"May I?"

"No."

"But you would not miss me, nor mamma either."

"I choose you shall be educate at home. I no approve of the schools. Si Helena Belmont was my daughter, I take the green hide reata to her every morning; but Belmont so soffit, the school is better for her. You stay here. No say any more about it."

"Could I not travel with her after? I want to travel."

"Si I find time one day go abroad, I take you; but you no go with Helena Belmont. I no am surprise si she make herself the talk of Europe."

"Could not mamma go with me?"

"Your mother no leave the husband! Never she propose such a thing!"

"Do you think you will be able to go soon?"

"Very doubt. The Californian who leave the business for a year working like the dog for five after. Si he find one red cent when he come back, he is lucky. The man no knowing just where he is even when he stand over the spot."

"Then when Helena goes, can I go to Santa Barbara for awhile and visit aunt?"

"You no can! I no wish you ask the reason. You never go to the South!

Never before you talk so much, by Scott!"

VI

Magdalena had failed at every point. She had expected to fail, but she felt miserable and discouraged, nevertheless. After dinner she went up to her room and prayed to the Virgin. In time she felt comforted, her tears ceased, and she sat thinking for some time at the foot of her little altar. With the sad philosophy of her nature she put the impossible from her, and considered the future. It had been arranged long ago that she and Helena, Ila and Tiny, were to come out at the same time; the great function which should introduce to San Francisco three of its most beautiful girls, and its most favoured by lineage and fortune, was to be given by Mrs. Yorba. The other girls would come out a year earlier or later. Ila and Tiny were already in Europe. She had three uninterrupted years before her. In those years she could do much.

When she was not studying, she would read the best authors and learn their secret. Her father had no library, but Colonel Belmont had, and she was a life member of the Mercantile Library; the membership had been presented to her two birthdays ago by her luncheon guests, who respected what they would not emulate. She pressed her face into her hands, striving to arrange the nebulous thoughts and ambitions which burned in her brain.

There was a wild ringing of bells. She raised her head and saw a red glare, then rose and walked over to the window. She thought a fire very beautiful; and as there were many in that city of wood and wind, she had had full opportunity to observe their manifold phases. Her bedroom adjoined the schoolroom, but was on the corner of the house at the back, and overlooked not only the business part of the city between the foot of the hill and the bay, but the region known as "South of Market Street." This large valley had its aristocratic quarter, but it was now largely given over to warehouses, depots, and streets of the poor. A month seldom pa.s.sed without a big blaze in this closely built combustible section. To-night there was a long narrow ribbon of flame twisting in the wind, which in a few moments would leap from block to block, licking up the flimsy dwellings as a cat licks up milk. Above the ribbon flew a million sparks, turning the stars from gold to white.

Every moment the wind twisted the ribbon into wonderful fantastic shapes, which beset Magdalena's brain for words as beautiful.

She listened intently. Some one was climbing a pillar of the balcony. It was Helena, of course: she often chose that laborious method of entering a house whose doors were always open to her. Magdalena opened the back window and stepped out onto the balcony.

"Is that you, Helena?" she whispered.

"Is it? Just you wait till you see me!"

A moment later she had clambered over the railing and stood before the astonished Magdalena.

"What--what--"

"Boys' clothes. Can't you see for yourself? I'm going to the fire, and you're going with me."

"Of course I shall not. What possessed you--"

But the astute Helena detected a lack of decision in her friend's voice.

"You're just dying to go," she said coaxingly. "You adore fires, and you'd love to see one close to. Put a waterproof on and a black shawl over your head. Then if anybody notices you, they'll think you're a _muchacha_ from Spanish town. As I am a boy, I can protect you beautifully. We'll go to the livery stable and I'll make old Duff give me a hack. I've a pocket full of boodle; papa gave me my allowance to-day. Here, come in." She dragged the unresisting Magdalena into the room, arrayed her in a waterproof, and pinned a black shawl tightly about the small brown face. "There!" she said triumphantly, "you look like a poor little greaser, for all the world. Don Roberto would have a fit. Do you think you can slide down the pillar?"

"I don't know--yes, I am sure I can if you can." Her Spanish dignity was aghast, but her newborn creative instinct stung her spirit into a sudden overpowering desire for dramatic incident. "Yes, I'll go," she whispered, closer to excitement than Helena had ever, save once, seen her. "I'll go."

"Of course! I knew you would. I always knew you were a brick; come!

