A Daughter of the Vine. Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
but much more ideal.”
“If I thought anything of the sort, it was by a purely mechanical process,” he said, reddening. “I have lived out of England too much to be insular in all my notions.”
“I don’t believe an Englishman ever changes on certain points, of which woman is one; heredity is too strong. If you sat down and thought it all over, you’d find that although you could generalise on a more liberal scale than some of your countrymen, your own personal ideals were much the same as theirs.”
“Possibly, but as I don’t intend to marry till I’m forty—when I intend to stand for Parliament—I’m not bothering about ideals at present.”
“That was a more insular remark than you evidently imagine. However—speaking of ideals, I should say that California generated them more liberally than any other country—through sheer force of contrast. I have grown rather morbid on the subject of good people, myself. I grow more exacting every month of my life; and the first thing I look for in a new man’s face is to see, first, whether he has a mind, and then, whether it controls all the rest of him. I’ve seen too much of practical life to have indulged much in dreams and heroes; but I’ve let my imagination go somewhat, and I picture a man with all the virtues that you don’t see in combination out here, and living with him in some old European city where there are narrow crooked streets, and beautiful architecture, and the most exquisite music in the cathedrals.”
Her voice had rattled on lightly, and she smiled more than once during her long speech. But her eyes did not smile; they had a curious, almost hard, intentness which forced Thorpe to believe that her brain was casting up something more than the froth of a passing mood.
“I am afraid you won’t meet your hero of all the virtues,” he said, “even in a picturesque old continental town. But I think I understand your feeling. It is the principle of good in you demanding its proper companionship and setting.”
“Yes, that is it,” she said, softly. “That is it. I am no worse than other girls; but I flirt and waste my time abominably. It would be all right if I did no more thinking than they do; but I do so much that, if I were inclined to be religious, I believe I’d run, one of these days, into a convent. However, I can always look forward to the old European town.”
“Alone?”
“I suppose when your left eyebrow goes up like that you’re trying to flirt. I don’t know that I’d mind being alone, particularly. It would be several thousand times better than the society of some of the people I’ve been forced to associate with. I love art—particularly architecture and music—and I’m sure I could weave a romance round myself. Yes, I’m sure I should love it as much as I hate this country,” she added with such vehemence that Thorpe set down his fork abruptly.
“You are very pale,” he said; “I think you had better take a little champagne. Indeed, you must be utterly worn out. I can imagine what a lot you have had to do and think of to-day.”
He filled her glass, and she drank the champagne quickly.
“I have a shocking head,” she said; “but I need this. I have been out eight nights in succession, and have been on the go all day besides. Mother never attends to anything; and father, of course, is too busy to bother with parties. Cochrane and I have to do everything.”
“Tell me some more of your ideals,” said Thorpe. He was not sure that he liked her, but she piqued his curiosity.
“Ideals? Who ever had an ideal after a glass of champagne—except to be in the wildest spirits for the rest of one’s life? There will be no champagne in Bruges—that’s the city I’ve settled on; but I can’t even think of Bruges. Champagne suggests Paris, and they tell me Paris is even more wicked than San Francisco. Is it?”
Her eyes were sparkling with merriment; but although she refilled her glass, there was no suggestion as yet of the bacchante about her. The colour had come back to her face, and she looked very charming. Nevertheless Thorpe frowned and shook his head.
“I should prefer to talk about Bruges,” he said. “I’ve been there, and can tell you all you’d like to know. When I go back, I’ll send you some photographs.”
“Thanks—but I have a whole portfolio full. I want to hear about Paris. I’m afraid you’re a bit of a prig.”
“No man could be less of a prig. I hope you are above the silly idea that, because we English have a slightly higher standard than other nations, it follows that we are prigs. You were entirely delightful a few moments ago; but I don’t like to see a woman drink when it affects her as it does you.”
The colour flew from her cheeks to her hair, and her eyes flashed angrily. “You are a prig, and you are extremely impertinent,” she said.
Thorpe sprang to his feet, plunging his hands into his pockets.
“Oh—don’t—don’t—” he exclaimed. “I’m afraid I was rude. I assure you, I did not intend to criticise you. Please say you forgive me.”
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “You look so really penitent,” she said gaily. “Sit down and fill my glass, and drink to our—friendship.”
He was about to remonstrate; but reflecting that it would be a bore to apologise twice in succession, and also that what she did was none of his affair, he filled her glass. She touched it to his, and threw herself back against the skins, sipping the wine slowly and chattering nonsense. He refilled her glass absently the fourth time; but when she pushed it across the table again, he said, with some decision:
“Be careful. This champagne is very heady. I feel it myself.”
She drained the glass. For a moment they stared hard at each other in silence, Thorpe wondering at the sudden maturity in the face before him. All the triumphant young womanhood had gone out of it; the diabolical spirit of some ancestor entombed in the depths of her brain might have possessed her for the moment, smothering her own groping soul. The distant music filled the conservatory with a low humming sound, such as one hears in a tropical forest at noon. Suddenly Thorpe realised that the evil which is in all human souls was having its moment of absolute liberty, and that the two dissevered particles, his and hers, recognised each other. He had knocked his senseless many times in his life, but he felt no inclination to do so to-night; for so much more than what little was evil in this girl attracted and magnetised him. His brain was not clear, and it was reckless with its abrupt possession by the idea that this woman was his mate, and that, for good or for evil, there was no escaping her. He sprang to his feet, pushed the table violently aside, took her in his arms and kissed her. For a moment she was quiescent; then she slipped from his embrace and ran down the conservatory, thrusting the ferns aside. One fell, its jar crashing on the stone floor. He saw no more of her that night.
II
Two days later Thorpe was strolling up and down the beach before the Presidio. The plaza was deserted; here and there, on the verandahs of the low adobe houses surrounding it, officers lay at full length in hammocks, smoking or reading, occasionally flirting with some one in white.
Every trace of the storm had fled. The warmth and fragrance and restlessness of spring were in the air. The bay, as calm as a mountain lake, reflected a deep blue sky with no wandering white to give it motion. Outside the Golden Gate, the spray leaped high, and the ocean gave forth its patient roar. The white sails on the bay hung limply. Opposite was a line of steep cliffs, bare and green; beyond was a stupendous peak, dense and dark with redwoods. Farther down, facing the young city, hills jutted, romantic with sweeping willows. Between was the solitary rock, Alcatraz, with its ugly fort of many eyes. Far to the east was a line of pink mountains dabbled with blue, tiny villages clinging to their knees.
Thorpe’s keen eye took in every detail.