew no +bounds. He or his friends ought to be made to pay for it or work it +out! In vain it was declared that a few dollars were all that was +found in the man's pocket, and that no memoranda gave any indication +of his name, friends, or history beyond the suggestion that he came +from a distance. This was clearly a part of the conspiracy! Even +Josephine's practical good sense was obliged to take note of this +singular absence of all record regarding him, and the apparent +obliteration of everything that might be responsible for his +ultimate fate. + +Homeless, friendless, helpless, and even nameless, the unfortunate +man of twenty-five was thus left to the tender mercies of the +mistress of Burnt Ridge Ranch, as if he had been a new-born +foundling laid at her door. But this mere claim of weakness was +not all; it was supplemented by a singular personal appeal to +Josephine's nature. From the time that he turned his head towards +her voice on that fateful night, his eyes had always followed her +around the room with a wondering, yearning, canine half- +intelligence. Without being able to convince herself that he +understood her better than his regular attendant furnished by the +doctor, she could not fail to see that he obeyed her implicitly, +and that whenever any difficulty arose between him and his nurse +she was always appealed to. Her pride in this proof of her +practical sovereignty WAS flattered; and when Doctor Duchesne +finally admitted that although the patient was now physically able +to be removed to the hospital, yet he would lose in the change that +very strong factor which Josephine had become in his mental +recovery, the young girl as frankly suggested that he should stay +as long as there was any hope of restoring his reason. Doctor +Duchesne was delighted. With all his enthusiasm for science, he +had a professional distrust of some of its disciples, and perhaps +was not sorry to keep this most interesting case in his own hands. +To him her suggestion was only a womanly kindness, tempered with +womanly curiosity. But the astonishment and stupefaction of her +parents at this evident corroboration of suspicions they had as yet +only half believed was tinged with superstitious dread. Had she +fallen in love with this helpless stranger? or, more awful to +contemplate, was he really no stranger, but a surreptitious lover +thus strategically brought under her roof? For once they refrained +from open criticism. The very magnitude of their suspicions left +them dumb. + +It was thus that the virgin Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge Ranch was +left to gaze untrammeled upon her pale and handsome guest, whose +silken, bearded lips and sad, childlike eyes might have suggested a +more Exalted Sufferer in their absence of any suggestion of a +grosser material manhood. But even this imaginative appeal did not +enter into her feelings. She felt for her good-looking, helpless +patient a profound and honest pity. I do not know whether she had +ever heard that "pity was akin to love." She would probably have +resented that utterly untenable and atrocious commonplace. There +was no suggestion, real or illusive, of any previous masterful +quality in the man which might have made his present dependent +condition picturesque by contrast. He had come to her handicapped +by an unromantic accident and a practical want of energy and +intellect. He would have to touch her interest anew if, indeed, he +would ever succeed in dispelling the old impression. His beauty, +in a community of picturesquely handsome men, had little weight +with her, except to accent the contrast with their fuller manhood. + +Her life had given her no illusions in regard to the other sex. +She had found them, however, more congenial and safer companions +than women, and more accessible to her own sense of justice and +honor. In return, they had respected and admired rather than +loved her, in spite of her womanly graces. If she had at times +contemplated eventual marriage, it was only as a possible practical +partnership in her business; but as she lived in a country where +men thought it dishonorable and a proof of incompetency to rise by +their wives' superior fortune, she had been free from that kind of +mercenary persecution, even from men who might have worshiped her +in hopeless and silent honor. + +For this reason, there was nothing in the situation that suggested +a single compromising speculation in the minds of the neighbors, or +disturbed her own tranquillity. There seemed to be nothing in the +future except a possible relief to her curiosity. Some day the +unfortunate man's reason would be restored, and he would tell his +simple history. Perhaps he might explain what was in his mind when +he turned to her the first evening with that singular sentence +which had often recurred strangely to her, she knew not why. It +did not strike her until later that it was because it had been the +solitary indication of an energy and capacity that seemed unlike +him. Nevertheless, after that explanation, she would have been +quite willing to have shaken hands with him and parted. + +And yet--for there was an unexpressed remainder in her thought-- +she was never entirely free or uninfluenced in his presence. The +flickering vacancy of his sad eyes sometimes became fixed with a +resolute immobility under the gentle questioning with which she had +sought to draw out his faculties, that both piqued and exasperated +her. He could say "Yes" and "No," as she thought intelligently, +but he could not utter a coherent sentence nor write a word, except +like a child in imitation of his copy. She taught him to repeat +after her the names of the inanimate objects in the room, then the +names of the doctor, his attendant, the servant, and, finally, her +own under her Christian prenomen, with frontier familiarity; but +when she pointed to himself he waited for HER to name him! In vain +she tried him with all the masculine names she knew; his was not +one of them, or he would not or could not speak it. For at times +she rejected the professional dictum of the doctor that the faculty +of memory was wholly paralyzed or held in abeyance, even to the +half-automatic recollection of his letters, yet she inconsistently +began to teach him the alphabet with the same method, and--in her +sublime unconsciousness of his manhood--with the same discipline as +if he were a very child. When he had recovered sufficiently to +leave his room, she would lead him to the porch before her window, +and make him contented and happy by allowing him to watch her at +work at her desk, occasionally answering his wondering eyes with a +word, or stirring his faculties with a question. I grieve to say +that her parents had taken advantage of this publicity and his +supposed helpless condition to show their disgust of his assumption, +to the extreme of making faces at him--an act which he resented with +such a furious glare that they retreated hurriedly to their own +veranda. A fresh though somewhat inconsistent grievance was added +to their previous indictment of him: "If we ain't found dead in our +bed with our throats cut by that woman's crazy husband" (they had +settled by this time that there had been a clandestine marriage), +"we'll be lucky," groaned Mrs. Forsyth. + +Meantime, the mountain summer waxed to its fullness of fire and +fruition. There were days when the crowded forest seemed choked +and impeded with its own foliage, and pungent and stifling with its +own rank maturity; when the long hillside ranks of wild oats, +thickset and impassable, filled the air with the heated dust of +germination. In this quickening irritation of life it would be +strange if the unfortunate man's torpid intellect was not helped in +its awakening, and he was allowed to ramble at will over the ranch; +but with the instinct of a domestic animal he always returned to +the house, and sat in the porch, where Josephine usually found him +awaiting her when she herself returned from a visit to the mill. +Coming thence one day she espied him on the mountain-side leaning +against a projecting ledge in an attitude so rapt and immovable +that she felt compelled to approach him. He appeared to be dumbly +absorbed in the prospect, which might have intoxicated a saner +mind. + +Half veiled by the heat that rose quiveringly from the fiery canyon +below, the domain of Burnt Ridge stretched away before him, until, +lifted in successive terraces hearsed and plumed with pines, it +was at last lost in the ghostly snow-peaks. But the practical +Josephine seized the opportunity to try once more to awaken the +slumbering memory of her pupil. Following his gaze with signs and +questions, she sought to draw from him some indication of familiar +recollection of certain points of the map thus unrolled behind him. +But in vain. She even pointed out the fateful shadow of the +overhanging ledge on the road where she had picked him up--there +was no response in his abstracted eyes. She bit her lips; she was +becoming irritated again. Then it occurred to her that, instead of +appealing to his hopeless memory, she had better trust to some +unreflective automatic instinct independent of it, and she put the +question a little forward: "When you leave us, where will you go +from here?" He stirred slightly, and turned towards her. She +repeated her query slowly and patiently, with signs and gestures +recognized between them. A faint glow of intelligence struggled +into his eyes: he lifted his arm slowly, and pointed. + +"Ah! those white peaks--the Sierras?" she asked, eagerly. No +reply. "Beyond them?" + +"Yes." + +"The States?" No reply. "Further still?" + +He remained so patiently quiet and still pointing that she leaned +forward, and, following with her eyes the direction of his hand, +saw that he was pointing to the sky! + +Then a great quiet fell upon them. The whole mountain-side seemed +to her to be hushed, as if to allow her to grasp and realize for +the first time the pathos of the ruined life at her side, which IT +had known so long, but which she had never felt till now. The +tears came to her eyes; in her swift revulsion of feeling she +caught the thin uplifted hand between her own. It seemed to her +that he was about to raise them to his lips, but she withdrew them +hastily, and moved away. She had a strange fear that if he had +kissed them, it might seem as if some dumb animal had touched them-- +or--IT MIGHT NOT. The next day she felt a consciousness of this +in his presence, and a wish that he was well-cured and away. She +determined to consult Dr. Duchesne on the subject when he next +called. + +But the doctor, secure in the welfare of his patient, had not +visited him lately, and she found herself presently absorbed in the +business of the ranch, which at this season was particularly +trying. There had also been a quarrel between Dick Shipley, her +mill foreman, and Miguel, her ablest and most trusted vaquero, and +in her strict sense of impartial justice she was obliged to side on +the merits of the case with Shipley against her oldest retainer. +This troubled her, as she knew that with the Mexican nature, +fidelity and loyalty were not unmixed with quick and unreasoning +jealousy. For this reason she was somewhat watchful of the two men +when work was over, and there was a chance of their being thrown +together. Once or twice she had remained up late to meet Miguel +returning from the posada at San Ramon, filled with aguardiente and +a recollection of his wrongs, and to see him safely bestowed before +she herself retired. It was on one of those occasions, however, +that she learned that Dick Shipley, hearing that Miguel had +disparaged him freely at the posada, had broken the discipline of +the ranch, and absented himself the same night that Miguel "had +leave," with a view of facing his antagonist on his own ground. To +prevent this, the fearless girl at once secretly set out alone to +overtake and bring back the delinquent. + +For two or three hours the house was thus left to the sole +occupancy of Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth and the invalid--a fact only +dimly suspected by the latter, who had become vaguely conscious of +Josephine's anxiety, and had noticed the absence of light and +movement in her room. For this reason, therefore, having risen +again and mechanically taken his seat in the porch to await her +return, he was startled by hearing HER voice in the shadow of the +lower porch, accompanied by a hurried tapping against the door of +the old couple. The half-reasoning man arose, and would have moved +towards it, but suddenly he stopped rigidly, with white and parted +lips and vacantly distended eyeballs. + +Meantime the voice and muffled tapping had brought the tremulous +fingers of old Forsyth to the door-latch. He opened the door +partly; a slight figure that had been lurking in the shadow of the +porch pushed rapidly through the opening. There was a faint outcry +quickly hushed, and the door closed again. The rays of a single +candle showed the two old people hysterically clasping in their +arms the figure that had entered--a slight but vicious-looking +young fellow of five-and-twenty. + +"There, d--n it!" he said impatiently, in a voice whose rich depth +was like Josephine's, but whose querulous action was that of the +two old people before him, "let me go, and quit that, I didn't come +here to be strangled! I want some money--money, you hear! +Devilish quick, too, for I've got to be off again before daylight. +So look sharp, will you?" + +"But, Stevy dear, when you didn't come that time three months ago, +but wrote from Los Angeles, you said you'd made a strike at last, +and"-- + +"What are you talking about?" he interrupted violently. "That was +just my lyin' to keep you from worryin' me. Three months ago-- +three months ago! Why, you must have been crazy to have swallowed +it; I hadn't a cent." + +"Nor have we," said the old woman, shrilly. "That hellish sister +of yours still keeps us like beggars. Our only hope was you, our +own boy. And now you only come to--to go again." + +"But SHE has money; SHE'S doing well, and SHE shall give it to me," +he went on, angrily. "She can't bully me with her business airs +and morality. Who else has got a right to share, if it is not her +own brother?" + +Alas for the fatuousness of human malevolence! Had the unhappy +couple related only the simple facts they knew about the new guest +of Burnt Ridge Ranch, and the manner of his introduction, they +might have spared what followed. + +But the old woman broke into a vindictive cry: "Who else, Steve-- +who else? Why, the slut has brought a MAN here--a sneaking, +deceitful, underhanded, crazy lover!" + +"Oh, has she?" said the young man, fiercely, yet secretly pleased +at this promising evidence of his sister's human weakness. "Where +is she? I'll go to her. She's in her room, I suppose," and before +they could restrain him, he had thrown off their impeding embraces +and darted across the hall. + +The two old people stared doubtfully at each other. For even this +powerful ally, whose strength, however, they were by no means sure +of, might succumb before the determined Josephine! Prudence +demanded a middle course. "Ain't they brother and sister?" said +the old man, with an air of virtuous toleration. "Let 'em fight it +out." + +The young man impatiently entered the room he remembered to have +been his sister's. By the light of the moon that streamed upon the +window he could see she was not there. He passed hurriedly to the +door of her bedroom; it was open; the room was empty, the bed +unturned. She was not in the house--she had gone to the mill. Ah! +What was that they had said? An infamous thought passed through +the scoundrel's mind. Then, in what he half believed was an access +of virtuous fury, he began by the dim light to rummage in the +drawers of the desk for such loose coin or valuables as, in the +perfect security of the ranch, were often left unguarded. Suddenly +he heard a heavy footstep on the threshold, and turned. + +An awful vision--a recollection, so unexpected, so ghostlike in +that weird light that he thought he was losing his senses--stood +before him. It moved forwards with staring eyeballs and white and +open lips from which a horrible inarticulate sound issued that was +the speech of no living man! With a single desperate, almost +superhuman effort Stephen Forsyth bounded aside, leaped from the +window, and ran like a madman from the house. Then the apparition +trembled, collapsed, and sank in an undistinguishable heap to the +ground. + +When Josephine Forsyth returned an hour later with her mill +foreman, she was startled to find her helpless patient in a fit on +the floor of her room. With the assistance of her now converted +and penitent employee, she had the unfortunate man conveyed to his +room--but not until she had thoughtfully rearranged the disorder of +her desk and closed the open drawers without attracting Dick +Shipley's attention. In the morning, hearing that the patient was +still in the semiconscious exhaustion of his late attack, but +without seeing him, she sent for Dr. Duchesne. The doctor arrived +while she was absent at the mill, where, after a careful +examination of his patient, he sought her with some little +excitement. + +"Well?" she said, with eager gravity. + +"Well, it looks as if your wish would be gratified. Your friend +has had an epileptic fit, but the physical shock has started his +mental machinery again. He has recovered his faculties; his memory +is returning: he thinks and speaks coherently; he is as sane as you +and I." + +"And"--said Josephine, questioning the doctor's knitted eyebrows. + +"I am not yet sure whether it was the result of some shock he +doesn't remember; or an irritation of the brain, which would +indicate that the operation had not been successful and that there +was still some physical pressure or obstruction there--in which +case he would be subject to these attacks all his life." + +"Do you think his reason came before the fit or after?" asked the +girl, anxiously. + +"I couldn't say. Had anything happened?" + +"I was away, and found him on the floor on my return," she +answered, half uneasily. After a pause she said, "Then he has +told you his name and all about himself?" + +"Yes, it's nothing at all! He was a stranger just arrived from +the States, going to the mines--the old story; had no near +relations, of course; wasn't missed or asked after; remembers +walking along the ridge and falling over; name, John Baxter, of +Maine." He paused, and relaxing into a slight smile, added, "I +haven't spoiled your romance, have I?" + +"No," she said, with an answering smile. Then as the doctor walked +briskly away she slightly knitted her pretty brows, hung her head, +patted the ground with her little foot beyond the hem of her gown, +and said to herself, "The man was lying to him." + + +CHAPTER III + + +On her return to the house, Josephine apparently contented herself +with receiving the bulletin of the stranger's condition from the +servant, for she did not enter his room. She had obtained no +theory of last night's incident from her parents, who, beyond a +querulous agitation that was quickened by the news of his return to +reason, refrained from even that insidious comment which she half +feared would follow. When another day passed without her seeing +him, she nevertheless was conscious of a little embarrassment when +his attendant brought her the request that she would give him a +moment's speech in the porch, whither he had been removed. + +She found him physically weaker; indeed, so much so that she was +fain, even in her embarrassment, to assist him back to the bench +from which he had ceremoniously risen. But she was so struck with +the change in his face and manner, a change so virile and +masterful, in spite of its gentle sadness of manner, that she +recoiled with a slight timidity as if he had been a stranger, +although she was also conscious that he seemed to be more at his +ease than she was. He began in a low exhausted voice, but before +he had finished his first sentence, she felt herself in the +presence of a superior. + +"My thanks come very late, Miss Forsyth," he said, with a faint +smile, "but no one knows better than yourself the reason why, or +can better understand that they mean that the burden you have so +generously taken on yourself is about to be lifted. I know all, +Miss Forsyth. Since yesterday I have learned how much I owe you, +even my life I believe, though I am afraid I must tell you in the +same breath that THAT is of little worth to any one. You have +kindly helped and interested yourself in a poor stranger who turns +out to be a nobody, without friends, without romance, and without +even mystery. You found me lying in the road down yonder, after a +stupid accident that might have happened to any other careless +tramp, and which scarcely gave me a claim to a bed in the county +hospital, much less under this kindly roof. It was not my fault, +as you know, that all this did not come out sooner; but while it +doesn't lessen your generosity, it doesn't lessen my debt, and +although I cannot hope to ever repay you, I can at least keep the +score from running on. Pardon my speaking so bluntly, but my +excuse for speaking at all was to say 'Good-by' and 'God bless +you.' Dr. Duchesne has promised to give me a lift on my way in his +buggy when he goes." + +There was a slight touch of consciousness in his voice in spite of +its sadness, which struck the young girl as a weak and even +ungentlemanly note in his otherwise self-abnegating and +undemonstrative attitude. If he was a common tramp, he wouldn't +talk in that way, and if he wasn't, why did he lie? Her practical +good sense here asserted itself. + +"But you are far from strong yet; in fact, the doctor says you +might have a relapse at any moment, and you have--that is, you SEEM +to have no money," she said gravely. + +"That's true," he said, quickly. "I remember I was quite played +out when I entered the settlement, and I think I had parted from +even some little trifles I carried with me. I am afraid I was a +poor find to those who picked me up, and you ought to have taken +warning. But the doctor has offered to lend me enough to take me +to San Francisco, if only to give a fair trial to the machine he +has set once more a-going." + +"Then you have friends in San Francisco?" said the young girl +quickly. "Those who know you? Why not write to them first, and +tell them you are here?" + +"I don't think your postmaster here would be preoccupied with +letters for John Baxter, if I did," he said, quietly. "But here +is the doctor waiting. Good-by." + +He stood looking at her in a peculiar, yet half-resigned way, and +held out his hand. For a moment she hesitated. Had he been less +independent and strong, she would have refused to let him go--have +offered him some slight employment at the ranch; for oddly enough, +in spite of the suspicion that he was concealing something, she +felt that she would have trusted him, and he would have been a help +to her. But he was not only determined, but SHE was all the time +conscious that he was a totally different man from the one she had +taken care of, and merely ordinary prudence demanded that she +should know something more of him first. She gave him her hand +constrainedly; he pressed it warmly. + +Dr. Duchesne drove up, helped him into the buggy, smiled a good- +natured but half-perfunctory assurance that he would look after +"her patient," and drove away. + +The whole thing was over, but so unexpectedly, so suddenly, so +unromantically, so unsatisfactorily, that, although her common +sense told her that it was perfectly natural, proper, business- +like, and reasonable, and, above all, final and complete, she did +not know whether to laugh or be angry. Yet this was her parting +from the man who had but a few days ago moved her to tears with a +single hopeless gesture. Well, this would teach her what to +expect. Well, what had she expected? Nothing! + +Yet for the rest of the day she was unreasonably irritable, and, +if the conjointure be not paradoxical, severely practical, and +inhumanly just. Falling foul of some presumption of Miguel's, +based upon his prescriptive rights through long service on the +estate, with the recollection of her severity towards his +antagonist in her mind, she rated that trusted retainer with such +pitiless equity and unfeminine logic that his hot Latin blood +chilled in his veins, and he stood livid on the road. Then, +informing Dick Shipley with equally relentless calm that she might +feel it necessary to change ALL her foremen unless they could agree +in harmony, she sought the dignified seclusion of her castle. But +her respected parents, whose triumphant relief at the stranger's +departure had emboldened them to await her return in their porch +with bended bows of invective and lifted javelins of aggression, +recoiled before the resistless helm of this cold-browed Minerva, +who galloped contemptuously past them. + +Nevertheless, she sat late that night at her desk. The cold moon +looked down upon her window, and lit up the empty porch where her +silent guest had mutely watched her. For a moment she regretted +that he had recovered his reason, excusing herself on the practical +ground that he would never have known his dependence, and he would +have been better cared for by her. She felt restless and uneasy. +This slight divergence from the practical groove in which her life +had been set had disturbed her in many other things, and given her +the first views of the narrowness of it. + +Suddenly she heard a step in the porch. The lateness of the hour, +perhaps some other reason, seemed to startle her, and she half +rose. The next moment the figure of Miguel appeared at the +doorway, and with a quick, hurried look around him, and at the open +window, he approached her. He was evidently under great excitement, +his hollow shaven cheek looked like a waxen effigy in the mission +church; his yellow, tobacco-stained