Doubtless they were very grand and clever indeed, and would think her more trying than ever. But although all her shyness threatened for a moment, it was summarily routed by her Spanish pride.

She rose as the phaeton drew up, and went to the head of the steps, smiling. They might find her uninteresting, but not _gauche_.

The girls came gracefully forward and kissed her warmly.

"_Dear_ 'Lena," said Miss Montgomery. "We wouldn't wait: we wanted so much to see you again. And besides, you know," with a mischievous smile, "we owe you a great many luncheon calls."

Miss Brannan exclaimed almost simultaneously, "How you have improved, 'Lena! I should never have known you." And if her tone was conventional, it fell upon ears untuned to conventions.

It was Magdalena's first compliment, and she thrilled with pleasure. "My face looks very much the same in the gla.s.s," she said. "But I am glad to see you back. Let us sit on this side."

She led the girls a little distance down the verandah; she was trembling inwardly, but felt that she should get along better if relieved of her mother's ear. Tiny began at once to talk of her delight in being home again, and Magdalena had time to recover herself.

Tiny Montgomery was an exquisitely pretty little creature, very small but admirably proportioned, although thin. Her brown eyes were very sweet under well-pencilled brows, her nose aquiline and fine. The mouth was barely rubbed in, but the teeth were beautiful, the smile as sweet as the eyes. She had the smallest feet and hands in California, and to-day they were clad in white _suede_ with no detriment to their fame.

She wore a frock of white embroidered nainsook and a leghorn covered with white feathers. She talked rather slowly, in language carefully chosen, although plentifully laden with superlatives. Her voice was very sweet, and highly cultivated.

Ila Brannan was taller, with a slender full figure, and very smart. She wore a closely fitting frock of tan-coloured cloth, a small toque, and a veil covered with large velvet dots. She was very olive, and her cheeks were deeply coloured. Her black eyes had a slanting expression. Young as she was, there was a vague suggestion of maturity about her. She smiled pleasantly and echoed Tiny's little enthusiasms, which had an air of elaborate rehearsal, but she seemed to have brought something of Paris with her, and to adapt herself but ill to her old surroundings.

Magdalena did not feel at ease with either of them, but concluded that she liked Tiny best.

"Tell me something of Helena," she said finally. "Of course you saw her in Paris."

"Oh, constantly," replied Tiny. "She's perfectly beautiful, 'Lena, _perfectly_. Mamma took her with us one night to the opera, and so many people asked her who the beautiful American was. She has grown _quite_ tall, and is wonderfully stylish. Colonel Belmont has simply showered money on her since he went over, and she will have beautiful clothes, and cut us _all_ out when she comes back." But Tiny did not look in the least disturbed, and peeped surrept.i.tiously into the polished gla.s.s of the window.

"She'll have all the men wild about her," announced Ila; she spoke with a slight French accent, which was not affected, as she had spent the greater part of the last five years in Paris. "And she is going to be a very dashing belle. She informed me that she shall run to fires and do whatever she chooses, and make people like it whether they want to or not. But I doubt if she will ever be fast."

"Fast!" echoed Magdalena, a street of painted women flashing into memory; she knew of no degrees. "Helena! How can you think of such a thing in connection with her!"

Ila laughed softly. "You baby!" she said.

Tiny frowned. "You know, Ila," she said coldly, "that I do not like to talk of such things."

"Well, you need not," said Ila, coolly.

Tiny lifted her brows. "I think you know you cannot talk to me of what I do not wish to hear," she said with great dignity.

Magdalena turned to her, the warm light of approval in her eyes; and Ila, unabashed, rose and said, "I think I'll go over and talk scandal for awhile," and joined the older women, whose numbers had been reinforced.

Magdalena longed to ask Tiny if she really had improved, but was too shy. Tiny said almost directly,--

"You look _so_ intellectual, 'Lena. Are you? I feel quite afraid."

"Oh, no, no!" replied Magdalena, hastily, "I really know very little; I wish I knew more." She hesitated a moment; it was difficult for her to expand even to the playmate of her childhood, but an alluring prospect had suddenly opened. "Of course you will have a great deal of leisure this summer," she added. "Shall we read together?"

Tiny rose with a sweet but rather forced smile. "I am not going to let you see how ignorant I am," she said. "But I feel very rude: I should go over and talk to Mrs. Yorba."

When they had gone, Magdalena sat for a time staring straight before her, unheeding her mother's comments. The snub had been prettily administered, but it had cut deep into her sensitiveness. She realised that she was quite unlike these other girls of her own age, had never been like them; it was not Europe that had made the difference. "I would not care," she thought, "if they would keep away from me altogether. I have what I care much more for. But I must see them nearly every day and try to interest them. And I know they will find me as dull as when I gave those dreadful luncheons."

She was recalled by a direct observation of her mother's.

"Your washed cross-barred muslin looked very plain beside their French things, but I do not think it worth while to get you any new clothes at present. But do not let it worry you. Remember that what _we_ do seems right to every one. We can afford to dress exactly as we choose."

