Gwynne returned to Lumalitas on the following day and Isabel moved down to Mrs. Hofer's. This had seemed a rather superfluous proceeding to Miss Otis, but Mrs. Hofer would take no denial, and lodged her guest in a suite the luxury of which at first delighted and then stifled her. She liked splendor and luxury in the abstract, but some lingering shade of Puritanism in her resented the enthralment of the higher faculties. Her rooms were upholstered with satin from floor to ceiling, the toilet-table was bedecked with gold, and the furniture had been made for some favorite of Napoleon during the First Empire. Isabel was haunted by a vague sense of impropriety, which she ridiculed but could not stifle.
And for the first time in her life she became weary of flowers. When she arrived there was an abundance of the more costly in her boudoir—those that were raised in hot-houses that the rich might not be balked in their laudable desire to spend—and before the week was over, her rooms, as she wrote to Gwynne—chuckling on his veranda—looked like a florist's shop and smelt like a funeral. Everybody she met, and several that she did not, sent her the floral tribute. The bell rang every hour. When the imperturbable footman finally appeared with a box that looked like a child's coffin, Isabel told him pettishly to throw it into the back yard. All Americans send flowers to a pretty girl as a matter of course, but the San Franciscan indulges in an avalanche where his more economical Eastern brother is content with good measure, pressed down, but not running over.
But the offerings were by no means confined to the young men that Isabel met at the functions of the week. "Old friends of the family" were interested to welcome to their midst the beautiful daughter (albeit somewhat eccentric) of Jim Otis and Mary Belmont. Enthusiastic maidens, and others—anxious to proclaim their delight in this sudden invasion of their preserves—sent roses with stems four feet long and chrysanthemums that looked like painted cauliflowers. After a tea at the Presidio, given in the open square, and in honor of the descendant of its most historic Commandante, Don Jos?Arg黣llo, that reclaimed precinct being singularly prolific in flowers, the offerings arrived on the following day in an ambulance.
It was an energetic week. When Mrs. Hofer was not herself entertaining, she and her guest lunched and dined out daily, attended several teas every afternoon, a cotillon, a skating masque, and five balls. Two of the luncheons were at Burlingame and Menlo Park, whence they motored as valiantly as if the roads were European. How so much was crowded into one short week Isabel never understood, but finally came to the conclusion that the rush at its worst was better than remaining for two consecutive waking hours in the Hofer mansion. Mrs. Hofer was always amiable and charming, but she was overwhelming. Her energies demanded the safety-valve of constant speech, and she was one of those American hostesses that hold that to neglect a guest is an unpardonable breach of hospitality. She even gave up bridge for the week. Moreover, Isabel was not long discovering that she contributed her part towards the sustenance of that wondrous buoyancy, those eternal high spirits, that glorious joie de vivre. The woman was an unconscious vampire. Men did not feel it, and saw only her irresistible youth, but she squeezed women as she did her morning sponge, and had no real intimates; although few, herself least of all, understood the secret. If she had liked Isabel less, it would have been more endurable, but she had never liked any one more, to say nothing of the fact that she was determined to give her "the time of her life." She descended upon her helpless guest with a rush of silken skirts—that sounded like wings—and a torrent of bright chatter, during every unoccupied hour or moment. Isabel's only experience of hospitality heretofore had been in England, where a guest might die and be resurrected between the formal hours of reunion and the hostess be none the wiser. It had never occurred to her that visiting might become hard labor, and as she had met few people whom she had liked as spontaneously as Ada Hofer, she had come to her without a misgiving. But she was soon hiding behind the curtains of the big rooms down-stairs, and, upon one memorable occasion, took refuge under the library table, while the sweet rapid voice of the hostess clarioned throughout the house. She was drawn guiltily forth by a deep chuckle from the arm-chair in the window. Mr. Toole regarded her with a twinkle in his bright old eyes, and no resentment.
"I won't tell on ye," he said. "I feel like it meself, at times. Ada's a good child, as good as a born egoist can be, but—well—we are not all made on the same plan. And this life don't suit you. You're a dreamer. I know one when I see one, for I've that side to meself, and now that life is easy it's most the only side I've got left. Sit down in that corner behind the bookcase and I'll read to you from one of the old poets, Byron, belike. If Ada finds us, I'll send her kiting. She didn't bring me up."
When Isabel, in the solitude of her bed, found time to think, she concluded that if she could eliminate all men from her week except Mr. Hofer and those of his particular set, she might still enjoy herself. The San Francisco society youth has always been a failure. Except in rare instances he has not been outside his native State, has read nothing, and is casual of manner. Although more young men of the favored class attend the home universities than formerly, the students that derive the full benefit of these institutions are rarely those that intend to make a business of dancing, and calling on Sunday afternoons. It is yet too soon to weld cultivation with leisure, and, for the matter of that, most of the society youth have their living to make, combining business and fashion with a moderate success. Like Wellington's puppies, they have proved themselves of sound metal when put to the crucial test, but as an intellectual diversion they might as well be mechanical toys. The leader has not yet arisen that can permanently combine the older and younger sets. They mingle at great functions, but the dancing set monopolizes the season's stage.
Of this set Mrs. Hofer was an enthusiastic member, and even at dinner rarely entertained any other. Occasionally, and once during Isabel's visit, she invited some friends of her husband, who never went to parties, and often entertained when his wife was elsewhere; but these men did as much talking as listening, and that was no part of Mrs. Hofer's system. Isabel had flashing vistas of small groups of men and women, distinguished socially as well as mentally, that entertained each other, or met at a new club through which Mrs. Hofer whisked her one night,—a club where the best of Bohemia met the more intellectual members of society; and she knew that in these groups she might find also the higher class business and professional men, and a few of leisure that enjoyed life without either dancing or drinking. But Mrs. Hofer, although far too well satisfied with life and herself to be a snob, loved brilliancy, splendor, constant excitement, dancing, chatter; and only her chosen set could provide the banquet. She could dance every night from ten until two, and awaken in mid-morning as fresh as a rose. She had the wardrobe of the storied princess, and her guests and friends must contribute their share to the brilliancy of all gatherings. She detested shabbiness; it was the only thing that depressed her spirits. Proud as she was of her husband, his aims, and his position in the community, his friends and their themes frankly bored her. She liked talk, not conversation. She really loved him, however, and was far too clever to let him feel neglected. He was inordinately proud of her, and grateful that she permitted him to give his time to his own interests, instead of dragging him about to groan against the wall. She had her little crosses and disappointments, for she had many servants and dressmakers; but, on the whole, Isabel had never seen any one so persistently happy, nor with more reason. Even her three children were as sturdy as young calves, and although they yelled like demons for an hour every morning—reawaking to the sense of a vague something life still denied them, and infuriated at the thought—Mrs. Hofer merely turned over on her pillow with an indulgent smile. It never occurred to her that the rest of the household might be less indulgent; and the nursery above Isabel's room was not the least of the causes that contributed to a frantic longing for the thirty-first of December.