eye glittered like phosphorescent +amber, his lank gray hair was damp and perspiring; but more striking +than this was the evident restraint he had put upon himself, +pressing his broad-brimmed sombrero with both of his trembling +yellow hands against his breast. The young girl cast a hurried +glance at the open window and at the gun which stood in the corner, +and then confronted him with clear and steady eyes, but a paler +cheek. + +Ah, he began in Spanish, which he himself had taught her as a +child, it was a strange thing, his coming there to-night; but, +then, mother of God! it was a strange, a terrible thing that she +had done to him--old Miguel, her uncle's servant: he that had known +her as a muchacha; he that had lived all his life at the ranch--ay, +and whose fathers before him had lived there all THEIR lives and +driven the cattle over the very spot where she now stood, before +the thieving Americans came here! But he would be calm; yes, the +senora should find him calm, even as she was when she told him to +go. He would not speak. No, he--Miguel--would contain himself; +yes, he HAD mastered himself, but could he restrain others? Ah, +yes, OTHERS--that was it. Could he keep Manuel and Pepe and +Dominguez from talking to the milkman--that leaking sieve, that +gabbling brute of a Shipley, for whose sake she had cast off her +old servant that very day? + +She looked at him with cold astonishment, but without fear. Was he +drunk with aguardiente, or had his jealousy turned his brain? He +continued gasping, but still pressing his hat against his breast. + +Ah, he saw it all! Yes, it was to-day, the day he left. Yes, she +had thought it safe to cast Miguel off now--now that HE was gone! + +Without in the least understanding him, the color had leaped to her +cheek, and the consciousness of it made her furious. + +"How dare you?" she said, passionately. "What has that stranger to +do with my affairs or your insolence?" + +He stopped and gazed at her with a certain admiring loyalty. "Ah! +so," he said, with a deep breath, "the senora is the niece of her +uncle. She does well not to fear HIM--a dog,"--with a slight +shrug,--"who is more than repaid by the senora's condescension. HE +dare not speak!" + +"Who dare not speak? Are you mad?" She stopped with a sudden +terrible instinct of apprehension. "Miguel," she said in her +deepest voice, "answer me, I command you! Do you know anything of +this man?" + +It was Miguel's turn to recoil from his mistress. "Ah, my God! is +it possible the senora has not suspect?" + +"Suspect!" said Josephine, haughtily, albeit her proud heart was +beating quickly. "I SUSPECT nothing. I command you to tell me +what you KNOW." + +Miguel turned with a rapid gesture and closed the door. Then, +drawing her away from the window, he said in a hurried whisper,-- + +"I know that that man has not the name of Baxter! I know that he +has the name of Randolph, a young gambler, who have won a large sum +at Sacramento, and, fearing to be robbed by those he won of, have +walk to himself through the road in disguise of a miner. I know +that your brother Esteban have decoyed him here, and have fallen on +him." + +"Stop!" said the young girl, her eyes, which had been fixed with +the agony of conviction, suddenly flashing with the energy of +despair. "And you call yourself the servant of my uncle, and dare +say this of his nephew?" + +"Yes, senora," broke out the old man, passionately. "It is because +I am the servant of your uncle that I, and I ALONE, dare say it to +you! It is because I perjured my soul, and have perjured my soul +to deny it elsewhere, that I now dare to say it! It is because I, +your servant, knew it from one of my countrymen, who was of the +gang,--because I, Miguel, knew that your brother was not far away +that night, and because I, whom you would dismiss, have picked up +this pocket-book of Randolph's and your brother's ring which he +have dropped, and I have found beneath the body of the man you sent +me to fetch." + +He drew a packet from his bosom, and tossed it on the desk before +her. + +"And why have you not told me this before?" said Josephine, +passionately. + +Miguel shrugged his shoulders. + +"What good? Possibly this dog Randolph would die. Possibly he +would live--as a lunatic. Possibly would happen what has happened! +The senora is beautiful. The American has eyes. If the Dona +Josephine's beauty shall finish what the silly Don Esteban's arm +have begun--what matter?" + +"Stop!" cried Josephine, pressing her hands across her shuddering +eyes. Then, uncovering her white and set face, she said rapidly, +"Saddle my horse and your own at once. Then take your choice! +Come with me and repeat all that you have said in the presence of +that man, or leave this ranch forever. For if I live I shall go to +him tonight, and tell the whole story." + +The old man cast a single glance at his mistress, shrugged his +shoulders, and, without a word, left the room. But in ten minutes +they were on their way to the county town. + +Day was breaking over the distant Burnt Ridge--a faint, ghostly +level, like a funeral pall, in the dim horizon--as they drew up +before the gaunt, white-painted pile of the hospital building. +Josephine uttered a cry. Dr. Duchesne's buggy was before the door. +On its very threshold they met the doctor, dark and irritated. +"Then you heard the news?" he said, quickly. + +Josephine turned her white face to the doctor's. "What news?" she +asked, in a voice that seemed strangely deep and resonant. + +"The poor fellow had another attack last night, and died of +exhaustion about an hour ago. I was too late to save him." + +"Did he say anything? Was he conscious?" asked the girl, hoarsely. + +"No; incoherent! Now I think of it, he harped on the same string +as he did the night of the operation. What was it he said? you +remember." + +"'You'll have to kill me first,'" repeated Josephine, in a choking +voice. + +"Yes; something about his dying before he'd tell. Well, he came +back to it before he went off--they often do. You seem a little +hoarse with your morning ride. You should take care of that voice +of yours. By the way, it's a good deal like your brother's." + + . . . . . . + +The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge never married. + + + + +THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT + + +CHAPTER I + + +It was an enormous wheat-field in the Santa Clara valley, +stretching to the horizon line unbroken. The meridian sun shone +upon it without glint or shadow; but at times, when a stronger gust +of the trade winds passed over it, there was a quick slanting +impression of the whole surface that was, however, as unlike a +billow as itself was unlike a sea. Even when a lighter zephyr +played down its long level, the agitation was superficial, and +seemed only to momentarily lift a veil of greenish mist that hung +above its immovable depths. Occasional puffs of dust alternately +rose and fell along an imaginary line across the field, as if a +current of air were passing through it, but were otherwise +inexplicable. + +Suddenly a faint shout, apparently somewhere in the vicinity of the +line, brought out a perfectly clear response, followed by the +audible murmur of voices, which it was impossible to localize. Yet +the whole field was so devoid of any suggestion of human life or +motion that it seemed rather as if the vast expanse itself had +become suddenly articulate and intelligible. + +"Wot say?" + +"Wheel off." + +"Whare?" + +"In the road." + +One of the voices here indicated itself in the direction of the +line of dust, and said, "Comin'," and a man stepped out from the +wheat into a broad and dusty avenue. + +With his presence three things became apparent. + +First, that the puffs of dust indicated the existence of the +invisible avenue through the unlimited and unfenced field of grain; +secondly, that the stalks of wheat on either side of it were so +tall as to actually hide a passing vehicle; and thirdly, that a +vehicle had just passed, had lost a wheel, and been dragged partly +into the grain by its frightened horse, which a dusty man was +trying to restrain and pacify. + +The horse, given up to equine hysterics, and evidently convinced +that the ordinary buggy behind him had been changed into some +dangerous and appalling creation, still plunged and kicked +violently to rid himself of it. The man who had stepped out of the +depths of the wheat quickly crossed the road, unhitched the traces, +drew back the vehicle, and, glancing at the traveler's dusty and +disordered clothes, said, with curt sympathy:-- + +"Spilt, too; but not hurt, eh?" + +"No, neither of us. I went over with the buggy when the wheel +cramped, but SHE jumped clear." + +He made a gesture indicating the presence of another. The man +turned quickly. There was a second figure, a young girl standing +beside the grain from which he had emerged, embracing a few stalks +of wheat with one arm and a hand in which she still held her +parasol, while she grasped her gathered skirts with the other, and +trying to find a secure foothold for her two neat narrow slippers +on a crumbling cake of adobe above the fathomless dust of the +roadway. Her face, although annoyed and discontented, was pretty, +and her light dress and slim figure were suggestive of a certain +superior condition. + +The man's manner at once softened with Western courtesy. He swung +his broad-brimmed hat from his head, and bent his body with the +ceremoniousness of the country ball-room. "I reckon the lady had +better come up to the shanty out o' the dust and sun till we kin +help you get these things fixed," he said to the driver. "I'll +send round by the road for your hoss, and have one of mine fetch up +your wagon." + +"Is it far?" asked the girl, slightly acknowledging his salutation, +without waiting for her companion to reply. + +"Only a step this way," he answered, motioning to the field of +wheat beside her. + +"What in THERE? I never could go in there," she said, decidedly. + +"It's a heap shorter than by the road, and not so dusty. I'll go +with you, and pilot you." + +The young girl cast a vexed look at her companion as the probable +cause of all this trouble, and shook her head. But at the same +moment one little foot slipped from the adobe into the dust again. +She instantly clambered back with a little feminine shriek, and +ejaculated: "Well, of all things!" and then, fixing her blue +annoyed eyes on the stranger, asked impatiently, "Why couldn't I go +there by the road 'n the wagon? I could manage to hold on and keep +in." + +"Because I reckon you'd find it too pow'ful hot waitin' here till +we got round to ye." + +There was no doubt it was very hot; the radiation from the baking +roadway beating up under her parasol, and pricking her cheekbones +and eyeballs like needles. She gave a fastidious little shudder, +furled her parasol, gathered her skirts still tighter, faced about, +and said, "Go on, then." The man slipped backwards into the ranks +of stalks, parting them with one hand, and holding out the other as +if to lead her. But she evaded the invitation by holding her +tightly-drawn skirt with both hands, and bending her head forward +as if she had not noticed it. The next moment the road, and even +the whole outer world, disappeared behind them, and they seemed +floating in a choking green translucent mist. + +But the effect was only momentary; a few steps further she found +that she could walk with little difficulty between the ranks of +stalks, which were regularly spaced, and the resemblance now +changed to that of a long pillared conservatory of greenish glass, +that touched all objects with its pervading hue. She also found +that the close air above her head was continually freshened by the +interchange of currents of lower temperature from below,--as if the +whole vast field had a circulation of its own,--and that the adobe +beneath her feet was gratefully cool to her tread. There was no +dust, as he had said; what had at first half suffocated her seemed +to be some stimulating aroma of creation that filled the narrow +green aisles, and now imparted a strange vigor and excitement to +her as she walked along. Meantime her guide was not conversationally +idle. Now, no doubt, she had never seen anything like this before? +It was ordinary wheat, only it was grown on adobe soil--the richest +in the valley. These stalks, she could see herself, were ten and +twelve feet high. That was the trouble, they all ran too much to +stalk, though the grain yield was "suthen' pow'ful." She could tell +that to her friends, for he reckoned she was the only young lady +that had ever walked under such a growth. Perhaps she was new to +Californy? He thought so from the start. Well, this was Californy, +and this was not the least of the ways it could "lay over" every +other country on God's yearth. Many folks thought it was the gold +and the climate, but she could see for herself what it could do with +wheat. He wondered if her brother had ever told, her of it? No, +the stranger wasn't her brother. Nor cousin, nor company? No; only +the hired driver from a San Jose hotel, who was takin' her over to +Major Randolph's. Yes, he knew the old major; the ranch was a +pretty place, nigh unto three miles further on. Now that he knew +the driver was no relation of hers he didn't mind telling her that +the buggy was a "rather old consarn," and the driver didn't know his +business. Yes, it might be fixed up so as to take her over to the +major's; there was one of their own men--a young fellow--who could +do anything that COULD be done with wood and iron,--a reg'lar +genius!--and HE'D tackle it. It might take an hour, but she'd find +it quite cool waiting in the shanty. It was a rough place, for they +only camped out there during the season to look after the crop, and +lived at their own homes the rest of the time. Was she going to +stay long at the major's? He noticed she had not brought her trunk +with her. Had she known the major's wife long? Perhaps she thought +of settling in the neighborhood? + +All this naive, good-humored questioning--so often cruelly +misunderstood as mere vulgar curiosity, but as often the courteous +instinct of simple unaffected people to entertain the stranger by +inviting him to talk of what concerns himself rather than their own +selves--was nevertheless, I fear, met only by monosyllables from +the young lady or an impatient question in return. She scarcely +raised her eyes to the broad jean-shirted back that preceded her +through the grain until the man abruptly ceased talking, and his +manner, without losing its half-paternal courtesy, became graver. +She was beginning to be conscious of her incivility, and was trying +to think of something to say, when he exclaimed with a slight air +of relief, "Here we are!" and the shanty suddenly appeared before +them. + +It certainly was very rough--a mere shell of unpainted boards that +scarcely rose above the level of the surrounding grain, and a few +yards distant was invisible. Its slightly sloping roof, already +warped and shrunken into long fissures that permitted glimpses of +the steel-blue sky above, was evidently intended only as a shelter +from the cloudless sun in those two months of rainless days and +dewless nights when it was inhabited. Through the open doors and +windows she could see a row of "bunks," or rude sleeping berths +against the walls, furnished with coarse mattresses and blankets. +As the young girl halted, the man with an instinct of delicacy +hurried forward, entered the shanty, and dragging a rude bench to +the doorway, placed it so that she could sit beneath the shade of +the roof, yet with her back to these domestic revelations. Two or +three men, who had been apparently lounging there, rose quietly, +and unobtrusively withdrew. Her guide brought her a tin cup of +deliciously cool water, exchanged a few hurried words with his +companions, and then disappeared with them, leaving her alone. + +Her first sense of relief from their company was, I fear, stronger +than any other feeling. After a hurried glance around the deserted +apartment, she arose, shook out her dress and mantle, and then +going into the darkest corner supported herself with one hand +against the wall while with the other she drew off, one by one, her +slippers from her slim, striped-stockinged feet, shook and blew out +the dust that had penetrated within, and put them on again. Then, +perceiving a triangular fragment of looking-glass nailed against +the wall, she settled the strings of her bonnet by the aid of its +reflection, patted the fringe of brown hair on her forehead with +her separated five fingers as if playing an imaginary tune on her +brow, and came back with maidenly abstraction to the doorway. + +Everything was quiet, and her seclusion seemed unbroken. A smile +played for an instant in the soft shadows of her eyes and mouth as +she recalled the abrupt withdrawal of the men. Then her mouth +straightened and her brows slightly bent. It was certainly very +unmannerly in them to go off in that way. "Good heavens! couldn't +they have stayed around without talking? Surely it didn't require +four men to go and bring up that wagon!" She picked up her parasol +from the bench with an impatient little jerk. Then she held out +her ungloved hand into the hot sunshine beyond the door with the +gesture she would have used had it been raining, and withdrew it as +quickly--her hand quite scorched in the burning rays. Nevertheless, +after another impatient pause she desperately put up her parasol +and stepped from the shanty. + +Presently she was conscious of a faint sound of hammering not far +away. Perhaps there was another shed, but hidden, like everything +else, in this monotonous, ridiculous grain. Some stalks, however, +were trodden down and broken around the shanty; she could move more +easily and see where she was going. To her delight, a few steps +further brought her into a current of the trade-wind and a cooler +atmosphere. And a short distance beyond them, certainly, was the +shed from which the hammering proceeded. She approached it boldly. + +It was simply a roof upheld by rude uprights and crossbeams, and +open to the breeze that swept through it. At one end was a small +blacksmith's forge, some machinery, and what appeared to be part of +a small steam-engine. Midway of the shed was a closet or cupboard +fastened with a large padlock. Occupying its whole length on the +other side was a work-bench, and at the further end stood the +workman she had heard. + +He was apparently only a year or two older than herself, and clad +in blue jean overalls, blackened and smeared with oil and coal- +dust. Even his youthful face, which he turned towards her, had a +black smudge running across it and almost obliterating a small +auburn moustache. The look of surprise that he gave her, however, +quickly passed; he remained patiently and in a half-preoccupied +way, holding his hammer in his hand, as she advanced. This was +evidently the young fellow who could "do anything that could be +done with wood and iron." + +She was very sorry to disturb him, but could he tell her how long +it would be before the wagon could be brought up and mended? He +could not say that until he himself saw what was to be done; if it +was only a matter of the wheel he could fix it up in a few moments; +if, as he had been told, it was a case of twisted or bent axle, it +would take longer, but it would be here very soon. Ah, then, would +he let her wait here, as she was very anxious to know at once, and +it was much cooler than in the shed? Certainly; he would go over +and bring her a bench. But here she begged he wouldn't trouble +himself, she could sit anywhere comfortably. + +The lower end of the work-bench was covered with clean and odorous +shavings; she lightly brushed them aside and, with a youthful +movement, swung herself to a seat upon it, supporting herself on +one hand as she leaned towards him. She could thus see that his +eyes were of a light-yellowish brown, like clarified honey, with a +singular look of clear concentration in them, which, however, was +the same whether turned upon his work, the surrounding grain, or +upon her. This, and his sublime unconsciousness of the smudge +across his face and his blackened hands, made her wonder if the man +who could do everything with wood and iron was above doing anything +with water. She had half a mind to tell him of it, particularly as +she noticed also that his throat below the line of sunburn +disclosed by his open collar was quite white, and his grimy hands +well made. She was wondering whether he would be affronted if she +said in her politest way, "I beg your pardon, but do you know you +have quite accidentally got something on your face," and offer her +handkerchief, which, of course, he would decline, when her eye fell +on the steam-engine. + +"How odd! Do you use that on the farm?" + +"No,"--he smiled here, the smudge accenting it and setting off his +white teeth in a Christy Minstrel fashion that exasperated her--no, +although it COULD be used, and had been. But it was his first +effort, made two years ago, when he was younger and more +inexperienced. It was a rather rough thing, she could see--but he +had to make it at odd times with what iron he could pick up or pay +for, and at different forges where he worked. + +She begged his pardon--where-- + +WHERE HE WORKED. + +Ah, then he was the machinist or engineer here? + +No, he worked here just like the others, only he was allowed to put +up a forge while the grain was green, and have his bench in +consideration of the odd jobs he could do in the way of mending +tools, etc. There was a heap of mending and welding to do--she had +no idea how quickly agricultural machines got out of order! He had +done much of his work on the steam-engine on moonlit nights. Yes; +she had no idea how perfectly clear and light it was here in the +valley on such nights; although of course the shadows were very +dark, and when he dropped a screw or a nut it was difficult to +find. He had worked there because it saved time and because it +didn't cost anything, and he had nobody to look on or interfere +with him. No, it was not lonely; the coyotes and wild cats +sometimes came very near, but were always more surprised and +frightened than he was; and once a horseman who had strayed off the +distant road yonder mistook him for an animal and shot at him +twice. + +He told all this with such freedom from embarrassment and with such +apparent unconsciousness of the blue eyes that were following him, +and the light, graceful figure,--which was so near his own that in +some of his gestures his grimy hands almost touched its delicate +garments,--that, accustomed as she was to a certain masculine +aberration in her presence, she was greatly amused by his naive +acceptance of her as an equal. Suddenly, looking frankly in her +face, he said: + +"I'll show you a secret, if you care to see it." + +Nothing would please her more. + +He glanced hurriedly around, took a key from his pocket, and +unlocked the padlock that secured the closet she had noticed. +Then, reaching within, with infinite care he brought out a small +mechanical model. + +"There's an invention of my own. A reaper and thresher combined. +I'm going to have it patented and have a big one made from this +model. This will work, as you see." + +He then explained to her with great precision how as it moved over +the field the double operation was performed by the same motive +power. That it would be a saving of a certain amount of labor and +time which she could not remember. She did not understand a word +of his explanations; she saw only a clean and pretty but +complicated toy that under the manipulation of his grimy fingers +rattled a number of frail-like staves and worked a number of wheels +and drums, yet there was no indication of her ignorance in her +sparkling eyes and smiling, breathless attitude. Perhaps she was +interested in his own absorption; the revelation of his preoccupation +with this model struck her as if he had made her a confidante of +some boyish passion for one of her own sex, and she regarded him +with the same sympathizing superiority. + +"You will make a fortune out of it," she said pleasantly. + +Well, he might make enough to be able to go on with some other +inventions he had in his mind. They cost money and time, no matter +how careful one was. + +This was another interesting revelation to the young girl. He not +only did not seem to care for the profit his devotion brought him, +but even his one beloved ideal might be displaced by another. So +like a man, after all! + +Her reflections were broken upon by the sound of voices. The young +man carefully replaced the model in its closet with a parting +glance as if he was closing a shrine, and said, "There comes the +wagon." The young girl turned to face the men who were dragging it +from the road, with the half-complacent air of having been +victorious over their late rude abandonment, but they did not seem +to notice it or to be surprised at her companion, who quickly +stepped forward and examined the broken vehicle with workmanlike +deliberation. + +"I hope you will be able to do something with it," she said +sweetly, appealing directly to him. "I should thank you SO MUCH." + +He did not reply. Presently he looked up to the man who had +brought her to the shanty, and said, "The axle's strained, but it's +safe for five or six miles more of this road. I'll put the wheel +on easily." He paused, and without glancing at her, continued, +"You might send her on by the cart." + +"Pray don't trouble yourselves," interrupted the young girl, with a +pink uprising in her cheeks; "I shall be quite satisfied with the +buggy as it stands." Send her on in the cart, indeed! Really, +they were a rude set--ALL of them." + +Without taking the slightest notice of her remark, the man replied +gravely to the young mechanic, "Yes, but we'll be wanting the cart +before it can get back from taking her." + +"Her" again. "I assure