The San Rosario Ranch
adopted by the architect was a novel one, and seemed a combination of
the Ionic, Corinthian, and Queen Anne styles. Stucco and lath
represented decorations and columns which would have been appropriate in
marble or granite. The massive style and the flimsy material gave an
incongruous appearance to the great building. The wide terrace which
surrounded the house, with its bright parterres of flowers, and the
pleasant piazza, with roof and pillars like a Norman cloister, were,
however, wonderfully attractive. Beyond the close-clipped emerald lawn
was seen the ocean, whose white curling waves danced merrily in the
unbroken sunshine.
The guests found Mrs. Shallop awaiting them in a long dim drawing-room.
She was a skimpy pattern of feminality, with a pitiful, pinched face,
great sad-looking eyes, colorless, sandy hair, and a thin, angular body.
Though it was early in the afternoon, the elegance of her dress would
have been suitable to a ball room. The heavy folds of rich blue brocade
stood out from the poor little figure whose emaciated lines its rich
fabric refused to indicate. She advanced toward her guests with
something of an effort, as if the burden of dress which was laid upon
her were greater than she could bear. Her welcome was, however, very
cordial; and her bony little hands, with their weight of jewels, clasped
Barbara's strong fingers affectionately.
"I am real glad you have all come, Miss Deering. I was awful fidgety
about the train's being late. Miss Almsford, I am real pleased to see
you. Mister Graham, happy to see you, sir. I hope your health is
better, Mister Ferrara?"
Each of the guests acknowledged the kindly greeting, and some general
conversation ensued. Millicent looked about the great drawing-room,
noting the various beautiful articles of furniture, the Venetian
glasses, the pictures and rich embroideries, the thousand-and-one bits
of _bric-a-brac_ which decorated the walls and cabinets of the lofty
apartment. It was in truth a rarely beautiful room, the prevailing
color a deep, soft crimson, the wood-work all painted white and
delicately carved. Below the ceiling ran a frieze, the work of John
Graham. The subject treated was the history of Cupid and Psyche. The
scenes were divided into panels by twining sprays of rose-vines
charmingly treated. The first represented the meeting of the two
lovers, their marriage being the next in order. In the third
compartment the doubting Psyche looks for the first time on the radiant
beauty of the sleeping God. Next the artist had portrayed the forsaken,
love-lorn bride sitting alone, crushed with grief, repenting the fatal
curiosity which prompted her to peer too closely into the nature of
love,--that greatest of boons, which should be accepted joyously and
with thanksgiving, and to which doubt means death. The hard services
required by Cytherea from the desolate Psyche were exquisitely rendered;
and the final scene of the reunion of the two lovers was the masterpiece
of the whole work. Psyche, radiant with new-found love and joy, her
face touched with a more than mortal beauty by the grief she has
endured, stands looking reverently into the face of the strongest of
gods. Her rainbow wings can lift her now, to soar beside her lover,
even to Olympus.
Millicent admired the beautiful frieze, which the hostess confessed
troubled her sorely because of the scanty raiment which she said seemed
to have been the fashion of the time it represented.
"Mister Graham," she explained, had induced her to keep it in the place
for which it had been designed. Mrs. Shallop added that the artist had
refused to follow her suggestion of adding clothing to the half nude
bodies; and had, moreover, extracted a promise from her husband that he
would never allow any other painter to be intrusted with thus
supplementing the airy rainbow draperies of the figures.
Miss Almsford was much astonished at the very beautiful interior of the
great Shallop house, and soon learned that its furnishing and decoration
had been intrusted to Graham, who was gifted with that rarest and most
valuable of aesthetic qualities, a perfect and original taste.
"It is the only house Mr. Graham has ever arranged, and he says he will
never do another. He was in Europe while it was being built, and mamma
persuaded the Shallops to give him _carte blanche_ to buy all the
beautiful things he could lay hands upon," Barbara explained.
The guests were shown to their rooms by the hostess, and Millicent gave
an exclamation of delight on entering the apartment allotted to her. It
was indeed a unique room. The walls were panelled in ebony to a third
of their height, a bright light pattern in flowers running to the
ceiling, and relieving what might otherwise have been sombre. The
glossy black wood was carved into a wide, high fireplace, where two
brass andirons, curiously wrought with twisted dragons, supported a fire
whose bright blaze was most welcome to Millicent. She found the season
very cold compared to the still, hot Italian summers. Below the mantel
the fire shone out in welcome, but above the ebony shelf, set in the
wall, was a picture which seemed fuller of light and color than the
leaping flames. A Venetian scene with a terrace whereon sat men and
maidens in the warm glow of the sunset, looking out over a stretch of
many-toned water, in which were mirrored sky and clouds, trees,
draperies, and graceful human figures. A black gondola, partly shown in
the foreground, might have held the painter while he sketched the
brilliant scene.
"It is my Venice!" cried Millicent, "it is my home!" Her eyes were full
of tears. She caught Barbara by the arm and rapidly described to her
the point from which the picture had been painted.
"Mr. Graham will be very much pleased that you recognized the spot."
"Is it _his_ picture? Yes, I ought to have known it."