Quick! I'll go first." She slid down the pillar, which she could easily clasp with her long arms and legs; and Magdalena, after a gasp, followed, shivering with terror, but too proud to utter a sound. Before she had reached the bottom she had lost all interest in the fire; she no longer wanted to write poetry; she wished frantically to be back in the security of her room. But she reached the ground safely; and although she fell in a heap, she quickly pulled herself together and stood up, holding her head higher than ever. And when she was on the sidewalk, in disguise, unattended for the first time in her life, her very nerves sang with exultation, and she was filled with a wild longing for a night replete with adventure.

"'Lena!" whispered Helena, ecstatically. "Isn't this gorgeous?"

Magdalena nodded. Her brain and heart were throbbing too loud for speech.

"I'm going to fires for the rest of my life," announced Helena, as they turned the corner and walked swiftly down the hill. She was not of the order which is content with one experience, even while that initial experience is yet a matter of delightful antic.i.p.ation.

When they reached the livery stable, Helena marched in, holding Magdalena firmly by the hand. "I want a hack," she said peremptorily to the man in charge. "And double quick, too." The man stared, but Helena rattled the gold in her pocket, and he called to two men to hitch up.

"Upon my soul," he whispered to his a.s.sociates, "it's those kids of Jack Belmont's and old Yorba's, or I'm a dead man. But it ain't none of my business, and I ain't one to peach. I like spirit."

"We're going to the fire, and I wish the hack to wait for us," said Helena, as he signified that all was ready. "I'll pay you now. How much is it?"

"Ten dollars," he replied unblushingly.

Helena paid the money like a blood, Magdalena horrified at the extravagance. Her own allowance was five dollars a month. "Can you really afford this, Helena?" she asked remonstrantly, as the hack slid down the steep hill.

"I got fifty dollars out of Jack to-night. He's feeling awfully soft over my going away. Poor old Jack, he'll feel so lonesome without me.

But we'll have a gay old time travelling together in Europe when I'm through."

Magdalena did not speak of her conversation with her own parent. She did not want to think of it. This night was to be one of uniform joy. They were a quarter of an hour reaching the fire. As they turned into the great central artery of the city, Market Street, they leaned forward and gazed eagerly at the dense highly coloured ma.s.s of men and women, mostly young, who promenaded the north sidewalk under a blaze of gas.

"What queer-looking girls!" said Magdalena. "Why do they wear so many frizzes, and sailor hats on one side?"

"They're chippies," said Helena, wisely.

"What's chippies?"

"Girls that live south of Market Street. They work all day and promenade with their beaux all evening. As I live, 'Lena, we're going down Fourth Street. We'll go right through Chippytown."

They had been south of Market Street before, for Ila and Tiny lived on the aristocratic Rincon Hill; but their way had always lain down Second Street, which was old, but stately and respectable. Fourth Street, like Market Street by night, would be a new country; but after a few moments'

eager attention Helena sniffed with disappointment. The narrow street and those branching from it were ill-lighted and deserted; there was nothing to be seen but low-browed shops. But there was always the red glare beyond; and in a few moments the holocaust burst upon them in all its terrible magnificence.

They sprang out of the hack and walked rapidly to the edge of the crowd, which filled the street in spite of the warning cries of the firemen and the angry shouts of the policemen. The fire was devouring four large squares and sending leaping branches to isolated dwellings beyond. A great furniture factory and innumerable tenements were vanishing like icicles under a hot sun.

The girls, careless of the severe jostling they received, stared in fascinated amazement at the red tongues darting among the blackened sh.e.l.ls, the crashing roofs, the black ma.s.ses of smoke above, cut with narrow swords of flame, the solid pillar of fire above the factory, the futile streams of water, the gallant efforts of the firemen. Magdalena, hardly knowing why, reflected with deep satisfaction that a fire was even more wonderful at close quarters than when viewed from a distance.

Every detail delighted her; but when a clumsy boy stepped on her toes, she drew Helena into a sand lot opposite, where it was less crowded. It was then that she noticed for the first time the weeping women gathered about their household goods. She stared at them for a moment, then shook the rapt Helena by the arm.

"Look!" she whispered. "What is the matter with those people?"

"What?" asked Helena, absently. "Oh, don't I wish I were on that house with a hose in my hand! What a lovely exciting life a fireman's must be!" Then, yielding to Magdalena's insistence, she turned and directed her gaze to the people in the lot behind her. "Oh, the poor things!" she said, forgetting the fire. "They've been burnt out. Let's talk to them."