IX
"Never I think I come to Monterey again," said Don Roberto, as the 'buswhich contained his party only drove from the little toy station to thebig toy hotel. "Once I hate all the Spanish towns, because soextravagant I am before that I feel 'fraid, si I return, I am all thesame like then; but now I am old and the habits fixit; and now I know mymoneys go to be safe with Trennahan, I feel more easy in the mind andcan enjoy. But I no go to the town, for all is change, I suppose: allthe womens grown old and poor, and all the mens dead--by the drink,generalmente. Very fortunate I am I no stay there; meeting Eeram intime. Ay, yi! What kind de house is this? Look like paper, and thegrounds so artifeecial. No like much."
Magdalena hardly knew her father these last months. From the day that hefound a reminiscent pleasure in the mild diversions of Menlo he hadvisibly softened. From the day he was assured of Trennahan he had becomealmost expansive, and at times was moved to generosity. Upon oneoccasion he had doubled Magdalena's allowance, and at Christmas he hadgiven her a hundred dollars; and he had paid the bills of the seasonwithout a murmur. The fear which had haunted him during the last thirtyyears,--that he should suddenly relapse into his native extravagance andsquander his patrimony and his accumulated millions, dying as thecompanions of his youth had died,--he dismissed after he met Trennahan.Polk had been the iron mine to the voracious magnet in his character. Inthe natural course of things Polk would outlive him; but the possibilityof Polk's extermination by railroad accident or small-pox had been asecond devil of torment, and during the past year he had visibly failed.Now, however, there was Trennahan to take his place. Don Roberto wouldenjoy life once more, a second youth. He was almost happy. If he felthis will rotting, he would transfer all his vast interests to Trennahanin trust for his wife and daughter, retaining a large income. He did notbelieve, at this optimistic period, that there was any real danger,after an inflexible resistance of thirty years; but he also realised forthe first time what the strain of those thirty years had been.
Helena, dazzlingly fair in a frock of forest green, and surrounded byfive new admirers, three Eastern and two English tourists, awaitedMagdalena on the verandah. The strangers gave Magdalena a faint shock:being the only well-dressed men she had ever seen except Trennahan, theyassumed a family likeness to him, and seemed to steal something of hispreeminence among men. She commented distantly on this fact as she wentup the stair with Helena.
"Oh, your little tin god on wheels is not the only one," replied Helena,the astute. "There are five here with possibilities besides dress, andmore coming to-morrow. They _are_ such a relief! If I feel real wickedto-morrow night--well, never mind!"
"Helena! You will not make those four young men any more miserable thanthey are now?"
Helena shook her head. She was looking very naughty. "Four months, mydear! I didn't realise what I had endured until I had this suddenvacation. Two days of blissful rest, and then the variations for which Iwas born."
They were in Helena's room, and Magdalena sat down by the open window,where she could smell the cypresses, and regarded her beloved friendmore critically than was her habit.
"I wonder if you will ever mature,--get any heart?" she said.
"'Lena! What do you mean! Heart? Don't I love you and my father; and theother girls--some?"
"I don't mean that kind. Nor falling in love, either. I never expressedmyself very well, but you know what I mean."
"Oh, bother. What were men and women made for but to amuse each other?"
"Life isn't all play."
"It is for a time--when you're young. I am sure that that is what Natureintended, and that the people who don't see it are those who make themistakes with their lives. Otherwise life would be simplyoutrageous,--no balance, no compensation. After a certain age even foolsbecome serious: they can't help it, for life begins to take its revengefor permitting them to be young at all, and to hope, and all that sortof thing. Therefore those that don't make the most of youth and all thatgoes with it are something more than fools."
Magdalena looked at her in dismay. "How do you realise that, at yourage? I have lived alone, thought more--had more time to think and toread--but I never should--"
"I have intuitions. And I've seen more of the world than you have. I seeeverything that goes on--you can bet your life on that. Talk about mypowers of concentration! They're nothing to my antennae."
"But have you no principles of right and wrong? No morality? You wouldnot deliberately sacrifice others to your own pleasure, would you?"
"Wouldn't I? I don't take the least pleasure in cruelty, like somewomen. If I could give people oblivion draughts, I'd do it in aminute--for my vanity has nothing to do with it, either. But the worldis at my feet, and there it shall stay, no matter who pays the piper. Ilove life. I love everything about it. I've never seen anything in theworld I thought ugly. I don't think anything is ugly. If it was, Ishould hate it. I've never been through a slum,--a horrid slum, thatis,--and I don't want to. The beauty of the earth intoxicates me. When Ieven think about it, much less look at it, I feel perfectly wild withdelight to think that I am alive. And my senses are so keen. I see sofar. I can hear miles. I believe I can hear the grass grow. I eat anddrink little, but that little gives me delight. A glass of cold springwater intoxicates me. And, above all, I enjoy being loved. I neverforget how much you and papa love me. I couldn't exist without either ofyou. Papa is looking much better since he came down. Don't you think so?And I like to see love in the eyes of men I don't care a rap about.Their eyes are like impersonal mirrors for me to read the secrets of thefuture in. And I don't really hurt them. Most men have a lot ofsuperfluous love in them. I may as well have it as another. It won'tinterfere with the destination of the reserve in the least."
"Helena!" exclaimed Magdalena, with a sinking heart. "I believe you area genius."
"I have the genius of personality, but I couldn't do a thing to save mylife."
Magdalena breathed freely again.
The Californians Page 39