"Ideals? Who ever had an ideal after a gla.s.s of champagne--except to be in the wildest spirits for the rest of one's life? There will be no champagne in Bruges--that's the city I've settled on; but I can't even think of Bruges. Champagne suggests Paris, and they tell me Paris is even more wicked than San Francisco. Is it?"

Her eyes were sparkling with merriment; but although she refilled her gla.s.s, there was no suggestion as yet of the bacchante about her. The colour had come back to her face, and she looked very charming.

Nevertheless Thorpe frowned and shook his head.

"I should prefer to talk about Bruges," he said. "I've been there, and can tell you all you'd like to know. When I go back, I'll send you some photographs."

"Thanks--but I have a whole portfolio full. I want to hear about Paris.

I'm afraid you're a bit of a prig."

"No man could be less of a prig. I hope you are above the silly idea that, because we English have a slightly higher standard than other nations, it follows that we are prigs. You were entirely delightful a few moments ago; but I don't like to see a woman drink when it affects her as it does you."

The colour flew from her cheeks to her hair, and her eyes flashed angrily. "You _are_ a prig, and you are extremely impertinent," she said.

Thorpe sprang to his feet, plunging his hands into his pockets.

"Oh--don't--don't--" he exclaimed. "I'm afraid I was rude. I a.s.sure you, I did not intend to criticise you. Please say you forgive me."

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "You look so really penitent,"

she said gaily. "Sit down and fill my gla.s.s, and drink to our--friendship."

He was about to remonstrate; but reflecting that it would be a bore to apologise twice in succession, and also that what she did was none of his affair, he filled her gla.s.s. She touched it to his, and threw herself back against the skins, sipping the wine slowly and chattering nonsense. He refilled her gla.s.s absently the fourth time; but when she pushed it across the table again, he said, with some decision:

"Be careful. This champagne is very heady. I feel it myself."

She drained the gla.s.s. For a moment they stared hard at each other in silence, Thorpe wondering at the sudden maturity in the face before him.

All the triumphant young womanhood had gone out of it; the diabolical spirit of some ancestor entombed in the depths of her brain might have possessed her for the moment, smothering her own groping soul. The distant music filled the conservatory with a low humming sound, such as one hears in a tropical forest at noon. Suddenly Thorpe realised that the evil which is in all human souls was having its moment of absolute liberty, and that the two dissevered particles, his and hers, recognised each other. He had knocked his senseless many times in his life, but he felt no inclination to do so to-night; for so much more than what little was evil in this girl attracted and magnetised him. His brain was not clear, and it was reckless with its abrupt possession by the idea that this woman was his mate, and that, for good or for evil, there was no escaping her. He sprang to his feet, pushed the table violently aside, took her in his arms and kissed her. For a moment she was quiescent; then she slipped from his embrace and ran down the conservatory, thrusting the ferns aside. One fell, its jar crashing on the stone floor. He saw no more of her that night.

II

Two days later Thorpe was strolling up and down the beach before the Presidio. The plaza was deserted; here and there, on the verandahs of the low adobe houses surrounding it, officers lay at full length in hammocks, smoking or reading, occasionally flirting with some one in white.

Every trace of the storm had fled. The warmth and fragrance and restlessness of spring were in the air. The bay, as calm as a mountain lake, reflected a deep blue sky with no wandering white to give it motion. Outside the Golden Gate, the spray leaped high, and the ocean gave forth its patient roar. The white sails on the bay hung limply.

Opposite was a line of steep cliffs, bare and green; beyond was a stupendous peak, dense and dark with redwoods. Farther down, facing the young city, hills jutted, romantic with sweeping willows. Between was the solitary rock, Alcatraz, with its ugly fort of many eyes. Far to the east was a line of pink mountains dabbled with blue, tiny villages clinging to their knees.

Thorpe's keen eye took in every detail. It pleased him more than anything he had seen for some time. After a long rainy day in quarters, trying to talk nonsense to the Presidio women in their cramped parlours, and giving his opinion of California some thirty times, he felt that he could hail the prospect of a week of fresh air and solitude with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy. He kept the tail of his eye on the square, ready to hasten his steps and disappear round the sand dunes, did any one threaten to intrude upon his musings.

He saw a man ride into the plaza, dismount at the barracks, and a moment later head for the beach. Thorpe's first impulse was to flee. But he stopped short; he had recognised Mr. Randolph's butler.

The man touched his hat as he approached.

"A note from Miss Randolph, sir."

Thorpe opened the note. It read:

MY DEAR MR. THORPE,--I should like to see you this afternoon, if you are disengaged. If not, at your earliest convenience. I hope you will understand that this is not an idle request, but that I particularly wish to see you.

