Part 14 (1/2)

”Poor dear Don Roberto!” exclaimed Mrs. Cartright. ”I will get out this minute and speak to him. I know so many remedies for a cold,--blackberry brandy, or currant wine, or inhaling burnt linen and drinking hot water--” But she was halfway down the verandah by this time.

”Do you remember the last time we went to the hills?” asked Ila. ”Helena and Rose shrieked with such hilarity that the horses bolted.”

”I can answer for myself,” said Rose. ”I may say that the memory was burnt in with a slipper.”

”I never was spanked,” murmured Tiny. ”That is one of the many things I am grateful for. It must be so humiliating to have been spanked.”

”Who can tell what futures may lie in a slipper?” replied Rose, who had a reputation for being clever. ”I am sure that my slipperings, for instance, generated a tendency for epigram; something swift and sharp.

It destroyed the tendency to bawl continuously,--the equivalent of the great national habit of monologue.”

”Rose, you are quite too frightfully clever,” said Tiny, with an a.s.sumption of languor. ”You will be writing a book next.”

”I will make 'Lena the heroine,” retorted Rose, with a keen glance, ”and call it 'The Sphinx of Menlo Park.'”

”Fancy 'Lena being called a sphinx,” said Ila, who was looking very bored. ”Are you coming, 'Lena, or not? I suppose you don't want to be kept standing in the sun.”

”Oh, we're all used to that,” said Rose. ”I have three new freckles that I owe to Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton and Caro Folsom. They called yesterday and kept me standing in the sun exactly three quarters of an hour before they made up their minds to come in and stay ten minutes.”

”I'd like to go--”

Mrs. Cartright returned, shaking her head.

”Don Roberto does not want to be left alone,” she said. ”I fortunately thought of a most wonderful remedy for colds, and I have also been telling him about a terrible cold General Lee had once when he was staying with us. He did look so funny, dear great man, with his head tied up in one of old Aunt Sally's bandannas--”

”Please excuse me for interrupting you, dear Mrs. Cartright,” said Tiny, firmly; ”but I think we had better get out and talk to Don Roberto, and go to the hills another day when 'Lena can go with us. Don't you think that would be best?” she murmured to the other girls. ”We might help to amuse him a little.”

”It will be vastly to our credit,” said Rose, ”for he certainly won't amuse us.”

”Has anyone ever been amused here?” asked Ila, looking at Magdalena, who was politely listening to Mrs. Cartright's anecdote. ”Fancy having the biggest house in the smartest county in California and making no more of it than if it were a cottage. The rest of the houses are so cut up; but fancy what dances we could have here.”

”I have been thinking over a plan,” said Tiny, ”and that is to try to manage Don Roberto. 'Lena can't, but I think the rest of us could, and Mrs. Yorba likes to give parties.”

”I am told that in early days there was an extra burst of lawlessness after each of her b.a.l.l.s,--reaction,” said Rose.

”I don't think that it is nice for us to be discussing people at their very doorstep,” said Tiny. ”I just thought I'd mention my plan. And if it succeeded, and all took charge, as it were, there need be no stiffness in an informal party in the country. Shall we get out?”

”By all means, General Tom Thumb,” said Rose, with some ire; ”it is very plain who is to be boss in this community, as Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton would say.”

”Wait till Helena comes,” whispered Ila.

XXIV

Don Roberto rose as they approached. He did not take off his skull-cap, but he received them with the courtly grace of the caballero, one of his inheritances which he had not permanently discarded, although he practised what he was pleased to call his American manners in the sanct.i.ty of his home.

He bowed low, kissed their finger-tips, and handed them in turn to the chairs which he first arranged in a semi-circle about his own. When he resumed his former half-reclining att.i.tude he had the air of an invalid sultan holding audience.

”We are _so_ sorry that you have _such_ a dreadful cold,” said Tiny, with her sweetest smile and emphasis; ”and _so_ glad that we happened to drive up. You couldn't come for a drive with us, could you? We should _love_ to have you.”

Don Roberto rose to the bait at once. He was as susceptible to the blandishments of pretty women as Jack Belmont, although their influence over his purse was an independent matter.