The San Rosario Ranch
would not live alone if he were like everybody else. Ordinary people
all herd together."
"You must find all of us very ordinary people, I should think, after the
people you have lived among,--romantic Italians and that sort?"
"But Italians are by no means all interesting. The great charm about
them is that they are usually a happy people, and that it does not take
so much to make them contented as it does you more complex Americans."
"_You_ Americans? How soon are you going to call yourself an American?
But you do not answer my question. How can you manage to get on as well
as you do with commonplace people like ourselves?"
"_You_ are not commonplace. A man who knows how to milk cows and digs
potatoes, who rubs down his own horse and feeds his stock, and can
withal dance like a city beau, and keep a table full of people laughing
from the soup to the coffee, cannot be called commonplace."
"Thank you, Princess, most heartily for the compliment. I see you will
not be pinned down by my rather personal question. Let me pay you with
some of your own coin. I think it quite remarkable that you have so
quickly fitted into the life here, and have accepted so quietly things
which must be very strange to you. The difference of the way of living,
the surroundings, the very strangeness of being waited on by these
Chinamen, must be very uncomfortable, I fear?"
"Do not suggest a word against Ah Lam; he is the most delightful servant
I have ever seen. Our Italian domestics are like great children, who
have to be humored and managed with the extreme of tact and care. Ah
Lam is like nothing but one of the automata described by Bulwer in 'The
Coming Race,' which stand motionless against the wall until roused to
action by the vrill wand, when they promptly perform the duty in hand.
Ah Lam is only mechanical as far as regularity goes, for he has feelings
and deep sentiments beneath his calm exterior. Do you know that he
brings me fresh roses every morning, and that when he returned from San
Francisco yesterday he brought me a present?"
"They all do that; they are the most generous creatures in the world.
What did Lam bring you?"
"The prettiest little China silk handkerchief, which he presented with
these words: 'I solly got no more, I _so_ poor.' Was it not touching?"
"How do your lessons get on?"
"Very well. Lam learns ten or twelve new words every day. I give him
the English word for an article, and he gives me the Chinese; and the
following day we catechise each other; but I have never remembered a
Chinese name, and Lam has never forgotten an English one. Then I set
him copies, which he writes out beautifully with his queer little
camel's-hair brush dipped in India-ink. I fear the sentiments will not
greatly benefit him, but I try to explain them to him."
"Give me an example of your copy-book maxims; I am sure they are
something new, quite unlike those I was brought up on."
"I take my verses all from Mr. Lear's 'Nonsense Book;' they will help
him geographically, if not otherwise."
"You have given him the 'Old Man of Moldavia'?"
"Assuredly."
"Truly, Princess, you are the most inexplicable person I have ever seen.
I find you in the morning with a volume of Spinoza in your hand, trying
to explain his particular dogma of philosophy to poor Barbara; and in
the afternoon you are talking about this absurd child's book as if it
were something serious. You snubbed that poor professor last night,
because he presumed to give an opinion concerning Dante, never having
read him in the original; and to-day I heard you ask my mother if
Washington was in the State of New York. You are remarkably erudite and
positively ignorant at the same time."
"_Eh bene, cosa volete_? I--"
"Now what is the use of talking Italian to me? You know I can't
understand a word of it, and--"
A third voice interrupted Deering. It was that of a man who had joined
the pair unnoticed by either of them, the sound of his footsteps being
muffled by the deep grass.
"If Miss Almsford knew how pretty her manner of speaking English was,
she would never have resort to the weaker language of her birthplace to
express her thoughts."
"What, Graham, with a gallant speech upon his lips! Wonder of wonders!
Princess, he has the sharpest tongue and the keenest wit I have ever
known. Beware of him! When did you come?"
"Just now; I rode over to see if Miss Almsford was in the mood for a
ride, and to offer my services as cavalier, knowing that your
afternoons, my dear Deering, are too much occupied for you to play
esquire to this fair dame."
"It is the thing of all others I should enjoy," said Millicent; "I will
be ready in ten minutes."
Deering strolled off, rather disconsolately, in the direction of the
dairy, Graham accompanying him as far as the stable, where he proceeded
to put Barbara's saddle on the back of a sturdy cob, which from his
immovable character had been named Sphinx.
The artist had visited the house several times since his first meeting
with Millicent, and had promised to be her guide to the high hill-top,
whence a view of the Sierra Nevadas was to be obtained. Up the narrow
bridle path toiled the two horses, Graham's leading the way. The road
was a difficult one, underbrush and rolling stones making it dangerous
for any horse which was not sure-footed. Old Sphinx set his feet firmly
on the solid ground, avoiding all pit-falls in a wary fashion. The air
was sweet with the spicy breath of the madrone tree, whose dark red bark
and brilliant glossy leaves gleamed out here and there through the
darker foliage of the great redwoods. The young man turned his head
over his shoulder, letting his mustang find out the path, and talked to
his companion, who was not yet at home in the saddle. One of the new
delights which the western country held for Millicent was that of
riding. Most of her life had been spent in Venice; and she had had
little opportunity for indulging in that most exhilarating exercise.
