It was not her beauty, although that was considerable, that had summarily transposed his gallant if cool admiration for all charming well bred women into a submerging recognition of woman in particular; it was her unlikeness to any of the girls he had been riding, dancing, playing golf and tennis with during the past year and a half (for two years after his arrival he had seen nothing of society whatever). Later that evening he defined this dissimilarity from the American girl as the result not only of her French blood but of her European training, her quiet secluded girlhood in a provincial town of great beauty, where she had received a leisurely education rare in the United States, seen or read little of the great world (she had visited Paris only twice and briefly), her mind charmingly developed by conscientious tutors. But at the moment he thought that the compelling power lay in some deep subtlety of eye, her little air of lofty aloofness, her classic small features in a small face, and the top-heavy masses of blue black hair which she carried with a certain naïve pride as if it were her only vanity; in her general unlikeness to the gray-eyed fair-haired American—a type to which himself belonged. Her only point in common with this fashionable set patronizing Del Monte for the hour, was the ineffable style with which she wore her perfect little white frock; an American inheritance, he assumed after he knew her; for, as he recalled provincial French women, style was not their strong point.
When he met her eyes some twenty minutes later, he dismissed the impression of subtlety, for their black depths were quick with an eager wonder and curiosity. Later they grew wistful, and he guessed that she knew none of these smart folk, down, like himself, for the tournament; people who were chattering from table to table like a large family. That some of his girl acquaintances were interested in the young stranger he inferred from speculative and appraising eyes that were turned upon her from time to time.
Price, with some irony, wondered at their curiosity. The San Francisco girl, he had discovered, possessed an extra sense all her own. There was no lofty indifference about her. She had the worth-while stranger detected and tabulated and his or her social destiny settled before the Eastern train had disgorged its contents at the Oakland mole. And even the immense florid mother of this lovely girl, with her own masses of snow white hair dressed in a manner becoming her age, and a severe gown of black Chantilly net, relieved by the merest trifle of jet, looked the reverse of the nondescript tourist. The girl wore white embroidered silk muslin and a thin gold chain with a small ruby pendant. She was rather above the average height, although not as tall as her mother, and if she were as thin as fashion commanded, her bones were so small that her neck and arms looked almost plump. Her expressive eyes were as black as her hair, and her only large feature. Her skin was of a quite remarkably pink whiteness, although there was a pink color in her lips and cheeks. The older men stared at her more persistently than the younger ones, who liked their own sort and not girls who looked as if they might be "booky" and "spring things on a fellow."
There was a ball in the evening and once more mother and daughter sat apart, while the flower of San Francisco—an inclusive term for the select circles of Menlo Park, Atherton, Burlingame, San Mateo, far San Rafael and Belvedere—romped as one great family. Newport, Ruyler reflected for the twentieth time, did it no better. To the stranger peering through the magic bars they were now as insensible as befitted their code. These two people knew nobody and that was the end of it.
IV
But Price noted that now the girl's eyes were merely wistful, and once or twice he saw them fill with tears. As three of the dowagers merely sniffed when he sought possible information, he finally had recourse to the manager of the hotel, D.V. Bimmer. They were a Madame and Mademoiselle Delano from Rouen, and had been at the hotel for a fortnight, not seeming to mind its comparative emptiness, but enjoying the sea bathing and the drives. The girl rode, and went out every morning with a groom.
"But didn't they bring any letters?" asked Ruyler. "They are ladies and one letter would have done the business. That poor girl is having the deuce of a time."
"D.V.," who knew "everybody" in California, and all their secrets, shook his head. "'Fraid not. The French maid told the floor valet that although the father was American—from New England somewheres—and the girl born in California, accidentally as it were, she had lived in France all her life—she's just eighteen—never crossed the ocean before. Can you beat it? Until last month, and then they came from Hong Kong—taking a trip round the world in good old style. The madame, who scarcely opens her month, did condescend to tell me that she had admired California very much when she was here before, and intended to travel all over the state. Perhaps I met her in that far off long ago, for I was managing a hotel in San Francisco about that time, and her face haunts me somehow—although when features get all swallowed up by fat like that you can't locate them. The girl, too, reminds me of some one, but of course she was in arms when she left and as I ain't much on cathedrals I never went to Rouen. Of course it's the old trick, bringing a pretty girl to a fashionable watering place to marry her off, but these folks are not poor. Not what we'd call rich, perhaps, but good and solid. I don't fall for the old lady; she's a cool proposition or I miss my guess, but the girl's all right. I've seen too many girls in this Mecca for adventurous females and never made a mistake yet. I wish some of our grand dames would extend the glad hand. But I'm afraid they won't. Terrible exclusive, this bunch."
Ruyler scowled and walked back to the ballroom. The exclusiveness of this young society on the wrong side of the continent sometimes made him homesick and sometimes made him sick. He saw little chance for this poor girl to enjoy the rights of her radiant youth if her mother had not taken the precaution to bring letters. France was full of Californians. Many lived there. Surely she must have met some one she could have made use of. It was tragic to watch a pathetic young thing staring at two or three hundred young men and maidens disporting themselves with the natural hilarity of youth, and but few of them too ill-natured to welcome a young and lovely stranger if properly introduced.
He experienced a desperate impulse to go up to the mother and offer her the hospitality of the evening, ask her to regard him as her host. But Madame Delano had a frozen eye, and no doubt orthodox French ideas on the subject of young girls. A moment later his eye fell on Mrs. Ford Thornton.