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1E CALIFORNMS 



GERTRVDE ATHERTON 



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REESE LIBRARY 

OK Till. 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 



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THE CALIFORNIANS 



By the Same Author. 

PATIENCE SPARHAWK AND HER TIMES. 
His FORTUNATE GRACE. 
THE DOOMSWOMAN. 

(Companion volumes to "The Californians.") 

A WHIRL ASUNDER. 

AMERICAN WIVES AND ENGLISH HUSBANDS. 

A DAUGHTER OF THE VINE (ready shortly). 



THE CALIFORNIANS 



BY 



GERTRUDE ATHERTON 




JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD 

LONDON AND NEW YORK 

1898 



- 



COPYRIGHT, 1898 
BY JOHN LANE 

All rights reserved 



THIRD EDITION 



University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 







TO N. L. 







B O O K I 




The Californians 



B O O K I 



" I WON T study another word to-day ! " Helena 
tipped the table, spilling the books to the floor. " I 
want to go out in the sun. Go home, Miss Phelps, 
that s a dear. Anyhow, it won t do you a bit of good 
to stay." 

Miss Phelps, young herself, glanced angrily at her 
briery charge, longingly at the brilliant blue of sky and 
bay beyond the long window. 

" I leave it to Miss Yorba." Her voice, fashioned 
to cut, vibrated a little with the vigour of its roots. 
"You seem to forget, Miss Belmont, that this is not 
your house." 

"But you are just as much my teacher as hers. 
Besides, I always know what Magdale"na wants, and I 
know that she has had enough United States history 
for one afternoon. When I go to England I 11 get 
their version of it. We re brought up to love their 
literature and hate them ! Such nonsense " 



4 The Californians 

"My dear Miss Belmont, I beg you to remember 
that you have but recently passed your sixteenth 
birthday " 

" Oh, of course ! If I d been brought up in Boston, 
I d be giving points to Socrates and wondering why 
there were so many old maids in the world. However, 
that s not the question at present. Le"na, do tell dear 
Miss Phelps that she needs an afternoon off, and that if 
she does n t take it I 11 walk downstairs on my head." 

Helena, even at indeterminate sixteen, showed 
promise of great beauty, and her eyes sparkled with 
the insolence of the spoiled child who already knew 
the power of wealth. The girl she addressed had only 
a pair of dark intelligent eyes to reclaim an uncomely 
face. Her skin was swarthy, her nose crude, her 
mouth wide. The outline of her head was fine, and 
she wore her black hair parted and banded closely 
below her ears. Her forehead was large, her expres 
sion sad and thoughtful. Don Roberto Yorba was 
many times more a millionaire than "Jack" Belmont, 
but Magdale"na was not a spoiled child. 

" I don t know," she said, with a marked hesitation 
of speech ; " I d like to go out, but it does n t seem 
right to take advantage of the fact that papa and 
mamma are away " 

" What they don t know won t hurt them. I d like 
to have Don Roberto under my thumb for just one 
week. He d get some of the tyranny knocked out of 
him. Jack is a model parent " 

flushed a dark ugly red. "I wish you 



The Californians 5 

would not speak in that way of papa," she said. "I 
I well I m afraid he wouldn t let you come here 
to study with me if he knew it." 

" Well, I won t." Helena flung her arms round her 
friend and kissed her warmly. " I would n t hurt his 
Spanish dignity for the world ; only I do wish you hap 
pened to be my real own cousin, or that would be 
much nicer my sister." 

Magdatena s troubled inner self echoed the wish; 
but few wishes, few words, indeed, passed her lips. 

"Well?" demanded Miss Phelps, coldly. "What 
is it to be? Do you girls intend to study any more 
to-day, or not? Because " 

" We don t," said Helena, emphatically. And 
Magdatena, who invariably gave way to her friend s 
imperious will, nodded deprecatingly. Miss Phelps 
immediately left the room. 

" She s glad to get out," said Helena, wisely. " She 
hates me, and I know she s got a beau. Come ! 
Come ! " She pulled Magdatena from her chair, and 
the two girls ran to the balcony beyond the windows 
and leaned over the railing. 

" There s nothing in all the world," announced 
Helena, "so beautiful as California San Francisco 
included in spite of whirlwinds of dust, and wooden 
houses, and cobblestone streets, and wooden sidewalks. 
One can always live on a hill, and then you don t see 
the ugly things below. For instance, from here you 
see nothing but that dark blue bay with the dark blue 
sky above it, and opposite the pink mountains with the 



6 The Californians 

patches of light blue, and on that side the hills of 
Sausalito covered with willows, and the breakers down 
below. And the ferry-boats are like great white swans, 
with long soft throats bending backwards. I don t ex 
press myself very well; but I shall some day. Just you 
wait ; I m going to be a scholar and a lot of other things 
too." 

"What, Helena?" Magdatena drew closer. She 
thought Helena already the most eloquent person 
alive, and she envied her deeply, although without 
bitterness, loving her devotedly. The great gifts of 
expression and of personal magnetism had been denied 
her. She had no hope, and at that tin&e little wish, 
that the last paucity could ever be made good by the 
power of will ; but that articulate inner self had regis 
tered a vow that hard study and close attention to the 
methods of Helena and others as or nearly as bril 
liant should one day invest her brain and tongue with 
suppleness. 

"What other things are you going to be, Helena?" 
she asked. " I know that you can be anything you 
like." 

" Well, in the first place, I am going to New York to 
school, now, don t look so sad : I ve told you twenty 
times that I know Don Roberto will let you go. Then 
I m going to Europe. I m going to study hard but 
not hard enough to spoil my eyes. I m going to finish off 
in Paris, and then I m going to travel. Incidentally, 
I m going to learn how to dress, so that when I come 
back here I 11 astonish the natives and be the best- 



The Californians 7 

dressed woman in San Francisco ; which won t be 
saying much, to be sure. Then, when I do come 
back, I m going to just rule things, and, what is more, 
make all the old fogies let me. And and lam 
going to be the greatest belle this State has ever seen ; 
and that is saying something." 

" Of course you will do all that, Helena. It will be 
so interesting to watch you. Ila and Tiny will never 
compare with you. Some people are made like that, 
some one way and some another, I mean. Shall 
shall you ever marry, Helena?" 

" Yes. After I have been engaged a dozen times or 
so I shall marry a great man." 

"A great man?" 

" Yes ; I don t know any, but they are charming in 
history and memoirs. I d have a simply gorgeous 
time in Washington, and ever after I d have my pic 
ture in Famous Women books." 

"Shall you marry a president?" asked Magdatena, 
deferentially. She was convinced that Helena could 
marry a reigning sovereign if she wished. 

" I have n t made up my mind about that yet. 
Presidents wives are usually such dreary-looking 
frumps I d hate to be in the same book with them. 
Besides, most of the presidents don t amount to much. 
Truthful George must have been a deadly bore. I 
prefer Benjamin Franklin although I never could 
stand that nose or Clay or Calhoun or Patrick 
Henry or Webster. They re dead, but there must be 
lots more. I 11 find one for you, too." 



8 The Californians 

Again the dark flush mounted to Magdatena s hair, 
as with an alertness of motion unusual to her, she 
shook her head. 

"Aha!" cried the astute Helena, "you ve been 
thinking the matter over, too, have you ? Who is he ? 
Tell me." 

Magdalena shook her head again, but slowly this 
time. Helena embraced and coaxed, but to no effect. 
Even with her chosen friend, Magdale"na was reticent, 
not from choice, but necessity. But Helena, whose 
love was great and whose intuitions were diabolical, 
leaped to the secret. " I know ! " she exclaimed 
triumphantly. " It s a caballero ! " 

This time Magdalna s face turned almost purple ; 
but she had neither her sex s quick instinct of self- 
protection nor its proneness to dissemble, secretive 
as she was. She lifted her head haughtily and turned 
away. For a moment she looked very Spanish, not 
the unfortunate result of coupled races that she was. 
Helena, who was in her naughtiest humour, threw back 
her head and laughed scornfully. "A caballero ! " she 
cried: "who will serenade you at two o clock in the 
morning when you are dying with sleep, and lie in a 
hammock smoking cigaritos all day ; who will roll out 
rhetoric by the yard, and look like an idiot when you 
talk common-sense to him; who is too lazy to walk 
across the plaza, and too proud to work, and too silly 
to keep the Americans from grabbing all he s got. I 
met a few dilapidated specimens when I was in Los 
Angeles last year. One beauty with long hair, a som- 



The Californians 9 

brero, and a head about as big as my fist, used to 
serenade me in intervals of gambling until I appealed 
to Jack, and he threatened to have him put in the 
calaboose if he did n t let me alone " 

Magdalena turned upon her. Her face was livid. 
Her eyes stared as if she had seen the dead walking. 
" Hush ! " she said. " You you cruel you have 
everything " 

Helena, whose intuitions never failed her, when she 
chose to exercise them, knew what she had done, 
caught a flashing glimpse of the shattered dreams of 
the girl who said so little, whose only happiness was in 
the ideal world she had built in the jealously guarded 
depths of her soul. " Oh, Magdalena, I m so sorry," 
she stammered. " I was only joking. And my states 
men will probably be horrid old boors. I know I 11 
never find one that comes up to my ideal." She 
burst into tears and flung her arms about Magdale"na s 
neck : she was always miserable when those she loved 
were angry with her, much as she delighted to shock 
the misprized. " Say you forgive me," she sobbed, 
" or I sha n t eat or sleep for a week." And Magda- 
le"na, who always took her mercurial friend literally, 
forgave her immediately and dried her tears. 

ii 

DON ROBERTO YORBA had escaped the pecuniary ex 
tinction that had overtaken his race. Of all the old 
grandees who, not forty years before, had called the 



io The Californians 

Californias their own : living a life of Arcadian mag 
nificence, troubled by few cares, a life of riding over 
vast estates clad in silk and lace, botas and sombrero, 
mounted upon steeds as gorgeously caparisoned as 
themselves, eating, drinking, serenading at the grat 
ings of beautiful women, gambling, horse-racing, taking 
part in splendid religious festivals, with only the lan 
guid excitement of an occasional war between rival gov 
ernors to disturb the placid surface of their lives, of 
them all Don Roberto was a man of wealth and con 
sequence to-day. But through no original virtue of 
his. He had been as princely in his hospitality, as 
reckless with his gold, as meagrely equipped to cope 
with the enterprising United Statesian who first 
conquered the Californian, then, nefariously, or right 
eously, appropriated his acres. When Commodore 
Sloat ran up the American flag on the Custom House 
of Monterey on July seventh, 1846, one of the mid 
shipmen who went on shore to seal the victory with 
the strength of his lungs was a clever and restless 
youth named Polk. As his sharpness and fund of 
dry New England anecdote had made him a distinc 
tive position on board ship, he was permitted to go to 
the ball given on the following night by Thomas O. 
Larkin, United States Consul, in honour of the Com 
modore and officers of the three warships then in the 
bay. Having little liking for girls, he quickly fraternised 
with Don Roberto Yorba, a young hidalgo who had 
recently lost his wife and had no heart for festivities, 
although curiosity had brought him to this ball which 



The Californians n 

celebrated the downfall of his country. The two men 
left the ball-room, where the handsome and resent 
ful senoritas were preparing to avenge California with 
a battery of glance, a melody of tongue, and a witchery 
of grace that was to wreak havoc among these gallant 
officers, and after exchanging amenities over a bowl 
of punch, went out into the high-walled garden to smoke 
the cigarito. The perfume of the sweet Castilian roses 
was about them, the old walls were a riot of pink and 
green ; but the youths had no mind for either. The 
don was fascinated by the quick terse common-sense 
and the harsh nasal voice of the American, and the 
American s mind was full of a scheme which he was not 
long confiding to his friend. A shrewd Yankee, gifted 
with insight, and of no small experience, young as he 
was, Polk felt that the idle pleasure-loving young don 
was a man to be trusted and magnetic with potential 
ities of usefulness. He therefore confided his consum 
ing desire to be a rich man, his hatred of the navy, 
and, finally, his determination to resign and make his 
way in the world. 

" I have n t a red cent to bless myself with," he 
concluded. " But I Ve got what s more important as 
a starter, brains. What s more, I feel the power in 
me to make money. It s the only thing on earth I 
care for ; and when you put all your brains and energies 
to one thing you get it, unless you get paralysis or an 
ounce of cold lead first." 

The Californian, who had a true grandee s contempt 
for gold, was nevertheless charmed with the engag- 




12 The Californians 

ing frankness and the unmistakable sincerity of the 
American. 

" My house is yours," he exclaimed ardently. " You 
will living with me, no ? until you find the moneys ? I 
am how you say it ? delighted. Always I like the 
Americanos we having a few. All I have is yours, 
senor." 

" Look here," exclaimed Polk. " I won t eat any 
man s bread for nothing, but I 11 strike a bargain with 
you. If you 11 stand by me, I 11 stand by you. I 
mean to make money, and I don t much care how I 
do make it ; this is a new place, anyhow. But there s 
one thing I never do, and that is to go back on a 
friend. You 11 need me, and my Yankee sharpness 
may be the greatest godsend that ever came your way. 
I ve seen more or less of this country. It s simply 
magnificent. Americans will be swarming over the 
place in less than no time. They ve begun already. 
Then you ll be just nowhere. Is it a bargain?" 

" It is ! " exclaimed Don Roberto, with enthusiasm ; 
and when Polk had explained his ominations more 
fully, he wrung the American s hand again. 

Polk, after much difficulty, but through personal 
influence which he was fortunate enough to possess, 
obtained his discharge. He immediately became the 
guest of Don Roberto, who lived with his younger 
sister on a ranch covering three hundred thousand 
acres, and, his first intention being to take up land, 
was initiated into the mysteries of horse-raising, tan 
ning hides, and making tallow; the two last-named 



The Californians 13 

industries being pursued for purposes of barter with 
the Boston skippers. But farming was not to Folk s 
taste; he hated waiting on the slow processes of 
Nature. He married Magdale"na Yorba, and borrowed 
from Don Roberto enough money to open a store in 
Monterey stocked with such necessities and luxuries as 
could be imported from Boston. When the facile Cali 
fornians had no ready money to pay for their whole 
sale purchases, he took a mortgage on the next hide 
yield, or on a small ranch. His rate of interest was 
twelve per cent; and as the Californians were never 
prepared to pay when the day of reckoning came, he 
foreclosed with a promptitude which both horrified 
Don Roberto and made imperious demands upon his 
admiration. 

" My dear Don," Polk would say, " if it is n t I, it 
will be some one else. I m not the only one and 
look at the squatters. I m becoming a rich man, and 
if I were not, I d be a fool. You had your day, but 
you were never made to last. Your boots are a com 
fortable fit, and I propose to wear them. I don t mean 
yours, by the way. I m going to look after you. 
Better think it over and come into partnership." 

To this Don Roberto would not hearken ; but when 
the rush to the gold mines began he was persuaded 
by Polk to take a trip into the San Joaquin valley to 
" see the circus," as the Yankee phrased it. There, in 
community with his brother-in-law, he staked off a 
claim, and there the lust for gold entered his veins and 
never left it. He returned to Monterey a rich man in 



14 The Californians 

something besides land. After that there was little 
conversation between himself and Polk on any subject 
but money and the manner of its multiplication ; and, 
as the years passed, and Folk s prophecy was fulfilled, 
he gave the devotion of a fanatic to the retention of 
his vast inheritance and to the development of his 
grafted financial faculty. 

Between the mines, his store, and his various enter 
prises in San Francisco, Polk rapidly became a wealthy 
man. Even in those days he was accounted an un 
scrupulous one, but he was powerful enough to hold 
the opinion of men in contempt and too shrewd to 
elbow such law as there was. And his gratitude and 
friendship for Don Roberto never flickered. He ad 
vised him to invest his gold in city lots, and as him 
self bought adjoining ones, Don Roberto invested 
without hesitation. Polk had acquired a taste for 
Spanish cooking, cigaritos, and life on horseback ; his 
influences on the Californian were far more subtle and 
revolutionising. Don Roberto was still hospitable, 
because it became a grandee so to be ; but he had a 
Yankee major-domo who kept an account of every 
cent that was expended. He had no miserly love of 
gold in the concrete, but he had an abiding sense of 
its illimitable power, all of his brother-in-law s deter 
mination to become one of the wealthiest and most 
influential men in the country, and a ferocious hatred 
of poverty. He saw his old friends fall about him : 
advice did them no good, and any permanent alliance 
with their interests would have meant his own ruin; so 



The Californians 15 

he shrugged his shoulders and forgot them. The 
American flag always floated above his rooms. In time 
he and Polk opened a bank, and he sat in its parlour 
for five hours of the day; it was the passion of his 
maturity and decline. When Folk s sister, some eleven 
years after the Occupation of California by the United 
States, came out to visit the brother who had left 
her teaching a small school in Boston, he married her 
promptly, feeling himself blessed in another New Eng 
land relative. She was thirty-two at the time, and 
her complexion was dark and sallow : but she carried 
her tall angular figure with impressive dignity, and her 
chill manners gave her a certain distinction. Don 
Roberto was delighted with her, and as she was by 
nature as economical as his familiar could desire, he 
dismissed the major-domo and gave her carte blanche 
at the largest shops in the city ; even if he had wished 
it, she could not have been induced to buy more than 
four gowns a year. But she was a very ambitious 
woman. As the wife of a great Californian grandee, 
she had seen herself the future leader of San Francisco 
society. Her ambitions were realised in a degree 
only. Don Roberto built her a huge wooden palace 
on Nob Hill, on which was the highest flagstaff and 
the biggest flag in San Francisco, placed a suitable 
number of servants at her command, and gave her a 
carriage. But he only permitted her to give two large 
dinners and one ball during the season, and would go 
to other people s entertainments but seldom. As their 
ideas of duty were equally rigid, she would not go 



1 6 The Californians 

without him ; but they had a circle of intimate and 
aristocratic friends with whom they lunched and dined 
informally, the Polks, the Belmonts, the Montgom- 
erys, the Tarltons, the Brannans, the Gearys, and the 
Folsoms. 

They had been married ten years when Magdale"na, 
their only child, was born. 



in 

MRS. YORBA was so ill when her daughter came that 
the child struggled miserably into existence, and, fail 
ing to cry, was put away as dead, and forgotten for a 
time. It was discovered to be breathing by Mrs. Polk, 
who coaxed it through several months of puny exist 
ence with all a native Californian woman s resource. 
During this time it never cried, only whimpered miser 
ably at rare intervals. It was finally discovered to be 
tongue-tied, and as soon as it was old enough an opera 
tion was performed. After that the child s health 
mended, although she seemed in no hurry to use her 
tongue. As she progressed in years she still spoke but 
seldom, only mildly remonstrating when Helena Bel- 
mont pulled her hair or vented her exuberant vitality 
upon Magdatena s inferior person. Once only did she 
lose her temper, when Helena hung up all her dolls 
in a row and slit them that she might have the pleasure 
of seeing the sawdust pour out, and then she leaped 
upon her tormentor with a hoarse growl of rage, and 



The Californians 17 

the two pommelled each other black and blue. But as 
a rule she was gentle and much-enduring, and Helena 
was very kind and clamoured constantly for her society. 
As the girls grew older they studied together, and the 
friendship, born of propinquity, was strengthened by 
mutual tastes and sympathy. Helena was probably the 
only person who ever understood the reticent, proud, 
apparently cold and impassive temperament of the girl 
who was an unhappy and incongruous mixture of 
Spanish and New England traits; and Magdalena 
was Helena s most enthusiastic admirer and attentive 
audience. 

Magdalena had one other friend, her aunt, Mrs. Polk, 
for whom she was named. That lady was enormously 
stout and something of an invalid, but carried the 
tokens of early beauty in a skin of brilliant fairness and 
a pair of magnificent dark eyes fringed with lashes so 
long and thick that Magdalena, when a child, found it 
her greatest pleasure to count them. Mrs. Polk knew 
little of her husband and liked him less. She had 
obeyed her brother s orders and married him, loving a 
dazzling caballero who had since gambled away his 
acres the while. But Polk ministered to the luxury 
that she loved ; and though his high-pitched voice never 
ceased to shake her nerves, and his hard cold face to 
inspire active dislike, as the years went on and she saw 
how it was with her people, she accepted her lot with 
philosophy, and finally as youth fled with grati 
tude. Mrs. Yorba she detested, but she loved the 
child she had saved to a life of doubtful happiness, and 



1 8 The Californians 

she had no children of her own would gladly have 
adopted her. She lived a life of retirement, and had a 
scanty though kindly brain : therefore she never under 
stood Magdatena as well as Helena did at the age of 
six ; but she could love warmly, and that meant much 
to her niece. 

The three large and aristocratically ugly mansions of 
Don Roberto Yorba, Hiram Polk, and Colonel " Jack" 
Belmont stood side by side on Nob Hill. Belmont was 
not as wealthy as the others, but a " palatial residence " 
does not mean illimitable riches even yet in San Fran 
cisco. Belmont had married a Boston girl of far greater 
family pretensions than Mrs. Yorba s, but of no more 
stately appearance nor correct demeanour. The two 
women were intimate friends until her husband s notori 
ous infidelities and erraticisms when under the periodi 
cal influence of alcohol killed Mrs. Belmont. Neither 
Don Roberto nor Polk drank to excess, and they kept 
their mistresses in more decent seclusion than is the 
habit of the average San Franciscan. It would never 
occur to Mrs. Yorba to suspect her husband or any 
other man of infidelity, did she live in California an hun 
dred years, and Mrs. Polk was too indifferent to give 
the matter a thought. 

Although she lived in retirement, rarely venturing 
out into the winds and fogs of San Francisco, Mrs. Polk 
surrounded herself with all the luxuries of a pampered 
woman of wealth and fashion. Her house was mag 
nificent, her private apartments almost stifling in their 
sumptuousness. Polk squeezed every dollar before he 



The Californians 19 

parted with it, but his wife had long since accomplished 
the judicious exercise of a violent Spanish temper, and 
her bills were seldom disputed. 

Magdale"na and Helena loved these scented gorgeous 
apartments, and ran through the connecting gardens 
daily to see her. Their delight was to sit at her feet 
and listen to the tales of California when the grandee 
owned the land, when the caballero, in gorgeous attire, 
sang at the gratings of the beauties of Monterey. Mrs. 
Polk would sing these old love-songs of Spain to the 
accompaniment of the guitar which had entranced her 
caballeros in the sala of her girlhood j and Helena, who 
had a charming voice, learned them all to the un 
doing of her own admirers later on. It was she who 
asked a thousand questions of that Arcadian time, and 
Mrs. Polk responded with enthusiasm. Doubtless she 
exaggerated the splendours, the brilliancy, the unleav 
ened pleasure ; but it was a time far behind her, and 
she was happy again in the rememoration. As for 
Magdale"na, she seldom spoke. She listened with fixed 
eyes and bated breath to those descriptions of the beau 
tiful women of her race, seeing for the time her soul s 
face as beautiful, gazing at her reflected image aghast 
when she turned suddenly upon one of the long mirrors. 
Her soul sang in accompaniment to her aunt s rich voice, 
and her hands moved unconsciously as those listless 
Spanish fingers swept the guitar. When Helena imperi 
ously demanded to be taught, and quickly became as 
proficient as her teacher, Magdalena kept her eyes on 
the floor lest the others should see the dismay in them. 



2O The Caiifornians 

Had it occurred to Mrs. Polk to ask her niece if she 
would like to learn these old songs of her race, Magda- 
le"na would have shaken her head shyly, realising even 
sooner than she did that there was no medium for the 
music in her soul, as there was none for the thoughts in 
her mind. Although her aunt loved her, she did not 
scruple to tell her that she was not to be either a beau 
tiful or a brilliant woman; but although Magdale"na 
made no reply, she had a profound belief that the Virgin 
would in time grant her passionate nightly prayers for 
a beautiful face and an agile tongue. Beauty was her 
right ; no woman of her father s house had ever been 
plain, and she had convinced herself that if she were a 
good girl the Virgin would acknowledge her rights by 
her eighteenth birthday. As her intellect developed, 
she was haunted by an uneasy scepticism of miracles, 
particularly after she learned to draw, but she still 
prayed ; it was a dream she could not relinquish. Nor 
was this all she prayed for. She had all the Califor- 
nian s indolence, which was ever at war with the intel 
lect she had inherited from her New England ancestors. 
Her most delectable instinct was to lie in the sun or 
on the rug by the fire all day and dream ; and she was 
thoroughly convinced that the Virgin aided her in the 
fight for mental energy, and was the prime factor in the 
long periods of victory of mind over temperament. 

And only her deathless ambition enabled her to keep 
pace with Helena. She sat up late into the night por 
ing over lessons that her brilliant friend danced through 
while dressing in the morning. Her memory was bad, 



The Californians 21 

and she never mastered spelling ; even after her school 
days were over, she always carried a little dictionary in 
her pocket. She laboured for years at the piano, not 
only under her father s orders, but because she passion 
ately loved music, but she had neither ear nor facility, 
and to her importunities for both the Virgin gave no heed. 
And the bitterness of it all lay in the fact that she 
was not stupid ; she was fully aware that her intellect 
was something more than commonplace ; but the ma 
chinery was heavy, and, so far as she could see, there 
was not a drop of cleverness with which to oil the 
wheels. She had read extensively even before she 
was sixteen, letters, essays, biographies, histories, 
and a number of novels by classic authors ; and al 
though she was obliged to read each book three times 
in order to write it on her memory, she slowly assimi 
lated it and developed her brain cells. Up to this 
age she was seldom actively unhappy, for she had the 
hopes of youth and religion, her aunt, Helena, and, 
above all, her sweet inner life, which was an almost 
constant dwelling upon the poetical past, linked to a 
future of exalted ideals : not only should she be more 
beautiful than Helena or Tiny Montgomery or Ila 
Brannan, but she should hold rooms spell- bound with 
her eloquence, or the music in her finger-tips ; and 
when in solitude her soul would rise to such heights 
as her fettered mind hinted at vaguely but insistently. 
Wild imaginings for a plain tongue-tied little hybrid, 
but what man s inner life is like unto the husk to whose 
making he gave no hand? 



22 The Californians 



IV 

HELENA remained an hour longer, then ran home to 
don a white frock and Roman sash. Her father, with 
all his vagaries, seldom failed to dine at home ; and he 
expected to find his little daughter, smartly dressed, 
presiding at his table. His sister, Mrs. Cartright, who 
had managed his house since his wife s death, made 
no attempt to manage Helena, and never thought of 
taking the head of the table. 

Magdale"na stood for some time looking out over 
the darkening bay, at the white mist riding in to hang 
before the mountains beyond. She had seen Cali 
fornia wet under blinding rain-storms, but never ugly. 
Even the fogs were beautiful, the great waves of sand 
whirling through the streets of San Francisco pictur 
esque. California was associated in her mind, how 
ever, with perpetual blue skies and floods of yellow 
light. She had wondered occasionally if all people 
were not happy in such a country, where the sun 
shone for eight months in the year, where flowers grew 
more thickly than weeds, and fruit was abundant and 
luscious. She had read of the portion to which man 
was born, and had decided that if Thackeray and 
Dickens had lived in California they would have been 
more cheerful ; but to-day, assailed by a presentiment 
general rather than specific, she accepted, for the first 
time, life in something like its true proportions. 

" There are no more caballeros," she thought, put- 



The Californians 23 

ting into form such sense of the change as she could 
grasp. " And Helena is going away, for years ; and 
papa will not let me go, I know, although I mean to 
ask him ; and aunt is way down in Santa Barbara, and 
writes that she may not return for months. And I 
don t know my music lesson for to-morrow, and papa 
will be so angry, because he pays five dollars a lesson ; 
and Mrs. Price is so cross." She paused and shivered 
as the white fog crept up to the verandah. It was 
very quiet. She could hear the ocean roaring through 
the Golden Gate. Again the presentiment assailed 
her. " None of those things was it," she thought in 
terror. " Uncle Jack Belmont says, according to 
Balzac, our presentiments always mean something." 
She noticed anew how beautiful the night was : the 
white wreaths floating on the water, the dark blue sky 
that was bursting into stars, the mysterious outline of 
the hills, the ravishing perfumes rising from the garden 
below. "It is like a poem," she thought. "Why 
does no one write about it? Oh ! " with a hard gasp, 
" if I could if I could only write ! " A meteor shot 
down the heavens. For the moment it seemed that 
the fallen star flashed through her brow and lodged, 
effulgent, in her brain. "I I think I could," she 
thought. "I I am sure that I could." And so, 
the cruel desires of art, and the tree of her crucifix 
were born. 

She went inside hastily, afraid of her thoughts. She 
changed her frock for a white one, smoothed her 
sleek hair, and walked downstairs. She never ran, like 



24 The Californians 

Helena unless, to be sure, Helena dragged her; 
she had all the dignity of her father s race, all its iron 
sense of convention. 

She went into the big parlours to await her parents 
return ; they had been spending a day or two at their 
country house in Menlo Park, and would return in time 
for dinner. The gas had been lighted and turned 
low; Magdatena had never seen any rooms but her 
own in this house sufficiently lighted by day or by 
night, except when guests were present. Mrs. Yorba 
would waste neither gas nor carpets ; in consequence, 
the house had a somewhat sepulchral air; even its 
silence was never broken, save when Helena gave a 
sudden furious war-whoop and slid down the banisters. 

The walls of the parlour were tinted a pale buff, the 
ceilings frescoed with cherubs and flowers. On the 
great plate-glass windows were curtains of dark red 
velvet trimmed with gold fringe. The large square 
pieces of furniture were upholstered with red velvet. 
The floor was covered with a red Brussels carpet with 
a design of squirming devil-fish. Three or four small 
chairs were covered with Indian embroidery, and there 
were two Chinese tables of teak-wood and mottled 
marble. Gas having been an afterthought, the pipes 
were visible, although painted to match the walls. 
Magdatena had seen few rooms and had not awakened 
to the hideousness of these ; her aunt had mingled 
little taste with her splendour, and the Belmont man 
sion was furnished throughout its lower part in satin 
damask with no attempt at art s variousness. 



The Californians 25 

Magdatena opened the piano and felt vaguely for 
the music in the keys. She forgot the star, remem 
bered only her passionate love of exultant sound, her 
longing to find the soul of this most mysterious of all 
instruments. But her stiff fingers only sprawled help 
lessly over the keys, and after a few moments she 
desisted and sat staring with dilating eyes, the pre 
sentiment again assailing her. Her shattered caballe- 
ros rose before her, but she shook her head; they, 
under what influence she knew not, had faded out into 
ghost-land. 

A carriage drove up to the door. She went forward 
and stood in the hall, awaiting her parents. They 
entered almost immediately. Both kissed her lightly, 
her mother inquiring absently if she had been a good 
girl, and remarking that she had neuralgia and should 
go to bed at once. Her father grunted and asked 
her if she and Helena Belmont had behaved them 
selves, and, more particularly, if she had been outside 
the house without an attendant; he never failed to 
ask this when he had been away from the house for 
twenty-four hours. Magdatena replied in the negative, 
and did not feel called upon to confess her minor 
sins. She had a conscience, but she had also a strong 
distaste for her father s temper. 

Don Roberto had been a handsome caballero in 
his youth, but his face, like that of most Californians, 
had coarsened as it receded from its prime. The 
nose was thick, the outlines of the jaw lost in rolls 
of flesh. But the full curves of his mouth had been 



26 The Californians 

compressed into a straight line, and the consequent 
elevation of the lower lip had almost obliterated an 
originally weak chin. He was bald and wore a skull 
cap, but his black eyes were fiery and restless, his skin 
fair with the fairness of Castile. He went to his room, 
and MagdaMna did not see him again until dinner was 
announced. She saw little of her parents. There is 
not much fireside life in California. There was none 
in the Yorba household. Mrs. Yorba was a martyr to 
neuralgia, and such time as was not passed in the 
seclusion of her chamber was devoted to the manifold 
cares of her household and to her small circle of 
friends. Don Roberto would not permit her to belong 
to charitable associations, nor to organisations of any 
kind, and although she regretted the prestige she 
might have enjoyed as president of such concerns, 
she had long since found herself indemnified : Don 
Roberto s social restrictions had unwittingly given her 
the position of the most exclusive woman in San Fran 
cisco. As time went on, it gave people a certain dis 
tinction to be on her visiting list. When Mrs. Yorba 
realised this, she looked it over carefully and cut it 
down to ninety names. After that, hostesses whose 
position was as secure as her own begged her per 
sonally to go to their balls. Her own yearly contribu 
tion to the season s socialities was looked forward 
to with deep anxiety. It was the stiffest and dullest 
affair of the year, but not to be there was to be writ 
ten down as second of the first. So was greatness 
thrust upon Mrs. Yorba, who never returned to her 



The Californians 27 

native Boston, lest she might once more feel the pangs 
of nothingness. She loved her daughter from a sense 
of duty rather than from any animal instinct, but never 
petted nor made a companion of her. Nevertheless 
she watched over her studies, literary excursions, and 
associates with a vigilant eye. 

Magdale"na s companions were the objects of her 
severe maternal care. Once a year in town and once 
during the summer in Menlo Park, Magdale"na had a 
luncheon party, the guests chosen from the very inner 
circle of Mrs. Yorba s acquaintance. The youngsters 
loathed this function, but were forced to attend by 
their distinguished parents. Magdale"na sat at one 
end of the table and never uttered a word. The only 
relief was Helena, who talked bravely, but far less than 
was her wont ; the big dark dining-room, panelled to 
the ceiling with redwood, and hung with the progeni 
tors of the haughty house of Yorba, the gliding Chinese 
servants, the eight stiff miserable little girls, with their 
starched white frocks, crimped hair, and vacant glances, 
oppressed even that indomitable spirit. On one awful 
occasion when even Helena s courage had failed her, 
and she was eating rapidly and nervously, the children 
with one accord burst into wild hysterical laughter. 
They stopped as abruptly as they had begun, staring 
at one another with expanded, horrified eyes, then 
simultaneously burst into tears. Helena went off into 
shrieks of laughter, and Magdale"na hurriedly left the 
room, and in the privacy of her own wept bitterly. 
When she went downstairs again, she found Helena 



28 The Californians 

making a brave attempt to entertain the others in the 
large garden behind the house. They were swinging 
and playing games, and looked much ashamed of them 
selves. When they went home each kissed Magdaldna 
warmly, and she forgave them and wished that she 
could see them oftener. She was never allowed to go 
to lunch-parties herself. Occasionally she met them at 
Helena s, where they romped delightedly, appropri 
ating the entire house and yelling like demons, but 
taking little notice of the quiet child who sat by Mrs. 
Cartright, listening to that voluble dame s tales of 
the South before the war, too shy and too Spanish to 
romp. Even at that early age, they respected and rather 
feared her. As she grew older, it became known that 
she was " booky," a social crime in San Francisco. 
As for Helena, she was one of those favoured mortals 
who are permitted to be anything they please. She, 
too, devoured books, but she did so many other things 
besides that people forgot the idiosyncrasy, or were 
willing to overlook it. 

Don Roberto spent his leisure hours with his friends 
Hiram Polk and Jack Belmont. There was no resource 
of the town unknown to these elderly rakes ; and the 
older they grew the more they enjoyed themselves. 
On fine evenings they always rode out to the Presidio or 
to the Cliff House ; and it was one of the sights of the 
town, these three leading citizens and founders of the 
city s prosperity : Don Roberto, fat, but riding his big 
chestnut with all the unalterable grace of the Califor- 
iiian -, Polk, stiff and spare, his narrow grey face un- 



The Californians 29 

changed from year to year, ambling along on a piebald ; 
dashing Jack Belmont, a cavalry officer to his death, 
his long black moustachios flying in the wind, a flap 
ping hat pulled low over his abundant curls, bestriding 
a mighty black. All three men were somewhat old- 
fashioned in their attire ; they went little into society, 
preferring the more various life beyond its pale. 



HALF of the dinner passed in unbroken silence. 
Magdatena sat at one end of the table, her father at 
the other, their wants attended to by three Chinese 
servants. Magdale"na was not eating : she was sum 
moning up courage to speak on a subject that was fast 
conquering her reticence. Her thoughts were not in 
terrupted. Don Roberto was a man of few words. 
He had been an eloquent caballero in his youth, but 
had grown to be as careful of words as of investments. 
He liked to be amused by women ; but, as he rightly 
judged, no amount of development could make his 
wife and daughter amusing, so he encouraged them to 
hold their tongues. He deeply resented Magdale"na s 
lack of beauty ; all the women of his house had been 
famous throughout the Californias for their beauty. It 
was the duty of a Yorba to be beautiful while young; 
after thirty it mattered nothing. 

Magdale"na had completed the structure of her cour- 



jo The Californians 

age. She did nothing by halves, and she knew that 
she should not break down. 

" Papa," she said. 

"Well?" 

" Helena is going to New York and to Paris to 
school. She is going to live with relatives, but she will 
attend school." 

"She need." 

" I thought you liked Helena." 

" I like ; but she need the discipline more than all 
the girls in California." 

" I shall be very lonely without her." 

" Suppose so ; but now is the time to learn plenty, 
and no think so much by the play." 

" I should like to go with her." 

" Suppose so." 

"May I?" 

"No." 

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

" I choose you shall be educate at home. I no ap 
prove 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 ? " 



The Californians 31 

" 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 busi 
ness 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 

MAGDAIJ&NA had failed at every point. She had ex 
pected 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 con 
sidered the future. It had been arranged long ago 
that she and Helena, Ha 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 



3 2 The Californians 

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 over 
looked 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 passed 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 Californians 33 

the stars from gold to white. Every moment the wind 
twisted the ribbon into wonderful fantastic shapes, 
which beset Magdale"na 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. Magdatena 
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 Magdatena. 

"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 11 
go to the livery stable and I 11 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 Magdale*na into the room, arrayed her 
in a waterproof, and pinned a black shawl tightly about 
the small brown face. " There ! " she said triumphantly, 
3 



34 The Californians 

"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 over 
powering desire for dramatic incident. " Yes, I 11 go," 
she whispered, closer to excitement than Helena had 
ever, save once, seen her. " I 11 go." 

" Of course ! I knew you would. I always knew 
you were a brick ; come ! Quick ! I 11 go first." She 
slid down the pillar, which she could easily clasp with 
her long arms and legs ; and Magdale" na, 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. 

" Le"na ! " whispered Helena, ecstatically. "Is n t 
this gorgeous? " 

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

" I m going to fires for the rest of my life," an 
nounced Helena, as they turned the corner and walked 



The Californians 35 

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 anticipation. 

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

"Upon my soul," he whispered to his associates, 
" 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 11 pay you now. How much is it? " 

"Ten dollars," he replied unblushingly. 

Helena paid the money like a blood, Magdal^na 
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 feel 
ing awfully soft over my going away. Poor old Jack, 
he 11 feel so lonesome without me. But we 11 have 
a gay old time travelling together in Europe when I m 
through." 

Magdatena 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 



j6 The Californians 

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 mass of men and women, mostly young, 
who promenaded the north sidewalk under a blaze 
of gas. 

" What queer-looking girls ! " said Magdale"na. "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, Le*na, we re going down Fourth Street. 
We 11 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 erica of the firemen and the angry 



The Californians 37 

shouts of the policemen. The fire was devouring four 
large squares and sending leaping branches to isolated 
dwellings beyond. A great furniture factory and in 
numerable tenements were vanishing like icicles under 
a hot sun. 

The girls, careless of the severe jostling they re 
ceived, stared in fascinated amazement at the red 
tongues darting among the blackened shells, the crash 
ing roofs, the black masses 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. Magdale"na, 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 house 
hold 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 Magdale"na 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." 



3 8 The Californians 

The two girls approached the unfortunate creatures, 
who were wailing loudly, as if at a wake. 

" Poor devils ! " exclaimed Helena. " I am so glad 
I have some silver with me." 

"And I have nothing to give them," thought Mag- 
dale*na, bitterly ; but she was too proud to speak. She 
stared at them, her brain a medley of new sensations, 
as Helena went about, questioning, fascinating, sym 
pathising, giving. It was the first time she had seen 
poverty ; she had barely heard of its existence ; it had 
never occurred to hej that great romanticists conde 
scended to borrow from life. It was not abject poverty 
that she witnessed, by any means. There were no 
hollow cheeks here, no pallid faces, no shrunken limbs. 
It was, save for the passing distress, to which they 
were not unaccustomed, a very jolly, hearty, contented 
poverty. Their belongings were certainly mean, but 
solid and sufficient. Nevertheless, to Magdatena, who 
had been surrounded by luxury from her birth, and 
had rarely been in a street of less importance than 
her own, these commonly clad creatures, weeping over 
their cheap household goods, seemed the very dregs of 
the earth. Her keen enjoyment fled. She was sure 
she could never be happy again with so much misery 
in the world. If her father would only she recalled 
his contempt for charities, the prohibition he had laid 
on her mother. She determined to pray all night to 
the Virgin to soften his heart. When the Virgin had 
been allowed a reasonable time, she would beg him to 
give her a monthly allowance to devote to the poor. 



The Californians 39 

The Virgin had failed her many times, but must surely 
hearken to so worthy a petition as this. She stood 
apart. No one noticed her. She had nothing to give. 
They were showering blessings upon Helena, who was 
walking about with a cocky little stride, well pleased 
with herself. 

Suddenly Helena wheeled and ran over to Magdale*na. 

" I ve given away my last red," she said. " It s 
lucky I paid for that hack in advance. Let s get out. 
Those I have n t given any to will be down on me in a 
minute. Besides, it s getting late. A-ou-u ! " 

A policeman had tapped her roughly on the shoulder. 
She gazed at him in speechless terror for a half- moment, 
then gasped, " W-h-a-t do you want?" 

" I want you two young uns for the lock-up," he 
said curtly. The struggling crowd had lashed his 
pugnacity and ensanguined his temper. As an addi 
tional indignity, the saloon had been burned, and he 
had not had a drink for an hour. " I 11 run you in 
for wearing boys clothes; have you ever heard the 
penalty for that, miss ? And I 11 run in this little 
greaser as a vagrant." 

Helena burst into shrieks of terror, clinging to Mag- 
dale"na, who comforted her mechanically, too terrified, 
herself, to speak. Even in that awful moment it was 
her father she feared, not the law. 

" Shut up ! " exclaimed the officer. " None of that." 
He paused abruptly and regarded Helena closely. She 
was searching wildly in her pockets. " Oh, if you Ve 
got a fiver," he said easily, " I 11 call it square." 



40 The Californians 

" I have n t so much as a five-cent, piece," sobbed 
Helena, with a fresh burst of tears. " Oh, Lna, what 
shall we do?" 

" You 11 come with me ! that s what you 11 do." He 
took them firmly by the hand and dragged them through 
the crowd, a section of which had transferred its atten 
tions to the victims of the officer s wrath. But the 
three were soon hurrying up a dark cross-street toward 
a car ; and as they went Helena recovered herself, and 
began to cast about among her plentiful resource. 
She dared not risk telling this man their names, and 
bid him take them home in hope of reward, for he 
would certainly demand that reward of their scandalised 
parents. No, she decided, she would confide in the 
dignitary in charge at the station ; and as soon as he 
knew who she was, he would be sure to let them go at 
once. 

They went up town on a street-car. Helena had 
never been in one before, and the experience inter 
ested her; but Magdale"na sat dumb and wretched. 
She had been a docile child, and her father s anger 
had never been visited upon her; but she had seen 
his frightful outbursts at the servants, and once he had 
horsewhipped a Mexican in his employ until the lad s 
shrieks had made Magdatena put her fingers in her 
ears. He would not whip her, of course ; but what 
would he do? And this horrid man, who was of the 
class of her father s coachman, had called her a 
" greaser." She had all the pride of her race. The 
insult stifled her. She felt smirched and degraded. 



The Californians 41 

Nor was this all : she had had her first signal expe 
rience of the pall that lines the golden cloud. 

The officer motioned to the conductor to stop in 
front of a squat building in front of the Old Plaza. 
The man, whose gall had been slowly rising for want 
of drink, hurried them roughly off the car and across 
the sidewalk into a dark passage. Their feet lagged, 
and he shoved them before him, flourishing his 
bludgeon. 

" Git on ! Git on ! " he said. " There s no gittin 
out of this until you ve served your time." 

The words and the dark passage made Helena 
shiver. What if they would not give her a chance 
to speak, but should lock her up at once ? She knew 
nothing of these dark doings of night. Perhaps the 
policeman would take them directly to a cell. In 
that case, she must confide in him. 

They entered a room, and her confidence returned. 
A man sat at a desk, an open ledger before him. He 
was talking to several tramps who stood in various un 
easy attitudes in front of the desk. His face was tired, 
but his eyes had a humourous twinkle. He did not 
glance at the new-comers. 

" Sit down," commanded the policeman, " and wait 
your turn." 

The girls sat down uncomfortably on the edge of a 
bench. In a moment they noticed a young man sitting 
near the desk and writing on a small pad of paper. 
He looked up, looked again, regarding them intently, 
then rose and approached the policeman. 



42 The Californians 

" Hello, Tim," he said. " What have you got here? 
A girl in boys -clothes? " 

" That s about the size of it." 

Helena pulled her cap over her eyes and reddened 
to her hair. For the first time she fully realised her 
position. She was Colonel Jack Belmont s daughter, 
and she was waiting in the city prison as a common 
vagrant. Magdale"na bent her head, pulling the shawl 
more closely about her face. 

The young man looked them over sharply. " They 
are the kids of somebodies," he said audibly. " Look 
at their hands. There s a story here." 

Helena turned cold and set her teeth. She had no 
idea who the young man might be, but instinct told 
her that he threatened exposure. 

A few moments later the tramps had gone, and the 
man at the desk asked the policeman what charge he 
preferred against his arrests. 

" This one s a girl in boys clothes, sir, and both, I 
take it, are vagrants. The House of Correction is the 
place for em, I m thinkin ." 

Magdale"na s head sank still lower, and she dug her 
nails into her palms to keep from gasping. But Helena, 
in this crucial moment, was game. She walked boldly 
forward and said authoritatively, 

" I wish to speak alone with you." 

The sergeant recognised the great I AM of the 
American maiden; he also recognised her social al 
titude. But he said, with what severity he could 
muster, 



The Californians 43 

" If you have anything private to say, you can whis 
per it." 

Helena stepped behind the desk and put her lips 
close to his ear. " I am Colonel Jack Belmont s 
daughter," she whispered. " Send me home, quick, 
and he ll make it all right with you to-morrow." 

" A chip of the old block," muttered the sergeant, 
with a smile. " I see. And who is your companion? " 

Helena hesitated. " Do do I need to tell you? " 
she asked. 

" You must," firmly. 

" She s you 11 never breathe it? " 

" You must leave that to my discretion. I shall do 
what is best." 

" She is the daughter of Don Roberto Yorba." 

" O Lord ! O Lord I " He threw back his head 
and gave a prolonged chuckle. 

The young man edged up to the desk. 

"Who is that man?" demanded Helena, haughtily. 
She felt quite mistress of the situation. 

" He s a reporter." 

"What s that?" 

" Why, a reporter for the newspapers." 

" I know nothing of the newspapers," said Helena, 
with an annihilating glance at the reporter. "My 
father does not permit me to read them." 

The sergeant sprang to his feet. " This is no place 
for you," he muttered. "That s the best thing I ve 
heard of Jack Belmont for some time. Here, come 
along, both of you." 



44 The Californians 

He motioned to the girls to enter the passage, and 
turned to the officer. " Don t let anybody leave the 
room till I come back," he said ; and the reporter, 
who had started eagerly forward, fell back with a scowl. 
" There s no story in this, young man," said the 
sergeant, severely ; " and you 11 oblige me, 11 with sig 
nificant emphasis, " by making no reference to it." 

" I think you re just splendid ! " exclaimed Helena, 
as they went down the passage. 

" Oh, well, we all like your father. Although it 
would be a great joke on him, Scott, but it would ! 
However, it would n t be any joke on you a few years 
from now, so I m going to send you home with a little 
good advice, don t do it again." 

" But it s such fun to run to fires ! " replied Helena, 
who now feared nothing under heaven. " We did have 
a time ! " 

" Well, if you re set on running to fires, go in your 
own good clothes, with money enough in your pocket 
to grease the palm of people like our friend Tim. 
Here we are." 

He called a hack and handed the girls in. 

" Please tell him to stop a few doors from the 
house," said Helena ; " and," with her most engaging 
smile, " I m afraid I 11 have to ask you to pay him. 
If you 11 give me your address, I 11 send you the 
amount first thing to-morrow." 

" Oh, don t mention it. Just ask your father to vote 
for Tom Shannon when he runs fo* sheriff. It s no 
use asking anything of old Yorba," he added, with 



The Californians 45 

some viciousness. " And I d advise you, young lady, 
to keep this night s lark pretty dark." 

The remark was addressed to Magdatena, but she 
only lifted her head haughtily and turned it away. 
Helena replied hastily, 

" My father shall vote for you and make all his 
friends vote, too. I won t tell him about this until 
next Wednesday, the day before I leave for New York ; 
then he 11 be feeling so badly he won t say a word, and 
he 11 be so grateful to you that he 11 do anything. 
Good-night." 

" Good-night, miss, and I guess you 11 get along in 
this world." 

As the carriage drove off, Helena threw her arms 
about Magdatena, who was sitting stiffly in the corner. 
" Oh, darling, dearest !" she exclaimed. " What \\ZVQ 
I made you go through? And you re so generous, 
you 11 never tell me what a villain I am. But you 
will forgive me, won t you?" 

" I am just as much to blame as you are. I was not 
obliged to go." 

"But it was dreadful, wasn t it? That horrid low 
policeman ! The idea of his daring to put his hand on 
my shoulder. But we 11 just forget it, and next week, 
to-morrow, it will be as if it never had happened." 

Magdatena made no reply. 

" Lena!" exclaimed Helena, sharply. "You re 
never going to own up?" 

"I must," said Magdale"na, firmly. "I ve done a 
wicked thing. I Ve disobeyed my father, who thinks 



46 The Californians 

it s horrible for girls to be on the street even in the 
daytime alone, and I ve nearly disgraced him. I Ve 
no right not to tell him. I must ! " 

" That s your crazy old New England conscience ! 
If you were all Spanish, you d look as innocent as a 
madonna for a week, and if you were my kind of Cali- 
fornian you d cheek it and make your elders feel that 
they were impertinent for taking you to task." 

" You are half New England." 

" So I am, but I m half Southerner, too, and all 
Californian. I m just beautifully mixed. You re not 
mixed at all ; you re just hooked together. Come now, 
say you won t tell him. He s a terror when he gets 
angry." 

" I must tell him. I d never respect myself again 
if I did n t. I Ve done lots of other things and did n t 
tell, but they didn t matter, that is, not so much. 
He s got a right to know." 

"It s a pity you re not more like him, then you 
wouldn t tell." 

