XV
The long-closed bar-room of Old Inn was aired for a week, denuded ofcobwebs, delivered of mice, canvassed by the invaluable Chuma. TheRosewater Hotel promised to contribute its Sunday band of four pieces,manipulated with no mean skill by worthy but unprosperous youngcitizens. Not one of Isabel's invitations was refused. The girlssuddenly discovered that they were still young, and were as much excitedat the prospect of a night's dancing as at meeting the English rancher.The men accepted as a matter of course, thankful to be asked toanything. The older people, surprised at an invitation to a dance,assured one another that Isabel Otis, being absurdly extravagant, andliving two miles out in the country, was almost certain to regale herguests with fried oysters and ice-cream. One or two of her mother's oldfriends wrote and offered to contribute a chocolate cake, but wererelieved when she refused to "trouble them." Gwynne and Isabel hung thewalls of the big room with palm leaves, and branches covered thick withsmall yellow oranges, the first of the year. When they rested from theirlabors Isabel declared that it looked like an exhibit at a county fair,but Gwynne, never having attended a county fair, was proud of hishandiwork and thought the effect an improvement upon the averageballroom. The day before the party Tom Colton and Hyliard Wheaton rodeout to Lumalitas and demanded of Gwynne if he intended to wear a"claw-hammer." Colton was averse on principle from being too "swagger";and they finally compromised on what the Americans called their"Tuxedos," and Gwynne his "smoker." Anabel Colton, Dolly Boutts, andSerena Wheaton, after half a day's telephoning, decided to "wear theirnecks," and their hostess agreed to keep them in countenance. Every teamin Rosewater was bespoken for the distinguished occasion, and thereports of the weather bureau were consulted daily. But the rains heldoff and the night of the party was brilliant with starlight, and not toocold.
Gwynne, who had no intention of receiving with Isabel, and learning fromColton that everybody would have arrived before nine o'clock, did notmake his appearance until ten. He found the big room full of young andelderly people, even the latter chattering with an extraordinaryanimation, induced no doubt by the surprises that had greeted them; theyhad forgotten the existence of the old bar-room. From the dancers Gwynnereceived a general impression of pink cheeks, fluffy hair, delicatefeatures, gay simple gowns, the usual lack of background; a curioustransientness, as if they had been born for the night like summer moths.The men for the most part made a good appearance, the more favoredlooking college-bred and irreproachable. Hyliard Wheaton, who was reallyhandsome, with his broad shoulders and cool smooth well-cut face, worean orchid in his button-hole and was devoting himself to Isabel.
The hostess wore a gown of black chiffon trimmed with pale blue thatlooked simple and was not. Her neck and arms were bare, and Gwynnenoticed at once that she had another little black mole where the bodiceslipped from her shoulder. She reproached the guest of honor for beinglate.
"You will dance this waltz with me," she commanded, royally; "and then Iwill introduce you to the prettiest of the girls."
For the first time in his life Gwynne felt self-conscious in putting hisarm about a woman's waist for the waltz. He had seen Isabel in fullevening dress many a time in England, in rubber boots to her hips, individed skirt astride her horse, in overalls among her chickens, and inpretty little house-gowns when he had remained for supper; nevertheless,in surrendering her slim waist she seemed to descend, significantly,from her pedestal and become warm flesh and blood. He held herawkwardly, barely touching her, wondering there should be physicalshrinking from such a beautiful creature, one, moreover, that had shownhim more kindness and disinterested friendship than any he had everknown. He reproached himself, but even while he admired the luminouswhiteness of her skin he found himself scowling at the tiny black molesthat gave her an oddly artificial provocative look, as black patches mayhave deliberately enhanced the charms of their coquettish grandmothers.
"Humph!" said Mrs. Wheaton, raising her lorgnette, as became a leader ofsociety. "He is not so fond of her, for all this friendship we have beenhearing so much about. Well, it is natural enough. Isabel is far tooindependent to be really attractive to men, for all her good looks.These advanced women will have to step aside into a class by themselves,and as the men won't follow them, that will mean they will die offnaturally, and the world wag its own old way once more."
