"I feel that I have been very selfish to do nothing before. But really, it seemed hopeless until Anabel told me yesterday that there was a vast amount of interest in the young English rancher. I am afraid the girls here will not interest you; only you should have the opportunity of deciding that question for yourself. But what will be really delightful will be to show you San Francisco. I have not been able to leave the ranch for a day since that three weeks' outing I had no business to take. But I have had half a dozen resentful letters from Paula, who has persuaded herself that you are her cousin too, and a.s.serts her right to know you. But neither she nor Lyster has the remotest suspicion of your ident.i.ty. Elton Gwynne might have a dozen brothers; nor is it likely they ever heard the name. If you were an artist or actor or litterateur or composer you might be as well known in San Francisco as in London.

There is no city in the United States one-half so artistic--nor so given to fads. But in European politics, the young people, at least, take as much interest as they do in the ca.n.a.ls of the moon. So you are quite safe, and Lyster is the man of all others to show you Bohemian San Francisco and give you a thoroughly good time. We might go down a few days after the party."

"That will be very jolly. I will confess that although San Francisco did not inspire me with enthusiasm, it has occurred to me that it might be an improvement on Rosewater.... Oh, by-the-way, I had a letter from my mother not long ago, in which she said she had met some San Franciscans at Homburg--Hofer, I believe the name was--and had promised I should call on them, mentioning me, of course, as John Gwynne. I have wondered if the risk would be worth while. The amus.e.m.e.nt to be derived from provincial society is very doubtful."

"Provincial! What arrogance! Do please call on the Hofers. They have the old Polk house, whose history I have told you, and entertain like princes. Besides, Mr. Hofer is one of that small millionaire group that is trying to clean up San Francisco munic.i.p.ally. He is quite worth knowing. And I want you to know San Francisco. It is my ambition to be a great figure in San Francisco--and I have seen other cities, and might be enjoying myself in England this moment."

"Yes, I know," said Gwynne, smiling, and admiring her pink cheeks and flashing eyes. "And of course I don't forget that you have spurned a great position for the sake of your beloved city. That is really at the root of my desire to know the place. If it has a fascination I should like to feel it. Fascination is a strong word and means a considerable amount of enjoyment, up to a certain point. But I am glad to have heard the declaration of your ambition. Is it the final one?"

"It is the pedestal," said Isabel, enigmatically. "Sometime, when you give me your confidence, I will give you mine."

"I have no confidences to make--none, at least, that can compare with the rich experiences of your past. I told you all about Mrs. Kaye before I left England, and, so far, America has left me--well, unfascinated.

By-the-way, Colton informs me that he and his wife have picked out some one to cheer my loneliness and--"

"Who?"

"I do not remember her name. Doubtless she will be at the party. I am curious to see all your friends together. I have seen an astonishing number of pretty girls in the street, and I am wondering how they will stand the test of lighting up; the great test to my mind. I don't know which I like least, the manufactured animation of the European woman of the world, or the too natural animation which makes the American girl's features dance all over her face. You, if you don't mind my saying so, are one of the very few Americans I have met that has something of the Englishwoman's faculty of looking, at the same time, statuesque and glowingly alive."

"You excite my suspicion: I see no indication that you are out of practice. It is quite true that American women's faces, like their voices, lack cultivation. Well, you will see a good many pretty girls on Sat.u.r.day night, and with no particular advantage of dress. Money has nothing to do with social position in these country towns. Perhaps twenty families besides the bankers and Mr. Boutts, and the Leslies, are well off. But many girls who are in the best society earn their living: typewriters, clerks, book-keepers, and the like. One has carried on her father's drug-store since his death. Most of the young men that could get away have gone, and there are not half a dozen left with any money behind them. The majority of beaux are either clerks, or in some small business, although there are always the doctors and clergymen--very few young lawyers. Sn.o.bbery barely exists. There are lines, but purely theological. All social groups centre about the churches. The first here has always been the Episcopalian."

