Chapter XI

It was Mrs. Mason who first asked that Paula play; but it was Terrence McFane and Aaron Hancock who evicted the rag-time group from the piano and sent Theodore Malken, a blushing ambassador, to escort Paula.
��Tis for the confounding of this pagan that I�m askin� you to play �Reflections on the Water,�� Graham heard Terrence say to her.
�And �The Girl with Flaxen Hair,� after, please,� begged Hancock, the indicted pagan. �It will aptly prove my disputation. This wild Celt has a bog-theory of music that predates the cave-man�­and he has the unadulterated stupidity to call himself ultra-modern.�
�Oh, Debussy!� Paula laughed. �Still wrangling over him, eh? I�ll try and get around to him. But I don�t know with what I�ll begin.�
Dar Hyal joined the three sages in seating Paula at the concert grand which, Graham decided, was none too great for the great room. But no sooner was she seated than the three sages slipped away to what were evidently their chosen listening places. The young poet stretched himself prone on a deep bearskin forty feet from the piano, his hands buried in his hair. Terrence and Aaron lolled into a cushioned embrasure of a window seat, sufficiently near to each other to nudge the points of their respective contentions as Paula might expound them. The girls were huddled in colored groups on wide couches or garlanded in twos and threes on and in the big koa-wood chairs.
Evan Graham half-started forward to take the honor of turning Paula�s music, but saw in time that Dar Hyal had already elected to himself that office. Graham glimpsed the scene with quiet curious glances. The grand piano, under a low arch at the far-end of the room, was cunningly raised and placed as on and in a sounding board. All jollity and banter had ceased. Evidently, he thought, the Little Lady had a way with her and was accepted as a player of parts. And from this he was perversely prepared for disappointment.
Ernestine leaned across from a chair to whisper to him:
�She can do anything she wants to do. And she doesn�t work . . . much. She studied under Leschetizky and Madame Carreno, you know, and she abides by their methods. She doesn�t play like a woman, either. Listen to that!�
Graham knew that he expected disappointment from her confident hands, even as she rippled them over the keys in little chords and runs with which he could not quarrel but which he had heard too often before from technically brilliant but musically mediocre performers. But whatever he might have fancied she would play, he was all unprepared for Rachmaninoff�s sheerly masculine Prelude, which he had heard only men play when decently played.
She took hold of the piano, with the first two ringing bars, masterfully, like a man; she seemed to lift it, and its sounding wires, with her two hands, with the strength and certitude of maleness. And then, as only he had heard men do it, she sank, or leaped�­he could scarcely say which�­to the sureness and pureness and ineffable softness of the Andante following.
She played on, with the calm and power of anything but the little, almost girlish woman he glimpsed through half-closed lids across the ebony board of the enormous piano, which she commanded, as she commanded herself, as she commanded the composer. Her touch was definite, authoritative, was his judgment, as the Prelude faded away in dying chords hauntingly reminiscent of its full vigor that seemed still to linger in the air.
While Aaron and Terrence debated in excited whispers in the window seat, and while Dar Hyal sought other music at Paula�s direction, she glanced at Dick, who turned off bowl after bowl of mellow light till Paula sat in an oasis of soft glow that brought out the dull gold lights in her dress and hair.
Graham watched the lofty room grow loftier in the increasing shadows. Eighty feet in length, rising two stories and a half from masonry walls to tree-trunked roof, flung across with a flying gallery from the rail of which hung skins of wild animals, hand-woven blankets of Oaxaca and Ecuador, and tapas, woman-pounded and vegetable-dyed, from the islands of the South Pacific, Graham knew it for what it was�­a feast-hall of some medieval castle; and almost he felt a poignant sense of lack of the long spread table, with pewter below the salt and silver above the salt, and with huge hound-dogs scuffling beneath for bones.
Later, when Paula had played sufficient Debussy to equip Terrence and Aaron for fresh war, Graham talked with her about music for a few vivid moments. So well did she prove herself aware of the philosophy of music, that, ere he knew it, he was seduced into voicing his own pet theory.
�And so,� he concluded, �the true psychic factor of music took nearly three thousand years to impress itself on the Western mind. Debussy more nearly attains the idea-engendering and suggestive serenity�­say of the time of Pythagoras�­than any of his fore-runners�­�
Here, Paula put a pause in his summary by beckoning over Terrence and Aaron from their battlefield in the windowseat.
�Yes, and what of it?� Terrence was demanding, as they came up side by side. �I defy you, Aaron, I defy you, to get one thought out of Bergson on music that is more lucid than any thought he ever uttered in his �Philosophy of Laughter,� which is not lucid at all.�
�Oh!�­listen!� Paula cried, with sparkling eyes. �We have a new prophet. Hear Mr. Graham. He�s worthy of your steel, of both your steel. He agrees with you that music is the refuge from blood and iron and the pounding of the table. That weak souls, and sensitive souls, and high-pitched souls flee from the crassness and the rawness of the world to the drug-dreams of the over-world of rhythm and vibration�­�
�Atavistic!� Aaron Hancock snorted. �The cave-men, the monkey-folk, and the ancestral bog-men of Terrence did that sort of thing�­�
�But wait,� Paula urged. �It�s his conclusions and methods and processes. Also, there he disagrees with you, Aaron, fundamentally. He quoted Pater�s �that all art aspires toward music��­�
�Pure prehuman and micro-organic chemistry,� Aaron broke in. �The reactions of cell-elements to the doggerel punch of the wave-lengths of sunlight, the foundation of all folk-songs and rag-times. Terrence completes his circle right there and stultifies all his windiness. Now listen to me, and I will present�­�
�But wait,� Paula pleaded. �Mr. Graham argues that English puritanism barred music, real music, for centuries....�
�True,� said Terrence.
�And that England had to win to its sensuous delight in rhythm through Milton and Shelley�­�
�Who was a metaphysician.� Aaron broke in.
�A lyrical metaphysician,� Terrence defined instantly. �That you must acknowledge, Aaron.�
�And Swinburne?� Aaron demanded, with a significance that tokened former arguments.
�He says Offenbach was the fore-runner of Arthur Sullivan,� Paula cried challengingly. �And that Auber was before Offenbach. And as for Wagner, ask him, just ask him�­�
And she slipped away, leaving Graham to his fate. He watched her, watched the perfect knee-lift of her draperies as she crossed to Mrs. Mason and set about arranging bridge quartets, while dimly he could hear Terrence beginning:
�It is agreed that music was the basis of inspiration of all the arts of the Greeks....�
Later, when the two sages were obliviously engrossed in a heated battle as to whether Berlioz or Beethoven had exposited in their compositions the deeper intellect, Graham managed his escape. Clearly, his goal was to find his hostess again. But she had joined two of the girls in the whispering, giggling seclusiveness of one of the big chairs, and, most of the company being deep in bridge, Graham found himself drifted into a group composed of Dick Forrest, Mr. Wombold, Dar Hyal, and the correspondent of the Breeders� Gazette.
�I�m sorry you won�t be able to run over with me,� Dick was saying to the correspondent. �It would mean only one more day. I�ll take you tomorrow.�
�Sorry,� was the reply. �But I must make Santa Rosa. Burbank has promised me practically a whole morning, and you know what that means. Yet I know the Gazette would be glad for an account of the experiment. Can�t you outline it?�­briefly, just briefly? Here�s Mr. Graham. It will interest him, I am sure.�
�More water-works?� Graham queried.
�No; an asinine attempt to make good farmers out of hopelessly poor ones,� Mr. Wombold answered. �I contend that any farmer to-day who has no land of his own, proves by his lack of it that he is an inefficient farmer.�
�On the contrary,� spoke up Dar Hyal, weaving his slender Asiatic fingers in the air to emphasize his remarks. �Quite on the contrary. Times have changed. Efficiency no longer implies the possession of capital. It is a splendid experiment, an heroic experiment. And it will succeed.�
�What is it, Dick?� Graham urged. �Tell us.�
�Oh, nothing, just a white chip on the table,� Forrest answered lightly. �Most likely it will never come to anything, although just the same I have my hopes�­�
�A white chip!� Wombold broke in. �Five thousand acres of prime valley land, all for a lot of failures to batten on, to farm, if you please, on salary, with food thrown in!�
�The food that is grown on the land only,� Dick corrected. �Now I will have to put it straight. I�ve set aside five thousand acres midway between here and the Sacramento River.�
�Think of the alfalfa it grew, and that you need,� Wombold again interrupted.
�My dredgers redeemed twice that acreage from the marshes in the past year,� Dick replied. �The thing is, I believe the West and the world must come to intensive farming. I want to do my share toward blazing the way. I�ve divided the five thousand acres into twenty-acre holdings. I believe each twenty acres should support, comfortably, not only a family, but pay at least six per cent.�
�When it is all allotted it will mean two hundred and fifty families,� the Gazette man calculated; �and, say five to the family, it will mean twelve hundred and fifty souls.�
�Not quite,� Dick corrected. �The last holding is occupied, and we have only a little over eleven hundred on the land.� He smiled whimsically. �But they promise, they promise. Several fat years and they�ll average six to the family.�
�Who is we?� Graham inquired.
�Oh, I have a committee of farm experts on it�­my own men, with the exception of Professor Lieb, whom the Federal Government has loaned me. The thing is: they must farm, with individual responsibility, according to the scientific methods embodied in our instructions. The land is uniform. Every holding is like a pea in the pod to every other holding. The results of each holding will speak in no uncertain terms. The failure of any farmer, through laziness or stupidity, measured by the average result of the entire two hundred and fifty farmers, will not be tolerated. Out the failures must go, convicted by the average of their fellows.
�It�s a fair deal. No farmer risks anything. With the food he may grow and he and his family may consume, plus a cash salary of a thousand a year, he is certain, good seasons and bad, stupid or intelligent, of at least a hundred dollars a month. The stupid and the inefficient will be bound to be eliminated by the intelligent and the efficient. That�s all. It will demonstrate intensive farming with a vengeance. And there is more than the certain salary guaranty. After the salary is paid, the adventure must yield six per cent, to me. If more than this is achieved, then the entire hundred per cent, of the additional achievement goes to the farmer.�
�Which means that each farmer with go in him will work nights to make good�­I see,� said the Gazette man. �And why not? Hundred-dollar jobs aren�t picked up for the asking. The average farmer in the United States doesn�t net fifty a month on his own land, especially when his wages of superintendence and of direct personal labor are subtracted. Of course able men will work their heads off to hold to such a proposition, and they�ll see to it that every member of the family does the same.�
��Tis the one objection I have to this place,� Terrence McFane, who had just joined the group, announced. �Ever one hears but the one thing�­work. �Tis repulsive, the thought of the work, each on his twenty acres, toilin� and moilin�, daylight till dark, and after dark�­ an� for what? A bit of meat, a bit of bread, and, maybe, a bit of jam on the bread. An� to what end? Is meat an� bread an� jam the end of it all, the meaning of life, the goal of existence? Surely the man will die, like a work horse dies, after a life of toil. And what end has been accomplished? Bread an� meat an� jam? Is that it? A full belly and shelter from the cold till one�s body drops apart in the dark moldiness of the grave?�
�But, Terrence, you, too, will die,� Dick Forrest retorted.
�But, oh, my glorious life of loafing,� came the instant answer. �The hours with the stars and the flowers, under the green trees with the whisperings of breezes in the grass. My books, my thinkers and their thoughts. Beauty, music, all the solaces of all the arts. What? When I fade into the dark I shall have well lived and received my wage for living. But these twenty-acre work-animals of two-legged men of yours! Daylight till dark, toil and moil, sweat on the shirts on the backs of them that dries only to crust, meat and bread in their bellies, roofs that don�t leak, a brood of youngsters to live after them, to live the same beast-lives of toil, to fill their bellies with the same meat and bread, to scratch their backs with the same sweaty shirts, and to go into the dark knowing only meat and bread, and, mayhap, a bit of jam.�
�But somebody must do the work that enables you to loaf,� Mr. Wombold spoke up indignantly.
��Tis true, �tis sad �tis true,� Terrence replied lugubriously. Then his face beamed. �And I thank the good Lord for it, for the work-beasties that drag and drive the plows up and down the fields, for the bat-eyed miner-beasties that dig the coal and gold, for all the stupid peasant-beasties that keep my hands soft, and give power to fine fellows like Dick there, who smiles on me and shares the loot with me, and buys the latest books for me, and gives me a place at his board that is plenished by the two-legged work-beasties, and a place at his fire that is builded by the same beasties, and a shack and a bed in the jungle under the madro�o trees where never work intrudes its monstrous head.�
Evan Graham was slow in getting ready for bed that night. He was unwontedly stirred both by the Big House and by the Little Lady who was its mistress. As he sat on the edge of the bed, half-undressed, and smoked out a pipe, he kept seeing her in memory, as he had seen her in the flesh the past twelve hours, in her varied moods and guises�­the woman who had talked music with him, and who had expounded music to him to his delight; who had enticed the sages into the discussion and abandoned him to arrange the bridge tables for her guests; who had nestled in the big chair as girlish as the two girls with her; who had, with a hint of steel, quelled her husband�s obstreperousness when he had threatened to sing Mountain Lad�s song; who, unafraid, had bestridden the half-drowning stallion in the swimming tank; and who, a few hours later, had dreamed into the dining room, distinctive in dress and person, to meet her many guests.
The Big House, with all its worthy marvels and bizarre novelties, competed with the figure of Paula Forrest in filling the content of his imagination. Once again, and yet again, many times, he saw the slender fingers of Dar Hyal weaving argument in the air, the black whiskers of Aaron Hancock enunciating Bergsonian dogmas, the frayed coat-cuffs of Terrence McFane articulating thanks to God for the two-legged work-beasties that enabled him to loaf at Dick Forrest�s board and under Dick Forrest�s madro�o trees.
Graham knocked out his pipe, took a final sweeping survey of the strange room which was the last word in comfort, pressed off the lights, and found himself between cool sheets in the wakeful dark. Again he heard Paula Forrest laugh; again he sensed her in terms of silver and steel and strength; again, against the dark, he saw that inimitable knee-lift of her gown. The bright vision of it was almost an irk to him, so impossible was it for him to shake it from his eyes. Ever it returned and burned before him, a moving image of light and color that he knew to be subjective but that continually asserted the illusion of reality.
He saw stallion and rider sink beneath the water, and rise again, a flurry of foam and floundering of hoofs, and a woman�s face that laughed while she drowned her hair in the drowning mane of the beast. And the first ringing bars of the Prelude sounded in his ears as again he saw the same hands that had guided the stallion lift the piano to all Rachmaninoff�s pure splendor of sound.
And when Graham finally fell asleep, it was in the thick of marveling over the processes of evolution that could produce from primeval mire and dust the glowing, glorious flesh and spirit of woman.

