The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 26, 1905, Page 3

I THE SAN -FRANCISCO SUNDAY -CALL.- % much in common between us? “How can I tell after knowing you ten minutes?"” ldron, not to the c of hollow, d , laughter a ong flavor of pe "I can't get a rise out of you, I see. rologue ted You Englishmen are such phlegmatic creatures. 1 don’t believe there is a mummers € he spark of impulse left in your island. s You are a very brave young " woman.” s ar “Why?” She drew her eyelashes to- fo gether, shooting forth audacity, “Do you want me to kiss you?” The muscles of her “ace twitched an- grily. “An Englishman’s only idea of wit is Impertinence.” “What have that you are those lordlin d, after sen done to I don’t bel heard of pro- replied Miss Belmont y, and quite restored. one of them. I made Dyne- bor fetch and carry like a trained dog. It was great tun. I used to say, be- fore a room full of pevpie, ‘Go get my T ! bier on its rax, little man; 1 lert it with Charley s lecorously down Rollins in the conservatory.’ And he of satisfaction, would trot off; ha ¥ that hard up, eir s fluttering along poor thing!® windy 1 am glad you did not y <of them; 1 3 sure they were not g enough for you.” How polite of you. ‘Why don’t you d let me sec yo will not permit remarkable fr low y uis simultaneously a hid s yell at the The I feel nkness your tar, the le on 0y g Wy 1 shall se you on Sundays You e red Ao ng with Miss Gordon to -‘u 1o¢ with me. She-has accepted tor you.” g “1 shall wait until th 1 look bet- n eavesdropper, ~ ter in evening clo a W 2 a ted to retreat, stepped cjeai FOTH AN Wi X e b e Mo voice and your figure, e coming 4nd you certaiply have o remarkable and eoming ,pmoune of m sm,” she said medi- ble - what a row tative “Good heavens! those idiots makin; And do look at that bonfire. It look for all the world as the earth had run its t at the wondered hy he did not Kkiss anted to, and he been § ified. He other attractive woman 1ave had to offer half the which Miss Bel- toyed. A man for sale had once s thoroughbred; he t whisky, smoke nd he never fails woman when the op- ; d yet, so far, Belmont stayed intention that it cealed otions she y and grac cigarette. oar, crossed by the howling and of two hundred and twent -one waving frond was etched min- on the red transparency. The columns with their stark oft ed and gracious neral effect of the ; albeit the ht was infern Are you going “No.” She * asked Clive. curled her lips defiantly 1y from her teeth. ive crossed the short space between with one step, lifted her in his 1s and walked rapidly up the trail. r a moment she was too stupefied to s test; then she attempted violently C free I If. What do you mean?” she cried s usly. “Do you know who I am? am in the habit of doing exactly as I ease. Everybody knows me, here. If u have misundersiood me it's be- u are a thick-headed Engligh- used to women who are either stupid or bad.” 2 You mean that the men you sur- g rself with are idiots who per- ) to play with them as you choc Keep quiet. Don't you see hat you can’t 1 shall hurt t away? If you strug- u, and I don't want » do that.” “I have sat night with men s wish to d ;oing to do to. 2nd they have 1 to kiss me, ever much they may have want- iy v en they were rotters, and yau can i hem so, with my compliments. If f ome down ith o E Rl - comy R W up all night with I should eral time: She stiffened g out of his - feet and the shoulders. and don’t 1 for larks the conse- ain. He her s¢ firmly that she said, ut it. glishman,” she his hand about the low- and lifted it gently. fted his position and st time, shone full irl oecame suddenly aped into her eyes answe But as he her head ulder. * she said be- don't.” walked with helped her mount, and I am,”” he rth didn’t I kiss ked up the road for a few mo- men then turned and made for the aring flames w upwa leaping sym- all column unabated. veared in their d disagreeable had never felt so his life. He con- nount of natural haughty bearing, repelled strangers not been for his charm of ex- on, the quick laughter of his Roili sked stifily happen to ‘I have brought a letter to him. My name is Clive. I bave an apology to make. I - e ibled upon your strange ceremony h s s watched it, not knowing at the course > a gentlem en the sli t mention it. Don’t’ menticn cried a hearty voice. A young n pushed forward from the back of the circle and grasped his hand. “I of had tter from Stanley and hoped jously hoped that YOU Would get here in time for thi of hi up.for being late only not know frightfully hand- Clive's 1 s d wa with a solemnity *1 cannot t fi n which at first embarrassed, imagine such )3 b then amused him, by every man pres- . ent. Then solemnity vanished, and nglishmen can’t help (‘.