"What do you mean, Helena? I am sure my 
father never told a lie." 

Helena was too generous to tell what she knew. She 
asked instead, " I wonder would your conscience hurt 
you so hard if everything had turned out all right, and 
we were coming home in our own hack? " 

Magdale*na thought a moment. " It might not to 
night, but it would to-morrow. I am sure of that," she 
said. 

Helena groaned. "You are hopeless. Thank 



The Californians 47 

Heaven, I was born without a conscience, that kind, 
anyhow. I intend to be a law all to myself. I m 
Californian clear through into my backbone." 

The hack stopped. The girls alighted and walked 
slowly forward. Mr. Belmont s house was the first of 
the three. 

"Well," said Helena, "here we are. I m going to 
climb up the pillar and walk along the ledge. How 
are you going in? " 

"Through the front door." 

"Well, if you will, you will, I suppose. Kiss me 
good-night." 

Magdatena kissed her and walked on. A half- 
moment later Helena called after her in a loud 
whisper, 

"Take off that shawl!" 

Magdatena lifted her hand to her chin, then dropped 
it. When she reached her own home, she rang the 
bell firmly. The Chinaman who opened the door 
stared at her, the dawn of an expression on his face. 

"Where is Don Roberto?" she asked. 

"In loffice, missee." 

Magdale"na crossed the hall and tapped at the door 
of the small room her father called his office. Don 
Roberto grunted, and she opened the door and went 
in. He was writing, and wheeled about sharply. 

" What ? " he exclaimed. " What the devil ! Take 
that shawl off the head." 

Magdale"na removed the shawl and sat down. 

"I went to a fire," she said. "I got taken up by 



48 The Californians 

a policeman and went to the station. A man named 
Tom Shannon said he would n t lock me up, and sent 
me home. He paid for the carriage." She paused, 
looking at her father with white lips. 

His face had turned livid, then purple. "Diosf" he 
gasped. " Dios /" And then she knew how furious 
her father was. When his life was in even tenor he 
never used his native tongue. "Dios 1" he repeated. 
" Tell that again. You go with that little devil, Helena 
Belmont, I suppose. Madre de Dios I Again ! Again ! " 

"I went to a fire south of Market Street. A 
policeman arrested me for a vagrant. He called me 
a greaser " 

Her father sprang to his feet with a yell of rage. 
He caught his riding-whip from the mantel. 

She stumbled to her feet. " Papa ! " she said. 
" Papa ! You will not do that ! " 

A few moments later she was in her own room. 
The stars shone full on her pretty altar. She turned 
her back on it and sat down on the floor. She had 
not uttered a word as her father beat her. Even now 
she barely felt the welts on her back. But her self- 
respect had been cut through at every blow, and it 
quivered and writhed within her. She hated her 
father and she hated life with an intensity which 
added to her misery, and she decided that she had 
made her last confession to any one but the priest, 
who always forgave her. If she did wrong in the 
future and her father found it out, well and good ; 
but she would not be the one to tell him. 



The Californians 49 



VII 

IT was a part of her punishment that she was to be 
locked in her room until Helena left for New York ; 
but Helena visited her every night in her time-hon 
oured fashion. Magdatena never told of the blows, 
but confinement was a sufficient excuse to her rest 
less friend for any amount of depression ; and Helena 
coaxed twenty dollars out of her father and bought 
books and bonbons for the prisoner, which she care 
fully disposed about her person before making the 
ascent. Magdatena hid her presents in a bureau 
drawer ; and it is idle to deny that they comforted 
her. One of the books was " Jane Eyre," and another 
Mrs. Gaskell s Life of Charlotte Bronte. They fired 
her with enthusiasm, and although she cried all night 
after the equally tearful Helena had said good-bye to 
her, she returned to them next day with undiminished 
enthusiasm. 

The Sunday after Helena s departure she was per 
mitted to go to church. She was attended by her 
mother s maid, a French girl and a fervid Catholic. 
St. Mary s Cathedral, in which Don Roberto owned 
a pew that he never occupied, was at that time on 
the corner of California and Dupont streets. 

Magdale"na prayed devoutly, but only for the re- 
establishment of her self-respect, and the grace of 
oblivion for the degradation to which her father had 
subjected her. Later, she intended to pray that he 

4 



50 The Californians 

might be forgiven, both by herself and God, and that 
his heart should be softened to the poor ; but not yet. 
She must be herself again first. 

Her head had been aching for two days, the result 
of long confinement and too many bonbons. It 
throbbed so during service that she slipped out, whis 
pering to the maid that she only wanted a breath of 
fresh air and would be back shortly. 

She stood for a few moments on the steps. Her 
head felt better, and she noticed how peaceful the city 
looked ; yet, as ever, with its suggestion of latent fev- 
erishness. She had heard Colonel Belmont say that 
there was no other city in the world like it, and as 
she stood there and regarded the precipitous heights 
with their odd assortment of flimsy "palaces" and 
dilapidated structures dating back to the Fifties, she 
felt the vague restlessness that brooded over every 
thing, and understood what he had meant; and she 
also knew that she understood as he had not. Above 
was the dazzling sky, not a fleck in its blue fire. 
There was not a breath of wind in the city. She had 
never known a more peaceful day. And yet, if at 
any moment the earth had rocked beneath her feet, 
she would have felt no surprise. 

She felt the necessity for exercise. It was now over 
a week since she had been out of her room, and dur 
ing that time she had not only studied as usual, but 
read and read and read. She did not remember to 
have ever felt so nervous before. She could not go 
back into the Cathedral ; it was musty in itself and 



The Californians 51 

crowded with the Great Unwashed. But it would 
not be right to disturb Julie. There could be no 
harm in the least bit of a walk alone, particularly as 
her father was in Menlo Park. She glanced about her 
dubiously. Chinatown, which began a block to her 
right, was out of the question, although she would 
have liked to see the women and the funny little 
Chinese babies that she had heard of: the fortu 
nate Helena had been escorted through Chinatown 
by her adoring parent and a policeman. She did not 
care to climb twice the almost perpendicular hill which 
led to her home, and at the foot of the hill was the 
business portion of the city. There was only one 
other way, and it looked quiet and deserted and 
generally inviting. 

She crossed California Street and walked along 
Dupont Street. She saw to her surprise that the 
houses were small and mean ; those the fire had eaten 
had hardly been worse. They had green outside 
blinds and appeared to date from the discovery of 
gold at least. 

"There are poor people so near us," she thought. 
" Even Helena never guessed it. I am glad the plate 
had not been handed round; I will give some one 
my quarter." 

The houses were very quiet. The shutters were 
closed, but the slats were open. She glanced in, but 
saw no one. 

"Probably they are all in the Cathedral," she 
thought. "I am glad it is so close to them." 



52 The Californians 

She walked on, forgetting the houses for the minute, 
absorbed in her new appreciation of the strange sug- 
gestiveness of San Francisco. Again, something was 
shaping itself in her mind, demanding expression. She 
felt that it would have the power to make her forget 
all that she did not wish to remember, and thought 
that perhaps this was the sponge for the slate the 
Virgin was sending in answer to her prayers. 

Suddenly, almost in her ear, she heard a low chuckle. 
She started violently; in all her life she had never 
heard anything so evil, so appalling, as that chuckle. 
It had come from the window at her left. She turned 
mechanically, her spirits sinking with nameless terror. 

Her expanded eyes fastened upon the open shutters. 
A woman sat behind them ; at least, she was cast in 
woman s mould. Her sticky black hair was piled high 
in puffs, an exaggeration of the mode of the day. 
Her thick lips were painted a violent red. Rouge and 
whitewash covered the rest of her face. There was 
black paint beneath her eyes. She wore a dirty pink 
silk dress cut shamefully low. 

The blood burned into Magdatena s cheeks. Of 
sin she had never heard. She had no name for the 
creature before her, but her woman s instinct whispered 
that she was vile. 

The woman, who was regarding her malevolently, 
spoke. Magdatena did not understand the purport 
of her words, but she turned and fled whence she had 
come. As she did so, the chuckle, multiplied a dozen- 
fold, surrounded her. She stopped for a second and 



The Californians 53 

cast a swift glance about her, fascinated, with all her 
protesting horror. 

Behind every shutter which met her gaze was the 
duplicate of the creature who had startled her first. 
As they saw her dismay, their chuckle broke into a 
roar, then split into vocabulary. Magdatena ran faster 
than she had ever run in her life before. Suddenly she 
saw Colonel Belmont sauntering down California Street, 
debonair as ever. His long moustaches swept his 
shoulders. His soft hat was on the back of his head, 
framing his bold handsome dissipated face. His frock- 
coat, but for the lower button, was open, and stood out 
about the dazzling shirt, well revealed by a low vest. 

"Uncle Jack!" screamed Magdatena. "Uncle 
Jack ! " 

Colonel Belmont jumped as if a battery had ripped 
up the ground in front of him. Then he dashed 
across the street. "Good God !" he shouted. "Good 
God!" He caught Magdatena in his arms and car 
ried her back to the shadow of the cross. 

" You two have been possessed by the devil of late," 
he began wrathfully, but Magdatena interrupted him. 

"No! no!" she exclaimed. "I didn t know 
there was anything different there from any other 
street. I did n t mean to." 

" Well, I don t suppose you did. You never know 
where you are in this infernal town, anyhow. Where s 
your maid? " 

But Magdatena had fainted. 



54 The Californians 



VIII 

AFTER that, Magdale"na had brain fever. It was a 
sharp but brief attack, and when she was convalescent 
the doctor ordered her to go to the country at once 
and let her school-books alone. As Mrs. Yorba never 
left her husband for any consideration, Magdale"na was 
sent to Menlo Park with Miss Phelps. The time came 
when Magdale"na hated the monotony of Menlo, with 
its ceaseless calling and driving, its sameness of days 
and conversation ; but at that age she loved the 
country in any form. 

Menlo Park, originally a large Spanish grant, had 
long since been cut up into country places for what 
may be termed the " Old Families of San Francisco." 
The eight or ten families who owned this haughty pre 
cinct were as exclusive, as conservative, as any group 
of ancient county families in Europe. Many of them 
had been established here for twenty years, none for 
less than fifteen. That fact set the seal of gentle 
blood upon them for all time in the annals of Cali 
fornia, a fact in which there is nothing humourous 
if you look at it logically; there is really no reason 
why a new country should not take itself seriously. 

Don Roberto owned a square mile known as Fair 
Oaks, in honour of the ancient and magnificent woods 
upon it. These woods were in three sections, sepa 
rated by meadows, and there was a broad road through 
each, but not a twig of the riotous underbrush had 



The Californians 55 

been sacrificed to a foot-path. A hundred acres about 
the house which was a mile from the entrance to 
the estate had been cleared for extensive lawns, 
ornamental trees, and a deer park. 

Directly in front of the house, across the driveway 
and starting from a narrow walk between two great 
lawns, was a solitary eucalyptus- tree, one of the few in 
the State at the time of its planting. It was some two 
hundred feet high and creaked alarmingly in heavy 
winds j but Don Roberto, despite Mrs. Yorba s protes 
tations, would not have it uprooted : he had a particu 
lar fondness for it because it was so little like the palms 
and magnolias of his youth. 

To the left of the house at the end of an avenue 
of cherry-trees was an immense orchard surrounded 
by an avenue of fig-trees, and English walnut-trees. 

The house was as unlike the adobe mansions of the 
old grandees as was the eucalyptus the palms. It 
was large, square, two-storied, and although of wood, 
of massive appearance. It was, indeed, the most solid- 
looking structure in California at that time. A deep 
verandah traversed three sides of the house, its roof 
making another beneath the bedroom windows. Its 
pillars were hidden under rose vines and wistaria. 
The thirty rooms were somewhat superfluous, as Don 
Roberto would have none of house-parties, but he 
could not have breathed in a small house. The rooms 
were very large and lofty, the floors covered with mat 
ting, the furniture light and plain. Above, as from the 
town house, floated the American flag. 



56 The Californians 

Colonel Belmont s estate adjoined Fair Oaks on one 
side, the Montgomerys on the other ; and the Brannans, 
Kearneys, Gearys, Washingtons, and Folsoms all spent 
their summers in that sleepy valley between the waters 
of the San Francisco and the redwood-covered moun 
tains ; these and others who have nothing to do with 
this tale. Hiram Polk had no home in Menlo, except 
ing in his brother-in-law s house. Some of his wife s 
happiest memories were of the Rancho de los Pulgas, 
and she refused to witness its possession by the hated 
American. So Polk had bought her one of the old 
adobe houses in Santa Barbara, and each year she 
extended the limit of her sojourn in a town where 
memories were still sacred. 



IX 

MAGDALNA was languid and content. She put the 
terrible experiences which had preceded her illness be 
hind her without effort. Her mind dwelt upon the joy 
of living in the sunshine, and upon the hopes of the 
future. She admitted frankly that she was glad to be 
rid of her parents, and only longed for Helena. That 
faithful youngster wrote, twice a week, letters which were 
a succession of fireworks embellished by caricatures of 
such of her teachers and acquaintance as had incurred 
her disapproval. Her aunt, Mrs. Edward Forbes, who 
was one of the leaders of New York society and a 
beauty, was giving her much petting and would take 
her abroad later. 



The Californians 57 

Magdatena read these letters with delight stabbed 
with doubt. More than once she had wondered if 
Helena had been born to realise all her own ambi 
tions. Even her letters were clever and original. 

In a week Magdalena was strong enough to walk in 
the woods, and Miss Phelps placed no restraint upon 
her. She re-read what books she had, then made out 
a list and sent it to her father to purchase, believing 
that he would refuse her nothing after her illness. Don 
Roberto read the note, grunted, and threw it into the 
waste-paper basket. He abominated erudite women, 
and had the scorn of the financial mind for the super 
fluous attributes of the intellectual. Magdalena waited 
a reasonable time, then after a day s hard fight with 
the reticence of her nature, wrote and asked Colonel 
Belmont for the books. He sent them at once, with a 
penitent note and an order on the principal bookseller 
of the city for all that she might want in the future. 
" I will say a prayer to the Virgin for him," thought 
Magdale"na, with a glow at her heart, oblivious that the 
Virgin had refused to intercede with her father. 

The packet contained the lives of a number of men 
and women who had distinguished themselves in let 
ters; but although Magdalena read them twice they 
told her little, save that she must read the works 
of the masters and puzzle out their methods if she 
could. 

Meanwhile, in spite of her studies, she was growing 
strong, for she spent the day out of doors ; and when 
her parents came down on the first of June, they found 



58 The Californians 

her as shy and cold as ever, but with sparkling eyes and 
a faint glow in her cheeks. 

" But never she is beauty," said Don Roberto, that 
evening to Polk, as the two men sat on the verandah, 
smoking. " Before, I resent very much, and say dam 
nation, damnation, damnation. But now I think I no 
mind. Si she is beauty I think more often by that time 
no can help. I wonder si there are the beautiful 
women in the South now, like before ; but, by Jimminy ! 
I like forget the place exeest. I am an American. 
Yes, Great Scott ! " 

He stretched out his little fat legs and rested his 
third chin on his inflexible shirt-front. He felt an 
American, every inch of him, and hated anything that 
reminded him of what he might become did he yield 
to the natural indolence and extravagance of his nature. 
He would gladly have drained his veins and packed 
them with galloping American blood. It grieved him 
that he could not eliminate his native accent, and he 
was persuaded that he spoke the American tongue in all 
its purity, being especially proud of a large assortment 
of expletives peculiar to the land of his adoption. 

Polk gave a short dry laugh and stretched out his 
long hard Yankee legs. Even in the dusk his lan 
tern jaws stood out. There was no doubt about his 
nationality. Those legs and jaws were the objects of 
Don Roberto s abiding envy. 

" Pretty women in the family are a nuisance," said 
Polk. "They want the earth, and don t see why they 
shouldn t get it. I wouldn t have that Helena for 



The Californians 59 

another million. By the way, Jack told me a good 
story on you yesterday." 

Don Roberto grunted. His Spanish pride had not 
abated an inch. He resented being discussed. 

Polk continued : " There were seven or eight men 
talking over old times in the Union Club the other 
night; that is to say, they were reminiscing over the 
various enterprises they had been engaged in, and the 
piles they had made and lost. Our names naturally 
came up, and Brannan said, slowly, as if he were think 
ing it over hard, I don t think I had 
any dealings with Yorba ever. Whereupon 
Washington replied, quick as a shot, You d remem 
ber it if you had. 

Don Roberto scowled heavily. It was one of his 
fictions that he hoodwinked the world. He never 
snapped his fingers in its face as Polk did : exteriorly 
a Yorba must always be a Yorba. 

" Some day when the bank have lend Meester Wash 
ington one hundred thousand dollars, I turn on the 
screw when he no is prepare to pay," he said. And 
he did. 



X 

DURING the following week all Menlo, which had 
moved down before Mrs. Yorba, called on that august 
leader. She received every afternoon on the verandah, 
clad in black or grey lawn, stiff, silent, but sufficiently 



60 The Californians 

gracious. On the day after her arrival, as the first visi 
tor s carriage appeared at the bend of the avenue, its 
advent heralded by the furious barking of two mastiffs, 
a bloodhound, and an English carriage dog, Magdatena 
gathered up her books and prepared to retreat, but her 
mother turned to her peremptorily. 

" I wish you to stay," she said. " You must begin 
now to see something of society. Otherwise you will 
have no ease when you come out. And try to talk. 
Young people must talk." 

" But I can t talk," faltered Magdalena. 

" You must learn. Say anything, and in time it will 
be easy." 

Magdalena realised that her mother was right. If 
she was to overcome her natural lack of facile speech, 
she could not begin too soon. Although she was terri 
fied at the prospect of talking to these people who 
had alighted and were exchanging platitudes with her 
mother, she resolved anew that the time should come 
when she should be as ready of tongue and as graceful 
of speech as her position and her pride demanded. 

She sat down by one of the guests and stammered 
out something about the violets. The young woman 
she addressed was of delicate and excessive beauty: 
her brunette face, under a hat covered with corn- 
coloured plumes, was almost faultless in its outline. 
She wore an elaborate and dainty French gown the 
shade of her feathers, and her small hands and feet 
were dressed to perfection. Magdale"na had heard of 
the beautiful Mrs. Washington, and felt it a privilege to 



The Californians 61 

sun herself in such loveliness. The three elderly ladies 
she had brought with her Mrs. Cartright, Mrs. 
Geary, and Mrs. Brannan were dressed with ex 
treme simplicity. 

" Yes," replied Mrs. Washington, " they are lovely, 
they are, for a fact. Mine have chilblains or some 
thing this year, and won t bloom for a cent. Hang the 
luck ! I m as cross as a bear with a sore head about 
it." 

" Would you like me to pick some of ours for 
you?" asked Magdale"na, wondering if she had better 
model her verbal accomplishments on Mrs. Washing 
ton s. She thought them even more picturesque than 
Helena s. 

" Do ; that s a jolly good fellow." 

When Magdatena returned with the violets, they 
were received with a bewitching but absent smile ; 
another carriage-load had arrived, and all were discus 
sing the advent of a " Bonanza " family, whose huge 
fortune, made out of the Nevada mines, had recently 
lifted it from obscurity to social fame. 

"It s just too hateful that I ve got to call," said 
Mrs. Washington, in her refined melodious voice. 
" Teddy says that I must, because sooner or later we Ve 
all got to know them, old Dillon s a red Indian chief 
in the financial world ; and there s no use kicking 
against money, anyhow. But I can t cotton to that 
sort of people, and I just cried last night when Teddy 
the old darling ! I d do anything to please him 
told me I must call." 



62 The Californians 

" It s a great pity we old families can t keep to 
gether," said Mrs. Brannan, a stout high-nosed dame. 
" There are plenty of others for them to know. Why 
can t they let us alone?" 

" That s just what they won t do," cried Mrs. Wash 
ington. "We re what they re after. What s the 
reason they ve come to Menlo Park? They ll be 
landed aristocracy in less than no time. Hang the 
luck ! " 

"Shall you call, Hannah?" asked Mrs. Cartright. 
" Dear Jack never imposes any restrictions on me, 
he s so handsome about everything ; so I shall be 
guided by you." 

" In time," replied Mrs. Yorba, who also had had a 
meaning conference with her husband. " But I shall 
not rush. Toward the end of the summer, perhaps. 
It would be unwise to take them up too quickly." 

" I ve got to give them a dinner," said Mrs. Wash 
ington, with gloom. " But I 11 put it off till the last 
gun fires. And you ve all got to come. Otherwise 
you ll see me on the war-path." 

" Of course we shall all go, Nelly," said Mrs. Yorba. 
"We will always stand in together." 

The conversation flowed on. Other personalities 
were discussed, the difficulty of getting servants to stay 
in the country, where there was such a dearth of " me 
gentleman frien ," the appearance of the various gar 
dens, and the atrocious amount of water they con 
sumed. 

" I wish to goodness the water- works on top would n t 



The Californians 63 

shut off for eight months in the year," exclaimed Mrs. 
Washington. " Whenever I want something in sum 
mer that costs a pile, Teddy groans and tells me that 
his water bill is four hundred dollars a month." And 
Mrs. Washington, whose elderly and doting husband 
had never refused to grant her most exorbitant whim, 
sighed profoundly. 

Magdale"na did not find the conversation very inter 
esting, nor was she called upon to contribute to it. 
Nevertheless, she received every day with her mother 
and went with her to return the calls. At the end of 
the summer she loathed the small talk and its art, but 
felt that she was improving. Her manner was cer 
tainly easier. She had decided not to emulate Mrs. 
Washington s vernacular, but she attempted to copy 
her ease and graciousness of manner. In time she 
learned to unbend a little, to acquire a certain gentle 
dignity in place of her natural haughty stiffness, and to 
utter the phrases that are necessary to keep conversa 
tion going ; but her reticence never left her for a mo 
ment, her eyes looked beyond the people in whom she 
strove to be interested, and few noticed or cared 
whether or not she was present. But at the end of the 
summer she was full of hope ; society might not inter 
est her, but the pride which was her chief characteristic 
commanded that she should hold a triumphant place 
among her peers. 

She had told neither of her parents of the books 
Colonel Belmont had given her, knowing that the re 
sult would be a violent scene and an interdiction. At 



64 The Californians 

this stage of her development she had no defined ideas 
of right and wrong. Upon such occasions as she had 
followed the dictates of her conscience, the conse 
quences had been extremely unpleasant, and in one 
instance hideous. She was indolent and secretive by 
nature, and she slipped along comfortably and did not 
bother her head with problems. 



XI 

THE Yorbas returned to town on the first of November. 
It was decided that Magdale*na should continue her 
studies, but the rainy days and winter evenings gave 
her long hours for her books. She found, to her de 
light, that her brain was losing something of its inflexi 
bility ; that, by reading slowly, one perusal of an ordinary 
book was sufficient. Her memory was still incomplete, 
but it was improving. Her mother had ceased to 
overlook her choice of books, being satisfied that 
Magdale*na would never care for trash. 

Magdale"na always found the big dark house oppres 
sive after the months in Menlo Park, and went out as 
often as she could. On fine days, attended by Julie, 
she usually walked down to the Mercantile Library, 
and prowled among the dusty shelves. The old Mer 
cantile Library in Bush Street, almost in the heart of 
the business portion of the city, had the most vener 
able air of any building in California. There was, 
indeed, danger of coming out covered with blue mould. 



The Californians 65 

And it was very dark and very gloomy. It has always 
been suspected that it was a favourite resort for sui 
cides, but this, happily, has never been proved. 

But Magdale"na loved it, for it held many thousand 
volumes, and they were all at her disposal. Her mem 
bership was worth more to her than all her father s 
riches. Julie, who hated the library, always carried a 
chair at once to the register and closed her eyes, that 
she might not be depressed to tears by the gloom and 
the walls of books, which were bound as became all 
that was left of the dead. 

It was during one of these visits that Magdale"na 
approached another crisis of her inner life. She was 
wandering about aimlessly, hardly knowing what she 
wanted, when her eye was caught by the title of a book 
on an upper shelf: "Conflict between Religion and 
Science." She knew nothing about science, but she 
wondered in what manner religion could conflict with 
anything. She took the book down and read the first 
few lines, then the page, then the chapter, still stand 
ing. When she had finished she made as if to replace 
the book, then put it resolutely under her arm, called 
Julie, and went home. 

She read during the remainder of the afternoon, and 
as far into the night as she dared. Before she went to 
bed she said her prayers more fervently than ever, and 
the next morning considered deeply whether or not 
she should return the book half read. She finally con 
cluded to finish it. Her intellect was voracious, and 
she had no other companion but her religion. More- 

5 






66 The Californians 

over, if she was to aspire to a position in the world of 
letters, she must equip her mind with the best that had 
gone before. She had every faith in the power of the 
Catholic religion to hold its own ; her hesitation had 
been induced, not by fear of disturbing her faith, but 
because she doubted, pricked by the bigotry in her 
veins, if it was loyal to recognise the existence of the 
enemy. 

However, she finished the book. On the following 
Saturday morning she went down to the library and 
asked the librarian, who took some interest in her, 
what he would advise her to read in the way of sci 
ence ; she had lost all taste for anything else. 

" Well, Darwin is about the best to begin on, I 
should say," he replied. " He s easy reading on ac 
count of his style. And then I should advise you to 
read Fiske s Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy before 
you tackle Herbert Spencer or Huxley or Tyndall." 

Magdale"na took home Darwin s " Origin of Species " 
and " Descent of Man." They so fascinated her that 
not until their contents had become a permanent part 
of her mental furnishing did she realise their warfare 
on revealed religion. But by this time science had 
her in its mighty grip. 

She read all that the librarian had recommended, 
and much more. It was some six months later that 
she fully realised that her faith was gone. There came 
a time when her simple appeals to the Virgin stuck in 
her throat ; when she realised that her beloved masters, 
if they could have seen her telling a rosary at the foot 
of her altar, would have thought her a fool. 



The Californians 67 

There was no struggle, for the work was done, and 
finally. But her grief was deep and bitter. Religion 
had been a strong inherited instinct, and it had been 
three fourths of her existence for nearly eighteen years. 
She felt as if the very roots of her spirit had been torn 
up and lay wilting and shrivelling in the cold light of 
her reason. She was terrified at her new position. 
How was she, a mere girl, to think for herself, to make 
her way through life, which every great writer told her 
was a complex and crucifying ordeal, with no guide but 
her own poor reason ? 

For the first time she felt her isolation. She had no 
one to go to for sympathy, no one to advise her. Of 
all she knew, her parents were the last she could have 
approached on any subject involving the surrender of 
her reticence. 

She lost interest in her books, and brooded, her 
mind struggling toward will-o -the-wisps in a fog-bank, 
until she could endure her solitary position no longer ; 
she felt that she must speak to some one or her brain 
would fall to ashes. Her aunt was still in Santa Bar 
bara, and showed no disposition to return. A priest 
was out of the question. There was no one but Colonel 
Belmont. Magdale"na knew nothing of his private life : 
not a whisper had reached her secluded ears ; but she 
doubted if religion were his strong point. But he had 
always been kind, and she knew him to be clever. It 
took her a week to make up her mind to speak to him 
and to decide what to say; but when her decision 
was finally reached, she walked through the connect- 



68 The Californians 

ing gardens one evening with firm tread and set 
lips. 

She entered the house by a side door and went to 
the library, where she knew Colonel Belmont smoked 
his after-dinner cigar when at home. A cordial voice 
answered her knock. When she entered he rose and 
came forward with the graceful hospitality which never 
failed him in the moments of his liveliest possession, 
and with the acute interest which anything feminine 
and young never failed to inspire. 

" Well, honey ! " he exclaimed, kissing her warmly 
and handing her to a chair ; " you might have done 
this before. I m such a lonely childless old widower." 

" Oh ! " said Magdatena, with contrition ; " I never 
thought you d care to see me." She could not know 
that he seldom permitted himself to be alone. 

" Well, now you know it, you 11 come oftener, won t 
you? Have you heard from my baby lately? I had 
a letter a yard long this morning. She can write ! " 

" I had one too." She hesitated a moment, then 
determined to speak at once. She could not hold this 
nor any man s attention in ordinary conversation, and 
she wanted to finish before she wearied him. 

"Uncle Jack," she said, "I ve come to see you 
about something in particular. I know so few people, 
or I would n t bore you " 

" Don t you talk about boring me, honey, you ! 
Why, your old Uncle Jack would do anything for 
you." 

A light sprang into Magdaldna s eyes. Colonel Bel- 



The Californians 69 

mont forgot for the moment that she was not beautiful, 
and warmed to interest at once. Few people had ever 
withstood Jack Belmont s magnetism, and Magdatena 
found it easy to speak. 

" It is this," she said. " I have been reading books 
lately that have taken my religion from me ; it has 
gone utterly. I want to ask you what I shall do, if 
there is anything to take its place. I I feel as 
if I could not get along without something." 

Colonel Belmont made a faint exclamation and 
wheeled about, staring at the fire. His first impulse 
was to laugh, so ludicrous was the idea that anyone 
should come to him for spiritual advice ; his second 
to get out of the room. He did neither, however, 
and ordered his intelligence to work. 

He did not speak for some time ; and Magdal^na, 
for the first moment, watched him intently, scarcely 
breathing. Then her attention wandered from herself, 
and she studied his profile. She noted for the first 
time how worn it was, the bags under the injected 
eyes, the heavy lines about the mouth. She had no 
name for what she saw written in that face, but she 
suddenly felt herself in the presence of one of life s 
mysteries. Of man s life she knew nothing noth 
ing. What did this man do when he was not at home ? 
Who were his friends besides her morose father, her 
cold dry uncle? She felt Belmont s difference from 
both, and could not know that they had much in com 
mon. What circumstances had imprinted that face so 
differently from the few faces familiar to her? For the 



70 The Californians 

first time man in the concrete interested her. She sud 
denly realised how profound was her ignorance, de 
spite the lore she had gathered from books, realised 
dimly but surely that there was a vast region called 
life for her yet to explore, and that what bloomed for 
a little on its surface was called human nature. She 
gave an involuntary shiver and sank back in her chair. 
At the same moment Colonel Belmont looked round. 

"Someone walking over your grave?" he asked, 
smiling. " What you asked came on me right sud 
denly, Lena. I couldn t answer it all in a minute. 
You didn t say much you never do; so I under 
stand how you Ve been taking this thing to heart. 
I m sorry you Ve lost your religion, for it stands a 
woman in mighty well. They have the worst of it in 
this life." Perhaps he was thinking of his wife. His 
face was very sober. " But if you have lost it, that is 
the end of the chapter as far as you are concerned. 
All I can think of is this " the words nearly choked 
him, but he went on heroically : " Do what you think 
is right in little matters as well as in great. You Ve 
been properly brought up ; you know the difference 
between right and wrong ; and all your instincts are 
naturally good, if I know anything about women. As 
you grow older, you will see your way more clearly. 
You won t have the temptations that many women 
have, so that it will be easier for you than for some 
of the poor little devils. And you 11 never be poor. 
You 11 find it easier than most and I m glad of it ! " 
he added with a burst of warm sympathy. Emotional 



The Californians 71 

by nature, the unaccustomed experience had brought 
him to the verge of tears ; and Magdalena, forlorn and 
lonely, but thanking him mutely with her eloquent eyes, 
appealed to the great measure of chivalry in him. 

" I am glad I spoke to you, Uncle Jack," she said 
after a moment. " You have given me much to think 
about, and I am sure I shall get along much better. 
Thanks, ever so much." 

She did not rise to go, but was silent for several 
moments. Then she asked abruptly, 

" What do you mean by women having temptations ? 
I know by the way you said it that you don t mean 
just ordinary every-day temptations." 

Colonel Belmont glanced about helplessly. His elo 
quence had carried him away ; he had not paused to 
take feminine curiosity into account. He encountered 
Magdale"na s eyes. They were fixed on him with 
solemn inquiry, and they were very intelligent eyes. 
Did he take refuge in verbiage, she would not be 
deceived. Did he refuse to continue the conversation, 
she would be hurt. In either case her imagination 
would have been set at work, and she might go far, and 
in the wrong direction, to satisfy her curiosity. Once 
more he stared at the fire. 

To his daughter he could have said nothing on such 
a subject : he was too old-fashioned, too imbued with 
the chivalrous idea of the South of his generation that 
women were of two kinds only, and that those who 
had been segregated for men to love and worship 
and marry must never brush the skirts of their thought 



72 The Californians 

against the sin of the world. They were ideal creatures 
who would produce others like themselves, and men 
like himself. 

But as he considered he realised that he had a duty 
toward Magdalena, which grew as he thought : she 
needed help and advice and had come to him, having 
literally no one else to go to. After all, might she not 
have temptations which would pass his beautiful, quick 
witted, triumphant daughter by? Helena, with the 
world at her feet, would have little time for brooding, 
little time for anything but the lighter pleasures of life 
under his watchful eye, until she loved and passed to 
the keeping of a man who, he hoped, would be far 
stronger and finer than himself. But Magdalena? 
Repressed, unloved, intellectual, disappointed at every 
turn, passionate undoubtedly, there was no knowing 
to what sudden extremes desperation might drive her. 
And the woman, no matter how plain, had yet to be 
born who could not be utterly bad if she put her mind 
to it. It was not only his duty to warn Magdalena, 
but to give her such advice as no mortal had ever 
heard from his lips before, nor ever would hear again. 

He drew a long breath and wheeled about. Mag 
dalena was leaning forward, staring at him intently. 
There was no self-consciousness in her face, and he 
realised in a flash that he would merely talk into a 
brain. Her woman s nature would not be awakened 
by the homily of an elderly man. The task became 
suddenly light. 

" Well, it s just this : There s no moral lasv govern- 



The Californians 73 

ing the animal kingdom ; but men and women were 
allowed to develop into speaking, reasoning, generally 
intelligent beings for one purpose only : to make the 
world better, not worse. Their reasoning faculty may 
or may not be a spark of the divine force behind the 
universe ; but there s no doubt about the fact, not the 
least, that every intelligent being knows that he ought 
to be at least two thirds good, and in his better mo 
ments which come to the worst he has a desire 
to be wholly good, or at least better than he has ever 
been. In other words, the best of men strive more 
or less constantly toward an ideal (and the second- 
best strive sometimes) which, if realised, would make 
this world a very different place. I believe myself 
that it is this instinct alone which is responsible for 
religions, a desire for a concrete form of goodness to 
which man can cling when his own little atom is over 
whelmed by the great measure of weakness in him. 
Do you follow me ? " 

Magdatena nodded, but she did not look satisfied. 

" Well, this is the point : The world might be prosaic 
without sin, but it is right positive that women would 
suffer less. And if it could be pounded into every 
woman s head that she was a fool to think twice about 
any man she could not marry, and that she threatened 
the whole social structure every time she brought a 
fatherless child into the world ; that she made possible 
such creatures as you saw in Dupont Street, and a long 
and still more hideous sequelae, every time she delib 
erately violated her own instinct for good, we d all 



74 The Californians 

begin to develop into what the Almighty intended us to 
be when He started us off on our long march. Don t 
misunderstand me ! Even if I were not such a sinner 
myself, I d be deuced charitable where love was con 
cerned, marriage or no marriage O Lord ! I 
did n t mean to say that. Forget it until you re thirty ; 
then remember it if you like, for your brain is a good 
one. Look, promise me something, Le"na ; " he leaned 
forward eagerly and took her hand. " Promise me, 
swear it, that until you are thirty you 11 never do any 
thing your instincts and your intelligence don t assure 
you is right, really right without any sophistry. Of 
course I mean in regard to men. I don t want you 
to make yourself into a prig but I am sure you 
understand." 

" I think I do," said Magdatena. " I promise." 
" Thank goodness, for you 11 never break your word. 
You may be tempted more than once to kick the 
whole stupid game of life to the deuce and go out on 
a bat like a man, but console yourself with this : you d 
be a long sight worse off when you got through than 
when you started, and you d either go - to smash 
altogether or spend the rest of your life trying to get 
back where you were before ; and sackcloth hurts. 
There is n t one bit of joy to be got out of it. If you 
can t get the very best in this world, take nothing. 
That s the only religion for a woman to cling to, and 
if she does cling to it she can do without any other." 

Magdatena rose. " Good-night," she said. " I 11 
never forget a word of it, and I m very much obliged." 



The Californians 75 

She kissed him and had half crossed the room before 
he sprang to his feet and went hastily forward to open 
the door. He went to her father s house with her, 
then returned to his library fire. To the surprise of 
his servants, he spent the evening quietly at home. 



XII 

A YEAR from the following June, and two days after 
her arrival in Menlo, Magdalena went into the middle 
woods. The great oaks were dusty already, their 
brilliant greens were dimming ; but the depths of the 
woods were full of the warm shimmer of summer, of 
the mysterious noises produced by creatures never 
seen, by the very heat itself, perchance by the riotous 
sap in the young trees which had sprung to life from 
the roots of their mighty parents. 

Magdale"na left the driveway and pushed in among 
the brush. Poison oak did not affect her; and she 
separated the beautiful creeper fearlessly until she 
reached a spot where she was as sure of being alone 
and unseen as if she had entered the bowels of the 
earth. She sat down on the warm dry ground and 
looked about her for a moment, glad in the sense of 
absolute freedom. Above the fragrant brush of many 
greens rose the old twisted oaks, a light breeze rust 
ling their brittle leaves, their arms lifted eagerly to the 
warm yellow bath from above. Near her was a high 
pile of branches and leaves, the home of a wood-rat. 



76 The Californians 

No sound came from it, and mortal had nothing to fear 
from him. A few birds moved among the leaves, but 
the heat made them lazy, and they did not sing. 

After a few moments, MagdaMna s glance swept the 
wall of leaves that surrounded her; then she took a 
pencil and a roll of foolscap from her pocket. She had 
made up her mind that the time had come for her first 
essay in fiction. For two years and a half she had 
studied and thought to this end ; too reverent to criti 
cise, but taking the creators structures to pieces as 
best she could and giving all attention to parts and 
details. 

She had had a nebulous idea in her mind for some 
time. It had troubled her that it did not assume 
definite form, but she trusted to that inspiration of 
the pen of which she had read much. 

Her hand trembled so that she could not write for a 
few moments. She put the pencil down, not covering 
her face with her hands as a more demonstrative girl 
would have done, but biting her lips. Her heart beat 
suffocatingly. For the first time she fully realised what 
the power to write would mean to her. Her religion 
had gone, that dear companion of many years; she 
had practised faithfully until six months ago, when she 
had asked her teacher to tell her father that she could 
never become even a third-rate musician ; and Don 
Roberto had, after a caustic hour, concluded that he 
would " throw no more good money after bad ; " she 
had had long and meaning conferences with her mirror, 
conjuring up phantasms of the beautiful dead women 



The Californians 77 

of her race, and decided sadly that the worship of man 
was not for her. She had never talked for ten con 
secutive minutes with a young man ; but she had a 
woman s instincts, she had read, she had listened to 
the tales of her aunt, and she knew that what man 
most valued in woman she did not possess. Her great 
position and the graces she hoped to cultivate might 
gratify her ambitions in a measure, but they would not 
companion her soul. Books were left ; but books are 
too heterogeneous an interest to furnish a vital one 
in life, a reason for being alive. She had read of the 
jealous absorption of art, of the intense exclusive love 
with which it inspired its votaries. She had read of 
the joys of creation, and her whole being had re 
sponded ; she felt that did her brain obey her will and 
shape itself to achievement, she too would know ecstasy 
and ask nothing more of life. 

Her nerves settled, and she began to write. Her 
reading had been confined to the classics of the old 
world : not only had she not read a modern novel, 
but of the regnant lights of her own country, Mr. 
Howells and Mr. James, she had never heard. She 
may have seen their names in the " Literary Bulletin 
her bookseller sent her, but had probably gathered that 
they were biologists. There was no one to tell her that 
the actors and happenings within her horizon were the 
proper substance for her creative faculty. California 
had whispered to her, but she had not understood. 
Her intention was to write a story of England in the 
reigns of Oliver Cromwell and Charles the Second. 



7 8 The Californians 

The romance of England appealed to her irresistibly. 
The mass of virgin ore which lay at her hand did not 
provoke a flash of magnetism from her brain. 

She wrote very slowly. An hour passed, and she had 
only covered a page. Her head ached a little from 
the intense concentration of mind. Her fingers were 
stiff. Finally, she laid her pencil aside and read what 
she had written. It was a laboured introduction to the 
story, an attempt to give a picture of the times. She 
was only nineteen and a novice, but she knew that what 
she had written was rubbish. It was a trite synopsis of 
what she had read, of what everybody knew; and 
the English, although correct, was commonplace, the 
vocabulary cheap. She set her lips, tore it up, and 
began again. At the end of another hour she 
destroyed the second result. 

Then she determined to skip the prologue for the 
present and begin the story. For many long moments 
she sat staring into the brush, her brain plodding 
toward an opening scene, an opening sentence. At 
last she began to write. She described the hero. He 
was walking down the great staircase of a baronial hall, 
in which he had lain concealed, and the company 
below were struck dumb with terror and amazement at 
the apparition. She got him to the middle of the 
stair ; she described his costume with fidelity ; she 
wrote of the temper of the people in the great hall. 
Then she dropped the pencil. What was to happen 
thereafter was a blank. 

She read what she had written. It was lifeless. It 



The Californians 79 

was not fiction. The least of Helena s letters was 
more virile and objective than this. 

Again that mysterious indefinable presentiment as 
sailed her. It was the first time that it had come since 
that night she had stood on the balcony and opened 
her brain to literary desire. Had that presentiment 
meant anything since compassed ? Her father s cruel 
treatment? Her terrible experience in the street of 
painted women? Her illness? The loss of her re 
ligion? It was none of these things. So far, it had 
not been fulfilled ; and it had struck its warning note 
again. She shivered, then discovered that the yellow 
light was no longer about her, and that her head 
ached. She rose stiffly and put the torn scraps of 
paper in her pocket. As she left, she cast a curious 
glance about her retreat, not knowing what prompted 
it. The scent of newly upturned earth came to her 
nostrils ; a bird flew down on the rat s nest, starting 
along the sides a shower of loose earth; the frogs 
were chanting hoarsely. 



XIII 

THE next morning the natural buoyancy of youth 
asserted itself; she reasoned that a long hard appren 
ticeship had been the lot of many authors, and deter 
mined that she would write a page a day for years, if 
need be, until her tardy faculty had been coaxed 
from its hard soil and trained to use. 



8o The Californians 

She could not go to the woods that day : her mother 
expected callers. 

"Your birthday is a week from Wednesday," Mrs. 
Yorba said as they sat on the verandah. " Your father 
and I have decided to give a dinner. You will not 
come out formally, of course, until winter ; but a little 
society during the summer will take off the stiff 
ness." 

Magdalena turned cold. " But, mamma ! I cannot 
talk to young men." 

"You expect to begin sometime, do you not? I 
shall also take you to any little entertainment that is 
given in Menlo this summer ; and as the Brannans and 
Montgomerys are back from Europe, they arrived 
last Thursday, there may be several. The older girls 
gave little parties before they married ; but there have 
not been any grown girls in Menlo for some years now. 
Rose Geary and Caro Folsom, who spent last summer 
in the East, will spend this in Menlo, so that there will 
be five of you, besides Nelly Washington." 

Magdalena knew that the matter was settled. She 
had given a good deal of imagination to the time when 
she should be a young lady, but the immediate pros 
pect filled her with dismay. Then, out of the knowl 
edge that her lines had been chosen for her, she 
adapted herself, as mortals do, and experienced some 
of the pleasures of anticipation. 

" I believe I did not tell you," her mother resumed, 
" that I wrote to Helena some time ago asking her to 
bring back four dresses for you, a ball dress for your 



The Californians 81 

de"but, an English walking suit, a calling dress, and a 
dinner dress." 

Magdale"na had never given a thought to dress but 
this sudden announcement that she was to have four 
gowns from Paris and London pricked her with an in 
timation that the interests of life were more varied than 
she had suspected. She wondered vividly what they 
would be like, and recalled several of Nelly Washing 
ton s notable gowns. 

" You are to have forty dollars a month after your 
birthday, and your father will permit me to get you 
three dresses a year ; everything else must come out of 
your allowance. You will keep an account-book and 
show it to your father every month, as I do. Oh 
and there is another thing : a Mr. Trennahan of New 
York has brought letters to your father. He is a man 
of some importance, is wealthy and has been Secre 
tary of Legation twice, and comes of a distinguished 
family; we must do something for him, and have 
decided to ask him down to your dinner. That will 
kill two birds with one stone. He can also stay 
a day or two, and we will show him the different 
places." 

" A strange man in the house for two days," gasped 
Magdalena, forgetting that she was to have forty dollars 
a month. 

" He can take care of himself most of the time. 
Here come Nelly." 

Mrs. Washington s ponies were rounding the deer 
park. Magdalena craned her neck. 

6 



82 The Californians 

"She has some one with her," she said. And in 
another half- moment : "Tiny Montgomery and Ila 
Brannan." 

Magdatena clasped her hands tightly to keep them 
from trembling. What would they think of her? She 
saw that they were smartly dressed. Doubtless they 
were very grand and clever indeed, and would think 
her more trying than ever. But although all her shy 
ness 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 un 
interesting, but not gauche. 

The girls came gracefully forward and kissed her 
warmly. 

"Dear Le"na," said Miss Montgomery. "We 
would n 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, Le"na ! I should never 
have known you." And if her tone was conventional, 
it fell upon ears untuned to conventions. 

It was Magdale"na s first compliment, and she thrilled 
with pleasure. " My face looks very much the same 
in the glass," 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 



The Californians 83 

began at once to talk of her delight in being home 
again, and Magdale"na had time to recover herself. 

Tiny Montgomery was an exquisitely pretty little 
creature, very small but admirably proportioned, al 
though 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 beauti 
ful, the smile as sweet as the eyes. She had the small 
est 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 sug 
gestion 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. Magdale"na 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." 



84 The Californians 

"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 dis 
turbed, and peeped surreptitiously into the polished 
glass of the window. 

" She 11 have all the men wild about her," announced 
Ha ; 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 de 
grees. " Helena ! How can you think of such a 
thing in connection with her ! " 

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

Tiny frowned. " You know, Ha," 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 



The Californians 85 

in her eyes ; and Ila, unabashed, rose and said, " I 
think I 11 go over and talk scandal for awhile," and 
joined the older women, whose numbers had been 
reinforced. 

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

" You look so intellectual, Le* na. 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 pros 
pect 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, Magdale na 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 real 
ised 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 al 
together. I have what I care much more for. But I 
must see them nearly every day and try to interest 



86 The Californians 

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 Magdale"na. 



XIV 

WHETHER or not to tell her parents of her determina 
tion to write had been a matter of momentous con 
sideration to Magdale"na. 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 con 
solation for what she had lost. She knew, by reading 
and instinct, that life was full of pitfalls, but her in 
telligence 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 



The Californians 87 

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 pos 
session ; 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 infor 
mally with her friends. How Magdatena 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 
Magdatena, but in the country she rode through the 
woods unattended every morning. The exhilaration 
of these early rides filled Magdale"na s soul with con 
tent. 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 



88 The Californians 

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 serenad 
ing beneath her casement. For two years she had 
dreamed that dream, and then it had curled up and 
fallen to dust under Helena s ridicule. Magdale"na 
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 acquaint 
ance 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. Magda- 
le"na 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 an 
nounced her intention to lie down until the last 
minute. 

Magdatena had received a number of pretty pres 
ents from her aunt and friends, a cablegram from 
Colonel Belmont and Helena, and from her father a 



The Californians 89 

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 passed 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. 

Magdal^na 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 dis 
approval. 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 noble 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 encour 
agement 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. 



90 The Californians 

Magdalna 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 constitutional. 

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 
Magdale"na 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. 

"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 



The Californians 91 

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. Magdale"na 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 culti 
vated, and the house is very pretty." 




92 The Californians 

" 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. 



The Californians 93 

" 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 down 
stairs?" 

"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 Magdale"na 
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 show 
ing little of arm and neck. Mrs. Washington was in 
pink ; Tiny in white and a seraphic expression ; Rose 



94 The Californians 

wore black net and red slippers, a bunch of red gera 
niums 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, Magdatena 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 ve-ry 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 ambassador 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, 



The Californians 95 

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 inti 
mated how the rest were to be coupled, the women 
arranged the matter to suit themselves. Mrs. Cart- 
right went in with Don Roberto, Mrs. Washington with 
Polk; there were no other married women present. 
As Charley Rollins was standing by Magdale"na, 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 ap 
proaching their first season are not easily affected by 
atmosphere ; and those present to-night, with the 
exception of Magdale"na 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 super 
latives 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 



96 The Californians 

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 
Magdale"na, and she found herself trying to overhear 
the remarks of Trennahan, who was doing his labori 
ous 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 amusement, 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 weari 
some 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 Magdatena s left was a blond and 
babbling youth named Ellis, who made no secret of 
the fact that he was afraid of his intellectual neigh 
bour ; he stammered and blushed every time she spoke 
to him. He had gone in with Rose Geary, a blonde 



The Californians 97 

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 Magdalna, 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 care 
fully 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 Mag- 
dalena, who was sitting alone on the window-seat. 

7 



98 The Californians 

" You have done so we//, Le"na 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." 

Magdale"na 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 11 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 aspi 
rations." 

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

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



The Californians 99 

"Types?" 

"Yes; women that a man has been used to for 
many long weary years, to put it in another way." 

" But surely you find Ila very fascinating? " 

"Oh, yes; but one understands the fascination so 
well ; and it gives so much pleasure to twenty-two, 
that it is almost immoral for an old fogy like myself to 
monopolise it. I don t understand you in the least, 
so I am here." 

Magdale"na trembled a little. The nineteen years of 
her life suddenly assumed a glad complexion, lifting 
her spirit to the level of her mates. She tried to recall 
the sad and bitter experiences of her brief past, but 
they scampered down into the roots of memory. 

He did not speak again for a time, beyond asking if 
he might smoke. He was quite sincere for the mo 
ment ; but he understood the much of her that was 
salient to his trained eye. Her parents, her timid re 
serve, so unlike that of other American girls favoured 
by fortune, her ignorance of certain conventionalities, 
the very fashion of her hair, the very incompatibility of 
her costume and colouring, told him two thirds of her 
short history. Of the history of her inner life he 
guessed little, but believed that she had both depth 
of mind and intensity of feeling. To get her confi 
dence would be next to impossible ; it was therefore 
well worth the effort. If she proved as interesting as he 
suspected, he believed that he should feel disposed to 
marry her did she only have a complexion. He was 
weary straight down into the depths of his weary soul 



ioo The Californians 

of the women and the girls of the world ; but he also 
abhorred a sallow skin. He had worshipped beauty in 
his day, and was by no means impervious to it yet ; 
but he felt that he could overlook Magdale~na s nose 
and mouth and elementary figure for the sake of her 
eyes and originality, did she only possess the primary 
essential of beauty. A man regards a woman s lack of 
complexion as a personal grievance. 

