A week later forty or fifty people were camped beside the strawberry fields on the hills beyond the army posts and sloping to the ocean. Mr. Randolph and Nina, the McLanes, Miss Hathaway, Miss Shropshire, the “three Macs,” the Earles, and a half-dozen young men were domiciled in a small village of tents on the eminence nearest the city. The encampments were a mile apart; and in the last of them a number of the Californian grandees who had made the land Arcadia under Mexican rule enjoyed the hospitality of Don Tiburcio Castro, a great rancher who was making an attempt to adapt himself to the new city and its enterprising promoters.

Thorpe and Hastings walked over from the Presidio. They found the entire party assembled before the largest tent, which flew the American flag. As the young men approached, all of the ladies formed quickly into line, two and two, and walked forward to meet them. The men, much mystified, paused, raised their caps, and stood expectant. Mrs. McLane stepped from the ranks, and, with much ceremony, unrolled several yards of tissue paper, then shook forth the silken folds of the English flag, and presented it to Thorpe.

“It is made from our sashes, and we all sewed on it,” she announced. “You will sleep better if the Union Jack is flying over your tent.”

“How awfully jolly—what a stunning compliment,” stammered Thorpe, embarrassed and pleased. “It shall decorate some part of my surroundings as long as I live.”

Mr. Randolph himself fixed the flag, and Thorpe exclaimed impulsively to Mrs. McLane, with whom he stood apart: “Upon my word, I believe I am coming under the spell. I wonder if I shall ever want to leave California?”

“Why not stay? Unless you have ambitions, and want to run for Parliament or be a diplomat or something, or are wedded to the English on their native heath, I don’t see why you shouldn’t remain here. It is rather slow for us women: we are obliged to be twice as proper as the women of older civilisations; but a man, I should think, especially a man of resource like you, ought to find twenty different ways of amusing himself. You not only can have all that is exciting in San Francisco, watching a city trying to kick out of its long clothes, but you can saunter about the country and see the grandees in their towns and on their ranchos, to say nothing of the scenery, which is said to be magnificent.”

“It isn’t a bad idea. My past is not oppressing me, but I believe I should enjoy the sensation of beginning life over again. It would be that—certainly. But then I am an Englishman, you know, and English roots strike deep. Still, I have a half mind to buy a ranch here and come back every year or so. And I have a favourite brother who is rather delicate; it would be a good life for him.”

“Do think of it,” said Mrs. McLane, in the final tone with which she dismissed a subject that could claim her interest so long and no longer. She had liked Thorpe more in Paris, where he was not in love with another woman. She moved away with her husband, a big burly man with a face curiously like Sir Walter Scott’s, and Thorpe plunged his hands in his pockets and strolled over the hill. The slopes were covered with strawberry vines down to the broad white beach. The large calm waves of the Pacific rolled ponderously in and fell down. Cityward was the Golden Gate with its white bar. Beyond it were steep cliffs, gorgeous with colour.

“Does England really exist?” he thought. “One could do anything reckless in this country.”

He had been the only man to miss his elk at the hunt, and he had spent the rest of the day in hard riding. When the fever wore off, his reason was thankful that Nina Randolph had refused him, and he made up his mind to leave California by the next steamer. He had heard of the wonders worked by Time, and none knew better than he how to make life varied and interesting. He persuaded himself that he was profoundly relieved that she did not love him. Once or twice he had been nearly sure that she did. He had not seen her alone since the morning of the hunt, and, when they had met, her manner had been as frank and friendly as ever.

He joined Mrs. Earle, who had draped a reboso about her head, and was fluttering an immense fan. For the first time since his arrival in San Francisco, he plunged into a deliberate flirtation. Mrs. Earle was one of those women who flirt from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, and she was so thin that Thorpe fancied he could see the springs which kept her skeleton in such violent motion. Her eyebrows were marvels of muscular ingenuity, and all the passions were in a pair of great black eyes which masked a brain too shrewd to try the indulgence of old Dom Pedro Earle, a doughty Scot, too far.