““r‘ - Uingering; vemuant of I remember ctly what The e . % she baifl 3t mo Wowly and The odor of savory viands mingled with burning pitch and the subtler per- fumes of the for: A great table was spreac Champ: corks flew. Be- forc an hour was dcne, Clive was voted the liveliest Englishma ‘Oh, yes, dear Mi: n are very fi d been nd Mr Belmont, looking, blackguarding Clive, of whom sk ke that had ever e ko auite the et foot in Califo 2nd elected off- omest man 1 have ever seen v s g o 2t sounds mere like it. And that o Ky " T of e Bo- what she would have said Bemian Club. ears ago. I mean,’¥laughing with rrassment, ‘“‘the way she CHAPTER IL At 4 o'clock Clive once more started for Yorba. He had nct drunk six quarts of champagne, but he had com- manded the respect of his comrades by the courage with which he had mixed his drinks. Rolliny had held his head under a waterfall, in the little river, but it still felt very large. He took off his straw hat and looked at it resentfully. Why had he not worn his traveling cap? He also felt de- pressed, and reproached himself ve- “Op, 1 suppose you are a mass of all men are. Yes; your Mary » is as English as if she had never left Hertfordshire. And always will be. She hasn’'t a spark of orig- ty.” ve discerned her purpose, but he ‘Say rather that she individuality. Which she hasn’t; and you know it. I have that. Do you think there is hemently. What must Mary Gordon think? Doubtless she was sitting up waiting for him, and thought him dead —murdered. Nevertheless he had en- Jjoyed himself thoroughly, and he found remorse more coy than he would have wished. He had an uneasy conscious- ness that if his head did not ache so confoundedly he would not fecl re- morse at all. His thoughts wandered to Miss Bel- mont. “I believe I found the woman for the forest, after all. I wonder if she would fit it as well now: Perhaps, in ancther mood. I fancy she is & woman of many.” ’ 3 The redwoods were dripping with itself as motionless as the silent s it shrouded. It filled every hol- low, was banked in every aisle, lay like” silver cobweb on the young red- woods and ferns. It emphasized the zhastly silence. Not a bird was awake, not a crawling thing moved. _Once a panther cried far upon the mountain, but that was all. Clive came upsn the hotel an hour later, a long rough wooden structure at the foot of the mountain, up which straggled many cottages. Hard by, across a little creek, were a salcon and billiard-room. As he ascended the steps, a stout man with a red heavy face, (‘ulr}*.c out of the office, stretching him- You're ve, = the friend, I surmi ’ he said. “1 kope they haven't sat up for me.” He devoutly hoped they had no “They ain’t. Miss Gorden waited till 12, then concluded you'd failen in with the BDohemian Club, as she knowed »u'd brought a letter to Rollins. Jedg- by the looks of you, I should say you had. Come cver to the bar and y name’s Hart, and I run Gordons’ you,” said Clive grimly, “but no more to-night. Be gdod h to show me to my room, and tc have me wakened at 8. I se Mr. and ;\:iss Gordon are not up before then. hey are, please them _compliments and tell them that T did fall in with the Bo- hemian Club.” CHAPTER III When Clive awoke and looked at his watch, it was a quarter to 3 in the afternoon. He sprang out of bed in dismay. He was an ideal lover! If Mary Gordon sent him about his busi- ness he could not question the Justice of the act. After a hurried tub and toilet he went in search of his land- - [od AL > HE CAUGHT HEe - 12T IR FIEIULY CoULD HOT SreUGTLE O O Tord. “Why in thunder didn't you call me at 82" he asked savagely. “Miss Gordon was up at 7, mister, and she gave strict orders that you was not to be disturbed. I'm to take you over to her cottage the minute you show up, and to send a broiled chicken after you.’” : waist, dotted the greenery; in rare in- ‘She’s an angel,” thought Clive, “and stances attended by a swain. On the will certainly make an ideal wife.” ‘plazzas of the hctel and cottages older He followed his host out of the hotel women knitted or read novels. and up the hill. 'The summer giri In pink and blue, sailor hat and shirt- The day was very warm. The sun shone down into the forest above and about the cottages, where the trees were not so densely planted as in the depths. The under forest looked very green and fresh. A creek murmured somewhere. Bees hummed drowsily. Clive’s head still ached and he w hungry; conscious of nothing but a paramount wish to see Mary Gordon. Mr. Gordon, a pink-raced man with white side-whiskers, was standing on the plazza of a tiny ccttage wnich loocked as if it had been built in a night. He winked at Clive as he came down and shook him heartily by the band. He had loved his wife and been kind to her, but had always done ex- actly as he pleased. “She’s inswde,” ne whispered, ng I don’t think she’ll row you. Sorry it happened, just vow it never will again, and she'll torget it. They always de, biess them!"” Chive went - hastily into € little parior. Mary Gordon was standing in the middie of the room, her hands tightly clasped, her eyes very bright, her upper lip caught between her teeth. Clive saw 1n a glance that she had more style and grace of carriage than when she had left England. Her hair was more fashionably arranged, and altogether she was a handsomer girl. He tok her in his arms and kissed her many times, and she cried softly on his shoulder. He humbled himself to the dust, and was told that he must always do exactly what he wanted; and he felt a distinct thrill of pleasur- able domestic anticipation. He had been spoiied all his life, and would have taken to matrimonial discipline very unkindly. When he nad eaten of the broiled chicken and several cther substantial delicacies, and was at peace with him- seif and the world once more, he went for a long walk in the forest with Mary. After a time they sat down