“Will you kindly point out the way? And I should like to send a dispatch to the hotel, if possible.”
“Oh, suttenly. We don’t think much of English manners in these parts, I don’t mind sayin’. You English act as if you owned God Almighty when you come out here. You forget we licked ye twice. Come after a Californy heiress?”
Clive felt an impulse to throw the man over the trestle, then laughed. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “I am sorry my manners are bad but the truth is my head is tired and my legs are not. Come, show me the way.”
Being further mollified by a silver dollar, the old man replied graciously, “All right, sir. Just amuse yourself while I send your telegram, and fetch a dark lantern. You’ll need it. The moon’s doin’ well, but the tops of them redwoods knit together, and are as close as a roof.”
Clive walked idly about the little waiting-room. The walls were decorated with illustrated weekly newspapers, and the gratuitous lithograph. John L. Sullivan, looking, under the softening influence of the weekly artist, as if sculptured from mush, glowered across at Corbett, who displayed his muscles in a dandified attitude. There were also several lithographs of pretty, rather elegant-looking girls. Clive noticed that one had a rude frame of young redwood branches about it, and occupied the post of honor at the head of the room. He walked over and examined it as well as he could by the light of the smoking lamp.
The head was in profile, severe in outline, as classic as the modern head ever is. The chin was lifted proudly, the nostrils looked capable of expansion. The brow and eyes suggested intellect, the lower part of the face pride and self-will and passion, perhaps undeveloped cruelty and sensuality.
“Who is Miss Belmont?” he asked, as the station agent left the telegraph table.
“Oh, she’s one of the heiresses. That’s our high-toned society paper. It’s printin’ a series of Californy heiresses. One of the other papers says as how it’s a good guide book for impecoonious furriners, and I guess that’s about the size of it. She’s got a million, and nobody but an aunt, and she has her own way, I—tell—you. She’ll be a handful to manage; but somehow, although she keeps people talkin’, they don’t believe as much harm of her as of some that’s more quiet. You’ll meet her, I guess, if you’re goin’ to stay at Yorba, for she’s got a big house in the redwoods and knows a lot of the hotel folks and the Bohemian Club fellers. I like her. She rides this way once a year or so, and we have a good chin about politics. She knows a thing or two, you bet, and she believes in Grover.”
“How old is she? And why doesn’t she marry?” asked Clive idly, as they walked up the road.
“She’s twenty-six, and she’s goin’ to marry—a Noo York feller; one of them with Dutch names. She’s had offers, I guess. Three of your lords, I know of. But lords don’t stand much show with Californy girls—them as was raised here, anyhow. They don’t give a damn for titles, and they scent a fortune-hunter before he’s off the dock. They’ve put their heads together and talked him over before he’s registered. This Dutchman’s got money, so I guess he’s all right. Be you a lord?”