It was close upon the middle of April when Gwynne left the train a mile from Lumalitas, and, being unheralded, walked across the fields to his house. He had intended to get off at Rosewater, hire the fastest horse in town, and ride out to Old Inn; but he had been seized with doubt and diffidence, and while he was still turning hot and cold the train moved out of the station. It was now nearly ten weeks since he had seen Isabel, and during that time he had received one letter from her. This letter he had read and reread until its contents were meaningless; and he was still in doubt as to what might lurk between the lines. He was reasonably sure that he had forced her to write, but whether mere pique and curiosity had been his aides, he was far from being able to determine. She had been right in assuming that he dared not trust himself to the tempting privacy of the letter. He had no idea how he stood, and would not run the risk of making a fool of himself; not until he was face to face with her could he pretend to decide upon any course of action. But he had been tormented for ten weeks as he had never expected to be tormented by any woman. Although he still assured himself that he intended to marry her, the riot in his mind and blood bred distrust of himself and evoked terrible images of Isabel at the altar with another. He should hate to the day of his death the beautiful old town of Santa Barbara, where he had been without any sort of refuge from his thoughts; and in Washington, although he had managed to occupy his mind and time profitably, there were still hours which he must spend alone, and he had dreaded them.
And he was beset by other doubts than those of the mere lover. He was conscious that in these weeks of absence and longing, he had idealized Isabel, until the being he dwelt with in fancy was more goddess than woman. He knew many sides of her, but much had eluded him, even after he began to study her. That she was gifted in large measure with what the Americans so aptly termed cussedness he had good reason to know; and whether this very definite characteristic so far controlled her nature as to hold her nobler qualities in durance——or were there nobler qualities? She had brain and common-sense; both attributes had compelled his respect long since. And she had character and pride—loyalty and independence. He had had glimpses of what he would unhesitatingly have accepted as heart and passion had he not known himself to be dazzled by her beauty and wilful powers of fascination. That she was wholly feminine, at least, he was convinced; she was too often absurdly so to keep up, with any one that saw her constantly, the fiction of the sexless philosopher. The very devil in her was of the unmistakable feminine kidney. All this gave him hope, and he knew, that when caprice permitted, she would be unrivalled as a companion. Intellectually, at least, there was no thought of his she could not share and appreciate; and her sense of humor and her feminine perversities would always delight him. If only there were depths beneath. The longings of the spirit are always formless, vaguely worded, a little shamefaced. Gwynne hardly knew what was the great extreme he wanted in his wife, but he knew that if he did not find it he should be miserable. He was by no means the young man that had fallen blindly in love with Julia Kaye. He had had little time for introspection, for intimate knowledge of himself, in those days.
The spring was invented to remind men what mere mortals they are. Gwynne would have felt restless and disinclined for law and politics this morning had he never seen Isabel Otis. Every lark in the great valley was singing madly. Blue birds, yellow birds, sat on the fences and carolled at each other as if the world were always May. The very earth seemed to have sprouted into color. He had never imagined wild flowers by the billion, nor such a harmonious variety of color. The fields were green, the cherries, black and red and white, glistening and luscious, were ready for picking in his orchards. As he approached his house, he saw that all the white oaks, bare in winter, were in leaf; large soft young green leaves, that almost hid the pendent sad green moss. The air was warm and light, the sky so blue it seemed to laugh with a promise of eternal good things. The whole land breathed hope, and youth, and allurement to every delight, of which she alone possessed the store. He was soon to learn what a liar she was, but although it was many a long day before he took note of any phase of nature again, save her weather, he had an elusive presentiment that he should never cease to be grateful for that moment of quick unreasoning exultation in his youth and manhood, and in the mere joy of life.
He was not surprised, as he turned the corner of the veranda, to find Imura Kisaburo Hinamoto sitting with his feet on the railing, a cigarette in his mouth, and a volume, issued by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, on his knee. But as the servant saw the master he rose promptly to his feet, extinguished the cigarette with his fingers, and stood in an attitude of extreme respect. He even smiled, but not propitiatingly; it was almost patent that the return of his chance superior was welcome.
Gwynne nodded. "Glad to see that you still improve your mind," he observed. "Tell Carlos to hitch up and go for my luggage: I left it at the station." He looked at his watch. It was half-past eleven. He hesitated a moment, then decided to postpone his visit to Isabel again. He did not feel in the mood to sit down and eat with her. "My horse at two o'clock," he added. And the Jap disappeared.
Gwynne went into the kitchen, and Mariana, who was peeling onions for an olla podrida, screamed and embraced him.