"It had occurred to me that society of any sort had ceased. Of the famous California hospitality I have seen nothing. A number of men have driven out and called upon me, and I have returned their calls, and found their houses very well appointed--although some member of the family usually answered the bell; and one morning I saw Miss Wheaton sweeping off the porch, her head tied up in a towel. All I meet appear to be very cordial and friendly, but I have not been asked to take so much as a cup of tea in a house in the county, and I have now been here something like five weeks."

"California hospitality is a mere legend except in San Francisco. In the small communities it has never existed in my time, although they used to dance a good deal before cards turned their heads. You will find just as much haggling over a five-cent piece here as in any small New England town. These rich men have made their money by h.o.a.rding and wary investments, rarely speculating; and that tells immensely on the character. I doubt if the State itself has ever known the meaning of hospitality since the old ranch days, when, of course, it was prodigal.

It is the San Franciscans that have kept the tradition alive; they are as reckless, as extravagant, as royally indifferent to mere money as in the famous Fifties. If you happen to call too close to a meal-time in one of these towns, the meal will be postponed until you leave. In San Francisco they would give you two-thirds of their last crust. At the old Rosewater dances we never had anything but cake and lemonade--ice-cream in very hot weather. I think it would be a good idea to give them a shock and have a supper from town."

"I believe you are socially ambitious," said Gwynne, smiling. "No doubt it is your intention to make a fortune and lead San Francisco society."

"Perhaps, but not in the way you mean."

XV

The long-closed bar-room of Old Inn was aired for a week, denuded of cobwebs, delivered of mice, canva.s.sed by the invaluable Chuma. The Rosewater Hotel promised to contribute its Sunday band of four pieces, manipulated with no mean skill by worthy but unprosperous young citizens. Not one of Isabel's invitations was refused. The girls suddenly discovered that they were still young, and were as much excited at the prospect of a night's dancing as at meeting the English rancher.

The men accepted as a matter of course, thankful to be asked to anything. The older people, surprised at an invitation to a dance, a.s.sured one another that Isabel Otis, being absurdly extravagant, and living two miles out in the country, was almost certain to regale her guests with fried oysters and ice-cream. One or two of her mother's old friends wrote and offered to contribute a chocolate cake, but were relieved when she refused to "trouble them." Gwynne and Isabel hung the walls of the big room with palm leaves, and branches covered thick with small yellow oranges, the first of the year. When they rested from their labors Isabel declared that it looked like an exhibit at a county fair, but Gwynne, never having attended a county fair, was proud of his handiwork and thought the effect an improvement upon the average ballroom. The day before the party Tom Colton and Hyliard Wheaton rode out to Lumalitas and demanded of Gwynne if he intended to wear a "claw-hammer." Colton was averse on principle from being too "swagger"; and they finally compromised on what the Americans called their "Tuxedos," and Gwynne his "smoker." Anabel Colton, Dolly Boutts, and Serena Wheaton, after half a day's telephoning, decided to "wear their necks," and their hostess agreed to keep them in countenance. Every team in Rosewater was bespoken for the distinguished occasion, and the reports of the weather bureau were consulted daily. But the rains held off and the night of the party was brilliant with starlight, and not too cold.

Gwynne, who had no intention of receiving with Isabel, and learning from Colton that everybody would have arrived before nine o'clock, did not make his appearance until ten. He found the big room full of young and elderly people, even the latter chattering with an extraordinary animation, induced no doubt by the surprises that had greeted them; they had forgotten the existence of the old bar-room. From the dancers Gwynne received a general impression of pink cheeks, fluffy hair, delicate features, gay simple gowns, the usual lack of background; a curious transientness, as if they had been born for the night like summer moths.

The men for the most part made a good appearance, the more favored looking college-bred and irreproachable. Hyliard Wheaton, who was really handsome, with his broad shoulders and cool smooth well-cut face, wore an orchid in his b.u.t.ton-hole and was devoting himself to Isabel.

The hostess wore a gown of black chiffon trimmed with pale blue that looked simple and was not. Her neck and arms were bare, and Gwynne noticed at once that she had another little black mole where the bodice slipped from her shoulder. She reproached the guest of honor for being late.

"You will dance this waltz with me," she commanded, royally; "and then I will introduce you to the prettiest of the girls."

