with redwood and hung with the photographs she had acc.u.mulated in her travels, a motley collection of many climes, from the snows of the Alps to the patios of Seville; all, she had informed him, with a personal a.s.sociation: "she was no photograph fiend." Several artist"s sketches arrested her guest"s attention and he wondered what her life in Paris had been. He fancied that her three years abroad were full of curious chapters, most of them untold; but although she mystified him he could not a.s.sociate her with license of any sort. There was even a hint of austerity about her, as if she drew strength from her Puritan forefathers.
It was patent, however, that she felt herself ent.i.tled to physical comforts after the labors of her day. There were half a dozen easy-chairs and a big divan covered with cushions. The carpet and cushions were red, but although the room was delightfully comfortable and homelike it might have been a bachelor"s, so entirely were lacking all the little devices of femininity. The only ornaments in the room were an odd a.s.sortment of Tyrolese pipes and Indian baskets. On a shelf above the divan, however, were many books, and Gwynne ran his eye over them. They included masterpieces of the modern Russian, German, French, and Italian schools; only three or four volumes of English criticism. A set of shelves opposite was filled with the standard English and American histories, essays, and novels, many of them old and bound in calf. The upper shelf was devoted entirely to the Russian novelists, and the bindings were new.
When Isabel came down, looking very pretty in a blue evening frock, simple enough to make her guest feel at ease in his travelling-clothes, but carefully selected with an eye to effect, she sent him up to her room to make his own simple toilet.
"I suppose I should furnish a spare room," she remarked. "But if I did I should have Paula--my adopted sister--and her family here whenever they happened to want to come, which would be always when I didn"t want them.
But you won"t mind."
Gwynne made a wry face as he sat down before the dressing-table that he might reflect his visage while he brushed his hair. Nevertheless, he cast about a curious and apologetic eye, in the belief that a woman"s bedroom must reveal some secret of her personality. This bedroom was so simple and girlish that it gave him a vague sense of pleasure. The windows and dressing-table were covered with white muslin, and there was a canopy of the same above the little bra.s.s bedstead. The flounces were so full and fluffy that he held his knees back nervously lest he should disturb a puff. There was no other furniture in the room but two rocking-chairs, and the only color was in the blue j.a.panese rugs scattered over the white matting, and in two immense bows above the dressing-table and bed. He decided, as he ran down the stairs to the warm room below, that she understood both taste and comfort, and looked forward to his own lonely ranch-house with more equanimity than when he had paid the bill.
IV
There were two miles between Rosewater and Old Inn, but although Isabel rode briskly and was sensible as ever of the keen buoyant quality of the morning air that so often filled her with a pagan indifference to the human side of life, her thoughts were with the pleasant evening by her fireside, the supper in the low raftered room which once had been the office of the hotel--a supper of fried chicken, transparent asparagus, and soda biscuit, which Gwynne had disposed of with a school-boy"s enthusiasm--the hundred and one impersonal topics they had discussed in a cloud of smoke before the logs, until Abe, the second hired man--who was to drive Gwynne in to Rosewater--had opened the kitchen door three times and coughed. Not since Isabel"s return to California had she sat at a fireside and talked to anybody; nor, indeed, with the exception of her father in his lucid intervals, and her uncle in his rare moments of expansion, had she ever talked with any one that covered the large range of her own interests. Gwynne had snapped the lock on his unquiet spirit, but in that comfortable domestic environment, half lying in an easy-chair, with his gaze travelling indolently between the fire and the animated face of his cousin, he had talked of her favorite books and told her much of lands she had never visited. He had transferred himself to the buggy with a grumble of disgust, and begged her to come for him early in the morning. He refused to pay his first visit to his ranch without her; and she had promised that Abe should go early for his saddle-horse and meet her at the hotel.
Pleasurable as the evening had been, Isabel was not in a sentimental frame of mind; she was stirred at the prospect of a companion, and wondered that she had been content in her solitude so long. Solitude and complete liberty might be indispensable elements in her ideal of mortal existence, but desultory companionship might be as necessary to intensify them.
It was nearly a year since her return, and outside of the bank parlor and Judge Leslie"s office, she had held naught but business converse with any man. Nor with any woman. Although Rosewater society offered her nothing and she was glad to live out of town, still she liked her old school friends and had expected them to call on her. But weeks had pa.s.sed and not one of them had paid her the mere civilities. She met them sometimes on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, when all the world of Rosewater shopped on Main Street, and they invariably greeted her with effusion, and a.s.sured her they were "going out soon." Finally, busy and absorbed as she was, she fell a prey to curiosity. She knew that the young men had always rather feared her, as she had a forbidding reputation in the way of "bookishness"; and as most of them had either left Rosewater or married, in the four years of her absence, she had expected nothing from them. But the girls? The young married women, who had been her comrades at the High School? Did they resent her three years abroad and the sense of superiority implied? It was patent from their manner that they resented nothing. Did they disapprove of her becoming so energetic a business woman? It was true that the girls of California"s country towns, except when forced by poverty to work, were the laziest mortals on earth. But nothing could exceed their good-nature and entire indifference. Isabel might have started a race-track or opened a livery-stable and they would have vaguely admired, and been thankful that themselves were as G.o.d made them. Her friend Anabel Colton was in the south with an ailing child, and Mrs. Leslie was with her, or the problem would have been quickly solved.