If the American habit of monologue had been a part 
of Trennahan s inheritance, his foreign training had 
long since lifted it up by the roots ; but he saw that if 
he was to make progress with this silent girl, he must 
do the talking. He could be both brilliant and amus 
ing when he chose, and he exerted himself as hd had 
not done for some time. He was rewarded by a rapt 
attention, a humble and profound admiration that would 
have flattered a demi-god. And in truth he was a 
demi-god to this girl, with her experience of elderly 
old-fashioned men and an occasional callow youth 
encountered on a verandah in summer. 

They followed the driveway that curved between one 
of the two larger lawns and the deer park. The lawn 
was set thickly along its edge and sparsely on its sweep 
with fragrant trees and shrubs. Beyond the deer park 
was the black mass of the woods. The air was sweet 
with the mingled breath of June roses, orange blossoms, 
and the pepper-tree. After a time their way lay 
through a dark avenue of immense oaks, and the per 
fumes came from the Mariposa lilies in the fields 
beyond. 



The Californians 101 

If Trennahan had been with Ila, he would have con 
ducted himself as his surroundings and his companion 
demanded : he would have made love. But he was a 
man who rarely made a mistake ; he talked to Magda- 
tena of the difference between California and the many 
other countries he had visited, and answered her eager 
questions about life in the great capitals. As they were 
returning, he said to her, 

" You say you ride before breakfast. Do you think 
I might join you to-morrow? Your father has been 
kind enough to place his stable at my disposal." 

"Oh I I don t know. My father is very 
Spanish, although he doesn t like you to call it 
that." 

"May I ask him?" 

" Oh, yes, you could ask him." 

When they reached the house he sought his host in 
the billiard-room. The game was over, and Don Ro 
berto, Mr. Polk, and Mr. Washington were seated in 
front of the mantelpiece with their feet on the shelf. 
It was Don Roberto s favourite attitude ; he felt that 
it completed the structure of his Americanism. He 
could only reach the tip of the shelf with the points of 
his little elegant feet, but he was just as comfortable as 
Mr. Polk, whose feet, large and booted, were planted 
against the wall. Mr. Washington, who was a most 
correct gentleman, with the illustrious forbears his 
name suggested, had never lifted his feet to one of his 
own mantels in his life ; but Don Roberto s guests 
always humoured this little hobby, among many others. 



IO2 The Californians 

"Ay, the Mr. Trennahan," said Don Roberto, gra 
ciously. " We make room for you." 

The others moved along, and Trennahan, seeing 
what was expected of him, brought a chair and ele 
vated his feet among the Chinese bric-a-brac. He 
accepted a choice cigar there were certain luxuries 
in which Don Roberto never economised and added 
his quota to the anecdotes of the hearthstone. As his 
were fresh and the others as worn as an old wedding- 
ring, it was not long before he had an audience which 
would brook no interruption but applause. 

A Chinaman brought a peremptory message from 
Mrs. Washington, and the feet on the mantel were 
reduced to six. When these came down, two hours 
later, Trennahan said to Don Roberto, 

" May I ride with Miss Yorba to-morrow before 
breakfast?" 

"Yes; I no mind," said the don, beaming with 
approval of his new friend. " But the boy, he go too. 
My daughter, no must ride alone with the gentleman. 
And you no leave the grounds, remember." 



XVI 

WHEN Magdale"na went up to her room, she spread all 
her pretty gifts on the table and asked herself if they 
were the secret of this novel feeling of content with 
herself and her world. She studied the mirror and 
fancied that she was not so plain as usual. Her eyes 



The Californians 103 

returned to her presents, and she shook her head. 
Her mind worked slowly, but it worked logically ; nor 
was that imagination hers which keeps woman in a 
fool s paradise long after all but the husk of her 
Adam has gone. 

"It is Mr. Trennahan," she admitted reluctantly but 
ruthlessly. " He is so clever and so agreeable no, 
fascinating that for the first time I forgot myself, 
and when I remembered was not unhappy because I 
am not beautiful nor clever. The world must be 
much nicer than I thought if there are many people 
like that in it." 

To love she did not give a thought, but she smiled 
to herself after the light was out, and, still smiling, fell 
asleep. 

The next morning she was downstairs by six 
o clock, but found Trennahan before her. As he 
approached her, he had been sauntering up and 
down the drive, she wondered what he thought of 
her costume. As she was not allowed to leave the 
grounds, a habit had never been thought necessary 
for the heiress of the house of Yorba. She had worn 
for the past two years one of her mother s discarded 
black skirts and a cotton blouse. But it is doubtful 
if an inspired mind-reader could have made anything 
of such thoughts as Trennahan wished to conceal. 

"You look as fresh as the morning," he said, with a 
gallantry which was mechanical, but true and delight 
ful to a girl in her first experience of compliments. 

"Did you sleep well?" she asked. "I hope the 



IO4 The Californians 

mosquitoes did not keep you awake. They are very 
bad." 

" I believe they are, but I received a friendly warn 
ing from Mr. Polk and rubbed the leather which pro 
tects my skull with vinegar. I think it was superfluous, 
but at all events I slept undisturbed." 

Magdatena regarded his skin attentively, much to 
his amusement. "It is thick," she said, feeling that 
she could not honestly reassure him, but quite posi 
tive that he expected her to answer. 

He laughed heartily. "Oh!" he said. "What a 
pity you must come out ! I am a convert to the Old- 
Californian system. But here are the horses." 

The improvised groom, a sulky and intensely self- 
conscious stable-boy, led up the horses, and Magdale"na 
put her foot in Trennahan s hand. 

" Oh ! " he exclaimed, with a note of real admira 
tion in his voice ; and Magdatena nearly fell over the 
other side of her horse. 

They cantered off sharply, the boy following a good 
thirty yards behind, feeling uncommonly sheepish when 
he was not thinking angrily of his neglected chores. 
It was not thought good form in Menlo Park to put 
on the trappings of Circumstance. Mrs. Washington 
drove a phaeton and took a boy in the rumble to open 
the gates ; but the coachmen when driving the usual 
char-a-banc or wagonette performed this office while 
their mistresses steered the horses through the gates. 
No one ever thought of wearing a jewel or a de collete 
gown to a dinner or a dance. Mrs. Dillon, the 



The Californians 105 

Bonanza queen, having heard much of the simplicity 
of the worshipful Menlo Park folk, had paid her first 
calls in a blue silk wrapper, but, conceiving that she 
had done the wrong thing, sheltered her perplexities 
in black silk thereafter. Her daughter upon the same 
occasion had worn a voluminous frock of pale blue 
camel s hair trimmed with flounces of Valenciennes 
lace, that being the simplest frock in her wardrobe; 
but she privately thought even Mrs. Washington s 
apotheosised lawns and organdies very " scrubby," 
and could never bring herself to anything less expen 
sive than summer silks, made at the greatest house 
in Paris. 

"I am going to see the Mark Smith place this 
afternoon," said Trennahan. "Your mother has very 
kindly offered to drive me over. I suppose it has no 
woods on it. These are beautiful." 

" They are the only ones in the San Mateo Valley," 
replied Magdale"na, experiencing the full pride of 
possession. " Are there such beautiful ones in 
Europe ? " 

"Those at Fontainbleau are not unlike. But in 
England you stand in the" middle of a wood and admire 
the landscape on either side." 

" Helena wrote me something like that. She said 
that she always put on a veil when she went into an 
English wood for fear she would get freckled." 

"Who is Helena?" 

" She is my great friend. She is Colonel Jack Bel- 
mont s daughter, and the most beautiful girl in Califor- 



106 The Californians 

nia. At least I think she is, for of course I have not 
seen them all." 

" Are you always as conscientious as that ? Why 
have I not seen this peerless creature?" 

" She is in Europe. You will see her in December. 
Of course I do not know if she is a type, but I don t 
see how anybody else could be like Helena. Mr. 
Rollins said last night that she was the concentrated 
essence of California." 

" Describe her to me." He was delighted at the 
prospect of drawing her out on any subject. 

Magdale"na hesitated, wondering if she should have 
the courage to continue, did she begin a monologue. 
She recalled the sustained animation of the girls at her 
dinner, and moved as if to shake her head, then recol 
lected her ambition to shine in conversation. To no 
one had she ever found it so easy to express herself 
as to this man. Why not take advantage of that fact ? 
And that represented but the half of her present ambi 
tion. If she could only interest him ! 

He watched her closely, divining some cause of her 
hesitation, but not all. Her complexion was even less 
desirable by day than by gas, but her hair was tumbled, 
her eyes were sparkling softly; and the deep green 
arbours of the wood were an enchanting aid to youth. 

" She has curly shining hair about the colour of 
mahogany, and big long dark blue eyes that look 
as if they were not afraid of anything, and make you 
afraid sometimes, and regular features, and a whiter 
skin than Tiny s, with a beautiful pink colour " She 



The Californians 107 

stopped short, feeling that her attempt at description 
was as ineffective as the hours wasted upon her much 
modelled hero. 

" That sounds very charming, but still never mind 
her appearance. Tell me what you so much admire 
in her." 

" She talks so much, and she is n t afraid of anybody. 
She says she would n t lie because she would n t pay 
anyone that compliment. She loves to cheek and 
shock people. She walks all round the outside of the 
house upstairs on a narrow ledge, and she runs to 
fires at least she ran to one and she won t study 
when she does n t feel like it. And and she even 
snatched off papa s skull-cap once." 

Trennahan threw back his head and laughed loud 
and long. " And you would have me believe that all 
that is what moves you to admiration. Don t you 
know, my dear child, that you love your friend in spite 
of her tomboy eccentricities, not because of them? 
You would n t be or do one of those things if you 
could." 

Again Magdale"na hesitated. The implied approval 
was delightful ; but she would not hold it on false pre 
tences. She answered firmly, 

" I went to the fire with her." 

"You? Delightful! Tell me about it. Every 
detail." 

She told him everything except the terrible sequel. 
It was lamely presented, but he cared nothing for the 
episode. His sympathies were immediate if temporary, 



io8 The Californians 

and experience had eaten off the very cover of the 
book of seals. He followed her through every mental 
phase she unconsciously rehearsed; and when she 
brought the story to an abrupt close, lacking the art to 
run it off into generalities, he inferred something of the 
last development and did not press her to continue. 
He pitied her grimly. But he was an intensely practi 
cal man. 

" You must never think of doing that sort of thing 
again," he said. "Unless a person is naturally eccen 
tric, the attempt to be so demoralises him, because 
there is nothing so demoralising as failure except on 
one s own particular lines. Did you, for instance, jump 
on a horse and career barebacked through Menlo Park 
like a wild Indian, a performance which your friend 
would probably carry off with any amount of dash and 
chic you would feel a hopeless fool; whereas," he 
gave her a keen side glance, "if you felt that you 
possessed a talent for music, say and failed forty 
times before achieving success, you would feel that 
your failures partook of the dignity of their cause, and 
of your own character." 

She turned to him with quickening pulse. " Do you 
think," she faltered, hunting for phrases that would not 
commit her, " that if a person loved an art very much, 
even if he could not be sure that he had genius, that 
he would be right to go on and on, no matter how often 
he became discouraged?" 

Her eyes were staring at her horse s neck ; she did 
not see him smile. He had felt quite sure that she 



The Californians 109 

sought relief for the silences of her life in literary com 
position. When an unattractive woman has not talent 
she finds a double revenge in the torture of words, 
he thought. What shall I say to her? That she is 
whittling thorns for her own soul ? Bah ! Did I not 
find enjoyment once in the very imaginings of all that 
has scourged me since? Would I have thanked any 
one for opening my eyes ? And the positive is the one 
thing that grips the memory. It is as well to have 
what high lights one can. 

She had raised her head and was looking at him ex 
pectantly. 

"Certainly," he said. "He should go on, by all 
means. Love of an art presupposes a certain degree 
of talent." May Heaven forgive me for that lie, he 
thought. 

She detected his lack of spontaneity, but attributed 
it to the fact that he had not guessed her personal 
interest in the question. " Have you met many literary 
people?" she asked. " But of course you must. Did 
you like them very much? " 

" I have inquired carefully, and ascertained that 
there are none in Menlo. If there were, I should 
not think twice about the Mark Smith place." 

Magdalena felt herself burning to her hair. She 
glanced at him quickly, but he averted his eyes and 
called her attention to a magnificent oak whose limbs 
trailed on the ground. Should I tell him? she 
thought, every nerve quaking. Should I? Then she 
set her lips in scorn. He spoke of " literary" people, 



iio The Californians 

she continued. It will be many a day before I am that. 
Meanwhile, as Helena would say, what he doesn t 
know won t hurt him. 

He had no intention of letting her make any such 
confidences. "Tell me," he said. "I have heard 
something of the old Spanish families of California. 
You, of course, belong to them. That is what gives 
you your delightful individuality. I should like to 
hear something of that old life. Of course it interests 
you?" 

" Oh, I love it, at least, I loved it once. My aunt, 
my father s sister, used to talk constantly of that time, 
but I have no one to talk to of it now ; she has lived 
in Santa Barbara for the last three years. She told 
me many stories of that time. It must have been 
wonderful." 

He drew one leg across the horse s neck and brought 
him to a stand. They had entered the backwoods and 
were walking their horses. The groom was nowhere 
to be seen. He was, in fact, awaiting them at the edge 
of the woods, his beast tethered, himself prone, the 
ring-master of a tarantula fight. 

" Tell me those stories," commanded Trennahan. 
He knew they would bore him, but the girl was very 
interesting. 

Magdalna began the story of Ysabel Herrara. At 
first she stumbled, and was obliged to begin no less 
than three times, but when fairly started she told it 
very well. Many of her aunt s vivid picturesque 
phrases sprang from their dusty shelves ; her own early 



The Californians in 

enthusiasm revived. When she had finished she passed 
on to the pathetic little histories of 6lena Duncan and 
Benicia Ortega. She had told over those stories many 
times to herself; to-day they were little more than the 
recital of a well-studied lesson. The intense earnest 
ness of Trennahan s gaze magnetised her out of self- 
consciousness. When she was concluding the third, 
his horse shied suddenly at a snake, and while he 
quieted it she tumbled back to the present. She sat 
with parted lips and thumping heart. Had she talked 
as well as that ? She, Magdale" na Yorba, the dull, the 
silent, the terrified? She felt a glad pride in herself, 
and a profound gratitude to the wizard who had worked 
the spell. 

"I have never been more interested," he said in a 
moment. " How delightfully you talk ! What a pity 
you don t write ! " 

Magdale"na s heart shook her very throat, but she 
managed to answer, " And then you would n t buy the 
Mark Smith place ? " 

" Well, no, perhaps I would n t," he answered hur 
riedly, lest she might be moved to confidence. He 
had a lively vision of Magdatena reading her manu 
scripts to him, or sending them to him for criticism. 
" But you must tell me a story every time we I am 
so fortunate as to have you all to myself like this. I 
suppose we should be going back now." 

Magdatena took out her watch. The little air of 
pride in her new possession amused Trennahan, al 
though he saw the pathos of it. 



ii2 The Californians 

" Yes," she said ; " it is nearly eight. We must go. 
Papa does not like us to be late for breakfast." 

As they reached the edge of the woods, Magdatena 
gave an exclamation of disgust ; but Trennahan leaned 
forward with much interest. The two tarantulas, after 
tearing each other s fur and legs off, were locked in the 
death embrace, leaping and rolling. 

"Get on your horse at once," said Magdale"na, sternly. 
" You are a cruel boy." 

" But that is very interesting," said Trennahan ; " I 
never saw it before." 

"They are always doing it here. They pour water " 
She turned to the boy, who was mounted, and close 
behind them, now that they were likely to come within 
the range of the old don s vision at any moment. 
" Dick," she said sternly, " how did you get those 
tarantulas up? Have you a whiskey flask about you? " 

She spoke with all her father s harsh pride when 
addressing an inferior : Don Roberto regarded servants, 
in spite of the heavy wage they commanded, as he 
had the Indians of his early manhood. Trennahan 
watched her closely, remarking upon the variety a man 
might find in a woman if he chose to look for it. 

The boy assured Magdale"na that the tarantulas had 
been above ground. She shrugged her shoulders and 
turned her back expressively upon him. 

" You see those little round holes covered with white 
film?" she said to Trennahan. "They lead down to 
the tarantulas houses, real little houses, with doors 
on hinges. People pour water down, and the old 



The Californians 1 13 

tarantula comes up back first, dragging his legs after 
him to see what is the matter. Then they set two 
of them at each other with sticks, and they the 
tarantulas never stop fighting until they have torn 
each other to death : they have two curved sharp teeth." 
Good sport for variety s sake, thought Trennahan. 
I see myself engaged on warm afternoons. 



XVII 

AFTER breakfast Trennahan lay in a long chair on the 
verandah and smoked undisturbed. Mrs. Yorba was 
busy, and MagdaMna sat up in her room, longing to go 
down, but fearing to weary him. She recalled the 
early hours with vivid pleasure. For the first time in 
her life she was almost pleased with herself. She took 
out her writing materials ; but her beloved art would 
not hold her. She went to the window and unfastened 
the shutter softly. Trennahan was not talking to him 
self nor even walking up and down the hard boards 
below, but the aroma of his cigar gave evidence that 
he was there. It mingled with the perfume of the 
pink and white roses swarming over the roof of the 
verandah almost to her window. 

She experienced her first impluse to decorate her 
self, to gather a handful of those roses and place them 
in her hair. Her aunt had never been without that 
national adornment, worn with the grace of her slender 
girlhood. 

8 



1 14 The Californians 

She stepped over the sill, catching her breath as the 
tin roof cracked beneath her feet, but gathered the 
roses and returned to her mirror. With the nimble 
ringers of her race she arranged the roses at one side 
of her head, above and behind the ear. Certainly they 
were becoming. She also discovered that she had her 
aunt s turn of the head, her graceful way of raising her 
hand to her ear. 

But it is so little, she thought with a sigh ; if I could 
only have the rest ! 

Her mind wandered back to the heroines of her 
aunt s tales. If she but had the beauty of those 
wondrous girls, Trennahan would have taken fire in 
the hour that he met her, as their caballeros had done. 
The thought made her sigh again, not with a woman s 
bitterness, she had lived too little for that, but with a 
girl s romantic sadness. Why had she been defrauded 
of her birthright? She recalled something Colonel 
Belmont had once said about "cross-breeding being 
death on beauty in nine cases out of ten." Why 
could not her father have married another woman of 
his race? She dismissed these reflections as unfilial 
and wicked, and returned to her work ; but it was 
only to bite the end of her pen-holder and dream. 

Meanwhile Trennahan fell asleep and dreamed that 
his Menlo house caught fire one night and that all the 
maidens of his new acquaintance came in a body to 
extinguish the flames. Miss Montgomery played a 
hose considerably larger round than her neck, with 
indomitable energy and persistence. Miss Brannan, 



The Californians 115 

in a dashing red cap and jacket, danced like a bac 
chante on the roof, albeit manipulating large buckets of 
water. Mrs. Washington was also there, and, swinging 
in a hammock, encouraged the workers with her char 
acteristic optimism expressed in picturesque American. 
Magdale na, in a suit of her father s old clothes, was 
handing his books through the library window to Miss 
Folsom. Miss Geary was scrambling up the ladder, 
a hose coiled about her like a python. The leader of 
the company stood on the roof directly above the front 
door, giving orders with imperious voice and gesture. 
But although the flames leaped high about her, starting 
the leaves of a neighbouring tree into sharp relief, he 
could not see her face. 



XVIII 

TRENNAHAN did not see Magdale na until luncheon. 
She came in late, and her manner was a shade colder 
and more reserved than usual. After much excogita 
tion, she had decided to leave the roses in her hair, 
but it had taken her ten minutes to summon up cour 
age to go downstairs. 

He understood perfectly, and his soul grinned. 
Then he sighed. Youth had been very sweet to him, 
all manifestations of femininity in a woman very dear. 
There were four long windows in the dining-room, but 
the roof of the verandah, the thick vines springing from 
pillar to pillar, the lilac-trees and willows just beyond, 



n6 The Californians 

chastened the light in the room. Magdalena looked 
almost pretty, with her air of proud reserve, the roses 
nestling in her dark hair. Ten years ago he might 
have loved her, perhaps, in spite of her complexion. 

Mrs. Yorba did not notice the roses. Her mind was 
blind with wrath : the cream sauce of the chicken was 
curdled. During at least half the meal she did not 
utter a word ; and Trennahan, wondering if fate were 
forcing him into the permanent role of the garrulous 
American, a breed for which he had all the finely bred 
American s contempt, talked of the weather, the woods, 
the climate, the beauty of the Californian women, with 
little or no assistance from Magdatena. The moment 
he paused, and he was hungry, the catlike tread of the 
Chinese butlers was the only sound in the large house ; 
the silence was so oppressive that he reflected with 
gratitude that his visit would be done with the mor 
row s morn. 

Finally, Mrs. Yorba left the table and stepping 
through one of the open casements walked up and 
down the verandah. She was very fond of this little 
promenade between the last solid course of luncheon 
and the griddle-cakes and fruit. 

"I am glad you wear flowers in your hair," said 
Trennahan. " Your head was made for them. I am 
certain your Ysabel What s-her-name must have worn 
them just so the night her ardent lover conceived the 
idea of robbing the Mission of its pearls for her fair 
sake." 

Magdale"na s face glowed with its rare smile. " But 



The Californians 117 

Ysabel was so beautiful," she said wistfully, " the 
most beautiful woman in California." 

" All women are beautiful, my dear Miss Yorba 
when they are young. If girls could only be made to 
understand that youth is always beautiful, they would 
be even prettier than they are." 

Magdale"na s eyes were large and radiant for a 
moment. She was disposed to believe in him im 
plicitly. She determined that she would think no 
more on the beautiful women of her race, but learn 
to make herself attractive in other ways. Helena 
would return soon and would teach her. 

" I have read in books that plain women are some 
times more fascinating than beautiful ones," she said. 
" How can that be? Of course you must know." 

" A fascinating ugly woman is one who in the same 
moment sets the teeth on edge and makes a beauty 
look like a daub or a statue. Her pitfall is that she 
is apt to be lacking in pride : she makes too great 
an effort to please. Your pride is magnificent. I say 
that in strict truth and without any desire to pay you a 
compliment. Had fate been so unkind as to make 
you an ugly woman, you would not have had a jot less ; 
it is the finest part of you, to my way of thinking. You 
are worrying now because you have less to say than 
these girls who have travelled and been educated 
abroad, and who, moreover, are of lighter make. 
Don t try to imitate them. The knack of making con 
versation will come with time ; and you will always be 
appreciated by the men who are weary past your power 



1 1 8 The Californians > 

to understand of the women that chatter. If I buy 
this place, I shall read over some of my favourite old 
books with you, that is, if you will let me ; and I 
believe that you will." 

Magdale"na s hands were clasped on the edge of the 
table ; she was leaning forward, her soul in her eyes. 
For the moment she was beautiful, and Trennahan 
looked his admiration and forgot her lack of com 
plexion. To Magdalena there had been a sudden 
blaze of golden light, then a rift, through which she 
caught a brief flash of heaven. Her vague longings 
suddenly cohered. She was to be solitary no longer. 
She was to have a companion, a friend, perhaps a 
confidante, a person to whom she might speak out her 
inmost soul. She had never thought that she should 
wish to open her reserve to anyone, but in this pros 
pect there was enchantment. 

Mrs. Yorba returned to her seat and helped herself 
to hot cakes. 

" When Miss Montgomery and Miss Brannan were 
leaving last night," she said, " they asked me to stop 
for them this afternoon, as they wished to persuade 
you that the Mark Smith place was exactly what you 
wanted, or something to that effect. So we shall stop 
for them. The char-a-banc will be at the door at 
a quarter to four." 

That was her last remark, as it had been her first, 
and some twenty minutes later the repast came to 
an end. 



The Californians 119 



XIX 

TRENNAHAN was again left to his own devices. He 
amused himself inspecting the stable, a most unpreten 
tious structure, containing all that was absolutely indis 
pensable and no more. Attached to the farmhouse 
in an adjoining field was a barn for the work-horses. 
The stable-boy did duty as guide, and conducted 
Trennahan through the dairy, granary, carpenter shop, 
and various other outbuildings. It was all very plain, 
but very substantial, the symbol of a fortune that would 
last ; altogether unlike the accepted idea of California, 
that State of rockets and sticks. 

But, for the matter of that, thought Trennahan, all 
things should be stable in this land of dreaming nature. 
He had been told since his arrival that everything had 
been in a rut since the great Bonanza plague; but 
assuredly this archaic repose must be its natural 
atmosphere ; its fevers must always be sporadic and 
artificial. 

Yes, he thought, it is a good place to die in. It 
would have been intolerable ten years ago, but it 
seems little short of paradise when a man has dry rot 
in him. And that girl looked remarkably well with 
those roses in her hair. Poor thing ! 

Magdatena came down to the verandah a few 
moments before the char-a-banc drove up. She wore 
a buff lawn, simply made by the family seamstress, and 
a large straw hat trimmed with daisies. She had taken 



no The Californians 

the flowers out of her hair, but had pinned a large 
cluster of red roses at her waist. Altogether she 
looked her best, and felt that she might be able 
to hold her own against the other girls. 

One secret of Trennahan s charm for women was 
that he never overlooked their little efforts to please 
him. He said immediately, 

" Yellow and red were made for you. You should 
leave white for those who cannot stand the fury of 
colour." 

She was keenly alive to the pleasures of appreciation, 
but merely asked if he had managed to amuse himself. 

" Fairly well, considering that you deserted me." 

" But they almost always leave the men alone down 
here in the daytime, Tiny says. She says that all 
they come for is to get away from San Francisco, 
and that they prefer to go to sleep on the verandah 
or the lawns." 

" I should not have guessed that Miss Montgomery 
was cynical. I fancy she finds entertaining in the open 
air rather sleepy work herself. Or perhaps she thinks 
they are sufficiently honoured in being asked within 
the sacred precincts of Menlo Park," he added mis 
chievously. " I have been given to understand that 
it is an honour." 

" We keep very much to ourselves," said Magdalena, 
gravely. " We never care to know new people unless 
we are sure that we shall like them." 

To flirt with her a little, or rather to flirt at her, was 
irresistible. He bent over her, smiling and compelling 




The Californians 

her gaze. " And how can I be sure that you will not 
find me wanting? "he asked; "not like me at all a 
month hence ? I think I should wait at least that time 
before buying this place." 

She shook her head seriously. " I am sure we are all 
going to like you. While you were with papa last night, 
Tiny and Ila and Mrs. Washington and Rose and Caro 
all said they hoped you would buy the Mark Smith 
place. Ila said she had not come back to California 
to talk to children ; and Tiny who is not really en 
thusiastic said you were one of the few men she ever 
wanted to see a second time. Mrs. Washington said, 
A man-of-the-world at this last end of creation, 
stepping off landing " 

" I am more flattered than I can possibly express, 
but I want to know what you think about it. Shall you 
tire of me?" 

" Oh, I think not. I am sure I shall not." 

" Do you want me to buy this place? " 

She looked at him helplessly. Instinct whispered 
that he was unfair, but she had no anger for him. " I 
I think I do," she said. "I I think you know 
I do." And then she did feel a little angry with him. 

He drew back at once. " You are my first friend, 
you know," he said in his ordinary manner. " I should 
not think of settling near you unless I were sure of 
not boring you. But I believe we have tastes in com 
mon, and I hope you will let me come over often." 

"You will be always welcome," she said formally. 
Her anger had gone, leaving a chill in its wake. 



122 The Californians 

The char-a-banc drove up. Mrs. Yorba descended 
simultaneously. Her virtues were many, and one of 
them was punctuality. 



xx 

THE Montgomerys house was next in age to the 
Yorbas , but neither so large nor so solid. Even its 
verandah, however, had a more homelike air ; its car 
pets and rugs were old but handsome ; and it was full 
of pretty trifles, and much carved furniture, gathered 
in Europe. The lawns were small, the grounds care 
lessly kept, but there were many fine old trees and a 
wilderness of flowers. 

Coralie Brannan and Lee Tarlton, Mrs. Montgomery s 
little ward, were romping on the lawn as the Yorbas 
drove up. Tiny and Ila were sitting on the verandah. 
The former was in her favourite white, and a hat and 
sash of azure. Ila wore a superlatively smart frock of 
yellow silk muslin, and a yellow sun-hat covered with 
red poppies. 

Trennahan saw the flash of dismay from Magdale"na s 
eyes before her face settled into its most stolid expres 
sion. He felt genuinely sorry for her, but his only part 
was to get out and hand these radiant visions into the 
char-a-banc. 

" It is so nice to think that you may be a neighbour 
of ours," said Tiny, sweetly, as Ila was kissing Mrs. 
Yorba, and asking if she were not a good girl to meet 



The Californians 123 

her halfway. " We shall really be glad to have 
you." 

" We shall make him forget that he has not lived 
here always," said Ha, with her most brilliant smile. 
She was much elated at the unexpected foil. " He 
will become quite one of us." 

" I am sure he would not think of settling elsewhere 
in California," said Mrs. Yorba. And then she added 
with what for her was extreme graciousness, " My 
husband and I shall be very glad to have him for 
neighbour." 

Trennahan murmured his thanks. He was deeply 
amused. That he was the representative of one of the 
proudest families in a State some three hundred years 
old mattered nothing to these Californians of Menlo 
Park. Is it catching, I wonder? he thought. If 
some of my English friends should come out here five 
years hence, should I patronise them ? Doubtless, for 
it is like living on another planet. Exclusiveness is the 
very scheme of its nature. It is encouraging to think 
that I have yet another phase to live through. 

Ha claimed his attention and kept it as they rolled 
down the dusty road toward the Mark Smith place. 
Tiny, after a futile attempt to engage Magdal^na in 
conversation, devoted herself prettily to Mrs. Yorba 
and talked of the plans for the summer. 

Magdale"na was acutely miserable. Her exaltation 
of spirits was a bare memory. She hated her dowdy 
frock, her glaring contrast to the vivid Ila, accentuated 
by that grotesque similarity of attire. She listened to 



124 The Californians 

Ila s brilliant chatter and recalled her own halting 
phrases, her narrow vocabulary, and wondered angrily 
at the conceit which had prompted her to hope that 
she was overcoming her natural deficiencies. 

Then she remembered that she was a Yorba, and 
drew herself up in lonely pride. It was a privilege for 
these girls to be intimate with her, to call her Le"na, 
great as might be their social superiority over the many 
in San Francisco whose names she had never heard. 
In her inordinate pride of birth, in her intimate knowl 
edge of the fact that she was the daughter of a Cali- 
fornian grandee who still possessed the three hundred 
thousand acres granted his fathers by the Spanish 
crown, she in all honesty believed no one of these 
friends of her youth to be her equal, although she 
never betrayed herself by so much as a lifting of the 
eyebrow. She had questioned, after her loss of relig 
ion, if it were not her duty to train down her pride, 
but had concluded that it was not; it injured no one, 
and it was a tribute she owed her race. She liked 
Trennahan the better that he had discovered and 
approved this pride. 



XXI 

MAGDALENA did not see Trennahan alone again ; he did 
not ask her to ride with him on the following morning, 
and left for town immediately after breakfast. But be 
fore taking his seat in the char-a-banc he held her hand 



The Californians 125 

a moment and assured her with such emphasis that he 
owed the great pleasure of his visit entirely to her, 
that her spirits, which had been in weeds, flaunted in 
to colour and song ; and she went at once to her nook 
in the woods, feeling that the fire in her mind was 
nothing less than creative. 

But she did not write for some time. The sun was 
already intensely hot ; even in those depths the air 
was heavy, the heat waves shimmered among the 
young green of the undergrowth. 

Magdale*na stretched herself out lazily and looked 
up into the green recesses of the trees. The leaves 
were rustling in a light hot wind. She fancied that 
they sang, and strained her ears to catch the tune. 
It looked so cool and green and dark up there ; surely 
the birds, the squirrels, the very tree-toads, those 
polished bits of malachite, must be happy and fond 
in their storeyed palace. What a poem might be writ 
ten about them ! but they would not raise their voices 
above that indefinite murmur, and the straining ears of 
her soul heard not either. 

She sat up and began to write, endeavouring to 
shake some life into her heroine, but only succeeding 
in making her express herself in very affected old 
English, with the air of a marionette. 

Then mechanically, almost unconsciously, she began 
the story again. At the end of an hour she discovered 
that she had dressed up Trennahan in velvet and gold, 
doublet and hose. She laughed with grim merriment. 
Ignorant as she was, she was quick to see the incongru- 



126 The Californians 

ity between modern man in his quintessence and the 
romantic garments of a buried century. Also, her 
hero had addressed his startled friends in this wise : 

" I can t stand that rat-hole any longer. 1 m going 
to stay down here with the rest of you, whether I m 
hanged for it or not." 

This was undoubtedly what Trennahan would have 
said ; but not the Cavalier, Lord Hastings of Fairfax. 
She had a vague prompting that on the whole it was 
preferable to, 

" Gadsooks, my bold knights, and prithee should a 
man rot in a rat-ridden cupboard while his friends 
make merry? Rather let him be drawn and quartered, 
then fed to ravens, but live while he may." 

But she dismissed the thought as treason to letters, 
and proceeded on her mistaken way with the Lady 
Eleanora Templemere. Shakspere and Scott were 
her favourite writers; she felt that she must fumble 
into the sacred lines of literature by such feeble rays 
as they cast her. She liked and admired the great 
realists whose bones were hardly dust ; but they did 
not inspire her, taught her nothing. 



XXII 

THE next morning, as she was starting for the woods, 
rather later than usual, Dick, the stable-boy, who had 
just returned from the post-office, detached a letter 
from a packet he was handing the butler and ran after 



The Californians 127 

her. As Helena was her only correspondent, she 
marvelled at the strange handwriting, but opened the 
letter more promptly than most women do in the 
circumstances. It was from Trennahan and read : 

DEAR Miss YORBA, I have virtually bought the place. 
That is to say, I shall buy it as soon as the deeds are made 
out. Meanwhile, I am looking for servants and hope to 
move down on Monday next at latest. Mr. Smith has 
also consented to sell me his stud, which, your father tells 
me, is exceptionally fine. So, you see, I am really to be 
your neighbour, and am hoping you are friendly enough 
not to be displeased. At all events, I shall give myself the 
pleasure of riding over on Monday evening, and hope that 
you will join me in another ride on the following morning. 
Meanwhile, can I do anything for you in town ? Is there 
anything that you would care to read ? Pray command 
me. 

Faithfully, 

J. S. TRENNAHAN. 

Never was there a more commonplace or business 
like note, but it seemed a miracle of easy grace to 
Magdalena : it was the first note of any sort that she had 
received from a man not old enough to be her father. 
She invested it with all the man s magnetism, and 
heard it enunciated in his cultivated voice. She 
imagined it delivered in the nasal tones of her uncle, 
or in the thick voice of the youth that had sat on her 
left at the birthday dinner, she had forgotten his 
name, and shuddered. 

She recalled that her mother had received an en 
velope directed by the same hand the night before; 



128 The Californians 

but that, doubtless, had been a mere note of politeness. 
He had written this because he wished to do so ! 

She spent the entire morning answering the note, and 
discovered that it was as easy to write a book. After 
tearing up some twenty epistles, she concluded that 
the following, when copied on her best note-paper, 
and compared with the dictionary, would do, 

DEAR MR. TRENNAHAN, I am glad that you have 
bought the Mark Smith place. There is nothing that I 
want. Many thanks. 

Yours truly, 

MAGDALNA YORBA. 



XXIII 

ON the following Monday Don Roberto had a cold 
and did not go to town, but sunned himself on the 
verandah, alternately sipping whiskey and eating qui 
nine pills. Magdale"na dutifully kept him company, 
and the whiskey having made him unusually amiable, 
he talked more than was his wont with the women of 
his family. In his way he was fond of his daughter, 
deeply as she had disappointed him ; and, had she 
known how to manage him, doubtless her girlish wants 
would have met with few rebuffs. But that would have 
meant another Magdale"na. 

" I like this Trennahan," he announced. " He pre 
fer talk with me than with the young mens, and he 
know plenty good stories, by Jimminy ! He have 



The Californians 129 

call on me at the bank tlyee times, and I have lunch 
with him one day. Damn good lunch. He is what 
Jack call thoroughbred, and have the manners very 
fine. I like have him much for the neighbour. He 
ask myself and Eeram and Washeengton to have 
the dinner with him on Thursday and warm the house. 
He understand the good wine and the tabac, by Scott ! 
I feel please si he ask me plenty time, and I have 
him here often." 

Magdatena was delighted with these unexpected 
sentiments. She pressed her lips together twice, then 
said, 

" He asked me if I could ride again with him 
to-morrow morning." 

" I have not the objection to you ride all you want 
it with Mr. Trennahan, si you not go outside the place. 
Need not take that boy, for he have the work ; and I 
have trust in Mr. Trennahan." 

He would, indeed, have welcomed Trennahan as a 
son-in-law. Magdalena must inherit his wealth as well 
as the immense fortune of her uncle ; neither of these 
worthy gentlemen had the least ambition to be carica 
tured in bronze and accumulate green mould as public 
benefactors. Nor did Don Roberto regret that he had 
no son, having the most profound contempt for the 
sons of rich men, as they circled within his horizon. 
It would be one of the terms of his will that Magda- 
le"na s first son should be named Yorba, and that the 
name should be perpetuated in this manner until 
California should shake herself into the sea. 

9 



130 The Californians 

He had long since determined that Magdalena 
should marry no one of the sons of his moneyed 
friends, nor yet any of the sprouting lawyers or 
unfledged business youths who made up the masculine 
half of the younger fashionable set. Nor would he 
leave his money in trust for trustees to fatten on. 
Ever since Magdalena s sixteenth birthday he had 
been on the look-out for a son-in-law to his pattern. 
The New Yorker suited him. A wealthy man himself, 
Trennahan s motives could not be misconstrued. His 
birth and breeding were all that could be desired, 
even of a Yorba. He understood the value of money 
and its management. And he was well past the 
spendthrift age. 

Don Roberto and Mr. Polk had discussed the mat 
ter between them; and these two wily old judges of 
human nature had agreed that Trennahan must become 
the guardian of their joint millions. Magdalena was 
her father s only misgiving. Would a man with an 
exhaustive experience of beautiful women be attracted 
into marriage by this ugly duckling? But Trennahan 
had passed his youth. Perhaps, like himself, he would 
have come to the conclusion that it was better to have 
a plain wife and leave beauty to one s mistresses. He 
had not the slightest objection to Trennahan having 
a separate establishment; in fact, he thought a man 
a fool who had not. 

Little escaped his sharp eyes. He had noted 
Trennahan s interest in Magdalena, the length of the 
morning ride, his daughter s sparkling eyes at break- 



The Californians 131 

fast. Propinquity would do much ; and the bait was 
dazzling, even to a man of fortune. 

He became aware that Magdale"na was speaking. 

" I have no habit ; and Ila says that they intend to 
have riding parties." 

"You can get one habit. Go up to-morrow and 
order one." 

Magdale"na felt a little dazed, and wondered if 
everything in her life were changing. 

" I hear wheels," she said after a moment. They 
were on the verandah on the right of the house. She 
stood up and watched the bend of the drive. " It is 
the Montgomery char-a-banc," she said, " and there 
are Mrs. Cartright and Tiny and Ila and Rose. Shall 
you stay ? " 

" I stay. Bring them here to me. Tiny and Ila 
beautiful girls. Great Scott ! they know what they 
are about. Rose very pretty, too." 

The char-a-banc drew up ; and as its occupants did 
not alight, Magdalena went down and stood beside 
it, shading her eyes with her hand. 

" We have come to take you for a drive to the 
hills, Lna dear," said Tiny. " Do come." 

" Papa has a bad cold. I cannot leave " 

" Poor dear Don Roberto ! " exclaimed Mrs. Cart- 
right. " I will get out this minute and speak to him. 
I know so many remedies for a cold, blackberry 
brandy, or currant wine, or inhaling burnt linen and 
drinking hot water " But she was halfway down 
the verandah by this time. 



132 The Californians 

" Do you remember the last time we went to the 
hills? "asked Ila. "Helena and Rose shrieked with 
such hilarity that the horses bolted." 

" I can answer for myself," said Rose. " I may say 
that the memory was burnt in with a slipper." 

" I never was spanked," murmured Tiny. " That 
is one of the many things I am grateful for. It must 
be so humiliating to have been spanked." 

" Who can tell what futures may lie in a slipper ? " 
replied Rose, who had a reputation for being clever. 
" I am sure that my slipperings, for instance, generated 
a tendency for epigram; something swift and sharp. 
It destroyed the tendency to bawl continuously, the 
equivalent of the great national habit of monologue." 

"Rose, you are quite too frightfully clever," said 
Tiny, with an assumption of languor. " You will be 
writing a book next." 

" I will make Le"na the heroine," retorted Rose, 
with a keen glance, " and call it The Sphinx of Menlo 
Park. " 

" Fancy Le*na being called a sphinx," said Ila, who 
was looking very bored. " Are you coming, Le"na, or 
not? I suppose you don t want to be kept standing 
in the sun." 

" Oh, we re all used to that," said Rose. " I have 
three new freckles that I owe to Mrs. Washington and 
Caro Folsom. They called yesterday and kept me 
standing in the sun exactly three quarters of an hour 
before they made up their minds to come in and stay 
ten minutes." 



The Californians 133 

I d like to go " 

Mrs. Cartright returned, shaking her head. 

" Don Roberto does not want to be left alone," she 
said. "I fortunately thought of a most wonderful 
remedy for colds, and I have also been telling him 
about a terrible cold General Lee had once when he 
was staying with us. He did look so funny, dear great 
man, with his head tied up in one of old Aunt Sally s 
bandannas " 

" Please excuse me for interrupting you, dear Mrs. 
Cartright," said Tiny, firmly; "but I think we had 
better get out and talk to Don Roberto, and go to 
the hills another day when Lena can go with us. 
Don t you think that would be best?" she murmured 
to the other girls. " We might help to amuse him a 
little." 

" It will be vastly to our credit," said Rose, " for 
he certainly won t amuse us." 

" Has anyone ever been amused here ? " asked Ila, 
looking at Magdaldna, who was politely listening to 
Mrs. Cartright s anecdote. " Fancy having the biggest 
house in the smartest county in California and making 
no more of it than if it were a cottage. The rest of 
the houses are so cut up ; but fancy what dances we 
could have here." 

"I have been thinking over a plan," said Tiny, 
" and that is to try to manage Don Roberto. Lena 
can t, but I think the rest of us could, and Mrs. Yorba 
likes to give parties." 

" I am told that in early days there was an extra 



The Californians 

burst of lawlessness after each of her balls, reac 
tion," said Rose. 

" I don t think that it is nice for us to be discussing 
people at their very doorstep," said Tiny. " I just 
thought I d mention my plan. And if it succeeded, 
and all took charge, as it were, there need be no stiff 
ness in an informal party in the country. Shall we 
get out?" 

" By all means, General Tom Thumb," said Rose, 
with some ire ; " it is very plain who is to be boss in 
this community, as Mrs. Washington would say." 

" Wait till Helena comes," whispered Ila. 



XXIV 

DON ROBERTO rose as they approached. He did not 
take off his skull-cap, but he received them with the 
courtly grace of the caballero, one of his inheritances 
which he had not permanently discarded, although 
he practised what he was pleased to call his Ameri 
can manners in the sanctity of his home. 

He bowed low, kissed their finger-tips, and handed 
them in turn to the chairs which he first arranged in a 
semi-circle about his own. When he resumed his 
former half-reclining attitude he had the air of an 
invalid sultan holding audience. 

"We are so sorry that you have such a dreadful 
cold," said Tiny, with her sweetest smile and em 
phasis ; " and so glad that we happened to drive up. 



The Californians 135 

You couldn t come for a drive with us, could you? 
We should love to have you." 

Don Roberto rose to the bait at once. He was as 
susceptible to the blandishments of pretty women as 
Jack Belmont,. although their influence over his purse 
was an independent matter. 

"Very glad I am that I have the cold," he answered 
gallantly ; " for it give me the company of three so 
beautiful ladies. I no can go for drive, for it blow, 
perhaps ; but I no care, so long as you here with me 
sit." 

" Well, we are going to stay a long time ; and we 
are so glad we are back in Menlo again, so many of 
us together. We used to love so to come here; it 
seems ages ago. And now that we have got Lena 
again, you must expect us to fairly overrun the 
house." 

" It is yours," said Don Roberto, in the old ver 
nacular. " Burn it if you will." 

Tiny, who had never heard even an anecdote of the 
early Californians, gave a quick glance at the whiskey 
flask, but replied undauntedly, 

" How gallant you are, Don Roberto ! The young 
men say such stupid things. But you always were so 
original ! " 

" Poor old dear, I feel like wiping it off," whispered 
Rose to Ila. 

But it was evident that Don Roberto s vision was 
powdered with the golden dust of flattery. He smiled 
approvingly into Tiny s pretty face. " But I say true, 



136 The Californians 

and the young mens do not sometimes. It make me 
young again to see you here." 

" One would think you were old" said Tiny. " But 
do you really like to see us here ? Should you mind 
if we came sometimes in the evening? It would be 
such fun to meet at each other s houses and talk on 
the verandahs." 

"Come all the evenings," said Don Roberto, 
promptly, "si you talk to me sometimes." 

" / want to do that. Ila plays, and Rose sings beau- 
tifully. Some evening we will get up charades to 
amuse you." 

"On Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday 
nights I am here." 

"Those will be our evenings to come here." She 
gave a peremptory glance to Rose, who responded 
hurriedly, "Are you fond of music, Don Roberto? 
It will give me great pleasure to sing for you ; and Ila 
has been learning some of my accompaniments." 

Don Roberto did not answer for a moment. His 
memory had played him a trick : it had leaped back to 
the days of guitars and gratings. He rarely sought the 
society of gentlewomen, not, at least, of those whose 
names were on visiting lists. There was something 
unexpectedly sweet and fragrant in the company of 
these three beautiful girls. Don Roberto s memories 
were hanging in a dusty cupboard, and his heart had 
shrunken like the meat of a nut too long neglected ; 
but there was life at the core, and the memories came 
forth, wanting only a breath to dust them. Yes, he 



The Californians 137 

should like to have these girls about him. And Mag- 
dale"na had lived the life of a hermit. It was time for 
her to enjoy her girlhood. 

"Yes," he said, "alway I like the music. Si the 
piano need tune, I send one man down. You can 
dance, too, si you like it. Always I like see the young 
peoples dance." 

Tiny clapped her hands. Ila leaned forward and 
patted his hand. 

"What an inspiration ! " she exclaimed. "This will 
be a simply gorgeous house to dance in. Don Ro 
berto, you certainly are an angel ! " 

Don Roberto had never been called an angel before, 
but he smiled approvingly. "Some night this week 
we have the dance," he said. "My wife write you 
to-night." 

" I am on the verge of nervous prostration," whis 
pered Rose, as his attention was claimed by Mrs. 
Cartright. " The effort of keeping my countenance 
but the way you handle a trowel, Tiny, is a new chap 
ter in diplomacy. Butter and molasses for fifty and 
after; a vaporiser and peau d^espagne for the sharp 
young things. I was just saying," she added hastily, 
as Don Roberto reclined suddenly and turned to her, 
" that young men are a nuisance. I am thinking of 
writing a book of advice " 

"A book!" cried Don Roberto, his brows rushing 
together. " You no write the books? " 

" Of course she would never publish," interposed 
Tiny. " She would just write it for our amusement. I 



138 The Californians 

think it would be so horrid to publish the cleverest 
book," she said, turning to Magdal^na, unmistakable 
sincerity in her voice. " It has always seemed to me 
so so horrid for women to write things to print 
for anybody to read." 

Magdalna did not answer her. She was staring at 
her father, breathless for his next words. 

" The ladies never write," announced that grandson 
of old Spain. "Nor the gentlemens. Always the 
common peoples write the books." 

"Oh, it s better now, really," said Rose. "Some 
people that write are said to be quite nice. Of course, 
one doesn t meet them in society, in San Francisco 
society, at least, but that may be the fault of society." 
" Of course," said Tiny. " I do not mean that 
people who write must be horrid. But I think I 
could n t know a woman who made her name so public, 
I mean if I hadn t been fond of her before ; but I 
should really hate to see a friend s name in print. 
You are not really thinking of writing a book, ar you, 
Rose, dear?" 

" I have not the slightest idea of writing a book 
for the very good reason that I haven t brains 
enough. You need n t worry about any of us adding 
to the glory of California unless, to be sure, Le"na 
should be clever enough." 

She spoke at random, and MagdaMna s face did not 
betray her \ but she almost hated the girl who was 
forcing her to another of her mental crises. 

"My daughter write !" shouted Don Roberto. "A 



The Californians 139 

Yorba ! She make a fool de my name like the play 
actor that do the monkey tricks on the stage ? Si she 
do that " 

"Here comes Mr. Trennahan," said Magdatena, 
standing up. "Mamma is not here. I must go to 
meet him." 

Trennahan threw the reins to his groom and sprang 
out of the cart. " I could not wait till evening, you 
see/ he said, as he came up the steps. "What is the 
matter? Something has gone wrong with you." 

She shivered. "Yes. Something. I cannot tell 
you." 

" Can we have our ride to-morrow? " 
" Yes, I can ride with you. Don t, d-don t " 
"Yes?" 

" Don t talk to me when you get round there." 
" I won t ; and I won t let them talk to you." 
Something has gone wrong, he thought. She looks 
like a condemned criminal. 



XXV 

THE next morning when Trennahan rode up, Magda- 
le"na was already on her horse, and they cantered off 
at once. 

" I must teach you to trot," he said. " This is very 
old-fashioned. You must not be behind your friends, 
who would scorn to canter." 

" Very well. You can teach me." 



140 The Californians 

The next half-hour was given up to the lesson. 
Magdalna did not like the new method, but perse 
vered heroically. A half-hour was all she could endure, 
and they cantered across the meadows to the back 
woods. 

Magdale"na was as pale as a swarthy person can be. 
Her eyes were heavy and shadowed. 

"You did not sleep last night," said Trennahan, 
abruptly. " And something had happened yesterday 
before I came. What was it?" 

" I don t think I can tell you. I don t like to talk 
about things about myself." 

" Then let me tell you that no human being can go 
through life without help. With all your brain and 
your natural reticence, you are no exception to the rule. 
I am much older than you are. I know a great deal 
of the world. You know nothing of it. I can help 
you if you will let me." 

He was interested, and thought it probable that her 
trouble came from the depths of her nature. Neverthe 
less, she was very young, and he prayed that her grief 
were not the sequence of a rejected manuscript. 