She was a tall stout woman, with a pale heavy face, and a curiouselevation of nose, as if sniffing an unpleasant odor; but which wasreally meant to express pride of carriage. She wore a somewhatold-fashioned but handsome gown of lavender satin trimmed with pointlace about the bodice, and a pair of diamond ear-rings. On one side ofher sat the elder Mrs. Colton, in black silk with a point-lace collar; asweet-faced frankly elderly woman. The third member of the group was awoman who might have been any age between thirty-five and fifty, verythin and dark, with the curiously virginal look peculiar to childlesswomen tainted by a suggestion of morbid sensuality, very difficult tolocate. Sometimes it seemed to twist across her thin restless mouth, atothers to gleam from her deep-set black eyes with a fleeting wildness.Ordinarily she was smiling with an affected cynicism, and it was plainto be seen that she respected her intellect. She was abominably dressedin a frock of purple merino trimmed with black velvet ribbon; but shewore a gold comb in her hair and a diamond brooch.
As the leader finished her remarks Mrs. Haight brought her teethtogether with a snap and shot through them a little hiss. Mrs. Wheatonturned upon her with the gleam of the bird of prey in her little graycold eyes. All the gossip of Rosewater was very old, scandal rare. "Whatis it, Minerva?" she asked, eagerly. "Are they engaged? And do you knowjust why he has come out here?"
"I only know what everybody says about his coming here--that his healthain't good, and he wants to make the ranch pay by running it himself;but that other--" She paused and lifted her thin shoulderssignificantly. "Well, all I can say is, that if they ain't engaged theyought to be."
Mrs. Wheaton leaned forward eagerly, but Mrs. Colton said, severely:"That is just your evil mind, Minerva. You are always imagining things;comes of having nothing to think about but cards and novels--sixchildren were what you needed."
"I guess I have as much as anybody to think about, what with having nohelp half the time, and a husband who wants his meals on time whether orno. And I guess I worked as hard in the City Improvement Club as anybodyuntil we got all those concrete sidewalks for the town, let alone theparks. What if I do read novels and play cards for recreation? Too muchthinking ain't good for anybody."
"Oh, never mind," interrupted Mrs. Wheaton, hastily. "But what did youmean, anyhow?"
"Well, as you know, I don't sleep very well, and I often get up and sitat the window, watching for the boat 'bus, and just imagining where thepeople who are out late, or up early, are going to and what they arethinking about. Well, I've seen him"--jerking her shoulder at Gwynne,who was now dancing with Miss Boutts--"I've seen him riding home fromhere as late as ten or half-past, many a night. He may have beenduck-shooting and stayed to supper. That's all right, but he could gohome just after. I for one don't think it's decent--a girl living allalone like she does. If he wants to shoot ducks, anyhow, why don't hejoin a club? If he does all his shooting here it's to be with her, andno mistake. I've said from the very first, it's downright indecent for agirl to live alone on a farm--no chaperon, not even a woman servant. I,for one, think that Isabel Otis has done just as she pleased longenough, and ought to be called down."
"It is only natural that she should do as she pleases now that she hasthe chance, poor soul," said Mrs. Colton. "She never had anything buttrouble and sorrow in her life until James Otis died. I wish he couldhave died when she was little and I could have brought her up. Thatlife, and then her sudden liberty, have made her independent andadvanced, but I can't say that I like it myself. I wish she were morelike Anabel. It's odd they're not more alike, being such friends."
"I quite agree with Minerva!" announced the leader. "Isabel ought tohave a chaperon. I don't doubt she'
s all she should be or _I_ shouldn'tbe here to-night, friend of her mother's or not; but I suggested to heronly yesterday--I had a little talk with her on Main Street--that sheget some respectable old maid or widow to live with her."
"What did she say?" asked Mrs. Colton, with a smile.
