Part 12 (2/2)

He bent over her, smiling and compelling 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. Was.h.i.+ngton 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 enthusiastic--said you were one of the few men she ever wanted to see a second time. Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton 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 common, 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.

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 carpets 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 carelessly 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 Magdalena's eyes before her face settled into its most stolid expression. 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 her halfway. ”We shall really be glad to have you.”

”We shall make him forget that he has not lived here always,” said Ila, 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.

Ila 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 Magdalena in conversation, devoted herself prettily to Mrs. Yorba and talked of the plans for the summer.

Magdalena 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 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 'Lena, 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 knowledge of the fact that she was the daughter of a Californian 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 religion, 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.

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