Magdale"na flushed, then paled again. She remem 
bered that she had wanted to speak out to him ; but 
face to face with the prospect, the levelling of lifelong 
barriers appalled her. If she could only tell part and 
conceal the rest ! But she was no artist in words. She 
drew a deep sigh and opened her lips, but closed them 
again. 

"It will be easier here in the woods," he said, as 



The Californians 141 

they rode into the deep shade. "The world always 
seems quite different to me in a wood." It did not 
in the least, but he knew that it did to her. 

" I should have to go back," she said finally. " I 
cannot begin with yesterday. And I talk so badly." 

"The longer the story, the more interested I shall 
be. And I like your direct simplicity. Let us walk 
the horses." 

"When I was a child I was very religious, a 
Catholic. It was a very great deal to me. When I 
prayed to the Virgin about my wants and troubles, I 
felt quite happy and hopeful. I lost it a year or two 
ago. I had read a great many scientific books ; and 
my religion fell to pieces like like There was a 
beautiful old tree on the edge of the woods once. It 
looked as if it would stand a century longer. One day 
there was a terrible wind, and it fell down. Its sap and 
roots were almost gone. I felt dreadfully about the 
religion, I mean. I felt, somehow, as if my backbone 
had been taken out. I knew that one must have some 
sort of moral ideal. I thought a great deal, and finally 
I determined to make my conscience my religion. I 
made a resolution that I would never do, and try not 
even to think, what I believed to be wrong. When I 
was little, I followed Helena into a great many of her 
naughty escapades, though nothing so bad as the fire, 
and I did not tell my parents, as a rule, because I 
could not see that it did any good. When my New 
England conscience, as Helena calls it, got the best of 
me and I confessed about the fire, the consequences 



142 The Californians 

were so terrible that I made up my mind that 1 would 
do as I chose and say nothing about it. I kept to that 
until I lost my religion. Then I was careful about 
every little thing. It was easy enough for a year. 
Then I don t think I can go on." 

" Then you wrote a book and your conscience hurts 
you because you have not told your parents." 

Magdale"na dropped her reins and stared at him. 
Had a voice leapt down from heaven, she could not 
have been more dumfounded. 

" I never told you," she said helplessly. " Can all 
the others know too? " 

" I am positive that no one suspects but myself. Do 
go on." 

" You have guessed something, but not all. I have 
only begun a book ; and I am so ignorant, and my 
mind is so slow, that I know it will be years before I 
shall be able to write a book that anybody would read. 
At first this dismayed me. Now I do not care, so long 
as I succeed in the end ; and it will be a pleasure to 
see myself improve. I have not thought it wrong not 
to tell my parents, so long as what I did could not 
affect them in any way. Do you not think I was right 
in that?" 

" Assuredly." 

" I believed that when I had done something excel 
lent, if that time ever came, they would be proud of it. 
My mother was a school-teacher, you know; and I did 
not see why my father should care. He hates to hear 
women talk, but writing is different. At least I thought 



The Californians 143 

so. Yesterday, just before you came, the subject came 
up. Rose said she believed I could write a book, and 
papa was furious at the mere thought. I knew nothing 
about old-world prejudices, but it seems that a lady 
would be thought to have disgraced herself in Spain if 
she wrote a book : and papa is as Spanish as if he had 
never learned a word of English, although he would 
be ready to beat anyone that told him so. He did 
not have a chance to say much yesterday ; but I saw 
what his ideas were and that nothing could change them. 
" I did not go to sleep at all last night. I sat up 
trying to think what I should do. Of course I need 
not tell him what I had done; but should I give it 
up ? That was the question. If I continued, I must 
tell him of my intention to be a writer. He would 
forbid it. If I refused to obey, which I do not think 
I have any right to do, he is quite capable of locking 
me up. But I cannot go on writing in secret. That 
would be a great wrong; it would be living a lie. 
I could not make myself believe that I only wrote for 
the pleasure of writing : I should know that I longed 
for the time when I should see my book on some 
body s shelf. It seems to me that I cannot give it 
up. I have much less in my life than most girls. 
In spite of the hard work, I have felt almost happy 
while writing. And I am afraid that I have as much 
ambition as pride. But he is my father. My first 
duty is to him I cannot make up my mind. I 
suppose there should be no struggle ; but there is, and 
I feel as if it were killing me." 



144 The Californians 

Trennahan had been the confidant of many women, 
had listened to many tragic confessions, had seen 
women in agonies of remorse ; but nothing had ever 
touched him as did this bald statement, abrupt with 
repressed feeling, of a girl s solitary tragedy. Had 
her hero been a lover instead of an art, he would 
have met her confidence with platitudes and a sup 
pressed yawn; but her lonely attitude in the midst 
of millions and friends, her terrible slavery to an 
ideal, to a scourging conscience which was at war 
with all the secretiveness, self-indulgence, and haughty 
intolerance of restraint which she had inherited 
with her father s blood, interested him even more 
profoundly than it appealed to his sympathies. He 
determined not only to help her, but to watch her 
development. 

" You have honoured me with your confidence," he 
said. "Don t doubt for a moment that I do not 
appreciate the magnitude of that honour. I know 
just how proud and reticent you are, how much it cost 
you to speak. I believe that I have enough wisdom 
to help you a little. Go on with your work. If you 
have a talent, you get it, one way or another, from 
your parents, and it is as much entitled to your con 
sideration as your health or your riches. The birth 
right of every mortal is happiness. Some philosopher 
has said that happiness is the free exercise of the 
higher faculties of a man s nature. If that is your 
instinct, pursue it. Of course we have no right to 
claim our happiness at the expense of others. Cut 



The Californians 145 

your father is safe for the present. No matter what 
your talent, you will not know enough, nor have had 
sufficient bare practice with your pen, to write even 
a short story of first-rate merit for ten years to come. 
You may count it a blessing that various causes are 
preventing you from rushing into print. At the end 
of that period your father will be ten years older. He 
will probably be much softened and will look at things 
differently; or he may be dead. Or you may be 
and most likely will be married. You need only 
concern yourself with the present. It is possible that 
you have discovered your only chance of happiness. 
Do not commit the incredible folly of strangling that 
chance before it is born. This is not my day for 
lecturing, but I am going to take your conscience in 
hand. It needs training. Before you know it, you 
will be morbid. That means brain rot, and no chance 
of the commonest sort of enjoyment." 

"You are very good; no one has ever been so 
good. You ought to know far better than I what is 
right and what is wrong." 

" I am afraid I do. Promise me this : that you 
will do nothing decisive until the end of the summer. 
Take that time to think it over. There will be little 
time to write in any case. I shall monopolise a good 
deal of your time, and I fancy they intend to be rather 
gay here. Six months from now we will talk it over 
again. Will you agree to that? " 

"I must think it over. My mind is a slow one. 
But I think you are right." 

10 



146 The Californians 

And several days later, when he was dining at the 
house, she told him briefly that she should take his 
advice and write no more until the summer was 
over. 



XXVI 

MRS. YORBA, who did not like to have her plans 
made for her, decided to give the party on the even 
ing of Saturday 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 Magdale"na rode alone 
with Trennahan again. The other girls rode every 
morning and claimed him. Magdale"na 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. Magdatena 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 



The Californians 147 

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 assailed her when the subject 
was broached had been tempered by time and constant 
association 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 anticipation. 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 les 
sons 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 cavern 
ous Yorba parlours. 

Magdatena 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 appear 
ance, 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 fold 
ing-doors had been rolled back, and the parlour and 
dining-room made an immense sweep. The vases 



148 The Californians 

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 out 
lined with trees and great shrubs, the broken spaces 
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 
space, for the lawns were very large ; but the trees were 
close along their edge and massed 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. Every 
body should be happy in it, and I suppose every 
one is, mostly. Poets like Tennyson always make 
weather to suit moods and circumstances. 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 ex 
citable. There is nothing in the country itself to make 



The Californians 149 

one unhappy, as there must be in other countries where 
Nature has done so little, and they have so many cen 
turies of tragic past behind them. . . . Oh, dear, I am 
struggling toward something, as usual. What is it? 

She touched her ringers 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 repre 
sentative 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, 
passed as swiftly as it had come, but seemed to mur 
mur back that it would come again, and again ; and 
that with each visit she would understand it better. 



150 The Californians 

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 run 
ning 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 surren 
dered 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 red 
woods ; 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, sud 
denly. 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 passed almost unheeding 
the little that came to her. 

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

She sprang to her feet. Trennahan was approach 
ing her. He was in evening dress, without a hat. 



The Californians 151 

His expression was one of extreme amusement, 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 pos 
sible. 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 attract 
ing 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 



152 The Californians 

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 Magdatena, 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 facetious- 
ness. He was a type of the fresh young San Fran 
ciscan 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. Pfcyne 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 



The Californians 153 

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 sym 
pathy, and he was too young to bear ridicule with 
fortitude. 

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 illustration appealed to 
the passion 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 



154 The Californians 

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 Magdatena 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 Magdale"na s ears. 
He was at that time the most popular young man in 
San Francisco society. Magdale"na 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. 



The Californians 155 

" I watched you dance," said Magdaldna, 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 awk 
ward 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. 

"There s the music," he said. "Suppose we go 
out in the hall by ourselves, and I will give you a little 
lesson. No?" 

Magdatena was delighted, but she merely stood up 
in her unbending dignity and said that she was glad to 
take advantage of his kindness. 

He was a man who danced so well that he com 
pelled some measure of facility in his partner. Magda- 
le"na felt inspired at once, and carefully obeyed every 
instruction. 

"We will have a great many other lessons, no?" 
he said as the music finished. "By the time that 
famous coming-out party of yours comes off, you will 
be in great form." 

" Will you open it with me? " 

" I shall be delighted, and to help you all I can." 
They were walking down the hall, and he was bending 
over her with an air of devotion which she thought 



156 The Californians 

very pleasant. His accomplished eyes appealed to 
the instinct of coquetry, buried deep in the seriousness 
of her nature, and she smiled upon him and found 
herself talking with some ease. 

She danced with all the young men, but they bored 
her as much as she felt that she bored them. All the 
girls danced with her father, and he seemed amiable 
and pleased, especially when Tiny was smiling upon 
him. Ila, despite her elegance and refinement, sug 
gested the ladies of his leisure, Rose had too sharp a 
tongue, and Caro had an exaggerated innocence of 
manner and eye which experience had led him to 
distrust. But Tiny, beautiful, cool, and remote, re 
minded him of the women of his youth, when he was 
a man of enthusiasms, ideals, and dreams. 

Mr. Polk spent the evening wandering about alone 
or staring from the hearth-rug. One or two of the 
girls asked him to dance, but he refused brusquely. 
It was the first dance he had attended since the one 
given by Thomas Larkin to celebrate the Occupation 
of California by the United States. 

The party broke up a little after twelve, and all 
assured Magdatena that the party had been a success 
with such emphasis that she was convinced that it had 
been ; but when she was in bed and the light out, she 
cried bitterly. 



The Californians 157 



XXVII 

THERE were no engagements for the following morn 
ing, and Magdalena was sitting idly on the verandah 
when she saw Trennahan sauntering up the drive. 
The blood flew through her veins, lifting the weight 
from her brain. But she repressed the quick smile, 
and sat still and erect until he reached the carriage 
block, when she went to the head of the steps to meet 
him. 

" Put on your hat," he said, " and let us hide in 
the woods before somebody comes to take us for a 
drive or to invite us to luncheon. I have n t forgotten 
our private plans, if you have." 

" I had not forgotten, but Tiny and Ila manage 
everything. I don t like to refuse when they are so 
kind." 

"You must develop a faculty or no, leave it to 
me. I shall gradually but firmly insist upon having a 
day or two a week to myself; and Miss Geary informs 
me that such unprecedented energy can never last in 
this Vale of Sleep ; that before a month is over we shall 
all have settled down to a chronic state of somno 
lence from which we shall awaken from Saturday till 
Monday only. Then, indeed, will Menlo be the ideal 
spot of which I dreamed while you left me to myself 
on that long day of my visit." 

Her hat was in the hall. She put it on hastily back 



158 The Californians 

foremost, and they walked toward the woods. Sud 
denly she turned into a side path. 

" Let us walk through the orchard," she said. 
" Then we shall not meet anyone." 

The cherries were gone ; but the yellow apricots, the 
golden pears, the red peaches and nectarines, the 
purple plums, hung heavy among the abundant green, 
or rotted on the ground. Several poor children were 
stealing frankly, filling sacks almost as large as them 
selves. Don Roberto had never so far unbent as to 
give the village people permission to remove the 
superfluity of his orchard, but he winked at their 
depredations, as they saved him the expense of having 
it carted away ; his economical graft had never been 
able to overcome his haughty aversion to selling the 
produce of his private estate. Magdalena often came 
to the orchard to talk to these children : the poor 
fascinated her, and she liked to feel that she was help 
ing them with words and dimes; but they were not 
as the poor of whom she had read, nor yet of the fire. 
They were tow-headed and soiled of face, but they 
wore stout boots and well-made calico frocks, and 
they were not without dimes of their own. 

" Does California seem a little unreal to you? " she 
asked. " I mean, there are no great contrasts. The 
poverty of London must be frightful." 

" You ungrateful person, for Heaven s sake reap the 
advantage of your birthright and forget the countries 
that are not California." 

They passed out of the back gate and entered the 



The Californians 159 

middle woods. Magdale"na without hesitation led the 
way to the retreat hitherto sacred to Art. Trennahan 
need not have apprehended that she would inflict him 
with her manuscript, nor with hopes and fears : she 
was much too shy to mention the subject unless he 
drew her deliberately ; but she liked the idea of asso 
ciating him with this leafy and sacred temple. 

He threw himself on his back at once, clasping his 
hands under his head and gazing up into the rustling 
storeys above. About his head was a low persistent 
hum, a vibration of a sound of many parts. Above 
were only the intense silences of a hot California 
morning. 

Trennahan forgot Magdale"na for the moment. He 
felt young again and very content. His restless tem 
perament, fed with the infinite varieties of Europe, had 
seldom given way to the pleasures of indolence. Even 
satiety had not meant rest. But California as dis 
tinct from San Francisco with her traditions of luxu 
rious idleness, the low languid murmur of her woods, 
her soft voluptuous air, her remoteness from the shriek 
ing nerve centres of the United States, the sublime 
indifference of her people to the racing hours, drew so 
many quiet fingers across his tired brain, half obliter 
ating deep and ugly impressions, giving him back 
something of the sense of youth and future. Perhaps 
he dimly appreciated that California is a hell for the 
ambitious ; he knew that it was the antechamber of a 
possible heaven to the man who had lived his life. 

He turned suddenly and regarded Magdatena, won- 



160 The Californians 

dering how much she had to do with his regeneration, 
if regeneration it were, and concluded that she was 
merely a part of California the whole. But she was a 
part as was no other woman he had met. 

She had clasped her hands about her knees and was 
staring straight before her. Trennahan, in a rare flash 
of insight, saw the soul of the girl, its potentialities, 
its beauty, struggling through the deep mists of 
reserve. 

" I could love her," he thought ; " and more, and 
differently, than I have loved any other woman." 

He determined in that moment to marry her. As 
soon as he had made his decision, he had a sense of 
buoyancy, almost of happiness, but no rejuvenation 
could destroy his epicureanism; he determined that 
the slow awakening of her nature, of revealing her to 
herself, should be a part of the happiness he promised 
himself. He was proud that he could love the soul of a 
woman, that he had found his way to that soul through 
an unbeautiful envelope, that so far there was not 
a flutter of sense. He was to love in a new way, which 
should, by exquisite stages, blend with the old. There 
could be no surprises, no enigmatic delights, but 
vicariously he could be young again. Then he won 
dered if he were a vampire feeding on the youth of 
another. For a moment he faced his soul in horrified 
wonder, then reasoned that he was little past his me 
ridian in years ; that a man s will, if favoured by Cir 
cumstance, can do much of razing and rebuilding with 
the inner life. No, he concluded with healthy disgust, 



The Californians 161 

he was not that most sickening tribute to lechery, an 
old vein yawning for transfusion. He was merely a 
man ready to begin life again before it was too late. 
This girl had not the beauty he had demanded as his 
prerogative in woman, but she had individuality, brains, 
and all womanliness. Her shyness and pride were her 
greatest charms to him : he would be the first and the 
last to get behind the barriers. Such women loved 
only once. 

She turned her head suddenly and met his eyes. 

" What are you thinking about? " she asked. 

" I have been wondering what that huge pile is 
behind you." 

" That is a wood-rat s nest." 

" And you are not afraid of him ? Extraordinary 
woman ! " 

" He is much more afraid of me. I am very afraid 
of house-rats." 

" And you sit here often ? You are not afraid of 
snakes?" 

" There are none in these woods. They always re 
treat before people civilisation. Everyone drives 
through here, but scarcely anyone goes through the 
back woods ; the roads are so bad " 

"Hush!" 

The sound of wheels, faint for a moment, grew more 
distinct; with it mingled the sound of voices. A 
heavy char-a-banc rolled by, and the words of Tiny and 
Ila came distinctly to the two in hiding. 

" They will have a long and fruitless search," said 
ii 



1 62 The Californians 

Trennahan, contentedly. " We are going to stay here 
and become acquainted." 

And they did not move for two hours. For a 
time Trennahan made her talk, learning almost all 
there was to know. He even drew forth the tattered 
shreds of the caballero, who had been little more than 
a matter of garments, and a confession of her long 
and passionate desire to be beautiful. The story 
ended with the lonely and terrible surrender of her 
religion. He was profoundly interested. Once or 
twice he was appalled. Did he take this woman, he 
must assume responsibility for every part of her. She 
was so wholly without egoism that she would give her 
self up without reservation and expect him to guide 
her. That would be all very well with the ordinary 
woman ; but with a nature of high ideals, and possibly 
of transcendent passions, was he equal to the task ? 
But in his present mood the prospect fascinated him. 
One of her slim hands, dark but pretty, lay near his 
own. He wanted to take it in his, but did not : he 
wished to keep her unself-conscious as long as possible. 

He tried to talk to her about himself, but found it 
hard to avoid the claptrap with which a man of the 
world attempts to awaken interest in woman. He had 
always done it artistically : the weariness, the satiety, 
the mental grasp of nothingness, these had been 
ever revealed in flashing glimpses, in unwilling allusive- 
ness ; the hope that he had finally stumbled upon the 
one woman sketched with a brush dipped in mist. 
But feeling himself sincere for the first time in incal- 



The Californians 163 

culable years, he dismissed the tempered weapons of 
his victories with contempt, and, not knowing what 
others to substitute, talked of his boyhood and college 
days. As a result, he felt younger than ever, and 
closer to the girl who was part of the mystery that 
had taken him to her heart. 



XXVIII 

A WOMAN S heart may be said to resemble a subter 
ranean cavern to which communication is had by 
means of a trap-door. How the lover enters this 
guarded precinct depends upon the lover and the 
woman. Sometimes the trap-door is jerked open, and 
he is hurled down with no by your leave, gobbled up, 
willing or unwilling. Sometimes there is a desperate 
fight just over the trap-door, in which he does some 
times, but not always, come off victor. At other times 
he suddenly finds himself rambling through those laby 
rinthine passages, to his surprise and that of the 
woman, who, however, perceives him instantly. There 
is no such fallacy as that a girl turns in terror or in 
any other sentiment from the knowledge of this dweller 
below the trap-door. A woman of experience may, 
after that first glimpse : she may, in fact, bolt the 
trap-door yet more tightly and sit herself upon it. 
But a girl uses it as a frame for her face and watches 
every movement of the occupant with neither fear nor 
foreboding until occasion comes, hanging the halls 



164 The Californians 

with the tapestry of dreams, fitting the end of each 
rose-hued scented gallery with the magic mirror of 
the future. 

Magdalena, at the end of that morning in the woods, 
was quite aware that she was in love. She wondered 
why she had not thought of it before, and concluded 
that in the prelude she had been merely fascinated by 
the first enthralling man she had known. The trap 
door of her heart was not jealously guarded ; never 
theless, it was not yawning for an occupant. Just how 
and when Trennahan slipped in, she could not have 
told, but there he certainly was, and there he would 
stay so long as life was in her. 

He went home with her to luncheon, and she longed 
to have him go, that she might be alone with the 
thought of him. He left early in the afternoon, and 
she locked herself in her room and sat for hours star 
ing into the tree-tops swimming in their blue haze. 
She was not in the least terrified at the beginnings 
of tumult within her; she rather welcomed them as 
the birthright of her sex. In this first stage, she hardly 
cared whether Trennahan were in love with her or not, 
having none of the instinct of the huntress and her 
imagination being a slow one. It was enough that 
she should see him for many hours alone during this 
dreamy exquisite summer, that she should look con 
stantly into the cold eyes that had their own power 
to thrill. That he was not the orthodox lover in 
appearance, manner, nor age pleased her the better. 
She was not like other girls, therefore it was fitting 



The Californians 165 

that she should find her mate among the odd ones 
of earth. That there might be others like him in 
the great world whence he came, that he might have 
loved and been loved by women of the world, never 
occurred to her. She was content, having found her 
other part, and wove no histories of the past nor 
future. 

But as the weeks went on and their intimacy grew, 
she accepted the fact that he loved her before the 
disposition to speculate had arrived in the wake 
of love. During the hours that they spent rambling 
through the woods, or in whatever fashion pleased their 
mood, although he did not startle her by definite word or 
act, he managed to convey that their future was assured, 
that she was his, and that in his own time he should 
claim her. By the time this dawn broke, her imagina 
tion was beating at its flood-gates, and shortly broke 
loose. Thereafter when she was not with Trennahan 
in the present, she was his in a future built on the 
foundations of all she had read and all that instinct 
taught her. She had no wish that the present should 
change ; it was enough that it suggested the inevitable 
future. She was happy, and she knew that Trennahan 
was happy. 

Meanwhile they escaped the others and rode to 
gether before breakfast, read together after, explored 
every corner of the woods, and talked of many of the 
things under heaven. Magdale"na, except for an occa 
sional flutter of eyelid or leap of colour, confessed 
nothing : her pride was a supple armour that she laced 



1 66 The Californians 

tightly above her heart ; but Trennahan s very self 
lifted the trap-door and looked to him through her 
eyes, and he had no misgivings. Sometimes he awak 
ened suddenly in the night and gave a quick, short 
laugh : he was so new to himself. But he knew that 
he had found something very like true happiness, and 
he was loving her very deeply. At first he had been 
pricked by the apprehension that it could not last ; 
that nature had constructed him to move upon the 
lower planes ; that a prolonged tour on the heights 
would result in disastrous and possibly hideous reac 
tion : his time-worn habits of loving had been of woof 
and make so different. But as time passed and the 
light in his spirit spread until it dazzled his eyes and 
consumed his memories, as the sense of regeneration 
grew stronger, as the future beckoned alluringly, as 
he forgot to remember whether Magdale~na were plain 
or beautiful, as peace and content and happiness pos 
sessed him, he ceased to question his immutability. 
He had lived in the world for forty years, and it was 
like an old bottle of scent long uncorked. The ideals 
of his youth had not changed ; they had gone. Beau 
tiful women had turned to gall on his tongue, shrunken 
to their skeletons in his weary eyes. Fate had steered 
his bark in the open sea of bachelorhood until he was 
old enough and wise enough to choose his mate with 
his soul and his brain, and Fate had steered him to 
Magdale"na. He was profoundly thankful. 

Their intimacy attracted little attention in Menlo 
Park, for the reason that it was confined within the 



The Californians 167 

wooded limits of Fair Oaks. When they rode and drove 
with the others and attended dinners and dances, they 
kept apart. As Rose had predicted, gaieties were 
sporadic, although the young people met somewhere, 
usually at the Yorbas , every Saturday evening; what 
others did during the long hot days when there was no 
company to entertain, concerned no one. Occasionally 
one of Don Roberto s huge farm waggons, as deep as a 
tall man s height, was filled with hay, and young Menlo 
Park jolted slowly to the hills. They ate their luncheon 
by cool streams dark with meeting willows, and poked 
at the tadpoles, gathered wild roses, killed, perhaps, a 
snake or two. Then, toward evening, they jolted home 
again, hot, dusty, and weary, but supremely content in 
having lived up to the traditions of Menlo Park. Tiny 
alone came out triumphant on these trying occasions. 
Dressed in cool white, she seated her diminutive self 
in the very middle of the haystack and talked little. 
The others, undaunted by the sun, started in high 
spirits, flirted with energy, and changed their positions 
many times. Upon the return journey, Tiny, again, sat 
serene and white ; the rest dangled over the sides as a 
last relief for aching limbs and backs, and forgot the 
very alphabet of flirtation. It is true that Magdatena 
did not flirt ; but she worked hard to keep her guests 
pleased and comfortable, and usually went to bed with 
a headache. 



1 68 The Californians 



XXIX 

IT was Tiny who discovered that it was leap year, and 
invited Menlo to dance at her house one Saturday 
night and take all advantage of its privileges. Mrs. 
Yorba consented that Magdalena should have a new 
frock, the organdie being in a condition for a maid to 
sniff at. Magdalena asserted herself, and ordered a 
scarlet tarlatan. The frock was smartly made at a 
good house, and Magdalena, on the night of the party, 
was almost pleased with herself. The vivid colour 
slanted under her swarthy skin. She wore red slip 
pers and red roses in her hair. By this time she 
knew something of dress, it was October, and she 
had also discovered that red was Trennahan s favourite 
colour. 

She was happy, but a little nervous. There had 
been more than one sign of late that the pretty comedy 
of friendship had run its course. The very words they 
uttered had lost their clear-cut black and white, 
seemed to grow more full-blooded. His eyes had 
made her lose her breath more than once, had even 
sharpened her wits to hasty subterfuge. 

The Montgomery parlour was a narrow room at 
right angles with the dining-room. The two rooms 
had been thrown into one and canvased. 

Tiny invited Don Roberto to open the dance with 
her, and that platonically enamoured gentleman con 
sented with a grand flourish. Ila exercised her blan- 



The Californians 169 

dishments upon Mr. Polk, but to no purpose. No one 
could understand his constant attendance at these 
dances, for he merely stood about with unrelaxing 
visage, scarcely exchanging a word with even the older 
men. He wore the suit of evening clothes which had 
done duty at men s dinners these fifteen years, and 
had bought a pair of evening shoes and a white 
necktie. Eugene Fort remarked that he looked like a 
man whose vital organs had turned to gold and were 
giving him trouble. Mr. Washington replied that the 
tight skin which had done such good service was cer 
tainly beginning to bag, and that if he did n t knock 
off and take a vacation in Europe he d find himself 
breaking. 

"To my knowledge," he added, "he hasn t taken a 
vacation in thirty years ; hasn t even been to Yosemite 
or the Big Trees. He has always said that work was 
his tonic ; but the truth was that he feared to come 
home and find a dollar unaccounted for, neither 
more nor less. And there comes a time, my dear 
young man, there comes a time " 

" It comes early in this State." 

" It does," Mr. Washington replied, with a sigh and 
a glance at his young wife. " But the fevers have raged 
themselves out here, or I am much mistaken. We re 
in for quiet times. The next generation will live 
longer, perhaps." 

"How old is Polk?" 

"Nearly sixty. He s worn better than many, be 
cause he s let whiskey alone ; never took a drop more 



170 The Californians 

than was good for him when Con. Virginia was tumbling 
from seven hundred to nothing. Neither did Yorba, 
who is several years older ; but he a got the longevity 
of his race. Jack Belmont is under fifty, and looks 
older than either, when you get him in a good light. 
California is all right, and whiskey is all right, but the 
two together play the devil and no mistake." 

" It is the last place where I should want whiskey," 
said Trennahan, who had joined them. 

" You were n t here half a dozen years ago. While 
the Virginia City mines were booming, your backbone 
felt like a streak of lightning ; you had n t a comma 
in your very thoughts ; you woke up every morning 
in a cold sweat, and your teeth chattered as you opened 
your newspaper. You believed every man a liar and 
dreamt that your veins ran liquid gold. The Stock 
Exchange was Hell let loose. Men went insane. Men 
committed suicide. No one stopped to remark. Do 
you wonder that men watered the roots of their nerves 
with alcohol? I did not, but the fever of that time 
burnt me out, all the same. I ve never been the same 
man since. Nor has any other San Franciscan. Even 
Polk and Yorba, although they sold out at the right 
moment in nine cases out of ten, felt the strain. As 
for Jack Belmont, he was on one glorious drunk all the 
time, and never more of a gentleman. How he 
pulled through and doubled his pile to boot, the Lord 
only knows ; but he did." 

"Miss Belmont will be a great prize," observed 
Fort, thoughtfully. " The greatest beauty in the State, 



The Californians 171 

if she has fulfilled her promise ; any amount of go, 
and one or two cold millions, the Californian heiress 
sublimated." 

" And mistress of herself and her millions in a few 
years. I hear that Belmont has not drunk a drop 
since he has been in Europe with her ; he s been 
gone a year now. That is fatal at his age, after 
having been in pickle some thirty years. Poor Jack, 
the best fellow that ever lived ! I suppose his 
love for the girl brought him up with a round turn. 
Doubtless he suddenly realised that she was old 
enough to understand, and that he must pull himself 
up if he would keep her respect. There s a good 
deal of tragedy in California, Mr. Trennahan, and it s 
not of the sentimental young folks sort, neither." 

"I won t admit it," said Trennahan, who was look 
ing at Magdale"na. " Its very air breathes content - 
now, at any rate. I am glad I did not come earlier." 

" California is the Princess Royal of her country," 
said Fort ; " and at her birth all the good fairies came 
and gave her of every gift in the stores of the im 
mortals. Then a wicked fairy came and turned the 
skeleton in her beautiful body to gold ; and, lo ! the 
princess who had been fashioned to bless mankind 
carried, hidden from sight by her innocent and be 
neficent charms, a terrible curse. Men came to kiss, 
and stayed to tear away her flesh with their teeth. 
When her skeleton has been torn forth, even to the 
uttermost rib, then the spell of the wicked fairy will 
be broken, and California be the most gracious mother 
mankind has ever known." 




172 The Californians 

" Eugene, you like to hear yourself talk, but it must 
be admitted that you talk well. Will you come out 
and have a cigar? and you, Mr. Trennahan? " 

There was no doubt that the party was a success. 
Between dances the girls stood together in groups 
and superciliously regarded the ranks of humble wall 
flowers. Suddenly a half-dozen would dash down 
upon a young man, beg him simultaneously for an 
eighth of a waltz, and scribble hieroglyphics on 
their fans. Alan Rush was the belle, and no girl 
was allowed to have more than a fourth of him at 
a time. Once the girls left the room in a body, 
returning, with mumbled excuses, after the music for 
the next dance had been playing some three minutes. 
Sometimes a girl would approach a segregated youth, 
ask him patronisingly if he was enjoying himself, talk 
to him until the- music began, then sidle off with an 
inaudible remark. Altogether if the young men had 
sinned during the summer, and they searched their 
consciences in vain, they were punished. The New 
Woman had not arrived in the Eighties, but the in 
stinct was there, inherited from remotest mother. 

The party was a third over when Trennahan ap 
proached Magdatena for the first time. She had 
taken her partner to his chaperon, Mrs. Geary, and 
was regarding a group of expectant youths. The spirit 
of the thing had possessed her and she was enjoying 
herself. Her shyness had worn off to some extent ; 
she danced rather well, and had learned to make 
small talk. Being happy, all things seemed easy of 



The Californians 173 

accomplishment. She became aware that Trennahan 
was standing beside her, but did not turn her eyes. 

" Will you sit out a dance with me or rather walk 
it out in the garden? You must be a little tired, and 
it is delightful out there." 

" I d rather I think papa would not like it." 

" I am positive that he would not mind." 

" I am engaged." 

" Let me see your fan." 

She delivered it reluctantly. 

"You have no one down for the next nor the 
next." 

I _ I think I d rather not go." 

"Do you mean that? For if you do, I shall go 
home. I came for nothing else. I have not seen 
you alone for three days." 

" I am sorry." 

" Come." 

Her jumping fingers closed about her fan, and the 
sticks creaked; but she followed him. 

As they descended the steps he drew her hand 
through his arm. The garden looked very wild and 
dark. The stars were burning overhead. Slanting 
into the heavy perfume of flowers were the pungent 
odours of a forest fire. 

" You look like a pomegranate flower." 

" Do you like my frock ? " 

"You know that I do." 

" Should you like to smoke ? " 

"I should not." 



174 The Californians 

" It is a beautiful night." 

" Very." 

" I had a letter from Helena to-day." 

"Did you?" 

" She described a wonderful experience she had 
climbing the Alps. Shall I tell you about it?" 

" Good God, no ! I beg pardon, but the American 
girl in Europe is interesting to no one but herself." 

" She is interesting to me." 

" Because you love her. Her letters really bore you, 
only you won t admit it even to yourself." 

" But Helena is really more brilliant than most 
people." 

" Possibly ; but I did not come out here to talk 
about Helena." 

Magdale na s fan was hanging at the end of a chain. 
She clutched at it, missed it, and pressed her hand 
against her heart, which was hammering. 

He saw the motion, and took her hand in his. She 
glanced about wildly. She was in a whirl of terror of 
everything under heaven. Too dignified to wrest her 
self away and run, she gave him a swift glance of 
appeal, then bent her head. He dropped her hand. 

" I would not frighten nor bother you for the world, 
but you know what I have wanted to say for days past. 
That, at least, can be no shock : you have known for a 
long while." 

" I d rather you did n t say it," she gasped. 

" I intend to say it, nevertheless, and you will soon 
get used to it. Will you marry me?" 



The Califbrnians 175 

"Oh I suppose so that is, if you want me to. 
Let us go back to the house." 

" I have no intention of going back to the house for 
fully half an hour. Do you love me? " 

She hated him at the moment. 

" Answer me." 

I I thought I did I don t know." 

" Well, we will drop the subject for & moment. 
There are some other things I want to talk to you 
about. Shall we walk on?" 

She drew a long breath at the respite. He resumed 
in a moment. 

" Of course I am double your age, but I do not 
think we shall be any less happy on that account. My 
life, I am going to tell you, has not been an ideal one. 
After the wildness of youth came the deliberate trans 
gressions of maturity, then the more flagrant, because 
purposeless sins which followed satiety. I know noth 
ing of the middle classes of the United States, I have 
lived little in this country, but the young men of the 
upper class are not educated to add to the glory of 
the American race : they are educated to spend their 
fathers millions. It is true that in spite of a rather 
wild career at college I left it with a half- defined idea 
of being a scientific explorer, and had taken a special 
course to that end. But my ambitions crumbled some 
where between the campus and New York. I am not 
seeking to exculpate myself, to throw the responsibility 
on my adolescent country : I had something more than 
the average intelligence, and I pursued my subsequent 



176 The Californians 

life deliberately. Not pursuing an ideal, I had no care 
to reserve the best that was in me for the woman who 
should one day be my wife. I entered diplomacy be 
cause I liked the life, and because I believed that the 
day would come when women would mean little more 
than paper dolls to me, and power would mean every 
thing. I did not reckon on wearying to desperation of 
the world in general. That time came ; with it a 
desire to live an outdoor existence for the rest of my 
life. That at least never palled. I determined to 
come to California. It was an impulse ; I hardly spec 
ulated upon whether I should remain or not. As the 
train slid down the Sierras, I knew that I should. 
Memories jumbled, and I made no effort to pull them 
apart. For the first time in my life I wanted a home 
and a wife. The night we met I felt more attracted 
to you than to the other charming Californians I had 
met because you seemed more a part of the country. 
It is singular that a man should love the country first, 
and the woman as a logical result, but I did. I think 
that you know I love you; but not how much, nor 
what it means to me. I am not good enough for you. 
My soul is old. I see life exactly as it is. I have not 
an illusion. I am as prosaic as are all men who have 
made a business of the pleasures of life. I could not 
make you a perfervid or romantic speech to save my life, 
and as the selfishness of a lifetime has made me moody, 
and fitful, there will be intervals when I shall be the 
reverse of lover-like ; but on the whole I think you will 
find me a rather ardent lover. It seems very little to 



The Californians 177 

offer a girl who has everything to give. But I love you ; 
never doubt that. What little good was left in me you 
have coaxed up and trained to something like its origi 
nal proportions. I want you to understand what my 
past has been ; but I also want you to understand that 
I am not the same man I was six months ago, and that 
you have worked the change. When I crossed the 
continent, it is no exaggeration to say that I had Hell 
in me, that ferment of spirit which means mental 
nausea and the desperate dodging of one s accusing 
soul. I suppose such a time comes to most men who 
have persistently violated the original instinct for good. 
With the lower orders it means crime ; with the higher 
civilisation a legion of imps shrieking in a man s soul. 
I will not say that my particular band have been silent 
since I came here, for that would mean moral obtuse- 
ness ; but they are placated, and have consented to fix 
a generous eye on the future. I believe, firmly believe, 
that my future will atone for my past, morally, I 
mean ; I want you to understand that I have wronged 
no man but myself, that I have been guilty of no act 
unbecoming a gentleman. Now look at me and tell 
me that you do not hate me." 

Magdal^na lifted her face. Her lips were dry and 
parted, her eyes expanded, but not with horror. 

" I love you," she said ; " I am glad that I can help 
you." 

They were near a huge oak whose limbs shut out the 
stars. Trennahan drew her into its shadows and took 
her in his arms and kissed her many times. He lifted 

12 



178 The Californians 

her arms about him, and she clasped her hands tightly. 
He might be business-like, without illusions, but he 
knew how to make love with energy and grace. Mag- 
dale"na from brain to sole was on fire with adoration of 
him. The words of it surged toward speech, but re 
serve held her even then. She only clung to him 
and breathed the passion which his touch had startled. 
His own pulses were full, and he held her close, glad 
that the spiritual desires had caught and embraced 
the human, and that their chances for happiness were 
all that he could wish and a good deal more than he 
deserved. 



XXX 

" LOOK ! " whispered Magdatena. 

They had reached the steps of the verandah, and 
were about to mount when she laid her hand on his 
arm. Mr. Polk stood by one of the windows. His 
head was thrust forward. He was staring into the 
room with hungry eyes and twitching jaw. The light 
was full on his white face. In the room Tiny was 
standing on a chair fanning Alan Rush. Fort was 
commanding Ila to pick up his handkerchief. The 
others were laughing and applauding. Lee and Coralie 
in their obscure corner were wide-eyed with excite 
ment, and happy. Mr. Folk s chest heaved spasmodi 
cally. He screwed up his eyes. His face grinned. 
He looked like a man on the rack. He opened his 



The Californians 179 

eyes and glared about ; but he saw nothing, for they 
were blind with tears. He turned and fled. 

Magdaldna clung to Trennahan, shaking. "Take 
me home," she said. " I cannot stand any more 
to-night." 



BOOK II 



BOOK II 

I 

HELENA was back. 

Magdale"na sat amidst iridescent billows of ball 
gowns, dinner-gowns, tea-gowns, negliges, demi-toilettes, 
calling-frocks, street-frocks, yachting-frocks, summer- 
frocks. She had never seen so many clothes outside 
of a dry-goods shop, and marvelled that any one 
woman should want so many. They were on the bed, 
the chairs, the tables, the divan. Two mammoth 
trunks were but half unpacked. Others, empty, made 
the hall impassable. 

"I love dress," said Helena, superfluously. "And 
women forgive your beauty and brains so much more 
willingly if you divert their attention by the one thing 
their soul can admire without bitterness." 

"You have not grown cynical, Helena? " asked Mag- 
dale"na, anxiously. 

" A little. It s a phase of extreme youth which must 
run its course with the down on the peach. I fought 
against it because I want to be original, but you might 
as well fight against a desire to sing at the top of your 
voice when you are happy. But, you darling ! I m 
so glad to see you again." 



184 The Californians 

She flung herself on her knees beside Magdatena 
and demanded to be kissed. Magdalena, who could 
hardly realise that she was back, and whose loves were 
as fixed as the roots of the redwoods, gave her a great 
hug. 

"Tell me, Lena, am I improved? Am I beautiful? 
Am I a great beauty? " 

"You are the most beautiful person I have ever 
seen. Of course I have not seen the great beauties of 
Europe " 

" They are not a patch to ours. When I was pre 
sented, there were eight professionals standing round, 
and I walked away from the lot of them. Am I more 
beautiful than Tiny, or Ila, or Caro, or Mrs. Wash 
ington?" 

" Oh, yes ! yes ! " 

" How? They are really very beautiful. 7 

" I know ; but you are you know I never could 
express myself." 

" I am Helena Belmont," replied that young woman, 
serenely. " Besides, I ve got the will to be beautiful 
as well as the outside. Tiny has n t. I have real au 
dacity, and Ila only a make-believe. Caro shows her 
cards every time she rolls her eyes, and Mrs. Washing- 
ton never had a particle of dash. I m going to be the 
belle. I m going to turn the head of every man in 
San Francisco." 

" I m afraid you will, Helena." 

" Afraid ? You know you want me to. It would n t be 
half such fun if you were n t approving and applauding." 



The Californians 185 

" I don t want you to hurt anybody." 

"Hurt?" Helena opened her dark-blue pellucid 
eyes. " The idea of bothering about a trifle like that. 
Men expect to get a scratch or two for the privilege 
of knowing us. It will be something for a man to re 
member for the rest of his life that I ve hurt him." 

" I am afraid you re a spoilt beauty already, 
Helena." 

" I Ve got the world at my feet. That s a lovely 
sensation. You can t think it s a wonderful sen 
sation." 

" I can imagine it." Magdalena spoke without 
bitterness. Helena realised all her old ambitions but 
one, but she was too happy for envy. 

" Describe Mr. Trennahan all over again." 

" I am such a bad hand at describing." 

" Well, never mind. Fancy your being engaged ! 
Tell me everything. How did you feel the first mo 
ment you met him ? When did you find yourself going ? 
It must be such a jolly sensation to be in love for a 
week or so. Now ! Tell me all." 

" I d rather not, Helena. I love you better than 
anyone besides, but I am not the kind that can talk " 

" Well, perhaps I could n t talk about it, myself, but 
I think I could. I can t imagine not talking about 
anything. But of course you are the same old Le"na. 
Will you let me read his letters? " 

" Oh, no ! no ! " 

" I 11 show you every letter I get. I never could 
be so stingy." 



1 86 The Californians 

"I could not do that. I should feel as if I had 
lost something." 

" You were always so romantic. There never was any 
romance about me. Poor Mr. Trennahan will have 
something to do to live up to you. An altitude of 
eleven thousand feet is trying to most masculine con 
stitutions. But I suppose he likes the variety of it, 
after twenty years of society girls. Well, let him 
rest." 

A door shut heavily in the hall below. Helena 
sprang to her feet. 

"There s papa. I must go down. I never leave 
him a minute alone if I can help it. That s my only 
crumpled rose-leaf, he is so pale and seems so de 
pressed at times. You know how jolly and dashing he 
used to be. He has n t a thing to worry him, and I 
can t think what is the matter. I beg him to tell me, 
but he says a man at his age can t expect to be well 
all the time. I can always amuse him, and I like to 
be with him all I can. He s such a darling ! He d 
build me a house of gold if I asked for it." 



ii 

WHEN Magdalena returned home she spread her new 
garments on the bed and regarded them with much 
satisfaction. Helena had expended no less thought on 
these than on her own, and none whatever on the 
meagreness of Don Roberto s check. There was a 



The Californians 187 

brown tweed with a dash of scarlet, a calling-frock of 
fawn-coloured camel s hair and silk, a dinner-gown 
of pale blue with bunches of scarlet poppies, and a 
miraculous coming-out gown of ivory gauze, the deep 
est shade that could be called white. And besides 
two charming hats there was a large box of presents : 
fans, silk stockings, gloves, handkerchiefs, and soft in 
describable things for the house toilette. And her 
trousseau was also to come from Paris ! Don Roberto, 
in his delight at having secured Trennahan, had in 
formed his daughter that she should have a trousseau 
fit for a princess ; or, on second thoughts, for a Yorba. 

Magdale"na opened a drawer and took out another 
of Helena s presents, a jewelled dagger. While 
Colonel Belmont and his daughter were in Madrid 
there was a sale of a spendthrift noble s treasures. 
They had gone to see the famous collection, and 
among other things the dagger was shown them. 

" It belonged to a lady of the great house of Yorba," 
they were told. " She always wore it in her hair, and all 
men worshipped her. The old women said it was the 
dagger that made men love her, that it was bewitched ; 
there were other women as beautiful. But men died 
for this one and no other. One day she lost the dag 
ger, and after that men loved her no longer. They ran 
and threw themselves at the feet of the women that 
had hated her. She laughed in scorn and said that 
she wanted no such love, and that when one returned 

he had gone as Ambassador to the Court of France 

he would show the world that his love did not 



1 88 The Californians 

skulk in the hilt of a dagger. People marvelled at 
this because she had flouted her very skirts in his face, 
had not thrown him so much as the humblest flower 
of hope. When they heard he was coming, they held 
their breath to see if the magnet had been in the dag 
ger for him too. He arrived in the night, and in the 
morning she was found in her bed with the dagger to 
the hilt in her heart. They accused him, and he 
would not say yes or no, but they could prove nothing 
and let him go. And when he died the dagger was 
found among his possessions. No one could ever say 
how he got it. But it has remained in his family until 
to-day and now it goes where ? " 

"ToaYorba!" announced Helena to Magdale na, 
as she repeated this yarn. " I made up my mind to 
that, double quick ! It may or may not be true, and 
she may or may not have been your ancestress ; but it 
would make a jolly present all the same, so I ordered 
papa to buy it if all Madrid bid against him. Of 
course he did what I told him, and I want you to 
wear it the night of the party." 

Magdale na regarded it with great awe. She was by 
no means without superstition. Would it bring men 
to her feet? Not that she wanted them now, but she 
would like one evening of intoxicating success, just for 
the sake of her old ambitions : they had been little 
less than entities at one time ; for old friendship s sake 
she would like to give them their due. She did wish 
that she felt a thrill as she touched it, a vibration of 
the attenuated thread which connected one of her soul s 



The Californians 189 

particles with that other soul which, perhaps, had con 
tributed its quota to her making. But she felt nothing, 
and replaced the dagger with some chagrin. 

She put away the clothes and sat down before the 
fire to think of Trennahan. He had gone East at the 
summons of his mother, who had invested a large sum 
of money unwisely, a habit she had. He might be 
detained some weeks. Magdale"na, on the whole, was 
glad to have him gone for a while. She wanted to 
think about him undisturbed, and she wanted to get 
used to Helena and her exactions while his demands 
were abstract : she loved so hard that she must rub 
the edge off her delight in having Helena again, or the 
two would tear her in twain. 

She found the sadness of missing him very pleasur 
able, feeling sure of his return ; also the painful thrill 
every morning when the postman knocked. And to 
sit in retrospect of the summer was delicious. There 
may have been flaws in its present ; there were none 
in its past. Her ambition to write was dormant. A 
woman s brain in love is like a garden planted with 
one flower. There may be room for a weed or two, 
but for none other of the floral kingdom. 

Trennahan had given her more than one glimpse of 
his past, and it had appalled without horrifying or re 
pulsing her. Her sympathy had been swift and un 
erring. She realised that Trennahan had come to 
California at a critical point in his moral life, and that 
his complete regeneration depended on his future hap 
piness. He had pointed this out as a weakness, but 



190 



The Californians 



the fact was all that concerned her. Whatever mists 
there might be between her perceptions and the great 
abstractions of life, love had sharpened all that love 
demanded and pointed them straight at all in Tren- 
nahan that he wished her to know. She was awed by 
the tremendous responsibility, but confident that she 
was equal to it ; for did she not love him wholly, and 
had he not chosen her, by the light of his great expe 
rience, out of all women ? She would walk barefooted 
on Arctic snows or accept any other ordeal that came 
her way, but she would make him happy. 

Suddenly she remembered that she had received a 
brief dictated note from her aunt that morning, asking 
her to pack and send to Santa Barbara a painting of 
the Virgin which hung in her old apartments : she 
wished to present it to the Mission. Mr. Polk had 
closed his house a year before and taken up his 
permanent abode with the Yorbas, but his Chinese 
major-domo was in charge. Magdale"na reflected that 
it was not necessary to bother her uncle, who had 
seemed ill and restless of late ; the Chinaman could 
attend to the matter. 

She went downstairs and through the gardens to 
the adjoining house. The weeds grew high behind it; 
the windows were dusty ; the side door at which she 
rang needed painting. The Chinaman answered in 
his own good time. He looked a little sodden ; doubt 
less he employed much of his large leisure with the 
opium pipe. Magdale"na bade him follow her to her 
aunt s apartments. As she ascended the imposing 



The Californians 191 

staircase she withdrew her hand hastily from the 
banister. 

"Why do you not keep things clean?" she asked 
disgustedly. 

"Whattee difflence? Nobody come," he replied 
with the philosophy of his kind. 

The very air was musty and dusty. The black walnut 
doors, closed and locked, looked like the sealed en 
trances to so many vaults. The sound of a rat gnaw 
ing echoed through the hollow house. It seemed 
what it was, this house, the sarcophagus of a beau 
tiful woman s youth and hopes. 

For a year or two after the house was built Mrs. 
Polk had given magnificent entertainments, scattering 
her husband s dollars in a manner that made his thin 
nostrils twitch, and without the formality of his consent. 
Magdale"na paused at a bend of the stair and tried to 
conjure up a brilliant throng in the dark hall below, 
the great doors of the parlours rolled back, the rooms 
flooded with the soft light of many candles ; her aunt, 
long, willowy, of matchless grace, her marvellous eyes 
shooting scorn at the Americans crowding about her, 
standing against the gold-coloured walls in the blood- 
red satin she had shown once to her small admirers. 
But the vision would not rise. There was only a black 
well below, a rat crunching above. 

She reached the door of her aunt s private apart 
ments on the second floor and entered. She stepped 
back amazed. There was no dust here, no musty air, 
no dimness of window. A fire burned on the hearth. 



192 The Californians 

The gas was lit and softly shaded. The vases on the 
mantel were full of flowers. On one table was a 
basket of fruit; on another were the illustrated 
periodicals. 

" Mrs. Polk is here? " she said to Ah Sin. 

" No, missee." 

" She is expected, then? How odd " 

" Donno, missee. Evey day, plenty days, one, two, 
thlee weeks, me fixee rooms all same this." 

"But why?" 

" Kin sabbee, missee. Mr. Polk tellee me, and me 
do allee same whattee he say." 

Magdale"na s lips parted, and her breath came short. 

She gave the necessary instructions about the pic 
ture. The Chinaman followed her down the stairs and 
opened the door. As she was passing out, she turned 
suddenly and said to him, 

" It is not necessary to tell Mr. Polk about this, 
nor that I have been here. He does not like to be 
bothered about little things." 

