The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 5, 1905, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. — e you know it To-moITow me an ass because I you some more ht, as I stood ture. Has it no American au- en a genuine all- They are either t invariably the 11 and passion of the have never developed. er out wildly voices the lack n of the world terature. That i to care for men and 1k to »ped far ment that I ,” said I finally vis- W Years ago recogni- and you remen- repeat that you vely. “How you imagine e and talk to night turned ward person- ut lights; even ad burn- the court a yawning s Charley exclaimed, You know that r by you, of tting up full view of but the ou have dear child, , for Helena t and thrown b 2% choose to do,” Amy Volney What busi- 1d like to e me to task? the dining- e brandy, then night if you » empty rooms at Mr. her notice of k: ver s to the oppo- slte e r ard disappeared. CHAPTER VIL C . d Rollins exchanged few words on thé drive home. Miss Bel- name was not mentioned. lings were mixed. He can- his vanity was with itself, and ont was the most in- he had ever met. conscience chattered at his van an angry monkey at a peacock, "I feel exactly like a delinquent hus- ght. “Premonitory, I I have an absurdly married the result of a long engage- a lifelong ac- I wonder if a bothers if the woman is not & » find him out; I can't say it has ever worried me much before. I suppose it the principlé that what a woman doesn’t know won't hurt her. n he t up he wondered if he would have night with another woman engaged to Helena Bel- made his confession three days when Mary was rully recovered. smiled a little sadly, the smile ch seems to belong to the lips of ch women, fashioned to be good es and mothers, and nothing more. s put up her hand and touched his ; £he seldom caressed him. lways sitting up all night ne or other. It seems to be f he And you know I trust you absolutely.” (He had the grace to blush.) “But, I think, if you don't Clive.” | mind, that I'll announce the engage- ment.” “Why, of course, I don’t mind,” he said, taken aback. “It was your idea to keep it quiet, not mine.” “Yes; but I think I'd like her to know.” As Clive left the cottage he met Rol- lins. “I have something to tell you, old chap,” he sald awkwardly. “I want you to congratulate me. I am engage: to Miss Gordon.” . “The devil you arel” exclalmed Rol- lins, slapping him on the back, “I do congratulate you, old fellow; she's a jewel of a girl. Going to marry here?” “Yes, in San Francisco.” “The club will give you a send-off the night before. You won't look es handsome on your wedding morn as you otherwise might, and you'll have a dark brown taste in your mouth, but in a long period of domestic bliss you'll have a great joy to-look back upon.” They walked down to the camp to- gether, then Rollins left abruptly, and, returning to Yorba went to the tele- phone office. CHAPTER VIIL Helena Belmont saw little of her company for two days. She spent part of the time in the forest, the rest in her boudoir, a long room at the east side of the house opening into her bad- room at one end and into a small l- brary at the other. The bedroom was a pretty thing of pale pink and green, and white lace. The library, lined from floor to ceiling with books, many sev- eral generations old, had only a rug on the bare floor, a table and several up- right chairs. The walls of the boudoir were paneled with the beautiful dell- cately veined redwood the forest trees conceal under their forbidding bark. The celling was arched and heavily beamed. The curtains of doors and windows, the deep chairs and couches, the rugs on the dark floor wers of Smyrna stuffs whose only tangible color was a red that was almost black. A redwood mantel was bullt to the iling: a large table of the same wood, carved, was covered with books ! The deep window seats were also upholstered. The Cas- fan roses nodded agalnst the pane, but Helena could look avove the gar- den wall into the forest on the moun- tain. And here Helena sat for hours. She. was profoundly stirred and touching ightly the s of something akin to happiness. Several times before in her e she had felt what she belleved to the quickening of love, but it had died in its swaddling clothes and had been & vagary of the fancy to this. Her brain and her woman's instinct told her unerringly that she had found the man. Every part of her went out to him. A faint sweet something tipped her pulses. It is possible that passion was regnant at this time; that she was possessed by the savage primitive de- sire of the first