For a moment it stood motionless, poised, then floated lightly toward him, scarcely touching the floor, with a lazy rhythmic undulation which was music in itself. The full soft gown with its ruffles of lace rose and fell like billows of cloud, and in and out of a strip of crimson silk she twined and twisted herself to the slow scarce-audible vibration of her voice. She did not approach him closely, but danced in the middle and lower part of the room, sometimes in the full light of the candles, such as it was, at others retreating into the shadows beyond; where all outline was lost, and she looked like a waving line of mist, or a wraith writhing in an unwilling embrace.

And Thorpe? Outside, the storm howled about the corner of the Mission, or whistled a discord like a devil's chorus; but in the brain of the man was a hot mist, and it clouded his vision and played him many a trick.

The dust of the floor, the grime of the walls, the unsightly rafters were gone. He lay on a couch as imponderable as ether. Overhead were strangely carven beams, barely visible in the dusk of the room's great arch. A gossamer veil of many tints, stirring faintly as if breathed upon, hung before walls of unimaginable beauty. The floor trembled and exhaled a delicious perfume. Flame sprang from opal bowls. But nothing was definite but the floating undulating shape which had wrought this enchantment. Its full voluptuous beauty, he recalled confusedly; dimmed by the shadows which clung to it even in the light, it looked vaporous, evanescent, the phantasm of a lorelei riding the sea-foam. Its swaying arms gleamed on the dark; the gold-scaled sea-serpents glided and twisted from elbow to wrist. Only the eyes were those of a woman, and they burned with a languid fire; but they never met his for a moment.

Suddenly, with abrupt transition, she changed the air, which had been almost a chant, and began dancing fast and furiously. Flinging aside the scarf, she clasped her hands under rigid arms, as if leaning on them the full weight of her tiny body. She danced with a headlong whirl that deprived her of her wraith-like appearance, but was no less graceful.

With a motion so swift and light that her feet seemed continually twinkling in s.p.a.ce, she sped up and down the garret like a mad thing; then, unlocking her hands, she flung them outward and spun from one end of the room to the other in a whirl so dizzy that she looked like a cloud blown before the wind, streaming with a woman's hair and cut with yellow lightning.

She flew directly up to where Thorpe lay, and paused abruptly before him. For the first time their eyes met. He forgot his promise. He stumbled to his feet, grasping at her gown even before he was risen. For a second she stood irresolute; then her supple body leaped backward, and a moment later had flashed down the room and through the door.

Thorpe reached the door in three bounds. She was scrambling backward down the stair, her white frightened excited face dropping through the heavy dark. Thorpe got down as swiftly as he could; but she was far ahead, and he could not chase her into the Mission. When he re-entered the ball-room some time after, the guests were on the corridor waiting for their char-a-bancs. He returned to the Presidio in the ambulance.

XIV

The next day Thorpe called at the Randolphs'. The man, Cochrane, who, himself, looked yellow and haggard, informed him that the ladies were indisposed with severe colds. Thorpe went home and wrote Nina a letter, making no allusion to the performance at the Mission, but insisting that she recognise his rights, and let him know when he could see her and come to a definite understanding. A week pa.s.sed without a reply. Then Thorpe, tormented by every doubt and fear which can a.s.sail a lover, called again. The ladies were still indisposed. It was Sunday. Thorpe demanded to see Mr. Randolph, and was shown into the library.

Mr. Randolph entered in a few moments, and did not greet Thorpe with his customary warmth. There were black circles about his eyes. His cheeks looked thinner and his hand trembled.

"Have you been ill, too?" asked Thorpe, wondering if South Park were a healthy locality.

"No; not ill. I have been much hara.s.sed--business."

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"It will right in time--but--in a new city--and with no telegraphic communication with the rest of the world--nor quick postal service--there is much to impede business and try the patience."

Thorpe was a man of quick intuitions. He knew that Mr. Randolph was lying. However, that was not his business. He rose and stood before the fire, nervously flicking his trousers with his riding-whip.

"Has it occurred to you that I love your daughter?" he asked, abruptly.

"Or--perhaps--she has told you?"

"She has not spoken to me on the subject; but I inferred as much."