on a log, and he lit his pipe and tried to imagine an environment of English oaks and beeches. Again and more forcibly he felt the disccrdance be- tween the English girl, simplified by generations of discipline and homo- geneous traditions, and this green light, this strange brooding silence, this vast solituae suggesting a new world, a new race, an unimaginable future—this hot, electric, sensuous air. They talked «f the past two years, and of their future together. “I have not told any one yet that we are engaged,” said Mary. *People here don’t seem to take things as seri- ously as we do, and I couid not stand being chaffed about it. I have merely said that we expected an old and dear friend cf the family.” “l am glad. It's a chaffed.” “Uf course I have written to all our friends in England that we are to be married on the 12th; but as the wed- ding is to be so quiet, it is not necgs- sary to tell any oue here.” “How do you like this country?’ he asked curiously. “I mean how does it suit you personally? Of course, 1 know you would make up yoyr mind to like any place where duty happened to take you, but you must have a private lit- tle idea on the subject, and it is your duty to.tell me everythi bore to be She smiled happily. ‘well!” as they say here, now that I am sure that Edith will make papa comfortable, 1 shall be glad encugh to go back to England. California doesn’t suit me at all. It rubs me the wrong way. I think I should develcp nerves if I stayed here much longer. Americans don’t seem to me to be half human. Helena Belmeont says tha America will be the greatest nation on earth when it gets a soul, but that it is noth- ing ‘but a kicking, squalling, preco- cious infant at present; and that if some one were clever encugh to stick his finger in the soft spot on the top bt its head, it would transform it into an idiot or a corpse; but that America will pull through all right because she has 8¢ many weak points that her ene- mies forget which is the weakest. Miss Belmont is so clever. You will meet her/on Sunday. You don't mind my having accepted an invitation for you to dine there?” “Not at all. It was very kind of you, I am sure. I have heard of this Miss Belmont; I don’t imagine you find much in common with her. “She horrifies me, but she fascinates me more than any person I have met here. I am sure she is a good wom- an, in spite of the reckless things does. Your friend, Mr. Rollins that she is the concentrated es of California, and I always excu: on that ground. You never know what she i# gcing to do or say next and she js the most desperat: flirt I ever heard of. I suppose she is so beautiful she can’t help it. Her eyes always seem to be looking at you through tears, even when they are laughing or flirting, although I don't believe she speds many. 1 cannot imagine her crying, although I know her to be kind-hearted, and genercus, and im- pulsive.” “Do you call it kindhearted to throw fifteen men over?” “I told her once that I thought it was morally wrong for her to lure men on to such a terrible awakening, and she said that there was just one thing that man didn’t know, which was woman; and that it was her duty to her sex to addle their brains on the subject as much as possibie. But I want you to know me, Owin.” “The better I know you, the better I shall live you.” “When your eyes laugi like that I never know whether vou are chaffing me or not, It will not take long, for I am not clever”; she smiled a little sadly. “You are so clever that I know you will often want to go and talk to women who know mcre than I do; but noné of them will ever love you so well.” “I know it,”" he said tenderly, and he believed what he said. “I am glad that I have been in Cali- fornia, though,” pursued Mary. “It has broadened me. A‘ Lome we take it for granted that all tne unconven- tional people are bad, and all the con- ventional ones good. Here it is so dif- ferent; although I must say that I never heard so much petty gossip and scandal in my life as there is in the smart set in San Francisco. All visi- tors remark that: I suppose it is be- cause they have so little to do and think about. It is very slow here so- cially; and I suppose that 1s what makes some of the women do such out- .landish things—that and the country, for even the quiet ones are not ex- actly like other pecple. One can judge for oneself. I have often pinned the but at this moment hé was * tattlers down when they were abusing Helena Belmont, for instance, and they couid not verify a single statement.” “Women know each other very lit- tle,” sald Clive CHAPTER 1IV. He passed his nights in the Bohe- mian Club camp, his mornings in bed, the remaining hours wandering about with his betrothed: and felt that alto- gether life was not undersiood by the pessimists. England, w the strug- gles and cares and respcasibilities it held in store for him, seemed to exist the rusty covers of his- thing to be dawdled away terful forest, where the v 1 man hate the thought of all that was hard and ugly and too seriou . was to see hardly knew something more than cu- Miss Belimont again, but whether he ought to g0 to her house or not. It was possible that she e¢xpected him to decline an Invitation proffered befcre an unpleas- ant advent but u he pleaded ] s he did not see his way ance. On Saturday, how- e