Sincerely, NINA RANDOLPH.

"Tell Miss Randolph that I will call at three," said Thorpe, promptly.

He had no wish to avoid the interview; he was quite willing that she should turn the scorpions of her wrath upon him. He deserved it. He did not pretend to understand Nina Randolph, deeply as he had puzzled over her since their memorable interview; but that he had helped her to violate her own self-respect, there could be little doubt, and he longed to give her what satisfaction he could. He had lived his inner life very fully, and knew all that the sacrifice of an ideal meant to the higher parts of the mind. Whether Miss Randolph had ever kissed a man before or not, he would not pretend to guess; but he would have been willing to swear that she had never kissed another in the same circ.u.mstances; and he burned to think that he had been the man to cast her at the foot of her girlish pedestal. Whatever possibilities for evil there might be in her, instinct prompted him to believe that they were undeveloped. Her strong sudden magnetism for him had pa.s.sed with her presence, and, looking back, he attributed it entirely to the momentary pa.s.sion of which he was ashamed; but he felt something of the curious tie which binds thinking people who have helped each other a step down the moral ladder.

After luncheon, he informed Hastings that he was going to the city, and asked for a horse.

"I'll go with you--"

"I don't want you," said Thorpe, bluntly. "I have a particular reason for wishing to go alone."

"Oh, very well," said Hastings, amiably. "The savage loves his solitude, I know."

The road between the army posts and San Francisco was well beaten.

Thorpe could not have lost his way, even if the horse had not known every inch of it.

He reached the city within an hour. It was less picturesque by day than by night. The board sidewalks were broken and uneven, the streets muddy.

The tall frame buildings of the business section looked as if they had been pieced together in intervals between gambling and lynching.

Dwelling-houses with gardens about them were scattered on the heights.

Two miles south of the swarming, hurrying, swearing brain of the city was the aristocratic quarter,--South Park and Rincon Hill. The square wooden houses, painted a dark brown, had a solid and substantial air, and looked as if they might endure through several generations.

The man, Cochrane, admitted Thorpe, and conducted him to the library.

The room was unoccupied, and, as the door closed behind the butler, Thorpe for the first time experienced a flutter. He was about to have a serious interview with a girl of whose type he knew nothing. Would she expect him to apologise? He had always held that the man who kissed and apologised was an a.s.s. But he had done Miss Randolph something more than a minor wrong.

He shrugged his shoulders and took his stand before the fireplace. She had sent for him; let her take the initiative. He knew woman well enough to follow her cues, be the type new or old. Then he looked about him with approval. One would know it was an Englishman's library, he thought. Book-shelves, closely furnished, lined two sides of the large and lofty room. One end opened into the conservatory--where palms did shelter and the lights were dim. The rugs and curtains were red, the furniture very comfortable. On a long table were the periodicals of the world.

Miss Randolph kept him waiting but a few moments. She opened the door abruptly and entered. Her face was pale, and her eyes were shadowed; but she held her head very high. Her carriage and her long dark gown made her appear almost tall. As she advanced down the room, she looked at Thorpe steadily, without access of colour, her lips pressed together.

He met her half way. His first impression was that her figure was the most beautiful he had ever seen, his next the keenest impulse of pity he had felt for any woman.

She extended her hand mechanically, and he took it and held it.

"Is it true that I kissed you the other night?" she asked, peremptorily.

"Yes," he said, ungracefully.

"And I had drunk too much champagne?"

"It was my fault," he said, eagerly. "You told me that you had a bad head. I had no business to press it on you."

"You must think I am a poor weak creature indeed, if my friends are obliged to take care of me," she said drily. "I was a fool to touch it--that is the long and the short of it. I have given you a charming impression of the girls of San Francisco--sit down: we look idiotic standing in the middle of the room holding each other's hand--I can a.s.sure you that there was not another girl in the house who would have done what I did, or whom you would have dared to kiss. In a new country, you know, the social lines are drawn very tight, and the best people are particular to prudery. It is necessary: there are so many dreadful women out here. I am positive that in the set to which Captain Hastings has introduced you, you will meet a larger number of well-conducted people than you have ever met in any one place before."

"It is very good of you to put on armour for your city," he said, smiling. "I shall always think of it as your city, by the way. But I thought you did not like California."

"It is my country. I feel great pride in it. You will find that it is a country with a peculiar influence. Some few natures it leaves untouched--but they are precious few. In the others, it quickens all the good and evil they were born with."

Thorpe looked at her with a profound interest. He was eager to hear all that she had to say.