Part 39 (1/2)
When Isabel, in the solitude of her bed, found time to think, she concluded that if she could eliminate all men from her week except Mr.
Hofer and those of his particular set, she might still enjoy herself.
The San Francisco society youth has always been a failure. Except in rare instances he has not been outside his native State, has read nothing, and is casual of manner. Although more young men of the favored cla.s.s attend the home universities than formerly, the students that derive the full benefit of these inst.i.tutions are rarely those that intend to make a business of dancing, and calling on Sunday afternoons.
It is yet too soon to weld cultivation with leisure, and, for the matter of that, most of the society youth have their living to make, combining business and fas.h.i.+on with a moderate success. Like Wellington's puppies, they have proved themselves of sound metal when put to the crucial test, but as an intellectual diversion they might as well be mechanical toys.
The leader has not yet arisen that can permanently combine the older and younger sets. They mingle at great functions, but the dancing set monopolizes the season's stage.
Of this set Mrs. Hofer was an enthusiastic member, and even at dinner rarely entertained any other. Occasionally, and once during Isabel's visit, she invited some friends of her husband, who never went to parties, and often entertained when his wife was elsewhere; but these men did as much talking as listening, and that was no part of Mrs.
Hofer's system. Isabel had flas.h.i.+ng vistas of small groups of men and women, distinguished socially as well as mentally, that entertained each other, or met at a new club through which Mrs. Hofer whisked her one night,--a club where the best of Bohemia met the more intellectual members of society; and she knew that in these groups she might find also the higher cla.s.s business and professional men, and a few of leisure that enjoyed life without either dancing or drinking. But Mrs.
Hofer, although far too well satisfied with life and herself to be a sn.o.b, loved brilliancy, splendor, constant excitement, dancing, chatter; and only her chosen set could provide the banquet. She could dance every night from ten until two, and awaken in mid-morning as fresh as a rose.
She had the wardrobe of the storied princess, and her guests and friends must contribute their share to the brilliancy of all gatherings. She detested shabbiness; it was the only thing that depressed her spirits.
Proud as she was of her husband, his aims, and his position in the community, his friends and their themes frankly bored her. She liked talk, not conversation. She really loved him, however, and was far too clever to let him feel neglected. He was inordinately proud of her, and grateful that she permitted him to give his time to his own interests, instead of dragging him about to groan against the wall. She had her little crosses and disappointments, for she had many servants and dressmakers; but, on the whole, Isabel had never seen any one so persistently happy, nor with more reason. Even her three children were as st.u.r.dy as young calves, and although they yelled like demons for an hour every morning--reawaking to the sense of a vague something life still denied them, and infuriated at the thought--Mrs. Hofer merely turned over on her pillow with an indulgent smile. It never occurred to her that the rest of the household might be less indulgent; and the nursery above Isabel's room was not the least of the causes that contributed to a frantic longing for the thirty-first of December.
x.x.xVII
But it was not until four o'clock on the day of release that she found herself actually alone in her chilly and chaste boudoir on the higher hill; Mrs. Hofer escorted her home and remained for many last words.
Then Isabel fell into a chair before the mounting fire and shut her eyes. Lady Victoria was out. Gwynne was not expected until the evening train. She wished that she had not promised to dine with the Stones at seven. The house was as silent as a tomb; but while she was still rejoicing in the sudden cessation of sound and motion, the door opened and Gwynne entered. She gave him a surly nod, and he explained that he had come down in the morning, in order to be at hand to welcome her; had even meditated going to her rescue. Isabel deigned no reply, and he took possession of a deep chair, settled himself on his backbone, and regarded her attentively.
”I am sorry you have not enjoyed your week as much as I have done,” he observed. ”The weather has been magnificent, and I have spent all the days out-of-doors, riding, walking, duck-shooting--taking liberties with your boat, and even your launch. I never enjoyed myself more--after such close study, and all the rest of it, I suppose. I must say you don't look very fit. You are pale instead of white, and--well--cross. Judging from those models of literary elegance and Christian charity, the San Francisco weekly society sheets--with which I whiled away that infernal train journey--you have been feted like visiting royalty, photographed by the foremost in his art--which would appear to be the equivalent of painted for the Academy--and your family history seems to have been written up from old files, with even more picturesqueness than accuracy--”
”I wish you would keep still. You didn't talk half so much in England. I shall hate you if you become wholly American.”
”I am a born egotist. Ask my mother. Or my long-suffering friends and const.i.tuents. You did all the talking at Capheaton--or gave me a wide berth. But here my mother neither talks nor listens--” He paused suddenly and lowered his voice. ”Is anything the matter with my mother, do you think? I never saw any one so changed. Do you suppose she hates California and is staying here only on my account?--I have offered more than once to pay her bills; and she is used to them, anyway. For heaven's sake persuade her to go back and enjoy herself in her own fas.h.i.+on. I really don't need her--haven't time. And in spite of your liberal thorns and maddening incomprehensibilities, you can always put homesickness to flight. Sometimes I think she is ill, and then again she looks as fit as ever.”
”She has developed nerves. All women get them sometime or other. And there is a certain order of women with whom beauty and fascination are a vocation. When those pa.s.s they hate life.”
”What rot. No doubt she's a bit off her feed and restless. Probably the climate doesn't suit her. Heaven knows it is nervous enough. But I don't pretend to understand women. What's up with you? Didn't you enjoy being a belle, after all?”
”I was not a belle. I was a distinct failure.”
”What?” Gwynne sat up and forward. ”If you want to psychologize, fire away. It always interests me.”
”I have no intention of psychologizing. I haven't had time to think. But I do know that a life lived all on the surface--and at lightning speed--doesn't suit me a bit.” She gave him a rapid sketch of her week.
”I was with them, but not of them; no doubt of that. Old Mr. Toole told me one day that I was a dreamer, and I am afraid that is the solution. I like to imagine myself doing things, but I don't like actually doing them. I found that out over and over again in Europe. I can't tell you how I have longed for a girl's good time here in San Francisco--denied all these years, and my birthright. I was bored everywhere. I cannot make talk; I can only talk spontaneously when I am interested. I couldn't even enjoy the dancing--for the prospect of entertaining those brats between times. And they were all afraid of me. I never could be a belle like either the old ones or the new ones; the fault lies wholly in myself, not in circ.u.mstances or materials. _I don't really want it._ No girl can be a social success unless she cares tremendously for it.
Merely pretty girls are often popular, simply because popularity is the breath of life to them. I wouldn't try it again for anything on earth. I long to be at home watching the marsh, and not a soul to talk to. That was all I was made for. A dreamer! I am terribly disappointed.”
”But Society is a mere phase. So is Stone's Bohemia. The town is full of clever people. You can select and form your own set--when you are ready.”
”I am afraid I don't care about it. I dislike the actual effort. So long as Mr. Hofer and those men are talking I am interested, but even so I have enjoyed--far more--thinking about and planning to know them. I am nothing but a dreamer.”
”And you have just discovered that?” asked Gwynne, curiously. ”I may not have made an exhaustive study of woman, but up to a certain point I know you; and I have not waited for Father O'Toole to enlighten me. I could have told you that you would hate all this sort of thing. You had a mere taste of it in English country-houses, where entertaining has reached such a point of perfection that a man never feels so much at home as when in some one's else house. If you had waited for a London season you would have been as quickly disillusioned. You have the most impossible ideals--”
”I can realize them when I am alone,” said Isabel, defiantly. ”I shall be as happy as ever on the ranch, the day after to-morrow.”