"Allight, missee.* 



Ill 

THE night of Mrs. Yorba s long-heralded ball had 
arrived at last. For weeks Society had been keenly 
expectant, for its greatest heiress and its three most 
beautiful girls were to come forth from the seclusion 
in which they were supposed to have been cultivating 



The Californians 193 

their minds, into the great world of balls, musicales, and 
teas, where their success would be in inverse ratio 
to their erudition. 

Rose and Caro had arrived the winter before, and 
were no longer "buds;" but Magdale"na, Helena, 
Tiny, and Ila were hardly known by sight outside the 
Menlo Park set. Magdale"na had never hung over the 
banisters at her mother s parties. The others had 
been abroad so long that the most exaggerated stories 
of their charms prevailed. 

The old beaux knotted their white ties with trem 
bling fingers and thought of the city s wild young days 
when Nina Randolph, Guadalupe Hathaway, Mrs. 
Hunt Maclean, two of the " Three Macs," and the 
sinuous wife of Don Pedro Earle had set their pulses 
humming. They were lonely old bachelors, many of 
them, living at the Union or the Pacific Club, and 
they sighed as the memories rose. That was a day 
when every other woman in society was a great 
beauty, and as full of fascination as a fig of seeds. 
To-day beautiful women in San Francisco s aristocracy 
were rare. In Kearney Street, on a Saturday after 
noon, one could hardly walk for the pretty painted 
shop-girls ; and in that second stratum which was 
led by the wife of a Bonanza king who had been 
pronounced quite impossible by Mrs. Yorba and other 
dames of the ancient aristocracy, there were many 
stunningly handsome girls. They could be met at 
the fashionable summer resorts; they were effulgent 
on first nights ; they were familiar in Kearney Street 



194 The Californians 

on other afternoons than Saturday, and their little 
world was gay in its way ; but Society, that exclusive 
body which owned its inchoation and later its vitality 
and coherence to that brilliant and elegant little band 
of women who came, capable and experienced, to the 
fevered ragged city of the early Fifties, still struggled 
in the Eighties to preserve its traditions, and did not 
admit the existence of these people ; feminine curi 
osity was not even roused to the point of discussion. 
One day Mrs. Washington met one of the old beaux, 
Ben Sansome by name, on the summit of California 
Street hill, which commands one of the finest views 
of a city swarming over an hundred hills. 

Mrs. Washington waved her hand at the large 
region known as South San Francisco. 

" I suppose," she said thoughtfully, " that there are 
a lot of people in San Francisco whose names we have 
never heard." 

" I suppose so ! " he exclaimed. 

" I wonder what they are like ? How many people 
are there in San Francisco, anyhow?" 

" About three hundred thousand." 

"Really? really?" and Mrs. Washington shrugged 
her pretty shoulders and dismissed the subject from 
her mind. 

Would these new beauties compare with that galaxy 
of long ago? was the thought that danced between 
Ben Sansome s faded eyes and his mirror. Three to 
burst forth in a night ! That was unwonted measure. 
Of late years one in three seasons had inspired fervent 



The Californians 195 

gratitude. Nelly Washington had been unchallenged 
for ten years ; Caro Folsom was second-rate beside 
her; and Rose Geary, the favourite of last winter, 
although piquant and pretty, had not a pretension 
to beauty. Like the other old beaux, he went only 
to the balls and dinners of the old-timers, never 
to the dances and musicales of the youngsters, but 
he kept a sharp look-out, nevertheless. To-night as 
sumed the proportions of an event in his life. 

Several of the young men had met two of these 
beauties during the summer, but Helena was still to be 
experienced. The young hands did not tremble, but 
their eyes were very bright as they wondered if they 
were " in for it," if they would " get it in the neck," if 
she were really " a little tin goddess on wheels." 
Even Rollins, who was madly enamoured of Tiny, and 
Fort, who had carefully calculated his chances with Rose, 
were big with curiosity. The former, who had known 
Helena from childhood, had been refused admittance 
to the Belmont mansion : Helena had a very distinct 
intention of making a sensation upon her first appear 
ance in San Francisco ; and as all were fish that came 
to her net, even Rollins must be dazzled with the rest. 

Magdalena s engagement was a closely guarded 
secret, and more than one hardy youth had made 
up his mind to storm straight through her intellect 
to her millions ; but even these thought only of 
Helena as they dressed for the ball. 

Meanwhile the girls were thinking more of their 
toilettes than of the men who would admire them. 



196 The Californians 

All were to wear white, but each gown had been made 
at a different Paris house, that there should be no mo 
notony of touch and cut, and each was of different 
shade and material : Magdalena s of ivory gauze, Tiny s 
of pearl-white silk, Ila s of cream-white embroidered 
mousseline de sole, Helena s of pure white tulle. 

What little of Magdalena s neck the gown exposed, 
she concealed with a broad band of cherry-coloured 
velvet, and a deep necklace of Turkish coins, a gift 
from Ila. She revolved before the mirror several 
times in succession after the maid had left the room. 
She was laced so tightly that she could scarcely 
breathe, but she rejoiced in her likeness to a French 
fashion-plate, and vowed never to wear a home-made 
gown again. In her hair was a string of pearls that 
Trennahan had given her; and the dagger. Would 
it work the spell? 

She gave a final shake to her skirts and went down 
stairs. 

There was no lack of gas to-night ; the lower part 
of the house was one merciless glare. No flowers 
graced the square ngly rooms, no decorations of any 
sort; but the parlours were canvased, the best band 
in town was tuning up, and the supper would be 
irreproachable. The dark-brown paper of the hall 
looked very old and dingy, the carpet was threadbare 
in places, the big teakwood tables were in every 
body s way and looked as if they were meant for 
the dead to rest on; but when gay gowns were bil 
lowing one would not notice these things. 



The Californians 197 

Mrs. Yorba was in the green reception-room at the 
end of the hall. She wore black velvet and a few 
diamonds, and looked impressively null. Tiny and 
Ila arrived almost immediately. They looked, the 
one an angel with a sense of humour, the other 
Circean with an eye to the conventions, both as 
smart as Paris could make them. It was nearly ten 
o clock, and there was a rush just after. 

Magdalena waited a half- hour for Helena, then 
opened the ball in a brief waltz with Alan Rush 
instead of the quadrille in which the four debutantes 
were to dance. She sent a message to Helena, and 
Mrs. Cartright scribbled back that the poor dear 
child had altered the trimming on her bodice at the 
last moment, and would not be ready for an hour 
yet. Caro took her place in the quadrille, as she 
also wore white. 

The ball promised to be a success. There were 
more young people than was usual at Mrs. Yorba s 
parties, and more men than girls. They danced and 
chatted with untiring energy, and between the dances 
they flirted on the stairs and in every possible nook 
and corner. Magdalena frolicked little, having her 
guests to look after; but whenever she rested for a 
moment there was an obsequious backbone before 
her. Tiny and Ila were besieged for dances, and 
divided each. 

The older women sat against the wall, a dado of 
fat and diamonds, and indulged in much caustic 
criticism. 



198 The Californians 

The old beaux stood in a group and exchanged 
opinions on the relative pretensions of the old and 
the new. 

"Take it all in all, not to compare," said Ben 
Sansome. " Miss Montgomery is excessively pretty, 
but no figure and no style. Miss Brannan looks like 
a Parisian cocotte. Miss Folsom has eyes, but nothing 
else and when you think of Lupie Hathaway s eyes ! 
And not one has the beginnings of the polished charm 
of manner, the fire of glance, the je ne sais quoi of 
Mrs. Hunt Maclean. Just look at her in her silver 
brocade, her white hair a la marquise. She s hand 
somer than the whole lot of them " 

At that moment Helena entered the room. 

The white tulle gown, made with a half-dozen 
skirts, floated about her so lightly that she seemed 
rising from, suspended above it. Even beside her 
father she looked tall ; and her neck and arms, the 
rise of her girlish bust, were more dazzlingly white 
than the diaphanous substance about her. Her 
haughty little head was set well back on a full firm 
throat, not too long. Her cheeks were touched with 
pink; her lips were full of it. Her long lashes and 
low straight brows were many shades darker than 
the unruly mane of glittering coppery hair. And she 
carried herself with a swing, with an imperious pride, 
with a nonchalant command of immediate and unmeas 
ured admiration which sent every maiden s heart down 
with a drop and every man s pulses jumping. 

" I give in ! " gasped Ben Sansome. " We never 



The Californians 199 

had anything like that never ! Gad ! the girl s got 
everything. It s almost unfair." 

Alan Rush turned white, but he did not lose his 
presence of mind. He asked Don Roberto to present 
him at once, and secured the next dance. It was 
a waltz; and as the admirably mated couple floated 
down the room, many others paused to watch them. 
Helena s limpid eyes, raised to the eager ones 
above her, did all the execution of which they were 
capable. During the next entre-dance she was 
mobbed. Twenty men pressed about her, introduced 
by Don Roberto and Rollins, until she finally com 
manded them to "go away and give her air," then 
walked off with Eugene Fort, finishing his first epigram 
and mocking at his second. He had only a fourth of 
the next dance ; but as Helena had refused to permit 
her admirers to write their names on her card, and as 
she was at no pains to remember which fourth was 
whose, giving her scraps to the first comer, Rush and 
Fort, who had had the forethought not to pre-engage 
themselves, and were constantly in her wake, secured 
more than their share. But the other men had time 
and energy to fight for their own : Helena was con 
stantly stopped in the middle of the room with a firm 
demand that she should keep her word. Between the 
dances the men crowded about her, eager for a glance, 
and at supper the small table before her looked like 
an offering at a Chinese funeral. 

"Well," exclaimed Mrs. Washington, "I always 
said that no girl could be a belle in this town nowa- 



2OO The Californians 

days, that the men did n t have gumption enough ; 
but I reckon it s because the rest of us have n t come 
up to the mark. This looks like the stories they tell 
of old times." 

" It makes me think of old times," said Mr. San- 
some. " Makes me feel young again ; or older than 
ever. I can t decide which." 

Tiny took her eclipse with unruffled philosophy, 
and divided her smiles between two or three faith 
ful suppliants. Ila had a very high colour, and 
her primal fascination was less reserved than usual. 
Rose admired Helena too extravagantly for jealousy, 
and what Caro felt no man ever knew. 

Colonel Belmont renewed his acquaintance with 
many of the women of his youth, long neglected, 
although he had loved more than one of them in his 
day. They filled his ears with praises of his beautiful 
daughter. Helena s beauty was of that rare order 
which compels the willing admiration of her own sex : 
it was not only indisputable, but it warmed and irra 
diated. When Colonel Belmont was not talking, he 
stood against the wall and followed her with adoring 
eyes. If she had been a failure admitting the possi 
bility his disappointment would have been far keener 
than hers. 

" You Ve cause to be proud, as proud as Lucifer," 
said Mr. Polk to him. " But you ain t looking well, 
Jack. What s the matter? " 

" I m well enough. I shall live long enough to give 
her to someone who s good enough for her, and that s 



The Californians 201 

all I care about although I m in no hurry for that, 
either. But I m not feeling right smart, Hi ; I don t 
just know what s the matter." 

" We re both getting old. I feel like a worked-out 
old cart-horse. But you Ve got ten years the best of 
me, and 1 11 tell you what s the matter with you : you 
can t switch off drink at your age after being two 
thirds full for twenty-five years. We all need whiskey 
as we grow older, and the more we Ve had, the more 
we need. I d advise you to take it up again in 
moderation." 

" Not if it s the death of me ! It s nothing or every 
thing with me. The first cocktail, and I d be off on a 
jamboree. Then she d know, and I d blow out my 
brains with the shame of it. She thinks I m the finest 
fellow in the world now, and so she shall if I suffer the 
tortures of the damned." 

" Well, I guess you re right. The young fellows talk 
about dying for the girls, but I guess we re the ones 
that would do that for our own if it came to the 
scratch." 

"It s too bad you have none," said Colonel Belmont, 
with the sympathy of his own full measure. And then, 
although Mr. Folk s iron features did not move, he 
looked away hastily. 

" I guess I did n t deserve any," Mr. Polk answered 
harshly. " I don t know that you did, for that matter, 
but I certainly did n t. Look at Don cavorting round 
with those girls," he added viciously. " It s positively 
sickening." 



2O2 The Californians 

" Not a bit of it. He s making up for what he s 
missed. And a little of it would do you good, old 
fellow. You Ve never had half enough fun, and you 
ought to take a little before it s too late. You have n t 
a pound of flesh on you, and are as spry as any of 
them. Go and make yourself agreeable to the girls. 
Even a smile from them goes a long way, I assure 
you." 

Mr. Polk shook his head. " I could n t think of a 
thing to say to them. I didn t learn when I was 
young." 



IV 

WHEN Magdaldna drew the dagger out of her hair 
that night, she laughed a little and tossed it into her 
handkerchief box. She had seen men carried off their 
feet for the first time, not caring whether the world 
laughed or not. She had also noted the exact order of 
homage that she was to expect from men. Helena 
infatuated. The other girls inspired admiration in 
varying measure. Respect for her father s millions 
was her portion. She had watched and compared all 
the evening. It would have distressed and appalled 
her had she made her de"but last winter. As it was, 
it mattered little. 

Occasionally there is a lively winter in San Francisco. 
This promised to be almost brilliant. There were six 
balls in the next two weeks. At each Helena s tri- 



The Californians 203 

umphs were reiterated. The men waited in a solid 
body between the front door and the staircase, and she 
had promised, divided, and subdivided every dance 
before she had set foot on the lowest step. It was 
almost impossible to begin a party until her arrival. 
Kettledrums had been inaugurated the previous win 
ter, and hardly a man been got to them. Now the 
men would have begged for invitations. They even 
began to attend church ; and Helena s " evening " was 
so crowded that she was obliged to ask five or six of her 
girl friends to help her. Alan Rush, Eugene Fort, Carter 
Howard, a Southerner of charming manners, infinite 
tact, and little conversation, and " Dolly " Webster, a 
fledgeling of enormous length and well-proportioned 
brain, were her shadows, her serfs, her determined, 
trembling adorers. They barely hated one another, so 
devoured were they by the sovereign passion ; and as 
they were treated with exasperating similitude, there 
was nothing to set them at one another s throats. 

Helena had all the gifts and arts of the supreme 
coquette. She allured and mocked, appealed and 
commanded; adapted herself with the suppleness of 
bronze to mould, with enchanting flashes of egotism ; 
discarded all perception of man s existence in the 
abstract, when she had surrendered her attention to 
one, to jerk him out of his heaven by ordering him to 
go and send her his rival; possessed a quickness of 
intuition which finished a man s sentences with her 
eyes, an exquisite sympathy which made a man feel 
that here at last he was understood (as he would wish 



204 The Californians 

himself understood, rather than as he understood him 
self) ; an audacity which never failed to surprise, and 
never shocked ; a fund of talk which never wore itself 
into platitudes, and a willing ear; and an absolute 
confidence in herself and her destiny. In addition she 
had great beauty, the high light spirits of her mercurial 
temperament, a charming and equable manner (when 
not engaged in judiciously tormenting her slaves), and 
a shrewd brain. What wonder that her sovereignty was 
something for the men who worshipped her to remem 
ber when they too were old beaux, and that their pres 
ent condition was abject? The wonder was that the 
women did not hate her; but so impulsive and un 
affected a creature disarms her own sex, particularly 
when her gowns are faultless, and she is not lifeless in 
their company, to scintillate the moment a man enters 
the room. 

And they forbore to criticise the dictates of her royal 
fancy. It is true that she deferred to no one s opinion, 
but she escaped criticism nevertheless. If she capri 
ciously refused to dance at a party, but sat the night 
through with one man, not recognising the existence of 
her lowering train, people merely smiled and shrugged 
their shoulders, saving their scowls for those who were 
not the fashion. Sometimes these flirtations took place 
in the open ball-room, sometimes in the conservatory ; 
it was all one to Helena, whose powers of concentration 
amounted to genius. At one of the Presidio hops she 
spent the evening it was moonlight in a boat on 
the bay with an officer who was as accomplished a flirt 



The Californians 205 

as herself. The appearance of Rush, Fort, Howard, 
and Webster upon this occasion was pitiable. On her 
evening, if she tired of her admirers before they could 
reasonably be expected to leave, she walked out of the 
room without excuse and went to bed. She not only 
ran to fires when the humour seized her, but she com 
manded her quartette to rush every time the alarm 
sounded, that they might be at her beck in the event 
of officious policemen. As fires are frequent in San 
Francisco, these enamoured young men were profoundly 
thankful when they occurred at such times as they hap 
pened to be in their tyrant s presence : they were willing 
to bundle into their clothes at two in the morning, or 
to leave their duties at midday, were they sure of meet 
ing her , but as she was as capricious about fires as 
about everything else, their chances were as one in ten. 
They hinted once that she might advise them of her 
pleasure by telephone, but were peremptorily snubbed. 
Helena never made concessions. 

It was at the end of the second month that her father 
imported a coach from New York. She had driven 
since her baby days, and could handle four horses as 
scientifically as one. Thereafter, one of the sights of 
Golden Gate Park on fine afternoons was Helena on 
the box of the huge black and yellow structure, tooling 
a party of her delighted friends, her father beside her, 
one of her admirers crouched at her indifferent shoul 
der. It was the only gentleman s coach in California, 
for in the Eighties the youth of the city had not turned 
their wits and prowess to sport. Few of them could 



206 The Californians 

drive with either grace or assurance, and Helena s 
accomplishment was the more renowned. Occasionally 
Colonel Belmont was allowed to drive, a favour which 
he enjoyed with all the keenness of his dashing youth. 

" I told you how it would be," said Ila to Rose. 
"She is not only belle, but leader. That s the real 
reason Caro s gone to New York. We are nowhere. 
I d turn eccentric, regularly shock people, if I had the 
good luck to be the fashion. But I ve got to marry 
well. When I have you 11 see." 

"We can t all be raving belles," said Rose. "If 
Helena were so much as doubled, the men would be 
gibbering idiots. I don t care, so long as I have a good 
time ; and I hold my own. So do you. As for Tiny, 
she may not be mobbed, but she has one man in 
love with her after another. As soon as poor Charley 
Rollins got his conge", Bob Payne took the vacant seat, 
and I see a third climbing over the horizon with busi 
ness in his eye. There can be only one sun, but 
we f re all stars of the first magnitude." 

" But we d each like to be the sun, all the same." 



V 

MAGDALNA, although much interested in Helena s 
performances, felt at times as if dream-walking, half 
expecting to awaken at the foot of her little altar. In 
the days when she had prayed, full of faith, for beauty 
and its triumphs, although ignorance had handled the 



The Californians 207 

brush of her imagination, yet the vigorous outline 
sketch had closely resembled all that was now the 
portion of her friend. She pondered on the fancy 
she had had as a child that Helena realised all her 
own little ambitions. She certainly had realised all 
her larger, but one. She dreaded to ask Helena if 
she had ever cared to write, fearing to surprise a 
confession to the authorship of the novel of the day. 
This, she concluded, after due reflection, was exaggera 
tion ; for if Helena had written, even without publica 
tion, she certainly would have talked about it, reticence 
being no vice of hers. But the suggestion might prick 
a latent talent into action. This was just the one thing 
Magdale"na could not endure, and she decided to let 
the talent sleep. The rest mattered little, aside from 
the sense of failure which the vicarious accomplishment 
of ambition must always induce ; for she had her ad 
vantage of Helena, the greatest one woman can have 
of another. She was happy, but Helena was only 
satisfied for the moment ; so restless and passionate a 
heart would not long remain content with the husks. 
It was true that Trennahan had not gone mad over her 
self as other men over Helena ; but what of that ? It 
was a question of years alone. 

It was now three months since he had left California. 
He had found his mother s affairs in a serious condition, 
but had managed to gather up the threads, and the 
knot would be tied before long. There was no doubt 
about his desire to return. In fact, as the time waned, 
his ardour waxed. Sometimes Magdatena was driven 



208 The Californians 

to wonder if his yearning for California or herself were 
the greater ; but on the whole she was satisfied, for she 
liked to accept his fancy that the two were indissoluble. 
He wrote delightful letters, witty and graceful, full of 
interesting gossip, and with many personal and tender 
pages. But the novelty of his absence had worn off 
some time since, and she longed impatiently for his 
return. She was caught in the whirl of social activity, 
and was the restless Helena s constant companion ; 
nevertheless, there were lonely hours, when the future 
with its imperious demands routed the past. 

The engagement was still a profound secret ; Mag- 
dalena had told Helena at once, but it was unguessed 
by anyone else. Mrs. Yorba had insisted that her 
daughter should have one brilliant girl season. The 
truth was that she was delighted at Don Roberto s 
sudden interest in the world of fashion, and was deter 
mined to make the most of it. He developed, indeed, 
into an untiring seeker after the innocent amusements 
of his wife s exclusive kingdom, and had given a 
fashionable tailor permission to bring his wardrobe 
down to date ; he had hitherto worn clothes of the 
same cut for twenty years. The girls always gave him a 
square dance ; during the round dances he stood against 
the wall with Mr. Polk and Colonel Belmont, and fairly 
beamed with good-will. The Yorbas seldom spent an 
evening at home unless their own doors were open, 
and Don Roberto consented to two parties and several 
large dinners. Mrs. Yorba shuddered sometimes at the 
weakening of her inborn and long-nurtured economical 



The Californians 209 

faculty, but thoroughly enjoyed herself forming an 
important item of the dado and hoped that her 
husband s enthusiasm would endure. 



VI 

" I M not a bit blase ," remarked Helena, " but I d 
like to be engaged for a change not to last, of course. 
Only I can t make up my mind which of the four ; and 
whichever I choose the other three will be so disagree 
able. If I could only let them know I did n t mean 
it, at least would n t later, but that would never do, 
because I should n t enjoy myself unless I really thought 
I was in earnest. Besides, I have n t been able to fall 
in love with any of them yet." 

" You don t really mean what you say when you talk 
that way, do you, Helena?" asked Magdale"na, with 
much concern. " It would be so so unprincipled ; 
and I can t bear to think that of you." 

" But, Le"na dearest, I should be in earnest for the 
time being ; I m just talking from the outside, as it 
were. At the time I should think I really meant it. 
Otherwise I d be bored to death, and the engagement 
would n t last five minutes after I was. I m simply 
wild to fall in love, if only to see what it s like. You 
won t tell me ; anyhow, I don t think that would satisfy 
all my curiosity if you did. I wish some new man 
would come along." 

" Alan Rush is charming." 
14 



2io The Californians 

" He s too much in love with me." 

" Mr. Fort keeps your wits on the jump." 

" My wits are in my brain, not my heart." 

"Mr. Howard?" 

" He has so much tact that he has no sincerity." 

" There is still Mr. Webster." 

" Poor Dolly ! " 

"What do you want?" 

Helena was moving restlessly about her boudoir, a 
bower of pearl-grey embroidered with wild roses, in 
which she reclined luxuriously when free from social 
duties, and improved her mind. A volume of Motley 
lay on the floor. Walter Pater s " Imaginary Portraits " 
was slipping off the divan, and there was a pile of 
Reviews on the table. She was biting the corner of 
a volume of Herrick. 

" I have n t any ideal, if that s what you mean. I 
think it would have to be a man of the world, for con 
versation so soon gives out with the men of this village. 
Mr. Fort takes refuge in epigrams. If I married 
became engaged to him I should feel as if I were 
living on pickles. I think that one reason why Alan 
Rush and Mr. Howard are so determined to make love 
to me is because they have nothing left to talk about." 

" You ve told me twice what you don t want, but 
you don t seem to know what you do. A man of the 
world is not very definite." 

" No ; he must be capable of falling violently in love 
with me, and at the same time not make himself ridic 
ulous ; to keep his head except when I particularly want 



The Californians 211 

him to lose it. Of course I want to inspire a grand 
passion as well as to feel one, but I don t want to be 
surrounded by it ; and the first time he looked ridicu 
lous would be the last of him as far as I was concerned. 
I might be in the highest stages of the divine passion, 
and that would cure me." 

" Well ! is that all ? Some men could not be ridicu 
lous if they tried." 

" You are thinking of Mr. Trennahan, of course. If 
he did, I do believe you would n t see it. But I should ; 
I have a hideous sense of the ridiculous. Well, lemme 
see. He must have read and travelled and thought a 
lot, so that he would know more than I, and I could 
look up to him ; also that subjects of conversation 
would not give out. The platitudes of love ! That 
would be fatal." 

" I don t believe they ever sound like platitudes." 

" Hm ! I won t undertake to discuss that point, 
knowing my limitations. What next? He must have 
suffered. That gives a man weight, as the sculptors 
say. My quartette will be much more interesting to 
the next divinity than they are to me. Then of course 
he must have charming manners and an agreeable 
voice : I could not stand the brain of a Bismark in the 
skull of an Apollo if he had a nasal American voice. I 
believe that s all. I m not so particular about looks, 
so long as he s neither small nor fat." 

"And if you found all that would n t you marry 
it?" 

" N-o-o I don t know but I d be engaged a 



212 The Californians 

good long time. You see I want to be a belle for 
years and years." 

" And what is to become of the poor men when you 
are through with them?" 

" Oh, they 11 get over it. I shall. Why should n t 
they?" 

" I thought you said once you wanted to marry a 
statesman. " 

" Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don t. I 11 con 
sider that question ten years hence. I want to be a 
perfectly famous belle first." 

" You are that already." 

" Oh, I must have a season in New York, and another 
in Washington, and another in London. The gods 
have given me all the gifts, and I intend to make the 
most of them. Now let s read a chapter of Motley 
out loud, and if I jump off to other things you jerk me 
back. Let s finish Pater, though. It s like lying 
under a cascade of bubbles on a hot summer s day. 
My brains are addled between trying to be well read 
and trying to keep four men from proposing. You read 
aloud, and I 11 brush my hair. No, I 11 embroider 
on papa s mouchoir case ; I Ve been at it for thirteen 
months. Oh, by the bye, I did n t tell you that I had a 
brilliant idea. It darted into my head just as I was 
dropping off last night. I forgot to speak about it to 
papa this morning, but I will to-night. It s this : I m 
going to give a ball at Del Monte. Take everybody 
down on a -special train. Don t you think it will be a 
change? The spring has come so early that we can 



The Californians 213 

have the grounds lit up with Chinese lanterns; and 
there may be some Eastern men there. There often 
are. So much the better for my ball and me. Now 
read." 



VII 

TRENNAHAN arrived late in the evening, and went 
directly to the Yorbas to dinner. He saw Magdalena 
alone for a moment before the others came downstairs, 
and his delight at meeting her again was so boyish 
that she could hardly have recalled his eventful forty 
years had she tried. He was one of those men, who, 
having a great deal of nervous energy, are possessed 
briefly by the high animal spirits of youth when in 
unusual mental and physical tenor, with coincident 
obliteration of the bills of time. Trennahan was in 
the highest spirits this evening. He was delighted to 
get back to California, delighted to see Magdale"na, 
whom he thought improved and almost pretty in her 
smart frock. Moreover, no woman had ever seemed 
to him half so sincere, half so well worth the loving, 
as this girl who said so little and breathed so 
much. 

Don Roberto and Mr. Polk detained him some time 
after dinner, and Magdalena, who thought them most 
inconsiderate, awaited him in the green-and-brown 
reception-room. She knew the ugliness of these rooms 
now, and wondered, as Trennahan finally entered, if 



214 The Californians 

it clashed with his sentiment. But he gave no sign. 
He pushed a small sofa before the fire, drew her be 
side him, and demanded the history of the past four 
months. He held her hand and looked at her with 
boyish delight. Even the lines had left his face for 
the moment, the grimness his mouth. He looked 
twenty-six. 

" Your trip has done you more good than California 
did. You never looked so well here." 

" I have been funereal since the day I left. This is 
pure reaction. I never felt so happy in my life. 
Could n t we have a walk or ride somewhere to-morrow 
early out to the Presidio ? I want to be in the open 
air with you." 

" I am afraid we could n t. Nobody does such 
things, you know except Helena. Someone would 
be sure to see us, and it would be all over town before 
night. Then we should have to announce I d 
rather not do that until just before I should hate 
being discussed." 

" Well, but I must have you to myself in my own 
way. I wonder if your mother would bring you down 
to my house for a few days. Don Roberto and Mr. 
Polk could come down every evening." 

" I think they would like it." 

"And you?" 

" Oh, I should like it. The woods must be lovely 
in winter." 

" Who has been teaching you coquetry ? Who has 
fallen in love with you since I left?" 



The Californians 215 

" With me ? No one. No one would ever think of 
such a thing but you " 

" I love you with an unerring instinct." 

" They are all in love with Helena. I suppose you 
heard of her in New York." 

" It certainly was not your fault if I did not." 

" But surely you must have heard otherwise. She is 
a great, great belle." 

" My dearest girl, you do not hear California men 
tioned in New York once a month. It might be on 
Mars. The East remembers California s existence 
about as often as Europe remembers America s. They 
don t know what they miss. When am I to see your 
Helena?" 

"A week from to-night; she gives a ball then at 
Del Monte. She and her father have already gone, 
because each thought the other needed rest." 

" Monterey, that is the scene of your Ysabel s 
tragedy. We will explore the old part of the town 
together." 

She moved closer to him, her eyes glistening. 
" That has been one of my dreams, to be there with 
you for the first time. We can guess where they all 
lived and go to the cemetery on the hill where so 
many are buried and there is the Custom House on 
the rocks, where the ball was and where Ysabel jumped 
off it will be heaven ! " 

He laughed and caught her in his arms, kissing her 
fondly. "You dear little Spanish maid," he said. 
"You don t belong to the present at all. No wonder 



216 The Californians 

you bewitched me. I am beginning to feel quite out 
of place in the present, myself. It is a novel and 
delightful sensation." 



VIII 

MRS. YORBA decided that it would be wiser for them 
all to go to Fair Oaks ; no one would know whether 
Trennahan were their guest or not. This was her first 
really gay winter, and could she have thought of a 
plausible excuse she would have delayed the marriage 
for a year or two. But both Don Roberto and Tren 
nahan were determined that the wedding should not 
take place later than June. 

They were to spend five days at Fair Oaks. Then 
Don Roberto, Mrs. Yorba, and Magdalena would go 
to Monterey, Trennahan to follow on the evening 
of the ball. 

The winter woods were wet and glistening. Thick 
in the brush were the vivid red berries and the firm 
little snowballs. The air was of a wonderful freshness 
and fragrance, cool on the cheek, but striking no chill 
to the blood. The grass tips in the meadows were 
close and green. There was no haze on the distant 
mountains : the redwoods stood out sharply ; one could 
almost see the sun baldes crossing in their gloomy 
aisles. Close to the ground was a low, restless, con 
tinuous mutter, the voluntary of Spring. 

Trennahan and Magdalena rode or strolled in the 



The Californians 217 

woods during most of the hours of light. They could 
not sit on the damp ground, but they swung hammocks 
by the path-side to sit in when tired. Trennahan would 
have slept on the verandah had not his enthusiasm for 
outdoor delights been controlled by his matter-of-fact 
brain, but he grudged the hours at table, and persuaded 
Magdale"na to go early to bed that she might rise and 
go forth at five in the evening of night. After four 
months of snow and nipping winds and furnace heat, 
small wonder that he was as happy as a boy out of 
school, and that he made Magdalena the most wonder- 
ingly happy of women. He did little love-making ; he 
treated her more as a comrade upon whose constant 
companionship he was dependent for happiness, his 
other part, with which he was far better satisfied than 
with the original measure. 

" We will camp out up there during all of July and 
August," he said to her one morning, as they stood on 
the edge of the woods and watched the rising sun pick 
out the redwoods one by one from the black mass on 
the mountain. " I can t imagine a more enchanting 
place for a honeymoon than a redwood forest. We 11 
take a servant, and a lot of books ; but I doubt if we 
shall read much, we 11 shoot and fish all day. If 
we like it as much as I am sure we shall, we 11 
build a house there. Do you think you should like 
it?" 

" Oh, I should ! I should ! " 

" You are so sympathetic in your own particular way ; 
not temperamentally so, which is pleasant but means 



2i 8 The Californians 

little, but with a slow, sure understanding which goes 
forth to few people, but is unerring and permanent." 

" I love no one but you and Helena. I have never 
cared to understand anyone else." 

" We all have great weaknesses in us. I wonder 
if mine were ever revealed to you which God forbid ! 
if you have sympathy enough to cover those, too." 

"I am sure that I have. I am neither quick nor 
generally affectionate, but I do nothing by halves." 

" I believe you. You are the one person on whose 
mercy I would throw myself. However, it is a long 
time since we have spoken of another subject. Do 
you think no further of writing?" 

" I have n t lately. There has been no time. Some 
day Oh, yes, I think I should never wholly give it 
up. Should should you object? " 

" Not in the least. But I am afraid I sha n t give 
you much time, either. What were you writing, 
your Old-California tales?" 

" No, an an historical novel English." 

" Of course ! And with fresh and fascinating material 
begging for its turn. I arrived in the nick of time. 
When you have transcribed those stories into cor 
rect and distinguished English, you will have taken 
your place among the immortals. But style alone will 
give you a place in letters worth having. Always re 
member that. The theme determines popular success, 
the manner rank. Don t misunderstand me ; there is 
no greater fraud or bore than the writer who has ac 
quired the art of saying nothing brilliantly. You must 




The Californians 



have both. And you are too ambitious, too intellectual, 
as distinguished from clever, too serious and logical, to 
be contented with anything short of perfection. I 
shall be your severest critic; but you yourself will 
work for years before you produce a line with which 
you are wholly satisfied. Is not this true? " 
" Yes ; I should always be my severest critic." 
He drew a long breath of relief. He had no desire 
for a literary wife ; nor to be known as the husband 
of one. Magdatena should be as happy as he could 
make her, but the sooner she realised that genius was 
not her portion, the better. 



IX 

" NEVER I think I come to Monterey again," said Don 
Roberto, as the bus which contained his party only 
drove from the little toy station to the big toy hotel. 
" Once I hate all the Spanish towns, because so extrava 
gant I am before that I feel fraid, si I return, I am all 
the same like then ; but now I am old and the habits 
fixit ; and now I know my moneys go to be safe with 
Trennahan, I feel more easy in the mind and can enjoy. 
But I no go to the town, for all is change, I suppose : 
all the womens grown old and poor, and all the mens 
dead by the drink, generalmente. Very fortunate I 
am I no stay there ; meeting Eeram in time. Ay, yi ! 
What kind de house is this ? Look like paper, and the 
grounds so artifeecial. No like much." 



22O The Californians 

MagdaMna hardly knew her father these last months. 
From the day that he found a reminiscent pleasure in 
the mild diversions of Menlo he had visibly softened. 
From the day he was assured of Trennahan he had 
become almost expansive, and at times was moved to 
generosity. Upon one occasion he had doubled Mag- 
dalena s allowance, and at Christmas he had given her 
a hundred dollars ; and he had paid the bills of the 
season without a murmur. The fear which had haunted 
him during the last thirty years, that he should sud 
denly relapse into his native extravagance and squan 
der his patrimony and his accumulated millions, dying as 
the companions of his youth had died, he dismissed 
after he met Trennahan. Polk had been the iron mine 
to the voracious magnet in his character. In the natu 
ral course of things Polk would outlive him ; but the 
possibility of Polk s extermination by railroad accident 
or small-pox had been a second devil of torment, and 
during the past year he had visibly failed. Now, how 
ever, there was Trennahan to take his place. Don 
Roberto would enjoy life once more, a second youth. 
He was almost happy. If he felt his will rotting, he 
would transfer all his vast interests to Trennahan in 
trust for his wife and daughter, retaining a large in 
come. He did not believe, at this optimistic period, 
that there was any real danger, after an inflexible resist 
ance of thirty years; but he also realised for the first 
time what the strain of those thirty years had been. 

Helena, dazzlingly fair in a frock of forest green, 
and surrounded by five new admirers, three Eastern 



The Californians 221 

and two English tourists, awaited Magdatena on the 
verandah. The strangers gave Magdal^na a faint 
shock : being the only well-dressed men she had ever 
seen except Trennahan, they assumed a family likeness 
to him, and seemed to steal something of his pre 
eminence among men. She commented distantly on 
this fact as she went up the stair with Helena. 

" Oh, your little tin god on wheels is not the only 
one," replied Helena, the astute. " There are five 
here with possibilities besides dress, and more coming 
to-morrow. They are such a relief! If I feel real 
wicked to-morrow night well, never mind ! " 

" Helena ! You will not make those four young 
men any more miserable than they are now?" 

Helena shook her head. She was looking very 
naughty. " Four months, my dear ! I did n t realise 
what I had endured until I had this sudden vacation. 
Two days of blissful rest, and then the variations for 
which I was born." 

They were in Helena s room, and Magdale"na sat 
down by the open window, where she could smell the 
cypresses, and regarded her beloved friend more 
critically than was her habit. 

" I wonder if you will ever mature, get any 
heart? " she said. 

" Le na ! What do you mean ! Heart? Don t I love 
you and my father ; and the other girls some ? " 

"I don t mean that kind. Nor falling in love, 
either. I never expressed myself very well, but you 
know what I mean." 



222 The Californians 

"Oh, bother. What were men and women made 
for but to amuse each other?" 

"Life isn t all play." 

" It is for a time when you re young. I am 
sure that that is what Nature intended, and that the 
people who don t see it are those who make the 
mistakes with their lives. Otherwise life would be 
simply outrageous, no balance, no compensation. 
After a certain age even fools become serious : they 
can t help it, for life begins to take its revenge for 
permitting them to be young at all, and to hope, and 
all that sort of thing. Therefore those that don t 
make the most of youth and all that goes with it are 
something more than fools." 

Magdalna looked at her in dismay. " How do 
you realise that, at your age? I have lived alone, 
thought more had more time to think and to 
read but I never should " 

" I have intuitions. And I ve seen more of the 
world than you have. I see everything that goes on 
you can bet your life on that. Talk about my powers 
of concentration ! They re nothing to my antennae." 

"But have you no principles of right and wrong? 
No morality? You would not deliberately sacrifice 
others to your own pleasure, would you?" 

"Wouldn t I? I don t take the least pleasure in 
cruelty, like some women. If I could give people 
oblivion draughts, I d do it in a minute for my 
vanity has nothing to do with it, either. But the 
world is at my feet, and there it shall stay, no matter 



The Californians 223 

who pays the piper. I love life. I love everything 
about it. I ve never seen anything in the world I 
thought ugly. I don t think anything is ugly. If it 
was, I should hate it. I Ve never been through a slum, 
a horrid slum, that is, and I don t want to. The 
beauty of the earth intoxicates me. When I even think 
about it, much less look at it, I feel perfectly wild 
with delight to think that I am alive. And my senses 
are so keen. I see so far. I can hear miles. I be 
lieve I can hear the grass grow. I eat and drink little, 
but that little gives me delight. A glass of cold spring 
water intoxicates me. And, above all, I enjoy being 
loved. I never forget how much you and papa love 
me. I could n t exist without either of you. Papa is 
looking much better since he came down. Don t you 
think so ? And I like to see love in the eyes of men 
I don t care a rap about. Their eyes are like imper 
sonal mirrors for me to read the secrets of the future 
in. And I don t really hurt them. Most men have a 
lot of superfluous love in them. I may as well have 
it as another. It won t interfere with the destination 
of the reserve in the least." 

" Helena ! " exclaimed Magdale"na, with a sinking 
heart. "I believe you are a genius." 

"I have the genius of personality, but I couldn t 
do a thing to save my life." 

Magdalna breathed freely again. 



224 The Californians 



X 



TRENNAHAN, who was to have arrived in time to 
dine with the Belmonts and Yorbas, missed his train 
and took his dinner alone. Afterward, he saw Magda- 
le"na for a few moments in the Yorbas private parlour, 
but she had to dress, and he went off to smoke in the 
grounds with Don Roberto, Mr. Polk, Mr. Washington, 
and Colonel Belmont. They subsequently had a game 
of bowls, and excepting Colonel Belmont several 
cocktails. When they suddenly remembered that a 
ball was in progress to which they were expected, it 
was eleven o clock, and Trennahan was not dressed. 

It was Helena s ball, but she had made every man 
promise to look after the wall- flowers, that she might 
be at liberty to enjoy herself. Her aunt, Mrs. Yorba, 
and Magdale na received with her; and as all the 
guests had arrived by the same train, and had dressed 
at about the same time, the arduous duty of receiving 
was soon over. Helena left the stragglers to her 
chaperons and prepared to amuse herself. As usual, 
she had refused to engage herself for any dances, but 
she gave the first two to her devoted four, then an 
nounced her intention to dance no more for the 
present. The truth was that one of her minute high- 
heeled slippers pinched, but this she had no intention 
of acknowledging; if men wished to think her an 
angel, so they should. She was a sensible person, far 
too practical to reduce the sum of her happiness by 



The Californians 225 

physical discomfort ; but the slippers, which she had 
never tried on, matched her gown, and she had no 
others with her that did. But the one rift in her lute 
induced a sympathetic rift in her temper. 

The party was very gay and pretty. The rooms 
had been fantastically decorated with red berries and 
snowballs, pine, and cedar. The leader of the band 
was in that stage of intoxication which promised mu 
sic to make the soles of the dado tingle. All the girls 
had brought their prettiest frocks, and all the matrons 
their diamonds. There were no tiaras in the Eighties, 
but there were a few necklaces, stars, and ear-rings 
of the vulgar variety known as " solitaires." It is true 
that certain of the Fungi looked like crystal chande 
liers upon occasion ; but Helena would have none of 
them. 

Herself had rarely been more lovely, in floating 
clouds of pale pink tulle, which looked like a shower 
of almond blossoms. Her hair was roped up with 
pearls, hinting the head-dress of Juliet, but stopping 
short of eccentric effect. She wore nothing to break 
the lines of her throat and neck, but on her arms were 
quantities of odd and beautiful " bangles," many made 
from her own suggestions, others picked up in different 
parts of the world. 

She was standing opposite the door in the middle 
of the room as Trennahan entered, leaning lightly 
upon a little table to rest her mischievous foot. Only 
one man was beside her at the moment, and Tren- 
nahan s view of her was uninterrupted. He knew at 

15 



226 The Californians 

once who she was. His second impression was that 
he had seen few girls so beautiful. His third, that 
she possessed something more potent than beauty, 
and that he was responding to it with a certain wild 
flurry of the senses, and a certain glad exultation in 
youth and danger which had not been his portion for 
many a long year. The instinct of the hunter leaped 
from its tomb, shocked into the eager quivering life 
of its youth. Trennahan was appalled to hear the 
fine web he had spun between his senses and his 
spirit rent in a second, then gratified at the youthful 
singing in his blood. The old joy in recklessness, in 
surrender to the delirium of the senses, came back 
to him. He pushed them roughly aside, and looked 
about for Magdalena. She was listening to the rapid 
delivery of Mr. Rollins. He thought she looked ill, 
and was about to go to her when Colonel Belmont 
took him by the arm. 

"You must meet my daughter," he said. "Oh, 
bother ! There go half a dozen." 

When Trennahan reached Helena, he was presented 
in the same breath with two other new arrivals, and her 
slipper was fairly biting. She did not even hear his 
name. She was in a mood to make her swains un 
happy ; and she liked Trennahan s face, and what she 
saw there. There was eager admiration in his eyes 
and nostrils, and on his face the record of a man who 
might possibly be her match. Of man s deeper and 
more personal life she never thought. She had heard 
that men sometimes loved married women, and others 



The Californians 227 

whose like she had never seen ; but she hated the 
mere fact of vice as she did all forms of ugliness, and 
dismissed it from her mind. She read in Trennahan s 
face that he had had many flirtations, nothing more. 

" I am not going to dance any more to-night/ she 
announced. She placed her hand in Trennahan s 
arm. "Take me to the conservatory," she said. 

There was really nothing for him to do but take 
her. But it was three hours before either was seen 
again. 

XI 

" You are not looking well this morning," said Tren- 
nahan, solicitously, about twelve hours after he had 
appeared in the ball-room. He had just entered 
the Yorbas private parlour. 

" Neither do you," replied Magdale"na. 

" I sat up late with some of the men, and slept ill 
after." 

Magdale"na raised her eyes and looked at him 
steadily. "You have fallen in love with Helena," 
she said. 

" What nonsense ! My dear child, what are you 
talking about? Miss Belmont asked me to take her 
to the conservatory; and as I do not dance, and as 
you do, and as she announced her intention of not 
dancing again, and is a very entertaining young 
woman, I decided to remain there. If our engage 
ment had been made known, of course I should 
have done nothing of the sort. But as it was " 



228 The Californians 

"You turned white when you first saw her. Alan 
Rush looked just like that. Now he is mad about 
her." 

" I am not Alan Rush, nor any other boy of twenty- 
five. The man you have elected to marry, and who is 
not half good enough for you, as I have told you many 
times, is a seasoned person past middle age, my dear 
est. I could not go off my head over a pretty face if 
I tried. My day for that is long past." 

He spoke vehemently. 

" You never looked at me like that." 

"Doubtless my pallor was due to some such un- 
romantic cause as an extremely bad dinner." 

" I have seen that look several times. Alan Rush 
is not the only one. And Helena is no doll. She 
has every fascination." 

"Possibly. Shall we go for our walk? I am most 
anxious to see those old houses and graves." 

He did not offer to kiss her. She was too proud 
to take up woman s usual refrain. She put on her hat, 
and they left the hotel, and walked toward the town. 

" I believe the cemetery comes first," she said. " I 
have made inquiries. We can see the town from there, 
and go on afterward if you like." 

" Of course I like. How good of you to wait for 
me ! I know you have been longing for the town which 
I am convinced is a part of your very personality." 

"Yes, I have been longing. I don t care much 
about it this morning." 

" Which of your heroines is buried in the cemetery ? " 



The Californians 229 

" Benicia Ortega, La Tulita, and some of aunt s 
old friends." 

" You must certainly write those old stories. I often 
think of them." 

" Nothing that you say this morning sounds like the 
truth." 

" My dear girl ! I am dull and stupid after a sleep 
less night. And the night after you left I sat up until 
two in the morning writing important letters." 

" I think it was disloyal of Helena." 

" I must rush to her defence. She did not know 
until the end of the evening who I was. She took me 
for one of the several Easterners who arrived to-day. 
Two of them brought letters to her father from Mr. 
Forbes. One was the son of an old friend. As her 
father presented me " 

Magdale"na faced about. " And you did not tell 
her? You did not speak of me?" 

" I am going to be perfectly frank, knowing how 
sensible you are. I had a desperate flirtation with 
your friend, as desperate and meaningless as those 
things always are ; for it is merely an invention to pass 
the idler hours of society. There was nothing else to 
do, so we flirted. It added to the zest to keep her in 
ignorance of my identity. It was a silly pastime, but 
better than nothing. I should far father have been 
in bed. If I could have talked to you, it would have 
been quite another matter." 

Magdale na hurried on ahead. He had the tact not 
to accelerate his own steps. After a time she fell back. 
She said, 



230 The Californians 

"What is this flirtation/ anyhow? I have heard 
nothing but flirtation all winter, and I heard a good 
deal of it last summer. But I have not the slightest 
idea what it means. What do you do?" 

" Do ? Oh I it is impossible to define flirtation. 
You must have the instinct to understand. Then you 
would n t ask. Thank Heaven you never will under 
stand. Flirtation is to love-making what soda-water is 
to champagne. I can think of no better definition 
than that." 

"Did you kiss Helena?" 

" Good God, no ! That s not flirtation. She is not 
the sort that would let me if I wished." 

" Did you hold her hand? " 

" I have held no woman s hand but yours for an in 
calculable time." 

"Did you tell her that you loved her?" 

" Certainly not ! " 

" I must say I can t see how a flirtation differs 
from an ordinary conversation." 

" It only does in that subtle something which cannot 
be explained." 

Magdale na had an inspiration. " Perhaps you talk 
with your eyes some." 

" Well, you are not altogether wrong. Did you ever 
see a fencing match? Imagine two invisible personal 
ities dodging and doubling, springing and darting. 
That will give you some idea. And all without a 
flutter of passion or real interest. It is good exercise 
for the lighter wits, but stupid at best." He did not 



The Californians 231 

add that the very essence of flirtation is its promise 
of more to come. 

It was some time before MagdaMna spoke again. 
Then she asked, 

"What did Helena say when you told her your 
name?" 

" I believe she said, < Great Heaven ! " 

" I think this must be the cemetery." 

They ascended the rough hill, and pushed their way 
through weeds and thistles and wild oats to the dilapi 
dated stones under the oaks. Magdale!na had imagined 
her conflicting emotions when she visited the graves of 
her youthful heroines ; among other things the delight 
ful sense of unreality. But the unreality was of another 
sort to-day. They were a part of an insignificant past. 
Trennahan elevated one foot to a massive stone and 
plucked the " stickers " from his trousers. 

"This is all very romantic," he said, " but these con 
founded things are uncomfortable. Have you found 
your graves ? " 

" I think this is Benicia s. We can go if you like." 

"By no means." He went and leaned over the 
sunken grey stone which recorded the legend of Beni- 
cia Ortega s brief life and tragic death, then insisted 
upon finding the others. 

"You don t take any interest," said Magdalena. 
"Why do you pretend?" 

He caught her in his arms and seated her on the 
highest and driest of the tombs, then sat beside her. 
He kept his arm about her, but he did not kiss 



232 The Californians 

her. " Come now," he said, " let us have it out. We 
must not quarrel. I humble myself to the dust. I 
vow to be a saint. I will not exchange two consecutive 
sentences with your friend in the future. Make me 
promise all sorts of things." 

"If you love her, you can t help yourself." 
" I have no intention of loving her. Perhaps you 
will be as sweet and sensible as you always are, and 
not say anything so absurd again. I am deeply sorry 
that I have offended you. Will you believe that? 
And will you forgive me?" 

" Do you mean that you still wish to marry me? " 
" Great Heaven, Le"na ! Even if my head were 
turned, do you think that I have not brains enough 
to remember that that sort of thing is a matter of 
the hour only, and that I am a man of honour? I 
have no less intention of marrying you to-day than 
I had yesterday. Does that satisfy you? And 
since you take it so hardly I wish I might never 
see Miss Belmont again." 

Magdale"na raised her eyes ; they were full of tears. 
Her hat was pushed back, her soft hair ruffled. In 
the deep shade of the oaks and with the passion in 
her face she looked prettier than he had ever seen 
her. A kiss sprang to her lips. He bent his head 
swiftly and caught it ; and then he was delighted at. 
the depth of his penitence. 

" Le*na, you ought to hate me, but I did n t know ! 
I swear I didn t!" 



The Californians 233 

"I know you did not. He told me that it was 
entirely his fault, and I have forgiven him ; so don t 
let us say any more about it." 

" Well, I am glad he admitted that. I m pretty 
selfish, as I Ve never denied, but I d never be dis 
loyal. Not to you, anyhow," she added on second 
thoughts. "I shouldn t mind Ila so much, nor 
Caro." 