woman for the first man; so far she had come in contact with little beyond the man’s powerful personality and responsive magnetism. Nevertheless there had been spiritual recognition, blind and groping as it may have been; certain torpid instincts stirred, and she divined vaguely what a woman might be to her husband. She had known many married women more or less intimately, been the con- fidant of more than one laison; and with intuition fostered by such knowl- edge and her own strong brain, she re- Joiced that she had met him in time, divining something of the bitter sad- ness which companions a woman whe, mee & man too late, must be one thing to him, instead of twenty; -his wife would still have the better part of his life, his higher nature, his duty, the supreme happiness of making his home. She dreamed dreams of her ‘future with Clive; the love and the art-by which she would hold him, the com- - panionship. She forgot Mary Gorden’s existence. Had she remembered; she would have imperidusly dismissed the very thought of her. She had obtained what she wanted all her life and rec- ognized no obstacles. She went up to the log by the creek and touched caressingly the tree against which he had leaned, gathered some of the ashes from his pipe and held them in the hollow of her hand.' She smiled as she did so and wondered that clever women and silly women should be so littlé dissimilar when in love. % ” It was on the morning of the third day that the Chinese butler tapped at her door and said— “Mr. Lollins wantee you at tele- phone, missee.” “Oh, tell somebody else to answer him. I am tired of the very sound of that telephone. Some one is at.it all day. I've a great mind to have it taken out.” “Allight, missee.’” A few moments later he returned. “Mr. Lollins slay he got something velly important tellee mrssee."” Helena went rapidly to the Ilittle room by the front door sacred to the telephone. The fear shook her that something had happened to Clive. She sat down by the table and rang the bell. 3 ““Halloo!™ she sald faintly, ‘“‘Halloo, Helena! is that you?" came ,Rolling’ hearty, reassuring voice. “Yes. What do you want? I wish you wouldn’t bother me.” S « “Awfully sorry, but I've a plece of news for you—a corker.” “Well:" s “It's about your Englishman.” “My Englishman? What English- man? What nonsense are you talk- ing?" . *‘Oh, come off. I've terrible news for you. I've just congratulated him. He's mortgaged.” “I wish you would mot talk -slang over the telephone. I suppise ~you mean he’s engaged to Mary Gordon.” < “That’s the hard.cold fact.” = - “Well, please congratulate them for me. Tl give them a dinner. Il wwite a note to-day——""- 4 Yo B " “You'll see them to-night. I hove you haven't forgotten that you are all to dine with us.” “I had forgotten it, but we’ll be there.” “Great Scott, Helena! have you also forgotten that this is our last nigh and that you asked six of us to spen a week with you? Are those boys still there?” : “They are; but I'll send them home this minute. I'm ewfully sorry I for- got it, but everything will be ready for you. I'll send a wagon over for your traps this afternoon, and the char-a- banc will bring you back = to-night. Now, clear out, I have a great deal to attend to.” Helena replaced the trumpet care- fully in its bracket, fhen leaned her elbows on the table and laughed. The one sensation of which she was defl- nitely conscious for-the moment was gentine amusement. She.recalled her dreams, her picture life with Clive, and felt a fool; but she had always been able to laugh at herself, and she dld S0 now." In a little while she went into the corridors where the guests were dawdling after their morning drive. “Mes - enfants,” she said, blowing a kiss from the 'tips of her fingers to each of the young men in turn, “go straight- way and pack up. You are to go home on the 4:10. I asked, « week ago, six of the club men to vacate. And what do ‘you think? .My Englishman is engaged | to Mary Gordon.” ! She ruffled her hair with a tragic lit- tle gesture, threw up her hands and disappeared. It was not long before the humor died out of her. In jts wake came the profoundest depression she had ever known. She looked into a blank and “colorless future, realizing that a wo- man may be young till fifty if it is still her privilege to seek and wait and hope, but that when her great joy has “touched and passed her she has buried She could not stay in her rooms, elo- quent of imaginings, but went back to ‘her guests and clung to them and talk- ed of what interested ,-and had never been moye hospl e and charm- the years days m“ih.y ahead all.that is h}-o! her youth. +ing; all the while coun and months and of ‘her. The depression lasted for hours, during which she wondered if the welght in her brain was crushing the light and reason out of it. And then the devil entered into her. CHAPTER IX. girls in thelr gayest muslin fro chaperoned by the more sedate Mrs. 