Chapter XII

The next morning Graham learned further the ways of the Big House. Oh My had partly initiated him in particular things the preceding day and had learned that, after the waking cup of coffee, he preferred to breakfast at table, rather than in bed. Also, Oh My had warned him that breakfast at table was an irregular affair, anywhere between seven and nine, and that the breakfasters merely drifted in at their convenience. If he wanted a horse, or if he wanted a swim or a motor car, or any ranch medium or utility he desired, Oh My informed him, all he had to do was to call for it.
Arriving in the breakfast room at half past seven, Graham found himself just in time to say good-by to the Gazette man and the Idaho buyer, who, finishing, were just ready to catch the ranch machine that connected at Eldorado with the morning train for San Francisco. He sat alone, being perfectly invited by a perfect Chinese servant to order as he pleased, and found himself served with his first desire�­an ice-cold, sherried grapefruit, which, the table-boy proudly informed him, was �grown on the ranch.� Declining variously suggested breakfast foods, mushes, and porridges, Graham had just ordered his soft-boiled eggs and bacon, when Bert Wainwright drifted in with a casualness that Graham recognized as histrionic, when, five minutes later, in boudoir cap and delectable negligee, Ernestine Desten drifted in and expressed surprise at finding such a multitude of early risers.
Later, as the three of them were rising from table, they greeted Lute Desten and Rita Wainwright arriving. Over the billiard table with Bert, Graham learned that Dick Forrest never appeared for breakfast, that he worked in bed from terribly wee small hours, had coffee at six, and only on unusual occasions appeared to his guests before the twelve-thirty lunch. As for Paula Forrest, Bert explained, she was a poor sleeper, a late riser, lived behind a door without a knob in a spacious wing with a rare and secret patio that even he had seen but once, and only on infrequent occasion was she known to appear before twelve-thirty, and often not then.
�You see, she�s healthy and strong and all that,� he explained, �but she was born with insomnia. She never could sleep. She couldn�t sleep as a little baby even. But it�s never hurt her any, because she�s got a will, and won�t let it get on her nerves. She�s just about as tense as they make them, yet, instead of going wild when she can�t sleep, she just wills to relax, and she does relax. She calls them her `white nights,� when she gets them. Maybe she�ll fall asleep at daybreak, or at nine or ten in the morning; and then she�ll sleep the rest of the clock around and get down to dinner as chipper as you please.�
�It�s constitutional, I fancy,� Graham suggested.
Bert nodded.
�It would be a handicap to nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of a thousand. But not to her. She puts up with it, and if she can�t sleep one time�­she should worry�­she just sleeps some other time and makes it up.�
More and other things Bert Wainwright told of his hostess, and Graham was not slow in gathering that the young man, despite the privileges of long acquaintance, stood a good deal in awe of her.
�I never saw anybody whose goat she couldn�t get if she went after it,� he confided. �Man or woman or servant, age, sex, and previous condition of servitude�­it�s all one when she gets on the high and mighty. And I don�t see how she does it. Maybe it�s just a kind of light that comes into her eyes, or some kind of an expression on her lips, or, I don�t know what�­anyway, she puts it across and nobody makes any mistake about it.�
�She has a ... a way with her,� Graham volunteered.
�That�s it!� Bert�s face beamed. �It�s a way she has. She just puts it over. Kind of gives you a chilly feeling, you don�t know why. Maybe she�s learned to be so quiet about it because of the control she�s learned by passing sleepless nights without squealing out or getting sour. The chances are she didn�t bat an eye all last night�­ excitement, you know, the crowd, swimming Mountain Lad and such things. Now ordinary things that�d keep most women awake, like danger, or storm at sea, and such things, Dick says don�t faze her. She can sleep like a baby, he says, when the town she�s in is being bombarded or when the ship she�s in is trying to claw off a lee shore. She�s a wonder, and no mistake. You ought to play billiards with her�­the English game. She�ll go some.�
A little later, Graham, along with Bert, encountered the girls in the morning room, where, despite an hour of rag-time song and dancing and chatter, he was scarcely for a moment unaware of a loneliness, a lack, and a desire to see his hostess, in some fresh and unguessed mood and way, come in upon them through the open door.
Still later, mounted on Altadena and accompanied by Bert on a thoroughbred mare called Mollie, Graham made a two hours� exploration of the dairy center of the ranch, and arrived back barely in time to keep an engagement with Ernestine in the tennis court.
He came to lunch with an eagerness for which his keen appetite could not entirely account; and he knew definite disappointment when his hostess did not appear.
�A white night,� Dick Forrest surmised for his guest�s benefit, and went into details additional to Bert�s of her constitutional inaptitude for normal sleep. �Do you know, we were married years before I ever saw her sleep. I knew she did sleep, but I never saw her. I�ve seen her go three days and nights without closing an eye and keep sweet and cheerful all the time, and when she did sleep, it was out of exhaustion. That was when the All Away went ashore in the Carolines and the whole population worked to get us off. It wasn�t the danger, for there wasn�t any. It was the noise. Also, it was the excitement. She was too busy living. And when it was almost all over, I actually saw her asleep for the first time in my life.�
A new guest had arrived that morning, a Donald Ware, whom Graham met at lunch. He seemed well acquainted with all, as if he had visited much in the Big House; and Graham gathered that, despite his youth, he was a violinist of note on the Pacific Coast.
�He has conceived a grand passion for Paula,� Ernestine told Graham as they passed out from the dining room.
Graham raised his eyebrows.
�Oh, but she doesn�t mind,� Ernestine laughed. �Every man that comes along does the same thing. She�s used to it. She has just a charming way of disregarding all their symptoms, and enjoys them, and gets the best out of them in consequence. It�s lots of fun to Dick. You�ll be doing the same before you�re here a week. If you don�t, we�ll all be surprised mightily. And if you don�t, most likely you�ll hurt Dick�s feelings. He�s come to expect it as a matter of course. And when a fond, proud huband gets a habit like that, it must hurt terribly to see his wife not appreciated.�
�Oh, well, if I am expected to, I suppose I must,� Graham sighed. �But just the same I hate to do whatever everybody does just because everybody does it. But if it�s the custom�­well, it�s the custom, that�s all. But it�s mighty hard on one with so many other nice girls around.�
There was a quizzical light in his long gray eyes that affected Ernestine so profoundly that she gazed into his eyes over long, became conscious of what she was doing, dropped her own eyes away, and flushed.
�Little Leo�­the boy poet you remember last night,� she rattled on in a patent attempt to escape from her confusion. �He�s madly in love with Paula, too. I�ve heard Aaron Hancock chaffing him about some sonnet cycle, and it isn�t difficult to guess the inspiration. And Terrence�­the Irishman, you know�­he�s mildly in love with her. They can�t help it, you see; and can you blame them?�
�She surely deserves it all,� Graham murmured, although vaguely hurt in that the addle-pated, alphabet-obsessed, epicurean anarchist of an Irishman who gloried in being a loafer and a pensioner should even mildly be in love with the Little Lady. �She is most deserving of all men�s admiration,� he continued smoothly. �From the little I�ve seen of her she�s quite remarkable and most charming.�
�She�s my half-sister,� Ernestine vouchsafed, �although you wouldn�t dream a drop of the same blood ran in our veins. She�s so different. She�s different from all the Destens, from any girl I ever knew�­ though she isn�t exactly a girl. She�s thirty-eight, you know�­�
�Pussy, pussy,� Graham whispered.
The pretty young blonde looked at him in surprise and bewilderment, taken aback by the apparent irrelevance of his interruption.
�Cat,� he censured in mock reproof.
�Oh!� she cried. �I never meant it that way. �You will find we are very frank here. Everybody knows Paula�s age. She tells it herself. I�m eighteen�­so, there. And now, just for your meanness, how old are you?�
�As old as Dick,� he replied promptly.
�And he�s forty,� she laughed triumphantly. �Are you coming swimming? �­the water will be dreadfully cold.�
Graham shook his head. �I�m going riding with Dick.�
Her face fell with all the ingenuousness of eighteen.
�Oh,� she protested, �some of his eternal green manures, or hillside terracing, or water-pocketing.�
�But he said something about swimming at five.�
Her face brightened joyously.
�Then we�ll meet at the tank. It must be the same party. Paula said swimming at five.�
As they parted under a long arcade, where his way led to the tower room for a change into riding clothes, she stopped suddenly and called:
�Oh, Mr. Graham.�
He turned obediently.
�You really are not compelled to fall in love with Paula, you know. It was just my way of putting it.�
�I shall be very, very careful,� he said solemnly, although there was a twinkle in his eye as he concluded.
Nevertheless, as he went on to his room, he could not but admit to himself that the Paula Forrest charm, or the far fairy tentacles of it, had already reached him and were wrapping around him. He knew, right there, that he would prefer the engagement to ride to have been with her than with his old-time friend, Dick.
As he emerged from the house to the long hitching-rails under the ancient oaks, he looked eagerly for his hostess. Only Dick was there, and the stable-man, although the many saddled horses that stamped in the shade promised possibilities. But Dick and he rode away alone. Dick pointed out her horse, an alert bay thoroughbred, stallion at that, under a small Australian saddle with steel stirrups, and double-reined and single-bitted.
�I don�t know her plans,� he said. �She hasn�t shown up yet, but at any rate she�ll be swimming later. We�ll meet her then.�
Graham appreciated and enjoyed the ride, although more than once he found himself glancing at his wrist-watch to ascertain how far away five o�clock might yet be. Lambing time was at hand, and through home field after home field he rode with his host, now one and now the other dismounting to turn over onto its feet rotund and glorious Shropshire and Ramboullet-Merino ewes so hopelessly the product of man�s selection as to be unable to get off, of themselves, from their own broad backs, once they were down with their four legs helplessly sky-aspiring.
�I�ve really worked to make the American Merino,� Dick was saying; �to give it the developed leg, the strong back, the well-sprung rib, and the stamina. The old-country breed lacked the stamina. It was too much hand-reared and manicured.�
�You�re doing things, big things,� Graham assured him. �Think of shipping rams to Idaho! That speaks for itself.�
Dick Forrest�s eyes were sparkling, as he replied:
�Better than Idaho. Incredible as it may sound, and asking forgiveness for bragging, the great flocks to-day of Michigan and Ohio can trace back to my California-bred Ramboullet rams. Take Australia. Twelve years ago I sold three rams for three hundred each to a visiting squatter. After he took them back and demonstrated them he sold them for as many thousand each and ordered a shipload more from me. Australia will never be the worse for my having been. Down there they say that lucerne, artesian wells, refrigerator ships, and Forrest�s rams have tripled the wool and mutton production.�
Quite by chance, on the way back, meeting Mendenhall, the horse manager, they were deflected by him to a wide pasture, broken by wooded canyons and studded with oaks, to look over a herd of yearling Shires that was to be dispatched next morning to the upland pastures and feeding sheds of the Miramar Hills. There were nearly two hundred of them, rough-coated, beginning to shed, large-boned and large for their age.
�We don�t exactly crowd them,� Dick Forrest explained, �but Mr. Mendenhall sees to it that they never lack full nutrition from the time they are foaled. Up there in the hills, where they are going, they�ll balance their grass with grain. This makes them assemble every night at the feeding places and enables the feeders to keep track of them with a minimum of effort. I�ve shipped fifty stallions, two-year-olds, every year for the past five years, to Oregon alone. They�re sort of standardized, you know. The people up there know what they�re getting. They know my standard so well that they�ll buy unsight and unseen.�
�You must cull a lot, then,� Graham ventured.
�And you�ll see the culls draying on the streets of San Francisco,� Dick answered.
�Yes, and on the streets of Denver,� Mr. Mendenhall amplified, �and of Los Angeles, and�­why, two years ago, in the horse-famine, we shipped twenty carloads of four-year geldings to Chicago, that averaged seventeen hundred each. The lightest were sixteen, and there were matched pairs up to nineteen hundred. Lord, Lord, that was a year for horse-prices�­blue sky, and then some.�
As Mr. Mendenhall rode away, a man, on a slender-legged, head-tossing Palomina, rode up to them and was introduced to Graham as Mr. Hennessy, the ranch veterinary.
�I heard Mrs. Forrest was looking over the colts,� he explained to his employer, �and I rode across to give her a glance at The Fawn here. She�ll be riding her in less than a week. What horse is she on to-day?�
�The Fop,� Dick replied, as if expecting the comment that was prompt as the disapproving shake of Mr. Hennessy�s head.
�I can never become converted to women riding stallions,� muttered the veterinary. �The Fop is dangerous. Worse�­though I take my hat off to his record�­he�s malicious and vicious. She�­Mrs. Forrest ought to ride him with a muzzle�­but he�s a striker as well, and I don�t see how she can put cushions on his hoofs.�
�Oh, well,� Dick placated, �she has a bit that is a bit in his mouth, and she�s not afraid to use it�­�
�If he doesn�t fall over on her some day,� Mr. Hennessy grumbled. �Anyway, I�ll breathe easier when she takes to The Fawn here. Now she�s a lady�s mount�­all the spirit in the world, but nothing vicious. She�s a sweet mare, a sweet mare, and she�ll steady down from her friskiness. But she�ll always be a gay handful�­no riding academy proposition.�
�Let�s ride over,� Dick suggested. �Mrs. Forrest�ll have a gay handful in The Fop if she�s ridden him into that bunch of younglings.�­It�s her territory, you know,� he elucidated to Graham. �All the house horses and lighter stock is her affair. And she gets grand results. I can�t understand it, myself. It�s like a little girl straying into an experimental laboratory of high explosives and mixing the stuff around any old way and getting more powerful combinations than the graybeard chemists.�
The three men took a cross-ranch road for half a mile, turned up a wooded canyon where ran a spring-trickle of stream, and emerged on a wide rolling terrace rich in pasture. Graham�s first glimpse was of a background of many curious yearling and two-year-old colts, against which, in the middleground, he saw his hostess, on the back of the bright bay thoroughbred, The Fop, who, on hind legs, was striking his forefeet in the air and squealing shrilly. They reined in their mounts and watched.
�He�ll get her yet,� the veterinary muttered morosely. �That Fop isn�t safe.�
But at that moment Paula Forrest, unaware of her audience, with a sharp cry of command and a cavalier thrust of sharp spurs into The Fop�s silken sides, checked him down to four-footedness on the ground and a restless, champing quietness.
�Taking chances?� Dick mildly reproached her, as the three rode up.
�Oh, I can manage him,� she breathed between tight teeth, as, with ears back and vicious-gleaming eyes, The Fop bared his teeth in a bite that would have been perilously near to Graham�s leg had she not reined the brute abruptly away across the neck and driven both spurs solidly into his sides.
The Fop quivered, squealed, and for the moment stood still.
�It�s the old game, the white man�s game,� Dick laughed. �She�s not afraid of him, and he knows it. She outgames him, out-savages him, teaches him what savagery is in its intimate mood and tense.�
Three times, while they looked on, ready to whirl their own steeds away if he got out of hand, The Fop attempted to burst into rampage, and three times, solidly, with careful, delicate hand on the bitter bit, Paula Forrest dealt him double spurs in the ribs, till he stood, sweating, frothing, fretting, beaten, and in hand.
�It�s the way the white man has always done,� Dick moralized, while Graham suffered a fluttery, shivery sensation of admiration of the beast-conquering Little Lady. �He�s out-savaged the savage the world around,� Dick went on. �He�s out-endured him, out-filthed him, out-scalped him, out-tortured him, out-eaten him�­yes, out-eaten him. It�s a fair wager that the white man, in extremis, has eaten more of the genus homo, than the savage, in extremis, has eaten.�
�Good afternoon,� Paula greeted her guest, the ranch veterinary, and her husband. �I think I�ve got him now. Let�s look over the colts. Just keep an eye, Mr. Graham, on his mouth. He�s a dreadful snapper. Ride free from him, and you�ll save your leg for old age.�
Now that The Fop�s demonstration was over, the colts, startled into flight by some impish spirit amongst them, galloped and frisked away over the green turf, until, curious again, they circled back, halted at gaze, and then, led by one particularly saucy chestnut filly, drew up in half a circle before the riders, with alert pricking ears.
Graham scarcely saw the colts at first. He was seeing his protean hostess in a new role. Would her proteanness never end? he wondered, as he glanced over the magnificent, sweating, mastered creature she bestrode. Mountain Lad, despite his hugeness, was a mild-mannered pet beside this squealing, biting, striking Fop who advertised all the spirited viciousness of the most spirited vicious thoroughbred.
�Look at her,� Paula whispered to Dick, in order not to alarm the saucy chestnut filly. �Isn�t she wonderful! That�s what I�ve been working for.� Paula turned to Evan. �Always they have some fault, some miss, at the best an approximation rather than an achievement. But she�s an achievement. Look at her. She�s as near right as I shall probably ever get. Her sire is Big Chief, if you know our racing register. He sold for sixty thousand when he was a cripple. We borrowed the use of him. She was his only get of the season. But look at her! She�s got his chest and lungs. I had my choices�­mares eligible for the register. Her dam wasn�t eligible, but I chose her. She was an obstinate old maid, but she was the one mare for Big Chief. This is her first foal and she was eighteen years old when she bred. But I knew it was there. All I had to do was to look at Big Chief and her, and it just had to be there.�
�The dam was only half thoroughbred,� Dick explained.
�But with a lot of Morgan on the other side,� Paula added instantly, �and a streak along the back of mustang. This shall be called Nymph, even if she has no place in the books. She�ll be my first unimpeachable perfect saddle horse�­I know it�­the kind I like�­my dream come true at last.�
�A hoss has four legs, one on each corner,� Mr. Hennessy uttered profoundly.
�And from five to seven gaits,� Graham took up lightly,
�And yet I don�t care for those many-gaited Kentuckians,� Paula said quickly, ��­except for park work. But for California, rough roads, mountain trails, and all the rest, give me the fast walk, the fox trot, the long trot that covers the ground, and the not too-long, ground-covering gallop. Of course, the close-coupled, easy canter; but I scarcely call that a gait�­it�s no more than the long lope reduced to the adjustment of wind or rough ground.�
�She�s a beauty,� Dick admired, his eyes warm in contemplation of the saucy chestnut filly, who was daringly close and alertly sniffing of the subdued Fop�s tremulous and nostril-dilated muzzle.
�I prefer my own horses to be near thoroughbred rather than all thoroughbred,� Paula proclaimed. �The running horse has its place on the track, but it�s too specialized for mere human use.�
�Nicely coupled,� Mr. Hennessy said, indicating the Nymph. �Short enough for good running and long enough for the long trot. I�ll admit I didn�t have any faith in the combination; but you�ve got a grand animal out of it just the same.�
�I didn�t have horses when I was a young girl,� Paula said to Graham; �and the fact that I can now not only have them but breed them and mold them to my heart�s desire is always too good to be true. Sometimes I can�t believe it myself, and have to ride out and look them over to make sure.�
She turned her head and raised her eyes gratefully to Forrest; and Graham watched them look into each other�s eyes for a long half-minute. Forrest�s pleasure in his wife�s pleasure, in her young enthusiasm and joy of life, was clear to Graham�s observation. �Lucky devil,� was Graham�s thought, not because of his host�s vast ranch and the success and achievement of it, but because of the possession of a wonder-woman who could look unabashed and appreciative into his eyes as the Little Lady had looked.
Graham was meditating, with skepticism, Ernestine�s information that Paula Forrest was thirty-eight, when she turned to the colts and pointed her riding whip at a black yearling nibbling at the spring green.
�Look at that level rump, Dick,� she said, �and those trotting feet and pasterns.� And, to Graham: �Rather different from Nymph�s long wrists, aren�t they? But they�re just what I was after.� She laughed a little, with just a shade of annoyance. �The dam was a bright sorrel�­ almost like a fresh-minted twenty-dollar piece�­and I did so want a pair out of her, of the same color, for my own trap. Well, I can�t say that I exactly got them, although I bred her to a splendid, sorrel trotting horse. And this is my reward, this black�­and, wait till we get to the brood mares and you�ll see the other, a full brother and mahogany brown. I�m so disappointed.�
She singled out a pair of dark bays, feeding together: �Those are two of Guy Dillon�s get�­brother, you know, to Lou Dillon. They�re out of different mares, not quite the same bay, but aren�t they splendidly matched? And they both have Guy Dillon�s coat.�
She moved her subdued steed on, skirting the flank of the herd quietly in order not to alarm it; but a number of colts took flight.
�Look at them!� she cried. �Five, there, are hackneys. Look at the lift of their fore-legs as they run.�
�I�ll be terribly disappointed if you don�t get a prize-winning four-in-hand out of them,� Dick praised, and brought again the flash of grateful eyes that hurt Graham as he noted it.
�Two are out of heavier mares�­see that one in the middle and the one on the far left�­and there�s the other three to pick from for the leaders. Same sire, five different dams, and a matched and balanced four, out of five choices, all in the same season, is a stroke of luck, isn�t it?�
She turned quickly to Mr. Hennessy: �I can begin to see the ones that will have to sell for polo ponies�­among the two-year-olds. You can pick them.�
�If Mr. Mendenhall doesn�t sell that strawberry roan for a clean fifteen hundred, it�ll be because polo has gone out of fashion,� the veterinary approved, with waxing enthusiasm. �I�ve had my eye on them. That pale sorrel, there. You remember his set-back. Give him an extra year and he�ll�­look at his coupling!�­watch him turn!�­a cow-skin?�­ he�ll turn on a silver dollar! Give him a year to make up, and he�ll stand a show for the international. Listen to me. I�ve had my faith in him from the beginning. Cut out that Burlingame crowd. When he�s ripe, ship him straight East.�
Paula nodded and listened to Mr. Hennessy�s judgment, her eyes kindling with his in the warmth of the sight of the abounding young life for which she was responsible.
�It always hurts, though,� she confessed to Graham, �selling such beauties to have them knocked out on the field so quickly.�
Her sheer absorption in the animals robbed her speech of any hint of affectation or show�­so much so, that Dick was impelled to praise her judgment to Evan.
�I can dig through a whole library of horse practice, and muddle and mull over the Mendelian Law until I�m dizzy, like the clod that I am; but she is the genius. She doesn�t have to study law. She just knows it in some witch-like, intuitional way. All she has to do is size up a bunch of mares with her eyes, and feel them over a little with her hands, and hunt around till she finds the right sires, and get pretty nearly what she wants in the result�­except color, eh, Paul?� he teased.
She showed her laughing teeth in the laugh at her expense, in which Mr. Hennessy joined, and Dick continued: �Look at that filly there. We all knew Paula was wrong. But look at it! She bred a rickety old thoroughbred, that we wanted to put out of her old age, to a standard stallion; got a filly; bred it back with a thoroughbred; bred its filly foal with the same standard again; knocked all our prognostications into a cocked hat, and�­well, look at it, a world-beater polo pony. There is one thing we have to take off our hats to her for: she doesn�t let any woman sentimentality interfere with her culling. Oh, she�s cold-blooded enough. She�s as remorseless as any man when it comes to throwing out the undesirables and selecting for what she wants. But she hasn�t mastered color yet. There�s where her genius falls down, eh, Paul? You�ll have to put up with Duddy and Fuddy for a while longer for your trap. By the way, how is Duddy?�
�He�s come around,� she answered, �thanks to Mr. Hennessy.�
�Nothing serious,� the veterinarian added. �He was just off his feed a trifle. It was more a scare of the stableman than anything else.�

