Grace looked up, with a smile.
"They will not go to Santa Barbara."
CHAPTER XXIII
If anything could have raised Mordaunt's spirits that night it would have been his supper with the joyous Bohemians—listening to their banjos and bright choruses, and hearing the tales of the "high jinks" they hold in the neighboring forests in spring-time. Many members of that genial club were charming enough to make him forget that they were fellow-townsmen of vulgarians like Bloxsome, but nothing could disperse the cloud that overshadowed him.
The girl had grown dearer to him every day, and yet she seemed further from him than ever. He would not blame her, still less would he have allowed any one else to do so. Had she not said, only six weeks ago, that she did not like him well enough to marry? Except during those three days in the train together—those three unforgettable days—they had never been alone, as they then virtually were, and nothing had passed to justify him in the belief that her heart had softened. On the contrary, she seemed to have taken special pains to prevent his forming such an erroneous idea. She treated him only a little better than the other young men round her—just so much as to rouse their jealous animosity—not enough to distinguish him as the one she had chosen from all the world. Though he had defended her against his aunt's insinuations, as regarded the "braying chorus," he did not feel the less secretly hurt. Therefore it was that he was here at the Bohemian Club to-night, instead of gliding round the Planters' sitting-room, with his arm round Clare's waist.
He did not see the Planters the following morning. Mrs. Frampton and Grace had wished them good-by the previous evening, and they were off early with a large party to San Rafael. Before the Ballingers left San Francisco that day the English mail had arrived, bringing nearly a week's budget of letters and papers. There was food enough for the mind, and to spare, to last them that short journey.
Mordaunt and his aunt sat together at the end of the car, Grace by herself a little distance off. Her letters were not very interesting, but she had several papers which Mordy had handed to her; only the last issues he and his aunt were reading. The debates naturally claimed the young member's first attention; the society journals and Pall Mall Gazette gossip as naturally claimed Mrs. Frampton's.
"Look! Look here!" she whispered, suddenly, turning to her nephew, and pointing to a paragraph. "Do you see this? Have you looked at the law reports?"
Then he read the following:
"The termination of the great will case yesterday is a triumph not only to Mr. Ivor Lawrence's personal friends, but to all lovers of fair play who have declined to prejudge the case, and who have viewed with grave reprehension the disposition in society to believe the allegations recklessly brought against a gentleman who had always enjoyed an unblemished reputation. Mr. Ivor Lawrence has suffered most cruelly during the past eight months, and it is but just that the false accusations he has labored under should recoil upon the head of Mr. Giles Tracy, who, without the smallest evidence, dared to bring these charges against his cousin. That the course of the trial brought to light certain facts not wholly creditable to the accuser was the penalty he paid for his rashness."