'wright, arrived at the camp at seven. A long table ‘uw,spmd un- e Thy der the redwoods nhear the pank of the little river, in whose falls’bottles lay cooling. Clive was the enly other guest. Mary Gordon had been asked, but although she had accepted with philosophy much that was Californian, the informalities of the Bohemian Club ‘were more than she could stand. Clive had been begged to go afone and to stay as late as he liked. Helena wore a pink muslin frock, her hair in a loose brald. Her eyes were dancing. She looked llke a naughty child and chattered clever nonsense, apparently in the highest of spirits. An impromptu band played softly out of sight; one could hear the splash- ing of the river and the faint music of the redwoods: Chinese lanterns, sus- pended in a row over the table and from the young redwoods, gave abun- dant light. It was a very Informal dinner. The men wore filannel shirts, smoked when it pleased them, and assumed any attitude conducive to comfort, Clive tipped his chair back against a tree and felt that it was his duty to rejoice that Mary - was not present. Every man waited on himself and on the guests of honor. Helena, at the head of the table, had the one servant constantly at her elbow. It was her tendency to spoil the men she liked, and she encouraged the Bohe- mians in all théir transgressions; which was one of the many reasons why they liked her better than any other woman in California. A course not pleasing her taste, she called for her guitar and sang for them -a rellicking song of the bull-fight. live léaned forward on thé table and atched her; her nostrils expanded as gi‘th‘yvhld % scent of blood in them; e curled lips under, clicking her #3 teeth. Her eyes had not wandered to Clive since, upon entering the camp, she had prettily congratulated him. “Helena, you alarm me,” said Rollins mildly, when she had finished. “I haven’t seen you look as wicked as you do to-night fer several years. You would give a stranger, Mr. Clive for instance, the impression that you were a cruel little demon, as you sing that song. Of course we know that only heaven in its infinite mercy lends you to us for a little.” “Oh, Mr. Clive!” sald Helena in a weary tone, but with a suspicious alertness of eye; “I had such a funny experience with Mr. Clive the other night. I think I'll have to tell it.” She threw back her head and laughed * infectiously: *Oh, it was so funny!™ Clive experienced an uncomfortable thrill, The others gave her immediate attention. e “Don’t hesitats to tell us, Helena, said Rollins. “We will keep your con. fidence. And have mercy on our curi- osity; that adjective is so vague. Helena leaned forward, and clasping her hand about her chin, locked at her company with dancing eyes. “Probably you all know,” she said, “that not long since I spent five hours in the forest alone with Mr. Clive, talking in the midnight hour. Well, you don’t know that Mr. Clive had previously told me that if he ever sat up all night with me he should kiss me, and several times; so when I took him to the lonellest spot I knew, the intimation was that I expected him to do justice to his principles, wasn't it?" “It was, Helena,” sald Rollins, with an attempt at facetiousness, “and I bhope he did. Served you right.” “Well, he did not! And I sat not three feet away from - him for five hours, and never looked better. How do you suppose I bluffed him off?" “Oh, come, Helena!” sald Rollins, who was beginning to feel sorry for Clive. “You know,” she continued, tossing her hegd and tapping her foot, much like a spirited racehorse, “I have al- ways said I could do exactly as I pleased with a man, and I can. So it pleased me to :lay chess with an Eng- lishman, whosé only idea of the game is to jump over the board. Well, first I mildly remonstrated with him; then we argued the mattér quite coolly, for he smoked his pipe, and Englishmen are unusually cool, . you know. My powers of persuasion were not very ef- Swctive. Then I told him that I was But as he was, o0, he could VP 4 CONTRTO voicrF B TS NG - S E—— not see the force of my remark. Well, you'd never. guess in the wide world what I did them. I gently led him off on to the subject of religion, and de preached until three