Chapter XIII

From the colt pasture to the swimming tank Graham talked with his hostess and rode as nearly beside her as The Fop�s wickedness permitted, while Dick and Hennessy, on ahead, were deep in ranch business.
�Insomnia has been a handicap all my life,� she said, while she tickled The Fop with a spur in order to check a threatened belligerence. �But I early learned to keep the irritation of it off my nerves and the weight of it off my mind. In fact, I early came to make a function of it and actually to derive enjoyment from it. It was the only way to master a thing I knew would persist as long as I persisted. Have you�­of course you have�­learned to win through an undertow?�
�Yes, by never fighting it,� Graham answered, his eyes on the spray of color in her cheeks and the tiny beads of sweat that arose from her continuous struggle with the high-strung creature she rode. Thirty-eight! He wondered if Ernestine had lied. Paula Forrest did not look twenty-eight. Her skin was the skin of a girl, with all the delicate, fine-pored and thin transparency of the skin of a girl.
�Exactly,� she went on. �By not fighting the undertow. By yielding to its down-drag and out-drag, and working with it to reach air again. Dick taught me that trick. So with my insomnia. If it is excitement from immediate events that holds me back from the City of Sleep, I yield to it and come quicker to unconsciousness from out the entangling currents. I invite my soul to live over again, from the same and different angles, the things that keep me from unconsciousness.
�Take the swimming of Mountain Lad yesterday. I lived it over last night as I had lived it in reality. Then I lived it as a spectator�­as the girls saw it, as you saw it, as the cowboy saw it, and, most of all, as my husband saw it. Then I made up a picture of it, many pictures of it, from all angles, and painted them, and framed them, and hung them, and then, a spectator, looked at them as if for the first time. And I made myself many kinds of spectators, from crabbed old maids and lean pantaloons to girls in boarding school and Greek boys of thousands of years ago.
�After that I put it to music. I played it on the piano, and guessed the playing of it on full orchestras and blaring bands. I chanted it, I sang it-epic, lyric, comic; and, after a weary long while, of course I slept in the midst of it, and knew not that I slept until I awoke at twelve to-day. The last time I had heard the clock strike was six. Six unbroken hours is a capital prize for me in the sleep lottery.�
As she finished, Mr. Hennessy rode away on a cross path, and Dick Forrest dropped back to squire his wife on the other side.
�Will you sport a bet, Evan?� he queried.
�I�d like to hear the terms of it first,� was the answer.
�Cigars against cigars that you can�t catch Paula in the tank inside ten minutes�­no, inside five, for I remember you�re some swimmer.�
�Oh, give him a chance, Dick,� Paula cried generously. �Ten minutes will worry him.�
�But you don�t know him,� Dicked argued. �And you don�t value my cigars. I tell you he is a swimmer. He�s drowned kanakas, and you know what that means.�
�Perhaps I should reconsider. Maybe he�ll slash a killing crawl-stroke at me before I�ve really started. Tell me his history and prizes.�
�I�ll just tell you one thing. They still talk of it in the Marquesas. It was the big hurricane of 1892. He did forty miles in forty-five hours, and only he and one other landed on the land. And they were all kanakas. He was the only white man; yet he out-endured and drowned the last kanaka of them�­�
�I thought you said there was one other?� Paula interrupted.
�She was a woman,� Dick answered. �He drowned the last kanaka.�
�And the woman was then a white woman?� Paula insisted.
Graham looked quickly at her, and although she had asked the question of her husband, her head turned to the turn of his head, so that he found her eyes meeting his straightly and squarely in interrogation. Graham held her gaze with equal straightness as he answered: �She was a kanaka.�
�A queen, if you please,� Dick took up. �A queen out of the ancient chief stock. She was Queen of Huahoa.�
�Was it the chief stock that enabled her to out-endure the native men?� Paula asked. �Or did you help her?�
�I rather think we helped each other toward the end,� Graham replied. �We were both out of our heads for short spells and long spells. Sometimes it was one, sometimes the other, that was all in. We made the land at sunset�­that is, a wall of iron coast, with the surf bursting sky-high. She took hold of me and clawed me in the water to get some sense in me. You see, I wanted to go in, which would have meant finish.
�She got me to understand that she knew where she was; that the current set westerly along shore and in two hours would drift us abreast of a spot where we could land. I swear I either slept or was unconscious most of those two hours; and I swear she was in one state or the other when I chanced to come to and noted the absence of the roar of the surf. Then it was my turn to claw and maul her back to consciousness. It was three hours more before we made the sand. We slept where we crawled out of the water. Next morning�s sun burnt us awake, and we crept into the shade of some wild bananas, found fresh water, and went to sleep again. Next I awoke it was night. I took another drink, and slept through till morning. She was still asleep when the bunch of kanakas, hunting wild goats from the next valley, found us.�
�I�ll wager, for a man who drowned a whole kanaka crew, it was you who did the helping,� Dick commented.
�She must have been forever grateful,� Paula challenged, her eyes directly on Graham�s. �Don�t tell me she wasn�t young, wasn�t beautiful, wasn�t a golden brown young goddess.�
�Her mother was the Queen of Huahoa,� Graham answered. �Her father was a Greek scholar and an English gentleman. They were dead at the time of the swim, and Nomare was queen herself. She was young. She was beautiful as any woman anywhere in the world may be beautiful. Thanks to her father�s skin, she as not golden brown. She was tawny golden. But you�ve heard the story undoubtedly�­�
He broke off with a look of question to Dick, who shook his head.
Calls and cries and splashings of water from beyond a screen of trees warned them that they were near the tank.
�You�ll have to tell me the rest of the story some time,� Paula said.
�Dick knows it. I can�t see why he hasn�t told you.�
She shrugged her shoulders.
�Perhaps because he�s never had the time or the provocation.�
�God wot, it�s had wide circulation,� Graham laughed. �For know that I was once morganatic�­or whatever you call it�­king of the cannibal isles, or of a paradise of a Polynesian isle at any rate.�­�By a purple wave on an opal beach in the hush of the Mahim woods,�� he hummed carelessly, in conclusion, and swung off from his horse.
��The white moth to the closing vine, the bee to the opening clover,�� she hummed another line of the song, while The Fop nearly got his teeth into her leg and she straightened him out with the spur, and waited for Dick to help her off and tie him.
�Cigars!�­I�m in on that!�­you can�t catch her!� Bert Wainwright called from the top of the high dive forty feet above. �Wait a minute! I�m coming!�
And come he did, in a swan dive that was almost professional and that brought handclapping approval from the girls.
�A sweet dive, balanced beautifully,� Graham told him as he emerged from the tank.
Bert tried to appear unconscious of the praise, failed, and, to pass it off, plunged into the wager.
�I don�t know what kind of a swimmer you are, Graham,� he said, �but I just want in with Dick on the cigars.�
�Me, too; me, too!� chorused Ernestine, and Lute, and Rita.
�Boxes of candy, gloves, or any truck you care to risk,� Ernestine added.
�But I don�t know Mrs. Forrest�s records, either,� Graham protested, after having taken on the bets. �However, if in five minutes�­�
�Ten minutes,� Paula said, �and to start from opposite ends of the tank. Is that fair? Any touch is a catch.� Graham looked his hostess over with secret approval. She was clad, not in the single white silk slip she evidently wore only for girl parties, but in a coquettish imitation of the prevailing fashion mode, a suit of changeable light blue and green silk�­almost the color of the pool; the skirt slightly above the knees whose roundedness he recognized; with long stockings to match, and tiny bathing shoes bound on with crossed ribbons. On her head was a jaunty swimming cap no jauntier than herself when she urged the ten minutes in place of five.
Rita Wainwright held the watch, while Graham walked down to the other end of the hundred-and-fifty-foot tank.
�Paula, you�ll be caught if you take any chances,� Dick warned. �Evan Graham is a real fish man.�
�I guess Paula�ll show him a few, even without the pipe,� Bert bragged loyally. �And I�ll bet she can out-dive him.�
�There you lose,� Dick answered. �I saw the rock he dived from at Huahoa. That was after his time, and after the death of Queen Nomare. He was only a youngster�­twenty-two; he had to be to do it. It was off the peak of the Pau-wi Rock�­one hundred and twenty-eight feet by triangulation. And he couldn�t do it legitimately or technically with a swan-dive, because he had to clear two lower ledges while he was in the air. The upper ledge of the two, by their own traditions, was the highest the best of the kanakas had ever dared since their traditions began. Well, he did it. He became tradition. As long as the kanakas of Huahoa survive he will remain tradition�­Get ready, Rita. Start on the full minute.�
�It�s almost a shame to play tricks on so reputable a swimmer,� Paula confided to them, as she faced her guest down the length of the tank and while both waited the signal.
�He may get you before you can turn the trick,� Dick warned again. And then, to Bert, with just a shade of anxiety: �Is it working all right? Because if it isn�t, Paula will have a bad five seconds getting out of it.�
�All O.K.,� Bert assured. �I went in myself. The pipe is working. There�s plenty of air.�
�Ready!� Rita called. �Go!�
Graham ran toward their end like a foot-racer, while Paula darted up the high dive. By the time she had gained the top platform, his hands and feet were on the lower rungs. When he was half-way up she threatened a dive, compelling him to cease from climbing and to get out on the twenty-foot platform ready to follow her to the water. Whereupon she laughed down at him and did not dive. �Time is passing�­ the precious seconds are ticking off,� Ernestine chanted.
When he started to climb, Paula again chased him to the half-way platform with a threat to dive. But not many seconds did Graham waste. His next start was determined, and Paula, poised for her dive, could not send him scuttling back. He raced upward to gain the thirty-foot platform before she should dive, and she was too wise to linger. Out into space she launched, head back, arms bent, hands close to chest, legs straight and close together, her body balanced horizontally on the air as it fell outward and downward.
�Oh you Annette Kellerman!� Bert Wamwright�s admiring cry floated up.
Graham ceased pursuit to watch the completion of the dive, and saw his hostess, a few feet above the water, bend her head forward, straighten out her arms and lock the hands to form the arch before her head, and, so shifting the balance of her body, change it from the horizontal to the perfect, water-cleaving angle.
The moment she entered the water, he swung out on the thirty-foot platform and waited. From this height he could make out her body beneath the surface swimming a full stroke straight for the far end of the tank. Not till then did he dive. He was confident that he could outspeed her, and his dive, far and flat, entered him in the water twenty feet beyond her entrance.
But at the instant he was in, Dick dipped two flat rocks into the water and struck them together. This was the signal for Paula to change her course. Graham heard the concussion and wondered. He broke surface in the full swing of the crawl and went down the tank to the far end at a killing pace. He pulled himself out and watched the surface of the tank. A burst of handclapping from the girls drew his eyes to the Little Lady drawing herself out of the tank at the other end.
Again he ran down the side of the tank, and again she climbed the scaffold. But this time his wind and endurance enabled him to cut down her lead, so that she was driven to the twenty-foot platform. She took no time for posturing or swanning, but tilted immediately off in a stiff dive, angling toward the west side of the tank. Almost they were in the air at the same time. In the water and under it, he could feel against his face and arms the agitation left by her progress; but she led into the deep shadow thrown by the low afternoon sun, where the water was so dark he could see nothing.
When he touched the side of the tank he came up. She was not in sight. He drew himself out, panting, and stood ready to dive in at the first sign of her. But there were no signs.
�Seven minutes!� Rita called. �And a half! ... Eight!... And a half!�
And no Paula Forrest broke surface. Graham refused to be alarmed because he could see no alarm on the faces of the others.
�I lose,� he announced at Rita�s �Nine minutes!�
�She�s been under over two minutes, and you�re all too blessed calm about it to get me excited,� he said. �I�ve still a minute�­maybe I don�t lose,� he added quickly, as he stepped off feet first into the tank.
As he went down he turned over and explored the cement wall of tank with his hands. Midway, possibly ten feet under the surface he estimated, his hands encountered an opening in the wall. He felt about, learned it Was unscreened, and boldly entered. Almost before he was in, he found he could come up; but he came up slowly, breaking surface in pitchy blackness and feeling about him without splashing.
His fingers touched a cool smooth arm that shrank convulsively at contact while the possessor of it cried sharply with the startle of fright. He held on tightly and began to laugh, and Paula laughed with him. A line from �The First Chanty� flashed into his consciousness�­ �Hearing her laugh in the gloom greatly I loved her.�
�You did frighten me when you touched me,� she said. �You came without a sound, and I was a thousand miles away, dreaming...�
�What?� Graham asked.
�Well, honestly, I had just got an idea for a gown�­a dusty, musty, mulberry-wine velvet, with long, close lines, and heavy, tarnished gold borders and cords and things. And the only jewelery a ring�­one enormous pigeon-blood ruby that Dick gave me years ago when we sailed the All Away.�
�Is there anything you don�t do?� he laughed.
She joined with him, and their mirth sounded strangely hollow in the pent and echoing dark.
�Who told you?� she next asked.
�No one. After you had been under two minutes I knew it had to be something like this, and I came exploring.�
�It was Dick�s idea. He had it built into the tank afterward. You will find him full of whimsies. He delighted in scaring old ladies into fits by stepping off into the tank with their sons or grandsons and hiding away in here. But after one or two nearly died of shock�­old ladies, I mean�­he put me up, as to-day, to fooling hardier persons like yourself.�­Oh, he had another accident. There was a Miss Coghlan, friend of Ernestine, a little seminary girl. They artfully stood her right beside the pipe that leads out, and Dick went off the high dive and swam in here to the inside end of the pipe. After several minutes, by the time she was in collapse over his drowning, he spoke up the pipe to her in most horrible, sepulchral tones. And right there Miss Coghlan fainted dead away.�
�She must have been a weak sister,� Graham commented; while he struggled with a wanton desire for a match so that he could strike it and see how Paula Forrest looked paddling there beside him to keep afloat.
�She had a fair measure of excuse,� Paula answered. �She was a young thing�­eighteen; and she had a sort of school-girl infatuation for Dick. They all get it. You see, he�s such a boy when he�s playing that they can�t realize that he�s a hard-bitten, hard-working, deep-thinking, mature, elderly benedict. The embarrassing thing was that the little girl, when she was first revived and before she could gather her wits, exposed all her secret heart. Dick�s face was a study while she babbled her�­�
�Well?�­going to stay there all night?� Bert Wainwright�s voice came down the pipe, sounding megaphonically close.
�Heavens!� Graham sighed with relief; for he had startled and clutched Paula�s arm. �That�s the time I got my fright. The little maiden is avenged. Also, at last, I know what a lead-pipe cinch is.�
�And it�s time we started for the outer world,� she suggested. �It�s not the coziest gossiping place in the world. Shall I go first?�
�By all means�­and I�ll be right behind; although it�s a pity the water isn�t phosphorescent. Then I could follow your incandescent heel like that chap Byron wrote about�­don�t you remember?�
He heard her appreciative gurgle in the dark, and then her: �Well, I�m going now.�
Unable to see the slightest glimmer, nevertheless, from the few sounds she made he knew she had turned over and gone down head first, and he was not beyond visioning with inner sight the graceful way in which she had done it�­an anything but graceful feat as the average swimming woman accomplishes it.
�Somebody gave it away to you,� was Bert�s prompt accusal, when Graham rose to the surface of the tank and climbed out.
�And you were the scoundrel who rapped stone under water,� Graham challenged. �If I�d lost I�d have protested the bet. It was a crooked game, a conspiracy, and competent counsel, I am confident, would declare it a felony. It�s a case for the district attorney.�
�But you won,� Ernestine cried.
�I certainly did, and, therefore, I shall not prosecute you, nor any one of your crooked gang�­if the bets are paid promptly. Let me see�­ you owe me a box of cigars�­�
�One cigar, sir!�
�A box! A box!� �Cross tag!� Paula cried. �Let�s play cross-tag!�­ You�re it!�
Suiting action to word, she tagged Graham on the shoulder and plunged into the tank. Before he could follow, Bert seized him, whirled him in a circle, was himself tagged, and tagged Dick before he could escape. And while Dick pursued his wife through the tank and Bert and Graham sought a chance to cross, the girls fled up the scaffold and stood in an enticing row on the fifteen-foot diving platform.

Chapter XIV.