"I wish, of course, to marry her. You know little about me. My bankers--and Hastings--will tell you that I am well able to take care of your daughter. In fact, I am a fairly rich man. This sort of thing has to be said, I suppose--"

"I have not misunderstood your motives. I misjudge few men; I have lived here too long."

"Oh--thanks. Then you have no objection to raise?"

"No; I have none."

"Your daughter loves me." Thorpe had detected a slight accent on the p.r.o.noun.

"I am sure of that."

"Do you mean that Mrs. Randolph might object?"

"She would not be consulted."

Thorpe shifted his position uneasily. The hardest part was to come.

"Nina has intimated to me," he said, haltingly, "that there is a--some mysterious reason which would prevent her marrying. I have utterly disregarded that reason, and shall continue to do so. I purpose to marry her, and I hope you will--will you?--help me."

Mr. Randolph leaned forward and twisted his nervous pale hands together.

It was at least three minutes before he spoke, and by that time Thorpe's ear-drums were pounding.

"I must leave it to her," he said, "utterly to her. That is a question which only she can decide--and you. Of course she will tell you--she is too honest not to; but I am afraid she will stave it off as long as possible. I cannot tell you; it would not be just to her."

"But you will do nothing to dissuade her?"

"No; she is old enough to judge for herself. And if she decides in your favour, and you--are still of the same mind, I do not deny that I shall be very glad. I should even be willing for you to take her to England, to resign myself never to see her again--if I could think--if you thought it was for the best."

"I wish I knew what this cursed secret was," said Thorpe, pa.s.sionately.

"I am half distracted with it."

"Have you no suspicion?"

"It seems to me that I have thought of everything under heaven; and she denied one question after the other. I am bound to take her word, and to believe that the truth was the one thing I did not hit upon."

"Yes; if you had guessed, I think she would have told you, whether she was ready or not. It is very strange. You are one of the sharpest men I have ever met. Still, it is often the way."

"When can I see Nina?"

"In a few days--a week, I should say. Her cold is very severe."

"I have written to her, and she has not answered. Is it possible that her illness is serious? I have put it down to caprice or some new qualm."

"There is no cause for alarm. But she has some fever, and pain in her eyes, and is irritable. When she is well I will take it upon myself to see that you have an interview."

"Thank you." Mr. Randolph had not risen, but Thorpe felt himself dismissed. He left the house in a worse humour than he had entered it.

He felt balked, repulsed, and disagreeably prescient. For the first time in his life, he uneasily admitted that an iron will alone would not keep a man on the straight line of march to his goal, that there was a chain called Circ.u.mstance, and that it was forged of many metals.

XV

Thorpe determined not to go to the house again until either Nina or Mr.

Randolph sent for him. He would not run after any woman, he told himself angrily; and once or twice he was in a humour to snap the affair in two where it was and leave the country. But, on the whole, the separation whetted his pa.s.sion. That airy fabric of sentiment, imagination, and civilisation called spiritual affinity, occasionally dominated him, but not for long. His last experience of her had gone to his head: it was rarely that of all the Nina Randolphs he knew he could conjure any but the one that had danced his promise out of memory. There were times when he hated himself and hated her. Then he told himself that this phase was inevitable, and that later on, when the better part of their natures were free to a.s.sert themselves, they would find each other.

A week after his interview with Mr. Randolph, he found himself in South Park a little after eleven at night. He had dined on Rincon Hill, and purposed spending the night at the Oriental Hotel; he rarely returned to the Presidio after an evening's entertainment.

He had avoided the other men, and started to walk into town. Almost mechanically he turned into South Park, and halted before the tall silent house which seemed such a contemptible barrier between himself and the woman he wanted. His eyes, travelling downward, noted that a bas.e.m.e.nt window had been carelessly left open. He could enter the house without let--and the opportunity availed him nothing. He wished that he were a savage, with the traditions and conventions of a savage, and that the woman he loved dwelt in a tent on the plain.

Lights glimmered here and there in the houses of South Park, but the Randolphs' was blank; everybody, apparently, was at rest. To stand there and gaze at her window was bootless; and he cursed himself for a sentimental a.s.s.