For the first time in his life Gwynne felt self-conscious in putting his arm about a woman's waist for the waltz. He had seen Isabel in full evening dress many a time in England, in rubber boots to her hips, in divided skirt astride her horse, in overalls among her chickens, and in pretty little house-gowns when he had remained for supper; nevertheless, in surrendering her slim waist she seemed to descend, significantly, from her pedestal and become warm flesh and blood. He held her awkwardly, barely touching her, wondering there should be physical shrinking from such a beautiful creature, one, moreover, that had shown him more kindness and disinterested friendship than any he had ever known. He reproached himself, but even while he admired the luminous whiteness of her skin he found himself scowling at the tiny black moles that gave her an oddly artificial provocative look, as black patches may have deliberately enhanced the charms of their coquettish grandmothers.

"Humph!" said Mrs. Wheaton, raising her lorgnette, as became a leader of society. "He is not so fond of her, for all this friendship we have been hearing so much about. Well, it is natural enough. Isabel is far too independent to be really attractive to men, for all her good looks.

These advanced women will have to step aside into a cla.s.s by themselves, and as the men won't follow them, that will mean they will die off naturally, and the world wag its own old way once more."

She was a tall stout woman, with a pale heavy face, and a curious elevation of nose, as if sniffing an unpleasant odor; but which was really meant to express pride of carriage. She wore a somewhat old-fashioned but handsome gown of lavender satin trimmed with point lace about the bodice, and a pair of diamond ear-rings. On one side of her sat the elder Mrs. Colton, in black silk with a point-lace collar; a sweet-faced frankly elderly woman. The third member of the group was a woman who might have been any age between thirty-five and fifty, very thin and dark, with the curiously virginal look peculiar to childless women tainted by a suggestion of morbid sensuality, very difficult to locate. Sometimes it seemed to twist across her thin restless mouth, at others to gleam from her deep-set black eyes with a fleeting wildness.

Ordinarily she was smiling with an affected cynicism, and it was plain to be seen that she respected her intellect. She was abominably dressed in a frock of purple merino trimmed with black velvet ribbon; but she wore a gold comb in her hair and a diamond brooch.

As the leader finished her remarks Mrs. Haight brought her teeth together with a snap and shot through them a little hiss. Mrs. Wheaton turned upon her with the gleam of the bird of prey in her little gray cold eyes. All the gossip of Rosewater was very old, scandal rare. "What is it, Minerva?" she asked, eagerly. "Are they engaged? And do you know just why he has come out here?"

"I only know what everybody says about his coming here--that his health ain't good, and he wants to make the ranch pay by running it himself; but that other--" She paused and lifted her thin shoulders significantly. "Well, all I can say is, that if they ain't engaged they ought to be."

Mrs. Wheaton leaned forward eagerly, but Mrs. Colton said, severely: "That is just your evil mind, Minerva. You are always imagining things; comes of having nothing to think about but cards and novels--six children were what you needed."

"I guess I have as much as anybody to think about, what with having no help half the time, and a husband who wants his meals on time whether or no. And I guess I worked as hard in the City Improvement Club as anybody until we got all those concrete sidewalks for the town, let alone the parks. What if I do read novels and play cards for recreation? Too much thinking ain't good for anybody."

"Oh, never mind," interrupted Mrs. Wheaton, hastily. "But what did you mean, anyhow?"

"Well, as you know, I don't sleep very well, and I often get up and sit at the window, watching for the boat 'bus, and just imagining where the people who are out late, or up early, are going to and what they are thinking about. Well, I've seen him"--jerking her shoulder at Gwynne, who was now dancing with Miss Boutts--"I've seen him riding home from here as late as ten or half-past, many a night. He may have been duck-shooting and stayed to supper. That's all right, but he could go home just after. I for one don't think it's decent--a girl living all alone like she does. If he wants to shoot ducks, anyhow, why don't he join a club? If he does all his shooting here it's to be with her, and no mistake. I've said from the very first, it's downright indecent for a girl to live alone on a farm--no chaperon, not even a woman servant. I, for one, think that Isabel Otis has done just as she pleased long enough, and ought to be called down."