An indifferent swimmer, Donald Ware had avoided the afternoon sport in the tank; but after dinner, somewhat to the irritation of Graham, the violinist monopolized Paula at the piano. New guests, with the casual expectedness of the Big House, had drifted in�­a lawyer, by name Adolph Well, who had come to confer with Dick over some big water-right suit; Jeremy Braxton, straight from Mexico, Dick�s general superintendent of the Harvest Group, which bonanza, according to Jeremy Braxton, was as �unpetering� as ever; Edwin O�Hay, a red-headed Irish musical and dramatic critic; and Chauncey Bishop, editor and owner of the San Francisco Dispatch, and a member of Dick�s class and frat, as Graham gleaned.
Dick had started a boisterous gambling game which he called �Horrible Fives,� wherein, although excitement ran high and players plunged, the limit was ten cents, and, on a lucky coup, the transient banker might win or lose as high as ninety cents, such coup requiring at least ten minutes to play out. This game went on at a big table at the far end of the room, accompanied by much owing and borrowing of small sums and an incessant clamor for change.
With nine players, the game was crowded, and Graham, rather than draw cards, casually and occasionally backed Ernestine�s cards, the while he glanced down the long room at the violinist and Paula Forrest absorbed in Beethoven Symphonies and Delibes� Ballets. Jeremy Braxton was demanding raising the limit to twenty cents, and Dick, the heaviest loser, as he averred, to the tune of four dollars and sixty cents, was plaintively suggesting the starting of a �kitty� in order that some one should pay for the lights and the sweeping out of the place in the morning, when Graham, with a profound sigh at the loss of his last bet�­a nickel which he had had to pay double�­announced to Ernestine that he was going to take a turn around the room to change his luck.
�I prophesied you would,� she told him under her breath.
�What?� he asked.
She glanced significantly in Paula�s direction.
�Just for that I simply must go down there now,� he retorted.
�Can�t dast decline a dare,� she taunted.
�If it were a dare I wouldn�t dare do it.�
�In which case I dare you,� she took up.
He shook his head: �I had already made up my mind to go right down there to that one spot and cut that fiddler out of the running. You can�t dare me out of it at this late stage. Besides, there�s Mr. O�Hay waiting for you to make your bet.�
Ernestine rashly laid ten cents, and scarcely knew whether she won or lost, so intent was she on watching Graham go down the room, although she did know that Bert Wainwright had not been unobservant of her gaze and its direction. On the other hand, neither she nor Bert, nor any other at the table, knew that Dick�s quick-glancing eyes, sparkling with merriment while his lips chaffed absurdities that made them all laugh, had missed no portion of the side play.
Ernestine, but little taller than Paula, although hinting of a plus roundness to come, was a sun-healthy, clear blonde, her skin sprayed with the almost transparent flush of maidenhood at eighteen. To the eye, it seemed almost that one could see through the pink daintiness of fingers, hand, wrist, and forearm, neck and cheek. And to this delicious transparency of rose and pink, was added a warmth of tone that did not escape Dick�s eyes as he glimpsed her watch Evan Graham move down the length of room. Dick knew and classified her wild imagined dream or guess, though the terms of it were beyond his divination.
What she saw was what she imagined was the princely walk of Graham, the high, light, blooded carriage of his head, the delightful carelessness of the gold-burnt, sun-sanded hair that made her fingers ache to be into with caresses she for the first time knew were possible of her fingers.
Nor did Paula, during an interval of discussion with the violinist in which she did not desist from stating her criticism of O�Hay�s latest criticism of Harold Bauer, fail to see and keep her eyes on Graham�s progress. She, too, noted with pleasure his grace of movement, the high, light poise of head, the careless hair, the clear bronze of the smooth cheeks, the splendid forehead, the long gray eyes with the hint of drooping lids and boyish sullenness that fled before the smile with which he greeted her.
She had observed that smile often since her first meeting with him. It was an irresistible smile, a smile that lighted the eyes with the radiance of good fellowship and that crinkled the corners into tiny, genial lines. It was provocative of smiles, for she found herself smiling a silent greeting in return as she continued stating to Ware her grievance against O�Hay�s too-complacent praise of Bauer.
But her engagement was tacitly with Donald Ware at the piano, and with no more than passing speech, she was off and away in a series of Hungarian dances that made Graham marvel anew as he loafed and smoked in a window-seat.
He marveled at the proteanness of her, at visions of those nimble fingers guiding and checking The Fop, swimming and paddling in submarine crypts, and, falling in swan-like flight through forty feet of air, locking just above the water to make the diver�s head-protecting arch of arm.
In decency, he lingered but few minutes, returned to the gamblers, and put the entire table in a roar with a well-acted Yiddisher�s chagrin and passion at losing entire nickels every few minutes to the fortunate and chesty mine superintendent from Mexico.
Later, when the game of Horrible Fives broke up, Bert and Lute Desten spoiled the Adagio from Beethoven�s Sonata Pathetique by exaggeratedly ragging to it in what Dick immediately named �The Loving Slow-Drag,� till Paula broke down in a gale of laughter and ceased from playing.
New groupings occurred. A bridge table formed with Weil, Rita, Bishop, and Dick. Donald Ware was driven from his monopoly of Paula by the young people under the leadership of Jeremy Braxton; while Graham and O�Hay paired off in a window-seat and O�Hay talked shop.
After a time, in which all at the piano had sung Hawaiian hulas, Paula sang alone to her own accompaniment. She sang several German love-songs in succession, although it was merely for the group about her and not for the room; and Evan Graham, almost to his delight, decided that at last he had found a weakness in her. She might be a magnificent pianist, horsewoman, diver, and swimmer, but it was patent, despite her singing throat, that she was not a magnificent singer. This conclusion he was quickly compelled to modify. A singer she was, a consummate singer. Weakness was only comparative after all. She lacked the magnificent voice. It was a sweet voice, a rich voice, with the same warm-fibered thrill of her laugh; but the volume so essential to the great voice was not there. Ear and voice seemed effortlessly true, and in her singing were feeling, artistry, training, intelligence. But volume�­it was scarcely a fair average, was his judgment.
But quality�­there he halted. It was a woman�s voice. It was haunted with richness of sex. In it resided all the temperament in the world�­ with all the restraint of discipline, was the next step of his analysis. He had to admire the way she refused to exceed the limitations of her voice. In this she achieved triumphs.
And, while he nodded absently to O�Hay�s lecturette on the state of the�­opera, Graham fell to wondering if Paula Forrest, thus so completely the mistress of her temperament, might not be equally mistress of her temperament in the deeper, passional ways. There was a challenge there�­based on curiosity, he conceded, but only partly so based; and, over and beyond, and, deeper and far beneath, a challenge to a man made in the immemorial image of man.
It was a challenge that bade him pause, and even look up and down the great room and to the tree-trunked roof far above, and to the flying gallery hung with the spoils of the world, and to Dick Forrest, master of all this material achievement and husband of the woman, playing bridge, just as he worked, with all his heart, his laughter ringing loud as he caught Rita in renig. For Graham had the courage not to shun the ultimate connotations. Behind the challenge in his speculations lurked the woman. Paula Forrest was splendidly, deliciously woman, all woman, unusually woman. From the blow between the eyes of his first striking sight of her, swimming the great stallion in the pool, she had continued to witch-ride his man�s imagination. He was anything but unused to women; and his general attitude was that of being tired of the mediocre sameness of them. To chance upon the unusual woman was like finding the great pearl in a lagoon fished out by a generation of divers.
�Glad to see you�re still alive,� Paula laughed to him, a little later.
She was prepared to depart with Lute for bed. A second bridge quartet had been arranged�­Ernestine, Bert, Jeremy Braxton, and Graham; while O�Hay and Bishop were already deep in a bout of two-handed pinochle.
�He�s really a charming Irishman when he keeps off his one string,� Paula went on.
�Which, I think I am fair, is music,� Graham said.
�And on music he is insufferable,� Lute observed. �It�s the only thing he doesn�t know the least thing about. He drives one frantic.�
�Never mind,� Paula soothed, in gurgling tones. �You will all be avenged. Dick just whispered to me to get the philosophers up to-morrow night. You know how they talk music. A musical critic is their awful prey.�
�Terrence said the other night that there was no closed season on musical critics,� Lute contributed.
�Terrence and Aaron will drive him to drink,� Paula laughed her joy of anticipation. �And Dar Hyal, alone, with his blastic theory of art, can specially apply it to music to the confutation of all the first words and the last. He doesn�t believe a thing he says about blastism, any more than was he serious when he danced the other evening. It�s his bit of fun. He�s such a deep philosopher that he has to get his fun somehow.�
�And if O�Hay ever locks horns with Terrence,� Lute prophesied, �I can see Terrence tucking arm in arm with him, leading him down to the stag room, and heating the argument with the absentest-minded variety of drinks that ever O�Hay accomplished.�
�Which means a very sick O�Hay next day,� Paula continued her gurgles of anticipation.
�I�ll tell him to do it!� exclaimed Lute.
�You mustn�t think we�re all bad,� Paula protested to Graham. �It�s just the spirit of the house. Dick likes it. He�s always playing jokes himself. He relaxes that way. I�ll wager, right now, it was Dick�s suggestion, to Lute, and for Lute to carry out, for Terrence to get O�Hay into the stag room. Now, �fess up, Lute.�
�Well, I will say,� Lute answered with meticulous circumspection, �that the idea was not entirely original with me.�
At this point, Ernestine joined them and appropriated Graham with:
�We�re all waiting for you. We�ve cut, and you and I are partners. Besides, Paula�s making her sleep noise. So say good night, and let her go.�
Paula had left for bed at ten o�clock. Not till one did the bridge break up. Dick, his arm about Ernestine in brotherly fashion, said good night to Graham where one of the divided ways led to the watch tower, and continued on with his pretty sister-in-law toward her quarters.
�Just a tip, Ernestine,� he said at parting, his gray eyes frankly and genially on hers, but his voice sufficiently serious to warn her.
�What have I been doing now?� she pouted laughingly.
�Nothing... as yet. But don�t get started, or you�ll be laying up a sore heart for yourself. You�re only a kid yet�­eighteen; and a darned nice, likable kid at that. Enough to make �most any man sit up and take notice. But Evan Graham is not �most any man�­�
�Oh, I can take care of myself,� she blurted out in a fling of quick resentment.
�But listen to me just the same. There comes a time in the affairs of a girl when the love-bee gets a buzzing with a very loud hum in her pretty noddle. Then is the time she mustn�t make a mistake and start in loving the wrong man. You haven�t fallen in love with Evan Graham yet, and all you have to do is just not to fall in love with him. He�s not for you, nor for any young thing. He�s an oldster, an ancient, and possibly has forgotten more about love, romantic love, and young things, than you�ll ever learn in a dozen lives. If he ever marries again�­�
�Again!� Ernestine broke in.
�Why, he�s been a widower, my dear, for over fifteen years.�
�Then what of it?� she demanded defiantly.
�Just this,� Dick continued quietly. �He�s lived the young-thing romance, and lived it wonderfully; and, from the fact that in fifteen years he has not married again, means�­�
�That he�s never recovered from his loss?� Ernestine interpolated. �But that�s no proof�­�
��­Means that he�s got over his apprenticeship to wild young romance,� Dick held on steadily. �All you have to do is look at him and realize that he has not lacked opportunities, and that, on occasion, some very fine women, real wise women, mature women, have given him foot-races that tested his wind and endurance. But so far they�ve not succeeded in catching him. And as for young things, you know how filled the world is with them for a man like him. Think it over, and just keep your heart-thoughts away from him. If you don�t let your heart start to warm toward him, it will save your heart from a grievous chill later on.�
He took one of her hands in his, and drew her against him, an arm soothingly about her shoulder. For several minutes of silence Dick idly speculated on what her thoughts might be.
�You know, we hard-bitten old fellows�­� he began half-apologetically, half-humorously.
But she made a restless movement of distaste, and cried out:
�Are the only ones worth while! The young men are all youngsters, and that�s what�s the matter with them. They�re full of life, and coltish spirits, and dance, and song. But they�re not serious. They�re not big. They�re not�­oh, they don�t give a girl that sense of all-wiseness, of proven strength, of, of... well, of manhood.�
�I understand,� Dick murmured. �But please do not forget to glance at the other side of the shield. You glowing young creatures of women must affect the old fellows in precisely similar ways. They may look on you as toys, playthings, delightful things to whom to teach a few fine foolishnesses, but not as comrades, not as equals, not as sharers�­full sharers. Life is something to be learned. They have learned it... some of it. But young things like you, Ernestine, have you learned any of it yet?�
�Tell me,� she asked abruptly, almost tragically, �about this wild young romance, about this young thing when he was young, fifteen years ago.�
�Fifteen?� Dick replied promptly. �Eighteen. They were married three years before she died. In fact�­figure it out for yourself�­they were actually married, by a Church of England dominie, and living in wedlock, about the same moment that you were squalling your first post-birth squalls in this world.�
�Yes, yes�­go on,� she urged nervously. �What was she like?�
�She was a resplendent, golden-brown, or tan-golden half-caste, a Polynesian queen whose mother had been a queen before her, whose father was an Oxford man, an English gentleman, and a real scholar. Her name was Nomare. She was Queen of Huahoa. She was barbaric. He was young enough to out-barbaric her. There was nothing sordid in their marriage. He was no penniless adventurer. She brought him her island kingdom and forty thousand subjects. He brought to that island his fortune�­and it was no inconsiderable fortune. He built a palace that no South Sea island ever possessed before or will ever possess again. It was the real thing, grass-thatched, hand-hewn beams that were lashed with cocoanut sennit, and all the rest. It was rooted in the island; it sprouted out of the island; it belonged, although he fetched Hopkins out from New York to plan it.
�Heavens! they had their own royal yacht, their mountain house, their canoe house�­the last a veritable palace in itself. I know. I have been at great feasts in it�­though it was after their time. Nomare was dead, and no one knew where Graham was, and a king of collateral line was the ruler.
�I told you he out-barbaricked her. Their dinner service was gold.�­ Oh, what�s the use in telling any more. He was only a boy. She was half-English, half-Polynesian, and a really and truly queen. They were flowers of their races. They were a pair of wonderful children. They lived a fairy tale. And... well, Ernestine, the years have passed, and Evan Graham has passed from the realm of the young thing. It will be a remarkable woman that will ever infatuate him now. Besides, he�s practically broke. Though he didn�t wastrel his money. As much misfortune, and more, than anything else.�
�Paula would be more his kind,� Ernestine said meditatively.
�Yes, indeed,� Dick agreed. �Paula, or any woman as remarkable as Paula, would attract him a thousand times more than all the sweet, young, lovely things like you in the world. We oldsters have our standards, you know.�
�And I�ll have to put up with the youngsters,� Ernestine sighed.
�In the meantime, yes,� he chuckled. �Remembering, always, that you, too, in time, may grow into the remarkable, mature woman, who can outfoot a man like Evan in a foot-race of love for possession.�
�But I shall be married long before that,� she pouted.
�Which will be your good fortune, my dear. And, now, good night. And you are not angry with me?�
She smiled pathetically and shook her head, put up her lips to be kissed, then said as they parted:
�I promise not to be angry if you will only show me the way that in the end will lead me to ancient graybeards like you and Graham.�
Dick Forrest, turning off lights as he went, penetrated the library, and, while selecting half a dozen reference volumes on mechanics and physics, smiled as if pleased with himself at recollection of the interview with his sister-in-law. He was confident that he had spoken in time and not a moment too soon. But, half way up the book-concealed spiral staircase that led to his work room, a remark of Ernestine, echoing in his consciousness, made him stop from very suddenness to lean his shoulder against the wall.�­"Paula would be more his kind."
�Silly ass!� he laughed aloud, continuing on his way. �And married a dozen years!�
Nor did he think again about it, until, in bed, on his sleeping porch, he took a glance at his barometers and thermometers, and prepared to settle down to the solution of the electrical speculation that had been puzzling him. Then it was, as he peered across the great court to his wife�s dark wing and dark sleeping porch to see if she were still waking, that Ernestine�s remark again echoed. He dismissed it with a �Silly ass!� of scorn, lighted a cigarette, and began running, with trained eye, the indexes of the books and marking the pages sought with matches.

Chapter XV

It was long after ten in the morning, when Graham, straying about restlessly and wondering if Paula Forrest ever appeared before the middle of the day, wandered into the music room. Despite the fact that he was a several days� guest in the Big House, so big was it that the music room was new territory. It was an exquisite room, possibly thirty-five by sixty and rising to a lofty trussed ceiling where a warm golden light was diffused from a skylight of yellow glass. Red tones entered largely into the walls and furnishing, and the place, to him, seemed to hold the hush of music.
Graham was lazily contemplating a Keith with its inevitable triumph of sun-gloried atmosphere and twilight-shadowed sheep, when, from the tail of his eye, he saw his hostess come in from the far entrance. Again, the sight of her, that was a picture, gave him the little catch-breath of gasp. She was clad entirely in white, and looked very young and quite tall in the sweeping folds of a holoku of elaborate simplicity and apparent shapelessness. He knew the holoku in the home of its origin, where, on the lanais of Hawaii, it gave charm to a plain woman and double-folded the charm of a charming woman.
While they smiled greeting across the room, he was noting the set of her body, the poise of head and frankness of eyes�­all of which seemed articulate with a friendly, comradely, �Hello, friends.� At least such was the form Graham�s fancy took as she came toward him.
�You made a mistake with this room,� he said gravely.
�No, don�t say that! But how?�
�It should have been longer, much longer, twice as long at least.�
�Why?� she demanded, with a disapproving shake of head, while he delighted in the girlish color in her cheeks that gave the lie to her thirty-eight years.
�Because, then,� he answered, �you should have had to walk twice as far this morning and my pleasure of watching you would have been correspondingly increased. I�ve always insisted that the holoku is the most charming garment ever invented for women.�
�Then it was my holoku and not I,� she retorted. �I see you are like Dick�­always with a string on your compliments, and lo, when we poor sillies start to nibble, back goes the compliment dragging at the end of the string.
�Now I want to show you the room,� she hurried on, closing his disclaimer. �Dick gave me a free hand with it. It�s all mine, you see, even to its proportions.�
�And the pictures?�
�I selected them,� she nodded, �every one of them, and loved them onto the walls myself. Although Dick did quarrel with me over that Vereschagin. He agreed on the two Millets and the Corot over there, and on that Isabey; and even conceded that some Vereschagins might do in a music room, but not that particular Vereschagin. He�s jealous for our local artists, you see. He wanted more of them, wanted to show his appreciation of home talent.�
�I don�t know your Pacific Coast men�s work very well,� Graham said. �Tell me about them. Show me that�­Of course, that�s a Keith, there; but whose is that next one? It�s beautiful.�
�A McComas�­� she was answering; and Graham, with a pleasant satisfaction, was settling himself to a half-hour�s talk on pictures, when Donald Ware entered with questing eyes that lighted up at sight of the Little Lady.
His violin was under his arm, and he crossed to the piano in a brisk, business-like way and proceeded to lay out music.
�We�re going to work till lunch,� Paula explained to Graham. �He swears I�m getting abominably rusty, and I think he�s half right. We�ll see you at lunch. You can stay if you care, of course; but I warn you it�s really going to be work. And we�re going swimming this afternoon. Four o�clock at the tank, Dick says. Also, he says he�s got a new song he�s going to sing then.�­What time is it, Mr. Ware?�
�Ten minutes to eleven,� the musician answered briefly, with a touch of sharpness.
�You�re ahead of time�­the engagement was for eleven. And till eleven you�ll have to wait, sir. I must run and see Dick, first. I haven�t said good morning to him yet.�
Well Paula knew her husband�s hours. Scribbled secretly in the back of the note-book that lay always on the reading stand by her couch were hieroglyphic notes that reminded her that he had coffee at six-thirty; might possibly be caught in bed with proof-sheets or books till eight-forty-five, if not out riding; was inaccessible between nine and ten, dictating correspondence to Blake; was inaccessible between ten and eleven, conferring with managers and foremen, while Bonbright, the assistant secretary, took down, like any court reporter, every word uttered by all parties in the rapid-fire interviews.
At eleven, unless there were unexpected telegrams or business, she could usually count on finding Dick alone for a space, although invariably busy. Passing the secretaries� room, the click of a typewriter informed her that one obstacle was removed. In the library, the sight of Mr. Bonbright hunting a book for Mr. Manson, the Shorthorn manager, told her that Dick�s hour with his head men was over.
She pressed the button that swung aside a section of filled book-shelves and revealed the tiny spiral of steel steps that led up to Dick�s work room. At the top, a similar pivoting section of shelves swung obediently to her press of button and let her noiselessly into his room. A shade of vexation passed across her face as she recognized Jeremy Braxton�s voice. She paused in indecision, neither seeing nor being seen.
�If we flood we flood,� the mine superintendent was saying. �It will cost a mint�­yes, half a dozen mints�­to pump out again. And it�s a damned shame to drown the old Harvest that way.�
�But for this last year the books show that we�ve worked at a positive loss,� Paula heard Dick take up. �Every petty bandit from Huerta down to the last peon who�s stolen a horse has gouged us. It�s getting too stiff�­taxes extraordinary�­bandits, revolutionists, and federals. We could survive it, if only the end were in sight; but we have no guarantee that this disorder may not last a dozen or twenty years.�
�Just the same, the old Harvest�­think of flooding her!� the superintendent protested.
�And think of Villa,� Dick replied, with a sharp laugh the bitterness of which did not escape Paula. �If he wins he says he�s going to divide all the land among the peons. The next logical step will be the mines. How much do you think we�ve coughed up to the constitutionalists in the past twelvemonth?�
�Over a hundred and twenty thousand,� Braxton answered promptly. �Not counting that fifty thousand cold bullion to Torenas before he retreated. He jumped his army at Guaymas and headed for Europe with it�­I wrote you all that.�
�If we keep the workings afloat, Jeremy, they�ll go on gouging, gouge without end, Amen. I think we�d better flood. If we can make wealth more efficiently than those rapscallions, let us show them that we can destroy wealth with the same facility.�
�That�s what I tell them. And they smile and repeat that such and such a free will offering, under exigent circumstances, would be very acceptable to the revolutionary chiefs�­meaning themselves. The big chiefs never finger one peso in ten of it. Good Lord! I show them what we�ve done. Steady work for five thousand peons. Wages raised from ten centavos a day to a hundred and ten. I show them peons�­ten-centavo men when we took them, and five-peso men when I showed them. And the same old smile and the same old itching palm, and the same old acceptability of a free will offering from us to the sacred cause of the revolution. By God! Old Diaz was a robber, but he was a decent robber. I said to Arranzo: �If we shut down, here�s five thousand Mexicans out of a job�­what�ll you do with them?� And Arranzo smiled and answered me pat. �Do with them?� he said. �Why, put guns in their hands and march �em down to take Mexico City.��
In imagination Paula could see Dick�s disgusted shrug of shoulders as she heard him say:
�The curse of it is�­that the stuff is there, and that we�re the only fellows that can get it out. The Mexicans can�t do it. They haven�t the brains. All they�ve got is the guns, and they�re making us shell out more than we make. There�s only one thing for us, Jeremy. We�ll forget profits for a year or so, lay off the men, and just keep the engineer force on and the pumping going.�
�I threw that into Arranzo,� Jeremy Braxton�s voice boomed. �And what was his comeback? That if we laid off the peons, he�d see to it that the engineers laid off, too, and the mine could flood and be damned to us.�­No, he didn�t say that last. He just smiled, but the smile meant the same thing. For two cents I�d a-wrung his yellow neck, except that there�d have been another patriot in his boots and in my office next day proposing a stiffer gouge.
So Arranzo got his �bit,� and, on top of it, before he went across to join the main bunch around Juarez, he let his men run off three hundred of our mules�­thirty thousand dollars� worth of mule-flesh right there, after I�d sweetened him, too. The yellow skunk!�
�Who is revolutionary chief in our diggings right now?� Paula heard her husband ask with one of his abrupt shifts that she knew of old time tokened his drawing together the many threads of a situation and proceeding to action.
�Raoul Bena.�
�What�s his rank?�
�Colonel�­he�s got about seventy ragamuffins.�
�What did he do before he quit work?�
�Sheep-herder.�
�Very well.� Dick�s utterance was quick and sharp. �You�ve got to play-act. Become a patriot. Hike back as fast as God will let you. Sweeten this Raoul Bena. He�ll see through your play, or he�s no Mexican. Sweeten him and tell him you�ll make him a general��­a second Villa.�
�Lord, Lord, yes, but how?� Jeremy Braxton demanded.
�By putting him at the head of an army of five thousand. Lay off the men. Make him make them volunteer. We�re safe, because Huerta is doomed. Tell him you�re a real patriot. Give each man a rifle. We�ll stand that for a last gouge, and it will prove you a patriot. Promise every man his job back when the war is over. Let them and Raoul Bena depart with your blessing. Keep on the pumping force only. And if we cut out profits for a year or so, at the same time we are cutting down losses. And perhaps we won�t have to flood old Harvest after all.�
Paula smiled to herself at Dick�s solution as she stole back down the spiral on her way to the music room. She was depressed, but not by the Harvest Group situation. Ever since her marriage there had always been trouble in the working of the Mexican mines Dick had inherited. Her depression was due to her having missed her morning greeting to him. But this depression vanished at meeting Graham, who had lingered with Ware at the piano and who, at her coming, was evidencing signs of departure.
�Don�t run away,� she urged. �Stay and witness a spectacle of industry that should nerve you up to starting on that book Dick has been telling me about.�

Chapter XVI

On Dick�s face, at lunch, there was no sign of trouble over the Harvest Group; nor could anybody have guessed that Jeremy Braxton�s visit had boded anything less gratifying than a report of unfailing earnings. Although Adolph Weil had gone on the early morning train, which advertised that the business which had brought him had been transacted with Dick at some unheard of hour, Graham discovered a greater company than ever at the table. Besides a Mrs. Tully, who seemed a stout and elderly society matron, and whom Graham could not make out, there were three new men, of whose identity he gleaned a little: a Mr. Gulhuss, State Veterinary; a Mr. Deacon, a portrait painter of evident note on the Coast; and a Captain Lester, then captain of a Pacific Mail liner, who had sailed skipper for Dick nearly twenty years before and who had helped Dick to his navigation.
The meal was at its close, and the superintendent was glancing at his watch, when Dick said:
�Jeremy, I want to show you what I�ve been up to. We�ll go right now. You�ll have time on your way to the train.�
�Let us all go,� Paula suggested, �and make a party of it. I�m dying to see it myself, Dick�s been so obscure about it.�
Sanctioned by Dick�s nod, she was ordering machines and saddle horses the next moment.
�What is it?� Graham queried, when she had finished.
�Oh, one of Dick�s stunts. He�s always after something new. This is an invention. He swears it will revolutionize farming�­that is, small farming. I have the general idea of it, but I haven�t seen it set up yet. It was ready a week ago, but there was some delay about a cable or something concerning an adjustment.�
�There�s billions in it... if it works,� Dick smiled over the table. �Billions for the farmers of the world, and perhaps a trifle of royalty for me... if it works.�
�But what is it?� O�Hay asked. �Music in the dairy barns to make the cows give down their milk more placidly?�
�Every farmer his own plowman while sitting on his front porch,� Dick baffled back. �In fact, the labor-eliminating intermediate stage between soil production and sheer laboratory production of food. But wait till you see it. Gulhuss, this is where I kill my own business, if it works, for it will do away with the one horse of every ten-acre farmer between here and Jericho.�
In ranch machines and on saddle animals, the company was taken a mile beyond the dairy center, where a level field was fenced squarely off and contained, as Dick announced, just precisely ten acres.
�Behold,� he said, �the one-man and no-horse farm where the farmer sits on the porch. Please imagine the porch.�
In the center of the field was a stout steel pole, at least twenty feet in height and guyed very low.
From a drum on top of the pole a thin wire cable ran to the extreme edge of the field and was attached to the steering lever of a small gasoline tractor. About the tractor two mechanics fluttered. At command from Dick they cranked the motor and started it on its way.
�This is the porch,� Dick said. �Just imagine we�re all that future farmer sitting in the shade and reading the morning paper while the manless, horseless plowing goes on.�
Alone, unguided, the drum on the head of the pole in the center winding up the cable, the tractor, at the circumference permitted by the cable, turned a single furrow as it described a circle, or, rather, an inward trending spiral about the field.
�No horse, no driver, no plowman, nothing but the farmer to crank the tractor and start it on its way,� Dick exulted, as the uncanny mechanism turned up the brown soil and continued unguided, ever spiraling toward the field�s center. �Plow, harrow, roll, seed, fertilize, cultivate, harvest�­all from the front porch. And where the farmer can buy juice from a power company, all he, or his wife, will have to do is press the button, and he to his newspaper, and she to her pie-crust.�
�All you need, now, to make it absolutely perfect,� Graham praised, �is to square the circle.�
�Yes,� Mr. Gulhuss agreed. �As it is, a circle in a square field loses some acreage.�
Graham�s face advertised a mental arithmetic trance for a minute, when he announced: �Loses, roughly, three acres out of every ten.�
�Sure,� Dick concurred. �But the farmer has to have his front porch somewhere on his ten acres. And the front porch represents the house, the barn, the chicken yard and the various outbuildings. Very well. Let him get tradition out of his mind, and, instead of building these things in the center of his ten acres, let him build them on the three acres of fringe. And let him plant his fruit and shade trees and berry bushes on the fringe. When you come to consider it, the traditionary method of erecting the buildings in the center of a rectangular ten acres compels him to plow around the center in broken rectangles.�
Gulhuss nodded enthusiastically. �Sure. And there�s always the roadway from the center out to the county road or right of way. That breaks the efficiency of his plowing. Break ten acres into the consequent smaller rectangles, and it�s expensive cultivation.�
�Wish navigation was as automatic,� was Captain Lester�s contribution.
�Or portrait painting,� laughed Rita Wainwright with a significant glance at Mr. Deacon.
�Or musical criticism,� Lute remarked, with no glance at all, but with a pointedness of present company that brought from O�Hay:
�Or just being a charming young woman.�
�What price for the outfit?� Jeremy Braxton asked.
�Right now, we could manufacture and lay down, at a proper profit, for five hundred. If the thing came into general use, with up to date, large-scale factory methods, three hundred. But say five hundred. And write off fifteen per cent, for interest and constant, it would cost the farmer seventy dollars a year. What ten-acre farmer, on two-hundred-dollar land, who keeps books, can keep a horse for seventy dollars a year? And on top of that, it would save him, in labor, personal or hired, at the abjectest minimum, two hundred dollars a year.�
�But what guides it?� Rita asked.
�The drum on the post. The drum is graduated for the complete radius�­ which took some tall figuring, I assure you�­and the cable, winding around the drum and shortening, draws the tractor in toward the center.�
�There are lots of objections to its general introduction, even among small farmers,� Gulhuss said.
Dick nodded affirmation.
�Sure,� he replied. �I have over forty noted down and classified. And I�ve as many more for the machine itself. If the thing is a success, it will take a long time to perfect it and introduce it.�
Graham found himself divided between watching the circling tractor and casting glances at the picture Paula Forrest was on her mount. It was her first day on The Fawn, which was the Palomina mare Hennessy had trained for her. Graham smiled with secret approval of her femininity; for Paula, whether she had designed her habit for the mare, or had selected one most peculiarly appropriate, had achieved a triumph.
In place of a riding coat, for the afternoon was warm, she wore a tan linen blouse with white turnback collar. A short skirt, made like the lower part of a riding coat, reached the knees, and from knees to entrancing little bespurred champagne boots tight riding trousers showed. Skirt and trousers were of fawn-colored silk corduroy. Soft white gauntlets on her hands matched with the collar in the one emphasis of color. Her head was bare, the hair done tight and low around her ears and nape of neck.
�I don�t see how you can keep such a skin and expose yourself to the sun this way,� Graham ventured, in mild criticism.
�I don�t,� she smiled with a dazzle of white teeth. �That is, I don�t expose my face this way more than a few times a year. I�d like to, because I love the sun-gold burn in my hair; but I don�t dare a thorough tanning.�
The mare frisked, and a breeze of air blew back a flap of skirt, showing an articulate knee where the trouser leg narrowed tightly over it. Again Graham visioned the white round of knee pressed into the round muscles of the swimming Mountain Lad, as he noted the firm knee-grip on her pigskin English saddle, quite new and fawn-colored to match costume and horse.
When the magneto on the tractor went wrong, and the mechanics busied themselves with it in the midst of the partly plowed field, the company, under Paula�s guidance, leaving Dick behind with his invention, resolved itself into a pilgrimage among the brood-centers on the way to the swimming tank. Mr. Crellin, the hog-manager, showed them Lady Isleton, who, with her prodigious, fat, recent progeny of eleven, won various na�ve encomiums, while Mr. Crellin warmly proclaimed at least four times, �And not a runt, not a runt, in the bunch.�
Other glorious brood-sows, of Berkshire, Duroc-Jersey, and O. I. C. blood, they saw till they were wearied, and new-born kids and lambs, and rotund does and ewes. From center to center, Paula kept the telephones warning ahead of the party�s coming, so that Mr. Manson waited to exhibit the great King Polo, and his broad-backed Shorthorn harem, and the Shorthorn harems of bulls that were only little less than King Polo in magnificence and record; and Parkman, the Jersey manager, was on hand, with staffed assistants, to parade Sensational Drake, Golden Jolly, Fontaine Royal, Oxford Master, and Karnak�s Fairy Boy�­blue ribbon bulls, all, and founders and scions of noble houses of butter-fat renown, and Rosaire Queen, Standby�s Dam, Golden Jolly�s Lass, Olga�s Pride, and Gertie of Maitlands�­equally blue-ribboned and blue-blooded Jersey matrons in the royal realm of butter-fat; and Mr. Mendenhall, who had charge of the Shires, proudly exhibited a string of mighty stallions, led by the mighty Mountain Lad, and a longer string of matrons, headed by the Fotherington Princess of the silver whinny. Even old Alden Bessie, the Princess�s dam, retired to but part-day�s work, he sent for that they might render due honor to so notable a dam.
As four o�clock approached, Donald Ware, not keen on swimming, returned in one of the machines to the Big House, and Mr. Gulhuss remained to discuss Shires with Mr. Mendenhall. Dick was at the tank when the party arrived, and the girls were immediately insistent for the new song.
�It isn�t exactly a new song,� Dick explained, his gray eyes twinkling roguery, �and it�s not my song. It was sung in Japan before I was born, and, I doubt not, before Columbus discovered America. Also, it is a duet�­a competitive duet with forfeit penalties attached. Paula will have to sing it with me.�­I�ll teach you. Sit down there, that�s right.�­Now all the rest of you gather around and sit down.�
Still in her riding habit, Paula sat down on the concrete, facing her husband, in the center of the sitting audience. Under his direction, timing her movements to his, she slapped her hands on her knees, slapped her palms together, and slapped her palms against his palms much in the fashion of the nursery game of �Bean Porridge Hot.� Then he sang the song, which was short and which she quickly picked up, singing it with him and clapping the accent. While the air of it was orientally catchy, it was chanted slowly, almost monotonously, but it was quickly provocative of excitement to the spectators:
�Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,
Jong-Jong, Keena-Keena,
Yo-ko-ham-a, Nag-a-sak-i,
Kobe-mar-o�­hoy!!!�
The last syllable, hoy, was uttered suddenly, explosively, and an octave and more higher than the pitch of the melody. At the same moment that it was uttered, Paula�s and Dick�s hands were abruptly shot toward each other�s, either clenched or open. The point of the game was that Paula�s hands, open or closed, at the instant of uttering hoy, should match Dick�s. Thus, the first time, she did match him, both his and her hands being closed, whereupon he took off his hat and tossed it into Lute�s lap.
�My forfeit,� he explained. �Come on, Paul, again.� And again they sang and clapped:
�Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,
Jong-Jong, Keena-Keena,
Yo-ko-ham-a, Nag-a-sak-i,
Kobe-mar-o�­hoy!!!�
This time, with the hoy, her hands were closed and his were open.
�Forfeit!�­forfeit!� the girls cried.
She looked her costume over with alarm, asking, �What can I give?�
�A hair pin,� Dick advised; and one of her turtleshell hair pins joined his hat in Lute�s lap.
�Bother it!� she exclaimed, when the last of her hair pins had gone the same way, she having failed seven times to Dick�s once. �I can�t see why I should be so slow and stupid. Besides, Dick, you�re too clever. I never could out-guess you or out-anticipate you.�
Again they sang the song. She lost, and, to Mrs. Tully�s shocked �Paula!� she forfeited a spur and threatened a boot when the remaining spur should be gone. A winning streak of three compelled Dick to give up his wrist watch and both spurs. Then she lost her wrist watch and the remaining spur.
�Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,� they began again, while Mrs. Tully remonstrated, �Now, Paula, you simply must stop this.�­Dick, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.�
But Dick, emitting a triumphant �Hoy!� won, and joined in the laughter as Paula took off one of her little champagne boots and added it to the heap in Lute�s lap.
�It�s all right, Aunt Martha,� Paula assured Mrs. Tully. �Mr. Ware�s not here, and he�s the only one who would be shocked.�­Come on, Dick. You can�t win every time.�
�Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,� she chanted on with her husband. The repetition, at first slow, had accelerated steadily, so that now they fairly rippled through with it, while their slapping, striking palms made a continuous patter. The exercise and excitement had added to the sun�s action on her skin, so that her laughing face was all a rosy glow.
Evan Graham, a silent spectator, was aware of hurt and indignity. He knew the �Jong-Keena� of old time from the geishas of the tea houses of Nippon, and, despite the unconventionality that ruled the Forrests and the Big House, he experienced shock in that Paula should take part in such a game. It did not enter his head at the moment that he would have been merely curious to see how far the madness would go had the player been Lute, or Ernestine, or Rita. Not till afterward did he realize that his concern and sense of outrage were due to the fact that the player was Paula, and that, therefore, she was bulking bigger in his imagination than he was conscious of. What he was conscious of at the moment was that he was growing angry and that he had deliberately to check himself from protesting.
By this time Dick�s cigarette case and matches and Paula�s second boot, belt, skirt-pin, and wedding ring had joined the mound of forfeits. Mrs. Tully, her face set in stoic resignation, was silent.
�Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,� Paula laughed and sang on, and Graham heard Ernestine laugh to Bert, �I don�t see what she can spare next.�
�Well, you know her,� he heard Bert answer. �She�s game once she gets started, and it certainly looks like she�s started.�
�Hoy!� Paula and Dick cried simultaneously, as they thrust out their hands.
But Dick�s were closed, and hers were open. Graham watched her vainly quest her person for the consequent forfeit.
�Come on, Lady Godiva,� Dick commanded. �You hae sung, you hae danced; now pay the piper.�
�Was the man a fool?� was Graham�s thought. �And a man with a wife like that.�
�Well,� Paula sighed, her fingers playing with the fastenings of her blouse, �if I must, I must.�
Raging inwardly, Graham averted his gaze, and kept it averted. There was a pause, in which he knew everybody must be hanging on what she would do next. Then came a giggle from Ernestine, a burst of laughter from all, and, �A frame-up!� from Bert, that overcame Graham�s resoluteness. He looked quickly. The Little Lady�s blouse was off, and, from the waist up, she appeared in her swimming suit. It was evident that she had dressed over it for the ride.
�Come on, Lute�­you next,� Dick was challenging.
But Lute, not similarly prepared for Jong-Keena, blushingly led the retreat of the girls to the dressing rooms.
Graham watched Paula poise at the forty-foot top of the diving scaffold and swan-dive beautifully into the tank; heard Bert�s admiring �Oh, you Annette Kellerman!� and, still chagrined by the trick that had threatened to outrage him, fell to wondering about the wonder woman, the Little Lady of the Big House, and how she had happened so wonderfully to be. As he fetched down the length of tank, under water, moving with leisurely strokes and with open eyes watching the shoaling bottom, it came to him that he did not know anything about her. She was Dick Forrest�s wife. That was all he knew. How she had been born, how she had lived, how and where her past had been�­of all this he knew nothing.
Ernestine had told him that Lute and she were half sisters of Paula. That was one bit of data, at any rate. (Warned by the increasing brightness of the bottom that he had nearly reached the end of the tank, and recognizing Dick�s and Bert�s legs intertwined in what must be a wrestling bout, Graham turned about, still under water, and swam back a score or so of feet.) There was that Mrs. Tully whom Paula had addressed as Aunt Martha. Was she truly an aunt? Or was she a courtesy Aunt through sisterhood with the mother of Lute and Ernestine?
He broke surface, was hailed by the others to join in bull-in-the-ring; in which strenuous sport, for the next half hour, he was compelled more than once to marvel at the litheness and agility, as well as strategy, of Paula in her successful efforts at escaping through the ring. Concluding the game through weariness, breathing hard, the entire party raced the length of the tank and crawled out to rest in the sunshine in a circle about Mrs. Tully.
Soon there was more fun afoot, and Paula was contending impossible things with Mrs. Tully.
�Now, Aunt Martha, just because you never learned to swim is no reason for you to take such a position. I am a real swimmer, and I tell you I can dive right into the tank here, and stay under for ten minutes.�
�Nonsense, child,� Mrs. Tully beamed. �Your father, when he was young, a great deal younger than you, my dear, could stay under water longer than any other man; and his record, as I know, was three minutes and forty seconds, as I very well know, for I held the watch myself and kept the time when he won against Harry Selby on a wager.�
�Oh, I know my father was some man in his time,� Paula swaggered; �but times have changed. If I had the old dear here right now, in all his youthful excellence, I�d drown him if he tried to stay under water with me. Ten minutes? Of course I can do ten minutes. And I will. You hold the watch, Aunt Martha, and time me. Why, it�s as easy as�­�
�Shooting fish in a bucket,� Dick completed for her.
Paula climbed to the platform above the springboard.
�Time me when I�m in the air,� she said.
�Make your turn and a half,� Dick called.
She nodded, smiled, and simulated a prodigious effort at filling her lungs to their utmost capacity. Graham watched enchanted. A diver himself, he had rarely seen the turn and a half attempted by women other than professionals. Her wet suit of light blue and green silk clung closely to her, showing the lines of her justly proportioned body. With what appeared to be an agonized gulp for the last cubic inch of air her lungs could contain, she sprang up, out, and down, her body vertical and stiff, her legs straight, her feet close together as they impacted on the springboard end. Flung into the air by the board, she doubled her body into a ball, made a complete revolution, then straightened out in perfect diver�s form, and in a perfect dive, with scarcely a ripple, entered the water.
�A Toledo blade would have made more splash,� was Graham�s verdict.
�If only I could dive like that,� Ernestine breathed her admiration. �But I never shall. Dick says diving is a matter of timing, and that�s why Paula does it so terribly well. She�s got the sense of time�­�
�And of abandon,� Graham added.
�Of willed abandon,� Dick qualified.
�Of relaxation by effort,� Graham agreed. �I�ve never seen a professional do so perfect a turn and a half.�
�And I�m prouder of it than she is,� Dick proclaimed. �You see, I taught her, though I confess it was an easy task. She coordinates almost effortlessly. And that, along with her will and sense of time�­ why her first attempt was better than fair.�
�Paula is a remarkable woman,� Mrs. Tully said proudly, her eyes fluttering between the second hand of the watch and the unbroken surface of the pool. �Women never swim so well as men. But she does.�­ Three minutes and forty seconds! She�s beaten her father!�
�But she won�t stay under any five minutes, much less ten,� Dick solemnly stated. �She�ll burst her lungs first.�
At four minutes, Mrs. Tully began to show excitement and to look anxiously from face to face. Captain Lester, not in the secret, scrambled to his feet with an oath and dived into the tank.
�Something has happened,� Mrs. Tully said with controlled quietness. �She hurt herself on that dive. Go in after her, you men.�
But Graham and Bert and Dick, meeting under water, gleefully grinned and squeezed hands. Dick made signs for them to follow, and led the way through the dark-shadowed water into the crypt, where, treading water, they joined Paula in subdued whisperings and gigglings.
�Just came to make sure you were all right,� Dick explained. �And now we�ve got to beat it.�­You first, Bert. I�ll follow Evan.�
And, one by one, they went down through the dark water and came up on the surface of the pool. By this time Mrs. Tully was on her feet and standing by the edge of the tank.
�If I thought this was one of your tricks, Dick Forrest,� she began.
But Dick, paying no attention, acting preternaturally calmly, was directing the men loudly enough for her to hear.
�We�ve got to make this systematic, fellows. You, Bert, and you, Evan, join with me. We start at this end, five feet apart, and search the bottom across. Then move along and repeat it back.�
�Don�t exert yourselves, gentlemen,� Mrs. Tully called, beginning to laugh. �As for you, Dick, you come right out. I want to box your ears.�
�Take care of her, you girls,� Dick shouted. �She�s got hysterics.�
�I haven�t, but I will have,� she laughed.
�But damn it all, madam, this is no laughing matter!� Captain Lester spluttered breathlessly, as he prepared for another trip to explore the bottom.
�Are you on, Aunt Martha, really and truly on?� Dick asked, after the valiant mariner had gone down.
Mrs. Tully nodded. �But keep it up, Dick, you�ve got one dupe. Elsie Coghlan�s mother told me about it in Honolulu last year.�
Not until eleven minutes had elapsed did the smiling face of Paula break the surface. Simulating exhaustion, she slowly crawled out and sank down panting near her aunt. Captain Lester, really exhausted by his strenuous exertions at rescue, studied Paula keenly, then marched to the nearest pillar and meekly bumped his head three times against the concrete.
�I�m afraid I didn�t stay down ten minutes,� Paula said. �But I wasn�t much under that, was I, Aunt Martha?�
�You weren�t much under at all,� Mrs. Tully replied, �if it�s my opinion you were asking. I�m surprised that you are even wet.�­There, there, breathe naturally, child. The play-acting is unnecessary. I remember, when I was a young girl, traveling in India, there was a school of fakirs who leaped into deep wells and stayed down much longer than you, child, much longer indeed.�
�You knew!� Paula charged.
�But you didn�t know I did,� her Aunt retorted. �And therefore your conduct was criminal. When you consider a woman of my age, with my heart�­�
�And with your blessed, brass-tack head,� Paula cried.
�For two apples I�d box your ears.�
�And for one apple I�d hug you, wet as I am,� Paula laughed back. �Anyway, we did fool Captain Lester.�­Didn�t we, Captain?�
�Don�t speak to me,� that doughty mariner muttered darkly. �I�m busy with myself, meditating what form my vengeance shall take.�­As for you, Mr. Dick Forrest, I�m divided between blowing up your dairy, or hamstringing Mountain Lad. Maybe I�ll do both. In the meantime I am going out to kick that mare you ride.�
Dick on The Outlaw, and Paula on The Fawn, rode back side by side to the Big House.
�How do you like Graham?� he asked.
�Splendid,� was her reply. �He�s your type, Dick. He�s universal, like you, and he�s got the same world-marks branded on him�­the Seven Seas, the books, and all the rest. He�s an artist, too, and pretty well all-around. And he�s good fun. Have you noticed his smile? It�s irresistible. It makes one want to smile with him.�
�And he�s got his serious scars, as well,� Dick nodded concurrence.
�Yes�­right in the corners of the eyes, just after he has smiled, you�ll see them come. They�re not tired marks exactly, but rather the old eternal questions: Why? What for? What�s it worth? What�s it all about?�
And bringing up the rear of the cavalcade, Ernestine and Graham talked.
�Dick�s deep,� she was saying. �You don�t know him any too well. He�s dreadfully deep. I know him a little. Paula knows him a lot. But very few others ever get under the surface of him. He�s a real philosopher, and he has the control of a stoic or an Englishman, and he can play-act to fool the world.�
At the long hitching rails under the oaks, where the dismounting party gathered, Paula was in gales of laughter.
�Go on, go on,� she urged Dick, �more, more.�
�She�s been accusing me of exhausting my vocabulary in naming the house-boys by my system,� he explained.
�And he�s given me at least forty more names in a minute and a half.�­ Go on, Dick, more.�
�Then,� he said, striking a chant, �we can have Oh Sin and Oh Pshaw, Oh Sing and Oh Song, Oh Sung and Oh Sang, Oh Last and Oh Least, Oh Ping and Oh Pong, Oh Some, Oh More, and Oh Most, Oh Naught and Oh Nit...�
And Dick jingled away into the house still chanting his extemporized directory.

