“I am glad. It’s a bore to be chaffed.”
“Of course, I have written to all our friends in England that we are to be married on the twelfth. But as the wedding is to be so quiet it is not necessary to tell anyone here.”
“How do you like this country?” he asked curiously. “I mean how does it suit you personally? Of course, I know you would make up your mind to like any place where duty happened to take you, but you must have a private little idea on the subject, and it is your duty to tell me everything.”
She smiled happily. “‘Well!’ as they say here, now that I am sure that Edith will make papa comfortable, I shall be glad enough to go back to England. California doesn’t suit me at all. It rubs me the wrong way. I think I should develop nerves if I stayed here much longer. Americans don’t seem to me to be half human. Helena Belmont says that America will be the greatest nation on earth when it gets a soul, but that it is nothing but a kicking squalling, precocious infant at present; and that if some one were clever enough to stick his finger in the soft spot on the top of its head, it would transform it into an idiot or a corpse; but that America will pull though all right because she has so many weak points that her enemies forget which is the weakest. Miss Belmont is so clever. You will meet her on Sunday. You don’t mind my having accepted an invitation for you to dine there?”
“Not at all. It was very kind of you, I am sure. I have heard of this Miss Belmont; I don’t imagine you find much in common with her.”
“She horrifies me, but she fascinates me more than any person I have met here. I am sure she is a good woman in spite of the reckless things she does. Your friend Mr. Rollins, says that she is the concentrated essence of California, and I always excuse her on that ground. You never know what she is going do or say next; and she is the most desperate flirt I ever heard of. I suppose she is so beautiful she can’t help it. Her eyes always seem to be looking at you through tears, even when they are laughing or flirting, although I don’t believe she sheds many. I cannot imagine her crying, although I know her to be kind-hearted, and generous, and impulsive.”
“Do you call it kind-hearted to throw fifteen men over?”
“I told her once that I thought it was morally wrong for her to lure men on to such a terrible awakening, and she said that there was just one thing that man didn’t know, which was woman; and that it was her duty to her sex to addle their brains on the subject as much as possible. But I want you to know me, Owin.”
“The better I know you the better I shall love you.”
“When your eyes laugh like that I never know whether you are chaffing me or not. It will not take long, for I am not clever;” she smiled a little sadly; “you are so clever that I know you will often want to go and talk to women who know more than I do; but none of them will ever love you so well.”