One morning she met the beauty of Rosewater on Main Street, Miss Dolly Boutts, a girl who had been half grown when she left, but one of her own rapturous admirers. Main Street was crowded, but Miss Boutts rushed up and kissed her, protesting that she had been trying for two months to get out to see her. Isabel guided her firmly to an ice-cream table in the candy store, and while Miss Boutts, who was a superb specimen of animal beauty with a corresponding appet.i.te, disposed of two saucers of the delectable and a plate of cakes, Isabel dived to the heart of the mystery.
She began by dilating upon her pleasure in being home again, and then congratulated her handsome friend, with a touch of sarcasm, upon the overwhelming gayeties of Rosewater.
Miss Boutts stared. "Gayeties?" said she.
"What else? I never knew people so absorbed, although I fail to see why I should be wholly excluded. Or have the fashions changed, and was I expected to call first--"
Miss Boutts, who was not particularly quick of apprehension, here threw back her head and gave a musical laugh, which was out of tune with her drawling nasal voice and abundant slang.
"You innocent!" she cried. "Where have you been? I suppose you have been imagining us at dances and dinners and teas and things. Why, we have only danced twice in two whole years. It"s cards, my dear. We are card mad, the whole bunch of us, old and young, women and girls. Mrs. Leslie and Anabel Colton are about the only exceptions, at least in our set.
But I fancy the whole town has got it. We play morning, noon, and night--literally. Those who have no servants--and that question gets worse instead of better--don"t make their beds for days, and their husbands get dinner at any old hour. Those who have a servant or two belong to six clubs at least. I belong to every one of them, and two meet in the morning."
It had been Isabel"s turn to stare. The older people had always played bezique or whist, but rather somnolently of an evening. She wondered if the old gambling spirit had broken out again, and asked if they were playing poker or monte. Miss Boutts looked at her with positive scorn.
"You girls that go to Europe and stay there too long get fearfully behind things. Poker! Monte! We play bridge and five hundred." Then her genuine affection for Isabel overcame her contempt. "We have spoken often of asking you to join the clubs," she added, sweetly. "But there isn"t a vacancy at present."
"I couldn"t think of it. Chickens and cards don"t rhyme. What do you play for--money?"
"No!" The scorn returned to her voice. "We are still too provincial for that. San Francisco is ahead of us there. We don"t even have real big prizes--just a d.i.n.ky little spoon sitting up on the mantel-piece to excite us as if it was a tiara. I"ve won a whole bunch of them. They"re better than nothing and mean a lot of fun. I"m as proud as punch of them."
"And the men?" asked Isabel. Did they play, too? Miss Boutts replied that they were too busy in the daytime, but were asked once a week to a "bang-up" affair. Their other evenings they spent at the lodges--"or any old place," added Miss Boutts, who had no brothers, and a very busy father. When Isabel asked her if she had not the natural yearning of her age and s.e.x for beaux, she shrugged her shoulders and replied:
"Rather. But where are you going to find them here? Pa won"t live in the city, and all the young men run away. Once in a while I visit in San Francisco, and we go down to all the new plays, so I suppose I"ll meet my fate in time. Meanwhile, as there"s nothing doing in that line here, cards are a mighty fine subst.i.tute for beaux, and no mistake."
Isabel had been glad to be rid of her, and of her other old friends, who did call in due course. Anabel had not returned and was the worst of correspondents. So it had fallen out that she had held no real converse with youth until Gwynne"s advent, and she accepted it with delight, and shook her head with young triumph in being able to interest him--or in joy of the sparkling air; she hardly knew which.
As Gwynne left his room the j.a.panese "chambermaid," who had been about to knock, informed him that Miss Otis awaited him below. He ran down-stairs and found her still on her horse. Abe held another horse by the bridle.
"It is nine o"clock--" began Isabel, but Gwynne interrupted her, rarely apologetic.
"I hardly slept. There was such an infernal racket. A theatrical troupe--"
"There generally is. How do you like your horse?"