you the buggy will serve perfectly well-- +if this--gentleman--will only be kind enough to put on the wheel +again," she returned hotly. + +The young mechanic at once set to work. The young girl walked +apart silently until the wheel was restored to its axle. But to +her surprise a different horse was led forward to be harnessed. + +"We thought your horse wasn't safe in case of another accident," +said the first man, with the same smileless consideration. "This +one wouldn't cut up if he was harnessed to an earthquake or a worse +driver than you've got." + +It occurred to her instantly that the more obvious remedy of +sending another driver had been already discussed and rejected by +them. Yet, when her own driver appeared a moment afterwards, she +ascended to her seat with some dignity and a slight increase of +color. + +"I am very much obliged to you all," she said, without glancing at +the young inventor. + +"Don't mention it, miss." + +"Good afternoon." + +"Good afternoon." They all took off their hats with the same +formal gravity as the horse moved forward, but turned back to their +work again before she was out of the field. + + +CHAPTER II + + +The ranch of Major Randolph lay on a rich falda of the Coast Range, +and overlooked the great wheat plains that the young girl had just +left. The house of wood and adobe, buried to its first story in +rose-trees and passion vines, was large and commodious. Yet it +contained only the major, his wife, her son and daughter, and the +few occasional visitors from San Francisco whom he entertained, and +she tolerated. + +For the major's household was not entirely harmonious. While a +young infantry subaltern at a Gulf station, he had been attracted +by the piquant foreign accent and dramatic gestures of a French +Creole widow, and--believing them, in the first flush of his +youthful passion more than an offset to the encumbrance of her two +children who, with the memory of various marital infidelities were +all her late husband had left her--had proposed, been accepted, and +promptly married to her. Before he obtained his captaincy, she had +partly lost her accent, and those dramatic gestures, which had +accented the passion of their brief courtship, began to intensify +domestic altercation and the bursts of idle jealousy to which she +was subject. Whether she was revenging herself on her second +husband for the faults of her first is not known, but it was +certain that she brought an unhallowed knowledge of the weaknesses, +cheap cynicism, and vanity of a foreign predecessor, to sit in +judgment upon the simple-minded and chivalrous American soldier who +had succeeded him, and who was, in fact, the most loyal of +husbands. The natural result of her skepticism was an espionage +and criticism of the wives of the major's brother officers that +compelled a frequent change of quarters. When to this was finally +added a racial divergence and antipathy, the public disparagement +of the customs and education of her female colleagues, and the +sudden insistence of a foreign and French dominance in her +household beyond any ordinary Creole justification, Randolph, +presumably to avoid later international complications, resigned +while he was as yet a major. Luckily his latest banishment to an +extreme Western outpost had placed him in California during the +flood of a speculation epoch. He purchased a valuable Spanish +grant to three leagues of land for little over a three months' pay. +Following that yearning which compels retired ship-captains and +rovers of all degrees to buy a farm in their old days, the major, +professionally and socially inured to border strife, sought +surcease and Arcadian repose in ranching. + +It was here that Mrs. Randolph, late relict of the late Scipion +L'Hommadieu, devoted herself to bringing up her children after the +extremest of French methods, and in resurrecting a "de" from her +own family to give a distinct and aristocratic character to their +name. The "de Fontanges l'Hommadieu" were, however, only known to +their neighbors, after the Western fashion, by their stepfather's +name,--when they were known at all--which was seldom. For the boy +was unpleasantly conceited as a precocious worldling, and the girl +as unpleasantly complacent in her role of ingenue. The household +was completely dominated by Mrs. Randolph. A punctilious Catholic, +she attended all the functions of the adjacent mission, and the +shadow of a black soutane at twilight gliding through the wild oat- +fields behind the ranch had often been mistaken for a coyote. The +peace-loving major did not object to a piety which, while it left +his own conscience free, imparted a respectable religious air to +his household, and kept him from the equally distasteful approaches +of the Puritanism of his neighbors, and was blissfully unconscious +that he was strengthening the antagonistic foreign element in his +family with an alien church. + +Meantime, as the repaired buggy was slowly making its way towards +his house, Major Randolph entered his wife's boudoir with a letter +which the San Francisco post had just brought him. A look of +embarrassment on his good-humored face strengthened the hard lines +of hers; she felt some momentary weakness of her natural enemy, and +prepared to give battle. + +"I'm afraid here's something of a muddle, Josephine," he began with +a deprecating smile. "Mallory, who was coming down here with his +daughter, you know"-- + +"This is the first intimation I have had that anything has been +settled upon," interrupted the lady, with appalling deliberation. + +"However, my dear, you know I told you last week that he thought of +bringing her here while he went South on business. You know, being +a widower, he has no one to leave her with." + +"And I suppose it is the American fashion to intrust one's +daughters to any old boon companions?" + +"Mallory is an old friend," interrupted the major, impatiently. +"He knows I'm married, and although he has never seen YOU, he is +quite willing to leave his daughter here." + +"Thank you!" + +"Come, you know what I mean. The man naturally believes that my +wife will be a proper chaperone for his daughter. But that is not +the present question. He intended to call here; I expected to take +you over to San Jose to see her and all that, you know; but the +fact of it is--that is--it seems from this letter that--he's been +called away sooner than he expected, and that--well--hang it! the +girl is actually on her way here now." + +"Alone?" + +"I suppose so. You know one thinks nothing of that here." + +"Or any other propriety, for that matter." + +"For heaven's sake, Josephine, don't be ridiculous! Of course it's +stupid her coming in this way, and Mallory ought to have brought +her--but she's coming, and we must receive her. By Jove! Here she +is now!" he added, starting up after a hurried glance through the +window. "But what kind of a d----d turn-out is that, anyhow?" + +It certainly was an odd-looking conveyance that had entered the +gates, and was now slowly coming up the drive towards the house. +A large draught horse harnessed to a dust-covered buggy, whose +strained fore-axle, bent by the last mile of heavy road, had +slanted the tops of the fore-wheels towards each other at an +alarming angle. The light, graceful dress and elegant parasol of +the young girl, who occupied half of its single seat, looked +ludicrously pronounced by the side of the slouching figure and +grimy duster of the driver, who occupied the other half. + +Mrs. Randolph gave a gritty laugh. "I thought you said she was +alone. Is that an escort she has picked up, American fashion, on +the road?" + +"That's her hired driver, no doubt. Hang it! she can't drive here +by herself," retorted the major, impatiently, hurrying to the door +and down the staircase. But he was instantly followed by his wife. +She had no idea of permitting a possible understanding to be +exchanged in their first greeting. The late M. l'Hommadieu had +been able to impart a whole plan of intrigue in a single word and +glance. + +Happily, Rose Mallory, already in the hall, in a few words detailed +the accident that had befallen her, to the honest sympathy of the +major and the coldly-polite concern of Mrs. Randolph, who, in +deliberately chosen sentences, managed to convey to the young girl +the conviction that accidents of any kind to young ladies were to +be regarded as only a shade removed from indiscretions. Rose was +impressed, and even flattered, by the fastidiousness of this +foreign-appearing woman, and after the fashion of youthful natures, +accorded to her the respect due to recognized authority. When to +this authority, which was evident, she added a depreciation of the +major, I fear that some common instinct of feminine tyranny +responded in Rose's breast, and that on the very threshold of the +honest soldier's home she tacitly agreed with the wife to look down +upon him. Mrs. Randolph departed to inform her son and daughter of +their guest's arrival. As a matter of fact, however, they had +already observed her approach to the house through the slits of +their drawn window-blinds, and those even narrower prejudices and +limited comprehensions which their education had fostered. The +girl, Adele, had only grasped the fact that Rose had come to their +house in fine clothes, alone with a man, in a broken-down vehicle, +and was moved to easy mirth and righteous wonder. The young man, +Emile, had agreed with her, with the mental reservation that the +guest was pretty, and must eventually fall in love with him. They +both, however, welcomed her with a trained politeness and a +superficial attention that, while the indifference of her own +countrymen in the wheat-field was still fresh in her recollection, +struck her with grateful contrast; the major's quiet and unobtrusive +kindliness naturally made less impression, or was accepted as a +matter of course. + +"Well," said the major, cheerfully but tentatively, to his wife +when they were alone again, "she seems a nice girl, after all; and +a good deal of pluck and character, by Jove! to push on in that +broken buggy rather than linger or come in a farm cart, eh?" + +"She was alone in that wheat-field," said Mrs. Randolph, with grim +deliberation, "for half an hour; she confesses it herself--TALKING +WITH A YOUNG MAN!" + +"Yes, but the others had gone for the buggy. And, in the name of +Heaven, what would you have her do--hide herself in the grain?" +said the major, desperately. "Besides," he added, with a +recklessness he afterwards regretted, "that mechanical chap they've +got there is really intelligent and worth talking to." + +"I have no doubt SHE thought so," said Mrs. Randolph, with a +mirthless smile. "In fact, I have observed that the American +freedom generally means doing what you WANT to do. Indeed, I +wonder she didn't bring him with her! Only I beg, major, that you +will not again, in the presence of my daughter,--and I may even +say, of my son,--talk lightly of the solitary meetings of young +ladies with mechanics, even though their faces were smutty, and +their clothes covered with oil." + +The major here muttered something about there being less danger in +a young lady listening to the intelligence of a coarsely-dressed +laborer than to the compliments of a rose-scented fop, but Mrs. +Randolph walked out of the room before he finished the evident +platitude. + +That night Rose Mallory retired to her room in a state of sell- +satisfaction that she even felt was to a certain extent a virtue. +She was delighted with her reception and with her hostess and +family. It was strange her father had not spoken more of MRS. +Randolph, who was clearly the superior of his old friend. What +fine manners they all had, so different from other people she had +known! There was quite an Old World civilization about them; +really, it was like going abroad! She would make the most of her +opportunity and profit by her visit. She would begin by improving +her French; they spoke it perfectly, and with such a pure accent. +She would correct certain errors she was conscious of in her own +manners, and copy Mrs. Randolph as much as possible. Certainly, +there was a great deal to be said of Mrs. Randolph's way of looking +at things. Now she thought of it calmly, there WAS too much +informality and freedom in American ways! There was not enough +respect due to position and circumstances. Take those men in the +wheat-field, for example. Yet here she found it difficult to +formulate an indictment against them for "freedom." She would like +to go there some day with the Randolphs and let them see what +company manners were! She was thoroughly convinced now that her +father had done wrong in sending her alone; it certainly was most +disrespectful to them and careless of him (she had quite forgotten +that she had herself proposed to her father to go alone rather than +wait at the hotel), and she must have looked very ridiculous in her +fine clothes and the broken-down buggy. When her trunk came by +express to-morrow she would look out something more sober. She +must remember that she was in a Catholic and religious household +now. Ah, yes! how very fine it was to see that priest at dinner in +his soutane, sitting down like one of the family, and making them +all seem like a picture of some historical and aristocratic +romance! And then they were actually "de Fontanges l'Hommadieu." +How different he was from that shabby Methodist minister who used +to come to see her father in a black cravat with a hideous bow! +Really there was something to say for a religion that contained so +much picturesque refinement; and for her part--but that will do. I +beg to say that I am not writing of any particular snob or feminine +monstrosity, but of a very charming creature, who was quite able to +say her prayers afterwards like a good girl, and lay her pretty +cheek upon her pillow without a blush. + +She opened her window and looked out. The moon, a great silver +dome, was uplifting itself from a bluish-gray level, which she knew +was the distant plain of wheat. Somewhere in its midst appeared a +dull star, at times brightening as if blown upon or drawn upwards +in a comet-like trail. By some odd instinct she felt that it was +the solitary forge of the young inventor, and pictured him standing +before it with his abstracted hazel eyes and a face more begrimed +in the moonlight than ever. When DID he wash himself? Perhaps not +until Sunday. How lonely it must be out there! She slightly +shivered and turned from the window. As she did so, it seemed to +her that something knocked against her door from without. Opening +it quickly, she was almost certain that the sound of a rustling +skirt retreated along the passage. It was very late; perhaps she +had disturbed the house by shutting her window. No doubt it was +the motherly interest of Mrs. Randolph that impelled her to come +softly and look after her; and for once her simple surmises were +correct. For not only the inspecting eyes of her hostess, but the +amatory glances of the youthful Emile, had been fastened upon her +window until the light disappeared, and even the Holy Mission +Church of San Jose had assured itself of the dear child's safety +with a large and supple ear at her keyhole. + +The next morning Major Randolph took her with Adele in a light +cariole over the ranch. Although his domain was nearly as large as +the adjoining wheat plain, it was not, like that, monopolized by +one enormous characteristic yield, but embraced a more diversified +product. There were acres and acres of potatoes in rows of endless +and varying succession; there were miles of wild oats and barley, +which overtopped them as they drove in narrow lanes of dry and +dusty monotony; there were orchards of pears, apricots, peaches, +and nectarines, and vineyards of grapes, so comparatively dwarfed +in height that they scarcely reached to the level of their eyes, +yet laden and breaking beneath the weight of their ludicrously +disproportionate fruit. What seemed to be a vast green plateau +covered with tiny patches, that headed the northern edge of the +prospect, was an enormous bed of strawberry plants. But everywhere, +crossing the track, bounding the fields, orchards, and vineyards, +intersecting the paths of the whole domain, were narrow irrigating +ducts and channels of running water. + +"Those," said the major, poetically, "are the veins and arteries of +the ranch. Come with me now, and I'll show you its pulsating +heart." Descending from the wagon into pedestrian prose again, he +led Rose a hundred yards further to a shed that covered a wonderful +artesian well. In the centre of a basin a column of water rose +regularly with the even flow and volume of a brook. "It is one of +the largest in the State," said the major, "and is the life of all +that grows here during six months of the year." + +Pleased as the young girl was with those evidences of the prosperity +and position of her host, she was struck, however, with the fact +that the farm-laborers, wine-growers, nurserymen, and all field +hands scattered on the vast estate were apparently of the same +independent, unpastoral, and unprofessional character as the men of +the wheat-field. There were no cottages or farm buildings that she +could see, nor any apparent connection between the household and the +estate; far from suggesting tenantry or retainers, the men who were +working in the fields glanced at them as they passed with the +indifference of strangers, or replied to the major's greetings or +questionings with perfect equality of manner, or even businesslike +reserve and caution. Her host explained that the ranch was worked +by a company "on shares;" that those laborers were, in fact, the +bulk of the company; and that he, the major, only furnished the +land, the seed, and the implements. "That man who was driving the +long roller, and with whom you were indignant because he wouldn't +get out of our way, is the president of the company." + +"That needn't make him so uncivil," said Rose, poutingly, "for if +it comes to that you're the LANDLORD," she added triumphantly. + +"No," said the major, good-humoredly. "I am simply the man driving +the lighter and more easily-managed team for pleasure, and he's the +man driving the heavier and more difficult machine for work. It's +for me to get out of his way; and looked at in the light of my +being THE LANDLORD it is still worse, for as we're working 'on +shares' I'm interrupting HIS work, and reducing HIS profits merely +because I choose to sacrifice my own." + +I need not say that those atrociously leveling sentiments were +received by the young ladies with that feminine scorn which is only +qualified by misconception. Rose, who, under the influence of her +hostess, had a vague impression that they sounded something like +the French Revolution, and that Adele must feel like the Princess +Elizabeth, rushed to her relief like a good girl. "But, major, +now, YOU'RE a gentleman, and if YOU had been driving that roller, +you know you would have turned out for us." + +"I don't know about that," said the major, mischievously; "but if +I had, I should have known that the other fellow who accepted it +wasn't a gentleman." + +But Rose, having sufficiently shown her partisanship in the +discussion, after the feminine fashion, did not care particularly +for the logical result. After a moment's silence she resumed: +"And the wheat ranch below--is that carried on in the same way?" + +"Yes. But their landlord is a bank, who advances not only the +land, but the money to work it, and doesn't ride around in a buggy +with a couple of charmingly distracting young ladies." + +"And do they all share alike?" continued Rose, ignoring the +pleasantry, "big and little--that young inventor with the rest?" + +She stopped. She felt the ingenue's usually complacent eyes +suddenly fixed upon her with an unhallowed precocity, and as +quickly withdrawn. Without knowing why, she felt embarrassed, and +changed the subject. + +The next day they drove to the Convent of Santa Clara and the +Mission College of San Jose. Their welcome at both places seemed +to Rose to be a mingling of caste greeting and spiritual zeal, and +the austere seclusion and reserve of those cloisters repeated that +suggestion of an Old World civilization that had already fascinated +the young Western girl. They made other excursions in the +vicinity, but did not extend it to a visit to their few neighbors. +With their reserved and exclusive ideas this fact did not strike +Rose as peculiar, but on a later shopping expedition to the town of +San Jose, a certain reticence and aggressive sensitiveness on the +part of the shopkeepers and tradespeople towards the Randolphs +produced an unpleasant impression on her mind. She could not help +noticing, too, that after the first stare of astonishment which +greeted her appearance with her hostess, she herself was included in +the antagonism. With her youthful prepossession for her friends, +this distinction she regarded as flattering and aristocratic, and I +fear she accented it still more by discussing with Mrs. Randolph the +merits of the shopkeepers' wares in schoolgirl French before them. +She was unfortunate enough, however, to do this in the shop of a +polyglot German. + +"Oxcoos me, mees," he said gravely,--"but dot lady speeks Engeleesh +so goot mit yourselluf, and ven you dells to her dot silk is hallf +gotton in English, she onderstand you mooch better, and it don't +make nodings to me." The laugh which would have followed from her +own countrywomen did not, however, break upon the trained faces of +the "de Fontanges l'Hommadieus," yet while Rose would have joined +in it, albeit a little ruefully, she felt for the first time +mortified at their civil insincerity. + +At the end of two weeks, Major Randolph received a letter from Mr. +Mallory. When he had read it, he turned to his wife: "He thanks +you," he said, "for your kindness to his daughter, and explains +that his sudden departure was owing to the necessity of his taking +advantage of a great opportunity for speculation that had offered." +As Mrs. Randolph turned away with a slight shrug of the shoulders, +the major continued: "But you haven't heard all! That opportunity +was the securing of a half interest in a cinnabar lode in Sonora, +which has already gone up a hundred thousand dollars in his hands! +By Jove! a man can afford to drop a little social ceremony on those +terms--eh, Josephine?" he concluded with a triumphant chuckle. + +"He's as likely to lose his hundred thousand to-morrow, while his +manners will remain," said Mrs. Randolph. "I've no faith in these +sudden California fortunes!" + +"You're wrong as regards Mallory, for he's as careful as he is +lucky. He don't throw money away for appearance sake, or he'd have +a rich home for that daughter. He could afford it." + +Mrs. Randolph was silent. "She is his only daughter, I believe," +she continued presently. + +"Yes--he has no other kith or kin," returned the major. + +"She seems to be very much impressed by Emile," said Mrs. Randolph. + +Major Randolph faced his wife quickly. + +"In the name of all that's ridiculous, my dear, you are not already +thinking of"--he gasped. + +"I should be very loth to give MY sanction to anything of the kind, +knowing the difference of her birth, education, and religion,-- +although the latter I believe she would readily change," said Mrs. +Randolph, severely. "But when you speak of MY already thinking of +'such things,' do you suppose that your friend, Mr. Mallory, didn't +consider all that when he sent that girl here?" + +"Never," said the major, vehemently, "and if it entered his head +now, by Jove, he'd take her away to-morrow--always supposing I +didn't anticipate him by sending her off myself." + +Mrs. Randolph uttered her mirthless laugh. "And you suppose the +girl would go? Really, major, you don't seem to understand this +boasted liberty of your own countrywoman. What does she care for +her father's control? Why, she'd make him do just what SHE wanted. +But," she added with an expression of dignity, "perhaps we had +better not discuss this until we know something of Emile's feelings +in the matter. That is the only question that concerns us." With +this she swept out of the room, leaving the major at first +speechless with honest indignation, and then after the fashion of +all guileless natures, a little uneasy and suspicious of his own +guilelessness. For a day or two after, he found himself, not +without a sensation of meanness, watching Rose when in Emile's +presence, but he could distinguish nothing more than the frank +satisfaction she showed equally to the others. Yet he found +himself regretting even that, so subtle was the contagion of his +wife's suspicions. + + +CHAPTER III + + +It had been a warm morning; an unusual mist, which the sun had not +dissipated, had crept on from the great grain-fields beyond, and +hung around the house charged with a dry, dusty closeness that +seemed to be quite independent of the sun's rays, and more like a +heated exhalation or emanation of the soil itself. In its acrid +irritation Rose thought she could detect the breath of the wheat as +on the day she had plunged into its pale, green shadows. By the +afternoon this mist had disappeared, apparently in the same +mysterious manner, but not scattered by the usual trade-wind, +which--another unusual circumstance--that day was not forthcoming. +There was a breathlessness in the air like the hush of listening +expectancy, which filled the young girl with a vague restlessness, +and seemed to even affect a scattered company of crows in the field +beyond the house, which rose suddenly with startled but aimless +wings, and then dropped vacantly among the grain again. + +Major Randolph was inspecting a distant part of the ranch, Mrs. +Randolph was presumably engaged in her boudoir, and Rose was +sitting between Adele and Emile before the piano in the drawing- +room, listlessly turning over the leaves of some music. There had +been an odd mingling