"Say? The insolent young minx! She just looked at me, through me--Me--asif I had not spoken. Her mother always put on airs. That's where shegets it from. I had half a mind not to come to-night. But I wanted tosee things for myself. If she does anything really imprudent, _I'll makeher suffer_."
This last phrase was famous in Rosewater. Mrs. Wheaton employed itseldom, but when she did her friends understood that she was not farfrom the war-path. Her color had risen with the memory of yesterday'sgrievance, pushed aside by curiosity for some twenty-eight hours.
Mrs. Haight regarded the radiant young hostess with a malignant stare,prudently veiled by drooping lids. She envied Isabel with her wholesmall soul; she had never known the sensation of liberty in her life,and she stopped short of the courage that might snatch it. Mr. Haight,the leading druggist of Rosewater and an eminent and useful citizen, wasa large stolid elderly man--he was at present in the little dining-roomwith other gentlemen of his standing and a punch-bowl--as regular as aclock in his habits, and devoted conscientiously to his wife, whom hetook for a buggy ride every Sunday in fine weather. They had beenmarried for twenty-two years, and for at least fifteen she had yearnedto be the heroine of an illicit romance; nor ever yet had found thecourage to indulge in a mild flirtation. She really loved her husband,and in many respects made him an excellent wife, but her depths werechoked with the slime of a morbid eroticism which her husband was thelast man to exorcise. The earlier fever in her blood had graduallydropped to the greensickness of middle-age, so that she was vaguelyrepellent to men, particularly the young. This she had the wit todetect, as well as the incontrovertible fact that her youth and herchances were gone. As a natural consequence her repressed but stillrebellious passions diffused their poison throughout her nature. Therewere times when she was seized with a frantic desire to inflict injuryupon some other woman, and at all times she found relief in sharpcriticism, in flinging mud at mantles spotless to the casual eye. Shepassed for being very piquante and clever in a town where so littlehappened except the turning over of money, and where the conversationalternated between chickens and cards. She was sure that she scented ascandal here, and her very nostrils quivered with anticipation; thewhile she hated Isabel more bitterly for taking a lover instead of aneternal husband.
"Looks as if she didn't mean to introduce him to us," she remarked, withan attempt at frigid criticism. "He don't dance so well but what thegirls could get on without him. Isabel might give him a chance toexhibit his conversational powers--My! if he ain't going to dance againwith Dolly Boutts! I'd like to know how Isabel fancies that!"
Gwynne, who liked any sort of exercise, and had been reading the UnitedStates Statutes the greater part of the day, danced with the girls towhom Isabel introduced him, returning no less than three times to theexuberant Miss Boutts, whose step suited his, and whom he thought one ofthe prettiest girls he had seen in America. Mr. Boutts's mother had beenthe daughter of an Italian restaurant keeper in San Francisco, and hisheiress inherited a fine flashing pair of black eyes, a mass of blackhair, and a voluptuous but buoyant figure. She had inherited nothing ofthe languor and fire of the Italian race, but chattered as incessantlyas any American girl, and had the mind and character of sixteen, inspite of her almost full-blown beauty. Having an instinct for dress inaddition to a liberal allowance from her father, she was always anotable figure in Main Street; and when in San Francisco was pleasantlyaware that she was by no means unnoticed in the fashionable throngs ofthe hotels and Kearny Street. To-night she wore a gown of black netrevealing her superb shoulders and arms, and bunches of red carnationsthat emphasized the red of her full pouting lips. She danced with agraceful energy and looked unutterable things out of her great blackeyes while talking of the weather. Gwynne thought her a creature ofinfinite possibilities, beside whom Isabel was a statue in ivory.
Just before supper he was introduced to the older women, and offered hisarm to Mrs. Wheaton when two waiters, unmistakably from a San Franciscocaterer, threw open the doors upon a hall that separated the ballroomfrom the old hotel dining-room. The startled guests filed hastily acrossto find a dainty but sumptuous repast served at little tables. Even theice-cream was frozen in graceful shapes instead of being ladled out of afreezer in full view of the company, and there was such an abundance ofall things, served with despatch by the professional waiters, that Mrs.Haight was permitted to consume three plates of oysters _a la poulette_.