Chapter XVII

A week of dissatisfaction and restlessness ensued for Graham. Tom between belief that his business was to leave the Big House on the first train, and desire to see, and see more of Paula, to be with her, and to be more with her�­he succeeded in neither leaving nor in seeing as much of her as during the first days of his visit.
At first, and for the five days that he lingered, the young violinist monopolized nearly her entire time of visibility. Often Graham strayed into the music room, and, quite neglected by the pair, sat for moody half-hours listening to their �work.� They were oblivious of his presence, either flushed and absorbed with the passion of their music, or wiping their foreheads and chatting and laughing companionably in pauses to rest. That the young musician loved her with an ardency that was almost painful, was patent to Graham; but what hurt him was the abandon of devotion with which she sometimes looked at Ware after he had done something exceptionally fine. In vain Graham tried to tell himself that all this was mental on her part�­purely delighted appreciation of the other�s artistry. Nevertheless, being man, it hurt, and continued to hurt, until he could no longer suffer himself to remain.
Once, chancing into the room at the end of a Schumann song and just after Ware had departed, Graham found Paula still seated at the piano, an expression of rapt dreaming on her face. She regarded him almost unrecognizingly, gathered herself mechanically together, uttered an absent-minded commonplace or so, and left the room. Despite his vexation and hurt, Graham tried to think it mere artist-dreaming on her part, a listening to the echo of the just-played music in her soul. But women were curious creatures, he could not help moralizing, and were prone to lose their hearts most strangely and inconsequentially. Might it not be that by his very music this youngster of a man was charming the woman of her?
With the departure of Ware, Paula Forrest retired almost completely into her private wing behind the door without a knob. Nor did this seem unusual, Graham gleaned from the household.
�Paula is a woman who finds herself very good company,� Ernestine explained, �and she often goes in for periods of aloneness, when Dick is the only person who sees her.�
�Which is not flattering to the rest of the company,� Graham smiled.
�Which makes her such good company whenever she is in company,� Ernestine retorted.
The driftage through the Big House was decreasing. A few guests, on business or friendship, continued to come, but more departed. Under Oh Joy and his Chinese staff the Big House ran so frictionlessly and so perfectly, that entertainment of guests seemed little part of the host�s duties. The guests largely entertained themselves and one another.
Dick rarely appeared, even for a moment, until lunch, and Paula, now carrying out her seclusion program, never appeared before dinner.
�Rest cure,� Dick laughed one noon, and challenged Graham to a tournament with boxing gloves, single-sticks, and foils.
�And now�s the time,� he told Graham, as they breathed between bouts, �for you to tackle your book. I�m only one of the many who are looking forward to reading it, and I�m looking forward hard. Got a letter from Havely yesterday�­he mentioned it, and wondered how far along you were.�
So Graham, in his tower room, arranged his notes and photographs, schemed out the work, and plunged into the opening chapters. So immersed did he become that his nascent interest in Paula might have languished, had it not been for meeting her each evening at dinner. Then, too, until Ernestine and Lute left for Santa Barbara, there were afternoon swims and rides and motor trips to the pastures of the Miramar Hills and the upland ranges of the Anselmo Mountains. Other trips they made, sometimes accompanied by Dick, to his great dredgers working in the Sacramento basin, or his dam-building on the Little Coyote and Los Cuatos creeks, or to his five-thousand-acre colony of twenty-acre farmers, where he was trying to enable two hundred and fifty heads of families, along with their families, to make good on the soil.
That Paula sometimes went for long solitary rides, Graham knew, and, once, he caught her dismounting from the Fawn at the hitching rails.
�Don�t you think you are spoiling that mare for riding in company?� he twitted.
Paula laughed and shook her head.
�Well, then,� he asserted stoutly, �I�m spoiling for a ride with you.�
�There�s Lute, and Ernestine, and Bert, and all the rest.�
�This is new country,� he contended. �And one learns country through the people who know it. I�ve seen it through the eyes of Lute, and Ernestine and all the rest; but there is a lot I haven�t seen and which I can see only through your eyes.�
�A pleasant theory,� she evaded. �A�­a sort of landscape vampirism.�
�But without the ill effects of vampirism,� he urged quickly.
Her answer was slow in coming. Her look into his eyes was frank and straight, and he could guess her words were weighed and gauged.
�I don�t know about that,� was all she said finally; but his fancy leaped at the several words, ranging and conjecturing their possible connotations.
�But we have so much we might be saying to each other,� he tried again. �So much we... ought to be saying to each other.�
�So I apprehend,� she answered quietly; and again that frank, straight look accompanied her speech.
So she did apprehend�­the thought of it was flame to him, but his tongue was not quick enough to serve him to escape the cool, provoking laugh as she turned into the house.
Still the company of the Big House thinned. Paula�s aunt, Mrs. Tully, much to Graham�s disappointment (for he had expected to learn from her much that he wanted to know of Paula), had gone after only a several days� stay. There was vague talk of her return for a longer stay; but, just back from Europe, she declared herself burdened with a round of duty visits which must be performed before her pleasure visiting began.
O�Hay, the critic, had been compelled to linger several days in order to live down the disastrous culmination of the musical raid made upon him by the philosophers. The idea and the trick had been Dick�s. Combat had joined early in the evening, when a seeming chance remark of Ernestine had enabled Aaron Hancock to fling the first bomb into the thick of O�Hay�s deepest convictions. Dar Hyal, a willing and eager ally, had charged around the flank with his blastic theory of music and taken O�Hay in reverse. And the battle had raged until the hot-headed Irishman, beside himself with the grueling the pair of skilled logomachists were giving him, accepted with huge relief the kindly invitation of Terrence McFane to retire with him to the tranquillity and repose of the stag room, where, over a soothing highball and far from the barbarians, the two of them could have a heart to heart talk on real music. At two in the morning, wild-eyed and befuddled, O�Hay had been led to bed by the upright-walking and unshakably steady Terrence.
�Never mind,� Ernestine had told O�Hay later, with a twinkle in her eye that made him guess the plot. �It was only to be expected. Those rattle-brained philosophers would drive even a saint to drink.�
�I thought you were safe in Terrence�s hands,� had been Dick�s mock apology. �A pair of Irishmen, you know. I�d forgot Terrence was case-hardened. Do you know, after he said good night to you, he came up to me for a yarn. And he was steady as a rock. He mentioned casually of having had several sips, so I... I... never dreamed ... er... that he had indisposed you.�
When Lute and Ernestine departed for Santa Barbara, Bert Wainwright and his sister remembered their long-neglected home in Sacramento. A pair of painters, proteges of Paula, arrived the same day. But they were little in evidence, spending long days in the hills with a trap and driver and smoking long pipes in the stag room.
The free and easy life of the Big House went on in its frictionless way. Dick worked. Graham worked. Paula maintained her seclusion. The sages from the madrono grove strayed in for wordy dinners�­and wordy evenings, except when Paula played for them. Automobile parties, from Sacramento, Wickenberg, and other valley towns, continued to drop in unexpectedly, but never to the confusion of Oh Joy and the house boys, whom Graham saw, on occasion, with twenty minutes� warning, seat a score of unexpected guests to a perfect dinner. And there were even nights�­rare ones�­when only Dick and Graham and Paula sat at dinner, and when, afterward, the two men yarned for an hour before an early bed, while she played soft things to herself or disappeared earlier than they.
But one moonlight evening, when the Watsons and Masons and Wombolds arrived in force, Graham found himself out, when every bridge table was made up. Paula was at the piano. As he approached he caught the quick expression of pleasure in her eyes at sight of him, which as quickly vanished. She made a slight movement as if to rise, which did not escape his notice any more than did her quiet mastery of the impulse that left her seated.
She was immediately herself as he had always seen her�­although it was little enough he had seen of her, he thought, as he talked whatever came into his head, and rummaged among her songs with her. Now one and now another song he tried with her, subduing his high baritone to her light soprano with such success as to win cries of more from the bridge players.
�Yes, I am positively aching to be out again over the world with Dick,� she told him in a pause. �If we could only start to-morrow! But Dick can�t start yet. He�s in too deep with too many experiments and adventures on the ranch here. Why, what do you think he�s up to now? As if he did not have enough on his hands, he�s going to revolutionize the sales end, or, at least, the California and Pacific Coast portion of it, by making the buyers come to the ranch.�
�But they do do that,� Graham said. �The first man I met here was a buyer from Idaho.�
�Oh, but Dick means as an institution, you know�­to make them come en masse at a stated time. Not simple auction sales, either, though he says he will bait them with a bit of that to excite interest. It will be an annual fair, to last three days, in which he will be the only exhibitor. He�s spending half his mornings now in conference with Mr. Agar and Mr. Pitts. Mr. Agar is his sales manager, and Mr. Pitts his showman.�
She sighed and rippled her fingers along the keyboard.
�But, oh, if only we could get away�­Timbuctoo, Mokpo, or Jericho.�
�Don�t tell me you�ve ever been to Mokpo,� Graham laughed.
She nodded. �Cross my heart, solemnly, hope to die. It was with Dick in the All Away and in the long ago. It might almost be said we honeymooned in Mokpo.�
And while Graham exchanged reminiscences of Mokpo with her, he cudgeled his brain to try and decide whether her continual reference to her husband was deliberate.
�I should imagine you found it such a paradise here,� he was saying.
�I do, I do,� she assured him with what seemed unnecessary vehemence. �But I don�t know what�s come over me lately. I feel it imperative to be up and away. The spring fret, I suppose; the Red Gods and their medicine. And if only Dick didn�t insist on working his head off and getting tied down with projects! Do you know, in all the years of our marriage, the only really serious rival I have ever had has been this ranch. He�s pretty faithful, and the ranch is his first love. He had it all planned and started before he ever met me or knew I existed.�
�Here, let us try this together,� Graham said abruptly, placing the song on the rack before her.
�Oh, but it�s the �Gypsy Trail,�� she protested. �It will only make my mood worse.� And she hummed:
��Follow the Romany patteran
West to the sinking sun,
Till the junk sails lift through the homeless drift,
And the East and the West are one.�
�What is the Romany patteran?� she broke off to ask. �I�ve always thought of it as patter, or patois, the Gypsy patois, and somehow it strikes me as absurd to follow a language over the world�­a sort of philological excursion.�
�In a way the patteran is speech,� he answered. �But it always says one thing: �This way I have passed.� Two sprigs, crossed in certain ways and left upon the trail, compose the patteran. But they must always be of different trees or shrubs. Thus, on the ranch here, a patteran could be made of manzanita and madrono, of oak and spruce, of buckeye and alder, of redwood and laurel, of huckleberry and lilac. It is a sign of Gypsy comrade to Gypsy comrade, of Gypsy lover to Gypsy lover.� And he hummed:
��Back to the road again, again,
Out of a clear sea track;
Follow the cross of the Gypsy trail,
Over the world and back.��
She nodded comprehension, looked for a moment with troubled eyes down the long room to the card-players, caught herself in her momentary absentness, and said quickly:
�Heaven knows there�s a lot of Gypsy in some of us. I have more than full share. In spite of his bucolic proclivities, Dick is a born Gypsy. And from what he has told of you, you are hopelessly one.�
�After all, the white man is the real Gypsy, the king Gypsy,� Graham propounded. �He has wandered wider, wilder, and with less equipment, than any Gypsy. The Gypsy has followed in his trails, but never made trail for him.�­Come; let us try it.�
And as they sang the reckless words to their merry, careless lilt, he looked down at her and wondered�­wondered at her�­at himself. This was no place for him by this woman�s side, under her husband�s roof-tree. Yet here he was, and he should have gone days before. After the years he was just getting acquainted with himself. This was enchantment, madness. He should tear himself away at once. He had known enchantments and madnesses before, and had torn himself away. Had he softened with the years? he questioned himself. Or was this a profounder madness than he had experienced? This meant the violation of dear things�­things so dear, so jealously cherished and guarded in his secret life, that never yet had they suffered violation.
And still he did not tear himself away. He stood there beside her, looking down on her brown crown of hair glinting gold and bronze and bewitchingly curling into tendrils above her ears, singing a song that was fire to him�­that must be fire to her, she being what she was and feeling what she had already, in flashes, half-unwittingly, hinted to him.
She is a witch, and her voice is not the least of her witchery, he thought, as her voice, so richly a woman�s voice, so essentially her voice in contradistinction to all women�s voices in the world, sang and throbbed in his ear. And he knew, beyond shade of doubt, that she felt some touch of this madness that afflicted him; that she sensed, as he sensed, that the man and the woman were met.
They thrilled together as they sang, and the thought and the sure knowledge of it added fuel to his own madness till his voice warmed unconsciously to the daring of the last lines, as, voices and thrills blending, they sang:
��The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
The deer to the wholesome wold,
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid
As it was in the days of old�­
The heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
Light of my tents be fleet,
Morning waits at the end of the world,
And the world is all at our feet.��
He looked for her to look up as the last notes died away, but she remained quiet a moment, her eyes bent on the keys. And then the face that was turned to his was the face of the Little Lady of the Big House, the mouth smiling mischievously, the eyes filled with roguery, as she said:
�Let us go and devil Dick�­he�s losing. I�ve never seen him lose his temper at cards, but he gets ridiculously blue after a long siege of losing.
�And he does love gambling,� she continued, as she led the way to the tables. �It�s one of his modes of relaxing. It does him good. About once or twice a year, if it�s a good poker game, he�ll sit in all night to it and play to the blue sky if they take off the limit.�

