Part 30 (2/2)
”I hope you are quite happy.”
And he answered with unmistakable fervour, ”I am indeed.”
Mrs. Yorba was detained by Mrs. Cartright, who was delivering herself of many words.
”Do you believe that love is everything in life?” Magdalena asked him.
”By no means. Not even to woman, in spite of the poets. It induces intense concentration for the time, consequently looms larger in the affairs of life than the million other sc.r.a.ps that go to make up the vast patchwork. But it is as well to remember that it is but an occasional patch in the quilt, even if it be of the most vivid hue. And there is a lot to be got out of the other patches!”
”If you lost Helena, could you feel like that?”
”In time; beyond a doubt. Memory simply cannot hold water beyond a certain strain; there comes a rift at last, and the flood pours through.”
”Then if you lost Helena, should you feel as--as--you did when you came here first? You were--tired of everything--you remember. You told me--you don't mind my speaking of it?” She was aghast at her inconsistency, but the magnet in the man was as irresistible as ever.
”Mind? From you? I have never talked to a human being about myself as I have talked to you. I don't know what would happen to me in such an event. I am neither a fool nor a drunkard, remember. I think I should seek entirely new, barely comprehended, lands,--the South Sea Islands, for instance. I have wasted my life. I have neither the energies nor the ambitions to pull up now. I should simply seek new oranges and squeeze them dry. There are always the intellectual pleasures, you know. I should not be proud of myself, but I should get through the remaining years somehow.”
”There was something else--I should not speak of it--”
They were standing in the shadow of the char-a-banc. Trennahan raised her hand to his lips. ”I was in a state of moral chaos when I met you,--that is what you mean. I do not think I ever shall be again. Even Helena could never do for me what you did. You and I made a great mistake, but we generated one of those singular friends.h.i.+ps which no circ.u.mstances nor time can annihilate. Some day we shall take up the threads where they broke off. I always look forward to that. A man may be contented with one woman's love, but not with one woman's friends.h.i.+p.
I am glad that you are as dear to Helena as you are to me. In time, perhaps we may all three live more or less together.”
He was a man of humour, but he said that. She was a woman of little humour, but she laughed.
XX
The breathless state of Helena's affections did not interfere with her desire to lead in all things those favoured of her acquaintance.
Although, in deference to Trennahan's emphatic wish, she forswore eccentricities, she taxed her fertile brain to keep Menlo Park in a whirl of excitement.
”It can't be done,” said Rose. ”The climate has poppy dust in it instead of oxygen, but she may wake us up for a while.”
She did. The bath-houses were built, and the big char-a-bancs rolled down the dusty road to Ravenswood every morning. The salt water and the sun brought out the red in the girls' hair, so the pastime promised to weather one season, at least. She gave dances and picnics on alternate weeks, and her hospitality in the matter of luncheons and dinners was unbounded. The Colonel built a bowling-alley and a proper tennis-court; in short, there was no doubt about ”The Belmonts'” being the nucleus of Menlo Park. Several times Helena persuaded the owner of the stage line between Redwood City and La Honda to let her drive; and she took a select few of her friends on the top of the lumbering coach, relegating the uneasy pa.s.sengers to the stuffy interior. The road is one of the most picturesque in California, but the grades are steep, the turnings abrupt, dangerous in many places. Nevertheless, Helena, balancing on her narrow perch high above the wheelers' heels, managed her rapid mustangs so admirably that Trennahan, balancing beside her, wondered if he should be able to manage her one half so well.
”What Helena Belmont needs,” said Mrs. Montgomery, with some asperity, ”is six babies; and I hope for Mr. Trennahan's sake she'll have them.
Otherwise, I should like to know where the poor man is to get any rest; she's a human cyclone.”
”I never thought she'd marry so soon,” replied Mrs. Brannan. ”It looked as if she were going to be a regular old-time belle; and it took them years to get through.”
”She's not married yet,” remarked Mrs. Montgomery.
But these enormous energies, as Rose had predicted, reached their meridian in something under two months, after which, much to Trennahan's relief, Helena succ.u.mbed to Menlo Park, and manifested an increasing desire for long hours alone with him under the trees on the lawn, although she by no means allowed her neighbours to rest for more than seventy-two hours at a time.
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