"This must have cost a pretty penny!" she muttered to Mrs.Wheaton--Gwynne was dancing attendance on Miss Boutts once more. "Muchmoney she'll save! One would think this was San Francisco, and someswell house on Nob Hill. I don't believe a thing was cooked in her ownkitchen."
"I should think not! This supper is from the St. Francis, or The Palace,or The Poodle Dog--" Mrs. Wheaton ran off the names of all the famousSan Francisco restaurants, to the ill-concealed spite of Mrs. Haight whodid not dine in San Francisco once a year. "But as you suggest, I cannotimagine how she expects to make a fortune in chickens if she throwsabout money like this. No wonder Mr. Gwynne isn't good enough forher--but perhaps that's the reason he's selling off so much of hisranch. Mr. Wheaton says he thinks of putting up an office building onsome land he has south of Market Street."
"To my way of thinking, Isabel Otis and matrimony don't gee. She'saltogether too advanced. Just you wait."
The young people, meanwhile, were very gay, and there was little doubtin Isabel's mind that if she lived in Rosewater and chose to revive andlead the old social life she could drive cards to the wall in the firstengagement. She had been much elated with her success, but, of a sudden,as her eyes roved benignantly over her chattering delighted guests,ennui descended upon her: those ancestral mutterings in the soul thatstir dim memories of great moments of a greater time, inviting a vaguecontempt and distaste for the petty incidents and achievements that makeup the sum of life. Isabel had experienced this faint sensation offutility and disgust many times before, and although she was wise enoughnot to let it paralyze her will, and to turn it to account in holdingher to her higher ideals, still she often envied the Dolly Bouttses,with good red plebeian blood in their veins, and no voices in thesubconscious brain but those that bade them eat and drink and feed therace. No, she decided, Rosewater could work out of its present inertiaby itself, and she began to wish her guests would go home; she was tiredof their inanities. Her disappointment in Hyliard Wheaton, whom she hadadmired from a distance ever since her return, but who had neversuccumbed to her charm until to-night, had much to do with her sense offutility. He had read nothing, seen nothing, experienced nothing. He hadno ambition beyond living in San Francisco and enjoying life there. Hisfine well-bred face with its high brow and smiling, slightly superior,gaze, had suggested--the more particularly, perhaps, as his figure wassuperb--possibilities both intellectual and romantic. Isabel told himpolitely never to ride out without using the telephone first, and hadher excuses already coined. At least ten men be sides Gwynne werehovering about Dolly Boutts, like humming-birds about the nectar of afull-blown rose. They were blind to the fact that her voluptuoussuggestion was but a caprice of nature. Although, no doubt, she wouldmake the best of wives and mothers, she was as incapable of any depth ofpassion as the frail fluffy creatures about her, and quite indifferentto anything in man beyond his admiration. Up to the present she hadfound cards far more interesting, particularly as she had known all theRosewater men since childhood; more particularly, perhaps, as this washer first large party. She chattered, partly by instinct, partly indeference to the traditional animation of the American girl; and it wasquite likely that the ultimate man would lead her to the altar under thedelusion that she was a brilliant woman with a genuine temperament.Isabel wondered somewhat contemptuou
sly at Gwynne's evident enthusiasm;she would have given him credit for more experience and perspicacity;but concluded that at a party a man could only judge a girl by herexterior charms; and certainly Dolly had all her goods in the frontwindow.
After supper they danced the old Virginia reel with great zest, and evena few stray waltzes, then all left together at two o'clock; the olderwomen assuring Isabel formally that they had had a very pleasantevening; but the girls and young men exclaimed that they had had a keentime, a dandy time, and that their new hostess was too fine and dandyfor words.