“‘Mood for it,’” mocked her aunt, severely. “Since when have you been having moods, I’d like to inquire? You talk like a girl in a sentimental novel. No; I won’t stir a step without you, Ginger McVeagh, and if you have any gratitude, after the way I traipsed across the continent with you last year—” then, as her niece looked dangerously unmoved, she came closer to her and spoke in a breathless whisper. “Listen, Ginger, I haven’t told you the real reason, and I didn’t intend to, but you’re so stubborn I see I’ll have to.” Aunt Fan had out-sizes in speech as well as in hose. “The fact is, I’ve made up my mind to—make up my mind about the doctor!”
Ginger frowned. “To make up your mind—I don’t understand, Aunt Fan.”
“Then you’re a ninny-hammer if you don’t,” said her aunt, complacently. “You must know—every one else in California does—that he’s admired me for years—before I married Jim—even before I married Henry! I feel this way about it; I’m not getting any younger; if ever I’m going to—take another step, now’s the time. I wouldn’t make a spectacle of myself as I hear Jim Featherstone’s doing, but a suitable, dignified—I tell you, Ginger,” sudden tears shone in her very blue eyes, “there’s nothing funny about the last years of your life alone. I shall be all right for ten years more, and then—fancywork, chimney corners, solitaire!” She began to cry a little.
Her niece put an arm about her as far as it would go. “Oh, don’t cry, Aunt Fan! You’ll always have me, you know. We’ll do a lot of things together—travel, spend winters in the east—”
But her aunt shook her head vigorously, producing a small, pale pink handkerchief and delicately drying her tears. “It isn’t the same, as you’ll know some day. Well, will you or won’t you come with me?”
“I’ll come with you for a little while, Aunt Fan; a week, perhaps.”
It was true that she owed her plump relative something in the way of escort and companionship, after her good offices of last winter, but the keynote of the pilgrimage rather shocked and startled her. She thought her aunt must be mistaken; the keen, splendid, out-of-doors doctor, and Aunt Fan tapping endlessly on high heels down restaurant floors—breathing always steam-heated air, knowing as little about a horse as a zebra—
“All right, then—go and telephone old Manuela this minute, and I’ll drop the doctor a line. My—when I think what it may mean to me, what I may lose—” she went with heavy swiftness, taking her short, chugging steps, to a tiny pink-and-gold writing desk, and it seemed to the watching Ginger that she was considerably keener about what she might lose than what she might gain.
The doctor, brown and hard and happy, met their train at Monterey and motored them down to his camp. It was in full swing: thirty persons sat down to meals together in the big screened dining room—pleasant, poised people from San José and San Francisco, people who had achieved and arrived and were comfortably slackening the pace—but for the rest of the days and evenings they were scattered. The doctor, undisputed chief, by right of discovery and conquest of the wilderness, captained the hunts, the long rides over the mountain trails, the daybreak fishing trips; the judge rallied two teams for lusty morning games of volley ball; an ardent golfer found a meadow where enthusiasts might improve their form; the women spent long, soft afternoons over intricate needlework for an orphans’ home bazaar; there were tables of bridges, hammocks and magazines, picnics at the beach, stories by the camp fire, dancing in the evening.