Part 11 (1/2)

And--and--she even s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 wouldn't be or do one of those things if you could.”

Again Magdalena hesitated. The implied approval was delightful; but she would not hold it on false pretences. 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, and experience had eaten off the very cover of the book of seals. He followed her through every mental phase she unconsciously rehea.r.s.ed; 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 practical man.

”You must never think of doing that sort of thing again,” he said.

”Unless a person is naturally eccentric, 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 sought relief for the silences of her life in literary composition. 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 anyone 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 expectantly.

”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, 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 p.r.o.ne, 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.

Magdalena 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 enthusiasm revived. When she had finished she pa.s.sed on to the pathetic little histories of elena 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 earnestness of Trennahan's gaze magnetised her out of self-consciousness. When she was concluding the third, his horse s.h.i.+ed 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, Magdalena Yorba, the dull, the silent, the terrified? She felt a glad pride in herself, and a profound grat.i.tude 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!”

Magdalena's heart shook her very throat, but she managed to answer, ”And then you wouldn't buy the Mark Smith place?”

”Well, no, perhaps I wouldn't,” he answered hurriedly, lest she might be moved to confidence. He had a lively vision of Magdalena reading her ma.n.u.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.”

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