" You don t mean to say you would take any girl s 
lover away from her, Helena?" 

" Yes, I would if I wanted him badly. But I d do 
it right out before her face. I d never be under 
hand about it. I loathe deceit. I was furious for 
a time with Mr. Trennahan last night, but I really 
believe I was more furious because he was the most 
interesting man I had ever met and I couldn t 
have him, than because he hadn t behaved quite 
properly." 

Magdalena reached her right hand to a bow on 
her left shoulder, that Helena should not see the 
sudden leap of her heart. "Do you mean to say 
that you had had intended to to add him to 
the quartette?" 

" I had had a very definite idea of turning the entire 
quartette out in his favour. I don t mind telling you 
that, because wild horses could n t make me so much 
as flirt an eyelash at him again ; and of course it was 
only one of my passing fancies. Nothing goes very 
deep with me. I m made on a magnificent plan. 
So is he. We 11 both have forgotten last evening 



234 The Californians 

before the end of the week. I hate the morning 
after a ball, don t you? One always feels so devita 
lised. Wasn t Ila s gown disgracefully low? And 
the way some girls roll their eyes is positively sicken 
ing. Let s go out and get a breath of air." 



XII 

Two nights later Tiny had a large dinner. A place 
had been kept for Trennahan. He had expected to 
be sent in with Magdale"na, somewhat illogically, as 
no one suspected his engagement. He was sent in 
with Helena. 

The long low dining-room of the old house on 
Rincon Hill had never been double-dated with gas 
fixtures. There was a large candelabra against the 
dark wainscot at each end of the room, and little 
clusters of flame on the table. The girls never 
looked so pretty, so guileless, never planted their 
arrows so surely, as in this room, in the soft radiance 
of its wax candles. 

On Helena s other side sat Rollins, whom she hon 
oured by regarding as a brother. On Trennahan s left 
Ila was intent upon the subjugation of a younger 
brother of Mr. Washington, who had recently returned 
to San Francisco after six years in Europe, and had. 
knelt at her shrine at once. He was wealthy, and she 
had made up her mind to marry him. Trennahan she 
had given up during the summer. Had she not, she 



The Californians 235 

would have known better than to pit her charms 
against Helena s. Magdal^na was on the same side 
of the table. 

Helena wore white, in which she looked her best ; 
the silk softened with much lace on the bust. She 
raised her eyes defiantly to Trennahan s. Their 
coquetry had been ordered to the rear. 

"We ve got to talk, or look like idiots," she said. 
"I had made up my mind never to speak to you 
again. I think you were quite too horrid the other 
night." 

" I certainly was." 

" Was it your fault or mine ? " 

"Wholly mine despite your fascinations." 

" I would n t have been fascinating if I had known. 
I am glad you admit that it was all your fault. It 
makes me believe that it was. What made you keep 
it up for three hours?" 

"The weakness of man." 

"Is that what you told Le na?" 

"No; it is not." 

"What did you tell her Oh, how horrid of me 
to ask ! Let s talk about something else. Do you 
like California better than New York?" 

" It will take exactly eight minutes to exhaust that 
subject ; I am an old hand at it. So while I assure 
you that I do, and am giving my reasons, please cast 
about for a subject to follow." 

" My thinker is not good to-night. I expect you to 
take care of me." 



236 The Californians 

" What greater delight ! You are paler than you 
were. Are you not well?" 

Trennahan s voice became tender from long habit. 
The softness and fire sprang to Helena s eyes. The 
pink tide poured into her cheeks. A sudden intense 
light sprang into Trennahan s eyes. It held hers for 
the fraction of a moment, then both looked away ; and 
ate their oysters. 

It was Helena who spoke first. " Another moment, 
and we should have been launched into the second 
chapter. But we are not to flirt ; we understand that 
thoroughly. I don t think, on second thoughts, that I 
should like you at all. You have yourself too well in 
hand ; you look as if you had been through it all too 
many times ; there is n t a bit of freshness about you 
Oh, bother, I hate lying ! I 11 tell you plainly and 
have done with it, I should be in love with you by 
this time if it were not for Lna. That s not the way 
of older climes, but it s mine : I ve got to talk out or 
die. I ve always said everything that occurred to me. 
Let s talk this out, and then we 11 never talk for two 
minutes alone again. If you had not been in love 
with Le na, should you be in love with me by this 
time?" 

He put his fork down abruptly and turned to her. 
She shrank a little. " I think we had better let that 
subject alone. As a product of older climes, I am 
competent to judge." 

" I must know. I will know. Tell me." 

Well, then, I should." 



The Californians 237 

"As much as you are with Lena?" 

" I should have been madder about you than I have 
been about any woman for fifteen years." 

" If you know that, how can you help it now? " 

" There is such a thing as honour in men." 

" That means that there is none in women ? Well, 
I don t believe there is. But honour does not keep a 
man from loving a woman." 

He made no reply. 

"Does it?" 

" Are you mad about fire ? Or is it your vanity that 
is insatiable?" 

Again he met her eyes. And this time her face was 
as white as her gown. Her bosom was heaving. Her 
skin was translucent. To Trennahan s suffused vision 
she seemed bathed in white fire. 

" I love you," he said hoarsely ; " and I would give 
all the soul I Ve got to have met you a year ago." 



XIII 

TALK about the complex heart of a woman. It is 
nothing to that of a man. 

Trennahan had loved a good many women in a good 
many ways. Perhaps he understood women as well as 
any man of his day : he had been bred by women of 
the world, and his errant fancy had occasionally sent 
him into other strata. He also thought that he knew 
himself. His mind, his heart, his senses, the best and 



238 The Californians 

the worst in him, had been engaged so often and so 
actively that he could have drawn diagrams of each, 
alone or in combination, with accommodating types of 
woman. He also, without generalising too freely, 
knew men, and he had spent ten years of his life in 
diplomacy. But he now stood before himself as 
puzzled as he was aghast. 

If his grip upon himself had suddenly relaxed, and 
he had spent a wild night with the wild young men of 
San Francisco, he should not have been particularly 
surprised : he had been living on an exalted plane for 
the last ten months. But that he loved Magdale"na 
with the love of his life, that he realised in her some 
vague youthful ideal, that she was the woman created 
for the better part of him, that his highest happiness 
was to be found in her, he had never doubted from the 
minute he had finished his long communion with him 
self and determined to marry her. And every moment 
he had spent with her had strengthened the tie. 
Nothing about her but had pleased him : her intellect, 
her pride, her reticence, her difference from other 
women; even, after the first shock to his taste was 
over, her lack of beauty. It was true that she had no 
great power over his pulses, but he was tired of his 
pulses. She appealed to his tenderness and deeper 
affections as no woman had done. Above all, she had 
given him peace of mind ; and she held his future in 
her hands. 

And now? 

Helena Belmont was that most dangerous rival of 



The Calif ormans 239 

other women, a girl whom men loved desperately 
with no attendant loss of self-respect. Whatever their 
passion, they felt a keen personal delight in the purity 
of her mind ; and they admired themselves the more 
that they appreciated her cleverness. She was not 
only a woman to love but to idolise ; she gave even 
these prosaic San Francisco youths vague promptings 
to distinguish themselves by some great and noble ac 
tion, sending her shafts straight through the American 
brain to those dumb inherited instincts which had 
straggled down through the centuries from mediaeval 
ancestors. Her very selfishness which she was 
pleased to call Paganism charmed them : it was one 
of the divine rights of the woman born to rule men 
and to create a happiness for one unimagined by lesser 
women. No man but idealised her, unfanciful as he 
might be, not so much for her beauty or gifts, or for all 
combined, as because when she gave herself it would 
be for the last as it was for the first time. As the 
reader knows, there was nothing ideal about Helena. 
Even her fastidiousness was natural in view of her up 
bringing. She was a most practical young flirt, with a 
very distinct intention of having her own way as long 
as she lived. The wealth and petting and adulation 
which had surrounded her from birth had made a 
thorough- going egoist of her, albeit a most charming 
one ; for she was warm-hearted, impulsive, generous, 
and kind in her own way. Naturally the men for 
whom her lovely eyes beamed welcome, for whom her 
tantalising mouth pouted into smiles, thought her noth- 



240 The Californians 

ing short of a goddess, and were moved to inarticulate 
rhyme. 

Trennahan had met many more women who were 
beautiful, seductive, dashing, and withal fastidious, than 
had these young men of a cosmopolitan and still chaotic 
State ; nevertheless, he might have been Adam ranging 
the dreary solitudes of Paradise, facing about for the 
first time upon the first woman. Helena was the type 
of woman for whom such men as meet her have the 
strongest passion of their lives, if for no other reason 
than because she induces an exaggeration of their best 
faculties and a consequent exaltation of self- appreciation, 
as distinguished from mere masculine self-sufficiency. 
Never is the briefly favoured one so much of a man 
apart from a type, looking down upon that type with 
pitying scorn. This is a mere matter of fascination, 
too subtle, and composed of too many parts for man s 
analysis, but it is the most telling force in the clashing 
of the sexes. 

Trennahan was an extremely practical man. He 
called things by their right names, and scorned to turn 
his head aside when life or himself was to be looked 
squarely in the eye. It is true that he cursed himself 
for a fool. He was neither in his youth nor in his 
dotage ; he was in that long intermediate period where 
a man may hope that his will and sound common-sense 
are in their prime, the interval of the minimum of 
mistakes. Nevertheless, he was as madly in love with 
Helena Belmont as was the first man with the first 



The Californians 241 

woman, as a boy with his first mistress, an old man 
with his last. He admitted the fact and ordered his 
brain to make the best of the situation. 

He was not conscious of any change in his feelings 
for Magdatena except that he no longer desired to 
marry her. The sense of rest, of comradeship, the 
tenderness and affection, had not abated. He was just 
as sure that she was the woman for him to marry as he 
had been two weeks ago ; and he knew that he could 
not make a greater mistake than to marry Helena 
Belmont. He believed that it would be years before 
she would be capable of loving any man for any length 
of time. Such women not only develop slowly, but 
they have too much to give, men too little. The clever 
woman is abnormal in any case, being a divergence 
from the original destiny of her sex. The woman 
who is beautiful, fascinating, passionate, and clever is a 
development with which man has not kept pace. 

He spent the greater part of the three days follow 
ing the dinner, on the cliffs beyond the Golden Gate. 
There was no great moral battle going on in his mind ; 
he intended to marry Magdatena. One of his pet 
theories was that one secret of the rottenness under 
lying the social, and in natural sequence, the political 
structure of the United States was the absence of a 
convention. Men were on their knees to women so 
long as their pleasure was materially abetted by the 
attitude ; but the moment the motive ceased to exist, 
any display of chivalry toward her would be as useless 
and wasted as toward the ordinary run of women. It 
16 



242 The Californians 

is always the woman of the moment, never woman in 
general. The so-called chivalry of American men does 
not exist ; the misconception has arisen out of the mul 
titudinous examples of American subserviency to the 
individual woman, which is part of a habit of exag 
geration natural to a youthful nation. There is an utter 
absence of all responsibility that is not the concomitant 
of personal desire. 

The new country is full of good impulses with little 
to bind them together. Children respect their parents 
if they feel like it, just as they are polite when in a 
responsive mood, not through any sense of convention. 
The American press is an exemplification of this absence 
of noblesse oblige, and more particularly in its treatment 
of women. Even when not moved by personal jealousy 
or spite, the total lack of respect with which the Amer 
ican press treats women who have not in any way chal 
lenged public opinion society women with whom the 
public has no concern, women upon whom either the 
misfortune of circumstances or of a powerful individu 
ality has fallen is the most significant foreboding of 
the degeneration of a national character while yet half 
grown. It is individualism, which is a polite term for 
rampant selfishness, run mad, a fussy contempt and 
hatred for the traditions of older nations. 

Fifty years ago, when the United States was still so 
old-fashioned as to be hardly "American," it was more 
or less bound together by the conventions it had inher 
ited from the great civilisations that begat it. These 
conventions exist to-day only in men of the highest 



The Californians 243 

breeding, those with six or eight generations behind 
them of refinement, consequence, and fastidiousness 
in association. In these men, the representatives of 
an aristocracy that is in danger of being crippled and 
perhaps swamped by plutocracy, exists the convention 
which forces the most deplorable degenerate of old- 
world aristocracy to manifest himself a gentleman in 
every crucial test. So thoroughly did Trennahan com 
prehend these facts, so profound was his contempt for 
the second-rate men of his country, that he was almost 
self-conscious about his honour. He would no more 
have asked Magdale"na to release him, nor have adopted 
the still more contemptible method of forcing her to 
break the engagement, than he would have been the 
ruin of an ignorant girl. But he would have sacrificed 
every green blade in his soul to have met Helena 
Belmont a year ago, and would have taken the chances 
with defiance and the consequences without a murmur. 

To marry Magdatena in June was impossible. That 
he should ever cease to desire Helena Belmont, to 
regret the very complete happiness which might have 
been his for a few years, was a matter of doubt, with 
even possibilities. But there must be a long inter 
mission before he could marry another woman. His 
determination to leave California for a year was fixed, 
but what excuse to offer Don Roberto and Magdal^na 
was the question which beset him in all his waking 
hours and amid all his torments. 

During these three days he avoided seeing Magda- 
lena alone. On the afternoon of the fourth day he 



244 The Californians 

came face to face with Helena Belmont in the Mercan 
tile Library. 

She was leaving as he entered. They looked at each 
other for a moment, then without a word both walked 
toward a room at the right of the door. 

This was a long narrow apartment leading off the 
great room, and was darker, dustier, gloomier, grimmer. 
As the building stood almost against another of equal 
height, its side windows looked upon blank walls ; but 
some measure of grey light was coaxed down from the 
narrow strip above by means of reflectors. The walls 
were lined with old books bound in calf black with 
age, and in the centre was a long narrow table which 
looked as if it should have a coffin on it. This room 
had depressed many cheerful lovers in its time ; it 
was enough to drive tormented souls to suicide. 

Trennahan and Helena sat down in an angle where 
they were least likely to be seen. 

"What are you going to do? " asked Helena. 

" I am going away for a year as soon as I can invent 
a decent excuse." 

"Then shall you come back and marry Le"na? " 

Yes." 

"Suppose you still love me? " 

" It will make no difference. And Time works 
wonders. You will have quite forgotten me." 

" I sincerely hope I shall." Her voice shook. There 
was agitation in every curve of her figure. But had 
anyone entered, their faces could not have been dis 
tinguished two feet away. The sky was grey. There 
was no light to reflect. 



The Californians 245 

" It is the first time I have n t got what I wanted," 
she said ingenuously. 

" It will make your next triumph the keener. I 
shall be glad to serve as a shadow for the high lights." 

" I have suffered horribly in the last week." 

" So have I, if that consoles you. But I have had a 
good deal of suffering in my life, one way and another, 
and I shall weather it. I wish I could take your 
share." 

" Shouldn t you like to marry me?" 

" Of course I should. Why do you ask such foolish 
questions ? " 

" I want to talk it all out. I love Le"na, but I don t 
love her better than I do myself, and I don t see why 
I should suffer instead of she. Don t you think that if 
we told her she would release you? " 

" Undoubtedly ; but I shall not ask her. Nor must 
you think of such a thing. Why two young and excep 
tionally fortunate girls should want what is left of me 
God only knows ; but if they do the prior rights must 
win the day. If I don t marry Le"na, I shall marry no 
woman, not even you." 

She gave him a swift glance. His face was not as 
stern as his words. "You know that you would," she 
said with decision. " You are too honourable to break 
the engagement, but you would marry me if it were 
broken for you." 

He drew his brows together and bent his face to 
hers. "Listen to me," he said. " I mean what I say. 
I love you, how much you have not the vaguest idea ; 



246 The Californians 

but I will not have her happiness ruined. If you ask 
her to break the engagement, I shall never see you 
again. Will you remember that?" 

" I suppose you are right. I had not really thought 
of asking her. But I Ve got to tell her that I love you. 
I feel like a hideous hypocrite. I can hardly look her 
in the face. I 11 promise not to betray you, but I must 
tell her that. She has been so sweet to me this last 
week, ever since that night at Monterey. She s the 
very best creature that ever lived. Then I 11 ask papa 
to take me away. You need not go." 

" I shall go. Can t you go away without saying any 
thing to her about it? I don t see why her peace of 
mind should be disturbed." 

" I should feel just as guilty when I came back." 
" You would have forgotten it by that time." 
" Oh, no ; I should n t ! I should n t ! " 
There was no mistaking the passion in her voice. 
Trennahan half rose, but sat down again. " I would 
rather you wrote it to her after you left," he said. 
" Then there would be no danger of saying too much. 
If you want to go to Europe, I will go to the South Sea 
Islands." 

"Well, I will arrange it that way, if you like." 
Her head was lowered. She spoke dejectedly. 
There was little of the old Helena manifest. In truth, 
she had been making a mighty effort to control herself 
for the first time in her life. She hardly knew whether 
she wished to do what was right or not ; for the 
moment she was dominated by a stronger will than her 



The Californians 247 

own. She drew a deep sigh. " I wish I could take it 
as coolly as you do," she said. 

" I take it less coolly. But I am older and used to 
self-control." 

" I hate self-control." 

"So do I." 

I feel as if life were quite over. I would a great 
deal rather die than not. I wish I were older. I 
don t know what to do. I feel that it cannot be 
right to throw away the happiness of one s life, but I 
don t know how to hold you, and, above all, I don t 
want to hurt Le na. I thought that I knew so much ; 
but I know nothing at all nothing." 

" If you do what is right, you will be very glad a 
year hence." 

" A year is such a long time." Her head dropped 
lower. She looked utterly dejected. In a moment 
she put her handkerchief to her face and cried 
silently. The undemonstrativeness of the act, so 
unlike her usual volcanic energy, touched him out 
of prudence. He put his arm about her and pressed 
her head against his shoulder. In a moment he laid 
his face against hers and closed his eyes to crowd 
back the tears that sprang from the depths of his 
soul. When he opened his eyes, it was to meet 
those of Magdatena. 



248 The Californians 



XIV 

SHE had left them without a word, and Trennahan 
did not see her until the following evening, when she 
sent for him. 

She received him in the room at the end of the 
hall, where they were sure not to be interrupted. 
As he entered he averted his face hastily, and cursed 
himself for a scoundrel. But he went straight to the 
point. 

" I have made you suffer," he said, " and as only 
you can suffer. I have no excuse to offer except my 
own weakness. Do you remember that I asked you 
once if you thought you could love me did you come 
to understand all the weakness of my nature, and that 
you replied you could ? Will you forgive me this dis 
play of it ? I have no desire no intention of marry 
ing any other woman." 

" I have not doubted your honour. But I shall not 
marry you. I do not want you without your love. I 
see now that I never had it." 

"You did, and you have it still. It is impossible 
for a man to explain himself to a woman. Will you 
let me decide for both ? I am going away for a time. 
When I return I want you to marry me." 

She shook her head. " There would be three 
people miserable instead of one. If I had not gone 
there yesterday, perhaps I should never have known : 
I simply made up my mind after that night at Mon- 



The Californians 249 

terey that I would think no more about it. By and 
by you might have got over it and we might have 
been happy in a way I don t know. It is not your 
fault that I found out. And I went to the Library 
by the merest chance yesterday. It seems like fate, 
and I shall recognise it. If Helena did not love you, 
it would be different ; but I had a terrible scene with 
her last night. I never thought even she could feel 
so. For the time I felt much sorrier for her than 
for myself I felt rather dull, for that matter. After 
she went I thought all night. It was a terrible night." 
She stopped and shivered. 

He took her hand, but she withdrew it. " I thought 
of everything. You know I once told you that my 
only religion was to do what I believed to be right. 
If love means anything, it means that one should 
make the other person happy, not oneself. I thought 
and thought. You two were more to me than any 
people living. I have not ever really loved anyone 
else, except my aunt, and her not half so much as 
Helena. Therefore my love would not be worth much 
if I did not consider you two before myself. If 
Helena did not love you, it would be different. I 
would try to forget that she had fascinated you, and 
I should see no reason why I should not marry you 
if you still wished me to. But she loves you. I 
never expected to see such tragedy. But even if I 
did not believe she would make you happy, I would 
not give you to her, for I vowed to live for that 
long before the night at Tiny s in the garden. 



250 The Californians 

But Helena could make any man happy. She has 
everything." 

She paused again. He made no reply for a 
moment. He was staring at the carpet, at a hideous 
green-and-yellow dragon. The comedy which cuts 
every black cloud in thin staccato blades was suggest 
ing that he had something to be grateful for, inas 
much as the scene with Helena had been spared 
himself. 

" You are far more suited to me than she is," he 
said finally. "I am too old for her. I am not for 
you. If we have souls, yours and mine were made 
for each other. Years have nothing to do with us. 
They would mean everything between Helena and 
myself." 

She leaned forward and fixed her eyes on his, com 
pelling his gaze. 

" If you had never met me, would you not be 
engaged to Helena by this time?" 

" Doubtless, but that proves nothing." 

"Will you give me your word of honour that you 
do not wish you were free, that you would not gladly 
marry her now?" 

He drew a long breath. He felt like a prisoner 
on the witness stand driven to save himself by incrimi- 
nation of another. But he was in that state of mind 
when only the truth is possible. 

" I will put it in another way. Do you want any 
thing in the world as much as Helena?" 

" No," he said ; I do not." 



The Californians 251 

She got up and walked to the window, and drew 
aside the curtains. The sky was brilliant with moon 
and stars ; the bay and hills lovely with the mystery 
of night. California had never been more unsympa- 
thetically beautiful. She jerked the curtains together 
and went back to him. As she did not sit down, he 
rose. 

" That is all," she said, " except that you must let 
me explain to my father." 

" And let you bear the whole brunt of it. Not if I 
know myself." 

"You must. I understand him, and you do not. 
Besides, if he knew that you and Helena had anything 
to do with the breaking of the engagement he would 
never let me speak to either of you again, and I have 
no other friends. I shall tell him that I no longer 
wish to marry you, and he cannot compel me to give 
reasons. If he speaks to you about it, you must tell 
him that you will marry no woman against her will, 
and let him see that you mean it." 

" Magdale"na, you are a grand woman." 

" I am a very dull and stupid person who has made 
up her mind that the only chance of making life bear 
able is to do what is right. I am terribly common 
place. I wonder you stood me as long as you did." 

" You are the reverse of stupid and commonplace ; 
and I am by no means sure that you are doing right. 
I, too, have thought over this matter, for nearly as 
many days as you have hours. I have tried to get 
outside myself, to view the case quite dispassionately ; 




252 The Californians 

and I honestly believe that as you insist upon put 
ting me before yourself it would be better for me to 
marry you than Helena." 

" I do not believe it. Nor could I marry you after 
what you just acknowledged. I have never had much 
pride with you, but I have that much. Marry you 
when you said that you wanted nothing so much in 
the world as to marry Helena Belmont? That was 
the end of everything." 

He left the room and the house. Magdale"na went 
up the stair slowly, assisting herself with the banister. 
Her limbs felt as if their muscles had fallen to dust. 
Her heart seemed to have taken it outside of herself 
altogether; there was no sensation where sensation 
was supposed to sit, unless it were that of vacancy. 
Her brain was not confused ; she did not feel in the 
least as if she were going to be ill. She knew what 
she had done, what she had to do in the future ; 
and she wished that her heavy limbs were as dead 
as that something within her for which she had no 
name. 



xv 

THE next morning she received a note from Tren- 
nahan. 

I am sailing for Honolulu. Do nothing until my 
return. I shall be gone six weeks. Until your final de 
cision I shall consider myself bound to you. And, I 



The Californians 253 

repeat, I think it best that we should marry. You have 
acted on impulse, and your mind and judgment were con 
structed to work slowly. And God knows this is not a 
matter to be decided in haste. I shall have sailed before 
even a telegram from you could reach me. Don Roberto 
knows that I have thought more than once of a trip to the 
Islands. Tell him when he returns that I suddenly de 
cided to go. J. T. 

But Magdale"na wanted no respite. It was her 
temper to die once rather than a thousand times. 
Her father was in Sacramento on business. He 
would return the following day. She was too dull 
and listless to feel fear of him, but she wanted it 
over. 

She wrote at once to Helena, enclosing Trennahan s 
letter : " I have made up my mind, and that is the 
end of it. As far as I am concerned, he now belongs to 
you. I shall speak to papa to-morrow night. Imme 
diately after I shall write to Mr. Trennahan, and that 
will put an end to my part in the matter." 

Helena ordered her devoted parent to take her to 
Southern California at once. To pick up the old 
routine, to show herself daily and nightly in the 
studied simulacrum of her former self, was no part 
of her code. She felt she should tell every man that 
came near her that she hated him, and the reason why. 
Nor was hers the temperament for suspense without 
diversion. She could live through the next six weeks 
with change of scene, but not otherwise. She made 
a full confession to her father and received the severest 



254 The Californians 

reprimand of her life ; but Colonel Belmont took hei 
to Southern California. 

Magdale"na went to a lunch-party on the day follow 
ing Trennahan s departure and paid calls during the 
afternoon. The small details diverted her, and she 
found herself able to make conversation, despite the 
sluggish current of misery beneath. She had told her 
mother of her determination not to marry Trennahan ; 
and although Mrs. Yorba had paced the room in ap 
prehension of her husband s wrath, she was secretly 
pleased. A daughter, particularly one that gave no 
trouble, was companionable and useful, and she saw 
no reason why she should be asked to give her to any 
man for years to come. Although meagre, she was 
not heartless, and was much relieved that Magdalena 
appeared indifferent to the sudden break. She was 
dimly conscious that she did not understand her 
daughter, but she had no desire to plumb the depths ; 
she had a substantial distaste for the Spanish nature 
when roused. 

Her husband was expected to return in time for 
dinner. She went to bed with an attack of neuralgia 
a little after six. 

Magdalena did not see her father until he entered 
the dining-room with her uncle. He inquired imme 
diately for Trennahan, who usually dined with him 
when there were no engagements elsewhere. 

" He decided suddenly to go to the Sandwich 
Islands and sailed yesterday." 

" Very sorry he no wait until I come back. I think 



The Californians 255 

I gone with him. Always I want to see the Islands. 
I work long enough now : go to travel some and see 
the world. So queer to think is so much world outside 
California. When you go to Europe, I go too. And 
you, too, Eeram. You no can go with us, for both can 
not leave the bank, but when we coming back you take 
the vacation, too." 

" I never expect to see the outside of California 
again," said Mr. Polk, shortly. 

Magdale na s nerves shook for the first time in 
seventy-two hours. She appreciated the ordeal she had 
to face within the next. The dull ache in every nerve 
of her gave place to a certain keenness of apprehen 
sion. What would that terrible little man do? She 
had absorbed something of her father s personality as 
a child. During the last year she had talked much 
with him and had discovered the strange weaknesses 
and fears which lurked in that manufactured character. 
She fully realised what a son-in-law like Trennahan 
meant to him. He was quite capable of killing her. 
And during the last three or four weeks he had flown 
into more than one violent passion, prompted by a 
liver disordered by too much dining out. 

While the two men were drinking their coffee, she 
left the room and went to the office. The riding-whip 
was in its old place ; on a shelf in the cupboard was 
a brace of pistols. Magdal^na threw the whip into 
the cupboard, locked the door, and slipped the key 
behind a book on the mantel. Her father came in 
a moment later. She handed him a cigar and a 



256 The Californians 

match. He drew his heavy brows together and puck 
ered his eyelids. 

"What the matter?" he demanded drily. "So 
white you are, and the hand tremble." 

Magdalena sat down and took control of herself. 

" I am not going to marry Mr. Trennahan," she said. 

She held her breath for the expected outburst ; but 
Don Roberto only stared at her, his eyes slowly ex 
panding. The cigar dropped from his fingers. 

"He no want marry you? " he ejaculated finally. 

" I told him that I did not wish to marry him, I 
never wish to marry any man, and he is too proud 
to insist upon marrying a woman who does not want 
him. We had a long conversation. We quite under 
stand each other. He will never ask me again." 

"Dios!" gasped Don Roberto. "Diosf" But 
there was no anger in his voice. His eyes rolled from 
Magdalena to the window and back again. Finally 
he said, 

"He no come back, then? " 

" He is coming back in six weeks." 

Don Roberto drew a long breath and seemed to 
recover himself. 

" Then si he no break the engagement, he feel glad 
si it is make again. You marry him the day after he 
come back. I fixit that." 

"No power on earth can make me marry him." 

Her father searched her countenance. He knew 
her character. Did it not have that iron of New 
England in it for which he would have sold his birth- 



The Californians 257 

right? He might turn her into the street, and it 
would avail him nothing. Again his features relaxed, 
this time not with surprise and consternation, but with 
abject fear. He shuddered from head to foot; then 
his hands shot up to receive his face. He groaned 
and rocked from side to side. 

Magdatena was aghast. What feeling was alive in 
her united in filial tenderness. She went to him and 
put her hands uncertainly about his head, then stroked 
his hair awkwardly : she was little used to endear 
ments. 

"I never thought " she stammered. "I never 
thought " 

"Thirty years I work like the slave, and now all 
going ! Eeram, he have the death-tick in him : I 
hear ! And now I no go to have the son, and I go to 
die in the streets like the others ; with no one cents ! 
Ay! yi ! ay ! yi! " 

Magdale"na was pricked with a new fear : Was her 
father insane? She had heard of the " fixed idea." 
This weevil had been burrowing in his brain for more 
than a quarter of a century. She went back to her 
chair and said assertively, 

" You are one of the ablest financiers in California : 
everybody says so. Nothing can change that, whether 
uncle dies or not. This is all a fancy of yours. You 
don t half appreciate yourself. And you are tired out 
to-night, and have not been well lately " 

"All going! All going! Ay de mil Ay de mi! 
Why I no dying with the wife and the little boy? 
17 



258 The Californians 

Make myself over, and now the screws go to drop 
out my character, and I am like before." 

Magdalena had an inspiration. " Take me into the 
bank," she said eagerly. "Teach me everything. I 
am sure I can learn. Then I will look after every 
thing when uncle dies. I want to work " 

Don Roberto dropped his hands and gave a low 
roar. " The women all fools, and you the more big 
fool I never see. You throw way the clever man like 
he is old hat, and think you can manage the bank ! 
Madre de Dios ! Si I no feel like old clothes, no more, 
I beating you. To-morrow I do it." His eyes kindled 
at the prospect. "To-morrow si you no say you 
marry Trennahan, I beating you till you are black like 
my hat." 

What remained of Magdale"na s apathy left her then. 
She stood up and faced him, drawing her heavy brows 
together after his own fashion. " You will never beat 
me again," she said. " Let us have an understanding 
on that subject before we go to bed to-night. I am 
your daughter, and I shall always obey you except 
where the question of my marrying is concerned. 
But if you ill-treat me I shall leave your house and 
not return. I am of age, and I have my aunt to go 
to. Now, unless you promise me that you will never 
raise your hand to me again, I will leave for Santa 
Barbara to-night." 

Again Don Roberto stared at her. But his surprise 
passed quickly. He was too shrewd a judge of human 
nature to doubt her. If she had inherited the iron 



The Californians 259 

of her mother s ancestors, she had also inherited the 
pride of the Yorbas : she would not permit her woman 
hood to be outraged. But he could have his revenge 
in other ways; and he would take it. He gave the 
promise and ordered her sullenly to send the butler 
to help him up to bed. 



XVI 

DURING the following week Don Roberto was very 
ill. The doctor came three times a day. Mrs. Yorba 
and Magdale"na sat up on alternate nights. Mr. Polk 
was constantly at the bedside. When he retired to 
snatch an hour s sleep, Don Roberto s temperature 
became alarming; of the presence of his wife and 
daughter he took no notice whatever. 

As the ego must enter into all things, Magdale"na, 
despite her alarm and pity, was grateful for the diver 
sion. The interview with her father had roused her 
abruptly and finally ; and during that night her misery 
had raged in every part of her. It is true that in the 
long watches thought fairly stamped in her brain, but 
it was rudely brushed aside every little while by the 
imperious wants of the sick man, or the whispered 
remarks of the professional nurse. At other times she 
slept heavily or received the numerous friends who 
came to inquire for the eminent citizen who had 
dined out too often during the gayest season in many 
years. 



160 The Californians 

Don Roberto recovered, and his convalescence was 
as memorable as his previous social activity. No 
nurse would remain more than thirty-six hours at any 
price j and even his wife, whose ideas of marital duty 
were as rigid as her social code, lost her patience 
upon one occasion and rated him soundly. Mr. Polk 
was the only person he treated with common decency. 
As for Magdale na, he might have been a sultan and 
she his meanest slave. But Magdale na was rather 
pleased than otherwise. Her conscience had flag 
ellated her as the immediate cause of his illness, and 
she strove by every act of devotion to make amends. 

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered, he was 
taken, in a special car, to Fair Oaks, to absorb the 
sun on his spacious verandahs. Magdale na had asked 
the doctor to order Southern California, but the order 
had been received with such a roar of fury that the 
subject was not resumed. Magdale na was forced 
to return to Menlo Park. 

She spent the night walking the floor of her room, 
struggling for endurance to face the places eloquent 
of Trennahan. There were so many of them ! Helena 
simply would not have returned; no power short of 
physical force could have compelled her. More than 
once Magdale na wished that she was cast in her 
friend s anarchic mould. She felt that did her grip 
upon herself relax she should scream aloud and grovel 
on the very boards that had had their share in her 
brief love-life. But she was Magdale na Yorba, the 
proudest woman in California; in the very hour of 



The Californians 261 

her discovery, when she had been possessed of a blind 
terror rather than grief, she had remembered to be 
thankful that the world could not pity her. Even the 
genuine sympathy of Tiny would have been gall in 
a raw wound. She was looking thinner and plainer 
than ever, but her father s illness would account for 
that. She must set her features in steel and lock them, 
keep her emotions for the night. 

The next day she visited every spot associated with 
Trennahan, not once, but many times. She had 
made up her mind with the right instinct that the 
thing to do was to blunt her sensibilities. By the 
third day she had ordered the earlier associations on 
duty, and managed to confuse them somewhat with 
those which had held possession for so brief a time. 
She was determined to succeed. She had no right 
to love the husband of another woman, and suffering 
was something so much more terrible than anything 
her imagination had ever hinted that she was frantic 
to get rid of the load as quickly as possible. By and 
by she would go back to her writing; and that, 
and her duties, should be every bit of her life 
henceforth. 

At the end of a week she discovered that she was 
still receptive to the aesthetic delights. It was early 
spring. The soft air caressed the senses, perfumed 
with violet and lilac, Castilian roses, new clover, and 
the breath of mountain forests, brought on the long 
sighs of the wind. Never was there such a bouquet 
since Time began. Over a high bush on the lawn 



262 The Californians 

opposite her window the long " bridal wreaths " 
tumbled. The meadows were full of mustard, the 
bright green leaves hardly visible, so thick were the 
yellow blossoms. 

Once she rode to the foot-hills, escorted by Dick. 
They were covered with yellow and purple lupins, minia 
ture jungles which harboured nothing more sanguinary 
than the gopher and the cotton-tail. The tawny pop 
pies had hills all to themselves, a blaze of colour 
as fiery as the sun to which they lifted their curved 
drowsy lips. The Mariposa lilies grew by the creeks, 
in the dark shade of meeting willows. The gold- 
green moss was like plush on the trees. From the 
hills the great valley looked like a dense forest out 
of which lifted the tower of an enchanted castle. 
Not another signal of man was to be seen, nothing 
but the excrescence on the big wedding-cake house of 
a Bonanza king. Beyond the hills rose the slopes 
of the mountains, with their mighty redwoods, their 
dark untrodden aisles, their vast primeval silences. 
Magdale"na was thankful that Nature had not ceased 
to be beautiful, and pressed her hands against her 
heart to stifle its demand ; Nature commands union, 
and has no sympathy for aching solitude. 

Meanwhile Don Roberto was recovering rapidly. 
From the hour that he could walk briskly about the 
garden his voluble irascibility left him, and he reverted 
to something more than his old taciturnity ; he rarely 
opened his mouth except to put the plainest of food 
into it, even to speak to Mr. Polk. His brows were 



The Californians 263 

lowered constantly over heavy brooding eyes ; his lips 
seemed set with a spring. When he finally addressed 
his wife, it was to tell her that she must manage with 
one butler and one housemaid. Coincidently he dis 
missed two of the gardeners and commanded the one 
retained, and Dick, to plant in a part of the lawns that 
there might be less water used. Himself came from 
town every evening and worked in the garden for two 
hours, besides arising at five in the morning and work 
ing until breakfast. He sold his finest carriage horses 
to Mr. Geary ; and when one of the two remaining was 
temporarily disabled, he rode to and from the station in 
the spring wagon. The monthly allowance of his wife 
and daughter was suspended for the summer. 

Mrs. Yorba, tall, garbed in black, stalked about the 
house with the expression of an outraged empress; 
Magdatena, being the cause of the outrage, was rarely 
addressed. She ostentatiously made over several of 
her old frocks and coldly requested her daughter to 
make her own bed. She kept all the windows in the 
house, with the exception of one in each room, closed 
and shuttered, as she was deprived of both service 
and water. The house seemed perpetually expectant 
of funeral guests, its silence only broken by Mrs. 
Yorba s heavy sighs. 

Magdale~na had certainly succeeded in making three 
people miserable ; she could only hope that she had 
been more fortunate with the other two. She spent 
most of her time out of doors, riding or walking until 
her strength was exhausted. She was profoundly 



264 The Californians 

grateful that she was to take little part in the sociali 
ties of the summer. To dance and picnic and ten 
nis and ride to the hills, exactly as she had done when 
quite another person ! She infinitely preferred the 
disapproval of her parents and the freedom they gave 
her. 



XVII 

TRENNAHAN had written to Magdalena from the Islands, 
acknowledging the letter she had written him after her 
interview with her father, and accepting his dismissal. 
He returned to San Francisco the last of May. Almost 
immediately she received a letter from Helena an 
nouncing her engagement to him. 

Helena, while in Southern California, had written to 
Magdatena with her accustomed regularity. The let 
ters were bitter with self-reproach alternated with the 
very joy of being alive in that opulent southern land. 
When she wrote of the engagement she assured the 
dearest friend she had on earth that if things had 
turned out differently she should have gone away and 
got over it somehow, but as Magdale na s decision was 
irrevocable she intended to be the happiest girl in the 
world j it would n t do anybody a bit of good if she 
was n t. Magdatena felt no bitterness toward her. 
She had lost Trennahan ; the woman mattered nothing. 
She would rather it were Helena than another; for 
who else could make him so happy? But she knew 



The Californians 265 

that she should see less of Helena in the future, and 
she hardly knew whether she were glad or sorry. She 
wished that she had the courage to ask her to keep 
him away from Menlo Park this summer. 

The other girls moved down, bringing many guests, 
and she saw them daily; habit is not broken in a 
moment. They passed through Fair Oaks as usual on 
their afternoon drives, stopping for a chat ; in their 
char-a-bancs or on the verandah. It was some time 
before they discovered the changes in the Yorba 
household, and when they did they merely shrugged 
their shoulders at the old don s eccentricities. The 
big parlours were certainly to be regretted ; but there 
were other parlours that were not half bad, and it was 
terribly up-hill work entertaining Don Roberto. They 
were profoundly sorry for Magdalena, and were so in 
sistent in their demands that she should spend much of 
her time with them that she found her solitude far less 
complete than she had hoped. But Helena and Tren- 
nahan were not to come down until the first of July ; 
they had gone with Colonel Belmont to the Yosemite, 
Geysers and Big Trees. 



XVIII 

TRENNAHAN in that first month thought little of Mag- 
dale"na. He hardly knew whether he were happy or 
not ; he certainly was intoxicated. Helena was both 
impassioned and shy, a companion to whom words 



266 The Californians 

were hardly a necessary medium fur thought, and 
magnificently uncertain of mood. Moreover, whether 
riding a donkey up the steep dusty grades of the 
Yosemite, or half veiled in a mist of steam, reeking of 
Hell, or standing with wondering eyes and parted lips 
among the colossal trees of Calaveras, she was always 
beautiful. And Trennahan worshipped her beauty with 
the strength of a passion which had sprung from a long 
and recuperative sleep. That he was twice her age 
mattered nothing to him now. Nothing mattered but 
that she was to be wholly his. 

The morning after his return to Menlo he awoke 
with a confused sense that he should be late for his 
morning ride with Magdale"na. He laughed as his 
senses rattled into place, but he sighed just after ; and 
both the laugh and the sigh were Magdalena s, grim as 
the former may have been. That had been a time of 
peace and perfect content, and he could never forget 
it, not though he lived long years of unimaginable 
bliss with Helena which he probably would not. A 
part of his life, limited and stunted a part as it was, 
belonged irrevocably to Magdatena. He concluded, 
after some hard thinking, that it was his best part. He 
had given her something of his soul, and he had no 
wish to take it back. He had given her the reviving 
aspirations of an originally noble nature ; the sun of 
her had shone upon the barren soil, and the harvest 
was hers. He was an unimaginative man, but he was 
inclined to believe that if there was a future existence, 
MagdalSna would belong to him then and for ever, that 



The Californians 267 

something even less definable than the soul of each 
belonged to the other For there was nothing to be 
ashamed of in his love for Helena. She appealed as 
powerfully to his mind and heart as to his passion. 
But there was something beyond all, and he had no 
name for it, unless it were that principle of absolute 
good as distinguished from its grades and variations ; 
and it belonged to the girl whom he certainly no 
longer wanted in this life. 

He wished that he had suggested to Helena to spend 
the summer in San Rafael or Monterey. Menlo Park 
belonged to Magdale" na ; he found himself hating the 
thought of having a series of very perfect memories 
disturbed, even by the most passionately loved of 
women. And so Magdale"na had her first revenge. 

He went reluctantly enough to Fair Oaks in the 
afternoon. The very leaves whispered as they drove 
through the woods. He had protested, but Helena 
must see Le"na at once ; she could never be entirely 
happy until she had looked into Lena s eyes and con 
vinced herself that they were quite unchanged. And 
Trennahan must go, too, and have it over. Trennahan, 
who only crossed her whims for the pleasure of making 
up with her later, admitted that she was right, and went. 

Mrs. Yorba was on the verandah receiving Mrs. 
Geary and Mrs. Brannan. Magdalena was upstairs in 
her room. The monotony of those afternoon recep 
tions had taken its place among the distasteful things 
of life, and she was determined not to go down until 
she was sent for. Each time she heard wheels she 



268 I he Californians 

went to the window and looked out. The third time 
she saw Trennahan and Helena. The very bones of 
her skeleton seemed to fall upon each other ; she sank 
to the ground with less vigour than a shattered soldier. 
But in a moment she gave a hard gasp and pressed her 
hands to her face. Then she heard Helena s voice, 
that sweet husky voice which was not the least potent 
of her charms. 

" Lena ! Lena ! Well, I 11 go look for her." 

Magdalena scrambled to her feet and fled down 
the hall to her mother s dressing-room. There, in a 
cupboard, was always a decanter of sherry; for Mrs. 
Yorba, after her neuralgic attacks, was often faint. 
Magdalena filled a glass, drank it, and blessed the 
swift fire which shook her will free and made a disci 
plined regiment of her nerves. She was so delighted 
at her sudden mastery over herself that she ran out 
into the hall, caught Helena in her arms, and kissed 
her demonstratively. Helena burst into tears. " You 
are the best girl on earth," she sobbed. "And I feel 
so wicked ; but I am so happy." 

Magdalena dried her tears, a part she had filled 
many times. " You are the dearest and most honest 
girl in the world," she said. 

" Oh, I try to be honest, but I get so mixed up. I 
wish I could have a new set of commandments handed 
down all for myself, and that I could have made the 
rough draft of them. Then I d be quite happy. But 
come down and see Jack, I could n t stand John. 
He s awfully brown and looks splendid." 



The Californians 269 

Trennahan gave Magdalena s hand a friendly shake 
and asked her what the plans for the summer were. 

" Papa has a frightfully economical fit and says we 
are not to entertain any more. He does n t even allow 
us enough water to wash the windows; and if this 
supply of gasoline gives out before the end of the 
summer, we ve got to burn oil." 

" Magdalena ! " gasped Mrs. Yorba. She wondered 
if her contribution to the Yorbas had suddenly gone 
mad. But the sherry was in Magdalena s head. She 
was quite conscious of it, but recklessly decided to let 
it have its way so long as it helped her to convey to 
Trennahan the information that he was no more to her 
than the browning tuberoses on the lawn. 

" It s only what everybody knows," she replied. " I 
am sure everybody in Menlo has discussed him thread 
bare. Mr. Trennahan, you happened upon him in the 
oasis of his life ; you never could stand it to dine here 
now. We can scarcely see to eat, and he never opens 
his mouth except to swear at the servants." 

Mrs. Yorba was speeding her guests. When she 
returned, she gave her daughter an annihilating glance 
and went into the house. Trennahan stared at Mag- 
dalna. He saw her object, but could not guess the 
motive-power behind. A sudden, sickening fear as 
sailed him: Was Magdalena deteriorating? And he 
the cause? But Magdalena was rattling on. The 
sherry seemed to have a marvellous power over one s 
wits and tongue. Why had she not known of it in the 
days when she had longed to shine ? But her mother 



270 The Californians 

did not approve of girls drinking wine, and she had 
rarely tasted it, although until recently it had always 
been on the table. 

"You both look so well," she said. "You don t 
look so tired as most engaged people do. I suppose 
you don t sit up every night until twelve talking about 
yourselves, as they generally do, I am told. That must 
be so fatiguing. Mr. Trennahan, you are actually 
stouter. You don t look as if you had been climbing 
perpendicular mountains. Is it true that a man 
stepped over the Bridal Veil backward ? Do tell me 
all about it ! " 

Helena was staring at Magdatena with her mouth 
half open. She was the least obtuse of mortals , but 
although she knew that pride was at the root of Mag- 
dalena s extraordinary behaviour, she concluded that 
love had fled, and marvelled, for she had believed 
Magdatena to be the deepest and most tenacious of 
women. But she was very glad. 

" Well ! " she exclaimed. " Something has improved 
you ! You will be fairly brilliant by next winter. And 
do for goodness sake, Le"na, give Don Roberto to un 
derstand that he s not to have his own way. He s 
like all bullies : he d soon give in if you bullied him. 
I adore papa, and would do anything on earth for him ; 
but if he had been born a different sort, and gave me 
trouble, I d find more than one way of bringing him to 
terms. Just flash your eyes at Don Roberto as you re 
flashing them at us, and you 11 see the difference it will 
make." 



The Californians 271 

Has she ceased to love me? thought Trennahan. 
Thank God ! at least I ought to. 

When they had gone, the sherry had run its course, 
and Magdale"na felt very much ashamed of herself. 
I overdid it, she thought in terror, as she recalled 
her scintillating remarks and elaborate manner. He 
must have suspected ! I 11 drink no more, and next 
time I 11 be just what I would have been if I had never 
laid eyes on him if I die in the attempt. And how 
I talked ! What things I said ! Great Heaven, I made 
a complete fool of myself ! 

And the knowledge that for once in her life she had 
thrown her dignity and pride to the winds put her 
other pain to flight, and she had at least one night 
unracked by the record within her. 



XIX 

Two days later she met Trennahan on the Mont- 
gomerys verandah. She was her old sedate self, to his 
unspeakable relief. That Magdale"na should change, 
be less than the admirable creature he had loved when 
he was something more than himself, would have 
seemed no less a calamity than had the stars turned 
black. She sat up very straight in her prim little way 
and talked of Helena s new project ; which was to 
build bath-houses down by the lagoon at Ravens- 
wood and bathe when the tide was in. He told 
her that he too had a project : to persuade the men 



272 The Californians 

of Menlo to build a Club House, and thus have some 
sort of informal social centre. She told him that she 
thought that would be nice, and added that she 
wished she had a project too, but she was hope 
lessly unoriginal. Trennahan assured her that she did 
herself injustice ; and in these admirable platitudes 
they pushed along a half- hour like a wheel- barrow, 
while both thought of the great oak staring at them 
from the foot of the garden. 

It will come easier with time, she thought that 
night, as she pulled her clothes off with heavy fingers. 
I can almost look him in the eyes without wanting to 
fling myself at him. His voice does not matter so much, 
for I always hear it anyway. They say that when you 
no longer hear a person s voice in your memory the 
love has gone too. They will be away for a year after 
they marry. Perhaps I shall forget then. My memory 
is not very good. 

She opened the upper drawer of her bureau and 
lifted out her large handkerchief box. In its lower 
part, carefully hidden away, were Trennahan s letters, 
several of his faded boutonnieres, and one of his gloves. 
She had made up her mind the day she heard of his 
engagement to Helena that these things must be 
burnt, but had dreaded their sight and touch. Now, 
however, they must go. She was always conscious of 
their presence ; something of her weakness might pass 
with their destruction. As she lifted out the handker 
chiefs she came upon the dagger. It was a beautiful 
toy, but she pushed it aside resentfully. Its magic was 



The Californians 273 

not for her. She gathered up her tokens with trem 
bling fingers, resisted the impulse to sit down and weep 
over them, laid them in the grate, and flung a bunch of 
lighted matches into the pyre. 

Helena immediately gave a party. The Belmont 
house, like most of the others of Menlo, had been 
designed for comfort rather than for entertaining ; but 
the dining-room was large, and when stripped of the 
many massive pieces of furniture which Colonel Bel 
mont had brought from his Southern home, would have 
accommodated more dancing folk than the neighbours 
and their guests. The famous Four were not present ; 
nor were they seen in Menlo that summer. Imme 
diately after the announcement of Helena s engage 
ment some cruel wag had sent each a miniature tub 
with " For Tears " inscribed with black paint upon the 
bottom. It was generally supposed that the afflicted 
quartette were spending their leisure over these tubs, 
for they had retired into as complete an obscurity as 
their various callings would permit. Helena told Mag- 
dalena that she lived in terror of their poisoned or 
perforated bodies being found in the dark byways of 
Golden Gate Park ; but the youth of the modern 
civilisation, while amenable to suffering, thinks highly 
of himself as a factor in current history. 

Trennahan was not allowed to spend the evening in 

the smoking-room with the older men ; he must keep 

himself in sight even while his Helena was dancing 

with another. He wandered about with a grim smile 

iS 



274 The Californians 

on his mouth, talking occasionally to the older ladies 
who sat in a corner; wall-flowers there were none. 
He wished that Magdale na would take pity on him, for 
he was unmercifully bored; but she danced with ex 
asperating regularity. Occasionally Helena slipped 
her hand through his arm and took him out in the 
garden, purring upon his shoulder and begging him 
not to be bored ; but she must look at him ! If he 
insisted upon it, she would not dance. He refused to 
countenance such a sacrifice, and protested that he was 
just beginning to understand the pleasure of evening 
parties. Once he did slip away, and was lying, with 
his coat off, a cigar between his lips, crosswise on a 
bed upstairs with Colonel Belmont and Mr. Washing 
ton, when he received a peremptory message to go 
downstairs at once. He threw his cigar away, jerked 
himself into his coat, and left the room with jeering 
condolences in his wake. He felt cross for the mo 
ment ; but when he reached the hall below he smiled 
humorously as he met the protesting eyes of his lady. 

