The Californians

  XIII

  Talk about the complex heart of a woman. It is nothing to that of a man.

  Trennahan had loved a good many women in a good many ways. Perhaps heunderstood women as well as any man of his day: he had been bred bywomen of the world, and his errant fancy had occasionally sent him intoother strata. He also thought that he knew himself. His mind, his heart,his senses, the best and the worst in him, had been engaged so often andso actively that he could have drawn diagrams of each, alone or incombination, with accommodating types of woman. He also, withoutgeneralising too freely, knew men, and he had spent ten years of hislife in diplomacy. But he now stood before himself as puzzled as he wasaghast.

  If his grip upon himself had suddenly relaxed, and he had spent a wildnight with the wild young men of San Francisco, he should not have beenparticularly surprised: he had been living on an exalted plane for thelast ten months. But that he loved Magdalena with the love of his life,that he realised in her some vague youthful ideal, that she was thewoman created for the better part of him, that his highest happiness wasto be found in her, he had never doubted from the minute he had finishedhis long communion with himself and determined to marry her. And everymoment he had spent with her had strengthened the tie. Nothing about herbut had pleased him: her intellect, her pride, her reticence, herdifference from other women; even, after the first shock to his tastewas over, her lack of beauty. It was true that she had no great powerover his pulses, but he was tired of his pulses. She appealed to histenderness and deeper affections as no woman had done. Above all, shehad given him peace of mind; and she held his future in her hands.

  And now?

  Helena Belmont was that most dangerous rival of other women,--a girlwhom men loved desperately with no attendant loss of self-respect.Whatever their passion, they felt a keen personal delight in the purityof her mind; and they admired themselves the more that they appreciatedher cleverness. She was not only a woman to love but to idolise; shegave even these prosaic San Francisco youths vague promptings todistinguish themselves by some great and noble action, sending hershafts straight through the American brain to those dumb inheritedinstincts which had straggled down through the centuries from mediaevalancestors. Her very selfishness--which she was pleased to callPaganism--charmed them: it was one of the divine rights of the womanborn to rule men and to create a happiness for one unimagined by lesserwomen. No man but idealised her, unfanciful as he might be, not so muchfor her beauty or gifts, or for all combined, as because when she gaveherself it would be for the last as it was for the first time. As thereader knows, there was nothing ideal about Helena. Even herfastidiousness was natural in view of her upbringing. She was a mostpractical young flirt, with a very distinct intention of having her ownway as long as she lived. The wealth and petting and adulation which hadsurrounded her from birth had made a thorough-going egoist of her,albeit a most charming one; for she was warm-hearted, impulsive,generous, and kind--in her own way. Naturally the men for whom herlovely eyes beamed welcome, for whom her tantalising mouth pouted intosmiles, thought her nothing short of a goddess, and were moved toinarticulate rhyme.

  * * * * *

  Trennahan had met many more women who were beautiful, seductive,dashing, and withal fastidious, than had these young men of acosmopolitan and still chaotic State; nevertheless, he might have beenAdam ranging the dreary solitudes of Paradise, facing about for thefirst time upon the first woman. Helena was the type of woman for whomsuch men as meet her have the strongest passion of their lives, if forno other reason than because she induces an exaggeration of their bestfaculties and a consequent exaltation of self-appreciation, asdistinguished from mere masculine self-sufficiency. Never is the brieflyfavoured one so much of a man apart from a type, looking down upon thattype with pitying scorn. This is a mere matter of fascination, toosubtle, and composed of too many parts for man's analysis, but it is themost telling force in the clashing of the sexes.

  Trennahan was an extremely practical man. He called things by theirright names, and scorned to turn his head aside when life or himself wasto be looked squarely in the eye. It is true that he cursed himself fora fool. He was neither in his youth nor in his dotage; he was in thatlong intermediate period where a man may hope that his will and soundcommon-sense are in their prime,--the interval of the minimum ofmistakes. Nevertheless, he was as madly in love with Helena Belmont aswas the first man with the first woman, as a boy with his firstmistress, an old man with his last. He admitted the fact and ordered hisbrain to make the best of the situation.