received a nate from the chatelaine’ of Casa del Norte, remind- ing her of the dinner and of her prom- ise to bring Mr. Clive. s tells me that he is nd Englishman he has ! note concluded; “not the least bit of a cad. I am most anxious to meet him.” d as she handed the note e, . “If any other woman had written that I'd never enter her house again. But, somehow, you let her say and do exactly what she chooses. The trcuble is that the only Englishmen she has met have been fortune hunters. When we are married I'll ask her over to visit and let her meet men who are almost as perfect as you are.” Clive said, “Yes, dear,” absently. Three days of unshifting devotion had blunted the fine point of his content. The next day Mary was prostrate with one ¢f the severe headaches to which st s sutk and sent Clive off with Ch: s to the dinner. Go, go, Gordon had said to him, when CHive had displayed a decent amount of reluctance. “She’ll be too ill tc spoken to for twenty- four he u could do no good by hangir hour’s drive through the said to Rcllins: friend of Miss Bel- During t long?"* my eyes out > was three and I five. I've r since, and think the : been able to hang on suc seratched because I've never pro- eral opinions of her, ours. I can’t say that, met any one likely to You should, particu- > never made love to lerstand h larly as y Rolljns half closed his shrewd, dark € and tilted his hat over his nose. Like all San Francisco men, he looked ssly dressed, although in evening and carried himself badly; face was clear and refined, his hair and beard trimly cut. ‘Helena Belmeont,” he said, in what the club called his umming-up voice,” “has the genius of California in ber, like Sibyl Sandersc: and a dozen s 1 couid mention without stop- think, although they would be You see, it is names to you like this: of men came here in early or men of good fa ily, who had failed at home, or were too proud to work there; desperadoes, adventure middlé life and broken fort of them expecting everything new land, and ready to t rt out of any one who got in their way. It was every man for himself and the devil take Many succeed So wili of history. That savage stinct to trample to a over anything or anybody, that traint, still lingers in here, and is quick in ¥ of the present gen- ear 1gely enough, r individuality to the men. Of ifornians and “ali- ways a mistake to generalize too but the type I speak of is the most significant, al- though you will find no Californian exactly like any other American. This is the land of the composite. All Am ind all Europe have emptied themselves into it. God knows what it will sift down to eventually—-the commonplace, prebably. As for Hel- ena Belmont, Jack Belmont, her father, came her 1 the fifties and hung up hi hingle. He was one of the clever- est lawyers the State has had. He rarely drew a ber breath, and was never seen to sta ; he was an in- veterate gambler and a terror with women. He married a Miss Lowyell of Boston, who came out here ot a visit—a beautiful girl; and God knows he went through with him. You be surprised that she married I may have given you the im- on that he a cowboy in a shirt and rero. Jack Bel- mont was one of the most elegant men this State has ever seen, a gentle- man when s drunkest, and the idol of the rn set, a strong con- tingent here. There you have the ele- ments of which Helena Belmont is made up. She has the bloed of Cava- liers and Roundheads in her veins; she grew up amidst the clash of the South against the North, for no two people could ever have been more unmated than her mother and father; and she was born in California, nur- tured on its new savage traditions, and mentally and temperamentally fitted to draw in twice her measure of its atmosphere. She does what she pleases, because she would never know if she were beaten, has a tremendous personality ind “a million dollars, Here we are. CHAPTER V. The forest had ended abruptly. They had coma upon a large low adobe houyse on a plateau, looking down over a shelving table-land upon the ocean. a mile below. “It's about eighty years old,” said Rollins, “which is antique in this count It belonged to one of the grandees of the old time, and Miss Belmont bought it shortly after her father’s death. She has several houses, but this is her favorite. It has about thirty rooms, and there have been some jolly good times up here, I can tell you. These are the original tiles and the original walls, but everything eclse has been pretty we!l modernized, cept that old or- chard you see on the other side, and the vineyard and rose-garden.” They dismounted at an open gate- way in a high adobe wall, and entered a large orderless garden. The air was the delicate perfume of whose greem, thorny ith pink, rioted over the oak across the ® walls, paths and looked as if no hand had the up cut or trimmed them since the old Spaniard had coaxed them from the s0il, nearly a century ago. They entered the house opposite & courtyard led with palm trees and rustic chairs. A large, euriously mod- eled fountain. which Rollins told Clive was the work of the old Franciscans, splashed lazily. Several young men were swinging in hammocks on the corridor which traversed the four sides of the court. A Chinese ser- vant, in blouse and pendent cue, was passing cocktails. [Continued Next Sunday.]