Chapter XI: Part II (5)

"I can't say that I like the seamy side of politics," he remarked, absently, as he performed a delicate operation without breaking the skin. "My wife always maintains that I'm the most honest man alive, and I shouldn't wonder if that was the way I really was made. Anyhow, I know I'd a heap sight rather do a man a good turn than an ill one; but when he gets in your way what are you going to do in a country where politics are machine-made and every cog has to be oiled with graft? I'm thankful I'll never be forced to accept a bribe--there's a lot of difference between giving and taking, and I guess I'll have to do a lot of the first. But it's politics or nothing with me, aside from having a natural genius for them. I'll never get out of Rosewater otherwise. My father is likely to live for twenty years yet, and I hope to God he will; but I want the big game while I'm young. If the country was better I'd be, too, and like my job. But you've got to play the game in your shirt-sleeves. Kid gloves, and you sit on the fence and watch somebody else wallow in after the prizes."

"It seems to me that the best chance for fame and power lies in that superior strength which is allied with honesty. A man who is at the same time a clever manipulator of men, and whose aim is statesmanship, should be able to reach his goal by a clean road."

Gwynne had been long enough in the United States to blush uneasily as he delivered these sentiments, and his color deepened as Colton gave a little snort.

"Can't be done. Not in this State, anyhow. You've been talking to Isabel. She looks like the Pilgrim Fathers and has inherited all their antiquated notions. Honest, now--_are_ your politics so much better than ours?"

"A long sight. And they are by no means perfect. We have our machine and our compromises, and all the rest of it; and even a few wholly rotten boroughs. Fifty years ago we were blatantly worse than you are to-day. As long as the game lasts, and there are two parties, there must be more or less chicanery, but we are snow-white compared with the mire of this country. And it is an anomaly I cannot understand. I have now been a year in the United States, have talked with hundreds of Americans, studied them and their institutions. Few have struck me as personally dishonest--as we interpret the word in England. Human nature in this country, indeed, has at times appeared to me almost elemental, utterly without the subtlety that makes for crooked dealing. There is a thousand times more petty trickery in Europe; and, with us, more hypocrisy, certainly; but politics we have at least elevated. Here, the best man in private life seems to become transformed the moment he enters the political atmosphere, and if he is not a scoundrel, he sails pretty close to the wind."

"H--m! All you say may be true. I don't agitate my gray matter over problems. I know what we are, and the work cut out for me if I want to stay on top. I have known reformers. We have lots of spasmodic attempts at reform right here in this district. When the reform is directed at some glaring evil, something that makes us uncomfortable, then it goes through. When it's directed against politics in general, then the reformer falls so hard he never gets up--unless, to be sure, he scrambles up p. d. q. and trims with the wind. And that, I'm bound to say, he generally does. We've had our idealists--talk till your mouth waters. One session in Sacramento generally cures them. When it doesn't, we have no more idea what becomes of them than of an ant that butts in on a procession of other ants. Ever watch ants?"

It was Gwynne's turn to snort.

"I take my boy up on the hills every Sunday afternoon when it is fine, and we watch ants and grasshoppers and birds and all the rest of it. Why don't you get married? There's nothing like it. I may have some hard hoeing ahead of me, but I always have that cosy pretty home at the end of the day, and the sweetest wife in the world--who doesn't know the Republican party from the Democrat, and never opens a newspaper. Isabel is too high and mighty. She's a wonderful girl all right, but the last woman I'd want for a wife. I know a girl that would just suit you--Dolly Boutts. She's as pretty as a peach, and as domestic as Anabel. I'll have you both in to supper, as soon as we get a new cook. We've had four this month, and my wife warned me I was not to ask you to anything until she was perfectly satisfied. She's the best housekeeper you ever saw."