"No could help," she said, philosophically. "Very glad, se駉r, very glad."
Gwynne was not in the humor to repulse anybody, and assured her that she really made him feel that he had returned to his home. Several of her tribe were in the kitchen and looked expectant. He informed them that he had a box of New York sweets in his trunk, and retreated.
On the veranda he sat down facing his mountain, which like the rest of the world was a mass of delicate color, where it was not merely green, and seemed to move gently under the pink shimmering haze. Beyond was the blue crouching mass of the old volcano. "The eternal hills" was a phrase that never occurred to him when he watched these mountains, always veiled under a colored and moving haze. They looked far more likely to pull up their feet and walk off. But Gwynne, although the border beneath his veranda was full of sweet scents, and the roses on the pillars hung about him, and the air was a soft caressing tide, was no longer concerned with nature. He was nervous and full of doubt, of uneasy anticipation that he would not appear to advantage at three o'clock that afternoon. He knew that if he were really panic-stricken and attempted to carry it off in the masterful manner, she would laugh in his face. If he could work himself up to the attitude, well and good. At the same time he was vaguely conscious that this period of alternate hope and fear, of cold fits and hot, would one day be sweet in the retrospect, and regretted with some sadness; an episode in the lover's progress gone beyond recall.
There was a sound of wheels on the county road, then on his own property. He wondered at the unusual dispatch of his Carlos, but realized in a moment that a buggy was approaching, not a wagon. Then there was a light slouching step on the veranda, and he rose to greet Tom Colton.
"By Jove, old chap, I'm glad to see you," he began, and thankful that he had written his condolences; but he paused abruptly. Colton ignored the outstretched hand.
"So you've got your passport?" he said. And his ingenuous blue eyes were full of a hard antagonism.
"Yes," said Gwynne. "I should have told you in a day or two. How did you find out?" he added, curiously. "I took my oath before the passport clerk in the innermost recess of the State Department."
"There's not much I don't find out. Only, I got wind of this a little too late. So did some others, or you might have hung round Washington for the next four years. Do you call it square not to have told me of this before you left?"
"I saw no obligation to take you into my confidence. In the first place the result of my pilgrimage was very doubtful, and in the second you would have done all you could to balk me. When have I given you reason to write me down an ass?"
"You are too damned clever," muttered Colton. "Too clever by half. Much better for you if you had stayed where you were. You had no enemies when you left, but now, let me tell you, you've got a bunch that it will take more than your cleverness to handle."
"They can do their worst. I thought that all I needed was hard work, but I fancy that what I missed most was the stimulus of enemies."
"Well, you've got it all right."
Somewhat to the host's surprise he suddenly seated himself and tipped back his chair. Gwynne remained standing, leaning against a pillar, his hands in his pockets. Colton surveyed him frankly. His eyes were still hard and he was very angry, but he saw no reason why he should be uncomfortable, and although he could disguise his feelings when he chose, he knew that here it was safe to allow himself the luxury of frankness. He was the more annoyed, as what friendship he was capable of he had given to Gwynne. That would not have stayed hand or foot a moment, were his path in the least obstructed, but he regretted that they had come to an issue so early in the game. Indeed, he had hoped to manipulate Gwynne's destinies so subtly that they would be politically bound for life, with himself always a length ahead. It was true that once or twice he had felt a misgiving that the Englishman, with all his aristocratic disdain for devious ways, might match him and win, but the shock of this early outwitting had been none the less severe.
"Did you have a hard time getting it?" he demanded.
"Rather. Never heard so much palaver in my life."
"Well, I wish there had been more. I think I have at least the right to ask what you intend to do next."
"Return to Judge Leslie's office to-morrow—for the matter of that, I have read a good deal since I left. In September I shall have been a year in the State, and of course I can vote. I am not so sure that I shall."
"Yes! That is all, I suppose?"
"For the present. You are too good a politician to fancy that American citizenship has invested me with a halo. Except to a hundred odd farmers, Rosewater, a small group in San Francisco, and a party boss or two, I am unknown. No doubt I shall be several years achieving sufficient prominence either to run for office, or to accomplish anything whatever—outside of Rosewater. So far as I can see, this immediate citizenship has effected two results only: I am now in a position to take advantage of any political change that may develop, instead of sowing for another to reap—and—"
He hesitated, and Colton shot him a keen glance. "It has made a change in you, I guess. I noticed that the minute I laid eyes on you. If anything was needed to make me madder, it was that."