"It does not worry me," replied Magdalena.

XIV

Whether or not to tell her parents of her determination to write had been a matter of momentous consideration to Magdalena. After the resignation of her faith and her conversation with Colonel Belmont, she had determined to adhere rigidly to the truth and to the right way of living, to conquer the indolence of her moral nature and jealously train her conscience. The result, she felt, would be a religion of her own, from which she could derive strength as well as consolation for what she had lost. She knew, by reading and instinct, that life was full of pitfalls, but her intelligence would dictate what was right, and to its mandates she would conform, if it cost her her life. And she knew that the religion she had formulated for herself in rough outline was far more exacting than the one she had surrendered.

She had finally decided that it was not her duty to tell her parents that she was trying to write. When she was ready to publish she would ask their consent. That would be their right; but so long as they could in no way be affected, the secret might remain her own. And this secret was her most precious possession; it would have been firing her soul at the stake to reveal it to anyone less sympathetic than Helena; she was not sure that she could even speak of it to her.

Her time was her own in the country. Her father and uncle came down three times a week, but rarely before evening; her mother's mornings were taken up with household matters, her afternoons with siesta, calling, and driving; frequently she lunched informally with her friends. How Magdalena spent her time did not concern her parents, so long as she did not leave the grounds and was within call when visitors came.

Don Roberto would not keep a horse in town for Magdalena, but in the country she rode through the woods unattended every morning. The exhilaration of these early rides filled Magdalena's soul with content.

The freshness of the golden morning, the drowsy summer sounds, the deep vistas of the woods,--not an outline changed since unhistoried races had possessed them,--the glimpses of mountain and redwood forests beyond, the embracing solitude, laid somnolent fingers on the scars of her inner life, letting free the sweet troubled thoughts of a girl, carried her back to the days when she had dreamed of caballeros serenading beneath her cas.e.m.e.nt. For two years she had dreamed that dream, and then it had curled up and fallen to dust under Helena's ridicule. Magdalena was fatally clear of vision, and her reason had accepted the facts at once.

Sometimes during those rides she dreamed of a lover in the vague fashion of a girl whose acquaintance of man is confined to a few elderly men and to the creations of masters; but only then. She rarely deluded herself.

She was plain; she could not even interest women. She felt that she was wholly without that magnetism which, she had read, made many plain women irresistible to man.

XV

Don Roberto was to bring his guest with him on the train which arrived a few minutes after five. Magdalena was told to dress early and be in the parlour when Mr. Trennahan came downstairs. She was cold at the thought of talking alone with a man and a stranger; but Mrs. Yorba had neuralgia, and announced her intention to lie down until the last minute.

Magdalena had received a number of pretty presents from her aunt and friends, a cablegram from Colonel Belmont and Helena, and from her father a small gold watch and fob. Her father's gift was very magnificent to her, and her pleasure was as great in the thought of his generosity as in the beauty of the gift itself. His usual gift was ten dollars; and as it had been decided that she was not to be a young lady until she was nineteen, her eighteenth birthday had been pa.s.sed over.

Her mother's present was the dress she was to wear to-night, a white organdie of the pearly tint high in favour with blondes of matchless complexion, a white sash, and a white ribbon to be knotted about the throat. The neck of the gown was cut in a small V.

Magdalena had no natural taste in dress, nor did she know the first principle of the law of colour; but when she had finished her toilette she stood for many moments before the mirror, regarding herself with disapproval. The radiant whiteness of the frock and of the ribbon about her neck made her look as dark as an Indian. She saw no beauty in the n.o.ble head with its parted, closely banded hair, in the fine dark eyes.

She saw only the wide mouth and indefinite nose, the complexionless skin, the long thin figure and ugly neck. The only thing about her that possessed any claim to beauty, according to her own standards, was her foot. She thrust it out and strove to find encouragement in its pulchritude. It was thin and small and arched, and altogether perfect.

She wore her first pair of slippers and silk stockings,--a present from her aunt. Her mother thought silk stockings a sinful waste of money.

Magdalena sighed and turned to the door. "Feet don't talk," she thought.

"What am I to say to Mr. Trennahan?"

She walked slowly down the stair. He was before her, standing on the verandah directly in front of the doors. His back was to her. She saw that he was very tall and thin, not unlike her uncle in build, but with a distinction that gentleman did not possess. Her father was strutting up and down the drive, taking his ante-dinner const.i.tutional.

She went along the hall as slowly as she could, her hands clenched, her mind in travail for a few words of appropriate greeting. When she had nearly reached the door, Trennahan turned suddenly and saw her. He came forward at once, his hand extended.

"This is Miss Yorba, of course," he said. "How good of you to come down so soon!"

He had a large warm hand. It closed firmly over Magdalena's, and gave her confidence. She could hardly see his face in the gloom of the hall, but she felt his cordial grace, his magnetism.

"I am glad you have come down to my birthday dinner," she said, thankful to be able to say anything.