Graham assured her that she would soon make a good rider, as she quickly
learned to assume the graceful but uncomfortable position compelled by
the side-saddle. She was without fear, having that sort of bravery
which is found in some children, and which comes from an ignorance of
danger.
From a point in the road whence a view of the happy valley was to be
obtained, Graham reined in his horse. The wide, pleasant valley lay
below them, the house, its central point of interest, standing
surrounded by the orchard and garden. A brook wound like a silver
ribbon through the wide fields and wooded groves, under rustic bridges,
here and there breaking into foam over a mass of stone, or a sudden
shelving of the land.
When they again started Graham dismounted, and, passing his arm through
the bridle of his horse, took Sphinx by the rein and led him over the
rough bit of country. Whether from an exaggerated idea of courtesy, or
because the head covering was irksome, Graham doffed his hat and walked
bareheaded, the little shafts of sunshine touching his dark hair with
points of light. The tall girl noted the sun and shadow which made this
and all else lovely on this fair afternoon. As the ascent became
steeper, the trees were less dense and the path grew wider. Graham still
walked beside her horse, though there was no longer need for him to do
so. As they emerged upon a broad plateau Millicent drew her breath and
touched Graham lightly with her whip, laying her finger on her lip and
pointing to a little hillside spring, which ran dancing from the rich
dark earth. Close to the spring stood a magnificent buck and a graceful
doe. The stag had bent his head and was drinking from the basin which
the water had worn for itself, and which was surrounded by a ring of
green turf, jewelled with star blue and pale rose blossoms. Of this
tender herbage, so different from the dried grass of the hillside and
meadow, the dainty doe was nibbling little morsels. For a moment
neither of the animals perceived the approach of the riders, and stood
quite still in their unconscious beauty. Graham's hand instinctively
sought the revolver in his pocket. As he was taking aim Millicent's
velvet fingers closed about the steel barrel, and she cried aloud, "You
could not be so cruel!"
At the sound of her voice the stag threw up his great head with a mighty
shiver, tossing the crystal water drops from his nose. Before the last
word was spoken the slender, dappled doe had flashed across the path and
was out of sight, her mate with outstretched head following close upon
her track. For an instant the flowing lines of the swift motion were
seen on the sky background, and then the trembling leaves of the thicket
into which they had penetrated were all that told of their flight.
"You are more tender-hearted than Miss Barbara."
"No, but I could not bear that those two glorious creatures should be
put out of the warm sunlight which they love so well."
"Miss Barbara is an excellent shot; she could have killed the stag from
this point."
"And yet Barbara is really much better-hearted than I, and feels other
people's troubles as if they were her own. Everything is in habit and
education; she has looked upon deer in the light of venison, as I have
always considered oxen in the light of future beef. And yet, though
Barbara is so kind and good, I do not find her _simpatica_--how shall I
say?"
"You might say sympathetic or congenial, Miss Almsford, if you could
content yourself with the English language."
"But it is not the same thing,--sympathetic and _simpatica_; indeed it
is an untranslatable word. I cannot always express my thoughts in
English."
"Would you allow me to suggest that it may not be entirely the fault of
the language, which did not fail to express the thoughts of Chaucer and
Shakspeare, that you find it difficult to make yourself understood?"
"Do I speak it so badly then? You are not complimentary."
"It is not that you speak it badly, but that your vocabulary is limited,
and that your mind far outruns its limits. I fancy you have never read
or thought much in a serious vein in the simplest and the strongest of
tongues."
"No, I have read very little English, but I challenge your last
statement. I do not find English the greatest language. It is coarse
by the side of French; it is prosaic compared to Italian. Think of the
fine distinctions, the delicate shades of meaning, of the Gallic tongue.
Your English can only express the extremes."
"And yet to-day it is more a lender than a borrower of words. You
cannot take up a German or a French newspaper without finding an
Anglicism in every column."
"What does that prove? Merely that the Anglo-Saxon race is more
restless than all others. They are the Goths of the nineteenth century,
and invade every corner of Europe, Asia, and Africa, carrying with them
their barbarous language. I have heard it intermingled with Arabic in
the Syrian desert. It is small wonder they feel the need of travel;
there is little enough to interest them at home."
"And yet I, who have lived half my life in Europe, elect to pass the
remainder of it in this country of my own free choice. How do you
account for that?"
"I cannot account for it save as an aberration of the brain. It is
strange, too, for you Americans are not a patriotic people."
"You think not?"
"It does not strike me so."
"You are mistaken, Miss Almsford; but your mistake is a natural one.
These ideas, believe me, are not worthy of you, and have been derived by
you from some perverted mind. Your own is too clear to have formed such
opinions. They have been engrafted or inherited. How should you really
have any idea but the most chimerical one, of America or Americans? You