Gwynne found Isabel just stepping out of her launch, after a business morning in Rosewater, and was hospitably invited to dismount and remain for luncheon.
"Would you mind asking your Jap to make us some sandwiches and come with me up to my mountain shanty?" he asked. "I have rather a headache and want a long ride. Besides, it is high time I went. I should look over the roads, which they tell me are very bad after the heavy rains. I want to go into camp there in the early spring—have invited Hofer and one or two others for salmon-fishing. I have now sent three letters to the tenant, one Clink, by teamsters, and he has never replied. For all I know he may have burned the house down and decamped. So, altogether, this seems to me the time to go, and it would be very jolly to have you with me."
"I'd like nothing better," said Isabel, delightedly, "after talking eggs and chickens all morning. And I haven't been up to Mountain House for years. It used to belong to Uncle Hiram, you know. He always fished there in the spring, and took me with him. Then Mr. Colton bought it in—I won't be ten minutes."
"Now I know why you wear that hideous divided habit and ride astride," said Gwynne as they started. "I have been half-way up the mountain once or twice, to say nothing of the Marin hills, and I have never seen such roads. They are a disgrace to the State. Why on earth doesn't the legislature take them in hand?"
"Now I know you are in a bad humor," said Isabel, laughing. "You grumbled at everything when you first came to California, and now that you have become philosophical like the rest of us, you only anathematize when you are put out. I saw something was wrong the moment you arrived. What is it?"
"I'll tell you later. This is our only chance for a sharp trot."
It was quite two miles to the ascending road at the foot of the mountain range that divided the great valley. It rose gently for a time then suddenly became steep. Lumpy and slanting, already dangerously narrow in many places, for there had been a few days of hard rain, it led along the edge of cannons and chasms, creeks and little valleys as round as a bowl. Here and there was a farmhouse or a country home on a slope, set in the midst of fields just turning green. The first stretch of road—cut roughly in the mountain-side and then left to take care of itself—was on county property, but after an hour's climb along the flank of the mountain they reached the part of the great mass included in Lumalitas, where the road, although still public, had been mended now and again by tenants that had used the camp in the fishing season.
"It is even worse than I thought," grumbled Gwynne. "I wonder if Tom Colton could be induced to put in a bill at the next legislature. It would be a good opportunity for him to make a promise with some hope of fulfilment."
"The trouble is the farmers don't care," said Isabel, shrugging her shoulders. "There are only a few of them in the mountains and they have jogged up and down these bad roads so many years that they accept them as a matter of course. I don't know that I mind this, myself. It certainly is more picturesque than if it had become popular with automobilists of much influence in legislative councils."
"At present you have to ride with your eyes on the road to make sure it is there."
"We can take turns, and it certainly is beautiful."
"Oh, beautiful!"
But when the road improved for quite half a mile, he too gave himself up to the sensation of being lost in the heart of a mountain. The valley was far behind them and out of sight. There were groves of ancient oaks in the hollows, turbulent streams foaming over masses of rocks that had fallen from the cliffs above. Sometimes they looked down a thousand sheer feet into a bit of wilderness as unbroken as if on each side of the range man had not snatched the fertile lands from the savage a century before.
The air grew colder and Isabel put on her covert coat. But it was a clear sparkling day, and when they reached the summit they could see San Francisco, a smoky mirage forty miles to the south, the ferry-boats crawling like beetles across the bay, the surf of the ocean on the rocks beyond the Golden Gate, a vast sweep of gray ocean; and the bulk of Tamalpais, that from this high point looked as if it had heaved itself free of the mass of mountains and forests about it. Two thousand feet below, their own valley, with its marsh and fertile ranches, looked like a dark ribbon between the hills, Rosewater like a toy village.
