for the hair and quiet elegance of attire. Despite her careful articulation, he detected the broad o and a of the Yorkshire people. The woman was playing the part of a gentlewoman and playing it fairly well. When the thin lips moved apart in an infrequent smile they displayed sharp scattered teeth. The jaw was aggressive. The hands in their well-adjusted gloves were large even for her unusual height. As Thorpe remarked that he was prepared to admire and enjoy California, one side of her upper lip lifted in an ugly sneer.

“Probably,” she replied coldly. “Most people catch it. It’s like the measles. I wish Jim Randolph liked it less.”

Thorpe, for the first time, experienced a desire to meet Nina Randolph.

Hastings disengaged him. “Come,” he said, “I’ll introduce you to Miss Randolph and one or two others, and then you can look out for yourself. I want to dance. Mrs. McLane is not here. There are the ‘three Macs,’” indicating a trio surrounded by a group of men,—“Miss McDermott, classic and cold; Miss McAllister, languid and slight; Miss McCullum, stocky and matter-of-fact. But it will take you a week to straighten them out. Here—look—what do you think of this?”

Thorpe directed his glance over the shoulders of a knot of men who surrounded a tall Spanish-looking girl with large haughty blue eyes and brown hair untidily arranged. She wore an old black silk frock with muslin bertha. Her face interested Thorpe at once, but in a moment he had much ado to keep from laughing outright. For she spoke never a word. She merely looked; taking each eager admirer in turn, and by some mysterious manipulation of eyelash, sweeping a different expression into those profound obedient orbs every time. As she saw Hastings she nodded carelessly, and, when he presented Thorpe, spoke for the first time. She merely said “Good-evening,” but her voice, Spanish, low, sweet—accompanied by a look—made the stranger feel what a blessed thing hospitality was.

“So that is your Miss Hathaway,” he said, as Hastings once more led him onward. “What a pity that such a beautiful girl should be so poor. But she’ll probably marry any one of these incipient millionaires she wants.”

“Poor?” cried Hastings. “Oh, her get-up. She affects to despise dress—or does. God forbid that I should presume to understand what goes on behind those blue masks. Her father is a wealthy and distinguished citizen. Her mother inherited a hundred thousand acres from one of the old grandees. What do you think of her?”

“Her methods are original and entertaining, to say the least. Does she never—converse?”

“When she has something to say; she’s a remarkable woman. That must be Miss Randolph. Her crowd is always the densest.”

As Thorpe was presented to Nina Randolph he forgot that he was a student of heredity. He had never seen so radiant and triumphant a being. She seemed to him, in that first moment, to symbolize the hope and joy and individualism of the New World. Small, like her father, she was perfectly modelled, from her round pulsing throat to the tips of her tiny feet: ignoring the fashion, her yellow gown fitted her figure instead of a hoop-skirt. Her black hair was coiled low on her head, but, although unconfined in a net, did not, like Miss Hathaway’s “waterfall,” suggest having been arranged in the dark. Her black eyes, well set and wide apart, sparkled with mirth. The head was thrown back, the chin uplifted, the large sweet human mouth, parted, showed small even teeth. The eyebrows were heavy, the nose straight and tilted, the complexion ivory-white, luminous, and sufficiently coloured.

As she saw Hastings, she rose at once and motioned her group aside.

“Whatever made you so late?” she exclaimed. “And this is Mr. Thorpe? I am so relieved that you have not been garotted, or blown into the bay. Captain Hastings is always the first to arrive and the last to leave—I was sure something had happened.”

“You look remarkably worried,” murmured Hastings.

“I cannot depress my other guests. They also have their rights.” She gave Thorpe a gracious smile. “I have saved the fifth dance from this for you, and you are also to take me in to supper. Now I must go. Hasta luego! Captain Hastings, as it’s all your fault, I shall not give you a dance till after supper.”

She spun down the room in the clasp of an army officer little taller than herself. Thorpe’s eyes followed the fluent pair darting through the mob of dancers with the skill and energy of that time. Miss Randolph’s eyes glittered, her little feet twinkled. She looked the integer of happy youth; and Thorpe turned away with a sigh, feeling old for the moment under the pressure of his large experience of the great world beyond California. He became aware that Hastings was introducing him to several men, and a moment later was guided to the library to have a drink. When he returned, it was time to claim Miss Randolph.

“Do you care to dance?” he asked as he plied her fan awkwardly. “I am rather rusty. To tell the truth, it’s eight years since I last danced, and I never was very keen on it. I should say that I’ve been travelling a lot, and when I’m home I go in for sport rather more than for the social taxes.”

“What a relief to find a man who doesn’t dance! Let us go into the conservatory. Have you been much in America? How is it that you and Captain Hastings are such great friends?”

“He came over when a lad to visit some English relatives whose place adjoins ours, and we hit it off. Since then I have visited him in Louisiana, and we have travelled in Europe together.”

“I suppose he amuses you—you are certainly unlike enough.”

“Not in the least—he’s the prince of good fellows. What a jolly place!”

They had passed through the library and entered the conservatory: a small forest of palms, great ferns, and young orange-trees; brought, Miss Randolph explained, from Southern California. Chinese lanterns swung overhead. Rustic chairs and sofas, covered with the skins of panthers, wild cats, and coyotes, were grouped with much discretion.

Miss Randolph threw herself into a chair and let her head drop against the yellow skin on the back. Thorpe drew his chair close in front of her. In a moment he discovered that her lids were inclined to droop, and that there were lines about her mouth.

“You are tired,” he said abruptly. “Shall I fetch you a glass of champagne?”

“Oh, no; it wouldn’t do me a bit of good. Hot rooms and dancing always tire me. I’m glad when the season is over. In another month or so we shall be going to Redwoods, our country home—about thirty miles south of San Francisco. You must come down with us; we have good shooting,—deer and quail in the mountains, and snipe and duck in the marshes.”

“You are very kind,” he said, and his reply was as mechanical as her invitation. He knew that all but the edge of her mind was turned from him, and was sufficiently interested to wish to get down into her thought. He went on gropingly: “I will confide to you that army life bores me a good deal, and as I intend to spend six months in California, I shall travel about somewhat.” Then he added abruptly: “You are utterly unlike an English girl.”

“I am a Californian. Blood does not go for much in this climate. You’ll understand why, if you stay here long enough.”

“In what way is it so unlike other places? I feel the difference, but cannot define it.”