XXVI

Mrs. Yorba, who did not like to have her plans made for her, decided to give the party on the evening of Sat.u.r.day week. The floor was to be canvased, and three musicians were engaged. She promised the girls that after this initial party they should dance informally at Fair Oaks as often as they wished.

It was some time before Magdalena rode alone with Trennahan again. The other girls rode every morning and claimed him. Magdalena joined these parties as soon as her habit was finished, and met him every afternoon at one or other of the new tennis courts, which consisted merely of chalked lines and a net,--Ila had introduced tennis to Menlo,--but either Ila or Caro possessed him with the tentacles of their kind. Mrs.

Yorba had made it understood that her party was to be the first of the season, so the evenings alone were unoccupied. Trennahan dined twice at Fair Oaks, but Don Roberto and Mr. Polk claimed him. Magdalena wondered if he had forgotten his original programme. But with four handsome girls demanding his attentions, a literary friendship was doubtless a dream of the future. She felt an unaccountable depression, and wondered if she were going to be ill.

By the time the evening of the party arrived, the nervousness which had a.s.sailed her when the subject was broached had been tempered by time and constant a.s.sociation with many who would be present. Tiny and the other girls had promised to make "things go." There were to be no ball gowns, and the whole affair was to be as informal as possible. She even harboured pleasurable antic.i.p.ation. Parties, she had read and heard, were brilliant exhilarating affairs, and she loved dancing as only a Spanish woman can. In this, at least, she should excel her fellows. She had taken lessons once a week for the last two years from a solemn and automatic person who had rarely opened his lips except to complain of the heavy carpets in the cavernous Yorba parlours.

Magdalena dressed immediately after dinner; the guests were expected by nine. She wore her white organdie, but fastened crimson roses in her hair and belt. She was by no means satisfied with her appearance,--she was too ardent an admirer of beauty for that,--but she knew that she looked far better than she had on the night of her dinner. She shuddered at the memory of that white ribbon about her swarthy throat.

She went downstairs, and thought the big rooms looked very inviting with their white floors; the folding-doors had been rolled back, and the parlour and dining-room made an immense sweep. The vases on the mantels were full of flowers. In the distance she heard the tuning of a fiddle.

The night was hot, and all the windows were open. The dark grounds beyond looked full of mystery, and of infinite depth. She thought at the moment that there was nothing she loved more than the mystery of night in the country. As she stood in the middle of the brilliantly lighted room, the heavy darkness without outlined with trees and great shrubs, the broken s.p.a.ces above, set with stars, allured her. Almost unconsciously she stepped through one of the windows, crossed the verandah and drive, and entered the long narrow path between the lawns.

Here there was more sense of s.p.a.ce, for the lawns were very large; but the trees were close along their edge and ma.s.sed heavily at the end of the perspective. Above was a long banner of night sky. The monotonous chanting of frogs was the only sound.

Certainly, California is a land of beauty and peace, she thought. Mr.

Trennahan says he has never known anything like it, and he has been everywhere. Everybody should be happy in it, and I suppose everyone is, mostly. Poets like Tennyson always make weather to suit moods and circ.u.mstances. If they are right, one should laugh and be happy for eight months in the year in California, and only sad when it rains.

There does not seem much chance for tragedy, although I have heard that there are many murders and suicides; but perhaps that is because the towns are new and excitable. There is nothing in the country itself to make one unhappy, as there must be in other countries where Nature has done so little, and they have so many centuries of tragic past behind them.... Oh, dear, I am struggling toward something, as usual. What is it?

She touched her fingers to her forehead, then drew them lightly back and forth, as if to clear the mist from her brain, the rust from the wheels.... I seem to have seeds in my mind. Why don't they sprout? Why are they for ever knocking at the hard earth over their heads? One would think they were in their graves instead of never having been born.

She sighed and shook her head, but her thoughts ran on. Am I happy? I think so. And all the girls seem happy. Mr. Trennahan says he watched the rest of the world rise into an inverted abyss of smoke when the train slid down the Sierras, and that his memory has been asleep ever since. I have been unhappy here! she continued abruptly. And one night I suffered--suffered horribly--and this last week----She stopped short, looking at the beauty and peace about her with a feeling of sharp and swift resentment. She had a sense of being betrayed by the country of which she was, far more than her mates, a part. She was of its first blood, the daughter of its Arcadia, the last living representative of all that it had been in the fulness of its power. And she knew California and felt it as no one else did. That sense of betrayal, of personal treachery, pa.s.sed as swiftly as it had come, but seemed to murmur back that it would come again, and again; and that with each visit she would understand it better.

I have read somewhere that artists must suffer before they can accomplish anything, she thought. Well, I should not mind, I should not--at least, I think I should not.

Some time since she had come to the end of the path and turned to the right and into a long lane running between fields. She sat down on a stump; she had quite forgotten the party. Her brain was full of struggling ideas. But in a few moments she surrendered herself to the spell of the night. There were no trees quite near her, nothing but level fields thick with grain. Far to the left and curving a mile behind her was the black outline of the woods. Far behind them were the towering mountains with their forests of redwoods; those on the crest sharp against the stars. California was a new country. It might have been newer, so vast was its silence, so primeval its peace.

Oh, I am sure I am happy, thought Magdalena, suddenly. Yes, I am sure.

But I wish I might never see anyone again. California is faultless; it is civilisation that has spoilt her.