"It is only natural that she should do as she pleases now that she has the chance, poor soul," said Mrs. Colton. "She never had anything but trouble and sorrow in her life until James Otis died. I wish he could have died when she was little and I could have brought her up. That life, and then her sudden liberty, have made her independent and advanced, but I can't say that I like it myself. I wish she were more like Anabel. It's odd they're not more alike, being such friends."

"I quite agree with Minerva!" announced the leader. "Isabel ought to have a chaperon. I don't doubt she's all she should be or _I_ shouldn't be here to-night, friend of her mother's or not; but I suggested to her only yesterday--I had a little talk with her on Main Street--that she get some respectable old maid or widow to live with her."

"What did she say?" asked Mrs. Colton, with a smile.

"Say? The insolent young minx! She just looked at me, through me--Me--as if I had not spoken. Her mother always put on airs. That's where she gets it from. I had half a mind not to come to-night. But I wanted to see things for myself. If she does anything really imprudent, _I'll make her suffer_."

This last phrase was famous in Rosewater. Mrs. Wheaton employed it seldom, but when she did her friends understood that she was not far from the war-path. Her color had risen with the memory of yesterday's grievance, pushed aside by curiosity for some twenty-eight hours.

Mrs. Haight regarded the radiant young hostess with a malignant stare, prudently veiled by drooping lids. She envied Isabel with her whole small soul; she had never known the sensation of liberty in her life, and she stopped short of the courage that might s.n.a.t.c.h it. Mr. Haight, the leading druggist of Rosewater and an eminent and useful citizen, was a large stolid elderly man--he was at present in the little dining-room with other gentlemen of his standing and a punch-bowl--as regular as a clock in his habits, and devoted conscientiously to his wife, whom he took for a buggy ride every Sunday in fine weather. They had been married for twenty-two years, and for at least fifteen she had yearned to be the heroine of an illicit romance; nor ever yet had found the courage to indulge in a mild flirtation. She really loved her husband, and in many respects made him an excellent wife, but her depths were choked with the slime of a morbid eroticism which her husband was the last man to exorcise. The earlier fever in her blood had gradually dropped to the greensickness of middle-age, so that she was vaguely repellent to men, particularly the young. This she had the wit to detect, as well as the incontrovertible fact that her youth and her chances were gone. As a natural consequence her repressed but still rebellious pa.s.sions diffused their poison throughout her nature. There were times when she was seized with a frantic desire to inflict injury upon some other woman, and at all times she found relief in sharp criticism, in flinging mud at mantles spotless to the casual eye. She pa.s.sed for being very piquante and clever in a town where so little happened except the turning over of money, and where the conversation alternated between chickens and cards. She was sure that she scented a scandal here, and her very nostrils quivered with antic.i.p.ation; the while she hated Isabel more bitterly for taking a lover instead of an eternal husband.

"Looks as if she didn't mean to introduce him to us," she remarked, with an attempt at frigid criticism. "He don't dance so well but what the girls could get on without him. Isabel might give him a chance to exhibit his conversational powers--My! if he ain't going to dance again with Dolly Boutts! I'd like to know how Isabel fancies that!"

Gwynne, who liked any sort of exercise, and had been reading the United States Statutes the greater part of the day, danced with the girls to whom Isabel introduced him, returning no less than three times to the exuberant Miss Boutts, whose step suited his, and whom he thought one of the prettiest girls he had seen in America. Mr. Boutts's mother had been the daughter of an Italian restaurant keeper in San Francisco, and his heiress inherited a fine flashing pair of black eyes, a ma.s.s of black hair, and a voluptuous but buoyant figure. She had inherited nothing of the languor and fire of the Italian race, but chattered as incessantly as any American girl, and had the mind and character of sixteen, in spite of her almost full-blown beauty. Having an instinct for dress in addition to a liberal allowance from her father, she was always a notable figure in Main Street; and when in San Francisco was pleasantly aware that she was by no means unnoticed in the fashionable throngs of the hotels and Kearny Street. To-night she wore a gown of black net revealing her superb shoulders and arms, and bunches of red carnations that emphasized the red of her full pouting lips. She danced with a graceful energy and looked unutterable things out of her great black eyes while talking of the weather. Gwynne thought her a creature of infinite possibilities, beside whom Isabel was a statue in ivory.