of eagerness and abstraction in the usual +attentions of the young man that morning, and a certain nervous +affectation in his manner of twisting the ends of a small black +moustache, which resembled his mother's eyebrows, that had affected +Rose with a half-amused, half-uneasy consciousness, but which she +had, however, referred to the restlessness produced by the weather. +It occurred to her also that the vacuously amiable Adele had once +or twice regarded her with the same precocious, childlike curiosity +and infantine cunning she had once before exhibited. All this did +not, however, abate her admiration for both--perhaps particularly +for this picturesquely gentlemanly young fellow, with his gentle +audacities of compliment, his caressing attentions, and his +unfailing and equal address. And when, discovering that she had +mislaid her fan for the fifth time that morning, he started up with +equal and undiminished fire to go again and fetch it, the look of +grateful pleasure and pleading perplexity in her pretty eyes might +have turned a less conceited brain than his. + +"But you don't know where it is!" + +"I shall find it by instinct." + +"You are spoiling me--you two." The parenthesis was a hesitating +addition, but she continued, with fresh sincerity, "I shall be +quite helpless when I leave here--if I am ever able to go by +myself." + +"Don't ever go, then." + +"But just now I want my fan; it is so close everywhere to-day." + +"I fly, mademoiselle." + +He started to the door. + +She called after him:-- + +"Let me help your instinct, then; I had it last in the major's +study." + +"That was where I was going." + +He disappeared. Rose got up and moved uneasily towards the window. +"How queer and quiet it looks outside. It's really too bad that he +should be sent after that fan again. He'll never find it." She +resumed her place at the piano, Adele following her with round, +expectant eyes. After a pause she started up again. "I'll go and +fetch it myself," she said, with a half-embarrassed laugh, and ran +to the door. + +Scarcely understanding her own nervousness, but finding relief in +rapid movement, Rose flew lightly up the staircase. The major's +study, where she had been writing letters, during his absence, that +morning, was at the further end of a long passage, and near her own +bedroom, the door of which, as she passed, she noticed, half- +abstractedly, was open, but she continued on and hurriedly entered +the study. At the same moment Emile, with a smile on his face, +turned towards her with the fan in his hand. + +"Oh, you've found it," she said, with nervous eagerness. "I was so +afraid you'd have all your trouble for nothing." + +She extended her hand, with a half-breathless smile, for the fan, +but he caught her outstretched little palm in his own, and held it. + +"Ah! but you are not going to leave us, are you?" + +In a flash of consciousness she understood him, and, as it seemed +to her, her own nervousness, and all, and everything. And with it +came a swift appreciation of all it meant to her and her future. +To be always with him and like him, a part of this refined and +restful seclusion--akin to all that had so attracted her in this +house; not to be obliged to educate herself up to it, but to be in +it on equal terms at once; to know that it was no wild, foolish +youthful fancy, but a wise, thoughtful, and prudent resolve, that +her father would understand and her friends respect: these were the +thoughts that crowded quickly upon her, more like an explanation of +her feelings than a revelation, in the brief second that he held +her hand. It was not, perhaps, love as she had dreamed it, and +even BELIEVED it, before. She was not ashamed or embarrassed; she +even felt, with a slight pride, that she was not blushing. She +raised her eyes frankly. What she WOULD have said she did not +know, for the door, which he had closed behind her, began to shake +violently. + +It was not the fear of some angry intrusion or interference surely +that made him drop her hand instantly. It was not--her second +thought--the idea that some one had fallen in a fit against it that +blanched his face with abject and unreasoning terror! It must have +been something else that caused him to utter an inarticulate cry +and dash out of the room and down the stairs like a madman! What +had happened? + +In her own self-possession she knew that all this was passing +rapidly, that it was not the door now that was still shaking, for +it had swung almost shut again--but it was the windows, the book- +shelves, the floor beneath her feet, that were all shaking. She +heard a hurried scrambling, the trampling of feet below, and the +quick rustling of a skirt in the passage, as if some one had +precipitately fled from her room. Yet no one had called to her-- +even HE had said nothing. Whatever had happened they clearly had +not cared for her to know. + +The jarring and rattling ceased as suddenly, but the house seemed +silent and empty. She moved to the door, which had now swung open +a few inches, but to her astonishment it was fixed in that +position, and she could not pass. As yet she had been free from +any personal fear, and even now it was with a half smile at her +imprisonment in the major's study, that she rang the bell and +turned to the window. A man, whom she recognized as one of the +ranch laborers, was standing a hundred feet away in the garden, +looking curiously at the house. He saw her face as she tried to +raise the sash, uttered an exclamation, and ran forward. But +before she could understand what he said, the sash began to rattle +in her hand, the jarring recommenced, the floor shook beneath her +feet, a hideous sound of grinding seemed to come from the walls, a +thin seam of dust-like smoke broke from the ceiling, and with the +noise of falling plaster a dozen books followed each other from the +shelves, in what in the frantic hurry of that moment seemed a +grimly deliberate succession; a picture hanging against the wall, +to her dazed wonder, swung forward, and appeared to stand at right +angles from it; she felt herself reeling against the furniture; a +deadly nausea overtook her; as she glanced despairingly towards the +window, the outlying fields beyond the garden seemed to be +undulating like a sea. For the first time she raised her voice, +not in fear, but in a pathetic little cry of apology for her +awkwardness in tumbling about and not being able to grapple this +new experience, and then she found herself near the door, which had +once more swung free. She grasped it eagerly, and darted out of +the study into the deserted passage. Here some instinct made her +follow the line of the wall, rather than the shaking balusters of +the corridor and staircase, but before she reached the bottom she +heard a shout, and the farm laborer she had seen coming towards her +seized her by the arm, dragged her to the open doorway of the +drawing-room, and halted beneath its arch in the wall. Another +thrill, but lighter than before, passed through the building, then +all was still again. + +"It's over; I reckon that's all just now," said the man, coolly. +"It's quite safe to cut and run for the garden now, through this +window." He half led, half lifted her through the French window to +the veranda and the ground, and locking her arm in his, ran quickly +forward a hundred feet from the house, stopping at last beneath a +large post oak where there was a rustic seat into which she sank. +"You're safe now, I reckon," he said grimly. + +She looked towards the house; the sun was shining brightly; a cool +breeze seemed to have sprung up as they ran. She could see a +quantity of rubbish lying on the roof from which a dozen yards of +zinc gutter were perilously hanging; the broken shafts of the +further cluster of chimneys, a pile of bricks scattered upon the +ground and among the battered down beams of the end of the veranda-- +but that was all. She lifted her now whitened face to the man, +and with the apologetic smile still lingering on her lips, asked:-- + +"What does it all mean? What has happened?" + +The man stared at her. "D'ye mean to say ye don't know?" + +"How could I? They must have all left the house as soon as it +began. I was talking to--to M. l'Hommadieu, and he suddenly left." + +The man brought his face angrily down within an inch of her own. +"D'ye mean to say that them d----d French half-breeds stampeded and +left yer there alone?" + +She was still too much stupefied by the reaction to fully +comprehend his meaning, and repeated feebly with her smile still +faintly lingering: "But you don't tell me WHAT it was?" + +"An earthquake," said the man, roughly, "and if it had lasted ten +seconds longer it would have shook the whole shanty down and left +you under it. Yer kin tell that to them, if they don't know it, +but from the way they made tracks to the fields, I reckon they did. +They're coming now." + +Without another word he turned away half surlily, half defiantly, +passing scarce fifty yards away Mrs. Randolph and her daughter, who +were hastening towards their guest. + +"Oh, here you are!" said Mrs. Randolph, with the nearest approach +to effusion that Rose had yet seen in her manner. "We were +wondering where you had run to, and were getting quite concerned. +Emile was looking for you everywhere." + +The recollection of his blank and abject face, his vague outcry and +blind fright, came back to Rose with a shock that sent a flash of +sympathetic shame to her face. The ingenious Adele noticed it, and +dutifully pinched her mother's arm. + +"Emile?" echoed Rose faintly--"looking for ME?" + +Mother and daughter exchanged glances. + +"Yes," said Mrs. Randolph, cheerfully, "he says he started to run +with you, but you got ahead and slipped out of the garden door--or +something of the kind," she added, with the air of making light of +Rose's girlish fears. "You know one scarcely knows what one does +at such times, and it must have been frightfully strange to YOU-- +and he's been quite distracted, lest you should have wandered away. +Adele, run and tell him Miss Mallory has been here under the oak +all the time." + +Rose started--and then fell hopelessly back in her seat. Perhaps +it WAS true! Perhaps he had not rushed off with that awful face +and without a word. Perhaps she herself had been half-frightened +out of her reason. In the simple, weak kindness of her nature it +seemed less dreadful to believe that the fault was partly her own. + +"And you went back into the house to look for us when all was +over," said Mrs. Randolph, fixing her black, beady, magnetic eyes +on Rose, "and that stupid yokel Zake brought you out again. He +needn't have clutched your arm so closely, my dear,--I must speak +to the major about his excessive familiarity--but I suppose I shall +be told that that is American freedom. I call it 'a liberty.'" + +It struck Rose that she had not even thanked the man--in the same +flash that she remembered something dreadful that he had said. She +covered her face with her hands and tried to recall herself. + +Mrs. Randolph gently tapped her shoulder with a mixture of maternal +philosophy and discipline, and continued: "Of course, it's an +upset--and you're confused still. That's nothing. They say, dear, +it's perfectly well known that no two people's recollections of +these things ever are the same. It's really ridiculous the +contradictory stories one hears. Isn't it, Emile?" + +Rose felt that the young man had joined them and was looking at +her. In the fear that she should still see some trace of the +startled, selfish animal in his face, she did not dare to raise her +eyes to his, but looked at his mother. Mrs. Randolph was standing +then, collected but impatient. + +"It's all over now," said Emile, in his usual voice, "and except +the chimneys and some fallen plaster there's really no damage done. +But I'm afraid they have caught it pretty badly at the mission, and +at San Francisco in those tall, flashy, rattle-trap buildings +they're putting up. I've just sent off one of the men for news." + +Her father was in San Francisco by that time; and she had never +thought of him! In her quick remorse she now forgot all else and +rose to her feet. + +"I must telegraph to my father at once," she said hurriedly; "he is +there." + +"You had better wait until the messenger returns and hear his +news," said Emile. "If the shock was only a slight one in San +Francisco, your father might not understand you, and would be +alarmed." + +She could see his face now--there was no record of the past +expression upon it, but he was watching her eagerly. Mrs. Randolph +and Adele had moved away to speak to the servants. Emile drew +nearer. + +"You surely will not desert us now?" he said in a low voice. + +"Please don't," she said vaguely. "I'm so worried," and, pushing +quickly past him, she hurriedly rejoined the two women. + +They were superintending the erection of a long tent or marquee in +the garden, hastily extemporized from the awnings of the veranda +and other cloth. Mrs. Randolph explained that, although all danger +was over, there was the possibility of the recurrence of lighter +shocks during the day and night, and that they would all feel much +more secure and comfortable to camp out for the next twenty-four +hours in the open air. + +"Only imagine you're picnicking, and you'll enjoy it as most people +usually enjoy those horrid al fresco entertainments. I don't +believe there's the slightest real necessity for it, but," she +added in a lower voice, "the Irish and Chinese servants are so +demoralized now, they wouldn't stay indoors with us. It's a common +practice here, I believe, for a day or two after the shock, and it +gives time to put things right again and clear up. The old, one- +storied, Spanish houses with walls three feet thick, and built +round a courtyard or patio, were much safer. It's only when the +Americans try to improve upon the old order of things with their +pinchbeck shams and stucco that Providence interferes like this to +punish them." + +It was the fact, however, that Rose was more impressed by what +seemed to her the absolute indifference of Providence in the +matter, and the cool resumption by Nature of her ordinary +conditions. The sky above their heads was as rigidly blue as ever, +and as smilingly monotonous; the distant prospect, with its clear, +well-known silhouettes, had not changed; the crows swung on lazy, +deliberate wings over the grain as before; and the trade-wind was +again blowing in its quiet persistency. And yet she knew that +something had happened that would never again make her enjoyment of +the prospect the same--that nothing would ever be as it was +yesterday. I think at first she referred only to the material and +larger phenomena, and did not confound this revelation of the +insecurity of the universe with her experience of man. Yet the +fact also remained that to the conservative, correct, and, as she +believed, secure condition to which she had been approximating, all +her relations were rudely shaken and upset. It really seemed to +this simple-minded young woman that the revolutionary disturbance +of settled conditions might have as Providential an origin as the +"Divine Right" of which she had heard so much. + + +CHAPTER IV + + +In her desire to be alone and to evade the now significant +attentions of Emile, she took advantage of the bustle that followed +the hurried transfer of furniture and articles from the house to +escape through the garden to the outlying fields. Striking into +one of the dusty lanes that she remembered, she wandered on for +half an hour until her progress and meditation were suddenly +arrested. She had come upon a long chasm or crack in the soil, +full twenty feet wide and as many in depth, crossing her path at +right angles. She did not remember having seen it before; the +track of wheels went up to its precipitous edge; she could see the +track on the other side, but the hiatus remained, unbridged and +uncovered. It was not there yesterday. She glanced right and +left; the fissure seemed to extend, like a moat or ditch, from the +distant road to the upland between her and the great wheat valley +below, from which she was shut off. An odd sense of being in some +way a prisoner confronted her. She drew back with an impatient +start, and perhaps her first real sense of indignation. A voice +behind her, which she at once recognized, scarcely restored her +calmness. + +"You can't get across there, miss." + +She turned. It was the young inventor from the wheat ranch, on +horseback and with a clean face. He had just ridden out of the +grain on the same side of the chasm as herself. + +"But you seem to have got over," she said bluntly. + +"Yes, but it was further up the field. I reckoned that the split +might be deeper but not so broad in the rock outcrop over there +than in the adobe here. I found it so and jumped it." + +He looked as if he might--alert, intelligent, and self-contained. +He lingered a moment, and then continued:-- + +"I'm afraid you must have been badly shaken and a little frightened +up there before the chimneys came down?" + +"No," she was glad to say briefly, and she believed truthfully, I +wasn't frightened. I didn't even know it was an earthquake." + +"Ah!" he reflected, "that was because you were a stranger. It's +odd--they're all like that. I suppose it's because nobody really +expects or believes in the unlooked-for thing, and yet that's the +thing that always happens. And then, of course, that other affair, +which really is serious, startled you the more." + +She felt herself ridiculously and angrily blushing. "I don't know +what you mean," she said icily. "What other affair?" + +"Why, the well." + +"The well?" she repeated vacantly. + +"Yes; the artesian well has stopped. Didn't the major tell you?" + +"No," said the girl. "He was away; I haven't seen him yet." + +"Well, the flow of water has ceased completely. That's what I'm +here for. The major sent for me, and I've been to examine it." + +"And is that stoppage so very important?" she said dubiously. + +It was his turn to look at her wonderingly. + +"If it's LOST entirely, it means ruin for the ranch," he said +sharply. He wheeled his horse, nodded gravely, and trotted off. + +Major Randolph's figure of the "life-blood of the ranch" flashed +across her suddenly. She knew nothing of irrigation or the costly +appliances by which the Californian agriculturist opposed the long +summer droughts. She only vaguely guessed that the dreadful +earthquake had struck at the prosperity of those people whom only +a few hours ago she had been proud to call her friends. The +underlying goodness of her nature was touched. Should she let +a momentary fault--if it were not really, after all, only a +misunderstanding--rise between her and them at such a moment? +She turned and hurried quickly towards the house. + +Hastening onward, she found time, however, to wonder also why these +common men--she now included even the young inventor in that +category--were all so rude and uncivil to HER! She had never +before been treated in this way; she had always been rather +embarrassed by the admiring attentions of young men (clerks and +collegians) in her Atlantic home, and, of professional men +(merchants and stockbrokers) in San Francisco. It was true that +they were not as continually devoted to her and to the nice art and +etiquette of pleasing as Emile,--they had other things to think +about, being in business and not being GENTLEMEN,--but then they +were greatly superior to these clowns, who took no notice of her, +and rode off without lingering or formal leave-taking when their +selfish affairs were concluded. It must be the contact of the +vulgar earth--this wretched, cracking, material, and yet +ungovernable and lawless earth--that so depraved them. She felt +she would like to say this to some one--not her father, for he +wouldn't listen to her, nor to the major, who would laughingly +argue with her, but to Mrs. Randolph, who would understand her, and +perhaps say it some day in her own sharp, sneering way to these +very clowns. With those gentle sentiments irradiating her blue +eyes, and putting a pink flush upon her fair cheeks, Rose reached +the garden with the intention of rushing sympathetically into Mrs. +Randolph's arms. But it suddenly occurred to her that she would be +obliged to state how she became aware of this misfortune, and with +it came an instinctive aversion to speak of her meeting with the +inventor. She would wait until Mrs. Randolph told her. But +although that lady was engaged in a low-voiced discussion in French +with Emile and Adele, which instantly ceased at her approach, there +was no allusion made to the new calamity. "You need not telegraph +to your father," she said as Rose approached, "he has already +telegraphed to you for news; as you were out, and the messenger was +waiting an answer, we opened the dispatch, and sent one, telling +him that you were all right, and that he need not hurry here on +your account. So you are satisfied, I hope." A few hours ago this +would have been true, and Rose would have probably seen in the +action of her hostess only a flattering motherly supervision; there +was, in fact, still a lingering trace of trust in her mind yet she +was conscious that she would have preferred to answer the dispatch +herself, and to have let her father come. To a girl brought up +with a belief in the right of individual independence of thought +and action, there was something in Mrs. Randolph's practical +ignoring of that right which startled her in spite of her new +conservatism, while, as the daughter of a business man, her +instincts revolted against Mrs. Randolph's unbusiness-like action +with the telegram, however vulgar and unrefined she may have begun +to consider a life of business. The result was a certain +constraint and embarrassment in her manner, which, however, had the +laudable effect of limiting Emile's attention to significant +glances, and was no doubt variously interpreted by the others. But +she satisfied her conscience by determining to make a confidence of +her sympathy to the major on the first opportunity. + +This she presently found when the others were preoccupied; the +major greeting her with a somewhat careworn face, but a voice whose +habitual kindness was unchanged. When he had condoled with her on +the terrifying phenomenon that had marred her visit to the ranch,-- +and she could not help impatiently noticing that he too seemed to +have accepted his wife's theory that she had been half deliriously +frightened,--he regretted that her father had not concluded to come +down to the ranch, as his practical advice would have been +invaluable in this emergency. She was about to eagerly explain +why, when it occurred to her that Mrs. Randolph had only given him +a suppressed version of the telegram, and that she would be +betraying her, or again taking sides in this partisan divided home. +With some hesitation she at last alluded to the accident to the +artesian well. The major did not ask her how she had heard of it; +it was a bad business, he thought, but it might not be a total +loss. The water may have been only diverted by the shock and might +be found again at the lower level, or in some lateral fissure. He +had sent hurriedly for Tom Bent--that clever young engineer at the +wheat ranch, who was always studying up these things with his +inventions--and that was his opinion. No, Tom was not a well- +digger, but it was generally known that he had "located" one or +two, and had long ago advised the tapping of that flow by a second +boring, in case of just such an emergency. He was coming again to- +morrow. By the way, he had asked how the young lady visitor was, +and hoped she had not been alarmed by the earthquake! + +Rose felt herself again blushing, and, what was more singular, with +an unexpected and it seemed to her ridiculous pleasure, although +outwardly she appeared to ignore the civility completely. And she +had no intention of being so easily placated. If this young man +thought by mere perfunctory civilities to her HOST to make up for +his clownishness to HER, he was mistaken. She would let him see it +when he called to-morrow. She quickly turned the subject by +assuring the major of her sympathy and her intention of sending for +her father. For the rest of the afternoon and during their al +fresco dinner she solved the difficulty of her strained relations +with Mrs. Randolph and Emile by conversing chiefly with the major, +tacitly avoiding, however, any allusion to this Mr. Bent. But Mrs. +Randolph was less careful. + +"You don't really mean to say, major," she began in her dryest, +grittiest manner, "that instead of sending to San Francisco for +some skilled master-mechanic, you are going to listen to the +vagaries of a conceited, half-educated farm-laborer, and employ +him? You might as well call in some of those wizards or water- +witches at once." But the major, like many other well-managed +husbands who are good-humoredly content to suffer in the sunshine +of prosperity, had no idea of doing so in adversity, and the +prospect of being obliged to go back to youthful struggles had +recalled some of the independence of that period. He looked up +quietly, and said:-- + +"If his conclusions are as clear and satisfactory to-morrow as they +were to-day, I shall certainly try to secure his services." + +"Then I can only say I would prefer the water-witch. He at least +would not represent a class of neighbors who have made themselves +systematically uncivil and disagreeable to us." + +"I am afraid, Josephine, we have not tried to make ourselves +particularly agreeable to THEM," said the major. + +"If that can only be done by admitting their equality, I prefer +they should remain uncivil. Only let it be understood, major, that +if you choose to take this Tom-the-ploughboy to mend your well, you +will at least keep him there while he is on the property." + +With what retort the major would have kept up this conjugal +discussion, already beginning to