Chapter XVIII

Almost immediately after the singing of the �Gypsy Trail,� Paula emerged from her seclusion, and Graham found himself hard put, in the tower room, to keep resolutely to his work when all the morning he could hear snatches of song and opera from her wing, or laughter and scolding of dogs from the great patio, or the continuous pulse for hours of the piano from the distant music room. But Graham, patterning after Dick, devoted his mornings to work, so that he rarely encountered Paula before lunch.
She made announcement that her spell of insomnia was over and that she was ripe for all gaieties and excursions Dick had to offer her. Further, she threatened, in case Dick grudged these personal diversions, to fill the house with guests and teach him what liveliness was. It was at this time that her Aunt Martha�­Mrs. Tully�­ returned for a several days� visit, and that Paula resumed the driving of Duddy and Fuddy in the high, one-seated Stude-baker trap. Duddy and Fuddy were spirited trotters, but Mrs. Tully, despite her elderliness and avoirdupois, was without timidity when Paula held the reins.
As Mrs. Tully told Graham: �And that is a concession I make to no woman save Paula. She is the only woman I can trust myself to with horses. She has the horse-way about her. When she was a child she was wild over horses. It�s a wonder she didn�t become a circus rider.�
More, much more, Graham learned about Paula in various chats with her aunt. Of Philip Desten, Paula�s father, Mrs. Tully could never say enough. Her eldest brother, and older by many years, he had been her childhood prince. His ways had been big ways, princely ways � ways that to commoner folk had betokened a streak of madness. He was continually guilty of the wildest things and the most chivalrous things. It was this streak that had enabled him to win various fortunes, and with equal facility to lose them, in the great gold adventure of Forty-nine. Himself of old New England stock, he had had for great grandfather a Frenchman � a trifle of flotsam from a mid-ocean wreck and landed to grow up among the farmer-sailormen of the coast of Maine.
�And once, and once only, in each generation, that French Desten crops out,� Mrs. Tully assured Graham. �Philip was that Frenchman in his generation, and who but Paula, and in full measure, received that same inheritance in her generation. Though Lute and Ernestine are her half-sisters, no one would imagine one drop of the common blood was shared. That�s why Paula, instead of going circus-riding, drifted inevitably to France. It was that old original Desten that drew her over.�
And of the adventure in France, Graham learned much. Philip Desten�s luck had been to die when the wheel of his fortune had turned over and down. Ernestine and Lute, little tots, had been easy enough for Desten�s sisters to manage. But Paula, who had fallen to Mrs. Tully, had been the problem�­"because of that Frenchman.�
�Oh, she is rigid New England,� Mrs. Tully insisted, �the solidest of creatures as to honor and rectitude, dependableness and faithfulness. As a girl she really couldn�t bring herself to lie, except to save others. In which case all her New England ancestry took flight and she would lie as magnificently as her father before her. And he had the same charm of manner, the same daring, the same ready laughter, the same vivacity. But what is lightsome and blithe in her, was debonaire in him. He won men�s hearts always, or, failing that, their bitterest enmity. No one was left cold by him in passing. Contact with him quickened them to love or hate. Therein Paula differs, being a woman, I suppose, and not enjoying man�s prerogative of tilting at windmills. I don�t know that she has an enemy in the world. All love her, unless, it may well be, there are cat-women who envy her her nice husband.�
And as Graham listened, Paula�s singing came through the open window from somewhere down the long arcades, and there was that ever-haunting thrill in her voice that he could not escape remembering afterward. She burst into laughter, and Mrs. Tully beamed to him and nodded at the sound.
�There laughs Philip Desten,� she murmured, �and all the Frenchwomen behind the original Frenchman who was brought into Penobscot, dressed in homespun, and sent to meeting. Have you noticed how Paula�s laugh invariably makes everybody look up and smile? Philip�s laugh did the same thing.�
�Paula had always been passionately fond of music, painting, drawing. As a little girl she could be traced around the house and grounds by the trail she left behind her of images and shapes, made in whatever medium she chanced upon�­drawn on scraps of paper, scratched on bits of wood, modeled in mud and sand.
�She loved everything, and everything loved her,� said Mrs. Tully. �She was never timid of animals. And yet she always stood in awe of them; but she was born sense-struck, and her awe was beauty-awe. Yes, she was an incorrigible hero-worshiper, whether the person was merely beautiful or did things. And she never will outgrow that beauty�­awe of anything she loves, whether it is a grand piano, a great painting, a beautiful mare, or a bit of landscape.
�And Paula had wanted to do, to make beauty herself. But she was sorely puzzled whether she should devote herself to music or painting. In the full swing of work under the best masters in Boston, she could not refrain from straying back to her drawing. From her easel she was lured to modeling.
�And so, with her love of the best, her soul and heart full of beauty, she grew quite puzzled and worried over herself, as to which talent was the greater and if she had genius at all. I suggested a complete rest from work and took her abroad for a year. And of all things, she developed a talent for dancing. But always she harked back to her music and painting. No, she was not flighty. Her trouble was that she was too talented�­�
�Too diversely talented,� Graham amplified.
�Yes, that is better,� Mrs. Tully nodded. �But from talent to genius is a far cry, and to save my life, at this late day, I don�t know whether the child ever had a trace of genius in her. She has certainly not done anything big in any of her chosen things.�
�Except to be herself,� Graham added.
�Which is the big thing,� Mrs. Tully accepted with a smile of enthusiasm. �She is a splendid, unusual woman, very unspoiled, very natural. And after all, what does doing things amount to? I�d give more for one of Paula�s madcap escapades�­oh, I heard all about swimming the big stallion�­than for all her pictures if every one was a masterpiece. But she was hard for me to understand at first. Dick often calls her the girl that never grew up. But gracious, she can put on the grand air when she needs to. I call her the most mature child I have ever seen. Dick was the finest thing that ever happened to her. It was then that she really seemed for the first time to find herself. It was this way.�
And Mrs. Tully went on to sketch the year of travel in Europe, the resumption of Paula�s painting in Paris, and the conviction she finally reached that success could be achieved only by struggle and that her aunt�s money was a handicap.
�And she had her way,� Mrs. Tully sighed. �She�­why, she dismissed me, sent me home. She would accept no more than the meagerest allowance, and went down into the Latin Quarter on her own, batching with two other American girls. And she met Dick. Dick was a rare one. You couldn�t guess what he was doing then. Running a cabaret�­oh, not these modern cabarets, but a real students� cabaret of sorts. It was very select. They were a lot of madmen. You see, he was just back from some of his wild adventuring at the ends of the earth, and, as he stated it, he wanted to stop living life for a while and to talk about life instead.
�Paula took me there once. Oh, they were engaged�­the day before, and he had called on me and all that. I had known �Lucky� Richard Forrest, and I knew all about his son. From a worldly standpoint, Paula couldn�t have made a finer marriage. It was quite a romance. Paula had seen him captain the University of California eleven to victory over Stanford. And the next time she saw him was in the studio she shared with the two girls. She didn�t know whether Dick was worth millions or whether he was running a cabaret because he was hard up, and she cared less. She always followed her heart. Fancy the situation: Dick the uncatchable, and Paula who never flirted. They must have sprung forthright into each other�s arms, for inside the week it was all arranged, and Dick made his call on me, as if my decision meant anything one way or the other.
�But Dick�s cabaret. It was the Cabaret of the Philosophers�­a small pokey place, down in a cellar, in the heart of the Quarter, and it had only one table. Fancy that for a cabaret! But such a table! A big round one, of plain boards, without even an oil-cloth, the wood stained with the countless drinks spilled by the table-pounding of the philosophers, and it could seat thirty. Women were not permitted. An exception was made for Paula and me.
�You�ve met Aaron Hancock here. He was one of the philosophers, and to this day he swaggers that he owed Dick a bigger bill that never was paid than any of his customers. And there they used to meet, all those wild young thinkers, and pound the table, and talk philosophy in all the tongues of Europe. Dick always had a penchant for philosophers.
�But Paula spoiled that little adventure. No sooner were they married than Dick fitted out his schooner, the All Away, and away the blessed pair of them went, honeymooning from Bordeaux to Hongkong.�
�And the cabaret was closed, and the philosophers left homeless and discussionless,� Graham remarked.
Mrs. Tully laughed heartily and shook her head.
�He endowed it for them,� she gasped, her hand to her side. �Or partially endowed it, or something. I don�t know what the arrangement was. And within the month it was raided by the police for an anarchist club.�
After having learned the wide scope of her interests and talents, Graham was nevertheless surprised one day at finding Paula all by herself in a corner of a window-seat, completely absorbed in her work on a piece of fine embroidery.
�I love it,� she explained. �All the costly needlework of the shops means nothing to me alongside of my own work on my own designs. Dick used to fret at my sewing. He�s all for efficiency, you know, elimination of waste energy and such things. He thought sewing was a wasting of time. Peasants could be hired for a song to do what I was doing. But I succeeded in making my viewpoint clear to him.
�It�s like the music one makes oneself. Of course I can buy better music than I make; but to sit down at an instrument and evoke the music oneself, with one�s own fingers and brain, is an entirely different and dearer satisfaction. Whether one tries to emulate another�s performance, or infuses the performance with one�s own personality and interpretation, it�s all the same. It is soul-joy and fulfilment.
�Take this little embroidered crust of lilies on the edge of this flounce�­there is nothing like it in the world. Mine the idea, all mine, and mine the delight of giving form and being to the idea. There are better ideas and better workmanship in the shops; but this is different. It is mine. I visioned it, and I made it. And who is to say that embroidery is not art?�
She ceased speaking and with her eyes laughed the insistence of her question.
�And who is to say,� Graham agreed, �that the adorning of beautiful womankind is not the worthiest of all the arts as well as the sweetest?�
�I rather stand in awe of a good milliner or modiste,� she nodded gravely. �They really are artists, and important ones, as Dick would phrase it, in the world�s economy.�
Another time, seeking the library for Andean reference, Graham came upon Paula, sprawled gracefully over a sheet of paper on a big table and flanked by ponderous architectural portfolios, engaged in drawing plans of a log bungalow or camp for the sages of the madro�o grove.
�It�s a problem,� she sighed. �Dick says that if I build it I must build it for seven. We�ve got four sages now, and his heart is set on seven. He says never mind showers and such things, because what philosopher ever bathes? And he has suggested seriously seven stoves and seven kitchens, because it is just over such mundane things that philosophers always quarrel.�
�Wasn�t it Voltaire who quarreled with a king over candle-ends?� Graham queried, pleasuring in the sight of her graceful abandon. Thirty-eight! It was impossible. She seemed almost a girl, petulant and flushed over some school task. Then he remembered Mrs. Tully�s remark that Paula was the most mature child she had ever known.
It made him wonder. Was she the one, who, under the oaks at the hitching rails, with two brief sentences had cut to the heart of an impending situation? �So I apprehend,� she had said. What had she apprehended? Had she used the phrase glibly, without meaning? Yet she it was who had thrilled and fluttered to him and with him when they had sung the �Gypsy Trail.� That he knew. But again, had he not seen her warm and glow to the playing of Donald Ware? But here Graham�s ego had its will of him, for he told himself that with Donald Ware it was different. And he smiled to himself and at himself at the thought.
�What amuses you?� Paula was asking.
�Heaven knows I am no architect. And I challenge you to house seven philosophers according to all the absurd stipulations laid down by Dick.�
Back in his tower room with his Andean books unopened before him, Graham gnawed his lip and meditated. The woman was no woman. She was the veriest child. Or�­and he hesitated at the thought�­was this naturalness that was overdone? Did she in truth apprehend? It must be. It had to be. She was of the world. She knew the world. She was very wise. No remembered look of her gray eyes but gave the impression of poise and power. That was it�­strength! He recalled her that first night when she had seemed at times to glint an impression of steel, of thin and jewel-like steel. In his fancy, at the time, he remembered likening her strength to ivory, to carven pearl shell, to sennit twisted of maidens� hair.
And he knew, now, ever since the brief words at the hitching rails and the singing of the �Gypsy Trail,� that whenever their eyes looked into each other�s it was with a mutual knowledge of unsaid things.
In vain he turned the pages of the books for the information he sought. He tried to continue his chapter without the information, but no words flowed from his pen. A maddening restlessness was upon him. He seized a time table and pondered the departure of trains, changed his mind, switched the room telephone to the house barn, and asked to have Altadena saddled.
It was a perfect morning of California early summer. No breath of wind stirred over the drowsing fields, from which arose the calls of quail and the notes of meadowlarks. The air was heavy with lilac fragrance, and from the distance, as he rode between the lilac hedges, Graham heard the throaty nicker of Mountain Lad and the silvery answering whinney of the Fotherington Princess.
Why was he here astride Dick Forrest�s horse? Graham asked himself. Why was he not even then on the way to the station to catch that first train he had noted on the time table? This unaccustomed weakness of decision and action was a new r�le for him, he considered bitterly. But�­and he was on fire with the thought of it�­this was his one life, and this was the one woman in the world.
He reined aside to let a herd of Angora goats go by. Each was a doe, and there were several hundred of them; and they were moved slowly by the Basque herdsmen, with frequent pauses, for each doe was accompanied by a young kid. In the paddock were many mares with new-born colts; and once, receiving warning in time, Graham raced into a crossroad to escape a drove of thirty yearling stallions being moved somewhere across the ranch. Their excitement was communicated to that entire portion of the ranch, so that the air was filled with shrill nickerings and squealings and answering whinneys, while Mountain Lad, beside himself at sight and sound of so many rivals, raged up and down his paddock, and again and again trumpeted his challenging conviction that he was the most amazing and mightiest thing that had ever occurred on earth in the way of horse flesh.
Dick Forrest pranced and sidled into the cross road on the Outlaw, his face beaming with delight at the little tempest among his many creatures.
�Fecundity! Fecundity!"�­he chanted in greeting, as he reined in to a halt, if halt it might be called, with his tan-golden sorrel mare a-fret and a-froth, wickedly reaching with her teeth now for his leg and next for Graham�s, one moment pawing the roadway, the next moment, in sheer impotence of resentfulness, kicking the empty air with one hind leg and kicking the air repeatedly, a dozen times.
�Those youngsters certainly put Mountain Lad on his mettle,� Dick laughed. �Listen to his song:
��Hear me! I am Eros. I stamp upon the hills. I fill the wide valleys. The mares hear me, and startle, in quiet pastures; for they know me. The land is filled with fatness, and the sap is in the trees. It is the spring. The spring is mine. I am monarch of my kingdom of the spring. The mares remember my voice. They knew me aforetime through their mothers before them. Hear me! I am Eros. I stamp upon the hills, and the wide valleys are my heralds, echoing the sound of my approach.