"Yes—I am changed. That is to say, I am poised. In spite of the determination to absorb Americanism with every pore, there was always the lurking doubt that it wouldn't do; that some day I should make a bolt for England. Now the matter is settled forever. I not only am an American but always have been. The highest legal opinion in the country was called in, and that was what finally decided the question. I accepted it as literally as the others did, and in so doing I relegated my English life to the episodical backwaters: among my adventures in India and Africa. I fancy that if England came to a death struggle in my time, and every man counted, I should fight for her. I certainly never should fight against her. But it is a profound relief to me that I am not throwing her over, that we have no legitimate right to each other. I fancy that that, too, demoralized me a bit."
"How did you feel when you took that oath?" asked Colton, more and more curious, almost forgetting his grievance. "It's a kind of solemn oath. I've had a sort of chill when I've heard it taken once or twice."
"There could hardly be a more solemn oath. I don't know that it gave me a chill, but I certainly read it over several times before I took it. And I took it without any reservations."
"Did you feel an American the moment you took it?"
"Yes—I did. That is to say I felt a certain buoyancy. The die was cast. There could be no more hesitation and doubt. My new life had actually begun."
"It's begun, all right. Jiminy, but you'll have a tough time. They're onto you now. You haven't the ghost of a chance to make a move they won't see before your hand is off the board."
Gwynne replied with even more than his usual fluency.
"Yes," replied Colton, with a sigh. "I guess that's where we'll all bring up. But meanwhile? Are you going to throw me over?"
"It will depend upon yourself. I have no objection to confide to you such plans as I have been able to formulate. Judge Leslie advised me to play about in society, in Washington, but I was in no humor for anything of the sort. I had uncommon opportunities to study men and conditions, and I took full advantage of them. I doubt if I shall vote until the next Presidential election. Then, if an independent party of consequence has not been formed, and I see no prospect of working up one in this State, I shall vote the Democratic ticket. As things stand at present, it is the less of two evils, and would at least accomplish a reduction of the tariff, and something towards a redistribution of wealth. I haven't the least doubt that the Democrats, if they get in—unless they have a really good man up their sleeve—will abuse their power quite as much as the Republicans have done; but that will take some time; and meanwhile a new party is sure to grow up, for the best men in the country are thoroughly roused. There's no doubt on that point—and it is a point you would do well to remember. There have been chapters before in the world's history when right has paid."
"For a while," said Colton, dubiously. "The point is now that you are likely to join the Democrats."
"To vote with them. Theirs are the soundest principles. I stick to that point."
"I don't question it. I only wish elections weren't two years off; I'd like to get to work." He took a bag of peanuts from his pocket and began to munch thoughtfully. "But you are turning me off. What do you mean exactly?"
"I shall have nothing to do with the machine. I shall speak and make propaganda, that is all. My object is not so much to get the Democrats in as the Republicans out. I shall do nothing to split the Democratic party—and play a losing game—unless a really great movement should rise, gather strength, and sweep the country. It is on the cards that there will be such a movement, and I throw myself into it the moment I am persuaded the split will not work to the advantage of the Republicans."
"How much enthusiasm have you pumped up?"
"Enthusiasm!" Gwynne's eyes roved over his "fair domain." Isabel, at least, was not far from its borders! "I cannot say that I am at boiling-point, but I don't fancy that matters much. I have my work cut out and I shall do it. Perhaps I shall work more disinterestedly without enthusiasm. Certainly I shall be more clear-sighted. If ever there was a time in the history of a country to sink individual ambition, it is now."
"Gwynne!" said Colton, abruptly. "What in thunder does it all amount to, anyhow? What difference does it make—will it make a thousand years hence—that you and I are sitting here on the very edge of creation, solemnly discussing the rottenest subject of our little time—American politics? What's the use of the socialists frothing, and nations trying to overturn one another? I had rather die on the spot than that the United States should be conquered for five minutes by Japan or any other Asiatic power, although I could endure the victory of a people that I recognized as our equals. Why are instincts planted so strongly? There may be a reason for a few years; but that's just it, a few mean little years and it is all over. What difference does anything really make, so long as we are comfortable? Everything else, every other instinct, is artificial. My wife is a religious little body and believes in reward and punishment hereafter, that we must spend at least a certain part of our time in this life preparing for the next. I'd like to believe the same, not only to please her, but because I could look forward to meeting my child again; but, somehow, I can't. The present has always been about as much as I could tackle. And I fancy that when I'm through with it, I won't want any more. But although the present whirls so fast that I don't have time for the sort of thinking intellectual people like you and Isabel do, still it does sometimes dash across my mind—that question: 'What is it all for? And why do we sweat through life for what amounts to exactly nothing in the end?'"