"Why, are you clairvoyant?"
"Yes, Barbara, sometimes."
Millicent seemed somewhat disconcerted at what she had said; and,
without noticing anything more in the pretty room, ascended the dainty
little ebon staircase with its fanciful rail, and, pushing back a panel
which slid into the wall, entered her bedroom. Later, when both of the
girls had exchanged their travelling dresses, Barbara knocked at
Millicent's boudoir.
"_Entrate_," was the response, in obedience to which she opened the
door, and found Millicent lying on the low, crescent-shaped sofa, her
fair head resting on a pile of cushions. Her graceful figure was clad
in a gown soft amber in color, her only ornaments wonderful strings of
amber beads falling over the white neck, which the fashion of the frock
disclosed, and encircling the smooth bare arms, with their delicate
tracery of blue veins like the lines in purest marble. Her hands were
hidden, clasped behind her head, and the expression of her face was
almost vacant in its look of absorbing reverie. Beside her on the floor
lay a small parchment book, ivory-clasped,--"The Sonnets of Petrarch."
Her eyes were fixed on the panel over the mantel shelf, but they saw
more than the artist had pictured with brush and color: a waking day
dream of her home as she had last seen it, and ah! how much sweeter an
imagining of how she might next see it,--with what surroundings, with
what companionship! O blessed dream-castles of women, in which all the
cares and privations of life are forgotten; in which there is never a
weariness or a pain; where lonely watching is succeeded by joyous
reunion; where those who have lived and know too surely that they must
die without that greatest happiness which life can hold, drink the cup
of joy innocently, purely, fearing no bitter after-taste, finding no
foul dregs!
At Barbara's entrance Millicent slowly drew herself back from dreamland
into the actual present. Her eyes, which had been staring widely with a
blank look, now seemed to change color with returning consciousness. It
was a long journey, and she gave a deep sigh when it was accomplished,
and she realized that plump, pretty Barbara, with her best frock and
ribbons, stood by her side looking curiously in her face.
"I was reading, and I fancy I had fallen asleep, Bab, what can I do for
you?"
"Mrs. Shallop suggested our all having tea here, if you liked. They do
not dine till eight to-night. Mr. Shallop has been detained in San
Francisco."
"Very well, dear, just as you say. You did not mean to send for the
gentlemen?"
"Oh, yes, this room is always used for a tea room, unless you object, of
course. If you prefer to 'sport your oak,' you have a perfect right to
do so, and we will go downstairs."
"No, no, let us have it here by all means, if it is the custom."
Barbara rang the bell, which was answered by a ponderous butler with a
condescending manner, white neckcloth, bandy legs, and an apoplectic
countenance. The individual had been imported by the Shallops along
with the footman and driver, his two younger brothers, who, in common
with all the other members of the household, from Mr. Shallop down to
the boots, stood in awe of him. To this worthy Barbara somewhat timidly
gave orders that tea should be brought, and the gentlemen warned that it
awaited them.
"Very good, miss," answered the functionary in the driest possible tone,
his features curled into an expression of scorn toward the whole human
race. His bow was so terrific in its icy grandeur that Barbara shivered
as he left the room.
"I hate that man, and he knows it. He always spoils my appetite by
glaring at me all through dinner; and I think he takes an evil delight
in handing all the most impossible dishes to me first, which I have to
refuse, because I don't dare to attack them."
The man shortly after returned and laid a low round table in the
bow-window for tea. Barbara placed herself behind the old-fashioned
silver urn and busied herself with tea-making, while Millicent drew up
the blinds and let the sunset into the room. Soon Graham came in,
begging for a cup of tea, a sure bait to him, he said, especially when
Miss Deering poured out the delicious beverage. This last speech he
made with an exaggeratedly deep bow, which grotesqued the compliment and
made the girl's cheek redden. Shortly after, Ferrara joined the party,
and a pleasant tea-drinking ensued, though the last comer refused to be
tempted by the pretty cups of smoking Souchong.
"Neither will I reproach my luncheon, nor insult the excellent dinner
which I am sure Mrs. Shallop will give us, by the uncivilized fashion of
drinking tea at this hour."
"Miss Almsford thinks we are too civilized here, Ferrara. She almost
fainted when she learned that I was the possessor of a dress-coat. She
hoped to find us in eternal suits of corduroy and flannel, with
top-boots and bowie knives."
"You have exactly described the costume in which I first saw you, Mr.
Graham; so you surely should not blame me for believing that, in wearing
it, you followed the prevailing fashion of your country."
"That alters the case; but are you not mistaken? I remember having
taken particular care to don a black coat on that evening--do you
remember?--when I surprised you by the fire."
"But I had seen you before that, though you had never seen me."
"When, fair lady? May I hope that our first encounter was in your white
dreams?"
The girl shook her head and laughed.
"Was it perhaps in another existence? Did we dance together, you and I,
in the old happy days when Pan reigned? Now I think of it, were you not
the wood-nymph who vanished from me into the arms of a great tree? Did
you not tread one measure with me in the merry wood-dance, and then
leave me desolate with a tryst appointed but never kept?"
"Did you not soon find another partner?"
"I waited long alone."