Don Roberto and Mr. Polk took no part in these festivities; Mrs. Yorba and MagdalÉna took less and less; the picture made by Don Roberto in his shirt-sleeves, manipulating a hose as the char-À-banc drove off, finally forbade his wife to riot while her husband toiled. She was angry and resentful; but she was a woman of stern principles, and she had a certain measure of that sort of love for her husband which duty prompts in those who are without passion.

"I don't pretend to understand your father," she said to MagdalÉna. "The bees he gets in his bonnet are quite beyond me, but if he feels that way, he does, and that's the end of it; and he makes me feel uncomfortable all the time I am anywhere. I sha'n't go out again until he gets over this. You can go with somebody else."

"I would a great deal rather stay home. I don't enjoy myself. People work so hard to be amused. I'd much rather just sit still and do nothing."

"You're lazy, like all the Spanish. Well, you'll have to do a good deal of sitting still, I expect; and in a sick room, I'm afraid. Poor Hiram looks thinner and greyer every day. Almost all our relations died of consumption."

"I wrote to aunt how badly he was looking, but she has not answered."

"She won't, the heartless thing. She never loved him. But if he takes to his bed with slow consumption, she'll have to come up and do her share of the nursing. She ought to like it. Fat women always make good nurses."

MagdalÉna was more than glad to fall out of the gaieties. She was beginning to feel that most demoralising of all sensations,—the disintegration of will. Pride, a certain excitement, and novelty had kept her armour locked for a time; but each time she met Trennahan, the ordeal of facing him with platitudes, or, what was worse still, in occasional friendly talks, and of witnessing Helena's little airs of possession, suggested a future and signal failure. She came to have a morbid terror that she should betray herself, and when in company with him kept out of the very reach of his voice. She never went to the woods, lest she meet him, with or without Helena. In those rustling arbours of many memories, she knew that she should let fly the passion within her. She was appalled that neither time nor will nor principle had authority over her love. She had made up her mind that she would, if not tear it up by the roots, at least level it to the soil from which it had sprung, and she was quite ready to believe that love was not all; that with her youth, intellect, and wealth there was much in life for her. But the plant flourished and was heavy with bloom. Even while she avoided him, she longed for the moment when he must of necessity speak to her. She welcomed the excuse to secede from the ranks of pleasurers, but even then she started up at every sound of wheels that might herald his approach. She longed for the wedding to be over; but Helena would not marry before December, that being her birth month and eminently suitable, in her logical fancy, for her second launching. Colonel Belmont, having satisfied himself that everyone in the little drama had acted with honour, was well pleased with his son-in-law; but he was much distressed at the attitude of the old friend who had hoped to fill a similar relation to Trennahan. Don Roberto, taciturn with everybody, refused to speak to Colonel Belmont, to return his courtly salutation.

"I suppose it is natural," said Colonel Belmont to Helena. "Don is not only eccentric, but he would almost rather lose a hundred thousand dollars than his own way. But I hope he'll come round in time, for it makes me feel right lonesome in my old age. He and Hi were the only real intimates I have had in California, and now Hi is going, poor old fellow! and of course I can do little to cheer him up until Don thaws out."

"Do you feel quite well yourself?" asked Helena, anxiously. "You often look so terribly pale."

"I never was better, honey, I assure you. But remember that you must expect to lose your old father some day. But I've been pretty good to you, haven't I? You'll have nothing but pleasant things to remember?"

"You're the very best angel on earth. I don't even love Jack so much. I thought I did, but I don't."

"Don't you love him?" asked her father, anxiously. He was eager for her to marry; he knew that his blood was white.

"Of course! What a question!"