Once, as they repassed a tent, Thorpe saw a vibration of the door, and a half moment later heard a loud crash. Mrs. Earle’s eyebrows went up to her hair, but she only said:

“Your eyes are as grey and cold as that sea, seÑor; but they will get into a fine blaze some day, and then they will burn a hole in some poor woman’s heart. And your jaw! Dios de mi alma! What a tyrant you must be—over yourself most of all! I flirt with you no more. You are the sort of man that husbands are so jealous of, because you do not know how to trifle. Adios, seÑor, adios!”

She swayed over to her husband; and at the same moment Nina ran out of the tent which had attracted Thorpe’s attention. She wore a short white frock and a large white hat, which made her look very young. In her hand she carried a small tin horn, upon which she immediately gave a shrill blast.

“That means work,” she cried. “Get down to the patch.”

The servants spread a long table on a level spot, and fetched water from a spring, carrying the jugs on their shoulders. The cook, in a tent apart, worked leisurely at a savory supper. The guests scattered among the strawberry-beds, and plucked the large red fruit. Each had a small Mexican basket, and culled as rapidly as possible; the positions they were forced to assume were not comfortable. All were very gay, and now and then fought desperately for a well-favoured vine.

Nina, who had been ousted by Mrs. Earle’s long arms, which flashed round a glowing patch like two serpents, sprang up and ran down to the foot of the hill, where the vines were more straggling and less popular. Thorpe followed, laughing. Her hat had been lost in the fray; her hair was down and blown about in the evening wind, and her cheeks were crimson.

“I hate long-legged long-armed giantesses,” she exclaimed, attacking a vine spitefully. “And Spanish people are treacherous, anyhow. That patch was mine.”

Thorpe laughed heartily. Her temper was genuine. His spirits suddenly felt lighter; she looked like a spoilt child, not like a girl with a tragic secret.

“She upset my basket, too,” continued Nina, viciously. “But she upset half her own at the same time, and I trod on them, on purpose.”

“Here, let me fill your basket while you make a mud pie.” He plucked his portion and hers, while she dug her fingers into the sand, and recovered her temper. As Thorpe dropped the replenished basket into her lap, she tossed her hair out of her eyes, and smiled up at him.

“Sit down and rest,” she said, graciously. “Supper won’t be ready for a half hour yet, and that hill is something to climb.”

The others had finished their task, and disappeared over the brow of the hill. The west was golden; even the sea was yellow for the moment.

“We know how to enjoy ourselves out here,” said Nina, contentedly, sinking her elbow into the sand. “I should think it a good place to pitch your tent.”

She flirted her eyelashes at him, and looked so incapable of being serious that he answered, promptly,—

“I shall, if I can find some one to make it comfortable.”

“You don’t need to go begging. You’re quite the belle. Several that are more or less Éprises are splendid housekeepers.”

“I am not looking for a housekeeper.”

“What are you looking for?” she asked, audaciously. Her chin was in her hand; her unbound hair clung about her; her tiny feet moved beneath the hem of her frock.

He also was lying on his elbow, his face close to hers. He had always followed her cues, and if she wished to flirt at this late date he was quite willing to respond. He made up his mind abruptly to dismiss all plans and drift with the tide.

“You,” he said, softly.

“Are you proposing to me?”

He noted that she ignored his actual proposal, and commended her tact.

“I am not so sure that I am; I am surer that I want to.”

“You are a cautious calculating Englishman.”

“I believe I am—up to a certain point.”

“Your face looks so hard and brown in that shadow. I’ve had men propose the third time they met me.”

“Probably.”

“You can propose, if it will ease your mind. I shall never marry.”

“Why not?”

“I think it would be heavenly to be an old maid, and make patchwork quilts for missionaries.”

“I shall take pleasure in imagining you in the rÔle when I am digging away at Blue Books and Reports.”

“Ah, never, never more!” she chanted, lightly.

He paled slightly, then lifted a strand of her hair and drew it across his lips. It was the first caress he had given her in their six weeks of friendly intimacy, and her colour deepened. He shook the hair over her face. Her eyes peered out elfishly.

“I suspect we are going to flirt this week,” she said, drily.

“If you choose to call it that.” Her hair was clinging about his fingers.

“Suppose we make a compact—to regard nothing seriously that may occur this week.”

“Why are you so afraid of compromising yourself?”