They trotted their horses for a few moments on the level and then rode down into the little valley where an unsuccessful farmer of solitary habit had some time since rented the few acres of land surrounding Mountain House, with the understanding that the best rooms were to be at the disposal of the lord of Lumalitas during the fishing and hunting seasons. The log-house, or "camp," was very solid and had been built by the first James Otis, who was a mighty hunter; and the salmon-fishing in the creek, at present containing but a few feet of water, was so fine that hardly a spring had passed without a visit from the tenants of Lumalitas, who were constrained by the terms of the lease to keep the house in repair. Of late this had been the duty of the sub-lessee, and as no teams passed his isolated dwelling, and as he had not seen fit to answer his landlord's communications, even verbally, by the boy from one of the lower ranches who had carried up the missives, all Gwynne knew was that Mr. Clink was alive, and that the ranch was free of winter d閎ris.
They found the gentleman sitting on a stump. He had a hand on either knee, and his small watery unblinking eyes were fixed on space. A beard, narrow and grizzled and stained, rested on his lean front, or stirred gently in the breeze. He neither rose, nor otherwise noticed the approach of his visitors.
Gwynne called, shouted, approached the verge of profanity, but he might as well have addressed the silent forest.
Isabel elevated her nose. "To use the vernacular, he is on a long, slow, melancholy jag. I will go in and see how he keeps the house. It needs an airing at least. Every window is closed and probably has been all winter."
She remained in-doors half an hour, putting things to rights with many mysterious touches known only to her sex. When she returned to Gwynne she found him sunning himself on the porch with his back to Mr. Clink, who stolidly regarded an old stump of geranium.
"It is clean enough," she said. "But when you come, bring new blankets—or send them, and your provisions—the day before you bring your guests. I will come up with them and see that everything is in order. I might also turn the hose on Clink, if he has chosen that occasion to drench himself inside. At all events bring a cook—you can have Chuma; these people never can cook anything but fried meat and potatoes."
Drifted leaves lay on the porch a foot deep. Isabel found a broom and swept vigorously, snubbing Gwynne's offer to do it himself. He watched her, crossly reflecting that she was never so unattractive as in that dust-colored divided habit, and wishing that he had waited for the evening hour; even if infrequently seductive, she was always lovely in a becoming gown.
Finally, her labors over, she dusted an aged rocking-chair and sat down, fanning herself with her hat. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling, but she turned to look at the beautiful creek that had torn its way through the forest, and Gwynne suddenly felt that he hated her profile. During the last few weeks he had lost that sense of a constant and secret contest of wills, perhaps because his own had proved the stronger in the final engagement; perhaps, who knew? because she possessed all the infernal subtlety of the Spaniard. But her profile suggested relentless power, and he still had a secret hankering for the old-fashioned submissive female, liberal and indulgent to the sex as he was. He had reflected that he had met so many handsome finely developed girls, with a sufficiency of animated brightness, but well within the type, during the past few weeks, that it was rather odd he had not been captured; particularly as several of the most ripping would add materially to his fortunes. But he had come to the conclusion sometime since, when he hardly knew, that he would prefer to remain unmarried, and enjoy the intimate companionship of a congenial and interesting creature like Isabel, whom he never quite understood. He cursed the stale old conventions that interfered with his desires.
Isabel turned suddenly and smiled. "How fierce you look!" she said. "What is the matter?"
"Everything. Some one, Mrs. Haight, I suppose, saw me riding home on your horse at three o'clock yesterday morning, and the whole town is by the ears. Judge Leslie undertook to break the news to me, and I told him I had gone out to propose, and then ridden about the country to calm my raging fires. I feel that I owe it to you to propose in good earnest, and such as I am you are welcome to me."
"I never heard such a graceful proposal. I wouldn't marry you if Rosewater stood on its head."
"I was rather brutal about it, and I must honestly confess that I'm not particularly keen on marrying you, but I think we'll have to marry, or be deuced uncomfortable—"
"Oh, nothing to what we should be if married. And Rosewater to me is a mere market for chickens and eggs. The only punishment they could inflict on me would be to burn down the hatcheries. I hate to bother with incubators."