  He was not conscious of any change in his feelings for Magdalena exceptthat he no longer desired to marry her. The sense of rest, ofcomradeship, the tenderness and affection, had not abated. He was justas sure that she was the woman for him to marry as he had been two weeksago; and he knew that he could not make a greater mistake than to marryHelena Belmont. He believed that it would be years before she would becapable of loving any man for any length of time. Such women not onlydevelop slowly, but they have too much to give, men too little. Theclever woman is abnormal in any case, being a divergence from theoriginal destiny of her sex. The woman who is beautiful, fascinating,passionate, and clever is a development with which man has not keptpace.

  He spent the greater part of the three days following the dinner, on thecliffs beyond the Golden Gate. There was no great moral battle going onin his mind; he intended to marry Magdalena. One of his pet theories wasthat one secret of the rottenness underlying the social, and in naturalsequence, the political structure of the United States was the absenceof a convention. Men were on their knees to women so long as theirpleasure was materially abetted by the attitude; but the moment themotive ceased to exist, any display of chivalry toward her would be asuseless and wasted as toward the ordinary run of women. It is always thewoman of the moment, never woman in general. The so-called chivalry ofAmerican men does not exist; the misconception has arisen out of themultitudinous examples of American subserviency to the individualwoman,--which is part of a habit of exaggeration natural to a youthfulnation. There is an utter absence of all responsibility that is not theconcomitant of personal desire.

  The new country is full of good impulses with little to bind themtogether. Children respect their parents if they feel like it, just asthey are polite when in a responsive mood, not through any sense ofconvention. The American press is an exemplification of this absence of_noblesse oblige_, and more particularly in its treatment of women. Evenwhen not moved by personal jealousy or spite, the total lack of respectwith which the American press treats women who have not in any waychallenged public opinion--society women with whom the public has noconcern, women upon whom either the misfortune of circumstances or of apowerful individuality has fallen--is the most significant foreboding ofthe degeneration of a national character while yet half grown. It isindividualism, which is a polite term for rampant selfishness, run mad,a fussy contempt and hatred for the traditions of older nations.

  Fifty years ago, when the United States was still so old-fashioned as tobe hardly "American," it was more or less bound together by theconventions it had inherited from the great civilisations that begat it.These conventions exist to-day only in men of the highest breeding,those with six or eight generations behind them of refinement,consequence, and fastidiousness in association. In these men, therepresentatives of an aristocracy that is in danger of being crippledand perhaps swamped by plutocracy, exists the convention which forcesthe most deplorable degenerate of old-world aristocracy to manifesthimself a gentleman in every crucial test. So thoroughly did Trennahancomprehend these facts, so profound was his contempt for the second-ratemen of his country, that he was almost self-conscious about his honour.He would no more have asked Magdalena to release him, nor have adoptedthe still more contemptible method of forcing her to break theengagement, than he would have been the ruin of an ignorant girl. But hewould have sacrificed every green blade in his soul to have met HelenaBelmont a year ago, and would hav
e taken the chances with defiance andthe consequences without a murmur.

  To marry Magdalena in June was impossible. That he should ever cease todesire Helena Belmont, to regret the very complete happiness which mighthave been his for a few years, was a matter of doubt,--with evenpossibilities. But there must be a long intermission before he couldmarry another woman. His determination to leave California for a yearwas fixed, but what excuse to offer Don Roberto and Magdalena was thequestion which beset him in all his waking hours and amid all historments.

  During these three days he avoided seeing Magdalena alone. On theafternoon of the fourth day he came face to face with Helena Belmont inthe Mercantile Library.

  She was leaving as he entered. They looked at each other for a moment,then without a word both walked toward a room at the right of the door.

  This was a long narrow apartment leading off the great room, and wasdarker, dustier, gloomier, grimmer. As the building stood almost againstanother of equal height, its side windows looked upon blank walls; butsome measure of grey light was coaxed down from the narrow strip aboveby means of reflectors. The walls were lined with old books bound incalf black with age, and in the centre was a long narrow table whichlooked as if it should have a coffin on it. This room had depressed manycheerful lovers in its time; it was enough to drive tormented souls tosuicide.