"You cannot be sure it amounts to nothing. Sometimes I have the fancy that the entire round globe has just one inhabitant, of which we merely appear to be individual manifestations: that we are, in fact, a part of the earth herself, and she absorbs and casts us forth again, as she rushes along to her own destiny as sentient as ourselves. All the planets are alive in the same way, and they are all racing to see which will make the greatest showing on what we call down here the Judgment Day—that is to say, which shall have produced the most balanced and perfected being; which shall have whirled away the most original sin and sifted out a man, great and good without self-righteousness—to my mind the worst of mortal failings because its correlative, injustice, is the source of most of the unhappiness. That will be the millennium, and having no windmills and evils left to fight, we minute visibilities will welcome deindividualization. Then, no doubt, there will be a grand final battle between the great body of good thus formed, and the evil cast out, but roaming space and joining forces. If we do our best here we shall win, and be happy ever after. There is no question, that if you follow your higher instincts you are happier in the long run than if you fall a slave to your base and mean; and that, to my mind, is the proof that the highest instincts are meant to be followed to some greater end."
"Hm. I have heard a good many theories, first and last, and that sounds as plausible as any."
"All this is very casually related to American politics, except that we had better clean up when the opportunity is vouchsafed us; for nothing degrades human nature nor retards civilization so much as politics gone altogether wrong. As far as you are concerned, although it was understood that the compact was to end with my citizenship, I have no thought of ending it unless the conditions I hope for shall crystallize meanwhile. If it seems best to keep the Democratic party unsplit I shall do your canvassing and speaking, for it will make me known, and give me the opportunity to inculcate the principles I purpose to advocate. If you ignore them when you are in office, so much the worse for you, and better for me; for, as I have told you more than once, the moment I am in power I shall devote my energies to pulling you and your like down and out. But I should advise you to join the third party if it arises."
"No doubt I might, if it were strong enough," said Colton, frankly. "I don't propose to play any losing game, and if the Democratic party goes by the board, T. R. Colton doesn't follow. And if a third party came in to stay it would have to have a boss—"
"Not your sort."
"Oh, well, time enough." Colton's ill-humor was now somnolent under some two pounds of peanuts. He rose and shook hands with Gwynne. "Glad to see you looking so well—you're some heavier than when you came to California, by-the-way, and it suits you first rate. Be sure you call on my wife the first time you come to town."
He declined Gwynne's invitation to dinner, and drove off, looking slothful and amiable once more. But what went on behind that mask, within that long ill-built cranium, Gwynne had never pretended to guess. Nor, to-day, did he care.
At three o'clock he gave his horse to Abe, was told that the lady of the manor was out walking, and went into the house. He had a fancy to meet her again in the room that harbored the sweetest of his California memories. It was dark and cool. Only one window, looking upon the garden, was open. Beside it was a comfortable chair which he took possession of and looked out into the wild old garden so different from the excessively cultivated plots of Rosewater and his own meagre strips. There was no veranda on this side of the house, and the great acacia-tree, with its weight of fragrant gold, was but a few feet from the window. The entire garden was enclosed by a hedge of the Castilian roses of which he had heard so much, rare as they now were in California. The dull green leaves and tight little buds could hardly be seen for the mass of wide fluted roses of a deep old-fashioned pink. And there were large irregular borders covered with the luxuriant green and the blue stars of the periwinkle, beds of marguerites and violets, bushes of lilac and honeysuckles, roses and jasmine. The blended perfumes were overpowering, however delicious; Gwynne had sat up half the night before talking to his mother after a long hot journey; he fell asleep.
Perhaps it was his late conversation, perhaps something more subtle, but he felt himself transported to a void. In a moment he realized that the void was not space as he knew it, but rigid invisible substance. He slipped along through rocky strata, hearing strange echoes and inhaling the disagreeable odors of healing waters. Suddenly he found himself in a vast hollowed space, empty but for many pillars. His vision grew keener. In the very centre of the hall he saw two pillars of a colossal size, and standing between them a being almost as large. This unthinkable giant had an arm about each pillar and strained as Samson had strained at the pillars of the temple. Then a new and powerful force drew him upward once more, and he awoke.
He turned his head towards the dim interior of the room and for a dazed moment thought that he beheld Spring herself. She wore white and had dropped a mass of wild flowers at her feet; she looked as if rising out of them. Her hat was covered with poppies and wild azalea, and she had a sheaf of buttercups and "blue eyes" in her belt.
"I haven't changed my ideas one bit," she said, with a shrug, as Gwynne rose and came towards her. "But I can't help it!"