" I can t bear to have you out of my sight ! " she 
exclaimed. " It s horribly selfish, but I feel as if 
everything were a blank when you are out of the 
room." 

What could a man do in the face of so much beauty 
and so much affection, but to vow to hold up the 
wall for the rest of the evening? 

As he was taking Magdalena to her carriage a little 
after midnight, she said to him shyly, 

" I hope you are quite happy." 



The Californians 275 

And he answered with unmistakable fervour, " I am 
indeed." 

Mrs. Yorba was detained by Mrs. Cartright, who 
was delivering herself of many words. 

"Do you believe that love is everything in life?" 
Magdale na asked him. 

" By no means. Not even to woman, in spite of the 
poets. It induces intense concentration for the time, 
consequently looms larger in the affairs of life than the 
million other scraps that go to make up the vast patch 
work. But it is as well to remember that it is but an 
occasional patch in the quilt, even if it be of the most 
vivid hue. And there is a lot to be got out of the 
other patches ! " 

" If you lost Helena, could you feel like that ? " 

" In time ; beyond a doubt. Memory simply can 
not hold water beyond a certain strain ; there comes a 
rift at last, and the flood pours through." 

" Then if you lost Helena, should you feel as as 
you did when you came here first ? You were tired 
of everything you remember. You told me you 
don t mind my speaking of it?" She was aghast at 
her inconsistency, but the magnet in the man was as 
irresistible as ever. 

" Mind ? From you ? I have never talked to a 
human being about myself as I have talked to you. I 
don t know what would happen to me in such an event. 
I am neither a fool nor a drunkard, remember. I 
think I should seek entirely new, barely comprehended, 
lands, the South Sea Islands, for instance. I have 



276 The Californians 

wasted my life. I have neither the energies nor the 
ambitions to pull up now. I should simply seek new 
oranges and squeeze them dry. There are always the 
intellectual pleasures, you know. I should not be 
proud of myself, but I should get through the remain 
ing years somehow." 

" There was something else I should not speak 
of it " 

They were standing in the shadow of the char-a- 
banc. Trennahan raised her hand to his lips. " I was 
in a state of moral chaos when I met you, that is 
what you mean. I do not think I ever shall be again. 
Even Helena could never do for me what you did. 
You and I made a great mistake, but we generated one 
of those singular friendships which no circumstances 
nor time can annihilate. Some day we shall take up 
the threads where they broke off. I always look for 
ward to that. A man may be contented with one 
woman s love, but not with one woman s friendship. I 
am glad that you are as dear to Helena as you are to 
me. In time, perhaps we may all three live more or 
less together." 

He was a man of humour, but he said that. She was 
a woman of little humour, but she laughed. 

XX 

THE breathless state of Helena s affections did not 
interfere with her desire to lead in all things those fa 
voured of her acquaintance. Although, in deference to 



The Californians 277 

Trennahan s emphatic wish, she forswore eccentrici 
ties, she taxed her fertile brain to keep Menlo Park in 
a whirl of excitement. 

" It can t be done," said Rose. " The climate has 
poppy dust in it instead of oxygen, but she may 
wake us up for a while." 

She did. The bath-houses were built, and the big 
char-a-bancs rolled down the dusty road to Ravens- 
wood every morning. The salt water and the sun 
brought out the red in the girls hair, so the pastime 
promised to weather one season, at least. She gave 
dances and picnics on alternate weeks, and her hospi 
tality in the matter of luncheons and dinners was un 
bounded. The Colonel built a bowling-alley and a 
proper tennis-court; in short, there was no doubt 
about "The Belmonts " being the nucleus of Menlo 
Park. Several times Helena persuaded the owner of 
the stage line between Redwood City and La Honda 
to let her drive ; and she took a select few of her friends 
on the top of the lumbering coach, relegating the un 
easy passengers to the stuffy interior. The road is one 
of the most picturesque in California, but the grades 
are steep, the turnings abrupt, dangerous in many 
places. Nevertheless, Helena, balancing on her nar 
row perch high above the wheelers heels, managed her 
rapid mustangs so admirably that Trennahan, balanc 
ing beside her, wondered if he should be able to manage 
her one half so well. 

" What Helena Belmont needs," said Mrs. Mont 
gomery, with some asperity, " is six babies ; and I hope 



278 The Californians 

for Mr. Trennahan s sake she 11 have them. Other 
wise, I should like to know where the poor man is to 
get any rest ; she s a human cyclone." 

" I never thought she d marry so soon," replied 
Mrs. Brannan. " It looked as if she were going to be 
a regular old-time belle ; and it took them years to get 
through." 

" She s not married yet," remarked Mrs. Montgomery. 

But these enormous energies, as Rose had predicted, 
reached their meridian in something under two months, 
after which, much to Trennahan s relief, Helena suc 
cumbed to Menlo Park, and manifested an increasing 
desire for long hours alone with him under the trees on 
the lawn, although she by no means allowed her neigh 
bours to rest for more than seventy-two hours at a 
time. 



XXI 

DON ROBERTO and Mr. Polk took no part in these fes 
tivities ; Mrs. Yorba and MagdaMna took less and less ; 
the picture made by Don Roberto in his shirt-sleeves, 
manipulating a hose as the char-a-banc drove off, finally 
forbade his wife to riot while her husband toiled. She 
was angry and resentful ; but she was a woman of stern 
principles, and she had a certain measure of that sort 
of love for her husband which duty prompts in those 
who are without passion. 

" I don t pretend to understand your father," she 



The Californians 279 

said to MagdaMna. " The bees he gets in his bonnet 
are quite beyond me, but if he feels that way, he does, 
and that s the end of it ; and he makes me feel un 
comfortable all the time I am anywhere. I sha n t go 
out again until he gets over this. You can go with 
somebody else." 

" I would a great deal rather stay home. I don t 
enjoy myself. People work so hard to be amused. 
I d much rather just sit still and do nothing." 

" You re lazy, like all the Spanish. Well, you 11 
have to do a good deal of sitting still, I expect ; and in 
a sick room, I m afraid. Poor Hiram looks thinner 
and greyer every day. Almost all our relations died 
of consumption." 

"I wrote to aunt how badly he was looking, but 
she has not answered." 

"She won t, the heartless thing. She never loved 
him. But if he takes to his bed with slow consump 
tion, she 11 have to come up and do her share of the 
nursing. She ought to like it. Fat women always 
make good nurses." 

Magdale"na was more than glad to fall out of the 
gaieties. She was beginning to feel that most demor 
alising of all sensations, the disintegration of will. 
Pride, a certain excitement, and novelty had kept her 
armour locked for a time ; but each time she met 
Trennahan, the ordeal of facing him with platitudes, 
or, what was worse still, in occasional friendly talks, 
and of witnessing Helena s little airs of possession, 
suggested a future and signal failure. She came to 



280 The Californians 

have a morbid terror that she should betray herself, 
and when in company with him kept out of the very 
reach of his voice. She never went to the woods, lest 
she meet him, with or without Helena. In those rust 
ling arbours of many memories, she knew that she 
should let fly the passion within her. She was appalled 
that neither time nor will nor principle had authority 
over her love. She had made up her mind that she 
would, if not tear it up by the roots, at least level it to 
the soil from which it had sprung, and she was quite 
ready to believe that love was not all ; that with her 
youth, intellect, and wealth there was much in life for 
her. But the plant flourished and was heavy with 
bloom. Even while she avoided him, she longed for 
the moment when he must of necessity speak to her. 
She welcomed the excuse to secede from the ranks 
of pleasurers, but even then she started up at every 
sound of wheels that might herald his approach. She 
longed for the wedding to be over ; but Helena would 
not marry before December, that being her birth 
month and eminently suitable, in her logical fancy, for 
her second launching. Colonel Belmont, having sat 
isfied himself that everyone in the little drama had 
acted with honour, was well pleased with his son-in- 
law; but he was much distressed at the attitude of 
the old friend who had hoped to fill a similar relation 
to Trennahan. Don Roberto, taciturn with every 
body, refused to speak to Colonel Belmont, to return 
his courtly salutation. 

" I suppose it is natural," said Colonel Belmont to 



The Californians 281 

Helena. " Don is not only eccentric, but he would 
almost rather lose a hundred thousand dollars than his 
own way. But I hope he 11 come round in time, for 
it makes me feel right lonesome in my old age. He 
and Hi were the only real intimates I have had in 
California, and now Hi is going, poor old fellow ! 
and of course I can do little to cheer him up until 
Don thaws out." 

" Do you feel quite well yourself? " asked Helena, 
anxiously. " You often look so terribly pale." 

" I never was better, honey, I assure you. But 
remember that you must expect to lose your old father 
some day. But I Ve been pretty good to you, have n t 
I ? You 11 have nothing but pleasant things to re 
member?" 

" You re the very best angel on earth. I don t 
even love Jack so much. I thought I did, but I 
don t." 

"Don t you love him? " asked her father, anxiously. 
He was eager for her to marry; he knew that his 
blood was white. 

" Of course ! What a question ! " 



XXII 

IT was an intensely hot September night. Magdatena, 
knowing that sleep was impossible, had not gone to 
bed. She wandered restlessly about her large room, 
striving to force a current of air. Not a vibration 



282 The Californians 

came through the open windows, nor a sound. The 
very trees seemed to lean forward with limp hanging 
arms. Across the stars was a dark veil, riven at long 
intervals with the copper of sheet lightning. Her room, 
too, was dark. A light would bring a pest of mos 
quitoes. The high remote falsetto of several, as it was, 
proclaimed an impatient waiting for their ally, sleep. 

Last night, Tiny had given a party, and wrung from 
Magdale*na a promise that she would go to it. Rose 
had called for her. At the last moment Magdalena s 
courage had shrunk to a final shuddering heap, and 
as she heard the wheels of the Geary waggonette, she 
had run upstairs, and flung herself between the bed 
clothes, sending down word that she had a raging 
toothache. It was her first lie in many years, but it 
was better than to dance with despair and agony 
written on her relaxed face behind the windows of 
the garden in which Trennahan had asked her to 
marry him. 

To-night she was seriously considering the propo 
sition of going to her aunt in Santa Barbara, with or 
without her father s consent. Her sense of duty had 
not tumbled into the ruins of her will, but she argued 
that in this most crucial period of her life, her 
duty was to herself. Helena had not even asked her 
to be bridesmaid ; she took her acquiescence for 
granted. Magdalena laughed aloud at the thought; 
but she could not leave Helena in the lurch at the 
last moment. When she got to Santa Barbara, she 
could plead her aunt s ill health as excuse for not 



The Californians 283 

returning in time for the ceremony. She was in a 
mood to tell twenty lies if necessary, but she would 
not stand at the altar with Trennahan and Helena. 
Her passionate desire for change of associations was 
rising rapidly to the dignity of a fixed idea. To-mor 
row there must be a change of some sort, or her brain 
would be babbling its secrets. Already her memory 
would not connect at times. She felt sure that the 
prolonged strain had produced a certain congestion 
in her brain. And she was beginning to wonder if 
she hated Helena. The fires in Magdatena burned 
slowly, but they burned exceeding hot. 

She paused and thrust her head forward. For some 
seconds past her sub-consciousness had grasped the 
sound of galloping hoofs. They were on the estate, 
by the deer park; a horse was galloping furiously 
toward the house. 

She ran to the window and looked out. She could 
see nothing. Could it be a runaway horse? Was 
somebody ill? The flying feet turned abruptly and 
made for the rear of the house, then paused suddenly. 
There was a furious knocking. 

Magdale"na s knees shook with a swift presentiment. 
Something had happened was going to happen 
to her. She stood holding her breath. Someone 
ran softly but swiftly up the stair, and down the hall, 
to her room. She knew then who it was, and ran 
forward and opened the door. 

" Helena ! " she exclaimed. "What is the matter? 
Something has Mr. Trennahan " 



284 The Californians 

Helena flung herself upon Magdalena and burst into 
a passion of weeping. Magdalena stood rigid, ice in 
her veins. " Is he dead?" she managed to ask. 

" No ! He is n t. I wish he were No, I don t 
mean that I 11 tell you in a minute Let me get 
through first ! " 

Magdalena dragged her shaking limbs across the 
room and felt for a chair. Helena began pacing 
rapidly up and down, pushing the chairs out of her way. 

"Would you like a light? " asked Magdalena. 

" No, thanks ; I don t want to be eaten alive with 
mosquitoes. Oh, how shall I begin? I suppose you 
think we ve had a commonplace quarrel. I wish we 
had. I swear to you, Le"na, that up to to-night I loved 
him yes, I know that I did ! I was rather sorry I d 
promised to marry so soon, for I like being a girl, not 
really belonging to anyone but myself, and I love 
being a great belle, and I think that I should have 
begged for another year but I loved him better 
than anyone, and I really intended to marry him " 

" Are n t you going to marry him ? " 

" Don t be so stern, Lena ! You don t know all 
yet. Lately I ve been alone with him a great deal, 
and you know how you talk about yourselves in those 
circumstances. I had told him everything I had ever 
done and thought most; had turned myself in 
side out. Then I made him talk. Up to a certain 
point he was fluent enough; then he shut up like a 
clam. I never was very curious about men ; but 
because he was all mine, or perhnps because I did n t 



The Californians 285 

have anything else to think about, I made up my mind 
he should come to confession. He fought me off, 
but you know I have a way of getting what I want 
if I don t there s trouble; and to-night I pulled his 
past life out of him bit by bit. Le na ! he s had 
liaisons with married women ; he s kept house with 
women ; he s seen the worst life of every city ! For a 
few years he confessed it in so many words he 
was one of the maddest men in Europe. The actual 
things he told me only in part ; but you know I have 
the instincts of the devil. Le na, he *s a human slum, 
and I hate him ! I hate him ! I hate him ! " 

"But that all belongs to his past. He loves you, 
and you can make him better make him forget " 

" I don t want to make any man better. I love 
everything to be clean and new and bright, not 
mildewed with a thousand vices that I would never 
even discuss. Oh, he s a brute to ask me to marry 
him. I hate myself that I ve been engaged to him ! 
I feel as if I d tumbled off a pedestal ! " 

" Are you so much better and purer than I ? I knew 
much of this ; but it did not horrify me. I knew too, 
what you may not know, that he came here in a criti 
cal time in his his inner life, and I was glad to 
think that California had helped him to become 
quite another man." Her voice was hoarse, almost 
inarticulate. 

Helena flung herself at Magdale*na s feet. She was 
trembling with excitement; but her feverish appeal 
for sympathy met with no response. 



286 The Californians 

" That is another thing that nearly drove me wild, - 
that I had taken him away from you for nothing. I 
know you don t care now ; but you did perhaps you 
do now sometimes I ve suspected, only I wouldn t 
face it and to think that in my wretched selfishness 
I ve separated you for ever ! For your pride would n t 
let you take him back now, and he s as wild about me 
as ever : I never thought he could lose control over 
himself as he did when I told him what I thought of 
him and beat him on the shoulders with both my 
fists. He turned as white as a corpse and shook like 
a leaf. Then he braced up and told me I was a little 
wild cat, and that he should leave me and come back 
when I had come to my senses, that he had no inten 
tion of giving me up. But he need not come back. 
I 11 never lay eyes on him again. While he was let 
ting me get at those things, I felt as if my love for him 
burst into a thousand pieces, and that when they flew 
together again they made hate. He told me he was 
used to girls of the world, who understood things ; and 
that the girls of California were so crude they either 
knew all there was to know by experience, or else they 
were prudes " 

Helena paused abruptly and caught her breath. 
She had felt Magdale"na extend her arm and stealthily 
open a drawer in the bureau beside her chair. There 
was nothing remarkable in the fact, for in that 
drawer Magdale"na kept her handkerchiefs. Neverthe 
less, Helena shook with the palsy of terror; the cold 
sweat burst from her body. In the intense darkness 



The Californians 287 

she could see nothing, only a vague patch where the 
face of Magdale"na was. The silence was so strained 
that surely a shriek must come tearing across it. The 
shriek came from her own throat. She leaped to her 
feet like a panther, reached the door in a bound, fled 
down the hall and the stair, her eyes glancing wildly 
over her shoulder, and so out to her horse. It is 
many years since that night, but there are silent 
moments when that ride through the woods flashes 
down her memory and chills her skin, that mad flight 
from an unimaginable horror, through the black woods 
on a terrified horse, the shadow of her fear racing just 
behind with outstretched arms and clutching fingers. 

Helena s sudden flight left Magdale"na staring through 
the dark at the Spanish dagger in her hand. Her 
arm was raised, her wrist curved; the dagger pointed 
toward the space which Helena had filled a moment 
ago. 

" I intended to kill her," she said aloud. " I in 
tended to kill her." 

The mental admission of the design and its frustra 
tion were almost simultaneous. Her brain was still in a 
hideous tumult. Weakened by suffering, the shock of 
Helena s fickleness and injustice, the sudden percep 
tion that her sacrifice had been useless, if not absurd, 
had disturbed her mental balance for a few seconds, 
and left her at the mercy of passions hitherto inex- 
istent to her consciousness. Her love for her old 
friend, long trembling in the balance, had flashed into 
hate. Upon hate had followed the murderous impulse 



288 The Californians 

for vengeance ; not for her own sake, but for that of 
the man whose weakness had ruined her life and his 
own. In the very height of her sudden madness she 
was still capable of a curious misdirected feminine 
unselfishness. 

When she came to herself, chagrin that she had 
failed to accomplish her purpose possessed her mind 
for the moment, although she had made no attempt 
to follow Helena, beyond springing to her feet. Then 
her conscience asserted itself, and reminded her that 
she should be appalled, overcome with horror, at the 
awful possibilities of her nature. The picture of Helena 
in the death struggle, bleeding and gasping, rose be 
fore her. Her knees gave way with horror and fright, 
and she fell upon her chair, dropping the dagger from 
her wet fingers, staring at the grim spectre of her 
friend. Then once more the sound of galloping hoofs 
came to her ears. Both Helena and herself were safe. 

In a few moments her thoughts grouped themselves 
into a regret deeper and bitterer still. She was capable 
of the highest passion, and Circumstance had diverted 
it from its natural climax and impelled it toward mur 
der. She sat there and thought until morning on the 
part to which she had been born ; the ego dully at 
tempting to understand, to realise that its imperious 
demands receive little consideration from the great 
Law of Circumstance, and are usually ignored. 



The Californians 289 



XXIII 

THE next morning Magdalena did as wise a thing as 
if inspired by reason instead of blind instinct : she got 
on her horse and rode for six hours. When she re 
turned home she was exhausted of body and inert of 
brain. She found a note from Helena awaiting her. 

DEAREST L&NA, What a tornado and an idiot you 
must think me ! I cannot explain my extraordinary depar 
ture. I suppose I was in such a nervous state that I was ob 
sessed in some mysterious manner and went off like a 
rocket. I can assure you I feel like a stick this morning. 
You will forgive me, won t you ? for you know that al 
though my affections do fluctuate for some people, they 
never do for you. 

Well ! this morning I had a scene with papa. He was 
very angry, talked about honour and all that sort of thing, 
said that I was an unprincipled flirt, and that I expected 
too much of a man. But when I said I could not under 
stand how so perfect a man as himself could wish his 
daughter to marry a rake, he never said another word, but 
went off and wound up with Mr. Trennahan. I don t know 
what they said to each other ; I don t care. It s all too 
dreadful to think about, and I never want to hear the sub 
ject mentioned again. 

We re going to Monterey this afternoon to remain till 
the end of the season, and then we 11 go to the Blue Lakes 
for a little before settling down for the winter. I m tired 
of Menlo. Can t you come to Monterey for a week or 
two? Do think about it. I haven t a minute to go over 
to Fair Oaks to say good-bye, but perhaps you 11 come to 
the train. HELENA. 

19 



290 The Californians 

Magdalena got some luncheon from the pantry, then 
went to bed and slept until six o clock. At dinner 
Mr. Polk said to her, 

" I saw Trennahan this afternoon in a hack with a 
lot of luggage on behind, and I stopped the driver and 
got in, and went to the ferry with him. His engage 
ment with Helena Belmont is broken, it seems, and he 
is off for Samoa. Looked like the devil, but was as 
polite as ever, and asked me to say good-bye to all 
of you." 

Don Roberto looked up. " When he coming back ? " 
he asked. 

" You know as much about that as I do ; or as he 
does, I guess. He told me that he was going to ex 
plore the South Seas thoroughly, and that ought to 
take as many years as he s got left, and more too." 

It was two or three days before Magdale"na realised 
what a relief it was to have Trennahan out of the 
country. It moved him back among the memories, 
and struck from her imagination agitating possibilities. 
And he belonged to no woman ! He could never be 
hers, but at least she could love him. Already she 
had begun to do so with a measure of calm. She 
could hide him in her soul and count him wholly hers ; 
and the prospect seemed far sweeter and more satis 
factory than she should have imagined of such im 
material union. And some day, she believed, he 
would write to her. He had spoken authoritatively 
of the permanence of their friendship, and of its ne 
cessity to him. He had not loved her, as men count 



The Californians 291 

love, but for a little she had been to him something 
more than other women had been. The spiritual 
sympathy which had been rudely interrupted, but had 
surely existed, taught her this. In time he would be 
come conscious again of the bond, and his letters 
alone would be something to live for. 

And she had much else. In the evenings when her 
father was weeding on the lawn, she devoted herself to 
her uncle ; and he seemed grateful for her attentions, 
slight as was his response. He was visibly shrinking 
to his skeleton, although he neither coughed nor com 
plained, and went to town every morning with the 
regularity of his youth. But his gaunt face was less 
savagely determined, his eyes had lost the hard surface 
of metal ; and one evening when Magdale"na slipped 
her hand into his, he clasped and held it until Don 
Roberto, gloomy and perspiring, came panting across 
the drive. 

And almost immediately Magdale"na began to write. 
She did not go to her nook in the woods, but after her 
morning ride she wrote in her room until luncheon. 
She told her mother of her literary plans and asked 
her advice about making a similar announcement to 
her father. Between astonishment and consternation 
Mrs. Yorba gasped audibly, and her impassive counte 
nance looked as if the hinges had fallen out of its muscles. 

" For God s sake don t tell your father ! " she ex 
claimed ; and she was not given to strong language. 
" I don t believe you can write, anyhow, and we should 
only have a terrible scene for nothing." 



292 The Californians 

Magdale"na accepted the advice. Her father showed 
so little sense of his duty as a parent that her own was 
growing adaptable to circumstances, although she was 
still determined not to publish without his knowledge. 
She had not returned to her English romance : that 
had been consigned to the flames, and was now medi 
tating in that limbo which receives the wraiths of the 
lame, the halt, and the blind of abortive talent. She 
was at work upon the simplest of the Old-Californian 
tales. 

On the Saturday afternoon after Helena s departure 
for Monterey Rose called and invited Magdatena to 
drive with her to the train to meet Mr. Geary. Tiny 
and Ila, who were with her, added their insistence, and 
Magdatena, having no reasonable excuse, joined them. 
As they drove through the woods Ila confided her en 
gagement to young Washington, and was kissed and 
congratulated in due form. 

" I in going to live in Paris," she announced. " No 
more California for me. You might as well be on 
Mars, in the first place, and everybody cackles over 
your private affairs, in the second. For the matter of 
that, you have n t any." 

" I think it s disloyal of you to desert California," 
said Tiny. " I have a feeling that we should all keep 
together, and to the country." 

" That s a very fine sentiment, but though I love 
you none the less, I want to live. I intend to be the 
best-dressed American in Paris. That s a reputation 
worth having." 



The Californians 293 

" I m going East to find a husband," said Rose, 
shamelessly. " There s no one to marry here. Alan 
Rush would not have been half bad, but he might 
as well be in an urn on Helena s mantelpiece. I like 
Eastern men best, anyhow." 

" Why not go to Southern California? " asked Tiny. 
" It s not so far as New York ; and there are always 
plenty of them there." 

11 1 should feel like a ghoul, man-hunting in One- 
lungdom, as Mr. Bierce calls it. Besides, I d rather 
die an old maid than have a sick man on my hands 
for five minutes. I m not heartless, but well, we ve 
all had our experiences with fathers and brothers. A 
sick man s an anomaly, somehow : he does n t fit into a 
woman s imagination." 

" I m not going to marry at all," said Tiny. " Fancy 
what a lot of bother. It s so comfortable just to 
drift along like this." 

" Tiny," said Rose, " you re a Menlo Park poppy." 

They had arrived at the station, the pretty station 
under its great oak, and flanked by its beds of bloom. 
Eight or ten other equipages were there, waiting for 
the " Daisy train," the fast train from town which on 
Saturday afternoons carried many San Franciscans to 
Monterey. 

The women were in their bright summer attire and full 
of chatter ; as the train was not due for some moments, 
several got out of their carriages and went to other 
carriages to gossip. It was a very lively and agreeable 
scene : there being no outsiders, they were like one 



294 The Californians 

large family. In the middle of the large open space 
beside the platform stood several of the phaetons and 
waggonettes, whose horses stepped high at sight of the 
engine. On the far side was a row of Chinese wash- 
houses, in whose doors stood the Mongolians, no less 
picturesque than the civilisation across the way. Be 
hind them was the tiny village of Menlo Park. On 
the opposite side of the track was a row of high 
closely knit trees which shut the Folsom place from 
the passing eye. Caro, under a big pink sunshade, 
had walked over to chat with her friends and escort 
her visitors home. 

The train rolled in and discharged its favoured few. 
The wait was short, and Mr. Geary was still mounting 
the steps of his char-a-banc when Magdalena sat for 
ward with a faint exclamation. The smoking-car was 
slowly passing. Four hats at four consecutive win 
dows were raised as they drifted past. They were the 
hats of Alan Rush, Eugene Fort, Carter Howard, and 
" Dolly " Webster. 



XXIV 

THE Yorba house on Nob Hill was the gloomiest 

house in San Francisco in any circumstances ; upon 

the return of the family to town this year it suggested 

j a convent of perpetual silence. Mrs. Yorba, bereft of 

I her full corps of servants, herself shook the curtains 

free of their loops and pinned them together. " Ah 



The Californians 295 

Kee can play the hose on the windows from the out 
side once a month," she remarked to her daughter; 
" but Heaven only knows when they will be washed 
inside again, or how often poor Ah Kee will have time 
to sweep the rooms. I shall make an attempt to keep 
the reception-room in some sort of order; and as it is 
comparatively small and I can dust it myself, I may 
succeed, but I don t suppose anyone will ever enter 
the parlours again. There seems no hope of your 
father coming to his senses." 

Magdalena flung her own curtains wide, determined 
to have light if she had to wash the windows herself. 
But the rest of the house chilled and oppressed her. 
Even her mother s bedroom was half-lighted, and the 
halls and rooms downstairs were echoing vaults. One 
was almost afraid to break the silence ; even the soft- 
footed Chinaman walked on his toes. Magdalena con 
ceived the whimsical idea that her father s house had 
been closed to receive all the family skeletons of San 
Francisco, of which many whispers had come to her. 
Sometimes she fancied that she heard their bones 
rattling at night, as they crowded together, muttering 
their terrible secrets. But the idea only amused her ; 
it did not make her morbid, although there was little but 
her own will to keep her spirits on a plane where there 
was more light than bog. It was a very grey and rainy 
winter. She was forced to spend the afternoons after four 
o clock in idleness : Don Roberto himself turned off 
the gas every morning before he went down town, and 
on again at seven in the evening. The meals in the 



296 The Californians 

dining-room, naturally the darkest room in the house, 
were eaten in absolute silence. In fact, it was seldom 
that anyone spoke except on Mrs. Yorba s reception 
day. Herself wore the air of a stoic. Don Roberto s 
keen eyes searched his wife and daughter now and 
again for any sign of extravagance in attire, but he 
rarely addressed them except on the first of the month, 
when he demanded their accounts. He peremptorily 
forbade them to go out after dusk, as the night air was 
bad for the horses. The evenings he spent in his study 
with his brother-in-law. Mrs. Yorba and Magdalena 
sat in their respective rooms until nearly half-past ten ; 
when Don Roberto went the rounds to see that the 
lights were out. Were it not for his fear of earth 
quakes, he would have turned off the gas at that hour, 
but he permitted a tiny spark to burn in the halls all 
night. Occasionally Mr. Polk came home early and 
went to Magdalena s little sitting-room, the old school 
room, and sat with her for an hour or two. He said 
little and never talked of himself. She longed to bring 
her aunt back to this lonely old man, but did not know 
in the least how to go about it, and the subject never 
was mentioned between them ; he might have been a 
bachelor or a widower. But as he sat staring into the 
fire, Magdalena was convinced that he was thinking of 
his wife. She had never entered his house since the 
day of her strange discovery ; delicacy kept her away, 
but her feminine curiosity often tempted her to go 
in and see if the fires were burning, the flowers and 
magazines on the table. Sometimes at night she heard 



The Californians 297 

footsteps in the connecting gardens behind the houses, 
and fancied they were those of her uncle, gone on 
what pilgrimage she dared not imagine. 

She and Helena met again early in November. 
They greeted each other with all their old cordiality, 
but there was a barrier, and both felt it. Still, they 
exchanged frequent visits, and Magdale"na was always 
interested in Helena s new conquests and dazzling 
regalities. Helena was enjoying herself mightily. 
She had all her old admirers exhausting and coining 
adjectives at her feet, and a number of distinguished 
foreigners, who were spending the winter in San 
Francisco. She could not drive, nor yacht, nor run to 
fires on account of the weather, but she unloosed her 
energies upon indoor society, and started a cotillon 
club, and an amateur opera company. She gave a 
fancy dress ball, to which all her guests were obliged to 
come in the costumes of Old California, and laughed for 
a week at the ridiculous figure which most of them cut. 
She also gave many dinners and breakfasts, kettle-drums 
and theatre parties, and, altogether, managed to amuse 
herself and others. She never mentioned Trennahan 
to Magdale"na. Nor did he write. The Pacific might 
have been climbing over him, for any sign he gave. 

XXV 

IT was midnight, and Magdalthia was still awake ; 
a storm raged, prohibitive of sleep. The wind 
screamed over the hills, tearing the long ribbons of 



298 The Californians 

rain to bits and flinging them in great handfuls against 
the windows ; from which they rebounded to the porch 
to skurry down the pipes and gurgle into the pools of 
the soaked ground below. The roar of the ocean 
bore aloft another sound, a long heavy groan, the 
fog-horn of the Farallones. Magdale"na imagined the 
wild scene beyond the Golden Gate : the ships driven 
out of their course, bewildered by the fog, the loud 
unceasing rattle of the rigging, the hungry boom of 
the breakers, the mountains and caverns of the raging 
Pacific. Her mind, open to impressions once more, 
stirred as it had not during its period of subservience 
to the heart, and toward expression. Suffering had 
not worked those wonders with her literary faculty of 
which she had read ; but she certainly wrote with 
something more of fluency, something less of atten 
uated commonplace. She had finished her first story ; 
and although it by no means satisfied her, she had 
passed on to the next, determined to write them all ; 
then, with the education accruing from long practice, 
to go back to the beginnings and make them literature. 
To-night she forgot her stories and lay wondering at 
the ghostly images rolling through her brain, breaking 
upon the wall which stood between themselves and 
speech, hurled back to rise and form again. What 
did it mean? Was some dumb dead poet trying to 
speak through her brain, inextricably caught in the 
folds of her ravening intelligence before recognising 
its fatal limitations ? Or was that intelligence but the 
half of another, divided out there in eternity before 



The Californians 299 

being sucked earthwards? It was seldom that such 
fancies came to her nowadays, but to-night the storm 
shrieked with a thousand voices, no one of which was 
unfamiliar to these ghosts in her mind. She had 
heard the expression " hell let loose " variously ap 
plied. Were those the souls of old and wicked mates 
tossed into the wild playground of the storm, helpless 
and furious shuttle-cocks, yelling their protests with 
furious energy? The idea that she too might have 
been wicked once thrilled Magdale"na unexpectedly : 
she had had a few sudden brief lapses into primal 
impulse, accompanied by a certain exaltation of mind. 
As she recalled them the rest of her life seemed flat 
by comparison, and unburdened with meaning ; some 
thing buried, unsuspected, left over from another 
existence, shook itself and made as if to leap to those 
doomed wretches, heavy with memories, buffeting each 
other on the tides of the storm. 

A crash brought her upright. It had been preceded 
by a curious bumping along the front of the house. 
She realised in a moment what it meant : the flag-pole 
had snapped and been hurled to the ground. She 
thought of her father s dismay, and shuddered slightly ; 
she was in a mood to greet omens hospitably. 

Suddenly her eyes fixed themselves expandingly 
upon the door. She was cast in a heroic mould ; but 
the storm and the vagaries of her imagination had 
unnerved her, and she shook violently as the knob 
was softly turned and the door moved forward with 
significant care. Had her father gone suddenly mad? 



joo The Californians 

The possibility had crossed her mind more than once. 
She would lock her door hereafter. 

"What is it?" she faltered. 

The door was pushed open abruptly. Her uncle 
stood there. For a moment she thought it was his 
ghost. The dim light of the hall shone on a ghastly 
face, and he wore a long gown of grey flannel. He 
held one hand pressed against his chest. In another 
second she heard the rattling of his breath. She 
sprang out of bed and ran to him. 

" I am going to die," Mr. Polk said. " Telegraph 
and ask her to come." 

She led him to his room, roused her father and 
mother, telephoned for the doctor and a messenger 
boy, then went to her room, dressed, and wrote the 
telegram. She had little time to think, but the ap 
proach of death made her hands shake a little, and 
lent an added significance to the horrid sounds with 
out. Death had been a mere name before these last 
few moments ; he suddenly became an actual presence 
stalking the storm. 

The bell rang. She went down to the door herself. 
It was the messenger boy. She gave him the telegram 
to despatch, and told him to return and to remain on 
duty all night. Then she went to her uncle s room. 
Her mother and a dishevelled maid were compound 
ing mustard plasters and heating water. Her father 
was huddled in an armchair, staring at the gasping 
form on the bed. Magdalena shuddered. His face 
was more terrible to look on than the sick man s. 



The Californians 301 

" It s pneumonia, of course," said Mrs. Yorba, in 
the hushed whisper of the sick room, although her 
hard voice was little more sympathetic in its lower 
register. " He was wet through when he came home 
this afternoon. I should think it had rained enough 
for one year." 

The doctor came and eased the sufferer with 
morphine ; but he gave the watchers no hope. 

" He has no lungs, anyhow," he said. " This 
abrupt climax is rather a mercy than otherwise." 

Magdatena remained by the bedside during all of 
the next day. Early in the morning a telegram came 
from Mrs. Polk, saying that she was about to start on 
a special train. The message was read to her husband, 
and he whispered to Magdale"na, " I should live until 
she came, if she took a week." That was the only 
remark he made until late in the day, when he 
motioned to Magdale"na to bend her ear to his lips. 
"Don t waste your youth," he whispered; and then 
he coloured slightly, as if ashamed of having broken 
the reticence of a lifetime. 

Don Roberto barely moved from the chair which 
commanded a view of the dying man s face. His 
own shrank visibly. He neither ate nor drank. His 
sunken terror-struck eyes seemed staring through the 
passing face on the high pillows into an inferno 
beyond. 

" I declare, he gives me the horrors, and I in not a 
nervous woman," said Mrs. Yorba to her daughter. 
" I never could understand your father s queer ways. 



JO2 The Californians 

Who would ever have thought that he could care for 
anyone like that? Poor Hiram! No one can feel 
worse than I do ; but he has to go, and as the doctor 
says, this is a mercy ; there s no use acting as if you 
had lost your last friend on earth." 

" Perhaps that s the way papa feels ; and as you 
say, he s not like other people." 

The only other person in the sick-room was Colonel 
Belmont. He came over as soon as he heard of the 
attack, and sat on the other side of the bed all day, 
when he was not attempting to make himself useful. 
His old comrade smiled when he entered ; but Mr. 
Polk took little notice of anyone. Occasionally his 
eyes rested with an expression of profound pity on the 
face of his brother-in-law : once or twice he pressed 
Magdalena s hand; but his attention chiefly centred 
on the door, although he knew that his wife could not 
arrive until after midnight. 

Magdalna went to the train to meet her aunt. It 
was still raining, but calmly. There was no gay and 
chattering crowd in Market Street, not even the light 
of a cable car flashing through the grey drizzle. Mag- 
dalena recalled the night of the fire. Her inner life 
had undergone many upheavals since that night ; even 
her feeling for Helena was changed. And her aunt 
was a mere memory. 

At the station she left the carriage and walked 
along the platform as the train drew in. Mrs. Polk, 
assisted by a Mexican maid, descended from the car. 
She was very stout, but as she approached Magdalena, 



The Californians 303 

it was evident that her carriage had lost nothing oL 
majesty or grace. She kissed her niece warmly. 

" So good you are to come for me, mijita. And 
when rain, too so horriblee San Francisco. Never 
I want to see again. And the uncle? how he is?" 

" He says he will live until you come ; but he won t 
live long after." 

" Poor man ! I am sorry he go so soon. But all 
the mens die early in California now : work so hard. 
Live very old before the Americanos coming." 

They could talk without restraint in the carriage, for 
the maid did not speak English ; but Mrs. Polk merely 
asked how her husband had caught cold. Her fair 
placid face and sleepy eyes showed no print of the 
years. She seemed glad to see Magdalena again. 

" Often I wish have you with me in Santa Barbara," 
she said. " But Roberto is what the Americanos call 
crank. No is use asking him. Santa Barbara no is 
like in the old time, but is nice sleep place, where no 
have the neuralgia, and nothing to bother. Then 
always I have the few old families that are left, and 
we are so friends, see each other every day, and eat 
the Spanish dishes. I no know any Americanos; 
always I hating them. So thin you are, mijita ; I wish 
I can take you back." 

But Magdale"na felt no desire to go with her; her 
aunt seemed to belong to another life. 

When they reached home, Mrs. Polk went to Mrs. 
Yorba s room to remove her wraps and drink a cup of 
chocolate. She smoothed her beautiful dusky hair and 



304 The Californians 

arranged the old-fashioned lace about her throat, then 
sailed in all her languid majesty across the hall. 

"Aunt," said Magdale"na, with her hand on the door 
of the sick room, "will will you kiss uncle ? " 

Mrs. Polk raised her eyebrows. " Why, yes, si he 
wanting; but I never kiss him in my life. Why now?" 

" He is dying, and he has wanted you more than 
anything." 

" So queer fancies the seeck people have. But I kiss 
him, of course." 

As she entered the room, Mr. Polk raised himself 
slightly and stared at her with an expression she had 
never seen in his young eyes. It thrilled her nerves 
within their mausoleum of flesh. She bent over and 
kissed him. " Poor Eeram ! " she said. " So sorry 
I am. But you no suffer, no?" 

He made no reply. He sank back to his pillows ; 
and after greeting her brother, she took a chair beside 
the bed and sat there until her husband died, in the 
ebb of the night. He held her hand, his eyes never 
leaving her beautiful face, never losing their hunger 
until the film covered them. What thoughts, what 
bitter regrets, what futile desires for another beginning 
may have moved sluggishly in that disintegrating brain, 
he carried with him into the magnificent vault which 
his widow erected on Lone Mountain. 

His will was read on the day following the funeral, 
in the parlour where his coffin had rested, and by the 
light of a solitary gas-jet. Magdatena had never heard 
a will read before: she hoped she might never hear 



The Californians 305 

another. The three women in their black gowns, the 
four executors and trustees in their crow-black funeral 
clothes, her father, Colonel Belmont, Mr. Washington, 
and Mr. Geary, the big rustling document with its 
wearisome formalities, made a more lugubrious pic 
ture than the lonely coffin of the day before. The 
terms of the will were simple enough : the interest of 
the vast fortune was left to Mrs. Polk ; upon her death 
it was to be divided between his sister and niece, the 
principal to go to Magdale"na upon Mrs. Yorba s death. 
When Mr. Washington finished reading the document, 
Don Roberto spoke for the first time in four days. 

" I go to resign. I no will be executor or trustee. 
No need me, anyhow." And he would listen to no 
argument. 

The next day he called a meeting of the bank s 
board of directors and resigned the presidency, re 
questing that Mr. Geary, a cautious and solid man, 
should succeed him. His wish was gratified, and he 
walked out of the bank, never to enter it again. His 
many other interests were in the hands of trustworthy 
agents : neither he nor his brother-in-law had ever 
made a mistake in their choice of servants. When 
he reached home, he wrote to each of these agents 
demanding monthly instead of quarterly accounts. He 
had a bed brought down to a small room adjoining 
the " office," and in these two rooms he announced 
his intention to live henceforth. At the same time 
he informed his wife and daughter that their allowance 
hereafter would be one hundred dollars a year each, 
20 



306 The Californians 

and that he would pay no bills. Ah Kee, who had 
lived with him for twenty years, would attend to the 
domestic supplies. Then he ordered his meals brought 
to the office, and shut himself up. 

On the third day Mrs. Polk said to Magdalena, 

" Si I stay in this house one day more, I go mad, 
no less. Is like the dungeons in the Mission. Madre 
dk Dios ! and you living like this for years, perhaps ; 
for Roberto grow more crank all the time. Come 
with me. I no think he know." 

" You may be sure that he knows everything. And 
I cannot leave them. Shall you go back to Santa 
Barbara? Don t you want to travel?" 

" Dios de mi alma ; no ! I think I go to die on 
that treep from Santa Barbara so jolt. I am too 
old to travel. Once I think I like see Spain; but 
now I only want be comfortable. Well, si you change 
the mind and come sometime, I am delight. But I 
go now : feel like I am old flower wither up, without 
the sun." 



XXVI 

MRS. FOLK S large white face and throat had seemed 
to shed a measure of light in the dark house ; when 
she left, the gloom seemed to get down and sit on one. 
Helena refused to enter by the front door, and lament 
ing that she was too big to climb the pillar, paid her 
visits by way of the kitchen and back stairs. 



The Californians 307 

After the calls of condolence visitors came more 
and more rarely to the Yorba house. They said it de 
pressed them for days after, and that while there they 
sat in mortal terror of hearing Don Roberto burst 
out of his den with the yell of a maniac. And as 
for dear Mrs. Yorba and Magdale"na, they never had 
had much to say, but now they had nothing. They 
would not drop off altogether, for the old don was 
bound to follow his brother-in-law in course of time, 
and then his widow would once more be a useful 
member of society. Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Geary, 
and Mrs. Cartright were more faithful than the others, 
but the affections Mrs. Yorba had inspired during her 
long and distinguished sojourn in San Francisco were 
not very deep and warm. 

The girls were sorry for Magdale*na, and called fre 
quently, conquering their horror of the gloomy echoing 
house ; but they had less to endure than their elders, 
for they were received in Magdalthia s own sitting- 
room, which, although sparsely and tastelessly fur 
nished, was always as cheerful as the weather would 
permit. They brought her all the gossip of the out 
side world, discussed the new novels with her, and 
occasionally induced her to spend a day with them. 

At the end of the winter Ha was married ; very 
grandly, in Grace Church. All her friends but Mag- 
dale"na were bridesmaids. The omission was a serious 
one, and all felt that it robbed the function of a last 
fine finish : each of the girls had counted upon having 
the last of the Yorbas for chief bridesmaid. Magdalena 



308 The Californians 

went and sat in a corner of the church and saw the first 
of her friends break the circle of their girlhood. Her 
present had been very meagre : it had come out of 
her monthly allowance. Mrs. Polk was much too 
indolent to consider whether her niece was allowed 
an income suitable for her position or not, and Mag- 
dale"na was much too proud to ask favours. She 
slipped out of the church just before the end of the 
ceremony, feeling like a poor relation. 

She rarely saw her father. Occasionally she met 
him in the hall ; he drifted past her like a ghost. Mr. 
Polk died in February. On the first of June Don 
Roberto had not been out of the house for three 
months, nor had he exchanged a word with his wife 
or daughter. 

" He 11 blink like an owl when he does go out," said 
Mrs. Yorba. " I wonder if he remembers that it is 
time to go to the country?" 

" He never forgets anything. I 11 pack his things if 
you like." 

But the day passed and the next, and Don Roberto 
gave no sign of remembering that it was time to move. 
Then Mrs. Yorba drew several long breaths, went down 
stairs, and knocked at his door. There was no re 
sponse, but she turned the knob and went in. Don 
Roberto s face was between the large pages of a ledger. 
He looked round with a scowl. 

" Everything is ready to move down. Are you not 
coming? " 

" No ; and you no going either. Letting the place." 



The Californians 309 

If the President of the United States had let the 
White House, Mrs. Yorba could not have been more 
astounded. 

" Let Fair Oaks ! Fair Oaks ? " 

" Yes." 

" And where are we to go this summer?" 

"We stay here." 

" Robert ! You cannot mean that. No one stays 
here in summer. The city is impossible those trade- 
winds those fogs " 

" Need not go out. Can stay in the house." And 
Don Roberto returned to his ledger. 

Mrs. Yorba went straight to Magdalena s room, and 
for the first time in her daughter s experience of her, 
wept. 

" To think of spending a summer in San Francisco ! 
How I have looked forward to the summer! Things 
are always bright and cheerful in Menlo even with the 
house shut up, for one can sit on the verandah. But 
here ! And not a soul in town ! And the house like 
a prison! What in Heaven s name ails your father? 
He s not crazy. He s reading his ledgers, and what 
he says is to the point, goodness knows ! But I shall 
follow Hiram if this keeps up. You re a real comfort 
to me, Lena. I don t know what I should do without 
you." 

Magdalena said what she could to console her 
mother. The two had drawn together during these 
trying months. She was bitterly disappointed that she 
could not go to Menlo Park. She was tired of its 



jio The Californians 

efforts to amuse itself, but she could live in its woods, 
its soft gracious air, find companionship in the distant 
redwoods swimming in their dark-blue mists. 

The girls all invited her to visit them, but she would 
not leave her mother, even could her father s con 
sent be obtained. Mrs. Yorba was genuinely unhappy. 
Without mental resources, and deprived of even an 
occasional hour with her friends, she was further har 
assed by the fear that her husband would die and 
leave her with a pittance : he certainly appeared to 
hate the sight of his family. It consoled her somewhat 
to reflect that wills were easily broken in California. 
Why had her brother left her nothing? With a full 
purse she could at least have the distractions of phi 
lanthropy. She took to novel-reading with a voracious 
appetite, and her taste grew so exacting that she would 
have nothing that was not magnificently sensational. 
She thought on Boston with a shudder, but concluded 
that it was enough to have been intellectual when 
young. 

Magdale"na plodded on with her work. She de 
scribed the customs and manners of the old times with 
much accuracy, and felt that her beloved creations 
were rather more than puppets ; and it was as much 
for their sake as for her own that she wanted these little 
histories to be triumphs of art, that they might arrest 
the attention of the world. Alvarado and Castro were 
great heroes to her : it was unjust and cruel that the 
big world outside of California should know nothing 
of them ; to the present California]), for that matter, 



The Californians 3 1 1 

they were not even names. And forty years before the 
Californias had bent to their nod ! They had lived 
with the state of princes, and the wisdom with which 
the one had ruled and the other had managed his 
armies would have given them lasting fame had not 
their country then been as remote from Earth s greater 
civilisations as had it been on Jupiter. If she could 
only immortalise them ! That would be a sufficient 
reason for living, compensate her for the wreck of her 
personal life. It might take a lifetime, but what of 
that if she succeeded in the end? 

She took long walks daily; alone, for the French 
maid had been dismissed long since. The walks were 
not pleasant, for when the sand from the outlying dunes 
was not swept through the city by the bitter trades, 
the fog was crawling into one s very marrow. And the 
hills were steep. Sometimes she took the cable car 
to the end of the line, then walked to the Presidio ; 
but that brought the sand-hills nearer, and she went 
home with smarting eyes. Protected by her window, 
she found beauty even in the summer mood of San 
Francisco ; and sometimes she went up into the tower 
of the Belmont house and watched the long clouds of 
dust roll symmetrically down the streets of the city s 
valleys ; or the delicate white mist ride through the 
Golden Gate to wreathe itself about the cross on Cal 
vary, then creep down the bare brown cone to press 
close about the tombs on Lone Mountain ; then onward 
until all the city was gone under a white swinging 
ocean; except the points of the hills disfigured with the 



j 12 The Californians 

excrescences of the rich. Into the canons and rifts of 
the hills beyond the blue bay the fog crept daintily at 
first, hanging in festoons so light that the very trades 
held aloof, then advancing with a rush, a phantom 
of the booming ocean whence it came. 

And Trennahan? He made no sign. Whether he 
were dead or alive, the victim or the captor of his old 
familiars, careless, or nursing an open wound, Mag- 
dale na was miserably ignorant. The time had come 
when she waited tensely as mails were due, feeling that 
an empty envelope covered with his handwriting would 
give her solace. She cherished no hope that he would 
ever return to her, but he had promised her his lasting 
friendship. Sometimes she wondered at the cruelty of 
men. Why should he not help her? Even if he really 
believed in the extinction of her love, he might guess 
that she needed his friendship. She had yet to learn 
that the one thing that man never gives to woman is 
spiritual help. 

Helena wrote that her father was so anxious for her 
to marry Alan Rush that she was officially engaged to 
that much-enduring youth and really liked him. Menlo 
Park was the same as ever ; not so gay as last year, 
but the same in quality. No one had called on the 
lessees of Fair Oaks. They were new people whom 
nobody knew, and it would be horrid to go there, any 
how. Caro was engaged to marry an Englishman who 
had bought a grape-ranch some twenty miles from 
Menlo. Tiny was prettier and more bored than usual. 
Rose wrote that she certainly could not stand another 



The Californians 313 

summer of Menlo and should go East in the autumn. 
Ila wrote from Paris, London, and Homburg that life 
was quite perfect. It was so interesting to be named 
Washington, everybody stared so j as the English had 
never read a line of United States history, they thought 
her George was a lineal descendant of the immortal 
head of his house ; and she had thirty-two trunks of 
Paris clothes and ever so many men in love with her. 
And Magdalena lived this life for three years. Its 
monotony was broken by one event only. 



XXVII 

DURING the winter following Mr. Folk s death, Colonel 
Belmont was driving his coach along the beach beyond 
the Park one afternoon when Helena, who sat beside 
him, saw him give a long shudder, then huddle. She 
grasped the reins of the four swiftly trotting horses and 
spoke over her shoulder to Alan Rush. 