Chapter XIX

After Mrs. Tully�s departure, Paula, true to her threat, filled the house with guests. She seemed to have remembered all who had been waiting an invitation, and the limousine that met the trains eight miles away was rarely empty coming or going. There were more singers and musicians and artist folk, and bevies of young girls with their inevitable followings of young men, while mammas and aunts and chaperons seemed to clutter all the ways of the Big House and to fill a couple of motor cars when picnics took place.
And Graham wondered if this surrounding of herself by many people was not deliberate on Paula�s part. As for himself, he definitely abandoned work on his book, and joined in the before-breakfast swims of the hardier younger folk, in the morning rides over the ranch, and in whatever fun was afoot indoors and out.
Late hours and early were kept; and one night, Dick, who adhered to his routine and never appeared to his guests before midday, made a night of it at poker in the stag-room. Graham had sat in, and felt well repaid when, at dawn, the players received an unexpected visit from Paula�­herself past one of her white nights, she said, although no sign of it showed on her fresh skin and color. Graham had to struggle to keep his eyes from straying too frequently to her as she mixed golden fizzes to rejuvenate the wan-eyed, jaded players. Then she made them start the round of �jacks� that closed the game, and sent them off for a cold swim before breakfast and the day�s work or frolic.
Never was Paula alone. Graham could only join in the groups that were always about her. Although the young people ragged and tangoed incessantly, she rarely danced, and then it was with the young men. Once, however, she favored him with an old-fashioned waltz. �Your ancestors in an antediluvian dance,� she mocked the young people, as she stepped out; for she and Graham had the floor to themselves.
Once down the length of the room, the two were in full accord. Paula, with the sympathy Graham recognized that made her the exceptional accompanist or rider, subdued herself to the masterful art of the man, until the two were as parts of a sentient machine that operated without jar or friction. After several minutes, finding their perfect mutual step and pace, and Graham feeling the absolute giving of Paula to the dance, they essayed rhythmical pauses and dips, their feet never leaving the floor, yet affecting the onlookers in the way Dick voiced it when he cried out: �They float! They float!� The music was the �Waltz of Salom�,� and with its slow-fading end they postured slower and slower to a perfect close.
There was no need to speak. In silence, without a glance at each other, they returned to the company where Dick was proclaiming:
�Well, younglings, codlings, and other fry, that�s the way we old folks used to dance. I�m not saying anything against the new dances, mind you. They�re all right and dandy fine. But just the same it wouldn�t injure you much to learn to waltz properly. The way you waltz, when you do attempt it, is a scream. We old folks do know a thing or two that is worth while.�
�For instance?� queried one of the girls.
�I�ll tell you. I don�t mind the young generation smelling of gasoline the way it does�­�
Cries and protests drowned Dick out for a moment.
�I know I smell of it myself,� he went on. �But you�ve all failed to learn the good old modes of locomotion. There isn�t a girl of you that Paula can�t walk into the ground. There isn�t a fellow of you that Graham and I can�t walk into a receiving hospital.�­Oh, I know you can all crank engines and shift gears to the queen�s taste. But there isn�t one of you that can properly ride a horse�­a real horse, in the only way, I mean. As for driving a smart pair of roadsters, it�s a screech. And how many of you husky lads, hell-scooting on the bay in your speed-boats, can take the wheel of an old-time sloop or schooner, without an auxiliary, and get out of your own way in her?�
�But we get there just the same,� the same girl retorted.
�And I don�t deny it,� Dick answered. �But you are not always pretty. I�ll tell you a pretty sight that no one of you can ever present�­ Paula, there, with the reins of four slashing horses in her hands, her foot on the brake, swinging tally-ho along a mountain road.�
On a warm morning, in the cool arcade of the great patio, a chance group of four or five, among whom was Paula, formed about Graham, who had been reading alone. After a time he returned to his magazine with such absorption that he forgot those about him until an awareness of silence penetrated to his consciousness. He looked up. All the others save Paula had strayed off. He could hear their distant laughter from across the patio. But Paula! He surprised the look on her face, in her eyes. It was a look bent on him, concerning him. Doubt, speculation, almost fear, were in her eyes; and yet, in that swift instant, he had time to note that it was a look deep and searching�­almost, his quick fancy prompted, the look of one peering into the just-opened book of fate. Her eyes fluttered and fell, and the color increased in her cheeks in an unmistakable blush. Twice her lips moved to the verge of speech; yet, caught so arrantly in the act, she was unable to phrase any passing thought. Graham saved the painful situation by saying casually:
�Do you know, I�ve just been reading De Vries� eulogy of Luther Burbank�s work, and it seems to me that Dick is to the domestic animal world what Burbank is to the domestic vegetable world. You are life-makers here�­thumbing the stuff into new forms of utility and beauty.�
Paula, by this time herself again, laughed and accepted the compliment.
�I fear me,� Graham continued with easy seriousness, �as I watch your achievements, that I can only look back on a misspent life. Why didn�t I get in and make things? I�m horribly envious of both of you.�
�We are responsible for a dreadful lot of creatures being born,� she said. �It makes one breathless to think of the responsibility.�
�The ranch certainly spells fecundity,� Graham smiled. �I never before was so impressed with the flowering and fruiting of life. Everything here prospers and multiplies�­�
�Oh!� Paula cried, breaking in with a sudden thought. �Some day I�ll show you my goldfish. I breed them, too�­yea, and commercially. I supply the San Francisco dealers with their rarest strains, and I even ship to New York. And, best of all, I actually make money�­profits, I mean. Dick�s books show it, and he is the most rigid of bookkeepers. There isn�t a tack-hammer on the place that isn�t inventoried; nor a horse-shoe nail unaccounted for. That�s why he has such a staff of bookkeepers. Why, do you know, calculating every last least item of expense, including average loss of time for colic and lameness, out of fearfully endless columns of figures he has worked the cost of an hour�s labor for a draught horse to the third decimal place.�
�But your goldfish,� Graham suggested, irritated by her constant dwelling on her husband.
�Well, Dick makes his bookkeepers keep track of my goldfish in the same way. I�m charged every hour of any of the ranch or house labor I use on the fish�­postage stamps and stationery, too, if you please. I have to pay interest on the plant. He even charges me for the water, just as if he were a city water company and I a householder. And still I net ten per cent., and have netted as high as thirty. But Dick laughs and says when I�ve deducted the wages of superintendence�­my superintendence, he means�­that I�ll find I am poorly paid or else am operating at a loss; that with my net I couldn�t hire so capable a superintendent.
�Just the same, that�s why Dick succeeds in his undertakings. Unless it�s sheer experiment, he never does anything without knowing precisely, to the last microscopic detail, what it is he is doing.�
�He is very sure,� Graham observed.
�I never knew a man to be so sure of himself,� Paula replied warmly; �and I never knew a man with half the warrant. I know him. He is a genius�­but only in the most paradoxical sense. He is a genius because he is so balanced and normal that he hasn�t the slightest particle of genius in him. Such men are rarer and greater than geniuses. I like to think of Abraham Lincoln as such a type.�
�I must admit I don�t quite get you,� Graham said.
�Oh, I don�t dare to say that Dick is as good, as cosmically good, as Lincoln,� she hurried on. �Dick is good, but it is not that. It is in their excessive balance, normality, lack of flare, that they are of the same type. Now I am a genius. For, see, I do things without knowing how I do them. I just do them. I get effects in my music that way. Take my diving. To save my life I couldn�t tell how I swan-dive, or jump, or do the turn and a half.
�Dick, on the other hand, can�t do anything unless he clearly knows in advance how he is going to do it. He does everything with balance and foresight. He�s a general, all-around wonder, without ever having been a particular wonder at any one thing.�­Oh, I know him. He�s never been a champion or a record-breaker in any line of athletics. Nor has he been mediocre in any line. And so with everything else, mentally, intellectually. He is an evenly forged chain. He has no massive links, no weak links.�
�I�m afraid I�m like you,� Graham said, �that commoner and lesser creature, a genius. For I, too, on occasion, flare and do the most unintentional things. And I am not above falling on my knees before mystery.�
�And Dick hates mystery�­or it would seem he does. Not content with knowing how�­he is eternally seeking the why of the how. Mystery is a challenge to him. It excites him like a red rag does a bull. At once he is for ripping the husks and the heart from mystery, so that he will know the how and the why, when it will be no longer mystery but a generalization and a scientifically demonstrable fact.�
Much of the growing situation was veiled to the three figures of it. Graham did not know of Paula�s desperate efforts to cling close to her husband, who, himself desperately busy with his thousand plans and projects, was seeing less and less of his company. He always appeared at lunch, but it was a rare afternoon when he could go out with his guests. Paula did know, from the multiplicity of long, code telegrams from Mexico, that things were in a parlous state with the Harvest Group. Also, she saw the agents and emissaries of foreign investors in Mexico, always in haste and often inopportune, arriving at the ranch to confer with Dick. Beyond his complaint that they ate the heart out of his time, he gave her no clew to the matters discussed.
�My! I wish you weren�t so busy,� she sighed in his arms, on his knees, one fortunate morning, when, at eleven o�clock, she had caught him alone.
It was true, she had interrupted the dictation of a letter into the phonograph; and the sigh had been evoked by the warning cough of Bonbright, whom she saw entering with more telegrams in his hand.
�Won�t you let me drive you this afternoon, behind Duddy and Fuddy, just you and me, and cut the crowd?� she begged.
He shook his head and smiled.
�You�ll meet at lunch a weird combination,� he explained. �Nobody else needs to know, but I�ll tell you.� He lowered his voice, while Bonbright discreetly occupied himself at the filing cabinets. �They�re Tampico oil folk. Samuels himself, President of the Nacisco; and Wishaar, the big inside man of the Pearson-Brooks crowd�­the chap that engineered the purchase of the East Coast railroad and the Tiuana Central when they tried to put the Nacisco out of business; and Matthewson�­he�s the hi-yu-skookum big chief this side the Atlantic of the Palmerston interests�­you know, the English crowd that fought the Nacisco and the Pearson-Brooks bunch so hard; and, oh, there�ll be several others. It shows you that things are rickety down Mexico way when such a bunch stops scrapping and gets together.
�You see, they are oil, and I�m important in my way down there, and they want me to swing the mining interests in with the oil. Truly, big things are in the air, and we�ve got to hang together and do something or get out of Mexico. And I�ll admit, after they gave me the turn-down in the trouble three years ago, that I�ve sulked in my tent and made them come to see me.�
He caressed her and called her his armful of dearest woman, although she detected his eye roving impatiently to the phonograph with its unfinished letter.
�And so,� he concluded, with a pressure of his arms about her that seemed to hint that her moment with him was over and she must go, �that means the afternoon. None will stop over. And they�ll be off and away before dinner.�
She slipped off his knees and out of his arms with unusual abruptness, and stood straight up before him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks white, her face set with determination, as if about to say something of grave importance. But a bell tinkled softly, and he reached for the desk telephone.
Paula drooped, and sighed inaudibly, and, as she went down the room and out the door, and as Bonbright stepped eagerly forward with the telegrams, she could hear the beginning of her husband�s conversation:
�No. It is impossible. He�s got to come through, or I�ll put him out of business. That gentleman�s agreement is all poppycock. If it were only that, of course he could break it. But I�ve got some mighty interesting correspondence that he�s forgotten about.... Yes, yes; it will clinch it in any court of law. I�ll have the file in your office by five this afternoon. And tell him, for me, that if he tries to put through this trick, I�ll break him. I�ll put a competing line on, and his steamboats will be in the receiver�s hands inside a year.... And... hello, are you there?... And just look up that point I suggested. I am rather convinced you�ll find the Interstate Commerce has got him on two counts....�
Nor did Graham, nor even Paula, imagine that Dick�­the keen one, the deep one, who could see and sense things yet to occur and out of intangible nuances and glimmerings build shrewd speculations and hypotheses that subsequent events often proved correct�­was already sensing what had not happened but what might happen. He had not heard Paula�s brief significant words at the hitching post; nor had he seen Graham catch her in that deep scrutiny of him under the arcade. Dick had heard nothing, seen little, but sensed much; and, even in advance of Paula, had he apprehended in vague ways what she afterward had come to apprehend.
The most tangible thing he had to build on was the night, immersed in bridge, when he had not been unaware of the abrupt leaving of the piano after the singing of the �Gypsy Trail�; nor when, in careless smiling greeting of them when they came down the room to devil him over his losing, had he failed to receive a hint or feeling of something unusual in Paula�s roguish teasing face. On the moment, laughing retorts, giving as good as she sent, Dick�s own laughing eyes had swept over Graham beside her and likewise detected the unusual. The man was overstrung, had been Dick�s mental note at the time. But why should he be overstrung? Was there any connection between his overstrungness and the sudden desertion by Paula of the piano? And all the while these questions were slipping through his thoughts, he had laughed at their sallies, dealt, sorted his hand, and won the bid on no trumps.
Yet to himself he had continued to discount as absurd and preposterous the possibility of his vague apprehension ever being realized. It was a chance guess, a silly speculation, based upon the most trivial data, he sagely concluded. It merely connoted the attractiveness of his wife and of his friend. But�­and on occasional moments he could not will the thought from coming uppermost in his mind�­why had they broken off from singing that evening? Why had he received the feeling that there was something unusual about it? Why had Graham been overstrung?
Nor did Bonbright, one morning, taking dictation of a telegram in the last hour before noon, know that Dick�s casual sauntering to the window, still dictating, had been caused by the faint sound of hoofs on the driveway. It was not the first of recent mornings that Dick had so sauntered to the window, to glance out with apparent absentness at the rush of the morning riding party in the last dash home to the hitching rails. But he knew, on this morning, before the first figures came in sight whose those figures would be.
�Braxton is safe,� he went on with the dictation without change of tone, his eyes on the road where the riders must first come into view. �If things break he can get out across the mountains into Arizona. See Connors immediately. Braxton left Connors complete instructions. Connors to-morrow in Washington. Give me fullest details any move�­ signed.�
Up the driveway the Fawn and Altadena clattered neck and neck. Dick had not been disappointed in the figures he expected to see. From the rear, cries and laughter and the sound of many hoofs tokened that the rest of the party was close behind.
�And the next one, Mr. Bonbright, please put in the Harvest code,� Dick went on steadily, while to himself he was commenting that Graham was a passable rider but not an excellent one, and that it would have to be seen to that he was given a heavier horse than Altadena. �It is to Jeremy Braxton. Send it both ways. There is a chance one or the other may get through...�

Chapter XX

Once again the tide of guests ebbed from the Big House, and more than one lunch and dinner found only the two men and Paula at the table. On such evenings, while Graham and Dick yarned for their hour before bed, Paula no longer played soft things to herself at the piano, but sat with them doing fine embroidery and listening to the talk.
Both men had much in common, had lived life in somewhat similar ways, and regarded life from the same angles. Their philosophy was harsh rather than sentimental, and both were realists. Paula made a practice of calling them the pair of �Brass Tacks.�
�Oh, yes,� she laughed to them, �I understand your attitude. You are successes, the pair of you�­physical successes, I mean. You have health. You are resistant. You can stand things. You have survived where men less resistant have gone down. You pull through African fevers and bury the other fellows. This poor chap gets pneumonia in Cripple Creek and cashes in before you can get him to sea level. Now why didn�t you get pneumonia? Because you were more deserving? Because you had lived more virtuously? Because you were more careful of risks and took more precautions?�
She shook her head.
�No. Because you were luckier�­I mean by birth, by possession of constitution and stamina. Why, Dick buried his three mates and two engineers at Guayaquil. Yellow fever. Why didn�t the yellow fever germ, or whatever it is, kill Dick? And the same with you, Mr. Broad-shouldered Deep-chested Graham. In this last trip of yours, why didn�t you die in the swamps instead of your photographer? Come. Confess. How heavy was he? How broad were his shoulders? How deep his chest?�­wide his nostrils?�­tough his resistance?�
�He weighed a hundred and thirty-five,� Graham admitted ruefully. �But he looked all right and fit at the start. I think I was more surprised than he when he turned up his toes.� Graham shook his head. �It wasn�t because he was a light weight and small. The small men are usually the toughest, other things being equal. But you�ve put your finger on the reason just the same. He didn�t have the physical stamina, the resistance,�­You know what I mean, Dick?�
�In a way it�s like the quality of muscle and heart that enables some prizefighters to go the distance�­twenty, thirty, forty rounds, say,� Dick concurred. �Right now, in San Francisco, there are several hundred youngsters dreaming of success in the ring. I�ve watched them trying out. All look good, fine-bodied, healthy, fit as fiddles, and young. And their spirits are most willing. And not one in ten of them can last ten rounds. I don�t mean they get knocked out. I mean they blow up. Their muscles and their hearts are not made out of first-grade fiber. They simply are not made to move at high speed and tension for ten rounds. And some of them blow up in four or five rounds. And not one in forty can go the twenty-round route, give and take, hammer and tongs, one minute of rest to three of fight, for a full hour of fighting. And the lad who can last forty rounds is one in ten thousand�­lads like Nelson, Gans, and Wolgast.
�You understand the point I am making,� Paula took up. �Here are the pair of you. Neither will see forty again. You�re a pair of hard-bitten sinners. You�ve gone through hardship and exposure that dropped others all along the way. You�ve had your fun and folly. You�ve roughed and rowdied over the world�­�
�Played the wild ass,� Graham laughed in.
�And drunk deep,� Paula added. �Why, even alcohol hasn�t burned you. You were too tough. You put the other fellows under the table, or into the hospital or the grave, and went your gorgeous way, a song on your lips, with tissues uncorroded, and without even the morning-after headache. And the point is that you are successes. Your muscles are blond-beast muscles, your vital organs are blond-beast organs. And from all this emanates your blond-beast philosophy. That�s why you are brass tacks, and preach realism, and practice realism, shouldering and shoving and walking over lesser and unluckier creatures, who don�t dare talk back, who, like Dick�s prizefighting boys, would blow up in the first round if they resorted to the arbitrament of force.�
Dick whistled a long note of mock dismay.
�And that�s why you preach the gospel of the strong,� Paula went on. �If you had been weaklings, you�d have preached the gospel of the weak and turned the other cheek. But you�­you pair of big-muscled giants�­ when you are struck, being what you are, you don�t turn the other cheek�­�
�No,� Dick interrupted quietly. �We immediately roar, �Knock his block off!� and then do it.�­She�s got us, Evan, hip and thigh. Philosophy, like religion, is what the man is, and is by him made in his own image.�
And while the talk led over the world, Paula sewed on, her eyes filled with the picture of the two big men, admiring, wondering, pondering, without the surety of self that was theirs, aware of a slipping and giving of convictions so long accepted that they had seemed part of her.
Later in the evening she gave voice to her trouble.
�The strangest part of it,� she said, taking up a remark Dick had just made, �is that too much philosophizing about life gets one worse than nowhere. A philosophic atmosphere is confusing�­at least to a woman. One hears so much about everything, and against everything, that nothing is sure. For instance, Mendenhall�s wife is a Lutheran. She hasn�t a doubt about anything. All is fixed, ordained, immovable. Star-drifts and ice-ages she knows nothing about, and if she did they would not alter in the least her rules of conduct for men and women in this world and in relation to the next.
�But here, with us, you two pound your brass tacks, Terrence does a Greek dance of epicurean anarchism, Hancock waves the glittering veils of Bergsonian metaphysics, Leo makes solemn obeisance at the altar of Beauty, and Dar Hyal juggles his sophistic blastism to no end save all your applause for his cleverness. Don�t you see? The effect is that there is nothing solid in any human judgment. Nothing is right. Nothing is wrong. One is left compassless, rudderless, chartless on a sea of ideas. Shall I do this? Must I refrain from that? Will it be wrong? Is there any virtue in it? Mrs. Mendenhall has her instant answer for every such question. But do the philosophers?�
Paula shook her head.
�No. All they have is ideas. They immediately proceed to talk about it, and talk and talk and talk, and with all their erudition reach no conclusion whatever. And I am just as bad. I listen and listen, and talk and talk, as I am talking now, and remain convictionless. There is no test�­�
�But there is,� Dick said. �The old, eternal test of truth�­Will it work?�
�Ah, now you are pounding your favorite brass tack,� Paula smiled. �And Dar Hyal, with a few arm-wavings and word-whirrings, will show that all brass tacks are illusions; and Terrence, that brass tacks are sordid, irrelevant and non-essential things at best; and Hancock, that the overhanging heaven of Bergson is paved with brass tacks, only that they are a much superior article to yours; and Leo, that there is only one brass tack in the universe, and that it is Beauty, and that it isn�t brass at all but gold.�
�Come on, Red Cloud, go riding this afternoon,� Paula asked her husband. �Get the cobwebs out of your brain, and let lawyers and mines and livestock go hang.�
�I�d like to, Paul,� he answered. �But I can�t. I�ve got to rush in a machine all the way to the Buckeye. Word came in just before lunch. They�re in trouble at the dam. There must have been a fault in the under-strata, and too-heavy dynamiting has opened it. In short, what�s the good of a good dam when the bottom of the reservoir won�t hold water?�
Three hours later, returning from the Buckeye, Dick noted that for the first time Paula and Graham had gone riding together alone.
The Wainwrights and the Coghlans, in two machines, out for a week�s trip to the Russian River, rested over for a day at the Big House, and were the cause of Paula�s taking out the tally-ho for a picnic into the Los Ba�os Hills. Starting in the morning, it was impossible for Dick to accompany them, although he left Blake in the thick of dictation to go out and see them off. He assured himself that no detail was amiss in the harnessing and hitching, and reseated the party, insisting on Graham coming forward into the box-seat beside Paula.
�Just must have a reserve of man�s strength alongside of Paula in case of need,� Dick explained. �I�ve known a brake-rod to carry away on a down grade somewhat to the inconvenience of the passengers. Some of them broke their necks. And now, to reassure you, with Paula at the helm, I�ll sing you a song:
�What can little Paula do?
Why, drive a phaeton and two.
Can little Paula do no more?
Yes, drive a tally-ho and four.�
All were in laughter as Paula nodded to the grooms to release the horses� heads, took the feel of the four mouths on her hands, and shortened and slipped the reins to adjustment of four horses into the collars and taut on the traces.
In the babel of parting gibes to Dick, none of the guests was aware of aught else than a bright morning, the promise of a happy day, and a genial host bidding them a merry going. But Paula, despite the keen exhilaration that should have arisen with the handling of four such horses, was oppressed by a vague sadness in which, somehow, Dick�s being left behind figured. Through Graham�s mind Dick�s merry face had flashed a regret of conscience that, instead of being seated there beside this one woman, he should be on train and steamer fleeing to the other side of the world.
But the merriness died on Dick�s face the moment he turned on his heel to enter the house. It was a few minutes later than ten when he finished his dictation and Mr. Blake rose to go. He hesitated, then said a trifle apologetically:
�You told me, Mr. Forrest, to remind you of the proofs of your Shorthorn book. They wired their second hurry-up yesterday.�
�I won�t be able to tackle it myself,� Dick replied. �Will you please correct the typographical, submit the proofs to Mr. Manson for correction of fact�­tell him be sure to verify that pedigree of King of Devon�­and ship them off.�
Until eleven Dick received his managers and foremen. But not for a quarter of an hour after that did he get rid of his show manager, Mr. Pitts, with the tentative make-up of the catalogue for the first annual stock-sale on the ranch. By that time Mr. Bonbright was on hand with his sheaf of telegrams, and the lunch-hour was at hand ere they were cleaned up.
For the first time alone since he had seen the tally-ho off, Dick stepped out on his sleeping porch to the row of barometers and thermometers on the wall. But he had come to consult, not them, but the girl�s face that laughed from the round wooden frame beneath them.
�Paula, Paula,� he said aloud, �are you surprising yourself and me after all these years? Are you turning madcap at sober middle age?�
He put on leggings and spurs to be ready for riding after lunch, and what his thoughts had been while buckling on the gear he epitomized to the girl in the frame.
�Play the game,� he muttered. And then, after a pause, as he turned to go: �A free field and no favor ... and no favor.�
�Really, if I don�t go soon, I�ll have to become a pensioner and join the philosophers of the madro�o grove,� Graham said laughingly to Dick.
It was the time of cocktail assembling, and Paula, in addition to Graham, was the only one of the driving party as yet to put in an appearance.
�If all the philosophers together would just make one book!� Dick demurred. �Good Lord, man, you�ve just got to complete your book here. I got you started and I�ve got to see you through with it.�
Paula�s encouragement to Graham to stay on�­mere stereotyped, uninterested phrases�­was music to Dick. His heart leapt. After all, might he not be entirely mistaken? For two such mature, wise, middle-aged individuals as Paula and Graham any such foolishness was preposterous and unthinkable. They were not young things with their hearts on their sleeves.
�To the book!� he toasted. He turned to Paula. �A good cocktail,� he praised. �Paul, you excel yourself, and you fail to teach Oh Joy the art. His never quite touch yours.�­Yes, another, please.