There were eighteen people at table. The conversation was principally about other people. Occasionally, a current novel or play captured a few moments’ attention, but the talk soon swung triumphantly back to personalities. Clive had never seen so many pretty women together. One or two were beautiful. The dense blackness of Mrs. Tower’s hair, the red and olive of her skin, the high, cheek bones, inadvertently modelled features and fierce eyes suggested Indian ancestry. Miss West’s soft Spanish eyes languished or coquetted, but there was a New England meagreness about her mouth. Miss Leonard, with her cendré hair, and cold regular features might have had all the blood of all the Howards in her. Mrs. Lent had a dark piquant Franco-American face. Miss Carter was very small, very dignified, with large cool intelligent grey eyes, abundant yellow hair, and an Irish nose and upper lip. All had the slight bust and generous development of hip and leg peculiar to the Californian women. The men interested Clive less: they looked very ordinary society youths, and he wondered if Rollins could not dispose of them collectively in an epigram.
He quarrelled intermittently with Miss Belmont: they did not hit it off. Nevertheless, he wondered if it could be the rashling he had met in the forest. She still wore her regal air and would have looked as cold as one of the fine marbles in her drawing-room, had it not been for her lavish coloring. She took little part in the general conversation, and he said to her abruptly—
“These people don’t seem to interest you.”
“I’m tired to death of them. I’ll turn them all out presently. I bought this place to be near the redwoods, which I love better than anything in the world, and I like to entertain by fits and starts. I spent last winter here alone.”
“I should like to have known you then. When you get time to think about yourself you must be a charming egoist.”
“You have the most impertinent tongue and the most flirtatious eyes I have ever met.”
“Where is the man you are engaged to?”
“Up at Shasta and the lava beds. He will be back in a few days. You will like him.”
“Is he a good fellow?”
“Yes,” with friendly enthusiasm; “an awfully good fellow.”