impression that they sounded something like the French Revolution,and that Adele must feel like the Princess Elizabeth, rushed to herrelief like a good girl. "But, major, now, YOU'RE a gentleman, and ifYOU had been driving that roller, you know you would have turned out forus."
"I don't know about that," said the major, mischievously; "but if Ihad, I should have known that the other fellow who accepted it wasn't agentleman."
But Rose, having sufficiently shown her partisanship in the discussion,after the feminine fashion, did not care particularly for the logicalresult. After a moment's silence she resumed: "And the wheat ranchbelow--is that carried on in the same way?"
"Yes. But their landlord is a bank, who advances not only the land, butthe money to work it, and doesn't ride around in a buggy with a coupleof charmingly distracting young ladies."
"And do they all share alike?" continued Rose, ignoring the pleasantry,"big and little--that young inventor with the rest?"
She stopped. She felt the ingenue's usually complacent eyes suddenlyfixed upon her with an unhallowed precocity, and as quickly withdrawn.Without knowing why, she felt embarrassed, and changed the subject.
The next day they drove to the Convent of Santa Clara and the MissionCollege of San Jose. Their welcome at both places seemed to Rose to be amingling of caste greeting and spiritual zeal, and the austere seclusionand reserve of those cloisters repeated that suggestion of an Old Worldcivilization that had already fascinated the young Western girl. Theymade other excursions in the vicinity, but did not extend it to a visitto their few neighbors. With their reserved and exclusive ideas thisfact did not strike Rose as peculiar, but on a later shoppingexpedition to the town of San Jose, a certain reticence and aggressivesensitiveness on the part of the shopkeepers and tradespeople towardsthe Randolphs produced an unpleasant impression on her mind. She couldnot help noticing, too, that after the first stare of astonishment whichgreeted her appearance with her hostess, she herself was included inthe antagonism. With her youthful prepossession for her friends, thisdistinction she regarded as flattering and aristocratic, and I fear sheaccented it still more by discussing with Mrs. Randolph the meritsof the shopkeepers' wares in schoolgirl French before them. She wasunfortunate enough, however, to do this in the shop of a polyglotGerman.
"Oxcoos me, mees," he said gravely,--"but dot lady speeks Engeleesh sogoot mit yourselluf, and ven you dells to her dot silk is hallf gottonin English, she onderstand you mooch better, and it don't make nodingsto me." The laugh which would have followed from her own countrywomendid not, however, break upon the trained faces of the "de Fontangesl'Hommadieus," yet while Rose would have joined in it, albeit alittle ruefully, she felt for the first time mortified at their civilinsincerity.
At the end of two weeks, Major Randolph received a letter from Mr.Mallory. When he had read it, he turned to his wife: "He thanks you," hesaid, "for your kindness to his daughter, and explains that his suddendeparture was owing to the necessity of his taking advantage of a greatopportunity for speculation that had offered." As Mrs. Randolph turnedaway with a slight shrug of the shoulders, the major continued: "But youhaven't heard all! That opportunity was the securing of a half interestin a cinnabar lode in Sonora, which has already gone up a hundredthousand dollars in his hands! By Jove! a man can afford to drop alittle social ceremony on those terms--eh, Josephine?" he concluded witha triumphant chuckle.
"He's as likely to lose his hundred thousand to-morrow, while hismanners will remain," said Mrs. Randolph. "I've no faith in these suddenCalifornia fortunes!"
"You're wrong as regards Mallory, for he's as careful as he is lucky. Hedon't throw money away for appearance sake, or he'd have a rich home forthat daughter. He could afford it."
Mrs. Randolph was silent. "She is his only daughter, I believe," shecontinued presently.
"Yes--he has no other kith or kin," returned the major.
"She seems to be very much impressed by Emile," said Mrs. Randolph.
Major Randolph faced his wife quickly.
"In the name of all that's ridiculous, my dear, you are not alreadythinking of"--he gasped.