be awkward to the discreet +visitor, is not known, as it was suddenly stopped by a bullet from +the rosebud lips of the ingenuous Adele. + +"Why, he's very handsome when his face is clean, and his hands are +small and not at all hard. And he doesn't talk the least bit queer +or common." + +There was a dead silence. "And pray where did YOU see him, and +what do you know about his hands?" asked Mrs. Randolph, in her most +desiccated voice. "Or has the major already presented you to him? +I shouldn't be surprised." + +"No, but"--hesitated the young girl, with a certain mouse-like +audacity,--"when you sent me to look after Miss Mallory, I came up +to him just after he had spoken to her, and he stopped to ask me +how we all were, and if Miss Mallory was really frightened by the +earthquake, and he shook hands for good afternoon--that's all." + +"And who taught you to converse with common strangers and shake +hands with them?" continued Mrs. Randolph, with narrowing lips. + +"Nobody, mamma; but I thought if Miss Mallory, who is a young lady, +could speak to him, so could I, who am not out yet." + +"We won't discuss this any further at present," said Mrs. Randolph, +stiffly, as the major smiled grimly at Rose. "The earthquake seems +to have shaken down in this house more than the chimneys." + +It certainly had shaken all power of sleep from the eyes of Rose +when the household at last dispersed to lie down in their clothes +on the mattresses which had been arranged under the awnings. She +was continually starting up from confused dreams of the ground +shaking under her, or she seemed to be standing on the brink of +some dreadful abyss like the great chasm on the grain-field, when +it began to tremble and crumble beneath her feet. It was near +morning when, unable to endure it any longer, she managed without +disturbing the sleeping Adele, who occupied the same curtained +recess with her, to slip out from the awning. Wrapped in a thick +shawl, she made her way through the encompassing trees and bushes +of the garden that had seemed to imprison and suffocate her, to the +edge of the grain-field, where she could breathe the fresh air +beneath an open, starlit sky. There was no moon and the darkness +favored her; she had no fears that weighed against the horror of +seclusion with her own fancies. Besides, they were camping OUT of +the house, and if she chose to sit up or walk about, no one could +think it strange. She wished her father were here that she might +have some one of her own kin to talk to, yet she knew not what to +say to him if he had come. She wanted somebody to sympathize with +her feelings,--or rather, perhaps, some one to combat and even +ridicule the uneasiness that had lately come over her. She knew +what her father would say,--"Do you want to go, or do you want to +stay here? Do you like these people, or do you not?" She +remembered the one or two glowing and enthusiastic accounts she had +written him of her visit here, and felt herself blushing again. +What would he think of Mrs. Randolph's opening and answering the +telegram? Wouldn't he find out from the major if she had garbled +the sense of his dispatch? + +Away to the right, in the midst of the distant and invisible wheat- +field, there was the same intermittent star, which like a living, +breathing thing seemed to dilate in glowing respiration, as she had +seen it the first night of her visit. Mr. Bent's forge! It must +be nearly daylight now; the poor fellow had been up all night, or +else was stealing this early march on the day. She recalled +Adele's sudden eulogium of him. The first natural smile that had +come to her lips since the earthquake broke up her nervous +restraint, and sent her back more like her old self to her couch. + +But she had not proceeded far towards the tent, when she heard the +sound of low voices approaching her. It was the major and his +wife, who, like herself, had evidently been unable to sleep, and +were up betimes. A new instinct of secretiveness, which she felt +was partly the effect of her artificial surrounding, checked her +first natural instinct to call to them, and she drew back deeper in +the shadow to let them pass. But to her great discomfiture the +major in a conversational emphasis stopped directly in front of +her. + +"You are wrong, I tell you, a thousand times wrong. The girl is +simply upset by this earthquake. It's a great pity her father +didn't come instead of telegraphing. And by Jove, rather than hear +any more of this, I'll send for him myself," said the major, in an +energetic but suppressed voice. + +"And the girl won't thank you, and you'll be a fool for your +pains," returned Mrs. Randolph, with dry persistency. + +"But according to your own ideas of propriety, Mallory ought to be +the first one to be consulted--and by me, too." + +"Not in this case. Of course, before any actual engagement is on, +you can speak of Emile's attentions." + +"But suppose Mallory has other views. Suppose he declines the +honor. The man is no fool." + +"Thank you. But for that very reason he must. Listen to me, +major; if he doesn't care to please his daughter for her own sake, +he will have to do so for the sake of decency. Yes, I tell you, +she has thoroughly compromised herself--quite enough, if it is ever +known, to spoil any other engagement her father may make. Why, ask +Adele! The day of the earthquake she ABSOLUTELY had the audacity +to send him out of the room upstairs into your study for her fan, +and then follow him up there alone. The servants knew it. I knew +it, for I was in her room at the time with Father Antonio. The +earthquake made it plain to everybody. Decline it! No. Mr. +Mallory will think twice about it before he does that. What's +that? Who's there?" + +There was a sudden rustle in the bushes like the passage of some +frightened animal--and then all was still again. + + +CHAPTER V + + +The sun, an hour high, but only just topping the greenish crests of +the wheat, was streaming like the morning breeze through the open +length of Tom Bent's workshed. An exaggerated and prolonged shadow +of the young inventor himself at work beside his bench was +stretching itself far into the broken-down ranks of stalks towards +the invisible road, and falling at the very feet of Rose Mallory as +she emerged from them. + +She was very pale, very quiet, and very determined. The traveling +mantle thrown over her shoulders was dusty, the ribbons that tied +her hat under her round chin had become unloosed. She advanced, +walking down the line of shadow directly towards him. + +"I am afraid I will have to trouble you once more," she said with +a faint smile, which did not, however, reach her perplexed eyes. +"Could you give me any kind of a conveyance that would take me to +San Jose at once?" + +The young man had started at the rustling of her dress in the +shavings, and turned eagerly. The faintest indication of a loss of +interest was visible for an instant in his face, but it quickly +passed into a smile of recognition. Yet she felt that he had +neither noticed any change in her appearance, nor experienced any +wonder at seeing her there at that hour. + +"I did not take a buggy from the house," she went on quickly, "for +I left early, and did not want to disturb them. In fact, they +don't know that I am gone. I was worried at not hearing news from +my father in San Francisco since the earthquake, and I thought I +would run down to San Jose to inquire without putting them to any +trouble. Anything will do that you have ready, if I can take it at +once." + +Still without exhibiting the least surprise, Bent nodded +affirmatively, put down his tools, begged her to wait a moment, and +ran off in the direction of the cabin. As he disappeared behind +the wheat, she lapsed quite suddenly against the work bench, but +recovered herself a moment later, leaning with her back against it, +her hands grasping it on either side, and her knit brows and +determined little face turned towards the road. Then she stood +erect again, shook the dust out of her skirts, lifted her veil, +wiped her cheeks and brow with the corner of a small handkerchief, +and began walking up and down the length of the shed as Bent +reappeared. + +He was accompanied by the man who had first led her through the +wheat. He gazed upon her with apparently all the curiosity and +concern that the other had lacked. + +"You want to get to San Jose as quick as you can?" he said +interrogatively. + +"Yes," she said quickly, "if you can help me." + +"You walked all the way from the major's here?" he continued, +without taking his eyes from her face. + +"Yes," she answered with an affectation of carelessness she had not +shown to Bent. "But I started very early, it was cool and +pleasant, and didn't seem far." + +"I'll put you down in San Jose inside the hour. You shall have my +horse and trotting sulky, and I'll drive you myself. Will that +do?" + +She looked at him wonderingly. She had not forgotten his previous +restraint and gravity, but now his face seemed to have relaxed with +some humorous satisfaction. She felt herself coloring slightly, +but whether with shame or relief she could not tell. + +"I shall be so much obliged to you," she replied hesitatingly, "and +so will my father, I know." + +"I reckon," said the man with the same look of amused conjecture; +then, with a quick, assuring nod, he turned away, and dived into +the wheat again. + +"You're all right now, Miss Mallory," said Bent, complacently. +"Dawson will fix it. He's got a good horse, and he's a good +driver, too." He paused, and then added pleasantly, "I suppose +they're all well up at the house?" + +It was so evident that his remark carried no personal meaning to +herself that she was obliged to answer carelessly, "Oh, yes." + +"I suppose you see a good deal of Miss Randolph--Miss Adele, I +think you call her?" he remarked tentatively, and with a certain +boyish enthusiasm, which she had never conceived possible to his +nature. + +"Yes," she replied a little dryly, "she is the only young lady +there." She stopped, remembering Adele's naive description of the +man before her, and said abruptly, "You know her, then?" + +"A little," replied the young man, modestly. "I see her pretty +often when I am passing the upper end of the ranch. She's very +well brought up, and her manners are very refined--don't you think +so?--and yet she's just as simple and natural as a country girl. +There's a great deal in education after all, isn't there?" he went +on confidentially, "and although"--he lowered his voice and looked +cautiously around him--"I believe that some of us here don't fancy +her mother much, there's no doubt that Mrs. Randolph knows how to +bring up her children. Some people think that kind of education is +all artificial, and don't believe in it, but I do!" + +With the consciousness that she was running away from these people +and the shameful disclosure she had heard last night--with the +recollection of Adele's scandalous interpretation of her most +innocent actions and her sudden and complete revulsion against all +that she had previously admired in that household, to hear this man +who had seemed to her a living protest against their ideas and +principles, now expressing them and holding them up for emulation, +almost took her breath away. + +"I suppose that means you intend to fix Major Randolph's well for +him?" she said dryly. + +"Yes," he returned without noticing her manner; "and I think I can +find that water again. I've been studying it up all night, and do +you know what I'm going to do? I am going to make the earthquake +that lost it help me to find it again." He paused, and looked at +her with a smile and a return of his former enthusiasm. "Do you +remember the crack in the adobe field that stopped you yesterday?" + +"Yes," said the girl, with a slight shiver. + +"I told you then that the same crack was a split in the rock +outcrop further up the plain, and was deeper. I am satisfied now, +from what I have seen, that it is really a rupture of the whole +strata all the way down. That's the one weak point that the +imprisoned water is sure to find, and that's where the borer will +tap it--in the new well that the earthquake itself has sunk." + +It seemed to her now that she understood his explanation perfectly, +and she wondered the more that he had been so mistaken in his +estimate of Adele. She turned away a little impatiently and looked +anxiously towards the point where Dawson had disappeared. Bent +followed her eyes. + +"He'll be here in a moment, Miss Mallory. He has to drive slowly +through the grain, but I hear the wheels." He stopped, and his +voice took up its previous note of boyish hesitation. "By the way-- +I'll--I'll be going up to the Rancho this afternoon to see the +major. Have you any message for Mrs. Randolph--or for--for Miss +Adele?" + +"No"--said Rose, hesitatingly, "and--and"-- + +"I see," interrupted Bent, carelessly. "You don't want anything +said about your coming here. I won't." + +It struck her that he seemed to have no ulterior meaning in the +suggestion. But before she could make any reply, Dawson +reappeared, driving a handsome mare harnessed to a light, spider- +like vehicle. He had also assumed, evidently in great haste, a +black frock coat buttoned over his waistcoatless and cravatless +shirt, and a tall black hat that already seemed to be cracking in +the sunlight. He drove up, at once assisted her to the narrow +perch beside him, and with a nod to Bent drove off. His breathless +expedition relieved the leave-taking of these young people of any +ceremony. + +"I suppose," said Mr. Dawson, giving a half glance over his +shoulder as they struck into the dusty highway,--"I suppose you +don't care to see anybody before you get to San Jose?" + +"No-o-o," said Rose, timidly. + +"And I reckon you wouldn't mind my racin' a bit if anybody kem up?" + +"No." + +"The mare's sort o' fastidious about takin' anybody's dust." + +"Is she?" said Rose, with a faint smile. + +"Awful," responded her companion; "and the queerest thing of all +is, she can't bear to have any one behind her, either." + +He leaned forward with his expression of humorous enjoyment of some +latent joke and did something with the reins--Rose never could +clearly understand what, though it seemed to her that he simply +lifted them with ostentatious lightness; but the mare suddenly +seemed to LENGTHEN herself and lose her height, and the stalks of +wheat on either side of the dusty track began to melt into each +other, and then slipped like a flash into one long, continuous, +shimmering green hedge. So perfect was the mare's action that the +girl was scarcely conscious of any increased effort; so harmonious +the whole movement that the light skeleton wagon seemed only a +prolonged process of that long, slim body and free, collarless +neck, both straight as the thin shafts on each side and straighter +than the delicate ribbon-like traces which, in what seemed a mere +affectation of conscious power, hung at times almost limp between +the whiffle-tree and the narrow breast band which was all that +confined the animal's powerful fore-quarters. So superb was the +reach of its long easy stride that Rose could scarcely see any +undulations in the brown shining back on which she could have +placed her foot, nor felt the soft beat of the delicate hoofs that +took the dust so firmly and yet so lightly. + +The rapidity of motion which kept them both with heads bent forward +and seemed to force back any utterance that rose to their lips +spared Rose the obligation of conversation, and her companion was +equally reticent. But it was evident to her that he half suspected +she was running away from the Randolphs, and that she wished to +avoid the embarrassment of being overtaken even in persuasive +pursuit. It was not possible that he knew the cause of her flight, +and yet she could not account for his evident desire to befriend +her, nor, above all, for his apparently humorous enjoyment of the +situation. Had he taken it gravely, she might have been tempted to +partly confide in him and ask his advice. Was she doing right, +after all? Ought she not to have stayed long enough to speak her +mind to Mrs. Randolph and demand to be sent home? No! She had not +only shrunk from repeating the infamous slander she had overheard, +but she had a terrible fear that if she had done so, Mrs. Randolph +was capable of denying it, or even charging her of being still +under the influence of the earthquake shock and of walking in her +sleep. No! She could not trust her--she could trust no one there. +Had not even the major listened to those infamous lies? Had she +not seen that he was helpless in the hands of this cabal in his own +household?--a cabal that she herself had thoughtlessly joined +against him. + +They had reached the first slight ascent. Her companion drew out +his watch, looked at it with satisfaction, and changed the position +of his hands on the reins. Without being able to detect the +difference, she felt they were slackening speed. She turned +inquiringly towards him; he nodded his head, with a half smile and +a gesture to her to look ahead. The spires of San Jose were +already faintly uplifting from the distant fringe of oaks. + +So soon! In fifteen minutes she would be there--and THEN! She +remembered suddenly she had not yet determined what to do. Should +she go on at once to San Francisco, or telegraph to her father and +await him at San Jose? In either case a new fear of the +precipitancy of her action and the inadequacy of her reasons had +sprung up in her mind. Would her father understand her? Would he +underrate the cause and be mortified at the insult she had given +the family of his old friend, or, more dreadful still, would he +exaggerate her wrongs and seek a personal quarrel with the major. +He was a man of quick temper, and had the Western ideas of redress. +Perhaps even now she was precipitating a duel between them. Her +cheeks grew wan again, her breath came quickly, tears gathered in +her eyes. Oh, she was a dreadful girl, she knew it; she was an +utterly miserable one, and she knew that too! + +The reins were tightened. The pace lessened and at last fell to a +walk. Conscious of her telltale eyes and troubled face, she dared +not turn to her companion to ask him why, but glanced across the +fields. + +"When you first came I didn't get to know your name, Miss Mallory, +but I reckon I know your father." + +Her father! What made him say that? She wanted to speak, but she +felt she could not. In another moment, if he went on, she must do +SOMETHING--she would cry! + +"I reckon you'll be wanting to go to the hotel first, anyway?" + +There!--she knew it! He WOULD keep on! And now she had burst into +tears. + +The mare was still walking slowly; the man was lazily bending +forward over the shafts as if nothing had occurred. Then suddenly, +illogically, and without a moment's warning, the pride that had +sustained her crumbled and became as the dust of the road. + +She burst out and told him--this stranger!--this man she had +disliked!--all and EVERYTHING. How she had felt, how she had been +deceived, and what she had overheard! + +"I thought as much," said her companion, quietly, "and that's why I +sent for your father." + +"You sent for my father!--when?--where?" echoed Rose, in +astonishment. + +"Yesterday. He was to come to-day, and if we don't find him at the +hotel it will be because he has already started to come here by the +upper and longer road. But you leave it to ME, and don't you say +anything to him of this now. If he's at the hotel, I'll say I +drove you down there to show off the mare. Sabe? If he isn't, +I'll leave you there and come back here to find him. I've got +something to tell him that will set YOU all right." He smiled +grimly, lifted the reins, the mare started forward again, and the +vehicle and its occupants disappeared in a vanishing dust cloud. + + +CHAPTER VI + + +It was nearly noon when Mr. Dawson finished rubbing down his +sweating mare in the little stable shed among the wheat. He had +left Rose at the hotel, for they found Mr. Mallory had previously +started by a circuitous route for the wheat ranch. He had resumed +not only his working clothes but his working expression. He was +now superintending the unloading of a wain of stores and implements +when the light carryall of the Randolphs rolled into the field. It +contained only Mrs. Randolph and the driver. A slight look of +intelligence passed between the latter and the nearest one of +Dawson's companions, succeeded, however, by a dull look of stupid +vacancy on the faces of all the others, including Dawson. Mrs. +Randolph noticed it, and was forewarned. She reflected that no +human beings ever looked NATURALLY as stupid as that and were able +to work. She smiled sarcastically, and then began with dry +distinctness and narrowing lips. + +"Miss Mallory, a young lady visiting us, went out for an early walk +this morning and has not returned. It is possible she may have +lost her way among your wheat. Have you seen anything of her?" + +Dawson raised his eyes from his work and glanced slowly around at +his companions, as if taking the heavy sense of the assembly. One +or two shook their heads mechanically, and returned to their +suspended labor. He said, coolly:-- + +"Nobody here seems to." + +She felt that they were lying. She was only a woman against five +men. She was only a petty domestic tyrant; she might have been a +larger one. But she had all the courage of that possibility. + +"Major Randolph and my son are away," she went on, drawing herself +erect. "But I know that the major will pay liberally if these men +will search the field, besides making it all right with your-- +EMPLOYERS--for the loss of time." + +Dawson uttered a single word in a low voice to the man nearest him, +who apparently communicated it to the others, for the four men +stopped unloading, and moved away one after the other--even the +driver joining in the exodus. Mrs. Randolph smiled sarcastically; +it was plain that these people, with all their boasted independence, +were quite amenable to pecuniary considerations. Nevertheless, +as Dawson remained looking quietly at her, she said:-- + +"Then I suppose they've concluded to go and see?" + +"No; I've sent them away so that they couldn't HEAR." + +"Hear what?" + +"What I've got to say to you." + +She looked at him suddenly. Then she said, with a disdainful +glance around her: "I see I am helpless here, and--thanks to your +trickery--alone. Have a care, sir; I warn you that you will have +to answer to Major Randolph for any insolence." + +"I reckon you won't tell Major Randolph what I have to say to you," +he returned coolly. + +Her lips were nearly a grayish hue, but she said scornfully: "And +why not? Do you know who you are talking to?" + +The man came lazily forward to the carryall, carelessly brushed +aside the slack reins, and resting his elbows on the horse's back, +laid his chin on his hands, as he looked up in the woman's face. + +"Yes; I know who I'm talking to," he said coolly. "But as the +major don't, I reckon you won't tell him." + +"Stand away from that horse!" she said, her whole face taking the +grayish color of her lips, but her black eyes growing smaller and +brighter. "Hand me those reins, and let me pass! What canaille +are you to stop me?" + +"I thought so," returned the man, without altering his position; +"you don't know ME. You never saw ME before. Well, I'm Jim +Dawson, the nephew of L'Hommadieu, YOUR OLD MASTER!" + +She gripped the iron rail of the seat as if to leap from it, but +checked herself suddenly and leaned back, with a set smile on her +mouth that seemed stamped there. It was remarkable that with that +smile she flung away her old affectation of superciliousness for an +older and ruder audacity, and that not only the expression, but the +type of her face appeared to have changed. + +"I don't say," continued the man quietly, "that he didn't MARRY you +before he died. But you know as well as I do that the laws of his +State didn't recognize the marriage of a master with his octoroon +slave! And you know as well as I do that even if he had freed you, +he couldn't change your blood. Why, if I'd been willing to stay at +Avoyelles to be a nigger-driver like him, the plantation of 'de +Fontanges'--whose name you have taken--would have been left to me. +If YOU had stayed there, you might have been my property instead of +YOUR owning a square man like Randolph. You didn't think of that +when you came here, did you?" he said composedly. + +"Oh, mon Dieu!" she said, dropping rapidly into a different accent, +with her white teeth and fixed mirthless smile, "so it is a claim +for PROPERTY, eh? You're wanting money--you? Tres bien, you +forget we are in California, where one does not own a slave. And +you have a fine story there, my poor friend. Very pretty, but very +hard to prove, m'sieu. And these peasants are in it, eh, working +it on shares like the farm, eh?" + +"Well," said Dawson, slightly changing his position, and passing +his hand over the horse's neck with a half-wearied contempt, "one +of these men is from Plaquemine, and the other from Coupee. They +know all the l'Hommadieus' history. And they know a streak of the +tar brush when they see it. They took your measure when they came +here last year, and sized you up fairly. So had I, for the matter +of that, when I FIRST saw you. And we compared notes. But the +major is a square man, for all he is your husband, and we reckoned +he had a big enough contract on his hands to take care of you and +l'Hommadieu's half-breeds, and so"--he tossed the reins +contemptuously aside--"we kept this to ourselves." + +"And now you want--what--eh?" + +"We want an end to this foolery," he broke out roughly, stepping +back from the vehicle, and facing her suddenly, with his first +angry gesture. "We want an end to these airs and grimaces, and all +this dandy nigger business; we want an end to this 'cake-walking' +through the wheat, and flouting of the honest labor of your +betters. We want you and your 'de Fontanges' to climb down. And +we want an end to this roping-in of white folks to suit your little +game; we want an end to your trying to mix your nigger blood with +any one here, and we intend to stop it. We draw the line at the +major." + +Lashed as she had been by those words apparently out of all +semblance of her former social arrogance, a lower and more stubborn +resistance seemed to have sprung up in her, as she sat sideways, +watching him with her set smile and contracting eyes. + +"Ah," she said dryly, "so SHE IS HERE. I thought so. Which of you +is it, eh? It's a good spec--Mallory's a rich man. She's not +particular." + +The man had stopped as if listening, his head turned towards the +road. Then he turned carelessly, and facing her again, waved his +hand with a gesture of tired dismissal, and said, "Go! You'll find +your driver over there by the tool-shed. He has heard nothing yet-- +but I've given you fair warning. Go!" + +He walked slowly back towards the shed, as the woman, snatching up +the reins, drove violently off in the direction where the men had +disappeared. But she turned aside, ignoring her waiting driver in +her wild and reckless abandonment of all her old conventional +attitudes, and lashing her horse forward with the same set smile on +her face, the same odd relaxation of figure, and the same squaring +of her elbows. + +Avoiding the main road, she pushed into a narrow track that +intersected another nearer the scene of the accident to Rose's +buggy three weeks before. She had nearly passed it when she was +hailed by a strange voice, and looking up, perceived a horseman +floundering in the mazes of the wheat to one side of the track. +Whatever mean thought of her past life she was flying from, +whatever mean purpose she was flying to, she pulled up suddenly, +and as suddenly resumed her erect, aggressive stiffness. The +stranger was a middle-aged man; in dress and appearance a dweller +of cities. He lifted his hat as he perceived the occupant of the +wagon to be a lady. + +"I beg your pardon, but I fear I've lost my way in trying to make a +short cut to the Excelsior Company's Ranch." + +"You are in it now," said Mrs. Randolph, quickly. + +"Thank you, but where can I find the farmhouse?" + +"There is none," she returned, with her old superciliousness, +"unless you choose to give that name to the shanties and sheds +where the laborers and servants live, near the road." + +The stranger looked puzzled. "I'm looking for a Mr. Dawson," he +said reflectively, "but I may have made some mistake. Do you know +Major Randolph's house hereabouts?" + +"I do. I am Mrs. Randolph," she said stiffly. + +The stranger's brow cleared, and he smiled pleasantly. "Then this +is a fortunate meeting," he said, raising his hat again as he +reined in his horse beside the wagon, "for I am Mr. Mallory, and I +was looking forward to the pleasure of presenting myself to you an +hour or two later. The fact is, an old acquaintance, Mr. Dawson, +telegraphed me yesterday to meet him here on urgent business, and I +felt obliged to go there first." + +Mrs. Randolph's eyes sparkled with a sudden gratified intelligence, +but her manner seemed rather to increase than abate its grim +precision. + +"Our meeting this morning, Mr. Mallory, is both fortunate and +unfortunate, for I regret to say that your daughter, who has not +been quite herself since the earthquake, was missing early this +morning and has not yet been found, though we have searched +everywhere. Understand me," she said, as the stranger started, "I +have no fear for her PERSONAL safety, I am only concerned for any +INDISCRETION that she may commit in the presence of these strangers +whose company she would seem to prefer to ours." + +"But I don't understand you, madam," said Mallory, sternly; "you +are speaking of my daughter, and"-- + +"Excuse me, Mr. Mallory," said Mrs. Randolph, lifting her hand with +her driest deprecation and her most desiccating smile, "I'm not +passing judgment or criticism. I am of a foreign race, and +consequently do not understand the freedom of American young +ladies, and their familiarity with the opposite sex. I make no +charges, I only wish to assure you that she will no doubt be found +in the company and under the protection of her own countrymen. +There is," she added with ironical distinctness, "a young mechanic, +or field hand, or 'quack well-doctor,' whom she seems to admire, +and with whom she appears to be on equal terms." + +Mallory regarded her for a moment fixedly, and then his sternness +relaxed to a mischievously complacent smile. "That must be young +Bent, of whom I've heard," he said with unabated cheerfulness. +"And I don't know but what she may be with him, after all. For now +I think of it, a chuckle-headed fellow, of whom a moment ago I +inquired the way to your house, told me I'd better ask the young +man and young woman who were 'philandering through the wheat' +yonder. Suppose we look for them. From what I've heard of Bent +he's too much wrapped up in his inventions for flirtation, but it +would be a good joke to stumble upon them." + +Mrs. Randolph's eyes sparkled with a mingling of gratified malice +and undisguised contempt for the fatuous father beside her. But +before she could accept or decline the challenge, it had become +useless. A murmur of youthful voices struck her ear, and she +suddenly stood upright and transfixed in the carriage. For +lounging down slowly towards them out of the dim green aisles of +the arbored wheat, lost in themselves and the shimmering veil of +their seclusion, came the engineer, Thomas Bent, and on his arm, +gazing ingenuously into his face, the figure of Adele,--her own +perfect daughter. + + +"I don't think, my dear," said Mr. Mallory, as the anxious Rose +flew into his arms on his return to San Jose, a few hours later, +"that it will be necessary for you to go back again to Major +Randolph's before we leave. I have said 'Good-by' for you and +thanked them, and your trunks are packed and will be sent here. +The fact is, my dear, you see this affair of the earthquake and the +disaster to the artesian well have upset all their arrangements, +and I am afraid that my little girl would be only in their way just +now." + +"And you have seen Mr. Dawson--and you know why he sent for you?" +asked the young girl, with nervous eagerness. + +"Ah, yes," said Mr. Mallory thoughtfully, "THAT was really +important. You see, my child," he continued, taking her hand in +one of his own and patting the back of it gently with the other, +"we think, Dawson and I, of taking over the major's ranch and +incorporating it with the Excelsior in one, to be worked on shares +like the Excelsior; and as Mrs. Randolph is very anxious to return +to the Atlantic States with her children, it is quite possible. +Mrs. Randolph, as you have possibly noticed," Mr. Mallory went on, +still patting his daughter's hand, "does not feel entirely at home +here, and will consequently leave the major free to rearrange, by +himself, the ranch on the new basis. In fact, as the change must +be made before the crops come in, she talks of going next week. +But if you like the place, Rose, I've no doubt the major and Dawson +will always find room for you and me when we run down there for a +little fresh air." + +"And did you have all that in your mind, papa, when you came down +here, and was that what you and Mr. Dawson wanted to talk about?" +said the astonished Rose. + +"Mainly, my dear, mainly. You see I'm a capitalist now, and the +real value of capital is to know how and when to apply it to +certain conditions." + +"And this Mr.--Mr. Bent--do you think--he will go on and find the +water, papa?" said Rose, hesitatingly. + +"Ah! Bent--Tom Bent--oh, yes," said Mallory, with great heartiness. +"Capital fellow, Bent! and mighty ingenious! Glad you met him! +Well," thoughtfully but still heartily, "he may not find it exactly +where he expected, but he'll find it or something better. We can't +part with him, and he has promised Dawson to stay. We'll utilize +HIM, you may be sure." + +It would seem that they did, and from certain interviews and +conversations that took place between Mr. Bent and Miss Mallory on +a later visit, it would also appear that her father had exercised a +discreet reticence in regard to a certain experiment of the young +inventor, of which he had been an accidental witness. + + + +A MAECENAS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE + + +CHAPTER I + + +As Mr. Robert Rushbrook, known to an imaginative press as the +"Maecenas of the Pacific Slope," drove up to his country seat, +equally referred to as a "palatial villa," he cast a quick but +practical look at the pillared pretensions of that enormous shell +of wood and paint and plaster. The statement, also a reportorial +one, that its site, the Canyon of Los Osos, "some three years ago +was disturbed only by the passing tread of bear and wild-cat," had +lost some of its freshness as a picturesque apology, and already +successive improvements on the original building seemingly cast the +older part of the structure back to a hoary antiquity. To many it +stood as a symbol of everything Robert Rushbrook did or had done-- +an improvement of all previous performances; it was like his own +life--an exciting though irritating state of transition to +something better. Yet the visible architectural result, as here +shown, was scarcely harmonious; indeed, some of his friends--and +Maecenas had many--professed to classify the various improvements +by the successive fortunate ventures in their owner's financial +career, which had led to new additions, under the names, of "The +Comstock Lode Period," "The Union Pacific Renaissance," "The Great +Wheat Corner," and "Water Front Gable Style," a humorous trifling +that did not, however, prevent a few who were artists from +accepting Maecenas's liberal compensation for their services in +giving shape to those ideas. + +Relinquishing to a groom his fast-trotting team, the second relay +in his two hours' drive from San Francisco, he leaped to the ground +to meet the architect, already awaiting his orders in the +courtyard. With his eyes still fixed upon the irregular building +before him, he mingled his greeting and his directions. + +"Look here, Barker, we'll have a wing thrown out here, and a +hundred-foot ballroom. Something to hold a crowd; something that +can be used for music--sabe?--a concert, or a show." + +"Have you thought of any style, Mr. Rushbrook?" suggested the +architect. + +"No," said Rushbrook; "I've been thinking of the time--thirty days, +and everything to be in. You'll stop to dinner. I'll have you sit +near Jack Somers. You can talk style to him. Say I told you." + +"You wish it completed in thirty days?" repeated the architect, +dubiously. + +"Well, I shouldn't mind if it were less. You can begin at once. +There's a telegraph in the house. Patrick will take any message, +and you can send up to San Francisco and fix things before dinner." + +Before the man could reply, Rushbrook was already giving a hurried +interview to the gardener and others on his way to the front porch. +In another moment he had entered his own hall,--a wonderful temple +of white and silver plaster, formal, yet friable like the sugared +erection of a wedding cake,--where his major-domo awaited him. + +"Well, who's here?" asked Rushbrook, still advancing towards his +apartments. + +"Dinner is set for thirty, sir," said the functionary, keeping step +demurely with his master, "but Mr. Appleby takes ten over to San +Mateo, and some may sleep there. The char-a-banc is still out and +five saddle-horses, to a picnic in Green Canyon, and I can't +positively say, but I should think you might count on seeing about +forty-five guests before you go to town to-morrow. The opera +troupe seem to have not exactly understood the invitation, sir." + +"How? I gave it myself." + +"The chorus and supernumeraries thought themselves invited too, +sir, and have come, I believe, sir. At least Signora Pegrelli and +Madame Denise said so, and that they would speak to you about it, +but that meantime I could put them up anywhere." + +"And you made no distinction, of course?" + +"No, sir, I put them in the corresponding rooms opposite, sir. +I don't think the prima donnas like it." + +"Ah!" + +"Yes, sir." + +Whatever was in their minds, the two men never changed their +steady, practical gravity of manner. The major-domo's appeared to +be a subdued imitation of his master's, worn, as he might have worn +his master's clothes, had he accepted, or Mr. Rushbrook permitted, +such a degradation. By this time they had reached the door of Mr. +Rushbrook's room, and the man paused. "I didn't include some +guests of Mr. Leyton's, sir, that he brought over here to show +around the place, but he told me to tell you he would take them +away again, or leave them, as you liked. They're some Eastern +strangers stopping with him." + +"All right," said Rushbrook, quietly, as he entered his own +apartment. It was decorated as garishly as the hall, as staring +and vivid in color, but wholesomely new and clean for all its +paint, veneering, and plaster. It was filled with heterogeneous +splendor--all new and well kept, yet with so much of the attitude +of the show-room still lingering about it that one almost expected +to see the various articles of furniture ticketed with their +prices. A luxurious bed, with satin hangings and Indian carved +posts, standing ostentatiously in a corner, kept up this +resemblance, for in a curtained recess stood a worn camp bedstead, +Rushbrook's real couch, Spartan in its simplicity. + +Mr. Rushbrook drew his watch from his pocket, and deliberately +divested himself of his boots, coat, waistcoat, and cravat. Then +rolling himself in a fleecy, blanket-like rug with something of the +habitual dexterity of a frontiersman, he threw himself on his +couch, closed his eyes, and went instantly to sleep. Lying there, +he appeared to be a man comfortably middle-aged, with thick iron- +gray hair that might have curled had he encouraged such +inclination; a skin roughened and darkened by external hardships +and exposure, but free from taint of inner vice or excess, and +indistinctive features redeemed by a singularly handsome mouth. As +the lower part of the face was partly hidden by a dense but +closely-cropped beard, it is probable that the delicate outlines of +his lips had gained something from their framing. + +He slept, through what seemed to be the unnatural stillness of the +large house,--a quiet that might have come from the lingering +influence of the still virgin solitude around it, as if Nature had +forgotten the intrusion, or were stealthily retaking her own; and +later, through the rattle of returning wheels or the sound of +voices, which were, however, promptly absorbed in that deep and +masterful silence which was the unabdicating genius of the canyon. +For it was remarkable that even the various artists, musicians, +orators, and poets whom Maecenas had gathered in his cool business +fashion under that roof, all seemed to become, by contrast with +surrounding Nature, as new and artificial as the house, and as +powerless to assert themselves against its influence. + +He was still sleeping when James re-entered the room, but awoke +promptly at the sound of his voice. In a few moments he had +rearranged his scarcely disordered toilette, and stepped out +refreshed and observant into the hall. The guests were still +absent from that part of the building, and he walked leisurely past +the carelessly opened doors of the rooms they had left. Everywhere +he met the same glaring ornamentation and color, the same +garishness of treatment, the same inharmonious extravagance of +furniture, and everywhere the same troubled acceptance of it by the +inmates, or the same sense of temporary and restricted tenancy. +Dresses were hung over cheval glasses; clothes piled up on chairs +to avoid the use of doubtful and over ornamented wardrobes, and in +some cases more practical guests had apparently encamped in a +corner of their apartment. A gentleman from Siskyou--sole +proprietor of a mill patent now being considered by Maecenas--had +confined himself to a rocking-chair and clothes-horse as being +trustworthy and familiar; a bolder spirit from Yreka--in treaty for +capital to start an independent journal devoted to Maecenas's +interests--had got a good deal out of, and indeed all he had INTO, +a Louis XVI. armoire; while a young painter from Sacramento had +simply retired into his adjoining bath-room, leaving the glories of +his bedroom untarnished. Suddenly he paused. + +He had turned into a smaller passage in order to make a shorter cut +through one of the deserted suites of apartments that should bring +him to that part of the building where he designed to make his +projected improvement, when his feet were arrested on the threshold +of a sitting-room. Although it contained the same decoration and +furniture as the other rooms, it looked totally different! It was +tasteful, luxurious, comfortable, and habitable. The furniture +seemed to have fallen into harmonious position; even the staring +decorations of the walls and ceiling were toned down by sprays of +laurel and red-stained manzanito boughs with their berries, +apparently fresh plucked from the near canyon. But he was more +unexpectedly impressed to see that the room was at that moment +occupied by a tall, handsome girl, who had paused to take breath, +with her hand still on the heavy centre-table she was moving. +Standing there, graceful, glowing, and animated, she looked the +living genius of the recreated apartment. + + +CHAPTER II + + +Mr. Rushbrook glanced rapidly at his unknown guest. "Excuse me," +he said, with respectful business brevity, "but I thought every one +was out," and he stepped backward quickly. + +"I've only just come," she said without embarrassment, "and would +you mind, as you ARE here, giving me a lift with this table?" + +"Certainly," replied Rushbrook, and under the young girl's +direction the millionaire moved the table to one side. + +During the operation he was trying to determine which of his +unrecognized guests the fair occupant was. Possibly one of the +Leyton party, that James had spoken of as impending. + +"Then you have changed all the furniture, and put up these things?" +he asked, pointing to the laurel. + +"Yes, the room was really something TOO awful. It looks better +now, don't you think?" + +"A hundred per cent.," said Rushbrook, promptly. "Look here, I'll +tell you what you've done. You've set the furniture TO WORK! It +was simply lying still--with no return to anybody on the investment." + +The young girl opened her gray eyes at this, and then smiled. The +intruder seemed to be characteristic of California. As for +Rushbrook, he regretted that he did not know her better, he would +at once have asked her to rearrange all the rooms, and have managed +in some way liberally to reward her for it. A girl like that had +no nonsense about her. + +"Yes," she said, "I wonder Mr. Rushbrook don't look at it in that +way. It is a shame that all these pretty things--and you know they +are really good and valuable--shouldn't show what they are. But I +suppose everybody here accepts the fact that this man simply buys +them because they are valuable, and nobody interferes, and is +content to humor him, laugh at him, and feel superior. It don't +strike me as quite fair, does it you?" + +Rushbrook was pleased. Without the vanity that would be either +annoyed at this revelation of his reputation, or gratified at her +defense of it, he was simply glad to discover that she had not +recognized him as her host, and could continue the conversation +unreservedly. "Have you seen the ladies' boudoir?" he asked. "You +know, the room fitted with knick-knacks and pretty things--some of +'em bought from old collections in Europe, by fellows who knew what +they were but perhaps," he added, looking into her eyes for the +first time, "didn't know exactly what ladies cared for." + +"I merely glanced in there when I first came, for there was such a +queer lot of women--I'm told he isn't very particular in that way-- +that I didn't stay." + +"And you didn't think THEY might be just as valuable and good as +some of the furniture, if they could have been pulled around and +put into shape, or set in a corner, eh?" + +The young girl smiled; she thought her fellow-guest rather amusing, +none the less so, perhaps, for catching up her own ideas, but +nevertheless she slightly shrugged her shoulders with that hopeless +skepticism which women reserve for their own sex. "Some of them +looked as if they had been pulled around, as you say, and hadn't +been improved by it." + +"There's no one there now," said Rushbrook, with practical +directness; "come and take a look at it." She complied without +hesitation, walking by his side, tall, easy, and self-possessed, +apparently accepting without self-consciousness his half paternal, +half comrade-like informality. The boudoir was a large room, +repeating on a bigger scale the incongruousness and ill fitting +splendor of the others. When she had of her own accord recognized +and pointed out the more admirable articles, he said, gravely +looking at his watch, "We've just about seven minutes yet; if you'd +like to pull and haul these things around, I'll help you." + +The young girl smiled. "I'm quite content with what I've done in +my own room, where I have no one's taste to consult but my own. I +hardly know how Mr. Rushbrook, or his lady friends, might like my +operating here." Then recognizing with feminine tact the snub that +might seem implied in her refusal, she said quickly, "Tell me +something about our host--but first look! isn't that pretty?" + +She had stopped before the window that looked upon the dim blue +abyss of the canyon, and was leaning out to gaze upon it. +Rushbrook joined her. + +"There isn't much to be changed down THERE, is there?" he said, +half interrogatively. + +"No, not unless Mr. Rushbrook took it into his head to roof it in, +and somebody was ready with a contract to do it. But what do you +know of him? Remember, I'm quite a stranger here." + +"You came with Charley Leyton?" + +"With MRS. Leyton's party," said the young girl, with a half- +smiling emphasis. "But it seems that we don't know whether Mr. +Rushbrook wants us here or not till he comes. And the drollest +thing about it is that they're all so perfectly frank in saying +so." + +"Charley and he are old friends, and you'll do well to trust to +their judgment." + +This was hardly the kind of response that the handsome and clever +society girl before him had been in the habit of receiving, but it +amused her. Her fellow-guest was decidedly original. But he +hadn't told her about Rushbrook, and it struck her that his opinion +would be independent, at least. She reminded him of it. + +"Look here," said Rushbrook, "you'll meet a man here to-night--or +he'll be sure to meet YOU--who'll tell you all about Rushbrook. +He's a smart chap, knows everybody and talks well. His name is +Jack Somers; he is a great ladies' man. He can talk to you about +these sort of things, too,"--indicating the furniture with a half +tolerant, half contemptuous gesture, that struck her as +inconsistent with what seemed to be his previous interest,--"just +as well as he can talk of people. Been in Europe, too." + +The young girl's eye brightened with a quick vivacity at the name, +but a moment after became reflective and slightly embarrassed. "I +know him--I met him at Mr. Leyton's. He has already talked of Mr. +Rushbrook, but," she added, avoiding any conclusion, with a pretty +pout, "I'd like to have the opinion of others. Yours, now, I fancy +would be quite independent." + +"You stick to what Jack Somers has said, good or bad, and you won't +be far wrong," he said assuringly. He stopped; his quick ear had +heard approaching voices; he returned to her and held out his hand. +As it seemed to her that in California everybody shook hands with +everybody else on the slightest occasions, sometimes to save +further conversation, she gave him her own. He shook it, less +forcibly than she had feared, and abruptly left her. For a moment +she was piqued at this superior and somewhat brusque way of +ignoring her request, but reflecting that it might be the +awkwardness of an untrained man, she dismissed it from her mind. +The voices of her friends in the already resounding passages also +recalled her to the fact that she had been wandering about the +house with a stranger, and she rejoined them a little self- +consciously. + +"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Leyton, gayly, "it seems we are to stay. +Leyton says Rushbrook won't hear of our going." + +"Does that mean that your husband takes the whole opera troupe over +to your house in exchange?" + +"Don't be satirical, but congratulate yourself on your opportunity +of seeing an awfully funny gathering. I wouldn't have you miss it +for the world. It's the most characteristic thing out." + +"Characteristic of what?" + +"Of Rushbrook, of course. Nobody else would conceive of getting +together such a lot of queer people." + +"But don't it strike you that we're a part of the lot?" + +"Perhaps," returned the lively Mrs. Leyton. "No doubt that's the +reason why Jack Somers is coming over, and is so anxious that YOU +should stay. I can't imagine why else he should rave about Miss +Grace Nevil as he does. Come, Grace, no New York or Philadelphia +airs, here! Consider your uncle's interests with this capitalist, +to say nothing of ours. Because you're a millionaire and have been +accustomed to riches from your birth, don't turn up your nose at +our unpampered appetites. Besides, Jack Somers is Rushbrook's +particular friend, and he may think your criticisms unkind." + +"But IS Mr. Somers such a great friend of Mr. Rushbrook's?" asked +Grace Nevil. + +"Why, of course. Rushbrook consults him about all these things; +gives him carte blanche to invite whom he likes and order