A Daughter of the Vine. Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
it that you and Captain Hastings are such great friends?”
“He came over when a lad to visit some English relatives whose place adjoins ours, and we hit it off. Since then I have visited him in Louisiana, and we have travelled in Europe together.”
“I suppose he amuses you—you are certainly unlike enough.”
“Not in the least—he’s the prince of good fellows. What a jolly place!”
They had passed through the library and entered the conservatory: a small forest of palms, great ferns, and young orange-trees; brought, Miss Randolph explained, from Southern California. Chinese lanterns swung overhead. Rustic chairs and sofas, covered with the skins of panthers, wild cats, and coyotes, were grouped with much discretion.
Miss Randolph threw herself into a chair and let her head drop against the yellow skin on the back. Thorpe drew his chair close in front of her. In a moment he discovered that her lids were inclined to droop, and that there were lines about her mouth.
“You are tired,” he said abruptly. “Shall I fetch you a glass of champagne?”
“Oh, no; it wouldn’t do me a bit of good. Hot rooms and dancing always tire me. I’m glad when the season is over. In another month or so we shall be going to Redwoods, our country home—about thirty miles south of San Francisco. You must come down with us; we have good shooting—deer and quail in the mountains, and snipe and duck in the marshes.”
“You are very kind,” he said, and his reply was as mechanical as her invitation. He knew that all but the edge of her mind was turned from him, and was sufficiently interested to wish to get down into her thought. He went on gropingly: “I will confide to you that army life bores me a good deal, and as I intend to spend six months in California, I shall travel about somewhat.” Then he added abruptly: “You are utterly unlike an English girl.”
“I am a Californian. Blood does not go for much in this climate. You’ll understand why, if you stay here long enough.”
“In what way is it so unlike other places? I feel the difference, but cannot define it.”
“It’s the wickedest place on earth! I suppose there are wicked people everywhere, but California is a sort of headquarters. It seems to be a magnet for that element in human nature. I wish I had been born and brought up in England.”
“Why?” he asked, smiling but puzzled, and recalling Hastings’ imaginings. “I never saw any one look less wicked than yourself. Are you wicked?” he added, audaciously.
She flirted her fan at him, and her eyes danced so coquettishly that he no longer saw the drooping lids. “Our wickedness takes the form of flirtation—heartless and unprincipled. Ask Captain Hastings. We are all refusing him in turn. Talk to me about England, while I study you and determine which line to take. I haven’t typed you yet—I never make the fatal mistake of generalising.”
As he answered the questions she put to him in rapid succession, his own impressions changed several times. He was charmed by her intelligence, occasionally by a flash of something deeper. Again, he saw only the thrilling beauty of her figure, and once something vibrated across his brain so fleeting that he barely realised it was an echo of the repulsion her mother had inspired.
“Well? What are your conclusions?” she demanded suddenly.
“I—what?”
“You have been sizing me up. I want to know the result.”
“You shall not,” he said stubbornly. “I—I beg pardon; I have lost the knack of polite fencing.”
“I had read that Englishmen were blunt and truthful beings—either through conscious superiority or lack of complexity, I forget which. My father and the few others out here are almost denationalised.”
“Well, I did beg pardon. And when a man is talking and receiving impressions at the same time, the impressions are not very well defined.”
“But you think quickly and jump at conclusions. And minds of that sort sometimes make mistakes.”
“I frequently make mistakes. Among the few things I have learned is not to judge people at sight—nor in a lifetime, for that matter. I certainly don’t pretend to size up women, particularly women like yourself.”
“That was very neat. Why myself? I am a very transparent young person.” She flirted her lashes at him, but he fancied he saw a gleam of defiance shoot between them.
“You are not transparent. If you are kind enough to let me see a good deal of you, I fancy I shall know something of twenty Miss Randolphs by the time I leave California.”
“Some you will like, and some you will not,” she replied, with calm disregard of her previous assertion. “Well, I shall know what you think of me before long—don’t make any mistake about that. Shall we flirt, by the way, or shall we merely be friends?”
“The last condition would give greater range to your inherent wickedness.”
She laughed, apparently with much amusement. “I have a good many friends, nevertheless—real friends. I have made it my particular art, and have rules and regulations. When they transgress, I fine them.”
“Suppose we begin that way. I’d like to know the rules.”
“N-o, I don’t think I want to. You see, the rule I most strictly enforce is that when the party of the other part transgresses, I never sit with him in a conservatory again.”
“Let us cut the rules by all means. I feel a poor helpless male, quite at your mercy: I haven’t been in a conservatory for years. Although I’ve made a point of seeing something of the society of every capital I’ve visited, I’ve forgotten the very formula of flirtation. I might take a few lessons of Hastings—”
“Oh, don’t! What a combination that would be! I will teach you all that it is necessary for you to know.”
“Heaven help me. I shall be wise and sad when I leave California. However, I face my fate like a man; whatever happens, I shall not run. Just now it is my duty to wait on you. Shall I bring your supper here?”
“Yes—do. You will find a table behind that palm. Draw it up. There. Now bring what you like for yourself, but only a few oysters for me.”
He returned in a few moments followed by a man, who spread the table with delicate fare.
Miss Randolph nibbled her oysters prettily. Thorpe was about to fill her glass with champagne, when she shook her head.
“I cannot,” she said. “It goes to my head—one drop.”
“Then don’t, by all means. I hope you like it, and are resisting a temptation.”
“I detest it, as it happens. If you want to see me in the high heroic rôle, which I infer you admire, you must devise a temptation of another sort.”
“I think your dear little sex should be protected from all temptation. I rather like the Oriental way of doing things.”
“Don’t you flatter yourself that a wall fifteen feet high, and covered with broken glass, would protect a woman from temptations, if she wanted them. A man, to keep a woman inside that wall, must embody all the temptations himself.”
Thorpe looked at her, and drew his brows together.
“That was a curious remark for a girl to make,” he said, coldly.
“You mean it would be if I were English. But I am not only American, but Californian, born and brought up in a city where they are trying to be civilised and succeeding indifferently well. Do you suppose I can help seeing what life is? I should be next door to an idiot if I could.”
“I hardly know whether you would be more interesting if you had been brought up in England.