“That belongs to the final explanation. But it is a recognised canon of strawberry-week ethics that everybody flirts furiously. Friendship is entirely too serious. Of course I shall flirt with you,—I shall let Dominga Earle see that at once,—as I am tired of all the others. Will you make the compact?”

“Yes.”

The sun had dropped below the ocean; only a bar of paling green lay on the horizon. Voices came faintly over the hill, and the shadows were rapidly gathering.

Thorpe’s face moved suddenly to hers. He flung her hair aside and kissed her. She did not respond, nor move. But when he kissed her again and again, she did not repulse him.

“I want you to understand this,” he said, and his voice had softened, a rare variation, nor was it steady. “I have not let myself go because you proposed that compact. I am quite willing to forget it.”

“But I am not. I expect you to remember it.”

“Very well, we can settle that later. Meanwhile, for this week, we will be happy. Have you ever let any man kiss you before?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What a thing to say!”

“Some one may have found me napping, you know.”

“You are very fond of being enigmatical. Why can’t you give a straight answer to a straight question?”

“Well—what I meant was that you should not ask impertinent questions. But, if you insist,—as far as I know, only two men have kissed me,—you and my father.”

He drew a quick breath. The ugliest fear that had haunted him took flight. He believed her to be truthful.

He stood up suddenly, and drawing her with him, held her closely until he felt her self-control giving way. When he kissed her again, she put up her arms and clung to him, and kissed him for the first time. He knew then, whatever her reason for suggesting such a compact, or her ultimate purpose, that she loved him.

The mighty blast of a horn echoed among the hills and cliffs. Nina sprang from Thorpe’s arms.

“That is one of papa’s jokes,” she said. “It isn’t the horn of the hunter, but of the farmer. Come, supper is ready. Oh, dear!” She clapped her hands to her head. “I can’t go up with my hair looking like this. I can just see the polaric disgust of the Hathaway orbs; it goes through one like blue needles. And then the malicious snap of Mrs. Earle’s, and the faint amusement of Mrs. McLane’s. And I’ve lost my hairpins! And I never—never—can get to my tent unseen. I’m living with ’Lupie and Molly, and they’re sure to be late—on purpose; I hate women—Here! Braid it. Don’t tell me you can’t! You must!”

She presented her back to Thorpe, who was clumsily endeavouring to adapt himself to her mood. The discipline of the last six weeks stood him in good stead.

“Upon my word!” he exclaimed, in dismay, “I never braided a woman’s hair in my life.”

“Quick! Divide it in three strands—even—then one over the other—Oh, an idiot could braid hair! Tighter. Ow! Oh, you are so clumsy.”

“I know it,” humbly. “But it clings to my fingers. I believe you have it charged with electricity. It doesn’t look very even.”

“I don’t imagine it does. But it feels as if it would do. Half way down will be enough—”

“Hallo!” came Hastings’s voice from the top of the hill. “Are you two lost in a quicksand?”

“Coming!” cried Nina. She sprang lightly up the hill, chattering as merrily as if she and the silent man beside her had spent the last half-hour flinging pebbles into the ocean.

They separated on the crest of the hill, and went to their respective tents. A few moments later Nina appeared at the supper-table with her disordered locks concealed by a network of sweet-brier. The effect was novel and bizarre, the delicate pink and green very becoming.

“Heaven knows when I’ll ever get it off,” she whispered to Thorpe, as she took the chair at his side. “It has three thousand thorns.”

The girls were in their highest spirit at the supper-table. Mr. McLane and Mr. Randolph were in their best vein, and Hastings and Molly Shropshire talked incessantly. Thorpe heard little that was said; he was consumed with the desire to be alone with Nina Randolph again.

But she would have no more of him that night. After supper, a huge bonfire was built on the edge of a jutting cliff, and the entire party sat about it and told yarns. The women stole away one by one. Nina was almost the first to leave.

The men remained until a late hour, and received calls from hilarious neighbours whose bonfires were also blazing. Don Tiburcio Castro dashed up at one o’clock, and invited Mr. Randolph to bring his party to a grand merienda on the last day but one of their week, and to a ball at the Mission Dolores on the evening following.

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