" Pull my father up to the top," she said. 

Rush did as he was bid, and the body of Colonel 
Belmont was laid out between the two rows of young 
people, whose gaiety had frozen to horror. 

" Now take the reins," said Helena. 

Rush took the reins. Helena followed her father 
swiftly and stooped to take his head in her arms. But 
she dropped her ear to his lips instead, then to his 
heart. For a moment longer she stared at him, while 
the others waited for the outburst. But she returned 



314 The Californians 

to the front seat, and caught the reins from Rush s 
hands. 

"I must do something," she said; and he knew 
better than to answer her, or even to look at her. 

It was some time before she could turn the horses, 
and then she was several miles from home. She drove 
with steady hands ; but when they had reached the 
house and Rush lifted her down, she was trembling 
violently. She pushed him aside. 

" Go and get Magdalena," she said. 

Magdalena remained with her a week. This was 
Helena s first real grief, and there was nothing cyclonic 
about it. " I 11 never get over it," she said. " Never ! 
And I 11 never be quite the same again. Of course 
I don t mean that I 11 have this awful sense of be 
reavement and keep on crying all my life : I know 
better than that; but I could never forget him, nor 
forget to wish I still had him, if I lived to be a hun 
dred. If I had anything to reproach myself for 
anything serious I believe I d go off my head ; but 
I was good to him ; and I am sure mamma never could 
have taken better care of him than I did. When he 
was under doctor s orders I gave him every drop of the 
medicine myself, and I never would let him eat a thing 
I thought would n t agree with him. He used to say 
his life was a burden, poor darling, but I know he liked 
it. And who knows? if I hadn t watched him so, 
he might not have lived as long as he did. That is my 
one consolation. . . . This terrible grief makes every 
thing else seem so paltry ; I could not even think of 



(UNIVERSITY j 

\* Of = \ ^ 

The Californians 315 

being engaged to Alan Rush any longer. Poor fellow ! 
I feel sorry for him, but I can t play for a long time to 
come. As for papa s wishes in the matter, Mr. Geary 
and Mr. Washington will take care of my money, and 
I am quite able to take care of myself. If papa is 
near me now, he will understand how I feel, and agree 
with me. I wish I had some heroic destiny. Why 
has the United States ceased to make history ? I d 
like to play some great part. Papa used to say there 
was bound to be another upheaval some day, but I m 
afraid it won t be in my time." 

"It may," replied Magdale"na. "There s a good 
deal of history-making, quiet and noisy, going on all 
the time. I Ve been reading the newspapers this last 
year. They re horrid sensational things, but I manage 
to get a few ideas from them. No one can tell what 
may happen ten years hence. You may have a chance 
to be the heroine of a revolution yet." 

" I m afraid I 11 never be anything but a belle, and 
I m tired of that already, although I never could 
stand being shelved. But if there is a revolution dur 
ing my life I 11 be a factor in it. Just you remember 
that." 

" I really do believe that you were intended for some 
thing extraordinary." 

" I believe I was. That s the reason I m so restless 
and dramatic. I don t feel as if I ever could be so 
again, though, not for ages, anyhow." 

The old close and affectionate intimacy between the 
two girls was restored during that week. At its end 



316 The Californians 

Helena went East to visit her aunt, Mrs. Forbes. She 
was the untrammelled mistress of something under a mil 
lion dollars ; and as her private car, filled with flowers, 
bonbons, and books, pulled away from a sorrowing 
crowd of friends on the Oakland side of the ferry, 
it must be confessed she reflected that the future would 
appear several shades darker if she were arranging her 
belongings in a half-section, a small quarterly allow 
ance in her pocket. Nevertheless Colonel Belmont 
had his reward. His daughter s grief was deep and 
lasting ; and perhaps he knew. 



XXVIII 

CARD married her Englishman, and on a thriving grape- 
farm entertained other Englishmen. Rose went East 
and triumphantly captured a Baltimorean of distin 
guished lineage and depleted exchequer. Tiny went 
to Europe again. Magdalena was practically alone. 
Her father still lived in his two rooms downstairs and 
never spoke to anyone but Ah Kee. Once he forgot 
to close his study door, and Magdalena, who happened 
to be passing, paused and looked at him. His face 
had shrunken and was crossed with a thousand fine 
and eccentric lines; like the palm of a man singled 
out for a career of trouble. He had let his hair and 
beard grow, and he looked uncouth and dirty. 

Mrs. Yorba still read novels. She no longer paid 
calls, for her allowance, now reduced to fifty dollars a 



The Californians 317 

year, was quite inadequate to meet the requirements of 
a dignified member of society. She received her few 
intimate and faithful friends in her bedroom ; the first 
floor was never dusted nor aired. The house smelt 
musty and deserted ; the lower rooms were as cold and 
damp as underground caverns; the spiders spun un 
heeded ; when the front door was opened, the festoons 
in the hall swung like hammocks. Even the gloom of 
the house seemed to accentuate with the years. Mag- 
dale"na wondered if the inside of the old Polk house 
looked any more haunted than this ; and even the Bel- 
mont house was acquiring an expression of pathos, 
peculiar to desertion in old age. Magdale na fancied 
that the three houses must be pointed out to visitors as 
the sarcophagi of the futile ambitions of three Califor- 
nian millionaires. 

In her own rooms she toiled on, absorbed in her 
work, loving it with the beggared passion of her nature, 
experiencing two or three moments of creative ecstasy 
and many hours of dull discouragement. She wrote her 
stories and rewrote them ; then again, and again. Her 
critical faculty took long strides ahead of her creative 
power, and she rarely ceased to be uneasy at the dis 
parity between her work and her ideals. But Trennahan 
had said that it would be ten years before she could 
attain excellence, and she was willing to serve a harder 
apprenticeship than this. Had it not been for her 
work and the books of those who had climbed the 
heights and slept beneath the stars, she might have 
become morbid and melancholy in her unnatural sur- 



318 The Califbrnians 

roundings. But although the monotony of her life was 
never broken by a day in the country, she had always 
the beauty of bay and hill and sky beyond her window ; 
and there are certain months in the spring and autumn 
when San Francisco is as lovely and brilliant as the 
southern shores of California. The trades are hiber 
nating in the caves of the Pacific, and the fogs exist 
only in the spray of the ponderous waves. On such 
days and evenings Magdal6na sat for hours on her little 
balcony, forgetting her work, dreaming idly. It was 
inevitable, in her purely mental and imaginative life, 
that she should apprehend in Trennahan the lover 
again. She wove her own romance as ardently and 
consecutively as that of any of her heroines. In time 
he would forget Helena ; his love for her had been one 
of those sudden insane passions of which she had read, 
which she tried to depict in her Southland tales, 
and in time it would fall from him, and he would hear 
the tinkle of the chain forged in long hours of perfect 
sympathy. They would both be older and wiser and 
more sad : the better, perhaps. Loneliness and the 
peculiar circumstances of her life inclined her to border 
land sympathies ; she believed that if he died suddenly 
she should become immediately aware of the fact. 

Her love for Trennahan by no means interfered with 
her literary ambitions. All others had failed her ; she 
knew now that with the best of opportunities she should 
never have cut a brilliant figure in society. But she did 
not care ; letters were a far more glorious goal. Helena 
adored great military heroes, great imperialists like Clive 



The Californians 319 

and Hastings, even great tyrants like Napoleon. Her 
self reverenced the great names in literature, and could 
think of no destiny so exalted as to be enrolled among 
them. And if she succeeded, what would have mat 
tered these long years of dull loneliness, of denial of 
all that is dear to the heart of a girl? Sometimes she 
even thought the tarrying of Trennahan mattered little ; 
for there is no tyrant so jealous as Art. 

Once she read her stones aloud to her mother ; and 
Mrs. Yorba was pleased to observe that they were much 
better than she could have expected, but that on the 
whole she preferred " The Duchess." She had grown 
quite fond of her daughter, and often sat in her room 
while she wrote. The intimacy and isolation of the two 
women had made it easy and natural for Magdale"na to 
confide in her mother, but she was forced to confess 
that she had not inherited her critical faculty from her 
maternal parent. Nevertheless, she was glad of the 
meagre encouragement and plodded on. 



XXIX 

IT was early in the fourth year that Henry James 
swooped down upon San Francisco. He arrived in 
the train of Helena s triumphant return, under her 
especial patronage. Not that a few choice spirits in 
California had not discovered James for themselves 
long since ; but James as a definite entity, known and 
approved by Society, awaited the second advent of 



320 The Californians 

Helena. He immediately became the fad ; rather, 
Society split into two factions and was threatened with 
disruption. One young woman of the - disapproving 
camp even went so far as to call an ardent advocate a 
" Henry James fool." All of which was doubtless due 
to the fact that the traditions of action still lingered in 
California. Strangely enough, Tiny, who returned almost 
immediately after Helena, was one of the first to take 
Mr. James under her small but determined wing. She 
regarded well-read people as an unnecessary bore, and 
ambition of any sort as unsuited to the Land of the 
Poppy, but she had a feminine faith in exceptions, and 
joined the cult with something like enthusiasm. It 
was she who introduced him to Magdatena. 

Magdale"na cared nothing for American latter-day 
authors, and gave no heed to Helena s emphatic ap 
proval of Mr. James. In fact, she and Helena had so 
much else to talk about that they found little leisure 
for books. Helena had been abroad again, and the 
belle of a winter in Washington. She was more beauti 
ful than ever, and, although somewhat subdued, was full 
of plans for the future. Her first ball she arrived at 
the end of the winter season determined that her 
supremacy, socially and sentimentally, was unshaken. 
Immediately after, she bought an old Spanish house in 
the northern redwoods and provided new surprises for 
her little world. But there is no more room for Helena 
in this chronicle. Perhaps, if history shapes itself around 
her, she may one day have a chronicle to herself. 

Tiny called on Magclale na one afternoon with two 



The Californians 321 

volumes of Henry James under her arm. She took 
to her toes as the front door closed, and ran down the 
long hall and up the stair to Magdale"na s room. 

" I feel like a book agent," she said, trying not to 
pant, and hoping Magdalna would go down to the 
door with her when she left. " But you really must 
read him, Le"na. He s so fascinating : I think it s 
because nothing ever happens, and that s so like life. 
I think I must always have felt Henry Jamesish, and 
it seems to me that he is singularly like Menlo, 
when Helena is not there, just jogging along in 
aristocratic seclusion punctuated by the epigrams of 
Rose and Eugene Fort. I m sure Mr. James could, 
write a novel of Menlo Park ; he just revels in irradi 
ating nothing with genius. There ! I feel so guilty, 
for I really do love Menlo, with intervals of Europe, 
but I Ve been visiting Rose, and I m afraid I m 
plagiarising a little ; you know I m not one bit clever. 
Only I really feel so when I read Mr. James. And 
he 11 be such company in Menlo this summer. Just 
think, I shall be all alone there, when I m not visiting 
Helena or Caro. Is is " she glanced about fear 
fully " is there no hope of dear Don Roberto 
relenting? " 

" I am afraid not. But it is such a comfort to have 
you back. I heard you were engaged to an Eng 
lishman, or something? " 

Tiny blushed. She was on her way to a tea, and 
looked exquisitely pretty in a fawn-coloured crepe de 
chine embroidered with wild roses, and a bonnet of 



322 The Californians 

pink tulle crushed about her face. Magdalena won 
dered why some man had not married her out of 
hand, then reflected that Tiny was likely to dispose 
of her own future. 

" I m not quite sure," said Miss Montgomery, look 
ing innocently at a lithograph of the Virgin which 
still decorated the wall. " You see, he has a title, 
and it s so commonplace to marry a title. But if I 
decide to, I 11 let you know the very first." 

Shortly after she went away and left Magdalena 
alone with Henry James. 

She took up one of the volumes. As she did so, 
something stirred in the cellars of her mind beat 
its stiff wings against the narrow walls struggled for 
ward and upward. 

She stood on the porch in the late evening : alone 
in a fog. Her young mind opened to literary desire 
preceding it was a swift disturbing presentiment ; it 
had recurred once, and again but not for several 
years. What did it mean, here again ? And what had 
Henry James to do with it? She dropped into a chair. 
Her hands trembled as they opened the book. 



XXX 

IT was a week before she squarely faced the rela 
tion of Henry James to her own ambitions. Then she 
admitted it in so many words : she could not write, 
she never could write. The writers who were dust 



The Californians 323 

had inspired her to emulation ; it took a great con 
temporary to bring her despair. It is only the living 
enemies we fear ; the dead and their past are beautiful 
unrealities to the smarting ego. 

Magdalena realised for the first time the exact value 
she had placed upon the art of expression, a value 
that was in inverse ratio to her limitations. Literature 
to her was, above all else, the art of words. Stories 
were to be picked up anywhere : had she not found 
a number ready to her hand? The creative faculty 
might, in its unique development, be something 
supremer still, although crippled without the perfected 
medium of this writer, who seemed above all writers 
to be the master and not the servant of words. She 
re-read her own efforts. They represented the hard 
thought and work of six years ; not a great span, 
perhaps, but long enough to determine the promise 
of a faculty. The stories were wooden. Her work 
would always be wooden. There was not a phrase 
to delight the cultivated reader, not a line that any 
moderately clever person, given the same material, 
might not have written. After as many more years 
of labour she might become a praiseworthy writer of 
the third rank. She put her manuscripts in the fire. 

After that, life turned grey indeed. Her imagination 
might have gone into the flames with the stories, for 
her illusions about Trennahan fell to ashes coincidently. 
She no longer believed that he would return, that he 
would even write demanding her friendship. She 
could hardly recall his face ; the sound of his voice 



324 The Californians 

was gone from her. Indubitably he had forgotten her 
long since. Why not? She had ascended above the 
rosy stratum of youth, where delusions were possible. 

Then began a long struggle against despair and its 
terrible consequences. It was a summer of raging 
trades which seemed to lift the sand dunes from their 
foundations and hurl them through the choking city. 
She could take little exercise. The Library was her 
only resource, but one can read only so many hours a 
day. If she could but travel, as Helena did, when 
anything went wrong ! Or if her uncle had only left 
her an income that she could expend in charity ! 
Her sympathy for the poor had never ebbed, and she 
would have gladly spent her life in their service, 
although she doubted if they were more miserable 
than herself. It was true that she had enough to eat, 
a roof to her head, and clothes to wear, extremely 
plain clothes ; but that was all. A nun or a prisoner 
had as much. 

There were times when she was threatened with a 
consuming hatred of life, and then she fled out into 
the dust and battled with the storms within and with 
out; for her ideals were all that were left her. She 
knew the ugly potentialities in the depths of her ill- 
compounded nature : the day she ceased to be true 
to herself there would be a tragedy in that dark house 
on the hill. Sometimes she wondered toward what 
end she was persevering, striving to perfect the better 
part of her. A quarter of a century or more of mean 
ingless earthly existence? A controvertible hereafter? 



The Californians 325 

But she ceased to analyse, knowing that it could lead 
nowhere until the human mind ceased to be human. 

And one day, in the end of the summer, she lost her 
grip on herself. 

For three days the trade-winds had raged ; she had 
not been able to leave the house. Twice she had set 
forth, desperate with the nervous monotony of her 
hours, and been driven back by the blinding dust. 
It was on the third day that she happened to catch 
sight of herself in the glass. She saw her face plainer 
than ever, but her attention passed suddenly to her 
shoulders and rested there. They were bent. Her 
carriage was dejected, apathetic. The sluggish tide 
mounted slowly to her face as she realised that this 
physical manner must have fallen upon her gradually, 
and been worn for some time; and its significance. 
She made an effort to reassume her old erect haughty 
poise, which had been partly the manifest of inherent 
pride, partly of half-acknowledged defiance of the 
beauty-worship of the world. Her shoulders sank 
before the spine had risen to its perpendicular. What 
did it matter? Again she experienced that disinte 
gration of will which once had left her at the mercy 
of that instinct for destruction which is one of the 
essential particles of the ego. 

Her brain was almost torpid. The want of exhila 
rating exercise, the long dearth of companionship, the 
terrible monotony of her life, the restless nights, the 
dank gloomy atmosphere in which she had her per 
petual being, were, she told herself dully, doing their 



326 The Californians 

work. And she did not care. But if her brain was 
sodden, her nerves felt as if on the verge of explosion. 
She noticed that her hands were not steady, and sat 
for hours, wondering what was coming upon her. She 
cared less and less. 

Ah Kee tapped at her door. She replied that she 
did not want any dinner, loathing the unvarying biil- 
of-fare. 

The hours dragged on, and darkness came ; but 
she did not light the gas, whose jet was but a feeble 
point in these times, hardly worth the waste of a match. 
She strained her ears, fancied she heard whisperings in 
the hall below. If San Francisco s skeletons really were 
down there, she wished they would go in and throttle 
her father. He was the author of all her misery ; 
and was any woman on earth so miserable as she? 
Why should he live, exist down there like a beast in 
his cave, when his death would give her liberty ? a 
poignant happiness in itself. She wondered did she 
kill him should she be hanged ? They rarely hanged 
anybody in California, never when there was gold to 
rattle contemptuously in the face of the law; why 
should she not deliver her mother and herself? They 
would both be in an asylum for the mad, or dead 
before their time, unless he went soon ; and their lives 
were of several times more value than his. They, at 
least, had ruined the lives of no one, and with his 
hoarded unsavoury millions they would gladly do good 
to hundreds. 

She tiptoed out into the hall, and leaned over the 



The Californians 327 

circular railing, and peered down into the space below. 
Only an old-fashioned waxen taper burned in a cup 
of oil ; it emitted a feeble and ghostly light. The 
large webs of the spiders quivered in a draught. They 
assumed strange distorted shapes and seemed to point 
long fingers at her father s door. 

They are the ghosts that once animated the skele 
tons, she thought ; and they think it time he joined 
them. 

She stood there for a long while, her eyes narrowed 
in a hard searching regard ; the trembling gloom with 
the tiny sallow flame in its middle suggested the pur 
gatory of imaginative artists. Should she go down and 
thrust the dagger into his neck? 

Her thoughts were torn apart by the abrupt loud 
shouts of the wind. She wondered if there were such 
winds anywhere else on earth, or if this were the voice 
of some fiend prisoned in the Pacific, the spouse 
whom California had taken to her arms when the fires 
in her body were hewing and shattering and rehewing 
her, and divorced in an after-desire for beauty and 
peace. 

Magdale na went back to her room and turned the 
key in the drawer which contained the dagger. 

" I must get out of this house," she said aloud, with 
the sensation of dragging her will from the depths of 
her brain and shaking it back to life. " If I don t, 
I 11 be in an asylum to-morrow. Something is cer 
tainly wrong in my head." 

She put on her jacket and hat with trembling fingers. 



328 The Californians 

Her nerves seemed fighting their way through her skin. 
Her ears were humming. Something had begun to 
pound in her brain. 

She ran downstairs and let herself out, averting 
her eyes from her father s door. Her ringers were 
rigid, and curved. 

As she reached the sidewalk, a squall caught and 
nearly carried her off her feet. It bellied her skirts 
and loosened her hair. She lost her breath and re 
gained it with difficulty; she could hardly steer her 
self. But the wind filled her with a sudden wild 
exaltation, not of the soul, but of the worst of her 
passions, those tangled, fighting, sternly governed 
passions of the cross-breed. 

She cursed aloud. She let fly all the maledictions, 
English and Spanish, of which she had knowledge. 
The street was deserted. She raised her voice and 
pierced the gale, the furious energy of her words hiss 
ing like escaping steam. She raised her voice still 
higher and shrieked her profane arraignment of all 
things mundane in a final ecstasy of nervous abandon 
ment. 

When the passion and its voice were exhausted, her 
obsession had passed. Her head felt lighter, the 
danger of congestion was over ; but her protest was 
the keener and bitterer. Her father s life was safe 
in her hands, but she had no desire to return to his 
house. She determined to walk until morning, and to 
drift, rudderless, in the great sea of the night. 

She caught her skirts close to her body and walked 



The Californians 329 

rapidly to the brow of the hill. The twinkling lights 
were all below. The wrack of cloud torn by the wind 
into a thousand flapping sails skurried across a sky 
which the hidden moon patched with a hard angry 
silver. Far away and high in the storm the great 
cross on Calvary seemed dancing an inebriated jig 
above the ghostly tombs of Lone Mountain. 

Magdatena walked rapidly down the hill. Once or 
twice she paused before a house and stared at it. 
What secrets did it hold? What skeletons? Were 
any within so desperate as she ? Why did they not 
come out and shriek with the storm? She pictured 
a sudden obsession of San Francisco : every door si 
multaneously flung open, every wretched inmate rushing 
forth to scream his protest against the injustice of life 
into the ecstatic fury of the elements. 

High on a terrace, or rather an unlevelled angle of 
the hill, and reached by a long rickety flight of steps, 
was an old ugly wooden house. It was unpainted ; the 
shutters were shaking on their rusty hinges ; the chim 
neys had been blown off long since ;.but it had cost much 
gold in its time. It had been the home of a " Forty- 
niner," and he was dead and forgotten, his dust as 
easily accounted for as his winged gold. Doubtless 
every room had its patient skeleton, grinning eternally 
at the yellow lust of man. 

As she passed Dupont Street, she paused again and 
regarded it steadily. Sheltered in the steep hillside, it 
took no note of the storm; its sidewalks were not 
empty, and its windows were broken bars of light. 



3JO The Californians 

MagdaMna wondered if the painted creatures talking 
volubly behind the shutters were not happier and more 
normal than she. They were the rejected of their 
native boulevards, beyond a doubt, but they were free 
in their way, and they certainly were alive. 

I am nothing, she thought; neither to myself, nor 
to any one else. I wonder will the wind blow me in 
there some night? What if it does? 

But when a man started toward her with manifest 
intent to speak, she fled down the hill. 

When she reached Kearney Street she turned with 
out hesitation to the left, and walked toward those 
regions which are associated in the minds of every San 
Franciscan with lawlessness and crime. She had given 
a swift glance to the right before turning ; the region 
of respectable shops and fashionable promenade was as 
black as a tunnel ; the eccentric economy of the city 
forbade the light of street lamps when the moon was 
out, whether clouds accompanied her or not. 

Ahead was a line of lights twisting and leaping in the 
wind, the vagrant gas-jets before the row of cheap 
shops on the east side of the Plaza. Magdale"na 
hardly glanced at the medley of curious wares and 
faces as she hurried past ; the wind was roaring about 
the open square, interfering with sight and hearing and 
headway. And beyond her blood leaped to that 
mysterious disreputable region. 

She left the Plaza and passing under the shelter of 
the heights upon which stood her home slackened her 
steps. There was a discordant crash of music in the 



The Californians 331 

crowded streets. Light was streaming from music- 
halls, above and below stairs, and from restaurants and 
saloons. But everybody seemed to be on the side 
walks. It was a strange crowd, and Magdale"na forgot 
herself for the moment : she had entered a new world, 
and her tortured soul lagged behind. 

The riff- raff of the world was moving there, and when 
not apathetic they took their pleasures with drawn 
brows and eyes alert for a fight; but the only types 
Magdatena recognised were the drunken sailors and the 
occasional blank-faced Chinaman who had strayed 
down from his quarter on the hill. There were dark- 
faced men who were doubtless French and Italian; 
what their calling was, no outsider could guess, but 
that it was evil no man could doubt ; and there 
were many whose nationality had long since become 
as inarticulate as such soul they may have been born 
with. Many looked anaemic and consumptive, but the 
majority were highly coloured and frankly drunk. And 
if the men were forbidding, the women were appalling. 
There was no attempt at smartness in their attire ; 
they were dowdy and frowsy, and even the young faces 
were old. 

The din of voices, the medley of tongues and faces, 
the crash of music, the poisoned atmosphere, con 
fused Magdale"na, and she turned precipitately into a 
restaurant. It was almost empty ; she sat down before 
a dirty table and ordered a cup of coffee. The only 
waiter in attendance the rest were probably in the 
street was old and bleared of eye, but he stared hard 
at the new customer. 



3J 2 The Californians 

"You d better git out of this," he said, as Magda* 
le"na finished her unpleasant draught. "You ain t 
pretty, but you re a lady, and they don t understand 
that sort here. Have you got much money with 
you?" 

" About a dollar, and I certainly do not give the im 
pression of wealth. Most nursery maids are better 
dressed." 

" You d better git out, all the same." 

But the strong coffee had gone to Magdale*na s head, 
and she cared little what became of her. Nevertheless, 
a moment later she was shrieking and struggling in the 
arms of a big golden-bearded Russian. She barely 
grasped the sense of what followed. There was a vol 
ley of screams and laughter ; the man was cursing and 
gripping her with the arms of a grizzly. Then there 
was a flash of knives, and she was stumbling headlong 
through the crowd, hooted at and buffeted. But no one 
attempted to stop her, for a fight with bowie-knives 
was more interesting than a sallow-faced girl who had 
happened upon foreign territory. She ran up a dark 
side-street, and then, as her breath gave out and forced 
her to moderate her pace, she glanced repeatedly over 
her shoulder. No one was in pursuit, but it was some 
moments before she realised that it was not relief she 
experienced, but something akin to disappointment. 
She was in the ugliest mood of which her nature was 
capable, and that was saying much. With one excep 
tion, better forgotten, this blond ruffian who had in 
sulted her was the only man who had ever desired her ; 



The Californians 333 

doubtless, she reflected bitterly, even Trennahan might 
be excepted. And when an unprepossessing woman 
of starved affections and implacably controlled passions 
sees desire in the eyes of a man for the first time, her 
vanity of sex responds, if her passions do not. 

She half turned back and stood looking down the 
hill to the brilliant noisy street. 

Why should I not go back and live with him, and 
disappear from a world which takes no interest in 
me, and in which I am no earthly use ? she thought. 
And no life could be worse than mine, nor more 
immoral, for that matter. I have never fulfilled a single 
one of the conditions for which woman was born, and 
I d be more normal as that man s mistress, and less un 
happy even if he beat me, which he probably would, 
than living the life of a blind mole underground. 

Then she wondered who her deliverer was, and 
wondered if he too had wanted her. Some portion 
of the blackness in her soul receded suddenly, and she 
smiled and trembled slightly. Involuntarily her back 
straightened, and she lifted her head. But with the 
sudden rush of sexual pride the magnetism of its 
creators receded, and she turned her back on the flare 
below and continued to mount the hill. In a moment 
she turned into a badly lighted alley thinly peopled. 
Here there was but a tinkle of music, and it came 
from the guitar. Fat old women with black shawls 
pinned about their heads sat on the doorsteps of 
ramshackle houses talking to men whose flannel shirts 
revealed hairy chests. The women looked stupid, the 



334 The Californians 

men weather-beaten, but the prevailing expression was 
good-natured. In the middle of the street was a 
tamale stand surrounded by patrons. The aroma of 
highly seasoned cooking came from a restaurant at the 
foot of a rickety flight of steps. Every dilapidated 
window had its flower- box. 

This, then, was Spanish town. Magdale"na had 
dreamed of it often, picturing it a blaze of colour, 
a moving picture-book, crowded with beautiful girls 
and handsome gaily attired men. There was not a 
young person to be seen. Nothing could be less 
picturesque, more sordid. 

An old crone with a face like a withered apple 
followed her, whining for a nickel. The others stared 
at her with the stolid dignity of their race. She gave 
the woman the nickel and interrupted the invocation. 

" Are there no girls here? " 

" Girl come from other place sometimes, then have 
the baby and is old queeck. Si the senorita stay here, 
she have the baby and grow old too." 

Magdale"na hastened on. She neither knew nor 
cared where she went, but after a time struck down 
the slope again, judging that she was beyond the 
centre of social activity. Once, at the corner of 
two sharply converging streets, she passed a house 
whose lighted windows were open, for the wind had 
gone and the night was hot. But she only stood for a 
moment. Fat Mexican women half dressed were 
lolling about, and the front door was open to many 
men. The women were not as evil appearing as the 



The Californians 335 

French dregs of Dupont Street, possibly because they 
wore flowers in their hair and looked more frankly 
sensual and less commercial. Again Magdale"na felt 
an almost irresistible attraction, but hastened on. 
Once, in a dark street, she was flung against a wall 
and her pockets turned inside out, but she made 
no protest and was allowed to go without further 
indignity. It was a woman who had robbed her, and 
Magdale"na, having come off with the mere loss of 
seventy cents, indulged in a pleasurable thrill of 
adventure. 

After a time she found herself climbing a steep hill 
and felt a sudden desire to reach the top, and that 
the climb should be a long one. Here and there 
she passed a tumble- down house, but the rest of the 
hill under the brilliant moon showed bare and brown. 
From the other side came the sound of lapping waves, 
and she knew herself to be on Telegraph Hill. 

She reached the top and sat down on the ground. 
The clouds had flown with the wind, and the moon 
revealed the quiet bay and the black masses of cliff 
and hill and mountain beyond. An occasional gust 
made a loud clatter in the rigging of the many crafts 
below, or an angry shout arose from the water-front; 
but otherwise the night from the summit of Telegraph 
Hill was peaceful and most beautiful. 

Magdalena, who loved Nature and had yielded to 
its influence many times in her life, made a deliber 
ate attempt to absorb the peace and beauty of the 
night into her own scarred and troubled soul. But 



336 The Californians 

she gave up the attempt in a few moments. The 
fierceness of her mood had passed, and some of its 
blackness, but she was still bitter and hopeless. There 
was nothing to do but to face the problem of her life, 
and thinking was easier on these altitudes, where the 
air was fresh and salt, and the stars seemed close, 
than in the ill-ventilated prison which she called her 
home. She determined to remain until morning and to 
restore her brain to its normal condition, if possible. 

She looked back upon the mental and moral inertia 
into which she had sunken during the past month, 
and its sequence of morbid and criminal instinct, with 
terror and horror. Before an hour had passed, she 
had herself in hand once more, for she had deliber 
ately forced herself to face her own soul, and she 
believed that she could put her character together 
again and accept the future without further luxation or 
debility of will. But she made no attempt to close her 
eyes to the ugly fact that in that future of intermin 
able years there were only two small stars of hope ; and 
it required an effort of imagination to drag them above 
the horizon, her father s death and the return of 
Trennahan. Her father belonged to a long-lived race, 
and Trennahan during an absence of three years and 
some months had given no indication that he remem 
bered her existence ; moreover, he had gone into exile 
for love of another woman. But without the faint 
white twinkle of those stars the future would be not a 
blank, but an infernal abyss, which Magdalena, without 
the society of her kind, without talent, without occu- 



The Californians 337 

pation, without religion, refused to contemplate. And 
she had all a woman s capacity for fooling herself with 
the will-o -the-wisps of the imagination. 

Her eyes had been clear and her logic relentless so 
long as the man had been within sight and touch, but 
his absence, combined with his abrupt and final evic 
tion from the toils of the other woman, had lifted him 
from practical life into the realms of the imagination ; 
in other words, he was no longer so much a man as an 
ideal, a soul whom her own soul was free to await or 
pursue in that inner world where realities are bodiless 
and forgotten. 

She longed for the old comfortable irresponsible 
sensuous embrace of the Church of Rome. Its light 
est touch was hypnotic, its very breath a balm. Why, 
she wondered bitterly, could she not have been given 
less brains, or more ? If her talents had been genu 
ine, she would have had that magnificent independence 
of religion and worldly conditions which only art 
and love can create in the human mind. And if 
her logic had been a trifle less relentless, she would 
have had hours of ecstatic forgetfulness these last long 
years. Of course there was always the Almighty 
Power to whom one could pray, and who certainly 
could grant prayer if He chose. But it seemed to 
her an impertinence for ordinary insignificant beings to 
importune this remote and absolute God, so forbidding 
in His monotonous mystery. She had all the arrogance 
of intellect despite her remorseless limitations. Had 
she been granted the gift of creation, in other words, 



jj 8 The Californians 

a spark from the great creative force commanding the 
Universe, she felt that she should have no hesitation 
in begging for further favours; a certain sense of 
kinship, of being in higher favour than the great con 
gested mass, would have given her assurance and faith. 
She sighed for a new religion, for that prophet who 
must one day arise and rid the world of the abomina 
tion of dogma and sect, giving to the groping millions 
a simple belief, in which the fussiness, sentimental 
ity, and cruelty of present religions would have no 
place. 

She sat there until the dawn came, grey and ap 
palling at first, then touching the bay and the dark 
heights with delicate colour, as the sun struggled out 
of the embrace of the ocean. She was obliged to 
walk home, as she had no money, and the long toil 
some tramp in the wake of the eventful night gave 
her appetite and many hours of rest. When she 
awoke she felt that, whatever came, the most formid 
able crisis of her life had been safely passed. 



XXXI 

IN the autumn she found an occupation which gave 
her a temporary place in the scheme of things. Mrs. 
Yorba fell ill. The sudden and complete change from 
a personage to a nobody, the long confinement, she 
rarely put her foot outside the house lest her shabby 
clothes be remarked upon, and a four years course 



The Californians 339 

of sensational novels induced a nervous distemper. 
Magdalena, hearing the sound of pacing footsteps in 
the hall one night, arose and opened her door. Mrs. 
Yorba, arrayed in a red flannel nightgown and a 
frilled nightcap, was walking rapidly up and down, 
talking to herself. Magdalena persuaded her to go 
to bed, and the next morning sent for the doctor. 
He prescribed an immediate change of scene, travel, 
if possible ; if not, the country. Magdate na under 
took to carry the message to her father. 

Knowing that a knock would evoke no response, 
she opened the door of the study and went in. Don 
Roberto, dirty, unshaven, looked like a wild man in 
a mountain cave ; but his eyes were steady enough. 
His table and the floor about his chair were piled 
high with ledgers. On everything else the dust was 
inches thick, and the spiders had spun a shimmering 
web across one side of the room. It hung from the 
gas-rod like a piece of fairy tapestry, woven with red 
and gold here and there, where the sun s rays, scatter 
ing through the slats of the inside blinds, caressed it. 
On the mantel-piece, supported on its broken staff, 
was the big American flag which had floated above 
the house of Don Roberto Yorba for thirty years. 
It had been carefully washed, and although broken 
bits of spiders weavings hung to its edges, there 
were none on its surface. 

Magdalena felt no desire to kiss her parent, although 
it was the first time for several years that she had stood 
in his presence. She disliked and despised him, and 



34 The Californians 

thought no less of herself for her repudiation. If she, 
a young, inexperienced, and lonely woman, could fight 
and conquer morbid fancies, why not he, who had 
been counted one of the keenest financial brains of 
the country? She felt thoroughly ashamed of her 
progenitor as she stood looking down upon the little 
dirty shrunken shambling figure. 

"Well?" growled Don Roberto, "what you want? " 

"My mother is very ill. This life is killing her. 
The doctor says she must have a change." 

" All go to die sometime. What difference now or 
bimeby?" 

"Will you let us go to Santa Barbara to visit 
aunt?" 

" Si she send you the moneys, I no care what you 
do with it. I no give you one cents." 

" Very well ; I shall ask my aunt." 

But Mrs. Yorba declared that she would not go to 
Santa Barbara : she detested her sister-in-law, and 
would accept no favours from her, nor be forced 
into her society. There was nothing for Magdal^na 
to do but to nurse her, and a most exasperating invalid 
she proved. Nevertheless, Magdale"na, although a 
part of her duties was to read her mother s favourite 
literature aloud by the hour, was almost grateful for 
the change. She seldom found time for her daily 
walk, but at least she had little time to think. 

When Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Geary, and Mrs. 
Brannan returned to town, they came frequently to sit 
with the invalid, and cheered her somewhat with talk 



The Californians 341 

of the coming summer, when they should take her 
down to their own houses in Menlo. 

"And I shall go," said Mrs. Yorba to her daughter, 
" if I have n t a decent rag to my back. They think 
nothing of that ; I was a fool not to go before. And 
I m going to get well against the time when that old 
fiend dies. There ! I never thought I d say that, 
for I was brought up in the fear of the Lord, but say 
ing it is little different from thinking it, after all. I ve 
been thinking it for two solid years. California s not 
New England, anyhow. When I do get the money, 
won t I scatter it ! I Ve been economical all my life, 
for I had it in my blood, and it was my duty, as your 
father wished it ; as long as he did his duty by me, I 
was more than willing to do mine by him : he can t 
deny it. But we all know what reaction means, and it 
has set in in me. When I am my own mistress, I 11 
give three balls and two dinners a week. I 11 have the 
finest carriages and horses ever seen in California. I 11 
have four trousseaux a year from Paris, and I 11 go 
to New York myself and buy the most magnificent 
diamonds Tiffany s got. I 11 refurnish this house and 
Fair Oaks. The walls shall be frescoed, and every 
stick in them will come from New York " 

She paused abruptly, springing to her elbow. The 
door was ajar. Through the aperture came a long 
low chuckle. Magdalena jumped to her feet, flung the 
door to, and locked it. 

"Do you think he s gone mad at last?" gasped 
Mrs. Yorba. 



342 The Californians 

" It sounded like it." 

" For Heaven s sake, don t leave me for a minute. 
You must sleep here at night. There s a cot some 
where, in the attic, I think, if the rats have n t eaten 
it. What a life to live ! " She fell to weeping, as she 
frequently did in these days. Suddenly her face 
brightened. " If he should make a will disinheriting 
us, we could easily enough prove him insane after the 
way he s been acting these four years. Thank Heaven, 
this is California ! General William could break any 
will that ever was made." 

Mrs. Yorba took an opiate and fell asleep. Mag- 
dale*na went out, locking the door behind her. She 
determined to ascertain at once if her father was in 
sane. If he was, he should be confined in two of the 
upper rooms with a keeper. The world should know 
nothing of his misfortune ; but it would be absurd for 
herself and her mother to live in a constant state of 
physical terror. 

As she descended the stair, the door of her father s 
study opened abruptly and a man shot out as if 
violently propelled from behind. The door was 
slammed to immediately. 

Magdatena ran downstairs and toward the stranger. 
He was a tall man greatly bowed, and as she approached 
him she saw that he was old and wore a long white 
beard. His head was large and suggested nobility and 
intellect ; but the eyes were bleared, the flesh of the 
face loose and discoloured, and he was shabby and 
dirty. He looked like a fallen king. 



The Californians 343 

" Was was my father rude? " asked Magda- 
le na. " He is not very well. Perhaps I can do some 
thing." The man appealed to her strangely, and she 
had a dollar in her purse. 

" We were great friends in our boyhood and youth," 
replied the stranger. He spoke with an accent, but his 
English was unbroken. " And he has been my guest 
many times. There was a time when he thought it an 
honour to know me. When the Americans came, every 
thing changed. My career closed, for I would have 
nothing to do with them. I had held the highest 
offices under the Mexican government. I could not 
stoop to hold office under the usurpers many of 
whom I would not have employed as servants. Then 
they took my lands, everything. But I am detain 
ing you, senorita." 

" Oh, no, no, indeed ! How could they take your 
lands? Who are you? Tell me everything." 

" They * squatted, many of them, almost up to my 
door. The only law we could appeal to was American 
law, and California was a hell of sharpers at that time. 
It is bad enough now, but it was worse then. And 
then came the great drought of 64, in which we lost 
all our cattle. We never recovered from that, for we 
mortgaged our lands to the Americans to get money to 
live on with, everything was three prices then ; and 
when the time came they foreclosed, for we never had 
the money to pay. And we were great gamblers, 
senorita, and so were the Americans and far better 
ones than we were. We were only made for pleasure 



344 The. Californians 

and plenty, to live the life of grandees who had little 
use for money, and scorned it. When the time came 
for us to pit ourselves against sordid people, we crum 
bled like old bones. Your father has been very fortu 
nate : he had a clever man to teach him to circumvent 
other clever men. Years ago, when I was prouder 
than I am now, I put my pride in my pocket and 
wrote, asking him for help. I wanted a small sum to 
pay off the mortgage on a ranchita, upon which I 
might have ended my days in peace, for it was very 
productive. He never answered. To-day I came to 
ask him for money to buy bread. He roared at me 
like a bull, and vowed he d blow my brains out if I 
ever entered his house again. He looks like " He 
paused abruptly. There was much of the old-time 
courtliness in his manner. 

"I I am so sorry. And I have little money to 
spend. If you will leave me your name and address, I 
will send you something on the first of each month ; 
and if if ever I have more I will take care of you 
of all of you. I suppose there are many others." 

" There are indeed, senorita." 

"Some day I will ask you for all of their names. 
And yours?" 

He gave it. It was a name famous in the brief 
history of old California, a name which had stood 
for splendid hospitality, for state and magnificence, for 
power and glory. It was the name of one of her be 
loved heroes. She had written his youthful romance ; 
she had described the picturesque fervour of his woo- 



The Californians 345 

ing, the pomp of his wedding ; of all those heroes he 
had been the best beloved, the most splendid. And 
she met him, a broken-down old drunkard, in the 
dusty gloom of an old maniac s wooden " palace," in 
the fashionable quarter of a city which had never heard 
his name. 

"O God!" she said. "O God!" and she was 
glad that she had burned her manuscripts. She took 
the dollar from her pocket and gave it to him. 

He accepted it eagerly. "God bless you, senorita ! " 
he said. "And you can always hear of me at the 
Yosemite Saloon, Castroville." 

He passed out, neglecting to shut the door behind 
him, but Magdale"na did not notice the unaccustomed 
rift of light. She sank into a chair against the wall 
and wept heavily. They were the last tears she shed 
over her fallen idols. When the wave had broken, she 
reflected that she was glad to know of the distress of her 
people ; it should be her lifework to help them. When 
she came to her own she would buy them each a little 
ranch and see that they passed the rest of their lives 
in comfort. 

She leaned forward and listened intently. Loud 
mutterings proceeded from her father s room. She 
wondered if there was a policeman in the street. She 
and her mother were very unprotected. The only 
man in the house besides her father was the Chinaman, 
and Chinamen are as indifferent to the lives of others 
as to their own. Don Roberto had ordered the tele 
phone and messenger call removed years ago. The 



346 The Californians 

sounds rose to a higher register. Magdalena, straining 
her ears, heard, delivered in rapid defiant tones, the 
familiar national cry, " Hip-hip-hooray ! " 

She went over softly, and put her ear to the thick 
door. The tones of the old man s voice were broken, 
as if by muscular exertion, and accompanied by a curi 
ous bumping. Magdalena understood in a moment. 
He was striding up and down the room, waving the 
American flag, and shouting, " Hip-hip-hooray ! Hip- 
\\vp-hoorayl hooray ! hooray/ hooray! 1 

She ran down the hall to summon Ah Kee and send 
him for a doctor, but before she reached the bell she 
heard the front door close, and turned swiftly. A man 
had entered. 

She went forward in some indignation. So deep 
was the gloom of the hall that she could distinguish 
nothing beyond the facts that the intruder was tall and 
slight, and that he wore a light suit of clothes. When 
she had approached within a few feet of him, she saw 
that he was Trennahan. 

For the moment she thought it was the soul of the 
man, so ghostly he looked in that dim light, in that 
large silence. 

His first remark was reassuring : " I rang twice ; but 
as no one came, and the door was open, I walked in, 
as you see." 

" We have so few servants now. Won t you come 
and sit down?" 

He followed her down to the reception-room. She 
jerked aside the curtains, careless of the bad house- 



The Californians 347 

keeping the light would reveal. It streamed in upon 
him. He was deeply tanned and indescribably 
improved. 

They sat down opposite each other. Magdale"na, 
recalling her tears, placed her chair against the light. 
"When did you get back? " she asked. 

" The ship docked an hour ago." 

"You look very well. Have you been enjoying 
yourself? " 

" I have been occupied, and useful I hope. At 
least, 1 have collected some data and made some ob 
servations which may be new to the world of Science. 
I found the old love very absorbing. And, you will 
hardly credit it, I have lived quite an impersonal life." 

" Have you come back to California again because 
you think it a good place to die in?" 

"I came back to California, because it is a good 
place to write my book in, and because you are here." 

"Ah!" 

" Don t misunderstand me. I am not so conceited 
as to imagine that I can have you for the asking. But 
listen to me : I had a brief but very genuine mad 
ness. When I recovered I knew what I had th lost. 
I argued even during my convalescence that I 
had been wholly right in believing that you were the 
one woman for me to marry, and, that fact established, 
you must believe it no less than I. But for a long 
time I was ashamed to come back, or to write. Later, 
I went where it was impossible. Moreover, in solitude 
a man comes into very close knowledge of himself. 



34$ The Californians 

After a few months of it I knew that I should never 
be contented with mere existence again. I determined 
to take advantage of what might be the last chance 
granted me to make anything of my life ; I had thrown 
away a good many chances. I also argued that if you 
loved me, you would wait for me ; that you were not 
the sort to marry for any reason but one. At least, 
perhaps you will give me another trial." 

"I shall marry you, I suppose; I have wanted to 
so long, and I never had any pride where you were 
concerned. A few months ago I should have flown 
into your arms ; and I had felt sure that you would 
return. But lately I have not been able to care about 
anything. I am not the least bit excited that you are 
here. It merely seems quite natural and rather 
pleasant." 

" Is anything the matter ? " he asked anxiously. " You 
look very thin and worn, and the house it was like 
entering the receiving vault on Lone Mountain. I 
thought when I came in that you were having a funeral, 
at least." 

" It has been like that for four years. Uncle died, 
and papa was afraid to trust himself in the world for 
fear he would relapse into his natural instincts. So he 
shut himself up, makes us live on next to nothing, and 
of course we go nowhere, for we have no clothes. 
Mamma has been ill with nervous prostration for 
months, and now I feel sure that papa has gone insane. 
I have only spoken to him once in four years; but 
I have been certain that he would lose his mind 



The Californians 349 

finally, and I have just discovered that he is quite 
mad." 

" Good God ! We 11 be married to-morrow. I 
never imagined your father would hit upon any new 
eccentricities. You poor little hermit ! I fancied you 
going to parties and plodding at your stories. I never 
dreamed that you were shut up in a dungeon. I shall 
see that you are happy hereafter." 

" I feel sad and worn out. I don t think I can ever 
feel much of anything again." 

"Oh, you ll get over that," he replied cheerfully; 
he was as practical as ever. " What you want is plenty 
of sun and fresh air and a rest from your family. If 
your father is insane, he 11 go into an asylum ; and a 
rest cure is the place for your mother. That will dis 
pose of her while we are taking our honeymoon in the 
redwoods. Do you think you could stand camping 
out?" 

" I could stand anything so long as it was the country 
once more," she said, with her first flash of enthusiasm. 
"But there is something I should tell you. Perhaps 
after you hear it you won t want to marry me. I tried 
to kill Helena once." 

" You did what ? " he said, staring at her. 

" She came to me just after leaving you, on the 
night of your last interview. I was very much worked 
up before she came, had been for a long while ; and 
when she told me that she had treated you badly and 
had thrown you over, after taking you away from me, 
I suddenly wanted to kill her, and I took my dagger 



350 The Californians 

out of the drawer beside me. It was very dark, but 
she had an instinct, and she jumped up and ran away. 
I never knew I could feel so ; but every bit of blood in 
my body seemed shrieking in my head, and if she had 
not gone I should have jumped on her and hacked her 
to bits. I must go up to my mother now. You can 
think 1t over and come back again." 

"I don t need to think it over," he said, smiling. 
" That was all you needed to make you quite perfect. 
You are a wonderful example of misdirected energies. 
Where is your father? I will go and look after him at 
once." 

He took her suddenly in his arms and compelled her 
to kiss him ; and then Magdale"na knew how glad she 
was that he had come. 

She went with him to the door of the study. 

" He is quiet," she whispered. " Perhaps he is 
asleep." 

She left him and went down the hall, turning to 
wave her hand to him. Trennahan knocked. There 
was no answer. He opened the door softly, then 
gave a swift glance over his shoulder, entered hurriedly, 
and closed the door behind him. 

Suspended from the gas pipe, which was bent and 
leaking, was Don Roberto. The light was dim. The 
purple face on the languidly revolving body was barely 
visible ; but as it turned slowly to the door, it occu 
pied a definite place among the shadows. Trennahan 
flung back the curtains and opened the window, clos 
ing the lower inside blinds. A cloud hurried across the 



The Californians 351 

face of the sun, as if light had no place in that ghastly 
room. About the limp body and sprawling hands clung 
the delicate prismatic tapestry of the spiders. It was 
rent in twain, and it quivered, and threatened to drop 
and trail upon the floor. The little weavers were rac 
ing about, full of anger and consternation, bent on re 
pair. A number had already gathered up the broken 
strands and were fastening them across the body. 
Had Don Roberto remained undiscovered for twenty- 
four hours, he might have been wrought into the tissue 
of that beautiful delicate web, a grotesque intruder over 
whom the spiders would doubtless have held long and 
puzzled counsel. 

The cloud passed. The sun caught a brilliant line 
of colour. Trennahan went forward hastily, and ex 
amined the long knotted strip between the body and 
the ceiling. 

Don Roberto had hanged himself with the American 
flag. 



THE END 




PRINTED FOR JOHN LANE BY JOHN 
WILSON AND SON, THE UNIVER 
SITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



Some Novels Published by 
John Lane 

A Complete List will be Sent upon Application 

9 

AN AFRICAN MILLIONAIRE . By Grant Allen 
PATIENCE SPARHAWK AND HER TIMES 

By Gertrude Atherton 

THE CALIFORNIANS . By Gertrude Atherton 
A MAN FROM THE NORTH . By E. A. Bennett 
ORDEAL BY COMPASSION . By Vincent Brown 
GREY WEATHER ... By John Buchan 
CARPET COURTSHIP . . By Thomas Cobb 
A KING WITH Two FACES By M. E. Coleridge 
A BISHOP S DILEMMA. . By Ella D Arcy 
MIDDLE GREYNESS . . By A. J. Dawson 
MERE SENTIMENT . . . By A. J. Dawson 
SYMPHONIES ... By George Egerton 
FANTASIAS .... By George Egerton 
THE MARTYR S BIBLE . By George Fifth 



A CELIBATE S WIFE . By Herbert Flowerdew 
WHEN ALL MEN STARVE . By Charles Gleig 
THE EDGE OF HONESTY . By Charles Gleig 
COMEDIES AND ERRORS By Henry Harland 
THE CHILD WHO WILL NEVER GROW OLD 

By K. Douglas King 

WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE By Harry Lander 
THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL 

By Richard Le Gallienne 
THE ROMANCE OF ZION CHAPEL 

By Richard Le Gallienne 

DERELICTS By W. J. Locke 

IDOLS .By W. J. Locke 

MUTINEERS By A. E. J. Legge 

THE SPANISH WINE . . By Frank Mathew 
A CHILD IN THE TEMPLE By Frank Mathew 
REGINA .... By Herman Sudermann 
THE TREE OF LIFE . . By Netta Syrett 
GALLOPING DICK By H. B. Marriott Watson 
THE HEART OF MIRANDA 

By H. B. Marriott Watson 




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