Gwynne maintained an infuriated silence. It was some moments before he could trust himself to articulate. Colton, munching his apple, and twirling the long spiral of skin he had peeled off without a break, detected nothing unusual in the atmosphere. It was characteristic of him that he took no interest in his new friend's future. Isabel had told him that Gwynne had not sufficient income to maintain his rank in England, and had resolved not only to drop his titles, but the name by which he had so long been known; being averse from notoriety. Colton, who had barely recalled the name of Elton Gwynne--he usually skipped the telegrams unless a war with picturesque details monopolized the foreign columns--had been somewhat amused at the precaution, but respected it; he would never have thought of betraying a confidence reposed in the bank. He assumed that Gwynne intended to become a rancher, like so many other Englishmen, and that he purposed reading law merely as a secondary occupation. He could have thought of several more interesting methods of putting in time; but every one to his taste.

Gwynne spoke finally, and when he did, Colton, whose chair was still tipped against the wall, sat forward with a square planting of his feet.

"I came to California with one intention only," said Gwynne: "to have the political career that my elevation to the peerage deprived me of in England. I had intended to work with the Democratic party, but I am free to state that your account of it has turned my stomach. My reasons for selecting it were, partly, that in principle at least it more nearly approached the Liberal party in England; partly because of its weakness in strong men. But if it is as rotten as you say I am afraid it would be a waste of time to qualify for it; I certainly could not work in harmony with it. However, there is an abundance of time for close observation. I cannot vote for four years, and if I finally decide in favor of the Republican party, at least we shall not be rivals."

"_Jiminy!_" exclaimed young Colton, ingenuously; but Gwynne could see the glitter of his eye. "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Not much you don't go over to the Republicans! There isn't five cents' worth of choice between the two parties when it comes to a square deal on any measure ever put up, and this slow wave of reform that's trying to crawl over the country--against trusts, graft, and the like--is just strong enough to swamp the Republicans and give us our chance. Rivals! Not a bit of it. There's room for all, and you're just the man we want. Isabel told me you were a wonderful speaker--I'd forgotten. That's _just_ what we want. I can't speak for a cent. There's no one in the district that can carry a crowd. The boss was wailing over it the other day. You can do a lot in the next four years. You'll go to all the conventions and county meetings with me and make my speeches. I'll introduce you to everybody that can put you _on_. You've fallen into clover with the judge, because his only son, who was practising with him, has had to go to southern California to live--nerves all broken up. He'll push you all right, and as soon as you have swallowed the California codes you can practise in the courts by courtesy. Then I'll take you to Sacramento with me next year--I'm a senator this term--as my private secretary, and you'll learn a lot. Your hair will stand up straight, but never mind. All that will pave the way for whatever office you want to begin with when your papers are ripe. I'll see that it's a good conspicuous town or county office, and the legislature will follow as a matter of course. That will fill in while you are waiting a chance for Congress--you must be seven years in the country for that--nine for the Senate. Only, you must swallow us whole. You can't make us over. We Democrats are determined to get on top again and have our chance at the pickings. We'll talk reform, of course. That's where your eloquence will come in, and the more you believe in it while you're holding forth about the Republican party robbing the widow and orphan--more particularly the farmer and the laborer--the better. We'll promise the working-man a sort of sugar-coated socialism, but we won't inspire him with any higher ideals than pecuniary profits, _if you please_. That would mean content, and the end of the Democratic party. Well, think it over. I must go. My little old woman doesn't like to sit up late. Mind you drop in and see her the next time you are in town."

Gwynne rang for his guest's buggy, thanked him for his advice; then ordered his horse and rode about the ranch half the night.

XIV

A fortnight later Isabel announced to Gwynne that she intended to give a party and introduce him to the young people of Rosewater.

"All the girls want to know you, Anabel tells me, and as it is a relief to hear that they are interested in something besides cards, and as nobody else seems disposed to take the initiative, I have concluded to play the _grande dame_ for a night. In a way it is my duty to introduce you formally, although it would be more so if they had done anything for me since my return. However--I will ask them for next Saturday evening if you have nothing better to do."