what he +likes, and trusts his taste and judgment implicitly." + +"Then this gathering is Mr. Somers's selection?" + +"How preposterous you are, Grace. Of course not. Only Somers's +IDEA of what is pleasing to Rushbrook, gotten up with a taste and +discretion all his own. You know Somers is a gentleman, educated +at West Point--traveled all over Europe--you might have met him +there; and Rushbrook--well, you have only to see him to know what +HE is. Don't you understand?" + +A slight seriousness; the same shadow that once before darkened the +girl's charming face gave way to a mischievous knitting of her +brows as she said naively, "No." + + +CHAPTER III + + +Grace Nevil had quite recovered her equanimity when the +indispensable Mr. Somers, handsome, well-bred, and self-restrained, +approached her later in the crowded drawing-room. Blended with his +subdued personal admiration was a certain ostentation of respect-- +as of a tribute to a distinguished guest--that struck her. "I am +to have the pleasure of taking you in, Miss Nevil," he said. "It's +my one compensation for the dreadful responsibility just thrust +upon me. Our host has been suddenly called away, and I am left to +take his place." + +Miss Nevil was slightly startled. Nevertheless, she smiled +graciously. "From what I hear this is no new function of yours; +that is, if there really IS a Mr. Rushbrook. I am inclined to +think him a myth." + +"You make me wish he were," retorted Somers, gallantly; "but as I +couldn't reign at all, except in his stead, I shall look to you to +lend your rightful grace to my borrowed dignity." + +The more general announcement to the company was received with +a few perfidious regrets from the more polite, but with only +amused surprise by the majority. Indeed, many considered it +"characteristic"--"so like Bob Rushbrook," and a few enthusiastic +friends looked upon it as a crowning and intentional stroke of +humor. It remained, however, for the gentleman from Siskyou to +give the incident a subtlety that struck Miss Nevil's fancy. "It +reminds me," he said in her hearing, "of ole Kernel Frisbee, of +Robertson County, one of the purlitest men I ever struck. When he +knew a feller was very dry, he'd jest set the decanter afore him, +and managed to be called outer the room on bus'ness. Now, Bob +Rushbrook's about as white a man as that. He's jest the feller, +who, knowing you and me might feel kinder restrained about +indulging our appetites afore him, kinder drops out easy, and +leaves us alone." And she was impressed by an instinct that the +speaker really felt the delicacy he spoke of, and that it left no +sense of inferiority behind. + +The dinner, served in a large, brilliantly-lit saloon, that in +floral decoration and gilded columns suggested an ingenious +blending of a steamboat table d'hote and "harvest home," was +perfect in its cuisine, even if somewhat extravagant in its +proportions. + +"I should be glad to receive the salary that Rushbrook pays his +chef, and still happier to know how to earn it as fairly," said +Somers to his fair companion. + +"But is his skill entirely appreciated here?" she asked. + +"Perfectly," responded Somers. "Our friend from Siskyou over there +appreciates that 'pate' which he cannot name as well as I do. +Rushbrook himself is the only exception, yet I fancy that even HIS +simplicity and regularity in feeding is as much a matter of +business with him as any defect in his earlier education. In his +eyes, his chef's greatest qualification is his promptness and +fertility. Have you noticed that ornament before you?" pointing to +an elaborate confection. "It bears your initials, you see. It was +conceived and executed since you arrived--rather, I should say, +since it was known that you would honor us with your company. The +greatest difficulty encountered was to find out what your initials +were." + +"And I suppose," mischievously added the young girl to her +acknowledgments, "that the same fertile mind which conceived the +design eventually provided the initials?" + +"That is our secret," responded Somers, with affected gravity. + +The wines were of characteristic expensiveness, and provoked the +same general comment. Rushbrook seldom drank wine; Somers had +selected it. But the barbaric opulence of the entertainment +culminated in the Californian fruits, piled in pyramids on silver +dishes, gorgeous and unreal in their size and painted beauty, and +the two Divas smiled over a basket of grapes and peaches as +outrageous in dimensions and glaring color as any pasteboard +banquet at which they had professionally assisted. As the courses +succeeded each other, under the exaltation of wine, conversation +became more general as regarded participation, but more local and +private as regarded the subject, until Miss Nevil could no longer +follow it. The interests of that one, the hopes of another, the +claims of a third, in affairs that were otherwise uninteresting, +were all discussed with singular youthfulness of trust that to her +alone seemed remarkable. Not that she lacked entertainment from +the conversation of her clever companion, whose confidences and +criticisms were very pleasant to her; but she had a gentlewoman's +instinct that he talked to her too much, and more than was +consistent with his duties as the general host. She looked around +the table for her singular acquaintance of an hour before, but she +had not seen him since. She would have spoken about him to Somers, +but she had an instinctive idea that the latter would be +antipathetic, in spite of the stranger's flattering commendation. +So she found herself again following Somers's cynical but good- +humored description of the various guests, and, I fear, seeing with +his eyes, listening with his ears, and occasionally participating +in his superior attitude. The "fearful joy" she had found in the +novelty of the situation and the originality of the actors seemed +now quite right from this critical point of view. So she learned +how the guest with the long hair was an unknown painter, to whom +Rushbrook had given a commission for three hundred yards of painted +canvas, to be cut up and framed as occasion and space required, in +Rushbrook's new hotel in San Francisco; how the gray-bearded +foreigner near him was an accomplished bibliophile who was +furnishing Mr. Rushbrook's library from spoils of foreign +collections, and had suffered unheard-of agonies from the +millionaire's insisting upon a handsome uniform binding that should +deprive certain precious but musty tomes of their crumbling, worm- +eaten coverings; how the very gentle, clerical-looking stranger, +mildest of a noisy, disputing crowd at the other table, was a +notorious duelist and dead shot; how the only gentleman at the +table who retained a flannel shirt and high boots was not a late- +coming mountaineer, but a well-known English baronet on his +travels; how the man who told a somewhat florid and emphatic +anecdote was a popular Eastern clergyman; how the one querulous, +discontented face in a laughing group was the famous humorist who +had just convulsed it; and how a pale, handsome young fellow, who +ate and drank sparingly and disregarded the coquettish advances of +the prettiest Diva with the cold abstraction of a student, was a +notorious roue and gambler. But there was a sudden and unlooked- +for change of criticism and critic. + +The festivity had reached that stage when the guests were more or +less accessible to emotion, and more or less touched by the +astounding fact that every one was enjoying himself. This +phenomenon, which is apt to burst into song or dance among other +races, is constrained to voice itself in an Anglo-Saxon gathering +by some explanation, apology, or moral--known as an after-dinner +speech. Thus it was that the gentleman from Siskyou, who had been +from time to time casting glances at Somers and his fair companion +at the head of the table, now rose to his feet, albeit unsteadily, +pushed back his chair, and began:-- + +"'Pears to me, ladies and gentlemen, and feller pardners, that on +an occasion like this, suthin' oughter be said of the man who got +it up--whose money paid for it, and who ain't here to speak for +himself, except by deputy. Yet you all know that's Bob Rushbrook's +style--he ain't here, because he's full of some other plan or +improvements--and it's like him to start suthin' of this kind, give +it its aim and purpose, and then stand aside to let somebody else +run it for him. There ain't no man livin' ez hez, so to speak, +more fast horses ready saddled for riding, and more fast men ready +spurred to ride 'em,--whether to win his races or run his errands. +There ain't no man livin' ez knows better how to make other men's +games his, or his game seem to be other men's. And from Jack +Somers smilin' over there, ez knows where to get the best wine that +Bob pays for, and knows how to run this yer show for Bob, at Bob's +expense--we're all contented. Ladies and gentlemen, we're all +contented. We stand, so to speak, on the cards he's dealt us. +What may be his little game, it ain't for us to say; but whatever +it is, WE'RE IN IT. Gentlemen and ladies, we'll drink Bob's +health!" + +There was a somewhat sensational pause, followed by good-natured +laughter and applause, in which Somers joined; yet not without a +certain constraint that did not escape the quick sympathy of the +shocked and unsmiling Miss Nevil. It was with a feeling of relief +that she caught the chaperoning eye of Mrs. Leyton, who was +entreating her in the usual mysterious signal to the other ladies +to rise and follow her. When she reached the drawing-room, a +little behind the others, she was somewhat surprised to observe +that the stranger whom she had missed during the evening was +approaching her with Mrs. Leyton. + +"Mr. Rushbrook returned sooner than he expected, but unfortunately, +as he always retires early, he has only time to say 'goodnight' to +you before he goes." + +For an instant Grace Nevil was more angry than disconcerted. Then +came the conviction that she was stupid not to have suspected the +truth before. Who else would that brusque stranger develop into +but this rude host? She bowed formally. + +Mr. Rushbrook looked at her with the faintest smile on his handsome +mouth. "Well, Miss Nevil, I hope Jack Somers satisfied your +curiosity?" + +With a sudden recollection of the Siskyou gentleman's speech, and a +swift suspicion that in some way she had been made use of with the +others by this forceful-looking man before her, she answered +pertly:-- + +"Yes; but there was a speech by a gentleman from Siskyou that +struck me as being nearer to the purpose." + +"That's so,--I heard it as I came in, said Mr. Rushbrook, calmly. +"I don't know but you're right." + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Six months had passed. The Villa of Maecenas was closed at Los +Osos Canyon, and the southwest trade-winds were slanting the rains +of the wet season against its shut windows and barred doors. +Within that hollow, deserted shell, its aspect--save for a single +exception--was unchanged; the furniture and decorations preserved +their eternal youth undimmed by time; the rigidly-arranged rooms, +now closed to life and light, developed more than ever their +resemblance to a furniture warehouse. The single exception was the +room which Grace Nevil had rearranged for herself; and that, oddly +enough, was stripped and bare--even to its paper and mouldings. + +In other respects, the sealed treasures of Rushbrook's villa, far +from provoking any sentimentality, seemed only to give truth to the +current rumor that it was merely waiting to be transformed into a +gorgeous watering-place hotel under Rushbrook's direction; that, +with its new ball-room changed into an elaborate dining-hall, it +would undergo still further improvement, the inevitable end and +object of all Rushbrook's enterprise; and that its former +proprietor had already begun another villa whose magnificence +should eclipse the last. There certainly appeared to be no limit +to the millionaire's success in all that he personally undertook, +or in his fortunate complicity with the enterprise and invention of +others. His name was associated with the oldest and safest +schemes, as well as the newest and boldest--with an equal guarantee +of security. A few, it was true, looked doubtingly upon this "one +man power," but could not refute the fact that others had largely +benefited by association with him, and that he shared his profits +with a royal hand. Some objected on higher grounds to his +brutalizing the influence of wealth by his material and +extravagantly practical processes, instead of the gentler +suggestions of education and personal example, and were impelled to +point out the fact that he and his patronage were vulgar. It was +felt, however, by those who received his benefits, that a proper +sense of this inferiority was all that ethics demanded of them. +One could still accept Rushbrook's barbaric gifts by humorously +recognizing the fact that he didn't know any better, and that it +pleased him, as long as they resented any higher pretensions. + +The rain-beaten windows of Rushbrook's town house, however, were +cheerfully lit that December evening. Mr. Rushbrook seldom dined +alone; in fact, it was popularly alleged that very often the +unfinished business of the day was concluded over his bountiful and +perfect board. He was dressing as James entered the room. + +"Mr. Leyton is in your study, sir; he will stay to dinner." + +"All right." + +"I think, sir," added James, with respectful suggestiveness, "he +wants to talk. At least, sir, he asked me if you would likely come +downstairs before your company arrived." + +"Ah! Well, tell the others I'm dining on BUSINESS, and set dinner +for two in the blue room." + +"Yes, sir." + +Meanwhile, Mr. Leyton--a man of Rushbrook's age, but not so fresh +and vigorous-looking--had thrown himself in a chair beside the +study fire, after a glance around the handsome and familiar room. +For the house had belonged to a brother millionaire; it had changed +hands with certain shares of "Water Front,"--as some of Rushbrook's +dealings had the true barbaric absence of money detail,--and was +elegantly and tastefully furnished. The cuckoo had, however, +already laid a few characteristic eggs in this adopted nest, and a +white marble statue of a nude and ill-fed Virtue, sent over by +Rushbrook's Paris agent, and unpacked that morning, stood in one +corner, and materially brought down the temperature. A Japanese +praying-throne of pure ivory, and, above it, a few yards of +improper, colored exposure by an old master, equalized each other. + +"And what is all this affair about the dinner?" suddenly asked a +tartly-pitched female voice with a foreign accent. + +Mr. Leyton turned quickly, and was just conscious of a faint +shriek, the rustle of a skirt, and the swift vanishing of a woman's +figure from the doorway. Mr. Leyton turned red. Rushbrook lived +en garcon, with feminine possibilities; Leyton was a married man +and a deacon. The incident which, to a man of the world, would +have brought only a smile, fired the inexperienced Leyton with +those exaggerated ideas and intense credulity regarding vice common +to some very good men. He walked on tip-toe to the door, and +peered into the passage. At that moment Rushbrook entered from the +opposite door of the room. + +"Well," said Rushbrook, with his usual practical directness, "what +do you think of her?" + +Leyton, still flushed, and with eyebrows slightly knit, said, +awkwardly, that he had scarcely seen her. + +"She cost me already ten thousand dollars, and I suppose I'll have +to eventually fix up a separate room for her somewhere," continued +Rushhrook. + +"I should certainly advise it," said Leyton, quickly, "for really, +Rushbrook, you know that something is due to the respectable people +who come here, and any of them are likely to see"-- + +"Ah!" interrupted Rushbrook, seriously, "you think she hasn't got +on clothes enough. Why, look here, old man--she's one of the +Virtues, and that's the rig in which they always travel. She's a +'Temperance' or a 'Charity' or a 'Resignation,' or something of +that kind. You'll find her name there in French somewhere at the +foot of the marble." + +Leyton saw his mistake, but felt--as others sometimes felt--a doubt +whether this smileless man was not inwardly laughing at him. He +replied, with a keen, rapid glance at his host:-- + +"I was referring to some woman who stood in that doorway just now, +and addressed me rather familiarly, thinking it was you." + +"Oh, the Signora," said Rushbrook, with undisturbed directness; +"well, you saw her at Los Osos last summer. Likely she DID think +you were me." + +The cool ignoring of any ulterior thought in Leyton's objection +forced the guest to be equally practical in his reply. + +"Yes, but the fact is that Miss Nevil had talked of coming here +with me this evening to see you on her own affairs, and it wouldn't +have been exactly the thing for her to meet that woman." + +"She wouldn't," said Rushbrook, promptly; "nor would YOU, if you +had gone into the parlor as Miss Nevil would have done. But look +here! If that's the reason why you didn't bring her, send for her +at once; my coachman can take a card from you; the brougham's all +ready to fetch her, and there you are. She'll see only you and +me." He was already moving towards the bell, when Leyton stopped +him. + +"No matter now. I can tell you her business, I fancy; and in fact, +I came here to speak of it, quite independently of her." + +"That won't do, Leyton," interrupted Rushbrook, with crisp +decision. "One or the other interview is unnecessary; it wastes +time, and isn't business. Better have her present, even if she +don't say a word." + +"Yes, but not in this matter," responded Leyton; "it's about +Somers. You know he's been very attentive to her ever since her +uncle left her here to recruit her health, and I think she fancies +him. Well, although she's independent and her own mistress, as you +know, Mrs. Leyton and I are somewhat responsible for her +acquaintance with Somers,--and for that matter so are you; and as +my wife thinks it means a marriage, we ought to know something more +positive about Somers's prospects. Now, all we really know is that +he's a great friend of yours; that you trust a good deal to him; +that he manages your social affairs; that you treat him as a son or +nephew, and it's generally believed that he's as good as provided +for by you--eh? Did you speak?" + +"No," said Rushbrook, quietly regarding the statue as if taking its +measurement for a suitable apartment for it. "Go on." + +"Well," said Leyton, a little impatiently, "that's the belief +everybody has, and you've not contradicted it. And on that we've +taken the responsibility of not interfering with Somers's +attentions." + +"Well?" said Rushbrook, interrogatively. + +"Well," replied Leyton, emphatically, "you see I must ask you +positively if you HAVE done anything, or are you going to do +anything for him?" + +"Well," replied Rushbrook, with exasperating coolness, "what do you +call this marriage?" + +"I don't understand you," said Leyton. + +"Look here, Leyton," said Rushbrook, suddenly and abruptly facing +him; "Jack Somers has brains, knowledge of society, tact, +accomplishments, and good looks: that's HIS capital as much as mine +is money. I employ him: that's his advertisement, recommendation, +and credit. Now, on the strength of this, as you say, Miss Nevil +is willing to invest in him; I don't see what more can be done." + +"But if her uncle don't think it enough?" + +"She's independent, and has money for both." + +"But if she thinks she's been deceived, and changes her mind?" + +"Leyton, you don't know Miss Nevil. Whatever that girl undertakes +she's weighed fully, and goes through with. If she's trusted him +enough to marry him, money won't stop her; if she thinks she's been +deceived, YOU'LL never know it." + +The enthusiasm and conviction were so unlike Rushbrook's usual +cynical toleration of the sex that Leyton stared at him. + +"That's odd," he returned. "That's what she says of you." + +"Of ME; you mean Somers?" + +"No, of YOU. Come, Rushbrook, don't pretend you don't know that +Miss Nevil is a great partisan of yours, swears by you, says you're +misunderstood by people, and, what's infernally odd in a woman who +don't belong to the class you fancy, don't talk of your habits. +That's why she wants to consult you about Somers, I suppose, and +that's why, knowing you might influence her, I came here first to +warn you." + +"And I've told you that whatever I might say or do wouldn't +influence her. So we'll drop the subject." + +"Not yet; for you're bound to see Miss Nevil sooner or later. Now, +if she knows that you've done nothing for this man, your friend and +her lover, won't she be justified in thinking that you would have a +reason for it?" + +"Yes. I should give it." + +"What reason?" + +"That I knew she'd be more contented to have him speculate with HER +money than mine." + +"Then you think that he isn't a business man?" + +"I think that she thinks so, or she wouldn't marry him; it's part +of the attraction. But come, James has been for five minutes +discreetly waiting outside the door to tell us dinner is ready, and +the coast clear of all other company. But look here," he said, +suddenly stopping, with his arm in Leyton's, "you're through your +talk, I suppose; perhaps you'd rather we'd dine with the Signora +and the others than alone?" + +For an instant Leyton thrilled with the fascination of what he +firmly believed was a guilty temptation. Rushbrook, perceiving his +hesitation, added:-- + +"By the way, Somers is of the party, and one or two others you +know." + +Mr. Leyton opened his eyes widely at this; either the temptation +had passed, or the idea of being seen in doubtful company by a +younger man was distasteful, for he hurriedly disclaimed any +preference. "But," he added with half-significant politeness, +"perhaps I'm keeping YOU from them?" + +"It makes not the slightest difference to me," calmly returned +Rushbrook, with such evident truthfulness that Leyton was both +convinced and chagrined. + +Preceded by the grave and ubiquitous James, they crossed the large +hall, and entered through a smaller passage a charming apartment +hung with blue damask, which might have been a boudoir, study, or +small reception-room, yet had the air of never having been anything +continuously. It would seem that Rushbrook's habit of "camping +out" in different parts of his mansion obtained here as at Los +Osos, and with the exception of a small closet which contained his +Spartan bed, the rooms were used separately or in suites, as +occasion or his friends required. It is recorded that an Eastern +guest, newly arrived with letters to Rushbrook, after a tedious +journey, expressed himself pleased with this same blue room, in +which he had sumptuously dined with his host, and subsequently fell +asleep in his chair. Without disturbing his guest, Rushbrook had +the table removed, a bed, washstand, and bureau brought in, the +sleeping man delicately laid upon the former, and left to awaken to +an Arabian night's realization of his wish. + + +CHAPTER V + + +James had barely disposed of his master and Mr. Leyton, and left +them to the ministrations of two of his underlings, before he was +confronted with one of those difficult problems that it was part of +his functions to solve. The porter informed him that a young lady +had just driven up in a carriage ostensibly to see Mr. Rushbrook, +and James, descending to the outer vestibule, found himself face to +face with Miss Grace Nevil. Happily, that young lady, with her +usual tact, spared him some embarrassment. + +"Oh! James," she said sweetly, "do you think that I could see Mr. +Rushbrook for a few moments IF I WAITED FOR THE OPPORTUNITY? You +understand, I don't wish to disturb him or his company by being +regularly announced." + +The young girl's practical intelligence appeared to increase the +usual respect which James had always shown her. "I understand, +miss." He thought for a moment, and said: "Would you mind, then, +following me where you could wait quietly and alone?" As she +quickly assented, he preceded her up the staircase, past the study +and drawing-room, which he did not enter, and stopped before a +small door at the end of the passage. Then, handing her a key +which he took from his pocket, he said: "This is the only room in +the house that is strictly reserved for Mr. Rushbrook, and even he +rarely uses it. You can wait here without anybody knowing it until +I can communicate with him and bring you to his study unobserved. +And," he hesitated, "if you wouldn't mind locking the door when you +are in, miss, you would be more secure, and I will knock when I +come for you." + +Grace Nevil smiled at the man's prudence, and entered the room. +But to her great surprise, she had scarcely shut the door when she +was instantly struck with a singular memory which the apartment +recalled. It was exactly like the room she had altered in +Rushbrook's villa at Los Osos! More than that, on close +examination it proved to be the very same furniture, arranged as +she remembered to have arranged it, even to the flowers and +grasses, now, alas! faded and withered on the walls. There could +be no mistake. There was the open ebony escritoire with the satin +blotter open, and its leaves still bearing the marks of her own +handwriting. So complete to her mind was the idea of her own +tenancy in this bachelor's mansion, that she looked around with a +half indignant alarm for the photograph or portrait of herself that +might further indicate it. But there was no other exposition. The +only thing that had been added was a gilt legend on the satin case +of the blotter,--"Los Osos, August 20, 186-," the day she had +occupied the room. + +She was pleased, astonished, but more than all, disturbed. The +only man who might claim a right to this figurative possession +of her tastes and habits was the one whom she had quietly, +reflectively, and understandingly half accepted as her lover, and +on whose account she had come to consult Rushbrook. But Somers was +not a sentimentalist; in fact, as a young girl, forced by her +independent position to somewhat critically scrutinize masculine +weaknesses, this had always been a point in his favor; yet even if +he had joined with his friend Rushbrook to perpetuate the memory of +their first acquaintanceship, his taste merely would not have +selected a chambre de garcon in Mr. Rushbrook's home for its +exhibition. Her conception of the opposite characters of the two +men was singularly distinct and real, and this momentary confusion +of them was disagreeable to her woman's sense. But at this moment +James came to release her and conduct her to Rushbrook's study, +where he would join her at once. Everything had been arranged as +she had wished. + +Even a more practical man than Rushbrook might have lingered over +the picture of the tall, graceful figure of Miss Nevil, quietly +enthroned in a large armchair by the fire, her scarlet, satin-lined +cloak thrown over its back, and her chin resting on her hand. But +the millionaire walked directly towards her with his usual +frankness of conscious but restrained power, and she felt, as she +always did, perfectly at her ease in his presence. Even as she +took his outstretched hand, its straightforward grasp seemed to +endow her with its own confidence. + +"You'll excuse my coming here so abruptly," she smiled, "but I +wanted to get before Mr. Leyton, who, I believe, wishes to see you +on the same business as myself." + +"He is here already, and dining with me," said Rushbrook. + +"Ah! does he know I am here?" asked the girl, quietly. + +"No; as he said you had thought of coming with him and didn't, I +presumed you didn't care to have him know you had come alone." + +"Not exactly that, Mr. Rushbrook," she said, fixing her beautiful +eyes on him in bright and trustful confidence, "but I happen to +have a fuller knowledge of this business than he has, and yet, as +it is not altogether my own secret, I was not permitted to divulge +it to him. Nor would I tell it to you, only I cannot bear that you +should think that I had anything to do with this wretched +inquisition into Mr. Somers's prospects. Knowing as well as you do +how perfectly independent I am, you would think it strange, +wouldn't you? But you would think it still more surprising when +you found out that I and my uncle already know how liberally and +generously you had provided for Mr. Somers in the future." + +"How I had provided for Mr. Somers in the future?" repeated Mr. +Rushbrook, looking at the fire, "eh?" + +"Yes," said the young girl, indifferently, "how you were to put him +in to succeed you in the Water Front Trust, and all that. He told +it to me and my uncle at the outset of our acquaintance, +confidentially, of course, and I dare say with an honorable +delicacy that was like him, but--I suppose now you will think me +foolish--all the while I'd rather he had not." + +"You'd rather he had not," repeated Mr. Rushbrook, slowly. + +"Yes," continued Grace, leaning forward with her rounded elbows on +her knees, and her slim, arched feet on the fender. "Now you are +going to laugh at me, Mr. Rushbrook, but all this seemed to me to +spoil any spontaneous feeling I might have towards him, and limit +my independence in a thing that should be a matter of free will +alone. It seemed too much like a business proposition! There, my +kind friend!" she added, looking up and trying to read his face +with a half girlish pout, followed, however, by a maturer sigh, +"I'm bothering you with a woman's foolishness instead of talking +business. And"--another sigh--"I suppose it IS business for my +uncle, who has, it seems, bought into this Trust on these possible +contingencies, has, perhaps, been asking questions of Mr. Leyton. +But I don't want you to think that I approve of them, or advise +your answering them. But you are not listening." + +"I had forgotten something," said Rushbrook, with an odd +preoccupation. "Excuse me a moment--I will return at once." + +He left the room quite as abstractedly, and when he reached the +passage, he apparently could not remember what he had forgotten, as +he walked deliberately to the end window, where, with his arms +folded behind his back, he remained looking out into the street. A +passer-by, glancing up, might have said he had seen the pale, stern +ghost of Mr. Rushbrook, framed like a stony portrait in the window. +But he presently turned away, and re-entered the room, going up to +Grace, who was still sitting by the fire, in his usual strong and +direct fashion. + +"Well! Now let me see what you want. I think this would do." + +He took a seat at his open desk, and rapidly wrote a few lines. + +"There," he continued, "when you write to your uncle, inclose +that." + +Grace took it, and read:-- + + +DEAR MISS NEVIL,--Pray assure your uncle from me that I am quite +ready to guarantee, in any form that he may require, the +undertaking represented to him by Mr. John Somers. Yours very +truly, + +ROBERT RUSHBROOK. + + +A quick flush mounted to the young girl's cheeks. "But this is a +SECURITY, Mr. Rushbrook," she said proudly, handing him back the +paper, "and my uncle does not require that. Nor shall I insult him +or you by sending it." + +"It is BUSINESS, Miss Nevil," said Rushbrook, gravely. He stopped, +and fixed his eyes upon her animated face and sparkling eyes. "You +can send it to him or not, as you like. But"--a rare smile came to +his handsome mouth--"as this is a letter to YOU, you must not +insult ME by not accepting it." + +Replying to his smile rather than the words that accompanied it, +Miss Nevil smiled, too. Nevertheless, she was uneasy and +disturbed. The interview, whatever she might have vaguely expected +from it, had resolved itself simply into a business indorsement of +her lover, which she had not sought, and which gave her no +satisfaction. Yet there was the same potent and indefinably +protecting presence before her which she had sought, but whose +omniscience and whose help she seemed to have lost the spell and +courage to put to the test. He relieved her in his abrupt but not +unkindly fashion. "Well, when is it to be?" + +"It?" + +"Your marriage." + +"Oh, not for some time. There's no hurry." + +It might have struck the practical Mr. Rushbrook that, even +considered as a desirable business affair, the prospective +completion of this contract provoked neither frank satisfaction nor +conventional dissimulation on the part of the young lady, for he +regarded her calm but slightly wearied expression fixedly. But he +only said: "Then I shall say nothing of this interview to Mr. +Leyton?" + +"As you please. It really matters little. Indeed, I suppose I was +rather foolish in coming at all, and wasting your valuable time for +nothing." + +She had risen, as if taking his last question in the significance +of a parting suggestion, and was straightening her tall figure, +preparatory to putting on her cloak. As she reached it, he stepped +forward, and lifted it from the chair to assist her. The act was +so unprecedented, as Mr. Rushbrook never indulged in those minor +masculine courtesies, that she was momentarily as confused as a +younger girl at the gallantry of a younger man. In their previous +friendship he had seldom drawn near her except to shake her hand-- +a circumstance that had always recurred to her when his free and +familiar life had been the subject of gossip. But she now had a +more frightened consciousness that her nerves were strangely +responding to his powerful propinquity, and she involuntarily +contracted her pretty shoulders as he gently laid the cloak upon +them. Yet even when the act was completed, she had a superstitious +instinct that the significance of this rare courtesy was that it +was final, and that he had helped her to interpose something that +shut him out from her forever. + +She was turning away with a heightened color, when the sound of +light, hurried footsteps, and the rustle of a woman's dress was +heard in the hall. A swift recollection of her companion's +infelicitous reputation now returned to her, and Grace Nevil, with +a slight stiffening of her whole frame, became coldly herself +again. Mr. Rushbrook betrayed neither surprise nor agitation. +Begging her to wait a moment until he could arrange for her to pass +to her carriage unnoticed, he left the room. + +Yet it seemed that the cause of the disturbance was unsuspected by +Mr. Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton, although left to the consolation of +cigars and liquors in the blue room, had become slightly weary of +his companion's prolonged absence. Satisfied in his mind that +Rushbrook had joined the gayer party, and that he was even now +paying gallant court to the Signora, he became again curious and +uneasy. At last the unmistakable sound of whispering voices in the +passage got the better of his sense of courtesy as a guest, and he +rose from his seat, and slightly opened the door. As he did so the +figures of a man and woman, conversing in earnest whispers, passed +the opening. The man's arm was round the woman's waist; the woman +was--as he had suspected--the one who had stood in the doorway, the +Signora--but--the man was NOT Rushbrook. Mr. Leyton drew back this +time in unaffected horror. It was none other than Jack Somers! + +Some warning instinct must at that moment have struck the woman, +for with a stifled cry she disengaged herself from Somers's arm, +and dashed rapidly down the hall. Somers, evidently unaware of the +cause, stood irresolute for a moment, and then more silently but +swiftly disappeared into a side corridor as if to intercept her. +It was the rapid passage of the Signora that had attracted the +attention of Grace and Rushbrook in the study, and it was the +moment after it that Mr. Rushbrook left. + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Vaguely uneasy, and still perplexed with her previous agitation, as +Mr. Rushbrook closed the door behind him, Grace, following some +feminine instinct rather than any definite reason, walked to the +door and placed her hand upon the lock to prevent any intrusion +until he returned. Her caution seemed to be justified a moment +later, for a heavier but stealthier footstep halted outside. The +handle of the door was turned, but she resisted it with the fullest +strength of her small hand until a voice, which startled her, +called in a hurried whisper:-- + +"Open quick, 'tis I." + +She stepped back quickly, flung the door open, and beheld Somers on +the threshold! + +The astonishment, agitation, and above all, the awkward confusion +of this usually self-possessed and ready man, was so unlike him, +and withal so painful, that Grace hurried to put an end to it, and +for an instant forgot her own surprise at seeing him. She smiled +assuringly, and extended her hand. + +"Grace--Miss Nevil--I beg your pardon--I didn't imagine"--he began +with a forced laugh. "I mean, of course--I cannot--but"-- He +stopped, and then assuming a peculiar expression, said: "But what +are YOU doing here?" + +At any other moment the girl would have resented the tone, which +was as new to her as his previous agitation, but in her present +self-consciousness her situation seemed to require some +explanation. "I came here," she said, "to see Mr. Rushbrook on +business. Your business--OUR business," she added, with a charming +smile, using for the first time the pronoun that seemed to indicate +their unity and interest, and yet fully aware of a vague +insincerity in doing so. + +"Our BUSINESS?" he repeated, ignoring her gentler meaning with a +changed emphasis and a look of suspicion. + +"Yes," said Grace, a little impatiently. "Mr. Leyton thought he +ought to write to my uncle something positive as to your prospects +with Mr. Rushbrook, and"-- + +"You came here to inquire?" said the young man, sharply. + +"I came here to stop any inquiry," said Grace, indignantly. "I +came here to say I was satisfied with what you had confided to me +of Mr. Rushbrook's generosity, and that was enough!" + +"With what I had confided to you? You dared say that?" + +Grace stopped, and instantly faced him. But any indignation she +might have felt at his speech and manner was swallowed up in the +revulsion and horror that overtook her with the sudden revelation +she saw in his white and frightened face. Leyton's strange +inquiry, Rushbrook's cold composure and scornful acceptance of her +own credulousness, came to her in a flash of shameful intelligence. +Somers had lied! The insufferable meanness of it! A lie, whose +very uselessness and ignobility had defeated its purpose--a lie +that implied the basest suspicion of her own independence and +truthfulness--such a lie now stood out as plainly before her as his +guilty face. + +"Forgive my speaking so rudely," he said with a forced smile and +attempt to recover his self-control, "but you have ruined me unless +you deny that I told you anything. It was a joke--an extravagance +that I had forgotten; at least, it was a confidence between you and +me that you have foolishly violated. Say that you misunderstood +me--that it was a fancy of your own. Say anything--he trusts you-- +he'll believe anything you say." + +"He HAS believed me," said Grace, almost fiercely, turning upon him +with the paper that Rushbrook had given her in her outstretched +hand. "Read that!" + +He read it. Had he blushed, had he stammered, had he even kept up +his former frantic and pitiable attitude, she might at that supreme +moment have forgiven him. But to her astonishment his face +changed, his handsome brow cleared, his careless, happy smile +returned, his graceful confidence came back--he stood before her +the elegant, courtly, and accomplished gentleman she had known. He +returned her the paper, and advancing with extended hand, said +triumphantly:-- + +"Superb! Splendid! No one but a woman could think of that! And +only one woman achieve it. You have tricked the great Rushbrook. +You are indeed worthy of being a financier's wife!" + +"No," she said passionately, tearing up the paper and throwing it +at his feet; "not as YOU understand it--and never YOURS! You have +debased and polluted everything connected with it, as you would +have debased and polluted ME. Out of my presence that you are +insulting--out of the room of the man whose magnanimity you cannot +understand!" + +The destruction of the guarantee apparently stung him more than the +words that accompanied it. He did not relapse again into his +former shamefaced terror, but as a malignant glitter came into his +eyes, he regained his coolness. + +"It may not be so difficult for others to understand, Miss Nevil," +he said, with polished insolence, "and as Bob Rushbrook's +generosity to pretty women is already a matter of suspicion, +perhaps you are wise to destroy that record of it." + +"Coward!" said Grace, "stand aside and let me pass!" She swept by +him to the door. But it opened upon Rushbrook's re-entrance. He +stood for an instant glancing at the pair, and then on the +fragments of the paper that strewed the floor. Then, still holding +the door in his hand, he said quietly:-- + +"One moment before you go, Miss Nevil. If this is the result of +any misunderstanding as to the presence of another woman here, in +company with Mr. Somers, it is only fair to him to say that that +woman is here as a friend of MINE, not of his, and I alone am +responsible." + +Grace halted, and turned the cold steel of her proud eyes on the +two men. As they rested on Rushbrook they quivered slightly. "I +can already bear witness," she said coldly, "to the generosity of +Mr. Rushbrook in a matter which then touched me. But there +certainly is no necessity for him to show it now in a matter in +which I have not the slightest concern." + +As she swept out of the room and was received in the respectable +shadow of the waiting James, Rushbrook turned to Somers. + +"And I'M afraid it won't do--for Leyton saw you," he said curtly. +"Now, then, shut that door, for you and I, Jack Somers, have a word +to say to each other." + +What that word was, and how it was said and received, is not a part +of this record. But it is told that it was the beginning of that +mighty Iliad, still remembered of men, which shook the financial +camps of San Francisco, and divided them into bitter contending +parties. For when it became known the next day that Somers had +suddenly abandoned Rushbrook, and carried over to a powerful +foreign capitalist the secret methods, and even, it was believed, +the LUCK of his late employer, it was certain that there would be +war to the knife, and that it was no longer a struggle of rival +enterprise, but of vindictive men. + + +CHAPTER VII + + +For a year the battle between the Somers faction and the giant but +solitary Rushbrook raged fiercely, with varying success. I grieve +to say that the proteges and parasites of Maecenas deserted him in +a body; nay, they openly alleged that it was the true artistic +nature and refinement of Somers that had always attracted them, and +that a man like Rushbrook, who bought pictures by the yard,-- +equally of the unknown struggling artist and the famous masters,-- +was no true patron of Art. Rushbrook made no attempt to recover +his lost prestige, and once, when squeezed into a tight "corner," +and forced to realize on his treasures, he put them up at auction +and the people called them "daubs;" their rage knew no bounds. It +was then that an unfettered press discovered that Rushbrook never +was a Maecenas at all, grimly deprecated his assumption of that +title, and even doubted if he were truly a millionaire. It was at +this time that a few stood by him--notably, the mill inventor from +Siskyou, grown plethoric with success, but eventually ground +between the upper and nether millstone of the Somers and Rushbrook +party. Miss Nevil had returned to the Atlantic States with Mrs. +Leyton. While rumors had played freely with the relations of +Somers and the Signora as the possible cause of the rupture between +him and Rushbrook, no mention had ever been made of the name of +Miss Nevil. + +It was raining heavily one afternoon, when Mr. Rushbrook drove from +his office to his San Francisco house. The fierce struggle in +which he was engaged left him little time for hospitality, and for +the last two weeks his house had been comparatively deserted. He +passed through the empty rooms, changed in little except the +absence of some valuable monstrosities which had gone to replenish +his capital. When he reached his bedroom, he paused a moment at +the open door. + +"James!" + +"Yes, sir," said James, appearing out of the shadow. + +"What are you waiting for?" + +"I thought you might be wanting something, sir." + +"You were waiting there this morning; you were in the ante-room of +my study while I was writing. You were outside the blue room while +I sat at breakfast. You were at my elbow in the drawing-room late +last night. Now, James," continued Mr. Rushbrook, with his usual +grave directness, "I don't intend to commit suicide; I can't afford +it, so keep your time and your rest for yourself--you want it-- +that's a good fellow." + +"Yes, sir." + +"James!" + +"Yes, sir." + +Rushbrook extended his hand. There was that faint, rare smile on +his handsome mouth, for which James would at any time have laid +down his life. But he only silently grasped his master's hand, and +the two men remained looking into each other's eyes without a word. +Then Mr. Rushbrook entered his room, lay down, and went to sleep, +and James vanished in the shadow. + +At the end of an hour Mr. Rushbrook awoke refreshed, and even +James, who came to call him, appeared to have brightened in the +interval. "I have ordered a fire, sir, in the reserved room, the +one fitted up from Los Osos, as your study has had no chance of +being cleaned these two weeks. It will be a change for you, sir. +I hope you'll excuse my not waking you to consult you about it." + +Rushbrook remained so silent that James, fancying he had not heard +him, was about to repeat himself when his master said quickly, +"Very well, come for me there when dinner is ready," and entered +the passage leading to the room. James did not follow him, and +when Mr. Rushbrook, opening the door, started back with an +exclamation, no one but the inmate heard the word that rose to his +lips. + +For there, seated before the glow of the blazing fire, was Miss +Grace Nevil. She had evidently just arrived, for her mantle was +barely loosened around her neck, and upon the fringe of brown hair +between her bonnet and her broad, low forehead a few drops of rain +still sparkled. As she lifted her long lashes quickly towards the +door, it seemed as if they, too, had caught a little of that +moisture. Rushbrook moved impatiently forward, and then stopped. +Grace rose unhesitatingly to her feet, and met him half-way with +frankly outstretched hands. "First of all," she said, with a half +nervous laugh, "don't scold James; it's all my fault; I forbade him +to announce me, lest you should drive me away, for I heard that +during this excitement you came here for rest, and saw no one. +Even the intrusion into this room is all my own. I confess now +that I saw it the last night I was here; I was anxious to know if +it was unchanged, and made James bring me here. I did not +understand it then. I do now--and--thank you." + +Her face must have shown that she was conscious that he was still +holding her hand, for he suddenly released it. With a heightened +color and a half girlish naivete, that was the more charming for +its contrast with her tall figure and air of thoroughbred repose, +she turned back to her chair, and lightly motioned him to take the +one before her. "I am here on BUSINESS; otherwise I should not +have dared to look in upon you at all." + +She stopped, drew off her gloves with a provoking deliberation, +which was none the less fascinating that it implied a demure +consciousness of inducing some impatience in the breast of her +companion, stretched them out carefully by the fingers, laid them +down neatly on the table, placed her elbows on her knees, slightly +clasped her hands together, and bending forward, lifted her honest, +handsome eyes to the man before her. + +"Mr. Rushbrook, I have got between four and five hundred thousand +dollars that I have no use for; I can control securities which can +be converted, if necessary, into a hundred thousand more in ten +days. I am free and my own mistress. It is generally considered +that I know what I am about--you admitted as much when I was your +pupil. I have come here to place this sum in your hands, at your +free disposal. You know why and for what purpose." + +"But what do you know of my affairs?" asked Rushbrook, quickly. + +"Everything, and I know YOU, which is better. Call it an +investment if you like--for I know you will succeed--and let me +share your profits. Call it--if you please--restitution, for I am +the miserable cause of your rupture with that man. Or call it +revenge if you like," she said with a faint smile, "and let me +fight at your side against our common enemy! Please, Mr. +Rushbrook, don't deny me this. I have come three thousand miles +for it; I could have sent it to you--or written--but I feared you +would not understand it. You are smiling--you will take it?" + +"I cannot," said Rushbrook, gravely. + +"Then you force me to go into the Stock Market myself, and fight +for you, and, unaided by YOUR genius, perhaps lose it without +benefiting you." + +Rushbrook did not reply. + +"At least, then, tell me why you 'cannot.'" + +Rushbrook rose, and looking into her face, said quietly with his +old directness:-- + +"Because I love you, Miss Nevil." + +A sudden instinct to rise and move away, a greater one to remain +and hear him speak again, and a still greater one to keep back the +blood that she felt was returning all too quickly to her cheek +after the first shock, kept her silent. But she dropped her eyes. + +"I loved you ever since I first saw you at Los Osos," he went on +quickly; "I said to myself even then, that if there was a woman +that would fill my life, and make me what she wished me to be, it +was you. I even fancied that day that you understood me better +than any woman, or even any man, that I had ever met before. I +loved you through all that miserable business with that man, even +when my failure to make you happy with another brought me no nearer +to you. I have loved you always. I shall love you always. I love +you more for this foolish kindness that brings YOU beneath my roof +once more, and gives me a chance to speak my heart to you, if only +once and for the last time, than all the fortune that you could put +at my disposal. But I could not accept what you would offer me +from any woman who was not my wife--and I could not marry any woman +that did not love me. I am perhaps past the age when I could +inspire a young girl's affection; but I have not reached the age +when I would accept anything less." He stopped abruptly. Grace +did not look up. There was a tear glistening upon her long +eyelashes, albeit a faint smile played upon her lips. + +"Do you call this business, Mr. Rushbrook?" she said softly. + +"Business?" + +"To assume a proposal declined before it has been offered." + +"Grace--my darling--tell me--is it possible?" + +It was too late for her to rise now, as his hands held both hers, +and his handsome mouth was smiling level with her own. So it +really seemed to a dispassionate spectator that it WAS possible, +and before she had left the room, it even appeared to be the most +probable thing in the world. + + . . . . . . + +The union of Grace Nevil and Robert Rushbrook was recorded by local +history as the crown to his victory over the Ring. But only he and +his wife knew that it was the cause. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext A Sappho of Green Springs, by Bret Harte + |