Gwynne stood up and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "We must be serious," he said. "They are really malignant about it. I have felt it in the air for some time. Every time I pass that she-devil, Mrs. Haight, on Main Street, her eyes contract with a sort of malicious warning. 'Just you wait!' is the way she would phrase it. And I always feel her at her window when I ride home late. No woman of your age and beauty can defy public opinion alone. The world—and scandal spreads like a plague; San Francisco is only forty miles from Rosewater—the world can hurt you in a thousand ways, ruin your life. I really am only too willing to protect you, and I hope that you will marry me. I am sure we should get along—after a bit."
"That was better. But I will not be driven into matrimony by gossip, or even scandal. That is no part of my scheme of life. And I know Rosewater better than you do. Mrs. Leslie, Anabel, Mrs. Colton, many of the most powerful, would never believe a word against me."
"Not at first. But malicious tongues will wear the gloss from the best-befriended reputation in time. The kindest natures are conventional; and susceptible to all that take, or seem to take, a place in the ranks of established facts."
"I won't do it," said Isabel, stubbornly; and as she turned her profile to him he almost swore aloud. "I shall conquer, or prove the whole modern game of woman a sham, a fool's paradise. I told you that I had set myself to drag strength out of the unknown forces. Well, I propose to use it now. And in your behalf as much as mine."
"I can take care of myself.... I even think I could face the prospect of becoming your husband with a reasonable amount of equanimity." She was looking straight at him again, her face deeply flushed, her eyes shining. "It never occurred to me before, but I believe that if you would permit yourself to develop, you might become the most fascinating woman in the world. And if you did, I swear that you should be happy."
"I am happy, and in my own way. I get something out of every moment. Do you think I am going to run the risk of losing all that for anything so dubious as this old game of sex?"
"Very good game if it is played properly. I have a mind to teach you."
"Well, you will not!"
"I think I shall. It is either marry you or leave California."
"That is a threat unworthy of you."
"No threat at all. If you will not permit me to protect you in one way I must in another. I leave and throw everything over with great 閏lat. You have discarded me and I cannot stand the proximity."
"They might merely think that you were running away from me."
"I shall take good care they think what I choose. Women are more romantic and sentimental than malignant, the bulk. All they want is a starter."
"But you need not leave California. You can move to San Francisco."
"Now you are talking like a child. I shall return to England. As to my American career, my only chance lies here. I hate the rest of the country, and the best material is in California, anyhow. Yesterday I received a letter from my solicitor, enclosing one from Jimmy, who informed me that I was on every tongue, that the public curiosity was piqued, that the newspapers were demanding that I should return and accept my responsibilities, and that without doubt a place would be made for me in the new Liberal Cabinet. It is a propitious moment for return. If there is a time when a Liberal peer can make any running it is when his party is in power."
There was a pause for several moments. Gwynne filled and lit another pipe. Isabel stared at a ring she twisted about her finger, Mr. Clink at the geranium stump. The low dull roar in the forest tops was unceasing, but for other sound of life they might have swung off into space.
Finally Isabel spoke. "I won't marry you," she said. "But all ends will be served if we announce an engagement. We can state that we think it best not to marry until your law studies are concluded. It can be postponed once or twice on other pretexts, then fall through. By that time gossip will be forgotten, people will have lost interest in us. In San Francisco they are not likely to hear of this at all, or if they do it will not matter, and if you fall in love with any of the cotillon beauties I will release you in due form and give you my blessing."
"I have not the least intention of undertaking life with a cotillon beauty. Your compromise will do for the present, but you will understand that my proposal is a bona fide one, should you arrive at a more rational frame of mind."
"I sha'n't fall a victim to any irrational state of mind. I won't marry. Why, even people that like me too much interfere with my sense of liberty."
Gwynne laughed. "We had better be starting," he said.