"One day is quite the same as another to me," said Gwynne, dryly. "What do you fancy are my evening engagements? I have not even begun to read law with Mr. Leslie; he has gone off to southern California to see his son. He says he is always restless in the autumn, as young people are in the spring, but has promised me his attention before the middle of this month."

They were rowing down the channel of the wider portion of the creek towards Isabel's landing, their boat filled with spoil. The little steamboat was winding proudly through the marsh, there were a dozen sails in sight; from the south came an incessant sound of firing. The distant mountains looked as hard as metal and there was a new crispness in the air. Little rain had fallen, but it was no longer summer. Gwynne had exchanged his khaki riding-clothes for corduroy; and Isabel's habit, although still dust-colored, was made of cloth instead of pongee. To-day they wore light covert coats over their canvas and rubber.

With the passing of the heat and the advent of the daily electric breezes sweeping up the valleys from the sea, Gwynne felt a slow lifting of the dead weight on his spirits, although he was only happy when he had his gun in his hand. California seemed less like a voluptuous leviathan blowing poppy-dust that blunted the memory of all things beyond her borders. At first he had been vaguely uneasy at the insidious suggestion that he had transferred himself to another planet, but he was beginning to suspect that California, true to her sex, might have surprises in store that would quicken his blood at least. He still disliked her at night: the high unfriendly arch of her sky, the sinister atmosphere that brooded over her spaces, suggesting illimitable reaches where no man dwelt, or would long be tolerated. But her days seemed full of promise, and they certainly were full of beauty.

He still fought with a longing to confide in Isabel: his apprehensions and doubts, his haunting interrogation of inherent greatness. But he turned from the temptation in a panic of spirit, sure that he would fail unless he fought his battle alone. He had pondered more and more upon his possible debt to his mother; and the doubt that she might have been the foundation of his courage and self-confidence was as bitter as that he might have owed the extraordinary rapidity of his career to the influence of his family and name. And Isabel's very strength alarmed him, the more so as he felt her subtle fingers among the leaves of his new destiny. So he merely smiled into her eyes and made a gallant remark, a purely masculine method of emphasizing that woman is charming in her proper place.

"I shall be delighted to dance again; particularly--it seems odd--as I have never danced with you. And it is a year since I have seen you in an evening gown. I have a vivid remembrance of how you looked that night at Arcot, when you turned so many heads."

Isabel colored, and whether with pleasure or resentment, she had not the least idea. But she answered, hastily:

"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 asserts her right to know you. But neither she nor Lyster has the remotest suspicion of your identity. 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 canals 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 amusement 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 municipally. 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 Saturday 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. Snobbery 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 hoarding 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, canvassed 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, assured 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 button-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 class 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 snatch 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 passions 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 passed 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 anticipation; 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 mass 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 Nob 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 succumbed 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 passion 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 assuring 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

Judge Leslie returned on the following day, and, sending for Gwynne at once, announced that he was ready to settle down for the winter. A partner attended to the business of the office, and the judge shut himself up with Gwynne in the large light room containing his fine law library, and examined his promising pupil. Gwynne was well read in the English Common Law, and in Comparative Jurisprudence, particularly in the history of treaties and the comity of nations. So much he had regarded as necessary to the education of a future cabinet minister.

