“I can’t help being an American. I was made one, and I have grown up one. How can I make myself over?”
“Think less about it. You Americans—particularly you Californians—carry your individuality round like a chip on your shoulder. You are as self-conscious about it as a little boy with his first pair of trousers. I hear Trennahan’s voice. I must leave you in five minutes, and I may not see you alone again. We have talked enough.”
And as they were both people who did nothing by halves, they parted with fervour, and mutual assurance of the other’s impeccability.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE next evening, Lee rose abruptly from her seat between Mrs. Yorba and Mrs. Trennahan, who had dined with them, and walked hastily over to Randolph who sat alone in a corner of the verandah.
“Did you send Cecil to the Santa Lucia Mountains hoping that he would be killed?” she demanded.
“What do you take me for?—the ten-cent villain in the melodrama? He’s got the strength and the nerve of two men, and I’ve written to Joe Mann not to leave him for an instant. His precious skin is safe enough. I merely wanted to show you what you had to expect if you married him—a correct but unflattering glimpse of your power over him.”
“You did it on purpose?”
“I did it on purpose; and the infantile manner in which he walked into the trap, and turned himself inside out, was really delicious.”
“It’s because he’s as honest and straightforward as—as your grandfather was. You are a horrid tricky American!”