The Californians Part 9

"I am highly honoured, I am sure. Shall we go outside? I hope you prefer it out there. I never stay in the house if I can help it."

"Oh, I much prefer to be out."

They sat facing each other in two of the wicker chairs. He was a man skilled in woman, and he divined her shyness and apprehension. He talked lightly for some time, making her feel that politeness compelled her to be silent and listen. She raised her eyes after a time and looked at him. He was, perhaps, thirty-five, possibly more. He looked older and at the same time younger. His shaven chin and lips were sternly cut. His face was thin, his nose arched and fine, his skin and hair neutral in tint. The only colouring about him was in his eyes. They were very blue and deeply set under rather scraggy brows. Magdalena noted that they had a peculiarly penetrating regard, and that they did not smile with the lips. The latter, when not smiling, looked grim and forbidding, and there was a deep line on either side of the mouth. Her memory turned to Colonel Belmont, and the night she had studied his profile. There was an indefinable resemblance between the two men. Then she realised how old-fashioned and worn Belmont was beside this trim elegant man, who, with no exaggeration of manner, treated her with a deference and attention which had no doubt been his habitual manner with the greatest ladies in Europe.

"Shall you be in California long?" she asked suddenly.

"That is what I am trying to decide. I had heard so much of your California that I came out with a half-formed idea of buying a little place and settling down for the rest of my days."

"The Mark Smith place is for sale," she answered quickly. "It has only two acres, but they are cultivated, and the house is very pretty."

"Your father told me about it; but although Menlo is very beautiful, it seems to have one drawback. I am very fond of rowing, sailing, and fishing, and there is no water."

"There is if you go far enough. The bay is not so very far away, and I have heard that there is salmon-fishing back in the mountains. And Mr.

Washington and Uncle Jack Belmont often go duck and snipe shooting down on the marsh." She stopped with a shortening of the breath. She had not made such a long speech since Helena left.

He sat forward eagerly. "You interest me deeply," he said. "I am very much inclined to buy the place. I shall certainly think of it."

"But you--surely--you would rather be--live--in Europe. We are very old-fashioned out here."

The expression about his mouth deepened. "I should like to think that I might spend the rest of my days with a fishing-rod or a gun."

"But you have been at courts!"

He laughed. "I have, and I hope I may never see another."

"And--and you are young."

Her interest and curiosity overcame her reserve. She wanted to know all of this man that he would tell her. She had once seen a picture of a death-mask. His face reminded her of it. _What_ lay behind?

"I am forty and some months."

She rose suddenly, her hand seeking her heart. "They are coming," she faltered. "I hear wheels. And mamma is not here to introduce you."

"Well," he said, smiling down on her. "Cannot you introduce me?"

"I--I cannot. I have never introduced anyone. I must seem very ignorant and _gauche_ to you."

"You are delightful. And I am sure you are quite equal to anything. Am I to be introduced out here, or in the drawing-room after they have come downstairs?"

"Oh, I am not sure."

"Then perhaps you will let me advise you. When they are all here, I will appear in the drawing-room; and if your mother is not down by that time, we will help each other out. They will all be talking and will hardly notice me. But I must run."

The Geary phaeton drove up. It held Rose and her brother. After they had gone upstairs Magdalena went into the parlour to wait for them. The large room was very dim--the gasoline was misbehaving--and silent; she shivered with apprehension. There was no sign of her mother. But Trennahan's words and sympathy had given her courage, and she burned with ambition to acquit herself creditably in his eyes.

The guests arrived rapidly. In ten minutes they were all in the parlour, sixteen in number, the men in full dress, the women in organdies or foulards showing little of arm and neck. Mrs. Washington was in pink; Tiny in white and a seraphic expression; Rose wore black net and red slippers, a bunch of red geraniums at her belt, her eyes slanting at the men about her. With the exception of Ned Geary and Charley Rollins, a friend of Helena's, with both of whom she had perhaps exchanged three sentences in the course of her life, Magdalena knew none of the young men: they had been brought, at Mrs. Yorba's suggestion, by the other guests.

She could find nothing to say to them; she was watching the door. Would her mother never come? Her father was on the front verandah talking to Mr. Washington and her uncle.

Trennahan entered the room.

Magdalena drew herself up and went forward. She looked very dignified and very Spanish. No one guessed, with the exception of Trennahan, that it was the ordeal of her life.

"Mr. Trennahan," she said in a harsh even voice: "Mrs. Washington, Miss Brannan, Miss Montgomery."

He flashed her a glance of admiration which sent the chill from her veins, and began talking at once to the three women that she might feel excused from further duty. A few moments later Mrs. Yorba entered. She received Trennahan without a smile or a superfluous word. Mrs. Yorba was never deliberately rude; but were she the wife of an amba.s.sador for forty years, her chill nipped New England nature would never even artificially expand; the cast-iron traditions of her youth, when neither she nor any of her acquaintance knew aught of socialities beyond church festivals, could never be torn from the sterile but tenacious soil which had received them.