o’clock, and forgot all about wanting to kiss me. Now, I call that sort of a man a duffer!” (with an affected drawl) “What do you think about it?" There was an Intense and uncomfort- able silence. Then Clive pushed back his chair abruptly. He walked straight up to Helena, lifted her from her seat, pinioned her arms and kissed her while one could count thirty. The men sprang to their feet. Their sympathies were with Clive, but she was their guest, and a woman; they would do whatever she eommanded. Clive drepped her into her chalr, not too gently. “Sit down, gentlemen,” she sald, se- “we will now go on with the CHAPTER X. Mr. Van Rhuys returned the next morning. Helena and several of her guests drove over to the hotel station tc meet him. The train was not due for some moments after their arrival. Helena sprang from the char-a-banc and ran up the hill to the Gordon cot- tage. Clive and Mary came out to meet her. “I didn’t want to write you a formal note of congratulation, Miss Gordon,” she said, smiling charmingly. “I hoped to see you last pight at the dinner. I am so SOrry you were not there. It was a most_interesting dinner.” “So Mr. Clive told me,” said Mary innocently. “You are very kind, dear Miss Belmont.” “l want to give you a dinner. To- morrow? I must be quick. I hear my train. Do say yes.” “I am so sorry, thank you so much, but papa and I are going to San Fran- cisco to-morrow afternoon. He has business, and my dressmaker wants me. After that we are going to pay three visits in San Mateo and Menlo Park; we had hoped to get out of them, but it seems we can't, and papa thinks I'd better go.” “Oh!” said Helena. “What are you going to do with Mr. Clive?” “That is the question. Of course he will be asked, too, as soon as they know, but he hates the thought-of it. He says he will stay in San Francisco and run down and see me oceasionally, but I hate to have hitm there at this time of the year, with those winds and . fogs. I want him tg stay here and be comfortable. It is such a rest for him after that long trip.” “Miss Gordon, you are beginning badly. You will spoil him. I should like to marry an Englishman just for the pleasure of bringing him up in the way he shculd go. Supj you leave him in my charge. I will take good care of him, and see that he does noth- ing but loaf” She turned to Clive, who was staring at her, his hands in his pockets, his lips together. “‘Ceme over and stay at Casa Norte. You know all the men and they will loye to have you.” “Oh, do, Owin,” said Mary. “They are always so jolly there, and I shall Ieslv much euin sler abontnyeu." ery well,” said Clive, “I will go. Thank you.” in time for “I'Il gend over for you dlnner. Will that be right? Ob, my train! my train! What will Mr Van Rhuys think of me? Good-by. “Mln Gordon. Hasta luego, Mr. Clive. She ran down the hill as a man came forward to met her. He was a Dig, weill-made man with the walk and car- riage, the perfect adjustment of clothes which distinguish the fashionable New Yorker. His Dutch ancestry showed vaguely in his face, which was fair and large, and roughly modeled; but the clever, pleasant eyes wers Ameri- can; the deep lines about them be- trayed an experience of life which re- claimed the face from any tendency to the commonplace. He looked the rather blase man of forty, yet full of vitality and good nature and of all the brains he would ever need. His eyes deepened as he tpok "Hen- ena’s hand. “How jolly well you look,” he said, with the slight affectation of accent peculiar to the smart New Yorker. “Pm_awfully glad to see you againm, awfully.” As the char-a-banec drove off, the girls leaned out and waved their hands to Miss Gordon and Cirve, and Vam Rhuys was told of the engagements “Good looking chap,” he “Isn't he?” said Helena enthusiasti- cally. “I sat out all night with him, just for the pleasure of looking at Bim. Van Rhuys frowned and turped away. He had wished more than once that Helena Belmont, doubly fascinat- ing as her unconventionality made her, had been brought up in New York. He had had more than one spasm of pre- monitory horror, but had mfi himself that none knew better she how to be grande dame if she chose. When they reached the house he went to his room to clean up, fhen sought Helena in her boudoir. She was leaning over the back or a chair, Hip- ping it nervously. : “] want to say something away,” she sald, as he closed the R “]I want you to release me—I c"ot marry you.” Van Rhuys pressed his lips together and half closed his eyes. But he mewe- 1y asked, “What is the reasen?” “I am, going to marry Mr. Clivi “You