The San Rosario Ranch
but a woman, full of tears, before whom some great sorrow, long stifled,
had risen up again. Was her nature then two-fold? While she was with
other people, Millicent seemed a strong, self-reliant woman, pure and
cold, with quick intellectual sympathies, and strong opinions and
convictions. When in the society of the man she loved, his influence
unfolded the closed petals of her heart as the sun kisses back the white
leaves of the daisy, and uncovers its great golden centre to the eyes of
all men. A new warmth shone from her eyes, and softened her silver
voice. An unwonted shyness made her shrinking and timid under his gaze.
A new life was born within her, so much stronger and more intense than
any that she had ever known, that her past existence paled before it as
the luminous circle of a night-lamp fades before the strong rays of
morning. But when she was alone....
Whatever her sombre thoughts had been, they were banished before she
next met her lover. When she learned that he had come, she longed to fly
from him out into the dim reaches of the forest, where he had told her
half in jest that they had lived and loved before man's time began; when
nymphs and dryads danced together in the shade of the oak-trees; when
Pan reigned, and the earth was young. If she could have seen him in her
own sanctum, where the light was softened by the dull green hanging of
the wall, where the air was warm from the ever-flaming fire, and sweet
with the spices burning in a great sea-shell, she would not have greatly
cared; but the stereotyped drawing-room, with its blank white walls, was
no place for their greeting. She went down the stairway and stood a
moment before Graham; then, as he advanced towards her as if about to
speak, she glided swiftly from the room across the hall and out into the
sunlight.
Barbara, standing near by, scattering corn to a flock of tame doves
which fluttered about her, laughed as the light figure flitted by, with
bare head, and delicate silken draperies fit only to rustle over soft
carpets. Barbara laughed pleasantly, cheerily calling over her shoulder
to her mother, who sat indoors,--
"Look at Millicent racing with her own shadow."
"'T is a substantial shadow, Bab, but otherwise the simile 's good,"
said Hal, as he passed by on his way to the dairy.
And Barbara looked again, and looking sighed. Another figure had sped by
her, down the orchard road towards the wood,--the figure of a man,
pursuing the flying girl, with kindled face and fleet steps. She threw
her last handful of grain to the circling doves, went into the stiff
drawing-room, mechanically set straight the disordered chairs and drew
down a shade where the light fell too hotly upon a breadth of carpet.
She paused before a mirror and looked at her own pretty face clouded by
a pain she would not explain. More than one lover had sued for her
hand, earnestly and tenderly, but she had listened to no suit. No man
had ever pursued her with fleet steps and sparkling eyes, no man had
ever brought that expression of half-shamed happiness to her face which
had made Millicent look just now like a child racing with her own
shadow.
In the forest Graham found her standing breathless beneath an oak-tree,
whose branches had caught her gown and forced her to stay her flight.
"Again under that terrible oak; but I shall not lose you this time. Say
that you will not vanish in his jealous arms."
"He opens them to me no longer; he offers me no refuge now."
"And I stand waiting for you, and hold out my hand for yours. Not for a
dance now do I ask it, but for a happy walk which shall end only with
our lives. Will you put your hand in mine?"
For answer a little warm palm creeps into his broad fingers; and the
oak-tree sighs a blessing on the betrothal of which he is the only
witness.
CHAPTER IX.
"And in the forest delicate clerks, unbrowned,
Sleep on the fragrant brush as on down-beds.
Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air
That circled freshly in their forest dress
Made them to boys again."
The life of John Graham had been one wherein the sorrowful days far
outnumbered the joyous ones. His youth had been saddened by the
reverses and griefs which had pursued his parents with a relentless
persistence. His home life had not been a happy one. In the large
family of brothers and sisters there had been a meeting and clashing of
strong, positive characters and opposing wills. An intense family pride
was the one bond which united them. This sentiment, almost amounting to
a passion, made the members cling closely to one another when there was
little of sympathy to make a sweeter bond. Graham's parents had moved to
California, from the Eastern town where they were both born, while he
was still an infant. The first sixteen years of his life had been spent
on the Pacific coast. At this age he was sent eastward to pursue his
studies. The youth had already determined on devoting himself to art.
The years passed at the famous New England college were very busy ones.
The painful economies by which his beloved mother defrayed his college
expenses were well known to the young man, and he held himself
responsible to that dear and honored parent for every hour of his time.
His active mind eagerly grasped such fruits of knowledge as were offered
by that garden of learning, and his career in the university fully
repaid the sacrifices which it had entailed. During all this time he
never for an instant relinquished his fixed determination to become a
painter. In the leisure hours when his companions were amusing
themselves according to their several tastes, Graham was always found at
his easel. Some wiseacre once suggested to the young man that Greek and
Latin were expensive acquirements, likely to prove useless to a painter.