Dinner was announced almost immediately. Mrs. Yorba signified to Trennahan that he was to have the honour of taking her in; and as she had not intimated how the rest were to be coupled, the women arranged the matter to suit themselves. Mrs. Cartright went in with Don Roberto, Mrs. Washington with Polk; there were no other married women present. As Charley Rollins was standing by Magdalena, she took the arm he offered her.

The function was not as melancholy as the Yorba dinners were wont to be.

Young people in or approaching their first season are not easily affected by atmosphere; and those present to-night, with the exception of Magdalena and Tiny Montgomery, chattered incessantly. Tiny had a faculty for making her temporary partner do the talking while she enjoyed her dinner; but she listened sweetly and her superlatives were happily chosen.

Mrs. Cartright always talked incessantly whether anyone listened or not.

Mrs. Washington, who sat on Don Roberto's left, amused him with the audacity of her slang. Where she learned the greater number of her discords was an abiding mystery; the rest of Menlo Park relegated slang to the unknown millions who said "mommer" and "popper," got divorces, and used cosmetics. When remonstrated with, she airily responded that her tongue was "made that way," and rattled off her latest acquisition.

As she was an especial pet of Mrs. Yorba's--if that august dame could be said to pet anyone--and of distinguished Southern connections, the remonstrances were not serious.

Magdalena, although she ordered her brain to action, could think of nothing to say to Rollins; but he was a budding lawyer and asked no more of providence than a listener. He talked volubly about Helena's childish pranks, the last Bohemian Club Midsummer Jinks, the epigrams of his rivals at the bar. He appeared very raw and uninteresting to Magdalena, and she found herself trying to overhear the remarks of Trennahan, who was doing his laborious duty by his hostess. After a time Trennahan allowed his attention to be diverted by Ila, who sat on his right. That he was grateful for the change there could be no doubt. His expression up to this point had been one of grim amus.e.m.e.nt, which at any moment might become careworn. The lines of his face relaxed under Ila's curved smiles and slanting glances. They laughed gaily, but pitched their voices very low.

Magdalena wondered if all dinners were as wearisome as this. Rollins finally followed Trennahan's example and devoted himself to Caro Folsom, a yellow-haired girl with babyish green eyes, a lisp, and an astute brain. On Magdalena's left was a blond and babbling youth named Ellis, who made no secret of the fact that he was afraid of his intellectual neighbour; he stammered and blushed every time she spoke to him. He had gone in with Rose Geary, a blonde fairy-like little creature, as light of foot as of wit, and an accomplished flirt; who regarded men with the eye of the philosopher. They occupied each other admirably.

Opposite, another young lawyer, Eugene Fort, was saying preternaturally bright things to Tiny, who lifted her sweet orbs at intervals and remarked: "How _dreadfully_ clever you are, Mr. Fort; I am _so_ afraid of you!" or "How _sweet_ of you to think I am worth all those _real_ epigrams! You ought to keep them for a great law-book." Once she stifled a yawn, but Mr. Fort did not see it.

Little notice was taken of Magdalena, and she felt superfluous and miserable. Even Trennahan, who had seemed so sympathetic, had barely glanced at her. She wondered, with a little inner laugh, if she were growing conceited. Why should he, with one of the prettiest girls in California beside him? Ila was very young, but she belonged by instinct to his own world.

The dinner came to an end. The older men went to the billiard-room, the younger men followed the girls to the parlour. Trennahan talked to Tiny for a time, then again to Ila, who lay back in a chair with her little red slippers on a footstool. She had carefully disposed herself in an alcove beyond the range of Mrs. Yorba's vision.

Tiny, whose train added to the remarkable dignity of her diminutive person, crossed the room to Magdalena, who was sitting alone on the window-seat.

"You have done so _well_, 'Lena dear," she said, as she sat down beside her discouraged hostess. "I feel I must tell you that _immediately_. You are not a _bit_ shy and nervous, as I should be if I were giving my first dinner."

Magdalena smiled gratefully. Tiny had always been the kindest of the girls. "I am glad you think I am not so bad," she said. "But I fear that I have bored everybody."

"_Indeed_, you have not. You are so calm and full of natural repose. The rest of us seem _dreadfully_ American by contrast."

"You are never fussy."

"I know, but it is _quite_ different. I've been very carefully brought up. You would be exactly as you are if you had brought yourself up. The Spanish are the most dignified--What are they going to do, I wonder?"

Mr. Fort approached. "We are going to walk about the grounds and step on the frogs," he said. "I don't know a line of poetry, but I can count stars, and I'll tell you of my aspirations in life. Will you come?"

"I _so_ want to hear your aspirations, Mr. Fort," said Tiny. "I did not know that California men had aspirations."

The girls went with him to the verandah, and all started down the driveway together, then paired. To her surprise, Magdalena found Trennahan beside her.

"I am so glad to be with you again," he said petulantly. "I am tired of types."

"Types?"