The Californians. Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

       XXX

       XXXI

       By the Same Author.

       Some Novels Published by John Lane

BOOK I

       Table of Contents

I

       Table of Contents

      "I won't study another word to-day!" Helena tipped the table, spilling the books to the floor. "I want to go out in the sun. Go home, Miss Phelps, that's a dear. Anyhow, it won't do you a bit of good to stay."

      Miss Phelps, young herself, glanced angrily at her briery charge, longingly at the brilliant blue of sky and bay beyond the long window.

      "I leave it to Miss Yorba." Her voice, fashioned to cut, vibrated a little with the vigour of its roots. "You seem to forget, Miss Belmont, that this is not your house."

      "But you are just as much my teacher as hers. Besides, I always know what Magdaléna wants, and I know that she has had enough United States history for one afternoon. When I go to England I'll get their version of it. We're brought up to love their literature and hate them! Such nonsense—"

      "My dear Miss Belmont, I beg you to remember that you have but recently passed your sixteenth birthday—"

      "Oh, of course! If I'd been brought up in Boston, I'd be giving points to Socrates and wondering why there were so many old maids in the world. However, that's not the question at present. 'Léna, do tell dear Miss Phelps that she needs an afternoon off, and that if she doesn't take it—I'll walk downstairs on my head."

      Helena, even at indeterminate sixteen, showed promise of great beauty, and her eyes sparkled with the insolence of the spoiled child who already knew the power of wealth. The girl she addressed had only a pair of dark intelligent eyes to reclaim an uncomely face. Her skin was swarthy, her nose crude, her mouth wide. The outline of her head was fine, and she wore her black hair parted and banded closely below her ears. Her forehead was large, her expression sad and thoughtful. Don Roberto Yorba was many times more a millionaire than "Jack" Belmont, but Magdaléna was not a spoiled child.

      "I don't know," she said, with a marked hesitation of speech; "I'd like to go out, but it doesn't seem right to take advantage of the fact that papa and mamma are away—"

      "What they don't know won't hurt them. I'd like to have Don Roberto under my thumb for just one week. He'd get some of the tyranny knocked out of him. Jack is a model parent—"

      Magdaléna flushed a dark ugly red. "I wish you would not speak in that way of papa," she said. "I—I—well—I'm afraid he wouldn't let you come here to study with me if he knew it."

      "Well, I won't." Helena flung her arms round her friend and kissed her warmly. "I wouldn't hurt his Spanish dignity for the world; only I do wish you happened to be my real own cousin, or—that would be much nicer—my sister."

      Magdaléna's troubled inner self echoed the wish; but few wishes, few words, indeed, passed her lips.

      "Well?" demanded Miss Phelps, coldly. "What is it to be? Do you girls intend to study any more to-day, or not? Because—"

      "We don't," said Helena, emphatically. And Magdaléna, who invariably gave way to her friend's imperious will, nodded deprecatingly. Miss Phelps immediately left the room.

      "She's glad to get out," said Helena, wisely. "She hates me, and I know she's got a beau. Come! Come!" She pulled Magdaléna from her chair, and the two girls ran to the balcony beyond the windows and leaned over the railing.

      "There's nothing in all the world," announced Helena, "so beautiful as California—San Francisco included—in spite of whirlwinds of dust, and wooden houses, and cobblestone streets, and wooden sidewalks. One can always live on a hill, and then you don't see the ugly things below. For instance, from here you see nothing but that dark blue bay with the dark blue sky above it, and opposite the pink mountains with the patches of light blue, and on that side the hills of Sausalito covered with willows, and the breakers down below. And the ferry-boats are like great white swans, with long soft throats bending backwards. I don't express myself very well; but I shall some day. Just you wait; I'm going to be a scholar and a lot of other things too."

      "What, Helena?" Magdaléna drew closer. She thought Helena already the most eloquent person alive, and she envied her deeply, although without bitterness, loving her devotedly. The great gifts of expression and of personal magnetism had been denied her. She had no hope, and at that time little wish, that the last paucity could ever be made good by the power of will; but that articulate inner self had registered a vow that hard study and close attention to the methods of Helena and others as—or nearly as—brilliant should one day invest her brain and tongue with suppleness.

      "What other things are you going to be, Helena?" she asked. "I know that you can be anything you like."

      "Well, in the first place, I am going to New York to school—now, don't look so sad: I've told you twenty times that I know Don Roberto will let you go. Then I'm going to Europe. I'm going to study hard—but not hard enough to spoil my eyes. I'm going to finish off in Paris, and then I'm going to travel. Incidentally, I'm going to learn how to dress, so that when I come back here I'll astonish the natives and be the best-dressed woman in San Francisco; which won't be saying much, to be sure. Then, when I do come back, I'm going to just rule things, and, what is more, make all the old fogies let me. And—and—I am going to be the greatest belle this State has ever seen; and that is saying something."

      "Of course you will do all that, Helena. It will be so interesting to watch you. Ila and Tiny will never compare with you. Some people are made like that—some one way and some another, I mean. Shall—shall—you ever marry, Helena?"

      "Yes. After I have been engaged a dozen times or so I shall marry a great man."

      "A great man?"

      "Yes; I don't know any, but they are charming in history and memoirs. I'd have a simply gorgeous time in Washington, and ever after I'd have my picture in 'Famous Women' books."

      "Shall you marry a president?" asked Magdaléna, deferentially. She was convinced that Helena could marry a reigning sovereign if she wished.

      "I haven't made up my mind about that yet. Presidents' wives are usually such dreary-looking frumps I'd hate to be in the same book with them. Besides, most of the presidents don't amount to much. Truthful George must have been a deadly bore. I prefer Benjamin Franklin—although I never could stand that nose—or Clay or Calhoun or Patrick Henry or Webster. They're dead, but there must be lots more. I'll find one for you, too."

      Again the dark flush mounted to Magdaléna's hair, as with an alertness of motion unusual to her, she shook her head.

      "Aha!" cried the astute Helena, "you've been thinking the matter over, too, have you? Who is he? Tell me."

      Magdaléna shook her head again, but slowly this time. Helena embraced and coaxed, but to no effect. Even with her chosen friend, Magdaléna was reticent, not from choice, but necessity. But Helena, whose love was great and whose intuitions were diabolical, leaped to the secret. "I know!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "It's a caballero!"

      This time Magdaléna's face turned almost purple; but she had neither her sex's quick instinct of self-protection nor its proneness to dissemble, secretive as she