"I have never before had occasion to speak like this to any man," she went on. "If I had had, I should not have done so. I should have carried it off with a high hand, ignored it, a.s.sumed that I was above criticism.

I only speak to you so frankly because you are an Englishman. People of the same blood are clannish when away from their own land. I say this without coquetry: I care more for your good opinion than for that of any of the others--I am so tired of them!"

"Thank you--even if you did rather spoil it. You have it, if it really matters to you. Surely, you don't think I misunderstand. I insist upon a.s.suming all the blame--and--upon apologising."

"Well, I am glad you apologised. Although you were not the most to blame, just for the moment it made me feel that you were. I have already forgiven you." She dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked at him again with her square, almost defiant regard. "There is something I have been trying to lead up to. It is this--it is not very easy to say--I want you to make a promise. There is a skeleton in this house. Some people know. I don't want you to ask them about it. My father will ask you here constantly. I shall want you to come, too. I ask you to promise to keep your eyes shut. Will you?"

"I shall see nothing. Thanks, thanks." He got up and moved nervously about. "We will be friends, the best of friends, promise me that. No flirtation. No nonsense. There may be something I can do to help you while I am here. I hope there will be."

"There will not, but I like you better for saying that--I know you are not demonstrative." She threw herself back in her chair and smiled charmingly. "As to the other part--yes, we shall be the best of friends.

It was hard to speak, but I am glad that I did. I knew it was either that or a nodding acquaintance, and I had made up my mind that it should be something quite different. When we are alone and serious, we will not flirt; but I have moods, irrepressible ones. If, when we meet in society, I happen to be in a highly flirtatious humour, you are to flirt with me. Do you understand?"

"Certainly, certainly, I agree--to keep you from flirting with other men."

"Now fetch that portfolio over there,--it has Bruges in it,--and tell me something about every stone."

They talked for two hours, and of much beside Bruges. Haphazardly as she had been educated in this new land, her natural intelligence had found nutrition in her father's mind and library. Thorpe noted that when talking on subjects which appealed to the intellect alone, her face changed strikingly: the heavy lids lifted, the eyes sparkled coldly, the mouth lost its full curves. Even her voice, so warm and soft, became, more than once, harsh and sharp.

"There are several women in her," he thought. "She certainly is very interesting. I should like to meet her again ten years hence."

He did.

"Why don't you travel?" he asked. "It would mean so much more to you than to most women. Even if Mr. Randolph cannot leave this fair young city he is building up, and your mother won't leave him, you could go with some one else--"

"I never expect to leave California," she said shortly. Then, as she met his look of surprise, she added: "I told you a fib when I said that I did not dream, or only a little. I get out of my own life for hours at a time by imagining myself in Europe, cultivating my mind, my taste for art, to their utmost limit, living a sort of impersonal life--Of course there are times when I imagine myself with some one who would care for it all as much as I, and know more--and all that. But I try to keep to the other. I have suffered enough to know that in the impersonal life is the surest content. And as for the other--it could not be, even if I ever met such a man. But dreams help one enormously, and I am the richer for all I have indulged in."

Thorpe stood up again. Under a rather impa.s.sive exterior, he was a restless man, and his acquaintance with Nina Randolph had tried his nerves.

"I wish you had not given me half confidences, or that you would refrain from rousing my curiosity--my interest, as you do. It is hardly fair. I don't wish to know what the family skeleton is, but I do want to know _you_ better. If you want the truth, I have never been so _intrigue_ by a woman in my life. And I have never so wanted to help one. I have been so drawn to you that I have had a sense of having done you a personal wrong ever since the other night. A man does not usually feel that way when he kisses a girl. I see it is no use to ask your confidence now; but, mind, I don't say I sha'n't demand it later on."

At this moment the butler entered with the lamps. He was followed immediately by Mr. Randolph, who exclaimed delightedly:

"Is it really you, Mr. Thorpe? I have just sent you a note asking you to dine with us on Sunday. And you'll stay to dinner to-night--no, I won't listen to any excuses. If you knew what a pleasure it is to meet an Englishman once more!"

"Hastings will think I am lost--"

"I'll send him a note, and ask him to come in for the evening, and I'll get in a dozen of our neighbours. We'll have some music and fun."

"Very well--I am rather keen on staying, to tell you the truth. Many thanks."

"Sit down. You must see something of sport here. It is very interesting in this wild country."

"I should like it above all things." Thorpe sat forward eagerly, forgetting Miss Randolph. "What have you that's new? I've killed pretty nearly everything."

"We will have an elk hunt."

"I want to go, too," said Nina, authoritatively.

Thorpe turned, and smiled, as he saw the hasty retreat of an angry sparkle.

"I am afraid you would be a disturbing influence," he said gallantly.

"I shouldn't disturb you," she said, with the pertness of a spoilt child. "I am a good shot myself. I can go--can't I, papa?"