Judge Leslie sketched out a course of study which embraced Cooley and Kent on Constitutional Law, compilations of Leading Cases, Story on Contracts, the California Codes, Civil, Penal, and Political, and Corporation Law. "The money is in the last," he remarked, dryly, "but even if you never succumb to these monstrous corporations, more aptly named cormorants, the more you know about their methods and needs the better, should you ever be called upon to fight them; and I have an idea that that is just where you will show your strength. All the great statesmen of this country have been great lawyers, and the great statesman of the future is going to be the lawyer that checks the power of unscrupulous capital, without at the same time delivering the country over to the mercies of that equally unscrupulous tyranny the labor-union. There is a solution somewhere and some man is going to find it. I don't see why you should not be the man. I have followed your career very carefully--you have always interested me. You come here with a magnificent political training, a mind uncorrupted by a lifetime of contact with the contemptible methods of machine politics, and a really great ambition. Your eyes are wide open. I don't see why you should make any mistakes, particularly as you have four good years in which to ponder the great question before committing yourself. Four years are a long span. No man can tell what may happen in that time, what new party may evolve. All you can do is to watch events and be ready for the forelock when time shakes it at you. If it so happens that you can insidiously mould a new party meanwhile, so much the better. The wisest and most suggestive writer on our national life is a Briton. I see no reason why England should not send us a statesman--in the old sense. God knows, all that we have now are a bitter disappointment to those of us with any of the old ideals left. Should the Presidency be your ambition, the fact of your having actually been born on American soil may be the cause of a legal battle in the Supreme Court of the United States that will pass into history. Meanwhile, as all apprenticeships must be humble, you will be a sort of unofficial junior of this firm, sharing the office business for the first year with Cresswell, and the second year helping me with court practice in St. Peter. You can read in the intervals and at home, and once or twice a week I should advise you to attend lectures at the State University. I can see that your memory and powers of assimilation are very vigorous, and the more quickly you imbibe, and the more varied the quality, the better. All the odd types of human nature you meet in this office won't do you any harm, either. Study the American character above all things. Get in sympathy with it. It is as opposite from the English as pole from pole, but you won't find it a bad sort--the country's politics are the worst part of it, because circumstances have forced them into the hands of a class of men that make their living out of them, and whose natural destiny was pocket-picking and the Rogues' Gallery--and if the best of us combine one day to do you honor, we can carry you to places as distinguished as any in your own country. Great and disinterested men have succeeded against tremendous odds in times as parlous as these, and others have the same opportunity here and now."

The judge wound up his homily with a little peroration on Abraham Lincoln and then left Gwynne to the California codes. The large new stone office building of which Judge Leslie was the chief tenant stood at the corner of a street a block above Main; Gwynne glancing over the top of his tome could see a procession of teams, men lounging in the doorway of a grocery store, and the spars of fishing-boats waiting for the tide. His mind played him a curious trick. Piccadilly was before him with its great hotels, its splendid old stone houses upon which the fogs and the grime of London had demonstrated their poetical mission, the classic entrance to the Park, the crowds of smart men and women; Piccadilly at eight on a summer's evening choked with broughams and hansoms, in which the light mantles barely concealed the shoulders and jewels of the women. He had loved the outside life of London, returning to it from afar with an ever fresh and boyish pleasure, the keener perhaps because he knew that all doors were open to him and that he was one of the great lions, not of those for whom the stranger must search "Who's Who" upon his return from a function where half the guests had made their little mark. He saw the lofty towers with their delicate tracery, cutting the smoke on the banks of the Thames, the little room below where he had made men, old and bored and suspicious, listen to him; the more confident in his power to command their attention because he knew that they had read and discussed, agreed with and denounced, his sound contributions to colonial literature. The scene dissolved into a wave of homesickness that made him choke and spring to his feet. Then he swore at himself and returned to his codes.

