"I suppose it got sunburned this morning at croquet. I had on a blouse with alternate thick and thin stripes. _Hasta luego!_" and she moved out, not with any marked grace, but with a certain dignity which saved the stripes from absurdity.

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

"I suspect that it is her vanity to have no vanity," said Mrs. McLane, who was the wisest of women. "And if she did not happen to be a remarkably handsome girl, I fancy her vanity would take another form.

But come, come, _mes enfants_, let us go. I feel half dressed; but as this is a picnic I suppose it does not matter."

The guests were a.s.sembled in the large hall of the Mission: Mr.

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

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

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

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

The swaying, writhing, gliding dance--the dance in which the backbone of men and women seems transformed into the flexible length of the serpent--was half over, the American men were standing on tiptoe, occasionally giving vent to their admiration, when Nina, her eyes sparkling with jealously and excitement, moved along the wall behind a group of people and stood beside Thorpe. He did not notice her approach.

His hands were thrust into his pockets, his eyes eagerly fixed on the most graceful feminine convolutions he had ever seen.

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

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

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

"Do you admire that?"

"I did--a moment ago."

"Tell me how much."

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

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

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

"Answer my question."

"I should."

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

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

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

"Very well."

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

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

XIII

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Don't suggest that I am getting anything," she cried, in mock terror.

"Small-pox? How dreadful! That is our little recreation, you know. When a San Franciscan has nothing else to do he goes off to the pest-house and has small-pox. But come, come."

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

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

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

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

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

"Dudley!" said Nina, sharply.

"Yes?"

"Was that a rat?"

"It was."

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

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

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

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