Just before supper he was introduced to the older women, and offered his arm to Mrs. Wheaton when two waiters, unmistakably from a San Francisco caterer, threw open the doors upon a hall that separated the ballroom from the old hotel dining-room. The startled guests filed hastily across to find a dainty but sumptuous repast served at little tables. Even the ice-cream was frozen in graceful shapes instead of being ladled out of a freezer in full view of the company, and there was such an abundance of all things, served with despatch by the professional waiters, that Mrs.

Haight was permitted to consume three plates of oysters _a la poulette_.

"This must have cost a pretty penny!" she muttered to Mrs.

Wheaton--Gwynne was dancing attendance on Miss Boutts once more. "Much money she'll save! One would think this was San Francisco, and some swell house on n.o.b Hill. I don't believe a thing was cooked in her own kitchen."

"I should think not! This supper is from the St. Francis, or The Palace, or The Poodle Dog--" Mrs. Wheaton ran off the names of all the famous San Francisco restaurants, to the ill-concealed spite of Mrs. Haight who did not dine in San Francisco once a year. "But as you suggest, I cannot imagine how she expects to make a fortune in chickens if she throws about money like this. No wonder Mr. Gwynne isn't good enough for her--but perhaps that's the reason he's selling off so much of his ranch. Mr. Wheaton says he thinks of putting up an office building on some land he has south of Market Street."

"To my way of thinking, Isabel Otis and matrimony don't gee. She's altogether too advanced. Just you wait."

The young people, meanwhile, were very gay, and there was little doubt in Isabel's mind that if she lived in Rosewater and chose to revive and lead the old social life she could drive cards to the wall in the first engagement. She had been much elated with her success, but, of a sudden, as her eyes roved benignantly over her chattering delighted guests, ennui descended upon her: those ancestral mutterings in the soul that stir dim memories of great moments of a greater time, inviting a vague contempt and distaste for the petty incidents and achievements that make up the sum of life. Isabel had experienced this faint sensation of futility and disgust many times before, and although she was wise enough not to let it paralyze her will, and to turn it to account in holding her to her higher ideals, still she often envied the Dolly Bouttses, with good red plebeian blood in their veins, and no voices in the subconscious brain but those that bade them eat and drink and feed the race. No, she decided, Rosewater could work out of its present inertia by itself, and she began to wish her guests would go home; she was tired of their inanities. Her disappointment in Hyliard Wheaton, whom she had admired from a distance ever since her return, but who had never succ.u.mbed to her charm until to-night, had much to do with her sense of futility. He had read nothing, seen nothing, experienced nothing. He had no ambition beyond living in San Francisco and enjoying life there. His fine well-bred face with its high brow and smiling, slightly superior, gaze, had suggested--the more particularly, perhaps, as his figure was superb--possibilities both intellectual and romantic. Isabel told him politely never to ride out without using the telephone first, and had her excuses already coined. At least ten men be sides Gwynne were hovering about Dolly Boutts, like humming-birds about the nectar of a full-blown rose. They were blind to the fact that her voluptuous suggestion was but a caprice of nature. Although, no doubt, she would make the best of wives and mothers, she was as incapable of any depth of pa.s.sion as the frail fluffy creatures about her, and quite indifferent to anything in man beyond his admiration. Up to the present she had found cards far more interesting, particularly as she had known all the Rosewater men since childhood; more particularly, perhaps, as this was her first large party. She chattered, partly by instinct, partly in deference to the traditional animation of the American girl; and it was quite likely that the ultimate man would lead her to the altar under the delusion that she was a brilliant woman with a genuine temperament.

Isabel wondered somewhat contemptuously at Gwynne's evident enthusiasm; she would have given him credit for more experience and perspicacity; but concluded that at a party a man could only judge a girl by her exterior charms; and certainly Dolly had all her goods in the front window.

After supper they danced the old Virginia reel with great zest, and even a few stray waltzes, then all left together at two o'clock; the older women a.s.suring Isabel formally that they had had a very pleasant evening; but the girls and young men exclaimed that they had had a keen time, a dandy time, and that their new hostess was too fine and dandy for words.

XVI