"And if I were to be a shoemaker, I should make better shoes for having
studied the classics," was his reply to this admonition.
He had not been among the popular men of his class, being very poor in
leisure time, the currency which buys that most expensive commodity,
popularity. He made few friends and no enemies. His strong, earnest
nature commanded the respect of his fellows; and his studious example
endeared him to a few of the most serious among them. At the age of
twenty Graham went to Europe, where he passed the next eight years of
his life in study and hard work. The sketches which he sent home
brought him money enough to live on in that quarter of Paris where the
young art students congregate. Poor enough the living had sometimes
been; hunger and cold were well known to the youth by actual experience.
When he lived at the rate of five francs a day he thought himself rich,
and gave suppers in his studio, _au cinquieme, Rue d' Enfer_. Times
there had been, while he was at work upon his great _Salon_ picture of
St. Paul, when a loaf of bread and five sous' worth of the rough red
wine of the people, had sufficed for his day's provender. Those days of
earnest work among the gay companions, whose lives much resembled his
own, were, perhaps, the happiest time in the life of the young artist.
Success had not been wanting to crown his efforts. The picture on which
he toiled for weary days and months received "honorable mention" from
the judges of the _Salon_; and to the passing fame which this success
brought him, he owed his introduction to the woman who had so spoiled
the happiness of his youth. She was his compatriot, the daughter of a
rich Parisian American, who desired to make the acquaintance of the
artist hero of the hour. The young woman was beautiful, heartless, and
slightly emotional. While in the society of the handsome, spiritual
painter, she yielded to the charm his strong spirit exercised over her;
and it was not long before their names were linked together by the small
world which knew them both. But Graham's happiness was short-lived; and
a few months served to show him the cold, shallow nature of the woman
who had aroused his first passion. After he had been jilted and
disillusioned, he turned his back upon the city where he had learned and
suffered so much, and became a wanderer on the face of Europe. One year
found him painting the beauties of Southern Spain; the next saw him
sketching the wonderful scenery which lies about Stockholm.
About two years before the opening of our story he had returned to San
Francisco, with a portfolio of sketches, a few hundred dollars, and a
prodigious store of canvases, paints, and brushes. He was welcomed by
the many friends who had followed his career with interest, and soon
received more orders for portraits than he could well fill. His taste
led him to prefer another branch of painting; and it was for the purpose
of studying the very beautiful scenery in the neighborhood of San
Rosario that he had established himself in the tower of the old Spanish
Mission. He was also partly induced to take this step, because he found
that home life, always irksome to him, had become, after his long
emancipation from domestic rules and regulations, wellnigh intolerable.
Graham's character was a peculiar one, full of contradictory traits; it
might be compared to a mass of white quartz, through which ran deep
veins of the purest gold. In some respects it was a hard nature, with
certain tender qualities; and nowhere was there to be found an ounce of
base metal; a pitiless nature, which knew not how to forgive either its
own faults or those of his fellow-men. If his judgments of others were
harsh, his self-despair was sometimes fanatical. His ideal of manhood
was as pure and noble as was that of the perfect King Arthur; that he
failed a hundred times a day in living up to it, had not the effect of
lowering that ideal one hair's-breadth. His highest duty was towards
his own soul and its struggle to reach the perfection he held it to be
capable of attaining. With the mind of an ascetic, he was endowed with
a warm, sensuous temperament, having a passionate delight in beauty,
light, and color, and capable of living through the senses with the keen
enjoyment of a Sybarite. A strain of music, a beautiful flower, or a
fair child moved him to a degree of pleasure that to any nature save an
artistic one was incomprehensible. Filled with pity at the sight of
distress, he would unhesitatingly give his last dollar to a needy
rascal; but if appealed to for sympathy by the same sinner, the
scorching contempt by which he would blast the shameful deeds for which,
to him, there was no palliation, would leave the wrong-doer a sadder if
not a wiser man. Because he expected so much of men, their
short-comings outraged him. To a man of this character it was easier,
if not better, to avoid the paths of his fellows; and his life had often
been that of a hermit, even when he dwelt in the busiest cities of the
world. Not willing that one shadow from the burden of his life should
fall upon the paths of those who cared for him, his voice and face were
always cheery when in their company. He wanted not the sympathy of man
or woman, and endured what griefs were given him to bear in silence and
alone. That divine mandate, "Bear ye one another's burdens," was
meaningless to him; for he had ever borne his burden unsupported and
unhelped. The struggle between the two sides of his nature, the ascetic
and the poetic, seemed sometimes like to rend soul and body apart; at
other times both contending forces seemed asleep, and the current of his
life flowed peacefully on. There were periods when the tender golden
veins seemed to overlap and hide the flinty quartz; then he felt alive,
with thrilling pulses and lips breaking into song; then he painted