However, he had sufficient sense, now that he found himself involved with this tropic wild flower, to attempt the exercise of his undoubted power over her to the end that he might outline definite plans for her future and secure her acquiescence in them. He reverted, therefore, to her father’s plans for her education and reminded Tamea that he had promised her father to see to it that the latter’s plans were carried out. He impressed upon her the vital necessity for acquiring as much education, knowledge of the world and refinement, as white girls of her age. She must have music lessons, she must learn to dance, to ride, to drive a motor-car, to manage a household, to sing, to meet his white friends on their own social level. In a word, she must make him very proud of her.
Tamea agreed to obey him implicitly, but fought desperately against the idea of a convent. She pleaded to be permitted to live at Dan’s house and have private tutors; she reminded him that she was amply able to afford them. When he explained to her the impossibility of this he saw that she accepted his explanation as something irrelevant and immaterial and decidedly peculiar. Reluctantly she abandoned her stand and sought a compromise. If she went to a convent all week could she come home of week-ends? Dan said she could not. Then would he come to the convent to see her on Sundays? He promised to do this every Sunday, and thus the momentous issue was settled. Tamea promised to enter the convent the day after their return to San Francisco.
This was the first long, uninterrupted confidential conversation they had ever had. Dan was an understanding and sympathetic listener with sufficient patience to continue answering childish questions long after the majority of his sex would have become irritated. And Tamea asked him hundreds of questions on an amazing variety of topics; she discussed intimately the principal features of her own life and extracted the last shred of information he had to give concerning himself. He observed how clear, direct and straightforward was her method of reasoning; she had a nicely balanced choice of words, and a fascinating habit of clothing her odd fancies in brilliant, brief, illuminating metaphor or simile. In those two hours when Tamea talked to him, with her head on his breast, he really began to know her; and to the spell which her physical beauty had cast upon him was now added an ardent admiration for her mental equipment. She possessed none of the flightiness, frivolity or empty-headedness of the white flapper. To her, life was something very, very real, something to be studied, considered and not to be tasted indiscriminately. She had inherited from her father an insatiable yearning for information on every subject that interested her remotely.
It was twelve-thirty before Dan, with a start, cast off his thraldom and looked at his watch.
“Yes, I suppose we should go in,” Tamea said softly. “I have had my delight spoiled for half an hour in the fear that you would look at your watch. And now you have looked at it and the suspense is over.”
They walked slowly back to the hotel and came in the front entrance. In the lobby of the hotel they came across Maisie reading a magazine.
“Hello, Maisie, my dear,” said Dan, “I had an impression you had a bad headache and had retired. If I had remotely suspected you had recovered we would have remained to keep you company.”
Maisie acknowledged this cheerful salutation with a forced smile. Her eyes were cold and blue. “You must have taken a long walk, Dan. Were you in to Monterey?”
“No, just down to the beach and back. The night is so balmy we’ve been sitting outside. Tamea has been asking questions and I have been answering them.”
“I had so many to ask,” said Tamea demurely, “that it was very late when I finished.” She patted her mouth to stifle a little yawn. “I’m so sleepy. Excuse me, please, Maisie. I am going to my room. Good night, Dan, you darling. Good night, Maisie.”