Mr. Randolph smiled indulgently. "You can do anything you like, my darling," he said. "I wonder you condescend to ask."

Nina ran over and kissed him, then propped her chin on top of his head and looked defiantly at Thorpe.

"If you don't take me," she remarked, drily, "there will be no hunt."

"On the whole, I think my mind would concentrate better if you were not absent," he said.

She blew him a kiss. "You _are_ improving. _Hasta luego!_ I must go and smooth my feathers." And she ran out of the room.

The two men talked of the threatened civil upheaval in the United States until dinner was announced, a half hour later.

Mrs. Randolph did not appear until the soup had been removed. She entered the dining-room hurriedly, muttering an apology. Her toilette had evidently been made in haste: her brooch was awry; and her hair, banded down the face after the fashion of the time, hung an inch below one ear and exposed the lobe of the other, dealing detrimentally with her dignity, despite her fine physique.

She took no part in the conversation for some time. It was very lively.

Mr. Randolph was full of anecdote and information, and enjoyed scintillating. He frequently referred to Nina, as if proud of her cleverness and anxious to exhibit it; but the guest noticed that he never addressed a word--nor a glance--to his wife.

Suddenly Thorpe's eyes rested on a small dark painting in oils, the head of an old man.

"That is rather good," he said, "and a very interesting face."

"You have probably never heard of the artist, unless you have read the life of his sister. I was so fond of the man that I resent his rescue from oblivion by the fame of a woman. His name was Branwell Bronte, and that is a portrait of my grandfather."

"If Branwell 'ad a-conducted hisself," said a heavy voice opposite, "'ee'd a-been the wonder of the family. Mony a time a 've seen 'im coom into tha Lord Rodney Inn, 'is sharp little face as red as tha scoollery maid's 'ands, and rockin' from one side of tha 'all to tha hother, and sit doon at tha table, and make a carica_chure_ of ivvery mon thot coom in. And once when 'ee was station-master at Luddondon Foote a 've 'eard as 'ow a mon coom runnin' oop just as tha train went oot, and said as 'ow 'ee was horful anxious to know if a certain mon went hoff. 'Ee tried describin' 'im, and couldn't, so Branwell drew pictures of all the persons as 'ad left, and 'ee recog_nised_ the one as 'ee wanted."

There was a moment's silence, so painful that Thorpe felt his nerves jumping and the colour rising to his face. He recalled his promise, and looked meditatively at the strange concoction which had been placed before him as Mrs. Randolph finished. But his thought was arbitrary. An ignorant woman of the people, possibly an ex-servant, who could only play the gentlewoman through a half-dozen rehea.r.s.ed sentences, and forget the role completely at times! He had not expected to find the skeleton so soon.

"That is _carne con agi_, a Chile dish," said Mr. Randolph, suavely.

"I'm very fond of Spanish cooking, myself, and you had better begin your education in it at once: you will get a good deal out here."

"I am jolly glad to hear it. I'm rather keen on new dishes." He glanced up. Mr. Randolph was yellow. The lines in his face had deepened. Thorpe dared not look at Nina.

III

Some eight or ten people, including Hastings, came in after dinner.

Mrs. Randolph had gone upstairs from the dining-room, and did not appear again. Her dampening influence removed, Mr. Randolph and Nina recovered their high light spirits; and there was much music and more conversation. Miss Randolph had a soprano voice of piercing sweetness, which flirted effectively with Captain Hastings' tenor. Thorpe thought Hastings an a.s.s for rolling his eyes out of his head, and finally turned his back on the piano to meet the large amused glance of Miss Hathaway.

He sat down beside her, and, being undisturbed for ten minutes, found her willing to converse, or rather to express a number of decided opinions. She told him whom he was to know, what parts of California he was to visit, how long he was to stay, and after what interval he was to return. Thorpe listened with much entertainment, for her voice was not tuned to friendly advice, but to command. Her great eyes were as cold as icicles under a blue light; but there was a certain cordiality in their invitation to flirt. Thorpe did not respond. If he had known her first, he reflected, he should doubtless have made an attempt to dispossess her court; but the warm magnetic influence of Nina Randolph held him, strengthened by her demand upon his sympathy. Still he felt that Miss Hathaway was a person to like, and remained at her side until he was dismissed in favour of Hastings; when he talked for a time to the intellectual Miss McDermott, the sweet and slangy Miss McAllister, who looked like an angel and talked like a gamin, to Don Roberto Yorba, a handsome and exquisitely attired little grandee who was trying to look as much like an American as his friend Hiram Polk, with his lantern jaws and angular figure. It was the first city Thorpe had visited where there was no type: everybody suggested being the father or mother of one, and was of an individuality so p.r.o.nounced that the stranger marvelled they were not all at one another's throats. But he had never seen people more amiable and fraternal.

He did not see Nina alone again until a few moments before he left. He drew her out into the hall while Hastings was saying good-night to Mr.

Randolph.