"I should be very loth to give MY sanction to anything of the kind,knowing the difference of her birth, education, and religion,--althoughthe latter I believe she would readily change," said Mrs. Randolph,severely. "But when you speak of MY already thinking of 'such things,'do you suppose that your friend, Mr. Mallory, didn't consider all thatwhen he sent that girl here?"
"Never," said the major, vehemently, "and if it entered his head now, byJove, he'd take her away to-morrow--always supposing I didn't anticipatehim by sending her off myself."
Mrs. Randolph uttered her mirthless laugh. "And you suppose the girlwould go? Really, major, you don't seem to understand this boastedliberty of your own countrywoman. What does she care for her father'scontrol? Why, she'd make him do just what SHE wanted. But," she addedwith an expression of dignity, "perhaps we had better not discuss thisuntil we know something of Emile's feelings in the matter. That is theonly question that concerns us." With this she swept out of the room,leaving the major at first speechless with honest indignation, andthen after the fashion of all guileless natures, a little uneasy andsuspicious of his own guilelessness. For a day or two after, he foundhimself, not without a sensation of meanness, watching Rose when inEmile's presence, but he could distinguish nothing more than the franksatisfaction she showed equally to the others. Yet he found himselfregretting even that, so subtle was the contagion of his wife'ssuspicions.
CHAPTER III
It had been a warm morning; an unusual mist, which the sun had notdissipated, had crept on from the great grain-fields beyond, and hungaround the house charged with a dry, dusty closeness that seemed to bequite independent of the sun's rays, and more like a heated exhalationor emanation of the soil itself. In its acrid irritation Rose thoughtshe could detect the breath of the wheat as on the day she hadplunged into its pale, green shadows. By the afternoon this mist haddisappeared, apparently in the same mysterious manner, but not scatteredby the usual trade-wind, which--another unusual circumstance--that daywas not forthcoming. There was a breathlessness in the air like thehush of listening expectancy, which filled the young girl with a vaguerestlessness, and seemed to even affect a scattered company of crowsin the field beyond the house, which rose suddenly with startled butaimless wings, and then dropped vacantly among the grain again.
Major Randolph was inspecting a distant part of the ranch, Mrs. Randolphwas presumably engaged in her boudoir, and Rose was sitting betweenAdele and Emile before the piano in the drawing-room, listlesslyturning over the leaves of some music. There had been an odd mingling ofeagerness and abstraction in the usual attentions of the young man thatmorning, and a certain nervous affectation in his manner of twisting theends of a small black moustache, which resembled his mother's eyebrows,that had affected Rose with a half-amused, half-uneasy consciousness,but which she had, however, referred to the restlessness produced by theweather. It occurred to her also that the vacuously amiable Adele hadonce or twice regarded her with the same precocious, childlike curiosityand infantine cunning she had once before exhibited. All this did not,however, abate her admiration for both--perhaps particularly for thispicturesquely gentlemanly young fellow, with his gentle audacitiesof compliment, his caressing attentions, and his unfailing and equaladdress. And when, discovering that she had mislaid her fan for thefifth time that morning, he started up with equal and undiminished fireto go again and fetch it, the look of grateful pleasure and pleadingperplexity in her pretty eyes might have turned a less conceited brainthan his.
"But you don't know where it is!"
"I shall find it by instinct."
"You are spoiling me--you two." The parenthesis was a hesitatingaddition, but she continued, with fresh sincerity, "I shall be quitehelpless when I leave here--if I am ever able to go by myself."
"Don't ever go, then."
"But just now I want my fan; it is so close everywhere to-day."
"I fly, mademoiselle."
He started to the door.
She called after him:--
"Let me help your instinct, then; I had it last in the major's study."
"That was where I was going."
He disappeared. Rose got up and moved uneasily towards the window. "Howqueer and quiet it looks outside. It's really too bad that he should besent after that fan again. He'll never find it." She resumed her placeat the piano, Adele following her with round, expectant eyes. After apause she started up again. "I'll go and fetch it myself," she said,with a half-embarrassed