are going to do what?' Yan Rhuys’ eyes opened very, wide. Heun- derstood Helena very little, and of her enduring charms was her q ty of the unexpected. “Are you s g of the man who is engaged to Gerdon?” Yes, that Is the man. I'am not ing.” A “You mean that you are golng to try to cut that poor girl out?” “l. mean that I shall,” sald Helena passionately, . “He is the. oenly man that I have ever really wanted, and I intend to have him.” do‘:h’s'a d--d dishonorable thing to “TI don't care. Homor’s ngthing but an arbitrary thing.. anyhow. I'll have what I want. It wasn't necessary for me to tell you:this, but it does me good to say it to somebody.”, “And you-don't care whether I am hurt or not—ner that poor giri?”, “Oh, I don't believe I do. L wish I did. I feel so wicked—but I can't. 1 can’t care for anything else. You didn't love me very much, anyhow. You are merely in love with me.” “You never gave me the chance. I have barely kissed you. I had heped that after a while, after we were jar- ried, it might be different. You. have fully made up your mind?" “All the mind I've got is fm it.”" “Then I don’t see that there’s any- thing for me to do but go. I ean't hang around here. I'll have a sudden telegram calling me to New York. Will you shake hands?"” She came forward and gave him her hand. “Have I been unfair?’™ she asked, smiling. “I didn't have time to write, and at least I didn't break it off by ‘telephone, as I did with eme of them.” ‘“You have behaved with the utmost consideration,” said Van Rhuys ly- He locked at hér a moment. *Si se you fail?”’ he asked. “Fail?” she said haughtily. “I neyer fail. There's nothing I'1 stop ‘at— nothing! nething! I always get what I.want. I was born that way.” “I know; but there is & pretty tomgh sort-of fiber in some Englishmen: and they call it honor. Well, good Ilgck tp i!o;a_fnd good-by; I shall go ‘on fhe CHAPTER"XL Clive drove over the next aftefnoon. He sat some distance from Hglena at dinner, and afterward she and Mrs. Lent played billiards with himself'and one of the other men for am' hour; the rest of the evening was passed im the jarge liying-room, where Clive listened to. bettér amateur music than herad ever ‘heard before. Some. Httle- time after-the women had retired a Chinese servant _ entered the dining-roem, where the men were drinking brandy- and-seda, and said to Clive— “Missee Hellee wantee see yoy bludoir.” “What?" asked Clive, stupidly. “Her gracious majesty Is pleased to signify that she will give you audience in her.boudoir,” said Rollins, who stood beside him. “But 1 can't go to her room at this hour. It is one o’clock.” “That is_her affair. Besides, no one else need know. Follow the Mongo- lian. If you don't it's like her to come here and order you to go.” The Chinaman left Clive at the door of the boudoir. The room was empty and dimly lit. The air was heavy with the scent of the roses beyond the win- dow. Clive looked up into the forest. The aisles were too black for shadows, although the huge trunks were defined. in The mysterious arbors above sang' gently. . Helena came out of her be@roém presently, closing the door behind her. Clive went to meet her. “Am I'to apologize™ he asked. “I shan't mean it if 1 do. What you did was abom- inable.” “Don’t scald me. do such a thing. possessed me.” . “The devil, I should say. But I hépe 1l never see you in that mood agaip. You were at your unlovellest. You came near to being vulgar.™ - “1 was quite vulgar and you know ft. Don’t let us say any more about it. Sit down here in the window.” o The window-seat was biead deep and heavily cushioned. Tfig made themselves very comfortable. . “You can light your pipe. I am glad you came—very glad.” “I oughbt not to be here at all. I was an ungrateful wretch in the first place not to go where I ought to be now; and a weaker one to come here.” Helena leaned her elbow on the low grating and looked up at him. There was neither childishness nor coquetry in her eyes. “But I am glad.” She paused a mo- ment. “I have sent away Mr. Van Rhuys.” 7 “Mr. Van Rhuys has had a hippy escape—and I am not necessarily un- complimentary te you.” - “Why didn’t you tell me of your ef- gagement to Mary Gordon the other night?"" “Partly because she asked me nof fb, partly because 1 didn’t tnink it would N interest you.” “You are very modest.” “Would it have interested you? * “It does—immensely. What an irre- pressible flirt you are!™ e “Do you expect me to sit up at mid- pight with a pretty woman, and not flirt with her? Why else did you $énd for me to come here?” % I never thought I'd I don’t knaw what