Isabel called up Mrs. Hofer on the telephone, and after being switched off and on half a dozen times, and crossed wires and all the other mishaps peculiar to the California telephone service had reduced both to a state of furious indifference, Mrs. Hofer accepted Miss Otis's inability to go down to San Francisco until the day of the party, and her promise to pay the visit during Christmas week, with equal philosophy.
The party was to be on the night of the 24th, and Isabel did not see Gwynne again until the evening of the same day. Judge Leslie went to Santa Barbara to spend the holidays with his son, and his pupil to Burlingame and Menlo Park for a week. After the polo and various other sports at the former resort, with a set that bore an outline resemblance to the leisure class of his own country, the gay life at the Club and the multitude of pretty girls always flitting amid compact masses of flowers, he found the now unfashionable borough of Menlo Park somewhat dull; although he had good snipe-shooting on the marsh with his host, Mr. Trennahan. The whole valley, however, had a peculiar charm for him; when riding alone past the fields of ancient oaks with the great mountains on either side, almost a sense of possession. For all this magnificent and richly varied sweep of land, now cut up into a few large estates and an infinite number of small ones, into towns, and villages, hamlets, and even cities, had once been the Rancho El Pilar, and the property of his Mexican ancestor, Don José Argüello. He knew that in those old days it must have looked like a vast English park, and he felt some resentment that his ancestors had not had the wit to hold fast to it until his time came to inherit.
Mrs. Trennahan's father, Don Roberto Yorba, had bought a square mile from one of the Argüello heirs, and a few rich men of his time had followed his example; and slept in their country-houses during six months of the year while their women yawned the days away, deriving their principal solace in contemplation of their unchallenged exclusiveness. Stray members of those old families were left, and were, if anything, more exclusive than their parents, disdaining the light-hearted people of Burlingame, unburdened with traditions. This was still the set that never even powdered, faithful to the ancient code that it was not respectable, and who spent the greater part of the year in the country, finding their pleasures in the climate—soporific—excellent old Chinese or Spanish cooks, and in reminiscences of the time when the fine estates had not been cut up into little suburban homesteads for heaven only knew whom.
Mrs. Trennahan had sold her father's place, and bought a superb estate in the foothills, where she entertained in the simple fashion of the Eighties. Trennahan still took the haughty spirit of his chosen borough with all his old humor, but he liked no place so well, even in California. A New-Yorker is always a New-Yorker, however long he may live in California, but he becomes more and more attached to the independent life, the even climate, above all to the cooking; and Trennahan was no exception. He had found Magdaléna the most comfortable of companions, she had presented him with two fine boys—who were preparing for college, at present—and a lovely daughter; and he was, in a leisurely way, collecting earthquake data, for future publication, and amused himself with a seismograph; which worried Magdaléna, who thought the instrument much too intimate with earthquakes to be a safe piece of household furniture. Gwynne liked them both as well as any people he had met in California, and engaged the beautiful Inez—who would seem to have embodied all her mother's old passionate longing for physical loveliness—to dance several times with him at the great ball which was to be the medium of her introduction to society.
"I am still old-fashioned," Mrs. Trennahan confided to Gwynne, with a sigh. "I never have liked new people and I never shall; Mr. Trennahan has not laughed it out of me. But what will you? They are seven-eighths strong in San Francisco, I have a daughter who naturally demands the rights of her youth—so I make the best of a bad bargain. But I protest."
When Gwynne arrived at the house on Russian Hill late in the evening it occurred to him to tap on Isabel's door and tell her that he had obeyed her orders, recalled all the traditions down in their common ancestor's old domain, and "got the feel" of the place. He had never crossed the threshold of this room although he had brushed his hair many times in the spotless bower by the marsh, and he was surprised, after a moment's colloquy through the panels, by an invitation to enter. He was still more surprised to find Isabel sitting before her dressing-table in full regalia, although they were not to start for the party until eleven o'clock. She wore the white tulle gown with the dark-blue lilies in which she had created a sensation at Arcot, and looked more radiant than he had ever seen her. Her eyes were like stars, her cheeks were pink; her red lips were parted, the upper trembling with excitement.
"Come! Look!" she cried. "See what your mother has given me. I had to dress at once to see the whole effect."
She lifted and fingered rapturously a row of splendid pearls that lay on her neck.
"Did you ever see anything so beautiful? All my life I have wanted a string of pearls—real pearls that you read about, although I thought myself fortunate to have that old string of Baha California pearls, and never expected anything better. At first I wouldn't take them, but Cousin Victoria said they were her mother's, a gift from her father when she married, so that I ought to inherit them, anyhow; and might as well have them while I was young. She vowed she should never wear them again, as her skin was no longer white enough for pearls. I can't believe it!"
Gwynne looked at her curiously. "I had no idea you cared for those things. I could have given you pearls. Your pose has always been to scorn the common weaknesses of your sex."