She was stumbling close upon great truths; but it was part of her inheritance that she had no perception of what she was groping for, and pa.s.sed almost unheeding the little that came to her.

"Miss Yorba, are you cultivating a reputation for eccentricity?"

She sprang to her feet. Trennahan was approaching her. He was in evening dress, without a hat. His expression was one of extreme amus.e.m.e.nt, and Magdalena felt the blood in her face.

"Have they come?" she asked in dismay.

"They are dancing, or were about to begin as your mother sent me to look for you."

"I had forgotten--"

"I was sure you had. Miss Brannan insisted that you were hiding, but I had no doubt that you had wandered off in a reverie." He laughed. "Happy you!" he said. "Happy you!"

"You think I am an idiot."

"Indeed I do not. I feel sorry to think that in a year from now such a thing will no longer be possible. But we must go back, or they will be sending someone to look for us."

"Is papa angry?"

"I don't think he noticed. Miss Montgomery and Miss Brannan were using all their blandishments to make him think the party as interesting as themselves; and I am positive they were succeeding."

When they reached the house, the quadrille which had opened the party was finishing. Don Roberto was making a sweeping bow to Tiny, whose face wore an inscrutable expression. Magdalena was about to step through the window, but Trennahan guided her to the door, and they entered the room without attracting attention. There were some forty people present. With the exception of the Yorbas, everybody had house guests. Mrs. Yorba sat in a corner with a small group of elderly ladies. Mr. Polk stood before the fireplace in the parlour, his legs well apart, staring absently at the young people, who looked gay and content.

"What am I to do?" asked Magdalena, helplessly.

"Nothing, just now, as there are no wall-flowers. In a moment one of these youths will ask you to dance, and of course you will consent. It is my misfortune that I no longer dance. I think your fate approaches."

A young man with a rather bright face came toward her. His name was Payne. She had met him at the Montgomerys.

"May I have the pleasure of the first waltz, Miss Yorba?" he asked. "I am told that it will be a unique pleasure,--that you can talk science and waltz in the same breath, as it were."

He did not speak in sarcasm, merely in facetiousness. He was a type of the fresh young San Franciscan whose ways are not as all ways. Magdalena looked at him in sombre anger and made no reply. He saw that he had made a mistake, and reddened, wondering why on earth she were in society at all, if she could not be like other girls. Magdalena did not appreciate his natural indignation; but she saw that he was miserable, and relented.

"I will waltz with you if you wish," she said.

Mr. Payne bowed stiffly and offered his arm. They walked the length of the two rooms in utter silence; then the musicians played the opening bars of a waltz. Magdalena remembered that this would be her first waltz with any man, barring the teacher who had solemnly piloted her up and down the parlours in town. She had hoped much from her first dance; and she was to have it with this silly overgrown boy. It was a minor disappointment, but sharp while it lasted.

"Shall we begin?" he asked formally. He was sulky, and eager to have it over. Two or three of his friends had flashed him glances of ironical sympathy, and he was too young to bear ridicule with fort.i.tude.

Ila was floating down the room with Alan Rush, a young South American, as graceful of foot and bearing as herself. Magdalena forgot her partner and gazed at them with genuine delight. She had read of the poetry of motion, and this ill.u.s.tration appealed to the pa.s.sion for beauty which was strong in her nature.

She turned to her partner. "Do they not dance beautifully?" she exclaimed. That much-enduring youth replied that they did, and asked her again if she were ready. She laid her hand on his shoulder and they started. Magdalena realised at once that her partner was an excellent dancer, and that she was not. She felt that she was heavy, and marvelled at the lightness of Ila and Rose. They seemed barely to touch the floor, and were laughing and chatting as naturally as if they had no feet to guide.

"Could you take a little longer step?" asked Mr. Payne, politely.

"I--I--beg pardon for suggesting it, but it's the fashion just now.

That's right--a little longer. Oh, I--I--am afraid that your feet are too small. Shall we sit down a moment?"

They sat down in the recess, and Payne wiped his brow. "It is so warm,"

he muttered apologetically.

"Mr. Rush does not look warm," she said cruelly.

He repressed the obvious reply, but made no other. In a moment he asked her if she cared to finish the waltz.

"No," she said. "I do not. You may go and finish it with someone else, if you like."

He moved off with alacrity, and Magdalena sat alone for some moments feeling very miserable. What was the matter with her? Could she do nothing well? And she should be a wall-flower for the rest of the evening, of course. That wretched man would tell everybody how badly she danced.

But she had forgotten that she was hostess. A moment after the waltz ended, three young men came over to her and begged for the honour of her hand. They were Rollins, the sharp-faced Fort, and Alan Rush. She gave the dance to follow to Rush, and the others, having inscribed her name on their cuffs, moved off. Rush sat down beside her. He had a frank kind face, and the beauty of his figure and the grace of his carriage had given him a reputation for good looks which had reached even Magdalena's ears. He was at that time the most popular young man in San Francisco society. Magdalena decided that she liked him better than anyone she had met except Trennahan. His voice was rich and Southern, although he had no Spanish blood in him.

"I watched you dance," said Magdalena, abruptly. "I don't dance well enough for you."

"Dancing is all a matter of habit," he said kindly. "This is my third year. You have no idea how awkward I was when I began. I am sure you will be the best dancer in society next winter--with all those Spanish grandmothers."

"Do you think so?" She liked him almost as well as Trennahan for the moment.

He did not, for he had noted that she was lacking in natural grace; but he was chivalrous, and he saw that she was discouraged.