  Trennahan and Helena sat down in an angle where they were least likelyto be seen.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Helena.

  "I am going away for a year as soon as I can invent a decent excuse."

  "Then shall you come back and marry 'Lena?"

  "Yes."

  "Suppose you still love me?"

  "It will make no difference. And Time works wonders. You will have quiteforgotten me."

  "I sincerely hope I shall." Her voice shook. There was agitation inevery curve of her figure. But had anyone entered, their faces could nothave been distinguished two feet away. The sky was grey. There was nolight to reflect.

  "It is the first time I haven't got what I wanted," she saidingenuously.

  "It will make your next triumph the keener. I shall be glad to serve asa shadow for the high lights."

  "I have suffered horribly in the last week."

  "So have I, if that consoles you. But I have had a good deal ofsuffering in my life, one way and another, and I shall weather it. Iwish I could take your share."

  "Shouldn't you like to marry me?"

  "Of course I should. Why do you ask such foolish questions?"

  "I want to talk it all out. I love 'Lena, but I don't love her betterthan I do myself, and I don't see why I should suffer instead of she.Don't you think that if we told her she would release you?"

  "Undoubtedly; but I shall not ask her. Nor must you think of such athing. Why two young and exceptionally fortunate girls should want whatis left of me God only knows; but if they do the prior rights must winthe day. If I don't marry 'Lena, I shall marry no woman,--not even you."

  She gave him a swift glance. His face was not as stern as his words."You know that you would," she said with decision. "You are toohonourable to break the engagement, but you would marry me if it werebroken for you."

  He drew his brows together and bent his face to hers. "Listen to me," hesaid. "I mean what I say. I love you,--how much you have not the vaguestidea; but I will not have her happiness ruined. If you ask her to breakthe engagement, I shall never see you again. Will you remember that?"

  "I suppose you are right. I had not really thought of asking her. ButI've got to tell her that I love you. I feel like a hideous hypocrite. Ican hardly look her in the face. I'll promise not to betray you, but Imust tell her that. She has been so sweet to me this last week, eversince that night at Monterey. She's the very best creature that everlived. Then I'll ask papa to take me away. You need not go."

  "I shall go. Can't you go away without saying anything to her about it?I don't see why her peace of mind should be disturbed."

  "I should feel just as guilty when I came back."

  "You would have forgotten it by that time."

  "Oh, no; I shouldn't! I shouldn't!"

  There was no mistaking the passion in her voice. Trennahan half rose,but sat down again. "I would rather you wrote it to her after you left,"he said. "Then there would be no danger of saying too much. If you wantto go to Europe, I will go to the South Sea Islands."

  "Well, I will arrange it that way, if you like."

  Her head was lowered. She spoke dejectedly. There was little of the oldHelena manifest. In truth, she had been making a mighty effort tocontrol herself for the first time in her life. She hardly knew whethershe wished to do what was right or not; for the moment she was dominatedby a stronger will than her own. She drew a deep sigh. "I wish I couldtake it as coolly as you do," she said.

  "I take it less coolly. But I am older and used to self-control."

  "I hate self-control."

  "So do I."

  "I feel as if life were quite over. I would a great deal rather die thannot. I wish I were older. I don't know what to do. I feel that it cannotbe right to throw away the happiness of one's life, but I don't know howto hold you, and, above all, I don't want to hurt 'Lena. I thought thatI knew so much; but I know nothing at all--nothing."

  "If you do what is right, you will be very glad a year hence."

  "A year is such a long time." Her head dropped lower. She looked utterlydejected. In a moment she put her handkerchief to her face and criedsilently. The undemonstrativeness of the act, so unlike her usualvolcanic energy, touched him out of prudence. He put his arm about herand pressed her head against his shoulder. In a moment he laid his faceagainst hers and closed his eyes to crowd back the tears that sprangfrom the depths of his soul. When he opened his eyes, it was to meetthose of Magdalena.