When Judge Leslie learned that Hiram Otis's law library had been moved out to Lumalitas he suggested that Gwynne should read at home until he had mastered the laws governing the State of California, and the student was far better satisfied out there in the quiet and the fresh air of his veranda. When a point needed expounding, a horseback ride into Rosewater was not an unwelcome diversion. His will had triumphed in its first bout with memory, so subtly liberated by the written word, and before three days of close study had passed he had the sensation of having found a new and individual patch upon which squarely to plant his feet. The future seemed more definite, more assured; moreover, his avid brain, its energies too long in abeyance, settled upon the new and absorbing study--it was eight years since he had opened a law-book, although he had forgotten little he had read at that plastic time--like a swarm of locusts. He recalled that a clever woman had once said in his hearing that whenever she felt blasee she took up a new language, and at once felt young and eager again. The remark had passed him by at the time, but he recalled it as he devoured and stored away the statutes that in many ways differentiated California from the other States of the Union. The mere fact that his was not the order of brain that took kindly to monotonous application, but inspired him with the more ardent desire to conquer; the sense of being on any sort of a battle-field again gave a color to life. He realized that in six months more of inaction he should have fallen into a constant and morbid habit of self-analysis, and although his soul-sickness could not be healed in a moment, the sense of danger gave an added zest to the impersonal nature of his studies. He subscribed for all the San Francisco newspapers and for those of his own and the adjoining counties. He was not conscious of any mounting love for California, but here his lines were cast, and California was as good a stepping-stone as another. If her politics were hideous he had not made them, and his reviving faith in his star suggested that he may have been born to redeem them. With the polishing up of the rustier parts of his mind even his eyes grew brighter, he moved more quickly, he began to feel all intellect once more, propelled by a body that was daily gaining in red and vigorous blood. Judge Leslie was so delighted with his rapid progress and his exceptionally retentive and classifying memory that he assured everybody he met in Rosewater and St. Peter that he was training a second Alexander Hamilton for the bar of the United States.

XVII

It was four days after the party that Isabel, walking over the low hills among her chickens, in deep converse with her Abraham, was informed by Chuma that Mrs. Thomas Colton had driven out to call upon her. She found Anabel not in the house but seated before the front door in a smart new basket trap, and as smart herself in coat and hat and gloves uniformly dust-colored. She made a wry face at Isabel's overalls, but kissed her affectionately.

"This is my birthday," she announced, "and this is a surprise from Tom--horse, harness, and all. I only had to give him three broad hints. I wanted to show it to you first, and besides there is something I must talk to you about--very important!"

She assumed a matronly and mysterious air and dropped her voice. "I suppose Mr. Gwynne does not call so early?"

"Rarely. Won't you get out and stay to lunch?"

"Tom would never forgive me. He is sure to bring me another surprise at noon--it will arrive on the 11.30--a long chain made of every variety of tourmalines set in silver. But I couldn't wait any longer to have a talk with you about Mr. Gwynne. Until I saw you two together the other night I had all sorts of romantic plans in my head. It seemed just the right thing--_you_ are so different from everybody else; and then having met him in England among all those old castles, and everything! I was sure he would have enough of California in a year and then I should visit you in England, and after a while you would marry Frances to a duke. But I see that was all nonsense. You don't care a bit about each other and are not in the least suited. I couldn't get up any sentiment for him myself; he is much too cold-blooded and, well--_English_. They never can be like us, no matter how hard they try. But in a way I like him, and Tom says he is worth any ten men he ever met. I feel awfully sorry for him, out there all alone--and it's a magnificent ranch--to say nothing of the fact that he must be worth a lot of money besides. It would be perfectly shameful if some San Francisco girl snapped him up--_and you know what they are_. He belongs by right to us, and I for one shall see to it that none of those man-eaters in San Francisco gets him. Did you notice how attentive he was to Dolly the other night? Well, he actually called the next day--she was out--and sent her flowers. Mrs. Haight saw him. She says he looked dreadfully disappointed as he rode off. I take that with a grain of salt, knowing Mrs. Haight; besides, he wouldn't break his heart if a girl was out for good. But the fact remains that he did call, and he hasn't called on another girl in Rosewater, much less sent her flowers. Serena Wheaton and one or two others were at my house yesterday. We are immensely excited over it. I am sure that if we managed them both properly there would be a wedding in the spring. It would be too delightful, for there hasn't been a bang-up wedding in Rosewater since mine. And think of Dolly's trousseau! Every stitch would come from New York. The San Francisco papers would be full of that wedding, and St. Peter would be green with envy. And she would make him such a good wife; such a beauty she is and such a dear good girl--just the kind that wouldn't mind a man being haughty and overbearing. You two would murder each other--but Dolly! The more I think of it the more enthusiastic I am. We formed a plot last night, but as in a way he belongs to you, I maintained that you should be consulted. But tell me first--what do you think of it?"

"Of the match? I cannot imagine a better. What is your plan?"