Gwynne examined the horse, and was good enough to remark that it was a credit to California. Then he added: "It did not occur to me last night--my luggage is expressed to the ranch and I haven"t my riding-togs--" Then he reddened at Isabel"s gay laugh and Abe"s suppressed smile.
"Oh, well," said Isabel, as she sprang from her horse. "The bloods will be too busy to notice as we ride down Main Street, and after that it won"t matter."
She went with him into the dining-room of the hotel, a room scrupulously clean, but with no attempt at decoration beyond the various advertis.e.m.e.nts of beer on the white walls. There was a long table down the middle of the room and a great many small ones. Most of the latter were empty, although two beside the door were covered with steaks and eggs and coffee and rolls. One man, who had evidently finished, had swung his chair about, tipped it against the wall, and was addressing a political monologue to his toothpick.
Gwynne led Isabel to a table in a corner by a window, and indicated the company occupying more than half of the long table.
""Busted," was the word they used, and I cannot think of a better one to describe them. I talked with the men in the bar, and later wandered into the parlor where the women were, some tearful, others indignant. One had an infant, and there were several small children running about, although it was midnight. The soubrette was chewing gum and anathematizing Rosewater as the "jayest town on the slope," and others were calling for the blood of the manager, who had absconded with the receipts of an unprofitable week. They interested me, as all your weird specimens do, and I found them a surprisingly decent lot, considering that it is the cheapest sort of a vaudeville troupe. That poor little woman with the red eyes and the parti-colored hair is the mother of the infant. I saw one of the children carrying it about the hall as I left my room. She wears spangled tights--she told me with a lively regret at the prospect of p.a.w.ning them--and shoots b.a.l.l.s from the head of that young man that looks like a parson. And the soubrette--all my ideals are shattered! Look at her."
The soubrette had a lank young body neatly attired in a store suit and shirt-waist. Her face was sallow and her black hair as lank as her body, but her eyes were keen and bright, and she was indisputably respectable.
She was drinking her coffee with both elbows on the table and listening with a sort of indifferent sympathy to an elderly untidy woman who was sniffling.
"Drop it," she shot out, finally. ""Tain"t worth it. The landlord"s given us a free breakfast, anyhow, and it"s more"n most of "em does.
We"ll get back to "Frisco somehow, and will run into Jake first thing.
I"ll give him a slice of my mind right in the thickest of the Tenderloin. You just shut up and be thankful you ain"t got no kids."
"She is positively discouraging," said Gwynne, as he attacked his excellent breakfast. "I thought that the frozen surface of the American woman thawed on the stratum soubrette."
"The cla.s.s is not always remarkable for its asceticism," said Isabel, dryly. "I often lunch here, and see many varieties. The leading lady is generally a large voluptuous person with a head like a hay-stack seen through the wrong end of an opera-gla.s.s, and some of the soubrettes are all hats and eyes and wriggling grace. The men are what we call "tough,"
which is not exactly what you mean by "toff." Occasionally, however, there are the most respectable family parties, including the children whom they won"t be parted from. We have three places of amus.e.m.e.nt, including quite a fine opera-house, so they do very well, as a rule. Was it your sympathy that kept you awake?"
"I am not an a.s.s. But they were in and out of one another"s rooms all night, and of course the baby cried. Then my room was over the bar--well, what will you? Such is life. I am sorry you cannot eat another breakfast. This seems to be the land of good cooking. If I did not scorn to be unoriginal I should dilate upon the pie and doughnuts I had for breakfast on the other side of your continent."
He seemed still light of heart at the sudden end to his wanderings and isolation, and they forgot the troupe and chatted about his ranch. He had much to ask and his sponsor more to tell.
The theatrical party appeared to finish their breakfast simultaneously.
Three, including the soubrette, reached under the table, dislodged the morsel of gum they had mechanically attached to the under side of the board, closed on it with a snap, and filed out. Most of them looked quite cheerful. Several bowed to Gwynne. The soubrette gave him a haughty suspicious nod.
"She looked at me like that last night," said Gwynne, complainingly.
"What designs does she attribute to me? I never treated any one with more respect."
"They are all like that when they are respectable. Their fierce Americanism resents any hint of patronage. Later on they invite it. You will find these waitresses--the cla.s.s, as a rule, is thoroughly decent--much the same in manner."
Two girls, white clad, their extended arms loaded with dishes, were stalking about the room, anaemic, disdainful. A portly woman, whom Isabel knew to be the mother of a brood, was far more anxious to please. She came up to the table in the corner and asked Gwynne affably if his coffee was "all right" and if he was a stranger in "these parts." He was under Isabel"s amused eye, but he acquitted himself with credit; and when he rose from the table she thanked him indifferently for his tip, but her eyes glowed softly. It was rarely thought worth while to tip a mere waitress.
V