The Californians Part 25

We can see the town from there, and go on afterward--if you like."

"Of course I like. How good of you to wait for me! I know you have been longing for the town which I am convinced is a part of your very personality."

"Yes, I have been longing. I don't care much about it this morning."

"Which of your heroines is buried in the cemetery?"

"Benicia Ortega, La Tulita, and some of aunt's old friends."

"You must certainly write those old stories. I often think of them."

"Nothing that you say this morning sounds like the truth."

"My dear girl! I am dull and stupid after a sleepless night. And the night after you left I sat up until two in the morning writing important letters."

"I think it was disloyal of Helena."

"I must rush to her defence. She did not know until the end of the evening who I was. She took me for one of the several Easterners who arrived to-day. Two of them brought letters to her father from Mr.

Forbes. One was the son of an old friend. As her father presented me--"

Magdalena faced about. "And you did not tell her? You did not speak of me?"

"I am going to be perfectly frank, knowing how sensible you are. I had a desperate flirtation with your friend, as desperate and meaningless as those things always are; for it is merely an invention to pa.s.s the idler hours of society. There was nothing else to do, so we flirted. It added to the zest to keep her in ignorance of my ident.i.ty. It was a silly pastime, but better than nothing. I should far rather have been in bed.

If I could have talked to you, it would have been quite another matter."

Magdalena hurried on ahead. He had the tact not to accelerate his own steps. After a time she fell back. She said,--

"What is this 'flirtation,' anyhow? I have heard nothing but 'flirtation' all winter, and I heard a good deal of it last summer. But I have not the slightest idea what it means. What do you do?"

"Do? Oh--I--it is impossible to define flirtation. You must have the instinct to understand. Then you wouldn't ask. Thank Heaven you never will understand. Flirtation is to love-making what soda-water is to champagne. I can think of no better definition than that."

"Did you kiss Helena?"

"Good G.o.d, no! That's not flirtation. She is not the sort that would let me if I wished."

"Did you hold her hand?"

"I have held no woman's hand but yours for an incalculable time."

"Did you tell her that you loved her?"

"Certainly not!"

"I must say I can't see how a flirtation differs from an ordinary conversation."

"It only does in that subtle something which cannot be explained."

Magdalena had an inspiration. "Perhaps you talk with your eyes some."

"Well, you are not altogether wrong. Did you ever see a fencing match?

Imagine two invisible personalities dodging and doubling, springing and darting. That will give you some idea. And all without a flutter of pa.s.sion or real interest. It is good exercise for the lighter wits, but stupid at best." He did not add that the very essence of flirtation is its promise of more to come.

It was some time before Magdalena spoke again. Then she asked,--

"What did Helena say when you told her your name?"

"I believe she said, 'Great Heaven!'"

"I think this must be the cemetery."

They ascended the rough hill, and pushed their way through weeds and thistles and wild oats to the dilapidated stones under the oaks.

Magdalena had imagined her conflicting emotions when she visited the graves of her youthful heroines; among other things the delightful sense of unreality. But the unreality was of another sort to-day. They were a part of an insignificant past. Trennahan elevated one foot to a ma.s.sive stone and plucked the "stickers" from his trousers.

"This is all very romantic," he said, "but these confounded things are uncomfortable. Have you found your graves?"

"I think this is Benicia's. We can go if you like."

"By no means." He went and leaned over the sunken grey stone which recorded the legend of Benicia Ortega's brief life and tragic death, then insisted upon finding the others.

"You don't take any interest," said Magdalena. "Why do you pretend?"

He caught her in his arms and seated her on the highest and driest of the tombs, then sat beside her. He kept his arm about her, but he did not kiss her. "Come now," he said, "let us have it out. We must not quarrel. I humble myself to the dust. I vow to be a saint. I will not exchange two consecutive sentences with your friend in the future. Make me promise all sorts of things."

"If you love her, you can't help yourself."

"I have no intention of loving her. Perhaps you will be as sweet and sensible as you always are, and not say anything so absurd again. I am deeply sorry that I have offended you. Will you believe that? And will you forgive me?"

"Do you mean that you still wish to marry me?"

"Great Heaven, 'Lena! Even if my head were turned, do you think that I have not brains enough to remember that that sort of thing is a matter of the hour only, and that I am a man of honour? I have no less intention of marrying you to-day than I had yesterday. Does that satisfy you? And--since you take it so hardly--I wish I might never see Miss Belmont again."

Magdalena raised her eyes; they were full of tears. Her hat was pushed back, her soft hair ruffled. In the deep shade of the oaks and with the pa.s.sion in her face she looked prettier than he had ever seen her. A kiss sprang to her lips. He bent his head swiftly and caught it; and then he was delighted at the depth of his penitence.

"'Lena, you ought to hate me, but I didn't know! I swear I didn't!"

"I know you did not. He told me that it was entirely his fault, and I have forgiven him; so don't let us say any more about it."

"Well, I am glad he admitted that. I'm pretty selfish, as I've never denied, but I'd never be disloyal. Not to you, anyhow," she added on second thoughts. "I shouldn't mind Ila so much, nor Caro."

"You don't mean to say you would take any girl's lover away from her, Helena?"

"Yes, I would if I wanted him badly. But I'd do it right out before her face. I'd never be underhand about it. I loathe deceit. I was furious for a time with Mr. Trennahan last night, but I really believe I was more furious because he was the most interesting man I had ever met and I couldn't have him, than because he hadn't behaved quite properly."

Magdalena reached her right hand to a bow on her left shoulder, that Helena should not see the sudden leap of her heart. "Do you mean to say that you had--had intended to--to--add him to the quartette?"

"I had had a very definite idea of turning the entire quartette out in his favour. I don't mind telling you that, because wild horses couldn't make me so much as flirt an eyelash at him again; and of course it was only one of my pa.s.sing fancies. Nothing goes very deep with me. I'm made on a magnificent plan. So is he. We'll both have forgotten last evening before the end of the week. I hate the morning after a ball, don't you?

One always feels so devitalised. Wasn't Ila's gown disgracefully low?